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Sports Central Message Boards > Professional Sports Discussion > National Football League
Anthony's Week 14 NFL Pointspread Picks
Last week: 7-9. Season totals: 83-104-5, Pct. .445. Best Bets: 13-24-2, Pct. .359.
Home team in capital letters; point spreads (opening line) in parentheses after underdog team; selections with point spreads in bold.
ARIZONA 31, Minnesota 16 (+7) - The nighttime most emphatically does not flatter the Vikings, who are 2-12 both ways and outscored 422-213 working the night shift since 2010. Minnesota is also 1-9 straight up against over-.500 teams under Mike Zimmer, who is 14-4 against non-winning opposition. And how are the Cardinals doing it, you wonder? Well in addition to keeping Carson Palmer healthy, they have far and away the most productive receivers in the league: Their 13.8 yards per completion is more than a half yard higher than that of the second-ranked team in this department (Pittsburgh). So ignore the seeming overlay and give it.
N.Y. JETS 24, Tennessee 14 (+7) - Imagine where the Jets would be if they only had a quarterback - and here they face their photo-negative: A team that does have a quarterback, but precious little else, and one that hasn't beaten the Jets on the road since neither their home town nor their name was the same, in 1991. The last three meetings, and six of the last seven, have been at Tennessee.
PHILADELPHIA 30, Buffalo 23 (+1) - As sample sizes go for trends, they don't come much larger than 100 games - and the Bills have played exactly that number of games on natural grass dating back to 1995, and have won 34 of them, with a 43-55-2 spread record therein. LeSean McCoy may get his yards against Chip Kelly but his team won't get the W - something the Eagles have gotten in seven of their last eight against AFC teams, the lone loss a one-pointer.
CAROLINA 45, Atlanta 10 (+7) - Matt Ryan looks like he has worn out his welcome in Atlanta, and likely can be had for a reasonable price in a trade next spring. And the Falcons, who have now non-covered eight in a row, are impossible to endorse, especially outdoors and on grass.
TAMPA BAY 27, New Orleans 17 (+4 1/2) - Last week's near-miss against the unbeaten Panthers was probably the last honest effort you will see out of the Saints this season, and in Sean Payton's tenure with them. Jameis Winston making a strong case for Rookie of the Year honors.
CLEVELAND 20, San Francisco 13 (P) - The 49ers are one of three warm-weather/domed-stadium teams who have to play a second consecutive cold-weather game this week. That's asking a lot - and Johnny Manziel is back. This will leave every team with at least three wins, and keep the race for the top pick in the 2016 draft wide open, in a year with no obvious favorite to be taken with that selection.
CINCINNATI 31, Pittsburgh 17 (+3) - Where the Thursday night game might be an overlay, this line is definitely an underlay: With a three-game lead on the Steelers, the Bengals should be favored by a touchdown at home, not a field goal. So I'm all over the Bengals, who clinch the AFC North with a victory, at this number.
Washington 14 (+3 1/2), CHICAGO 10 - I've seen this thousands and thousands of times: A team that "can't lose at home" and "can't win on the road" finally does first one, then the following week turns right around and does the other - and The Team That Dares Not Speak Its Name is 6-1 straight up and 7-0 against the spread in their last seven in Chicago, and at 1-5 at home and 4-2 on the road, the Bears are the worst per-capita home team in the NFL.
Detroit 24 (+1 1/2), ST. LOUIS 21 - Blowing a 20-0 lead, as the Lions did last Thursday night, is better than quitting, which the Rams started doing several weeks ago. Looks like the Nick Foles for Sam Bradford trade didn't work out for either team, so both should be major players in what figures to be an unusually busy off-season veteran quarterback market. Even the same angle mentioned in the Jets game - the last three meetings and six of the last seven have been at Detroit - probably can't save St. Louis in this spot.
KANSAS CITY 17, San Diego 13 (+10) - The Chiefs are playoff bound and solid in most areas, but lack the firepower to cover big spreads. Take the points.
DENVER 34, Oakland 14 (+8) - The Broncos haven't missed a beat with the intriguing Brock Osweiler, and have won and covered in their last eight versus the Raiders, outscoring them 276-119, and Oakland is 1-8 straight up and 3-6 against the line in its last nine, and 10-31 and 17-22-2 respectively since 1996, as a visitor in cold weather.
GREEN BAY 28, Dallas 10 (+7 1/2) - The Packers will have four days more preparation time, and it's back-to-back cold-weather games for the Cowboys, whose only win ever at Lambeau came on September 21st (in 2008). Dallas is 1-8 straight up and 2-7 against the spread lifetime on the tundra, and was outscored 267-109 in the eight losses.
HOUSTON 27 (+3), New England 23 - Just three weeks ago the Patriots were in line to redux their own 2007 team that went 16-0. Now they are in line to redux the 1986 Jets, who started 10-1 only to lose their last five and back in to the playoffs. Still no sign of Rob Gronkowski, and the road team in this series has never covered the spread (0-5-1).
MONDAY NIGHT
N.Y. Giants 23 (P), MIAMI 20 - Tom Coughlin may have two Super Bowl rings but right now his bad decisions are killing the Giants. Even so, they have yet to lose to Miami outside of New York/Jersey in franchise history (3-0 straight up and 2-1 against the spread, with the lone non-cover coming in London, not Miami) and despite the identical 5-7 records, the Giants have a lot more to play for.
BEST BETS: CAROLINA, CINCINNATI, DENVER
Note: At the time of this writing, no line was available on two games - Indianapolis at Jacksonville due to the possible return of Colts QB Andrew Luck, and Seattle at Baltimore due to multiple injuries to the Ravens. Therefore, no picks could be made on these games.
Patriotism is the Achilles heel of the American liberal
Last edited by Anthony; 12-10-2015 at 01:48 PM.
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Anthony's Week 11 NFL Pointspread Picks Anthony National Football League 0 11-12-2014 02:17 AM
Anthony's Week 3 NFL Pointspread Picks Anthony National Football League 0 09-17-2014 06:32 AM
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Slant Pattern
Foul Territory
Sports Central Message Boards
Sports Central → Sports → NFL
New Contact Rule Should Have Little Effect
September 2, 2004 by Adam Russell • Print Story •
We want more offense. We want higher scores. We want more long plays. At least that's what the powers that be in the NFL think. So they've done what they think we want them to do. They've gone ahead and changed the rules -- again -- in order to make football more exciting.
At issue is the new "downfield contact" rule, which severely limits how much defensive backs can touch a receiver when defending a pass. The new rule will accomplish what it is designed to do: handcuff the defense and give the wide receivers more opportunity to catch the ball. As a result, we'll see more long bombs, less aggressive secondary coverage, and more yellow hankies flying. But, just as with any new rule, it will be strictly enforced for the first couple of years and then slowly fade into the sunset.
Case in point. Remember the "in the grasp" rule several years ago? It was supposed to protect quarterbacks from getting squashed by those big bullies on the defensive line. Sounded like a good idea at the time but, initially, the refs would blow the whistle at the first sign of a hand grabbing a jersey. Who knows how many great escapes were thwarted by early whistles? When fans, coaches and players finally protested that the rule was too restrictive on a quarterback's mobility, officials backed off and now it's practically non-existent.
I have a feeling this new contact rule will meet the same fate. After a couple of seasons of fans seeing defensive backs flagged for reaching out to defend a pass, league officials will probably reconsider and loosen it up a bit. If you recall, the original "chuck" rule adopted in the 1970s gave DBs only a three-yard cushion from the line of scrimmage in which to make contact with a receiver, but then was relaxed to a five-yard area a few years later. Reason? It really didn't accomplish what they hoped it would.
Statically speaking, there wasn't much difference between the 1973 and 1974 seasons in the categories one might think would be affected by the rule change: passing yards per game, points per game, interceptions per game and penalties per game. The only stat that saw a significant change was in the passing yards with just a 12-yard per game increase. That's hardly enough to say with any confidence that the rule helped open up the passing game.
The other three categories saw changes that were either insignificant or in the opposite direction expected. Points per game actually went down by 1.2 points, interceptions went up by 0.1 per game, and penalties increased by only 0.4 per game.
Bottom line is, with all the restrictions placed on defensive backs at the time, the statistics proved to be a washout in regards to the intent.
If history repeats itself, this latest clamping down on pass defense will result in nothing more than a shift in defensive strategy from man-to-man coverage to zone coverage. There could even be more emphasis on nickel and dime defenses to provide better coverage to all areas of the field. Smart defensive coordinators will make adjustments in their philosophies to compensate for the restriction on downfield contact. Instead of taking the chance of getting penalized for tight coverage on a receiver one-on-one, DBs will sit back in the zone, wait for the ball to be in the air, and close in for the kill when it arrives at its intended target.
In fact, there could even be an increase in injured receivers from having their heads taken off by a guided missile known as a defensive back. Then coaches will be forced to resort to quick short passes in order to protect their receivers and, presto, out goes the long passing game league officials are trying to promote.
Not only that, but if defenses revert to extra secondary personnel, the running game will open up wide and offenses will hand the ball off more with only five or six guys in the box. Then defenses will gamble and blitz more, opening the passing game back up and we're right back where we started: pure football.
Only time will tell if the rule will do any good in increasing offensive production and scoring. After a couple of years when defensive backs learn how to finagle their way around the rule, a la offensive holding where linemen hold on nearly every play, but know how to do it without the officials seeing it, and officials throw flags less and less, like with excessive celebration, football will return to normal with receivers being covered like a glove the length of the field.
Defensive backs are claiming the league is treating receivers like "sissies" who need to be coddled like quarterbacks once were, and maybe that's true to a degree. Receivers have actually had it pretty good compared to how it was 30 years ago and beyond. Guys like Dick Lane, Larry Wilson, and Johnny Robinson probably couldn't play under today's conditions. Downfield contact wasn't just contact, it was assault and battery.
Conversely, who knows how many more yards and touchdowns receivers like Lance Alworth, Gary Collins, or Don Maynard would have had, had they been provided the luxury of "hands-off" defense?
So as the season begins next weekend, keep a close eye on downfield matchups and see how the new rule affects passing and defending. I have a feeling we'll hear a lot of "illegal contact" calls throughout the year.
Comments and Conversation
JDogg:
Get your fact’s straight buddy. It’s not a rule change. It’s simply increasing the awareness of an existing rule.
Save info?
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Fryingpan, Roaring Fork rivers retain Gold Medal Trout Waters designation
Scott Condon
The Aspen Times
Anglerscast their luck in a stretch of the Fryingpan River below Ruedi dam on a recent cloudy afternoon. A fish survey last fall by Colorado Parks and Wildlife shows the river still qualifies as Gold Medal Trout Water.
Scott Condon/The Aspen Times
The big-fish stories can continue on the lower Fryingpan and lower Roaring Fork rivers.
A survey conducted by Colorado Parks and Wildlife last fall determined the rivers still have the quantity and size of fish to retain their distinguished designation as Gold Medal Trout Waters, according to Kendall Bakich, aquatic biologist for Parks and Wildlife.
“It turned out really well,” Bakich said. “The numbers we’re seeing on the river are similar to what we’ve seen in prior surveys.”
“We just confirmed that it’s Gold Medal,” she added.
A 13-mile stretch of the Fryingpan River from Ruedi Dam to the confluence with the Roaring Fork River is designated Gold Medal Trout Water as well as the Roaring Fork River from Basalt to the confluence with the Colorado River. All told, that’s a 42-mile stretch.
For years, that’s been the longest contiguous stretch of Gold Medal Trout Water in Colorado. But the local rivers lost their title in January, through no fault of their own. It’s now bestowed on a 102-mile stretch of the Upper Arkansas River from near Leadville south to near the Royal Gorge, according to Parks and Wildlife. That stretch of the Arkansas River earned Gold Medal status after years of efforts to restore the fishery, the agency said.
A stream or river qualifies for Gold Medal status when it consistently supports a minimum trout standing stock of at least 60 pounds per acre. It also must support a minimum average of 12 quality trout longer than 14 inches per acre.
Colorado now has 322 miles of Gold Medal Trout Waters after the Upper Arkansas River was added. That boosted the total by 50 percent, according to Parks and Wildlife.
The agency will hold a meeting in Carbondale on March 6 to discuss the status and management of fisheries in the Roaring Fork Basin. The meeting will be held at 5 p.m. at the Garfield County Library at 320 Sopris Ave.
Bakich said the State of the Fisheries meeting will be a great opportunity for anglers, guides, conservationists and operators of businesses that depend on fishing to learn about the condition of the fisheries in the area.
Bakich will go over the results of the most recent surveys in depth at the meeting. One result was a high number of small brown trout on the Fryingpan and Roaring Fork rivers, Bakich said. The fish are proliferating but because there are so many of them, most remain under 14 inches long, she said.
“Rivers don’t have a limitless supply of food,” Bakich said.
The best tool to limit the numbers is to harvest them, but anglers have been reluctant to keep the browns, she said. Catch-and-release regulations are in place for rainbow trout, but anglers apply them to brown trout, as well, according to Bakich.
“I think there’s a culture of catch-and-release out there that’s a moral mindset,” she said.
While the Crystal River isn’t known for its rainbow trout population, it has a larger percentage of rainbows among the overall fish population than either the Fryingpan or Roaring Fork, according to Bakich. The Crystal River has erratic flows that limit fish populations. It usually has high flows for a constrained river in the spring and extremely low flows during late summer and fall because of diversions.
The high streamflow has helped keep brown trout populations lower on the Crystal River.
“Brown trout tend to be lazy,” Bakich said. “They like slower water.”
The white fish continues to be a prolific if underappreciated species on the lower Roaring Fork River.
“Everybody wants to catch trout,” Bakich said.
The survey showed evidence of three varieties of native fish on the Roaring Fork River. Roundtail chub were found near the confluence with the Colorado River.
Flannelmouth suckers are found as far upstream as Carbondale, while bluehead suckers are found as high as Basalt, according to Bakich.
“They’ve been declining,” she said. They don’t compete with trout, but their populations are limited by competition with non-native suckers.
The flannelmouth suckers are eye-catching because of their red bellies during spawning season.
“They’re really big suckers. They can grow to 24 inches,” Bakich said.
Bakich said she would get into greater detail on survey results at the State of the Fisheries meeting.
“We’ve got a lot of good information to share,” she said.
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Half naked ‘dancing’ Sunderland man Tasered after telling female police officer he wanted a fight
A half-naked Sunderland man was Tasered after aggressively advancing towards a female police officer and asking for a fight.
Thursday, 27 June, 2019, 13:47
Police were called to a domestic incident when they found Schofield
Jevon Schofield, 26, was “dancing around waving his arms” and Pc Hunter feared that she was about to be attacked, a court heard.
Schofield, of Ravenswood Road, pleaded guilty to obstructing a police officer when he appeared at South Tyneside Magistrates’ Court.
“Pc Hunter looked down the stairs at the bottom and the defendant was standing there only wearing a pair of shorts and trainers.”
Schofield said “come on then I’m ready for a fight”, the court heard.
The prosecutor continued: “He’s dancing around waving his arms and he’s aggressively continuing to gesture that he wanted a fight.
“The gap between the officer and the defendant is getting narrower.”
Pc Hunter drew her Taser and warned him that if he did not calm down she would use it, but he kept coming forwards.
“The officer understandably feared that there was going to be some kind of assault.”
Pc Hunter discharged the Taser and Schofield fell to the ground.
He then was handcuffed and arrested.
His defence solicitor Anna Metcalfe said: “He fully accepts his behaviour and regrets his actions.
“When the police attended they found him intoxicated. The mixture of alcohol and his medication would not have went down too well.”
She told the court that Schofield “panicked” when he saw the police as it brought back bad memories.
She said he is trying to address his issues and is receiving counselling.
Chairman of the bench Harry Metcalfe said: “The one good thing we have heard this morning is that you are seeking help.”
He warned him that if he continued offending the punishments would get steeper and steeper.
Schofield was fined £120 and ordered to pay £85 costs and a £30 victim surcharge.
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How to Discuss the Government Child Separation Issue From a Libertarian Perspective
When it comes to my perspective on government and its actions, I take my guidance from Murray Rothbard. In Do You Hate The State?, he wrote:
Perhaps the word that best defines our distinction is "radical." Radical in the sense of being in total, root-and-branch opposition to the existing political system and to the State itself. Radical in the sense of having integrated intellectual opposition to the State with a gut hatred of its pervasive and organized system of crime and injustice. Radical in the sense of a deep commitment to the spirit of liberty and antistatism that integrates reason and emotion, heart and soul...
[T]he radical libertarian is not only an abolitionist, but also refuses to think in such terms as a Four Year Plan for some sort of stately and measured procedure for reducing the State...
[T]he radical regards the State as our mortal enemy, which must be hacked away at wherever and whenever we can. To the radical libertarian, we must take any and every opportunity to chop away at the State, whether it's to reduce or abolish a tax, a budget appropriation, or a regulatory power. And the radical libertarian is insatiable in this appetite until the State has been abolished...
Thus, with this as guidance, I am suspicious of all government actions, rules and laws. My default position on all of them is that I am against them unless I can be shown how such an action rule or law will advance liberty
When it comes to immigration, my view is that
if an immigrant has a place to stay (in the private sector), it is none of my business if he enters the country or not.
The idea that immigrants are taking jobs away from Americans is an absurd idea promoted by President Trump's immigrant-hating adviser Steven Miller.
It is true that to the degree they are allowed to go on the government dole, immigrants increase government expenditures, but it is truly a pre-crime notion to ban all immigrants because some might go on the dole. The solution is not complicated for the libertarian, it is to call for a welfare wall that prevents immigrants to go on the dole.
To advocate the banning of immigrants by government to stop any from going on the dole is ass-backward libertarianism. It is calling for more government to attempt to move toward liberty.
This was a problem with Milton Friedman, he was a government technocrat always finding a role for government instead of calling for government to be torn down.
As Rothbard put it:
There is not a single abolitionist who would not grab a feasible method, or a gradual gain, if it came his way. The difference is that the abolitionist always holds high the banner of his ultimate goal, never hides his basic principles, and wishes to get to his goal as fast as humanly possible. Hence, while the abolitionist will accept a gradual step in the right direction if that is all that he can achieve, he always accepts it grudgingly, as merely a first step toward a goal which he always keeps blazingly clear. The abolitionist is a "button pusher" who would blister his thumb pushing a button that would abolish the State immediately, if such a button existed. But the abolitionist also knows that alas, such a button does not exist, and that he will take a bit of the loaf if necessary — while always preferring the whole loaf if he can achieve it.
It should be noted here that many of Milton [Friedman]'s most famous "gradual" programs such as the voucher plan, the negative income tax, the withholding tax, fiat paper money — are gradual (or even not so gradual) steps in the wrong direction, away from liberty, and hence the militance of much libertarian opposition to these schemes.
Some have objected to the fact that some immigrants are crossing on private land to enter the United States, I have no objection to landowners of such properties acting to stop this if they so desire. But it should be noted that this occurs because undocumented aliens are prevented by the state from entering the United States at traditional border entry points and further it is because of government regulations that a pro-immigrant charitable organization doesn't buy up some private land area for entry.
Thus, there is nothing to cheer here in government actions. It is the state distorting the natural flows of people. Pulling ICE out of border enforcement would result in natural flows that would keep immigrants crossing the borders in areas away from where private landowners would object.
Further, Greyhound bus and airline service would be available to new immigrants.
The argument that new immigrants from south of the border would distort voting patterns in a more leftist direction is based on a total lack of understanding of the history of Catholic voting. It should be noted that we aren't exactly going in a libertarian direction in the country right now and Murray Rothbard has traced this leftist movement to the progressive era that, as Rothbard pointed, was in many ways was also a movement against Catholics (See: The Progressive Era).
Although Catholics from south of the border are likely leaning leftist, they are probably a lot easier to flip in a libertarian direction than the current American non-Catholic elitist progressives who have been brought up and maintain an obnoxious elitist central planning thought process.
All this said, how does one present the libertarian perspective on the government child separation issue to the non-libertarian?
First, it should be made clear that the separation of children from their parents, and the general horrific immigration policy, is caused by rulings from a central power. In the current case with Trump being at the center of the power.
This is the problem that Ludwig von Mises warned about when he said:
The worst thing that can happen to a socialist is to have his country ruled by socialists who are not his friends.
He could have just as easily have said that the worst thing that could happen for a person seeking to influence the center of power is to be ruled by others that have gained the power who are not his friends.
Thus, it is the central power itself that should be attacked so that free exchange can take place. Supporting free exchange is support against dictators.
Further, Freidrich Hayek in Chapter 10: "Why The Worst Get On Top" of The Road to Serfdom warned us that the worst get to the top of central power.
It is naive to think a benevolent dictator would gain a top power spot. And if one somehow did, it would still be impossible to centrally plan a society and economy that is always changing and adjusting to new ideas and developments from many different directions. A central power ruler who does not simply allow freedom must by his very plan create great stagnation---at a minimum.
If a central power can be dangerous and do nothing but create some type of stagnation, then why support and advocate for such a power spot in the first place?
The Lab Manager June 21, 2018 at 6:15 AM
You libertardians still have not shown me that these people have the ability to assimilate. You are a fool if you think any of them give a damn about property rights or NAP. There is also the issue of jobs and pressure on resources like water. As I see it, America if full. Legal and other immigration should have been curtailed in 1990.
Francisco Torres June 21, 2018 at 8:47 AM
Re: He-Who-Fantasizes-About-White-European-Males,
--- You libertardians still have not shown me that these people have the ability to assimilate ---
Depends on what you mean by "assimilate". I can aegue that not even the Irish have 'assimilated' with their habit of painting rivers green.
Once YOU define what assimilation is supposed to look like, then you can be put against a corner like a fool, which is why you never do define it.
--- As I see it, America if full. ---
Which is why you support mass sterilizations, correct?
Danger Pioneer June 21, 2018 at 9:43 AM
Lab Manager - you CLEARLY don't give a damn about NAP. You also clearly have no understanding of markets (certainly not Austrian economics) if you are talking about shortages of jobs and water ... man alive. Do you actually absorb ANYTHING from Mr. Wenzel's blogs? Or you just show up solely to spew your vile ignorance and hate?
The NAPster June 21, 2018 at 9:58 AM
"You are a fool if you think any of them give a damn about property rights or NAP."
Given the tax, regulatory, and warfare state that a very high percentage of citizens in the US seem to support (at least a majority), they don't seem to give a damn about property rights or the NAP either. So if you are correct about all of the potential immigrants, won't they fit right in?
Twerking Surgeon June 21, 2018 at 11:35 AM
It's just about promoting what their corporate masters want.
Libertarianism is just a cult of crybabies sitting on their asses cheering on the neoliberal status quo. The right-wing populists are actually fighting for freedom and putting their necks out on the line while libertarians just whine in little circlejerks.
Evan Smiley June 21, 2018 at 11:52 AM
“Actually fighting” = making Internet posts begging police and border guards to protect them?
Francisco Torres June 21, 2018 at 12:14 PM
Re: Twerking Nincompoop,
── Libertarianism is just a cult of crybabies [!!!] ──
"Bwaaa, immigrants takum er jebz!"
"Bwaaa, China is stealing 'our'[our???] intellectual property!"
"Bwaaa, Mexicans are rapists!"
Projecting much, TS?
── The right-wing populists are actually fighting for freedom ──
How do Trumpistas spell "freedom"?
T-A-R-I-F-F-S
Twerking Surgeon June 21, 2018 at 6:09 PM
"Actually fighting" consists of more than making chicken shit comments promoting the status quo.
I know libertarians like to act like they're above the fray, but really they're just scared of being leaders. They like being irrelevant because they aren't burdened with any responsibility there.
Consider that your libertarian psych lesson for the day.
Evan Smiley June 21, 2018 at 7:04 PM
OK but you didn’t explain how you’re “actually fighting” for freedom. Like, do you personally spend your Sundays at the southern border hunting down illegal Mexicans before they have a chance to take our jobs or breathe our air?
The NAPster June 21, 2018 at 7:07 PM
TS:
I don't think libertarians are scared of being leaders; many have run or currently run their own businesses. Unlike statists, however, libertarians neither want to be coercively ruled by someone else (it's beyond my comprehension why any man would want to be ruled by another), nor coercively rule over others.
Joshua Bennett June 23, 2018 at 2:23 AM
Lab manager, I don’t know many immigrants anymore, although I grew up around many “illegals” in the farm areas of Idaho. But I know a few now, and all are hardcore Anarchist. They hate the State.
Twerk, wth are you talking about, fighting for what? More State power?
Maybe Alaska is different from other areas with Libertarians, but the ones I know, and believe me it’s a lot of people, we are business owners, or folks with good jobs, and some who are getting by. All are vocal, and hate the State. And many of us are doing quite a lot of different things we don’t blab about on media.
We have folks here who give farming “classes” to help folks be self sufficient. We have farmers who have “pick your own produce” who promote community in a market sense, a couple city councilmen in different cities here that are exposing corruption and promoting liberty with their platform.
I have a local radio show that I pay for that has brought a lot of people with a libertarian perspective together. We have a strong advocate of liberty who is our local spokesman for FIJA(I am the alternate spokesman) . We have brought the Occupy Wall Street folks in and got them to see where Liberty and Austrian economics would be a better path than socialism.
Don’t know what Libertarians you know, but around here, we aren’t just posting on blogs. Which there is nothing wrong with, I learn a lot from quite a few good folks here that post.
Robert What? June 21, 2018 at 6:25 AM
@RW, I agree with your your thoughts and a truly libertarian society is greatly to be desired. But doesn't everyone (or most) have to be on the same page culturally and even ethnically? With large populations of minorities from many different countries with many different cultures, group rights and tribal instincts take over. Which is what we are starting to see now.
Re: Robert What?
--- But doesn't everyone (or most) have to be on the same page culturally and even ethnically? ---
That's as idiotic a requirement as saying that people should be free of sin before joining a church.
The appeal to PERFECTION is an old and tired tactic from the LEFT, their favorite when they attack free markets (markets can only function freely if people were not so greedy and blah blah). You made it clear it is also the favorite tactic of anti-market ideologues on the Trumpista camp, the OTHER left.
You have no idea what's coming do you? Group identity and tribal instincts, and maybe even civil war will wash your nice little dreams away like a tsunami.
I love being lectured by nationalists about the dangers of tribalism.
── You have no idea what's coming do you? Group identity and tribal instincts ──
You mean besides those displayed by rabid Trumpistas?
I haven't had a single problem with immigrants, from any origin or stripe, nor with most Americans. People who come here are attracted not only by the possibility of engaging in a more profitable trade for their labor but also attracted by American principles and culture. American culture is perhaps the MOST EXPORTED in the world. Western culture is perhaps the MOST successful in history. Many Asian countries have symphonic orchestras playing Beethoven and Strauss to thunderous applause. American, English, Spanish, Italian and French literature is translated and read all over the globe. More and more people are learning English as a second language thanks to the Internet and computers.
Yet Trumpistas have the chutzpah to say that a few immigrants will bring the collapse of the American project? That's a putrid nativist fantasy, a tall tale one uses to scare little children and clueless white voters.
Robert What? June 21, 2018 at 12:08 PM
@Evan, tell me where I am wrong. You can have a high trust liberal society, or you can have open borders. You can't have both.
What exactly do you mean by “high trust”?
Francisco Torres June 21, 2018 at 1:28 PM
── tell me where I am wrong. ──
Your wish is our command.
── You can have a high trust liberal society, or you can have open borders. You can't have both. ──
False dichotomy with Equivocation. Open borders means open to the free flow of goods, services, capital and, yes, labor. It doesn't mean open to invasion ─that's a Trumpista fantasy.
A high trust liberal society will have open borders as defined above because the alternative is a society without the benefit of trade, which would in turn make that society progressively poorer and especially subject to depopulation, as younger members would leave that society for a richer society.
You cannot have a society that exists outside the LAWS OF ECONOMICS. That, cannot exist.
Re:Evan Smiley,
--- What exactly do you [Robert What?] mean by “high trust”? ---
I think that's an euphemism for inbred hillbillies, which actually explains a lot when you think about it...
Robert What? June 21, 2018 at 6:13 PM
@Evan and @Francisco, if you don't know what a "high trust" society is, that's a pretty sad statement for what we've lost. I assume both of you are well under fifty? And if I'm a hillbilly then I'm a hillbilly with a MS from Columbia University.
@Robert What?
Sounds like some touchy-feely bullshit. Are you sure you’re not a progressive?
PH June 21, 2018 at 8:49 AM
Most people are not libertarian and never will be. A libertarian PPS would have admission criteria and security.
Evan Smiley June 21, 2018 at 9:54 AM
I’m sure there would be a wide range of policies. PPSs that are too finicky about their admission criteria will be forgoing some degree of economic and cultural opportunity.
Francisco Torres June 21, 2018 at 10:18 AM
Re: PH,
── Most people are not libertarian and never will be. ──
Not "most" people. Only Trumpistas.
── A libertarian PPS would have admission criteria and security. ──
What other 'admission criteria' could there be than having property to trade for other property?
Even so, even if some PP societies had an admission criteria, that doesn't mean the admission criteria set forth by a criminal state [a pleonasm, to be sure] are valid or even consistent with the wishes of a PPS.
Stuffed Pimento June 21, 2018 at 11:17 AM
I'll side with Mr. Libertarian Ron Paul rather than Cultural Marxist libwap TDS Wenzel.
"You may want to be a guest, but you're uninvited, you're an intruder and we want you out of here....They totally ignore the principle of private property and voluntaryism....A lot of them are real hard workers and should be welcome, but I don't believe that if you do break our laws and you come in that the answer should be citizenship. It shouldn't be that way. Politically speaking, I think the Progressives and the Hard Left really think they have something going here."
https://youtu.be/05TUdEvxRrI?t=588 (full video)
Re: Stuffed Pimento,
── You may want to be a guest, but you're uninvited, you're an intruder ──
Immigrants are ALL invited. The fact that you don't like someone doesn't mean ipso facto he or she wasn't invited. And the fact the invitee climbed the fence doesn't mean he or she is invading your property, or mine. My property boundaries don't extend over yours, any more than yours extend over mine.
── I don't believe that if you do break our laws and you come in that the answer should be citizenship. ──
It's important to remember that Dr. Paul's problem was never with immigrants but with allowing immigrants voting rights right away. I sympathize with his view in this sense: no one who doesn't have skin in the game should vote. Universal voting rights is what ushers in mob rule. But that is NOT justification to stop people from freely interacting and freely and peacefully travel from point A to point B to work and live. Individuals still have sovereignty.
Stuffed Pimento June 21, 2018 at 1:11 PM
Do invitees always come through the back door in the darkness of night?
Who specifically invited each individual invader?
You keep saying it's Mr. Market Co. Then you finally admit that Mr. Market Co. is not an abstract idea, but actually a descriptor for the interactions of millions of individuals. Which of these individuals invited an invader - and which invader? Or will you say fallaciously they were all invited by Mr. Market Co.?
I invited them
I invited them. You invited them, even if you want to think it is not so. Millions, through their conscious economic decisions, invited them.
And you're a mendacious f*ck, SP. Who the hell said "Mr. Market" is just an abstract idea? I TOLD you, the Market is the network made of billions of daily decisions made by individual humans of will. You on the other hand went off the rails by bringing up "perfect information", in your ineffective attempt at SMEARING markets and therefore people, in a feeble attempt at justifying government action against peaceful people who ARE BEING INVITED IN, by the Market.
Principled Libertarian June 21, 2018 at 11:28 AM
Here’s where we see that not only was it Obama that paid for and set up these camps, he was actually making the (incomprehensible yet simultaneously reprehensible to Wenzel) moral hazard argument. (google business insider, zero tolerance Obama detention centers if the link doesn't show) http://www.businessinsider.com/zero-tolerance-border-crisis-immigration-trump-obama-detention-centers-2018-6
So now we see that Wenzel is the Jon Stewart of economics: It’s really all political, and he’s so deranged over Trump (does Wenzel fear an American “Holocaust”?) that logical, dispassionate analysis is out the window.
But we can be glad that Trump has played chumps like Wenzel. The new policy is still zero-tolerance (all law-breakers at the border will be arrested and charged, and detained throughout the process—instead of catch and release and never show for court), and soon they will begin DNA testing the migrants.
Wenzel will scream “Nazi,” but the fact is that only a tiny percentage of adults and children are actually family. The vast majority are unaccompanied minors traveling with Coyotes. Separating ADULTS from MINORS in holding facilities is absolutely common sense (just like we do in every other institution...). So now, to prove that you’re the actual parents you’ll have to submit to DNA testing, which will aid in arresting liars but also in catching multiple offenders. All while simultaneously deterring future illegal entry. Brilliant. And now Wenzel has to STFU about it, because his TDS bleeding heart liberalism was so enflamed thinking about the children!
Likely this won’t be posted, as Wenzel has been very selective about what he posts of mine, especially the long reasoned arguments (that I tried over and over to post but for some reason he would only post the short, snarkier ones… I’ve discovered that Wenzel is an intellectual coward on his blog). Just wanted to chuckle a bit at the fact that restrictionists get their way and all Trump had to do was end part of what Obama set up and had been doing, and he got the double win of getting the ethnicity-before-principles people to show their colors. You never raised a peep when Obama was doing it, doubling down on it, bragging about it. Whatever your analysis, it's been shown to be partisan. Partisan to a political party? Maybe not...
Trump is a scumbag politician, but man is he entertaining. He’s also great at getting certain groups to show their true colors.And keep Rothbard’s name out of this. We are OPPOSING THE STATE in its mission to create a new electorate. The State is trying to oppress us by bringing in freedom-hating ringers (have you lived in Latin America, Wenzel? No, you hilariously ignorant man.). Murray, I’m sorry to see your name dragged around by this guy!
Re: Principled... something.
Be it known here that whataboutism is not a libertarian principle.
── Here’s where we see that not only was it Obama that paid for and set up these camps, ──
Irrelevant.
── only a tiny percentage of adults and children are actually family. ──
Which makes the policy all right, right?
This suggests the question: Why would the Keebler Elf Sessions tell Laura "Crazy" Ingraham that the policy of separating parents from children worked as a deterrent if, like you claim (with no substantiation) only a "tiny proportion" are families? Then the deterrence is being applied at the wrong people.
── We are OPPOSING THE STATE in its mission to create a new electorate ──
HA HA HA HA HA HA! People create a whole new electorate all the time, by having BABIES! Why not then be consistent and also advocate for mass sterilization of the population, or don't you want to argue that the State is "forcing" a new electorate by letting people have children?
── The State is trying to oppress us by bringing in freedom-hating ringers ──
Yes, because people who risk their lives or uproot from their land and family to seek a better life are especially hostile towards freedom.
The arguments are SO frowsy and clumsy, I am amazed Robert allowed this one through. You're boring. And, you're not a libertarian. Your nick is clearly meant to distract the administrator from your true nature.
Will Long June 21, 2018 at 12:30 PM
No you are supporting the state along with the uneducated bumpkins who support Trump while waving flags and chanting USA. There is nothing anti-state about increasing border patrol.
The libertarian position is to allow for increased illegal immigration. They are not sanctioned by the state and cannot vote (spare me conspiracy theories please).
── When it comes to immigration, my view is that if an immigrant has a place to stay (in the private sector), it is none of my business if he enters the country or not. ──
That is the rational view, the only view consistent with respect for other people's business. But nationalists and Trumpistas, being the dangerous collectivists they truly are, will have none of it. How dare the private sector house or employ these damn immigruntz who takum er jebz! This country is "our home"!
It is understandable that people who are sensitive to other persons' 'bad behavior' (be it smoking in public, or throwing trash in the street, etc.) would feel disgusted with immigrants crossing the border outside of the usual ports of entry. However their disgust is not and cannot be a rationale for a policy that would treat such immigrants as criminals, especially when many transgressions are not treated as criminal as it would a) stretch police resources to the point of ineffectiveness and b) it would usher in a totalitarian police state.
Thus the rational policy is to allow people free access to the country ***through the ports of entry***, provided the individuals do so peacefully, which includes not squatting in someone's property. For that to happen, barriers of entry should be eliminated: eliminate visa requirements, stop asking employers to defend their hiring decisions, eliminate all branches of the government that deal with so-called "border enforcement" and give that effort back where it belongs: the local police, who can better manage their resources to stop the true transgressors.
As to the situation with welfare benefits, the problem with using that problem to argue against the free flow of labor through the border is that it becomes, like Robert mentioned, a "precautionary principle" argument that can justify a full prohibition only because there's no absolute guarantee that no one is going to apply for benefits. A precautionary principle would be enough to forbid all people from ever driving a motorized vehicle because there's no guarantee that no one motorist is going to run over someone. If anyone here comes back with the argument that such a position would not make sense as it would mean no one would be able to do anything, the answer is that the Welfare argument against immigration is equally nonsensical. If anyone ahs a problem with the government giving away benefits, then that person's beef is with government. It shouldn't be with immigrants.
I agree that legal immigration - even for low skilled workers - should be unlimited so long as the immigrant can pay his own way (or have it paid for him) as long as he is in the country. No welfare, no voting, and any crimes against person or property and the immigrant is evicted from America forever.
However, the State (if it exists) must play a role in immigration, lest it cede its monopoly on violence. You've conceded this point and are now arguing only the proper administration of immigration policy. The Federal Government has been responsible for dealing with legal immigration since the 19th Century. And the Federal Government has always been responsible for protecting citizens from invasion. “United States shall guarantee to every State a republican form of government and shall protect each of them against invasion.”
You've conceded that Atilla and his Huns (or Jihad Bob and his Dirty Bomb) shouldn't be allowed to waltz through the border in the dead of night. It follows that illegal invaders must be detained by the State, vetted and processed according to the law.
Now say it with me, Legal Immigration = Good, Illegal Invasion = Bad
@Stuffed Pimento
I’m actually in general agreement with your first paragraph. However, that’s not anywhere close to the current “legal” immigration process. In light of that, I’m not sure why you seem to give so much importance to legal status of current immigrants.
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Home > edufacts
New GCSEs have been introduced into schools. The reformed English and maths specifications have been taught since September 2015. Most other subjects began being taught in September 2016, with a small number delayed until September 2017. The changes have been motivated on the grounds of falling public confidence in exams. However MORI Social Research, undertaken in 2010 and in 2011 for Ofqual, showed that public confidence in the GCSE was high and that, among teachers, 73 per cent expressed support for the current GCSE system.1
The new exams are graded from 9 to 1, with 9 being the top grade. According to the Department for Education, broadly the same proportion of students will achieve a grade 4 and above as currently achieve a grade C. Broadly the same proportion of students will achieve a grade 7 and above as currently achieve an A or higher.
Grade 5 will be positioned in the top third of the marks for a current grade C and the bottom third of the marks for a current grade B. Initially it was thought that a grade 5 would be determined a ‘good pass’ – in other words pushing up the mark that is required for what is perceived as a ‘pass.’
In March 2017, Secretary of State for Education Justine Greening clarified that the term ‘good pass’ would not be used but instead that a grade 4 would be known as a ‘standard pass’, a grade 5 would be known as a ‘strong pass’ and that figures would be reported on at both levels. 2 However, this terminology does not remove the concern surrounding the increased difficulty in achieving what is perceived as a ‘pass’ and therefore the decrease in the number of students who will achieve it.
Examination boards will continue to use the ‘comparable outcomes’ formula imposed by Michael Gove3. This means that grades will be allocated in line with a cohort’s previous performance level. For GCSE students this will be based on key stage 2 performance. Even though grades in individual schools may fluctuate, overall GCSE results will only rise if the results of a controversial ‘reference test’, based on a sample of students, show there have been genuine improvements. 4
The NUT considers this a retrograde step; a return to a system similar to the ‘O’ level which existed before 1986, in which grades were capped against student numbers. Like the ‘O’ level, the function of the new GCSE will be to ‘ration’ progress by concentrating on what learners can’t do or don’t know in comparison with their peers, rather than acknowledging the achievements they have made. This creates a difficult situation for schools, which are customarily expected to demonstrate improvement. The implications are that a school can only improve if another ‘underperforms’
As well as the new grading system, there have been other major changes. Firstly the modular courses backed by most teachers have been replaced by a linear approach, with a traditional end of course examination –another feature of the O-level. Course work will continue to play a significant part in the assessment of many creative and expressive subjects like drama and music, but even in these areas, more formal assessment is being introduced.
The content of the new courses has also been overhauled. According to the Department for Education ‘new GCSEs will set expectations that match and exceed those in the highest performing jurisdictions’5. The emphasis will be on what is considered to be the ‘core knowledge’ for each subject
To count in school performance tables alongside the new GCSEs, vocational qualifications have also been required to adopt more ‘academic’ types of learning and assessment. In future a vocational course, for example a BTEC First can only count as one, rather than multiple GCSEs.
In addition to all of these changes the status of various individual GCSE subjects will likely be determined by whether they have been included in the EBacc. Those that are not, may struggle to secure a place in a school’s curriculum offer and if they do, receive less funding. Many educationalists are concerned that creative arts and practical subjects will be squeezed out –with the NUT’s own surveys and research carried out by Kings College London, on its behalf, indicating similar concerns from teachers. Figures from exam bodies show entries falling in creative and performing arts and for technical subjects.6
1Ofqual, (May 2013) Perceptions of A levels, GCSEs and Other Qualifications – Wave 11.Coventry: Ofqual
2Rt Hon Justine Greening MP (2017) [online]. Available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/603594/ESC_letter.pdf
3 http://schoolsweek.co.uk/comparable-outcomes-how-ofqual-makes-them-work-in-practice/
4 https://ofqual.blog.gov.uk/2016/09/02/the-national-reference-test-10-things-you-need-to-know/
5Click here
6http://www.jcq.org.uk/examination-results/gcses/2016
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Weekend junior hockey roundup
Beacon Herald staff
More from Beacon Herald staff
Published on: December 2, 2018 | Last Updated: December 2, 2018 5:12 PM EST
Another major upset for Listowel
The Listowel Cyclones had a tough go of it this weekend.
After losing 7-1 to the Waterloo Siskins Friday night, the Cyclones went on to another big loss Sunday afternoon at home, this time to the Stratford Warriors, 5-1.
In a game that saw 21 penalties, the majority of which were called against Stratford, Listowel was unable to take advantage of any of their seven power-play opportunities, with Chayse Herrfort scoring the team’s only marker five minutes into the second period.
Stratford’s Nathan Smilsky, on the other hand, widened the Warriors’ lead with the man advantage six minutes later. Prior to that, Kameron Shearer and Drew Welsch scored in the first period — the former of whom did so shorthanded — and Clayton Lewis scored in early in the second.
Welsch scored the final marker of the night to round out Stratford’s four-point lead at just before seven minutes into the third.
Listowel is set to play again at home this Friday against the Brantford 99ers, and Cambridge will be in Stratford. Both games start at 7:30 p.m.
Mitchell gets the edge in even match-up with Goderich
Had it not been for two goals scored by the Hawks’ Tyson Hall and Bryce Lee in the first period, Saturday evening’s Provincial-Junior-Hockey-League game between Goderich and Mitchell could have ended in a tie.
As it happened though, Mitchell’s two early goals allowed the team to maintain the edge over the Flyers, winning the game in regular time with a score of 7-5.
From the beginning of the second period on, both teams traded goals, more or less back and forth, with Mitchell’s Luken Van Pelt scoring twice — one of which was on a power play — and Jake Finlayson and Jarett Bogdon adding a single each.
Both teams also went penalty for penalty, with Goderich and Mitchell each taking three and subsequently scoring once with the man advantage.
The Flyers will get another chance at a win against Mitchell as the Hawks are set to play in Goderich on Dec. 14, starting at 7:55 p.m.
Tavistock wins with a six-point lead at home
Earlier in the day in Tavistock, The Braves took a decisive victory against the Burford Bulldogs, ending the game with a score of 9-3.
While the Bulldogs managed to score once halfway through the second and twice halfway through the third, Tavistock took full advantage of its three power-play opportunities, as Zac Berg and Ryan Donat each scored during the same power play less than a minute apart halfway through the third period.
Donat’s power-play goal was his third marker of the evening, scoring in both the first and second periods, while Berg’s was his second of the evening, having also scored in the first period. Drew Gerth, Jake Wiffen, Mackinnon Hawkins, and Justin Labrie also made it onto the scoreboard with one apiece.
Tavistock will play in Norwich this Friday starting at 8 p.m.
Sobeys Stratford recognized nationally for commitment to giving back Police: Another driver takes off from RIDE program
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Visit our Favorite Dive Sites just off the Shores of Roatan
The island of Roatan, in the Western Caribbean, features scuba diving at its best. Thousand-foot walls festooned with deep water gorgonians, coral gardens and barrel sponges, pillar coral, 60-foot deep ledges crowded with blackcap basslets, mini-walls clustered with bluebell tunicates, pinnacles overgrown with azure vase sponges, and shy indigo hamlets peering from niches are all aspects of scuba diving in Roatan in the Bay Islands of Honduras.
Only a 5-10 minute boat ride away, you will find spur/canyon configurations, coral gardens, ledges, overhangs, caverns, and vertical fissures. Miles of reef leave scuba diving in Roatan uncrowded and many areas have yet to be explored by visitors. Large groupers and moray eels are a common sight. On any given dive around Roatan, one might see a hawksbill turtle or spotted eagle ray gracefully gliding by. Roatan’s reefs are so extensive that it would take months of daily scuba diving to see even half of the known segments!
Sound exciting? Come and dive Roatan’s reefs and do some exploring for yourself! Our experienced Divemasters and Instructors are waiting to show you their favorite dive sites.
The following are only a few of the dive sites on Roatan’s north side. All the sites can be dived or snorkeled by beginners as well as experienced divers, with slight modifications in dive plans based on experience and comfort level. Please inform our staff or your Divemaster about your experience level prior to the dive.
Underground / Turquoise Bay Channel / Turquoise Bay Wall
Whether you’re looking for a deep dive, a wall dive or an exceptional
swim through, this site offers a variety of dive options all from the same starting point. With a buoy marker on the reef crest at 35ft, one choice is to go west and follow the gradually descending wall. However, heading east from the buoy and following the contour of the reef on your right, will soon turn you facing south towards the beach and lead you into the entrance of Turquoise Channel. The channel dive site portion of the dive site offers a small channel wall dive, with the channel being only about 70ft wide with walls on either side that reach down to depths of 100ft. Here you can find Sea Rods and encrusting corals along a rock and moss bottom with inconsistent visibility that can sometimes be murky due to the mixing of lagoon water with the ocean. If you continue to follow the channel far to the south, you will eventually encounter a sandy bottom at 15ft spotted with Sea Stars and turtle grass. To find the “Underground” portion of this site, you enter Turquoise Channel the same way by heading south from the buoy. After about 10mins you will find the entrance to a swim thru at 30ft on the right, for which you’ll want to have a flashlight handy. Considering its topography, length, and the way the light penetrates in certain places, this special swim thru is definitely worth a look. Depths inside range from 25-30ft as you travel parallel to the wall, and there are a couple of opportunities to exit out to the channel along the way if you so desire. However, you’ll probably want to travel to the end of the swim thru where it suddenly opens up wide to the outer wall giving way to interesting rock formations and extraordinarily large examples of soft corals.
Experience required: Beginner. Intermediate for swim throughs.
Dolphin’s Graveyard / Dolphin’s Den
The site was named because of the discover of several of Dolphin skeletons. In the summer of 2007, a pod of 13 bottlenose dolphins swam into the cavern, got trapped and drowned. The most common explanation of the tragic event is that the dolphins followed a school of silversides into the cavern and got disoriented in the thick cloud of bait fish. Dolphin’s Graveyard is a spectacular site that provides divers with a choice of routes that vary in light penetration and surface access. Approaching this site from the inner buoy, you will find yourself at a large sandy area at a depth of 15ft where you often see giant anemones, upside down jellyfish and turtle grass. Heading north from the buoy, the coral walls guide you into the entrance of the channel, greeting you with large schools of silversides at a depth of 25ft. Here the channel splits and you can choose to go right or left. Keeping to the right, the channel is more illuminated and maintains more surface access. Opting to go left will take you into short but dark caverns where a flashlight is required to navigate your way through and see what’s inside. Both paths offer overhangs to explore with an opportunity to see the channel clinging crab and green moray eels that frequent this site. The paths join together in an illuminated chamber that reaches a depth of 40ft. From here you can continue north to follow the open and illuminated path, or turn left into the darkest chamber where you can find the diminishing remains of a dolphin skeleton. Continuing north, the paths reunite again and lead to a narrow rock-lined channel at 15ft that gradually opens to the reef with walls that extend almost completely to the surface. Here you can find examples of bluehead wrasse, juvenile striped parrotfish and red fuzz algae. This channel can serve a s an entry or exit point to Dolphin’s Den depending on where you begin and end your dive. Continuing north from here will lead you to the outer buoy and a gradually sloped reef face at 30ft covered with soft corals, notched blade and cryptinc algae, with possible sightings of harlequin bass and trumpet fish.
Experience required: Intermediate
Cemetery Wall
Receiving its name from the Punta Gorda cemetery that overlooks this site (also known as Yubu due to the nightclub nearby), Cemetery Wall is a good example of the kinds of terrain you will find in the northeastern region of the island. Dropping in at the buoy at a depth of 20ft, you will immediately notice the amount of elkhorn coral present. Following the wall down will lead you to an expansive sand patch at 60ft with small coral heads containing sea rods, finger coral and encrusting lettuce coral. Typically this is not a site for deep dives, but if you’re looking for more depth, you can continue north across the sand patch until you eventually encounter more reef covered with soft corals, azure vase sponge and star corals that gradually descends past 80 and 90ft. Opting to stay shallow and following the wall to the west will lead you to fun channels to explore at about 40ft deep with walls that reach up to 15ft at the top. Here along the rocky bottom you can find saucer leaf hanging vine that have the kind of light penetration that makes for a kind of cathedral effect. On your way back to the buoy marker you can easily follow the top of the reef for a safety stop where additionally this could also be a good site for snorkeling due to the shallow depths.
Experience required: Beginner to intermediate
Characteristic of channels you’ll find on Roatan where lagoon water mixes with the ocean and tides have eroded deep channels into the reef, Key Hole / Gully Galore offers an impressive display of topography with ample wall space and overhangs to explore. Even though there is an outer buoy that can be used as an entrance and exit point, you may find it preferable to be let off at the inner reef indicated by the GPS coordinates shown, and then head out towards the buoy the exit there. Starting form the inner area and heading north, you will begin at a 30ft deep sand bottom containing turtle grass and Pine Cone algae. The reef walls guide you into the channel that gradually descends to a depth of 100ft with impressive walls on either side of you that reach all the way to the surface. Even though the focus of this site is the excellent topography, keep your eyes open for sightings of banded butterflyfish, fan worms, small leaf hanging vines and star coral. For advanced divers there is a swim through in the channel at 90-100ft, and for everyone there is a set of 3 swim throughs to the right at 50ft and another one at 30ft on the left. Be sure to look in the tight spaces for a possible sighing of the elusive toadfish. The lagoon water mixed with seawater along with the high walls that block the sunlight can sometimes make for cloudy visibility in this channel, giving this site an eerie setting. However, as you make a gradual ascent towards the reef wall and the outer buoy at 35ft, the water quickly clears up as if exiting a smoky room. Near the buoy, the channel widens and opens to the reef where you can find a variety of soft corals such as plumes and rods as well as schools of black durgon and yellowtail snapper. With a reef crest at 20ft, this is a great area for a safety stop as you finish up your dive.
Rockstar / Garden of Eden
A favorite among visitors to the northeastern region, Rockstar and Garden of Eden are known for their unique topography and impressive displays of marine life. With the Rockstar buoy marker located at a depth of 15ft at the very edge of the reef wall, you can opt to drop down into a large trench at 60ft where you’ll find a substantial overhang at the base of the wall running west to east. Inside the overhang there are distinctive sponges that appear to be fluorescent in color as if someone were shinning a black light on them. Leaving the overhang you remain in the trench formed by the main wall on one side of you, and pinnacle-shaped coral structures distributed parallel to the wall on the other side. These pinnacles reach heights of 45ft up to 25ft, giving you the feeling of being surrounded by coral as you navigate your way through. The north sides of the pinnacles give way to a gradual descent in the event you would like to explore a bit deeper and farther out where you can find examples of vase, striated, rope and encrusting sponges. Continuing east will bring you to a shallower area loaded with a wide variety of sponges and corals, which is why this area is called the Garden of Eden. Among the high concentration of soft corals here, keep an eye out for slender filefish and trumpetfish that like to hide in heavily covered areas such as this. Nearing the buoy marker for Garden of Eden at a depth of 25ft you’ll find pilar, brain and lettuce coral, and perhaps schools of black durgon, seargeant majors, and wrasses.
At this amazing wall you can find many different sponges and corals including huge barrel sponges and spectacular pillar corals. The drop-off is at 60 feet and drops to 180 feet. Very often there are turtles, nurse-sharks and eagle rays passing by, as well as morays. During the dive it is common to find several cleaning stations, and the safety stop has some beautiful elk horn.
Depth range: 5 – 40 meter (15 – 130 feet)
Experience required: Beginner
Big Bight
A cool wall dive to the west of the mooring which sits in about 40ft of water and just under the buoy there are a few swim throughs which can be fun at the end of the dive. The wall starts at around 15ft and goes down to 60ft near the mooring further west it goes beyond 140ft the wall has a lot of sponges and look out for lobsters and crabs in the crevices. Large grouper are often spotted along with barracuda and some times the odd turtle or eagle ray can be seen. To the east of the buoy the wall is a little more sloping and in the sandy areas at around 90ft nurse sharks have been seen under the reef skirts.
A top site with many different route to explore each new dive master has developed their own route to this site, the mooring sits in around 26ft of water with a reef shelf underneath. To the east of the mooring there is a sandy area at around 44ft depth, this ideal for training, and also spotting the occasional southern sting ray, following the sand patch to the east look out for lobsters in the base of the reef, in the reef surrounding the sand porcupine fish are often seen, carrying on north-east from the end of the sand patch takes you to an area called shark garden. Here as the name suggests we often spot nurse sharks at around 100ft. heading straight north from the mooring you come to an area of sloping reef with some great swim throughs. The sandy areas stretch down to around 90ft and nurse sharks have been spotted in this area as well. From there head west and explore the swim throughs. To return to the mooring head south and you’ll find a shallow gravel canyon area that leads to the wall follow this shallow wall at 26ft with the wall to the right, therefore heading east again to return to the boy. As the name suggest there are barracudas around this site and its quite common for you to spot one at the beginning of a dive and then for the barracuda to follow you throughout your dive.
Andy’s Wall
A colourful wall with soft and hard corals, often visited by groupers, schools of chubs, creole wrasse, horse-eye jacks and black durgons among others. The wall starts at 60ft, dropping to 160.
Pinnacles and striking formations make this a dramatic dive site to explore. Stingrays and eagle rays are commonly found cruising the sandy bottom. Look out for barracudas, midnight parrotfish and king crabs.
Sea Star Channel
This site is ideal as training site as we begin our dive in the sandy shallows at around 7ft, we weave our way through the shallow corral heads to the west and down into the channel. The channel has got its name from the abundance of cushioned sea stars that lye in the base of the channel, this is a good area for spotting southern sting rays which on murky days are many. Follow the channel out keeping to the slope in your right hand side the sand slope soon turns into coral heads which multiply until you reach a shallow wall at around 25ft, follow this till you reach an entrance between two coral heads which take you into a wide canyon bowl. Around the entrance we have seen eagle rays on numerous occasions. The middle of the bowl goes down to around 80ft and the topography inside changes into a rocky environment, look under the rocks for toadfish. After exploring inside the canyon bowl, take the same route back.
There’s something for everyone at Labyrinth, it starts with a shallow area of 40ft perfect for beginners and slowly slopes down to 60 feet. Hidden in a big hole in the rock, a spotted drum patrols his territory among schools of glassy sweepers. The sandy canyons winding through towering rock formations provide thrilling swim-throughs.
Depth range: 5 – 18 meter (15 – 60 feet)
Experience required: Beginner, intermediate for swim-throughs
Mongoose is a site that like Dolphins Den takes you from the inside of the reef to the outside, the mooring sits in about 10ft of water. This dive site is an impressive canyon, and the cracks and crevices provide hiding places for many different sea creatures look out for eels and spotted drums. Also keep an eye out for rays around the entrance to mongoose as they have been frequently spotted. The site goes down to between 70 and 80ft.
All dive site illustrations and texts are copyright by Ignacio Gonzalez, Roatan Dive Guide
The Roatan Dive Guide with over 60 dive sites around Roatan is available in our dive shop!
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Morning Sunshine!: How to Radiate Confidence and Feel It Too by Robin Meade
Robin Meade is the poster child for confidence and self-assurance. But the anchor of Morning Express...
Store Home > Morning Sunshine!: How to Radiate Confidence and Feel It Too by Robin Meade
Robin Meade is the poster child for confidence and self-assurance. But the anchor of Morning Express with Robin Meade wasn't always that way. In fact, there was a period in her career when she was plagued with anxiety and panic attacks. In MORNING SUNSHINE, she tells how she overcame her fear of public speaking to go on and achieve her dream of becoming a news anchor. Robin Meade offers her own tried-and-true four-step approach to building confidence. Her trademark warm, personal style translates from the screen to the page in this book, which will give readers even more insight into the young woman who came out of nowhere to become one of the most popular news anchors on television today.
Robin Meade
Millions of viewers each week tune into HLN morning show star Robin Meade and her show, Morning Express with Robin Meade, which airs weekdays from 6 am to 10 am. Her extraordinary, fun personality has attracted an enthusiastic following, including Stephen King, who devoted an entire Entertainment Weekly column to her.
Introduction: My Morning Sunshine 1 1 Three � Two � One: Meltdown! 11 Where Did My Confidence Go? 2 My Name Is Robin and I'm a Shape-Shifter 26 Losing the Real You 3 Doctor, Doctor, Give Me the News 47 Your Diagnosis: Bad Self-Esteem 4 I Don't Need No Stinking Help 65 The Chiropractor with the Spine 5 Begin the Breakthrough 74 Learn to Stay in the Present 6 What's on Your Pedestal? 91 The Difference Between Being Liked and Being Respected 7 Stop Judging Yourself! 103 Is This the Secret to Confidence? 8 The Bitch Is Back! 116 Let's Go on a Bitch Recognition Campaign 9 Be Yourself 131 Who Else Ya Gonna Be? 10 Frenemies 137 Feeling Confident While Fielding Criticism 11 Frick and Frack 155 Balancing Your Life 12 Breaking News! 163 What Do You Want Your Life's Headline to Say? 13 Your Passion Is Your Confidence 172 (Your Compassion Is, Too!) 14 Be Grateful for Your Gifts! 184 Are You Taking Your Gifts for Granted? 15 Your Void Becomes Your Value 196 When a Struggle Becomes a Strength 16 The Confidence to Be a Good Spouse 215 Introducing � Crystal! A Note from the Author 233 Acknowledgments 237 About the Author 241
Financial success is concerning obtaining all that you wanted to have. It's discovering that you have completed your purpose or accomplished your strategies and it's waking up in the morning looking victorious rather than feeling defeated.The resulting feelings success delivers will make you wander proudly in the avenues with your head up high while being happy and satisfied. Contrary to most common beliefs, there are no successful or failed men and women but on the other hand there are many people who have the potentiality to be successful and who do things that helps them discover this potential and there are men with the same potential who don't do those things.The only thing you are looking for to do to be successful is to do completely what successful men and women did. When you go through and through all of the understanding you will acquire the outlook of a impressive person and this will help you reach success. If you genuinely want to be successful then you should have a strong insight of certain models that can minimize your future and that can make you unsuccessful. If you dont have aspirations or strategies then you are really going to be a component of other some people's plans. If you do not program to be the manager at your work then another person else in your personnel will do so and if you don't prepare to get that high paying occupation then someone else who anticipated and strived for it will take it from you. If you don't organize you will get swept away by the men and women who do. The initial element that occurs to people with issues is that they start off to consider their complications as constraints to their successes. The second you begin to notice your struggles as stumbling blocks, you start off to have more problems because anxiety takes hold, anxiety takes hold, and these are additional massive hassles on their own. The truth is, the method by which you see your predicaments decides the ways they will influence you.
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Technology Events 2019
Technologies.org
Technology Trends: Follow the Money
Biofuel Accessible to Everyone: Biocoal alternative fuel for power production and heating
April 18, 2018 By Technologies.org Leave a Comment
At several locations around the world, a partnership of international companies will start construction of facilities, where biocoal will be produced on a commercial scale. This biocoal can be used as sustainable fuel in power plants and heating installations all over the world, giving a boost to reducing climate change.
Of all resources used for global energy consumption, 19.3 percent is renewable energy, of which almost three-quarters is generated from biomass, according to the Renewable Energy Network (REN21). For the production of biocoal, at present woody waste residues are mainly used, among others from the wood-processing industry, sustainable forestry and green maintenance. The use of biocoal reduces fossil carbon emissions significantly and increases the use of biomass, which plays a major part in the necessary energy transition. By using biocoal it is even possible to make existing coal-fired powerplants sustainable without any major adjustments.
The partnership is initiated by Clean Electricity Generation (CEG) and Stork. Stork, a Fluor Company, will build and maintain the new production facilities. The building of the first new production plant for biocoal is scheduled in Estonia. CEG and Stork are currently working on a front end engineering and design of the installation. Construction starts at the third quarter of this year. Parallel to that, they will continue working on installations in Finland and outside of Europe with a main focus on North America. Energy innovation company CEG will supply the patented technology. The company has succeeded in developing a production facility for biocoal on a commercial scale making biocoal a viable and sustainable alternative to fossil coal. CEG already has a production facility in Derby, United Kingdom, where high-quality biocoal is produced. In comparison, the new factory in Estonia will be five times bigger.
Other participating companies within the partnership include among others Carrier, which will supply essential parts for the biofuel production facilities, and investment company Momentum Capital, majority shareholder of CEG. In addition, several large international energy companies have indicated that they want to join the partnership.
The sustainable residual flows of biomass are converted into biofuel through so-called torrefaction technology. With this technology the biomass is converted into sustainable coal via a thermal refining process. This creates a relatively cheap biofuel with a high energy density. The biocoal in the form of pellets can be used in traditional coal-fired plants, but also for industrial heating processes, buildings or city district heating projects. Compared to coal combustion, per tonne of biocoal, 2.5 tons of CO2 is saved. Moreover, the energy value is higher and less storage and transport is needed than traditional sustainable alternatives. During the production of biocoal, the installation also produces green electricity and heat.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) names torrefaction a promising technology, although a few years ago it concluded the investments were too high and the development was too slow. Now, the IEA names torrefied biomass the cheapest, lowest risk biomass for storage, transport and processing, and also the best form of biomass as a global commodity. The partnership is now accelerating this technology. Erik Huis, CEO of CEG said: “We are the only party who is controlling this technology on a commercially applicable scale and who owns the intellectual property of it. Now, together with all partners, we take the final hurdle to raise biocoal to a worldwide standard. It will pave the way to make biocoal a sustainable bulk product, so that it becomes accessible to everyone. That is our ultimate goal. The energy giants of this world follow every step we take closely and find alignment with our process, because it is a sustainable alternative for their entire chain of fossil processes.” Erik Huis further adds: “The current orders and the orders ahead require a total investment of €350 million.”
Martijn van Rheenen, CEO of Momentum Capital, the investment company of CEG is also pleased. “With this partnership we have a unique combination to contribute to both the energy transition based on proven technology and the creation of value for our investors. The production facilities in our Industrial Assets portfolio are therefore both purchased by the industry and by professional institutional parties for investing value and long-term cash flow,” he commented.
About CEG
CEG is an energy innovation company. CEG creates and realises solutions for sustainable energy by processing biomass through torrefaction. It uses sustainable means that are cleaner and less harmful to the environment which replaces unsustainable and expensive resources.
CEG’s unique torrefaction reactor converts biomass into a range of products such as biochar, biochar dust, biocoal pellets and wood vinegar. CEG’s biocoal can then be fired into conventional power plants boilers which is a sustainable alternative to burning conventional fossil coal. The additional benefit of the CEG torrefaction process is the output of syngas that can be used in its syngas generators and directly supply green power.
CEG is a joint venture with leading financial partners: Momentum Capital based in the Netherlands (95%) and Transformative Energy and Materials Capital (TEM Capital) based in Boston (5%). For more information: http://www.cegeneration.com
Filed Under: Tech Tagged With: Biocoal, biofuel
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Genetic Breakthrough Paves Way for Cheaper Biofuels
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5G Uncovered
Amazon Prime Day UK
Project Scarlett
Best antivirus
You are not a games addict
By Rob Mead (TechRadar ) 2007-06-24T23:00:00.174Z Handhelds
Addiction experts back away from mental illness claim
Playing World of Warcraft doesn't make you mental, just a bit sad
Playing World of Warcraft every night until 3am may not be the most sensible thing in the world - but it doesn't make you mental. Addiction experts have backed away from classifying video games as a mental illness, because they believe the problem isn't as severe as some other addictions.
"There is nothing here to suggest that this is a complex physiological disease state akin to alcoholism or other substance abuse disorders, and it doesn't get to have the word addiction attached to it," Dr Stuart Gitlow of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM).
Experts at the American Society of Addiction Medicine had been discussing video games because some 10 per cent of gamers are said to be seriously affected by their habit.
However the ASAM will keep video gaming under review and will discuss the subject again in 2012, reports Reuters.
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The Next Major Android Version May Hide Carrier Signal Strength
26 December 2017, 7:42 pm EST By Aaron Mamiit Tech Times
The next major Android version may allow carriers to hide their signal strengths, according to Android Open Source Project commits spotted by XDA Developers.
Checking signal strength is currently available in Android 8.0 Oreo, but the feature may be removed as soon as Android 9.0 P.
Android P To Allow Carriers To Hide Signal Strength
Currently, Android smartphone users can check the signal strength of their carrier by heading to the Sim Status menu under their device's Settings. The signal strength will be shown numerically, with lower dBm numbers meaning weaker signals.
However, according to a discovery made by XDA Developers, Android device owners who want to check their carrier's signal strength may soon be limited to looking at the five signal bars shown at the status bar at the top of the smartphone.
A commit discovered on the Android Open Source Project shows that Google is working on hiding signal strengths, depending on the carrier's preference. The feature was apparently requested by carriers, though it is unclear which ones did and why Google decided to accept it.
Android 9.0 P is expected to launch in 2018, with the first developer preview to arrive in late winter or early spring before a bigger unveiling at the annual Google I/O developers' conference in May. It remains to be seen whether the next major Android version will really allow carriers to hide their signal strengths, but it appears that the feature will indeed arrive soon.
Why This Should Matter To You
While the feature is not widely used, checking the exact signal strength reveals how carriers perform in certain areas. The signal strength determines the quality of calls, internet connections, and battery life, which makes it valuable information for all Android users.
Third-party apps, as the code stands, will still be allowed to monitor signal strength. However, Google may also place restrictions on such functions in the future, if the carriers request it.
The removal of the feature will deny customers the chance to monitor the service that carriers provide, for less oversight on the performance of the companies.
The Latest Android News
Google recently launched 12 Days of Play, with the Google Play Store offering massive discounts to Android device owners until Jan. 2, 2018
Meanwhile, Google laid out clear guidelines for Android developers, stating that by 2018, new apps must target Android 8.0 Oreo devices.
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden also recently released Haven, an app that can transform Android smartphones into mobile home security systems.
Android, Android P
Google Play Offers 12 Days Of Deals For Android Users: Games, Movies, Books, And More
Haven App By Edward Snowden Transforms Android Phones Into Mobile Home Security Systems
Samsung Galaxy Note 5 Update Brings December Android Security Patch
Nokia 9 Specs Revealed: 5.5-Inch OLED Display, Snapdragon 835, And Android 8.0 Oreo
Google: By 2018, New Apps Must Target Android Oreo, And By 2019, Play Store Apps Must Support 64-Bit
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February 5, 2014 by TA Staff
EXSET appoints Andrew Pons as global director
Netherlands-based Exset BV has announced the promotion of Andrew Pons to the post of global director, Sales and Marketing.
Pons will be based out of London and will be reporting to CEO’s office in Netherlands. Andrew Pons has been with Exset for nearly two years and witnessed the company getting itself established with its ground-breaking Digital Monetization System (DMS) across emerging markets.
His new role will help push the company across its next growth phase as its DMS and CAS solutions continue to be deployed across Asia, the Indian Subcontinent, Africa and Eastern Europe.
“We’re delighted that Andrew has been promoted to this new role within our team. With his wealth of experience across the markets Exset operates in, we are sure that he is the right person to help drive Exset forward,” said Alex Borland, chief executive officer, Exset BV.
“Being appointed as a global director of Sales and Marketing is a great opportunity for me. Exset is a dynamically thinking company with its unique and award winning solution – DMS. Exset is already active in India and across Africa with 2014 looking very exciting for us. I am sure that I will add more success stories across the geographies we are working in,” said Andrew Pons, global director, Sales and Marketing, Exset BV.
Pons has many years’ experience in the television business and previously he was working as director of International Marketing with Pace. He has also worked as director of Sales and Marketing at SysMedia & Electronic Farm and sales director, Harris.
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School League Tables
Festival of Education
Oxford College divided over support for Rhodes Must Fall movement
A row has erupted between two student ‘unions’ at one of Oxford University’s colleges over the backing of a movement to topple a statue of Cecil Rhodes
Oxford College divided over support for Rhodes Must Fall movement Photo: Rex
By Javier Espinoza, Education Editor
9:17AM GMT 27 Jan 2016
A row has erupted between two student ‘unions’ at one of Oxford University’s colleges over the backing of the Rhodes Must Fall (RMF) movement, the Daily Telegraph can disclose.
“The failure of the motion to pass does not amount to an official statement that Rhodes must fall.”
Ben Hartridge, JCR’s president
Last night, the common rooms representing both undergraduates and graduates at St Anne’s College voted on motions to either back or reject the movement but students are still divided over whether the statue of Cecil Rhodes, a Victorian imperialist, should be removed.
This comes after months of debating whether the statue of Rhodes should remain at Oriel College, where he studied and where he has since his death funded scholars to study, on the basis of his views on other races.
But it has now emerged that St Anne’s is now divided over the support to a group, which is also seeking more diversity in the curriculum for minorities and increasing their representation on campus.
Over the weekend it was revealed that St Anne's College's Junior Common Room (JCR), which represents undergraduates, put forward a motion to announce its opposition to the campaign. However, Matthew Kirtley, who proposed the motion along with Henry Williams, told this newspaper the motion was voted down on Tuesday night.
He said: “Sadly, it seems as it we’ve lost. The vote turned out 34 for, 97 against, 6 abstentions, and 1 spoilt vote.”
Ben Hartridge, JCR’s president, rushed to distance the union from any formal backing to the RMF movement, highlighting divisions among the student bodies. He said: “The failure of the motion to pass does not amount to an official statement that Rhodes must fall.”
The RMF movement has already been successful in bringing down a statue of Rhodes in South Africa Photo: AP
“St. Anne’s MCR is happy to join with fellow colleges at the University of Oxford in supporting Rhodes Must Fall in Oxford.”
St Anne’s Middle Common Room
However, also on Tuesday night, St Anne’s Middle Common Room (MCR), which represents graduate students, passed two motions to “unequivocally support the aims and goals of RMF movement and it also took a stab at the undergraduates union. In a statement, it said: “We believe it would be highly regrettable for the common rooms at St. Anne’s to condemn Rhodes Must Fall.”
It added: “We further stress that we support the wider aims of the Rhodes Must Fall movement: diversifying curriculum to include scholarship outside of the Western canon, increasing representation of Black and Minority Ethnic students and staff at the university, and lastly, relocating Oriel’s Cecil Rhodes statue into a museum to place it in proper historical context.
The graduates union highlighted the college, which was originally a woman’s college in 1879 and became co-educational in 1979, “was founded specifically on politically progressive values of inclusion and equality”.
It said: “St. Anne’s MCR is happy to join with fellow colleges at the University of Oxford in supporting Rhodes Must Fall in Oxford.”
Tonight the St Anne's College MCR passed a motion fully suporting RMF. A JCR motion against us failed by a huge majority. #RhodesIsFalling!
— Rhodes Must Fall Ox (@RMF_Oxford) January 26, 2016
Earlier this month University College’s JCR demanded their name of their Rhodes computer room be renamed in light of the student movement. However, the college’s master, Sir Ivor Crewe, said it “will not contemplate dishonouring the generosity of former Rhodes scholars.
Campaigners from the RMF movement see the statue as an "emblem" of a wider "institutionally racist" stance at the university, which the institution denies. The Oxford Union has voted to remove the statue but their vote doesn’t mean this will happen.
The newly elected vice-chancellor at Oxford University, Louise Richardson, has already said she thinks the statue should stay.
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The unofficial motto amongst TFS alumni is "friends for life"
By the time they graduate from TFS, most of our alumni classes have been together as classmates and friends since Kindergarten. Among the things they have in common is a world-class education, an insatiable love of learning and a wider perspective on the complex world we live in.
While each graduating class at TFS is unique, they all demonstrate academic ambition and achievement. Each year, 100% are Ontario Scholars (averages of 80% and above), with, on average, 80% of the class having an average of 90% or above.
All members of the graduating class receive university offers of choice, and garner impressive scholarship opportunities. They attend universities across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and beyond, and study within some of the most sought-after and selective programs.
TFS alumni number more than 2,900, and they live all over the world, work in hundreds of different industries and speak many different languages.
Maintaining the bonds between alumni and the school is important at TFS. Each year, the TFS Alumni Association and the Office of Advancement & Alumni Relations work together to plan networking and social events, from downtown Toronto to London, UK.
What’s more, our alumni often come back to the school to offer career advice, advise on life at university and beyond, and mentor our students.
Just like when they were students, TFS wants its alumni to consider the school their forever home away from home.
To learn more about TFS’ Alumni Association, please contact: Verle Thompson, Alumni Relations Coordinator, at vthompson@tfs.ca, or 416-484-6533, ext. 4246.
Alumni of Distinction
List of 24 items.
Dr. Maral Ouzounian ‘94, Alumni of Distinction Award Recipient 2018
"At TFS, we were encouraged to set strong academic goals, and above all, TFS taught us that we could achieve anything."
Gabriela Stafford ‘13, Young Alumni Award Recipient 2018
“In my experience, TFS teachers go above and beyond to make sure that students have what they need in order to succeed.”
Julia Rucklidge '88, Alumni of Distinction Award Recipient 2017
"At TFS, the teachers always encouraged us to understand the principles we studied rather than memorize content. It was a challenging and inspiring way to learn."
Dalton Kellett '11, Young Alumni Award Recipient 2017
“There were 20 or 30 of us who went all the way through TFS together. That sense of community was incredible and gave me an appreciation for the importance of cultivating relationships."
Gabriela Maj '99, Alumni of Distinction Award Recipient 2016
"The collective focus at TFS on hard work and achievement, and the innovative and integrated curriculum laid a strong foundation for future chapters in my life."
Julia St-Louis Saleh (Ivonoffski) '05, Young Alumni Award Recipient 2016
"TFS encourages you to aspire. Being surrounded by people with tremendous drive means that striving to excel becomes the norm."
Leigh Salsberg '94, Alumni of Distinction Award Recipient 2015
"I think it is important to appreciate what we have and try to turn it into actions somehow. Even if the actions seem small, they can make a real difference, as they are actions that otherwise wouldn't have been done. Incorporate your TFS education into your life in a meaningful way."
Cara Cheung '06, Young Alumni Award Recipient 2015
“I really enjoyed my IB art show experience. It affirmed my love for fashion because it gave me the opportunity to explore my interest through a structured environment, with an end goal that allowed others to connect with my work."
Dr. Ian D'Agata '80, Alumni of Distinction Award Recipient 2014
"TFS gave me the opportunity to learn French, write it well and learn more about France. To this day, France is still my home away from home. TFS also allowed for the establishment of some pretty amazing friendships and bonds. There is no doubt that what I am today is in part due to TFS and the way it modeled and shaped me."
Emily Cole '04, Young Alumni Award Recipient 2014
"I was always between science and arts, but I had teachers who were 100% supportive and accepted my diverse interests. I would encourage students to pursue whatever major they feel suits their curiosity coming out of high school."
Steven Shehori '89, Alumni of Distinction Award Recipient 2013
"I was really honoured to be asked to host TFS' 50th Anniversary Gala. It was especially flattering because I wasn't the best student. It was only later that I realized TFS helped me develop the skills that are the foundation for everything I've done."
Molly Shoichet '83, PhD, Alumni of Distinction Award Recipient 2013
"I get to work with some of the world's best neuroscientists, neurosurgeons and cancer biologists. We must have superb science and then the backing of the business world to translate it to peoples' lives. That's the dream."
Walter Dorn '79, PhD, Alumni of Distinction Award Recipient 2013
"Dad put a huge value on education. He'd heard great things about TFS and was keen to give his son the best education. I'm so grateful for what I've experienced in life, in the field and in Canada, including the preparation I received through TFS."
Lara Brady '01, Alumni of Distinction Award Recipient 2013
"I had such tremendous teachers. Across the board, our teachers pushed us and did a great deal to cultivate a real confidence in us as students."
Justin Poy '87, Alumni of Distinction Award Recipient 2013
"TFS taught me to have a strong passion and work ethic for doing things I really liked to do. During high school I was there seven days a week, setting up art exhibits, building sets and rehearsing for plays. Those were some of the best years of my life. It has greatly influenced who I am today."
Dr. Kristen Davidge '97, Alumni of Distinction Award Recipient 2013
"The beauty of the school is the relationships you forge with your teachers. It was something very special and unique. They opened our eyes to so much more than the subject at hand.”
Christina Piovesan '94, Alumni of Distinction Award Recipient 2013
"Being a first-generation Canadian at TFS had a big impact on me. Everyone in my close circle of friends was also first-generation. It was a great experience to share culture and tradition."
Dr. Michael Dan '78, Alumni of Distinction Award Recipient 2013
"Canada's First Nations form the bedrock for this country and we never really explored their story well enough. By giving them better business opportunities through Gemini Power, I want to change the paradigm of how large corporations do business with First Nations."
Rita Leistner '82, Alumni of Distinction Award Recipient 2013
"I want to help tell people's stories, especially those who have suffered most from war, and I am constantly exploring new ways to do this. My job is putting together the pieces of the puzzle that show what is going on in the world. One story at a time, we try to educate ourselves and others through that."
Albert Haldemann '84, PHD, Alumni of Distinction Award Recipient 2013
"There's something innate in human beings about wanting to climb a mountain, not because it's there, but to simply explore, push boundaries, learn new things. Space is our next mountain. Learning about it teaches us about ourselves and our place in the universe. If I'm contributing to that, I think it's worthwhile."
Dr. Karandeep Sonu Gaind '86, Alumni of Distinction Award Recipient 2012
"I believe what TFS has taught is the philosophy that education is not just about passively receiving information and it does not end in the classroom. Real scholarship and education is about learning even as we teach. It's about integrating diverse ideas, sometimes from different areas, in unique ways to impact the world... I use to this day the principles I learned at TFS."
Dr. Samantha Nutt '87, Alumni of Distinction Award Recipient 2011
"Upon accepting the honour, Dr. Nutt reflected on the role her bilingual education has played, not only in the advocacy that has been a trademark of her career, but in her ability to listen to the children and families for whom she is so passionate."
—ANDREW GRAHAM '01, TFS ALUMNI ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT ON DR. NUTT'S ACCEPTANCE SPEECH
Martha Baillie '77, Alumni of Distinction Award Recipient 2010
“Toronto French School, I feel, has stated unequivocally that it values those who labour precariously in the arts. It tells me the TFS values determination and openness to the unexpected as truly as it did when I was one of its students."
Carole Piovesan '95, Alumni of Distinction Award Recipient 2009
"TFS is a school that delivers an international perspective. ...Carole would agree that the uniquely international education we received at this school has been pivotal to her success."
—LISA RICHLER '95 INTRODUCING HER FRIEND AND AWARD RECIPIENT CAROLE PIOVESAN
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the latest // Song Of The Summer
Vote For The Song Of The Summer 2019
Watch Kendrick Lamar’s Cinematic Reebok Ad
Tom Breihan @tombreihan | December 10, 2014 - 9:09 am
CREDIT: Kendrick Lamar Reebok ad
You know a rapper has reached a rarefied level of fame when a goddam sneaker company is enlisting him for a commercial. It’s not exactly a surprise that Kendrick Lamar is a star on the rise, but it’s still striking to see Reebok devote considerable resources to a three-minute ad starring the guy. Music-video director Anthony Mandler helmed the black-and-white ad, which shows Kendrick skulking through his Compton hometown and generally looking as iconic as possible. In the video, he recites a feverish a cappella verse. As far as I can tell, it’s unreleased, though I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him do it as a live freestyle or something like that. Watch the ad below.
(via Pitchfork)
There’s still a Kendrick album coming out sooner or later. Keep watching the skies.
Tags: Kendrick Lamar
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What Is Style in Writing?
"The Most Durable Thing in Writing Is Style"
deepblue4you / Getty Images
"A pointed instrument used for writing." According to our glossary entry for style, that's what the word meant in Latin 2,000 years ago. Nowadays, definitions of style point not to the instrument used by the writer but to characteristics of the writing itself:
The way in which something is said, done, expressed, or performed: a style of speech and writing. Narrowly interpreted as those figures that ornament discourse; broadly, as representing a manifestation of the person speaking or writing. All figures of speech fall within the domain of style.
But what does it mean to "write with style"? Is style a feature that writers can add or remove as they please? Is it, perhaps, a gift that only some writers are blessed with? Can a style ever be good or bad, correct or incorrect--or is it more a matter of taste? Put another way, is style merely a kind of decorative sprinkle, or is it instead an essential ingredient of writing?
Here, under six broad headings, are some of the diverse ways in which professional writers have responded to these questions. We open with remarks from Henry David Thoreau, an artful stylist who expressed indifference toward style and conclude with two quotations from novelist Vladimir Nabokov, who insisted that style is all that matters.
Style is Practical
"Who cares what a man’s style is, so it is intelligible, as intelligible as his thought. Literally and really, the style is no more than the stylus, the pen he writes with, and it is not worth scraping and polishing, and gilding, unless it will write his thoughts the better for it. It is something for use, and not to look at."
(Henry David Thoreau)
"People think that I can teach them style. What stuff it all is! Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style."
(Matthew Arnold)
Style Is the Dress of Thoughts
"Style is the dress of thoughts; and let them be ever so just, if your style is homely, coarse, and vulgar, they will appear to as much disadvantage."
(Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield)
"A man's style should be like his dress. It should be as unobtrusive and should attract as little attention as possible."
(C. E. M. Joad)
Style Is Who and What We Are
"The style is the man himself."
(George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon)
"The old saying of Buffon’s that style is the man himself is as near the truth as we can get--but then most men mistake grammar for style, as they mistake correct spelling for words or schooling for education."
(Samuel Butler)
"When we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted; for we expected to see an author, and we find a man."
"Style is the hallmark of a temperament stamped upon the material at hand."
(Andre Maurois)
"The essence of a sound style is that it cannot be reduced to rules--that it is a living and breathing thing with something of the devilish in it--that it fits its proprietor tightly yet ever so loosely, as his skin fits him. It is, in fact, quite as seriously an integral part of him as that skin is. . . . In brief, a style is always the outward and visible symbol of a man, and cannot be anything else."
(H.L. Mencken)
"You do not create a style. You work, and develop yourself; your style is an emanation from your own being."
(Katherine Anne Porter)
Style Is Point of View
"Style is the perfection of a point of view."
(Richard Eberhart)
"Where there is no style, there is in effect no point of view. There is, essentially, no anger, no conviction, no self. Style is opinion, hung washing, the caliber of a bullet, teething beads."
(Alexander Theroux)
"Style is that which indicates how the writer takes himself and what he is saying. It is the mind skating circles around itself as it moves forward."
(Robert Frost)
Style Is Craftsmanship
"What's important is the way we say it. Art is all about craftsmanship. Others can interpret craftsmanship as style if they wish. Style is what unites memory or recollection, ideology, sentiment, nostalgia, presentiment, to the way we express all that. It's not what we say but how we say it that matters."
(Federico Fellini)
"Proper words in proper places, make the true definition of style."
(Jonathan Swift)
"The web, then, or the pattern, a web at once sensuous and logical, an elegant and pregnant texture: that is style."
"The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the most valuable investment a writer can make with his time. It pays off slowly, your agent will sneer at it, your publisher will misunderstand it, and it will take people you have never heard of to convince them by slow degrees that the writer who puts his individual mark on the way he writes will always pay off."
(Raymond Chandler)
"The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise."
(Edward Gibbon)
"One arrives at style only with atrocious effort, with fanatical and devoted stubbornness."
(Gustave Flaubert)
Style Is Substance
"To me, style is just the outside of content, and content the inside of style, like the outside and the inside of the human body. Both go together, they can't be separated."
(Jean-Luc Godard)
"Thought and speech are inseparable from each other. Matter and expression are parts of one; style is a thinking out into language."
(Cardinal John Henry Newman)
"Every style is excellent if it is proper; and that style is most proper which can best convey the intentions of the author to his reader. And, after all, it is Style alone by which posterity will judge of a great work, for an author can have nothing truly his own but his style; facts, scientific discoveries, and every kind of information, may be seized by all, but an author's diction cannot be taken from him."
(Isaac D'Israeli)
"Style, in its finest sense, is the last acquirement of the educated mind; it is also the most useful. It pervades the whole being."
(Alfred North Whitehead)
"Style is not something applied. It is something that permeates. It is of the nature of that in which it is found, whether the poem, the manner of a god, the bearing of a man. It is not a dress."
(Wallace Stevens)
"Style and structure are the essence of a book; great ideas are hogwash. . . .All my stories are webs of style and none seems at first blush to contain much kinetic matter. . . . For me 'style' is matter."
(Vladimir Nabokov)
E.B. White on Writing and the Writing Process
The First Rule of Writing: Be Clear
The Elements of Style: Stylistics in Literature
Swift on Style: Keep It Simple
12 Classic Essays on English Prose Style
The Writer's Voice in Literature and Rhetoric
Perspectives on Prose Style
William Hazlitt on the Familiar Style
Whatever Happened to the Belles-Lettres?
Learn How to Appropriately Use an Example in Your Writing
Henry David Thoreau in the 21st Century: Can Walden Still Speak to Us Today?
Ways of Achieving Emphasis in Writing and in Speech
Time Heals, Steals, and Flies: 20 Metaphors
How Students Can Use Imitation to Study Sentence Structure
Classic Essays and Speeches
The Modern Essay by Virginia Woolf
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The New Waterproof Mophie Case Understands You're Totally Irresponsible
By Brett Williams Published On 05/08/2015
@bdwilliams910
By Brett Williams @bdwilliams910 Published On 05/08/2015
If you're like us, you've wrecked your fair share of phones. From dropping them on the ground to dropping them in the toilet (sensing a theme here?), we've gone through more handsets than we'd like to admit. To make things worse, when our phones aren't busted, we run through batteries and leave ourselves phoneless with alarming frequency.
Thankfully for all of us, this all changes (for Apple acolytes at least) with Mophie's new Juice Pack H2PRO case for the iPhone 6.
14 Ways You're Unintentionally Killing Your iPhone
Mophie's case has multiple layers of shock-absorbing materials that exceed military standards for drops, water-tight ports for spills, and a 2,750 mAh battery for the times you forget to charge up before heading out. There's also an LED power indicator on the back of the case, so you always know if you have your extra charge.
The case isn't available just yet, but you can pre-order it for $129.95 with an estimated late May ship date.
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Welcome to my little digital home. Hope you enjoy the content and feel free to connect with me elsewhere as well.
Tim is the youngest three-time Ironman champion in the 33-year history of Ironman racing.
At 24 years old, Tim won Ironman Western Australia in 2008, which made him the second youngest Ironman Champion (behind Germany’s Thomas Hellriegal) by 12 days. However, when he won his second Ironman distance event in Copenhagen last August, he surpassed Hellreigal’s accomplishment (of having two Ironman wins) by about three months.
Tim, at only 26 years old and already a two-time Ironman Champion, with numerous Ironman 70.3, and Long Course wins, is one of the most recognised Australian Professional Triathletes, that still regularly races in Australia. For the past three years, Tim has been getting podium results in 56% of all races that he entered, and 85% in the top 10. He has raced 34 major triathlons since January 2008 between North America, Europe, and the Southern Hemisphere racing season.
For any media relations enquires please use the the contact page to contact my team.
timberkel
Your chance to ask me something #AskBerks
I completed Kona
IM Melbourne - Great Result…But A Tough Day At The Office
A Little Shy of the podium at the Ironman North American Championship
Back in the Rocky Mountains
That’s a wrap - Kona, Busso and Thailand 70.3
© Tim Berkel
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MenuHome Annual MembershipsSingle Game TicketsSeatGeek: Buy/Sell Thorns TicketsAnnual Membership Account ManagerGroup TicketsHospitality and Premium SeatingTicket Policies ScheduleDownloadable eCalPrintable Schedule RosterFront Office NewsVideos NWSLStandingsStatistics MatchdayRose City RivetersPost-Game AutographsPub Partners Shop Online World Cup
Hospitality and Premium Seating
Post-Game Autographs
Photo by Craig Mitchelldyer
Thorns FC NWSL Preview | A brief history of Portland's emerging rivalry with the North Carolina Courage
May 30, 201812:04PM PDT
Richard FarleyThornsFC.com
Follow@ richardfarley
Some rivalries feel obligatory. Be it by geography, culture, or history, when it comes to the animus between some cities, there’s an undeniable relationship that requires sports fans to hate each other.
Portland’s obvious example is Seattle, with the conflict between Thorns FC and Reign FC an example that proves the rule. Was there anything between the teams that required Thorns fans to hate the Reign when the NWSL began five years ago? Of course not. Neither team had any history. But when it was time to build a bonfire, build a bonfire, and decide whooooooooo was on top, the newest Seattle franchise was part of the bloody lot.
Tellingly, the supporters choice for “the middle” of that famous chant rests over 2,800 miles from the Rose City. Such is the link the North Carolina Courage have already forged with their Cascadian counterparts. While that team’s current incarnation is less than two seasons old, the history the former Western New York Flash carried with them from Rochester, New York, ensures the current NWSL Shield holders remain atop the Rose City Riveters’ most wanted list. And until some prominent figures fade out of the Courage scene, that antipathy is bound to continue.
TICKETS: Thorns host Courage tonight at 7:30pm PT
“These are the games, that us, as soccer players, love,” Thorns midfielder Lindsey Horan said, the day before the teams’ latest installment. “You want a big game. You want a big rivalry. Everyone on our team feels that and is excited.”
That’s what gives Wednesday’s game at Providence Park more meat than most (7:30pm PT, NWSLsoccer.com/go90). On one level, it’s a midseason, regular-season game in a league that’s evermore accepting that its postseason defines greatness. Within that context, a May match can only have so much value. But when you have two teams who, over the last two years, have claimed every NWSL honor – and have claimed six of the 10 major team honors in league history – it’s never going to be a “regular” regular-season game. Add in the presence of some prominent former Thorns amid the Courage’s setup, and you see why a rivalry has formed, even if that conflict still feels so new.
“It feels a bit different from the other games we’ve played,” Portland head coach Mark Parsons said, ahead of the arrival of the NWSL’s first-place team. "The vibe feels different, the energy. Players have got the bit between the teeth and want to come out firing tomorrow.
“It’s two heavyweights going head-to-head, and nothing gets more exciting than when the best teams play each other.”
Forward Jessica McDonald and midfielder McCall Zerboni are among the Courage stars from Portland’s past (both have gotten U.S. Women’s National Team looks and NWSL Best XI honors since joining the Flash/Courage), but the main target of fan antagonism is North Carolina’s head coach, somebody who used to patrol the technical area of Providence Park. Riley left friends and fond memories among many in Portland’s front office, but fans have since developed a more conflicted view, one which, in hindsight, became the first embers in the Thorns-Courage rivalry. While Portland had faced Western New York in the 2013 NWSL Championship, few came away from that game with hatred for the Flash. It was only after Riley arrived there in 2015, taking over a team brimming with young talent, that Riveters had a focal point. As the man who’d disappointed in Portland forged a surprised contender – with the maturation of future internationals like Samantha Mewis, Abby Dahlkemper, Lynn Williams and Jaelene Hinkle fueling their rise – the Thorns’ old boss became a threat to Portland’s emerging power.
That power was embodied by the 2016 Shield, with Parsons’ arrival from the Washington Spirit bringing a dramatic and immediate turnaround in the team’s fortunes. Come the postseason, however, Riley got an element of vindication, perhaps fully cementing his team as Portland’s rivals. In perhaps the most exciting game in NWSL history, the fourth-seeded Flash upset the Thorns at Providence Park, needing extra time to secure a 4-3, semifinal victory en route to a surprise league title. That, along the way, the title came at the expense of Riley’s former team may be a footnote in his history, but for the Thorns, it was the conflict to build a rivalry on.
Last October, Portland got their own note of vindication, defeating the Courage 1-0 in the NWSL Championship game, denying Riley and his core a second-straight title in the process. Just like in 2016, the year’s best regular-season team had been derailed in the postseason, and, just like the year before, that pitfall stoked the embers.
It may be only May, and both these teams may be building toward the postseason, but for one spring night in Providence Park, the NWSL could take on a playoff feel.
“I’ll be really honest, this feels like a bit of a cup game,” Parsons said, conceding the Thorns’ matchup with their rival was a big one. “We’re going to do whatever it takes to get the result …”
Now, with the Courage returning to Portland for the first time in 10 months, an unlikely rivalry gets its latest chapter, one which could be the prelude to yet another postseason showdown.
What to watch for on Wednesday:
Given the history of this matchup, goals shouldn’t be on your watch list. The four times these teams have met since the Courage’s move to North Carolina have, each time, produced 1-0 results. The Courage have won both times at home; the Thorns have taken both results in Portland or on neutral fields.
Something you can watch for: international talent talent. Three Thorns (Tobin Heath, Horan, Midge Purce) were named to the squad of the U.S.’ upcoming friendlies against China while Christine Sinclair will head to Canada for a friendly against Germany. The Courage had have players (Abby Dahlkemper, Crystal Dunn, Merritt Mathias, Samantha Mewis, Zerboni) that will join the U.S. team during the upcoming international break.
Were it not for injuries, the Thorns could have a couple of more players in the U.S. squad. Alas, Emily Sonnett (back) and Adrianna Franch (knee) are still sidelined, as are Hayley Raso (knee) and Bella Geist (quad).
North Carolina is dealing with a number of injuries of their own, with starting goalkeeper Sabrina D’Angelo and first-choice midfielder Denise O’Sullivan listed as out for the team’s trip to Portland. Jaelene Hinkle – the best fullback in the NWSL, thus far, this season – is questionable with a right-calf strain.
Matchup-wise, the Courage have given teams problems all season with their four-person, box midfield, one that typically keeps them a player up either high or low in the middle. While that usually leaves space to exploit wide, Hinkle (left) and Mathias (right) have held down the flanks well – part of the reason why North Carolina is the league’s last undefeated squad.
For most of the year, the strength of Horan and Sinclair has helped offset any disadvantages the Thorns might have in the middle, but as the first 22 minutes against Orlando on May 12 showed, teams might be able to muscle up against Portland and have success through the middle. That day, it was Alanna Kennedy and Toni Pressley – natural central defenders – who provided the Pride’s steal. On Wednesday, Mewis and Zerboni will have to be muscled off the ball.
If that happens, Portland should be able to exploit those wide spaces, if the team sticks with its 4-2-3-1 look. While the Thorns’ other formation, a 3-4-1-2, has been crucial in winning two of the teams’ last three meetings, the new approach would pit Heath and Meghan Klingenberg against Mathias, on one side, while Purce and Ellie Carpenter could go at Hinkle on the other. Though some are fond of saying tactics don’t matter, how Parsons sets his team up – and how he uses that shape to attack North Carolina – will be a major factor in Wednesday’s matchup.
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EU removes sanctions from Iranian oil tanker company
Legal officials fail to appeal July court ruling on the matter, effectively annulling limitations on the business
By TOI staff 8 October 2014, 6:25 am 2 Edit
European Union sanctions against Iran’s leading oil tanker firm were dissolved on Tuesday — at least temporarily — after the union failed to appeal a court ruling which annulled them, Reuters reported.
The sanctions, imposed in 2012, prevented any dealings between the EU and the National Iranian Tanker Company, but the NITC argued in a Luxembourg court that it was privately owned and not tied to the Iranian government, and thus should be exempt from punitive measures. The court accepted this position in July, giving officials two months to appeal its ruling — something they did not do.
“We are relieved to see the lifting of these sanctions,” NITC’s managing director Ali Akbar Safaei told Reuters. “We have always enjoyed good business relationships with our EU partners and look forward to resuming those now this difficult period has come to an end.”
But an EU official said efforts were still being made to reverse the decision.
“The time for appeal had elapsed, but work is still ongoing on remedial action for maintaining the entity on the list” of sanctioned companies, the official said.
Inspectors from the UN’s atomic watchdog met Iranian officials in Tehran Tuesday over efforts to gain access to nuclear facilities, a day after reports emerged of a deadly blast at a suspected nuclear site.
An International Atomic Energy Agency delegation, headed by deputy director general and head of the department of safeguards Tero Tapio Varjoranta, was to hold fresh talks with Iranian officials to discuss oversight measures of Iran’s nuclear program, widely believed to be for weaponization purposes.
Diplomats said last week that inspectors will continue to lobby for greater access to suspected nuclear facilities, Reuters reported.
The official IRNA news agency said the visitors were expected in the capital on Monday night ahead of talks with Iranian officials.
“The visit of Tero Varjoranta, deputy director general of the IAEA, and a delegation will continue discussions to finalize the last two points” on which an explanation from Iran is sought, it said.
Those two questions — to the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran — focus on concerns that the Islamic Republic’s nuclear activities have military dimensions.
The Vienna-based IAEA disclosed in September that Iran had failed to meet an August 25 deadline to provide information on five points meant to allay fears it was developing nuclear weapons.
One of the IAEA’s questions centers on Iran’s purported experiments with large scale high explosives.
Under an agreement reached in November 2013 with the IAEA, Iran has already responded to 16 of the 18 issues the agency identified as relevant to Iran’s nuclear activities.
The IAEA visit came a day after two people were reported to have been killed in an explosion at a defense ministry plant east of Tehran. The Defense Industries Organization, quoted by IRNA, said a fire broke out at the plant on Sunday night but it gave no further details.
Several arms facilities and military bases are located east of the Iranian capital, including Parchin. UN nuclear inspectors have been seeking to visit the site to answer concerns about Iran’s atomic program. The base lies at the center of allegations of past Iranian research into sophisticated explosives that can be used to detonate a nuclear warhead.
Tehran, which has denied IAEA inspectors access to Parchin since 2005, insists its nuclear program is for purely civilian uses.
Iran and world powers have set a deadline in November to reach a final deal after reaching an interim accord last year.
AP and AFP contributed to this report.
Iran's nuclear program
IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency
IAEA inspectors
On campaign trail, Amir Peretz says PM would react differently if it were West Bank settlement fields being set ablaze rather than land in the south
General Secretary Jennie Formby, who is alleged to have interfered in party probes of anti-Semitism, accuses Tom Watson of ‘traducing’ her reputation as she undergoes chemotherapy
Remembered as ‘a force of nature who devoted his life to making the world a better place,’ the Jewish advocate was also instrumental in creation of US Holocaust Memorial Museum
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/Life/Engagements (Page 2)
Knight — Scurr
Erinn Knight and Blake Scurr announce their engagement and upcoming marriage. Parents of the couple are Keith and Carol Knight, of Moline, Ill., and Connie Scurr, of Grinnell, and Joe Scurr, of Gilman. The bride-elect is a 2011 graduate of Moline High School and a 2015 graduate of the ...
Roseland — Miller
Lori Ann Roseland and Justin Ross Miller announce their engagement and upcoming wedding. Lori is the daughter of Tim and Deleana Roseland, of Gilman, and Justin is the son of Jerry and the late Sharon Miller, of Streeter, N.D. Lori is a 2013 graduate of East Marshall High School and a 2016 ...
Campbell — Murphy
Steve and Cindy Campbell, of Marshalltown, announce the engagement of their daughter, Kourtney Erin Campbell to Ryan Patrick Murphy. Ryan is the son of Kathy Johnson, of Marshalltown, and Mike Murphy, of New Providence. The happy couple will be wed at Center Street Baptist Church on April ...
Johnston — Risius
Lester and Beverly Risius, of Marshalltown, and Walter and Debra Johnston, of Mechanicsville, wish to announce the engagement and upcoming marriage of their children, Adam Risius and Rebecca Johnston. The couple is planning a July wedding at Grace Community Church, North Liberty.
Schmitz-Lolwing
Anne Schmitz and Brandon Lolwing announce their engagement and upcoming wedding. Anne is the daughter of Jim and Vick Schmitz, of Cedar Falls, and Brandon is the son of Kathi and Bobby Abrahams, of Albion, and Bryan and Marta Lolwing, of Marshalltown. Anne is a 2008 graduate of Cedar Falls ...
Kaufman — Siemens
Allen and Luann Kaufman, of Tama, announces the engagement and approaching wedding of their daughter, Amber Kaufman to Jason Siemens, son of Harlan and LeAnn Siemens, of Marshalltown. Amber is a 2010 graduate of South Tama County High School and is currently a direct support staffer with ...
Ulen — Anctil
Jim and Robin Anctil, of Marshalltown, announce the engagement of their son, Ryan, to Alanna Ulen, daughter of Gordon and Janet Ulen, of Peabody, Mass. Ryan is a 2006 graduate of Marshalltown High School and a 2010 graduate of Drake University; he is currently employed as a Senior Logistics ...
Larson — McKibben
Rodney and Megan Larson, of Marshalltown, announce the engagement of their daughter, Lauren Larson to Connor McKibben, son of Kent and Tara McKibben, of Iowa Falls. They are both currently enrolled at the University of Northern Iowa. Lauren is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Elementary ...
Bjelland — Wilkinson
Katie Elaine Bjelland and Caleb John Wilkinson announce their engagement and upcoming wedding. Katie is the daughter of Brent and Phyllis Bjelland, of Marshalltown, and Caleb is the son of Walter and Jan Wilkinson, also of Marshalltown. Katie is a 2012 graduate of Marshalltown High School and ...
Harris — Bour
Kate Harris and Ryan Bour announce their engagement and upcoming wedding. Kate is the daughter of Jeff and Nancy Harris, of Marshalltown, and Ryan is the son of Nancy and Larry Seifert, of Tiffin, Ohio.Kate is a 2007 graduate of Marshalltown High School and a 2011 graduate of Simpson College in ...
Krafka — Stalzer
Emily Krafka and Ross Stalzer, both of Haverhill, are announcing their engagement and approaching wedding.Parents of the couple are Dave Krafka, of Dysart, Pat and Sue McLean, of Traer, and Dick and Sheryl Stalzer, of Haverhill.The bride-to-be is employed by Swift Greenhouses Inc., and the ...
Mitchell — Vance
Samantha Mitchell and Jonathan Vance announce their engagement and upcoming wedding. Samantha is the daughter of Ron and Donna Mitchell, and Jonathan is the son of Jeff and Anne Vance, all of Marshalltown.Samantha is a 2010 graduate of Marshalltown High School and a 2013 graduate of Central ...
Shiek — Dunlap
Rob and Becky Shiek, of Marshalltown, announce the engagement of their daughter, Caitlyn Shiek, to Drew Dunlap, of Beckley, W.Va., son of Charles Dunlap and the late Rebekah Dunlap, of Glen Daniels, W.Va.Caitlyn is a 2009 graduate of Marshalltown High School and a 2013 graduate of Simpson ...
Warren (Janssen) — Warnell
Connie and Bill Warren would like to announce the wedding of there daughter Sierra Warren (Janssen) to Colton Warnell, the son of Scott and Lori Warnell.The wedding will be held July 9.
Wiseman — Barber
Kevin and Cathy Wiseman, of Cedar Rapids, announce the engagement of their daughter, Alicia Joy, of Atlanta, Ga., to Nick Barber, also of Atlanta, Ga.Nick is the son of Mike and Diane Barber, Palm Coast, Fla. Alicia is the granddaughter of Alan and Joy West, of Marshalltown, and Dorothy and the ...
Ohrt — Berkson
Ed and Kathy Ohrt, of Gladbrook, are announcing the engagement and upcoming marriage of their daughter, Kayla Ann Ohrt to Eric William Berkson, son of William Berkson, of Laurel, Md., and Janet Young, of University Park, Md.The bride-to-be is a graduate of Gladbrook-Reinbeck High School. She ...
Harding — Bare
Dale and Catherine Harding, of Albion, would like to announce the upcoming wedding of their daughter Hannah Harding to Darren Bare, son of Patsy Morris and the late Richard Bare, of Anadarko, Okla. The couple will wed on June 4 at the Lincoln Valley Golf Course in State Center.
Harem — Wilson
Tim and Linda Harem and Todd and Angie Wilson, all of Le Grand, announce the engagement and upcoming wedding of their children Alissa Kay Harem and Lucas Allen Wilson.Alissa has a bachelor's degree in elementary education from the University of Northern Iowa. She is currently a second grade ...
Gifford — Trowbridge
John and Michele Trowbridge and Kelly and Karen Gifford are pleased to announce the engagement of Trent Trowbridge and Kristen Gifford.Trent is a 2011 graduate of Marshalltown High School and received his B.A. in Business Administration from Buena Vista. He is employed at Mercer in ...
Klinefelter — 99th
Evelyn Klinefelter celebrated her 99th birthday on Feb. 27 at Southridge Nursing and Rehab withfamily and friends attending.She was born on a farm north of Conrad and then after marriage resided in Grundy Center, Beaman for 25 years, Marshalltown and Bickford Cottage for eight years where she ...
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Information published on 3 April 2018 in the UIC electronic newsletter "UIC eNews" Nr 592.
Kazakhstan: NC Kazakhstan Temir Zholy JSC implements the “Digital Railway” programme, with five areas of activity
News from UIC members
On March 29 this year, a briefing was given by NC KTZ JSC on the implementation of the “Digital Kazakhstan” programme and the “Digital Railway” information technology development strategy.
Arman Nurushev, Vice-President for Information Technologies at NC KTZ JSC, reported on the projects implemented within the framework of the “Digital Railway” programme in the fields of freight, passenger, multimodal transportation and on projects implemented at railway infrastructure facilities, as well as in corporate areas.
“The “Digital Railway” strategy envisages digitalisation of the company’s business model and introduction of new technologies in all key operating segments - freight and passenger transportation, infrastructure and transport logistics,” the Vice-President said.
Mr Nurushev focussed on the digitalisation projects implemented in the domain of passenger transportation, whereby the objective is to increase customer orientation. An electronic ticket sales system has been implemented. Plans are underway to introduce a system of dynamic tariff management for centralised, 24/7 management of customer requests.
At railway infrastructure facilities, projects are being implemented to introduce digital path diagnostics, a traffic management centre, and digital services at 17 stations.
“Digitalisation of the transport and logistics complex will ensure transparency in the organisation of transportation, increase efficiency and reduce operating costs,” the Vice-President said.
Vladimir Petrov, Executive Director for Integrated Planning at KTZ Freight Transportation JSC, presented the introduction and operation of information systems in cargo movement, aimed at increasing efficiency in the organisation of the transportation process.
According to Mr Petrov, automated systems are aimed at operational management of transportation, integrated route processing, planning and forecasting of train-wagon traffic, control of consumption of diesel fuel, and electricity by locomotives.
One of the projects running successfully in NC KTZ JSC’s cargo sector is an automated management system for contractual and commercial work. Here, the principle of a “single electronic window” is used in the planning, organisation and implementation of transportation and electronic payment for services related to the transport of goods.
“Shippers can plan transportation via the Internet via ASU DKR (ACS VDCs) by submitting an application, issuing a shipping document and calculating the preliminary tariff for transportation. Currently, more than 20,000 customers of the company and more than 5,000 employees of freight stations are registered and working in the system”, Mr Petrov said.
Digitalisation processes will affect the scope of corporate tasks. Madiyar Sultanbek, Head of the “Integrated Planning System” department at NC KTZ JSC’s Business Transformation Centre, spoke about the final results of implementation of the integrated planning system with machine learning. The system will allow optimal allocation of resources and make effective decisions in operational, commercial and investment planning. A 3-4% optimisation of costs relating to the transportation process is forecast by 2021.
During the briefing, the speakers responded to questions raised by journalists regarding the further digitalisation of production processes, transport logistics, supply chain, improving electronic ticketing technology, and railway station activities.
(Source: NC Kazakhstan Temir Zholy JSC)
10th UIC World Congress on High Speed Rail to be held from 8 – 11 May 2018 in Ankara, Republic of Turkey Development of the UIC Standardisation Platform Finland: Railway network in southern Finland to be improved with 300 million euro investment Instagram account of the week Intercity and High-Speed Committee (Paris, 27 March 2018) International Conference on Railway Safety and Security (Djibouti, 28-29 March 2018) Key messages from the first UIC Global Signalling conference in Milan Meetings on Shift2Rail JU-funded projects OPEUS and FINE1 in Munich, 15-16 March UIC Terminology: Word of the Week
e-News articles with keyword Asia Pacific
Register now for the Asia-Pacific Railway Innovations Forum to be held from 21 – 24 May 2019 in Manila, Philippines (7 May) Kazakhstan: A regular feeder service on the Trans-Caspian route is launched (30 April) Russia: Oleg Belozerov says the approval of the Long-Term Development Programme of Russian Railways is a unique result (30 April) Register now for the Asia-Pacific Railway Innovations Forum to be held from 21 – 24 May 2019 in Manila, Philippines (30 April) UIC visits RZD traffic control centre on 22 April 2019 (23 April)
e-News articles with keyword News from UIC members
United States: U.S. Department of Transportation announces selection of two new University Transportation Centers (18 June) Kazakhstan: Passenger Transportation JSC has prepared the rolling stock for the summer and plans to transport over 6 million passengers per season (11 June) United States: Amtrak improving North East Corridor infrastructure (11 June) Denmark launches Copenhagen-Ringsted high-speed line (11 June) Eurostar provides 360° guide to help travellers with autism (4 June)
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Elective Rotations
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UMMC Bulletin
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Support the Department of Emergency Medicine
Since our program participates in the sports medicine match program through NRMP, interested candidates must register for the match in the fall of the last year of residency training. Interested physicians who have completed a primary care residency program and are board-certified are also encouraged to apply.
The fellowship application is available through the American Society of Sports Medicine website and is accepted through ERAS. It must be submitted by Oct. 15 of the application year. Interviews are offered in November and December. The match date for the Sports Medicine Fellowship is usually in January. For more information, call Patrick O'Brien (601) 984-5582.
University of Mississippi Medical Center
The University of Mississippi Medical Center provides an academic setting for the fellowship program. The availability of expertise in all areas of medicine and surgery provides ample support for any injury or illness one may encounter in sports medicine.
The sports medicine fellow will function primarily in the Department of Family Medicine Sports Medicine clinics 2-1/2 days each week, in his/her area of specialty one-half day per week, and one day a week in other specialty orthopedic and sports medicine clinics. One day each week is dedicated to didactic and self-directed learning as well as training room rounds at Millsaps College and area high schools.
Fellowship schedule
The fellow will not have call responsibilities with the residents. However, the fellow will be available for event coverage most nights of the week. The fellow will be limited to less than 80 hours per week with at least one day of each week without fellowship responsibilities.
Upon successful completion of the program, the fellow will be eligible to sit for the CAQ examination in sports medicine through the American Board of Family Physicians. The salary offered for the fellowship is the PGY4 salary and includes all the benefits thereof. Eighteen days of personal leave and time off for the annual meeting of the American Society of Sports Medicine is provided. In addition to the personal leave allowed, there are 9 UMMC holidays, including one floating holiday which may be taken at any time during the fiscal year (July-June) pending supervisor approval.
High school and health care disparities
Sports medicine fellows will provide care to student athletes in inner-city Jackson schools. University Sports Medicine has made a commitment to have a presence at Lanier and Provine high schools by assigning an ATC to each school. We also provide sports medicine coverage for several other schools in the surrounding area.
The fellow will be assigned to cover games for these schools frequently throughout the year. Fellows will also have teaching responsibilities for students and residents who are rotating in sports medicine.
College athletes and student health
In addition to the University of Mississippi, the sports medicine fellow will experience caring for collegiate athletes at Millsaps College and Tougaloo College in Jackson. The sports include football, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's basketball, lacrosse, baseball, softball, volleyball, tennis, golf and cross-country running. We believe that our programs offers the fellow a unique opportunity for exposure to all levels of athletes.
Professional sports and community events
Sports medicine fellows will be involved in the care of local professional sports (Mississippi Braves,) and major sports events (Dixie National Rodeo, Sanderson Farms Classic PGA tour, Mississippi Blues Marathon) in the Jackson area.
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Uncategories Nigerians To Know Their President Latest Wednesday - INEC
Nigerians To Know Their President Latest Wednesday - INEC
Tony Odijie February 21, 2019
INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu disclosed this Wednesday in Abuja while briefing journalists on the state of preparedness of the commission for the polls.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has said the conclusion of declaration of the 2019 Presidential Election results would not take longer than the 2015 elections in spite of the sheer number of presidential candidates, size of the result sheets and increased voter population.
This was as the commission said it has achieved a 100 percent reconfiguration of its 180, 000 smart card readers ahead of the Presidential and National Assembly Elections on Saturday.
“At yesterday’s briefing, we reported that we achieved 95% configuration of the Smart Card Readers SCR nationwide. The Card Readers were introduced in the 2015 general elections to facilitate the accreditation of voters using the PVCs. They are configured to specific polling units and only open for use at 8am on Election Day. They automatically shut down by 10 pm in order to forestall any illegal use before the appointed time of elections. I am pleased to report that we have now achieved 100% completion of the configuration. We are good to go on this score.
“Similarly, I briefed you yesterday that our State offices had commenced the process of inviting stakeholders to the Central Bank of Nigeria to examine the retrieved materials deployed last week and to witness the batching of materials according to Local Government Areas (LGAs). Reports from the States indicate full compliance.
“I briefed you yesterday that having moved the sensitive materials to the 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the forward deployment to the 774 LGAs nationwide will commence today Wednesday 20thFebruary 2019 and be concluded tomorrow Thursday 21stFebruary 2019. Already, Adamawa, Anambra, Benue, Ekiti, Jigawa, Katsina, Osun, Ogun, Oyo and Taraba States have commenced the movement of materials to LGAs today. Other States will do so and conclude tomorrow. We will give a full rendition of movement to LGAs across all States of the Federation tomorrow.
“We have been making good progress on logistics. Similarly, all other arrangements for the movement of personnel from the LGAs to the Wards are on course. We will fully brief you tomorrow at 3pm”, he stated.
Declaration of Results
Yakubu said the commission was working to ensure that it does not keep Nigerians waiting for days without declaring the results, saying the time limit would not exceed what obtained in 2015.
In 2015, while the Presidential Election held on a Saturday, a winner was not declared until the following Wednesday.
“Even though this time around we have more presidential candidates than in 2015, we have more registered voters than we had in 2015, the size of the result sheet is bigger than we had in 2015, but we are committed to concluding the process for the Presidential elections roughly about the same time that we concluded the 2015 general elections. We will do whatever we can to ensure that we speedily conclude the process but we won’t sacrifice accuracy for speed”, he declared.
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Built on stilts: Brick house rises on on jacks during floods
© Larkfleet Group of Companies
The great American architect Louis Sullivan wrote:
It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law.
Then there is this, discovered on Inhabitat; a boxy brick house weighing 71 US tons that rises up five feet above the ground when there is a flood. Being built by Larkfleet, a british builder, it theoretically could open up new development sites.
Karl Hick, CEO of The Larkfleet Group of Companies, said: “The elevating house effectively eliminates the risk of flood damage to homes so that more land across the country can be approved for future home building. This will help to tackle the ‘housing crisis’ that is being caused by the demand for new housing far exceeding the supply.”
The house will have flexible water and sewage connections and solar power so it could keep going for a while in a flood. However the builders expect that the owners would “pack up, lock up and jack up the home before taking refuge in temporary accommodation on higher ground elsewhere”.
But it looks so odd, a big heavy brick house sitting up there on jacks. Why not have form follow function? Why not design a lighter house? Why not just build it on stilts five feet up in the first place? Look at what some of our best architects have built on stilts, on sites that can flood.
© Kieran Timberlake
There is Kieran Timberlake’s Loblolly house, one of my favourites.
© Tom Kundig/ Sol Duc Cabin
There is Olson Kundig’s Sol Duc Cabin, which is also designed to seal up tight when the owners are away.
© R. Buckminster Fuller Estate
And of course Bucky Fuller’s Dymaxion house hung from a central mast and weighed almost nothing.
Which brings us back to this silly Larkfleet house on hydraulics. It would be a lot simpler and cheaper just to build a nice light house up on five foot stilts than to try and lift 71 tons of bricks. Or to simply remember that form follows function.
Whatever happened to "form follows function"?
Built on stilts: Karrie Jacobs on a strange new kind of house being...
Built on Stilts: House In Never Never Land Completed
A Passive House is built on stilts
Woodworkers' mobile workshop is powered by recycled electric car ba...
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Category: Contemporary Fiction
View Categories / Contemporary Fiction
Friday Nights
Publisher: Bloomsbury: January 0001
Rescue: A Novel
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company: January 0001
Music for Torching
By: A. M. Homes
Publisher: Harper Perennial: April 2000
As A.M. Homes's incendiary novel unfolds, the Kodacolor hues of the good life become nearly hallucinogenic.Laying bare th foundations of a marriage, flash frozen in the anxious entropy of a suburban subdivision, Paul and Elaine spin the quit terors of family life into a fantastical frenzy that careens out of control. From a strange and hilarious encounter with a Stepford Wife neighbor to an ill-conceived plan for a tattoo, to a sexy cop who shows up at all the wrong moments, to a housecleaning team in space suits, a mistress calling on a cell phone, and a hostage situationat a school, A.M. ... View more info
Safety of Objects
Publisher: HarperCollins: January 2003
Published to overwhelming critical acclaim, this extraordinary collection of short stories established A. M. Homes as one of the most provocative and daring writers of her generation. Here you'll find the cult classic "A Real Doll," the tale of a teenage boy's erotic obsession with his sister's favorite doll; "Adults Alone," which first introduced Paul and Elaine, the crack-smoking yuppie couple whose marriage careens out of control in Homes's novel Music for Torching; and "Looking for Johnny," in which a kidnapped boy, having failed his abductor's expectations, is returned home. Brill... View more info
By: A. Manette Ansay
Publisher: Harper Perennial: March 1998
In a stark, troubling, yet ultimately triumphant celebration of self-determination, award-winning author A. Manette Ansay re-creates a stifling world of guilty and pain, and the tormented souls who inhabit it. It is 1972 when circumstance carries Ellen Grier and her family back to Holly's Field, Wisconsin. Dutifully accompanying her newly unemployed husband, Ellen has brought her two children into the home of her in-laws on Vinegar Hill--a loveless house suffused with the settling dust of bitterness and routine--where calculated cruelty is a way of life preserved and perpetuated in the service... View more info
From New York Times bestselling author A. Manette Ansay comes an unforgettable story of two families united by tragedy -- and one woman's deeply emotional journey toward a choice she'd never thought possible.On an ordinary morning in Fox Harbor, Wisconsin, Meg and Rex Van Dorn's lives are irrevocably altered when a drunk driver -- Meg's onetime best friend, Cindy Ann Kreisler -- slams into the Van Dorns' car, killing their six-year-old son, Evan. As Meg recovers from her own injuries, she and Rex are shocked when Cindy Ann receives a mere slap on the wrist. In their rage and grief, they ... View more info
River Angel
Publisher: Harpercollins: April 1998
In April, 1991, in a little Wisconsin town about 100 miles southwest of the town where I grew up, a misfit boy was kidnapped by a group of high school kids who, later would testify they only meant to frighten him, to drive him around for a while. Somehow they ended up in the river whooping and hollering on a two lane bridge. Somehow, the boy was shoved, he jumped, he slipped -- accounts vary -- into the icy water. The kids told police they never heard a splash; one reported seeing a brilliant flash of light. (Several people in the area witnessed a similar light, while others recalled hearing s... View more info
Publisher: Harpercollins: May 2006
In a stark, troubling, yet ultimately triumphant celebration of self-determination, award-winning author A. Manette Ansay re-creates a stifling world of guilty and pain, and the tormented souls who inhabit it. It is 1972 when circumstance carries Ellen Grier and her family back to Holly's Field, Wisconsin. Dutifully accompanying her newly unemployed husband, Ellen has brought her two children into the home of her in-laws on Vinegar Hill -- a loveless house suffused with the settling dust of bitterness and routine -- where calculated cruelty is a way of life preserved and perpetuated in the ... View more info
Midnight Champagne
Publisher: Harper Perennial: August 2000
April Liesgang and Caleb Shannon have known each other for just three short months, so their Valentine's Day wedding at a chapel near the shores of Lake Michigan has both families in an uproar. As the festivities unfold (and the cash bar opens), everyone has an opinion and a lively prediction about April and Caleb's union, each the reflection of a different marital experience.Meanwhile, at the nearby Hideaway Lodge, a domestic quarrel ends in tragedy. As April and Caleb's life together begins, death parts another man and woman in angry violence--and as the two stories gradually intersect... View more info
Babel Tower
By: A.S. Byatt
Publisher: Random House: April 1996
Angels & Insects: Two Novellas
In these breathtaking novellas, A.S. Byatt returns to the territory she explored in "Possession": the landscape of Victorian England, where science and spiritualism are both popular manias, and domestic decorum coexists with brutality and perversion. Angels and Insects is "delicate and confidently ironic.... Byatt perfectly blends laughter and sympathy with extraordinary sensuality" ("San Francisco Examiner"). "From the Trade Paperback edition." View more info
Publisher: Vintage: April 1994
In these breathtaking novellas, A.S. Byatt returns to the territory she explored in "Possession" the landscape of Victorian England, where science and spiritualism are both popular manias, and domestic decorum coexists with brutality and perversion. Angels and Insects is "delicate and confidently ironic.... Byatt perfectly blends laughter and sympathy with] extraordinary sensuality" ("San Francisco Examiner"). View more info
Passions of the Mind
Publisher: Random House: January 1992
The Game: A Novel (Vintage International)
Publisher: Vintage: November 1992
The Children's Book
Publisher: Vintage: August 2010
Light pencil underlining. View more info
The Secrets Sisters Keep: A Novel
By: Abby Drake
Publisher: Avon A: October 2010
Sisters should be the best of friends, but . . .When it comes to family secrets, the four Dalton sisters have had more than their share. Then quirky, spirited Uncle Edward decides to throw a seventy-fifth birthday celebration and wanders off, leaving the women to face their past--and one another. Ellie-the eldest, tended to Uncle Edward instead of her dreams. Exasperated with his antics, aware that she's not getting any younger, is she finally ready to take off for Egypt?Amanda-the Park Avenue snob, spent two decades raising three kids and squandering money she didn't have. Now tha... View more info
I Do Not Come to You by Chance
By: Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani
Publisher: Hyperion: May 2009
A deeply moving debut novel set amid the perilous world of Nigerian email scams, I Do Not Come to You by Chance tells the story of one young man and the family who loves him. Being the opera of the family, Kingsley Ibe is entitled to certain privileges--a piece of meat in his egusi soup, a party to celebrate his graduation from university. As first son, he has responsibilities, too. But times are bad in Nigeria, and life is hard. Unable to find work, Kingsley cannot take on the duty of training his younger siblings, nor can he provide his parents with financial peace in their retirement. And t... View more info
Big Stone Gap
By: Adriana Trigiani
Publisher: Fawcett: January 2003
"FUNNY, CHARMING, AND ORIGINAL."-FANNIE FLAGG Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, the tiny town of Big Stone Gap is home to some of the most charming eccentrics in the state. Ave Maria Mulligan is the town's self-proclaimed spinster, a thirty-five year old pharmacist with a "mountain girl's body and a flat behind." She lives an amiable life with good friends and lots of hobbies until the fateful day in 1978 when she suddenly discovers that she's not who she always thought she was. Before she can blink, Ave's fielding marriage proposals, fighting off greedy family members, ... View more info
Milk Glass Moon: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
Publisher: Ballantine Books: July 2003
Milk Glass Moon, the third book in Adriana Trigiani's bestselling Big Stone Gap series, continues the life story of Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney as she faces the challenges and changes of motherhood with her trademark humor and honesty. With twists as plentiful as those found on the holler roads of southwest Virginia, this story takes turns that will surprise and enthrall the reader. Transporting us from Ave Maria's home in the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Italian Alps, from New York City to the Tuscan countryside, Milk Glass Moon""is the story of a shifting mother-daughter relationship, o... View more info
The Queen of the Big Time: A Novel
Publisher: Ballantine Books: May 2005
Known and loved around the world for her sweeping Big Stone Gap trilogy and the instant "New York Times" bestseller Lucia, Lucia, Adriana Trigiani returns to the charm and drama of small-town life with Queens of the Big Time. This heartfelt story of the limits and power of love chronicles the remarkable lives of the Castellucas, an Italian-American family, over the course of three generations. In the late 1800s, the residents of a small village in the Bari region of Italy, on the shores of the Adriatic Sea, made a mass migration to the promised land of America. They settled in Roseto, Penn... View more info
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Benton and Franklin counties received “DNC” marks — Data Not Collected — for particle pollution because the area has no state or federal monitors.
The state and EPA decide where to place monitors, said the association. There are state or EPA monitors in less than 1,000 of the 3,068 U.S. counties.
The Tri-Cities earned a failing grade for its increasing problems with ozone after recent hot summers and wildfire smoke have taken their toll, a new report said.
The new report shows Yakima’s air quality has significantly worsened, coming in sixth in the nation for most dirty with short-term particle pollution.
Heat, fires and ozone
Smoke from wildfires has been linked to spikes in Tri-Cities ozone levels in some cases.
Ozone in the Earth’s upper atmosphere is good, shielding people from harmful ultraviolet radiation. But high levels near the ground are a health hazard.
Ozone can aggravate asthma, inflame and scar lung tissue, and make people more susceptible to bronchitis and pneumonia.
Children, the elderly, people with lung disease and those who work hard or exercise outdoors are most at risk.
After finding unhealthy ozone levels in the Tri-Cities air in 2015 that were nearly as high as those downwind of Seattle, the Department of Ecology launched a study with support from the Benton Clean Air Agency.
The study, finished last spring, showed the 2015 ozone levels were no fluke.
The average for 2015 through 2017 exceeded the federal regulatory limit for ozone, which could trigger sanctions from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The sanctions likely would hit the local economy. They could make getting air quality permits more difficult for new or expanding businesses, or require them to invest in projects that would offset their contribution to the ozone problem.
The Lung Association report shows the ozone pollution worsened in much of the nation, with Los Angeles leading the way.
Of the 25 most-ozone-polluted cities in the U.S, 17 had more high ozone days on weighted average during 2015-17 than the 2014-16 measurements, said the report.
Washington state health officials are urging residents to be prepared for smoky days with poor air quality as wildfire season heats up. Seniors, young children and people with existing respiratory problems are especially vulnerable.
“Warmer temperatures stimulate the reactions in the atmosphere that cause ozone to form, and 2017 saw the second-warmest temperatures on record in the United States,” the report said.
The three years covered in this report, 2015-17, were the three warmest years ever recorded, it said.
Car exhaust and gas fumes
In the Tri-Cities, the chemicals that create ozone can come from the exhaust of vehicles and gasoline vapors. They also can come from industrial facilities.
How can people help?
The report recommends people drive less and don’t burn wood or trash.
The association also asks people to encourage local, state and Congressional officials to support cleaner, healthier air.
The good news is that wildfire danger should be no worse than normal for the Mid-Columbia, according to recent projections of the National Interagency Fire Center.
But areas to the north and south of the Tri-Cities may be at increased risk for wildfires this summer, raising the possibility of stagnant smoke settling over the Tri-Cities for a third summer in a row.
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A Matter of Interpretation – DOL Fines FL Operator
In a cautionary tale for launderers nationwide, a Florida hospitality operator, Miami-based Crown Linen LLC, recently was cited for violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) for employing supervisors and an assistant chief engineer at its Orlando plant as salaried staff, when an inspector determined that they were – in her view – misclassified hourly employees.
A company can never be sure its interpretation of the law will match that of a Department of Labor (DOL) inspector, said Managing Partner Pablo Lucchesi, noting that the company has maintained the management structure for which it was cited since its founding more than 15 years ago. The plant had passed previous DOL inspections, but this time, the inspector held that the company was not in compliance with the FLSA.
Crown management objected to the ruling, but decided to reclassify the affected staff members rather than engage in a costly lawsuit with the DOL. “We do not agree with the concept because supervisors have a management role,” Lucchesi said. “They don’t really work on machines as operators. They perform their role on the production floor, but they don’t work as machine operators.” The DOL inspector wasn’t moved by these arguments, he said.
Joseph Shelton, a partner in the firm of Fisher & Phillips, Atlanta, and a specialist in FLSA compliance issues, said the case wasn’t altogether surprising. “What Crown experienced is not uncommon in that a company’s long-standing classifications of exempt employees might be challenged as being unlawful.”
As a result of the settlement, Crown agreed to reclassify roughly 20 salaried employees in the two classifications affected by the citation as hourly staff. These employees are now working on a fluctuating hourly work week. Crown Human Resources Director Mayra Rodriguez said that under this system, these employees earn half-time pay when they exceed 40 hours. They also may work less than 40 hours during slow periods. “A fluctuating work week recognizes a half rate of pay for hours worked over 40 for individuals in that role,” Rodriguez said. “It does guarantee the individuals a fixed weekly salary. But then hours worked over 40 there is a formula that Department of Labor does support.” One irony of the change resulting from the citation is that under the new system, employees may in fact earn less than they did before the change.
Shelton said this type of compensation model is helpful to companies in certain situations. “While the fluctuating hourly work week isn’t always the best substitute for paying the more standard hourly rate and time-and-a-half for hours worked over 40 in a week, this approach does have benefits that can sometimes outweigh the cons for certain positions.”
Crown’s agreement with the DOL requires the company to pay roughly $64,000 in back wages over a two-year period to the employees affected by the ruling. Rodriguez pointed out the violations weren’t classified as “willful,” which would have required payment of up to three years’ back wages. The DOL also imposed no civil penalties on Crown. “There’s a distinction between what is with intent and what is not,” Rodriguez said. “This was not identified as a willful violation, which is why the back wages only goes back a period of two years. It also includes why we were not issued any civil money penalties or any other charges from this audit. I think it’s very important to identify that because it’s certainly not an intended action on behalf of Crown Linen.” Lucchesi said a Miami Herald article on the case misleadingly implied that Crown had deliberately withheld wages from its staff.
Rodriguez said the change hasn’t impacted staff morale at the plant. Employees are going about their duties as before, although now they are classified as hourly staff, rather than supervisory personnel who are exempt from FLSA overtime requirements. Crown’s other four plants have made similar adjustments to staff classifications in order to ensure full compliance with the law.
As for other companies dealing with similar issues, Lucchesi and Rodriguez advised carefully reviewing the DOL’s statutory requirements on job classifications. “They have a lot of latitude to do an interpretation of the law,” Lucchesi said.
Shelton agreed that reviewing company policies in this area can help ensure ongoing compliance. “Periodic reviews/audits of your company’s pay practices are vital to determine if your business has potential wage-hour violations,” Shelton said. “Audits of this nature should put a spotlight on whether your exempt employees would meet the tests for the applicable exemptions.” Other areas potential vulnerability that Shelton cited include:
Off the Clock Issues – are you engaging workers in ways that could trigger off the clock violations?
Time Records – are your time keeping records in compliance with what the law requires?
Overtime Calculations – are you correctly determining the “regular rate of pay” when calculating your overtime payment obligations?
Deductions – are you lawfully handling deductions for things like uniforms, shortages, and property damage?
Independent Contractor Classification – are your 1099 workers really going to survive scrutiny if they are put under a microscope?
Any TRSA member with questions about FLSA compliance or other legal issues has access to up to 30 minutes of free consultation from Shelton or other attorneys at his firm, Fisher & Phillips, at no charge. Click here to learn more.
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Mission Linen Celebrates Employee’s 65 Years of Service
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Talks and Living History Presentations for Your Community
Art: History and Appreciation
Return to the main Speakers Bureau Catalogue page.
View biographies of our presenters.
Talks with the Art: History and Appreciation theme:
A Manner of Speaking - Using various examples from his own and others’ work, Alan demonstrates how writers creating speeches and monologues must pay special attention to such elements as focus, rhythm and sound devices.
Adventures in Mime & Space: The Legacy of Marcel Marceau - Rob Mermin explores the metaphors of mime technique—what mime master Marcel Marceau called "the silent language of the soul."
Alfred Hitchcock and the Art of Suspense - Rick Winston discusses the evolution of Alfred Hitchcock’s craft, exploring his favorite themes, his relationships with his collaborators, and his wry sense of humor.
All the Film’s A Stage - Join Rick Winston in an exploration of how cinema has portrayed what goes into a theater production, from audition to rehearsal to performance.
An Apprentice Boat Builder in Japan - Douglas Brooks shares his experience apprenticing with Japanese boat builders, participating in the country's rich history of traditional arts and crafts.
Cartooning Reconsidered - James Sturm explores a brief history of the language and art of comics, and the new ways that cartooning and visual storytelling are changing the world.
Circle of Sawdust: The Mud, Myth, and Magic of the Circus - Rob Mermin shows rare film clips and relates personal anecdotes of wacky characters, wild escapades, and poignant recollections of life in the world of circus.
Ivory Vikings: The Mystery of the Lewis Chessmen - Nancy Marie Brown discusses the Lewis Chessmen, which present a capsule history of the Vikings in the North Atlantic, when the sea-road connected countries we think of as culturally distinct.
New England Impressions: Art and the Making of Regional Identity, 1885-1950 - William Hosley tells the story of the New England painters, printmakers and photographers who used our history, landscape, environment, and traditional industries as subject matter and muse.
Silents Are Golden: A Celebration of Silent Cinema - An entertaining and educational lecture lavishly illustrated with clips from 100 silent film comedies and dramas from the 1920s!
The Postmodern Turn in Architecture - David Mills explores the ways in which opposing theories of human nature have shaped and reshaped the designs and skylines of contemporary cities.
Vermont Folk Art - Jane Beck discusses the process of learning a traditional art, life crises that spur the creation of folk art, and the emotional bond that exists between the maker and the receiver of a folk art object.
What is Art? - David Mills explores ways of encountering art as more than just subjective preference, imagining art history as an ongoing conversation.
Speakers Bureau Catalogue
New Speakers Bureau Talks: 2019
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In Correctional Facilities (PDF)
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June 25 Public Record
The following people were arrested on felony charges by law enforcement agencies in Davidson County, and, unless noted otherwise, were either placed in the Davidson County Detention Center or released from custody and are scheduled to appear in Lexington District Court on the date given:
• William Todd Miller, 30, of 212 Sherwood Drive, was charged with habitual larceny, $5,000 secured bond, July 10.
• Robert Douglas Meadows, 28, of 304 Phillips St., Thomasville, was charged with possession of a stolen firearm, misdemeanor carrying a concealed gun, $10,000 unsecured bond, July 17.
• Bobby Hester Fowler II, 44, of 16 Goforth Drive, Thomasville, was charged with possession of methamphetamine, possession with intent to manufacture, sell or deliver a schedule II controlled substance, misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia, $150,000 secured bond, Aug. 7.
• Christopher Parson, 50, of Hartsville, South Carolina, was charged with fleeing to elude arrest with a motor vehicle, misdemeanor resisting a public officer, speeding, reckless driving to endanger, $20,000 secured bond, Aug. 28.
• Walter Douglas Proveaux, 48, of 572 Greenhills Drive, was charged with habitual larceny, misdemeanor larceny, misdemeanor resisting a public officer, misdemeanor second degree trespassing, $10,000 secured bond, July 22.
• Erica Lynn Shumake, 30, of 327 E. Third Ave. Ext., was charged with possession with intent to manufacture, sell or deliver methamphetamine, $25,000 secured bond, July 30.
• Steven Stoeckel, 55, of 707 Hyde St., was charged with breaking and entering a motor vehicle, misdemeanor larceny, misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia, $10,000 secured bond, July 29.
LARCENIES
The following larcenies more than $1,000 were reported to the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office and the Lexington Police Department:
• $7,550 in cash was reported stolen from a bank account between Dec. 2 and June 18.
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The Nutshell
Science in Space
A brief list of some of the more fascinating experiments that will accompany today’s shuttle mission.
Jessica P. Johnson
WIKIMIEDIA COMMONS, RAS67
Today (July 8) at 11:26 a.m. EST, the Atlantis space shuttle is scheduled for the last-ever NASA shuttle launch, ending a program that sent five shuttles on 134 missions to space. This final mission will last 13 days, and, as usual, it will carry an astonishing array of organisms and equipment all in the name of scientific discovery. Here are a few.
Tomatosphere-III
Nearly half a million tomato seeds will spend the two weeks in space and, upon their return, be distributed to 10,000 Canadian classrooms where the students will measure germination success, growth rate, and overall health of the tomato plants after prolonged exposure to space.
Pee recycler
NASA prefers to call it the Forward Osmosis Bag (FOB) system, but the purpose of this IV-like bag filled with blue liquid is simple—to turn sweat and urine into drinkable water. The International Space Station already uses a wastewater-recycling machine, but it requires a power supply. FOB is a passive system that was adapted from a military version that is already in use, reports Wired Science. If successful in a microgravity environment, it may someday be installed into spacesuits.
Bone loss in microgravity
Mice from The Pennsylvania State University will spend almost two weeks on the shuttle, and when they return, researchers will compare their bone density to control mice that never left Earth. The team hopes to better understand the effects of weightlessness on the ability of bone marrow stem cells to build bone, and the mechanism of bone loss that result from prolonged bed-rest and aging.
Space phones
Two smartphones—Apple’s iPhone 4 and Samsung’s Nexus S—will make the trip. NASA is testing the iPhone’s utility as a navigation system, using its internal gyroscope, accelerometer, and camera to determine position in space and altitude above the earth. People on earth can play along by downloading a 99-cent app, reports PC World. The phone will also measure radiation exposure, which may affect the phone’s functionality. Samsung’s phone will be installed inside small, free-flying satellites called SPHERES, making the satellites remote-controllable and capable of collecting survey information and photo and video images outside the spacecraft.
Robonaut
Robonaut is a robot that looks like a person. A torso-only version of this bot has already been built on the International Space Station, but it is not yet sufficiently protected from the environment outside the Station. NASA will work to develop Robonaut’s abilities to eventually work alongside humans, operate space vehicles, and manipulate objects with its dexterous “hands” in a microgravity environment.
tomatosphere
Genetic Study Points to Metabolic Roots of Anorexia Nervosa
Opinion: Applying AI to Clinical Care Is Key to Individualized Medicine
Mardis on the Future of Clinical Genomics
Image of the Day: Fly Eye
Image of the Day: Digital Adaptation
Researchers strive to make individualized medicine a reality
LabQuizzes
Beckman Coulter: Ultra Harmonic Technology for Better Centrifugation
Prevent poor centrifugal separation with Ultra Harmonic Technology!
Measures that Matter: Microbiological Quality Control for Pharma
Download this eBook to learn more about the importance of sterility testing and workflow monitoring, particulate problems and monitoring laboratory air quality, microbial enumeration in liquid samples, and dealing with the threat of mycoplasma contamination!
Sample Preparation for Single Cell Analysis: Tips and Tricks
In this LabTools webinar, sponsored by 10X Genomics, Dr. Jill Herschleb will explore critical sample prep decisions and considerations for assay design and optimization.
The Human Microbiome: Beyond the Gut
To examine the human microbiome beyond the gut, The Scientist is bringing together experts from the field to share their research, and answer questions from webinar attendees.
Sponsored Product Updates
Overcoming the Efficiency Challenge in Clinical NGS
Download this white paper to see how an ECS lab serving a network of more than 10,000 healthcare providers integrated QIAGEN Clinical Insight (QCI) Interpret to significantly reduce manual variant curation efforts and increase workflow efficiency by 80%!
Veravas Launches Product Portfolio to Mitigate Biotin Interference and Improve Diagnostic Assay Accuracy
Veravas, Inc., an emerging diagnostic company, launched a portfolio of products that can improve the accuracy of current diagnostic test results by helping laboratory professionals detect and manage biotin interference in patient samples with VeraTest Biotin and VeraPrep Biotin.
New Data on Circulating Tumor DNA as a Biomarker for Detecting Cancer Progression Presented at 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting
Scientists presented more than 30 abstracts featuring Bio-Rad’s Droplet Digital PCR (ddPCR) technology at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting in Chicago, May 31–June 4.
BellBrook Labs Receives NIH Grant for the Discovery of cGAS Inhibitors to Treat Autoimmune Diseases
The National Institute Of Allergy And Infectious Disease recently awarded BellBrook Labs a $300,000 Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grant to develop novel inhibitors for the target cyclic GAMP Synthase (cGAS). The grant will be used to accelerate the discovery of new treatments for autoimmune diseases by targeting the cGAS-STING pathway.
© 1986 - 2019The Scientist. All rights reserved.
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https://www.thebody.com/article/taboo-sex-racism-and-gay-men-a-chat-in-black-and-w
HIV/AIDS Resource Center for Gay Men
Taboo Sex, Racism and Gay Men: A Chat in Black and White
Mark S. King
MyFabulousDisease.com
Charles Stephens
the Counter Narrative Project
In thirty years of HIV work alongside black advocates, I have rarely written on the topic of race. It makes me uncomfortable, or perhaps I feel unequipped, unqualified. But it's that very hesitancy, according to black gay academic Charles Stephens, that only makes racism worse.
Charles, the founder of the Counter Narrative Project in Atlanta, proved to be the perfect person with whom to chat about race (and sex, and fetishes) -- when he wasn't turning the tables on me with uncomfortable questions of his own. In our very candid chat, we discuss gay men, sex, racism, HIV, and the thrill of the taboo.
Here's our eye-opening conversation:
Can we talk about gay men, black and white? And I also want to discuss what it means for an HIV advocate who is white to be a supportive ally. I have some ignorant questions, probably.
So much of how I understand what it means to be anti-racist, if that's even possible, is not just about mastering the right or wrong things to say. Racism is a chronic condition. It's something you have to constantly work against. The reward is your humanity.
And Mark, please tell the other white gays that desiring black men sexually does not make them any less racist. Milo Yiannopoulos is currently the queen of this line of thinking.
Oh good, let's go there. What does "sexual racism," is that's the term for it, look like to you?
For me, there is just racism. There have been a lot of writing about white men who don't find men of color sexually desirable. I'm more interested in seeing more stories from black men who love and partner with other black men. What does it mean for black men to celebrate black love?
What about the objectification of black men as hot sexual beings? You wrote a really terrific piece about how photographer Robert Mapplethorpe set the bar for objectifying black men with his stark nudes of dark-skinned men.
A lot of white gay men were very upset with me about the piece. They were uncomfortable with me discussing race in the context of sexuality. I suppose having to think about race too much gets in the way of their fetishizing black penises.
It's okay, you can say it here. Reducing a black man to "I want your big black cock." That must get old.
Is Robert Mapplethorpe the only photographer you know who focuses on black subjects? Do you know the work of Rotimi Fani-Kayode? Ajamu X? Lyle Ashton Harris?
Um, no. But Mapplethorpe is iconic, so that's my defense.
If someone only knows about or supports the work of white artists, that's not consistent with ending racism. Mapplethorpe made his career off the pain of black people.
I'm Googling these other artists as we speak.
Anyway, I think there are some white men that desire black men sexually not because they love individual black men, but because interracial desire is taboo. Or they get off on seeing their white skin next to black skin.
Yes, the contrast of color. I'm tempted to compare it to my being a redhead and being pursued by men who were only interested in that. But that doesn't begin to compare when the trait is race, not hair.
Of course that's not the same thing as being objectified for being black. Do you enjoy being fetishized as a redhead?
Eh. If I was getting something in the transaction, it didn't bother me. But gingers aren't taboo, of course. The thrill of the taboo is everywhere in our sexual DNA, right? Race. Cross-generational coupling. And yes, HIV. In my single-life shenanigans, I heard "give me your poz load" all the damn time.
Does this kind of roleplay arouse you?
Who, me? I'll ask the questions! Let's just say I try to be somewhat forgiving about what pops out of your mouth in the heat of passion. Within reason.
I have no interest in policing people's fantasies, but we must be able to confront the most taboo aspects of our sexuality.
Sex without a barrier -- we even created a naughty-sounding name for it, "barebacking" -- used to be more of a taboo than it is now. Since it has become safer and something even "responsible" guys can do (via new tools like PrEP and being HIV undetectable), I bet guys don't say "give me your raw dick" nearly as much as they used to. Just a guess.
We have to accept the diverse, complicated, and even uncomfortable ways our imaginations conjure sexual fantasies. In the HIV community in particular, I hope we become more courageous in having conversations around sex, around power, desire, and race. I hope that we get to that place.
We're both very involved in the cause of HIV criminalization, and perhaps the most visible case thus far has been that of Michael Johnson, also known for his screen name, "Tiger Mandingo." He's a young black gay man who has been in jail for years for not disclosing his status to his sex partners (he was recently granted a new trial), but most every article about him has some hot photo of him without his shirt on.
So much of the public narrative surrounding Michael has been shaped by salacious headlines and descriptions of his sex life with no interest in his humanity. This is often the case for black gay men with "imperfect narratives." Steven Thrasher at Buzzfeed was one of a few exceptions to that. Michael Johnson's case catapulted racial justice front and center in the HIV Decriminalization movement in a really historic way. I kept hearing that black gay men were not interested in fighting against HIV Criminalization, but what I learned is that we were not being engaged. There was no robust effort to invest in our leadership.
So, you believe the first instinct among AIDS agencies and leaders was to ignore Michael Johnson, because of his race and "imperfect narrative?"
There were a lot of large national organizations that basically ignored his case until they realized they couldn't. Many still do. That being said, there were also some amazing organizations, particularly in the HIV justice movement, that supported him from the beginning.
You've written about this kind of racial hierarchy in our organizations and institutions. I feel like we're still coming to grips with this. First, in the way that early AIDS is presented as a battlefield populated almost exclusively with white gay men. I loved Kenyon Farrow's takedown of the CBS News story about the early days, which presented a very lily-white picture of the crisis years.
There seems to be a public empathy that white gay men were able to inspire that black gay men never received. The HIV epidemic has always been a very black epidemic and the public face early on was not black gay men. Meanwhile, the AIDS Industrial Complex has been built on black pain. The inequitable distribution of resources, and the starving of black organizations, has been absolutely criminal.
You know what phrase wasn't even on my radar a few years ago? White privilege. It took me some time to realize white privilege isn't something I "do." It's just a fact, a state of being. How do you describe it?
For one thing, it's automatic credibility. When someone is white they are almost always perceived as more credible than someone black. Then of course there is history. My great grandmother was a slave. And when you're white, you are born into a system that wants you to succeed.
How does it manifest between gay men, and in the HIV advocacy arena?
There is still an incredible amount of racism in the HIV world. It's ridiculous that there are very few senior managers and executive directors of HIV organizations that are black. Because of funding patterns earlier on in the epidemic, white institutions were able to get resources and thrive and black organizations were starved.
How can white HIV advocates be better allies to people of color? I'd love some practical tips here, if that works for you.
I would say a few things. Donate to black organizations and black causes. Learn something about black culture (read the poems of Essex Hemphill, the essays of Joseph Beam, films like Tongues Untied). Listen to black gay men. Don't confuse pity with empathy, and don't only support black folks because you want to be a white savior or white hero. We have to have real conversations about race. I get that they are uncomfortable. That has to end.
I'm embarrassed to say that in all the years of writing this blog, I've only addressed race a handful of times.
You're not alone. A lot of white gay men have been slow to confront race, but this is hopefully the beginning of more dialogue. Thank you for this interview.
My pleasure. And speaking of supporting black culture, I'm seeing the film KiKi this week. But even mentioning this to you feels like the cinematic equivalent of saying I have black friends.
But it's no lie! Can I also mention my favorite films from last year were Moonlight and Tangerine?
You didn't like La La Land?
It didn't have the poetry or emotional resonance of Moonlight.
My favorite was probably Fences.
Yes, Fences! We have found cinematic detente.
We are the world.
P.S. For more, read my piece about the racist, short-sighted reaction to the #NoJusticeNoPride protest at the Washington, D.C., pride parade this month, "Those Offended by #NoJusticeNoPride Should Learn LGBT History." Or, read what it was like for white privilege to be called out explicitly in my report from last year, "Checking Privilege at HIV Is Not A Crime."
Send Mark an email.
Tags:Viewpoints, Personal Stories
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‘The law says 30 days - not 43 days. To me, that's a violation of the law,’ says Sen. Nancy Rodriguez, D-Santa Fe in regards to the extensive backlog to New Mexico’s medical marijuana program. (Thinkstock/Getty Images)
New Mexico medical marijuana backlog a true health emergency, auditor says
Published: Aug 8, 2016, 8:19 am • Updated: Aug 8, 2016, 8:19 am
SANTA FE, N.M. — The Department of Health has such a large backlog of applications for New Mexico medical marijuana identification cards the state auditor has called it a public health emergency.
The average time for processing a medical marijuana ID card is now 43 days, which is down from the 60-day average in June but still exceeds the 30-day limit set by state law, The Albuquerque Journal reported.
The department is working to process applications for both new patients and those seeking renewals, agency spokesman David Morgan said. “We take our mission to provide safe access to medicine for New Mexico’s qualified medical cannabis patients seriously,” Morgan said.
Patients enrolled in New Mexico’s medical marijuana program have increased rapidly from about 14,000 in 2015 to 26,568 as of June. Current state law requires the Department of Health to approve or deny applications for ID cards within 30 days. Cards expire after one year, so qualified patients must also apply for renewals.
Keeping track of New Mexico medical marijuana
New Mexico state auditor: Stepping in to speed things up for New Mexico MMJ patients
Delays in the system: Desperate MMJ patients turn to New Mexico black market
Pot boom: Sales skyrocket for New Mexico’s medical marijuana industry
Axed: Lawmakers kill marijuana legalization measure in New Mexico for 2016
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The agency submitted a written update to the interim legislative committee that met Thursday. Some lawmakers criticized the department for not sending any officials.
“It’s obvious the Department of Health is not putting the focus on the patient,” said Sen. Nancy Rodriguez, D-Santa Fe, vice chairwoman of the interim Disabilities Concerns Subcommittee.
Morgan said agency officials plan to attend a separate legislative hearing later this month, and it would have been a challenge to appear before two legislative committees so close together.
Auditor Tim Keller on Thursday called the backlog a health emergency and said it could lead to costly lawsuits. Keller said the Department of Health has been treating the issue as a bureaucratic headache instead of as an emergency.
“It’s been a slow sweeping under the rug of this issue,” he said.
Some lawmakers at the committee suggested pursuing changes to the state’s medical marijuana laws, including the renewal requirement, but Rodriguez said for now that doesn’t matter.
“The law says 30 days – not 43 days,” she said. “To me, that’s a violation of the law.”
Information from: Albuquerque Journal
Topics: medical marijuana, New Mexico, New Mexico Department of Health, santa fe, Tim Keller
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Accent Elantra Ioniq IONIQ Electric IONIQ Hybrid
Ioniq Plug-In Hybrid Kona Kona Electric Kona EV NEXO
Palisade Santa Fe Santa Fe XL Sonata Sonata Hybrid
Tucson Veloster Venue
Azera Entourage Equus Excel Genesis
Genesis Coupe Santa Fe Sport Scoupe Tiburon Veracruz
XG300 XG350
2012 Hyundai Sonata Review
Martin Padgett Editorial Director
Curvaceous styling
A fuel-sipper in every trim
Ride is well-damped
Standard features list is long
A Top Safety Pick
Steering feels inconsistent
Firm seats
Noisy cabin, at higher speeds
Will the look wear off?
The Sonata's gas mileage is good enough in base trim that we recommend it over the Hybrid. In our driving experience, the smoothness and real-world…
The Sonata's gas mileage is good enough in base trim that we recommend it over the Hybrid. In our driving experience, the smoothness and real-world economy of the gas-electric version need more work to deliver on their promise.
After more than a decade on the market, the latest Hyundai Sonata's an overnight success--thanks to great gas mileage, grabby styling, and exceptional value for the dollar.
It used to be a wallflower, but then the Hyundai Sonata bloomed. New in 2011 with daring styling and bristling with confidence, the Sonata has mounted a three-pronged attack on the mainstream four-door sedan market--and it's working. The Sonata's now one of the top sellers in the segment, fresh off an award-winning year and a nod as TheCarConnection's Best Car To Buy 2011.
The Sonata's intriguing blend of crests and curves sets it far apart from the blandness that colors the Toyota Camry and, maybe less so, the Accord, Passat, and Malibu. It may not stand the test of time as well as some designs, but for now, the Sonata's a calling card for the entire Hyundai brand. It's a clean break from the me-too past of Hyundai styling and it works well in many places--at the rear of the roofline and across the tail, it's clearly an homage to the Audi A6. Some other passages are a little knotty: the point at the side mirrors where five different panels join up is a noticeable wart, and not everyone here at HGM is a fan of the chrome spears that glint off the hoodline and front fenders. Inside, the styling's just as adventurous, with dramatic sculpturing across the dash and even on the steering wheel. A big LCD screen sits atop the dash and fits in well with the futuristic look. We prefer the metallic trim to the woodgrain on beige-interior cars, which looks out of place in the swoopy Sonata.
All Sonatas are four-cylinders, and the mass-market versions are 2.4-liter fours with up to 200 horsepower, direct injection, and a choice of six-speed manual or automatic transmissions. We haven't ever seen a manual-transmission base model; luckily, the automatic is perfectly appropriate for the class, and is a responsive, seamless gearchanger. It's rare to feel this version strain for power, since the front-drive Sonata weighs only a little more than 3,300 pounds, or a quarter-ton less than a Chevy Malibu. Highway mileage of 35 mpg gives the standard Sonata a standout selling point in the mid-size class.
Two alternatives exist to the base four. There's a turbocharged 2.0T model, with displacement dropped to 2.0 liters and horsepower boosted to 274 hp in all. The power surge is clear, and there's not much turbo lag--and as a bonus, the automatic transmission adds shift paddles, and in this instance, the manual shifter works with above-average smoothness. On paper it's quite a bit stronger than, say, a Buick Regal turbo, and Hyundai's estimates of 0-60 mph times of about seven seconds are strong for a model not really sold as a sporty alternative, but more as a V-6 alternative. With the added power, highway gas mileage is still rated at 33 mpg.
There's also a Hybrid edition, which pairs the 2.4-liter four with electric motors and a lithium-polymer battery pack, and a high threshold that allows the Sonata Hybrid to run on battery power alone at highway speeds. The Hybrid's unusual in that it uses a conventional automatic transmission instead of a CVT or an eCVT to change gears; in our experience, the shift quality between gas-electric and electric-only mode is lumpy, and needs more refinement to rival vehicles like the Camry Hybrid and Fusion Hybrid. Hyundai says this version will hit 60 mph in 9.2 seconds, well within the acceptable range for a family sedan, while delivering gas mileage of 34/39 mpg.
The Sonata's ride and handling are fine for the mainstream, but the steering responses could use more feedback and less wandering on the highway. We like the ride damping, which is set a little on the firm side even before the SE's monotube shocks and 19-inch wheels are added into the mix.
The firm ride is amplified a bit by the Sonata's firm seats. A roomy car, almost "large" by EPA standards, the Sonata provides soaring headroom and leg room in front, and an unusually long front-seat track so driver and passenger can have as much space as they need. The back seat sits at a good angle of recline, and only the tallest passengers will touch heads against the fabric headliner and the hard-plastic front seatbacks.
A Top Safety Pick according to the IIHS, the 2012 Hyundai Sonata has the usual standard safety equipment with a rearview camera available on top trim levels. Other standard equipment includes Bluetooth; a USB port; power windows, locks and mirrors; a tilt/telescoping steering wheel; and cruise control. SE and Limited editions add parking sensors and pushbutton start; the Sonata Limited also gets standard heated front and rear seats; a sunroof; a backup camera; automatic climate control; and an automatic dimming rearview mirror. New this year is Hyundai's Blue Link telematics system; like GM's OnStar setup, it uses live operators to provide information and directions, while also connecting the car via streaming data to the Web, which allows it to find destinations newer than the ones provided on its hard-drive-based GPS maps. Blue Link is offered in a few different packages, with tiered pricing; access to a Web site is bundled in, and allows drivers to set limits on the car's stereo volume, speed, and geographic distance from a certain point.
The 2012 Hyundai Sonata is handsome, jazzy, and a visual standout in its class.
While in its previous iterations, the Hyundai Sonata was very conservative, and something of a wallflower, the 2012 Sonata is radically different--an intriguing blend of crests and curves that set it far apart from the blandness that colors the Toyota Camry and, maybe less so, the Accord, Passat, and Malibu.
Hyundai calls it "fluidic sculpture" design language, and it's a daring look for a family sedan, with lots of movement implied in the side view. In the grille we can see some of the “wave” look of the latest Infinitis, while at the rear of the roofline and across the tail, it's clearly an homage to the Audi A6. Some other passages are a little knotty: the point at the side mirrors where five different panels join up is a noticeable wart, and not everyone here is a fan of the chrome spears that glint off the hoodline and front fenders.
Inside, the styling's just as adventurous, with dramatic sculpturing across the dash and even on the steering wheel. But it’s a little out there, on the edge of cutting edge for traditional family-sedan shoppers. The interior shares some themes with the big Hyundai Genesis sedan, including the vents that flank a big LCD screen atop the dash. We prefer the metallic trim to the woodgrain on beige-interior cars, which looks out of place in the swoopy Sonata.The new Sonata has even more dramatic sculpturing in its steering wheel and dash cap than the Genesis, and gets cut-tube-style instruments as well as an iconographic climate control shaped like a human. Overall, it’s adventurous and functional, and maybe a little more dramatic than some families will want.
The 2012 Hyundai Sonata accelerates strongly and smoothly in most guises, but its steering has plenty of room for improvement.
The 2012 Hyundai Sonata has taken a completely new tack with powertrains as well; with last year's redesign, they did away with V-6s completely and moved to an all four-cylinder lineup; and they all do the task they're intended for with a little more gusto than expected.
The mass-market versions are 2.4-liter fours with up to 200 horsepower, direct injection, and a choice of six-speed manual or automatic transmissions. We haven't ever seen a manual-transmission base model; luckily, the automatic is perfectly appropriate for the class, and is a responsive, seamless gearchanger. With this engine, the front-drive Sonata feels very perky, and stronger than most other base four-cylinder sedans its size. It weighs only a little more than 3,300 pounds, or a quarter-ton less than a Chevy Malibu, which adds to that impression, and its highway fuel economy rating of 35 mpg gives it another standout selling point.
Opt for the 2.0T model, and the engine is downsized from 2.4 liters to 2.0 liters, but straps on a twin-scroll turbocharger to provide a 274-horsepower rush. It's accompanied by 269 pound-feet of torque that arrives low in the power band, giving the 2.0T a flexible feel without the turbo lag you may have felt in other cars with the "2.0T" badge. This model comes with shift paddles, too, and is intended as the more economical parallel to upscale V-6 models. For the most part, it succeeds in that mission, with turbo lag rarely noticeable. The only down side is a somewhat coarser engine note at times. With the added power, highway gas mileage is still rated at 33 mpg.
The 2012 Sonata feels spacious and thoughtfully designed, with comfortable seats and plenty of storage spaces.
The 2012 Sonata is dimensionally one of the largest mid-size sedans, and by EPA rules it's actually classified as a "large" car, with 120 cubic feet of interior and trunk space.
So it's probably not surprising that the Sonata has accommodations that are quite good for those in back as well as in front. The back seat sits at a good angle of recline, with enough headroom for all but the tallest passengers, and there's decent legroom. Both of the upholstery options are pleasing, but we like the textured fabric, and its soft-but-rugged sportswear feel, a bit better--and it seems to work better with the bolstering of the front seats. In any case, front-seat lower cushions are a bit on the firm side.
Ride quality is also somewhat firm, compared to other mid-size sedans, but road noise is very well isolated. Keep in mind that the SE's monotube shocks and 19-inch wheels will make the ride uncomfortable for those who commute over very choppy road surfaces.
The 16.4-cubic-foot trunk is about as large as that in the Ford Fusion, and the trunk gets larger when the rear seats are flipped forward. In the cabin, a deep center console and glovebox hide valuable goods; there’s a niche near the audio controls for cellphones, a flat open bin in front of it for clutter, and a bin hidden behind a flip-down lid to conceal other goods—perhaps a radar detector? Coat hooks, dual power points, and eight cupholders cover needs as vast as looking sharp for the meeting, or staying hydrated after the workout.
The 2012 Sonata has earned excellent safety and crash-test ratings from both U.S. agencies.
The 2012 Hyundai Sonata has the safety credentials to make the shortlist of any worry-prone parent or carpool driver.
The Sonata has been named a Top Safety Pick award from the IIHS (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)--meaning it's earned top 'good' scores in all test categories, including (rollover-related) roof strength--and in NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) tests, the Sonata has earned a relatively rare five-star overall score, as well as five-star ratings in most categories.
A rearview camera is available on top trim levels. Otherwise, standard safety equipment on the Sonata is extensive, and includes dual front, side, curtain airbags; anti-lock brakes, stability and traction control; and active headrests.
Outward visibility is good, even to the Sonata's curvaceous rear quarters, where minuscule triangular windows seem to be in place just to keep the side view flowing. Rear-seat passengers won’t see much through them, however.
The 2012 Hyundai Sonata includes more standard features than most alternatives, along with some excellent infotainment options.
With a base price of around $20,500, the 2012 Sonata has a very impressive standard-equipment list. Bluetooth; a USB port; power windows, locks and mirrors; a tilt/telescoping steering wheel; and cruise control are all included.
The Sonata SE adds paddle shifters, a sport-tuned suspension, and some slight trim differences. Both the Sonata SE and Sonata Limited have parking sensors and push-button start. The Limited also gets standard heated front and rear seats; a sunroof; a backup camera; automatic climate control; and an automatic dimming rearview mirror.
Hyundai is known to keep the number of different combinations quite limited, and while there are three engines and several trims, what it means in the Sonata lineup is that there are only a few package upgrades for each model. The base GLS can be upgraded to include a power driver seat and alloy wheels; the SE’s options include a nicely executed navigation system packaged with a sunroof. There’s also a new “Dimension” speaker package for some audio systems. The Sonata Limited adds on a CD changer and HD Radio, and can be equipped with an Infinity 400-watt audio system, bundled with the touchscreen-driven navigation system and the rearview camera.
The Sonata's navigation system is particularly easy to use, with one of the more pleasant displays and interfaces. XM NavTraffic and Bluetooth streaming audio are included, as well as 8GB of flash memory for music storage. There are only a few details we'd like to see added--such as if the sound system would start back up where it left off in playing from your iPod.
New this year is Hyundai's Blue Link telematics system; like GM's OnStar setup, it uses live operators to provide information and directions, while also connecting the car via streaming data to the Web, which allows it to find destinations newer than the ones provided on its hard-drive-based GPS maps. Blue Link is offered in a few different packages, with tiered pricing; access to a Web site is bundled in, and allows drivers to set limits on the car's stereo volume, speed, and geographic distance from a certain point.
While the 2012 Hyundai Sonata stands out for its 35-mpg highway rating, the Sonata Hybrid does even better.
With a standout fuel-economy rating of 35 mpg highway, base versions of the 2012 Hyundai Sonata are up at the front of the pack, while the Hybrid outranks all other family sedans with a highway rating of 40 mpg.
The EPA gives the entry-level Sonata a rating of 24/35 mpg, with the base six-speed manual, and it falls only to 23/35 mpg when the six-speed automatic is specified.
Add on a turbocharger to the automatic-equipped car, and the resulting Sonata 2.0T gets a rating of 22/33 mpg.
Meanwhile, the Sonata Hybrid sports the best highway fuel-economy figure in the mid-size sedan class, at 34/39; but with a 41/36-mpg rating, the Ford Fusion Hybrid outdoes it in the city.
The 2011-201 Sonata Hybrid is one of a group of cars found to have overstated gas mileage on its window sticker. Hyundai submitted figures of 35/40 mpg and 37 mpg combined to the EPA. When the self-certified figures were double-checked, the EPA discovered the Sonata Hybrid's actual tested fuel economy to be 34/39 mpg or 36 mpg combined.
Owners can register with Hyundai to receive reimbursement for the gas consumed above and beyond expected levels; more details are found at HyundaiMPGInfo.com.
For 2012 Hyundai Sonata
My Sonata has provided me with reliable and safe transportation. Has a very large interior and trunk.
A very reliable car that is comfortable, good looking and relaxing to drive. Hugh trunk and good gas mileage.
2012 Hyundai Sonata 4-Door Sedan 2.0T Automatic SE
Sonata Love!
I love my 2012 Hyundai Sonata Turbo. The car has great performance. The interior is very spacious and the trunk has a lot of storage space. With the wide tires the Sonata gives a smooth ride.
2012 Hyundai Sonata 4-Door Sedan 2.4L Automatic Limited
I love my car and hope i enjoy a newer model just as much..
Totally satisfied with this car: its' performance, it's comfort, its many bells and whistles and also its' design. Love the car.
2012 Hyundai Sonata 4-Door Sedan 2.4L Automatic Limited PZEV w/Wine Int
You just can't beat all the features, luxury for the price.
Love everything about this car. Even though it replaced a Lexus it has nearly all the features and gadgets. Only passenger auto seat is missing but it adds rear heated seats few luxury cars even have. The only... Love everything about this car. Even though it replaced a Lexus it has nearly all the features and gadgets. Only passenger auto seat is missing but it adds rear heated seats few luxury cars even have.
The only thing I can complain about is the driver seat adjustments, it's not really 6-way, tipping up the back of the seat also raises it, and the seat sits higher that the passenger. + More »
2012 Hyundai Sonata 4-Door Sedan 2.0T Automatic Limited
Kudos on design, safety and reliability.
Excellent vehicle for highway driving it is responsive and get superb mileage 35+ mpg. Great technology for 2012 phone streaming and navigation plus blue link. I wish 2015 kept 2012 exterior design. LRR tires... Excellent vehicle for highway driving it is responsive and get superb mileage 35+ mpg. Great technology for 2012 phone streaming and navigation plus blue link. I wish 2015 kept 2012 exterior design. LRR tires lasted 40k, would have selected another brand than Hankook. + More »
2012 Hyundai Sonata 4-Door Sedan 2.4L Manual GLS
this is a great car
I love my 2012 hundai sonata. It's very big in the inside and I can fix the seat the way I want to but other than that Its a good car I would suggest any to to purchase a hundai sonata
2012 Hyundai Sonata 4-Door Sedan 2.4L Automatic Hybrid
Economic, fun to drive hybrid.
Unlike most hybrids, the sonata does not have a variable auto transmission, instead comes with a 6 speed auto which I prefer. when I hit the pedal, the trans down shifts and especially in the 30-60 range the... Unlike most hybrids, the sonata does not have a variable auto transmission, instead comes with a 6 speed auto which I prefer. when I hit the pedal, the trans down shifts and especially in the 30-60 range the car jumps, almost like a turbo. Also this car has not had any issues. 3+ years only oil changes and tire rotations. Tires and brake still have life and the car is going on 50K miles. I could not be happier. + More »
Good looks and great performance with turbo
Purchased new in 2011, have had no issues, great performance, good gas mileage and a lot of features. Plenty of room and fun to drive. Had windshield molding replaced due to crackling under warranty... Purchased new in 2011, have had no issues, great performance, good gas mileage and a lot of features. Plenty of room and fun to drive. Had windshield molding replaced due to crackling under warranty. Economical. + More »
comfort and good gas milage.
Our Sonata is comfortable and reliable. A good car for the money.
Safety 10
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2019 Subaru Forester First Drive: A Small, Quirky Crossover Doubles Down on What Buyers Want
Subaru's venerable crossover enters its fifth generation with a host of changes you might not notice—but buyers will appreciate.
By Will Sabel CourtneySeptember 24, 2018
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The 2019 Subaru Forester, By the Numbers:
Trim Level Tested: Sport
Base Price (Price as Tested): $25,270 ($31,815)
Powertrain: 2.5-liter horizontally-opposed four-cylinder, 182 horsepower, 176 pound-feet of torque; continuously-variable automatic transmission; all-wheel-drive
Fuel Economy: 26 city, 33 highway
0-60 MPH: Call it the mid-to-high eight-second range
Towing Capacity: 1,500 pounds
Wonderful, largely Subaru-specific feature: Heated seats can be optioned with cloth upholstery. Toasty.
Like it or not—and plenty of people in the automotive enthusiast world don't—the 2019 Subaru Forester represents the face of the average modern-day automobile. The sedan's era as the dominant family car is done, outcompeted out by bigger, stronger, more capable sport-utility vehicles of all shapes and sizes. And few companies have been better suited to capitalize on this trend than Subaru. While it's impossible to climb inside the collective consciousness of a corporation, it seems pretty safe to assume that Subaru as a whole has a pretty good grasp on what Americans want.
After all, sales in the United States have been climbing for 81 straight months, as the masses between the company's traditional, patchouli-scented strongholds of the Northeast and Northwest have realized the benefits of all-wheel-drive traction and elevated ride heights. It's that sort of confidence- and profit-bolstering sales ascent that helped pave the way for the carmaker's first three-row crossover earlier this year—perhaps appropriately, named Ascent—and now it's helping the company shepherd an all-new version of the Forester into showrooms.
But that confidence lies in the current, clearly-successful formula—which means obvious changes for the likes of the company's second-selling model are hard to spot. Instead, the 2019 Forester scrubs away the bad of its predecessor and builds upon the good. Riding on the newly-ubiquitous Subaru Global Platform, the fresh model packs more forms of high-strength steel, making it able to take 1.4 times the frontal impact force of its predecessor; every version comes with seven airbags, enhanced adaptive seatbelts, and the full suite of EyeSight active safety technology that includes lane departure prevention, adaptive cruise control, and automatic emergency braking to protect (and reassure) families; and the whole lineup benefits from a fresh-faced look that's evocative of the rest of the lineup while still clearly tied to Foresters past. From tip to tail, the new Subie is designed to appeal, not offend.
Will Sabel Courtney
Unless, of course, you're one of the handful of people who loved the turbocharged XT version, or preferred your boxer-engined crossover with a row-your-own gearbox. Both those options are dead as Elvis for the fifth-generation car, sacrificed on the altar of simplicity. Only around 5 percent of buyers opted for the boosted Forester, Subaru told us, and a mere 3 percent chose the stick shift; given such numbers, devoting the R&D resources to new versions of them must have seemed foolhardy.
As a result, every 2019 Forester sold in the U.S. of A. will come packing the same propulsion system: a 2.5-liter naturally-aspirated boxer four-cylinder churning out 182 horsepower and 176 pound-feet of torque, running to the all-wheel-drive system by way of a continuously-variable transmission. If those words elicit any sort of emotional reaction—and let's face it, if they're gonna stir up any feelings, they're probably gonna be negative ones—you're not the intended audience. Most buyers will be more preoccupied with the impressive fuel economy stats the engine's tuned to deliver; after all, there aren't many five-passenger SUVs that turn in 26 miles per gallon in the city and 33 mpg on the highway—on regular gas, no less. (In case you're interested in testing your bladder's elasticity, that translates into more than 500 miles of open-road driving range before the low fuel light kicks on.)
Subaru seems to throw a bone to the enthusiast crowd in the form of the 2019 Forester's new Sport trim level, seen in the pictures here from The Drive's first stint behind the wheel outside Asheville, North Carolina—but like many vehicles with that adjective appended to their name, "Sport" does not mean what you think it means. (Think of it as the "sport" from "sport-utility vehicle," not the one from "sport sedan.") The only bones thrown to those who enjoy driving are the Sport # throttle map, which delivers more gusto earlier in the pedal's travel, and a set of paddle shifters for toggling through the counterfeit cogs; otherwise, the trim's tweaks are relegated largely to cosmetic changes and minor convenience features: LED fog lamps and interior lighting, keyless access, and black-and-orange trim bits sure to inspire strong opinions on both sides of the argument.
On the road, the Forester's performance never seems inadequate for what it is. The CVT is programmed to slur between ideal ratios at lower throttle inputs; goose it, and it transforms into a simulacrum of a seven-speed automatic, complete with faux gear shifts to keep it in the heat of the power band. The engine is adequate for the basic task of moving the car around at ordinary speed, but prying any performance out of it is a struggle; passing maneuvers require both a lead-footed stomp on the gas and the sort of planning usually reserved for invading Normandy.
More disconcerting for anyone who first came to know Subaru as the purveyors of bug-eyed rally cars is the new Forester's handling. The 18-inch wheels and tires on the Sport feel sure-footed on both pavement and dirt alike—the latter proven during a short off-road course the carmaker set up for us to test the latest version of the X-Mode system, which has grown into a Land Rover-like adaptive setup offering different terrain modes and an off-road cruise control that holds the speed at wherever you last left off the gas in select models—thanks to features like active torque vectoring on all models and a revised steering rack that's quicker than the outgoing version. But like the larger Ascent, there's a surprising amount of body roll; the way the cabin bobs and flops around in tight corners means you constantly find yourself driving below not just the car’s limits, but occasionally the speed limit.
On the flip side, keep this Subie in its happy place—which is to say, drive it like Betty White instead of Steve McQueen—and it'll reward you with a ride smooth as freshly-Zambonied ice. I have no hard-and-fast metrics to base this on, but my trusty butt-o-meter swears the 2019 Forester has a better ride than many high-end cars you can buy—a Cadillac ride at a Chevrolet price.
The interior also feels as though it offers the sort of space associated with the Wreath and Crest's land yachts, in spite of the Forester's tidy dimensions. (While it's an inch wider and three-quarters of an inch longer than the fourth-gen model, the new version is still more compact than most of its competitors.) Much of that stems from the open, airy feeling that comes with the tall windows and the panoramic sunroof that's standard on all but the base model. But it's also a result of the Forester's impressive packing, which I can personally verify serves up enough room for a quartet of six-foot-four people to fit inside. It also delivers 33 cubic feet of space with all seats up and 70.9 with the second row folded—all available through a squared-off hatch opening wide enough to fit a set of golf clubs perpendicularly. (The base model actually offers a tiny bit more space, due to some packaging eccentricities, but its stripper status means it's worth spending the extra few grand to step up to the better-equipped Premium trim, which is expected to be the volume seller.)
Should you rank among the many Forester buyers who like camping, you don't even need to worry about filling up any of that space with a place to sleep outdoors. While the roof rack can only accommodate up to 176 pounds when the car's in motion, the engineers proved it can handle close to 700 when the car is parked—thus allowing the carmaker to official endorse the use of pop-up roof tents. And no matter which trim you opt for, expect to scramble over obstacles with relative ease; in addition to the standard AWD found on all Subies except the BRZ, each 2019 Forester towers the same 8.7 inches above the ground that the Outback and Crosstrek do, giving it greater ground clearance than most competing compact crossovers. (Say that five times fast.)
Much as it may pain gearheads to admit it, the new vehicle's combination of traits will no doubt suit the average Forester buyer quite nicely. After all, this high-riding station wagon (let's face it, that's what this is) is perfect for the sort of folks who make up the purchase pool: mostly well-educated professionals who own dogs, love hiking, and need a dependable, safe car for their daily lives. Basically, the same people who've made up the majority of Forester buyers for the last two decades.
And for all its generational evolution (or lack thereof), perhaps that's the most remarkable thing about the Subaru Forester: how well it's grown into the zeitgeist. What was simply a tiny oddball SUV when it first launched in 1997 has become, in effect, the de facto generic passenger vehicle of 2018. It’s hasn’t needed to change all that much; the world changed around it. No wonder Subaru sells so many of the damn things.
The 2019 Subaru Forester is Here with Tons of Room and Tech
The fifth generation Forester debuts with a fresh face, new safety features, and a lack of a turbocharger.
Subaru Rides the Crossover Craze to a New Sales Record in August
Acents, Outbacks, STIs, oh my.
This 554-HP Supercharged, LSx-Powered Subaru Forester Is Wickedly Loud
Listen to "Project Arkham" terrorize the 'burbs.
Did This Traffic Barrier Company in France Steal the Subaru WRX STI Logo?
"We have never heard of the car you talk about," the company told us.
Watch a Van Blast a Subaru Forester Off the Road During a Pass Gone Wrong
Looks like bad decisions were made all across the board.
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Morwell and the Hazelwood mine fire report: the fallout
The regulatory regime was weak and communication poor but this fire might never have taken hold had GDF Suez done what it should have done
Gay Alcorn
Tue 2 Sep 2014 22.18 EDT Last modified on Wed 26 Oct 2016 19.50 EDT
Plumes of smoke rising from the coalmine and drifting over Morwell in February. Photograph: Nasa
Morning all. We’re going to follow the fallout from the report into the Hazelwood mine fire released in the Victorian parliament on Tuesday afternoon. The mine’s owner and operator, GDF Suez, gets sharp criticism in the report. My story from last night is here. My overall impression – and I’m reading the report in more detail today – is that there were lots of failures, and successes, and the regulatory regime was weak, and the communication poor, but really, this fire might not ever have taken hold, let alone burned for 45 days so near the town of Morwell, if the company had done what it should have done.
The report says: “The inability of GDF Suez to effectively suppress the Hazelwood mine fire during the initial stages was due in large part to the mine operator being inadequately prepared to manage the fire.”
This fire was foreseeable. It was not a “perfect storm” of hot weather and winds that nobody could have predicted, as the company preferred to characterise it. Fires in the worked-out areas of the mine had broken out before.
“GDF Suez did not conduct a risk assessment in relation to the risk of a fire in the worked-out areas of the mine, despite a recommendation to do so following a fire in the worked-out areas in September 2008,” the report says. In that respect, it fell short of its obligations under occupational health and safety laws.
The company made mistakes, but was it negligent? That’s the question now. Jon Faine on ABC radio 774 was blunt this morning with the company’s manager corporate affairs, Jim Kouts.
Faine asked why wouldn’t the company just negotiate now and pay compensation, and not go through an expensive, long court case, as happened after the Black Saturday bushfires? Kouts, understandably, did not concede the point. He did say the company was sorry for the impacts and had learned lessons. There is a possibility of a class action lawsuit, which might be more likely after yesterday’s report.
To the papers.
The Age has the story on its front page, with the headline “Morwell fire findings – how GDF Suez failed a community”. Darren Gray’s story also highlights the regulatory failures. There were two bodies supposedly doing that job – the earth resources regulation branch of the Department of State Development, Business and Innovation, and the Victorian WorkCover Authority. The agencies “operated in silos”, with each adopting “a narrow reading of the statutory regime underlying their respective areas.” That didn’t help.
The Herald Sun goes for “Ice plague” today as its lead, but also has the mine story on page 1. It too focuses on the company. In the paper, the headline is “Mine chiefs damned”. It includes this quote, which is one of the most damning: “Contrary to suggestions that the Hazelwood mine fire was the perfect storm of events, all of the factors contributing to the ignition and spread of the fire were foreseeable. Yet it appears they were not foreseen.”
The Australian has the story on page seven, with the headline “Inquiry blames miner for 45-day fire”.The report “blasted” GDF Suez for “stripping the mine of basic fire protection infrastructure and failing to appreciate the foreseeable risk posed by nearby bushfires”. It also highlights that regulatory agencies failed in their oversight of the company, which only aimed to meet minimum fire protection requirements.
Politically, Labor is hoping to gain from the fallout from this disaster. This morning the opposition leader, Daniel Andrews, tweeted this:
As for the local paper, the Latrobe Valley Express, it put up a story last night and its full coverage will be in Thursday’s paper – the paper is published twice weekly.
More soon. Wendy Farmer, the president of Voices of the Valley, is writing a piece for us now that she has had time to absorb the report. The initial community response was a little cool, with some hoping the recommendations would be stronger or apportion blame more firmly.
If you live in Morwell, do drop us a line and we’ll be happy to publish your thoughts.
Morwell residents have their say on Hazelwood mine fire inquiry
Guardian Australia: Health problems, a lack of government support and financial impact of blaze that burned for 45 days the main issues raised
GDF Suez 'won't go down path' of responsibility for Hazelwood mine fire
‘This was an unprecedented event,’ says senior company spokesman. ‘It was a predictable event,’ says Jon Faine
Morwell mine fire inquiry points finger at operator GDF Suez
Report says 45-day fire could have been put out much quicker were it not for company’s ‘minimal compliance’
Morwell residents waiting for health concerns to be addressed after mine fire
Community group says there has been no recognition of the adverse health effects of the 45-day blaze
Morwell after the mine fire: fear, anger and an independent streak
Hazelwood coalmine fire inquiry report due as Morwell ponders lawsuit
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Umansky Law Firm Stands Up for Client’s Rights In Recent News 6 Interview
At The Umansky Law Firm, defending the rights of our clients is priority number one. As criminal defense attorneys, it is our duty to stand up for the rights of those who are wronged by the criminal justice system. In a recent sit-down interview with reporter Erik Sandoval from WKMG-TV News 6 Orlando, Umansky Law Firm attorney LeRoy Costner outlined a recent case where his client’s civil rights were critically infringed upon.
A Deeply Troubling Infringement of Basic Civil Rights in Lake County, FL
In March 2019, a client of the Umansky Law firm was twice arrested in a span of two weeks, both times for nonviolent drug possession. Our client was first arrested for possession of marijuana less than 20 grams. Fourteen days later, our client was arrested again, this time for possession of hash oil, marijuana less than 20 grams, and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Our client sought the services of the Umansky Law Firm for both cases starting on March 14th, 2019. Attorney LeRoy Costner immediately took action and got both court dates pushed back, allowing us some time to review the charges further and work on the best way to resolve both cases.
On April 12th, an officer from the Groveland Police Department showed up at our client’s residence with startling news: the officer had an arrest warrant with our client’s name on it for missing a court date.
Our client never missed a court date.
Upon hearing the news of the alleged warrant, Costner attempted to speak with the Groveland Police Officer who supposedly had the warrant. The officer was reluctant to give further details as to the validity of the warrant and abruptly disconnected the call.
In his interview with WKMG, Attorney Costner explained, “I called the officer to ask about the warrant. The officer refused to tell me who issued the warrant, what the allegations were, if it was a new case or something to do with one of his existing cases. The officer then told me I was obstructing his investigation and if I didn’t have my client turn himself into that officer he would have me arrested.”
To seek further clarification, Mr. Costner visited a nearby Lake County Sheriff’s Office substation, and the deputies at the substation confirmed the warrant. The deputies advised our client to turn himself in at the jail, which our client did at the behest of Mr. Costner. After being booked around midnight, our client was given a first appearance that morning, a first appearance which was nearly denied by jail staff. After convincing the jail staff that it was required by law to appear before a judge within 24 hours, a fact they disputed with us, it still took over an hour to finally get his client in court.
Costner was then told the delay was because jail staff couldn’t find anyone to transport his client from the jail.
Just one problem: our client was “literally down the hallway,” from the courtroom, according to Mr. Costner. “If I had not forced the issue, my client would still be sitting in jail without bond.”
If a defendant bonds out on the new charges before the bond on the first case is revoked, then the standard procedure is the prosecutor will file a motion requesting that the bond be revoked. The rules do allow the Judge to revoke the bond on their own without a motion from the prosecutor, but most Judges will not do this. The warrant that was served on our client suggested the prosecutor asked the Judge to issue the warrant.
The prosecutor in the courtroom that morning would go on to advise that no one from their office had petitioned the court to issue a warrant.
“Everything about how the warrant was issued, the hostility of the officer, and the fact that the jail was refusing to follow the law, is deeply troubling,” Mr. Costner continued.
“While I have not had this level of obstruction before, it does speak to a pattern of civil rights infringements I have seen in Lake County.”
Make Sure Your Rights Are Protected
At the Umansky Law Firm, our proven criminal defense experience has resulted in recognition from the media and those in our community. We don’t do it for the publicity; we do it because we believe in justice and serving our clients to the best of our ability. Our proven experience and talented team brings over 100 years of combined experience and will fight for your best interests in court.
To schedule a free case review and consultation, call us 24/7 at (490) 228-3838 or complete our online contact form today.
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Minecraft: Story Mode Episode 8 Walkthrough
Posted by:Doug "NukemDukem"
The Minecraft: Story Mode Episode 8 walkthrough for “Episode 8: A Journey’s End?” will guide you through the beginning to ending moments of gameplay with strategy tips for this graphic adventure game on the PC, Mac, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, PS Vita, Wii U & Mobile (iOS and Android-based devices).
Let’s start the Minecraft: Story Mode Episode 8 walkthrough with my full livestream!
Please note that viewers must be at least age 10 to 12 to watch, in America & Europe respectively, but developer Telltale describes it as an “all-ages experience”. Fair warning given because the game includes Fantasy Violence and Mild Language.
Chapter 1: Let the Games Begin
Chapter 2: Playing for Keeps
Chapter 3: “Challenge: Accepted”, Chapter 4: The Most Dangerous Game, Chapter 5: Gaming the System & Chapter 6: To the Victor Go the Spoils (Ending)
All Alternate Scenes
Index of Minecraft: Story Mode Guides:
This Page: Minecraft: Story Mode Episode 8 Walkthrough
Next Page: Minecraft: Story Mode Episode 7 Walkthrough
Next Page: Minecraft: Story Mode Achievements Guide
Next Page: Minecraft: Story Mode Trophies Guide
Next Page: Minecraft: Story Mode Cheats
Minecraft: Story Mode Season One is an 8-part episodic game series set in the world of Mojang’s popular Minecraft game. Although you won’t be playing as Minecraft’s Steve.
In Minecraft: Story Mode, playing as either a male or female hero named ‘Jesse,’ you’ll embark on a perilous adventure across the Overworld, through the Nether, to the End, and beyond. You and your friends revere the legendary Order of the Stone: Warrior, Redstone Engineer, Griefer, and Architect; slayers of the Ender Dragon. While at EnderCon in hopes of meeting Gabriel the Warrior, Jesse’s friends discover that something is wrong… something dreadful. Terror is unleashed, and you must set out on a quest to find The Order of the Stone if you are to save your world from oblivion.
Key Game Features:
Created by award-winning adventure game powerhouse Telltale Games, in partnership with Minecraft creators, Mojang.
Featuring the voices of Patton Oswalt (Ratatouille, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D), Brian Posehn (The Sarah Silverman Program, Mission Hill), Ashley Johnson (The Last of Us, Tales from the Borderlands), Scott Porter (Friday Night Lights, X-Men), Martha Plimpton (The Goonies, Raising Hope), Dave Fennoy (The Walking Dead: A Telltale Games Series, Batman: Arkham Knight), Corey Feldman (The Goonies, Stand by Me), Billy West (Futurama, Adventure Time), and Paul Reubens (Tron: Uprising, Pee-Wee’s Playhouse).
You will drive the story through the decisions you make: what you say to people (and how you say it), and what you choose to do in moments of thrilling action will make this YOUR story.
Additionally, here’s the voice-actors cast trailer:
• PC Minimum System Requirements:
OS: Windows XP Service Pack 3
Processor: Core 2 Duo 2GHz or equivalent
Graphics: ATI or NVIDIA card w/512 MB RAM
Hard Drive: 3 GB available space
Sound Card: Direct X 9.0c sound device
Additional Notes: Not Recommended for Intel integrated graphics
• Mac Minimum System Requirements:
OS: Lion (10.7.X)
Processor: 2.3 Ghz Intel
Graphics: 512 MB NVidia or ATI graphics card
Additional Notes: Not recommended for Intel integrated graphics or Mac Minis or early-generation MacBook
Pricing: A Journey’s End? continues the add-on series of three post-season adventures, which can be purchased digitally as part of the new Adventure Pass for $14.99 and includes access to Episodes 6, 7 and 8 as they release. The episode will also be available individually for $4.99 USD. Players will need to own at least Episode 1 in the series or the season pass disc in order to purchase Episodes 6, 7 and 8.
Welcome to the Minecraft: Story Mode Episode 8 walkthrough!
RabidRetrospectGames will be your guide showing you around the game’s areas per chapter.
Synopsis: So what are our heroes up against in this concluding chapter of the season? In Episode 8: ‘A Journey’s End?’ Jesse and crew continue their portal journey in search of home. With Harper leading them to the world of the Old Builders, Jesse and crew finally have their chance to return home… but it won’t be easy, and the stakes are high. You’ll need to take on opponents in a series of gladiatorial games to win your freedom, save your friends, and maybe, just maybe, make it back to your own world!
The all-star cast gets two more new additions for Episode 8: ‘A Journey’s End?’, with Jim Cummings (Winnie the Pooh, Darkwing Duck) as Hadrian, the leader of the Old Builders; and Kari Wahlgren (Rick and Morty, The Fairly OddParents) as Mevia, the Enforcer.
Note: Your path in ‘A Journey’s End?’ will differ greatly depending on your choices made in prior episodes, so more than one playthrough is definitely recommended! You will have completely different experiences depending on where you’ve decided to go!
Get your friends out of the mines.
Get ready for the final part of Season 1’s adventure.
Overview for all Alternative Choices in Minecraft: Story Mode Episode 8 “A Journey’s End?”:
• Who did you rescue during Extreme Spleef?
• Did you make a deal with Em or not in Lava Race?
• How did you finish the Lava Race?
• How did you deal with Hadrian in his palace?
• Where did Em go in the end?
Alternate Choice: Between saving Nell and letting Nell die, choose to don’t save her and beat Em.
Next Episode: Please join our “Minecraft: Story Mode Season 2 Release Date” discussion about what will happen next season.
Thanks to Telltale Games, Doug, RabidRetrospectGames & Gamerzombie for the walkthrough videos.
Do you need help anywhere? Please don’t hesitate to ask in the comments section below. We’re here to help out!
Tags: Minecraft: Story Mode, Minecraft: Story Mode - Episode 8: A Journey's End?
Categories: Mac Walkthroughs, Mobile Walkthroughs, News, PC Walkthroughs, PS Vita Walkthroughs, PS3 Walkthroughs, PS4 Walkthroughs, Walkthroughs, Wii U Walkthroughs, Xbox 360 Walkthroughs, Xbox One Walkthroughs
By Doug Le: He is a Gamer, Entertainer, and Speaker who loves making video game walkthrough guides. Thank you for watching! Read his posts and watch his video game playthroughs here and connect with him on Twitter, Google+ and at Youtube.
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Short breaks in England
Parks and gardens with breathtaking views
A Selection of England's best gardens
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Gardens, Castles, and Canterbury Itinerary
Historic Gardens, Lakes, and City Trail
Grand Gardens and Castles Itinerary
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Take a trip to see some of the most beautiful places in England
Holker Hall & Gardens, Cumbria
We’ve handpicked some of England’s finest parks and gardens where the view will simply take your breath away. From far reaching London views, sweeping ‘Capability’ Brown landscapes, to dramatic starry night skies.
Osborne, Isle of Wight
"It is impossible to imagine a prettier spot" said Queen Victoria after her first visit to Osborne, the Isle of Wight retreat where she would come to relax with Prince Albert and her family. Explore this vast royal estate with Italianate style gardens, beach, and children’s play cottage. Stroll through the garden terraces and enjoy the magnificent views across the Solent waters; they reminded Prince Albert of the Bay of Naples.
Find out more about Osborne
Richmond Park, London
Richmond Park is London’s largest Site of Special Scientific Interest with over 2,500 acres of rolling hills, ancient woodlands, gardens and grasslands, home to herds of free roaming red and fallow deer. Explore London’s largest Royal Park on foot, bike, horseback, or even a power kite, and enjoy far reaching views to London and beyond. You can even see St Paul’s Cathedral and the London Eye on a clear day! Visit the Isabella Plantation, best known for its azaleas and one of the largest collections of rhododendrons and camellias, providing interest all year round. But don’t leave without stopping off at Pembroke Lodge, a magnificent listed Georgian mansion, situated at the highest point of Richmond Park, where afternoon tea is best enjoyed on the terrace. The views are spectacular.
Find out more about Richmond Park
Rievaulx Terrace, North Yorkshire
Rievaulx Terrace
Rievaulx Terrace, situated within the North York Moors National Park, is one of Yorkshire’s finest 18th century landscapes. With two temples and breathtaking views, it provides a picture-perfect spot for picnicking and promenading. Enjoy a stroll through the ancient woods and then on to the terrace where 13 vistas reveal stunning views of the ruins of Rievaulx Abbey and the surrounding Rye valley. Rievaulx Terrace is full of colour throughout the year, from pretty springtime flowers to the jewel-coloured leaves in autumn. Look carefully and you may even see the beautiful ‘early purple orchid’. Now, where to enjoy that picnic?
Find out more about Rievaulx Terrace
Kielder Water and Forest Park, Northumberland
Kielder Water and Forest Park
Kielder Water and Forest Park is one of the world’s largest Dark Sky Parks, home to the biggest man-made lake in Northern Europe, and is the largest working forest in England (it’s over 250 square miles/648 square km). Enjoy a breathtaking view of the lake as you lunch at the Boat Inn Restaurant at Leaplish Waterside Park, or stay until dark and experience a night time view of the stars like you’ve never seen before from the Kielder Observatory; an astronomical attraction located in the park.
Find out more about Kielder Water and Forest Park
Croome, Worcestershire
Croome is a magnificent 18th century ‘Capability’ Brown house and landscape with stunning sweeping views. This is ‘Capability’ Brown’s very first commission and is currently being restored to its former glory by the National Trust. For those with a head for heights, climb the scaffolding for a stunning view over the grounds and Worcestershire countryside. You can even enjoy a cup of tea and cake up high in the Sky Café (during the restoration – check website for details). Croome Court’s restoration encourages visitors to see the transformation from inside and out. This grand house will emerge in all its glory during 2016!
Find out more about Croome
Holker Hall & Gardens
Holker Hall, home to the noble Cavendish family is set in 200 acres of natural parkland and boasts an immaculately kept 25-acre woodland and formal garden, all perfectly framed by the Lakeland hills. With stunning views at every turn this magical garden has something to delight even the most experienced garden visitor. Not to be missed are the magnificent blooms of rhododendrons (some are fragrant), one of Britain’s 50 ‘Great Trees’ – the huge 17th century Great Holker Lime (its girth measures 26ft/7.9m) and the Holker Labyrinth, a maze-like design. Also host to the Holker Garden Festival (end May) and Holker Chilli Fest (mid September).
Find out more about Holker Hall and Gardens
Highfields Park, Nottingham
Highfields Park, located just a short drive from the city of Nottingham, is a hidden gem known to locals for the beautiful view as you slowly drift across the lake on a rowing boat. This 121-acre park is home to magnificent trees, exotic plants and water features. There’s plenty to keep you entertained here including bowling, croquet and putting. And then find a perfect spot for a relaxing picnic.
Find out more about Highfields Park
For more on England’s gardens, try one of the Spectacular Shows
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Esther Freud's Ode To The Magic Of Hampstead's Ladies' Pond
The writer tells Vogue how swimming in the famous Ladies' Pond on Hampstead Heath came to make her feel “dizzyingly grateful to be alive”.
By Esther Freud
Sunday 7 July 2019
Aged 16, and newly moved to London, I had no idea that Hampstead Heath existed – it was nightclubs, theatres, the smoking carriages on the tube that most excited me – but all the same I couldn’t pretend to be unmoved by such a tract of nature. The trees, hills and wildflowers were so much more luxurious than the neat fields and golf courses of East Sussex, and then, to discover, hidden down a leafy lane, behind a scrub of saplings, a secluded lake for the use of women only. No men, children, radios, dogs – the sign on the gate warned, and as I walked down the path beside the sloping meadow, and stood on the wooden deck above the mud brown pond, I had the unusual sense that I was exquisitely lucky to be female.
There are numerous ponds on Hampstead Heath, as many as 30, but only three are reserved for swimming – a mixed, a men’s, and the Kenwood Ladies‘ Pond, which was officially opened in 1925, although women had been using it for centuries. There used to be night swimming by candlelight (now people make use of the dark to climb over the fence), and Katharine Hepburn once visited and brought a tin of biscuits for the lifeguards to have with their tea.
Today there is a group of year-round swimmers who come daily, through hail or frost, and dip themselves into the water. There are long winter months when it is only them. And then, at the height of summer, as many as 2,000 women, of every shape and size, all classes, all ages, from across London, across the country, even from abroad, arrive to swim and sunbathe on the meadow. And the meadow is as important as the pond itself. It is a magical place, entirely private – topless sunbathing has been allowed since 1976 – and once you lie back on your towel all you can see are trees and sky. There is so much space here. So much peace. And above the birdsong the only sound is the hum of chat and laughter and the occasional scream of someone new braving the cold. You can lie in this meadow until dusk, because you’ve paid your dues, you’ve already immersed yourself in the deep, dark lake, and for now at least you don’t have to go in again.
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For many years I was a fair-weather swimmer, circling the pond just once on the sunniest of days, congratulating myself as I climbed out. But then, one autumn, after a difficult summer, when, increasingly, a swim was the only thing that raised my spirits, I decided to keep going. I arrived, fragile and fearful, on a cold, damp Sunday morning, early, to meet a friend who’d swum through the previous year, and ignoring the temperature scrawled on the board (14C) I took courage and followed her down the ladder. It’s so cold! My body screamed as I struck out for the far end, anxious thoughts pursuing me, self-pityand resentment dogging my every stroke. Why am I even doing this? What if I have a heart attack and die? Two ducks glided by, and a heron, wise and faintly disapproving, watched me from the bank. I dipped my head under and, just like that, the mud silk of the water soothed me, released me, and when I burst up, I felt, for a moment, happy.
The next Sunday was already easier. It was a bright, crisp day and cheered by my courage in returning, I swam round twice and when I came out my body was blazing. I stood in the sunshine and chatted excitably, no need even for a towel, but within 10 minutes I began to shake. The cold was like a burn: it had bedded so deep inside me I wasn’t sure I’d have the strength to drag my clothes on, heave my arms into my coat. Speechless, I found my way back to the car, drove the mercifully short distance home and stood in the shower until I was warm. Later I confided in my swimming friend, and she told me I should have asked for a hug. Body heat is the best cure for hypothermia. And she advised me to invest in neoprene gloves and socks. The following week we met on the other side of the Heath and walked fast before we swam. Already warm, it was easier to get in, and harder to get out, and afterwards, although I was still shockingly cold, I arrived home tingling and ravenous, for food, for fun.
By mid-October half the pond was cordoned off. The lifeguards issued warnings. This is proper winter swimming now. You need to come twice a week at least to acclimatise to the temperature as it plummets. Don’t stay in too long. Enjoy. And don’t forget to breathe. By now most of the women were wearing bobble hats, fluorescent pink and yellow, the better to be seen in the early morning murk. But I resisted, savouring the shock of bliss as I cleared my head with a dip under the water. It released my worries. Put me in the moment. And the moment, just for a moment, was good.
On the winter equinox there was a party. Breakfast was provided, croissants, berries and tea, and the pond was hung with lanterns. As many as 50 women climbed down the ladders, struck out across the silvery lake as the sun rose above the trees. By now I was familiar with the changing room regulars – mothers who managed a quick dip after dropping off their children, women on their way to work, octogenarians who revolved in their own circle. “See you tomorrow,” they waved merrily as they bundled off into their day. I loved being surrounded by so many women, all naked, all happy to be so as they jostled for space. It was ridiculous and oddly sexy. And a whole new etiquette had to be mastered in order to greet an acquaintance wearing only a neoprene sock.
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That winter, on holiday on the Suffolk coast, I joined the Christmas Day swim. For years I’d marvelled at the insanity of anyone prepared to strip off in public in December, but this year I threw myself into the waves. By the time I came out I’d been swept so far from my starting point by the current, I had to search, my skin scorched red, through the crowd to find my clothes. But nothing mattered. I was insulated. Deep inside.
And then, in the New Year, it snowed. Now what? I texted. Surely we can stay in bed today? But I was a year-round swimmer and there was no backing down. The pond was almost entirely frozen over. There was one narrow lane where the lifeguards had broken up the ice with an oar, and there were three bobble-hatted women doing lengths. I climbed down the ladder and felt the cold cut up between my legs. It flayed my arms, cracked my skull. “I feel good,” I used my breath to sing a snatch of James Brown, and as I plunged under I felt the water bubble round me, as refreshing as champagne.
Swimming in cold water, I read afterwards in an article pinned to the changing-room wall, raises your white blood cell count and your libido. The best way to get warm is to put your wrists in hot water. I’d come to love this changing room. A small fuggy outhouse with one hot shower and a tap, several plastic basins, rubber mats and wall hooks, it was due to be dismantled during my first winter to make room for a larger, smarter version, and while the work was being carried out the Ladies’ Pond was to close. Here was my chance to stop my swimming challenge and re-start in the spring (I’d got to February after all), but the Ladies’ Pond was re-allocated to the Mixed Pond, and on the weekends we were given access to the Men’s. I’d never thought much of the other ponds. I was utterly loyal to my own, and had taken a condescending approach. You’ve no idea, I’d often thought as I walked past. But I found myself delighted by the leafy safety of the Mixed, and the wide expanse of the Men’s, with no changing room or shower, was Spartan and surprisingly jolly. “Everything today will be easier after this,” I said one particularly bracing morning. And a man waiting by the diving board grinned. “Everything in life.”
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In early May, the Ladies’ Pond re-opened and we all flooded back. The changing room had a slick, Swedish feel and although there was some disgruntlement (was this building designed by a man?), the beloved ingredients remained. There was still, mostly, only one hot shower, and there were the familiar plastic basins which women used to splash themselves, or stood in to thaw their feet.
There was an opening party, with croissants and berries, and when we swam the water was still cold from the icy months before. But soon the rewards began. From two degrees to three. From seven to eight, up to 10. Then 12, and when it reached 14 it seemed so warm I was surprised I’d even shivered. One day the temperature reached 23, and by midsummer I was positively looking forward to the cold shocks of my second winter, the release of adrenaline, the warmth of the deepened friendships, because to swim in the Ladies’ Pond at any time of year is like being part of an exclusive club. There is a special bond between the women – they smile at each other as they glide by, and introduce their daughters to the lifeguards as they come of age. Girls have to be eight to swim, and when they arrive they are watched over as they take their first strokes. Now, each time I walk down the shaded path, I think of the friends I’ve swum with over 30 years, the new friends I’ve made more recently. When we meet, we laugh and congratulate ourselves and remind each other to wipe the mud beards off our chins. And we need to be reminded because when you rise up out of the velvety water you feel so powerfully beautiful that it’s possible to forget to look into a mirror for the rest of the day.
It’s well known that swimming in cold water has physical benefits, but there are others that are harder to define. Swimming past waterlilies and nesting ducks, breathing in the watermelon scent of the mud, sailing in slow breaststroke past weeping willows. It is all so different from the pounding lengths of a traditional pool, where it is possible to drag your worries with you from one end to the other. Here, my sense of myself was altered, the cold too shocking to focus on sorrow and confusion when the useful thing was courage, and when my heart had steadied, and I realised I was not actually going to die, the exhilaration hit me and I felt dizzyingly grateful to be alive.
At The Pond, a collection of essays by different authors about swimming at the Hampstead Ladies’ Pond, will be published by Daunt Books on 20 June, priced at £9.99
This article was first published in the August 2019 issue of Vogue magazine
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Twokinds Forums
A place to sit around and talk about the comic.
Board index Art RolePlaying Board
Characters Thread
Play around with roles and whatnot in here, I suppose.
Ursalon
Re: Characters Thread
#301 Post by Ursalon » Wed Dec 21, 2011 8:52 am
I do enjoy RP and thought I'd post a few characters, would love some feedback. I've got a lot so I kinda had to narrow it down. The first is my paladin, not based off of TwoKinds, the 2nd will be inspired by the comic and its world.
The Last Paladin
Name: Aeonus Tyranell (most often goes by his last name)
Occupation: Paladin
Hair Color: Black, with a well kept chin-strap style beard
Eye Color: Gold
Skin Tone: Caucasian with a very light tan
Standard Clothing: Aeonus normally wears simple priest's robes with white bracers and boots (more in power description) He also wears a simple golden circlet and a holy amulet about his neck that help focus his powers.
Race: Human with string angelic lineage (more in his background)
Aeonus is tall, with a very defined physique. He has wide shoulders and carries himself with strength. Aeonus normally has a very stern look on his face and is serious about almost all things. He walks with purpose and carries an air of power that hangs about him in the air. He radiates an aura of “good” that lets all know his alignment and purpose. This aura will glow and become visible depending on how much power he is currently using. Said aura is a majestic gold in color. When channeling divine energy his eyes glow the same color as his aura. His voice is clear and deep.
Aeonus is a force of good. He seeks to help and defend all others, following a code of conduct that is rigid and defined. He is kind and benevolent, and refuses to be rewarded for his services unless said refusal will offend. Aeonus is courageous to a fault, never tells lies, and has unshakable faith in the divine. He serves the gods and their people above all others, thinking of himself and his own safety last. He is honorable, and encourages others to follow the path of good.
Powers:
Aeonus is an expert healer. His connection to the divine also allows him a wide variety of powers, all of which are holy magic. He is capable of creating shields from divine energy to protect himself and others. Aeonus is also capable of incredible bursts of speed and power, allowing for strong attacks and short distance teleportation for intercepting attacks directed at others. He can heal wounds by laying his hands on others. He can radiate protective wards that create sigils on the ground or in the air that offer beneficial effects to allies that stand within the affected area.
His most notable abilities are perhaps those provided by his lineage and armor/weapons. Aeonus wears a suit of magically crafted full plate that is white with gold detailing and has an angelic motif. This armor is called Ankarderus; The Wings of Hope. It normally lays dormant within him and can be called at a moment’s notice. It appears as golden energy that solidifies into its true form. It offers incredible protection against magic and physical damage, especially from evil foes. Aeonus also carries a shield of similar make, sister to Ankarderus. This shield is called Feytria; The Aegis of Purity. It carries heavy enchantments and also is angelic in appearance. His final armament is his longsword, an angelic weapon forged for war, infused with divine power. Vahlkyrus; The Light Bringer. This leads to his most powerful abilities. Aeonus floods his being with holy energy, releasing the seals upon his soul and assuming an angelic form. In this form his aura is fully visible and is strong enough to damage foes and will heal allies that bask in its radiance. He sprouts six wings that grant him flight capabilities. This form magnifies his powers, but comes at a cost. His “true form” can only be used for short periods of time, and is only accessible in great need. After the transformation is over, he is left with little to no magic and is significantly weakened. Aeonus needs time to recover after use to once again be able to access his full powers.
Aeonus is one the last members of an order of knights that dedicated themselves to the gods. His father and mother gave their lives in fulfillment of the order’s ideals, leaving him with their weapons and armor. He is of noble lineage, mingled with mortal and angelic bloodlines. His ancestry led to the founding of his nearly dead order, and allows him to stay in perfect heath. The Knights of Empyria had five founding members, each a great champion of good. They were gifted with angelic power as they swore their oaths to the gods. The five great houses of the order were nearly wiped out by the forces of darkness, and are slow to rebuild. Aeonus seeks to purify his bloodline and recapture the full power of his ancestor, Vikalleon Tyranell, who was the first leader of the knights. He travels on his quest, an endless crusade against evil, to kindle hope and belief in the gods once more. Aeonus is a light unto the darkness, and the shield of the righteous.
“Fear not, all shall be well” –Aeonus Tyranell
SekerutaHeruta
#302 Post by SekerutaHeruta » Wed Apr 25, 2012 9:53 am
Oh man, do I have a lot of characters for you all to enjoy. Here they are in chronolical order.
1: Miles DèMalkin (Current version.)
Name: Miles DèMalkin
Class: Fighter, Valkyrim.
Level: 23.
Weapon: Dusk Noir. (Greatsword.)
HP: 12000.
Atk: 15799. (+2100 and 600, so really 18499.)
Def: 9814.
MP: 7009. (+600, so really 7609.)
(Lot's of stats and spells were edited out.)
Additional stuff: He used to have a wife and daughter, whom he seeks to ressurect.
The wife, Amy Vilesense, died due to diseases.
The daughter, Lucy Vilesense, was raped and murdered.
2: Noel Falkner.
Noel Falkner of Iris.
Used to be a noble, but a group of robbers raided his mansion, killing his family. This forced Noel, who was a spoiled brat at this point, to mature very quickly.
Unfortunantly, he was unable to find work anywhere, and eventually turned to thievery. One day, when he stole from the grand Witch Iris, she cursed him to live out the rest of his life as a Bound.
When the Crusaders raided her household, she fled the place, while Noel was hiding in the basement. Unfortunantly for him, he was found, and sentenced to death by execution. (I like your idea.)
Uses air around him to fly, turn his body parts to almost any kind of sword, move faster and create sharp winds.
6,0 tall, 72kg, short blonde hair, blue eyes.
Has a scar over his left eye, preventing him from opening it.
His right arm is covered in cloth bandages, due to wounds recieved during the robbery.
Wears a lightblue, shortsleeved shirt, brown vest, brown cloth pants, black shoes, a dark blue royal coat, and a blue cape with his family's coat of arms on it. (A falcon with 2 crossing rapiers in the background.)
3: Exiel Nightfall.
Exiel Nightfall
The eye of Ragnarok
Star, Soul, Arcane.
Fists. (White gentleman's gloves.)
Soul Weapon: (When aquired.) Deus Machina: Absolutio.
Worked as a card dealer and bouncer at a night club, but was forbidden from working after he absorbed the eye of Ragnarok. Has lived a shady live ever since, working as a con artist by cheating people with card tricks.
Usually acting like a gentleman, he treats everyone with respect, and always seems to be smiling. Though he becomes surprisingly vicious during combat, beating the opponent long after he or she has been defeated.
Unbelievably sadistic and cruel during combat, and especially loves the sound of bones breaking. Quite fond of tearing jaws off as well, and eyeballs when he's feeling different. Doesn't know anything about "The end," though he's somewhat curious about it.
Has azure eyes, (Eye of Ragnarok colours his right eye red, and gives it a more lupine look.) medium long blonde hair, 6,1 tall.
Wears a purple blazer with fitting pants, a white shirt under the blazer, a purple tie and white gloves, as well as black wedding shoes. Usually wears a purple top hat with a white stripe as well. Wears an azure monocle on his right eye, in order to hide the eye of Ragnarok.
4: Sora no Hazami.
Name: Sora No Hazami.
Looks: About 19 years old, with golden/hazel hair, and azure eyes. 6.0 tall, 68kg. Wears a large, tattered brown scarf, almost as big as a cape, along with blue jeans, a gray shirt and black sneakers.
Background: A bounty hunter, looking for vigilantes and mercenaries. Figured they would be likely to show up at a place like this.
Abilities: Fights with a regular sized scissor, a giant scissor, and a balisong knife. The giant scissor has blades that are about 25 inches long, and is tied to his right arm with a magical barrier. Can use etheral energy to increase the size of it, change its shape, as well as use various wind based techniques with it. (Hence the name ´´Sky of scissors.``)
Additional info: An artificial human with 3 engines in his body, granting him different powers.
Wing-like blades from his back when using the Icarus engine.
Rocket boosters and blades from his legs when using the Hermes engine.
Increased strength and the ability to send out blasts of air from his arms when using the Iscariot engine.
I also have a character called Drive Reinhardt, but he has yet to be in anything.
EDIT: Forgot about fighting styles.
Miles is a CQC expert, Noel is taekwondo-ish fighter, Exiel is a boxer and Sora is a wrestler.
EDIT AGAIN: I hope this doesn't qualify as necro'ing.
If it does, please forgive me.
Lee The Werewolf
Location: With werewolves. Lots. Of werewolves.
#303 Post by Lee The Werewolf » Wed Jun 20, 2012 2:16 am
Were-wolf
Gender & Age:
23 year old Male
HUMAN FORM:
A blonde, clean shaven teen Gandalf. He has light blue-grey eyes and hair is feather-light, the golden strands tending to get in front of his eyes. His height is 5' 4'' and weight is 135, though lean and slightly muscular.
WOLF FORM:
A light and dark grey all over, charcoal black fur starting at his paws, muzzle, and tail tip and and fading into the rest of his coat.
Lee lived and was born to a small family on the far edge of a dark forest. After birth his parents abandoned him in the forest, realizing what their son was to become, never to be heard of until recently. He was raised by one of the resident wolf packs until he was found by hunters to his disdain. Lee was brought back to civilization where he learned to speak (However broken it may be) aloud but was more adept at signing. Later on he fell in with a group of undesirables and learned to control his temper and the muscular gray wolf that came with it.
Basics, Grey-blue muscle shirt and gloves, blue jeans and steel-toed boots.
Insanity is my occupation. The mental ward is my office and straight-jackets are worn on Casual Fridays. Any other questions?
I'm Batman.
logdog102
Location: Cleveland, Ohio (US)
#304 Post by logdog102 » Thu Aug 30, 2012 3:29 am
I don't really RP much, but I've decided to make a person so here we go.
Name: Logan (Is it sad that I can't come up with something that isn't my name?)
Class: Run away slave
Species: Western Basitin
Languages:English/Keidran
Appearance: Light tan/grey fur, dark brown hair that just reaches his neck, light brown eyes, unusually large ears, and thin with little muscle.
Normal Clothing: A pair of black pants; Short sleeve dark green V Neck; wrist and neck shackles; a pair of round glasses; a black pair of gloves decorated with steel plaits going down each finger in lines and up to a circle on the back of his hand which then leads down to another line that runs down to his wrists. Often seen with an old brown backpack when going from city to city.
Skills: Running, sneaking, persuading, and smithing.
Weapon: A scimitar that he "found" and a curved dagger
Note: He seams lucky in regards to him still being alive
Likes: sour foods, quiet places, the night, cool weather, being around friends
Dislikes:Spicy food, Noisy crowded places, very bright places, hot weather, being around strangers
Fears: The undead (they just creep him out), dying.
Personality: Logan is a quiet guy most of the time but if he trusts someone, they will eventually know almost all there is to know about him. If he is around close friends he will be very open. All he really wants to do is live his life in peace, which is hard to do when you have no money and people seem to hate any sentient with fur. He does not enjoy his life as it is and is looking for some way to change it for the better.
History: He was a slave under the control spell, but that all changed one day when the spell somehow wore off. When he was 10, him and two of his keidran slave friends planned to escape. Logan was the only one to escape and he does not know if his friends are dead or captured again. From that point on he has been living the life of a petty thief just to keep himself fed.
A year went by and on day a strange man walked up to him offering him a job to steal a sword. In return he would be given 10 gold coins, which is more gold than he had ever seen in his life. Little did he know that he was stealing from the Templar. He was nearly caught in the act of stealing it by a guard. He was forced to kill that guard and it was the first time he ever killed anyone. When he returned with the sword to the mysterious man the man told him to simple keep the sword and gave him the 10 gold coins, which completely baffled him. He had no idea what to do with a sword.
Half a year went by and Logan met a smith named Alnore who took him under his wing. Alore taught him how to work a forge. Wile with Alore Logan mad his dagger, replaced the hilt of his old sword and made a pair of gloves to help him hold onto his weapons. Fore three years it seamed all was going well for Logan, he had a place to sleep, food to eat, and a friend to talk to. That all changed one day when Alore got sick. Alore was old and couldn't fight the sickness so he eventually died.
He never understood what Alnore saw in him, but after Alnore died he tried to run the blacksmith on his own, which eventually fell through to debt because he didn't know anything about running a business and was forced to sell it. So he found himself living on the streets again as a thief.
I'm still working on this character.
Go on, shoot me.
Contact T2x
#305 Post by T2x » Tue Oct 23, 2012 1:33 pm
Name: Matthew K. Connelly
Nick Name: Matt
Age: ~10
Class:Battle Mage
Species: Half Breed (Fox Keidran/Human)
Description of Character: Light Orange Fur so over all he looks like an average Fox, With a white tipped tail, toned muscles from years of training
Clothing: A pair of Tan pants; Long Sleeved Blue Shirt; Wears a necklace with a red gems on it ;And often a old Templar robes passed down from his father.
Skills: Very Skilled with Swords, Magic, Crafting, Alchemy, Cooking
Weapon: A Family Heirloom Black Sword
Misc: The Necklace can open rifts that double for storge
Likes:Reading, Cooking, Experminting with magic and Alchmey, Fighting All out, Makeing Friends Along the way
Dislikes:Being Bored, Expermints back firing in his face, Mean people, Being left out
Personality: Matthew is usually friendly, shy, and a little naive about somethings in particullar. He loves meeting new people in his travels. Very polite and kind to others. Very Rich from his Fathers wealth and usually buying nice things for others if he can. He likes to help others in any way he can.
History: Matthew is the Son of a Human Templar William Connelly and a Fox Keidran Madelyn. He was Raise in a hidden town built by how do you say a group that had trouble came to them. But he grew up with many childhood friends he had a wonderful childhood. His Father taught him everything he knows to this point. Vary Curisous about most things that his way if he wanted to know how it work more than likely he'd find out. At the Age of ~6 he set out upon the world to find adventure and prosperity on his own. unlike others he was able todo magic with out mana crystals which made others envious of him which in turn got him into trouble by accident because of this untapped power he had problems casting magic and occasionly blow up something when he didnt mean to. But after a few years he learned to control this power and use it to his liking which was usually helping others.
Big Role player and im still working on him :3
⚜ "All is one and one is all"⚜
Darkrider
Contact Darkrider
#306 Post by Darkrider » Sun Nov 25, 2012 5:30 am
Okay, for starters, the profile I'm about to give are from other forums I RP in, but I think I can find a home for him here. The profile is copy and pasted, maybe with one or two tweaks here and there. If anything seems OP, don't hesitate to point it out to me.
Name: Darkrider, Dark, Todd Velden (Human name).
Species: Bio-roid.
Affiliation or Occupation: None at this point.
Rank: Ex-A class Hunter (Pre Elf-Wars)
Male. Appears to be 19 years old, although he’s at least 100. Approximately 6' 3" tall. Golden Yellow eyes. Just over 125lbs. The armor is mainly black and white with gold trim, and a dark green gem on his chest, as well on his upper arms and his ankles. He also has a long, diagonal scar on his back (Reminds him of what he is fighting for)these are usually hard to see due to the fact that he usually wears a black cloak. Hair color is a shade of golden brown.
Shadow Buster: Preferred weapon, Dark elemental. It's easy identified by the unique bayonets. It's built into his arms, much like the X Buster.
Light/Dark Blades: Backup weapon. Darkrider only has the Dark Blade at this point. The Light and Dark blades are twin blades, the location of the other blade is unknown. (Blue blade/ Red blade) Each blade has a scabbard that can be detached from the user's belt.
Backpack: Used to carry healing items, extra weapons, and ammunition.
Limiters: Decreases Darkrider's power by half by limiting the flow of energy flowing through his system.
Hover Skates: These replace the Sonic Thrusters (A speed booster) he originally had. Allows him to travel up to 100mph.
Skills or Techniques:
Dark Disruptor: Darkrider's most powerful move. Turns Darkrider's eyes red. Darkrider unleashes a sphere that is 6 inches in radius at his opponents that, upon contact, bursts into a 5yd blast. Capable of removing 1/4th (With limiter) of his opponents’ health.
Hyper Mode(s):
Delta Spectre: Powered by Darkrider’s Shadeium energy core. Darkrider's body changes entirely to black, except his eyes and teeth. His speed and power are increased 1.5 fold. Limiters can released in this form, but only for a short period of time. Anything longer than 5 minutes, and Darkrider risks the possibility of going maverick, or worse…
Darkrider was born in 22XX, but was a victim of a maverick attack that took his parents, his memories, and half of his body at the age of 16. Years later, he would be discovered by a maverick hunter. Darkrider joined the maverick hunters, and two years later, earned his A-class license. During that same year, his body was introduced to an Energy known as “Shadeium,” and pulled the trigger on his little sister, who caused the damage to him 2 years ago. Darkrider would continue to work for the hunters, and proved to be highly efficient on the field. However, his energy problems would slow him down, and Darkrider retired. When he retired, he was placed into Cyro-sleep after the defeat of Sigma for researching a way to stabilize his energy core. The intent was to eventually put him back into Maverick Hunter service.
Darkrider is long forgotten in an abandoned lab. The reasons for its abandonment are unclear. What is known is this: Darkrider’s powers have greater potential than expected. To increase the output, A few improvements were added to his system, such as the Hover Skates he now uses.
Basically a lone wolf, but helps out when needed. A little abrasive and impatient. If you hurt a friend of his, you're gonna be in a world of hurt. Very driven.
Dreams: Prevent others from suffering similar fates, and recovering the rest of his memories.
Reasons for Dreams: See background.
Has the tendency to stand on a high place and think on his past.
Most of the data on Darkrider and Shadeium was destroyed except for the data in the lab for safety reasons. Darkrider holds what little knowledge there is left.
Notes: Don't start a fight on his species. There was quite a bit of controversy on what Darkrider exactly is. Unfortunately, he was stuck with that, but there's several ways to call him what he is. Cyborg, Reploid with a Human mind, Bio-roid, take your pick. I never had fun with it.
There are a billion ways to die. You will experience them all by the end of the week.
Lockheart
#307 Post by Lockheart » Tue Feb 05, 2013 4:11 am
so if i make a mistake or am god modding please tell me and ill change it.
Name: Nathaniel Lockheart (prefers last name)
Race: keidran
Sub-race: domestic cat
Profession: freelancer
Class: CQC assassin
Role: Ruthless anti-hero
Weapons: an enchanted katana named lunar where wolves dance down the blade and devours life energy to repair its-self and gunmyr a small crossbow that never misses inside 20 ft. other than then those he has various survival knives and traps
fighting style:he tends to get in close and "flow" around his enemies rendering their swords useless. he gets harder to fight the closer he gets.
Powers: born with advanced blood magic and abnormal perceptions.
Appearance: has grey fur with black stripes and silver hair. stands around 5'6 and wears black leather with steal gauntlets, pauldrons, and shin guards. wears a utility belt that holds all his misc items.
disposition: very shy but relativity friendly and sarcastic which hides his cold, calculating, and psychotic side. very loyal towards friends.
Bio: illegitimate son of two prominent members of the Illuminati, Lockheart was found in front of an orphanage with only a bound katana and crested cloth. he was more agile and care free than the other children, and was adopted at the age of five by a human retired royal guard named Karn who taught him how to survive and fight. after a few years Lockheart was able to best his master in martial arts and sword-play. at the age of fifteen he had to face his final test and was abandoned in the mountains to fend for himself. after some time traveling he made friends with a merchant caravan. his time with them was short lived as they ran into bandits, and he was forced to watch their murder which caused his powers to manifest. the only survivor was a fox Keidran who managed to scale a tree as the blood and bones started flying. her name was Kiara and she was a huntress who was forced from her home at a young age. after he collapsed from exhaustion she nursed him back to health. when he was healthy enough to set out on his own he found her tagging along.
weaknesses:due to his heightened senses he gets disoriented easier, and his blood magic leaves him drained and weak for days
jacobc62
Grand Templar
Location: Mekkan Raceway
Contact jacobc62
#308 Post by jacobc62 » Fri Mar 08, 2013 7:16 pm
Name: Tyler Bladerunner
Race: Keidran (Fox/Snow Wolf Mix)
Profession: Blacksmith
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Role: A smarter version of [Database Error], but still can be an idiot sometimes.....
Bio: Born in a small rural village along the fox/wolf keidran border, Tyler didn't see much of the outside world. He received sword training with several different types of swords by his grandfather. Around the same time, he also learned trade skills with blacksmithing and tavern running. After all, his father owned the only blacksmithery and his mother worked at one of the local taverns. Eventually, Tyler created his own greatsword, which had been cast of a mixture of Titanium and Starmetal.
Wepons: +1 Greatsword (1d20+9 to hit, 2d6+12 damage), Shortbow (2d20+3 to hit, 1d6+2 to hit).
Strengths: mild poision resistance, meaningless battle.
Weaknesses: Hot chicks, bacon. General reactions to both: (girls) (girls and/or bacon)
Apearance: Although he looks like a normal Fox Keidran from afar, up close he looks more like a wolf keidran. After all, his father was a snow wolf and his mother was a fox.... literally.... Brown eyes, orange hair, greyish paw pads. Wears a green sleeveless shirt and dark brown pants.
That's my character...
"That poor, sexy [censored]...." -Evals Vaughan, October 2016
Stryder221
Templar GrandMaster
Location: Rolling face across the keyboard.
#309 Post by Stryder221 » Sun Apr 14, 2013 7:40 am
I'll just leave this here... Because, why not?
Name: Kin Marni
Appearance: http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/ ... uinkey.png
Race: Half-beast
Gender: Male? no wait, female! Actually, nobody has a damned clue.
Age: Nobody knows, since he/she never mentions it.
Strength: Master wind mage, very fast runner, able to fly via wind magic. (No passengers.)
Weakness: Mind of a puppy. Likes shiny stuff, And... "Fooooooooooooooood..."
Weapons: Bare hands/little claws.
Non-magic skills: Sharp eyes and ears, can spot little things easily, and can hear things with similar ease. light-fingers, pickpocketing possible. Master of stuffing face full of delicious food.
Items: Clothes on back, including Bell that never seems to ring. Silver pendant in the shape of a leaf, Kin values this highly.
Role: Clueless wind magician who's never seen a human.
Alignment: Chaotic neutral.
Combat style: Tends to float out of reach, attempting to reason with attacker. If that fails, attempts to send them soaring away with magic, only fights for real if both tactics fail. Has only a few lethal spells, which involve using the wind as a sharp weapon.
If wielding physical weapon for some reason, attacks with what can be best described as indiscriminate flailing.
Bio: Not much is known about this strange child. But numerous sightings confirm this half-beast lives mostly in forests and jungles, often seen speaking to squirrels or thin-air.
The kid doesn't seem to have any parents to speak of, and asking has no effect, as he/she has no memory of them.
Only one memory seems to stick to Kin's head, one of a great fire. It often haunts Kin's sleep as a nightmare.
Misc: small wildlife and various wind spirits take a liking to Kin, and the mage can communicate with them.
Gets uncomfortable and nervous indoors or in a large city.
Do not remove bell, it's more trouble than it is worth.
Stealing the pendant will only bring pain and suffering, so don't play "keep away" with it.
Doesn't like wolves for some reason.
Loves a good meal, and tends to eat a lot.
"I-I'll help! Somehow!" -Kin Marni
EDIT: Eh, I might as well throw this one in, too.
Appearance: Tall and thin, with pale skin, silver hair, and white eyes. Wears a leather hat and coat.
Name: Ark Vanguard
Race: Corrupted Angel
Class: Angelic Battle-mage
Role: Antagonist/Anti-hero.
Weapon: An angelic greatsword known as "Goddess' tear", enchanted to never dull nor break, and to drive away darkness upon touch. However, it has been corrupted by Ark in his volatile state, giving it a blood-red glow and a vicious edge.
Skills: Expert swordsman, he wields the goddess' tear with no difficulty, cutting through foes with incredible strength and speed.
Master Mage, His experience with light magic is unparalleled, and his elemental skills are nothing to laugh at, either.
Wings. Yeah, he has wings, but they're usually hidden. Can fly with them, of course.
Disposition: Cold and merciless, questionable sanity, and prone to fits of rage, but is loyal to those he deems innocent.
Bio: Ark was once a guardian angel over a town called "Destian". [1] He took the role of guardian with great enthusiasm, protecting it from all danger, human or not. In the second year of guarding, he fell in love with a human girl by the name of Amelia, a beautiful Red-head who always smelled of roses.
Eventually, three years after their first meeting, the two had confessed their love for each other, and had been ready to marry when disaster struck.
On the very day of their wedding, a band of mercenaries began to pillage the town, smashing and burning everything. All who stood in their way were cut down.
Amelia was not spared from the carnage, either, as she received an arrow in the throat in the church, and died in Ark's arms as he was unable to save her. In a fit of grief and rage, he lost himself, and began to cut through the marauders as if they were nothing. Despite his resistance, he was quickly overpowered, and was sealed away via Black magic, his only companion being the steadily decaying body of his dead lover.
For decades he brooded on his never-ending wishes for revenge, eventually breaking free [2] as his magical prowess spiked. Awakening to nothing more than an ancient ruin, Ark flattened what was left in his rage.
Now, maddened by grief, he intends to cleanse humanity with violence, destroying anyone who dared to so much as pick up a blade.
Weakness: His mind is fragile and on the edge of insanity, tampering with it may force him over the edge.
Being a former warrior of light, Ark is especially vulnerable to dark magic.
Misc: Keeps a rose with him to remind himself of Amelia.
"My home was destroyed, my love slaughtered, and myself sealed for decades with her rotting corpse. Did you really think I'd just forget that?" -Ark Vanguard
1. Subject to change depending on the RP.
2. Also subject to change.
E͎͖̯̱̻͡r̲͇r͢҉͈͚ò͈̹̰̩̺͓̝̘̟̕r̨̡̺̥̲̰͕̭̬:̵͙̦̟̮̖̯̞́͢ ̴̛̞̙͙̠̲̝̟S̵͎̼̖̜̯͕̺͔̀i̶͉̟̝̻͕̺g̢̤͕n̴͈̩̝͓͖̹͕̟͢a͕̺̱͞ț̸̛͓u̢̥̣̣̰̪ͅr̨̠͙̯̣̣̘̠ḛ̡̨̟̗̥̰̱̻ͅ ̻̮̼̥͕̼͉͎u͏͔̳n͏͔͈̭̭͟a̮͕͖̲͕͙͔ͅv̺̦̼̥̭͙a͏҉̦̺̫̯i̝̙̳̜l̴̡̳̥͠a̢̘̬͈͢ͅb̶̶̦͉͙́ḷ̸̙̙̳̩̥́e͔̪̳̦̫͚̪̹ͅ.͖̠̗͔̖̞ͅ
Alphahalo1999
Location: Prolly off destroying another Halo ring
#310 Post by Alphahalo1999 » Mon Jul 22, 2013 4:34 am
Name: Aaron
Race: Keidran (Fox)
Fur colors: Ash black with cyan accents
Age: 11-ish
This is my first character and he is pretty basic from my standpoint, I'll improve him as time goes on and probably give him a revision when i feel it is needed.
Abilities and facts
-Aaron is a rare mutation of fox the results of this are an affinity for all things arcane, his templar-like ability to absorb mana from the earth, and his strange fur color.
-He is unlike most Keidran in the fact that he gets along with Keidran, Human, and Basitin alike.
-He is a heavy magic user but usually puts negative spells on his sword.
-Much of his magic is influenced by his emotions, so he sometimes accidentally uses spells if he is affected by a strong emotion.
*Bio is soon to come*
-Alphahalo1999
"If i ate a box of crayons, i could crap a mountain better than that!" -BdoubleO100 playing Simcity 5
TheJuggernaut
Location: I dunno. Somewhere on the mainland of Mekkan... Er... Somethin'...
#311 Post by TheJuggernaut » Wed Nov 06, 2013 2:13 am
Here's my character that I wish would submit, but won't due to the hypocracy of being an anti-fur and liking the story (only slightly anti, though). Oh, and the character tends to fight about as brutal as the mod for Doom of the same name (Brutal Doom), so gore would be too common. OOH!!! Almost forgot one last trait: He's got quite the sailors mouth, too.
Name: Connor Bunce (Yes, that's my name IRL. Problem?)
Alias: "The Juggernaut" (hence my username)
Race: Human (Caucasian)
Alignment (Thanks for the inadvertent reminder, Kin): Chaotic Good
Main Theme (0:00-1:39) & Crazy Idea Theme (1:40-6:06): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g712PGUM5yc
Battle Theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj73KicRvSw
Wandering Theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZvjcmOJ18E
Combat Strategy (Especially when he's angry and/or drunk): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPNmo8iLncs
Height: 7'0" (originally 6'0")
Physical Appearance: Shaved, dark brown hair; golden-yellow eyes (originally hazel, so he's not a hybrid); reddish-tan skin; muscular build; odd, tribal tattoo-like markings reaching from his now demon-like right hand to his shoulder.
Apparel: Metal shoulder plates; metal chest plate; leather boots; leather glove (left hand); red demonic metal gauntlet with an ancient rune on the back that glows like fire; oval-shaped, metal face mask that slightly resembles a shield (Army of Two: The 40th Day inspired).
Abilities: Feral Abilities (FarCry Instincts: Predator inspired); aura vision; fire spells; BERSER RAGE.
Weapons: Ancient Stone Claymore; "Boomshot" hand-held cannon; harpoon used as a grappling hook launcher of sorts; wooden buckler; his father's wood axe.
Personality: Grumpy, racist, slightly insane, and short-tempered, but with a kind heart he usually keeps locked away under his tough exterior. Did I mention he likes alcohol of all forms?
Bio: Cursed with immortality, a fearsome appearance, and a blinding rage by the demonic gauntlet he wears to this day, Connor wanders across the land of Mekkan, either killing anyone who harms the innocent, or, and I quote, "kicking the living **** outta any ***holes who are involved with the slave trade because I hate 'em too ****ing much to even let the so-called 'good' ones get away. Lousy little hypocrites..."
So, fellow forum users (and Tom, whom of which I recently learned is Markiplier's brother! ), what do you think? Sorry for all the edits by the way.
Corruption is a disease
It blackens the soul with ease
It rots, it boils
It spreads, it coils
And worst of all, it feeds
~Connor when he manages to corner his enemies.
(Even though this is for RP, I actually made that poem myself!)
SilverScarfFox
Location: Near a cliff....Meditating...
#312 Post by SilverScarfFox » Wed Nov 13, 2013 3:56 am
I'll post only one of my guys for now till I get everything sorted out I'll just introduce one.
Name: Lex LeBlanc
Race: Fox
Ability: The power of Electricity
Sexuality: Straight
Appearance: A young Fox with blue and black fur. His fur covers his right eye like a hair style and some of his fur spikes forward and his about as high as his ears. He wears a long silver scarf that is about to his knees. He wears white fingerless gloves that have the words "Fight On" of the back hands. His black pants have the words "Rock On" on them. His also sports on boots and wears a white shirt with blue on the shoulders to the sleeves.
Bio: Lex LaBlanc was a normal (well normal for his family) Fox who ended up being raised in an orphanage for part of his childhood due to his parents wanting him to live in a place away from the fate that his parents would suffer. He lived a good life in the orphange, even with him not knowing much of using his powers in a safe and controled manner. Until one day a teenager was looking for a Fox who was the son of two well knowed Foxes that knowed to have a son with the powers of electricity. Even when the maid and the owner of the orphanage tried there best to fool the teenager into thinking that there are no Fox children in the orphanage, the teenager killed them both and began killing allthe children, maids, buttlers and others in the building. The one thing the teenager didn't know was that the Fox was not in the building, but was in a near by shop getting bread. Lex retunred to only see the dead bodies and the orphange burnt to a crisp. He never knew who did this but found a note saying "This was the sane fate your family suffered, you little fox!". After that, Lex had been strugling to survive by himself and having to deal with the fact the all he loves are dead. Until one day a man showed up to help the boy be raised to survive by himself. Lex soon learned how to fight using all of his body and electrical powers and learned how to control his powers and use it for many purposes. The man who saved him gave him a silver scarf that was found in orphange, somehow untouched. He also gave Lex some fingerless gloves and pants that dawn the words "Fight On" and "Rock On". Lex then went on to try and live a normal life and find who killed all he loved and kill him/her.
(Ow my hands)
Personality: Kind to those he see no threat, Rude to those who interupt his meditation. Hates being called emo for his gair style, tries to be helpful, willing to fight no matter what, strong willed.
(Well that's all I can say for now.....my hands hurt from all this typing)
A man...or fox, with a hell of an imagination...but can't draw it. But is good at explaining it, sort of
SkybornWG
New Citizen
Location: In your local storybook.
#313 Post by SkybornWG » Thu Mar 26, 2015 10:48 pm
(Slightly edited my original post)
Name: Mara Nie’Miec (pronounced MÄ-ruh nye-MĒ-ek)
Languages: Human, some Keidran but not enough to be fluent
Alignment: Neutral-good
Appearance: Abundant, bright red hair that stops half-way above her knees, and with messy bangs; hair hanging down between her eyes and on either side of them, as well as hair sticking up in the back/at the side. She has bright eyes that are cyan in colour, and her skin is very pale, but not sickly-looking. She’s just an inch or so shorter than average height and often stands with one hand on her hip, with her arms crossed, or with one arm holding the other arm at the elbow--she never stands just with her arms at her sides, or else she starts fiddling with whatever she can get her hands on.
Clothing: She usually wears a white shirt with a black cardigan over it. She wears dark grey jeans and lighter grey sneakers, dark sunglasses perched on top of her head, and a silver locket with the Templar insignia on it that she rarely opens.
Personality: She loves being unpredictable. She’ll sometimes play little jokes on people, and it makes her really upset when someone can’t take a joke. She loves making people smile and laugh, but it’s hard to get her to talk to you at first. She loves adventure, so she likes to travel. She is always practicing things like magic, art, music, combat, and so on. She is a very accepting person and she looks at other races as all being human at heart, that all races are equals in the end. She can be a bit irritable, though, and has a quick temper. She also has a knack for sarcasm.
Backstory (short): Ever since she was small, it was obvious that she had some sort of magical ability, but her mother could never do anything about it but ignore it, so she was always searching for books about magic, thrown out by people like the Templar once they were too worn or out-dated. It was the best that she could do for a long while, because she doubted that she would ever be skilled enough to do anything else with her magic. By the time that she thought otherwise about her powers, she had realized that the Templar were taking certain actions that she didn’t agree with, so she started avoiding anything to do with the Templar...unless her locket is taken into account. Her locket was left on her doorstep at random. The locket held--and still holds--a mana stone and a picture of Trace, who had been the Grand Templar around that time. She wears it because of the mana stone within it (as a backup source of mana), but also because of the fact that wearing it calms her nerves. She would hate to lose it, in any case.
Abilities: She is a master of disguise and relatively good with dual-wielded blades. She knows how to use mana to wield magic, and is more skilled at it than she would care to admit, even to herself. She is also relatively good at quick-fixing things like straps, tools, or chains.
Attributes: She can’t stay quiet to save her life, so stealth is not her strong-suit. She is curious to a fault and can not control her emotions very well, which is why she wears sunglasses, in case she starts crying or something of the like and doesn’t want anyone to see it.
esmeraldakittycat
#314 Post by esmeraldakittycat » Sun Jun 14, 2015 1:13 pm
I have a character I'll be RPing as. She's a WIP.
Name: Esmeralda
Species: Tiger keidrian
Age: 8 (in human years) 18 (in Keidrian years)
Personality: Kind, sweet, bit of a coward
Past: She was a slave until she escaped. Now she lives as a loner.
CATS! CATS! CATS!
JoshtheOverlander
#315 Post by JoshtheOverlander » Wed Aug 19, 2015 7:42 am
Name: Arryn Axel
Languages: Human, Keidran
Appearance: Shoulder-length, straight black hair, slanted red eyes, pale skin, athletic build, 5'8, with a handsome, angular face.
Clothing: He's known for wearing a black cloak and a dark red tunic underneath with a black shirt. He wears dark brown leggings and leather boots too. Additionally, he has a short sword strapped to the left side of his waist with an iridescent red blade, sheathed in a dark scabbard.
Personality: Arryn can be quite a dark person. He rarely shows signs of humor and is generally cold towards others, but that doesn't mean he doesn't care. It's just that he cares more for the Keidran than for those of his own race. He's become rather numb to killing others if it means saving a Keidran from abuse or enslavement or especially death. However, just because he's numb to it, doesn't mean he likes it. In fact, he would rather avoid bloodshed. That said, he seems a little...ignorant of how flawed his ways are.
Backstory (short): Arryn was once a templar of considerable skill. He was held in high regards by his peers and was respected by many. That was before he earned the title Red Reaper. As a templar, he wanted to keep order and keep crime at an acceptable low, but he didn't like the enslavement of the Keidran and openly protested it. Finally, while witnessing a slave trader abusing a captured Keidran, Arryn had finally had enough. He drew his sword and slew the trader, freeing the Keidran he'd captured shortly thereafter. The death of the trader didn't go unnoticed by the templars and they tried to have him executed. In the process of escaping his death sentence, Arryn had put down twelve different templars and freed several Keidran, the only ones of which were Keidran that didn't want to flee, of which there were few. After escaping he began to free Keidran slaves left and right, avoiding the templars when he can and slaying them when necessary.
Abilities: He's a master with his red sword and has an impressive aptitude for magic as well. He can also work a lock really well.
Attributes: He's strong and agile, but not very resilient. He's a lightweight and can't handle too much alcohol. He is well-known for killing humans, but also for freeing Keidran, which has put him on decent terms with the Keidrans in general, allowing him to travel freely through Keidran territory without much trouble. The fact that he had taken time to study the Keidran language helps as well.
Name: Dormen
Race: Panther Keidran
Age: 11 years (About the same age as Arryn in Keidran years)
Alignment: Neutral Good
Appearance: Scruffy black fur, golden, slanted eyes, long, slender tail, athletic build, 6'2.
Clothing: Wears a dark brown cloak and a dark brown vest. He wears black leggings as well and a silver bangle on his right wrist. Hidden in his cloak, strapped to the back of his waistline are his two daggers. Curved, silver blades with an iron hilt with leather woven around the handle and sheathed in brown scabbards.
Personality: He's usually laid-back, with a joking attitude most of the time and regards Arryn with a casual tone and behavior. Though he seems like a complete slacker, he's wiser and more fierce than he's given credit for, especially in battle. He tries to treat whomever he fights with respect, regardless of race or social status, as it is his belief that there is no superior between two opponents. He likes to crack jokes to liven the mood and even puts on silly acts to put the atmosphere in a much brighter light.
Backstory (short): Dormen was a slave to a rather abusive master and didn't like being the way he was, so he acted casual and outspoken, especially when his master had guests. One day, his master got a very special guest who only asked one question for Dormen and his master each. He firstly asked Dormen, "Is your master kind or do you hate him?" When Dormen told him he hated his master, despite the risk of being put down, the man then asked his master, "Your slave does not enjoy being with you, so will you free him or do you plan to keep up this act?" When Dormen's master said the Keidran was just a slave and his slave at that, the man drew his sword and killed him. The guest told Dormen he was free now and the Keidran followed after him, regardless of his protests. During an ambush on the man's life, Dormen defended him until the templars were beaten down. The man thanked him and asked him his name before giving his own. Arryn Axel, the Red Reaper. Dormen gave Arryn his name and continued to follow Arryn, watching his back since.
Abilities: He is quite a sneaky Keidran and is skilled at making sneak attacks. He's a wiz at hunting and he's quite the master at fighting with weapons akin to his daggers.
Attributes: Agile, fast, and stealthy. What he lacks in magical aptitude, he makes up for in wisdom and combat prowess. He's not quite as physically strong as Arryn, but one of his sayings is, "strength to hold back an attack is hardly needed if the enemy can't land a hit in the first place."
Chicken Curry is the best thing EVER!!!
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Posted on July 19, 2011 December 24, 2015 by Ken Kremer
Love of Science Drives Last Shuttle Commander – Chris Ferguson Brings Science Museum to Orbit
In the weeks leading up to the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis, I had the distinct honor to speak on several occasions with Chris Ferguson, the Space Shuttle Commander of the STS-135 mission that will soon close out NASA’s Space Shuttle Era.
Chris talked to me about his childhood experiences that led him to “love science” and how he strongly believes in “giving back” to a community that enriched him so much – and eventually led him to his career as a space shuttle astronaut.
That passion for science and giving will result in an extraordinary and out of this world gift to the people of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, hometown to Chris Ferguson that he hopes will inspire kids to love science.
I first met Chris about two years ago in Philadelphia when he generously gave a well received presentation to our astronomy club, the Rittenhouse Astronomical Society – which meets at the Franklin Institute Science Museum and where I frequently lecture too.
At that time Ferguson had already been a veteran space flyer with two trips to the International Space Station – but he not yet been named to command the last shuttle flight. Over 150 folks attended Ferguson’s talk – held in the presence of the marble statue of Benjamin Franklin. The statue is a US National Historic Landmark.
Fels Planetarium Dome Star from the Franklin Institute Science Museum, Philadelphia, PA
STS-135 Shuttle Commander Chris Ferguson seeks to inspire kids to study science as a way to give back to his hometown community which inspired him to accomplish great goals and become a space shuttle astronaut. Ferguson brought this small piece of the Franklin Institute to the space station and back. The 5-pointed 4-inch star from the Franklin Institute’s Fels Planetarium dome will be put on public display for the future enjoyment of millions of kids of all ages. Credit: The Franklin Institute Science Museum
As a child, Chris attended classes from grade school to high school in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love.
“I developed and cultivated a love of science, engineering and space in many childhood trips to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia,” Ferguson told me.
“I was always a science oriented kid growing up. I have an innate curiosity for how things work. The Franklin Institute fed my curiosity.”
“And it was some teachers I had at a young age in my high school in Philadelphia who made me want to understand more. And to understand the reason about why things work the way they do … And to understand why the physical laws that govern the Universe are the way they are.”
STS-135 Shuttle Commander Chris Ferguson during crew walk out to launch pad 39A on July 8. Credit: Ken Kremer
“The one thing I could never fathom well was understanding spaceflight. And the way to really understand something is to go do it,” said Chris Ferguson.
“What this is really about is going into space, living and working there and dragging the American public along with us. We need to constantly feed the machine for the folks who are curious and are on a quest to understand things they don’t understand and desire to wonder what’s beyond low Earth orbit and how you live in space for a long period of time.”
“The only way you feed that is by planting the seeds when they are young. You grow the big Oaks out of little acorns.”
“And you get the little acorns at places like the Franklin Institute and the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum. That’s what did it for me,”
“I think you need to go back and you need to give back. So I’m looking forward to going back to the Franklin Institute !” said Ferguson
And when Chris does go back to the Franklin Institute later this year he will bring along a very very special gift – a piece of the Institute’s Fels Planetarium dome flew millions of miles to the space station and back aboard history’s very last Space Shuttle orbiter – Atlantis – that will ever take a star trek to the High Frontier.
STS-135 crew at Q&A session with journalists at base of Launch Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center prior to last blastoff on July 8, 2011. From left; Mission Specialists Rex Walheim and Sandy Magnus; Pilot Doug Hurley and Commander Chris Ferguson. Credit: Ken Kremer
And the project was Ferguson’s idea according to Derrick Pitts, Chief Astronomer at the Fels Planetarium of the Franklin Institute.
“Chris sent me an email asking if we (The Franklin Institute) would like to fly something on STS-135,” Pitts told me.
“I quickly agreed, found out what the criteria for launch would be and then pulled a team together to figure out what to send. It was decided to send a star-shaped piece of the original Fels Planetarium dome.
“The original dome was replaced in 2002 but I’d kept several large sections of the stainless steel panels and had a number of 5-pointed stars about 4″ across cut from the panels to mount and give as gifts to friends of the Fels. It weighs about 6 oz.”
“Since more than 10 million visitors have sat under that dome including several school students who would later become NASA astronauts, it seemed fitting to send one of these stars.”
“The piece presented some problems though. As a stainless steel piece, it has sharp edges and 5 very sharp points – both verboten by NASA and it is ever so slightly oversized. We fixed the worst problem by encasing the star – points edges and all – in a transparent acrylic ‘jewel box’ sandwich held closed with stainless steel screws.”
“We had about ten days from the first email to delivery date to him in Houston. When it returns to Earth, Ferguson has offered to bring it back to Philadelphia where we’ll put it on permanent display in the main Planetarium hallway. This will be the second time Franklin has flown an article with a native Philadelphian astronaut. Our last trip was with Jim Bagian on STS-40 in 1991.”
Chris is a humble, eloquent and down to earth guy and knows how lucky he is to be commanding the grand finale of the thirty year long shuttle program. And he is determined that he and his STS-135 crew of four do their very best to accomplish all their goals.
“I’m just proud to be a small part of it and am savoring the moment. We’re focused on the mission now and will have time to ponder this moment in history when it’s all over,” Ferguson concluded.
Space Shuttle Atlantis and her crew of 4 are scheduled to land at 5:56 a.m. on July 21, 2011 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
STS-135 Shuttle Commander Chris Ferguson (right) and Ken Kremer at emergency M-113 Tank Practice. Chris brought a special public gift for science aboard the last shuttle mission. Chris and Ken discuss our mutual love of science in the weeks before Atlantis July 8 liftoff. Credit: Ken Kremer
Read my features about the Final Shuttle mission, STS-135:
Revolutionary Robotic Refueling Experiment Opens New Research Avenues at Space Station
Water Cannon Salute trumpets recovery of Last Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters – Photo Album
Shuttle Atlantis Soars to Space One Last time: Photo Album
Atlantis Unveiled for Historic Final Flight amidst Stormy Weather
Counting down to the Last Shuttle; Stormy weather projected
Atlantis Crew Jets to Florida on Independence Day for Final Shuttle Blastoff
NASA Sets July 8 for Mandatory Space Shuttle Grand Finale
Final Shuttle Voyagers Conduct Countdown Practice at Florida Launch Pad
Final Payload for Final Shuttle Flight Delivered to the Launch Pad
Last Ever Shuttle Journeys out to the Launch Pad; Photo Gallery
Atlantis Goes Vertical for the Last Time
Atlantis Rolls to Vehicle Assembly Building with Final Space Shuttle Crew for July 8 Blastoff</a
CategoriesNASA, Science, Solar System, Space Exploration, Space Flight, Space Shuttle, Space Station Tagsbenjamin franklin, chris ferguson, Franklin Institute Science Museum, international space station, ISS, NASA, Rittenhouse Astronomical Society, Space Shuttle, space shuttle atlantis, STS-135
2 Replies to “Love of Science Drives Last Shuttle Commander – Chris Ferguson Brings Science Museum to Orbit”
swakker says:
Chris and the other astronauts aboard Atlantis have done remarkable things! I hope they have a safe journey home!
Tell your friends how you feel about the Atlantis mission with Swakker Shuttle http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHrBhtNCvgY
Theodore T. Williams says:
Thanks Ken for some amazing coverage of the mission. Your articles keep the reader in the front seat the entire journey. We have posted links to this page on our public website, http://www.rittenhouseastronomicalsociety.org
I want to thank you on behalf of our members, everyone at the Franklin Institute and those in Philadelphia for keeping us updated. We look forward to you speaking with our group this coming year at the institute! I am sure you will have some exciting moments to share!
T. Williams, Sec. Rittenhouse Astronomical Society
Previous PostPrevious First Ever Vesta Vistas from Orbit – in 2D and 3D
Next PostNext Atlantis Undocks from ISS; Farewell for Shuttle
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Facebook users self-censor on controversial topics
The Pew Research Center on Tuesday said a study of nearly 2,000 adults on an earlier hot-button political issue found those surveyed were less willing to discuss the issue in social media than they were in person. The findings may explain why conversation about the Michael Brown shooting seemed less prevalent on Facebook than other media.
Facebook users self-censor on controversial topics The Pew Research Center on Tuesday said a study of nearly 2,000 adults on an earlier hot-button political issue found those surveyed were less willing to discuss the issue in social media than they were in person. The findings may explain why conversation about the Michael Brown shooting seemed less prevalent on Facebook than other media. Check out this story on USATODAY.com: http://usat.ly/1tHgb3k
Where Americans feel comfortable discussing hot-button issues
Pew Research Center asked how willing Americans were to discuss the Edward Snowden-NSA issue in physical and online settings.
Work, acquaintances
By Alejandro Gonzalez
Laura Mandaro, USA TODAY Network Published 6:42 p.m. ET Aug. 26, 2014 | Updated 11:57 p.m. ET Aug. 26, 2014
A man walks past a Facebook sign in an office on the Facebook campus in Menlo Park, Calif. In a report released Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2014, the Pew Research Center found that most people who regularly use social media sites are actually less likely to share their opinions, even offline.(Photo: AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
SAN FRANCISCO — If you didn't see a lot of talk about Ferguson and Michael Brown on your Facebook feed, maybe that's because your Facebook friends were afraid you'd disagree.
The Pew Research Center on Tuesday said a study of nearly 2,000 adults on an earlier hot-button political issue – the massive leak by Edward Snowden of documents that showed the National Security Agency had spied on U.S. citizens – found those surveyed were less willing to discuss the issue in social media than they were in person, and that social media did not provide an alternate platform to talk about the story if they weren't willing to discuss it in person.
SNOWDEN AFTERMATH: NSA built 'Google-like' search engine
MICHAEL BROWN: Audio may have been captured
Those who used Facebook were more willing to share their views if they thought followers agreed with them -- not much of a surprise. More telling was how perceptions of online feedback influenced their real-life interactions. Facebook and Twitter users who thought their online network wouldn't agree were less likely to speak their minds, both online as well as in person.
SPIRAL OF SILENCE
This 'spiral of silence,' a term used pre-Internet to describe a lack of discussion around a policy issue, usually because of fear of isolation, may be happening on the major social platforms — and then bleeding over into physical interactions.
That's just the opposite of one commonly held view, especially heralded by tech leaders: That social platforms have provided a forum for people to discuss issues they might shy away from in person.
"We speculate that social media users may have witnessed those with minority opinions experiencing ostracism, ridicule or bullying online, and that this might increase the perceived risk of opinion sharing in other settings," wrote the report's authors.
#MIKEBROWN
The theme of why and how – or why not – people are discussing a political issue over social media has been thrown into the spotlight by the Aug. 9 shooting death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. by white police officer Darren Wilson.
Twitter users who had not customized their trending topics saw related hashtags, such as #ferguson and #MikeBrown, surge after Brown's death, which was followed by weeks of protests and some nights of violence. On some days, several related hashtags were among the most trending phrases on Twitter, as people commented and retweeted photos and Vine videos posted by people in Ferguson.
For many, the Facebook experience was much different. Because Facebook's algorithm prioritizes stories in a user's timeline based on past stories that the user has liked, commented on or shared, it was possible for some users to see very little mention of the Ferguson protests. Even as the protests and police response blanketed Twitter and eventually traditional media like newspapers and cable news, #icebucketchallenge seemed more prevalent on Facebook.
Twitter: Ferguson
Facebook: Ice bucket challenge.
— Jared Keller (@jaredbkeller) August 18, 2014
The divergence was noted by several media outlets, including The Washington Post, tech blog GigaOm and BuzzFeed. The latter concluded: "blame the algorithms – or the users" – for Facebook's "breaking news problem."
But it's still not clear whether the seeming bifurcation between Twitter and Facebook can be only attributed to how Facebook's feed operates. Without any data from Facebook on how frequently certain subjects are discussed, there's no way to tell whether Ferguson was less discussed on Facebook versus Twitter. Or whether it just seemed that way to some observers.
If Ferguson was less discussed on Facebook, the Pew study may give some insight as to why: the commenting function in social networks, particularly Facebook, discourages conversation around social issues perceived as controversial to one's group of friends, acquaintances and social network.
FINDINGS: EASIER IN PERSON
Here are some more of the Pew study's findings. The survey of 1,801 adults was conducted in September and August 2013.
• 86% were willing to have an in-person conversation about the NSA surveillance programs, but just 42% of Facebook and Twitter users were willing to post about it.
• Of the 14% unwilling to discuss the Snowden-NSA story in person, only 0.3% were willing to post about it on social media.
• Facebook users were about twice as likely to join a discussion about the Snowden-NSA issue if they felt people in their network agreed with them.
• If Facebook users felt their online network agreed with them on the issue, they were more willing to discuss it with friends face-to-face. But they still were only 0.74 times as likely to voice their opinion as other people.
The research group said it was interested in the question because other Pew Research surveys around the time of the 2013 Snowden leaks found that Americans were divided over whether the leaks were justified and whether the surveillance policy was a good or bad idea.
The report's authors added the information leaked by Snowden, which at the time of the survey included information that Western intelligence agencies were monitoring some elements of phone and email communication, may have adjusted the way people communicated publicly.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1tHgb3k
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The mission of The University of South Dakota's Information Technology Services is to manage computing resources and to provide support to the faculty, students, and staff on the University's campus and at its many off-campus sites throughout the state.
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Lorna Cole - Oct 12
Sarah Paulson’s look at this premiere is an American horror story
Can we get Madison Montgomery to give her a makeover?
The sleek half-bun is great, the makeup is great, but none of the coven should ever be caught dead (or undead) in this outfit. Granted, this is real life and Sarah Paulson is only human, even if her acting ability might seem super-human. Take a peek at the outfit she wore in real life that’s more dramatic than any of her costumes below. A bunch more of your favourite celebs made some odd choices too, so click through to see the rest of this week’s worst looks.
Joan is looking just as disco-ball-y as Taylor Swift was this week, but with the fanning sleeves, it’s got a touch too much of an ABBA-esque influence. Apart from cutting those off, another great way Joan could update her look would be to not be as matchy-matchy with all her accessories. Getty Images
Back when Iggy Azalea wore the long-legged version of this outfit for a talk show appearance, it already looked like pyjamas, but at shorts length it looks even more like nightwear. It doesn’t help that the length of the shorts is reminiscent of those rompers for men. Aren’t you glad that fad died a swift death?Getty Images
Alia’s a stunning (and stunningly talented) woman, but this outfit is stunning in the literal sense, as in astonishingly bad. It’s like Alia purposely picked out pieces that don’t fit right, and the plainest ones she could find at that. The hair tie is a nice touch, but the rest needs to go back to the drawing board.Getty Images
Amandla’s style is creative and always interesting, but that doesn’t mean it’s always successful. This… uh… dress? Let’s go with that. This dress is such a mish mash of ideas, and if just one or two of them were taken away, it would be more palatable.Getty Images
Anna is looking gorgeous, and the sleeves of the gown are like beautiful goth flower petals. That said, what is going on with the length? It’s like they specifically chose the length to make Anna look super tiny, like they did with the costumes for the dwarves in the Hobbit movies.Getty Images
The Supreme is looking supremely witchy in this look, but it’s too over the top. Yet again, there are some questionable hi-lo side things in the skirt, and with the sheer poufy sleeves, corset-inspired top, sequins, ruching, and the high neck… it’s exhausting just to think about, let alone look at. Getty Images
There’s a chance that Anna’s outfit underneath this coat is actually cute, but the coat is so overwhelming that it really doesn’t matter anyway. Even Carmen Sandiego knows better than to double down too hard on the red motif, and she’s a fictional character.Getty Images
This dress could probably be tailored a little better, but overall, it’s not bad. The black bag and booties with oversized mesh seem like they belong to a totally different look. There is not an ounce of edginess in this dress, and you can’t force it just by adding accessories.Getty Images
This is an old school pattern, which makes it tricky to pull off, but not impossible. If anyone could do it, Carey could. But in this case she didn’t. What takes the print from a throwback to downright dated is the shoulder volume. The eighties called…well you get the idea. Getty Images
Between the wrinkly ruffles and the scoop neck bodysuit underneath, Charlize’s outfit has the general impression of a melting candle. It’s like the outfit is drooping and the high neck is the only thing holding it all up. Charlize is way better than this.Getty Images
Forget the Haunting of Hill House, the scariest thing about this premiere is Elizabeth’s dress. Adding an extra accent colour is usually a good idea, but this blue is way too bright to be part of the muted red and purple palette of the rest of the dress.Getty Images
This dress has actually made the worst looks list before, and it hasn’t gotten any better with time. The body is a chic club look, and the sleeve is like if they remade the musical Cats but with dogs, and Victoria was playing a dalmatian. Getty Images
This zig-zag pleating is so unique and eye-catching, but the shape of the dress is super boring, mainly because there isn’t one. Even just shortening the sleeves to elbow length would make the shape more dynamic, but still keep the attention on the fabric treatment. Getty Images
Peyton is looking like she’s about to be on Dancing with the Stars in this get-up. If she was, this would be a cool costume for a sultry salsa, but as with most costumes, it does not look good out of the dance world context.Getty Images
This is obviously a Halloween costume, so the usual avenues of critique don’t apply. But, come on Ken! You’re such a funny and creative guy but you couldn’t think of anything a little more special than a Coke bottle? Do you have an endorsement deal?Getty Images
Man, he’s really having fun with this one, isn’t he? Good for him for injecting a little more fun and creativity in the classic suit, but unfortunately, it’s making him look like a cartoon matador. The worst part? It’s a tie between the rhinestone belt buckle and the shoes. Getty Images
Rita is not having a great week. First her losing look at the AMAs, and now this dress, which is basically just a bunch of strips of popsicle-coloured scrap fabric stitched together. The stitching themselves aren’t even clean, and while it’s clear that was a stylistic choice, it shouldn’t be.Getty Images
Tags: Kaley Cuoco Mandy Moore Post Malone rita ora sarah paulson worst looks of the week
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Samsung Galaxy Note 10 will have 4 models
By: The Mobile Indian network, New Delhi Last updated : April 09, 2019 2:03 pm
Samsung is trying to replicate the success of the new Galaxy S10 lineup.
Samsung is reportedly working on the next-generation of its flagship devices, the Galaxy Note 10. Now, a new report has emerged online revealing that the upcoming smartphone will be available in four different models.
As per a report coming out from South Korea, Samsung is trying to replicate the success of the new Galaxy S10 lineup. The report highlights that just like Galaxy S10, which had four models including Galaxy S10e, Galaxy S10, Galaxy S10+ and Galaxy S10 5G, Samsung is looking to introduce a similar pattern with the Galaxy Note 10.
The report further hints that the standard Galaxy Note 10 will be equipped with a 6.4-inch display, which is similar to what we have seen in Galaxy Note 9. Interestingly, the other model will feature a 6.7-inch display. It is also reported that the base model might come loaded with a 6.28-inch screen. The bigger model will feature a quad-camera setup, while the smaller one will be equipped with triple cameras. The report further highlights that two models of the Galaxy Note 10 will be identical in nature and the only differentiating factor will be the addition of 5G.
This simply means that the different model might come loaded with a similar set of specifications. There is no information on whether the battery capacity of the models will be different from each other or not.
To recall, the company officially introduced the Galaxy S10 lineup in India in March this year. The new series from Samsung comes with a new punch-hole design. The Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10e come with a single punch hole for the camera, while the Galaxy S10+ features two front-facing cameras that reside under the display. Samsung Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10+ feature 6.1-inch and 6.4-inch QHD+ Curved AMOLED display respectively with an aspect ratio of 19:9. The Galaxy S10e features a 5.8-inch Full HD+ flat AMOLED display. All the models are powered by Samsung’s latest octa-core Exynos 9820 processor.
Note: Lead image is for representational purpose only
Samsung Unbox Magic Smart TVs launched in India, price starts at Rs 24,900
Samsung Galaxy J8 receives stable Android Pie update
Samsung Galaxy A30 update brings improved earphones sound, latest security patch
Samsung to end 'series' confusion
Tags: Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Samsung Galaxy Note 10 leak Samsung Galaxy Note 10 rumours Samsung smartphones Samsung
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Artists ride trend toward handcrafted ceramics
Small-scale pieces in demand
Artists ride trend toward handcrafted ceramics Small-scale pieces in demand Check out this story on thenewsstar.com: http://tnsne.ws/2deWq4f
Solvej Schou Published 5:25 p.m. CT Sept. 19, 2016
Jeremy Ayers works in his Waterbury, Vt., studio, flanked by sons Fletcher, 5, and Weston, 4.(Photo: Dylan Griffin/Jeremy Ayers via AP)
Lisa Jones founded her ceramics company, Pigeon Toe, eight years ago with an emphasis on petite pottery pieces like her three-legged “tripot” bowls and teensy stacking bowls.
Her timing could not have been better, she says.
“I rode the wave of a resurgence in handcrafts, and the individual maker,” says Jones, 32, of Portland, Oregon.
Artistic, accessible and affordable, small-scale handcrafted ceramics can appeal to young singles decorating first-time apartments, or to older folks and families looking for a more personalized look than mass-produced items provide.
“We have our entry-price customers, and aspirational pieces reaching a demographic of people with means to spend,” says Jones. Pigeon Toe’s best-seller is the 3-inch-high, $48 tripot. It has an unglazed, white porcelain exterior, and a glazed interior in a choice of 16 colors.
“In the past five years, smaller ceramics have grown so much in popularity,” says Eugenia Santiesteban Soto, senior style editor at Better Homes and Gardens magazine. “They’re functional, but they’re also pieces of art. People are tapping into the notion of owning something beautiful and imperfect, but that you can use in your everyday life. You can tell there’s a hand that made it. It feels very soulful, authentic.”
THENEWSSTAR.COM
Ikebana: Floral design and contemplative art
Besides the evergreen appeal of mugs, Soto notes the functional allure of cups and vessels that can hold everything from food and drink to flowers, pencils and cotton swabs.
Mociun, a Brooklyn, New York-based jewelry and home goods store, sells mugs, cups, tumblers, pitchers, vases, bowls and plates by dozens of artists from across the country. Prices range from $24 for a speckled tumbler to $446 for a set of five metallic nesting bowls. Mugs sell the best, said company founder Caitlin Mociun.
Lisa Jones, founder of Pigeon Toe ceramics, works in the company’s Portland, Ore., studio. (Photo: Mikola Accuardi/Lisa Jones via AP)
“I have watched artists grow in their careers, starting as a hobby and now creating full collections of pieces sold in several stores,” she says. “A lot of our customer traffic at the store is walk-ins or tourists. They are looking for gifts or take-away items, which small-scale pieces are great for.”
Jeremy Ayers is a ceramics artist in Waterbury, Vermont, whose modern rustic pieces — from a $55 round salt box to a pair of bulbous, aqua-colored mugs — are carried by stores (including Mociun) and his own online and studio shops. His studio is in the 1870 carriage barn where his great-great-grandfather made wheels and carriages.
Crafts: Paper blooms
“I’ve been noticing more customers on the younger end who want to add to their home aesthetic,” says Ayers, 41. “Maybe because so many young people work in an office cubicle, having my mug in their cubicle is a breath of fresh air.”
With pottery, repetition is part of the process. Ayers usually produces his salt boxes in batches of 20.
Creating each one out of a lump of clay on a pottery wheel takes about five minutes, he said. Then he trims the box, and loads it into a kiln to be fired for 12 hours. It takes another 12 hours for the box to cool. Then he puts a glaze coating on it and loads it back into the kiln. The glass in the clay and the glass in the glaze melt together, becoming one glassy object — stoneware — that doesn’t leak and is dishwasher safe, he says.
Wares by Waterbury, Vt., ceramics maker Jeremy Ayers are displayed in his shop. (Photo: Jessica Sipe/Jeremy Ayers via AP)
For those wanting to make their own pottery, Ayers — who teaches classes — suggests going to community classes. Jones, mostly self-taught, learned a lot from YouTube and books. Air-dry clay or clay easily baked in an oven are options too, she said. Pottery wheels can cost upward of $700 to $1,500, and a kiln can run between $1,500 and $3,000, says Ayers.
Another market for small pottery pieces — especially those with a minimalist, Scandinavian-design aesthetic — is as wedding gifts, as an alternative to large, expensive, traditional china sets, says Soto.
“People live more casually now, and there’s been less of a need for formal china settings,” she says. “People want something that reflects the way they live a little more, day to day.”
Read or Share this story: http://tnsne.ws/2deWq4f
Our guide to weekend fun in Monroe July 11-14
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Apr 17 Soft power's amazing resuscitation - The Ukraine deal
Liberal Librarian
Not much hope was attached to the meeting of the US, EU, Ukraine, and Russia over the crisis between the latter two countries. Again, the usual suspects were saying that the West had no leverage over Russia, Ukraine was in chaos, and Vladimir Putin held all the cards.
Then a deal was struck.
The particulars are these:
Illegal military formations must be dissolved
Occupied buildings must be vacated and their occupiers disarmed
Ukraine would grant an amnesty to pro-Russian protesters
The Ukrainian political discussion would touch on "inclusivity", another word for decentralization
All steps are to be overseen by the OSCE, to which both the US and Russia belong
From the Right, President Obama has been castigated for "appeasement" and a "lack of resolve". From the louder segments of the Left, he's been upbraided for daring to intervene when after Iraq the US had no moral authority.
Pres. Obama didn't give in to the hawks who wanted US warships moved into the Black Sea en masse and a buildup of NATO troops on the western borders of Ukraine. And he dismissed the idea that because of the Iraqi misadventure the US had lost all right to speak on the violation of another country's territorial sovereignty.
He made it clear from the outset that military force against Russia was not an option. And he made it clear that the US would stand up for Ukraine's rights, in spite of recent history.
Russia, for all its bluster, is a failed Potemkin state. Its economy is vulnerable to outside pressure, as an exporter of energy and raw materials. And the world's banking system dances to the tune set by the US.
Thus, when the first sanctions put forth by Pres. Obama were the freezing of accounts of Putin's close cronies and the banks they used, the banks—Rossiya and SMP—almost overnight were unable to do business with the world financial system; Mastercard and Visa refused to process credit card payments, which are the lifeblood of any modern economy. And that was just the first, relatively minor warning shot.
Russia was already cutting its economic growth forecast as early as autumn of 2013. Now a zero percent growth rate due to the fallout from Ukraine is possible. All this as the US and its Western allies—brought along by the moral standing which Pres. Obama has worked hard to re-establish after the Iraq fiasco—kept hinting at stronger measures against Moscow.
Vladimir Putin, scion of the KGB, believed that changing the facts on the ground would present the West with a fait accompli which it was too decadent and timorous to reverse.
What he found instead was that Barack Obama understood where true power lay in the 21st century. It wasn't with a glorified warlord pushing around soldiers on a battlefield map. It lays in finance, trade, economic strength. In that arena, he knew Russia couldn't compete, for all its bravado. Militarily, Russia can threaten neighbors; but it doesn't have the economic weight to maintain that posture for very long, and certainly not if it's cut off from the world economy.
It's no coincidence that the Ukraine deal was agreed to just as the US and the West were ready to impose stiffer sanctions, ratcheting up the damage to the Russian economy even further. The deal will put off those sanctions for the moment, until Putin's full faith and credit can be assessed. But sanctions are like a spigot, unlike military action. Once a country builds up a military force to attack, it either has to use it or disband it back to its bases. Sanctions can be turned on when events warrant. Pres. Putin would be well advised to not think he's just buying time. Any hint that he's not acting as an honest broker will bring sanctions back. Europe is united behind Pres. Obama, as it sees 60 years of peace threatened by a revanchist Russia. It will keep the threat of sanctions on the table if Russia reneges on its commitments.
This is what Pres. Obama, more than any other current world leader, understands. In a world as interconnected as ours, you don't have to let missiles fly at the hint of any crisis. There are tools more effective and more crushing than military strength. The military should be a last resort; once unleashed, the consequences are difficult to predict. Putin underestimated the West's resolve, and Pres. Obama's character. In the 21st century the strengths of a community organizer serve international relations better than those of a former spymaster. It's fortunate for Russia that staring at it across the table was Barack Obama; almost anyone else would have unleashed a war by now.
Apr 21 The Real Story of #8Million
Apr 16 From Boston To Bundy: Mainstream Media's Struggle To Define Modern Terrorism
Jul 22 A few thoughts on Putin's "strategic genius"
May 22 When it gets to be too much
Mar 2 A short primer on Ukraine and what Putin hopes to achieve
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Microsoft's .NET at ten: big hits, strange misses
Silverlight, C# and, er, JScript.NET
By Tim Anderson 5 Jul 2010 at 13:02
We take it for granted now, but it was ten years ago this week — July 7, 2000 — that Microsoft announced its brand-new application development initiative, the .NET Framework, at TechEd Amsterdam. The company then provided more detail at its Professional Developers Conference in Orlando, Florida, the following week.
It was Paul Maritz, now VMware's chief executive competing with Microsoft, but then Microsoft's platforms group vice president, who announced initial developer availability of the new .NET Framework and Visual Studio.NET for "building, integrating and running next-generation, XML-based web services."
The press release is still online.
It has become hard to imagine Microsoft's platform without .NET and the C# language. Even so, some things did not turn out as planned. Here are some hits and misses from the .NET story.
Miss: Code Access Security Policy
Code Access Security Policy was intended to secure Windows by giving administrators the power to control what permissions were assigned to .NET applications and libraries. Unfortunately, configuring the policy successfully was too complex for mere mortals to understand, as Microsoft has now admitted. It has mostly been removed from .NET Framework 4.0.
Hit: ASP.NET MVC
Microsoft's ASP.NET web forms seemed a brilliant advance at the time. You could code a web application almost like a desktop application, with state managed transparently by the framework. As time went on, ASP.NET has become less attractive, with its complex page lifecycle, inelegant hidden variables, and aversion to unit testing. First released in 2009, ASP.NET MVC provides an alternative that is cleaner, faster, more testable, and more in tune with the URL-oriented Representational State Transfer (REST).
JScript.Net - now a hidden feature of .NET Framework 4.0
Miss: JScript.NET
JScript.NET is a version of JavaScript for .NET, and was fully supported with its own project types in the first Visual Studio .NET. It appeared before a surge of interest in Ruby and Python made dynamic languages fashionable, and attracted little use. Like Adobe's ActionScript, JScript was intended to implement the ill-fated ECMAScript 4.0, which never found its way into web browsers.
Scripted boost for IE?
Speaking of browsers, this post from 2000 makes an intriguing comment concerning Visual Basic .NET: "We intend to add these features back into the Visual Basic .NET language in the next release, in time for our integration with Microsoft Internet Explorer (where the dynamic features of the language are more useful)."
The implication is that Microsoft intended the .NET runtime to be the script engine for IE. That never happened, unless you count Silverlight. If Microsoft had delivered this feature, maybe scripts in IE would not now be so slow compared to those in Firefox, Safari, and Chrome.
Jscript still exists in .NET Framework 4.0, though nobody talks about it.
Hit: C#
Establishing a new language is not easy, but Microsoft's C# has been a success. Its lead architect is Anders Hejlsberg, who cut his teeth on Turbo Pascal and Delphi at Borland. C# rescued .NET from the verbosity of Visual Basic and the complications of Managed C++. C# skills are in high demand, and since the first release Microsoft has added strong language features including generics, Language Integrated Query (LINQ), implicit types, and dynamic types.
Miss: XBAP
The XBAP is a XAML Browser Application, essentially a full Windows Presentation Foundation application but hosted in the browser like an applet. It was originally intended that Windows Forms applications would work like this, as well. Security concerns meant that the feature never really worked until the arrival of XBAPs in .NET Framework 3.0. The question is now: why do a Windows-only XBAP when cross-platform Silverlight has many of the same features and easier deployment?
Hit: Silverlight
First announced as "Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere", Silverlight is a browser plug-in for Windows and Mac that implements a cut-down .NET Framework along with a multimedia player. Performance is good, and the latest version also supports desktop "out of browser" applications that can be sandboxed or run with full trust for access to local resources. Microsoft has finally delivered cross-platform .NET, but with Apple disallowing plug-ins on iPhone and iPad, and with Adobe Flash entrenched elsewhere, Silverlight looks unlikely to make it as a universal runtime.
Silverlight at last delivers lightweight, cross-platform .NET
Miss: Rotor — open-source .NET for Unix
In the early days of .NET Microsoft flirted with the idea of a cross-platform, standardised .NET that would out-do Sun Microsystems' Java. C# and the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) was standardised by ECMA, but the standard does not cover the .NET Framework Library. Microsoft also released source code for Windows and BSD Linux, in a project called Rotor and then the Shared Source CLI. Microsoft ensured that Rotor was guarded by a license permitting only non-commercial use, and described the implementation as experimental. The last release was in 2006 for Windows only, and it has all gone quiet.
Hit: PowerShell
Code-named Monad, PowerShell was released in 2006. It is a .NET command-line shell and scripting language aimed at system administrators. PowerShell is particularly useful on Windows Server Core, which is Windows Server without a graphical user interface. Version 2.0, which came with Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2, includes the ability to open a PowerShell session on a remote machine. Microsoft's Exchange Server is now best managed using PowerShell, with PowerShell elegant and easy to extend. ®
Apple and Microsoft's odd couple collab on iCloud for Windows is more Hall & Oates than Walter and Jesse
OK, it has Files On-Demand, but haven't the people suffered enough?
How do you like dem Windows, Apple? July opening for Microsoft's first store in Blighty
High Street help with those Blue Screens of Death
Microsoft's Edge on Apple's macOS? It's more likely than you think for new browser
Chromium base should ease porting pains substantially
'Is this Microsoft trying to be cool? Want to go to the Apple Store?' We checked out London's new retail extravaganza
Oxford Circus ... on a weekday... in the summer...
Microsoft Surface kicks dust in face of Apple iPad Pro in Q3
Hold on Redmond, don't light those fireworks yet, the dominance will be shortlived
Bill G on Microsoft's biggest blunder... Was it Bing, Internet Explorer, Vista, the antitrust row?
Nope: It was not giving Android a run for its money...
RIP Hyper-Threading? ChromeOS axes key Intel CPU feature over data-leak flaws – Microsoft, Apple suggest snub
Analysis Plug pulled on SMT tech as software makers put security ahead of performance
Apple replaces boot-loop watchOS edition with unconnected complications edition
QA? We've heard of it
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The Strokes Emerge from the Woods
while the hype merchants in the media have moved on to fresh meat to pollute, the world seems just about ready to clutch Casablancas and co to their bosom once again
Feature by Duncan Forgan | 15 Feb 2006
HERE'S a poser for you. Is there any humanly possible way to feel sorry for a bunch of oversexed, posh, mega-rich New York City pretty boys? Actually, scratch that: there isn't. But it is interesting to see a band like the Strokes so blatantly holding an olive branch out to the collective listening public.
Back with a new album, their first since 2003's underwhelming 'Room on Fire', recent interviews have shown the group in a redemptive light, their philosophical demeanour light years from the brash and bratty exterior they once exuded. Rewind four years ago to 2001 and humility was in (mercifully) short supply as singer Julian Casablancas and his exotically named cohorts drummer Fab Moretti, bassist, Nickolai Fraiture, and twin guitar slingers Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jnr arrived like an off-the-peg panacea to feed our appetite for low slung Rock'n'Roll hipsterism.
Leather clad and impossibly glamorous, and in possession of a host of ready-made Velvets-aping anthems, the Strokes were, it seemed at the time, worthy successors to the garage rock crown. Packed out shows were received rapturously and debut album 'Is This It?' was hailed as a one stop resuscitation kit for an ailing music scene. Then, before you could say 'decent band but there's not an awful lot of substance there' things began to fall apart. It was fairly imperceptible at first, just the usual round of fawning interviews where band and media-whore journalist alike seemed to be trying to outdo each other in the blankly hedonistic stakes.
However, the band seemed to forget the cardinal rule of studied cool when it came to their second album: namely - you can piss the plebs off all you like by living a gilded existence but make sure you back it up with the goods. Its not that 'Room on Fire' was particularly bad - Automatic Stop, Under Control and trailer single 12.51 all maintained the same visceral momentum of the debut - but there was a lack of killer and a preponderance of filler; it was clear that something was up.
We were tired of the Strokes, the Strokes seemed tired of themselves, and the record was met with a tepid response. Nothing galvanizes a band like a good kick up the arse however, and while the hype merchants in the media have moved on to fresh meat to pollute, the world seems just about ready to clutch Casablancas and co to their bosom once again. While last single Juicebox was full of sneaky hooks and is driven by an irresistible bassline, the album itself 'First Impressions of Planet Earth', is an altogether more cerebral beast than its formulaic predecessors. It might not be possible to feel empathy with the Strokes but, you never know, there's an outside chance you might fall in love with them again.
The Strokes play the Glasgow Academy on Feb 7 and 8 and Edinburgh Corn Exchange on Feb 10
http://www.thestrokes.com
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Labour treatment of Jews a disgrace, says Trump’s top envoy Mike Pompeo
David Charter, Washington | Kate Devlin, Chief Political Correspondent
March 27 2019, 12:01am, The Times
Mike Pompeo said antisemitism was a cancer that was spreading in EuropeSAIT SERKAN GURBUZ/AP
Labour’s response to antisemitism has been a “national disgrace”, according to Mike Pompeo, President Trump’s secretary of state.
Antisemitism was a “cancer metastasising” in the Middle East, Europe and the United States, Mr Pompeo told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference, the largest Jewish political event of the year in Washington.
Mr Pompeo, 55, spoke out the day after Joan Ryan, the Enfield North MP who quit Labour last month, told the 18,000 delegates that her former party had been “taken over by the far left” and was now “riddled with antisemitism”.
The US secretary of state said that he was “deeply worried about an old threat that is re-emerging to Israel and Jews all around the world”.
He added: “In Britain, the Labour…
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Report: Tesla’s Battery Partner Grows Wary, Freezes Spending Attention, Plebs: New Cars Are Becoming Prohibitively Expensive 2019 Ford Transit Connect Wagon Review – The Clock Strikes Van Time 2019 Lexus LS 500 F-Sport Review – A Peculiar Development in Big Sedan Land Revealed: 2020 Ford Escape Survey Suggests Truck Buyers Growing Less Satisfied QOTD: The Least Sporty Muscle Car Ever?
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The Truth About Cars | Curbside Classics | Editorials
Curbside Classic: 1959 Ford Courier
By Paul Niedermeyer on September 24, 2009
Welcome to the Thursday edition of Curbside Classics. Tuesdays is for the big winners (and losers), the exceptional, the unexpected. Thursday will be for the more modest and prosaic finds. Any car a quarter century old or more still plying the streets of Eugene is worthy of our respect. Along with a helping of disdain, as needed. The 1959 Chevy Curbside Classic ignited lingering embers of the old Chevy vs. Ford (and Mopar) wars. My apologies to the younger readers who are probably bored to tears over this. I promise I’ve got something much newer and more voluptuous next Tuesday. But no less than geeber asked if a ’59 Ford could be the subject of the next CC. Be careful what you wish for, Fordophiles, because what I find sitting on the street is what you get. So here it is: a delectable Courier wagon. Now let the debate begin: was the ’59 Ford better looking than the Chevy?
I get to go first: No. And not just because of this particular specimen. Yes, the Chevy was garish and over the top, but lets face it, GM did that better than anyone, when they put their mind to it. The more successful ’59 and ’60 GM cars (not the ’59 Olds and Pontiac) simply reflected a higher quality of design skill. They manage to have an organic wholeness and a certain surface tension, despite the thematic excesses. And the details, for better or worse, are well executed. They really do manage to look like they’re floating on a cushion of air, and just about to lift off at the end of the driveway.
The ’59 Ford has one redeeming quality: the roof of the Galaxy Coupe. It looks exactly like the one they went back to using in ’62 and ’63, including the mid-size ’63 Fairlane Coupe. Good job! But outside of that, the ’59 Ford was atrocious, stylistically.
These Fords always looks like the original clay models got too hot and started shrinking and sagging. The whole greenhouse looks too small and narrow, and already partly melted into the body. And the lower body manages to look like its lacking structural integrity, sagging in the middle. And the whole car droops over its undersized undercarriage. Let’s just say that these Fords look very slow and earthbound, unlike the GMs’ tendency towards levity, of more than one kind.
The Ford’s proportions are off. And the front end is almost a dead ringer for the ’58 Chevy. That ridiculous tubular bulge running along the sides to the rear look like someone strapped on a couple of sewer pipes at Home Depot. They don’t work. At least GM and Chrysler fins go somewhere, they have a sweep or movement, and they resolve themselves at a point in space, literally. The Ford’s strap-ons go nowhere, except to clutter up a messy rear end.
Let’s sum it up this way: do you prefer over-the-top fins and jet engine intakes and exhausts, but well done in their execution; or conservative, boxy earth-bound semi-realism, done badly?
Shall we talk engines? If you’re a Ford man, probably not. The six was a serviceable unit. But the Y block V8 was utterly obsolete one year after it appeared in 1954, thanks to Chevy’s revolutionary small black of 1955. A huge, hulking, heavy lump, it only managed to outdo the high-winding deep-breathing Chevy with more cubes and a slapped on belt-driven supercharger, which no one really bought anyway.
Ford knew it had an anchor on its hands, and had to spring quickly to bring out a whole new V8 generation, the FE. I know there’s a lot of FE lovers out there, but, with a few exceptions, they were stones. They just didn’t breathe, and were also heavy and inefficient. A well-running 283 Chevy could cream a 332 FE, and keep up with a 352. They made great truck engines, though: gobs of torque and hard to kill.
The new-in ’58 Cruise-O-Matic three-speed automatic was a tough and reasonably smooth beast, but had the lowest efficiency of the Big Three slushboxes. I read somewhere that the later C6 could suck up to sixty horsepower from the engine driving it. If true, there was probably a CJ 428 or a big-block Lincoln spinning the input shaft. But the C6 combined with the FE was a notorious gas hog.
Enough ragging on the big Fords of that era. I did like the ’63.5 fastback. And I was a sucker for ’61-’63 T-Birds, and liked the clean styling of the early Falcons. Not to mention the Lincolns. Ford’s strength in this period was its innovation in new niches: the ’58 T-Bird, Falcon, Fairlane, and Mustang. Look for them on Tuesdays. But their big cars generally left me stone cold; Thursday CC material, with a few exceptions. Your turn.
More new Curbside Classics here
Posted in Curbside Classics, Editorials
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63 Comments on “Curbside Classic: 1959 Ford Courier...”
I agree completely, but you probably knew that.
I’m just glad that pig isn’t parked across the street from my house. Even in 59.
Actually, the ’59 Ford never bothered me much, except for the cheap look of the stamped grille and taillight pie plates, and the cheap-looking instrument panel. Otherwise, the Chevy looked a lot more fun, the Ford a lot more practical.
And fair is fair — I’d love to see a crash test of an ’09 Ford Fusion hitting a ’59 Ford head-on.
Drove one as a summer camp vehicle in the late sixties, even with half the body cutoff it still couldn’t run with the 55 Jeep station wagon we kept
If you think the fins make it ugly imagine it without the fins, the design is inherently unbalanced front to back and the fins actually help it achieve a lesser degree of ugliness than would otherwise be possible. In the fifties after the 1949/50 model Ford slavishly followed GM’s lead in styling, but could not consistently integrate the styling elements. the 55/56 was as good as it got, but the next five years were atrocious. Our family 1960 full size was every bit as outlandish as the 59 chevy with none of the redeeming charm
I agree, when not copying the GM stylebook Ford created classics, but were terrible at the me too. The Earl and Exner styles benefited from a strong personality imposing a unity of design elements rather than design by committee
this trend seemed to continue throughout Henry II’s active stewardship and it wasn’t until the Tempo/Taurus era that Ford started leading the way in domestic design
rpol35
Paul:
Great article on a mostly forgotten car. Two-door station wagons are always wierd units in my book. Hardly convenient but somewhat cool at the same time.
Briefly, my father always bought GM, first Oldsmobile and then Chevrolet. He needed a business car in 1959 and he about fell over when he saw the derriere the new ’59 Chevy. For the first and only time in his life, he acquired a Ford, specifically a Custom 300 four door sedan in the same color as this Courier, a pale gray. I recently found a picture of it taken under a blanket of snow, somewhere in the early ’60’s in Baltimore. So here’s one real life example of the Chevy styling being a little too over the top for ’59. In retrospect, I remember him saying that he didn’t really like the Ford too much compared to the engineering and build quality on the Chevy; it was just those rear fins, yikes!
We also, ironically, had a ’58 Chevy at the same time. I never realized how similar the ’59 Ford front clip is to that of the ’58 Chevy until you mentioned it. Biggest difference is that Ford had that goofy reversed hinged hood.
Ingvar
I have never ever understood the fashion of two-door full-size Station Wagons. As a lifestyle vehicle, sure. The Chevrolet Nomad is made out of Awesome, as they say. But practical family haulers? I don’t get it…
geeber
Mr. Niedermeyer,
Thank you, even if our opinions on the 1959 Ford differ. An excellent write-up that states your case very well.
Now, perhaps you will do a story on the final member of the low-price three for that year – a 1959 Plymouth? (Or even a 1957 or 1958 model?)
I wonder whether that will be a Tuesday or a Thursday car.
rrhyne56
As always, any of those big old wagons would be great with a fairly modern diesel dropped in…and yeah, the Falcons were a delight! I still remember the souped up Sprint pulling big wheelies in the parking lot at high school.
buzz phillips
If I remember correctly, 59 Fords outsold
59 Chevys significantly!
Paul Niedermeyer
geeber, You’re a gentleman. That’s about as hard to find on the internet as a late-fifties Plymouth on the streets of Eugene. This Ford came and disappeared overnight. But I assure you I will be vigilant, and I’m hopeful.
March 23rd, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Posted a response to Shaker re ’50 Ford. My Uncle Bob, who worked at Ford as an Engineer, delivered to my Dad a black ’59 Country Sedan Station Wagon. What we didn’t know was the car had been built to order for some State Police and the order for this car was cancelled. It had the Police Interceptor package. When I drove it in High School, the kids made fun of me driving a station wagon, but it became known as the “Draggin Wagon”. This was in 1965. The only problem with the car was keeping the back end from swaying too much.
David Holzman
Even in its current state, I think that Ford is a beauty. This is my absolute favorite full-sized Ford of all time. It’s baroque, to be sure, and lacks the artistic integrity of the ’59 Chevy (Thanks, Paul, I never realized that before), but it’s Florentine in its baroqueness. Anyone who wants, I’ll happily send a photo I took of the tail light, which has been shown at several photo exhibits. Email me at [email protected]
And anyone who hasn’t already read it, be sure to read PN’s Maserati Dreaming, which is absolutely wonderful.
@Geeber: I think any Ply from ’57-60 would be fine for a CC to go with this and the Chevy. That should make it easier to find one. Although they were junk, so even then it may be difficult.
A story: I moved back to my childhood home in 1999, after nearly 30 years. Two doors up, back in the ’60s, the Wischusens had had a 1960 Ply wagon. I had taken a photo of one just like it, a few years earlier. So after I moved back, I mailed the Wischusens a photo of that, used my old DC address for the return address, adding the name of a bogus company, The Car Finders. I wrote that after all these years, we had finally found the Wischusens old Ply in Virginia (where i had photographed the look-alike), and did they want us to bring it up, or would they like to come and get it? About a week later, I bumped into Fred and Rena, and I asked them if their old car had ever been found. They looked at me in great surprise, and I explained I’d sent the letter. They then talked about how they had a lot of fun after they got the letter and the photo, reminiscing with their kids about the trips they’d taken in the car. Then, as we parted ways, Fred turned to me and he says, “That car was a lemon.”
I think the front of that Ford looks more like a ’58 Pontiac than the Chevy
@ Paul you folks are very fortunate,to have so many survivers around. Here in Ontario,we have lots of older cars.Mostly carefully restored,garage queens.
That old Ford looks like it could be a runner. How cool is that? Though I’m with juniper,I wouldn’t want to see it parked on my street.
Andy D
I had a 59 Ford wagon given to me about 1968.It was grey and had the 6 in it. I had a pair of pickups with the same 6. It was a great engine. The Y block V8 was essentially a factory version of the Ardun OHV hop-up to the 239 flathead block.
h82w8
Arguing what’s better looking between a ’59 Ford and ’59 Chevy is like arguing whether Susan Boyle or Judy Cornwell cuts a fairer visage. I mean, come on…
IMO, nothing from that era of Detroit automotive styling excess can be described as having “surface tension” or “integrity of line.” A 427 Cobra has surface tension, and a Lambo Miura has integrity of line (and surface tension); nothing from 1959 has either. Integrity of chrome, tail fin, and bad proportion, yes. They all had all that.
These cars were what they were – big, sloppy, ugly, under-engineered oafs – from a more innocent era when the American mass market didn’t know any different or better.
How things have changed…. Or have they, based on the number bloated, overweight, under engineered automotive design travesties (can you say SUV/CUV?) that have been foisted on American consumers in recent years?
fincar1
Courier was the name that Ford gave to their sedan delivery model starting in 1955. Through 1958 they were actually sedan deliveries with no rear side windows, but in 1959 they just made it more obvious that a sedan delivery was a station wagon without back seats by not bothering to make a windowless version. The Post Office had a lot of these rigs in their then-new red/white/blue color scheme. I believe that 1959 was the last year for the full-size Courier; it, like the Ranchero, migrated to the Falcon line.
supremebrougham
geeber:
From what I have always heard of the awful build quality of those cars, it will probably be a Monday or Friday car…
Dad bought the 2-door Nomad version of the Chevy Brookwood in ’59 because he was scared that us kids would fall out if we accidentally opened a rear door while in motion. This was before the days of child guard or power door locks. After ’57 the Nomad was not a sporty edition, but just an ordinary 2 door wagon.
Style-wise, the ’59 Ford looks too much like the ’57. Chevy and Plymouth had moved on and Ford was just too conservative. I happen to like the much-hated ’60 Ford. It was a cleaner style that in its own way a preview of the spectacular ’61 Continental. It did look particularly goofy with fake wood siding in Country Squire trim. Ford and Chevy fans for some reason needed round taillights. Chevy only deviated in ’59 and Ford in ’60.
September 24th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
“…My apologies to the younger readers who are probably bored to tears over this…”
Don’t you dare feel that you need to aplogise. Keep “THIS” coming. This is my kind of stuff. Don’t cater to demographics : )
RE the two door wagons: nikita has refreshed my memory. I remember the rear door of the ’57 Chevy flying open on a corner, for no apparent reason. Probably on more than one occasion.
Screw the younger readers. I love these articles!
baabthesaab
Nikita has it just right. In the days before seat belts and child restraining seats, 2-door cars were considered safer for the kids, to the extent anyone thought of safety at all. I once fell out of the left rear door of a ’59 Country Squire, and the memory of that speeding rear wheel, as I clung madly to the door, is with me still. My mother liked a 2-door wagon, but I recall an aunt driving a Ford wagon with the rear inside door handles removed and covered over.
ClutchCarGo
At the time (and as a kid), I was more excited about the Chevy design due to the airplane influence of the design, but as an adult I find that I like the Ford better, even tho it is awfully mundane. The Chevy fins and eyebrows are just too excessive as design elements.
@ClutchCarGo,
the unusual taillights/fins construct is the best element of that car. I think they did an excellent job with that, in an otherwise underhwhelming car, although Paul’s description has boosted my appreciation for it considerably. But the face is the worst I can think of from what I consider the classic era.
mfgreen40
The ford flat head had 3 main brgs.and two water pumps The Y block has 5 brgs.and one pump. The Ardun had hemispherical combustion chambers, Y block ordinary chambers. they both did have 8 cyls.
jpcavanaugh
Damn! I get so little done at work on Tuesday afternoons, now Thursday is shot too!
I have to admit that this 2 door wagon in this trim level and this color does not have a lot of curb appeal. Ford was plainly a conservative car in that era. I was always amazed that Fords steering columns were still sporting exposed shift tubes thru the 62s. I never drove one of these, but was told that they were hard-riding and not particularly quiet.
I am surprised that nobody has yet mentioned Ford’s one-year-only use of this body shell, which was cribbed from the 57-58 Mercury. I believe that the upper rear quarter bulges were part of the package that stylists “inherited” from the Mercury shell. Compared to the competition, this was certainly a square, blocky car, with some late 50s splashes thrown in. However, we could say in hindsight that Ford may have actually been more out in front of this styling trend than the competition, as the blocky look took over in the 60s. Particularly the wide C pillars as seen on the Galaxies (from the 58 TBird) Myself, I always liked the look, particularly after that awful 58 Ford. If the subject car had been a black Galaxie hardtop, the lines and proportions would have been a lot better.
I also agree with you on the engines. Has Ford ever really been an engine company? (Duck and cover!) To this day, GM and Chrysler put out engines that will run rings around Ford. I think that the 59 Ford’s success came from what it wasn’t: It wasn’t the way-out look of the Chevy, and it wasn’t afflicted with the horrid (and deserved) reputation for build quality of the Plymouth.
@h82w8
nothing from 1959 has either. Integrity of chrome, tail fin, and bad proportion, yes. They all had all that.
You, sir, have plainly never seen a 59 DeSoto, which may have been the best looking US car built in 1959. I will, however, cede the point that good taste was hard to come by in cars that year.
Jim Sutherland
What’s not to love about both of them? Some have questioned the period look but I lean towards celebration of Detroit iron from the Ike years. http://www.mystarcollectorcar.com/
@jpcavanaugh
’59 Desoto? I dunno…. Forced to choose I’d have to go with the ’59 Vette, and I’m not even a ‘Vette guy. Otherwise the ’59 Ford F-series pickup. A lot of interesting-looking cars from that time, maybe even a few that are kind of “handsome” in their own weird way, but none I’d call well-designed.
As for GM and Mopar engines running rings around Ford motors to this day… I think you’ve just started WWIII among the TTAC Blue Oval vs. Bowtie vs. Mopar camps. Duck and cover? Better dig a hole to China.
Safety concerns…that’s a good one!
I fell out of the back seat of my dad’s ’60 Valiant, and then a few years later again out of the back seat of his ’63 Fury. I blame that when I exhibit any stupidity.
It was never a problem with my mother’s cars, as she first had a 55(?) Riley Saloon, but I was too small to be in anything other than a baby bassinet, and then it was two-doors all the way. A ’58 Rambler American, a ’63 Envoy Epic, a return to Rambler for a ’63 American, and then joy of all joys my mother finally got a brand new car for the first time ever and got a 1970 Ford Maverick (straight from the Ford plant in Windsor Ontario, as the Ford plant was a customer of my dad, so it was at a discount, and we got it before anybody had heard of the fricken things, like August or September 1969).
All of our friends moms who drove always had two-door cars, whether they were wagons or sedans. So the kids didn’t fall out!
My Uncle Ken traded a ’59 Mercury (Colony Park?) wagon for a brand new ’63 Volkswagon Beatle. That friggin Mercury was giant inside, or at least it seemed at the time to us kids. No problem shoehorning 4 kids and 5 adults into it!
It’s always interesting to read a review of a car by writer who has a view based on actual knowledge of the product, along with informed criticism, instead of just mindless hate or cheerleading.
Another interesting Curbside Classic series would be stories on all five domestic compacts available in 1960 – the Chevrolet Corvair, Ford Falcon, Chrysler (not yet Plymouth) Valiant, Rambler American and Studebaker Lark.
Or one on a 1960s Lincoln Continental sedan, or a first-generation Mustang, or a 1963 Falcon Sprint, or the first of the four-seat Thunderbirds, or…
David Holzman: I think any Ply from ‘57-60 would be fine for a CC to go with this and the Chevy. That should make it easier to find one. Although they were junk, so even then it may be difficult.
I always liked the styling of the 1957-58 Plymouths, even with their gigantic tailfins. It’s just that the quality was so terrible. Believe it or not, I’ve seen unrestored originals at the various Carlisle Chrysler events, and the build quality is just awful, even for the 1ate 1950s. Chrysler’s 1957 models were a terrible execution of a great idea.
The 1959 Plymouths, weren’t quite as attractive (although I’ll take them over that year’s Chevrolet), and the 1960 Plymouths were completely unattractive. Virgil Exner went off the deep end after 1959.
jpcavanaugh: I also agree with you on the engines. Has Ford ever really been an engine company? (Duck and cover!) To this day, GM and Chrysler put out engines that will run rings around Ford.
Ford has built great engines, but they seem to be lost among a roster of engines that move the vehicle and not much else. The “big” I-6 of the 1960s is supposedly indestuctible, and the 260-289-302 V-8s were excellent.
But Ford never really had a top-notch mid-size V-8 until the 351 arrived in 1969. By then, it was playing catch-up with Chevrolet, Pontiac and Mopar. I don’t believe that Ford ever did come up with a big-block muscle car V-8 that equalled the various big blocks used by the GM divisions or Dodge and Plymouth.
From what I’ve read, the Ford modular ohc V-8s are much more durable than the Cadillac Northstar V-8, although the Cadillac unit provides better performance.
Geeber,
I’ve seen ’em at Carlisle, too, although all my trips to Carlisle were in the ’90s, when I still lived in DC. My parents had a ’57 Ply. I learned to shift gears on that thing when I was 9. it had a monster clutch, and I bucked it like crazy. It also had an amazing case of body rot, and they had to get a new engine when it was somewhere around 50k (they bought it used, maybe a year before the new engine). It did handle better, and at least on the second engine had more power than the ’57 chevy (both sixes).
I do love the Chryslers of the late ’50s, though, stylistically.
argentla
The ’59 Fords make an interesting contrast with the ’59 GM line. The 1957 Ford was a big hit; it outsold the comparatively dated-looking ’57 Chevy by a fair margin. That success put the Ford design staff into the old “make it look the same, only different” bind. By comparison, GM’s Design staff was running scared when the ’59 cars were designed, reeling from the ’57 Chryslers, and there was a lot of pressure to innovate at all costs.
David Holzman,
There used to be an original 1957 Belvedere sedan that appeared regularly at the Carlisle Chrysler show – salmon pink with a white roof. Very nice car from western Pennsylvania (how it survived intact after spending its life in western Pennsylvania is one of life’s mysteries, given the heavy use of salt and cinder in that area during winter). I haven’t seen it for the last 2-3 years. Very sleek for a four-door sedan.
The transmission in that car is the cast iron Cruiseomatic, not the aluminum case C6 which came out in ’66.
I had a ’65 Galaxie 352 cruiseomatic, the engine and transmission weight alone made for one heavy pendulum.
Okay all you late ’50s Detroit iron lovers. This song’s for you… Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NS_vlEdBK4
wmba
Much preferred the look of the ’59 Ford to the Chev, and it handled much better as well, despite the leaf spring rear axle. Seemed like an honest car, whereas the Chev was a flight of fancy and a wobbler on the highway. In any case, the ’59 Ford looked way better than the ’57 or ’58.
The Chevy 235 six seemed smoother than the 223 Ford, but the Ford had a better manual shifter and the engine seemed much more spirited and eager to rev.
The 1959 Cruise-O-Matic tranny was not the C6. The latter came out in 1966 and was a Torqueflite clone with the Simpson planetary gearsets. The Cruise-O-Matic had Ravigneaux gearsets, and D1 and D2 positions. It had 3 speeds compared to the Powerglide’s two, and was way ahead of the Turboglide non-geared tranny in the Chev, which was a variation on the Buick Dynaflow. Any bad gas mileage has to be laid at the feet of the Ford V8 itself.
When I first went drag racing in 1964, no doubt about it, 352 Fords were eaten alive by 327 Chevs, which would keep up with the 390 big block Ford. I’m talking 4 speed manual trannies here.
Anyway, great write-up. Keep them coming. Don’t think you’re going to find a ’58 Plymouth running around. In 1961, a friend of our family accelerated away from a parking spot after taking the family to the movies, and the front seat tore out of the floor, leading to his hitting a taxi, while staring at the headliner. Rusted right out in 3 years!
rudiger
There were a few 1959 models that weren’t horrendous. I’d give the nod to Bunkie Knudson’s wide-track Pontiac as the best, followed by Chrysler (primarily the 300) and Buick.
But, by in large, 1959 was a low-point for all domestic auto styling. There really wasn’t anything available that year that could be considered a truly beautiful, timeless, classic. Many built both before and after were better.
My bad about the Cruise-O-Matic. Thanks.
Jim Sutherland: “What’s not to love about both of them?”
Plenty. But I get your drift. If I didn’t love all old cars, I wouldn’t bother.
NickR
A well-running 283 Chevy could cream a 332 FE, and keep up with a 352.
What? No scorn for the 390? If ever there was a lump of a motor that underperformed relative to it’s displacement, it was the 390. Hard to believe the famous 427 and 428 came from the same family as these dogs.
Geeber: as always, I agree with most of what you say. The Ford 6 in the 60s and the 60s small block (including the 351) were indeed good engines. But 2 engine families over the last 80 years does not an “engine company” make. Henry’s flathead was a design marvel, but had inherant problems that were never truly solved. Ford should be thankful for the Vega for knocking the Lincoln Zephyr V12 out of top spot for worst US built car engine after WWII. The Y block was neither a performer nor durable. I love the big old FE 390, but it was good for torquing big station wagons, not performing.
Hard to tell, but I really am a Ford guy these days. As for the 4.6, it drives ok, but I understand these to be highly demanding of good maintenance practices. I was told by a Ford service guy that the bearing surfaces are machined into the block, so if your bearings are shot, instant boat anchor. I have one of these. 105K miles, and it uses a quart of oil every 800 miles or so. I much preferred the 351 in my 94 Club Wagon. In 164K miles, I am not sure I ever added any oil between changes.
Anyhow, back to the 59. It is interesting what a different reaction this car brings out than the 59 Chevy. The Chevy is much more polarizing and the responses seemed more ardent. The Ford is more like an old comfortable shoe. Having driven an X frame Chevy and having owned a 59 Fury, I would love to drive a 59 Ford just for the experience. I understood that in the day, its build quality may have been the best of the 3, and may well have had the tightest structure.
I loved the 59 Buick.(I know, I know)
http://www.denker.cz/oldtimer/1959_Buick.jpg
I almost forgot – I always LOVED the freefloating stars that made up the grille. Cheap, but cool.
I love that ’59 Buick too. Those fins capture marvelously the style of the times.
h82w8 :
He’s right. This is an incredibly good song by any artistic measure, exceedingly well executed, and it’s perfect for those of us who love the late ’50s. Made my day.
sfdennis1
I can admire most of the ’59 GM’s only as kitschy, sci-fi inspired lunacy. Over-the-top drama and cartoon styling…I don’t think Ford gets enough credit for it’s more conservative, but ultimately, more predictive style.
More squared off shapes ruled soon after the 50’s ended…Ford was ahead of the curve on that, and it could be said the GM’s that followed actually copied Ford to some extent. Yes, Ford’s 59’s were a little baroque and overdone, but compared to the “Martian Chic” of the ’59 Chevy, and of the early 60’s Chryslers, Ford’s square-bird design school definitely has some appeal.
Jerry Sutherland
I the ’59s from Detroit,but I really like the 1959 Plymouth.So much so that I invested all of my spare and not so spare resources in the 90s to save a 1959 Plymouth that probably would have been better served by euthanasia.Despite the enormous cost which ran close to the GDP of 3 developing nations, it was absolutely worth it.
http://www.mystarcollectorcar.com/
Jerry Sutherland: You are my hero. I owned a 59 Fury sedan in the late 70s. Wide block 318 and pushbuttons. And water leaks. But that may have been the best driving car I ever had. It is certainly one of my very favorites. Too bad it was back in my “gee, I’ve had this 6 months and Wow, look what I just found for sale” days. Mine was a white Fury sedan with green interior and the birdbath trunk lid. A 60K mile car with clear plastic seat covers and no radio. When I opened the glove box and saw that it was delivered to its first owner on the day I was born, I had to buy it.
I love your car!
“But, by in large, 1959 was a low-point for all domestic auto styling. There really wasn’t anything available that year that could be considered a truly beautiful, timeless, classic.”
I don’t agree. To me, 1959 epitomizes the ultimate high point of American styling. Nothing before or since has been so baroque or over the top. Except for the crisp ’61 Continental, the 60’s was a slippery slope down to blandness. I consider the ’59 Cadillac especially, the most beautiful Cadillac ever done, and the most beautiful of the ’59 GM cars. 1959 was the turning point. After that, a sort of sensible hangover curtailed the styling. The Ford Falcon showed the new way out, it was the first of the new mindset.
How could I have forgotten about the 1959 Cadillac? Yeah, that one is a classic (especially the convertible) and could be considered a high-water point for that particular marque.
But it’s still more of an exception than the rule. Most of the chrome-laden monstrosities that came out of Detroit in that year were garish, overwrought, and tasteless. I remember once reading where Harley Earl himself degreed that GM’s cars had to have at least fifty pounds of chrome, once telling a stylist that the design for a late fifties Oldsmobile didn’t have the requisite weight.
All of the 59 GM cars are beautiful. Not in a clean scandanavian way, but in the 50’s American excessive style.
My favourites are the 59 Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles and Buicks, as they don’t get the love that the Chev and Caddie get from gearheads. Actually, it’s the same with the 55 to 57 models as well. I think the mid three GM offerings were fantastic, from 1955 right through to 1960. Space agey, overwrought, enough bling for a modern day rap star…they represent the pinnacle of American styling. Love ’em or hate ’em, the 55-60 period was when American cars were miles above what the rest of the automobile world was giving us.
In reality, the styling represents what America was to the rest of the world. Large, loud and jet-age cool.
Thank you David Holzman; That Wilcox You Tube song should be the official national anthem of Fin World. That song says it all for fin guys.
MadHungarian
The explanation for the 1959 Ford is very simple: Bob McNamara. He was on a tear to eliminate as much glitz and bling as he could from the product line. This was when he was killing off the Edsel and wrapping up the Falcon, which was the most conservative plain vanilla car you could imagine — no slant sixes, rear engines or Euro-inspired designs here!
Recognizing that they are a bit impractical, nevertheless any two door wagon design adds a bit of grace and sportiness, even to this workhorse vehicle.
By the way, the Courier existed in 1960 as well. After that, the sedan delivery was moved to the Falcon line where it lasted through ’65. A few years ago one of the collector car mags featured a ’60 Courier converted to to a two door ’60 Edsel wagon, using a couple of Edsel parts cars.
I gotta agree with Ingvar about the ’59 Caddy being the best Cadillac. Although there certainly were some other great ones in the ’50s and early ’60s.
Jerry Sutherland, love your site. Check out mine, motorlegends.com. and please credit h82w8 for introducing all of us to that wilcox song.
jpcavanaugh, if you care to go back in time/recapture your youth, I know someone who might just be able to help you.
I agree that it will be difficult to find a good 57-59 Plymouth for this series. I see them very, very seldom anymore, and since I owned a 58 Belvedere convertible for 32 years, I do pay attention. I know of a restored 57 Fury in Springfield, down the road a piece from you, but that’s not exactly a daily driver.
I always thought they were great-looking cars, but they were such terrible rusters. There was no paint at all on the insides of the fins on my convertible, to name one specific problem. There were no baffles to keep dirt and water from being thrown up into the area above the headlights, which had a low spot without a drain hole.
They would out-handle most contemporary cars too, as would all Chrysler products. I know…I’ve had at least one of almost every make, from a 58 DeSoto wagon to a 60 New Yorker 2-door hardtop to a 3-speed 57 Fury; five other 58 Plymouths besides my convertible. Oddly enough, no Dodges though.
FreedMike
David Holzman :
I gotta agree with Ingvar about the ‘59 Caddy being the best Cadillac. Although there certainly were some other great ones in the ’50s and early ’60s.
I’d add the ’67 Eldo to that list. I also have a soft spot for the early-’80s Eldos for some reason – that design hangs together.
Ingvar :
1959 was the turning point. After that, a sort of sensible hangover curtailed the styling. The Ford Falcon showed the new way out, it was the first of the new mindset.
Personally, I prefer understated and elegant to showy, but if you’re going to go gaudy, those late ’50s Caddies were great.
But the early ’60s Caddies were great looking too, and the new minimalism also spawned two all-time classic designs – the ’61 Continental and the ’63 Riv. I’d also include the Chrysler turbine car in that design motif.
The 1959 Cadillac is a car that “works.” It’s not beautiful – I wouldn’t go that far – but it is an interesting, coherent and sleek design.
To see two designs from that era trying to achieve the same goal as that Cadillac but unable to pull it off, look no further than the 1958-60 Lincolns and 1960-61 Imperials. Both were awful designs.
jpcavanaugh: I love the big old FE 390, but it was good for torquing big station wagons, not performing.
Part of Ford’s problem is that it never really “got” the muscle car market. Fords were winning races left and right in the 1960s, but Ford never seemed to understand that “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” needed hardware in the showroom to work. Pontiac was ordered out of racing by GM management in the early 1960s, but DeLorean and Wangers made sure that there was plenty of excitement available in Pontiac showrooms. What Ford needed in the 1960s was a Jim Wangers.
Dynamic88
You should have followed the 59 Chevy with the 60 Ford.
I can’t say Ford copied the batwing styling – lead time likely meant that the 60 Ford was on the drawing board when the 59 Chevy hit the streets. Still, it gave every appearance of Ford copying Chevy.
I think I like the 59 Chevy better than Ford’s 1960 rendition of batwings. If you’re going to do it, may as well go over the top with it. 1960 Fords didn’t look like Fords.
geeber: “Part of Ford’s problem is that it never really “got” the muscle car market.”Isn’t that the truth. For most of the musclecar heyday of the sixties, Ford had essentially left the whole domestic racing scene to GM and Chrysler. Henry Ford II and his fixation to beat Ferrari instead concentrated on the international venue with the Cobra and GT40 programs. Ford’s bread-and-butter big-block engine, the 390, was easy meat for anyone on the street. Esoteric stuff like the 427 side-oiler were way too expensive, limited in production, and tenuous in reliability to really count. When the 390 Mustang appeared, despite how it appeared in Bullitt, it quickly became known as a disappointing stone.
Ford finally did get serious about domestic racing towards the end of the decade. The 428CJ was a solid effort, on par with the best offerings from Chrysler and GM. The NASCAR ‘race on Sunday, sell on Monday’ mandate was appeased with the Boss 429 in the Talladega and Cyclone Spoiler II aero-specials (although that engine/body combination was never offered from the factory).
Combined with their international efforts and the Boss 302 for the short-lived Trans Am series, for a brief period, Ford’s ‘Total Performance’ marketing that covered all aspects of auto racing was really the truth.
coatejo
Yes, Ford is just as much a engine company as GM ever was, I would argue they were better. Ask anyone who ever owned a Oldsmobile diesel, or a Cadillac V-8-6-4, or the Northstar V8 if GM is an engine company. I do not think that Ford has the catalog of failed engine designs that GM can boast about. While I usually enjoy and agree with Mr. Cavanaugh’s posts, I had to chime in on this one.
Wow. I’m surprised by the number of comments this ’59 Ford has elicited.
I was born in the ’80s, so growing up as a car lover I didn’t see anything on the road at the time that was exciting for a young boy. But, through books and movies, I was drawn to the amazingly beautiful cars of the 1950s. They had color, chrome, style, details, distinction, and coherency.
To this day I don’t think there’s been a better era for car design.
However, 1958 and 1959 were low points for Ford design. Chevrolet was what it was. I think it’s awesome, but I can see that at the time it may have been a bit too much for some. And the ’59 Plymouth was an attempt to make the successful 1957-58 design a bit larger and glitzier.
The best looking cars of the era could arguably be the 1957-1958 Chrysler Corporation lineup. Sure there were chrome and fins galore, but it all worked. And even with all of the glamor, they were still tasteful, clean designs.
And, no, you won’t see too many 1957 or 1958 Plymouths as curbside classics anytime soon. Rust prevention (especially in 1957) was lacking. Engineering didn’t quite have enough time to perfect these cars before they went to production, and then, to keep up with demand, quality was allowed to slip in the plants.
But they sure were beautiful. And now, they are ULTRA rare. When is the last time anyone happened upon late ’50s Plymouth in the wild?
Here’s my submission for the next curbside classic:
http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/3604/plymouthjuly2009.jpg
RayinBC
February 21st, 2011 at 1:45 am
You are right about late fifties,look at the roof lines on the Mopars. The stodgy ’59 Ford out sold the Chevy.
I would repair that car to the point to where it was safe and reliable and drive it as-is. I wouldn’t paint it right away, I’d drive it unrestored for at least a while before giving it a full restoration.
What is the difference between the 2 door Ranch Wagon and the Courier?
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1978 Ford Mustang Stallion
1952 Mercury Custom Sedan
1990 Buick Reatta
1981 Toyota Corona Wagon
1994 Volvo 960 Sedan
1991 Dodge Shadow Convertible
1987 Volkswagen Fox
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Accueil > Volcans > Mexique, Amérique Centrale et Caraîbes > El Salvador > Santa Ana
Santa Ana volcan
Condition actuelle: normal / en sommeil (1 sur 5) | Reports
Santa Ana livres
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[cacher la carte] [agrandir la carte]
Style éruptif tipique: explosive
Eruptions du volcan Santa Ana: 2005, 1920, 1904, 1884, 1882(?), 1880, 1879, 1878(?), 1874, 1734, 1722, 1621(?), 1576, ?1570, 1524, 1521, 1520(?)
Derniers séismes proches:
Heure Mag. / Depth Distance Location
No recent earthquakes
Santa Ana (also known as Ilamatepec) volcano is a stratovolcano about 45 km west of San Salvador city. It is El Salvador's highest volcano and one of its most active.
The broad summit of Santa Ana has a beautiful array of concentric craters with crescent-shaped rims.
Historical activity were mainly small-to-moderate explosive eruptions from both summit and flank vents and has been documented since the 16th century. The San Marcelino cinder cone on the SE flank produced a lava flow in 1722 that traveled 13 km to the east.
Santa Ana is dominantly andesitic-to-trachyandesitic. It is located immediately west of Coatepeque caldera. Collapse of Santa Ana during the late Pleistocene produced a voluminous debris avalanche that swept into the Pacific Ocean, forming the Acajutla Peninsula.
Reconstruction of the volcano subsequently filled most of the collapse scarp. There are several parasitic vents and cones which have formed along a 20-km-long fissure system that extends from near the town of Chalchuapa NNW of the volcano to the San Marcelino and Cerro la Olla cinder cones on the SE flank.
A sudden explosive eruption occurred at Santa Ana volcano at 08:20 local time on 1 October 2005. It produced a violent explosion of 1 hour, generating a 10 km high eruption column. 2 people were killed probably by a boiling lahar, and thousands evacuated. ...plus
Volcano watching guide
How to watch volcanoes? Which volcano to choose? Some guidelines.
Intraplate volcanism: A third tectonic setting where volcanism occurs is believed to be the result of mantle plumes and not directly related to plate boundaries. So called hot spot volcanoes fall into this category.
Stromboli Trekking
Climbing Stromboli volcano: Stromboli provides one of the most remarkable opportunities to watch volcanic eruptions from close: a natural ridge located 150 m above the active vents. A classic and all-time favorite tour by anyone interested in seeing active volcanoes!
Guatemala photos: Guatemala - a land of volcanoes and the colorful Mayan culture with incredible variety. A dream destination for volcano enthusiasts and photographers!
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Sunset on the Thames, Pangbourne
Henley to Pangbourne walk
22-Oct-16 • Saturdaywalker on Flickr
swcwalks book1 walk51 walkicon
Along the valley
Henley to Pangbourne
21-Mar-10 • moontiger on Flickr
Still along the valley
Rotherfield Peppard - All Saints
Laid hedge
Imposing tree
Alpaca country
Bosedown Alpaca Farm. They have a lot of them. Henley to Pangbourne
Another lovely country ramble, and the perfect pub crawl. Starts and finishes by the Thames, via forests and several country pubs.
Oxfordshire Thames Valley Chilterns Henley My Favourites
River Thames, beech woods, pubs & alpacas
19.2km (11.9 miles), 5 hours 40 minutes. For the whole outing, including trains, sights and meals, allow at least 9 hours 30 minutes.
Explorer 171 or Landranger 175. Henley, map reference SU 764 823, is in Oxfordshire, 10km north-east of Reading. Pangbourne, map reference SU 633 766, is in Berkshire, 8km west along the River Thames from Reading.
A lovely walk, starting and finishing by the Thames, and passing through many woods en route. This walk used to be our pub crawl walk, as you used to pass many pubs along the way. Alas, some of these pubs have closed in recent years, or they have stopped serving food at lunchtime. This is quite a long walk with some road and lane walking, hence it is a bit long for mid-winter unless you start early.
The walk starts beside the Thames in Henley, goes down one of Henley's most ancient streets, out into a broad valley, to the church and first pub at Rotherfield Greys. It then goes to the church at Rotherfield Peppard, and thereafter it is fields, beech woods and small villages.
As at the latest walk update, there remain at least two pubs located close to mid-walk for your lunch stop, plus others at walk-end. The walk also includes an alpaca farm just outside Whitchurch where you can watch hundreds of alpacas grazing in the fields, a true highlight towards the end of the walk.
On the final leg the walk then carries on to the Whitchurch parish church beside the Thames, to the toll bridge over the Thames, and finally into Pangbourne for a last refreshment stop.
The walk can be shortened to 8 miles by catching a bus just outside what used to be the Chaiyaphum Thai restaurant, at Cane End (now closed down for housing redevelopment). However, by taking this option you will miss the highlight of the alpacas towards the end of the walk. From just outside the restaurant, buses X39/X40 run into Reading about twice an hour Monday to Saturday, hourly on Sunday, taking about 25 minutes for the journey. For more bus information, phone 0871 200 2233. Alternatively, you could order a taxi from any of the pubs en route. As noted below in the lunch notes, you can also reverse the closing leg of TO Book 1 - Shiplake to Henley, to bring into play the Maltsters Arms for lunch. This adds about a mile to your walk.
Henley with its 300 listed buildings is said to be the oldest settlement in Oxfordshire.
St Nicholas' Church in Rotherfield Greys (if you should be lucky enough to find the door unlocked) contains the ornate tomb of Robert Knollys, counsellor to Elizabeth I and friend of Mary Queen of Scots.
The building of All Saints Church, Rotherfield Peppard, began in the twelfth century. It has early twentieth-century stained-glass windows designed by Meredith Williams, son of a rector of the parish. At the start of the twentieth century, Mirabel Grey, another local artist, made the Last Supper picture behind the altar and the other panels of inlaid wood.
St Mary's Church, Whitchurch, dates from the twelfth century. St Birynius is said to have landed at the ferry crossing at Whitchurch and, on seeing how fine the place was, decided to build a church.
An Act of Parliament in 1792 allowed the building of Whitchurch Toll Bridge to replace the ferry. The ten proprietors were given the right to charge tolls, for instance one halfpenny for every sheep and lamb. The present iron bridge built in 1902 replaces two previous wooden toll bridges.
The earliest mention of Pangbourne is in a Saxon charter of 844 as Paegingaburnam (meaning 'streams of sons of Paega'). In 1919, DH Lawrence stayed in Pangbourne, commenting: 'Pleasant house - Hate Pangbourne - Nothing happens.' Kenneth Grahame, author of The Wind in the Willows, lived in Church Cottage.
Take the train nearest to 10am from Paddington Station to Henley-on-Thames, changing at Twyford. Journey time 65 minutes. Trains back from Pangbourne to Paddington are every half hour (hourly on Sundays). Journey time 1 hour 15 minutes, or just under an hour if you change at Reading for a faster service.
Buy a day return to Pangbourne plus a single from Twyford to Henley.
For those doing the full-length walk, there are two and possibly three pubs for lunch close to one another near mid point in the walk. In the order that you reach them they are: the Red Lion (tel 01491 628 329) in Peppard Common, serving lunch 12.00-2:45pm Monday and Wednessday-Sunday (closed Tuesday), which is 7.6km into the walk (and has vegan options available on request); next the Unicorn (tel 01491 628 674) at Kingwood, serving food 12.00-2.30pm, Tuesday-Saturday and 12.00-4.00pm on Sunday (closed Monday), after 8.6km; and finally the Reformation (tel 0118 972 3126) at Kidmore End, not serving food mid-week (September 2018) but may do so again "soon". It may stil serve food at weekends Saturday 12.00-3.00pm and Sunday 12.00-4.00, which you reach after 10.4km.
If you intend to do the short, 8 mile version of the walk and start late, the well-regarded Maltster's Arms (tel 01491 628 400) in Rotherfield Greys, which is the first pub reached on this walk, after just 4.3 km, is a good option (and many consider to be by far the best).It serves lunch 12.00-2.30pm daily, though it can be very busy at times. For those doing the full walk, try reversing the closing leg of Book 1, Walk 9 - Shiplake to Henley, as far as Rotherfield Greys, going via Lambridge Wood and Greys Court: the Maltsters Arms then comes into play as your lunch option. Granted, you then have a long afternoon, but SWC walkers who like the Maltsters believe it worth it.
The suggested tea place for this walk Cafe St. Louis (tel 0118 984 2246) open until "late" (except on Sunday-Tuesday when it closes at 5pm).
Or you could try the George Hotel (tel 0118 9842237), The Elephant Hotel (tel 0118 9842244) or the Cross Keys pub (tel 0118 9843268).
Opposite the George Inn is a Co-op Convenience store.
Updates Walk instructions were fully checked and the website version updated in November 2016. Further updates September 2018
Start RG9 1AY Map Directions Return to the start:
Finish RG8 7DY Map Directions Travel to the start:
Coming out of Henley Station, turn right and walk 50 metres to the main road. Here, opposite the Imperial Hotel, turn right onto the main road. In 120 metres, bear left and you are walking along the Thames with the water on your right-hand side.
In 120 metres, turn left up Friday Street, soon passing the Anchor Inn on your left hand side. Go straight on, ignoring all turn-offs. In 200 metres, cross Reading Road and turn right then almost immediately left to continue in the same direction along Greys Road.
In 240 metres, fork right onto Deanfield Avenue. In a further 15 metres you fork left onto a car lane, signposted on the right-hand side as a public footpath (the sign could be obscured by bushes at certain times of the year), your direction 230°. Go straight on, ignoring ways off.
In 350 metres the path ends and you come out at a tarmac road. Go along the road in the same general direction as before, now 250°. In 160 metres turn right into the third residential street on the right, Tilebarn Close.
In 100 metres, turn left due west on a footpath (the path on the right-hand side of two paths on the left which is sign-marked Rotherfield Grey) and goes between fences (ignoring the wider footpath to the far left). [2]
In 50 metres, go through a defunct rusted metal kissing gate; soon you pass tennis courts on your right-hand side. Ignore ways off, your path now between fences. In 480 metres cross over a bridleway to go over a stile and straight on, your direction 320°. Soon you are going through a delightful valley.
In 650 metres, go over a stile into a small copse. Continue on, slightly to your right, following a couple of faded white arrows on trees, your direction 295° (ignoring a path to the right going uphill on the side of the field). In 125 metres go over a stile to continue ahead in the same direction on a potentially muddy track. In a further 200 metres, you come to a path junction and carry straight on through a field, your direction 265°.
After 400 metres, at a footpath post with yellow arrows fork right to go over a stile 20 metres to the right, following a yellow arrow, your direction 280° (ignoring the field gate and path to the left visible before you cross the stile). In 300 metres, go over a stile to the left of a field gate and continue straight on.
[!]In 55 metres, go left over a stile to follow its yellow arrow’s direction westwards to the right, with a field hedge on your right-hand side. In 75 metres, fork left uphill, your direction 240° initially, with a field fence on your left-hand side. When you reach the top of the rise it is worth looking back for a great view. Continue ahead in the same direction passing by a redundant gate on the left.
In 520 metres, bear left to come out through a wooden kissing gate onto a tarmac road, where you cross the road and turn right. In 20 metres, you pass the lychgate of St. Nicholas’ Church, Rotherfield Greys.
[3] In a further 25 metres, with the Maltster’s Arms pub ahead of you to the right, turn left on a signposted public footpath, your direction 180°, keeping to the edge of the churchyard on your left-hand side. In 70 metres, go through a swing gate and veer right, your direction 220°. In 20 metres, go through another swing gate to continue in the same direction across a field. In 220 metres, go through a metal swing gate and in a further 10 metres go through a metal gate to then go half right across another field.
In 140 metres, go through a metal swing gate and turn left on a wide path between small trees, your direction 185°.
In a further 150 metres, go through a wooden swing gate (with a metal field gate to its left) and turn right on a car wide track, your direction 280°.
In 80 metres, by a public bridleway sign, go left through a metal swing gate (a metal field gate to its right), your direction 160°, on a potentially muddy path that winds its way along the fringe of the wood and ignore ways off.
[!] In 200 metres at a footpath crossing, turn right to go through the metal kissing gate to the right on a path due west with trees on either side, ignoring all ways off. After 600 metres go straight across a track to pass through a metal kissing gate and carry onwards between the fences of Rectory Farm.
In 200 metres, go over a stile onto an earth car road where you turn right, your direction 300°. In 130 metres, you arrive at a tarmac lane with the fine All Saint’s Church, Rotherfield Peppard just ahead where you turn left and then bear left at the junction of roads in front of the church to carry on along the road, Church Lane, ignoring ways off.
In 350 metres, with School House on your right and Slaters Farm on your left, fork right, still on a tarmac road, your direction 330°. [4] Head towards the Red Lion pub, Peppard Common, visible 240 metres ahead and reached after crossing the main road. This is the first of three possible lunch stops.
At the pub, turn left (or, if leaving the pub, turn right) on the minor tarmac road, your direction 240°. Carry along this road for 1 kilometre (ignoring all ways off) when you will arrive at the Unicorn pub on the right-hand side, the second of the three suggested lunch stops.
At the Unicorn pub (or if leaving the pub) go straight ahead to cross a minor road. In a further 35 metres, cross the main road to carry on down Wyfold Lane. Continue ahead, ignoring all ways off.
In 300 metres, turn left through the metal kissing gate to go due south on a signposted footpath, with a field hedge on your right-hand side. In 200 metres, go through a gap with a metal field gate on the right. Continue along the enclosed path.
In 150 metres, go over a stile and turn sharp right, your direction 310° with the field hedge on your right-hand side, follow the path as it veers to the left-hand corner of the field.
In 130 metres go through (or past) a metal gate to enter a beech wood, New Copse (so marked on the OS Map). 5 metres after the gate, fork left (ignoring the path straight ahead). [!]In a further 10 metres, take the less distinct right fork, due west. In 20 metres pass by a footpath post on the right with a yellow arrow and an "Access on foot only" sign to keep straight on, ignoring ways off, your path marked intermittently by white arrows on trees. At one point the track appears to fork, take the right fork straight ahead (following the arrow on a tree).
[!] In 850 metres, there is a T-junction marked on a tree to the left, just ahead of a multiple footpath junction, with part of a wooden fence directly in front of you and four possible ways onwards (You can see a field gate and the edge of the wood visible 50 metres away to the right). At this intersection go left, your direction 165°, following the arrow on the tree in front of you.
In 150 metres, veer left with the path, heading due south and in a further 150 metres at an obvious cross-roads in a large clearing keep straight on, your direction 170°. In a further 370 metres, having ignored all ways off, you pass through some wooden barriers and turn right to pass through some further barriers in 15 meters to emerge onto a car lane lined with houses where you go left, your direction 110°.
In 140 metres, you pass the interesting cogwheel of a well on your left-hand side and in 15 metres, you come to the main road where you turn right, your direction 250°. [5] In 50 metres, you arrive at the Reformation pub in Kidmore End, the third of the possible lunch stops if and when it starts serving lunch again .
Continue past the pub (or if leaving it, turn right) along the main road. In 270 metres you pass Wyfold Road on the right and in another 200 metres (just before the road starts to curve to the right) turn right onto a path which is marked with a footpath post. In 10 metres pass through a wooden barrier to the left of a wire fence to follow a white arrow marked on a tree by forking left, your direction 270°. This is Withy Copse (so marked on the OS Map).
Continue along this footpath (which can be faint and overgrown at times but marked by occasional white arrows) as it winds its way through the trees, ignoring all ways off. In 650 metres at a junction of paths, fork left to effectively continue straight ahead and in a further 50 metres, you reach a fence and metal fieldgate with the garden of a house to the right.
Veer left to go through a metal gate with a yellow arrow. Continue half left for 50 metres through a small field and go through another metal gate with a yellow arrow. Follow the arrow direction half-left through the next field and exit at the top left-hand corner through a gate onto a road where you turn left.
In 60 metres take the signposted footpath through a kissing gate to your right, your direction 220°. Keep the field hedge on your left-hand side at this point (a timber-framed cottage is sometimes visible ahead of you to your right).
[!]In 165 metres (about 40 metres before reaching the field corner), take a stile to your left in the fence and turn right to continue on an entrance driveway (ignoring an earlier footpath signpost on the left about half way along this field edge). In 35 metres, turn left on the A4074, your direction 130°.
In 105 metres, you pass what used to be The Chaiyaphum Thai restaurant, Cane End on your left (now closed down and due for redevelopment). The bus stop for the X39/X40 route to Reading is in front of the restaurant.
40 metres past the restaurant, where a lane comes in from the left, cross the main road carefully to go onto an earth track opposite, leading to a metal swing gate by a metal field gate. Ignore the track straight ahead and follow the blue and yellow arrow marked bridleway half left, your direction 170°.
In 50 metres go through a metal swing gate and then half right, your direction 205°. In 30 metres, go through another metal swing gate and in a further 5 metres another. Keep straight on along the right-hand side of a field.
After 120 metres, at the corner of the field, continue ahead with trees on the left and a hedge on the right. In another 80 metres emerge from the trees into a field and follow a path to the right. In a further 70 metres, you enter a wood, your direction 240°. Keep on the main car-wide track as it curves left and then right. In 100 metres, at a path junction, keep straight on along a track, with the edge of the wood to your right and a field on your left, your direction 295°.
In 100 metres, at a crosspaths, continue straight ahead on into the wood, following white arrows on the trees. In 210 metres, follow the path to the left, your direction 250°.
In 135 metres, at a junction, go straight on along a tarmac road (ignoring tracks to the right and left), your direction 240°. In 10 metres, you pass Crossways Cottage on your left-hand side. In a further 160 metres, by concrete bollards on your left-hand side[!], take the signposted bridleway to your right into the wood, your direction 280°, on a wide muddy track (part of the Hardwick Estate). [!] In 25 metres, pass to the left of a gate and veer left onto a narrower path going deeper into the woods (ignoring a wide track going off to the right.) Ignore all ways off through the woods.
In 150 metres, turn left, on a track going gently downhill following intermittent white arrows on the trees, your direction initially 240°. Ignore ways off. In 150 metres, your route is gently uphill. In 120 metres, near the top, follow a white arrow on a tree straight on (ignoring ways off) your path slightly narrower now.
In 400 metres after winding your way through the wood on the track, you come to a tarmac road where you turn left, your direction 120°. In 100 metres you arrive at a house on the left called The King Charles’ Head (formerly a pub). [6]
Opposite this house, you go right on a footpath through a wooden kissing gate, signposted Path Hill, your direction 230°. In 100 metres, having passed a redundant stile on the right, pass through a kissing gate to the left of a wooden gate to follow the edge of the wood on your left-hand side, your direction 250°.
In 125 metres, go through a metal kissing gate. In 65 metres, your way merges with a driveway and you continue between fences past a flint cottage on your left-hand side. In a further 145 metres, cross a tarmac lane to go straight on along a very wide earth avenue.
In 150 metres, turn left on a car-wide earth road, your direction 190°. In 50 metres, where there is a yellow arrow on a corner post on your left-hand side (past a large wooden shed on the right and ignoring an earlier turning to the right between sheds), you go right, your direction 290°. Then, in 25 metres, go through a metal kissing gate to the right of a metal field gate and veer slightly to the left across a small field towards a gap in a fence in about 20 metres leading into an adjacent larger field. Continue half-left downhill across this next field, your direction 250°.
In 80 metres, you go through a metal kissing gate straight into the wood. In a further 110 metres, you exit the wood through a metal swing gate to continue downhill across a field due west.
In 80 metres, go through a metal kissing gate and turn left uphill, your direction 245°, with the edge of the wood fairly near you on your left-hand side. In a further 120 metres at the top of the hill, go through a gap in the boundary hedge (visible from the top of the hill) to go straight on.
In 75 metres, go through a usually open fieldgate onto a tarmac lane with farm buildings opposite. [7] Cross the lane and carry straight on along a tarmac lane, signposted footpath, your direction 220°. In 200 metres, you pass the entrance on your left-hand side to a house with turrets.
In 45 metres, you go through a wood barricade slightly to your right (level with the house’s garden gate) to go downhill, ignoring a wider path downhill to the left.
In 230 metres, you come to a tarmac road (approach with care as there can be fast moving cars on it) which you cross to continue straight on, past a broken stile through a usually open metal field gate. Continue onwards with a field hedge on your left-hand side.
In 60 metres, you go through a metal kissing gate. In 25 metres, by a post with yellow arrows, turn left downhill, your direction 165°, with a field hedge on your left-hand side. In 150 metres, you come to a tarmac road where you go right. Continue along the road where through occasional breaks in the hedge on your left you can see a large number of grazing alpacas.
Now walk along the path through the grassy margin on the left-hand side of the road, and in 500 metres you come to the Bozedown Alpaca Farm on the right. Continue on and at the end of the farm buildings, go right off the road at a bench onto a signposted path parallel and above it. In 300 metres, the path rejoins the road for the second time (having previously dipped down very close to it to cross a driveway). 20 metres after the path rejoins the road for good, turn left at a signposted footpath beside a wooden field gate onto a wide track, your direction 170°.
In 40 metres on your left you come to the entrance to the Whitchurh Thyme Maze, apparently located on some ley lines and worth a short detour. In a further 50 metres carry on straight ahead through some wooden bollards across the track. In 190 metres, turn right on the tarmac driveway of a primary school, your direction 235°. In 50 metres, bear right on a lane and, in a further 440 metres, you come to the main road, with the Greyhound pub, Whitchurch, on your right-hand side. You turn left, due south.
In 35 metres, take the footpath right to the church, signed Thames Path, on the tarmac driveway of Walliscote House. In 15 metres you fork left, your direction 225°.
In 65 metres (just before the lynchgate to the Parish Church of Whitchurch-on-Thames (which is worth visiting)), you veer left on the faint path through the churchyard (or turn right out of the church). Leave the churchyard through a gap to go down a narrow path between brick walls. In 30 metres, turn left on a gravel road by a mill house, with the Thames on your right-hand side.
In 65 metres, you come back to the main road and turn right to cross Whitchurch Toll Bridge over the Thames.
If you do not wish to go into Pangbourne for tea, you can take the signposted path to the station on your right 40 metres after the bridge.
Otherwise continue on the road. 250 metres after crossing the toll bridge, go under the railway bridge. In 75 metres, with the George Hotel on your right-hand side, you come to the main road T-junction. Turn left along Reading Road and in 25 metres you arrive at Café St. Louis on your left-hand side, one of the suggested tea places. Coming out of the café, turn right, cross over the mini-roundabout and keep ahead, in 85 metres coming to another mini-roundabout at the junction with the A329. The Elephant Hotel – another possible tea/ late meal stop – is opposite. If you turn left, you come to the Cross Keys pub on your left-hand side in 60 metres.
But to get to the railway station, at the road junction opposite the Elephant, turn right, to pass the Parish Council Offices and Village Hall on your left-hand side (with a useful WC block in the front of the car park).
In a further 100 metres, just before the railway bridge, turn left up the lane to Pangbourne Railway Station. Pass under the tunnel to reach platform 2 for trains to London. (Alternatively, you can walk under the railway bridge and take the access road on your left-hand side, which leads to the station. Platform 2 is now on your nearside).
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Home Australian politics Fraser Anning: #ItsOkToBeWhite just virtue signalling without immigration plebiscite
Fraser Anning: #ItsOkToBeWhite just virtue signalling without immigration plebiscite
Photo by Boston White, sourced from the Facebook page of Senator Fraser Anning.
David Hilton reported on the hysterics triggered on the left by Pauline Hanson’s motion to the Senate that It’s Ok to be White. Since then, even Australia’s so-called “conservative” government has attempted to backpedal, in response to criticism of the fact that many Liberal and National MP’s voted in favour of the motion.
Matty’s Modern Life neatly summarises the issue in this video:
The Bad Boy of Australian Politics, Senator Fraser Anning, has released two very interesting media statements in the last two days on this topic.
Yesterday he released the following statement, where he pointed out that saying “It’s Ok to be White” is a simple statement of fact; people of other races or religions are allowed to display pride in their heritage; and he pledged his support for Pauline Hanson’s motion, despite the fact that she did not support his call for a plebiscite on immigration:
He has followed this up today with another press release in which he makes the case that Pauline Hanson should support his call for a plebiscite, because:
“Senator Hanson has previously said many times that she opposes a predominantly European immigration program and she opposes my proposal for a plebiscite on this issue, so under those circumstances, when she says “it’s OK to be white” she is really just saying “it’s OK for white people to be a minority in Australia”
This is excellent for Australian politics, for the existence of our people and for the future of Austrlian children. As Adam Piggott has pointed out, our ostensibly “conservative” government no longer upholds conservative principles. Like other cuckservative parties in the West, it bases its so-called “principles” on cementing the social victories the left achieved yesterday, while mildly opposing the latest insane social cause the left is pushing today, only to fold tomorrow and uphold the new leftist position, while the left moves on to a new crazy frontier.
Finally, in the heart of political power in Australia, we have the potential for the dynamic to work the other way, back toward sanity. Pauline Hanson has been roundly criticised for her failure to support Senator Anning after he was condemened for upholding traditional Australian values in his maiden speech. Aware that she cannot be seen to be betraying her base, her putting forward the “It’s Ok to be White” motion can be seen as a way of reaffirming her commitment to real Australians and their desire to end mass immigration.
Senator Anning is her competition, and this excellent return of serve will keep the pressure on Pauline not to cuck, and could increase the momentum to achieve a policy victory – to ask real Australians, for the first time ever, if they are actually Ok with being demographically displaced via mass immigration.
Finally, if both Anning and Hanson achieve greater political support in the polls due their genuine support for an end to mass immigration, this may serve to pull the Liberal and National Coalition back toward the views of mainstream Australians regarding immigration.
#ItsOkToBeWhite
cuckservative
cuckservatives
immigration plebiscite
It's OK to be White
parliamentary motion
pauline hanson
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Category Archives: WC69 – Generation/Conversation
WC69 - Generation/Conversation
Stories From A Gay Elder
September 4, 2006 Editors Leave a comment
by Murray Edelman
I’ve been wrestling with the question: just what is my role as a gay elder?
In traditional cultures, elders are held in a place of honor for what they have contributed to the community and for the history and tradition they carry. In our culture, where history is recorded in books and film, traditions are constantly changing. So it is fair to ask: just what do gay elders have to offer today?
I’ve found part of the answer to be in the stories that I tell:
In 1965 I literally discovered my sexuality at the age of 21 while living in Washington D.C. A couple of weeks after locating a gay bar and having sex for the first time with a man, I was invited to an "after the bar party."
The party was mostly homosexuals. I saw two men dancing together for the first timne in my life, and their affection touched me very deeply. When I danced with women, I never felt anything special. But just seeing tenderness between men was incredibly exciting.
The suddenly the police appeared everywhere. We were all arrested. I was confused and very scared. I thought of claiming that I was the date of a woman standing near me, but I was too scared to ask her to front for me. All the feelings of guilt and fear about being a homosexual were now compounded by this arrest, possible exposure, and what it would mean for my career, given that the Federal government had required me to sign an oath that I wasn’t a homosexual.
We were marched into a cluster of paddy wagons. I made my first contact with a gay man that wasn’t laden with sexual overtones. As I relaxed, I intuitively felt the connection with being gay and the civil rights movement. I started chanting, very softly "We shall overcome, we shall overcome some day." Others in the paddy wagon joined me as we were driven to the police station for booking and possible public exposure. What a way to discover your sexuality! This was only four years before Stonewall.
Fortunately the police kept it to themselves; they booked us for disorderly conduct and we paid them a fine. That was quite a bit for one night, but it was noteworthy in another way. After we were booked, I went home with one of the men in the paddy wagon; the events of that night had brought us close and I had my first experience of touching and being held by another man. Earlier that night I witnessed gay affection for the first time; later I received grace.
The spirit that spoke to me in the paddy wagon stayed with me. Once I fully acknowledged my sexual desires, I felt betrayed by society for keeping it such a big secret. Many others chose to blame themselves. They spent years in psychoanalysis to become straight or even worse, shock treatment. Others tried to deny their sexuality by joining a seminary or staying in an unhappy marriage. I did go into therapy, but I made it clear from the beginning that I was doing it to adjust and not to change.
In the late 1960’s adjustment meant having a lover, a pet, and many kitchen appliances. It also meant keeping our sexuality to ourselves and our circle of gay friends. The cost of exposure in the workplace was too high. And even with friends we totally trusted, we might let them figure it out, but we certainly didn’t want to make them uncomfortable or "rub their face in it."
As a graduate student at the University of Chicago, I wanted to study homosexuality, but I was afraid others would make connections and I would be stigmatized in my career. Yet, while I was cautious in my actions, that conenction with the larger picture stayed with me.
In December, 1969, after the Stonewall riots, Henry Wiemhoff (one of the many lost to AIDS) and I called a small group of gay men and women together near the university to talk about Stonewall and what it all meant. Some of the attendees talked of walking around the block 10 times before coming in. Was it paranoia or precaution? A couple of years earlier the Chicago Tribune had published the names of men arrested in a bathhouse raid. The article destroyed their careers.
Most, like my lover of three years, were totally immobilized by the fear. He was furious with me that I would consider participating in the group’s first action — to be interviewed on the campus radion station. We would not give our names; we just wanted people to know we existed. He was so furious that he threatened to leave me if I was on the program. Why? Someone could recognize my voice or someone could see me at the station and then we would be at risk. (He didn’t leave, but the relationship didn’t last very long after that.)
In those early meetings, we considered telling others we were gay. It was a pretty overwhelming thought for me. Would it mean isolation from peers and professors and the stigma of being homosexual following me for my entire career? And what about my family?
But we also had a vision of change. Women and blacks had led the way for change. Also, I knew the problem with being gay was not inside me but outside. The closets were in our heads; at least we hoped so.
But it was a step into the unknown. Why risk my career and possibly my life?
Thankfully, many others have made this kind of tortured decision, but at least they had seen others come out and survive and they had a movement behind them. We didn’t have any of that. And once the decision to come out was made and acted on, it couldn’t be undone.
At a personal level it required a lot of sorting out. I was a happy, well-adjusted homosexual at the time. Why take big risks? Yet I felt so much more alive when I talked about gay politics and feminism. While I spent time reading about social change in school, I was at a popint where I could make real social change happen in my own community. For the first time I could feel my power as a leader and I liked it. (I was always the outcast in right field.) The vision powered me in ways I had never felt before. Yet, would this group, would this "movement" stay together? Am I really like them? Why not let others take the risks.
At one level it was about taking calculated risks; at another level it was about stepping into a vision of the future and being so alive, so clear and so powerful. So I started revealing my "secret" to friends, to my academic advisor…steps that could not be undone. Others came to our meetings and followed in our footsteps. We were no longer a gay discussion group at the university, but the center of the Gay Liberation movement of Chicago.
We hope you enjoyed this excerpt from the current issue of White Crane. We are a reader-written, reader-supported publication. To read more from this article, we invite you to subscribe to White Crane. Thanks!
Murray Edelman, who in addition to being an elder is a longtime innovator in the gay community, is beginning a very interesting political experiment called "Circle Voting." Check it out at www.CircleVoting.com
Tables of Contents to Issues, WC69 - Generation/Conversation
WC #69 – Table of Contents
July 23, 2006 Editors Leave a comment
Generation Conversation
White Crane Summer 2006 Issue
This is the Table of Contents for this issue. Where online excerpts are available the title is linked. Please note that we are a reader written, subscriber-dependent journal. To read the magazine in its intirety, subscribe to White Crane.
Opening Words The Editors Dan Vera & Bo Young
In Memoriam: Eric Rofes
The Everyday Sacred "Witch Camp" by Donald Engstrom
PRAXIS “Elderlicious” by Andrew Ramer
A White Crane Interview with Ron Long by Toby Johnson
TAKING ISSUE: GENERATIONS
Gay Adults! Gay Adults! Where Are You?
by Donald Kilhefner
Hands Across Generations by Mark Thompson
The Elder, The Tiger, & The Youth by David Connelly
From Tribe To Tribe by Brian Gleason
Roots & Branches by David Schildkret
A New Moon & Stars for Mystery by Malcolm Boyd
Gay Leadership by Chris Bartlett
Pioneers: The Gay Men’s Health Project
Project Clinic by Perry Brass
How To Never Grow Old by Andrew Hudson
Stories From A Gay Elder by Murray Edelman
Crossing the Gap by Ian Holloway
Elephants by Michael Wilford
Children and Gays by Jesse Monteagudo
Warm Feet by Matt Friday
CULTURE AND BOOKS
Daniel Helminiak on Anti-Gay Equals Anti-God by Samuel D. Behrens
Kai North on Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights by Kenji Yoshino
Steven LaVigne on Identities by Bazhe
Dan Vera on The Man Who Would Marry Susan Sontag: And Other Intimate Literary Portraits of the Bohemian Era by Edward Field
Malcolm Boyd on Godless Morality: Keeping Religion Out Of Ethics
by Richard Holloway
Steven LaVigne on Coming In by Urs Mattmann
Dan Vera on Mother of Sorrows by Richard McCann
Bo Young on The New Gay Teenager by Ritch C. Savin-Williams
Toby Johnson Interviews Ron Long
An Excerpt from the Summer Issue of White Crane
The Courageous Heart
Toby Johnson speaks with Ron Long
On the Mythic Dimensions of Daily Life
and our Call to the Defense of Life.
Ron Long is a teacher of religion at Hunter College of the City University of New York. He was a long-time active member of the Steering Committee (and past Chair) of the Gay Men’s Issues in Religion Group of the American Academy of Religion.
His recent book, Men, Homosexuality, and the Gods: An Exploration into the Religious Significance of Male Homosexuality in World Perspective, is a survey of variations in the way religion has treated homosexuality through the years. He deals with a rich (though, he acknowledges, intentionally not exhaustive) variety of traditions: primitive Papua New Guinean, ancient Taoist Chinese, Classical Greek, Islamic Sufi, Biblical era Hebrew, Early Christian, Native American, Buddhist, down to modern gay political and cultural movements, including antidiscrimination laws, gays in the military, and gay marriage.
He argues that “the revolutionary importance of the contemporary gay rights movement lies in its—by no means clearly articulated as yet—revolutionary idea of gender, that male sexual receptivity is part of the repertoire of a normal, adult, fully masculine male.”
At last fall’s Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Long was honored with a seminar on his book held as an appreciation of his contribution to the field. The seminar, titled Sacred Tops and Manly Bottoms, included presentations by fellow academic theologians and gay community voices Paul J. Gorrell, Robert E. Goss, Jay E. Johnson, and Kathleen M. Sands.
White Crane Contributing Editor, Toby Johnson reviewed Men, Homosexuality, and the Gods in White Crane last year (issue #64). Toby offered, “I liked the book and the boldness of Long’s defense and praise of homosexual male sexuality. I noted that I’d just missed meeting him last year when the AAR held its convention in San Antonio and I was invited by Mark Jordan to attend the final evening wine and cheese reception for the LGBT Caucus. Feeling a little beat up, Long had left before the closing reception. He’d taken part in a panel discussion on same sex marriage and Biblical perspective that was supposed to have been a dignified discussion of gay positive interpretations of Christian teaching, but turned into a rude and disrespectful attack on the gay members of the panel by Religious Right opponents of any legitimacy for gay perspectives. It was a courageous thing to try to talk to those right wing religious leaders, and a kind of emotional martyrdom to get attacked by them and have one’s most heartfelt religious convictions dismissed.
“In what I conceived of as a digital, ‘virtual wine and cheese’—with a toast, it turned out, to the Nordic god Baldr—I communicated with Ron Long a few weeks after this year’s AAR event in his honor. “How did it feel to be the guest of honor instead of the victim of homophobic attack?” I asked. When he told me it was great fun being honored, but that it had not been all fun and frolic, I knew there was more to talk about.”
Ron: It was nice—exhilarating—to have one’s ideas be discussed in a professional, academic setting like that. But it’s also really exhausting and emotionally draining. I had to address all these observations, comments, and criticisms about what I’d written in my book. And, you know, I had to work hard to take the high road! (laughing).
Toby: These things can be contentious.
Ron: There was a lesbian feminist presenter who offered some strong criticisms of my affirmative approach to gay male sexuality. She objected to my claiming fullness of masculinity for gay men, arguing that thereby I was simply trying to assure them a place in the patriarchal palace built on the backs of the oppression of women. Well, I confessed to being phallocentric in arguing that gay men represent a new understanding of masculinity. But I am also saying that, at their best, they likewise represent a new (non-patriarchal) way of understanding masculine power.
Toby: Right, homosexuality is about love and affection between equals. The phallic worship is about honoring the flesh and blood incarnation of the beloved, not about establishing dominance.
Ron: Funny, she said she found that my account of male on male sex missed the "push-pull" of “real sex” by focusing on phallos worship instead! I am not sure how seriously she meant her own description of sex. But an off-hand, knee-jerk characterization is all the more telling. I’d say, on the contrary, it’s insisting that sex is a matter of pushing into someone else’s body that reinscribes the very patriarchal understanding of sex that I’m seeking to supplant.
What I argued in the book is that homosexuality challenges the notion that sex is about penetrating other bodies, doing something to someone else who has been rendered passive, that is, that sex is a kind of war. By its insistence on the masculinity of the penetrated party, the bottom, the male homosexual movement is a movement for the spiritual liberation of all men. Getting over the fear of homosexuality and passivity would allow all men to discover they can be lovers as well as soldiers. Indeed, that they can stop seeing sex as war and war as sexy.
Toby: The dominance behavior of some straight men is really unattractive. It’s certainly not sexy to gay sensibilities.
Ron: Males are visually keyed. We enjoy seeing the beauty of other bodies. Sex is a form of seeing through touch. Appearance matters. I think there’s a kind of manhood that’s grounded in a desire to “look good” and to avoid being seen by others as a brutta figura. This indeed anchors a sense of male honor—what I am coming to call ‘chivalric manhood.’
Toby: I’m interested in your idea of religion as creating “a mytho-poetic world to dwell in which encourages living boldly, lustily, and honorably?”
Ron: There are a number of themes that my thinking continues to circle round, although how I see them fitting together keeps changing over time. Male on male sex for me is all about delighting in, “worshipping,” one another’s maleness. And while sex may be an expression of love and a matter of pleasure, it is at the same time a repeated “initiation” into manhood, in which each is reassured of his manhood.
Toby: I think a lot of gay sexual connecting, especially when one’s young, is about developing your own sexual self-image and sense of self-worth as demonstrated by how other gay men respond to you. One of the potent images for the mystery of life is wondering what you look like to other people. You can never know that except indirectly. And so it’s also telling other men how you see them. I always thought “coming on” to another man was such a generous act. That’s different from how heterosexuals see it.
Ron: I am fascinated by male beauty and I know—and I think this may be generally true—I want to be as well as to have a beautiful male. Physical beauties do not necessarily embody moral beauty, but I think their physical beauty symbolizes the moral. I tend expect a good-looking guy to be a good person but, if I find he’s not, he begins to look less good. By the same token, moral goodness has a way of transfiguring the flesh.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this excerpt from White Crane.
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White Crane #69 – Don Kilhefner “Gay Adults”
July 23, 2006 Editors 1 Comment
An Excerpt from the Summer 2006 Issue of White Crane
Trusting the
River Of Life
By Don Kilhefner
"Given half a chance, the youth will take their steps and trust the river of life. The bigger question may be whether a village can be created that can truly accept and receive them. Those who wish to work as mentors and elders have to keep one eye on the youth—and another on conditions in the village." Michael Meade, Elder & Storyteller
On a beautiful Saturday in October 2004 a major conference was held in Los Angeles entitled “Standing On The Bones of Our Ancestors: Exploring the Roles of Gay and Lesbian Tribal Elders.” It was sponsored by L.A.’s Gay Men’s Medicine Circle and the Gay and Lesbian Center. The Renburg Theater in Hollywood was packed. It was standing room only for a highly interactive day of dialogue across generations with ages ranging from 18 to 80. The gathering was built around the old understanding that if tribal elders are lost, adults will be lost; and if tribal adults are lost, youth will be lost.
The very next day I attended Malcolm Boyd’s 80th birthday celebration at the cathedral hosted by Bishop Bruno. At the event a bright, 30-something, gay man, who produces programs on environmental issues for National Public Radio, came up to me to talk about the conference which he had attended the previous day. Enthusiastically he shared that he had never heard of the concept of a “gay adult” which I had talked about at some length at the conference and he found it intriguing. He always heard people talking about “older gays” and “younger gays” but he had never heard of gay men having an adult stage of development. At first I though he was just putting me on, joking with me, a little gay guerrilla theater. And then, in shock and awe, I realized he was speaking to me seriously and truthfully. It has become one of the pivotal conversations shaping my recent work in the gay community.
Recently I was having dinner in West Hollywood with a valued, long-time friend who in 1972, right out of Yale, became involved in the radical Gay Liberation movement in Los Angeles and currently is a cultural editor at the New York Times. I shared with him the above conversation about gay adults and its profound impact on me. Much to my surprise he also replied that he always hears gay people in New York City talking about “older” and “younger” gays and also wondered why so many avoid the use of the word “gay adult.”
ADULTHOOD IS ARCHETYPAL
Carl Jung first coined the term “archetypal.” He used it to mean intrinsic images and patterns of behavior that are found everywhere in our species—hero, warrior, wise old man, healer, trickster. In other words, for something to be archetypal it must be found in all periods of history and in virtually every culture. Cultural anthropologists tell us that whenever and wherever humans are found there seems to be a patterning of life into four stages called youth, adult, elder, and ancestor. Moreover, each of these stages have significant social roles to play in the village. There is a profound and fundamental interdependence between these stages and societal roles upon which the health and vitality of the village or tribe are largely based. For the sake of simplicity, one might say ancestors look out for our welfare and protection in this lifetime both on an individual and tribal level. They carry a vast and rich storehouse of knowledge which shamans, dream-workers, and vision seekers in the tribe can access directly if necessity arises.
Elders are responsible for the spiritual well-being of the village (Jung called them spiritual fathers and mothers). They facilitate the transmission of a certain type of spiritual information, knowledge and wisdom from one generation to the next. Elders think about themselves, about conditions in the village, and about seven generations yet to come. They carry external authority, internal authority and, due to close proximity, ancestor authority. You cannot have an alive and healthy community unless there are elders consciously doing eldering. Unfortunately in the gay community today men simply become “olders” not “elders.” Generally they retire, disappear, or are discarded just when they are most needed and most valuable to those coming after them.
Adults are responsible for the material well-being of the village. Largely they provide for the economic vitality and physical survival of the community. Adults raise the young, protect the community, make sure certain ceremonies are performed, initiate young men in manhood (adulthood), and pass onto youth practical information and lived knowledge. Adults care about themselves and about something larger than themselves—the state of the community or tribe. From a vantage point of 40 consecutive years of frontline work in the gay community, I suggest that it is the gay adult that is now largely missing from the community picture (along with conscious gay elders) and his absence is having serious, negative consequences to our communal and spiritual evolution as a people. In the late 19th century before the young Vivekananda and the other young men showed up at the Kali temple in Calcutta, Ramakrishna would go up on the temple roof and shout “Boys! Boys! Where are you?” in all directions. Eventually they showed up. Sometimes in anger and frustration, I want to climb up on the roof of the local White Party and shout into the four directions: “Gay adults! Gay adults! Where are you?”
Youth symbolizes the future of the tribe and any healthy community will treat the ripening of its young people with the utmost seriousness, and attention, in the process showing respect towards the future and, particularly, to those who went before (ancestors). In youth the central organizing principles are having fun, adventure and screwing up, learning about the opening of the heart and sex, and seeding creative imagination and exciting possibilities for the future. In our culture youth is self-absorbed, thinking largely only about himself. On a 21-year old this youthful narcissism seems age-appropriate and even charming if one does not need to be around it too much. On a 41 year old it looks grotesque. Without the presence of conscious, functioning adults in the community, a self-absorbed youth can easily become a “lost boy”—lost in paint ball, video games, and cyber/cell phones; lost in Madonna groupie-hood; lost in the phrase “whatever.” The gay community is filled with them of every age. Bereft of adult support and encouragement to grow up and detached from ordinary reality, these “lost boys” find it nearly impossible to activate and fulfill their promise in the world and their gifts are often wasted.
WHY DO GAY ADULTS MATTER?
Adults fulfill many important roles in the gay village. Here I will discuss three of those vital roles—blessing the gifts of the youth, providing mentoring to young men, and tending to the general material welfare of the village or tribe.
The poet Robert Bly once remarked that any man who is not blessing young men is cursing them. There are serious consequences in the gay community when there are no elders and adults present blessing the young. The most important is that youth gets disoriented and lost. Parents rarely do the blessing these days because they are hardly ever around anymore due to the consumer economy and credit card slavery. Moreover parents are often clueless because they never had their own gifts acknowledged. For most youth today the babysitter is the television set, the playmate is the video game, and the mentor is the computer—none of which will bless his gifts or even give a hill of beans about them. Young people cannot see their own genius and generally think they are rather dumb no matter how arrogant they act in public. The phrase I hear most often from the young gay men with whom I work is variations of: “I’m really stupid, aren’t I.” Remember, youth has little inner authority; for them all authority is external—parents, teachers, priests. Possessing inner authority is usually a hallmark of becoming an adult. If adults are not present helping them develop that inner authority, it may never happen, and their lives may truly be divided into younger gay and older gay with nothing in between. Our community will be impoverished as a result.
The way it works is that some adult whom the youth respects and trusts must acknowledge, name, and bless his gift (s) repeatedly. The major turning point of my life happened when I was in the 8th grade and it involved a blessing of my genius (from the Arabic word geni meaning “spirit”). I had planned to drop out of school in the end of the 8th grade to become a carpenter since to my 13 year old, pubescent-fevered brain the sexiest men seemed to be carpenters. One day in Social Studies class we were working on an assignment in class and my teacher, Mrs. Eula Mae Kline, was walking around helping the students. When she got to me she put her arm around me in a very loving way and whispered in my ear: “You know Donnie you are a very smart boy, very smart, and if you did your homework you would get nothing but A’s on your report card.” At the time I was getting C’s, D’s and F’s. No one ever said that to me before. I thought I was stupid. It turned out she saw something in me. Her blessing of one of my gifts changed the course of my life I was right though about the carpenters.
I contend that the gifts of gay youth, the future of our community, are going largely unblessed, unsupported, and unmonitored today by community adults. Our youth are not developing inner authority. Indeed, often it is difficult to distinguish the consciousness and behavior of a 20something from that of a 40something.
Without adults present in the village very little mentoring goes on. Adults do mentoring of youth, elders do eldering of adults, and ancestors do the ancestoring of elders. Age apartheid gets us nowhere. Traditionally it was the youth who selected the mentor; he had some sense of what he needed, who could provide it, and just started hanging out around him. Many times there were elaborate protocols involved in the adult agreeing to be the mentor, primarily the presentation of a gift to the mentor. Almost always it was the genius of the youth meshing with the genius of the mentor.
The word mentor comes out of Homer’s Odyssey. As Odysseus was readying to go off to fight the Trojan War, a 20-year absence as it turned out, he put his newborn son Telemachus under the supervision of a boatswain, a man named Mentor, until he returned. In other words, a mentor is a person, in the absence of a father, who assists a young man to activate his imagination and to grow up until the archetypal father within the youth appears, i.e., he becomes an adult.
Mentors work largely with youth; elders work largely with adults. In 1979 when Harry Hay and I were living together in Los Angeles and organizing the first Radical Faerie gathering in the Sonora Desert of Arizona, Harry Hay said to me: “Don, you [adult] work with the young ones [youth] at the gathering. You speak their language and can talk with them easier than I can [I was 37]. I [elder] will work with the more mature ones [adults]. They can hear me [Harry was 73].” At the time I could not quite understand what Harry was trying to tell me. I do now. Mentoring involves helping youth in developing their gifts and securing a livelihood hopefully based on those gifts. A mentor transmits pragmatic information and lived knowledge which allows a youth, in our society, to mature and become financially self-supporting and generationally interdependent. He models the role of the mentor so when a youth reaches the adult stage he knows what to do because it was done for him. Mentoring often involves help with specific livelihood skills.
I mentor young gay men in shamanic practice, dream work, plant spirit medicine, gay community organizing, becoming a gay Jungian psychologist, how to secure a GED for high school dropouts, how to pass the psychologist licensing exam, and so forth. Mentoring might involve helping the youth grow up—using anger constructively, setting boundaries, containing impulsive instinct, dealing with sex-drugs-loud dance music issues, courting and relationship assistance and learning stealth. The bottom line is that a mentor must love young gay men, take a genuine interest in their growth, listen much, much more than talk and advise, and do large amounts of suggesting, supporting and encouraging. The relationship is never sexual—there is too much of a power differential. We must move away from giving gay youth the message that their only value is their body. In fact they are the future of our community. And given the insanely fast pace, dislocation, and unraveling of our urban society, perhaps in the future all we will have is what Michael Meade calls “mentoring moments.”
I know well a gay man in Los Angeles who is a Catholic priest in his 40’s but whose consciousness and behavior is that of someone in his late 20’s. In his parish was a Catholic school at which he taught Catholic ethics. He went to class in casual clothing out of an Abercrombie catalogue and made it clear to his students he was their friend with whom they could play video games and to whom they could talk like a peer. Midway in the school year his 9th grade class sent a student delegation to talk with him. They had three requests. He should wear his priest garb and collar to class, he should not play video games with them, and he should act more like a grown-up around them.
One of the boys in the delegation plaintively said to him: “We need a priest [adult] more than we need another friend.” I bow deeply in the direction of those 9th graders.
A third important role that adults play is tending to the general material welfare of the community or tribe. Adults generally are interested in themselves and something larger than themselves. They are not totally self-absorbed as I find many adults in the gay community. Where I grew up in rural Pennsylvania 35-50 year olds were running for the school board or town councils, serving as advisors to the 4-H clubs, joining the volunteer fire company, organizing a community library, concerned about the lack of a recreation center for the youth—interested in something larger than themselves that would benefit everyone in the community. My generation called it “civic responsibility.”
This sense of responsibility for the welfare of the gay community is largely missing today. Gay youth have few models around them of gay adults functioning as adults in a creative and constructive manner in our community.
This current absence of gay adults tending to the community is due, in part, to historical forces that during the past 40 years have shaped the emergence of a gay community for the first time in American history. Our national community has been shaped by two revolutions—the Gay Liberation revolution and the Reagan revolution.
The Gay Liberation revolution provided a sense of gay identity, fought back against gay oppression, emphasized community building and unity, and developed an ethos based on assuming responsibility for each other. The Reagan revolution, on the other hand, told us that there was a money pie out there and your life’s mission was to get your slice at all costs. Their right wing revolution scoffed at community and instead emphasized family. Looking out for #1 was the name of the game and it was made up of winners and losers judged by the size of one’s portfolio. The Reagan revolution has provided the gay community with soulless, visionless, and clueless technocratic leaders to whom all money is good money and for whom working for the highest bidder is paramount regardless of political or social implications or its impact on the lives of gay people. Mary Cheney is a good example. Several years ago I debated her twice in Los Angeles regarding the Coors Boycott before the ACLU and the Stonewall Democratic Club who immediately voted to re-endorse the Coors Boycott. Cheney at the time was on the Coors payroll and went around the country handing out chump change to gay organizations in order to create the illusion that the Coors Boycott—the most successful in gay history—was over. She just lied to gay people. At one point in the debates Mary would say: ”The Coors family is no longer associated with the Coors Brewing Co.” Then I would reply: “That’s a lie Mary and you know it is. Peter Coors is the CEO of the Coors Brewing Co. and of the nine people on its Executive Committee eight have the last name of Coors and the ninth is the Coors’ family minister.” And so it went. [This is a very important issue that cannot be gone into here. Money from the Coors Brewing Co. has funded, in large part, through the Castle Rock Foundation, the anti-gay political agenda in this country.] It is important to remember that most gay adults and youth have been influenced more by the values of the Reagan revolution than the social change ferment of late 60’s and 70’s from which their freedom, communities, and institutions were a direct result. The Reagan revolution has diminished our community and its leadership.
The Reagan revolution today is losing steam and is headed for self-destruct due to its failures and internal contradictions. The time is ripe for a new model of gay community to emerge that builds on the past but is not a slave to it. And if you have socially, politically and spiritually conscious gay adults assuming responsibility for that community, gay youth will have necessary modeling and direction to allow them to see a role for themselves in the future of our community.
EXCUSES I HAVE
HEARD AND USED MYSELF
When I discuss the crisis of missing adults in the gay community with gay men between 30 and 55 there are three justifications (I call them excuses) that I usually hear as to why there are few gay adults or why they have ignored that archetypal stage of development.
There is the delayed adolescence argument. You have probably used it yourself. I have. It goes something like this. Since I was in the closet during my teenage adolescence, when I came out in my 20’s I went through a delayed gay adolescence at a time my heterosexual age mates were moving into adulthood. I think, in part, it’s a valid argument. How long, however, does gay adolescence last? At the most, adolescence usually last 8 years at which time young adulthood sets in. Why am I seeing large numbers of gay men in their late 30’s, 40’s and 50’s still thinking and acting like 20-somethings? Sadly they may never develop into adults; not everyone grows up and matures. Their lives may be divided into “younger gays” and “older gays.” I do believe, however, there is a way out. Jung once wrote six words that are immensely relevant to us as gay men—“The mother accepts, the father expects.” We have been busy mothering each other and our young—accepting behaviors that are clearly self-destructive to us individually and collectively—at a time when we need to be fathering ourselves and our young—developing a community-wide ethos and means that expects young gay men to become adults. And becoming the exemplars of that process.
A second explanation for the missing adults is the AIDS argument. It goes something like this: AIDS has killed off that generation who rightfully should be assuming adult roles in our community at the present time. My heart, like yours, breaks when we think of the toll AIDS has taken. It is true that the hardest hit has been the 30-50 age group. Yet there is something facile and bogus about this argument. While statistics regarding gay people are notoriously inaccurate, CDC estimates that AIDS has resulted in the deaths of somewhere between 8% and 12% of our community nationwide. Where are the remaining 90% of gay men who are not missing in action? It would seem to me that in a community hit so hard by AIDS, the living would pull together and redouble their effort at tending to the welfare of the tribe. The AIDS explanation is an easy way for gay men to distance themselves from and justify their failure to grow up in a way that recognizes their responsibility to the community from which they come.
A third reason often given for the absence of gay adults in the community is the absence-of-children argument. Heterosexual men mature due to the necessity of child rearing. Due to the pressures of supporting a family they are reluctantly forced to grow up and assume adult responsibilities. Gay men, so the argument goes, do not have that child rearing task and therefore there is no necessity to become adults. There is some merit to this argument—from a socio-biological point of view heterosexuals are responsible for the reproductive survival of our species. But this argument ignores the question: What are gay people for? I contend that we as gay people are responsible for the “spiritual survival” (in the broadest possible context of those words) of our species. This implies that there is something for which we as gay men need to be assuming responsibility and transmitting to our progeny—gay youth—that is just as important as the bio-centric responsibility of heterosexuals. It calls for—even demands—the presence of gay adults and elders in the village and requires adult maturation that is just as vital to our society as the biological childrearing demands play in the adult formation of heterosexuals. The best discussion of the spiritual roles gay people play in society that I have come across is found in the first chapter of Christian de la Huerta’s Coming Out Spiritually. If you have not read it, run, don’t walk, to your nearest gay bookstore.
WHAT WE’RE
DOING IN LOS ANGELES
During the past 8 years in Los Angeles, the Gay Men’s Medicine Circle has made intergenerational dialogue and cooperation an integral part of its primary purpose—through shamanic practice assuming responsibility for the well-being of gay men and the welfare of the gay community. Much of our work involves creating conscious and active gay tribal elders and adults. Since 1999 we (Donald Ham, Mack Gilliland and myself) have been offering a 3 day, weekend workshop for gay men over 55 entitled “Gay Tribal Elder: Archetype of the Spiritual Father” from which 36 men have been formally initiated as tribal elders. Also in 2004 a major, one-day, cross-generational conference was convened in Los Angeles with the name “Standing On The Bones Of Our Ancestors: Exploring the Roles of Gay and Lesbian Elders.” which further seeded tribal elder awareness in the community. We are seeking nothing less than the re-imagining of gay culture, facilitating a “trialogue” that invites youth, depends on adults, and requires elders.
In dealing with the problem of the missing gay adults, the Gay Men’s Medicine Circle has developed two workshops during the past eight years. The first we (Greg Davis, Deni Ponti, Terry Rosson, Stan Gauntt, Donald Ham, Matt Cody, and myself) called “Father Hunger: The Union of the Son of Promise With the Father of Achievement.” It is eight weeks in length and is aimed at young gay men in their 20’s and 30’s. In twelve separate workshops so far we have focused on helping young gay men understand the light and dark aspects of the puer aeternas (eternal youth) archetype in the gay psyche and to assist in the challenging transition from youth to the first stage of gay adulthood. A young graduate of the Father Hunger workshop, the conductor Matt Cody, is facilitating a similar workshop in New York City (mattcody@earthlink.net). The second workshop is entitled “Midlife Awakening: Rites of Passage Into the Second Half of Life.” We (Roberto Blain and myself) focus on the transition from young adulthood to mature adulthood—contributing one’s gifts to the community through a spirit-directed life of purpose and meaning. These Midlife Awakening workshops help gay men to locate themselves in life and to develop concrete plans for moving to the next stage of their development with awareness, passion and a sense of adventure.
This year (2006-2007) the Medicine Circle is focusing on gay youth. On September 9, 2006, we will be presenting a pioneering event called “RISE UP AND SHOUT! Voices of the Next Gay Generation,” in which we are searching for the next generation of gay and lesbian creativity and imagination: musicians, writers, actors, rappers, poets, filmmakers, dancers, DJs, and performance artists. On September 9, 2006, a community blessing of our youth will be held at Barnsdall Gallery Theater in the Los Angeles Municipal Arts Complex on the grounds of Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous Hollyhock House in Hollywood. It will be an evening spotlighting, literally, the diversity of gifts of young gay men and women. RISE UP AND SHOUT! is also designed as a benefit honoring the 16 years of excellence and service of White Crane Journal, the international gay spirituality magazine. The event will be the prelude to a major, intergenerational conference sponsored by the Medicine Circle in late 2007 in Los Angeles entitled “The Genius of Gay and Lesbian Youth.”
I KNOW. I KNOW. I KNOW
I know that what I have written about is just the tip of the iceberg. I know there are exceptions to everything I have talked about. I know there are hard-working gay men out there who are assuming courageous and constructive adult roles in the gay community and other communities. I know many of the same problems of maturation and contributing to the village also apply to non-gay men and women as well. I know we live in difficult times where there is a danger of cynicism, withdrawing, indifference and numbing. I know we have lost gay men whom we have loved deeply and fiercely to AIDS and the other plagues of our community and we can’t stop crying. I know our community has lost its collective vision and its guiding mythos. I know our community is in danger of becoming a marketing niche. I know mindless consumer culture and popular entertainment culture with its empty calories is dumbing down gay generation after generation. I know our community is largely led by soulless and visionless technocrats who haven’t got a clue most of the time. I know the Gay and Lesbian Association Against Discrimination’s (GLAAD) recent banquet was sponsored by the Coors Brewing Co. I know you work longer hours for less pay and are in debt up to your eyeballs.
And yet I say to you that the renewing, rebirthing, and re-visioning of our community is not only necessary but possible. But it cannot be done without awake and alive gay ancestors, elders, adults and youth working cooperatively together. In the 1970’s a movement made up largely of gay adults birthed a social revolution of major proportions which is still echoing around the world and in our hearts. Similar possibilities for moving gay community and consciousness forward are now within our grasp but it cannot be done without the conscious engagement of gay elders and adults. The only way we will get the kind of gay community we want to live in is to create it. The key to that possibility is the awakening and emergence of gay adults.
Don Kilhefner, Ph.D., played a pioneering role in the Gay Liberation movement and is a founder of Los Angeles’ Gay and Lesbian Center, the Van Ness Recovery House, the Gay Men’s Medicine Circle and numerous other seminal gay community organizations including (with Harry Hay) the Radical Faeries, an international gay spirituality and consciousness movement. He is a Jungian psychologist and shamanic practitioner in Los Angeles. Don can be reached at donkilhefner@sbcglobal.net.
Columns, Donald Engstrom, WC69 - Generation/Conversation
White Crane #69 – Donald Engstrom – Everyday Sacred
A Report from Witch Camp
We stood once again in Freya’s Hall. We had come to deepen our relationships with the Mysterious Ones of Place; Wind, Water, Fire and Earth, with Red Bloods and Green Bloods, with Rooted, Branched and Blossomed, with Furred, Finned and Winged. The Hearth Fires were relit, the Folk regathered. Our joyful obligations to each other held us in the strong arms of compassion. It was time for us to continue the on going work of Winter Camp.
We began our time together by dedicating Winter Camp’s new prayer bead set. The bead committee stood encircled by the beads facing outward towards the community. Mary held up the prayer book for each of the six members to read two pages at a time. The prayers beads truly awoke and found a place in the hearth and hearts of the Folk.
That first afternoon we also moved into our cabins, made announcements, formed affinity groups, met the teaching/facilitation team, met the three kitchen Witches that prepared our daily meals, listen to path invitations and renewed our delight in each other’s company. We welcomed old timers and new comers alike. From the beginning of camp till it’s last closing song, the graciousness of Hostess Law permeated the very air we breathed.
That first evening we set our camp’s intention.
In love, we open our hearts and minds to the spirits of the lands around us, listening deeply and respectfully to their stories. We seek to move ever closer to a co-creative relationship with all beings in our landscapes. We choose connection and courageously step forward into the new stories we create together.
Each evening’s ritual was a coming together of the whole community. The teaching team so skillfully held the work that each piece flowed invisibly into the next. There was a sweet blending of styles and of tools. There was always a spaciousness that left plenty of room for the community to actively participate in improvisational co-created magic and spell work. The teams commitment to beauty, love and joy was tangible. This team obviously held the growth and development of the community as paramount. They were courageous enough to truly be servants to the clan house.
The first morning we chose our path work:
1. Living the Moment
2. The Dance of Desire Lives Here! Mapping our Inner & Outer Worlds
3. Aligning, Attuning and Earth Healing With the Intelligences of Nature
Our resource teacher, Christine, moved confidently from path to path while feeding each evening’s work.
I have heard life changing reports from people participating in all three of the groups. I have heard stories of the work feeding and nourishing both the individual and the community. From my perspective, it was obvious that yet more components of the sustainable cultures of beauty, balance and delight were fully formed by the work done in each of the three paths.
I chose to join the "Aligning, Attuning and Earth Healing With the Intelligences of Nature" path. It was a brilliant choice for me.
We tranced with our Allies. I listened and heard:
Wind and Water
Bone and Branch,
It’s all life
That we enhance.
Stone and Dream,
That we esteem.
Womb and Web,
That must be fed.
We each wrote a poem with a shared common title; “When Water Becomes Frost.” Strong work flowed from each of our pens. It led me to write:
When water becomes frost,
Human lovers spread flannel sheets
On their beds of pleasure
Knowing that desiccated lusts shall be restored
By the frozen breath of icy lips on a hot belly.
We practiced trance postures. We worked with among others, the Corn Mother, the hawk and the bear poses. We gathered information, visions and instructions.
For instance, this came to me while in the bear pose:
My body flushes with pale green lightnings and storms.
Dreaming a memory?
Remembering a dream?
I listen to my bowel’s healing rumble with bear ears.
Singing Bear calls for his song to be sung.
I sing;
With just his voice
He heals throughout my body.
He shatters the virus.
He builds crimson blood,
He makes red blood healthy and vital.
And the ancient queer
Were bears,
Bear shirkers,
Bear healers,
Shake and tumble,
Dancing to bag pipe and drum.
The hurdy gurdy’s strings
Take us to a dream restored in bone and blood,
Stone and wood,
Tears and cum.
We breath deeply together;
In through the nose,
Out through the mouth.
Honey cakes are our healing desserts.
The last morning of class found us standing in the midst of the Whitewater River declaring how we had changed the world as if we were years into the future. We dared this work knowing that it is by our conscious choices that we give Skuld the materials that will build the worlds that we shall all live in. Here is a sampling of our declarations.
Larry declared:
I chose to honor and nurture the healing powers of water and dirt.
I pulled the old bandages off my heart and stretched those scars.
I determined to become an athlete of love.
Most importantly I learned to see success.
Madelon declared:
I healed the world by opening my heart and healing myself.
Diane declared:
Opened heart, shed tears, touching, loving;
Daily discipline and Divine connection.
Blessings, blessings, blessings!
Compassion and hospitality, humility and healing, fairness;
Intention manifest in all that I did.
Spells, spells, spells!
Ashland declared:
I gave the world my full attention.
I declared:
I am an Engstrom.
I planted sunflowers, tomatoes and corn.
I made my bed every morning.
I planted wild weeds in every crack in the pavement.
I drew spirals at cross roads, on churches, on boulders, on hearts that risked to actively heal, knowing that each spiral transformed all the others.
I danced in bars,
At weddings and picnics,
In parks and in palaces,
In hovels and caves.
I danced in the arms of my lovers and boyfriends,
Tasting their tastes,
Celebrating their glory
As we dared to dwell in beauty, balance and delight.
I must also say, that Freya’s Bower was consecrated daily with an offering of sighs, sweat, and cum from many in the community. The Bower brought us both earthly delights and the healing of hearts. Praise be the powers of sex and it’s mysteries!
This Winter Camp has been for me a high light among high lights. It is one of the most powerful, nurturing, sustaining Reclaiming events that I have ever been a part of. I am deeply grateful.
We left with the words of the Norns still singing in the winds and the waters:
Listen to the stories.
You choose your own lives!
You provide us the weft with the choices you make.
We all co-create these worlds together!
May abundance and joy flow through our lives
like a wild untamed river.
Donald Engstrom/Reece is a hero of ours. A longtime activist in gay spirituality, Donald’s work dates back to the mid-1970s when he took part in early consciousness raising communities in the Midwest — communities that foreshadowed later Radical Faerie developments in the early 1980s. In the 1980s he began doing work with the Reclaiming Community and hosted the first Faggot Witch Camps. He lives in Minneapolis with his partner and travels around the country doing work in the Reclaiming Tradition.
A frequent contributor to our pages, we are now delighted to have his wise insights as a regular feature in White Crane under the title “The Everyday Sacred.”
Andrew Ramer, Columns, WC69 - Generation/Conversation
White Crane #69 – Praxis by Andrew Ramer “Elderlicious”
Elderlicious
You’re not happy about your appearance, and are considering plastic surgery. Some of your friends are for it, others against. Finally you decide that you don’t believe in reincarnation, you only have one life to live, and you want your outside to match your inside. Anxious, eager, you go under the knife during the long Labor Day weekend, and take a week off on the other side. “Oh my God!” your coworkers say when you get back. “You look fantastic. At least ten years older.” You’ve been coloring your hair gray for a while, but the new wrinkles around your eyes, the added creases in your cheeks, and the enhanced wattle beneath your chin are so sexy that you get cruised on the street like you’ve never been cruised before. “It was worth it,” you tell your smiling best friends over dinner. “I wish I’d done this a long time ago.”
Whatever age you are right now, take off all your clothes, and look into a mirror – in a world where Age = Beauty. Frankly, a hard stomach is only half-formed. Your pecs won’t be ripe for anyone to sink their teeth into until they’ve drooped. And if the flesh on the bottom of your arms doesn’t sway when you swing them, your beautiful elderhood will have to be grown into. Get used to being ignored when you enter rooms filled with handsome older men, bald and gray and magnificent. Accept the fact that you’ll be walking down the street feeling invisible for a while longer. You’re going to age like fine wine, slowly, but doing the following things may augment your inner fermentation and prepare you for your own luscious future.
An elder is like a mighty tree, with a ring for every year of his life contained within his gorgeous aging body. As you move through the world, pay increasing attention to older men, and allow yourself to feel and know that you are part of a tribal chain, going back through history, linking elders and youngers, a chain which helps to hold the world together.
Whatever your age is, find a mentor, a man at least ten years older than you are. Spend time with your mentor on a regular basis. Take him out to lunch in lovely places, buy him small things that will enhance his physicality, and treat him the way that you would like to be treated when you’re his age. Bask in his beauty and wisdom, and be open to his guidance.
If your mentor has no heirs, no children, show him by your integrity and devotion that you are a worthy recipient of anything that documents his life as a man who loves men, such as photo albums and old love letters. These you will cherish, learn from, and one day pass on to your own spiritual son or sons, along with material from your own life, so that the tribe of men who love men doesn’t have to reinvent itself, over and over again, in each generation.
If you laughed your way through this piece, because you don’t believe a word of it, look at yourself in the mirror again. Stare into your eyes and know that if you’re lucky and live long enough, your butt will droop, your belly will hang, hair will vanish from some places and appear in others – all of which will herald your mature perfection in physical form. And if you think or know that you will not live to have an older body, remember that anyone who stands near the doorway out of this world ages and ripens into wisdom and grace no matter what his age is, and becomes an elder for all the world to honor.
And if you still don’t believe that when you are older you will be beautiful, cherished, admired, and turned to for guidance, ask yourself why not, and ask yourself what it will mean to you to cultivate these ideas, and invite your own inner elderhood to blossom within you, day by day.
Andrew Ramer lives in San Francisco.
He is the author of the gay classic Two Flutes Playing (now available from
www.gaywisdom.org) Praxis is a regular feature in each issue of White Crane.
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The Daily Brief
Copyright David Becker, Getty Images
Voice Assistants Aren't Going Away
And advisors should be excited about that.
Samuel Steinberger | Feb 13, 2019
Although Alexa is the market leader in smart speakers, the use of voice assistants is set to explode across a range of devices, according to TechCrunch. The majority of the expected 8 billion digital voice assistants that will be in use by 2023 will live on smartphones. There were 2.5 billion assistants in use at the end of 2018.
Citing a report from U.K.-based Juniper Research, TechCrunch noted that smart TVs will actually be the new growth category for voice assistant. Those devices will be crucial to providing a "visual context that is lacking in smart speakers," said Juniper research author James Moar, in a statement.
The rise of smart TVs is a development that could be helpful for financial advisors establishing relationships with clients. As clients and advisors grow more familiar with virtual meetings, advisors won't be constrained by geography. In fact, TD Ameritrade Institutional is already experimenting with using video-conferencing technology, like Apple's FaceTime, so that advisors can meet virtually with clients, said Dani Fava, director of institutional product strategy and development at the firm.
The report also noted that a rise in digital assistants could lead to a drop in mobile apps as voice-only interactions become more popular. Advisors and tech providers who have set up apps may soon find they need to skate, once again, to where the puck will be.
Want The Daily Brief delivered directly to your inbox? Sign up for WealthManagement.com's Morning Memo newsletter.
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Wowza Media Systems Announces Partnership With Exterity
EVERGREEN, CO., September 8, 2010—Wowza Media Systems®, the media server software company, today announced a partnership with IPTV specialist, Exterity Limited, to extend the reach of Exterity's LAN-based live IP video networks to Flash®, iPhone®, Silverlight®, and a variety of other players and devices.
The two companies confirmed interoperability between Wowza Media Server 2 and Exterity's range of AvediaStream H.264 encoders to create these extended solutions. Exterity products, including AvediaStream encoders, enable distribution of broadcast-quality TV and video to an almost unlimited number of users over building or campus IP networks (LANs), with centralized management, configuration, and control.
"With its unique ability to make video content available to any media platform and any screen, Wowza Media Server adds invaluable functionality when used with our AvediaStream H.264 encoders," said Colin Farquhar, CEO of Exterity. "We know our customers are going to appreciate the enhanced capabilities just as we appreciate having an outstanding partner in Wowza."
Recognized as the Streaming Media Readers' Choice for Best Innovation of 2009, Wowza Media Server is a high-performance video engine that simultaneously delivers content from a single set of live or on-demand H.264 assets to multiple online clients and devices, including Flash, Silverlight, iPhone/iPad™, Android™ and other mobile platforms, as well as IPTV set-top boxes.
"Exterity is well known as a key technology provider to some of the world’s best-known corporations," said Alex Dobrushin, chief marketing officer of Wowza Media Systems. "Jointly we are offering solutions that not only offer excellent video encoding quality, but can take that content beyond the walls of the enterprise to any platform and any player."
Exterity will showcase Wowza server software with its latest products at IBC2010 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Sept. 10-14 at Stand IP721 in the Connected World’s IPTV Zone (Hall 9). Wowza Media Systems will demonstrate Wowza Media Server 2, and preview five exciting new capabilities, at Stand IP321.
About Dalet Digital Media Systems
Exterity Limited, the building IPTV specialist, has been delivering enterprise-class building IPTV solutions since 2001, and today its products are in use in more than 30 countries by some of the world’s best-known corporations. Exterity products enable organizations to distribute broadcast-quality digital TV and video over building or campus IP networks (LANs) or WANs to a virtually unlimited number of users, with centralized management, configuration, and control. Unlike traditional analog systems, Exterity systems can support an unlimited number of channels, and picture quality is unaffected by the addition of displays or users. Based on industry standards, Exterity products integrate easily with third-party solutions such as digital signage, hotel property management systems, patient information systems, and others. More information is available at www.exterity.com.
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Melody Potter
West Virginia GOP Chairwoman Endorses Anti-LGBTQ Op-Ed
Will Price / West Virginia Legislative Photography
The leader of West Virginia’s Republican party is applauding a state senator’s call for intolerance against members of the LGBTQ community.
Republican state Sen. Mike Azinger wrote an opinion article Sunday titled “The Shame of LGBTQ Pride” in The Parkersburg News and Sentinel after the paper covered a gay pride picnic. State GOP chairwoman Melody Potter then wrote on Facebook that Azinger’s article was “right on.”
W.Va. GOP, Dems Denounce Del. Porterfield's 'Hateful' Comments About LBGTQ Community
By Dave Mistich • Feb 11, 2019
Perry Bennett / West Virginia Legislative Photography
Updated Monday, Feb. 11, 2019 at 9:00 p.m.
The leader of West Virginia Republican party has denounced derogatory comments a state delegate made against members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and queer communities. That response comes as Democrats have called for the lawmaker's resignation and have continued to push for added protected classes in the state's Human Rights Act.
Melody Potter Re-Elected West Virginia GOP Chief
By Associated Press & West Virginia Public Broadcasting • Jul 16, 2018
WV GOP
Melody Potter has been unanimously re-elected as chairwoman of West Virginia’s Republican Party.
The state GOP says in a news release that Potter was elected Saturday by the 125 members of the Republican State Executive Committee at their summer meeting in Wheeling.
West Virginia GOP Chair, Dem Candidate Spat on Social Media
By Associated Press • Mar 15, 2018
A Twitter spat has broken out between the West Virginia Republican Party chairwoman and a Democratic candidate for Congress that ended up with her questioning him for collecting a military pension.
The disagreement started Wednesday night when Melody Potter criticized U.S. House 3rd District candidate Richard Ojeda (oh-JED'-ah) for engaging with "liberal buddy" Michael Moore. Potter called the meeting with the filmmaker "a slap in the face to every hardworking West Virginian."
Melody Potter to Lead West Virginia's Republican Party
By Associated Press • Jan 7, 2018
Melody Potter has been selected as the first woman to lead West Virginia's Republican Party.
The state GOP says in a news release that Potter was elected party chairwoman Saturday by members of the state Republican Executive Committee at their winter meeting.
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Cardiff, 13 February 2010
To talk of a dream coming true is usually a lazy way of describing a pleasing event. Yesterday in Cardiff, however, there was something undoubtedly dream-like in Wales's victory over Scotland. There had been the usual frustrations over questionable refereeing (the satirical solicitor to my right speaking on behalf of the referee: "oh THERE's my yellow card - it was in my pocket ALL THE TIME"), and even more about the quality of Wales's handling, tackling, boots ("forgot your studs have you, Williams?") and general inability to stop Scotland scoring tries ("that's more tries than they've scored in the last four years put together!"). At half time the general feeling was that Wales could not possibly play as badly in the second half, and that Parks was having a good game. And Wales didn't. Richie Rees made an enormous difference, and the - albeit brief - appearance of the divinity that is Gethin Jenkins certainly raised the spirits. Rees passed quicker, flatter, with more urgency, as though there was a game to be won. Mr S. Williams made a marvellous catch to stop a Scottish try, while being borne down upon by an enormous Scottish lock and Lamont, hardly the type of the diminutive wing. Wales pressed and pressed. Dominant in the scrum, three attacking lineouts were given away, but the pressure on Scotland was maintained and points had to come. Wales won the second half by 22 points to 6.
Those last minutes. Byrne was through. How precisely he came down i did not see, but there was undoubtedly a Scottish body in the way. The shove for the line or the draw? We all settled for the draw. i sat down. They had to settle for the draw. So: 24 / 24. Kick off. Wales kept the ball alive. Jones kicked "Oh Christ! No!" And then there was Halfpenny. How in god's name had he got there without being 50 yards off side? Had he stayed in the Scottish half surreptitiously as they'd kicked off? It wasn't, in the event, Halfpenny who took the ball. And now everything is a blur. We are all standing, we are all screaming. This cannot possibly be. And as Williams rasises his hand BEFORE CROSSING THE LINE we are yelling, even in that moment, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU PLAYING AT? TOUCH THE BALL DOWN, MAN! And then it is down, and everybody is hugging everybody else, and love and relief and living a dream is all mixed into one enormous sensation of body and heart and mind. I was actually breathless. It was almost as if I was inhabiting a different body. It was absolutely bloody fantastic. Sport - life? - does not get better than this.
Labels: dreams, rugby, Wales
Mrs Wolfe's Sovereign Remedy
The USA is the Root of All Evil (as usual)
I Am Not A Robot by Marina & the Diamonds
The Islamic Position on Homosexuality
Wales 20 France 26
Robert B. Parker, 1932-2010
The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis
ALL TIME FA CUP WINS
Sports Views and News
The Caretaker by Harold Pinter
Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre
Books Read 2010
My Last Five Girlfriends
A Glass of Wine by Andrew Motion
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You are here: Home - Household Bills -
Holiday chaos ahead for easyJet passengers as check-in staff strike
Thousands of easyJet passengers could face severe delays at Stansted Airport when check-in staff strike for 17 days this summer.
The walkout was announced by Unite, Britain and Ireland’s largest union, and is part of a long-running pay dispute.
Unite represents 43 passenger service agents employed by Stobart Aviation Services Limited, which has the easyJet contract at the Essex airport.
The strike dates are 25 to 29 July; 2 to 5 August; 9 to 12 August; 16 to 19 August; and 23 to 27 August.
Unite has apologised in advance to affected passengers, and is urging them to contact easyJet and ask the airline to resolve the situation.
Why are check-in staff striking?
The low paid workers voted unanimously to strike over the company’s refusal to pay wages in line with similar companies at Stansted, the refusal to recognise Unite as a trade union for collective bargaining purposes, and a breakdown in industrial relations.
Mark Barter, Unite regional officer, said: “There is no getting away from it; these 17 days of strike action will cause severe disruption to thousands of easyJet passengers using Stansted for their summer holidays.
“A major bone of contention is that workers employed by other companies at Stansted are being paid up to 20 per cent more for doing the same job.
“But our Stobart members experience staffing issues, a lack of basics such as drinking water during their long shifts and many other smaller but none the less important issues that are ignored due to not having proper trade union recognition.”
Unite held talks with Stobart last week but said the company was “dismissive” of the pay claim.
Will the strike affect my holiday?
EasyJet says it has “contingency plans” in place for the strike action by its check-in staff. However, the warning about “check-in chaos” suggest holidaymakers should get to Stansted with plenty of time to spare.
If your flight is delayed because of the strike, easyJet is obliged to offer you assistance, such as food, drink and overnight accommodation, if the delay is expected to go beyond a certain point.
Whether you’ll be offered compensation for delayed or cancelled flights due to strike action is a grey area.
Ryanair cancelled hundreds of flights last summer due to strike action by pilots and crew. The budget airline refused to pay compensation to affected passengers, saying strikes were an “extraordinary circumstance” and that courts in Germany, Spain and Italy had already ruled that the EU’s compensation rules didn’t apply.
However, the Civil Aviation Authority said in its view, the strikes were not “extraordinary circumstances”, and that customers should be compensated. The CAA started enforcement action against Ryanair in December.
Which? reveals top 10 worst UK flight routes for delays
Flight chaos is the biggest issue at Citizens Advice
Tagged: easyJet flight compensation stobart strike unite
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U-19 WC 2016
U-19 World Cup, warm-up game: Indian colts thrash Canada by 372 runs
After winning the toss, skipper Ishan Kishan opted to bat and as expected the three-time winners toyed with Canadian bowler, posting 485 runs for six wickets from their allotted 50 overs.
Daily Horoscope: Find out what the stars have in store for you today—July 16, 2019
New Delhi: On a day, their senior pros end the losing streak in Australia, Indian Under-19 team for the 2016 World Cup warmed-up in spectacular fashion with a massive 372-run win over their Canadian counterparts on Saturday at Savar.
Kishan, who opened the innings with wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant, hit a blistering 86-ball 138-run knock before retiring out. His innings was laced with 16 fours and seven sixes.
But the highlight of the match belonged to Mahipal Lomror, who smashed 30 runs in the last over – three sixes and three fours – to end on 55 off 23 deliveries.
After the 113-run opening stand, talented Ricky Bhui who represented Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Indian Premier League, kept the tempo. The right-handed batsman hit 10 fours and seven sixes in his 115-run knock from 71 balls.
Another talented batsman, Sarfaraz Khan also played his part with a 48-run innings. He and Bhui also retired out to give other batsmen batting opportunities.
Opener Pant, who made 62, Washington Sundar (8) and Armaan Jaffer (36) were the only batsmen to get out off Canadian bowling.
In reply to India's massive target, Canada were folded up for just 113 in 31.1 overs with leg-spinner Mahipal Lomror taking three wickets for 19 runs in from his seven overs. Not a single Canadian batsman managed to cross 25-run mark. Harsh Thaker was the top-scorer with 25.
The eleventh edition of ICC's biennial event will be held in Bangladesh from January 27 to February 14. Sixteen teams are competing for the prestigious youth cup. And three-time winners India are placed in Group D with Ireland, New Zealand and Nepal.
Indian team, which is coached by legendary Rahul Dravid, will start their campaign on January 28 against Ireland. The Ishan Kishan-led team will then play New Zealand on January 30, before the final group game against Nepal on February 1.
India Vs CanadaUnder-19 World CupIshan KishanRishabh PantMahipal LomrorRicky BhuiSarfaraz KhanRahul Dravidcricket news
VIDEOS: Rahul Dravid, India U-19 cricketers at Boot Camp ahead of World Cup
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The vision of a sinologist
Cordula Alessandri
Matthias Krön bought the best vines on the Eisenberg hill, which is known for being Austria’s best growing territory. So the wine really had to be big. And big was the theme. This would become a question of marketing one-litre bottles in an environment where the 75cl bouteille was king. The only thing to do was to approach the subject with confidence and playfulness. Which is why Alessandri went for an almost over-the-top visual redolent of the last truly opulent age, the fin de siècle.
Images of The vision of a sinologist
Image 1 — Alessandri GroszerWein 01 Wein Design 00 (The vision of a sinologist)
Cordula Alessandri, Austria (2003)
One of Austria’s most talented and awarded designers and educators, Cordula Alessandri is well known for her distinctive work. Cordula attended the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, where s...
The vision of a sinologist, 2013
8 items, Advertising
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Groszer Wein
Packaging / product
One of Austria’s most talented and awarded designers and educators, Cordula Alessandri is well known for her distinctive work.
Cordula attended the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, where she majored in graphic design, with Professor Herbert Schwarz, winning the award for top student. After university she went on to complete a further three years of study with typography mentor Professor Joey Badian. Cordula was the first woman in Austria to be appointed an Art Director at DDB Needham Worldwide, Vienna, at the age of 24.
In 1987, Cordula founded her own studio, which has since enjoyed enduring success and won numerous awards, including the Austria National Award for Book Design, the European Design Award, ADC (Austria, New York, Europe), TDC Tokyo awards, Red Dot Awards and many more.
Cordula has taught Communication Design at the University of Arts in Saarbrücken, Germany, and is regularly invited to serve on design competition juries and give lectures and presentations.
Alessandri Design & Brand Manufactory
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Internal Quest
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Above Average Hip Hop x Tange Lomax
Self-described as “100% Tange Lomax,” this emerging singer and vocalist offers something fresh for fans of female legends such as…
Published 4 years ago in October 30, 2015
By KC Orcutt
Self-described as “100% Tange Lomax,” this emerging singer and vocalist offers something fresh for fans of female legends such as Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill. While working to find her own place in this world, Tange’s free spirit has led her to experimenting with a variety of vocal stylings, resulting in a diverse and engaging outcome.
Tange’s latest track, Like I Do as produced by Graveside, is a great introduction to her music, and this track will find its way getting inevitably stuck in your head. Don’t let Tange’s laid back demeanor as an r&b singer fool you, she can spit a mean verse with the best of ‘em. Her strong personality matches her multitalented approach as a musician, and is the type of artist that deserves a spot on your up-and-coming radar.
We took some time to get to know more about this young talent, check out our Q+A below.
Introduce yourself! Where you’re from, where you’re at and what you do!
My name is Tange Lomax (like Tangerine) and yes, it’s my actual name! I was born and raised in High Point, North Carolina, about an hour away from Charlotte. I’m am a rap and r&b vocalist.
What helped you get started? Tell me about some past projects, or an early memory of deciding to start making music.
I grew up in a church and I used to watch the drummers, the singers and of course, the heart of it all – the organist – as a kid. I would see the anointing God gave the musicians to be able to touch a church full of people. They made people cry, laugh, rejoice all in one moment. I wanted to do that for people!
Over time Rapcity, 106 and park was at its prime and it all just became a part of my everyday life. I always loved to read and write poetry, and slowly but surely I started freestyling with my brothers and his friends and writing my own raps. I was about 9 then and never stopped loving the art of words and the power it has over wax.
What is your favorite part about your creative process? When you are writing your verses, what does the environment around you look like? What helps you to get inspired?
My favorite part of my creative process is recording, although writing is a fun too. Things sound way different on wax than in your head, so finally getting to the recording process, I’m able to hear what I do and and don’t like. If I’m doing a feature for someone, the environments always change but the party favors are always present. *laughs*
If I’m recording at home, it;s just me, a Mac, a mic and my hallway to practice my on stage moves. Hearing really good songs gets me inspired like, “wow this is so I can make something this good, maybe even better, let me give a stab at it.”
Beats inspire me, as well as my peers. Watching up and coming artist from my city like J.K. the Reaper, Seers, Josh Jones etc. Watching them grow and constantly working makes me go super hard, “like yeah I gotta go record.” These guys want it BAD.
As a creator, what is your mission in your music, especially in today’s music industry? What are you hoping to express through your lyricism?
My mission is to spread honesty, love and joy.
Records like “Breakthrough” feat. J.K. The Reaper was probably my most honest track to date. During the process of trying to find yourself, you’re going to make some pretty shitty mistakes no matter how much money you do or don’t have, or where you are in the world. It’s just unavoidable. Accepting, growing and moving on to better yourself is the point of it all.
I want to let people know they’re not alone in this journey of life. We’re all on the same mission, just taking different routes. Although I’m not in love at the moment, I’m in love with the possibility of completely loving myself, as well as someone else. I make a lot of love songs because that’s the most important thing we can do for someone. You can be broke as a joke or depressed, but that good friend or that stranger who said they like your sh*t changes everything. Love is everything.
What are some of your favorite releases that other artists have put out this year?
Every Future project, Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly, Seers Lil tape and I’m loving Raury’s All We Need album. Also all of the underground, local soundcloud GEMS I’ve found throughout the year.
What project can we look out for next of yours?
I’m currently in the process of recording a 5 song EP, titled FEELS. People know me for singing a lot of the hooks on my songs and rapping the verses, and there’s a lot of singing on this EP. It has some cool slow jams to get people prepared for fall and of course the legendary “cuffin” season. It features the homie Josh Jones from Greensboro, North Carolina.
What do you aim to accomplish next up in your career?
I simply want to touch people hearts and ears enough that they’ll invite me to their city. I want to tour the world but first more music, more features and more visuals!
Be sure to follow Tange on Twitter.
KC Orcutt
My name is KC Orcutt, and I’ve now been writing for an Internet-specific audience for more than half my life. Growing up in Upstate NY, I recently relocated to Los Angeles, where I aim to expand my writing career, meet as many interesting people as possible and never forget that the beach is a 20 minute drive away. My work has appeared on a handful of publications, including Beatport News, 12ozProphet, Brooklyn Street Art, Music Times and Keep Albany Boring. I am an enthusiast of happy hour, getting out of the house, supporting my friends’ creative endeavors and listening to the same five songs a dozen times in a row - if they bang.
Vevo just released a live performance from their newly announced LIFT artist YK Osiris. The 2019 XXL Freshman from Jacksonville,…
Published 7 days ago in July 9, 2019
By Boom
Vevo just released a live performance from their newly announced LIFT artist YK Osiris. The 2019 XXL Freshman from Jacksonville, FL artist performs an intimate version of his Billboard Hot 100 hit “Worth It.”
The premiere of “Worth It” is the first of three pieces of content Vevo will release as part of YK Osiris’s LIFT campaign. Vevo’s LIFT initiative connects today’s up-and-coming artists to audiences around the globe through video content. Launched in 2011, Vevo’s artist development program shines a spotlight on the world’s freshest new talent. Vevo LIFT alumni include the likes of Sam Smith, Halsey, Khalid, Jorja Smith, SZA, Julia Michaels, Billie Eilish and CNCO.
About YK Osiris:
Born Osiris Williams, YK Osiris grew up with a passion for old-school soul, classic R&B, modern pop and rap sounds, and started making music of his own at a young age. In 2017 he first uploaded his single “Fake Love” before dropping “I’m Next (Freestyle) in January of 2018, the latter of which went viral and collected millions of streams. His next single, “Valentine,” amassed over nine million streams within the first several weeks of release, and is now certified GOLD. Shortly thereafter, he signed with Def Jam and dropped “Timing.” In November 2018, YK was named a Vevo DSCVR artist, and the buzz around continued to draw attention in the industry.
2019 saw the release of “Worth It,” which went PLATINUM and scored Osiris his first entry on the Billboard Hot 100. Co-signs from Drake and Chris Brown followed, as well as a spot in XXL’s 2019 Freshman Class. To date, he’s released five songs that have amassed 500 million global streams.
About Vevo:
Vevo is the world’s leading all-premium music video and entertainment platform. With over 300,000 videos and 26 billion views a month globally Vevo connects artists with audiences from all over the world, providing exclusive music content, original programming and official music videos to fans.
It’s Treezus Season: The DC Rapper Is On A Run
The summer season is in full swing, and Washington DC’s Treezus — part of the international arts collective Yellow Cloud…
Published 2 weeks ago in June 29, 2019
By Riley
The summer season is in full swing, and Washington DC’s Treezus — part of the international arts collective Yellow Cloud — has been making some season buzz with his pack of recent singles, “IB2” and “Brainfood, both of which have received dope (AnxiouStoner filmed) visual treatments.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BwfyqtEhFRF/?igshid=12ljyf5t2nr6a
The Birdie Bands produced “IB2” has an insanely eclectic vibe; Treezus’ wildly unique cadence, with peppered pockets of rapid-fire delivery, body the beat. The visual, which was shot throughout Italy (Venice, Naples, a farm in Tuscany and Florence) offers breathtaking scenery, with a dizzying pace that rarely lets you break the engagement. The Hidden Oasis banger “Brain Food,” a smoking anthem (originally released on 4/20) was appropriately shot in Amsterdam. This record gives this strange Bone Thugs vibe as he goes in with his machine gun flow during the latter half of the verse. It’s actually captivating.
Relevant: Work Fi Mi: An Interview With Yellow Cloud
The visuals were directed and edited by Treezus himself; and both really take the songs to new heights, in my humble opinion. The music we’ve featured in the past definitely range in terms of the aesthetic, but real talk, Treezus is more than in his element — and the international story arc he’s on is making his brand sparkle.
Check out “IB2” and “Brain Food” below.
@KorleonKOJ – “Motion”
Today RichBoy Ent. CEO and founder Korleon aka “The King of Jackson (K.O.J).” releases his new song, “Motion,” debuting the new track with a music video on YouTube. Released just…
Published 2 months ago in May 31, 2019
Today RichBoy Ent. CEO and founder Korleon aka “The King of Jackson (K.O.J).” releases his new song, “Motion,” debuting the new track with a music video on YouTube. Released just in time for Memorial Day, the highly anticipated music video for “Motion” precludes a host of releases by the ATL veteran by way of Jackson, Mississippi. Hoping to continue the momentum, Korleon will drop his mixtape The Four in the coming weeks, which will be followed up by Strictly 4 My Sippers this Summer.
“Basically I’m just tappin in with the ladies. They rock with me and I rock with them equally so I felt I needed to satisfy my female fan base and cater to them. I wanted to create something that they could vibe to and something where I remained true to myself,” Korleon K.O.J. explained. “I feel like it’s a way better look for me to be with 7 different women in all shades and colors around the city, rather than me rolling around with 20 of my ni**as.”
Within the last two years Korleon launched a new studio in Atlanta called Walker St. 2.0 where his RichBoy Ent. team has been building a movement. To date Korleon and his team have recorded a host of artists including multi-platinum artist Slim Jxmmi of Rae Sremmurd, Mase, Jose Guapo, Big Bank Black and of course D4L’s Fabo.
“We opened back up the studio in March of 2017, we’ve had a lot of indies, superstars and its just been a blessing, I’m just glad that we have been able to make it happen. Its been a whole host of people to record there over the past few years,” Korleon said of his studio. “Of course me and Fabo been working on music together and I got The Four project that will preclude the Strictly 4 My Sippers project. I got the visual coming for Colorado soon and I got some stuff coming up with DJ Twin in the immediate future sometime in July.”
K.O.J. is often seen touring alongside and has frequently collaborated with on tracks with Fabo, who he says is his brother and day 1.
“Fabo my brother, Giksquad! Those my brothers. We been down since day one and we gonna be down forever, that’s my brother. He stays booked out and if you go through the archives, I’m at most shows, so it’s really just mores what’s continuing to go on. We were at Rolling Loud and everything, he stays booked.”
#IndieSpotlight: Major D-Star Drops Off “Stack Pray & Stay Out The Way” Visual
Gotta love when an artist you like drop a project you’re feeling, and proceeds to give a visual identity to…
Published 3 months ago in April 17, 2019
Gotta love when an artist you like drop a project you’re feeling, and proceeds to give a visual identity to the records you were feeling the most. That’s the case for AAHH mainstay Major D-Star; after releasing his long-awaited Trap Star mixtape back in February, he is dropping off “Stack Pray & Stay Out The Way,” a song I personally described as an illustration of his immense focus on his “current hustle of choice, music.”
RECENT: Major D-Star Drops “Trap Star” Mixtape
The video, like his others, delivers on quality. Directed by Wally Woo, with a multitude of scenery interspersed around a loose storyline of himself working as a mechanic — which he playfully describes as his way of “stacking and staying out the way” in the into — it gives ample life to one of his project’s most infectious earworms. If you have yet to bump his full mixtape, go ahead and click here; either way, press play on this catchy little banger, below.
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Illa J Drops A Stellar New LP
Illa J is a rapper/producer straight out of the D. He also happens to be the brother of the late...
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Holly Halftone Nude Photos
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British Prime Minister Theresa May Arrives In Nigeria
Aug 29, 2018 admin
British Prime Minister Theresa May has arrived in Nigeria, as part of her visit to some African countries.
Shortly after her arrival on Wednesday, May proceeded to a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
Issues to be discussed at the meeting include the security challenges in the country, economy, as well as the 2019 general elections among others.
Prior to the visit, the British PM was in South Africa where she decried the poverty rate in Africa and the activities of terrorist organisations.
She had also described Nigeria as “home to more poor people than any other nation in the world,” despite thriving as a country.
The Presidency had disclosed that President Buhari and May would sign vital defence and economic agreements involving Nigeria and the UK.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had also urged the British PM to visit other parts of the country to access the performance of the All Progressives Congress (APC) led Federal Government.
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The Minority Officers of the House of Assembly and Hon Kolawole Lawal MoboOlorunduro (KLM) have affirmed...
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Barf Forth Apocalyptica »
powered by the apocalypse »
Dungeon World (Moderators: tonydowler, skinnyghost, sage) »
My problem at being the GM
Author Topic: My problem at being the GM (Read 9334 times)
Dracones
Re: My problem at being the GM
Quote from: (not that) adam on August 22, 2012, 02:54:54 PM
wizard: I cast magic missile!
gm: fine by me.
wizard (feeling awkward): shouldn't I roll for this?
gm: what do you think?
wizard: I don't know, should I?
gm: yes. I already told you like ten times. Read on your sheet: "when you unleash a spell..." you always have to roll.
wizard: oh, I got it! Let's roll then!
I don't see the player doing anything wrong with this. How this would flow with me:
gm: Okay, roll for cast a spell.
gm: Okay, you're hidden from the monster and are able to take your time with the spell. It flies out and slams into him. Roll damage.
gm: The Lich sees you casting the spell and waves his hand. A shimmering shield appears around him and your missile deflects away from it and slams into the ceiling causing debris to begin to fall. What do you do?
The player initiates the action but waits to see how the world(voiced by the GM) responds to it. They can't roll dice yet because they don't know if the world is going to treat it as a move.
(not that) adam
Quote from: jjafuller on August 22, 2012, 05:07:18 PM
@mease19, ah, I get it. I was approaching this from a game perspective, but it really doesn't have anything to do with the game. Its a matter of unclear social expectations between players.
@(not that) adam, didn't mean to derail your thread.
nothing to worry about: social expectations are part of the game as well! (Right?)
Oh, the things we tell ourselves to feel better about the long, dark nights.
noofy
One of your principles is to ask questions and use the answers right Adam? So when you get the blank pause from the gang (like with the wizard example). Instead of making a statement, ask a question and use the answer to establish fictional positioning and deepen the verisimilitude of your Dungeon World.
gm: So what do you do? Extend you wand and shout an incantation? Wave your fingers about? Dance a jig? What does you casting the spell look like? In fact, what does magic missile like like? How does it damage your foes?
GM (asking another player) Hey Cuthbert, you've seen this wizard smite monsters with his magic before yeah? Did he ever cast a missile of pure magic? What did it do?....
gm: To do it, do it yeah? So tell us how you unleash your magic missile and then you can roll! So what do you do?
wizard: Oh well, I waggle my fingers and cry own 'incedio', blasting the hideous beast with my magical fire!
Actually I do that all the time, but while it's funny to describe a spell in detail the first times it's used, after a while it gets boring and we proceed with just "I cast magic missile", describing more the effects of the spell than its casting.
While I hope there will be no more of such blank moments, it's a good tactic to fill them up with Q&A!
Tarnop
In the game I'm running it's fine for players to default to that after the initial colourful description. They've told me how they cast the spell, so I have something concrete to work with in case of a miss. They've given me solid fictional detail, so I know whether they need to be able to vocalise to cast a spell, whether they need to be able to freely move their hands, etc. However, if they're trying to cast when under some kind of pressure, then I will still ask for a full description, because in doing so both I and the player will easily realise whether they have the fictional position to pull off the move.
After you gave your example, it does sound weird. These are experienced roleplayers? Maybe they're expecting you to not always ask for a roll? Have you straight up talked to them about this, like "there a few things that you will ALWAYS roll for and those are on the sheet, here's an example"? Otherwise I'd say just respond to them quickly. When he says "magic missile," you say "great, roll +Int!" and keep it flowing.
stras
I have a different question.
Why does this make you feel stressed?
Quote from: stras on August 24, 2012, 03:03:15 PM
That's a really good question. It kinda sounds like he feels like the game should be more intuitive but they're not grasping it. Maybe if they're not engaging the rules, they're not engaging the game either? If that's the case, I could see that being frustrating.
I tend to gather up players from all ranges of experiences. Funny fact, I gave a shot at World of Dungeons with a veteran roleplayer and recurring protagonist at my DW tables, but the one who grasped better the "only move" and the die of fate was a complete newbe.
It's stressful because I feel like it's not my job to continuously advocate for rules I explained a bunch of times before. Or as I said in my first post, maybe I'm just going crazy. I wish I could just play smoothly. But don't worry, I'm going to have so much large index cards for the basic moves next time, I will just point to them with a stick when the situation comes up again (and it will, I just know it).
If it's really slowing down play, then it's a legit problem. From just reading the thread, it seems like it wouldn't be that difficult to just call for the move and keep things flowing. But then again, I'm not at your table and can't see how bad it is.
I asked this before, but it got lost in the shuffle: have you straight-up talked to them about this? Maybe they need a discussion, or permission or whatever, to call out and roll their own moves when they trigger them. Or maybe they have actual questions about when to trigger them. Have you discussed it at the table yet?
As far as I can tell, the players state what they're doing, and the GM calls for rolls as appropriate.
Obviously at a table, there will be some back and forth.
GM: "That sounds kind of dangerous. Give me a Defy Danger pluuuuuus..."
Players: "Str!" "Dex!" "Wis, it's about him noticing the ledge."
GM: "Sure, lets go with Dex."
Player: "I try to puzzle this out..."
GM: "Cool."
Player: "What do you think? Is that a Discern Realities?"
GM: "Oh yeah! Gimme a roll + int!"
I'm not surprised at your Newbie/Experienced player story. I'll never forget the looks on the faces of my players when a first time roleplayer rallied a village to come and help (they never thought of it because of preconceptions - clearly the heroes have to solve all problems on their own!) Playing these games sometimes damages our capacity to roll in the fiction, and that's what the players should be doing: putting down a story together. The game's pretty robust. It can handle most things. Thinking inside the moves as your only options frequently stymies it.
If they look up, and wait for you to acknowledge a move, just do it. It's cool. The book gives you permission. Don't let it rattle you. It's just part of the back and forth.
mllaneza
It sounds like what you want is for the player to say "I cast magic missile" and then immediately roll on their own. If they do that, they are skipping stakes/move negotiation.
Maybe not just go ahead and roll, but the ideal DW player will know they're making a move and have their dice in their hand and be ready to roll when the DM is paying attention and expecting a die roll.
Black Head by, Crip
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AAN News » Media Roundup
Media Oxpecker: A Week in the Life
By Jason Zaragoza @jzaragoza1
1000 Words / Shutterstock.com
Media news you missed while you were busy joining the "real" media.
It feels like a lifetime ago, but the week started off with news that venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is investing $50 million in BuzzFeed, an investment which values the company at $850 million. Explaining the decision, Chris Dixon says that Andreessen Horowitz views BuzzFeed as a tech company, not a media company:
BuzzFeed has technology at its core. Its 100+ person tech team has created world-class systems for analytics, advertising, and content management. Engineers are 1st class citizens. Everything is built for mobile devices from the outset. Internet native formats like lists, tweets, pins, animated GIFs, etc. are treated as equals to older formats like photos, videos, and long form essays. BuzzFeed takes the internet and computer science seriously.
Why does the distinction between media or tech company matter?
The issue is that, generally speaking, media companies don’t make for good venture capital investments. VC firms like Andreessen Horowitz aren’t looking to fund nicely profitable companies; they are searching for home runs, the one or two investments that make a fund profitable despite lots of failures. This means a focus on companies that can scale.
And how does a company like BuzzFeed scale? Om Malik points to native advertising:
The risk for native ads is that at scale they can lose potency, much like the more traditional banner ads. As such I have mixed feelings about native advertising, so it would be interesting to see what BuzzFeed does to scale, because it would actually create a template for the traditional news houses. The good news for BuzzFeed — it now has money and thus time to experiment and come up newer & bigger sources of revenue and profit.
Whatever lies ahead for BuzzFeed, Andrew Beaujon says we must resist the urge to write about BuzzFeed in list form. "BuzzFeed-y" headlines don't scale.
How BuzzFeed and Vice are making video an integral part of their business.
Take your pick: David Carr on why the recent newspaper spinoffs are a death sentence or Rick Edmonds on why it's not so bleak.
Despite what Ferguson police might have you believe, you do have the right to record the police:
As a resident of the U.S., you have the right to record the police in the course of their public duties. The police don't have a right to stop you as long as you're not interfering with their work. They also don't have a right to confiscate your phone or camera, or delete its contents, just because you were recording them. Despite some state laws that make it illegal to record others without their consent, federal courts have held consistently that citizens have a First Amendment right to record the police as they perform their official duties in public.
The Columbia Journalism Review says President Obama is hypocritical for criticizing the arrest of reporters by Ferguson police while his administration continues to threaten New York Times reporter James Risen with jail time if he does not identify a confidential source.
It took a public shaming in order for Gawker Media to address Jezebel staff complaints about commenters posting violent rape GIFs to harass its editors and writers, which revived the timeless debate on how to handle web comments. Annemarie Dooling says forcing commenters to use real names isn't a panacea:
To believe that a system of name verification would deter uncivil discourse, we’d have to believe that all off-color comments are the results of malicious intent, that is, comments specifically for the purpose of aggravation, to cause harm or instill fear. Purposefully hurtful comments would be embarrassing or harmful to attach to your name, the opinions you want to hide from your family and job. But, the truth is that many vitriolic comments come from readers who are proud to associate these views with their identity.
Which is why Nicholas Jackson says we should just get rid of comments entirely:
Plenty of people have argued that comments can have value, and that publishers should invest in moderators and the development of tech-based solutions that can cut out the irrelevant and offensive. It’s interesting, though, that nobody making that argument—as far as I’ve seen—has worked as a comment moderator for a large publisher before … Steve Climaco, a Gawker employee who “started out as a mod and worked my way up” ... has personally been deleting—one by one—a lot of the problem comments described by the Jezebel team. His takeaway? “[W]e need people like that always because your average human being is kind of a douche bag.”
Remember Bustle, the disruptor of women? Bryan Goldberg's website raised an additional $5 million in venture capital funding and received nearly 14 million unique visitors last month.
Zeynep Tufekci on how algorithmic filtering of news feeds (looking at you, Facebook) can affect public awareness about news events such as Ferguson:
What if Ferguson had started to bubble, but there was no Twitter to catch on nationally? Would it ever make it through the algorithmic filtering on Facebook? Maybe, but with no transparency to the decisions, I cannot be sure. Would Ferguson be buried in algorithmic censorship?
What happened when Mat Honan liked everything he saw in his Facebook feed for 48 hours?
My News Feed took on an entirely new character in a surprisingly short amount of time. After checking in and liking a bunch of stuff over the course of an hour, there were no human beings in my feed anymore. It became about brands and messaging, rather than humans with messages. Likewise, content mills rose to the top. Nearly my entire feed was given over to Upworthy and the Huffington Post.
David Roth on the de facto demise of Sports on Earth:
"What I thought was so cool about it is that the default audience for sports seems, by internet attitudes, to be perpetually aggrieved, entitled, and largely conservative white middle class men," Jeb Lund told me. "And it was refreshing that SoE seemed to challenge those attitudes on matters of sex, race and labor rights almost as a standard policy."
How Carey Jordan designed the cover of Washington City Paper's Beer Issue using hops and malt.
13 editors on how they think about diversity in their newsrooms.
Why it's so hard to catch your own tpyos.
And finally, have you ever been shunned by Pussy Riot ... on weed? Baltimore City Paper managing editor Baynard Woods has:
"So you're the one," she said so accusatorily that I thought she might push me in front of a subway train … I was a bit flustered and not eloquent, because my feelings were mixed. I usually don't mind being hated, but I did not really want Pussy Riot to hate me. That somehow put me in a class with Putin, which was a horrifying thought.
Jason Zaragoza read the news this week, oh boy.
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AltWeeklies Wire » News » Crime & Justice
Tough Politicians Are Killing Cops
By Ted Rall
Maui Time | April 12, 2012
"Tough on Crime" Sentencing Laws Come Home to Roost
It sounds like the plot of the dystopian movie "Robocop": policemen are getting shot like they're going out of style.
Violent crime in general is decreasing. But more cops are being killed in the line of duty. According to the FBI, 72 police officers died under fire in 2011. That's up 25 percent from 2010 and up 75 percent from 2008.
"The 2011 deaths were the first time that more officers were killed by suspects than car accidents, according to data compiled by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. The number was the highest in nearly two decades, excluding those who died in the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995," reports The New York Times.
According to a study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, "In many cases the officers were trying to arrest or stop a suspect who had previously been arrested for a violent crime."
Why this spike in cop killing?
Experts blame a variety of factors for the carnage: the economic depression, low manpower due to budget cuts, policies that assign more cops to the most dangerous neighborhoods, and more aggressive patrolling of those areas, including "stop and frisk" stops of people the police deem suspicious. Maybe.
I think something else is missing in analyses of cop shootings: the motivation of the shooter.
Corporate media outlets cite the shooters' prior records in order to imply: once a violent felon, always a violent felon. Sometimes that's true. But not always. There's more to it than that. Like law-abiding citizens, criminals employ rational decision-making strategies.
Harsh sentencing laws are killing police officers.
Imagine that you're on parole in California, one of 24 states with "three strikes" sentencing laws. Let's say you have two prior felony convictions. It doesn't take much. One California man earned a "strike" for "violent assault"; he landed 25 years to life for stealing pizza from some kids. In Texas, a handyman who refused to refund $120.75 for a shoddy air conditioning repair landed his third strike; the U.S. Supreme Court upheld his sentence to life in prison with possible parole. And you can get two (or more) strikes from one criminal incident.
So imagine yourself in this situation:
Maybe you've got drugs in your automobile. Or you're clean, but you're not sure about what your passengers might be carrying. (In a car, one person's contraband is everyone's.) When you see flashing lights in your rearview mirror, you must choose:
Pull over and cooperate, knowing that you'll get life behind bars?
Or do you take a terrible chance, shooting the officer and making a run for it? Harsh mandatory sentencing laws like "three strikes" make killing a cop a free gamble. Who knows? You might escape. If you get caught, the sentence will be no worse than if you'd done the right thing.
A joint study by the Long Beach Police Department and California State University—Long Beach found that "in the Los Angeles area (where there is a higher concentration of repeat offenders and three-strikes prosecution has been more actively pursued), there is a notable increase in…resisting and assaulting officers, and a significant increase (113% between 1996 and 2001) in two- and three-strikes crimes with a police officer victim." A 2002 study by the National Institute of Justice found that three-strike laws "increase police murders by more than 40 percent."
Another factor that authorities and "tough on crime" politicians fail to consider is how the increased militarization of civilian police forces dehumanizes them in the eyes of the public. Police outfitted in riot gear respond to peaceful protests attended by families with swinging batons and pepper spray. Traffic cops dress like they're patrolling the Sunni Triangle rather than the suburbs, scowling at the taxpayers who pay their salaries as they sweat under their Kevlar vests.
When Princess Diana died, millions of Americans wept. Be honest. How do you feel when you hear that a cop has been shot to death? Odds are that you feel nothing at all.
During the first few years of the occupation, British officials ordered their forces to assume a less aggressive posture toward Iraqi civilians than their American counterparts. The Brits went light on the helmets and body armor, wearing uniforms that made them seem more like, well, policemen. Many eschewed sunglasses.
British casualty rates fell. Looking human, it turns out, is safer than protecting yourself. The thing is, killing is hard. The more human you appear, the more relatable you are, the harder it becomes, the guiltier your killer feels. Which presumably makes them less likely to kill again. (To make killing easier for its soldiers, the U.S. military deliberately reduces the available resolution on night-vision goggles, scrambling the appearance of the enemy to make him look alien.)
The more aggressive our policemen act, the more they look like military occupation troops than civilian peace officers, the easier it is for a gunman pull the trigger.
Remember this article the next time you get pulled over. Ask yourself: how do I feel? Odds are, the answer will involve a mixture of fear and contempt. Then imagine what you'd do if you were one arrest away from life in prison—and you had a gun.
(Ted Rall's next book is "The Book of Obama: How We Went From Hope and Change to the Age of Revolt," out May 22. His website is tedrall.com.)
Tags: police shootings
Maui Time Weekly provides insightful analysis and in depth reporting. We believe some issues are so important they require thoughtful consideration. We are not a “paper of record”—a daily journal of government meetings, ribbon-cuttings and corporate announcements. We decide what’s...
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What We've Learned From the Fatal Police Shooting of Aaron Campbellnew
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Home St. Ambrose Yearbooks 010_1967 Yearbook
010_1967 Yearbook
Mr. H. Shannon Boyd, head of the Engineering Dep't of St. Ambrose College is another
member of the elite twenty year lay faculty
corps. He comments: "parents have thrust the
bulk of their childrens education into the
teachers' hands, so that Educationists have
become one of the most influential groups
in our society. I'm proud and honored to be a
partner of such a membership."
The present trend of teachers leaving the field for
better paying jobs has at least one notable exception
in the person of John F. McGuire. Although he has
held many different positions in industry, he has always returned to teaching because it offers variety,
freedom of action seldom found in other professions
or businesses.
In point of experience, Mr. McGuire has worked for a
law firm, as an educational consultant, for a large milling company and for a public utility firm as a teacher
of business correspondence courses.
Social Science Divisional Chairman Miss Agnes Renner visiting the
Temple of Linde, Lindos, Rhodes in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Miss Agnes Renner has seen many changes in her tenure at St.
Ambrose College. Among these have been the establishment of
Marycrest College from its state as the Womens Division of St. Ambrose, the exodus of the high-schoolers to Assumption to make this
campus totally a college, increasing numbers of students, graduating
and becoming teachers in both public and parochial systems, and
the Retirement and Tenure plans worked out by the College for the
Faculty. She has seen closer communication with municipal groups,
work-study programs, lecture series and more active Alumni, Friends
and Associates of the College. St. Ambrose continues to live in dignity.
Publisher American Yearbook Co. Smith Crafted Cover
Title 010_1967 Yearbook
Transcript Mr. H. Shannon Boyd, head of the Engineering Dep't of St. Ambrose College is another member of the elite twenty year lay faculty corps. He comments: "parents have thrust the bulk of their childrens education into the teachers' hands, so that Educationists have become one of the most influential groups in our society. I'm proud and honored to be a partner of such a membership." The present trend of teachers leaving the field for better paying jobs has at least one notable exception in the person of John F. McGuire. Although he has held many different positions in industry, he has always returned to teaching because it offers variety, freedom of action seldom found in other professions or businesses. In point of experience, Mr. McGuire has worked for a law firm, as an educational consultant, for a large milling company and for a public utility firm as a teacher of business correspondence courses. Social Science Divisional Chairman Miss Agnes Renner visiting the Temple of Linde, Lindos, Rhodes in the Eastern Mediterranean. Miss Agnes Renner has seen many changes in her tenure at St. Ambrose College. Among these have been the establishment of Marycrest College from its state as the Womens Division of St. Ambrose, the exodus of the high-schoolers to Assumption to make this campus totally a college, increasing numbers of students, graduating and becoming teachers in both public and parochial systems, and the Retirement and Tenure plans worked out by the College for the Faculty. She has seen closer communication with municipal groups, work-study programs, lecture series and more active Alumni, Friends and Associates of the College. St. Ambrose continues to live in dignity. 6
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Will the NDP’s proposed school tax make rentals even less affordable?
“Thirty-eight per cent of all Point Grey households are rental households. Almost one-quarter of all Vancouver rentals are in “single-family-home areas,” suggesting that many of the large and expensive homes impacted by the tax are already full of renters. So, what happens to rents when the property tax on these houses doubles overnight?”
Stephen Wiseman: How the NDP’s school tax hurts us all
(The Vancouver Sun May 25, 2018)
Much has been said lately about the NDP’s proposed additional school tax — the measure that will immediately require B.C. homeowners whose annual assessment notices exceed $3 million to pay far more in property tax.
This proposal is highly distressing to many, as it will result in local families literally taxed out of their homes. An assessment notice doesn’t mean you have $3 million in the bank, or in fact anything in the bank. It does not mean you can now afford to buy the house you own, versus 10 or 20 years ago when it was purchased. It doesn’t mean you don’t have a substantial mortgage, or kids in university, or a sick mother, and doesn’t imply anything whatsoever about your income and ability to pay.
In my case, my total property-tax bill will nearly double overnight, and approach $30,000 per year — this after first paying office overhead and then income taxes. As a physician who doesn’t qualify for a deferral, I just don’t make the money needed to pay for this, and find myself at a loss as to what to do.
Putting aside the understandable fear and anger in affected homeowners, we need to look at what this proposal means for everyone else too — and just how destructive it really is:
1. This is the first tax of its sort in Canada. It isn’t a property tax mediated by a mill rate and tied to the needs of a municipality; it’s a hard tax solely on paper wealth. There is no reason why, when the government becomes dependent on its annual revenues, it will not be modified to suit requirements, i.e. adjusted down to $2 million, or $1 million, or even expanded to include personal savings. There has never been a pure wealth tax in Canada, and we must all work hard to keep this door closed for everyone.
2. There is no clearly stated purpose for this tax, and this simply erodes the trust in government competence and benevolence for all of us. It has been called a school tax, but such taxes go to general revenue. Attorney General David Eby tells me it’s to cover the ICBC debacle. Finance Minister Carole James asserts it’s one of a suite of measures to address the housing crisis. Now we hear about “seismic upgrades,” but still this runs through general revenue. The social contract is damaged by having such a divisive and intrusive tax without any clear purpose.
3. There is no fundamental legitimacy to this, in that the NDP didn’t campaign on a wealth tax, and Eby would likely haven’t been elected in Vancouver-Point Grey had it done so. To turn around and do this, with barely a one-seat coalition advantage, makes a farce out of our democratic process. Eby would lose his seat right now if there was a byelection, and the government would likely fall. The NDP doesn’t have a mandate to ram through this tax.
4. Thirty-eight per cent of all Point Grey households are rental households. Almost one-quarter of all Vancouver rentals are in “single-family-home areas,” suggesting that many of the large and expensive homes impacted by the tax are already full of renters. So, what happens to rents when the property tax on these houses doubles overnight?
5. Many have argued that if you can’t afford the new tax, just cash out and move elsewhere. Let’s think about this for a second. What happens to these established neighbourhoods when long-term and committed families are forced to sell out and move? Isn’t the hollowing-out of our precious neighbourhoods one of the very symptoms of the housing crisis that has been affecting us all?
6. How is telling me to just pick up and move any different, morally, than me telling a struggling renter or a hard-working young family to likewise just get out of Vancouver if they can’t afford to stay? Such ideas and rhetoric are fundamentally destructive, to everyone, and deny our collective humanity, as well as the hopes, dreams, connections and contributions we all share in our vibrant city.
7. Speaking of having to move, where will the current owners of $3-million homes move when they’re taxed out? Not a difficult question — they will move down-market, into more affordable homes that aren’t subject to the new tax. And with increased demand, what then happens to prices in this part of the market? Upward pressure, of course, coming from displaced families with cash in hand; is this an example of making the market more affordable for all? This is NDP voodoo economics, trickle-down style!
8. Well, you can just defer your taxes — as Eby’s website beseeches us to do in Vancouver-Point Grey. But let’s dig a little deeper here. The purpose of the government-subsidized deferral program, surely, has been to assist in the relatively few cases where an elderly or disabled person wishes to remain at home and simply can’t afford the basic property tax. This program was never intended for mass adoption by high-income professionals who now find themselves in the same boat of needing help to make their payments. Does it help society to tax working doctors, lawyers and business people so hard that they must apply for subsidies? As a public policy, this is absurd.
9. Deferral is also highly questionable on a larger economic basis. If increasingly more of us have to defer, what does that do to government tax revenue? For me, if I decide to stay, I will need to start deferring in two years when I can qualify — such that for the next 20 years the government will not see a dime of property tax from me. So, how again will this help with schools? Seismic upgrades? ICBC?
10. Worst of all is this tax’s ugly divisiveness — its ability to corrode society’s bonds, and to set citizens in opposition to one another across social, economic and even racial or ethnic lines. We all have been impacted by the housing crisis in B.C. and rightfully we should all be able to come together to address it and use our collective strength to move forward. In my case, there are huge, new, empty houses on either side of mine — where friends and neighbours once lived in modest older homes. Our favourite restaurants are gone. We are losing our go-to Safeway. There seem to be fewer and fewer children around.
No citizen living in a $3-million or a $6-million house on paper is unaware of, or indifferent to, the difficulty of finding affordable rental accommodation or breaking in to the housing market as a young family. We all know that we must remove the criminal and speculative elements from the real-estate industry, and we all know that the current bubble prices must soften and deflate — meaning all of our homes will lose paper value. We accept these things for the greater good, and many of us are prepared to work to help things along.
But what now? Instead of focusing on my compassion for others first and foremost, and looking for opportunities to participate in a collective effort to improve things for all, I have to fight to somehow keep the home I’ve lived in and loved for 20 years. Can I afford to stay? Should we sell? Is anything selling now? Is it reasonable to borrow and pay interest just to meet a regular, recurring bill?
Everyone is affected by this divisive, cynical tax proposal that pits citizen against citizen and foments conflict, envy and disrespect when the opposites are needed more than ever. Some of the NDP’s efforts to curb the housing crisis are commendable, or at least possibly workable. The additional school tax, however, is in an entirely different category, and is as harmful and ineffective today as it was in 1993 when it was proposed and defeated before. Shame on Premier John Horgan and his government for bringing us all to this point one more time.
Stephen Wiseman is a working doctor and long-term homeowner in Point Grey.
Filed Under: Legislation
Do you think the government will actually put all $30m into affordable housing as promised? More than 5,000 properties out of 8,500 deemed “vacant” by city staff received exemptions.
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Top NBA Draft Prospects in the Pac-10 (Part One: #1-5)
Rodger Bohn
Not quite at the level it was last year, the Pac-10 is regardless still fairly strong as far as high-level NBA prospects go, although it clearly doesn't have the depth it did last season. Arizona State's James Harden leads the way in terms of returning draft prospects, followed by Arizona products Jordan Hill and Chase Budinger, as well as UCLA's Darren Collison and Arizona State's Jeff Pendergraph.
-Top NBA Draft Prospects in the SEC: Part One, Part Two, Part Three
-Top NBA Draft Prospects in the Big 10: Part One, Part Two
-Top NBA Draft Prospects in the Big 12: Part One, Part Two, Part Three
#1 James Harden, 65, Shooting Guard, Sophomore, Arizona State
While the amount of media attention he got may not have matched the likes of Kevin Love or O.J. Mayo last season, James Harden sure made a comparable first-year resume, becoming Arizona States go-to player and leading scorer practically as soon as the season started, and earning All-Pac-10 First Team honors for it. Harden didnt just score 17.8 points per game; he did it very efficiently, shooting 53% from the field and 41% from three, while putting up a very strong 63% TS%.
Someone we covered twice during the 2007-08 season, there really isnt much new to say about Harden since we last spoke of him in January. The biggest thing to take note of is how his level of play didnt fall off against conference competition, as he showed little trouble consistently performing against the tougher foes night in and night out. We also noticed at the adidas Nations tournament in Dallas that he appears to have improved his physique over the summer, standing a solid 6-5 with a very sturdy and now slimmer frame.
As has been mentioned before, not being the greatest athlete in the world, Hardens exceptional play level is due mostly to his fundamentals and excellent know-how on the court. Not a flashy ball-handler, Harden is very controlled with the ball, and rarely will use many highly advanced moves other than his effective crossover.
Thats not to say hes a straight-line dribbler at all, though, as he constantly uses excellent craftiness to adjust with the ball in the lane, utilizing jump stops, stop-and-pivot moves, misdirection steps, and hesitation dribbles to change directions in the lane, getting his defender off balance and weaving his way to high percentage shot attempts. Hes definitely capable of making more adjustments when using his dominant left dribble, but still does a good job on right-handed drives.
Around the basket, Hardens level of craftiness continues to impress, as he goes to a variety of floaters, finger rolls, and lay-ups to get the job done, making good use of the openings the defense provides for him. Its very impressive hes able to finish with such effectiveness around the rim despite rarely using his right hand or using explosive strength to score with power.
As a jump shooter, Harden is very effective spotting up, with range to the NBA three-point line, but his effectiveness falls off when pulling up, as he lacks a certain degree of fluidity or comfort when transitioning from dribble to shot with a defender on him. He has a tendency to fade away on these pull-up shots from deep, and his accuracy is not very good when pulling up from mid-range. Improving this ripple of his game, while making him more of a threat from the mid-range, would make him that much more dangerous a player.
For all his scoring prowess, and partially due to the system he plays in, its easy to overlook his phenomenal passing game. He clearly excels there as well, showing the same terrific understanding of the game in this area and frequently creating good shot attempts for teammates. Not flashy in this segment of his game either, Harden does most of his damage on quick, simple drive-and-kicks or good post entry/pick-and-roll passes.
His excellent fundamentals and basketball IQ really stand out when you consider that he was one of the youngest players in all of college basketball last season, having only turned 19 a month ago. In Dallas at the adidas Nations tournament, he arrived a day later than most but wasted no time at all asserting his will against anyone he matched up with, largely with his ability to create both for himself and especially for others.
Its tough to get a great feel for Harden on the defensive end, as he is rarely put in isolation situations in ASUs zone defense, but on the few we saw over the course of the year, his lateral quickness seemed adequate, as did his reflexes and instincts. As a team defender, Harden is very strong, as he uses his length and hands to constantly disrupt the opposing teams offense, making 2.1 steals per game and contesting many outside shots.
With the 2009 draft class not looking very deep in elite talent, Harden looks like hes going to be in a great situation come June, as if he picks up where he left off as a freshman, and makes a few improvements to his game, he could easily see himself in discussions for the lottery. Hes not your typical lottery shooting guard prospect due to his just adequate athleticism and a style that doesnt net him nearly any highlight reel plays, but with his build, length, and excellent feel for the game, if he can improve on last seasons performance, hell definitely be someone scouts and executives will be talking about.
#2 Jordan Hill, 6-9, Junior, Power Forward, Arizona
Still largely flying underneath the radar as far as the national media is concerned, this could very well be the year that Jordan Hill emerges as a college basketball star, in this, his junior season. We saw the potential in him last summer despite only averaging 4.7 points per game as a freshman, causing us to name him one of the top five returning NBA draft prospects in the loaded Pac-10.
He backed that up by upping his scoring to over 13 points per game in 29 minutes, shooting a scintillating 62% from the field (tops amongst all players on our 2009 mock draft) , while pulling down an excellent 11.1 rebounds per-40 minutes (4th in our 09 mock), and improving his free throw percentage by an astounding 24%, to bring him to a much more respectable 68% from the charity stripe. He also passed the ball considerably better, while still maintaining his solid 2.3 blocks per-40 averages, although his turnover rate increased and he still struggled at times with foul trouble.
All in all, there is no question that Hill did an excellent job showing that he is more than just an excellent prospecthe was extremely productive for Arizona. A late bloomer who hasnt been playing organized basketball as long as most, he obviously still has quite a bit of room to grow as a player.
Despite standing somewhere around 6-9 and being somewhat skinny, Hill was used mostly as a back to basket inside threat for Arizona last year. His repertoire is mostly limited here to posting up on the left block and spinning to his left shoulder for a very effective right-handed jump-hook shot. He is quick enough to get this shot fairly easy against the average college defender, although he seemed to struggle when trying to use this move against bigger, stronger and more athletic big menthe type hell see much more frequently in the NBA.
Hill is a bit predictable offensively at times, he has a tendency to spin right into double teams and isnt great when forced to improvise or go out of his comfort zone. His post moves and footwork in general looks a bit unpolished, and hes not what you would call a great passer either, struggling to see anything besides the rim once he makes up his mind regarding what he wants to do, and not always reading the floor particularly well. His left hand is virtually non-existent in the post, and most smart defenders know that, making him fairly easy to neutralize with effective advanced scouting. Expanding his repertoire of post moves could do wonders for his production.
What Hill is excellent at is finishing around the basket, to the tune of making 71% of his attempts around the rim according to Synergy Sports Technologys quantified report. His terrific hands make him a great target in the paint for his guards to drop off passes to (typically off a pick and roll), and he does an excellent job rising up above the defense and finishing with authority. If unable to finish the play with a dunk, he seems to have the touch and wherewithal to use the glass fairly well too, which leaves a lot of room for optimism. Hill also gets a few baskets every game simply by crashing the offensive glass or running the floor, which helps keep his field goal percentages sky-high.
Its no fluke that Hills free throw percentages went from 44% to 68% between his freshman and sophomore seasonshis shooting range expanded dramatically in that time as well. Hill has solid mechanics from 16-18 feet and nice touch as well from this range. He isnt incredibly consistent at this point, but this is a part of his game that shows a lot of potential, and he should clearly continue to work to improve on.
Although not a great ball-handler, Hills first step is absolutely terrific, allowing him to leave most opposing big men in the dust if he can get an initial step on them. This is yet another part of his game that he can build off in the future, although its not really a consistent part of his repertoire just yet.
A pretty poor defender due to his average awareness and fundamentals, its on this end of the floor that Hill looks furthest away from competing at the NBA level just yet. His lack of experience really gets exposed, as he does not do a good job at all of hedging screens or staying in front of his man on the perimeter or inside the paint. He uses his hands excessively and is fairly foul prone in turn, the reason why he wasnt always able to stay on the court in some stretches when his team needed him. Gaining strength looks like a major priority for him here, but his nice length and athleticism already allows him to establish himself as somewhat of a shot-blocking threat, as well as an excellent rebounder.
Clearly a superior athlete with a skill-set that is rapidly improving and an aggressive mentality that bodes very well for his future development, Hill is certainly someone to keep an eye on this upcoming season, as its quite possible that he breaks out and has a spectacular year. Hes nowhere near a finished product at this point, but thats part of the reason hes so interesting, as most of his flaws look highly correctable, and his strengths are the type that cant be taught. The next step is to become much more consistent from game to game and improve on his polish and all-around feel for the game.
#3 Chase Budinger, 6-7, Junior, SG/SF, Arizona
Weve already written extensively about Chase Budinger, but as one of the PAC-10s better, if not its best, NBA prospect, all eyes will be on the Arizona junior next year. Last season, Budingers role increased to the tune of 23% of his teams possessions, and he responded by increasing his scoring average to 17.1 ppg, albeit on less efficient shooting from the field. The difference, however, between freshman and sophomore Budinger, however, was fairly pronounced, especially by the end of the season: Budinger showed the potential to develop into the first option that he was expected to be since the first day he stepped onto campus. This year, likely his last in Tucson, he must prove to scouts that he can amount to more than merely a role-player in the NBA. Becoming an elite college scorer on a depth-depleted team isnt a bad place to start.
Physically, Budinger has a lot of athletic tools to work with, namely his explosiveness and 40-plus inch vertical jump. While he does not move incredibly well laterally, must gain more strength and possesses an average first step, it is hard to ignore a 67 guard with a solid basketball IQ who is a highlight reel waiting to happen in the open court. At the collegiate level, he is a tremendous mismatch on the perimeter, and should be able to translate that into dominance next season.
On the offensive end last year, Budinger became more assertive as the season went on, showing an improved offensive repertoire. His shooting stroke, particularly from the perimeter, looked much better. He showed the same quick release and good elevation, but his form looked more fluid, and he showed the ability to knock down shots off of the dribble as well as while spotting up. Moving inwards, he does a good job of scoring in a majority of ways, mostly due to his ability to use the backboard and his solid body control. One area in which Budinger should look to improve next season is his ball-handling ability. He is competent now, but he could increase his offensive versatility, particularly his mid-range game and quickness with the ball in hands if he were to improve this part of his game. Also, at times last season, he was overambitious with the ball, costing his team bad turnovers. He will likely be a second offensive facilitator from the wing next season, and it is essential that he play within his strengths and not try to force the issue.
Defensively, Budinger is still quite lacking. Despite his athleticism, size, and length, his lateral quickness is poor, which does not allow him to be a very effective perimeter defender at this stage. Likewise, his defensive awareness is not great either, failing to close out his man on the perimeter, not running above screens, and not looking focused for stretches of games. Considering his basketball IQ and athleticism, Budinger should be able to develop into a decent defender in the future, but it is up to him to show scouts that he will not be a liability at the next level.
Budinger is almost a lock to declare for the NBA Draft after next season and should be in good shape as far as the first round is concerned. Right now, he is being viewed as a role-player at the next level, but scouting Budinger only reveals how much more potential he still has left to realize. Should he continue to expand his game and emerge as one of the top scorers in the NCAA, dont be surprised to see him projected higher come March. Much of that for him is mental, and well plenty about that this upcoming season.
#4 Darren Collison, 6-1, Senior, Point Guard, UCLA
Even with a stellar recruiting class that includes blue chip point guard Jrue Holiday, UCLA coach Ben Howland has to be thrilled with the return of Darren Collison for his senior year. The California native can lay claim to being the best returning college floor general in the country, and will be all over pre season All-American lists.
The biggest knock against Collison throughout his career has been his size. Generously listed at 61 and 165 pounds, he is undersized even by college standards. Early off season reports have said that Collison has added a little weight and gotten stronger, although apparently it isnt very visibly noticeable. While he will always be criticized for his smaller stature, his speed and smarts make him a constant threat on both ends of the floor. There are few players at the college level who are as poised in the open floor with the basketball as Collison is.
Collison was a very efficient scorer last season, averaging 14.5 points on 48.1% shooting, but as the only returning player to average double figures, he will likely need to step his scoring numbers up this season. His ball-handling skills are outstanding and he has a great understanding of how to break defenders down in isolation situations or using screens. Towards the end of last season he really came on in his mid-range game, able to pull up on a dime or knock down tough runners on taller opponents. Collison was a tremendous threat from beyond the arc, connecting on an absurd 52.5% of his shot attempts from the outside, though the sample size still leaves something to be desired. Despite being one of the most deadly outside shooters around, Collison only attempted 3 shots per game from the perimeter and almost never if he was contested at all.
Certainly Collisons intangibles need to be considered when discussing him as well. He has shown a real knack for hitting big shots in his time at UCLA, making him a real asset as a backcourt leader. He has a strong skill set for a point guard, and reports are saying over the summer he has improved his ability to anticipate where teammates will be on the floor. He is an absolute nuisance as a one-on-one defender, using his speed and quick hands to emerge as a steals leader in the Pac-10.
Despite his physical stature, which will always give pro scouts pause, there are quite a few reasons to be high on Collison. Everything about his game, particularly the fact that he does everything against top notch competition, says that he could be on his way to a solid NBA career if he gets the necessary time to develop. He appears to be a solid first round prospect, although there are still some question marks regarding whether he projects as a backup or as a starter.
#5 Jeff Pendergraph, 69, Power Forward, Senior, Arizona State
Pendergraph has been on the NBA radar now for several years, gradually progressing during each of his three seasons in Tempe. He is a player who certainly had the opportunity to test the waters last season as a junior, but opted to focus on his development at Arizona State instead.
Much has been written already about Pendergraphs physical gifts and there is little not to like. He has nice size and length for a power forward, to go with a frame capable of putting on size and solid athleticism. The senior can certainly pass the look test of a power forward prospect as far as the NBA is concerned.
Pendergraphs offensive game is still more of that of a traditional back to the basket player, rather than that of todays hybrid power forward. He favors turning towards his left shoulder the majority of the time, showing off a good right hand jump hook with soft touch and nice extension. Pendergraph is still incredibly raw going towards his right shoulder, tending to put up an uncomfortable looking left hand hook shot. Either way, he is an incredibly efficient player in the post, as seen by his 59% field goal percentages.
There has been some nice improvement in the California natives face-up game, however. He appears to be much more comfortable facing the basket, capable of drilling a quick release jumper out to about 14 feet. Pendergraph will obviously have to extend his range if he hopes to play the four position full time in the NBA, but his progress in this area leaves some room for optimism.
Obviously there are still some major holes in Pendergraphs game offensively. He is more of a center then a power forward at the moment and still isnt very comfortable putting the ball on the floor. Pendergraph also doesnt read the double team exceptionally well (something he will be facing quite a bit this year), and could use some improvement in terms of finding the open man.
Arizona States tendency to run zone defense makes it hard for players to box out and often allows a number of offensive rebounds, which might explain why ASU was the second worst rebounding squad in the conference. Pendergraph was worse on the boards this season (11.9 per-40 as a sophomore, compared to 9.7 as a junior), but things were a little more difficult for him given the lackluster job Sun Devil guards did of boxing out.
Given ASUs desire to run zone, there were few situations to evaluate Pendergraphs actual man-to-man defense. In the few instances we did see, we were able to gather that he is a tough defender on the low blocks who does a very nice job of holding his own position. Pendergraph did a good job of rotating and displayed decent timing in terms of blocking shots. Overall, he appears to be a very solid defender from what we have seen.
Currently projected as a second round pick, Pendergraph is a player who has a chance to earn a spot in the first round with a strong senior season. He will surely have the chance to play at the NBA pre-Draft Camp if he desires to do so at the conclusion of the season. The rate of development throughout his senior campaign as well as the success his team finds will determine how attractive of a prospect he is deemed to be come June.
James Harden SG
Jordan Hill PF
Chase Budinger SG/SF
Darren Collison PG
Jeff Pendergraph PF/C
Kevin Love PF
O.J. Mayo PG/SG
Jrue Holiday PG/SG
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Video: “Devonshire Marsh Under Threat”
The Bermuda Environmental Sustainability Taskforce [BEST] has created a video presentation “Devonshire Marsh Under Threat,” detailing their objection to any proposed development in the area. The presentation originally aired last night [Mar.27] on VSB.
A statement from BEST said Devonshire Marsh’s unique marshland area offers some of Bermuda’s finest arable land and it it is refuge to one of the highest bio-diversities of freshwater aquatic life in Bermuda
“Devonshire Marsh is recognized for its aesthetic, scientific and economic value through zoning restrictions and Protected Species Order 2012,” said BEST. “Despite this recognition and protective orders a developer is trying to irrevocably convert several acres of this best remaining example of extensive marshland into an industrial zone.”
Last year BEST rendered their objection to the proposed building on the area by Island Construction, which is owned by Cabinet Minister Zane Desilva. The application was originally rejected by the Planning Department but approved on appeal by then Environment Minister Walter Roban.
Mr Roban resigned from his position as Minister for Public Works in November after coming under fire for his decision to allow the planning appeals by both Minister Desilva and Minister Wayne Furbert. Government said his decision on the appeals was void because Mr Roban had already left the Environment and Planning portfolio before his Parliamentary colleagues had been notified.
In mid-November the newly appointed Minister of the Environment, Planning and Infrastructure Strategy Marc Bean said he will review the planning files, and make a decision on the appeals. The decision is still pending.
Final Lecture Of Eco Lunch & Learn Series
Petition Launched Over ATV Tour Proposal
BEST: New Executive Director & Board Members
BEST “Concerned” About Handling Of Proposal
Residents Visit The Proposed ATV Tours Route
BEST Celebrating Their 10th Anniversary
#BermudaEnvironmentalAndSustainabilityTaskforce #BEST
Category: All, Environment, Videos
Articles that link to this one:
Senator Fahy On Planning Appeals Review Delay | Bernews.com | April 16, 2012
Navin Johnson says:
Marc Bean should have no difficulty rejecting the planned development….Zane should resign….
My two cents says:
This really is unreal. By the way, there are already brand new empty warehouses over by Ornamental Ironworks. Why can’t Zane rent those instead of building more. I am at a complete loss for understanding why we are destroying the last bits of land on a 22 square mile island. I just don’t understand why you want to destroy everything that God gave us. Are we as taxpayers not allowed to have any greenery left to look at on this island? Why do we never have a say in decisions that affect us? Minister De Silva should be ashamed of himself. Go rent the warehouses down the street man.
Your move, Zane………..
really... says:
Well done Stuart and BEST. If anyone has been down at the site, can they comment on the recent activity to fill in the land on the west side of this property? All the foliage is gone and about 8 feet of fill has been piled in. If I didn’t know better, it almost looks like the old “easier to ask forgiveness than permission”. If for no other reason (and there are many) this should be refused due to a lack of compliance and respect for the process and thus the people of Bermuda.
Stuart Hayward says:
Thanks, really.
I think the area your referring to belongs to the National Trust and is/was leased to the DeSilva outfit. I don’t know the details but for sure the fill isn’t healthy for the wetlands…
Family Man says:
I guess Zane now has to “tweak” his plan.
Well done Stuart & BEST.
Kevin Comeau says:
This video presentation by Stuart Hayward and BEST was one of the most professional and informative presentations I have even seen. Bermuda owes them a debt of gratitute for all their hard work and for their clear love of this beautiful yet fragile island.
pepper says:
I agree with you Kevin, the video presentation was fantastic…we need more people like Stuart,
I grew up around Devonshire Marsh. Such a damn shame to allow Zane DeSilva to even get near that land. He will ruin it because he does not care.
Bermudian Overseas says:
totally farcical
maybe Paula Cox will announce Zane as minister of environment
The Grim Reaper says:
I just can’t figure out why LaVerne Furbert, Betty Trump, Rhonda et al. aren’t all over this article claiming it’s Zane’s his land and he can do whatever the heck he wants with it… They have very selective memories – able to recall injustices that were done against islanders two centuries ago but conveniently amnesiac and struck dumb when it comes to those done in more recent times.
32n64w says:
Simple. Reality (and facts) have an anti-PLP bias.
Jim Bean says:
Zane MUST resign.
it just shows you when you join the PLP you get what you want. NOT THE WAY LIFE WORKS THOUGH!!! i would like there to still be land with out crap on it when i have children so they can enjoy bermuda’s beautiful greenery. but i guess thats not goin to happen if PLP stay in power. we need to vote the RIGHT way this time, its not about black and white this time its about whats right and what the people of bermuda deserve, not just family members, cousins, uncles, aunts of people in government. WE NEED A CHANGE NOW!!!!!
The nitty gritty says:
Labour Governments traditionally do not care a sot for land and its aesthetic qualities,
they see land as a place to develop and /or create an income from.
This and the Warwick monstrosity are typical examples. Why ICS would need to destroy this land during what must be slower times in the construction business anyway, is beyond anyone.
We allow this to happen by our inaction and because too many of our friends are too comfortable right now. They haven’t felt the pain as yet and dont want their pleasant dinner disturbed by talk of such ‘negative ‘ things. They say we get what we deserve in life. Next time BEST puts out a call to arms, how about we all turn up for once and see these destroyers of life off and out of business. No loss. Again this is not just Zane, he got the go ahead from his Gummint mates and it’s time to call an election and put this crew in the unemployment line.
http://www.decoutore.com/address.php?property_ID=260
Here is the listing for the empty warehouse monstrosity just down the street from Zane’s company. Now, why is it he needs to build another warehouse? Buy this one Zane, you certainly have the money we all know this. What is your logic behind all this? Not logical at all man.
verbal kint says:
Thanks to Stuart Hayward. Why the silence on the part of Zane DeSilva and Marc Bean? I hope they don’t think that this mess will just go away if they ignore it long enough. Time for SOMEONE to take action on this.
In Mark's Opinion says:
Well done B.E.S.T., I agree all the way Bermuda must be protected if the planning process is followed.
Steven De SIlva says:
Speculative development at its worst. Sure, I can see the wisdom in installing large volume storage on the outskirts of Hamilton, prior to the inevitable dismantlement of the Hamilton (Freight) wharves, BUT…………willingly contributing to the destruction of wetlands speaks of people who are callous and above all, very greedy. Zane, you are not thinking of our future. The Government you support are not thinking this through either. SHORT TERM GAINS. Those not yet born will look back at us with disgust and hatred, because the natural environments importance will only increase.
« Photos: It’s A Wrap For BIFF 2012
Debt Rating Assigned To Arch Issuance »
Bermuda Debaters Reach Finals In Europe
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European Restaurant Operator AmRest to Buy French Sushi Chain
European restaurant operator AmRest said on Wednesday it has agreed to buy Sushi Shop Group, which operates sushi restaurants mainly in France, for about 240 million euros ($281 million).
It is the third acquisition announced this month by Warsaw-listed AmRest, which runs Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), Pizza Hut and Starbucks franchises in Europe and Russia, and has its own brands in Spain and France.
As well as France, Paris-based Sushi Shop runs restaurants in 11 other countries including Spain, Great Britain and Italy.
AmRest, which recently moved its headquarters to Spain from Poland, said earlier this month that it would invest 25 million euros in a Spanish delivery startup, Glovo, to strengthen its position in all the markets where it operates in both dining in and food delivery.
“Over the past three years combined, acquisitions have contributed to approximately half of the increase in (AmRest’s) stores,” Berenberg analysts wrote in a note last month.
AmRest also in July signed a binding agreement to buy a Spain-based burger chain, Bacoa, for about 3.7 million euros to increase its presence in Western Europe.
AmRest has expanded its network of restaurants and franchised stores by 25 percent to 1,705 within the last 12 months and its portfolio of brands includes KFC, Pizza Hut, Burger King and Starbucks.
It aims to open more than 300 stores this year and plans to list on the Spanish Stock Exchange after securing shareholder approval for the plan on June 6.
Source: money.usnews.com
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Society News Pages 1 2 3
Black Tie International:
Stars of Design Awards
Charles and Clo Cohen
Photo by Rob Rich
Stars of Design Awards, October 6th, 2010
Giants of the design industry gathered to be honored by design industry Guru Charles S. Cohen. It was a star filled night in Manhattan, and the stars gathered in ASTRA atop Cohen's famed landmark NY D&D Building. STARS OF DESIGN Awards are given annually to iconic figures in their fields. This year's legends included Robert A.M. Stern, David Easton, Dana Lorenz, Melanie Acevedo, Gail Anderson, Deborah Nevins. The first ever posthumous award was given to artist Kenneth Noland. His widow, iconic former Architectural Digest editor Paige Rense, accepted it on his behalf.
This annual Award is becoming the gold standard in the Design industry, and Charles Cohen told us, "My four Design Centers are honored to recognize the sheer giants and geniuses in the industry. They grace our lives and lifestyles, and we are proud to recognize their unique contributions to our world."
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A Store Without a Checkout Counter? JCPenney Presses on with Retail Revolution
JCPenney's dramatic makeover has led to customer confusion and subpar sales, but the company is sticking with its plan to revolutionize its brand.
JCPenney killing checkout counter by 2014 CNN Money
Penney to Tweak Message, but Not Its Strategy Wall Street Journal
Thus far, the dramatic makeover of JCPenney has hardly been smooth sailing. The overhaul, in which coupons and nonstop sales have been replaced with lower everyday prices, has resulted in confusion among customers and months of subpar sales, as well as the recent ouster of a top executive for the company. Nonetheless, JCPenney CEO Ron Johnson is sticking with the plan to revolutionize a tired old brand—and perhaps retail at a whole.
Speaking at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference, Johnson—a retail superstar who spent years building up Target and the Apple Store—made one eye-opening comment after another.
For instance, considering that America’s fastest-growing retailer is Amazon, and that online retail is booming compared to brick-and-mortar shopping, it’d be better to be a purely online operation going forward, right? Not so, according to Johnson. “If I had to pick today, would I rather be an online-only retailer trying to compete ten years from now, or a physical retailer trying to compete ten years from now?” he said. “Knowing that the digital and physical worlds come together, I’d take the physical retailer in a heartbeat.”
Johnson explained that physical retailers should be able to do everything an online-only retailer like Amazon does and more—including face-to-face customer service and options such as in-store pickup.
Most noteworthy of all, Johnson announced JCPenney’s plans to completely change the checkout experience at stores. Using advanced Wi-Fi networks, mobile checkout, RFID (radio-frequency identification) tracking systems for goods, and all sorts of self-checkout possibilities, JCPenney will get rid of cashiers, cash registers, and checkout counters, the staples near the exits of virtually every store, as soon as 2014.
“Think of a physical store without a cash rep,” Johnson said. “About 10% of all the money we spend, half a billion dollars a year, goes to transactions. Well that could be done through technology.” The money saved could then be used to help bolster customer service.
(MORE: More Troubles for JCPenney: Top Executive Departs Amid Sales Slump)
Will consumers embrace a cash-less, cashier-less, checkout counter-less store? Investors seem to like the idea. After Johnson’s statements made news, JCPenney’s stock jumped to over $21 per share, after trading for around $19 early on Wednesday.
Yet, considering that many JCPenney shoppers have been grumbling about the disappearance of their beloved coupons, and their general confusion about the retailer’s new pricing system, getting rid of something as traditional as the checkout is likely to elicit even more complaints from plenty of customers.
Many customers remain unconvinced that JCPenney’s new “fair and square” everyday low prices are actually better than the days of old, when sales and coupons were ubiquitous—as were dramatically inflated original retail prices, of course. As the Wall Street Journal reported a few weeks ago, even though sales have been poor, JCPenney isn’t changing its pricing system, nor the core components of its overhaul and message to consumers. Instead, the message is merely being tweaked. In response to shoppers who feel like they’re no longer getting the deals they once were, JCPenney seems to be saying something along the lines of, “No really, we swear these are better prices. Trust us.”
(MORE: The Fast-Food Ethicist: Chipotle’s Joe Miranda)
Some shoppers, though, can’t see how they’re getting a good deal if there are no coupons or dramatic markdowns. Likewise, it may be hard to convince shoppers that they’ll be better off without a checkout area. Many customers are likely to view the concept of a store without a checkout area with skepticism, if not annoyance, perhaps even hostility.
Then again, perhaps even more customers — younger ones who embrace technology, who hate checkout lines, and who could be loyal shoppers for decades to come — will love the idea.
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Andrew S. Goldwasser
Phillip A. Ciano
Brent S. Silverman
Sarah Katz
Contingent Fee Practice
Morgan Stanley Squeezes Brokers on Compensation. Useful incentive or Recipe for Disaster?
By Phil Ciano, Partner Last week, Morgan Stanley announced broad pay cuts for its brokers, unless, according to the Wall Street Journal, the brokers “boost the fees and commissions they collect from retail investors.” According to the Journal, starting in January, 2017, Morgan Stanley is raising the bar for broker compensation “to incentivize [the brokers] […]
Surprise, Surprise…Markets Surge on Trump Election
By Robert West, Jr. Jr. Partner While America watched this historic presidential election, so did the global investment community. If history is any indication, investors despise uncertainty, and the early voting numbers made it clear that a (pre-supposed) Hillary Clinton victory was anything but certain. As Donald J. Trump continued to dominate the swing states […]
S&P 500 Continues Its Consecutive Losing Streak – – Pre-Election Jitters or Ominous Sign of Things to Come?
By Phil Ciano Partner December of 1980 was a memorable month for a lot of reasons. I became a teenager; my favorite rock band of all time (Led Zeppelin) broke up; John Lennon was shot and killed, and my favorite movie of all time (Raging Bull) was released. So, what does December, 1980 have to […]
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caitlin mae burke
SEX AND BROADCASTING: A FILM ABOUT WFMU
Dir. Tim K. Smith
Producer: Caitlin Mae Burke
SEX AND BROADCASTING is a hilarious and heartfelt documentary about New Jersey's WFMU, the strangest and (some say) greatest radio station in the world and one man's attempt to keep it alive and independent. As station manager Ken Freedman stares down the barrel of a recession, while fending off the ever encroaching threat of commercial media, he struggles to keep his rebellious volunteer army of outsiders together. At 51 years old, Ken’s whole life is strapped to this dream, but will his life-long effort be enough to keep it alive?
With a roster of supporters like the Simpsons creator Matt Groening, Beastie Boy Ad-Rock, Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, the film demonstrates how WFMU offers itself as a critical model – a reminder of an American tradition that values freedom and independence above all else. A Factory 25 Release.
SEX AND BROADCASTING is available on Vimeo OnDemand March 30, and Amazon, iTunes, and other digital platforms on May 20th.
Theatrical premiere at IFC Center March 30-April 7, check the film's site for additional screening locations.
Website by White Magic Web Design.
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Sept./Oct. 2013 California Bountiful magazine
Story by Ching Lee
Photos by Richard Green
Ancient Greeks discovered them, but a modern way of curing them began in California.
Olives may be a stone fruit like peaches, plums and cherries, but try eating one straight off the tree and you may not like the results.
As bitter and unpalatable as it may be in its raw form, this tiny fruit has been cultivated and used as food and a source of oil for thousands of years, most notably by ancient Greeks, who recognized the olive as a symbol of peace.
California's history with the olive began in the 1700s, when the first olive cuttings were planted at Mission San Diego de Alcala by Franciscan monks who brought them from Peru. Today, the Golden State produces nearly all of the olives grown in the U.S., even though California olives make up only about 1 percent of olives grown worldwide.
Steve Henderson, above, with bins of recently harvested olives, which are sorted, below, before processing.
Whether they are eaten whole, in a salad, on top of a pizza or with a martini, olives generally still must be cured—much like in the old days—or they won't taste so great. Many different curing methods are used around the world, but in California, more than 90 percent of the crop becomes black ripe olives.
The term is somewhat of a misnomer because olives used to make black ripes are actually picked green when they're not fully ripe, said Steve Henderson, plant superintendent at Bell-Carter Foods, one of two major olive processors in the state. The company, which houses its production facility in Corning, in Tehama County, makes the Lindsay brand of olives that is a familiar fixture in U.S. stores.
"Olives will ripen on a tree and turn black, but they'll get soft and spongy and won't hold," Henderson said. "As a canner, we want them as green and firm as you can to start with, and we'll turn them black."
Cure for the common olive
Bell-Carter's seven-day curing process starts with putting the olives in a lye solution to leach out the bitterness, followed by cold-water rinses. These two steps are repeated several times throughout the seven days, during which air is also stirring constantly through the olives. This air is what turns the fruit black, Henderson explained.
Bell-Carter also makes green ripe olives, which go through a nearly identical curing process, except their tanks are not subjected to air, allowing the fruit to retain its green color, he added.
Bell-Carter Foods employee Victor Nunez shows the tool used to remove pits from a green ripe olive.
After curing, a trace of organic iron salt, or ferrous gluconate, is added so the olives will maintain their rich color after the cans are stored. Finally, the olives are packed in a solution of brine, or saltwater, and heat-sterilized according to state health rules.
"There's an art to this," Henderson said. "You can speed up or retard this process somewhat, but if you don't know what you're doing, you can mess up a lot of fruit."
This particular method of curing olives can be traced back to the late 1800s, when a housewife named Freda Ehmann began experimenting with a few barrels on her back porch, thus laying the foundation for canned black olives, according to the Butte County Historical Society.
Now considered the "mother" of the modern olive canning process, Ehmann at the time was merely trying to develop a market for the olives from her 20-acre orchard near Oakland. Up until that time, olives had been grown primarily for oil, and olive curing and canning had not been reliably successful.
The olives run through a floatation salt wash, which sinks any unpitted fruit to the bottom, while the pitted ones are canned.
What made Ehmann's technique distinctive was that she insisted the olives not be pickled until they were black. Within a year, demand for her olives was greater than her orchard could supply. She later moved to Oroville, in Butte County, looking for a dependable supply of olives for her rapidly growing business and built an olive processing plant there. Her basic recipe is still followed today.
During olive harvest, which generally starts in September and goes into November, Bell-Carter will bring 350 tons of olives into its plant each day, producing 10 million cases of olives, or 240 million cans, per year.
The faces behind the olives
Between Bell-Carter, Musco Family Olive Co. (the state's other major olive cannery) and several smaller processors that make Sicilian-style and other specialty olives, California processes 80,000 to 125,000 tons of olives annually from 27,000 acres, according to the California Olive Committee. More than half of the state's acreage is located in the San Joaquin Valley, with the lion's share belonging to Tulare County. The remaining acreage is in Northern California, specifically Butte, Glenn, Sacramento and Tehama counties.
The cans are then subjected to heat sterilization.
Ed Curiel, who supplies olives to Bell-Carter, is one of some 1,000 olive farmers in the state. Although his family didn't start growing their own olives until 2001, they had a long history harvesting them before that. Curiel's father, Jose, emigrated from Mexico in the early 1960s to work in California orchards, picking olives, peaches and other crops. His family made Corning their home base in the 1980s and years later bought the orchard that they farm today from one of his uncles.
"I grew up around olives and used to pick them when I was a kid," Curiel said. "And then we got into growing. I guess it was a natural evolution."
Farmer Ed Curiel holds a tray of harvested olives, which are picked green and by hand to ensure quality.
Curiel said he likes black olives with his spaghetti or on top of meat, but his favorite way to eat them is alongside a sandwich.
What kind of olives grow here?
California grows two main varieties that go into making table olives: Manzanillo, which represents most of the state's acreage, and Sevillano, which produces the larger-sized olives that are usually marketed as "jumbo" or "extra-large." This variety is also ideal for making Sicilian-style olives that are often stuffed with pimento, garlic or cheese. The remaining varieties are made into various specialty styles or crushed for oil.
While mechanical harvesting can be used for some oil varieties, table olives are generally still picked by hand to ensure quality. The challenge for farmers, Curiel said, is the small window of time his crew has to get the fruit off the trees before they become too ripe for canning. There can be 1,000 olives on each tree, and a skilled picker can harvest about a ton per day, or about 50 40-pound boxes, he said.
"When we went camping, I made sure I had some olives," he said. "Instead of having a sandwich with chips, I'll throw some black ripes next to the sandwich and eat them that way."
Ching Lee
clee@californiabountiful.com
Can do's, can don'ts
In many households, an open can of olives goes fast, but what if you have leftovers? Here are some tips from the California Olive Committee (www.calolive.org) on how to store them:
Once opened, store unused olives in their original brine in the open can and cover with plastic wrap to allow oxygen to permeate.
Partially used cans may be stored in the refrigerator for up to 10 days.
If the original brine has been discarded, replace with a solution of one cup water and one-half teaspoon salt.
The shelf life for unopened cans is 36 to 48 months, stored at room temperature.
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Magic Quadrant for Network Performance Monitoring ...
NAGIOS NDOUTILS, NRPE and PLUGINS RELEASE
ServiceDesk Plus recognized as a champion by "Info...
By fankychristian April 20, 2017
Published: 21 February 2017 ID: G00301193
Analyst(s):
Sanjit Ganguli, Vivek Bhalla
NPMD solutions are key in helping I&O leaders support more complex technologies and services with network visibility, performance issue detection and root cause analysis. Vendors are innovating with cloud monitoring, support for software-defined environments and more flexible deployment models.
Market Definition/Description
This document was revised on 12 April 2017. The document you are viewing is the corrected version. For more information, see the Corrections page on gartner.com.
Network performance monitoring and diagnostics (NPMD) tools allow IT operations to understand the performance of application, network and infrastructure components via network instrumentation. These tools also provide insight into the quality of the end-user experience. The goal of NPMD products is not only to monitor the network traffic and infrastructure to facilitate outage and degradation resolution, but also to identify performance optimization opportunities. This is conducted via diagnostics, analytics and root cause analysis capabilities to complement monitoring of today's complex IT environments.
This market is a fast-growing segment of the larger network management space. Gartner estimates the size of the NPMD tool market at $1.6 billion and growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.7%, according to Gartner's "Market Share Analysis: Performance Monitoring, Worldwide, 2015." The NPMD market overlaps slightly with aspects of the application performance monitoring (APM) space and, to a lesser extent, the IT infrastructure monitoring (ITIM) market.
This Magic Quadrant research period has seen continued reshuffling within the NPMD vendor space, with the completion of the leveraged buyout of SolarWinds by Silver Lake Partners and Thoma Bravo; the sale of InfoVista by Thoma Bravo to private equity firm Apax Partners; the spinoff of Streamcore from Automic; the acquisition of Aternity by Riverbed; and the pending spinoff/merger of HPE Software to U.K.-based software company Micro Focus.
Additionally, this year has seen innovation from network switch vendors, incorporating network analytics directly into their switch fabric through enhancements in switch chip technology. These vendors include Cisco, with its introduction of Tetration Analytics, but also Arista Networks, Brocade and Pluribus Networks. Additionally, NPMD vendors have slowly been waking up to the reality of the cloud, with a few vendors actively investing in filling the visibility gaps left by cloud migration.
Figure 1. Magic Quadrant for Network Performance Monitoring and Diagnostics
Source: Gartner (February 2017)
Vendor Strengths and Cautions
AppNeta
Founded in 2011, Boston-based AppNeta focuses on APM; however, much of its intellectual property roots are based on NPMD technology. AppNeta is back in the NPMD Magic Quadrant this year. AppNeta is focused on easy-to-deploy, inexpensive SaaS-based solutions. The vendor is a re-entrant to the NPMD Magic Quadrant based on its decision to reverse its cessation of flow-based data source support that only lasted approximately 12 months, throughout most of 2015.
AppNeta's core NPMD features come from its AppView product (for synthetic application availability monitoring), enhanced with SaaS-specific monitoring for Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Compute Engine, Microsoft Azure, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Office 365 and Google Docs, among others. FlowView provides traffic analysis including both deep packet inspection and flow analysis. The unique component of the offering is PathView, which provides deep path analysis along with patented capacity measurement based on AppNeta's TruPath technology, an automated diagnostics engine for fault isolation and root cause determination.
AppNeta has undergone realignment over the past 18 months (as its reinclusion in this Magic Quadrant suggests). In August 2015, a new CMO was hired, and in April 2016, an agreement was reached with SevOne to resell AppNeta's PathView technology. In September 2016, AppNeta's TraceView product, which monitors the application layer of web-based infrastructures, was sold to SolarWinds.
AppNeta's NPMD revenue is between $11 million and $25 million per year.
A SaaS-focused model ensures lower operating costs.
The vendor offers high scalability for distributed environments, with up to 7,000 sites supported per client.
AppNeta has convenient unified communications (UC) and voice over IP (VoIP) monitoring without the overhead normally associated with UC monitoring tools.
The vendor has no physical commercial presence beyond North America planned until the first quarter of 2018.
The lack of 100G network support via physical monitoring point appliances is inhibiting AppNeta's ability to meet end-user requirements to fulfill future demands.
Security and privacy perception issues related to SaaS products persist among risk-averse end users. This is a sales inhibitor when competing against traditional on-premises-based tools.
Headquartered in New York City, CA Technologies has an extensive history and product set for NPMD that was built over many years of acquisitions and organic development. CA has recently hired a new chief product officer and a general manager of its Agile Operations business unit, both of whom are from Cisco, to oversee NPMD product development.
The CA Technologies' NPMD offering is the organically developed CA Performance Management solution (which includes Performance Center as its visualization element), and it is complemented by other offerings, including CA Unified Infrastructure Management (CA UIM), CA Virtual Network Assurance (CA VNA), CA Network Flow Analysis, CA Unified Communications Monitor, CA Application Delivery Analysis, CA Systems Performance for Infrastructure Managers (physical systems agents) and CA Virtual Assurance for Infrastructure Managers (virtual systems agents). CA VNA was released in December 2015, and provides visibility into performance bottlenecks and vulnerabilities in software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) environments.
CA Performance Management forms the basis for the vendor's new network portfolio architecture strategy, which is a departure from its previous strategy of leveraging CA UIM as its consolidation platform. According to the vendor, this decision was driven by changing market conditions and customer feedback. CA UIM is being repositioned as the solution for hybrid cloud, systems and storage monitoring, while CA Performance Management is targeted at network monitoring, despite some overlapping capabilities.
CA's NPMD revenue is between $100 million and $250 million per year.
Positive financial viability continues to show that there is limited risk to stability in doing business with CA.
Investments in monitoring cloud-based environments have outpaced other NPMD vendors.
Strong geographic diversity in the customer base proves the vendor's ability to support clients globally.
CA's NPMD solution is an amalgamation of various product lines from several acquisitions with limited integration, which introduces some complexity in UI and workflows.
Emergence of CA Performance Management as the vendor's NPMD solution has caused confusion as it conflicts with its previous CA UIM strategy, with uncertainty among end users regarding future development plans for either product.
There has been limited development of flow and packet analysis capabilities, with CA Network Flow Analysis and CA Application Delivery Analysis receiving little in the way of new features.
San Jose-based Cisco, with its network-hardware-centric heritage, enjoys broad name recognition in the NPMD space. The vendor has enhanced its offerings with the introduction of a scalable data center visibility solution, policy-based automation and simplified product bundling options.
Cisco's NPMD solutions remain spread across multiple product lines. Its primary NPMD offering remains Prime Infrastructure, and it is used for SNMP and flow monitoring, configuration management, and provisioning of Cisco network devices. This is supplemented with Prime Network Analysis Module for packet analysis, and Prime Collaboration Assurance for UC monitoring. Cisco Nexus Data Broker provides network packet broker (NPB) functionality.
Cisco's latest offering is Tetration Analytics, a hardware and software agent-based network analytics platform that leverages onboard switch-chip-based network analytics on its latest Nexus switches to provide scalable data center visibility. Finally, Cisco offers Application Policy Infrastructure Controller Enterprise Module (APIC-EM), its policy-based SDN controller providing path analytics along with workflow automation capabilities.
The vendor has announced its Cisco One Foundation licensing in WAN, access and data center variants that bundle various NPMD products into the broader hardware sale motion. This aims to simplify the pricing and licensing options for its NPMD products, as well as accelerate the sales of its software products.
Cisco's NPMD revenue is between $51 million and $100 million per year.
Cisco provides a unique vision for highly scalable network analytics integrated into network hardware with Tetration Analytics.
Cisco is in an exclusive position to support its pervasive networking installed base, offering in-depth support for Cisco monitoring technologies.
New bundling of products allows broader availability of NPMD solutions to the vendor's customers.
While innovative, Tetration Analytics currently lacks broad market appeal, given its premium pricing, strict deployment prerequisites, and burdensome hardware and agent requirements.
Gartner continues to observe that Cisco Prime Infrastructure is mostly used as a point solution, often requiring buyers to purchase other management tools for comprehensive performance monitoring.
End users have cited dissatisfaction with Cisco Prime Infrastructure's product reliability, as well as its integration and interoperability with third-party solutions.
Corvil
Founded in 2000, Dublin-based Corvil focuses on short-time scale network monitoring, providing comprehensive multisegment and highly accurate packet analysis. These capabilities have always appealed to the vendor's financial services customer base's heritage; however, Corvil continues its transition — based on its streaming analytics platform — to deliver machine-time data visibility (see Note) and operational intelligence to a broader target audience.
Product development progressed, with an 80 Gbps 8400 appliance released in July 2016. The August 2016 Tera+ Release delivered adaptive contextual enrichment to raw packet data based on preloaded rules and conditions. This was coupled with autodiscovery and population of application metrics to an updated user interface that includes greater drag-and-drop and workflow aids than its predecessor. In September 2016, Corvil's VoIP App for Splunk was released as a free download via Splunkbase.
Aside from product development, a new chief business development officer was hired in October 2015 to focus on growing strategic partnerships and develop Corvil's channel partner program. Early results are the addition of Japanese channel partner IWI and global service company WWT. Gartner has also observed customers being added to the installed base in new regions such as Mexico, Colombia and Brazil.
Corvil's NPMD revenue is between $26 million and $50 million per year.
Corvil enjoys healthy sales performance and growth, with total revenue growing by 40% year over year.
The machine-time data analytics concept aligns well to end users with Internet of Things (IoT) initiatives.
Corvil's licensing model continues to cause pricing disruption in the market space, with a separation of software pricing from the underlying hardware.
Corvil lacks virtual and cloud visibility for those customers that are migrating critical services into virtual environments.
Conservative organizations may view Corvil's size, compared to larger vendors in this market, as a perceived risk due to increased exposure to potential acquisition or market volatility.
SNMP and flow-based data source support remain comparatively weak.
With global headquarters in Seattle, ExtraHop is new to the NPMD Magic Quadrant this year, and focuses on packet analytics for performance and application insights. Over the last year, ExtraHop has doubled its head count and made several key additions to the senior leadership team. This included a new CEO, who previously served as the president of Fluke Networks. This year has also seen the departure of ExtraHop's senior VP of sales and the senior VP of marketing and business development.
The vendor's solution consists of ExtraHop Discover Appliance, which provides real-time analysis on network data; ExtraHop Explore Appliance, which provides indexing and storage of transaction records; ExtraHop Trace Appliance, which provides continuous packet capture; and ExtraHop Command Appliance, which provides centralized management. To achieve end-to-end workflows that are common to NPMD, a combination of the Discover, Explore and Trace Appliances must be deployed.
ExtraHop's recent focus has been on expanding supported data streams, which now include NetFlow and continuous packet capture. ExtraHop has combined these new data streams into end-to-end troubleshooting workflows, although there is limited customer feedback on this, given the recent release of these new features. The vendor's solutions also have integration with various IT operations management (ITOM) tool vendors, and it promotes its solutions as part of an ecosystem of other best-of-breed products. ExtraHop has also invested in looking beyond the data center, investing in cloud, IoT and virtual network monitoring.
ExtraHop's NPMD revenue is between $50 million and $100 million per year.
ExtraHop provides network-derived business intelligence data, allowing IT operations users to move closer to the lines of business, with strong application visibility.
ExtraHop was an early pioneer among NPMD vendors to offer a monitoring solution for infrastructure as a service (IaaS) environments like AWS and Azure.
The vendor is aggressively investing in marketing and expanding sales operations beyond its current North American base, primarily in the Asia/Pacific region.
ExtraHop's products often appeal to buyers as a complementary solution to NPMD, as opposed to a core NPMD offering.
The vendor provides a limited view of infrastructure health, compared to its NPMD competition.
ExtraHop's ability to derive and use application context from network data should not be confused with full application performance monitoring (APM) capabilities.
Flowmon Networks
Flowmon Networks, based in the Czech Republic, specializes in scalable flow-based monitoring to meet NPMD and network behavior analysis (NBA) disciplines. The vendor has been 100% self-funded, and has grown through sales of its NPMD and NBA products. While flow-based monitoring is the focus, packet capture (via Flowmon Traffic Recorder) and the Flowmon Application Performance Monitor component also contribute to Flowmon's NPMD capabilities.
The vendor augmented its existing agentless monitoring capabilities for HTTP and HTTPS traffic with the acquisition of FerretApps in March 2016. New integrations with network tap manufacturer Garland Technology in June and IBM's QRadar in October broadened its technology partnership program.
Flowmon Networks' plans to expand to new geographies have also seen new value-added reseller (VAR) partnerships struck in June 2016, with Ingecom to cover Portugal and Spain, and Gintel to support Latin America, the Caribbean and Florida. Concurrently, a new business development manager was appointed for the U.K. and Ireland region. Product development has continued with a new version of Flowmon released in May 2016, providing profiling of flow data with 30-second granularity to help reduce reaction times to service-affecting incidents. Triggered packet capture and a mobile app for iOS and Android devices were also among the new features included.
Flowmon Networks' NPMD revenue is between $7.5 million and $10 million per year.
There is an aggressive product roadmap, with flow generation from PCAP, extended visibility into application layer protocols and OpenStack virtualization support all anticipated before the fourth quarter of 2017.
Flowmon Networks is competitively priced, with cloud and virtual appliance options that would appeal to smaller and midsize organizations with flow-based monitoring requirements.
Flowmon Networks is highly scalable, with the ability to support 100G environments and 250,000 flows per second per appliance.
North American, Latin American and Asia/Pacific region end users should ensure that local resources are adequate for their needs.
Despite continual improvements, the user interface remains below par compared to leading NPMD vendors, based on Gartner's analysis.
Security operations features and capabilities dilute the focus of Flowmon's R&D on purely NPMD use cases and scenarios.
Genie Networks
Genie Networks targets its solutions to the communications service provider (CSP) industry. Based in Taiwan, the vendor's strategy is to provide scalable, yet competitively priced, solutions.
Building from a competency in traditional SNMP-based network fault and performance monitoring capabilities, Genie Networks also incorporates deep packet inspection and flow analysis into its current offerings, GenieATM 6300 and GenieATM VM Software Version. The vendor states that a single instance of the product supports up to 110,000 flows per second, and up to 100 routers and/or switches. It also provides combined traffic analysis with policy configuration for SDN environments.
Throughout 2016, Genie Networks has increasingly been positioned and deployed to address security operations use cases and scenarios, primarily distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack mitigation and protection. The vendor has also gained traction beyond its traditional China installed base, with new customers being won throughout 2016 in Japan, Saudi Arabia and, most significantly, the Netherlands.
Genie Networks did not respond to requests for supplemental information and/or to review the draft contents of this document. Gartner's analysis for this vendor is therefore based on other credible sources, including previous vendor briefings and interactions, the vendor's own marketing collateral, public information, and discussions with end users.
Genie Networks' NPMD revenue is between $11 million and $20 million per year.
Genie Networks has an improved presence in and focus toward EMEA.
The vendor offers attractive pricing, balanced with an aim to deliver carrier-grade scalability.
Appliance and virtual machine (VM)-based options offer customers multiple form factors.
The vendor's profile remains low, particularly from a marketing perspective, which limits lead generation opportunities.
Positioning and messaging have shifted almost exclusively to security operations use cases and scenarios.
Genie Networks' focus on IT and network operations product features appears to have stagnated in favor of security operations functionality.
One of the first vendors to offer enterprise network monitoring tools, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE; spun off from HP Inc. in November 2015) has a long history of investment in the NPMD market. Based in Palo Alto, California, HPE has a substantial portfolio and customer base, with thousands of installations worldwide.
HPE's NPMD solution is composed of Network Node Manager i (NNMi) and HPE Real User Monitoring (RUM). NNMi provides a consolidated view of fault and performance data, while RUM monitors actual user interaction with a website or application from client desktops and mobile devices.
In September 2016, HPE announced a spin-off/merger of its software business with U.K. firm Micro Focus as part of an $8.8 billion deal. This came off the back of previous restructuring following the split of HPE from HP Inc. End users report that implementation, training and professional services account for a greater proportion of total HPE NPMD deployment costs than observed by Gartner for other vendors.
HPE's latest releases in July 2016 included updated support for Cisco Unified Communications Manager (UCM), Common Criteria and FIPS140-2 encryption compliance, an Elastic Docker monitor, and a new HTML5-based application health dashboard. Among other features, VXLAN support and a number of OpenStack integrations and plug-ins are planned for 2017.
HPE's NPMD revenue is between $101 million and $250 million per year.
HPE has a broad portfolio of complementary availability and performance monitoring products, with integration with products such as HPE Network Automation.
HPE's product roadmap cites the utilization of operations analytics. Execution against this roadmap will be key.
HPE Professional Services has a global presence, with a strong reputation for implementing and maintaining its clients' solutions. (Note that HPE has announced the sale of its Enterprise Services segment to CSC, expected to close in April 2017.)
With ongoing organizational changes, customers continue to express concern over HPE's direction and vision in the NPMD space.
Execution against the roadmap is questionable, given that aims of monitoring converged infrastructure, SDN and NFV frameworks have been deprioritized compared to previous plans.
Current messaging and product positioning fail to resonate with midmarket organizations.
InfoVista
With worldwide headquarters in France, InfoVista is a CSP and large-enterprise-focused NPMD provider, and is owned by private equity firm Apax Partners. InfoVista's offerings span NPMD, wireless network design and planning, and mobile network optimization.
Product offerings focused on NPMD include VistaInsight for Networks, which includes the Vista360 UI for visualization across the interrelated components of the suite. Those components are 5View Service Data Manager for data aggregation and analysis of the raw metric data, which feeds up to VistaInsight for Networks; 5View NetFlow appliances for flow collection; and 5View Applications appliances, which provide deep packet inspection capabilities. The final module is 5View Mediation, which collects data from appliances doing packet and flow analysis for long-term, analytical reporting purposes.
In March 2016, 5View Applications added new support for discovery of cloud and SSL-based applications, and VXLAN, among other features. InfoVista then experienced a change of ownership as Thoma Bravo sold the company to Apax Partners in May 2016. In October 2016, InfoVista acquired Ascom's mobile operator-oriented testing and optimization TEMS business. In November 2016, InfoVista launched IpanemaGO, a cloud-based SD-WAN solution. Although the solution is adjacent to NPMD itself, this will lower barriers of adoption for enterprises looking to SD-WAN as a means to improve and protect the performance of applications on a per-session and per-user basis. 40G and 100G support is cited by 3Q17.
InfoVista has also overhauled its Global Channel Program, focusing it around the delivery of its new SD-WAN solution, including a partnership with ZTEsoft for the China region. Relationships with Ipanema-acquired channel partners Orange Business Services and BT have also been developed further, with a "sell to, sell through" strategy having been developed with both organizations.
InfoVista's NPMD revenue is between $26 million and $50 million per year.
End users recognize InfoVista's strong product roadmap and vision.
VistaInsight and the 5View suite are multitenant, carrier-grade solutions optimized to meet the specific requirements of CSPs.
Extensibility of the InfoVista solution allows it to meet sophisticated use cases that many other vendors cannot meet.
2016 SDN and NFV API-related features have been deferred until mid-2017.
End users continue to report higher-than-average implementation and maintenance costs.
Extended service engagements are common to meet specific requirements of target service provider customers.
Ipswitch, based in Lexington, Massachusetts, has been in the infrastructure monitoring arena since 1991 and makes its debut in the NPMD Magic Quadrant. Ipswitch supports a large client base with its product WhatsUp Gold, which is offered as BasicView, ProView, TotalView or TotalView Plus, reflecting different assortments of modules. These modules include Wireless Monitoring, Virtual Monitoring, Application Monitoring, Network Traffic Analysis and Configuration Management.
The product provides a simple and easy-to-use networking monitoring solution, combining both SNMP-based infrastructure health and availability monitoring with import of flow records. Packet data is handled via a packet to flow converter agent called Flow Publisher. Ipswitch's plans for WhatsUp Gold include support for monitoring cloud IaaS environments and increased support for storage and wireless LAN infrastructures.
Ipswitch sells in North America predominantly through direct sales, and through partners in other regions. It has recently opened a center of excellence in Ireland to lead expansion in EMEA. Expansion plans include additional partnerships with system integrators, as well as managed service providers (MSPs) that use WhatsUp Gold to provide IT monitoring services to their end customers. Notable MSPs using Ipswitch include Dimension Data, Cable & Wireless Communications and NTT Communications.
Ipswitch's NPMD revenue is between $26 million and $50 million per year.
Ipswitch offers a low-cost and easy-to-license NPMD solution.
The vendor's low-friction sales model, with a "try and buy" option, has shown success in growing its customer base, focused on SMBs.
Network topology visualization is intuitive and easily navigable, with a useful path tracing capability.
There is limited packet support, application visibility and drill-downs for troubleshooting.
Scalability and granularity of data is below the level of leading NPMD solutions.
Despite its many years in the market, Ipswitch suffers from less market awareness when compared to similar NPMD vendors.
LiveAction is a privately owned company founded in 2007, based in Palo Alto, California, and is new to the NPMD Magic Quadrant this year. Its LiveNX product is focused on visibility and analytics to help simplify network management. LiveUX is a complementary product to LiveNX, delivering end-user experience monitoring. For non-Cisco environments, LiveAction uses its nProbe component for packet inspection and performance metrics collection.
The vendor's product development cadence has been healthy for the past 18 months. March 2015 brought a new virtual appliance option, while reporting features to aid capacity planning tasks were also added. In November 2015, a new HTML5-based interface was launched. Support was expanded to Cisco's Nexus 9000 series routers and QoS configuration support was provided for Cisco Catalyst 3850 and 4500 devices. A free SaaS version of LiveUX, monitoring availability and performance of web-based applications, was also made available during the same month. In June 2016, SD-WAN visibility was delivered. Path changes are compared to preconfigured thresholds and validated against policies to ensure that application performance over SD-WAN is maintained. Support for private and public cloud, including AWS, Azure, Apache CloudStack and Rackspace, was also added in June 2016. Further site-to-site analysis to aid capacity and resource planning was added in October 2016.
LiveAction raised $36 million in Series B funding in March 2016 to expand operations globally and accelerate product development. Cisco Investments was one of the funding partners. LiveAction shares a close relationship with Cisco as a SolutionsPlus partner, with the networking vendor including LiveNX on its global price list. Under this agreement, Cisco resells LiveNX and provides training to end customers and partners, while also aiding marketing efforts. A reseller agreement also is in place with Japan-based network configuration and change management (NCCM) vendor LogicVein, which is the primary route to market for this region. The overall primary route to market for LiveAction is through channel sales.
LiveAction's NPMD revenue is between $11 million and $25 million per year.
LiveAction customers report high satisfaction in terms of value, service and support offered.
The vendor has had strong growth over the last two years with a significant ramp-up of customers and the total installed base, partially driven by Cisco channel sales.
Unique SD-WAN traffic steering capabilities are coupled with overlay views of flows and control plane data to deliver compelling visualization of network topologies, aiding troubleshooting and problem diagnosis.
LiveAction's in-house resources are almost exclusively focused on the North American region. Customers from other regions should ensure the reseller resources made available are adequate and sufficiently skilled to provide ongoing support.
Heavy focus toward supporting Cisco infrastructure may inhibit opportunities where there is a requirement to manage a more heterogeneous environment.
LiveNX is an on-premises-focused product and lacks a cloud-hosted deployment option.
NetScout, based in Westford, Massachusetts, has the largest market share in the NPMD space, and boasts a large and loyal customer base. NetScout's customers span the large enterprise, service provider and public-sector industry verticals. In 2015, NetScout acquired parts of NPMD vendor Fluke Networks, along with several other assets, including Tektronix Communications and VSS Monitoring.
NetScout's NPMD solution consists of nGeniusONE platform, Infinistream platform and UC Performance Management. These solutions are sold alongside various analysis modules, which can include NPBs or security analytics. NetScout continues to list Fluke Networks' assets as products, including OptiView XG (handheld network diagnostics), AirMagnet (wireless LAN planning and monitoring) and TruView. NetScout has announced that it is relaunching Fluke's TruView Live as nGeniusPULSE, for synthetic-based monitoring of cloud environments.
NetScout has announced plans to invest in a dual strategy to introduce next-generation instrumentation coupled with superior analytics. As part of this strategy, the vendor introduced InfiniStreamNG, with support for 40G and 100G line rates, and offers a real-time analytics platform to take advantage of the packet data it is collecting. NetScout also announced the release of nGenius for Flows, which brings its flow monitoring capability closer in line with competitors.
NetScout did not respond to requests for supplemental information and/or engage in Gartner's standard procedures to address the contents of this document. Gartner's analysis for this vendor is therefore based on other credible sources, including previous vendor briefings and interactions, the vendor's own marketing collateral, public information, and discussions with end users that either have evaluated or deployed each NPMD product. NetScout has sued Gartner over the content of the 2014 NPMD Magic Quadrant, and that lawsuit is pending.
NetScout's NPMD revenue is between $500 million and $750 million per year. This reflects combined revenue from NetScout and the acquired Danaher assets, including parts of Fluke Networks, VSS Monitoring and Tektronix Communications.
NetScout's plans to develop nGeniusPULSE are an important initiative to fill network visibility gaps left by cloud migrations.
NetScout's AirMagnet is a strong offering for the growing need for wireless LAN network monitoring and troubleshooting.
NetScout's outward marketing has improved, with an overhaul of its website and an improved presence on social media.
Gartner has observed end-user confusion (through client inquiries and one-on-one meetings at Gartner events) regarding NetScout's future plans for the Fluke Visual TruView product line.
Cost-conscious NPMD buyers should be aware that NetScout continues to be described as a premium-priced solution by end users that interact with Gartner (for example, in client inquiries and one-on-one meetings at Gartner events).
NetScout's ability to derive and use application context from network data should not be confused with APM capabilities.
Based in Nuremberg, Germany, Paessler focuses on infrastructure monitoring software to meet the needs of the midmarket and SMBs through its unified PRTG Network Monitor offering. The solution covers monitoring of network elements for fault, flow analysis and packet sniffing in a single, simple solution. Additionally, the product supports health monitoring of application instances, servers and virtual environments.
The vendor continues to prioritize simplified ease of use and transparent licensing. Paessler continues to release a steady stream of new sensors at a regular cadence. In December 2015, cloud sensors were made available to monitor Google Analytics, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive and Dropbox. January 2016 witnessed the delivery of a Business Process Sensor that allows users to monitor the health of end-to-end business processes (or services) such as websites, email and other business functions. A sensor to monitor Docker containers was made available in March 2016.
Aside from product development, Paessler has expanded its presence outside of its home EMEA geography. In August 2015, it revamped its partner program and this is starting to pay dividends, with the vendor reporting an increase of 36% channel sales worldwide and the U.S. being the largest market. In May 2016, two senior sales managers were appointed to cover the Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) and Asia/Pacific regions, respectively. In August 2016, North American head count was increased by 50% to support the increase in sales. In October 2016, Paessler announced its first training partner for the Asia/Pacific region, based in Australia.
Paessler's NPMD revenue is between $26 million and $50 million per year.
Paessler's customers report high satisfaction in terms of value, service and support offered.
The vendor has had strong growth over the last two years with a significant ramp-up of customers and the total installed base.
Paessler's rapid development stream means that new and updated sensors are released frequently — on a quarterly basis.
Paessler targets midmarket enterprises and SMBs, limiting its ability to meet specific large-enterprise scaling requirements.
The vendor does not currently offer its solution as a hosted service, a deployment option that may appeal to some of its target market.
The packet sniffer and flow modules have limited capabilities, including an inability to save data to disk for historical analysis.
Riverbed, headquartered in San Francisco, has assembled a broad set of NPMD capabilities through acquisition, alongside its core WAN acceleration business and a newly formed SD-WAN offering. This has been augmented by Riverbed's recent acquisition of Aternity to add an endpoint monitoring capability.
The suite, branded as SteelCentral Network Performance Management (NPM), includes several appliance lines and software components that support network data collection, storage and analytics. SteelCentral NPM is headlined by NetProfiler for flow analysis and AppResponse for packet analysis. These capabilities are supplemented by SteelCentral Packet Analyzer Plus, Transaction Analyzer, NetSensor and UCExpert, which provides additional capability for packet trace analysis, infrastructure monitoring and UC monitoring. Rounding out Riverbed's offering is SteelCentral Portal, which provides a common visualization and analytics framework for the entire SteelCentral line, and SteelCentral Aternity, a new agent-based endpoint monitoring capability.
In its latest release, Riverbed has brought further integration between its NPMD capabilities and its APM products, with integrated network and application workflows. The NetShark appliance, which was part of the SteelCentral NPM suite, has been integrated into the AppResponse appliance, with now only a single packet collection appliance. Riverbed also acquired Ocedo to enter the growing SD-WAN market, with a product called SteelConnect, and integration of SteelCentral visibility with SteelConnect automation is expected.
Riverbed's NPMD revenue is between $100 million and $250 million per year.
The planned integration of SteelCentral and SteelConnect presents unique intent-based networking opportunities coupling deep visibility with network control.
Riverbed's integration of AppResponse and NetShark, and dropping of the NetShark brand, represents a much needed rationalization of the vendor's product suite.
Further SteelCentral integration and simplification will allow Riverbed to better leverage its strong partner and distribution network to the benefit of its customers.
The vendor's focus on improvements in suite integration and rationalization limits the introduction of innovative new features.
Endpoint agent-based user experience monitoring, such as SteelCentral Aternity, may provide limited value to network-focused NPMD buyers.
Despite more focus on its social media and marketing presence, Riverbed still has a gap in distinguishing its brand outside of its WAN optimization roots.
SevOne
Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, SevOne focuses on infrastructure monitoring, complemented with capabilities for flow and log monitoring. SevOne markets primarily to the large enterprise and service provider markets, based on its scalability and a flexible distributed architecture. The vendor had been increasing its head count since last year, but significant layoffs were publicly reported in August 2016, in addition to the resignation of SevOne's two founders.
The vendor's NPMD solution consists of SevOne Performance Appliance Solution (PAS), Dedicated NetFlow Collector (DNC), Performance Log Appliance (PLA) and the newly introduced End User Experience Appliance (EUE), the latter through an OEM arrangement with AppNeta. EUE is offered as a SaaS capability.
SevOne has updated its offering with live maps, and support for infrastructure orchestration solutions, SD-WAN, hybrid cloud and carrier network virtualization. Improvements have been made to log integration with standard SevOne workflows, but these log monitoring capabilities should not be confused with pure-play log monitoring vendors. SevOne has also embarked on significant updates to its user interface, as well as more flexible deployment options for public and private cloud infrastructures. The vendor announced a new program called SevOne Ready Alliance in July 2016 to foster both integrations and go-to-market strategies.
SevOne's NPMD revenue is between $51 million and $100 million per year.
SevOne is the first to integrate metric, flow, logs and synthetic end-user experience data into an enterprise-class, carrier-grade platform, with one-second polling granularity.
SevOne is building a strong platform story with partnership announcements with innovative players in the SD-WAN and storage space.
xStats adapters that are highly customizable and have very broad support continue to be a competitive differentiator for clients looking for broad support of unique systems.
SevOne is very focused as an ITIM tool, with drill-downs into flow or log data, but is missing many of the capabilities of NPMD leaders, derived from more holistic network performance monitoring based on packet data.
SevOne's continued focus is on large enterprises (primarily in the financial services and technology sectors) and CSPs, putting its solution out of reach of the broader NPMD buying market.
Given the recent reorganization and strategic changes, buyers should scrutinize product deliverables and roadmaps to ensure that they meet requirements.
SolarWinds, based in Austin, Texas, has a very large network management installed base and wide name recognition, with a focus on infrastructure monitoring for small and midmarket enterprises. SolarWinds offers a low-cost and simple solution that appeals to many IT organizations, but increasingly complex environments and problems often force users to supplement with more sophisticated solutions. SolarWinds has hired the former general manager of HPE's ITOM division to be its new executive VP of product.
SolarWinds' NPMD solution consists of SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor and NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA). The former is primarily an infrastructure monitoring platform, supplemented by flow data from NTA. SolarWinds leverages its Quality of Experience (QoE) software agents for packet monitoring. The vendor offers a variety of additional capabilities around configuration management, topology mapping and application monitoring that provide a loosely integrated solution suite.
SolarWinds' new capabilities include NetPath, which delivers path discovery and analysis across hybrid IT environments, and support for modern network appliances like load balancers, firewalls and web proxies. SolarWinds also relies on an inside sales model only that focuses on digital marketing, and offers no professional services.
SolarWinds was acquired in a leveraged buyout by Silver Lake Partners and Thoma Bravo. Customers are encouraged to do appropriate due diligence whenever a change of ownership occurs.
SolarWinds' NPMD revenue is between $250 million and $500 million per year.
SolarWinds' set of tools beyond NPMD provides useful complementary capabilities, including topology mapping and network configuration management, and newly added APM capabilities.
SolarWinds boasts a large, active and passionate user community called Thwack.
The new release of NetPath provides visibility into path analytics and cloud visibility.
The vendor has a limited focus on introducing cutting-edge new features, specifically in the area of network forensics.
While the vendor offers basic packet monitoring through its QoE agents, this feature is not used or known by much of its customer base, nor has it seen significant investment from SolarWinds.
SolarWinds' solutions are software-only, which can limit scalability when compared with hardware-based solutions.
Viavi is based in Milpitas, California, and formerly known as JDSU. Its acquisition of Network Instruments brought its NPMD solution onboard. Viavi has a long history in network performance monitoring. In the last year, the vendor hired several industry veterans to lead its Enterprise and Cloud Business Unit, including a former executive from NetScout and Fluke Networks.
The current Viavi NPMD solution set consists of the Observer Performance Management Platform, which includes Observer Apex, Observer Analyzer, Observer Management Server, Observer GigaStor and Observer Probes. New to the portfolio is Observer SightOps, which is an OEM arrangement with ScienceLogic that replaces Observer Infrastructure, and is aimed at extending Viavi's monitoring reach into cloud and hybrid environments.
The Viavi performance management platform remains a technically comprehensive, packet-based NPMD tool. Deployment options have improved with the delivery of a virtual appliance of GigaStor Software Edition that supports up to 8TB of storage and provides visibility into east-west traffic. In addition, Viavi has introduced an integration with Cisco FirePOWER to address an integrated security workflow through GigaStor packet extraction.
Viavi is investing in bringing a self-service SaaS-based service assurance and troubleshooting delivery platform to market in mid-2017. It has also introduced a new three-tier Velocity Channel Program late last year, including several online tools to help enable partners.
Viavi's NPMD revenue is between $100 million and $250 million per year.
Packet capture and inspection (via GigaStor) capability continues to be well-regarded by Viavi clients, with in-house-designed packet capture hardware.
Observer SightOps uniquely addresses the visibility challenges created by hybrid IT, by combining cloud infrastructure monitoring with NPMD workflows.
Viavi has restructured pricing for GigaStor to better serve the midmarket.
Viavi suffers from poor name recognition among the NPMD customer base, having gone through two name changes over the last few years.
Viavi's primary corporate focus in the service provider vertical contrasts with Observer's enterprise user base, and must continue to be aligned to find synergies across these business units.
Support for flow monitoring is limited compared to the competition.
Vendors Added and Dropped
We review and adjust our inclusion criteria for Magic Quadrants as markets change. As a result of these adjustments, the mix of vendors in any Magic Quadrant may change over time. A vendor's appearance in a Magic Quadrant one year and not the next does not necessarily indicate that we have changed our opinion of that vendor. It may be a reflection of a change in the market and, therefore, changed evaluation criteria, or of a change of focus by that vendor.
Automic — Spun off NPMD solution, called Streamcore, which didn't meet minimum revenue requirement for inclusion.
Niksun — Focus is on security workflows.
Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria
Product-Related Criteria
Vendors are required to meet the following criteria to be considered for the 2017 NPMD Magic Quadrant and Critical Capabilities research:
The ability to monitor, diagnose and generate alerts for:
Network endpoints — Servers, virtual machines, storage systems or anything with an IP address by measuring these components directly, in combination with a network perspective. This includes cloud-hosted and wireless endpoints.
Network components — Routers, switches and other network devices. This includes SDN and NFV components.
Network links — Connectivity between network-attached infrastructure.
The ability to monitor, diagnose and generate alerts for dynamic end-to-end network service delivery as it relates to:
End-user experience — The capture of data about how end-to-end application availability, latency and quality appear to the end user from a network perspective. This is limited to network traffic visibility and not within components, such as what application performance monitoring is able to accomplish.
Business service delivery — The speed and overall quality of network service and/or application delivery to the user in support of key business activities, as defined by the operator of the NPMD product. These definitions may overlap as services and applications are recombined into new applications.
Infrastructure component interactions — The focus on infrastructure components as they interact via the network, as well as the network delivery of services or applications.
Support for analysis of:
Real-time performance and behaviors — Essential for troubleshooting in the current state of the environment. Analysis of data must be done within three minutes under normal network loads and conditions.
Historical performance and behaviors — To help understand what occurred or what is trending over time.
Predictive behaviors by leveraging algorithmic IT operations (AIOps) technologies — The ability to distill and create actionable advice from the large dataset collected across the various data sources.
Leverage the following data sources:
Network-device-generated traffic data, including flow-based data sources inclusive of NetFlow and IPFIX.
Network-device-generated health data.
Network packet analysis to identify application types and performance characteristics.
The ability to support the following scalability and performance requirements:
Real-time monitoring of 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks at full line rate.
Ingesting of sampled flow records at a rate of 75,000 flows per second via a single instance of the product.
Non-Product-Related Criteria
Total NPMD product revenue (including new licenses, updates, maintenance, subscriptions, SaaS, hosting and technical support) must have exceeded $7.5 million for 3Q15 through 2Q16, excluding revenue derived from security-related buying centers.
The vendor must have at least 75 customers that use its NPMD product actively in a production environment.
The vendor must have at least 10 customers located in at least two of the following geographic locations: North America, Latin America, EMEA and/or APAC that use its NPMD product actively in a production environment.
The following sample vendors were unable to meet the inclusion criteria to be included in this research, but do come up in NPMD-related inquiries:
Pluribus Networks
Empirix
FixStream
Kentik
Netis (Crossflow)
Performance Vision
ThousandEyes
Statseeker
Ability to Execute
Product or Service: Gartner makes judgments from a variety of inputs to evaluate the capabilities, quality, usability, integration and feature set of the solution, including the following functions:
Data source support, including application visibility
Algorithmic IT operations analytics
Diagnostic workflows
Day-to-day maintenance and management of the product
Ease and simplicity of deployment and configuration
Ease of use and richness of functions within the product
Product deployment options and usability
Overall Viability: We consider the vendor's company size, market share and financial performance (such as revenue growth and profitability). We also investigate any investments and ownership, and any other data related to the health of the corporate entity. Our analysis reflects the vendor's capability to ensure the continued vitality of its NPMD offering.
Sales Execution/Pricing: We evaluate the vendor's capability to provide global sales support that aligns with its marketing messages; its market presence in terms of installed base, new customers and partnerships; and flexibility and pricing within licensing model options, including packaging.
Market Responsiveness/Record: We evaluate the execution in delivering and upgrading products consistently, in a timely fashion, and meeting roadmap timelines. We also evaluate the vendor's agility in terms of meeting new market demands, and how well the vendor receives customer feedback and quickly builds it into the product.
Marketing Execution: This is a measure of brand and mind share through client, reference and channel partner feedback. We evaluate the degree to which customers and partners have positive identification with the product, and whether the vendor has credibility in this market.
Customer Experience: We evaluate the vendor's reputation in the market, based on customers' feedback regarding their experiences working with the vendor, whether they were glad they chose the vendor's product and whether they planned to continue working with the vendor. Additionally, we look at the various ways in which the vendor can be engaged, including social media, message boards and other support avenues.
Operations: We evaluate the ability of the organization to meet goals and commitments. Factors include quality of the organizational structure, skills, experiences, programs, systems and other vehicles that enable the organization to operate effectively and efficiently.
Table 1. Ability to Execute Evaluation Criteria
Product or Service
Overall Viability
Sales Execution/Pricing
Market Responsiveness/Record
Marketing Execution
Completeness of Vision
Market Understanding: This criterion evaluates vendor capabilities against future market requirements. The market requirements map to the Market Overview discussion and look for the following functionality:
Virtualization (NFV and SDN)
Hybrid IT support
Marketing Strategy: We evaluate the vendor's capability to deliver a clear and differentiated message that maps to current and future market demands, and, most importantly, the vendor's marketing effectiveness to the NPMD market through its website, advertising programs, social media, collaborative message boards, tradeshows, training and positioning statements.
Sales Strategy: We evaluate the vendor's approach to selling NPMD in the appropriate distribution channels, including channel sales, inside sales and outside sales.
Offering (Product) Strategy: We evaluate product scalability, usability, functionality and delivery model innovation. We also evaluate the innovation related to the delivery of products and services.
Business Model: This is our evaluation of whether the vendor continuously manages a well-balanced business case that demonstrates appropriate funding and alignment of staffing resources to succeed in this market. Delivery methods will also be evaluated as business model decisions, including the strength and coherence of on-premises and SaaS solutions.
Vertical/Industry Strategy: We evaluate the targeted approaches in marketing and selling into specific vertical industries.
Innovation: This criterion includes product leadership and the ability to deliver NPMD features and functions that distinguish the vendor from its competitors. Specific considerations include resources available for R&D and the innovation process.
Geographic Strategy: This is our evaluation of the vendor's ability to meet the sales and support requirements of IT organizations worldwide. In this way, we assess the vendor's strategy to penetrate emerging markets.
Table 2. Completeness of Vision Evaluation Criteria
Market Understanding
Offering (Product) Strategy
Vertical/Industry Strategy
Geographic Strategy
Quadrant Descriptions
The Leaders quadrant represents those vendors that are pushing the NPMD market forward, including those with comprehensive portfolios and the ability to handle broad sets of data inputs and analytics techniques. They offer a choice of hardware or software appliances for optimum flexibility, while making formerly premium-priced NPMD solutions attainable to the broader market. All Leaders offer a high degree of application-aware insight and visibility, along with advanced troubleshooting and diagnostics workflows.
Challengers consist of those vendors with high market reach and large deployments. Stalwarts in the network performance monitoring and diagnostics market, they are currently striving to deal with new technical demands and rising expectations. These established NPMD vendors generally bring a substantial installed base, but also architectures, feature sets and pricing structures that require modernization (often in progress) to better compete with those in the Leaders quadrant.
Visionaries have built a compelling plan to competitively address current and future NPMD customer demands. The Visionaries are combining elements of AIOps and NPMD in ways that provide deeper visibility than is currently available from other vendors. Presently, execution is limited either by insufficient market reach, or by the extent of existing tools and technology capabilities that are not initially designed, or able, to meet these needs.
Niche Players
Niche Players are those vendors with solutions catering to specific audiences or with limited use-case support today. They have often been unable to address the needs of larger enterprises, or have only done so within specific verticals or market segments. Each of these vendors is working to appeal to the broader NPMD buying community, versus the targeted use cases they serve today. With the right changes to their product plans, positioning and/or business execution strategies, any of these vendors could successfully shift their differentiated technologies to address use cases in ways that today's Leaders might have a hard time matching.
NPMD solutions should be considered as part of an overall network management initiative included in a larger availability and performance monitoring strategy. Utilizing these additional points of reference will yield further unique criteria (such as existing investments, investment plans and vendor relationships) that, when combined with Gartner analysis, can prove critical to proper solution selection.
In the course of this research, several key observations emerged that should be carefully considered during NPMD strategy formulation and solution selection, including:
The end-user survey showed an increase in the percentage of respondents leveraging packet data for network analytics.
When asked to name other vendors considered in NPMD buying decisions, end users from the survey listed the following vendors most often: SolarWinds, NetScout, Cisco and CA.
A larger-than-usual number of network monitoring industry veterans have left their positions to join other NPMD vendors, as compared to previous years.
Industry consolidation through acquisition and activist investors has led to changes of ownership affecting several NPMD vendors.
Normalization of UI and workflows across several vendors' toolsets has shown some progress, but much work must still be done.
Ease of use remains an area that needs improvement, and it varies significantly both across vendors and within solutions.
Support for monitoring cloud and hybrid IT environments remains limited; however, slow progress is being made.
Increasingly, vendors are expanding support for nontraditional NPMD data sources like API and log data into their NPMD workflows.
Path analytics, as part of a cloud monitoring strategy, has seen some investment from NPMD vendors.
Vendors have increasingly begun to leverage big data back ends or have built operational analytics overlays to facilitate data analytics across all captured data.
There is increasing synergy between IT operations and security operations using NPMD data for both performance and security analytics.
Support for monitoring SDN environments is limited in most NPMD solutions, but many NPMD vendors now offer virtual instances of their products for instantiation in an SDN environment.
NPMD solutions have a primary data source (SNMP, flow or packet), and have a difficult time leveraging the benefits of each data source for the maximum value to the user.
Pricing and product/capability packaging vary significantly across vendors.
On-premises software and appliances are the dominant delivery model, but SaaS offerings are slowly becoming available, although they have not been adopted widely.
Increasing overlaps with IT infrastructure monitoring, APM and AIOps tools are impacting buying decisions.
Many NPMD solutions are assembled from multiple products, which can enable modular adoption of NPMD capabilities, but also can add significant complexity to procurement and ongoing maintenance.
It remains imperative that organizations purchase tools that closely match their current maturity levels. Many network monitoring teams have yet to successfully make the leap from basic, reactive network availability management to proactive performance management. While tool investment can play a part in this maturation, it is clear that simply investing in NPMD tooling without similar investments in training, integration and processes will yield limited results, at best. Gartner recommends that IT operations assess its current state of maturity on a regular basis, both individually and at the organizational level, to provide this perspective. To help, teams can utilize Gartner's ITScore for Infrastructure and Operations (ITSIO; see "How to Improve I&O Maturity by Using the ITScore" ).
I&O leaders should not utilize the Leaders quadrant as a shortlist of appropriate vendors, but instead should build a list of criteria describing their current and future needs, and then select from vendors that best meet those requirements (see 2017 NPMD Critical Capabilities). They should select a vendor that has both a history of and future plans for focusing on this market. Careful consideration should be given to required skills, training, process and deployment investments, because these factors will have a much greater impact on the overall value realized from an NPMD investment than any specific functional capability found in a given tool.
NPMD: A Mature Market Evolves in Response to New Demands
For decades, the well-established practice of network management has enjoyed no shortage of available monitoring technologies, tools and vendors; however, the vast majority of those solutions, both acquired and implemented over the years, have been designed to support isolated, reactive resolution of availability issues by network specialists. There have also been many investments in tools and skills, with the specific goal of monitoring the performance of network infrastructure in addition to its availability; however, these efforts have typically been hampered by technology limitations and isolated implementation. This approach, while delivering moderately satisfactory results for many years, has seen several key shifts, including:
Increasing recognition that network traffic is a critical source of information about the behavior of the holistic IT stack
Migration toward cloud-hosted workloads and applications fundamentally changing the flow of network traffic (see "Network Performance Monitoring Tools Leave Gaps in Cloud Monitoring" )
Increasing virtualization and the explosion of east-west traffic within the data center presenting a data capture challenge
Exponential growth in application and infrastructure dynamism and complexity forcing network instrumentation as the key piece of the visibility puzzle
Rising demand for network services and end-user expectations of their quality
Growing appreciation of the network as a critical component of IT services and as an agnostic, trusted source of cross-domain availability and performance data
Closer alignment between IT and the business, with an appreciation that network data can provide value through business intelligence
Each of these shifts has pressured network teams to rethink their tooling strategy, so that they can get the visibility they need to truly monitor and troubleshoot the performance of their network resources in the context of the applications and services they support.
NPMD tools provide this required breadth and depth of visibility in both real-time and historical perspectives by uniquely analyzing data from all three of the following techniques: device polling, flow-based technology and packet-based technology. Previous approaches that only take into account one or two of these data sources have proven to be inadequate, so all three must be supported for a tool to be considered an NPMD solution (see the Product-Related Criteria section).
Device Polling Technology
Period polling is one method that looks to quantify network usage of network elements to gauge the requirements of the infrastructure. Each network device has embedded agents that "speak SNMP." These agents can then be interrogated with a polling-based approach, returning metrics from the embedded agent. These collected metrics can be stored, reported on, analyzed for troubleshooting or used for capacity planning. SNMP polling can also be used to gather information about hardware or software errors (faults) and capacity data (for example, triggering an alert when a hardware fault occurs, or the device CPU is above a threshold or the interface capacity is abnormal when compared to a baseline). Based on the metrics gathered, the network team can estimate the delta between existing and required bandwidth needs on a per-location basis. A limitation with this method is the minimal granularity it offers, which matches the frequency of the polling and the overhead it may put on the devices being polled, especially if other tools are also polling. In most NPMD technologies, SNMP is used during troubleshooting to collect additional data, whereas in infrastructure monitoring, it's used more regularly to understand the health of the network devices. In addition to SNMP, the use of APIs as a polling data source is also a common technique to collect health data, and is often used for information from IaaS providers or SDN controllers.
While polling provides information on interface utilization and traffic, it is unable to provide a view into application and end-user usage patterns. To meet this need, consider solutions that provide flow- and packet-based technology.
Flow-Based Technology
Summarized data is generated by the network devices, including characteristics of the IP conversation between two network nodes, and these characteristics are embedded within flows. Flow data is exported from the network devices to the NPMD technologies, which then collect and process this data stream to provide insight into which devices and applications are consuming bandwidth, how long the conversations are lasting, and who is participating in them. Since the data is summarized, a degree of detail is removed to simplify processing and extract meaning from the actual network data.
There are several flow collection standards, such as Cisco's NetFlow (v.5/v.9), Juniper Networks' J-Flow, Huawei's NetStream, Citrix's AppFlow, the Internet Engineering Task Force's (IETF's) Internet Protocol Flow Information Export (IPFIX, which is based on NetFlow v.9) and sFlow from the sFlow.org consortium. Vendor-derived standards are predominant, which hinders integration and comparisons. Flow data collection is a function embedded in the network devices themselves. The device analyzes the network traffic traversing from one interface to another, with the primary purpose of assessing bandwidth consumption, and the level of data being sent and received between various source and destination ports across the network. That data is then summarized into a stream-of-flow record that is sent to the monitoring tools that collect and assess the flow records.
Additionally, the quality and granularity of flow information are always evolving. Many vendors embed additional data within their flows, especially those implementing flexible record types, such as Cisco's IOS Flexible NetFlow, which allows the user to configure the exported data format. Example data embedded in flows contains wireless protocols, link aggregation, URLs, latency information, and other application or infrastructure monitoring data. With such open standards in flow technologies, the architecture varies among network equipment vendors, but most tools collect and process the data regardless of the network equipment implementation. In addition, it can have a performance impact on the devices exporting flow data.
Flow-based data does not provide details down to a specific set of network packets going between the source and destination, nor does it provide any timing information about the conversation itself or the delay components. For this capability, users must consider packet-based technologies.
Packet-Based Technology
Examining the current infrastructure in detail on a per-packet basis provides the necessary real-time and historical visibility into volatile traffic behavior from "bursty" modern application types, like today's chatty web applications, UC services (such as voice and video delivery) and the growing footprint of virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) technologies. Because only raw, unmanipulated packet data is collected, a vendor-agnostic view of performance can be preserved throughout the analysis. This approach affords far greater insight and precision, but it comes with potentially costly (and for some, impossibly costly) appliance or "probe" implementation requirements. Software-based packet capture capabilities have been introduced as cost-sensitive alternatives, but with obvious limitations in scalability and storage.
Analysis offered by packet-based technology is packet-timing-based, allowing vendors to identify sources of delay, measure user response time and ultimately pinpoint the root cause of performance problems. The packet analysis vendors range from those providing measurements from a TCP connection perspective to those reporting on timing on a TCP request/response basis. Other vendors move up the stack to measuring at the application layer, providing measurements from an application session perspective and a much closer representation to real end-user experience.
Through the years, these high-end proprietary packet analysis technologies have commoditized and moved into open source, with tools such as Wireshark, tcpdump and libpcap providing the underpinnings of this technique. These particular open-source technologies have, in turn, been incorporated into countless numbers of other critical open-source projects, such as ntop or Snort (intrusion detection). These technologies continue to evolve, most recently into enabling real-time visibility and, in many cases, supporting the archiving of packet data for forensics and debugging without requiring the issue to be reproduced for diagnosis.
As the NPMD market continues to grow and develop, Gartner expects that future tool enhancements will center on usability, advanced IT operations analytics and virtualization/SDN support. Additional vendors are expected to enter the NPMD market, as well as vendors participating in the larger network performance monitoring market, but they did not meet the criteria specific to the 2017 NPMD Magic Quadrant.
Adjacent and Overlapping Markets
NPMD is, and will likely continue to be, frequently confused with adjacent and component technologies, as it is both a reasonably recent addition to the dynamic availability and performance monitoring market and a superset of multiple network performance monitoring technologies. Because vendors will both intentionally and unintentionally exacerbate this confusion to their benefit, IT leaders are advised to utilize the following definitions to add clarity to their evaluation efforts.
APM tracks the end-user performance of application components, and provides granular troubleshooting tools for the application and its components through server-based instrumentation. It provides this insight by monitoring three main functional dimensions: digital experience monitoring; application discovery, tracing and diagnostics; and application analytics. APM differs from NPMD primarily in its focus on monitoring the quality of the end-user experience via application interactions across all application and infrastructure tiers, including (but not limited to) the network perspective. There are several vendors in the NPMD space that offer accompanying APM solutions, and several vendors offer integrated APM and NPMD solutions. See "Magic Quadrant for Application Performance Monitoring Suites" for further details.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
IT infrastructure monitoring (ITIM) tools focus exclusively on monitoring the infrastructure topology composed of compute systems, storage, virtualization and network devices, using agent-based or agentless polling technologies, such as SNMP, Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) or API integration-based data collection. These solutions focus on the availability and health of these systems, as opposed to the performance insight offered by APM and NPMD solutions. The difference between these tools and APM products is that they look at server-level metrics and processes, while also looking at the way servers interact with one another, versus living within the application logic and seeing the code execute. Unlike NPMD products, which cater to network professional use cases and speak in protocols and packet data that those buyers best understand, IT infrastructure monitoring products focus on IT operations generalists and often don't include support for packet- and flow-based technologies. These generalists need to determine which part of the infrastructure is contributing to poor performance, as well as understand the application's topology from an infrastructure perspective. Some ITIM tool vendors have moved partially into the NPMD space with the introduction of flow and packet support. Infrastructure monitoring should be supplemented by log analytics, NPMD and APM tooling to support complex troubleshooting and performance monitoring. See "Market Guide for IT Infrastructure Monitoring Tools" for more information.
Algorithmic IT Operations Platforms (Formerly IT Operations Analytics)
The coordinated deployment of AIOps technologies is used to discover complex patterns in high volumes of "noisy" IT data by providing a real, automated inference capability not available in most tools. These technologies include complex operations event processing (COEP), machine learning/statistical pattern discovery and recognition (ML/SPDR), unstructured text indexing search and inference (UTISI), topological analysis (TA), and multidimensional database search and analysis (MDSA).
IT operations' future as a big data analysis entity has been cemented by an exponential, continual growth of data (IT and business) generated by highly adaptive systems composed of large numbers of moving parts whose interactions are increasingly transient and complex. These systems' behaviors cannot be characterized, much less managed, by inferring the behavior of the whole from the behavior of any individual part, necessitating the use of AIOps' advanced capabilities (see "Innovation Insight for Algorithmic IT Operations Platforms" ).
Digital Experience Monitoring (Formerly End-User Experience Monitoring)
Digital experience monitoring (DEM) is an availability and performance monitoring discipline that supports the optimization of the operational experience and behavior of a digital agent, human or machine, with the application and service portfolio of enterprises. This discipline also seeks to observe, model and manage the behavior of digital agent communities as they collectively engage with enterprise application and service portfolios. Several NPMD solutions provide DEM capabilities as part of their solution offerings.
Network Packet Brokers
NPBs assist with traffic aggregation, visibility and overall management of the data being sent to monitoring tools. Vendors in the NPB space often partner and collaborate with NPMD and security vendors as a go-to-market strategy, resulting in marketing messages that can make it difficult to determine which tool is actually performing the monitoring (network performance monitoring or security) and which is facilitating the monitoring by managing the data to be monitored (network packet brokering). Vendors such as NetScout and Viavi, both of which are included in this Magic Quadrant, offer NPB solutions as part of their solution set. See "Market Guide for Network Packet Brokers" for further details.
Press release: "SolarWinds Acquires AppNeta TraceView Solution."
Press release: "ExtraHop Appoints Former Fluke Networks President, Arif Kareem, as CEO on the Heels of Most Successful Quarter to Date."
"SevOne Begins 'Brutal' Round of Layoffs." Delaware Online/The News Journal.
"SevOne Founders Vess and Tanya Bakalov Leaving Company." Delaware Online/The News Journal.
Press release: "NetScout Strengthens Its Powerful Business Assurance Lineup for the Enterprise With nGenius for Flows."
Press release: "NetScout Unveils Industry's First Real-Time Information Platform for Service Assurance, Cybersecurity and Big Data."
"NetScout Systems' (NTCT) CEO Anil Singhal on Q2 2017 Results — Earnings Call Transcript." Seeking Alpha.
Press release: "Micro Focus Announces Intent to Merge With Hewlett Packard Enterprise's Software Business Segment."
Press release: "Thoma Bravo Completes Sale of InfoVista to Apax Partners"
Press release: "SolarWinds Completes Take-Private Acquisition by Silver Lake and Thoma Bravo."
Definition of Machine-Time Data
Machine-time data is the flow of communication that is handled without human operators or intervention. The data is exclusive on a machine-to-machine basis in an autonomous fashion. The perception of "real time" in such scenarios is more fine-grained, given that machines can react and respond to situations in microseconds (generally 1 to 2 microseconds), whereas human real-time responsiveness is generally measured in seconds (or tenths of seconds in the most demanding of instances).
Evaluation Criteria Definitions
Product/Service: Core goods and services offered by the vendor for the defined market. This includes current product/service capabilities, quality, feature sets, skills and so on, whether offered natively or through OEM agreements/partnerships as defined in the market definition and detailed in the subcriteria.
Overall Viability: Viability includes an assessment of the overall organization's financial health, the financial and practical success of the business unit, and the likelihood that the individual business unit will continue investing in the product, will continue offering the product and will advance the state of the art within the organization's portfolio of products.
Sales Execution/Pricing: The vendor's capabilities in all presales activities and the structure that supports them. This includes deal management, pricing and negotiation, presales support, and the overall effectiveness of the sales channel.
Market Responsiveness/Record: Ability to respond, change direction, be flexible and achieve competitive success as opportunities develop, competitors act, customer needs evolve and market dynamics change. This criterion also considers the vendor's history of responsiveness.
Marketing Execution: The clarity, quality, creativity and efficacy of programs designed to deliver the organization's message to influence the market, promote the brand and business, increase awareness of the products, and establish a positive identification with the product/brand and organization in the minds of buyers. This "mind share" can be driven by a combination of publicity, promotional initiatives, thought leadership, word of mouth and sales activities.
Customer Experience: Relationships, products and services/programs that enable clients to be successful with the products evaluated. Specifically, this includes the ways customers receive technical support or account support. This can also include ancillary tools, customer support programs (and the quality thereof), availability of user groups, service-level agreements and so on.
Operations: The ability of the organization to meet its goals and commitments. Factors include the quality of the organizational structure, including skills, experiences, programs, systems and other vehicles that enable the organization to operate effectively and efficiently on an ongoing basis.
Market Understanding: Ability of the vendor to understand buyers' wants and needs and to translate those into products and services. Vendors that show the highest degree of vision listen to and understand buyers' wants and needs, and can shape or enhance those with their added vision.
Marketing Strategy: A clear, differentiated set of messages consistently communicated throughout the organization and externalized through the website, advertising, customer programs and positioning statements.
Sales Strategy: The strategy for selling products that uses the appropriate network of direct and indirect sales, marketing, service, and communication affiliates that extend the scope and depth of market reach, skills, expertise, technologies, services and the customer base.
Offering (Product) Strategy: The vendor's approach to product development and delivery that emphasizes differentiation, functionality, methodology and feature sets as they map to current and future requirements.
Business Model: The soundness and logic of the vendor's underlying business proposition.
Vertical/Industry Strategy: The vendor's strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet the specific needs of individual market segments, including vertical markets.
Innovation: Direct, related, complementary and synergistic layouts of resources, expertise or capital for investment, consolidation, defensive or pre-emptive purposes.
Geographic Strategy: The vendor's strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet the specific needs of geographies outside the "home" or native geography, either directly or through partners, channels and subsidiaries as appropriate for that geography and market.
© 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. or its affiliates. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without Gartner's prior written permission. If you are authorized to access this publication, your use of it is subject to the Usage Guidelines for Gartner Services posted on gartner.com. The information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information and shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in such information. This publication consists of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. Gartner provides information technology research and advisory services to a wide range of technology consumers, manufacturers and sellers, and may have client relationships with, and derive revenues from, companies discussed herein. Although Gartner research may include a discussion of related legal issues, Gartner does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Gartner is a public company, and its shareholders may include firms and funds that have financial interests in entities covered in Gartner research. Gartner's Board of Directors may include senior managers of these firms or funds. Gartner research is produced independently by its research organization without input or influence from these firms, funds or their managers. For further information on the independence and integrity of Gartner research, see "Guiding Principles on Independence and Objectivity."
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For once, my absence did not affect my ability to review compo activity. Late afternoon on Sunday, my intention had been to attend a one-hour round of Trippycompo. I was away from home, however, and my mobile device reception failed just as it began. Afterward, when I asked for a chatroom log of that round's conversations, I was told that "nobody typed a word" for the entire time I had disconnected. The competition was not without entries, though: MandraSigma's "Mansion of Puzzles" evoked a harpsichord-sounding instrument joined with short e-pianoesque chords and funky percussion. The other track, coda's "faerosol" contains a noodling guitar-like lead and chilled-out drumming.
Compos have affected musicians and their workflow in various ways. When asked about the subject, diotrans responded, "I'm a firm believer of creative challenges with deadlines, because it forces you to create quickly without worrying about what your inner critic is saying. [...] It's incredibly liberating." Her OC ReMix arrangement "Insomniac Skies" originated from PRC156, and she noted that the remix "wouldn't exist at all if it weren't for PRC." liquidwind's entry "sunrise over mardia" from PRC156 was later reworked to be submitted to ReMix: ThaSauce. The turnout for that round was partially attributed to an "invasion" of ThaSauce's OHC regulars, led by Level 99. He stated that "Doing things like OHC have been an amazing boost to my musical progress" and that the idea to invade PRC occurred on a whim.
Tuesday's JHC went off to a bumpy start as bugs manifested themselves at SolidComposer. Incidentally the website administrator superjoe attended the round, witnessing the glitches and proclaiming: "need to fix my broken crap". b-type performed a rap freestyle on his radio show for JHC, complete with "mountain peak, take a peek" wordplay reflecting the compo’s theme. Jacob uploaded a subdued electronic homage to The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. mv's "White Ascension" displays a combination of bowed and plucked violins, concluding with a rush of wind. Under his name Andy Kelley, superjoe submitted a swift electro entry with an unexpected vocal clip at the end.
mu delivered a downtempo track that drew comparison to Secret of Mana and also contained a sampled voice. OverCoat put up a unusual mixture of ambient synthesizers and ukulele in his composition "Alta". More appropriated singing made itself apparent in Jarski's "beauty and the beat", in this case a repeating "you, you, you..." accompanied by dance rhythm. The prominent bass growl in CFX Music’s "Clouded Peak" meets an ominous lead and kick, giving way to a laid back outro. irrelevnt brought up the rear after suffering software issues when rendering, and accidentally uploaded a 27-second segment instead of his full tune; it features drum looping and short strums of guitar.
On Wednesday the voting period ended for Soundevotion Competition round 57. SDCompo celebrated its fifth birthday with a "Spring" theme. JustinCredible's track "Ueberschall" (german for supersonic) carries an extensive industrial feel before tossing in a four-on-the-floor rhythm. chunter delivered "Springtime Air", a rollicking pop tune using AquesTone vocal synthesis. Airmann's drum and bass entry "Unleashed" worked in the subtle presence of choir. The Evolutionary Cell entry is a collaboration featuring organic io (production) and ambtax1 (singing, production) with synth leads and vocal lines bouncing throughout. Chotoro rounded things off with a mellow, pulsating composition containing voice samples.
Wednesday was also the submission deadline for PRC193 once it had been extended. The menu music from the NES game Predator had been selected for the hundredth ThaSauce-hosted PRC round. This marks the third consecutive PRC featuring a film-based video game, following Batman in PRC192 and Jurassic Park 2 in PRC191. Showroom Dummy appeared after a lengthy absence with "Stealthing Predators", a moody, chiptune-influenced trance entry. The remixer expressed that he took the opportunity to explore the genre whilst adding an abrasive edge.
OHC on Thursday was greeted by a failing style sheet in addition to the ongoing issues with logging in to ThaSauce. The visual brokenness of the site rendered the night’s theme invisible at first glance; coincidentally this fit perfectly with the theme itself, "The Secret". In an effort to change up my usual spoken-word entry, I preceded my speech with the drum loop intro from The Chemical Brothers song "It Doesn’t Matter". OCRE chose to submit his track in the form of a question with the wistful and short "Memorial Song of Secret Village?" sci seemed to go on a trip-hop bent including various sliced clips and grunts. Shael Riley joined unexpectedly and showed off an quick acoustic entry with self-referencing lyrics such as "I wasn’t gonna enter the compo..."
Arcana displayed slap bass layered with electronics and a ¾ time signature. Tomapella laid out a sprawling song merging live guitar with programmed drums and synth bass. As suggested in the title, ShrackAttack’s horn-filled orchestral entry was made in five minutes. Usabell sufficiently warmed up his electric piano to deliver a bright intro before delving into a dark sea of strings and pads, then burst into electro for a upbeat finish. DDRKirby(ISQ) put out sharp chippage and pounding kickdrum to "Unlock the Universe". CJthemusicdude’s arpeggios brought to mind Usa’s entry from the same round, and the track eventually goes into high gear with unts. mv wrote yet another thought-provoking description to accompany the filtered keyboards and lush violins in his track. jarski finished the party of with a swinging beat and pokes of organ.
Among other things, I seek out creative outlets to obtain spiritual fulfillment. For a time I felt I gained this through musical composition. While I may stop releasing songs, I suppose I’ll always keep making tunes in my head. Nevertheless, putting a melody together is not quite as fun to me as telling a story.
Labels: JHCompo, ocremix, OHC, PRC, SDCompo, Trippycompo
Demand and Panic
Composer Spotlight on OverCoat
Overstated Satisfaction
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RW Interviews
Running Q&A
Pro Athlete Interviews
The New Balance MT/WT 10 v4 does not stand alone
Jonathan April 25, 2016 October 1, 2017 No Comments on The New Balance MT/WT 10 v4 does not stand alone
New Balance MT/WT10 v4 vs Topo Athletic MT-2 vs Inov-8 Terraclaw 220
The latest version (v4) of the New Balance MT/WT 10 has added 3mm of stack height to its underfoot protection. This has resulted in us moving the shoe from a minimal stack height classification to a low stack height classification. Low stack height trail shoes include the ASICS FujiLyte, Brooks PureGrit 4, Pearl Izumi Trail N1 v2, and the Salomon Sense Pro 2. In comparison to these shoes, the MT/WT10 v4 still feels more minimal underfoot. So while the shoe has gotten thicker, it still remains true to its Minimus pedigree in terms of feel. The fit is also consistent with the Minumus ideal of natural foot shape, as the toebox is rounded instead of pointy. Lastly, the MT/WT 10 v4 maintains the 4mm heel-toe drop found in all iterations of the MT/WT 10.
( Men’s New Balance MT10 v4 Minimus ) | ( Women’s New Balance WT10 v4 Minimus )
When looking for a comparison of low stack height trail shoes, the search is initially a bit challenging. A comparison shoe should be within an ounce of overall weight and plus or minus 2mm of drop. The shoe should also have a rounded toebox. The Salomon Sense Mantra 3 has a somewhat rounded toebox and 6mm drop, but it’s almost 3 ounces heavier. The Pearl Izumi Trail N1 also has a somewhat rounded toebox and a 5mm drop, but is also almost 3 ounces heavier. I normally don’t like to pick on weight, but in this case, these two shoes certainly feel like a lot more shoe than the MT/WT 10 v4. Alas, we have a competitor: the Inov-8 Terraclaw 220. It has a rounded toebox, 4mm drop and is just a little heavier. But there have to be more options, right?
( Men’s Inov-8 Terraclaw 220 ) | ( Women’s Inov-8 Terraclaw 220 )
Not really. However, the relatively new brand Topo Athletic has a shoe to fill the void. The MT-2 has a truly rounded toebox, 3mm drop and is 1.5 oz heavier. Granted, this is more than an ounce heavier – but let’s not nitpick, it’s close enough. Especially since there is nothing else to meet the specific criteria for this comparison. The Altra Superior 2.0 is close, but it’s a medium stack height shoe, zero drop, and 2 ounces heavier.
( Men’s Topo Athletic MT-2 ) | ( Women’s Topo Athletic MT-2 )
Now that we have our contenders, let’s get into the comparison.
The fit and the upper
While all three shoes have rounded toeboxes, the Topo MT-2 definitely has more length near the outer toes (pinky side) than the other two models. The NB MT/WT 10 V4 and the Terraclaw 220 are nearly identical in shape. In regards to toebox height, all three models skew toward the shallow side. The MT/WT 10 v4 is the most shallow, followed by the Terraclaw 220 and then the Topo MT-2. I found it odd that all three of these shoes have rounded toeboxes for natural toe splay, yet have a low height that could interfere with how the big toe lifts during stance and prior to ground contact.
Along with the lower toebox heights, the MT/WT10 v4 and Terraclaw 220 have lower midfoot volumes but can also fit a medium volume foot quite well. The Topo MT-2 has a more versatile midfoot fit. It’s a medium fit that expands nicely for a larger volume fit, yet can be tightened without bunching on a lower volume foot. The upper of the Topo MT-2 also has the ability for a refined fit. The gilly lacing loops are in an offset pattern of close then spread, which allows for a precise and secure fit. The MT/WT 10 v4 has a burrito-style tongue. The advantage is a seamless interior, which means you can go sockless. The disadvantage is the top fabric of the tongue bunches a bit as the lacing is tightened. And since it’s a thin tongue, the bunching may irritate the top of some feet. The Terraclaw 220 has an asymmetrical tongue and row of eyelets. It’s well executed, which is not always the case with asymmetrical styles. However, it only works well for low to medium volume feet. The interior is nearly seamless and soft, so going sockless is an option here as well. The more rugged upper of the Topo MT-2 is best with socks.
Speaking of the rugged upper of the Topo MT-2, let’s get into upper performance. The Topo MT-2 has a very good toe bumper built into the upper. It’s not a steel-toed shoe, but it’s a nice addition for added protection that actually works. The welded overlays provide a perimeter mud guard. Additional overlays in the midfoot provide protection from protruding objects that may rip less protective uppers. The Topo MT-2 upper is definitely built to go almost anywhere and this is why the shoe weighs a bit more than the others.
The Terraclaw 220 has the most minimal upper. As such, it is best suited to open trails. The upper of the MT/WT 10 v4 does a good job of keeping dirt and debris out, but it’s the least breathable of the three. The Terrclaw 220 is the most breathable followed closely by the Topo MT-2.
The Ride and Traction
As mentioned earlier, the MT/WT 10 v4 is thicker than its predecessors yet it still has a minimal feel under foot. The Terraclaw 22o also has a minimal feel underfoot. As such, both shoes feel like an extension of your foot. They are both nimble, flexible shoes that are great for picking your way through technical trails. The Topo MT-2 has a more cushioned feel. There is some initial give and then a well-grounded feel. If you remove the insole from the Topo MT-2, it feels very much like the other two shoes. But with the Topo MT-2 insole in place, you get a little more of a forgiving ride, that is finished with a great sense of connection to the trail. All three shoes performed well on trails with dirt over hard-packed and looser terrain. If the trail gets softer, the Terraclaw and MT/WT 10 v4 dig in better. But on hard trails and dare I say road, the Topo MT-2 is the clear favorite. The MT/WT 10 v4 does okay for short stints (500m) on harder ground and the Terraclaw is not recommended for harder ground.
Contributing to the overall feel of the shoes is weight. Perceived weight is different than actual weight. The Terraclaw 220 is a little heavier than the lightest MT/WT10 v4, but it feels the lightest on foot. The simple, minimal upper of the Terraclaw 220 feels light on the foot. The shoe also has a built-in flex plate called Dynamic Fascia Band, which seems to help with propulsion and makes the shoe feel faster. The Topo MT-2 is more than an ounce heavier than the MT/WT 10 v4, but it’s a more protective shoe. If you encounter protruding rocks where protection is welcomed, the Topo MT-2 is the shoe of choice. The MT/WT 10 v4 does feel lighter than the Topo MT-2, so if you don’t need rock protection, and you want a light, minimal feel for training, the MT/WT 10 v4 fits the bill.
The Topo MT-2 is the most versatile shoe of the three. It will fit the greatest range of feet and performs better, on average, over a broad range of surfaces. It’s more comfort-oriented but still keeps you connected to the ground. The other two shoes are a little more nimble, but not by much. The Terraclaw 220 is the most specialized of the bunch and skews toward faster running over loose to soft terrain. Even though the MT/WT 10 v4 is the lightest, it doesn’t feel as fast as the Terraclaw 220. The MT/WT 10 v4 shines as a minimalist, regular use trail shoe for loose terrain.
Highly Cushioned Shoes: What does the study say?
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Last Call: Lindsay Sovern
By: Meredith Bilski / April 9, 2014 / No Comments
As the semester progresses at the speed of light, the senior class is beginning to make peace with that fateful day in May: Commencement. Until the class of 2014 leaves us, BlogDH wants to highlight all the interesting things they’ve been up to. To this end, we’re (re)starting the series Last Call, which features seniors reflecting on their experiences at Brown. Each featured senior will tag another senior for the next installment. Find this year’s other “Last Call” chain here.
People might know me as…
The student who works in the History Department who will tell you how to find the bathroom. But I’ve really been working on crafting my mysterious senior persona this year, so I hope that’s kicking in.
In my time at Brown, I am most proud of…
At my most sentimental I think I’m probably most proud of the friendships and communities I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of and build here. In less sentimental moments I’m just proud that I finished my thesis.
On a Friday night, you might find yourself…
Having dinner and drinks with friends and then either going to a party or chilling at home. There have also been plenty of Friday nights when I did my homework or just wanted some time to myself.
The best class/professor at Brown is…
Professor Hamlin’s African American Women’s History class was so good that it made me change my concentration to History as a junior. One time I told Professor Hamlin straight up that the only thing I need in life is her approval and she just said, “I know,” because, duh. But Professor Pollock, Professor Brokaw, Professor Evdokimova, Professor Shibusawa, and Professor Ralph Rodriguez also all get shout outs, for sure.
Three things you wish you knew freshman year…
It’s way better to be a person who wears Crocs than a person who makes fun of people for wearing Crocs.
It’s dumb to be intimidated by professors. They get paid to make themselves available to students, and if you admire and respect a professor then go chill with them in office hours.
For friendships, dating, choosing extracurriculars, classes, and a concentration: pay attention to who or what gives you energy and who or what takes your energy away.
Ratty vs. V-Dub?
Ratty. I’m a Pembroke kid through and through, but I just feel like there are more opportunities to get creative in the Ratty.
The best random thing you did in your time at Brown is…
The only thing that comes to mind is actually really recent. I just joined Lisa Franklin’s intramural softball team called “Brown University Lacrosse.” But now that I think about it, I wish we’d just decided to call ourselves “Lisa Franklin’s Intramural Softball Team.”
One thing you wish you had done…
I wish I had joined the Student Labor Alliance. I think they do awesome work, and I wish I had made time to contribute.
After graduation, you plan to…
I’m going to Russia for some amount of time to be determined, and spending some time in Austin, Texas with my best friend (and freshman year roommate) Tiffany, but other than that nothing is really certain. Grad school in a couple years, definitely.
What’s the hardest class you’ve taken at Brown? If you could do it over, would you still take it?
I guess my Russian class this past fall semester was probably the hardest or maybe just the most annoying. The workload was nuts, but I would still take it. I like Russian.
What’s been the most rewarding extracurricular that you’ve been a part of during your four years? Why?
Facilitating FemSex was incredibly meaningful and it’s hard to imagine growing as much as I did any other way. Being accountable to a section of FemSexies changed a lot about how I think about anti-oppressive education and community. I was so lucky to work with three brilliant and loveable co-facilitators. I’ll be so happy if I ever find a way to be a part of another organization as intentional as FemSex. I encourage anybody to check out FemSex, whether they’re a Brown student or not (all identities welcome!).
Sum up your history thesis in one sentence, lolmythesis style.
Who run the world? A lot of the time it’s men, actually.
(“He Carried Himself Like a Man”: Gorbachev and Yeltsin’s Masculinities)
One piece of advice for underclassmen?
Not just for underclassmen, but: go to the Nelson Fitness Center between 3 and 11 p.m. on weekdays, find Hassan, and ask him how he’s doing.
Kate’s question: What’s your go-to Blue Room Sammie?
There have been many versions, but at the moment I go for a wheat wrap with hummus, balsamic vinaigrette, turkey, salami, grilled veggies, banana peppers, and maybe some tomato or arugula.
Who are you tagging next?
Doreen St. Felix. When Do drops a knowledge bomb, she leaves no survivors (sorry about the violent metaphor).
Question for Doreen:
Describe a time when your parents were right about something and you were wrong, OR
What’s the wisest thing your parents ever told you?
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← Billy 1 4 and 7 and the Main Title theme from Pat Garrett. Forgotten moments of genius.
George Jackson by Bob Dylan. The meaning and impact of the music and the lyrics →
Bob Dylan’s ten greatest opening lines
Posted on March 11, 2016 by TonyAttwood
The idea of making up a list of the ten best opening lines to Dylan songs came to me out of nowhere, and it just struck me as something rather interesting to explore. And immediately I started I knew that people who are kind enough to lend a few moments of their day to reading this site will come up with much better suggestions that I can.
So I thought I’d start it off… and what struck me after two minutes thinking was that it was far too easy to pick the opening of a song just because I liked the overall mood and feel and message of the song, not because of the opening line.
That is to say, the opening line filled my mind with the whole song, rather than having great merit in itself. “Every step of the way, we walk the line” is like this. I love “Mississippi” but looking at that line in isolation I am not sure it is a great line. Very good, and a find opener, but in isolation I am not sure it stands out.
The same problem can occur with discussions of the opening lines of books. But Jane Austen’s, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife,” (Pride and Prejudice) is magnificent even if you don’t have a clue about the story.
Same with “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,” (Tale of Two Cities), and “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen” (1984). They wap you in the face and you have to stop.
Or “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” So it goes – these openers stand up on their own. They are the monuments of opening. And because I am writing this I am going to indulge myself with my all time favourite book opening… – it is from “The Crying of Lot 49” by Thomas Pynchon.
“One summer afternoon Mrs. Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executor, or she supposed executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul who had once lost two million dollars in his spare time but still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary.”
Yes, well, not everyone’s cup of tea, but it does it for me.
So my question to myself was, can I find similar monuments in Dylan’s opening lines which stand alone, irrespective of what comes later.
But first, the question of why I left out one obvious one: “Darkness at the break of noon.” The official Dylan site writes that as one sentence, but … there’s no verb, which may be very pedantic of me, but I want “Darkness at the break of noon shadows even the silver spoon” as the actual sentence.
It could be my number one choice, but I have a real problem with the image – there is too much for my poor brain to take in. Darkness at noon is one thing, the silver spoon with all it symbolises is another, and yes I get it, this end of the world sorts out everyone no matter what power, influence and money you have. But somehow… it is just too much all in one go for me. I guess I want my opening song lines a little less powerful.
But that’s just me. Here’s my top ten.
10: Oh, the gentlemen are talking and the midnight moon is on the riverside
I find that in this list I want to say “this is so unusual” and I think that applies to every song on the list. The point is Dylan takes us straight into the story. We are dropped into the situation. In the opening we don’t know if the gentlemen are integral to the story or are just part of a background scene. But we have the picture – not men but “gentlemen”, discussing we presume by the riverside. Southern United States? Or could it be the town of St Neots in Cambridgeshire, about half an hour from where I live? We pick our own location and plant the scene there.
9: Nobody feels any pain
As an opening to a pop rock song this is extraordinary. What a statement. Of course the opening line could be “Nobody feels any pain tonight as I stand inside the rain,” but I hear the end of the line at “pain”.
A mere mortal might have got as far as “I don’t feel any pain,” but it is the “nobody” that is all-enveloping. Sometimes I have heard this as a universal statement – “we’ve all stopped feeling the pain”. Sometimes it is just the moment.
8: ‘There must be some way out of here,’ said the joker to the thief.
Loved it from the first time I heard it. Everyone is entangled up in this mess, but somehow we really must be able to solve this. Who are these guys anyway, and how come they are both stuck in there. It is an opening line of the highest level – giving us a situation, and idea and the people.
It is a line that I link to my favourite song on the album – the Drifter’s Escape. But to include the Drifter’s opening lines I need four lines…
“Oh, help me in my weakness”
I heard the drifter say
As they carried him from the courtroom
And were taking him away.
And that’s pushing it a bit, but the Drifter and the J0ker and the Thief are all trapped – although thanks to divine intervention the Drifter gets out. The Joker and the Thief are constantly trapped as the song ends
Two riders were approaching
And the wind began to howl.
Maybe the next article should be Dylan’s best ending lines.
7: You got a lot of nerve to say you are my friend
“Who starts a song like this?” I guess I want to say this about most of the first lines I’ve chosen, but this has a particular significance.
I have mentioned before in passing that when I did my M.Phil at the University of London my supervisor was Professor Keith Swanwick who wrote one of the very first serious academic books considering pop music, and it was he who said 99% of pop songs are about love, lost love and dance.
This is the announcement of the opposite – what on this site we’ve called the Songs of Disdain.
How powerful do you want your opening line to be?
6: My love she speaks like silence.
I suppose this is the antithesis of Positively Fourth Street, the most adoring, gentle love song, describing the lover who has Zen like qualities, who exists on but also beyond this world.
What Love minus zero does is paint the most gorgeous picture of the perfect woman, perfect that is as long as you don’t want to date a political activist and everything is gathered together in this perfect opening line.
I tried to come to terms with Zen in my 20s but without success, but did get a deeper understanding when much later I was introduced to Tao Te Ching, and I’ve tried to use it as a guiding force ever since. The woman in this line is the woman who lives within the Tao. “Live without possessiveness, act without presumption…” It really is all in that one opening line. A total philosophy encapsulated in six words.
5: The river whispers in my ear, I’ve hardly a penny to my name
When discussing this article with friends before I started tapping the keys, I mentioned this line, and eyebrows were raise. And there is a good question to be asked here because Tell Ol’ Bill has been my favourite Dylan composition for many a long year. .
So am I breaking my own rule about not letting the song influence the choice of line?
I would argue not, because for me that simple opening paints another of those perfect Dylan pictures. I know this guy – but from that one line I know him in some detail. He’s not a down and out, a vagabond, because he appreciates the sound of the river, BEFORE he speaks of his poverty.
In short it is a personal version of “My love she speaks like silence”. As the lover in Love minus zero has perfection through being and non-being, doing and non-doing, so the man by the river has found tranquility and a unity with nature, alongside which we just know, without even going on through the song, that he is still looking, exploring, understanding, reacting to the world. Otherwise what does the river whisper about?
It takes us back to a theme Dylan has touched on elsewhere – the unity with nature that represents a perfect harmony while we still try and live in the real world – all encapsulated in one line.
4: Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin’ to be so quiet?
Another challenge because I have always adored Johanna, and indeed am still working on my eternally delayed novel about Louise, Johanna and Little Boy Lost.
But that opening – just look at it on its own. Has there ever been a song like that which throws you into the situation with such determination and such assuredness?
In a sense this is a parallel to Tell Ol Bill because in one line we are set inside the scene – the tricks of the night played on the imagination, the sounds that you never pick up amid the chaos of the day. Only much later in his writing does Dylan complete the journey to harmony by having the river whispering in his ear. Here there is tension – exactly the tension you don’t need when you are trying to relax.
3: If your memory serves you well, we were going to meet again and wait
When I first heard this line I just repeated it to myself and said, “What?????” about two thousand times. While the classic pop song tells us who’s who and what’s what from the start, Dylan often throws us straight into stories where we have to work out who the people are. But this is not just people, this is these people’s past, and clearly some sort of disagreement about… who knows.
There is a whole novel packed into that one opening line. We don’t know the people, we don’t know their lives, we don’t know their past, we don’t know why they were going to wait, but Dylan is not going to compromise here. This is it folks, get used to it.
You’re in and your face hits the reality. Thwack! It’s like parachuting into the middle of a city you don’t know, within a culture you don’t understand, and someone instantly says, “Have you got it?”
2: They’re selling postcards of the hanging
I couldn’t believe that as a line when I first heard it as a teenager – and that was long before I realised it was true. 1920 in Dylan’s home town of Duluth. That rather adds to the power.
But even without that knowledge, whoever could have conceived of writing a piece of popular music with such a line. It tells you everything you ever need to know or want to know about the inhumanity of man to man and the glorification that some can seek within that inhumanity.
In this line Dylan has done mankind a significant service, keeping alive a horrific moment so that none of us who admire Dylan’s work will ever be more than a moment away for realising how appalling the life form to which we belong, can be. Civilisation? It endlessly hangs by a thread.
1: Someone’s got it in for me, they’re posting stories in the press.
From the universal of Desolation Row, to the personal of Idiot Wind. I’ve noted above how many times Dylan can take us in one line into worlds that other songwriters never even consider, let alone write a whole song about, and here it is personal. It is the opposite side (I’m not sure how many opposite sides one line can have – quite a few I guess) of “The river whispers in my ear”.
Is it paranoia, or is it true? Most musicians who achieve fame have endless stories invented about them – it is what the popular press does. More so than ever now that we have blogs. But Dylan adds a twist – it is “Someone”. One guy. He does actually move away from the one with “I wish they’d cut it out quick” but that’s a detail, and besides “they” could refer to the press.
I hear it and read it is one person. One person attacking Dylan with wild stories.
I guess because I spend a bit of time writing blogs (I also write a blog about the football – soccer – team I support in England, and English football is full of rumour, false allegations, malicious gossip and endless libels) so I get to study quite a bit of the made up stuff.
And the great thing here, as so often with Dylan, is we are straight into a situation in one line, but because it is just one line, we don’t know the details. But boy, we really want to know.
That’s the ten. If you have been, thanks for reading. I rather enjoyed doing this. I hope you got something out of it too.
Untold Dylan has reviewed 250 Dylan songs, and the reviews continue to be added. The index to the reviews in alphabetical order is on the home page – just scroll down past the latest news.
An index to Dylan’s songs in chronological order of writing (rather than recording) appears here. It currently goes up to 1973, but is being extended regularly.
37 Responses to Bob Dylan’s ten greatest opening lines
It’s ‘planting’, not ‘posting’. What about ‘The pawnbroker roared’ or ‘Standing on the waters casting your bread while the eyes of the idol with the iron head are glowing’?! I think we get so used to the songs that sometimes you can forget just how incredible and unique lines like these are, and how many of them there are.
An interesting topic, there are so many great first lines in Dylan songs that it’s difiicult to choose. I like all the ones you have chosen although your number 1 choice wouldn’t be mine. Just off the top of my head I would include
God said to Abraham “Kill me a son”
Ring them bells ye heathen from the city that dreams
May God bless and keep you always, may your wishes all come true
Of war and peace the truth just twists, it’s curfew gull it glides
Pistol shots ring out in the barroom night
When you’re lost in the rain in Juarez and it’s Eastertime too
William Zanzinger killed poor Hattie Carrol with a cane that he twirled round his diamond ring finger
Far between sundowns finish and midnight’s broken toll
Oh the streets of Rome are filled with rubble, ancient footprints are everywhere
Seen the arrow on the doorpost saying this land is condemned
Jo Morley says:
Crimson flames tied through my ears, rollin’ high and mighty traps
hans altena says:
Well done again! And though I won’t give in to the urge to name some more of my own, (once upon a time…) because you said enough about the nature of first sentences to give anyone some thoughts for themselves, I like the trick of including Darkness at the break of noon etc by excluding it, and yes I think it’s the best and yet escapes categorization by being so out of our grasp of rationality, it says it all.
Joe Jenings says:
Hot chili peppers in the blistering sun
Doolan says:
Ah, yes. Pynchon. But I think his best opening line is surely from Gravity’s Rainbow. A
screaming comes across the sky. I’d have chosen Mason and Dixon for best opening sentence but it is too long to quote here. As for Darkness at the break of noon… It makes perfect sense. It can happen to anyone; one moment you are on top of the world, the next…
rich whalen says:
been so long since a strange woman slept in my bed…
talk about a story and a character sketch in 12 words!
Terry Gans says:
Hot chili peppers in the blisterin’ sun
Paul Gibboney says:
Tell ‘Ol Bill is a great song …is it the river that has hardly a penny to it’s name…or both..
Great list! Here are a few that i thought was important
1] How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?
2] crimson flames tied through my ears rollin’ high and mighty traps
3] go away from my window, leave at your own chosen speed
4] of war and peace the truth just twists, its curfew gull it glides
5] They say everything can be replaced, yet every distance is not near.
6] Twas another lifetime, one of toil and blood
7] Beyond the horizon, behind the sun, at the end of the rainbow, life has just begun.
Bo Jangles says:
God said to Abraham” kill me a son”….
Jerry Holmaas says:
When you’re lost in the rain in Juarez and it’s Easter time too…
Pat Sludden says:
Great list, Tony. I knew you’d get ‘Tell Ol’ Bill’ in there!
PhantomEngineer says:
God said to Abraham “Kill me a son” Kind of interesting when you consider his dad was named Abe.
Someone’s got it in for me, they’re planting stories in the press
Whoever it is I wish they’d cut it out quick but when they will I can only guess
Upandown says:
Standing on the waters casting your bread while the eyes of the idol with the iron head are glowing
Heartattack Machine says:
“He sits in your room, his tomb, with a fistfull of tacks.”
Ricardo Dominque says:
..Johnny’s in the basement mixing up the medicine, I’m on the pavement talking ’bout the government.
..Some of us turn on the light and we live, in the moonlight shooting by, some of us scare ourselves to death in the dark to be where the angels fly.
…now the ragman draws circles up and down the block, I’d ask him what the matter was but I know that he don’t talk.
…You walk into the room with your pencil in your hand, you see somebody naked and you say “who is that man?”
…at the time of my confession, and the hour of my deepest need.
…shadows have fallen and I’ve been here all day, it’s too hot to sleep and time is running away.
…as I walked out tonight in the mystic garden, the wounded flowers were dangling from the vines
…Well, there was this movie I seen one time about a man riding ’cross the desert and it starred Gregory Peck.
…There’s a long-distance train rolling through the rain, tears on the letter I write.
…like a lion tears the flesh off of a man, so can a woman who passes herself off as a male.
…she’s got everything she needs she’s an artist she don’t look back.
…Darkness at the break of noon shadows even the silver spoon
(got to stop… too many more to list…)
If you see her say hello…
zobop says:
my personal favorite:
everything went from bad to worse, money never changed a thing
jon wood says:
I have been though this before with many Dylan fans we all agree that visions of Johanna is his best song no other song can compare
aint it just like the night to play tricks when your tryin to be so quiet
it just sends you into another world
John Rosemeyer says:
What’s the matter with me
Kieran says:
Great topic, and so many to choose from. Looking forward to the Great Last Lines, of which surely, “Goodnight my love and may the Lord have mercy on us all” is one, not only for ending a song, but an album.
But his opening lines are things of renown. Time out of Mind has a few of them which are instantly hauling us in: “The air is gettin’ hotter, there’s a rumblin’ in the sky,” “I’m walking through the summer nights, jukebox playing low,” “Shadows are falling, and I’ve been here all day,” and one of the great opening lines of a record, let alone a song: “I’m walkin’ through streets that are dead…”
Rob Sheldrick says:
Up on the white veranda, she wears a necktie and a Panama Hat,
Oh I’m sailing away, my own true love,
I can hear the turning of the key,
Fat man lookin’ in a blade of steel (in the shining steel) (at a ferris wheel),
If I had wings, like Noah’s dove,
Come around you rovin’ gamblers, and a story I will tell,
Twilight on the frozen lake,
Something there is about you that strikes a match in me,
Man thinks, cuz he rules the world, he can do with it as he please, . . . . .
Man thinks ’cause he rules the earth he can do with it as he please
aedanm says:
If you find it in Your heart, can I be forgiven?
Guess I owe You some kind of apology
I’ve just reached a place where the willow don’t bend
I hate myself for lovin’ you and the weakness that it showed
Stake my future on a hell of a past
What’s the matter with me, I don’t have much to say
If today was not an endless highway
The pale moon rose in its glory out on the Western town
Well, your railroad gate, you know I just can’t jump it
Well, it’s always been my nature to take chances
Shabtai Shacham says:
The first opening lines that came to me before reading your post were from Mississippi .
But I think that you miss the point by classifying them as ” not having having great merit in itself ”
To me those lines have merit of their own, much more than all your top selection.
They express an observation of human existence, which creates the framework for the whole song.
It is from the type of the famous line from Macbeth – “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” .
Doug White says:
Well there was this movie I seen one time
About a man riding across the desert and starred Gregory Peck
Nobody feels any pain
Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed
I laid on a dune I looked at the sky
When the children were babies and played on the beach
Paz says:
my greatest Dylan line for fusing optimism with the sadness of our brief lives…..
‘Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free’
“Perhaps it’s the colour of the sun cut flat”
TonyAttwood says:
Oh yes I’d go with that Paul
Larry Fyffe says:
When you think that you’ve lost everything,
You find out you can always lose a little more.
I sang the song slowly as she stood in the shadows…
Jerapah says:
Pistol shots ring out in a barroom night …
(your mind does the rest)
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It Came From The Cineplex: Free Fire
I've gotten a bit behind on movie reviews here at Bob Canada's BlogWorld, so I'm gonna try and get caught up in the next few days. I saw this movie several weeks ago and it's long gone from theaters, but I sat through the goddamned thing so you're all gonna share my pain!
Free Fire was written by Amy Jump and Ben Wheatley, and directed by Ben Wheatley.
Jump previously wrote High-Rise, while Wheatley wrote Down Terrace. The two of them collaborated on Kill List and A Field In England.
Wheatley previously directed Down Terrace, Kill List, Sightseers, A Field In England and High-Rise. He also directed two episodes of Doctor Who: Deep Breath and Into The Dalek.
Free Fire asks the cinematic question, "Is It Possible To Film A Movie That's Basically A Ninety Minute-Long Shootout?" The answer is yes. Yes it is. Although I'm not sure just why anyone would want to.
Actually I'm exaggerating a bit here. The film clocks in at ninety minutes, but the action doesn't begin until the twenty eight minute mark, so the shootout lasts for sixty two minutes. The action plays out pretty much in real time, in a single location.
Take the violence of Reservoir Dogs, toss in characters from a Guy Ritchie film and cross it all with a Looney Tunes cartoon and you'll have an idea what this film's like. If the idea of unrepentant thugs shooting one another for comedic effects piques your interest, then this is the movie for you. Otherwise you're gonna have a rough time.
It's an interesting experiment, but unfortunately there's little or no substance. The ten main characters are painted in the broadest strokes possible, as we learn little about them other than their names. The closest we get to an actual character is Vernon, but even in his case all we know is that he's a hot-headed, foul-mouthed, misogynist jerk.
Additionally, the characters are ALL remorseless assholes, giving the audience no one to root for. As a result of this, it's impossible to care about any of the characters when they're killed off, making the whole film nothing more than a cold, clinical lab experiment.
Free Fire reportedly had a budget of $7 million, which seems awfully high for a film like this. If that figure's true, most of it must have gone to the actors, with the rest being used to buy bullet squibs and fake blood.
After a month in theaters, the film could only manage to rack up an embarrassing $1.8 million dollars. Ouch! It was in 1,070 theaters too, so it's not like it only played on the indie circuit. Blame this on the film's non-existent marketing campaign. I never saw a single trailer for the film and didn't even know it was playing until the day I saw it.
I'm gonna try something a bit different here— there're a ton of characters in this movie and they all just have common, everyday first names. This makes it virtually impossible to remember who everyone is and which side they're on. So I'm gonna color code the names to try and make it easier to remember who's on what team.
Boston, the late 1970s. Two low level thugs, Stevo and Bernie, are driving to a meeting at an abandoned warehouse. Bernie notices that Stevo's face is bruised and battered, and asks what happened. He says he was beaten the night before by the cousin of a woman he propositioned. They arrive at the warehouse, where they meet their cousins Chris (played by Cillian Murphy) and Frank, two IRA members who are looking to buy weapons and take them back to Ireland.
The group is approached by Justine (played by Brie Larson), who'll serve as the intermediary between the groups, and Ord (played by Armie Hammer) who I guess set up the meeting. Ord takes the group inside, where they meet with Vernon (played by Sharlto Copley) and his associates, Martin, Harry and Gordon. See, I told you there's a lot of names to keep track of.
Vernon unveils the weapons, and Chris complains they're not the ones they agreed on. Tensions rise until Justine calms everyone down. Chris agrees to buy the guns, and orders his group to load the cases of weapons into his van. He hands a briefcase of money to Vernon, who hands it to Martin to count.
Stevo notes that Harry (one of Vernon's men) is the one who beat him the night before, and tries to act inconspicuous. Harry notices him, and reveals that Stevo didn't "proposition" his cousin as he said, but beat her so severely she was hospitalized. Harry lashes out at him, raising tensions between the groups again. Vernon demands that Stevo apologize, and Chris orders him to do so. Stevo apologizes, but Harry doesn't think it sounds sincere. Stevo then begins bragging about what he did, and Harry shoots him in the shoulder.
All hell then breaks loose, as the two sides split up and start firing wildly inside the confines of the warehouse. Ord crouches calmly behind the van, staying out of it. EVERY member of the cast is shot at least once as they all scramble for cover. Martin, who was holding the briefcase, is shot in the head and collapses. Vernon sees the case lying in the open, and tries to force one of his men to crawl out and get it.
Bernie's shot in the back by Harry, and dies. Suddenly shots ring out from the rafters, as two snipers fire on both groups. Ord kills one of the snipers and wounds the other. He recognizes the wounded sniper as Howie, a man he knows. Howie says he was hired by someone to kill everyone in the warehouse and take the money. Just as he's about to reveal who hired him, he's shot dead by someone from Chris' group.
Chris, who flirted with Justine earlier, yells to Vernon to let her leave unharmed. He agrees, as Gordon crawls along the floor after her. More gun play erupts, as pretty much everyone is shot in the arm. leg or shoulder a few more times (!).
Suddenly everyone hears a phone ringing in an upstairs office, and they all realize they can call for backup. Chris sends Frank to the office, and Vernon crawls after him. Gordon catches up to Justine, but she manages to kill him. Another fire fight breaks out, as everyone's shot a few more times. Vernon crawls upstairs as well. Frank pours gasoline under a door and lights it, engulfing Vernon in flames. As he tries to put himself out, Frank reaches the phone and answers it, but finds it's just a recorded message saying he's won a lifetime supply of something. Vernon then kills Frank.
Martin, who was shot in the head, suddenly regains consciousness. He's out of his head though (literally!) and begins firing wildly, shooting at his own group. He yells that the snipers were working for him as he picks up the briefcase. He then keels over and dies for good this time.
Chris sneaks past Ord and Harry and crawls up to the office, where he kills Vernon. He grabs the phone to call for backup, but Ord cuts the line. Justine takes a rifle from one of the dead snipers.
Harry takes the briefcase and painfully crawls into the van, attempting to get away. Stevo sees him and begins firing at the van. Harry's hit several more times, but manages to run over Stevo's head before he dies. The fire causes the sprinklers to come on. Ord and Chris run out of ammo and call a truce, agreeing to wait for the police to arrive.
Suddenly Justine appears and shoots Ord in the head, accidentally hitting Chris as well. As he lays dying, he tells her he's sorry they didn't get to know one another and go out for a drink. Justine limps toward the exit with the money, but stops as she hears police sirens outside...
• As I said above, I blame the A24 Marketing Department for this film's dismal box office performance. Apparently they couldn't afford to promote it much, and on the rare occasion when they did, they obviously didn't know how to sell it. This resulted in a horribly schizophrenic ad campaign. Is it an action movie? A dark comedy? A Guy Ritchie-esque gangster film? A Reservoir Dogs wannabe?
The trailer apparently thinks it's a zany comedy about bad people who constantly argue and comically shoot one another to make a point, and sells that concept hard. Unfortunately while there are humorous elements to the movie, it's nowhere near as wacky as the trailer suggests.
Even the poster's confused. If it wasn't for the fact that they're all pointing guns at one another, this could be a poster for a goddamned Disney movie!
• Kudos to director Ben Wheatley, who somehow figured out a way to keep a sixty two minute gunfight interesting. Wheatley expertly choreographs the shootout, alternating the frenetic action with strategically placed lulls.
Wheatley also makes excellent use of the movie's space. Ninety eight percent of the film takes place inside an abandoned warehouse, which could have gotten old really quickly. Fortunately this doesn't happen, as the characters crawl from location to location, trying to kill one another without being hit themselves.
• The action is very cartoonish at first, as each of the characters is shot for comic effect. As the gunfight drags on though, things slowly become more realistic, as the characters have to resort to crawling, and pass out due to blood loss.
• Since the film is basically one long gunfight, I kept a running tally of how many times each character was shot before they died.
Stevo: 3
Bernie: 3
Frank: 4, possibly 5
Chris: 3
Vernon: 4 (along with many other non-ballistic injuries, including being set on fire)
Harry: 4
Gordon: 2
Ord: 3
Justine: 3
Martin: 1
I may be off by a shot or two, as it's often hard to tell if certain characters were actually hit by a bullet or just shrapnel.
• When Frank finally answers the ringing office phone, it's a recording saying he's won a lifetime supply of something (it's hard to hear what's actually being said). Did they have telemarketing calls like that in the late 1970s? Seems to me like that didn't happen until much later, but I can't remember for sure.
• After being shot a couple of times, Vernon worries that he'll bleed to death. Ord says, "Relax. It didn't even hit an artery. You're fine. You got at least an hour and a half." Vernon replies, "Eh?" and Ord says, "The Golden Hour And A Half. It's a rule."
Welp, Ord's almost right. There's no such thing as a Golden Hour And A Half, but there is a Golden Hour. It's the period of time following a traumatic injury, during which medical treatment will have the highest rate of success and prevent death.
I'm assuming the movie stretched the Golden Hour a bit here, to explain why the characters can still be functioning (well, sort of) by the end of the ninety minute run time.
• Vernon is by far the most cartoonish character in the entire film, as he racks up injury after injury like a South African Wile E. Coyote. In addition to being shot four times, he cuts his hand on broken glass, gets tossed around by the gas explosion, is hit on the head numerous times by falling debris, and is finally set on fire!
About the only thing that doesn't happen to him is falling off a cliff and making a small poof of dust far below...
• Martin gets shot in the head early on in the shootout, and seemingly dies. Later he suddenly springs back to life, shooting wildly at both sides as he hallucinates. He finally falls down again, for good this time.
Harry then tells everyone to stop shooting for a minute (!) so he can check to make sure Martin's really dead this time.
This "time out" scene was identical to the way kids playing "War" will call a temporary truce in order to gather more ammo. It was particularly funny seeing dangerous thugs do the same thing.
• When Harry crawls into the van and tries to escape, the 8-track player starts up, playing You Fill Up My Senses. Stevo tries to stop the van by shooting it, until Harry slowly runs over his head and bursts it like a ripe melon.
After seeing that scene, you'll never listen to John Denver the same way again!
• When the characters first enter the abandoned factory, they wonder what kind of company it was. This becomes kind of a running joke, as it's mentioned two or three times throughout the film.
In the final minutes of the movie, the fire in the upstairs office causes the sprinklers to come on. The dying Chris then slumps against a wall, leaning against a large painted sign that ironically reads, "Watson's Umbrellas." Eh? EH? It's raining inside an umbrella factory! Get it?
Is there really such a thing as an umbrella factory? That seems like an odd product to devote an entire business to manufacturing, but what do I know?
Actually the factory space inexplicably contains carts full of broken concrete, numerous flammable gas tanks and lots of broken glass. It seems more like a machine shop or mill than a place that makes something delicate like umbrellas.
The factory contains lots of broken rock, flammable gas tanks and broken glass. It looks more like a foundry than a place that makes umbrellas.
Free Fire is a violent action movie/dark comedy, who's sole selling point is its sixty two minute gunfight that plays out in real time. Other than that there's little to the film, as its characters are all unlikable ciphers, giving the audience no one to root for. I give it a C.
Posted by Bob Canada at 10:19 AM 0 comments
Labels: free fire, it came from the cineplex, movie review, sharlto copley
Whoops! Looks like celebrity golfer Tiger Woods had another little brush with the law yesterday, as he was found asleep at the wheel of his Mercedes, which inexplicably had two flat tires. Hey, we've all been there, right?
Anyhoo, after seeing Tiger's newest mugshot, it struck me that he looks very much like a character I would draw! Same world-weary expression and soulless dead eyes and everything!
Labels: fail, tiger woods
Doctor Who Season 10, Episode 7: The Pyramid At The End Of The World
The Monks return this week on Doctor Who, in the second part of a three episode story arc.
I didn't much care for Extremis (the first part of this arc), as it was basically just setup for Parts 2 and 3. In fact, with just the smallest of tweaks, they could have easily started the arc with this episode, and eliminated Part 1 altogether. I'm assuming they wrote it the way they did to pad out the season a bit.
If the desert setting and alien threat in this episode feels a bit familiar, that's because it was written by Peter Harness and showrunner Steven Moffat, who gave us Season 9's The Zygon Invasion and The Zygon Inversion. Those episodes even took place in Turmezistan, the same fictional Middle Eastern nation featured in this episode!
Amazingly, Peter Harness was also the culprit responsible for "writing" Season 8's Kill The Moon (aka The One Where The Moon Is A Giant Space Dragon Egg) which will go down in TV history as the all-time WORST episode ever of Doctor Who. An episode so monumentally bad that I (and other fans as well) have chosen to pretend it doesn't even exist!
It's probably too early to tell yet, but the preview for next week's episode looks very similar to The Sound Of Drums/Last Of The Time Lords, which featured a world which was ruled by the Master. We'll see.
Lastly, a few days before this episode aired there was a horrific terrorist attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, in which twenty two fans sadly died. Supposedly the BBC made a small edit to this episode, excising a line in which Bill says the word "terrorism."
Whew! Crisis averted! The BBC came thissss close to broadcasting an unpleasant word over the airwaves!
Jesus Jetskiing Christ! Look, my heart goes out to the friends and families of the victims of this attack. But does anyone really think that hearing the word "terrorism" on TV could possibly make them feel any worse than they already do?
I thought it was just America that lived in a politically-correct Hellscape full of jittery, delicate snowflakes that collapse on their fainting couches when they're triggered by mean old words, but apparently the phenomenon has spread into Britain as well.
Bill goes on a date with Penny, the woman she met in the virtual world last week. She recklessly tells Penny everything about the Doctor, including the fact that he's an alien. Bill also tells Penny about their simulated date, which was interrupted by the Pope. Just then their real date is interrupted by armed soldiers, as the Secretary-General Of The United Nations bursts in. Penny realizes everything Bill said was true and politely excuses herself.
The Secretary informs Bill that the Doctor's the President Of Earth in times of planetary crisis, and they need her help to contact him.
Cut to a plane, where the Secretary explains to Bill that a five thousand year old pyramid suddenly appeared overnight in the fictional country of Turmezistan, an area disputed by American, Russian and Chinese forces. The Secretary's afraid that if something's not done soon, World War III could break out.
Meanwhile, the Doctor soliloquizes inside the TARDIS. Bill tries to enter, but the door's locked. She yells through the door to the Doctor that the UN urgently needs him in Turmezistan. The Doctor says nothing doing, and Bill says they won't take no for an answer.
The Doctor (who's still blind, but can sort of see with the help of his sonic sunglasses) pokes his head out the door of the TARDIS and "sees" it's inside the Secretary's plane. Somehow the army removed the door of his office and transported the TARDIS into the plane without the Doctor noticing.
Cut to Agrofuel Research Operations, in a seemingly unrelated subplot. Two employees, Erica and Douglas, are working on some kind of genetically modified crops or growth potion or something. Erica broke her glasses earlier that morning, and asks Douglas to conduct the day's experiment. Because he's a drunken idiot, he types "118.9" instead of "11.89," and injects too much of a dangerous enzyme into the experiment. This creates a deadly bacterium or something that liquefies all organic matter. Nice to know the fate of the world depends on a single decimal place.
The Doctor and Co. land in Turmezistan. They gape in awe at the pyramid, which the Doctor assumes is alien in origin. He walks up to it and a door opens, as one of the red-robed Monks from the simulation appears. The Doctor asks what the Monks want, and it states that they intend to conquer the planet and its people. The Doctor says he'll stop them, but the Monk says they'll be "invited," and will be asked to rule. It scuttles back into the pyramid.
Suddenly everyone's watches and phones flash 11: 57. The Doctor notes that this is a signal from the Monks— it's the Doomsday Clock, and the closer it gets to midnight, the bigger the threat of global catastrophe.
The Doctor then uses the TARDIS to kidnap the leaders of the Russian and Chinese armies. He brings them onboard his plane so they, along with the American Colonel, can work together to defeat the Monks. Amazingly, the Doctor suggests they combine their forces and attack the pyramid. Bill's surprised at the Doctor's violent solution, but he says the Monks didn't come in peace, and they need to strike back while they can.
An American bomber flies toward the pyramid, but the Monks catch it in a tractor beam and lower it to the ground, along with a Russian sub (I guess China sat out the attack?). Everyone's clocks move to 11:58.
The Doctor, Bill, Nardole and the Colonels then enter the pyramid to meet with the Monks. They find them in a chamber, "weaving" Earth's future by twisting glowing tendrils hanging from a machine. The Head Monk says they're "modeling the future," whatever that means, and they detect that a catastrophe is coming. The Monk says they can save the Earth, but they have to be asked.
The Monks invites everyone to take hold of a glowing strand to see what's coming. As they do, they see a vision of a dead, lifeless Earth. The Doctor wonders why the Monks have to be asked when they could just save the Earth themselves. Everyone's phones move to 11:59. The Doctor asks again why the Monks have to be invited, and they reply that they must be wanted and loved, as ruling through fear is "inefficient."
The Doctor warns the others against giving consent, as there will surely be conditions and consequences. The Secretary's so rattled by the future vision that he doesn't listen, and gives his consent. The Monk places his hand on the Secretary and disintegrates him into dust, saying he gave consent out of fear instead of love. Everyone runs the hell out of the pyramid.
Back in the plane, the Doctor realizes the pyramid is a decoy, to focus their attention away from something else. He has the others search the internet for biological threats. Nardole finds several labs that are performing bacterial experiments, and the Doctor narrows it down by finding out which one the Monks are watching. It's Agrofuel.
The Doctor and Nardole travel to Agrofuel in the TARDIS, surprising Erica. She and the Doctor discover that Douglas' mistake has created a deadly bacterium capable of liquefying all life (including Douglas!). Erica says that the building's automatic systems will vent the bacterium into the air in twenty minutes, which will cause the catastrophe the Monks foresaw (Yeah, no. That's not how labs work). Erica's safe from the strain, as she's wearing a hazmat suit, and the Doctor's confident he's immune. He tells Nardole, who's not wearing any kind of protection to get back to the TARDIS, unaware that he's already infected.
Meanwhile the Colonels go against the Doctor's orders and head toward the pyramid to surrender to the Monks. Once again the Monks disintegrate them, as they gave their consent out of strategy instead of love.
Back in the lab, the Doctor cobbles together a makeshift bomb to incinerate the bacteria before it can be released into the air. He sets the timer and tries to exit the lab, but finds the airlock door is, um, locked. Erica gives him the combination for the weirdo cylinder lock to the door, but unfortunately he can't see it, being blind and all. He tries to sonic the lock, but since it's a plot-convenient device, it doesn't work on the door. He calls Nardole, but he's passed out inside the TARDIS.
He contacts Bill and finally admits to her that he's blind. When Bill hears this she says she's making an "Executive Decision" and goes to the Monks. She tells them she'll give consent, on the condition they restore the Doctor's sight. They see that her consent comes from love, and agree.
The Doctor suddenly regains his sight, enters the combination and escapes the labs a second before it explodes. The Monks then tell the Doctor, "Enjoy your sight. Now see OUR world!"
• Last week the simulated Doctor and Bill found themselves in the virtual world's Oval Office.
While there, Bill saw a man slumped dead in a chair and asked if he was the President. I noted that the man clearly had a head of jet black hair, and said I was jealous that the America in the Whoniverse didn't have an petulant orange buffoon for a leader like we do here in the real world.
This week the Secretary-General Of The UN arrives in Bill's flat and says he needs her help contacting the President. Bill thinks he means the U.S. President, and says, "How would I know the President? I wouldn't even have voted for him, he's orange!"
This implies that Donald Trump is indeed the president in the Whoniverse. So who the hell was the dead guy in the chair last week?
• The Doctor was unanimously elected "President Of Earth" back in 2014's Death in Heaven.
• The Doctor exits the TARDIS and sees it's inside the Secretary's plane.
Apparently the UN had to tear out the entire side of the Doctor's university office to remove the TARDIS. Then they SOMEHOW managed to fit it inside a cramped airliner, even though it appears to be taller than the plane's ceiling. Got it.
And how the hell did the Doctor not feel the TARDIS being picked up and transported into the plane? We've seen many times before that outside forces can rock the interior. I guess he was really deep in meditation and didn't notice?
• The interior of the Secretary's command plane has an unusual feature: gigantic air vents that are almost big enough to crawl through! Is that really a thing? I'm gonna bet not.
• Since the Doctor's still blind, he's wearing his sonic sunglasses, which give him rudimentary vision. They also provide him with basic stats of the people around him, such as gender and age.
It's hard to see here, but according to the glasses, Nardole (who's represented by the green box at left) is two hundred thirty seven years old!
• The pyramid plops itself down in the fictional country of Turmezistan. If that location sounds familiar to you, it's because it's appeared on the show before, in 2015's The Zygon Invasion. Maybe the show's trying to be consistent with its fake nations?
• After arriving in Turmezistan, the Doctor's introduced to the leaders of the three armies disputing the area— Colonel Brabbit of America, General Ilya of Russia and General Xiaolian of China.
Note that Xiaolian is female. Yeah, no. I'm pretty sure the Chinese government would never put a woman in charge of their military.
I don't have a problem with diversity— I really don't. But I can't stand diversity for diversity's sake. It needs to make sense, and not be tossed in just to appease the SJWs in the audience.
• What happened to UNIT? Why aren't they present at this crisis? Isn't protecting Earth from alien invasion kind of their charter?
• After the Doctor speaks with the Monks, everyone's phones and watches flash "11:57." The Doctor notes this is the Doomsday Clock, which he says was created by atomic scientists in 1947 to monitor how close the planet is to global catastrophe.
And he's exactly right! It was started by members of The Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientist's Science And Security Board in 1947. Well done, writers!
• Eh, I dunno... somehow the Monks don't look quite as creepy in the cold light of day. Keep 'em in the shadows, guys!
• The Blue Laser Stabbing Up Into The Sky has been popping up in a LOT of superhero movies and TV shows lately. So it's always nice to see its lesser known cousin, the Yellow Laser Stabbing Up Into The Sky, get a bit of work.
• Apparently the budget must have been a bit stretched this week. We see an American Air Force bomber try to attack the Monk's pyramid, only to be captured by a tractor beam and slowly lowered to the ground.
A few seconds later the Monks capture a Russian sub and plop it into the sand as well. However, instead of actually seeing this happen, we just get a shot of all the characters WATCHING this happen. Those CGI effects ain't cheap!
• Apparently the Monks are big fans of Avatar, and reeeeeally liked the Tree Of Souls in that film.
• I'm a bit fuzzy on the Monks' plan here. Obviously they want to rule a living world and not a dead one, or else they'd just sit back and wait for the bacterium to wipe out the planet. But they won't save our world unless we ask them nicely, because a race that consents to subjugation is less likely to rebel than one that's conquered.
OK, that makes sense I guess.
The problem I have with their plan is the whole "consent" thing. What if no one gave consent. Would the Monks then stand by and watch while the world they studied for so long just up and died? Would they really not lift a finger to save us if we didn't ask?
• When we first meet Erica, she props open the door to her flat with her purse so she won't be locked out while carrying in bags of groceries. This causes the door to smash her glasses inside her purse, which starts a chain of events resulting in the end of all life on Earth (!).
Um... why the hell does Erica prop open the door in the first place? She's clearly holding her keys in her hand as she walks out to her car. If the door closes, so what? She can't be locked out, as she's got the keys with her. Set the bags down, unlock the door and go on with her life.
• It's amazing how one misplaced decimal point (118.9 instead of 11.89) could potentially destroy the entire world. Too bad Agrofuel didn't spring for some kind of override system to prevent an obvious and fatal error like this. You'd think they'd at least have a "Are You Sure You Want To Inject This Amount?" screen pop up.
• The Agrofuel scenes in this episode are a goldmine of stupidity and unrealism. The "scientists" do everything wrong at every possible juncture, just so the bacterium can escape and the plot can happen.
The Agrofuel experiments are contained behind two airlock doors, which is good. But then Erica says the lab automatically vents the air from the lab into the atmosphere without sterilizing it first! And if that wasn't enough, it's an automatic process that can't be shut down! WRONG! If there's no way to neutralize outgoing air, then they might as well not bother with the airlocks in the first place!
Douglas also removes the hood of his biohazard suit inside the lab (!), because he didn't want to throw up in it. Yeah, no one would ever do that either, no matter how sick they were. Is it any wonder he was liquefied?
Erica's not much better, as she grabs a sample of the bacterium and takes it through the first airlock to examine it. This contaminates the area between the first and second airlocks, which ain't good. Later the Doctor and Nardole go through the second airlock and enter the lab with Erica, sans hazmat suits. Nardole then goes back to the TARDIS without decontaminating himself, meaning he just released the bacterium into the air! Thanks a lot, Nardole!
• By the way, someone did their homework in this episode. It's hard to see, but in the image above, the canister on the right is labeled "R. planticola."
That's actually a real bacterial substance! Back in the 1990s, Raoutella planticola was the subject of a genetic engineering experiment, to try and find a substance that could break down plant matter into ethanol. When tested inside a lab, it was discovered that R. planticola caused mass plant death from excessive ethanol production
Some scientists speculated that if the bacterium had escaped the lab, it could have caused worldwide plant death!
So the writers didn't just pull a fictionathreat out of their asses, they based the episode on actual science. Well done!
• So the Doctor is President Of Earth, but the three army leaders willfully ignore his orders and do whatever the hell they want, including surrendering the planet to the Monks. Does that sound right?
• If Agrofuel had used a lock with a normal, everyday keypad like a normal, everyday human company, then the Doctor would have been able to operate it by touch, and Bill wouldn't have had to make a deal with the devil, er, Monks and subjugate Earth.
Instead they used this clunky, cartoonish prop from The Price Is Right to secure their doors and ensure the Doctor wouldn't be able to operate it.
This is what's called a "plot contrivance," kids!
• At the end of the episode, Bill gives consent to the Monks to save the Doctor. She's not atomized because her consent "comes from love."
The Monks clearly state earlier in the episode that they must be loved before they'll save the planet. Her love is obviously for the Doctor here, not them. So why do they give her a pass and not disintegrate her?
• The Monks have run numerous simulations in their perfect replica of our world, and presumably know every possible outcome. So why the hell would they give the Doctor his sight back, and make it easier for him to defeat them?
• This Week's Best Lines:
Secretary: (to Bill) "I have flown here today to speak to the President. I am told you might be able to help."
Bill: "I don't know the President. How would I know the President? I wouldn't even have voted for him, he's orange!"
The Doctor: (discovering his TARDIS is now in the Secretary's plane) "How did they get it out of my office? The windows aren't big enough."
Colonel: "Oh... they are now."
The Doctor: "Last I heard, you were on a date with Penny. What happened?"
Bill: "The United Nations Secretary-General."
The Doctor: "Awesome."
Bill: "No, that wasn't a metaphor."
The Doctor: "Good, because I really wasn't following it."
The Doctor: "So what it's doing, Colonel, is sending us a message."
Colonel: "What message?"
The Doctor: "Bring it."
(Is this a reference to George W. Bush's 2003 taunt to Iraqi insurgents, in which he famously said, "Bring it on?")
Monk: "We know you."
The Doctor: "Then you'll know that there is a line in the sand, and I'm the man on the other side of it. You want to keep me that way."
Monk: "We will take this planet and its people."
The Doctor: "You will be prevented. You will be fought."
Monk: "We will be invited. We will take this world. We will rule its people. But only when we're asked. We will talk again."
The Doctor: "When?"
Monk: "At the end of the Earth."
The Doctor: (after kidnapping the Russian General) "Now, this is the Secretary-General of the UN. I am the President of the world. And this is Xiaolian, she's in charge of the Chinese army. Say hi to each other. Now, we've been having a bit of chat. The thing is, World War Three what do you think? Basically, we're against it."
(That is definitely the Fourth Doctor speaking right there! I can just hear that line being said by Tom Baker!)
Bill: "I mean, this is a trap, right?"
The Doctor: "Possibly. Probably."
Bill: "And we're just walking into it."
The Doctor: "Well, every trap you walk into is a chance to learn about your enemies."
Monk: "We can detect when a catastrophe is about to occur."
The Doctor: "And?"
Monk: "Stop it from occurring."
Colonel: "You don't look much like guardian angels."
Monk: "We have chosen this form to look like you."
Colonel: "You look like corpses."
Monk: "You are corpses to us. Your world is ending."
The Doctor: (to the Monks) "Planet Earth does not consent to your help, your presence, or your conquest. Thank you for playing the big pyramid game, bye-bye, see you again next week, hopefully not."
Monk: "Without our help, Planet Earth is doomed."
The Doctor: "Yes, well, it's been doomed before. Guess what happened? Me!"
Erica: "Oh, my God!"
The Doctor: "No, I'm the Doctor, but it's an easy mistake to make. The eyebrows."
The Doctor: "Back to the TARDIS, this place is toxic."
Nardole: "I'm not human."
The Doctor: "You're human enough. I got your lungs cheap."
Labels: bbc, doctor who, episode 7, season 10, tardis, the pyramid at the end of the world
He Has The Kevorka!
I was in Target last night and saw this:
Attention all Seinfeld cosplayers! Target is now selling Official Cosmo Kramer™ jackets, just like the one Michael Richards wore throughout the series' run!
Hurry on over to Target now and pick up your Kramer jacket for Halloween, or if you just want to be as successful with the ladies as Cosmo!
I'll be scanning Target in the coming months, anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Puffy Shirt, the Beltless Raincoat, the Urban Sombrero and the Cashmere Sweater With A Dot on it!
Labels: fail, kramer, seinfeld, Target
The Flash Season 3, Episode 23: Finish Line
It's the Season Finale of The Flash!
WARNING! MAJOR SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ON, INCLUDING DISCUSSION ABOUT THE DEATH OF A MAJOR CHARACTER! TURN BACK NOW IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE EPISODE!
SERIOUSLY, BIG HONKIN' SPOILERS AHEAD! I'M NOT KIDDING!
LAST CHANCE TO AVOID SPOILERS!
Overall this wasn't a great season of The Flash, but it had its moments.
The whole "Flashpoint" storyline turned out to be a dud, mostly because it only lasted a single episode. Think how much they could have done with the "alternate reality" concept if they'd given it four or five episodes and let it breath a bit, ala The Framework arc over on Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.
We also got not just one but TWO "Villain With A Shocking Secret Identity" storylines this year, which was at least one too many. The first, the Alchemy arc, was muddled and mishandled as he turned out to be Julian, the most obvious candidate possible. In fact I was convinced he had to be anyone but Julian, because he was such a glaringly blatant choice.
The "Who Is Savitar?" storyline was similarly botched, as it dragged on for months and months. He first appeared in Episode 6 for Thor's sake, and his identity wasn't revealed until Episode 20! Fifteen episodes was WAYYYYY too long to drag out that mystery, as most of the audience (myself included) stopped caring weeks earlier. And when Savitar was finally revealed to be a future time remnant of Barry Allen, it required some heavy duty and convoluted time travel shenanigans in order to make it work.
Thankfully the season wasn't all bad though. The big Invasion! crossover episode with all the other Arrowverse shows was a highlight, as well as the two part return of Gorilla Grodd.
And the season actually started picking up near the end, once the mystery of Savitar's identity was finally resolved. It was a bit too little, too late though. Three or four good episodes do not a season make.
In a perfect world, The Flash showrunners would adopt Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s "story pod" system, and give us three or four shorter arcs per season. They sort of tried that this year with Flashpoint, Alchemy and Savitar, but if was clunky and much less elegant than the way S.H.I.E.L.D. effortlessly does it.
This week's episode was a bit of a mixed bag. There were a couple of cool developments, a head-scratching, puzzling sequence, and a terrible ending pulled straight out of the writers' asses.
Last week I totally called the fact that HR used his transmogrifier to impersonate Iris, and that Savitar actually killed him instead. And that's exactly what happened, right down to the stage directions I described. Boo-yah!
I was also very surprised that the writers decided to have Killer Frost reject her cure, and remain a quasi-supervillain. Conflicted, anti-hero Killer Frost is much more interesting than meek, vanilla Caitlin any day.
On the down side, I didn't for one second buy the scene in which Barry and the Gang try to reach Savitar, and he actually accepts their offer of help. He tried to murder them all season long, and we're supposed to believe he does a complete 180º turn after just one pep talk? Doubtful.
The worst part of the episode though was the ending, in which Barry enters the Speed Force as penance for his time travel shenanigans. It came completely out of the blue and gave new meaning to the phrase "tacked-on." It feels like the only reason this ending exists is because the writers realized they hadn't come up with a cliffhanger yet, and cobbled one together in five minutes.
Lastly, The Flash executive producer and co-showrunner Aaron Helbing announced he won't be returning for Season 4. His brother, co-showrunner Todd Helbing, will remain with the show. I don't know whether this is good news or bad.
The season finale picks up right where we left off last week— with Barry cradling the dead form of his fiance Iris, who's just been murdered by Savitar. Tracy Brand looks on in disbelief, while up on a nearby rooftop, Joe collapses with grief.
But wait! Iris isn't quite dead after all. And she isn't quite Iris either! She pulls out the facial transmogrifier and instantly transforms into HR, just as I predicted last week!
See, shortly after HR said his weirdly stilted goodbye to Cisco in the previous episode, he used the shard of Savitar's blade to find out where he was holding Iris. He then used the transmogrifier to make himself look like her, and vice versa (which we didn't know it could do, but whatever). Iris protests, but HR convinces her to go along with the ruse.
HR and Tracy share a brief goodbye, as he tells her he loves her. HR then gives Barry a special message for Cisco and promptly dies. Joe points out that Savitar took the Speed Force Bazooka with him after he killed "Iris."
Meanwhile, Cisco and Killer Frost are facing off in the forest. Savitar appears and tells her not to kill Cisco, as he needs him for a special project. Savitar then doubles over, saying something's not right. He realizes— as new memories from Barry form— that Iris is somehow still alive.
Back at STAR Labs, Joe says that since Iris wasn't killed, Savitar will never be created and should vanish from reality. Barry says this is technically true, but it could take several hours to happen. Julian tells the group that he worked with Caitlin's mom (remember her?) and came up with a cure for her Killer Frost-ism.
In Savitar's lair, he orders Cisco to alter the Speed Force Bazooka so it will shatter him and spread his fragments throughout time, so he'll exist simultaneously in the past, present and future. He says this will make him immune to the paradox that wants to erase him from history. Cisco of course refuses to help. Savitar threatens to kill, er, Killer Frost if he doesn't, and Cisco reluctantly gives in.
Barry, Iris and Joe enter the Time Room and see that the holographic newspaper now once again has Iris' byline on the front page, indicating things are back to normal. Iris asks Barry what he's going to do next, and he says "the last thing that Savitar expects!"
Barry goes to an abandoned (of course) warehouse and a few minutes later Savitar meets him (I guess he remembered this happening in the past?). He pleads with Savitar to let the STAR Labs Gang help him, dredging up memories of past fun times. Amazingly, this half-assed attempt at psychology somehow works on Savitar, seemingly reversing centuries of anger and hatred in just a few minutes.
Barry brings Savitar to STAR Labs, and asks the Gang (or what's left of it) to help him. Despite the fact that Savitar tried to kill Iris and ruined the past year of her life, she's willing to give it a go and forgives him. Tracy's not so generous, refusing to help the man who "took away her future." Iris tells Barry she knows someone who can convince Tracy to help. Savitar says it was a mistake to come to STAR and zooms off.
Tracy sits in her lab, brooding. Suddenly she sees what she thinks is HR's reflection, and spins around. Turns out it's actually Harry, who the Gang somehow transported from Earth-2 without Cisco's help. She's disappointed of course that he's not the HR she knew, and says she's not helping Savitar. Harry gives her a Patented The CW Pep Talk™, telling her not to be such a Gloomy Gus and that it's what HR would have wanted.
Suddenly an alarm sounds, and Barry sees that Savitar somehow left the Philosopher's Stone in a lab and it's "rigged to go off," whatever that means. He and Wally zip everyone out of the building seconds before a comically cliched giant blue laser shoots through the roof and high into the sky.
Back at Savitar's lair, Cisco says he's done modifying the Speed Force Bazooka. To no one's surprise, Savitar then orders Killer Frost to kill Cisco. She fires a barrage of deadly icicles at him, but he's saved by the timely appearance of Gypsy, who tackles him and vibes him to safety.
Savitar and Killer Frost then take a trip to a park, where he zooms around in a circle and opens up a Speed Force portal (which is different from an Earth-2 portal) so he can begin his ascension into godhood. He says the Speed Force doesn't like it when speedsters mess with time, and right on cue, the Black Flash exits the portal and zooms toward Savitar. Killer Frost nonchalantly freezes Black Flash solid and he shatters.
Savitar then stands in front of the portal, as Killer Frost shoots him with the modified Speed Force Bazooka to fragment him across time. It begins to work, until suddenly Savitar's knocked over by a superfast figure. It turns out to be Jay Garrick, the Flash of Earth-3, who's now been freed from his "prison" inside the Speed Force.
Just then Barry, Wally, Cisco and Gypsy show up to take on Savitar and Killer Frost. Savitar zooms away, with the speedsters (including Jay) in hot pursuit. Cisco and Gypsy battle Killer Frost. They manage to defeat her, and Cisco tosses her the serum that will turn her back into Caitlin Snow (Um... where'd he get that?).
Savitar outmaneuvers the others and returns to the park. He picks up Cisco and is about to kill him, when he's blasted by Killer Frost, who I guess has decided not to be semi evil.
Barry returns to the park well, and Savitar tells him he's going to kill Joe, Iris (for real this time) and Wally. Barry then leaps at Savitar, phasing into his armor and throwing him out of it, which I have to admit was pretty darned cool. For some reason the Savitar armor turns red with Barry inside it.
Barry extends a blade and looks like he's about to execute Future Barry, who hisses at him to just do it already. Barry begins vibrating and shatters the Savitar suit from the inside, and walks away from the now-beaten Future Barry. Suddenly Future Barry screams and runs toward Present Barry, intending to kill him. A gunshot rings out...
Future Barry falls dead to the ground, as we see Iris was the one who shot him. That was easy! She says that for months Barry tried to save her, but in the end she saved him.
Cut to the Gang at HR's funeral, as they all say a few words over his grave. Barry tells Cisco what HR told him as he died: "Tell Cisco this took strength, and he gave it to me." Barry sees Killer Frost lurking behind a tree, watching the funeral. He, Cisco and Julian approach her. She gives them back the serum, saying she's not going to take it. She says she's no longer Killer Frost, but she's not Caitlin either, and needs time to figure out just who and what she is.
After the funeral, Barry and Iris relax at their place, discussing their wedding plans. Suddenly a series of tremors strike, as violent lightning stabs down at Central City. They return to the ruins of STAR Labs, and determine that the disturbance is being caused by the Speed Force. It requires a speedster to maintain its balance, and once Jay exited, it became unstable.
A Speed Force portal opens in the center of town, and what appears to be Barry's mother walks out of it. She tells Barry to come with her. He tells the others it's time for him to pay for altering time and creating Flashpoint. He says goodbye to everyone and walks into the portal. It disappears and the lightning stops.
• The past few weeks I've commented on how difficult it is to write a logical time travel episode, one that's not riddled with inconsistencies, paradoxes and plot holes.
This episode is no different, but credit where credit's due— at least its blunders are consistent with what's gone before.
When HR saves Iris by switching places with her, this prevents Savitar from ever being created. Instead of Savitar simply winking out of existence like you'd expect though, it takes a while for the paradox to catch up to him.
This is the same way we've seen time travel work over on Legends Of Tomorrow. There, Rip Hunter tells his teammates that they have a bit of latitude when trying to change the past or future, because the timeline "takes a while to harden."
So while Savitar sticking around for a while after being "uncreated" doesn't make any sense, at least it's consistent with what's gone before.
• The first time we saw HR's transmogrifier in action, it simply altered his face. Last week when Barry borrowed it, it transformed his entire body to make him resemble Lyla Michaels of ARGUS. Now this week we find out it can somehow cause two people to swap appearances, even when only one of them is actually holding the device.
BOO! Bad form, writers! You can't keep adding new functions to sci-fi tech like this every week as the script demands! How are we ever supposed to know what a device is capable of if you keep changing its rules? It's as bad as the sonic screwdriver on Doctor Who!
• Future Barry actually calls his headquarters his "lair!"
• I guess speedsters really do heal faster than a normal person. Last week Savitar gave Wally a severe beatdown, even appearing to break his leg. Poor Wally was even bedridden at the end of the episode.
In this week's episode (which takes place immediately after the previous one), he's up and around with nary a bruise to be seen!
• I wasn't a fan of the scene in which Barry tries to redeem Future Barry as it came out of nowhere and seemed completely unrealistic. He's been an evil, unrepentant bastard all season, and then suddenly after one heartfelt chat with Barry he's willing to try to be good? Feh!
The only reason this scene existed is because they needed to pad out the runtime a bit.
• Seems like the writers momentarily forgot that Savitar automatically remembers ANYTHING that Present Barry thinks or does.
At one point Barry and Iris sit in the Time Room and ponder what to do about Savitar. Iris asks Barry what he's going to do. Barry says, "The last thing he'd expect."
Cut to an abandoned warehouse, where Barry waits. Suddenly Savitar shows up. Barry says, "I wasn't sure you'd come... so you remember coming here."
Um... why is Barry so surprised that Savitar remembers meeting him in the warehouse? Does he really think that "doing the last thing he'd expect" could possibly work? It doesn't matter what Barry does. He can zig instead of zagging all he wants, but it's all ancient history to Savitar. Do the writers not understand this?
Then a bit later Barry brings Savitar to STAR Labs to "help" him somehow. Savitar's very uncomfortable, and really does seem like this is something he didn't expect the Gang to do. Again, this is not possible. From Savitar's point of view, ANYTHING Barry or the others do has already happened. There cannot be any surprises.
• Is murder not a crime in the Arrowverse? When the Gang tries to talk him into being good, he says he murdered people. Iris says, "And you are going to have to live with that. But we won't give up on you, okay? That is not what we do."
Really? That's it? Just living with it? What about, oh, I don't know, throwing his ass in prison for first degree murder?
• I don't think I've mentioned Future Barry's makeup since he first appeared. Um... yeah. It ain't good.
Maybe they didn't wanna get too graphic in prime time, but his scar looks reeeeeally cartoonish. It's much more Freddie Krueger than what a real burn scar looks like.
Early in the episode Cisco mocks Future Barry, saying his face looks like a thin crust pizza. That's a pretty apt comparison, as it actually does look more like a pizza than damaged skin. The milky contact lens is a nice touch, but the overall look is one big fail.
By the way, did they ever explain how Future Barry got his facial scar? A couple weeks ago in I Know Who You Are, Tracy mentioned that Savitar's armor protected him from the massive heat generated when he ran at super-superspeed.
Is that what happened to him? Did he run so incredibly fast he literally burned his face?
• In Cause And Effect, Barry discovers that Savitar is a future time remnant of himself. They then have the following chat:
Savitar: "God feels no pain. All I had to do was become one. And I only need two more things— for Iris to die so that you are driven so far into the dark that I can be born."
Barry: "And the other?"
Savitar: "It may sound ironic given who I'm talking to, but I'll keep that one to myself."
Um... so what was the mysterious other thing Savitar was keeping to himself? Was it the Speed Force Bazooka, that he meant to use to fragment himself across time? Or was it something else and the writers just forgot about it?
• Somehow the Gang brings Harry to Earth-1 without Cisco's help to open a breach.
OK, I honestly can't remember any more— can Barry open breaches to other Earths by himself? I thought only Cisco could do that?
• Glad to see the return of Harry this week. He's been the best version of Wells so far, and I hope he sticks around next season. Why not? Now that Jesse's living on Earth-3 he's got nothing to keep him on Earth-2.
By the way, here's how great an actor Tom Cavanaugh is. After HR was killed I thought, "Gosh, that's too bad that the actor who plays him just lost his job!" It took me a minute or so to remember that Cavanaugh's still on the show, playing Harry! He really did make HR seem like a completely different person.
• Speaking of HR, remember earlier in the season when there were multiple occasions where his actions seemed borderline sinister? We'd see him lurking in the shadows, or eavesdropping on conversations with an ominous look on his face. For a while it honestly thought like he had some sort of dark secret, and could turn on the Gang any second.
So what the hell was that all about? Was it a red herring to make us think he might be Savitar? Or was there going to be an Evil HR subplot and the writers ended up abandoning it?
• Everyone who didn't foresee Cisco double-crossing Savitar by futzing with the Speed Force Bazooka, stand on their head.
• When Killer Frost attacks Cisco, why does he need Gypsy to save him by vibing him away? Other than to give Gypsy and excuse to appear on the show again, that is. Couldn't he have escaped by opening a portal by himself?
I think maybe he needs his special glasses to do that, and Savitar took 'em away from him? I swear I've seen him vibe without them though, so who knows?
• Nice to see our old friend the Blue Laser getting work!
So is STAR Labs destroyed for good? The outside looked OK, but the Cortex was definitely trashed. Will the Gang have to find a new HQ next season?
• When Savitar opens a portal to the Speed Force, the Black Flash emerges and makes a beeline for him. Killer Frost freezes him and he shatters into a million pieces.
Well that was certainly easy! Eobard Thawne spent most of Season 2 of Legends Of Tomorrow running from the Black Flash, implying he was an inexorable and unstoppable force of nature. And then Killer Frost dispatches him without breaking a sweat. Too bad Thawne didn't have her number!
• After Cisco defeats Killer Frost, he tosses her Julian's serum and says it'll cure her.
Where the heck did Cisco get that? Julian unveiled it at STAR Labs AFTER Cisco was captured by Savitar. I guess maybe Barry took the serum with him to the park and handed it to Cisco while we weren't looking?
• The scene in which Barry phases into Savitar's armor and shove him out of it was pretty darned awesome!
As were the scenes in which Barry was then wearing it (Barritar?)
Was there any reason though why Barry turned the armor red? Other than because it looked cool, and to differentiate it from Savitar?
• At one point Cisco calls Savitar "Two-Face." How does Cisco know that name? Does that mean Batman exists somewhere in the Arrowverse? Or are do they just have Batman movies there?
• I guess after they inscribed the Mark Twain quote on HR's sleek, ultramodern tombstone, they didn't have room for his birth and death dates?
• Late in the episode, Cisco actually says, "Hey, Wally, can you reverse the polarity on the neutron flow?"
This is of course a shoutout to Doctor Who. For some reason the technobabble phrase has become associated with the Third Doctor, even though he only said it twice during his tenure on the show! He said it once in 1972's The Sea Devils, and again in 1983's The Five Doctors, which was the 20th Anniversary Special.
The Third Doctor would often use a shortened version of the phrase, saying, "Reverse the polarity," so maybe that's how the whole thing started.
• After Savitar's defeated, Barry and Iris relax at home. Suddenly their apartment is struck by a powerful quake. Iris is gobsmacked, declaring, "There's never been an earthquake in Central City!"
Sorry, Iris. According to the U.S. Geological Survey's Earthquake Information Center, EVERY state in the U.S. has experienced an earthquake of some magnitude at one point or another. The USGU does list Florida and North Dakota as the two states with the fewest earthquakes though.
Once again, I am not a seismic geologist. I found this out with literally fifteen seconds of googling.
• When the crazy lightning appears over Central City, the Gang gathers back in the ruins of STAR Labs. Cisco manages to get some their equipment up and running to analyze what's going on. He spots a large portal in the center of town, and says, "Holy plutonium! What even emits that many kilojoules?"
Sigh... Again with the joules!
A couple weeks ago in Cause And Effect, Tracy unveiled the Speed Force Bazooka, and said it needed 3.86 terajoules of energy to function. This greatly impressed Cisco, who said, "That's more energy than in the sun!" That statement was woefully wrong, but never mind that now.A joule is described as "the work required to produce one watt of power for one second." A terajoule is equal to ONE TRILLION joules. A kilojoule however, is equal to one thousand joules.
Why is Cisco so impressed by something that's literally a million times LESS than a terajoule?
• At the end of the episode the Gang discovers the Speed Force is unbalanced, and needs a speedster inside it to restore order.
For a brief second I honestly expected Jay to volunteer to return to the Speed Force instead of Barry.
• I guess as of this episode Savitar's prophecy is now complete. Way back in The Present, Savitar (through Julian) said, “I know your destinies. One shall betray you. One shall fall. One will suffer a fate far worse than death. This is the knowledge I have for you about your everlasting damnation.”
So how'd he do? Caitlin is obviously the one who betrayed the Gang. HR was the one who fell. And based on the end of this episode, Barry's the one who suffered a fate far worse than death, as he became trapped in the Speed Force.
Savitar: "Fix this."
Cisco: "Fix what? The Speed Force bazooka? Hey, I didn't name it. If I didn't name it, I didn't make it. And if I didn't make it, I don't know how it works."
Savitar: "Oh, you know enough about it to alter what it does."
Cisco: "Oh, I see. You want me to alter it. Well, what do you want me to alter it into? Like, a hair dryer? Or a waffle maker? Oh, I know. Maybe something that's gonna fix that thin-crust pizza you call a face?"
Savitar: "Get to work, Francesco."
Cisco: "How about I sit on my ass and let you obliterate permanently from existence? How's that sound?"
Barry: "Are you still planning on becoming a god?"
(I included this line because it makes me laugh)
Savitar: "So how's this gonna work? Where will I live?"
Barry: "What do you mean?"
Savitar: "Are Wally and I gonna be bunk-mates? Am I supposed to just rejoin Team Flash, fight some Rogues? What kind of life were you thinking I'd lead?"
Barry: "I hadn't gotten that far yet."
Iris: "He wasn't a genius, and he didn't have super speed. But when we needed him the most, he was our hero. He was my hero."
Labels: episode 23, finish line, season 3, season finale, the flash
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Viterbo Research Collection
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You've searched: Viterbo Research Collection
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Summary of Work
YdfL: A proposed efflux regulator of YdfM
Transcriptional control is critical for protein expression and function. There are a host of transcription regulator proteins that allow organisms to effectively respond to a host of environmental stressors and conditions. Metals act as cofactors...
Elizabeth C. Eckert; Kaila M. Schoenberger
Individual Variation in Gene Expression in Juncos
Individual variation exists in nature and improves an individual's fitness by differing the expression of certain traits. Testosterone is a hormone that affects coloring in both males and females, as well as other traits, such as immune function,...
Emily C. Messerschmidt
Effects of Photobiomodulation on the Longevity of wPink1B9 Strain of Drosophila melanogaster
The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of photobiomodulation on the longevity of Drosophila melanogaster. PTEN-induced kinase 1 (PINK1) is a gene that is believed to act as a protectant against oxidative stress induced by...
Breanna M. Bjerke
Transcriptional control is a crucial component for cells as they respond to various changes within their environment. Assemblages of transcription regulator proteins mediate this response and allow organisms to effectively respond to a multitude of...
William R. Jeffries
Determining the Functions of Unknown Metal Ion Transport Genes ydfM and ydfL in Bacillus subtilis
Bacillus subtilis is a commonly used organism when studying metal ion homeostasis. Its natural competency allows it to take up and introduce exogenously supplied DNA into its genome, a necessary step in disrupting specific genes within an organism....
Erin E. Isaacson
Shifts in Antimicrobial Gene Expression in Mouse Model of Self-Antigen Driven Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Autoimmune responses lead to changes in the expression of antimicrobial genes in the small intestine, leading to alterations in the host-microbe interaction, worsening disease. Paneth cells may cause this dysfunction, as they control which...
Ryan T. Cook
Determining the Function of Uncharacterized Cation Efflux Genes ydfL and ydfM in Bacillus Subtilis
Metal ion homeostasis is crucial for the survival of bacteria. While some metals are actively influxed due to their essential nature in the cell, others need to be actively effluxed because of their toxicity1. Therefore, every metal needs to have...
Induction of Interleukin-2 after Thapsigargin and Concanavalin A Activation in Human Jurkat T-cells
The ?Ca?^(2+) ATPase inhibitor Thapsigargin (TG), which increases intracellular ?Ca?^(2+) independent of inositol triphosphate (?IP?_3), was tested with the ?Ca?^(2+) dependent and mannose/glucose legume lectin Conconavalin A (ConA) to see the...
Brittany D. Cincoski
Timing and Scope of Genomic Expansion within Annelida: Evidence from Hox Genes in the Genome of the Earthworm Eisenia fetida
We sequenced and assembled the genome of the common earthworm, Eisenia fetida. From this data we identified 250 homeobox genes and 21 Hox genes. Compared to other sequenced Annelids, this is the highest reported to date. We have identified gene...
Allison S. Zwarycz; Carlos Nossa; Elaine Seaver; Nicholas Putnam;
Characterization of the MutL protein in Fluviicola taffensis
Fluviicola taffensis is a gram negative fresh water bacterium which was studied in conjunction with the Joint Genomic Institute. Bioinformatics analysis of the genome sequence revealed that the genome was missing the MutH and DAM proteins within...
Marshall K. Engstrom
Microbial Community in Wastewater
Wastewater houses hundreds of different microbes in water. Wastewater is found throughout the world and its composition is dependent on the various sources contributing to the wastewater. Phyla, a taxonomic order, can be found using gene sequencing...
Austin R. Epping; Mark P. Peterson; Amanda K. Vetsch;
Quantification of Genetically-Driven Microbial Shifts in a Mouse Model of Inflammatory Level Disease
Mammals possess their own personal ecosystem of bacteria that aid in many physiological functions and inhabit all epithelial surfaces of the body. These bacteria are known as the microbiota and are co-evolutionary and symbiotic with the host. A...
Christopher M. Suilmann
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Cambridge Archaeological Journal
Transit, Transition: Excavating...
Mytum, Harold 2010. Ways of Writing in Post-Medieval and Historical Archaeology: Introducing Biography. Post-Medieval Archaeology, Vol. 44, Issue. 2, p. 237.
Myers, Adrian T. 2011. Contemporary Archaeology in Transit: The Artifacts of a 1991 Van. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, Vol. 15, Issue. 1, p. 138.
Dixon, James R. 2011. Is the present day post-medieval?. Post-Medieval Archaeology, Vol. 45, Issue. 2, p. 313.
Yoffee, Norman and Fowles, Severin 2011. Archaeology in the Humanities. Diogenes, Vol. 58, Issue. 1-2, p. 35.
2014. Notes and News. Post-Medieval Archaeology, Vol. 48, Issue. 1, p. 253.
Morgan, Colleen 2014. Archaeology and the Moving Image. Public Archaeology, Vol. 13, Issue. 4, p. 323.
Belford, Paul 2014. CONTEMPORARY AND RECENT ARCHAEOLOGY IN PRACTICE. Industrial Archaeology Review, Vol. 36, Issue. 1, p. 3.
Harrison, Rodney 2016. Archaeologies of Emergent Presents and Futures. Historical Archaeology, Vol. 50, Issue. 3, p. 165.
McAtackney, Laura and Penrose, Sefryn 2016. The contemporary in post-medieval archaeology. Post-Medieval Archaeology, Vol. 50, Issue. 1, p. 148.
Schofield, John 2017. ‘Deviants, punks and Pink Fairies’: counter-archaeologies for unreasonable people. World Archaeology, Vol. 49, Issue. 3, p. 281.
Harrison, Rodney and Breithoff, Esther 2017. Archaeologies of the Contemporary World. Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 46, Issue. 1, p. 203.
Lucas, Gavin 2018. The unburied. On archaeological objects and objectives. Archaeological Dialogues, Vol. 25, Issue. 01, p. 21.
February 2009 , pp. 1-28
Transit, Transition: Excavating J641 VUJ
Greg Bailey (a1), Cassie Newland (a2), Anna Nilsson (a3), John Schofield (a4), Steve Davis (a5) and Adrian Myers (a6)...
Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol, 43 Woodland Road, Bristol, BS8 1UU, UK; Email: greg.bailey@bristol.ac.uk
Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol, 43 Woodland Road, Bristol, BS8 1UU, UK; Email: cassienewland@yahoo.co.uk
Arkeologi, Södertörns University College, Stockholm; Email: anna.nilsson@sh.se
Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol, 43 Woodland Road, Bristol, BS8 1UU, UK; Email: John.Schofield@english-heritage.org.uk
University College Dublin, College of Arts & Celtic Studies, School of Archaeology, Newman Building, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland; Email: Stephen.Davis@ucd.ie
Department of Anthropology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305–2034, USA; Email: adrianmyers@stanford.edu
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 February 2009
In July 2006 archaeologists from the University of Bristol and Atkins Heritage embarked on a contemporary archaeology project with a difference. We ‘excavated’ an old (1991) Ford Transit van, used by archaeologists and later by works and maintenance teams at the Ironbridge Museum. The object: to see what can be learnt from a very particular, common and characteristic type of contemporary place; to establish what archaeologists and archaeology can contribute to understanding the way society, and specifically we as archaeologists, use and inhabit these places; and to challenge and critique archaeologies of the contemporary past. In this report we describe our excavation and situate it within a wider debate about research practice in contemporary archaeology.
COPYRIGHT: © The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research 2009
URL: /core/journals/cambridge-archaeological-journal
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Only show content I have access to (21)
Annals of Glaciology (14)
Journal of Glaciology (7)
International Glaciological Society (21)
Prototype wireless sensors for monitoring subsurface processes in snow and firn
ELIZABETH A. BAGSHAW, NANNA B. KARLSSON, LAI BUN LOK, BEN LISHMAN, LINDSAY CLARE, KEITH W. NICHOLLS, STEVE BURROW, JEMMA L. WADHAM, OLAF EISEN, HUGH CORR, PAUL BRENNAN, DORTHE DAHL-JENSEN
Journal: Journal of Glaciology / Volume 64 / Issue 248 / December 2018
The detection and monitoring of meltwater within firn presents a significant monitoring challenge. We explore the potential of small wireless sensors (ETracer+, ET+) to measure temperature, pressure, electrical conductivity and thus the presence or absence of meltwater within firn, through tests in the dry snow zone at the East Greenland Ice Core Project site. The tested sensor platforms are small, robust and low cost, and communicate data via a VHF radio link to surface receivers. The sensors were deployed in low-temperature firn at the centre and shear margins of an ice stream for 4 weeks, and a ‘bucket experiment’ was used to test the detection of water within otherwise dry firn. The tests showed the ET+ could log subsurface temperatures and transmit the recorded data through up to 150 m dry firn. Two VHF receivers were tested: an autonomous phase-sensitive radio-echo sounder (ApRES) and a WinRadio. The ApRES can combine high-resolution imaging of the firn layers (by radio-echo sounding) with in situ measurements from the sensors, to build up a high spatial and temporal resolution picture of the subsurface. These results indicate that wireless sensors have great potential for long-term monitoring of firn processes.
Basal conditions at Engabreen, Norway, inferred from surface measurements and inverse modelling
ANNE M. SOLGAARD, ALEXANDRA MESSERLI, THOMAS SCHELLENBERGER, CHRISTINE S. HVIDBERG, ASLAK GRINSTED, MIRIAM JACKSON, THOMAS ZWINGER, NANNA B. KARLSSON, DORTHE DAHL-JENSEN
Journal: Journal of Glaciology / Volume 64 / Issue 246 / August 2018
Engabreen is an outlet glacier of the Svartisen Ice Cap located in Northern Norway. It is a unique glacier due to the Svartisen Subglacial Laboratory which allows direct access to the glacier bed. In this study, we combine both sub- and supraglacial observations with ice-flow modelling in order to investigate conditions at the bed of Engabreen both spatially and temporally. We use the full-Stokes model Elmer/Ice and satellite-based surface-velocity maps from 2010 and 2014 to infer patterns of basal friction. Direct measurements of basal sliding and deformation of lower layers of the ice are used to adjust the ice viscosity and provide essential input to the setup of our model and influence the interpretation of the results. We find a clear seasonal cycle in the subglacial conditions at the higher elevation region of the study area and discuss this in relation to the subglacial hydrological system. Our results also reveal an area with an overdeepening where basal friction is significantly lower than elsewhere on the glacier all year round. We attribute this to either water pooling at the base, or saturated sediments and increased strain heating at this location which softens the ice further.
A vertical girdle fabric in the NorthGRIP deep ice core, North Greenland
Yun Wang, Thorsteinn Thorsteinsson, Josef Kipfstuhl, Heinz Miller, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Hitoshi Shoji
Journal: Annals of Glaciology / Volume 35 / 2002
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 September 2017, pp. 515-520
A high-resolution study of c-axis fabrics has been performed on the NorthGRIP deep ice core from North Greenland. A newly developed automatic ice-fabric analyzer has been used to measure c-axis orientations on vertical thin sections at 142 different depths between 100 and 2920 m in the core. Detailed comparison studies show that this new method produces results that are in full accordance with those obtained from conventional manual measurements. Fabric development in ice of the NorthGRIP core can be explained by rotation of c axes, controlled by the prevailing stress systems. In the upper 800 mthe c axes appear to distribute uniformly, but in the depth interval 900–2500m they tend to cluster around a vertical plane. This vertical girdle pattern is strengthened with depth, forming the first clear evidence of this fabric type in a Greenland deep ice core. Such fabric development has previously been observed in the Vostok ice core from East Antarctica, where converging flow is believed to occur. the most likely interpretation of the NorthGRIP girdle fabric is that the c axes are rotating away from a horizontal-tension axis across the main ice divide, which runs north-northwest–south-southeast through the NorthGRIP drilling site. This is supported by information available from surface velocity measurements. Within the girdle fabric, increased concentration of c axes parallel to the core axis is observed with increasing depth, indicating combined effects of vertical compression and horizontal tension on the fabric development. from about 2500 m depth, the girdle-type fabric starts to give way to a strong vertical single-maximum fabric, which persists to 2920m depth, where drilling was terminated 150 mabovebedrock in the year 2000. the single maximum seems to suggest that bed-parallel simple shear is exerting a strong influence on the fabric in the lowest part of the ice sheet down to 2920 m.
Monte Carlo inverse modelling of the Law Dome (Antarctica) temperature profile
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Vin I. Morgan, Alan Elcheikh
The temperature profile in the 1200 m deep Dome Summit South (DSS) borehole near the summit of Law Dome, Antarctica, was measured in 1996, 3 years after the termination of the deep drilling.
The temperature profile contains information on past surface temperature over the last 4ka. This temperature history is determined by the use of a Monte Carlo inverse method in which no constraints are placed on the unknown temperature history and no solution is assumed to be unique. The temperature history is obtained from a selection of equally well-fitting solutions by a statistical treatment.
The results show that solutions covering the last 4ka have a well-developed central value, a most likely temperature history. The temperature record has two well-developed minima at AD 1250 and 1850. From 1850 to the present, temperatures have gradually increased by 0.7 K. The reconstructed temperatures are compared with the stable oxygen isotope (δ18O) from the DSS ice core.
An ice crystal model for Jupiter’s moon Europa
Karen Guldbæ K Schmidt, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen
A simple model for crystal growth in the ice shell of Europa has been made in order to estimate the size of ice crystals at Europa’s surface. If mass is lost from the surface of Europa due to sputtering processes, and the ice thickness is constant in time, ice crystals will be transported upwards in the ice shell. The crystals will therefore grow under varying conditions through the shell. The model predicts that ice crystals are 4 cm– 80 m across at the surface. For the preferred parameter values, a crystal size of the order of 7 m is calculated.
Seasonal variations of snow chemistry at NEEM, Greenland
Takayuki Kuramoto, Kumiko Goto-Azuma, Motohiro Hirabayashi, Takayuki Miyake, Hideaki Motoyama, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Jørgen Peder Steffensen
Journal: Annals of Glaciology / Volume 52 / Issue 58 / 2011
We conducted a pit study in July 2009 at the NEEM (North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling) deep ice-coring site in northwest Greenland. To examine the seasonal variations of snow chemistry and characteristics of the drill site, we collected snow/firn samples from the wall of a 2 m deep pit at intervals of 0.03 m and analyzed them for electric conductivity, pH, Cl–, NO3 –, SO4 2–, CH3SO3 – (MSA), Na+, K+, Mg2+, Ca2+ and stable isotopes of water (δ18O and δD). Pronounced seasonal variations in the stable isotopes of water were observed, which indicated that the snow had accumulated regularly during the past 4 years. Concentrations of Na+, Cl– and Mg2+, which largely originate from sea salt, peaked in winter to early spring, while Ca2+, which mainly originates from mineral dust, peaked in late winter to spring, slightly later than Na+, Cl– and Mg2+. Concentrations of NO3 – showed double peaks, one in summer and the other in winter to spring, whereas those of SO4 2– peaked in winter to spring. The winter-to-spring concentrations of NO3 – and SO4 2– seem to have been strongly influenced by anthropogenic inputs. Concentrations of MSA showed double peaks, one in spring and the other in late summer to autumn. Our study confirms that the NEEM deep ice core can be absolutely dated to a certain depth by counting annual layers, using the seasonal variations of stable isotopes of water and those of ions. We calculated the annual surface mass balance for the years 2006–08. The mean annual balance was 176 mm w.e., and the balances for winter-to-summer and summer-to-winter halves of the year were 98 and 78 mm, respectively. Snow deposition during the winter-to-summer half of the year was greater than that during the summer-to-winter half by 10–20mm for all three years covered by this study.
A Monte Carlo-tuned model of the flow in the NorthGRIP area
Aslak Grinsted, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen
The North Greenland Icecore Project (NorthGRIP) drill site was chosen in order to obtain a good Eemian record. At the present depth, 3001 m, the Eemian interstadial has yet to be seen. Clearly the flow in this area is poorly understood and needs further investigation. After a review of specific features of the bottom topography, it is believed that the geology changes along the flowline. In order to investigate whether this explains the observed age–depth relationship at NorthGRIP, the inverse Monte Carlo method has been applied to a simple model. the inversion reveals that the main reason no Eemian is observed is a high basal melt rate (2.7 mma–1). the melting is a consequence of a higher geothermal heat flux than the expected 51 mWm–2 of the Precambrian shield. from our analyses it is concluded that the geothermal heat flux at NorthGRIP is 98 mWm–2.The high basal melt rate also gives rise to sliding at the bed. In addition to these results, an accumulation model has been established specifically for NorthGRIP. These results are essential for further modelling of the NorthGRIP flow and depth–age relationship.
Properties of ice crystals in NorthGRIP late- to middle-Holocene ice
Anders Svensson, Karen G. Schmidt, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Sigfús J. Johnsen, Yun Wang, Sepp Kipfstuhl, Thorsteinn Thorsteinsson
Detailed measurements of crystal outlines and fabrics have been performed on 35 000 crystals in fifteen 10 × 20 cm2 vertical thin sections from the North Greenland Icecore Project (NorthGRIP) ice core, evenly distributed in the depth interval 115–880m. The crystals exhibit important changes over this period. As the ice gets older the mean crystal area increases towards a constant value, the shape of the crystals becomes increasingly irregular, and the area distribution of crystals develops from a single log-normal distribution into a bimodal lognormal distribution. The c-axis fabric of the ice shows a smooth development of an increasingly stronger vertical fabric with depth, and the formation of a weak vertical girdle. Already in the younger samples the fabric is rather strongly oriented towards vertical. The fabric and the area of individual crystals are found not to correlate. A simple model, which takes into account the vertical strain of the ice, is applied in an attempt to determine the crystal growth rate at NorthGRIP.
The NorthGRIP deep drilling programme
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Niels S. Gundestrup, Heinz Miller, Okitsugu Watanabe, Sigfús J. Johnsen, Jørgen P. Steffensen, Henrik B. Clausen, Anders Svensson, Lars B. Larsen
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 September 2017, pp. 1-4
The North Greenland Icecore Project (NorthGRIP) was initiated in 1995 as a joint international programme involving Denmark, Germany, Japan, Belgium, Sweden, Iceland, the U.S.A., France and Switzerland. the main goal was to obtain undisturbed high-resolution information about the Eemian climatic period (115–130 kyr BP). the records from the Greenland Icecore Project (GRIP) and Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2) in central Greenland are different and disturbed down in the ice covering this period. Internal radio-echo sounding layers show that NorthGRIP, placed 325 km north-northwest of GRIP at the Summit of the Greenland ice sheet, is located on a gently sloping ice ridge with very flat bedrock and internal layers found so high that an undisturbed Eemian record is possible. Internal layers much farther above bedrock than their apparent counter parts at GRIP suggest that conditions are favourable for recovery of an undisturbed Eemian record. So far, a 1351 mdeep ice core (NorthGRIP1) and a 3001 mdeep ice core (NorthGRIP 2) have been recovered. the ice thickness is expected to be 3080 m, and the ice temperature at 3001 m is –5.6°C, so we expect basal melting at the bedrock. Most of the Eemian ice will be melted away, leaving only the last part and the transition between the Eem and the Last Glacial Period. At 3001 m the age of the ice is 110 kyr BP and the annual layers are of the order 1 cm.With modern methods the annual layers can be resolved, resulting in detailed information on the decline of the warm Eemian period into the Last Glacial Period.
At what depth is the Eemian layer expected to be found at NEEM?
Susanne L. Buchardt, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen
No continuous record from Greenland of the Eemian interglacial period (130–115 ka BP) currently exists. However, a new ice-core drill site has been suggested at 77.449 ˚ N, 51.056 ˚ Win north-west Greenland (North Eemian or NEEM). Radio-echo sounding images and flow model investigations indicate that an undisturbed Eemian record may be obtained at NEEM. In this work, a two-dimensional ice flow model with time-dependent accumulation rate and ice thickness is used to estimate the location of the Eemian layer at the new drill site. The model is used to simulate the ice flow along the ice ridge leading to the drill site. Unknown flow parameters are found through a Monte Carlo analysis of the flow model constrained by observed isochrones in the ice. The results indicate that the Eemian layer is approximately 60m thick and that its base is located approximately 100m above bedrock.
Basal melt at NorthGRIP modeled from borehole, ice-core and radio-echo sounder observations
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Niels Gundestrup, S. Prasad Gogineni, Heinz Miller
From temperature measurements down through the 3001 m deep borehole at the North Greenland Icecore Project (NorthGRIP) drill site, it is now clear that the ice at the base, 3080 m below the surface, is at the pressure-melting point. This is supported by the measurements on the ice core where the annual-layer thicknesses show there is bottom melting at the site and upstream from the borehole. Surface velocity measurements, internal radio-echo layers, borehole and ice-core data are used to constrain a time-dependent flow model simulating flow along the north-northwest-trending ice-ridge flow-line, leading to the NorthGRIP site. Also time-dependent melt rates along the flowline are calculated with a heat-flow model. The results show the geothermal heat flow varies from 50 to 200 mW m–2 along the 100km section of the modeled flowline. The melt rate at the NorthGRIP site is 0.75 cm a–1, but the deep ice in the NorthGRIP core originated 50 km upstream and has experienced melt rates as high as 1.1 cm a–1.
Estimating the basal melt rate at NorthGRIP using a Monte Carlo technique
From radio-echo sounding (RES) surveys and ice core data it can be seen that the ice sheet is melting at the base in a large area in Northern Greenland. The RES images reveal internal layers in the ice. The layers are former deposition surfaces and are thus isochrones. Undulations of the isochrones in regions where the base is smooth suggest that the basal melt rate changes over short distances. This indicates that the geothermal heat flux is very high and has large spatial variability in Northern Greenland. In this study, the basal melt rate at the NorthGRIP drill site in North-Central Greenland is calculated by inverse modelling. We use simple one- and two-dimensional flow models to simulate the ice flow along the NNW-trending ice ridge leading to NorthGRIP. The accumulation is calculated from a dynamical model. Several ice flow parameters are unknown and must be estimated along with the basal melt rate using a Monte Carlo method. The Monte Carlo inversion is constrained by the observed isochrones, dated from the timescale established for the NorthGRIP ice core. The estimates of the basal melt rates around NorthGRIP are obtained from both the one- and two-dimensional models. Combining the estimated basal melt rates with the observed borehole temperatures allows us to convert the basal melt rates to geothermal heat flow values. From the two-dimensional model we find the basal melt rate and geothermal heat flux at NorthGRIP to be 6.1 mma–1 and 129 mWm–2, respectively.
The Hans Tausen drill: design, performance, further developments and some lessons learned
Sigfús J. Johnsen, Steffen Bo Hansen, Simon G. Sheldon, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Jørgen P. Steffensen, Laurent Augustin, Paul Journé, Olivier Alemany, Henry Rufli, Jakob Schwander, Nobuhiko Azuma, Hideaki Motoyama, Trevor Popp, Pavel Talalay, Thorsteinn Thorsteinsson, Frank Wilhelms, Victor Zagorodnov
In the mid-1990s, excellent results from the GRIP and GISP2 deep drilling projects in Greenland opened up funding for continued ice-coring efforts in Antarctica (EPICA) and Greenland (NorthGRIP). The Glaciology Group of the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, was assigned the task of providing drilling capability for these projects, as it had done for the GRIP project. The group decided to further simplify existing deep drill designs for better reliability and ease of handling. The drill design decided upon was successfully tested on Hans Tausen Ice Cap, Peary Land, Greenland, in 1995. The 5.0m long Hans Tausen (HT) drill was a prototype for the ~11m long EPICA and NorthGRIP versions of the drill which were mechanically identical to the HT drill except for a much longer core barrel and chips chamber. These drills could deliver up to 4m long ice cores after some design improvements had been introduced. The Berkner Island (Antarctica) drill is also an extended HT drill capable of drilling 2 m long cores. The success of the mechanical design of the HT drill is manifested by over 12 km of good-quality ice cores drilled by the HT drill and its derivatives since 1995.
Ice-sheet flow conditions deduced from mechanical tests of ice core
Atsushi Miyamoto, Hideki Narita, Takeo Hondoh, Hitoshi Shoji, Kunio Kawada, Okitsugu Watanabe, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Niels S. Gundestrup, Henrik B. Clausen, Paul Duval
Uniaxial compression tests were performed on samples of the Greenland Ice Gore Project (GRIP) deep ice core, both in the field and later in a cold-room laboratory, in order to understand the ice-flow behavior of large ice sheets. Experiments were conducted under conditions of constant strain rate (type A) and constant load (type B). Fifty-four uniaxial-compression test specimens from 1327-2922 m were selected. Each test specimen (25 mm x 25 mm x 90 mm) was prepared with its uniaxial stress axis inclined 45° from the core axis in order to examine the flow behavior of strong single-maximum ice-core samples with basal planes parallel to the horizontal plane of the ice sheet. The ice-flow enhancement factors show a gradual increase with depth down to approximately 2000 m. These results can be interpreted in terms of an increase in the fourth-order Schmid factor. Below 2000 m depth, the flow-enhancement factor increases to about 20-30 with a relatively high variability When the Schmid factor was > 0.46, the enhancement factor obtained was higher than expected from the .-axis concentrations measured. The higher values of flow-enhancement factor were obtained from specimens with a cloudy band structure. It was revealed that cloudy bands affect ice-deformation processes, but the details remain unclear.
Direct observation of salts as micro-inclusions in the Greenland GRIP ice core
Toshimitsu Sakurai, Yoshinori Iizuka, Shinichiro Horikawa, Sigfús Johnsen, Dorthe Dahl-jensen, Jørgen Peder Steffensen, Takeo Hondoh
Journal: Journal of Glaciology / Volume 55 / Issue 193 / 2009
We provide the first direct evidence that a number of water-soluble compounds, in particular calcium sulfate (CaSO4·2H2O) and calcium carbonate (CaCO3), are present as solid, micron-sized inclusions within the Greenland GRIP ice core. The compounds are detected by two independent methods: micro-Raman spectroscopy of a solid ice sample, and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy of individual inclusions remaining after sublimation. CaSO4·2H2O is found in abundance throughout the Holocene and the last glacial period, while CaCO3 exists mainly in the glacial period ice. We also present size and spatial distributions of the micro-inclusions. These results suggest that water-soluble aerosols in the GRIP ice core are dependable proxies for past atmospheric conditions.
Dynamics of crystal formation in the Greenland NorthGRIP ice core
Joachim Mathiesen, Jesper Ferkinghoff-Borg, Mogens H. Jensen, Mogens Levinsen, Poul Olesen, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Anders Svensson
The North Greenland Icecore Project (NorthGRIP) palaeoclimatic information back to about 120 kyr BP. The size distributions of ice crystals in the upper 880 m of the NorthGRIP ice core, which cover a time-span of approximately 5300 years, have been obtained previously. The distributions evolve towards a universal curve, indicating a common underlying physical process in the formation of crystals. We identify this process as an interplay between fragmentation of the crystals and diffusion of their grain boundaries. The process is described by a two-parameter differential equation to which we obtain the exact solution. The solution is in excellent agreement with the measured distributions.
Ice microstructure and fabric: an up-to-date approach for measuring textures
Gaël Durand, O. Gagliardini, Throstur Thorsteinsson, Anders Svensson, Sepp Kipfstuhl, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen
Automatic c-axes analyzers have been developed over the past few years, leading to a large improvement in the data available for analysis of ice crystal texture. Such an increase in the quality and quantity of data allows for stricter statistical estimates. The current textural parameters, i.e. fabric (crystallographic orientations) and microstructure (grain-boundary networks), are presented. These parameters define the state of the polycrystal and give information about the deformation undergone by the ice. To reflect the findings from automatic measurements, some parameter definitions are updated and new parameters are proposed. Moreover, a MATLAB® toolbox has been developed to extract all the textural parameters. This toolbox, which can be downloaded online, is briefly described.
Tracing the depth of the Holocene ice in North Greenland from radio-echo sounding data
Nanna B. Karlsson, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, S. Prasad Gogineni, John D. Paden
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 July 2017, pp. 44-50
Radio-echo sounding surveys over the Greenland ice sheet show clear, extensive internal layering, and comparisons with age–depth scales from deep ice cores allow for dating of the layering along the ice divide. We present one of the first attempts to extend the dated layers beyond the ice core drill sites by locating the depth of the Bølling–Allerød transition in >400 flight-lines using an automated fitting method. Results show that the transition is located in the upper one-third of the ice column in the central part of North Greenland, while the transition lowers towards the margin. This pattern mirrors the present surface accumulation, and also indicates that a substantial amount of pre-Holocene ice must be present in central North Greenland.
Densification of layered firn of the ice sheet at NEEM, Greenland
Shuji Fujita, Motohiro Hirabayashi, Kumiko Goto-Azuma, Remi Dallmayr, Kazuhide Satow, Jiancheng Zheng, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 July 2017, pp. 905-921
Densification of firn at the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling (NEEM) camp is investigated using density surrogates: dielectric permittivities ∊v and ∊h at microwave frequencies with electrical fields in the vertical and horizontal planes, respectively. Dielectric anisotropy Δ∊ (= ∊v − ∊h) is then examined as a surrogate for the anisotropic geometry of firn. Its size, fluctuations and mutual correlations are investigated in samples taken at depths from the surface to ~90 m. The initial Δ∊ of ~0.06 appears within the uppermost 0.2 m. After that, Δ∊ decreases rapidly until 21–26 m depth. Below this, Δɛ decreases slowly. Layers with more ions of fluorine, chlorine and some cations deposited between the autumn and the subsequent summer deform preferentially during all these stages. This layered deformation is explained partly by the textural effects initially formed by the seasonal variation of metamorphism, and partly by ions such as fluorine, chlorine and ammonium, which are known to modulate dislocation movement in the ice crystal lattice. Insolation-sensitive microstructure appears to be preserved all the way to the pore close-off, within layers of the summer-to-autumn metamorphism. Like previous authors, we hypothesize that calcium is not the active agent in the reported deformation– calcium correlations.
Determination of the Flow Properties at Dye 3, South Greenland, by Bore-Hole-Tilting Measurements and Perturbation Modelling
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2017, pp. 92-98
The ice-flow properties at great depths have a strong impact on the depth–age relationship of the strata in the Greenland ice sheet. Previous attempts to calculate this relationship have used Glen′s flow law with a temperature-dependent flow-law parameter. The data from the bore-hole-tilting at Dye 3, south Greenland, make it possible to calculate the flow-law parameter versus depth. The flow-law parameter shows a big change at the Holocene/Pleistocene transition with a mean flow enhancement factor of 3 for the ice deposited during the last glaciation. This high enhancement factor is believed to be due to high concentrations of dust and other impurities and small ice-crystal size in the Pleistocene ice. The derived flow-law parameter and the up-stream basal topography are used in a two-dimensional, multi-layer, first-order perturbation model to calculate the surface undulations and strain-rates. The results compare favourably with the observations. The results depend strongly on the flow-law parameter profile, which can therefore be estimated in other areas by perturbation-model calculations along flow lines, if the surface and base topographies are known.
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Acumen Publishing (1)
New Cambridge History of the Bible (2)
BibleWorld (1)
Cambridge Histories (2)
Cambridge Histories - Religion (2)
15 - Feminist readings of the Bible
from Part II - New Modes of Study of the Bible
By Jorunn Økland
Edited by John Riches, University of Glasgow
Book: The New Cambridge History of the Bible
Published online: 09 June 2015
Print publication: 13 April 2015, pp 261-272
This chapter explores some distinctive characteristics and interests of Bible's reception history. It discusses the relationship between reception history and Wirkungsgeschichte. Reception history focuses on the reader or interpreter, how they receive the text in their particular historical and cultural setting. It is possible to distinguish between reception historians who conduct their work within particular theological and ecclesial traditions, those who treat the study of a book's reception as a means to a better understanding of its original meaning, and others who want to keep the parameters and potential for meanings as broad as possible. Theological openness to the key exegetical traditions of Judaism and Christianity and their classic exegetes, represents one major strand within reception history. The Blackwell Companion to the Bible and Culture, edited by John Sawyer, is indicative of the wide potential of another strand in reception history. A visit to a Gothic cathedral can be an exercise in reception history.
By Janice Capel Anderson, S. Wesley Ariarajah, Constantine Belezos, Ian Boxall, Marc Zvi Brettler, Edward Breuer, Daniel Bruno, Mark Chapman, W. T. Dickens, Mark W. Elliott, Eldon Epp, Tassilo Erhardt, Timothy Gorringe, Harriet Harris, Peter C. Hodgson, Leslie Howsam, Werner G. Jeanrond, Scott McLaren, Wayne A. Meeks, Néstor Míguez, Stephen D. Moore, Robert Morgan, Halvor Moxnes, Peter Neuner, Mark Noll, Jorunn Økland, Gaye Ortiz, John Riches, Christopher Rowland, Nicolaas A. Rupke, Edmund J. Rybarczyk, Lamin Sanneh, Constantine Scouteris, R. S. Sugirtharajah, Willard M. Swartley, William R. Telford, David Thompson, Elena Volkova, J. R. Watson, Gerald West, Michael Wheeler, Keith Whitelam
Print publication: 13 April 2015, pp xi-xii
24 - Jesus to his Mother
By Jorunn Økland, University of Sheffield
Edited by Philip R. Davies, University of Sheffield
Book: Yours Faithfully
Published by: Acumen Publishing
Print publication: 31 October 2004, pp 121-126
The letter text is reconstructed by Konstantin von Tischentuch from fragments he discovered in a cluster of graves near ancient Edessa. The letter was also known in early Christianity: Eusebius succeeded in extracting the letter from the archives of Edessa where it was kept together with the only other extant letter by Jesus. But as the Church Fathers, headed by Augustine and Jerome, reached a decision that Jesus himself was too illiterate to leave anything in writing (and so by divine providence the formation of christological doctrine was conveniently left to them), the letters were deemed to be false or ‘apocryphal’ and disappeared into oblivion until von Tischentuch's rediscovery.
The letter text is fragmentary, and the context of the missing fragments could indicate that they were perhaps removed intentionally.
The letter is translated from Syriac. The fact that both the extant letters by Jesus are written in this language is a strong indication that Syriac was the language Jesus himself spoke, not Aramaic as is commonly assumed.
Dear Mum,
I really […]
as I typed this, a little square angel with a blue face popped up on my screen and said ‘It looks like you're writing a letter. Would you like help?’ I am not really good at writing, in fact I have done it only once before, and then Ananias the courier helped me, so I have opted to ‘get help with writing the letter’.
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A month after… Noisily!
Last month, Noisily Festival opened its beautiful field on the 5thof July, lost in the deep Coney Wood in Leicestershire. Since its debut in 2012, the Festival keeps growing through a combination of music and arts to inspire passion, self-expression, a sense of community and connection with nature.
For its seventh year, Noisily opened in the Soul, Mind and Body area with a small art gallery; a little tent to play with colours and drawing; a telescope to look at the stars; and a first taste of the amazing music set for the weekend.
The line-up for this year spanned techno, psy-trance and experimental bass, showing their intentions of offering a wider range of music to attract different people without losing the elements of originality and discovery. In the Noisily Stage, you could dance on the house-techno vibes of Solee, Louie Cut or James Monro, while the Liquid Stage dedicated its deconstructed geometrical shapes to psy-trance with the shows of 4D, Bad Tango or Symbolic. Almost hidden between the stands, the Leisure Centre was playing all kinds of music, from spoken word to dub, while the Three House Stage moved the dance floor with Ed Solo, Far Too Laud, The Chicken Brothers and Slug Wife.
The stages in the woods were spread around a central space in which everyone could enjoy artisan food, circus and fire performances, as well as simply talk about the night on the floor with someone you never met before. Or you could just get lost in the woods and follow the lights installation almost hidden in alternative paths between the stages, or discover paintings in progress, wooden constructions and hidden games, interacting not only with the festival but also with the peculiar atmosphere of the wood.
Two site-specific, interactive art installations were particular examples to see the proactive interaction between people and the external environment. Symbiosis is a dome-shaped installation that aims to combine technology and art in the peaceful environment of the wood. Created by the artist Kira Zhigalina, the sound designer Andrey Novikov and the engineer Adrian Godwin, the installation plays with sensors and LED lights, which move following the breath of the participants inside the intimate ‘igloo’, stimulating a deeper sense of connection with yourself, the others and the environment. The second installation Rebirth, by the artists collective Madin, is a giant egg made out of recycled pallet wood, which people could get in and feel intimately connected in this bubble that gave the illusion of floating in the wood.
These two installations are programmatic examples of the intention of offering a ground in which anyone is free to express him or her self, respecting the others and the environment outside the usual labels of our society. If, generally, festivals are seen as places in which to completely disconnect with reality and stop thinking about the contradictions of our time, in contrast Noisily proposes an alternative approach to the issues characterising our society. The program ‘looking after the wood’, for example, made people and traders think about how to avoid the overproduction of plastic and rubbish to respect the wood, while art and installation created alternative occasions for encounters with people outside your usual social circle.
In this sense, Rebirth and Symbiosis enclose this deep intention at the core of the Festival. Made out of recycled material, both installations proposed an alternative way to combine the importance of responding to the environmental issues with the necessity of stimulating an alternative understanding to connect to the diversity around us. Rather than playing with spectacular installations that can surprise for short time, the Noisily team is committed to leaving memories that you can bring with you to your everyday life.
That’s what makes this festival so unique. Noisily offers a peculiar example to think of the potential of festivals to suggest an individual sense of responsibility and critical reflection while having fun. The magic environment of the woods, in combination with music and art, stimulates this deep sense of connection, interaction and dialogue. It reflects the need to understand our complex and contradictory society through new schemes, rather than lazily relying on old mind structures. Wishing to see the festival on the edge of the mainstream dynamics again next year, we look forward to seeing how the decoration in the wood and the music will stimulate new connections and new approaches to proactively respond to our society, while having a lot of fun!
Posted on August 3, 2018 September 5, 2018 Categories Festival, Performance, Review, Visual ArtLeave a comment on A month after… Noisily!
Beu-Beu Art Festival!!
Yesterday ended the first edition of Beu-Beu Art Festival in Badia di Ruoti, a small village in the heart of Tuscany. The festival has been organised by Schimen Onlus with the collaboration of the associations Eureka and Strange Opera to present the works of over 70 artists through exhibitions, workshops, music and talks.
This was the first time for the Beu-Beu festival, a mix of contemporary art, illustration, publishing industry and workshops. Placed in a small village near Arezzo, the festival offered an overview of Italian contemporary art performing in the unique landscape of Tuscany’s countryside. Playing with the traditional atmosphere of the location, the exhibitions were spread through the walls of the XI century Abbacy of Badia di Ruoti to create an innovative contrast between the art and the place.
Example of this combination are the skates painted by the roman artists for the exhibition SKATE HEART ROMA, an idea of Davide Orlando and Valentina Roccanuova; or Fabulae, a collection of 10 artists presenting the ancient tales of Fedro; or the first collection of woman illustrators in Graphiste. Curated by Rossana Calbi are also the solo shows of Francesco Viscuso, Folklore, and Sergio Marsala, Snaturar Corrivo, that presented their work to celebrate the first edition festival.
In addition to the shows displayed in the Abbacy, the festival spread around the small town during the weekend interacting with the visitors with several activities. For the project WOODoo, following the idea of Marina Ronca, five artists invited the walkers to play with the big wooden man. Meantime, in Ambra, a small town next to Badia di Ruoti, the artists Nicola Alessandrini and Lisa Gelli live painted the first mural in the area of Bucine, inviting the visitor to discover the land while looking for the art.
The audience has been actively involved to be part of the festival during the whole weekend. The children could enjoy the editorial workshop Il Mondo Extra-Ordinario with Laura Caputo, while everyone could play with wood with Robox, or learn about serigraphy with Andrea Baldelli.
During the evening, you could enjoy a dinner made with local products waiting for the film projection of Virginia Mori or the independent music and DJ set. The artists Francesca Toscano e Francesco Viscuso framed the concerts with Il ramo d’oro, a floral site-specific installation created in harmony with the location and the atmosphere of the small village.
The artistic direction formed by the artist Marco About, the musician Luca Zampi and the curator Rossana Calbi gave space to independent art usually on the edge, offering a brilliant and variegated overview of contemporary art through music, visual art and talks with editors. The visitors weren’t only invited in discovering the art, but also the place.
And here I found the real peculiarity of this initiative.
Organized in a rural town of Tuscany, the festival kept is traditional background presenting avant-garde and cutting-edge art product of our time. The market and the food were local, offering the chance to small businesses to present their products, and their land. Rather than being stacked in saving a tradition that it is not going to be shown anywhere, the organisation of this festival illustrated us a concrete alternative to conserve our unique tradition through the pluralism characteristic of contemporary art, offering a new way to live our culture.
Posted on May 23, 2018 September 1, 2018 Categories Festival, Performance, Review, Visual ArtLeave a comment on Beu-Beu Art Festival!!
IBT/17: ‘STAND UP, STAND OUT!’
In Between Time 2017ended last week after five days of festival with dance, performances, music, live art and activism across theatres, galleries, city streets and outdoor spaces.
Since it started in 2001 as a part of a live project in Arnolfini, In Between Time became an independent organisation in 2009. From the beginning, the idea was to push out radical live performances from the usual art spaces to interact with people in alternative environments. According to this philosophy, 40 artists have been called to present cutting-edge pieces to involve visitors on a deeper, interactive level and challenge the canonical boundaries between disciplines.
The festival opened silently with Ghost Dance, a 12 hours dance by Lone Twin dressed as blindfolded cowboys. From Midday to Midnight the performers never stopped their dance, perfectly matching each other’s steps, with people joining them to dance against fatigue and pass time. Meanwhile, Lone Twin’s Beastie, created by children’s imagination, popped up unexpectedly to go around the city dancing with people and playing with children.
Arnolfini, the core of the festival, hosted talks, short films and participative performances. Some particularly interactive and innovative examples include Race Cards, a public forum project by Selina Thompson that exposed racial tension; Undress/Redress, a live performance by NoëmiLakmaier on the ambiguity between consent and tolerance in the act of being undressed and redressed by a man; and Vesper Time by Stacy Makishi offered an “evening prayer” to reflect on ageing and on acting before is too late. Finally, Triple Threat was a trash step-dubpunk morality play for the modern world by Lucy McCormick.
Various performances spread across other locations, like Workshyby Katy Baird, where the artist reflected on having, or not having, a job today and dealt with the relationship between labour, class and aspiration. A particularly interesting project was, that selected 45 Bristolians and individually coached them for this performance on stage, when the people met for the first time to dance together.
The performers also worked outdoors, on the city streets with Rita Marcalo’s project Dancing with Strangers: From Calais to England. Starting in the Calais”Jungle”, this project was the result of a workshop with refugees and it involved people on the street to dance with strangers. The festival went even further with Woodland, where the artist duo French & Mottershedcreated a meditative audio work in the woods with a self-portrait of the body after death.
The brave and risky programme reflected the mood of the work of the organisation over the years, focusing on the idea of making art to express meaning and actively involve people in the performance itself. However, the festival this year assumed a slightly different meaning. As the bravest festival yet, Stand up Stand out was not only a chance for the artists to present avant-garde pieces of work, but was also a call to take a position and stand up for what you believe regarding the global realities that we face as a society.
And this call to stand is not meant only for the artists, it is a call for everyone. Brexit, Trump, social injustice, gender, racism: these are important and unavoidable faces of the world we are living in. As much as our political situation is bringing us to reinforce the cultural and geographic boundaries, the art is blurring the boundaries between disciplines and art spaces to open up the possibility for taking art and culture in unexpected new directions.
It is hard, if not impossible, to provide a single solution to our global problems and change the world. However, the art can open a conversation between us, forcing us to reflect on our reality from unexpected angles. And, maybe, it can open our mind to the controversy that characterizes our society.
Posted on May 21, 2018 September 1, 2018 Categories Festival, Performance, Review, Visual ArtLeave a comment on IBT/17: ‘STAND UP, STAND OUT!’
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Race report: Lindsays Scottish National XC Championships
Published: Sunday, 24 February 2019 14:46
It was a beautiful day (especially for February) at Callander Park, Falkirk. Even quite hot when the sun was out during the womens race. It was the first time that we had a Male team (6 runners) for as long as John Mill can remember and he was delighted to finally have a DRR team at the champs. However, it could’ve easily been different. When Graeme Brown was in the process of getting into the car with the door open John Mill began to drive off, thankfully, Graeme’s police training allowed him to prevent any of his limbs from being crushed or removed. (Note: this event has been dramatized for the purposes of todays race report, there is no need for an official DRR club investigation).
On to the race itself. The course is tough there are 3 and a bit laps. With a small hill at the start and 3 hills in each lap there are 10 hills in total over about 6.65 miles. The hills are all quite short but very steep. Takes a lot of energy out of the legs especially as your trying to get as much speed in on the flats before and after the hills. The course was in good condition and there was only deep mud in a couple of small parts. I really do think that anyone who is a regular at Camperdown Parkrun (with its tough hills), a hill runner, trail runner or ultrarunner would get a lot out of these challenging cross country courses. With the biggest ever turnout out ever for both the womens and mens races the run was at times congested but soon enough the pack began to spread out.
The mens race was won by Adam Craig in a time of 33:50 and the womens race was won by Olympian, World Championship bronze medallist and commonwealth medallist Steph Twell in a time of 38:38.
Onto the DRR times, positions out of 719:
133 Chris Earl 40:13
243 Graeme Brown 43:26
271 Lee O’Connor 44:10
437 Michael Mitchell 48:02
482 Matt Hooper 48:54
699 John Mill 58:49
I was delighted with my own time. It’s a very high standard at these events so very pleased. Special thanks to John Mill for pushing through the pain barrier as he was desperate to complete the team, as some of you may have already heard. Report courtesy of Chris Earl, photograph courtesy of John Mill
Published: Monday, 21 January 2019 09:32
Written by Dundee Roadrunners
The club's Grand Prix consists of a number of races, chosen by the committee to provide a range of terrains and distances, and races which we know to be good, well organised, fun events. For each race in which you run, you are awarded points, gaining more points for positioning better in the race results. The main aim of the Grand Prix is to help get lots of DRRs out to the same events together, to have fun and get a bit of friendly intra-club competition.
There are prizes for the top 3 Male and Female finishers over the series and there will a momento for everyone who manages to complete the challenge.
The 2019 Grand Prix consists of 10 races. Of which, you must either complete 6 races, or you can complete 5 and one marathon of your choice. Good luck everyone.
February 17th, Sunday - Devilla Forest 5k & 15k
March 9th, Saturday - Cupar 5 Mile race
April 7th, Sunday - Tay Ten
May 18th - Monifieth 10k
June 14th, Friday - Whitetops Hill Race
July 7th, Sunday - Dundee Half Marathon
August 13th, Tuesday - Ceres 8
September 8th, Sunday - Stirling 10k
September 29th, Sunday - East Neuk 10k
October 6th, Sunday - Giffordstown 5k
Published: Saturday, 08 December 2018 09:18
Congratulations to everyone who was on stage receiving one of the coveted DRR prizes this year… 2018 has certainly seen some outstanding performances! Sadly there don't seem to be any photos of the prize giving so I've used a picture of what seems to be one of the evening's highlights instead.
In no particular order (as Dec would say) huge shout outs go to the following runners for their speediness:
5 MILE TROPHY
David Aitken wins the Club 5 Mile Race trophy – with a huge 10.77% improvement in his time from last year.
FASTEST MARATHON
Robbie Dunlop smashed 3 hours at Manchester, coming home in a ridiculously speedy 2:48:42 while slightly closer to home, Michelle Bruce ran Stirling in an extremely impressive 3:04:57.
FASTEST HALF MARATHON
Chris Earle and Anwen Darling were the prize winners here for their Inverness half marathon times of 1:18:53 and 1:24:36 respectively.
DRR MILE SERIES
The most improved DRR at this new event was Malcolm Forbes – well done!
10k CHAMPIONSHIP
Showing their prowess at shorter distances and taking home another trophy each for their performances at Forfar – congratulations to Chris Earle (36:01) and Michelle Bruce (37:59).
FURTHEST AWAY MARATHON
Paul Reed faced heat and hills (and perhaps a hippo?) in Kenya at what proved to be an eventful and challenging race - well done for running and for raising so much money for a great cause, Paul!
HALF MARATHON CHAMPION
Clova is the club annual half marathon championship – well done to our speedy winners – Malcolm O’Connell (1:24:01) and Alison McNeilly (1:31:49) who has set PB after PB this year!
MOST IMPROVED RUNNERS
Oh wow – this prize sparked much debate because so many DRRs have trained hard and seen enormous improvements in race times across the distances. Fiona Plain won the prize for the ladies and the men’s category was so close that we made the unprecedented decision of awarding this title to both Matt Hooper and Chris Sevier -Guy. Well done to all three of you – it’s great to see what can be achieved with focus and hard work.
We’re all thrilled that more and more of us are getting involved with the annual Grand Prix competition. An astonishing 135 of us ran at least one of the GP events while 40 of us completed the series. Both categories were hotly contested with the top three spots changing pretty much month on month, with all to play for at Clova…. Chris Sevier-Guy, Matt Buck and Martin Hutchinson were first/second/third for the men while Jennifer Massie, Fiona Callaghan and Alison McNeilly were the ladies’ prize winners. Well done guys… running consistently well for the entire year while avoiding injury is an achievement in itself!!!
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Bank Failure Friday – Another Triple!
While not so Stressful Test Results Await…
Three more banks fail
Silverton Bank closes, costing the Deposit Insurance Fund an estimated $1.4 billion. Smaller New Jersey and Utah banks also shutter.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Three more banks shut their doors Friday, according to the federal government, bringing the total number of failures up to 32 in 2009.
The first failure was a wholesale banking operator that served 1,400 other lenders across the country and was the fifth biggest bank failure during the current recession in terms of assets.
Georgia "bankers' bank": The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said in a statement that it created a bridge bank to take over the operations of Silverton Bank, National Bank, headquartered in Atlanta.
Unlike the other 30 banks that have failed so far in 2009, Silverton Bank did not take deposits directly from the general public or make loans to consumers. Instead, it was a "bankers' bank," offering a wide variety of services, such as foreign wire transfers, as well as clearing and cash management, to other banks.
Silverton was cooperatively owned by community banks throughout the Southeast and was heavily invested in loans to real estate developments in Florida, Georgia, and other parts of the Southeast, according to Christopher Marinac, managing principal of financial firm FIG Partners LLC based out of Atlanta, Ga.
When real estate values sank in the current downturn, the assets backing those properties also lost their value. The Southeast has seen numerous regional banks topple as the housing bubble burst.
At the time of its closing, Silverton Bank had approximately $4.1 billion in assets and $3.3 billion in deposits, all of which are expected to be within the FDIC's insurance limits.
The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund will be $1.3 billion, making it the fourth costliest bank failure since the start of the recession. "It is a bigger hit to the insurance fund than they have seen in the last couple weeks," Marinac said. "This is a bigger issue than we have seen in awhile."
Silverton served banks in 44 states and operated six regional offices. The FDIC created a bridge bank to take over the assets of the institution and has contracted The Independent Bankers Bank, out of Irving, Texas, to assist. The FDIC does not expect to see any significant impact to the bank's clients, at least in the near term.
However, the bridge bank only plans to be operational for 60 days, with a possible 30-day extension. When the bridge bank services terminate, the banks that were serviced by the cooperatively owned bank will have to go out and find another institution to take care of those services.
"There is no clear cut answer on a situation like this," said Marinac. "This is a little bit more complex and therefore there are more uncertainties about how this will unfold."
Thus far, the FDIC has not been able to find another wholesale bank to agree to take over Silverton's operations. The FDIC will attempt to sell off the assets, but it could pose a challenge to find a buyer for risky commercial loans. However, the FDIC could try to find a buyer by discounting the debt. "Everything has a price," said Marinac.
New Jersey: State regulators shut down Citizens Community Bank Friday night, and named the FDIC as the receiver. The Ridgewood, N.J.- based bank had total assets of approximately $45.1 million and total deposits of $43.7 million as of Dec. 31.
North Jersey Community Bank, of Englewood Cliffs, N.J., has agreed to assume all of the deposits of the failed bank. The failed bank's single office will reopen Monday as the North Jersey Community Bank.
North Jersey Community Bank paid a premium of 0.67% to acquire all of the deposits of the failed bank and has agreed to purchase approximately $11.5 million in assets. The FDIC will hold onto the rest of the assets to dispose of later.
The FDIC will continue to fully insure individual accounts up to $250,000 through the end of 2009.
Utah: On Friday evening the FDIC also became the receiver of America West Bank, after the Utah regulators closed the institution. The Layton, Utah-based bank had total assets of approximately $299.4 million and total deposits of $284.1 million as of Dec. 31.
Cache Valley Bank, based in Logan, Utah, is assuming all deposits, paying discounted price of $352,000. It also agreed to buy nearly $11 million worth of America West's assets and took a 30-day option to purchase loans at book value. The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund will be $119.4 million.
America West's three branches will reopen Monday as Cache Valley Bank outposts.
Checking accounts, debit cards still work: Through the weekend, depositors of both Citizens Community Bank and America West Bank can access their money by writing checks or using ATM or debit cards. Checks drawn on either of the failed banks will continue to be processed, and the FDIC said loan customers should continue to make their payments as usual.
Stress tests awaited
Local banks have been shutting down in droves as the recession has made it harder for customers and businesses to pay their loans. Nearly every Friday so far this year, at least one bank has failed. Last week, four regional banks were shuttered.
Even as the government has committed unprecedented amounts of money to increase liquidity and jumpstart the economy, the pace of bank failures has accelerated. In all of 2008, 25 banks failed, compared with 2009's 31 banks.
It is not only smaller, regional banks that have felt the pressure of the recession. The nation's largest banks have also been hit by rising default rates and a decline in business spending.
The assessment of the bank's health was expected to be made public May 4, but an announcement from the Treasury Department Friday indicated that results would be delayed until May 7.
Market watchers are anxiously awaiting the results of the stress tests, which have been designed to assess the banks' preparedness to weather further downturns in the economy, including further increases in unemployment and decreases in home prices.
So, the transactions are starting to get a little more complex, and more institutions are being seized without having a buyer in hand.
While it may appear that these failures are insignificant, what is happening is that the debts are mostly moving from one institution to another with the government’s backing, of course. This process, while clearing out the small and weaker players, does not clear out the debt and it leaves consumers with fewer banking choices and larger banking institutions to play with.
So, the fringes are fraying and getting clipped away. Large shifts always start at the fringes and thus these failures are important and should not be glossed over.
Meanwhile the really large institutions, all of which are truly insolvent, are being kept alive with government money and false/ completely phony accounting with the government’s blessing and backing, of course.
Again, the “Stress Test” is really no stress whatsoever. It’s a sham developed to divert attention and distract people away from the real issue while they are being robbed. Oh yeah, it’s also an excuse to “inject more capital” into the banks which is code for STEAL FROM THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER.
Meanwhile, they are milking this sham for everything its worth, now delaying the already delayed “results” yet again. And the market monkeys use this carrot to pump the financials or at least hold them up for as long as they can to draw in as many retail investors as possible to distribute their “equity” and overvalued debt to those buying into a “once in a lifetime opportunity.”
And what an impressive rally it’s been in the financials… why this rally is of historic proportions, they say, you better get in before it’s too late! Yes, the XLF did rally an astonishing 81% in the past eight weeks!! But let’s look at the chart a little further out than 8 weeks for those who didn’t catch the XLF below $6, shall we?
Here’s a 2 year weekly chart of the XLF and you can see that it went from a high of over $36 to today’s $10.65 price, a DROP of 71%! Is the latest rally really any different than the previous ones of this bear market? Look at the volume pattern, that’s where you find confirmation or a lack thereof… and I’m seeing a very large divergence there between rising prices and falling volume. Does it really look different than the other bear market rallies?
And funny, but the stair step nature of this decline looks very similar to another and the comments along the way sound familiar too:
While this MAY have been THE bottom in the financials, you have to ask yourself what's changed FUNDAMENTALLY over the past two years in the banking system that will spark and initiate new growth and new profits? Yes, spreads have widened allowing the banks to arbitrage profits from the consumers… but have the debts cleared the system? And I don’t mean the banking system, I mean the economy. The answer is no either way. The only structural change has been letting accounting standards fall back to the banker’s good old mark-to-fantasy/ take a bonus ways. Oh, and the industry has consolidated its power and grip on politicians further – there’s progress.
Be my guest, go ahead and donate your money to their cause. Not me.
I will say it again. The only “once in a lifetime opportunity” here is to sell this rally and get positioned for what’s coming in the months and years ahead. It won’t be pretty, the banking system, the consumer, and the entire economy have already hit the wall...
Kansas – The Wall:
Ben Bernanke – Bond Market Bozo…
I know that I’ve been neglecting fans of the good old rock and roll lately, so I’m going to give you a some Santana to set the mood and to let you know Nate’s still on the job, and that somebody's winning, right now I think it's the bond market vigilantes...
Santana – Winning:
Way back in early January I wrote about how the bond market was peaking and presented my case clearly: Bond Market Hide & Seek – A Domed House & 3 Peaks...
It appears that I correctly labeled THE peak, as it has now been 3.5 months and global intervention and Quantitative Easing (QE) have not been able to keep long term rates in the bond and treasury market at those extreme lows. As I said in that article, once the Fed lowers their target rate to zero, you know you are near the end.
As the following chart of TLT (20 year bond fund) shows, we experienced a parabolic rise followed by a parabolic collapse. The collapse was indeed halted via intervention for about 3 months, but it has now resumed with technical breakdowns occurring since Bernanke and the FOMC failed to announce further actions or a larger pool of money to buy our own debt with phony trumped up dollars. You can see that we have now retraced more than 78.6% of the last parabolic rise, and places the odds high that we will retrace all of it:
Here’s a one month chart showing how fast the selloff and breakdown is occurring in bonds over the past few days:
And the ten year is nearly as bad.
Remember, most fixed mortgage rates are tied to the ten year rate. Although mortgage rates are at historic lows, as seen in this chart by the fed, they are at those lows only because the fed has been buying up hundreds of billions worth of near worthless Fannie and Freddie mortgage debt:
While conditions in the bond market here are oversold, returning prices up and rates lower will now require very difficult tradeoffs, but a short term bound could happen at any time making a levered bet on the bond market risky. Those tradeoffs would include letting the equity market go in order to preserve low rates.
These rates are NOT sustainable, so I would suggest that if you haven’t refinanced real estate that you should do so immediately.
Now, a lot of people think that with rates this low, it’s time to BUY real estate. The exact opposite is true. The general rule is that you should sell real estate when interest rates are at or near historic lows and you should buy when they are at historic highs. Look at this chart of interest rates and think about it:
Had you bought real estate in 1980 at the peak in interest rates and sold recently, you would have done terrific, especially if you would have sold like I did in 2005. Since about the year 2000 rates have been held artificially low courtesy of your morally and ethically challenged Federal Government. But think about the interest rate equation. Buying a home, if you can afford the financing, at a high rate of interest means that you will be buying when PRICES are low. Yes, your payments are higher, but if you are financing then you refinance when rates are low, like now. But what you don’t do is buy real estate when rates are low because that’s when prices are high. Once interest rates come up again, people will not be able to afford as much house and prices will continue to fall.
No, your government does not have the power to force rates low forever. They have reached their limit NOW.
And I’m not the only one who thinks so. Check out Mike Larson’s latest update from just this morning:
Sayonara Treasury Bubble!
by Mike Larson 05-01-09
You’d think that after the dot-com bubble … the housing bubble … and the bubbles in commercial real estate and private equity, investors would have learned their lesson.
Nope! They did the same stupid things this fall …
• They chased long-term Treasury prices higher and higher (just like they chased Miami condos and Pets.com),
• They drove prices to loftier and loftier levels,
• And they relied on the Fed to save their bacon.
And now, they’re getting their heads handed to them! Long bond futures have plunged a whopping 20 points — from 143 in mid-December to less than 123 yesterday. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury Note has exploded from a fall low of 2.06 percent to 3.11 percent this week — a gain of 51 percent. Key technical levels are giving way all over the place.
Fortunately, you had the market’s playbook. You were told in no uncertain terms — right here in Money and Markets — that the Treasury market was caught up in a huge bubble, one that was destined to pop.
As I said in early December:
“The truth is the U.S. government is going to have to flood the market with a wave of Treasuries the likes of which the world has never seen. And just like any other market, the bond market reacts to supply and demand.
“Too much supply and not enough demand should drive prices lower.
“Bottom line: There are lots of reasons to believe this Treasury rally is unsustainable, and that a day of reckoning is fast approaching.”
Now, let’s talk about why this is happening … where we’re headed next … and what the implications are for you and your investments.
The Biggest Debt Binge
In World History
The immediate catalyst for this week’s bond market break? The Fed’s refusal to increase the amount of Treasuries it has committed to buy. The Fed said at a policy meeting several weeks ago that it would purchase up to $300 billion in Treasuries, and it didn’t alter that target at this Wednesday’s gathering.
But I believe the problem is MUCH bigger. For starters, as I mentioned in my Money and Markets column last week, the Federal Reserve has been backing up the truck and buying every crappy piece of paper it can get its hands on. Lousy residential mortgages. Crummy commercial real estate loans. Toxic CDOs, credit card bonds, student loans — the Fed is buying or loaning money against anything and everything!
I warned that at some point, this would be viewed as bearish for the dollar. I also said it would only add to worries about the perceived credit quality of the U.S. itself. We’re starting to see the dollar get clubbed now and clearly, U.S. debt is getting trashed.
It’s not just the Fed, either. The U.S. Treasury is doing its part, too. Indeed, we’re borrowing and spending the country into oblivion!
This week alone, Treasury sold a record $26 billion in seven-year notes, a record $35 billion in five-year notes, and $40 billion of two-year notes. Next week, we’ll get a record $71 billion in longer-term debt issuance.
Total net borrowing needs for the second quarter are now up to $361 billion. That’s up 27-fold from $13 billion a year earlier and more than double the previous estimate of $165 billion.
We just learned the Treasury will start selling 30-year bonds every month, as opposed to eight times a year. And speculation is running rampant that the U.S. will soon start auctioning off 50-year bonds! All this issuance is needed to fund a federal budget deficit that’s projected to hit at least $1.75 trillion this year and $1.2 trillion in fiscal 2010.
The Implications For You …
First, I’ve implored you to dump long-term bonds for several months now. If you followed that advice, you saved yourself a world of hurt. The average long-term government bond fund has already lost 11.2 percent in value this year, according to Morningstar, and we still have eight months to go!
Credit spread tightening has helped diversified, long-term bond funds perform better. But even they’re showing year-to-date losses, on average.
My advice remains the same: Get the heck out of the LONG-TERM part of the bond market while you can. Stick with SHORT-TERM Treasury bills. They are not subject to the same price risk and credit concerns as longer-term notes and bonds.
…Meanwhile, if you’ve been waiting to refinance your mortgage, I wouldn’t hold off any longer. The Fed has been trying to manipulate the bond market in order to hold rates down. But the cumulative “sell” decisions of investors around the world are starting to overwhelm Bernanke & Co.
Thirty-year mortgage rates are still hovering in the high 4 percent area. But they’ll climb if bond prices continue to tank.
The bond market Bozos of Greenspan and Bernanke espoused the Keynesian deficit spending mantra during down cycles but forgot that the other half of that equation which is that you must save money during the upcycles if you wish to even the cycles out. Simply printing during economic dips only leads to more economic distortions and digs us deeper and deeper into debt. Just remember that every time you hear the word “credit” you are in fact hearing the word DEBT. Our marketing based politically correct Alice in Wonderland World doesn’t like labeling things in a negative light. And that’s a big part of the problem. Can’t tell little Johnny that he can’t sing, you might bruise his ego. Of course encouraging off tune Johnny to sing only distracts him from gravitating to the things he is really good at. Funny how that works. Real praise for real performance. Real criticism when it’s deserved.
Well, sorry to the p.c. crowd, but this economy is riddled with debt, broken morals and ethics, a one way rule of law, math that does not work and is IMPOSSIBLE to pay back and I really don’t care if that brings you down. It must be dealt with NOW and by adults who can both tell and handle the truth!
Hey, at least Joe the Plumber here can sing the truth while another economic Bozo simply grins behind him – how true. And truer words were never sung, “…we owe our souls to the Federal Reserve.”
Two Trillion Tons - Sung by Joe the Plumber:
Now I know that a bond market collapse is not a funny subject matter, but you have to admit Joe the Plumber pretty much nailed it!
Futures are up slightly after climbing slowly overnight (now down as I post):
Long bonds are getting slammed again, and the dollar is up slightly with gold down again. I hope everyone’s paying attention to the bond market, this is a very significant breakdown, one that has to have Bernanke’s attention, I know it has the rest of the world’s attention as rates are going higher:
World Bank Bonds Show What Happens When Governments Rush Rescue
By Gabrielle Coppola
May 1 (Bloomberg) -- Federal guarantees by 13 countries on more than $400 billion of financial company bonds are punishing the AAA-rated World Bank Group with record borrowing costs -- an indication of what can go wrong when government gets in the way.
The Washington-based World Bank, founded in 1944 to rebuild economies after World War II, sold $6 billion of three-year notes March 26 priced to yield 30 basis points more than the benchmark for such borrowings. The so-called spread was the widest for a dollar-denominated bond offering by the supranational lender, said George Richardson, the institution’s head of capital markets, in an interview.
Just seven months ago, the World Bank paid a record low 35 basis points less than the midswap rate, a market measure for exchanging fixed- and floating-rate cash flows. The sudden rise in World Bank relative bond yields is an unintended consequence of sales of taxpayer-backed debt by more than 50 companies, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. While these special offerings were designed to bring stability to the credit markets after $1.4 trillion in losses and writedowns in the past 28 months, no one realized the World Bank would be depreciated by such government policies.
“Governments started announcing guarantees for their banks, and then the whole world changed,” said Richardson, a former Goldman Sachs banker.
Rising Sales
Rising risk premiums are also affecting the Washington- based Inter-American Development Bank, which lends to Latin American and Caribbean countries, and Germany’s state-owned Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau, whose credit supports housing, education and small business.
Banks and financial companies worldwide sold 320 billion euros ($424 billion) of state-guaranteed debt since October, denominated in euros, dollars and U.K. pounds, according to Leef Dierks, a fixed-income analyst at Barclays Capital in Frankfurt.
They may issue a total of 900 billion euros in bonds for all of 2009, Dierks said.
The total includes $235 billion of dollar-denominated debt in the U.S. with backing from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. as of yesterday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Lenders backed by multiple governments, known as supranationals, have the flexibility to borrow billions in multiple currencies and at any part of the yield curve, making their bonds among the most liquid securities.
Financial Acumen
The financial acumen of the World Bank, which pioneered the first use of derivatives to obtain Swiss francs and German marks by exchanging cash flows with International Business Machines Corp. in 1981, hasn’t protected the institution from widening borrowing spreads.
Average yields relative to midswap rates on dollar- denominated supranational debt rose to 164.4 basis points, as of yesterday, from 46.8 basis points at the start of October, according to the Credit Suisse Liquid U.S. Corporate Sovereign Spread Over Swap index.
The midswap index, which contains bonds sold by the World Bank and the IADB, reached a record-high of 217.4 basis points on Jan. 2, Credit Suisse data show. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.
A benchmark for borrowers, the midswap index lies between the bid and asking yields on contracts exchanging fixed for floating interest-rate cash flows.
Double Borrowings
The World Bank, which now finances AIDS prevention in Botswana, will more than double borrowings to as much as $35 billion this year to help provide food, health and education services through the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Richardson said.
Robert Zoellick, the bank’s president, recently announced plans for $100 billion of new loans over the next three years to relieve the recession. The lender issued $1.5 billion of five- year notes on Oct. 1 at 35 basis points below the midswap rate, a record low for that maturity, according to Richardson.
The International Monetary Fund, a Washington-based agency of the United Nations that monitors the global economy, may sell its first bonds to China and Brazil to raise money to combat the downturn. IADB borrowings will total $15 billion to $20 billion this year, up from $6 billion to $7 billion in 2007 and $11 billion in 2008, said Soren Elbech, the bank’s treasurer.
While development lenders’ spreads more than tripled since October, the yield premiums on World Bank and other supranationals’ bonds have narrowed since their sale as corporate credit markets begin to heal.
Passed On
The three-year notes sold by the World Bank on March 26 rose to 100.4 cents on the dollar as of yesterday to yield 50.8 basis points more than Treasuries, according to Bloomberg data. That’s down from 82.2 basis points when they were issued.
Increased financing costs are being passed to borrowers, according to Horst Seissinger, head of debt capital markets at Frankfurt-based KfW, which has a direct guarantee from the German government.
Well, that’s what happens (higher yields) when one stimulates every aspect of the world’s economy and guarantees every corporation on the planet then issues complex and opaque instruments in an attempt to squeeze ever increasing amounts of debt into the system.
I got a good chuckle this morning reading about the new government plan to provide “cash for your clunker.” I started thinking about my young son, just about to exit high school and how attractive it might be to be paid more than his paid for old car is worth as an incentive to buy a new one. Of course it is being sold as a pollution solver, but the truth is that if he were to do that, he would go from being free of debt to being a debt slave, all sponsored by the fine people of your government.
And the Senate just yesterday voted down a provision that would have let bankruptcy judges modify loan agreements for individuals filing bankruptcy and at risk of losing their homes. It’s a rule of law thing they said. Of course the rule of law only applies to ordinary citizens, evidently, and not to corporations. See, that’s the current problem. It’s not that there aren’t laws, it’s that the laws are blatantly being applied unequally and every decision favors corporations. I wish the rule of law applied to everyone equally, and especially to the banks and politicians. Armstrong is correct in that capital formation is much more difficult when it is perceived that there is no rule of law.
And the bankers argue over the “stress test” results and decide to delay their release so that they can massage and manipulate the wording just right. You see, the porridge must be neither too hot nor too cold for little miss market, she couldn’t handle the truth, and that certainly isn’t the point.
And speaking of rule of law, the administration finally allowed an automaker to enter bankruptcy. Congratulations. Notice how through all the hoopla the President and no one mentioned the fact that all the plants would be shut down immediately. No, he was touting how many jobs he was saving.
Let me ask you this… when was the last time America produced a major new auto manufacturer? Not in your lifetime? Why is that? Why are new manufacturers springing up in places like Korea and China, but not here?
I would contend that it’s for the very moral hazard reasons that are occurring now. Namely, the big corporations run the government. Chrysler should have been allowed to fold decades ago. They are now a two time loser and keeping them around may just net the world another K-car piece of crap, but it won’t net you new and exciting innovative products that are made in America. No, it will net you an indebted nation, one that cannot possible pay its bills and it will net you lazy and complacent management and a hammered down middle-class.
This is not the end of our problems in America people, they are truly just beginning.
In regards to the rest of the news, most of it is just a distraction. I’m going to say this to all those who follow my writing, it is now time to exit the market again. The risk of holding equities is too high. Yesterday’s 888 top may be a top that holds. If it doesn’t, the upside potential here is limited.
And as I’ve been typing the futures turned slightly negative. Keep in mind that at some point today the short term stochastics are going to reach oversold… there’s a key uptrend line to watch at about SPX 866. Below that is bearish.
Martin Armstrong – Making His Own Case…
I feel privileged to have brought you a collection of Martin Armstrong’s recent works. His insights are valuable, I believe, to society and to our markets. He has a unique understanding of cycles and market dynamics while his legal problems and jail experience have certainly given him unique insights into the rule of law as he clearly explained in But They Can't Do That!
I do not know Mr. Armstrong personally and have never met him. I am not an attorney and do not have personal knowledge of the merits of his case or the case of the government. Therefore, I must remain agnostic in regards to guilt or innocence, but I am not agnostic in regards to whether due process has been served in his case, nor do I waffle in stating that it appears he has been forced into confinement for a period of time longer than is the standard for the alleged crime.
Below, I present ALL the information he just released in an attempt to make his case in public. It will be controversial, that is why I agreed to post it. Debate on this subject is healthy, in my opinion, just keep in mind that we are viewing only one side. I would ask than anyone with legal expertise in these areas please feel free to offer your opinion on what he says or please share any background or supporting information you may have, even if you do so confidentially via email or in the comments section below.
Some of the things he has experienced in prison are shocking as he describes in Behind the Curtain:
Click on picture to read, use back browser to return:
At the beginning of this month, Martin filed the following motion and I understand that the SEC has agreed to review his case. He makes some very serious accusations about the SEC and others:
Click on "more" and "print" if desired. Toggle full screen in upper right corner:
Publish at Scribd or explore others: Law & Government Business & Law securities & exchang martin armstrong
Initially held in prison for years on contempt charges, Martin claims that the SEC conspired with and controlled the judges appointed to oversee his case:
He goes as far as to accuse the system of torture that led to his “confession” in an attempt to force some sort of release date (now Sept., 2011), because prior to that he was being held indefinitely and asked to provide something he claims he doesn’t possess:
Below an attorney from a law firm specializing in Financial matters (FCL, Inc.) who reviewed Armstrong's case basically accuses Republic (the firm handling Princeton's trades) of defrauding Princeton:
Publish at Scribd or explore others: Finance Business & Law martin armstrong Accountant
A little investigation revealed that the signator of that report happens to know a little bit about complex financial transactions and WORKED FOR THE SEC. He now works for Capstone Advisory Group, LLC and boasts a very impressive background:
Michael M. Mulligan is a Managing Director of Capstone Advisory Group, LLC, and is based in the Washington, DC office. Prior to joining Capstone, Mr. Mulligan was the Executive Director of FCL Advisors, Int’l, Inc. As a former Senior Counsel for the Division of Enforcement at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Michael specializes in consulting for clients in the areas of securities fraud, forensic accounting, complex financial fraud, and corporate and disclosure controls. Other areas of service involve business and lost business valuation, contract damages, broker/dealer suitability and domestic and international funds tracing. He is a Certified Public Accountant, Certified Fraud Examiner, and is a licensed attorney in the Commonwealth of Virginia and Washington, DC.
During his 20-plus year professional career, Michael has consulted with companies and/or investigated cases involving a wide range of financial and legal issues. He has worked for 3 years as an auditor in public accounting and 3 years as an accountant in the Division of Corporation Finance at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Additionally, he worked for 5 years as an attorney-investigator-prosecutor in the Division of Enforcement of the SEC, and then spent 4 years managing a 40person legal and financial consulting office in Kiev, Ukraine.
As an attorney at the SEC, Michael litigated fraud claims and acted as lead counsel on several complex securities fraud investigations. Michael has investigated and/or prosecuted a wide range of cases involving fraudulent financial statements. Such cases were based upon allegations that issuers had improperly “managed earnings;” improperly accounted for acquisition and/or restructuring charges; prematurely recognized revenue; or violated the books and records, and internal accounting controls provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He has also worked on cases involving insider trading, improper markups on securities sales, market manipulations through complex trading schemes, savings and loan fraud and generic fraud in the offering.
Armstrong offers up several articles written about him and his case for background:
The above article came from a list of articles Martin suggested reading about him and his case:
Us vs Zichettlo Kris Marty wanted this posted along with everything else regarding his innocence.
Publish at Scribd or explore others: Finance Business & Law martin armstrong
He offers up more “proof” that people where directed to withhold evidence from him via a memo:
Publish at Scribd or explore others: Finance Business & Law evidence martin armstrong
Here is a New York Times article offered by Martin from 2007:
Publish at Scribd or explore others: Finance Business & Law new york times artic martin armstrong
This article provides some more background as reported in Money Week by the same reporter – The strange case of the jailed market genius - Money Week, 30 April, 2007:
Money Week - “The Strange Case of the Jailed Market Genius.
So, that’s a lot of information to digest about a very complicated case, and as I mentioned, it’s one side of the story. My life experience teaches me not to dismiss what he is saying. I believe that judges, the SEC, and others sometimes think they possess powers that were never given to them, and in some instances they wield those self-given powers in ways that are against the principals found in our Constitution. I think his case should be reviewed, but it should be reviewed by a neutral party, not the SEC.
I know of a lot of criminals who deserve what Armstrong is going through, or worse, and are not only walking free, but they are calling the shots (hear me Hank Paulson?). Again, I appreciate input from anyone with legal expertise or experience in matters such as this. Also would love to see his case garner more media attention, so anyone in the media seeking a good investigative story let me know and I WILL hook you up.
Good Gap up Morning,
Once again most of the meaningful moves are happening overnight when most people have no chance to act unless they are managing their positions correctly with stops. At any rate, the /ES reached 887 this morning which is just below the SPX 890 area where there is a powerful uptrend line that should offer resistance. Here’s a chart of the overnight action:
It sounds like Chrysler is going to file bankruptcy, possibly today. This is what should have happened a long time ago. Actually Chrysler should have been allowed to fail back in the early ‘80s before the K-car. This whole bailout mantra is moral hazard in the extreme and America will pay the price dearly in the long run as the same losers are allowed to operate, dominate, and squeeze out new entrants. When was the last time a new American automobile manufacturer was allowed to flourish? Too big to fail is total BS, it is in America’s interest to let the big guys fail when they fail.
Profits plummeted 58% at Exxon Mobile, poor bastards only earned $4.55 billion this past quarter after earning more than $10 billion the quarter before. Heck, $4 billion is chump change in this QE Zimbabwe environment.
Unemployment claims fell 14,000 down to 631,000 last week. Yet another week above 600k, and another new continuing claims all time record at 6.27 million.
So, this never ending rally continues to gap up as more and more believers think the banks and the consumers are holding up just fine. I assure you that without government guarantees behind everything and their complicit help in hiding the true value of assets, that even the façade of a declining rate of free fall wouldn’t be supported. I will also assure you that people buying stocks at this level are about to be taught another very sad lesson in the continued robbery of America.
While we may touch 890 today, I do not believe we will be able to break that level at this time, at least not by any significance.
I am working on assembling some documents that Martin Armstrong is offering as “proof” of his innocence and I will present those probably later today or tomorrow. This will be controversial, I’m sure, and that’s exactly why I’m going to post them. While I am going to remain agnostic as long as I only have one side of his personal case, the issues he raises about the rule of law are absolutely correct and critical to understand about what makes an economy strong and vibrant.
Well, it appears that first quarter growth was much slower than the bulls thought, with the GDP coming in at -6.1%. Economists were expecting a drop of 4.7%. Fourth quarter ’08 growth’s final revision put it slightly weaker at -6.3%.
Futures are still up as they have been ramping all night long in what has become typical gap fashion. In fact, as of late almost all the real action has come overnight, and I’m pretty sure that not a healthy indication. Note that the overnight uptrendline was just broken and the /ES is at about 858:
I’m also fairly certain that the futures would have sold the GDP report harder except for the fact that Benny and the boys get another chance to manipulate the markets with their FOMC meeting announcement which should occur about 11:15 Pacific, 2:15 Eastern. I will not be at all surprised if they announce a larger pool of “money” for their circle jerk QE/destroy America plan.
The dollar is weaker this morning and bonds, which fell on their rear yesterday, are only slightly up this morning. Several more bond auctions occur today as they attempt to finance their folly and fight the math which always wins in the end.
MBA purchase applications fell slightly last week, dropping by .6%.
And then there’s the swine flu and the fact that America has now seen its first death from it, a 2 year old boy in Texas. Texas now has 64 confirmed cases and the last I heard last night CNN was reporting that Mexicans blame close to 160 deaths on the virus. There’s a lot to this story and I’ll have more later.
And we’re learning that 6 of the 19 “stress tested” banks will require addition capital. This is such a joke, I can’t even stand to write about it. The central bankers all sit around and dream up schemes to hide assets, fool the American public, and rob the taxpayers of this nation with the complicit help of our own damn politicians. It’s disgusting, criminal, and certainly not what our founding fathers envisioned, it is exactly what they feared.
At any rate, we’ll have to see what fun and games Benny and the Jets have in store for us with the FOMC…
Look, there’s Benny now surrounded by his puppets!
Elton John-Benny & the Jets:
Martin Armstrong – Answering Your Questions…
Below is a link to a .pdf file of Martin Armstrong’s answers to your questions, primarily to those concerning “Looking Behind the Curtain...”
He did not answer specific or individual questions but instead grouped them into broader subjects like; the “club” and Money Supply v Debt. Hopefully this will help clarify his thinking.
Publish at Scribd or explore others: Business & Economics Research answered questions behind the curtain
Answers To Your Questions – Behind the Curtain…
Martin Armstrong – But They Can’t Do That!
Martin discusses our legal, political, and prison systems and how they relate to history and to our economy. The rule of law is important to confidence and thus underpins all aspects of the economy.
Of course he has insights into this world most of us do not and so you must keep in mind his position and circumstances as you read along.
But They Can’t Do That!
Publish at Scribd or explore others: Business & Economics Research economy justice system
You may also download a .pdf file for reading, printing, or sharing by clicking on this link: But They Can’t Do That!
I am expecting more from Mr. Armstrong shortly, including answers to many of your questions. Please feel free to ask more questions as they arise and I will forward them to him.
Posted byAmy Jamison at11:42 AM
Feds Paying Interest on Reserves to Fight Inflation???
The American people are being played. And robbed.
In a sickening and twisted story from Wonderland, people including reporters, are buying into the central banker insanity…
Fed Relies on Bank Reserves to Stem Inflation When Crisis Eases
By Steve Matthews and Michael McKee
April 28 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve officials are relying on interest paid on bank reserves to help stem inflation once the economy stabilizes, spurring some former insiders to intensify their warnings that consumer prices may soar.
By paying lenders to keep cash on deposit at the central bank, the Fed is seeking to prevent the money being poured into the broader economy, potentially pushing prices higher. The strategy is a gamble: interest on reserves last year failed to stop the benchmark interest rate from falling below the policy makers’ target. Officials may discuss the issue at their gathering today and tomorrow in Washington.
The debate is likely to intensify as indicators suggest the worst of the recession is past, with prospects strengthening for growth in 2010. Once the economy does turn, Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and his colleagues will need to contend with the consequences of more than doubling the Fed’s balance sheet to $2.2 trillion, analysts said.
“You’ve got the raw material there for a rapid monetary expansion and credit expansion,” said former St. Louis Fed President William Poole, a senior adviser to Merk Investments LLC of Palo Alto, California, and a contributor to Bloomberg.
Investors’ expectations for inflation are climbing amid signs the grip of the financial crisis is easing. One measure of 10-year inflation expectations, taken from the difference between yields on 10-year Treasury Inflation Protected Securities and regular Treasuries, climbed to 1.55 percent yesterday, the highest level in almost seven months.
‘More Aggressive’
Policy makers “have to be more aggressive than in the past about stopping inflation,” said Allan Meltzer, the Fed historian and professor of political economy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
Bernanke said in an April 14 speech in Atlanta that discussions about how to withdraw the Fed’s monetary stimulus once the recovery takes hold “have occupied a significant portion of recent FOMC meetings.”
The Fed’s Open Market Committee may tomorrow leave its benchmark rate target at zero to 0.25 percent and maintain its goals for purchases of Treasuries and mortgage securities, economists said. An announcement is expected around 2:15 p.m.
Congress approved in 2006 the paying of interest on reserves from 2011. Bernanke requested last May that the date be moved forward so the central bank could have a tool to help keep the federal funds rate closer to the target rate while it flooded the banking system with billions of dollars of cash.
After gaining congressional approval, the central bank began paying interest on reserves in October.
Curb Prices
Some former Fed officials are skeptical the new policy instrument will enable the FOMC to curb an increase in prices.
“It doesn’t sound to me like much of an exit strategy,” said Robert Eisenbeis, chief monetary economist for Cumberland Advisors Inc. and former research director at the Atlanta Fed. “There is a big risk of inflation.”
Unlike during previous recoveries, when banks had to raise additional funds to begin making loans, excess capital is already on their books, Poole said. “Banks will be able to fund new loans by drawing down reserve balances, rather than go into the market,” he said.
Also, the Fed doesn’t have the authority to pay interest on reserves held by government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, leaving them free to lend any excess reserves. Some smaller banks also keep their reserves at larger banks rather than at the Fed, and don’t receive interest.
To lean against inflation, the Fed will need at the start of a recovery to begin raising the reserve rate and the federal funds rate, even if unemployment is still high. The fed funds rate is the rate banks charge each other for overnight loans. The jobless rate will reach 9.5 percent in the final three months of the year, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
Policy makers favoring an increase in interest rates will face resistance from lawmakers, Eisenbeis said.
“If you have to turn policy while unemployment is high, politicians are going to be screaming like mad that the Fed is taking away the punchbowl too early,” he said.
Bernanke and other Fed officials have voiced confidence they can snuff out any threat of surging prices even after pursuing an unprecedented policy of cutting the main rate to as low as zero and providing lending to nonbanks.
“I am not worried at all that the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet will generate an inflation problem,” William Dudley, president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, said in an April 18 speech in Nashville.
Still, Dudley acknowledged “worry in some quarters that paying interest on excess reserves might not work very well as a tool for controlling the federal funds rate.”
This is the most asinine article I have read in quite some time. Yes, back in October Paulson and fellow “club” members pressured Congress into approving the paying of taxpayer monies in “interest” for the bank’s “reserves.” THIS IS THE MOST BLATANT CRIME I HAVE EVER SEEN.
Banks are allowed the PRIVILEGE of loaning money and charging USURIOUS interest rates and fees IF they hold enough in RESERVE to accomplish such lending without undo risk. The situation now is that THE BANKS HAVE NO REAL RESERVES despite what the fed puts out on their charts. The charts have been whipsawed because they are playing games with the TARP and other borrowed money and how it is counted. The banks have lent the government their near worthless crap in exchange for real taxpayer backed dollars and thus their reserves are BORROWED despite how they now claim it is not. They mark all their assets to fantasy and NOW CHARGE THE TAXPAYERS for the PHONY reserves that they supposedly hold.
Let’s take a look at the supposed non-borrowed reserves. Note how this was hugely negative and was whipsawed back to positive just prior to October of last year:
How or why did that change occur? Did the banks suddenly grow money? Did the TARP allow the banks to grow that much in supposed reserves? Remember, the FED doesn’t GIVE money away (cough, cough, bullshit), they only “loan” it. So, if the TARP money is borrowed and their “reserves” grew from the TARP, then their reserves are BORROWED. Yet, the chart above says that non-borrowed reserves are at their highest point in history! Amazing how that happens just before and after Congress agrees to pay them for their supposed reserves which is a concept that is deplorable to begin with.
So now we all of a sudden have massive “excess” reserves:
And as you can see, total reserves peaked right around the October time frame.
Now, if your intention is to stimulate the economy and to get “credit” (debt) flowing again, wouldn’t you want to encourage the banks to get their money out into the system? Or is it that “confidence” in the banks is more important?
Now they are claiming they can use it as a policy tool to incentive banks to hold reserves and slow the economy when the time comes? Isn’t that what they are already doing? Do they plan on paying more money we don’t have to the banks as if they can’t make enough already?
I AM SICK OF THEIR LIES, FALSE ACCOUNTING, AND BLATANT ROBERY. Paying banks money to hold reserves is sick, morally and ethically bankrupt. A bank is by rights already a privileged institution and keeping reserves is all that is asked for them to earn that privilege. Paying them for those reserves is asinine in the extreme. They are absolutely playing games with what reserves are, who holds them, and it is simply another excuse to take money and leave Americans further in debt.
DISGUSTING. These people belong in prison at best. They are, in fact, traitors to America and should be treated as such. Look up the penalty for treason.
Futures are down considerably again this morning with the /ES down in the 845 area just beneath the 848 pivot:
There were some strange movements last night in the gold futures, /YG. Just after the lockup, the price fell by more than $50 an ounce, but recovered most of it. Prices did wind up bleeding off and is currently down about $20 an ounce. The dollar initially rose, but has fallen back again this morning.
Bonds are higher, don’t ask me why or how. Deleveraging? Bernanke? The Treasury needing to borrow SIX TIMES its prior RECORD quarterly amount should have people running from our debt and burning our dollars! But then again the rest of the world is likewise as bad and the dollar and “safety” are definitely a perceived notion as fanciful as it may be.
And this morning Econoday is reporting that the ISCS store sales fell .7% last week, the worst rate in nearly 3 months:
Store sales fell back steeply in the April 25 week according to ICSC-Goldman's same-store index that fell -0.7 percent for a -1.7 year-on-year rate -- the worst rate in nearly three months.
Redbook comes out soon, we get some more Case-Schiller data, and consumer confidence comes out at 10 Eastern.
BAC shareholders get to vote tomorrow on whether to show CEO Ken Lewis the door – Adios Ken, couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
And there’s more talk that both BAC and C will need more capital as a result of the “stress test” which they are going to deny, of course. Whatever, they are toast regardless… the only question is how much and for how long are our idiot politicians going to keep giving our money to them? Or, the better question is how long are the people going to allow the greatest robbery in history to continue before they are all shown the exit at the business end of a pitchfork? Hmmm… American Idol still on? Check. Donald Trump still on? Roger that, it’s going to be awhile.
Swine/Mexican/Baxter flu, what’s an investor to do? The Air Force flying 747’s and fighter jets over the Hudson river w/o even coordinating? Pakistan fighting off the Taliban only miles from their nuclear arsenal? Automakers owned by the government and their employees? Oh my.
798 is the next lower pivot after 848. The short term stochastic say that a rally or at least sideways action may be necessary to get the oscillators back off oversold, although the 60 minute slow does have a ways to go before it reaches oversold. For now it’s just chop until we can exit the range we’ve been in, it would take a drop below 825 or so to do that.
US Treasury 2nd Quarter Borrowing to hit $361 Billion…
Math, it’s not fun when it works against you, and the Fed, the central banks, and your government are all working against you. The second fiscal quarter is the one where the revenues are supposed to be the strongest and borrowing the least. However, not this year:
US Treasury April-June borrowing to hit $361 bln
WASHINGTON, April 27 (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department said on Monday it expects to borrow $361 billion of marketable debt in the April-June quarter, up $196 billion from earlier estimates, as government spending soars in the deepest and longest recession in decades.
The amount is a record for the quarter, in which borrowing usually diminishes because most Americans' annual income taxes are filed by April 15. Borrowing needs include $200 billion to support Federal Reserve liquidity programs aimed at reviving lending after the housing market crash and surge in credit defaults.
The previous record borrowing for the April-June quarter is $60 billion in 2003. The Treasury cited weak revenues and greater spending to support economic recovery programs as among reasons for greater borrowing needs.
The Treasury said it expects to borrow $515 billion of marketable debt in the July-September quarter. In the January quarter it borrowed $481 billion, slightly less than earlier estimates.
The Treasury on Wednesday announces its quarterly debt refunding needs. (Reporting by Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Neil Stempleman)
The previous record for the quarter is $60 billion? That almost sounds quaint! Well, I think I know how to do simple math and that means that this year we are SMASHING THE ALL TIME DEBT RECORD BY A FACTOR OF 6! Six times more than ever before?!
You can't say you were never warned: U.S. Budget Disaster Strikes...
Hey, sorry to those who believe the crisis is over, but I think I see that train a coming… and we’re all stuck in Folsom Prison!
Johnny Cash - Folsom Prison Blues
The futures are down this morning about where they were last night, sitting right on the first level of support at the 848 pivot. Here’s a snapshot of the overnight action:
The dollar is up and back inside that triangle I showed. Bonds are up as well and this is a BIG week for bonds with auctions galore beginning today.
No economic data today, but Wednesday is the big day with GDP and the FOMC wordsmithing.
GM announced they are laying off another 23,000 workers, cutting 40% of their dealerships and shutting down the Pontiac name. They are also attempting to restructure their debt by offering 225 shares of stock to bondholders for each $1,000 in debt ($4.44) per share. GM is trading at a buck-eighty. The Bloomberg article I’m referencing doesn’t address the disparity just that they seek to reduce debt by $44 billion.
Ford is taking the opposite stance and say they are going to build more cars this year than last. Okkkkay, we’ll see how that works out for them.
So, as you remember, last Monday was a gap down that took the entire week to fill. Now we’re gapping down over the same range we gapped before. Is the swine flu sufficient to keep down? We’ll find out. 848 pivot first, then the 100dma at 830, then 798. The battle is on!
Going to have some Martin Armstrong stuff coming... answers to your questions and another article. Should be interesting.
It's time again, boys & girls, for Uncle Jay to explain the news!
Max Kaiser Latest Appearances...
Max Kaiser in good form telling it like it is. Americans are being robbed, we are a bunch of pansies who should be rising up, the bankers are criminals, and Paulson belongs in jail. Nothing but the truth... (HT Glass... thank you!).
Max Keiser - News appearance compilation - 24-25 April 2009:
Charlie Rose – Stiglitz, Ackman…
On the “Stress Test,” toxic assets, and the financial crisis in general…
In general, there’s good information here, but in my opinion anyone who believes the stress test has any real meaning is simply living in Wonderland.
This is parts one & two of 3… The third part is not up as of yet, but I’ll bring it to you as soon as it is:
Charlie Rose Stiglitz and Ackman part 1 of 3 (10 minutes):
Eric Rosenfeld on LTCM…
Very interesting but long Presentation by Eric Rosenfeld of MIT to an MIT classroom regarding the history, risk, and outcome of the LTCM (Long Term Capital Management) debacle… If you are already familiar with the history of what happened at LTCM, Rosenfeld’s lecture will be of great interest and if you’re not familiar, this is a great lesson in the risks involved with leverage and what the insiders of a risk taking firm where thinking.
Here is a link to a Wiki description of LTCM to give you a little overview as you view or just listen to Rosenfeld… Long Term Capital Management.
Feds Paying Interest on Reserves to Fight Inflatio...
US Treasury 2nd Quarter Borrowing to hit $361 Bill...
Tuesday: Retail Sales, Industrial Production, Homebuilder Survey, Fed Chair Powell
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Stories from PA History
Visit PA Regions
Teach PA History
Murrysville Gas Well Historical Marker
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Murrysville Gas Well
Marker Location:
US 22 at SR 4033 (Mill Street), Murrysville
Dedication Date:
Behind the Marker
One of the first applications of natural gas occurred quite by accident. In the 1870s Josh Cooper was tending a pot of boiling maple sugar in the woods of Murrysville along Turtle Creek, about 18 miles east of Pittsburgh. The boiling pot was a very familiar part of life here. However, its fuel was very odd. A steady stream of invisible fuel from the ground heated the pot. For Cooper, this was merely a convenience. Enterprising eyes, however, would see it differently.
Others took notice of the unusual fuel. In the next several years discovery and invention led the way to the development of a new fuel source for homes and industry. Murrysville became the site of the nation's first commercial gas well industry. Many new businesses took shape in the region, including Equitable Gas Company, which was soon acquired by George Westinghouse to become part of his Philadelphia Company. Later in 1885 and 1886 individuals who established the Haymaker Gas Well moved on to Ohio and created the Sun Oil Company. Equitable had 440,000 acres under lease in Pennsylvania and West Virginia by 1910. They operated over 900 wells. In the 1930s, Equitable constructed the first underground gas storage fields that, in part, provided fuel for Pittsburgh.
Beyond the Marker
James A. Clark, The Chronological History of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Industries (Houston, TX: Clark Book Co.), 1963.
Curt Wohleber, "'St. George' Westinghouse," American Heritage of Invention and Technology 12:3 (1997): 28-42.
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HOME > LIFE & CULTURE > Chinese Comic Books Displayed at the National Museum of China
Chinese Comic Books Displayed at the National Museum of China
Jed Santos | Jul 10, 2016 10:00 PM EDT
Children reading serial picture books at the exhibition.
Pictures from comic books since the 1920s on display at the National Museum of China.
A visitor takes photo of the serial pictures at the exhibition.
Comic books since the 1920s on display at the National Museum of China.
A serial picture book exhibition of popular Chinese comic books since the 1920s is now on display at the National Museum of China.
As a form of popular art, the exhibition presents audiences with the cultural life of Chinese society and how it has changed through the years.
Serial pictures, commonly known as "picture-story books," are an outstanding type of Chinese modern art.
As reported, the exhibition is part of the "Activation of Classic Collections" series exhibition. It will last until Aug. 31.
Credit: China Daily
Chinese comic books Activation of Classic Collections Chinese modern art picture story books National Museum of China
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Painted Tiger Sculptures Displayed in Southwest China's Kunming
In Pics: Installation Process of World's Largest Telescope in China
Beijing Expo Showcases Tea Culture Around the World
Beijing Rose Museum Boasts Diverse Array of Exhibits
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Ravi told state banks to bid low
During startling evidence by eight witness from the three state banks (BoC, NSB and People’s Bank), before the PCoI it was revealed that former Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake had asked state banks to bid at lower rates at two bond auctions with the assurance that other bids at higher rates would not be accepted. However, on both occasions at those auctions the CBSL had accepted bids much more than the advertised amount and at much higher rates.
At the onset of the yesterday’s proceedings, the Commission summoned CEO and the General Manager of People’s Bank, Vasantha Kumar to testify before the Commission.
At this moment, Senior State Counsel (SSC) Shaida Barrie who led the evidence, played before the Commission one of the deleted phone conversations between Arjun Aloysius and PTL CEO Kasuna Palisena which took place in the morning of March 29, 2016.
On March 29, 2016 and March 31, 2016, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka had held two bond auctions to raise funds to the Government. The advertised amount at the March 29, 2016 auction was Rs. 40 billion and it had ultimately accepted Rs. 76 billion. The advertised amount of the March 31, 2016 auction was Rs. 25 billion and had accepted amount was Rs. 50 billion.
In this phone conversation, Aloysius was instructing his CEO Palisena on how to bid at the March 29, 2016 auction referring to vital information he received from different sources. This conversation took place during mid-morning on the March 29 auction day.
Aloysius in the conversation says that there was a “state banks meeting” that had taken place closer to that day. According to what happened at that meeting, Aloysius tells Palisena the rates at which the state banks (NSB, BoC, and People’s Bank) would bid at the March 29, 2016 auction.
In the light of this “state banks meeting” revealed in the phone conversation, General Manager of People’s Bank, Vasantha Kumar started testifying yesterday before the Commission about this particular meeting.
According to witness Mr. Kumar, there was a meeting called by the then Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake on March 28, 2016 around 3.30 p.m. (day before the first auction) at the Finance Ministry.
Mr. Ravi Karunanayake had summoned all the three state banks, National Savings Bank, Bank of Ceylon and People’s Bank to this meeting.
The witness said Minister Karunanayake, Mr. Paskaralingam, representatives (including Chairmen) of the state banks, officials from the Treasury and several CBSL officials were present at this meeting.
SSC Shaida Barrie: What did Ravi Karunanayake tell you at the meeting?
Witness: He was of the view that the interest rate was very high at that time. He said with the intention of stabilizing the economy of the country the state banks have to support to get the interest rate down. He asked us to bid at a lower interest rate at the forthcoming (March 29, 2016) auction.
SSC Shaida Barrie: Were you given exact yield rates at which you should bid?
W: We were given a range of yield rates to bid on four different ISINs (International Securities Identification Number)
Range of rates given by then Minister Ravi Karunanayake
12.85%- 13.45%
SSC Shaida Barrie: Was this range below the market prevailing rates at that time?
W: Yes. These rates were lower than what was prevailing
SSC Shaida Barrie: Weren’t you concerned about this?
W: Even though we were concerned about this, as state banks we had to support to bring down the interest rate. But we observed that they should not accept rates higher than what was given to the state banks at the auction.
According to the witness, at the meeting, there was a discussion about a Rs. 40 billion fund requirement as advertised by the CBSL. The witness also said that there were several bonds about to mature on April 1, 2016 amounting Rs. 8 billion from the People’s Bank and the Minister wanted to re-invest them by bidding at the auction a volume of Rs, 8 billion.
The witness said that approximately Rs. 25 billion was agreed by all state banks to bid at the auction and according to the discussion reflected in the meeting the rest of the Rs. 15 billion would be covered from the captive sources (EPF, Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation)
SSC Shaida Barrie: Did you have any doubt when you left that meeting?
W: No. because Minister Ravi Karunanayake agreed that they would not accept bids at a higher rate than what was asked from the state banks at the auction.
However, the witness afterwards had communicated what was discussed at the meeting to the Treasury Operations Department of the People’s Bank and had asked them to call the CBSL Public Debt Department and verify with them that they would not accept bids at higher rates.
Accordingly an official at the Treasury Operations Department of the People’s Bank had called the Superintendent of PDD at that time Mr. Sarathchandra in the morning of March 29, 2016.
This phone conversation was played before the Commission. In this phone recording it was reflected that the People’s Bank official was seeking an assurance from Mr. Sarathchandra on the lower rates. Subsequently, Mr. Sarathchandra says that he would convey the message to the Tender Board.
When questioned, witness Mr. Kumar said that although there were occasions earlier where the Treasury had held discussions with the state banks to take the interest rate down, this was the first instance where state banks were directed to bid at a lower rate at the auctions by a Finance Minister.
However, after the March 29, 2016 auction it was revealed that the CBSL had accepted Rs. 76 billion from the bids received at the auction accepting yield rates much higher than what the state banks had placed at the auction. (The rates they were asked to bid at the meeting)
Second meeting on March 30, 2016
The witness also testified about another meeting which took place at the same venue (Finance Ministry) on March 30, 2016 (before the second auction day) chaired again by the then Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake with the state banks in the presence Mr. Paskaralingam, officials of the Treasury and the CBSL.
At this meeting two officials had represented the chairmen of BoC and the NSB.
The witness was of the view that he could not recall the exact officials who represented the CBSL at both March 28 and March 30 meetings.
According to the witness, Minister Ravi Karunanayake had again requested the state banks to bid at a lower rate at the forthcoming auction (March 31, 2016 auction).
The witness said that Mr. Karunanayake had given the precise rates and the volume (Rs. 7.5 billion each for the three state banks) at which the state banks should bid at the auction. In this auction the advertised amount was Rs. 25 billion and afterwards Rs. 50 billion had been accepted.
When he was questioned as to whether he raised concerns about the previous undertaking, the witness said “I raised concern about what happened in the last occasion. But the Minister assured again that they would not be accepting higher rates at this auction (March 30). Anyway to get us profits, the interest had to come down after what happened at the March 29 auction, so we agreed to that.”
SSC Shaida Barrie: But what happened at the March 30, 2016 auction?
W: The CBSL had accepted bids at higher rates than what was given us to bid by Ravi Karunanayake at the second meeting.
He said that he also informed Mr. Paskaralingam about some of People’s Bank’s customers bids which were at a higher rate than what the People’s Bank had bid at mid-morning on March 31, 2016 auction day. According to the witness he had sent a text message to Mr. Paskaralingam reminding about this and not to accept bids at higher rate than what was asked to be done by the Minister. However Mr. Paskaralingam had not replied.
When questioned by Justice Prasanna Jayawardena, it was revealed that there were 100 basis point discrepancies in the actual accepted rates at the two auctions than the rates what the state banks were asked to bid by Ravi Karunanayake at the two meetings.
Justice Prasanna Jayawardena: Have you participated in similar meetings before?
W: Not with a Finance Minister
Justice Jayawardena: Was the interest rate high at that time?
W: Yes
J: So, could it be a desirable action to bring the interest rate down?
J: Did you expect that bids up to Rs. 77 billion would be accepted at higher rates at the first auction (March 29)?
W: No
J: You again bid at a lower rate at the March 31, 2016 auction after the second meeting with the former Minister on March 30, 2016.
W: We anyway needed to take the interest rate down because after the March 29, 2016 auction the higher interest rates were accepted.
J: Even after the March 30 auction your expectations were not met on both occasions, right?
ASG Dappula De Livera: After the March 29, 2016 meeting with Mr. Ravi Karunanayake, did you realize that his undertaking given to you was violated?
The witness also said that there was an immediate opportunity loss calculation to the Bank due to the acceptance of bids at higher rates at the March 29 and 31 auctions.
During the testimony, the witness also revealed that former Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake had telephoned him somewhere in May 2016 and asked to recruit a person named ‘Haliyadda’ to the Treasury Operations Department of the People’s Bank.
“Mr. Ravi Karunanayake asked me to take that person. I said there was no vacancy. He said to replace the lady who was working at that time. But I said it can’t be done because she was competent enough to work there”, said the witness.
However, the witness had interviewed the person called ‘Haliyadda’ with a CV which was brought by ‘Haliyadda’, but did not recruit him.
The CV was available as evidence before the Commission and at this point Justice Prasanna Jayawardena in a sarcastic manner quipped: “Some qualifications similar to what Saman Kumara (interdicted EPF dealer) has”.
2nd witness
Thereafter, Chairman of People’s Bank Mr. Hemasiri Fernando also testified before the Commission with regard to the incidents relating to the two meetings at the Finance Ministry.
He also described about the two meetings and confirmed that Mr. Ravi Karunanayake had asked the state banks to bid at a lower rate at auctions conducted on March 29 and 31on the undertaking that bids with higher rates would not be accepted. Nevertheless, at those auctions bids at higher rates had been accepted.
During his testimony, Mr. Fernando said that Deputy Governor P. Samarasiri was present at one of the meetings (March 28 and 30) held at the Finance Ministry.
However, Counsel Harsha Fernando who was appearing on behalf of Mr. Samarasiri contested the evidence and said that his client was not present at any such meeting.
“I do not have clear recollection. But I can remember that Mr. Samarasiri attended one of the meetings, because he was in front of me”, he said
3rd Witness
National Savings Bank’s Chairman Aswin de Silva also testified before the commission with regard to the “state banks meeting” which took place on March 28 and 30, 2016.
He had attended the first state banks meeting (March 28) with his General Manager Mr. Dhammika Perera. According to his recollection, there were Dr. Samaratunge (Secretary to the Treasury) and Deputy Governor P. Samarasiri present at this meeting.
However, he had not attended the second meeting (March30) and said that he had no recollection about the second meeting.
Mr. Aswin de Silva too confirmed as to what happened at the first meeting. He also said that Mr. Ravi Karunanayake wanted the state banks to bid at lower rates at the forthcoming auction.
The Commission also questioned the witness about the appointment of CBSL dealer to the NSB (Naveen Anuradha). The witness said that he requested the CBSL Governor in a letter seeking a competent individual to the NSB dealing room as there was a requirement to broaden the trading activities. He said he never asked a particular individual to the post. According to the witness, Deputy Governor Ananda Silva had replied him saying that an individual had been sent.
When questioned about the recruitment (January, 2017) of the dealer named ‘Karunamurti’, the witness said that he only ratified the recruitment decision of the Bank as the Chairman.
4th Witness
Consultant to the Treasury Operations Department of NSB, Mr. Lionel also testified before the Commission.
He testified that he did not attend the March 28 meeting but his General Manager Dhammika Perera conveyed the information as to what happened at the meeting. Then the second meeting he was present at the Finance Ministry representing the NSB on March 30 and confirmed that Mr. Ravi Karunanayake had told the state banks to bid at a lower rate providing the exact rates and volumes.
Describing the appointment of Naveen Anuradha to the NSB, the witness said that there was a requirement for a dealer to the NSB as they wanted to expand the trading activities. Naveen Anuradha had been appointed to the NSB on February 1, 2015.
The witness said that there was an experienced dealer called Abeysinghe who had been working at that time at the NSB, but Naveen Anuradha had been appointed directly as the Chief Dealer.
ASG De Livera: Did he give you any advice?
W: Yes he told me to inform him before I do deals.
ASG: What did you tell then?
W: I said I don’t care about you. I will do what I want. And I informed this immediately to the higher authority of the bank and told that I cannot work with him.
ASG: Then what happened.
W: My dealing capacity of Rs. 1 billion had been withdrawn and I could not deal thereafter.
ASG: What did he talk with you in the dealing room.
W: He had said that he (Naveen Anuradha) has relationships with Mr. Ravi Karunanayake.
When Justice Prasanna Jayawardena asked as to what Naveen Anuradha was doing in the dealing activities at the NSB, the witness said that Naveen Anuradha had increased the volume of trading with Perpetual Treasuries Ltd, Pan Asia Bank and Acuity Securities.
Justice Prasanna Jayawardena: Did those activities of Naveen Anuradha result in NSB gaining more profits compared to other times?
W: No the profits were the same.
Bank of Ceylon Chairman (BoC), Roland Perera thereafter testified before the Commission.
He said that he attended the March 28, 2016 state banks meeting and did not attended the second meeting on March 30, but subsequently got to know about it.
He confirmed that the state banks were asked to bid at lower rates to bring down the interest rate.
The witness said that his understanding from the meeting was that higher rates would not be accepted at the auction.
He also said that he did not communicate what was discussed at the meeting to anybody as they were price sensitive information.
BOC Assistant General Manager, Shantha Kumara also testified before the Commission.
According to the witness, it was revealed that the information relating to what was discussed at the first meeting was communicated to the BoC dealing room on March 29th morning from the Chairman who participated at the March 28 meeting. By that time BoC had already placed their bids at a higher rate. However, thereafter, BoC had amended the bids replacing bids at lower rates.
The witness explained that there was an opportunity loss to the bank as these bids were not placed at the two auctions independently by the Bank.
BoC General Manager Mr. Gunasekara also testified before the Commission and confirmed that he had communicated the Chairman’s information to the other officials of the bank regarding the first meeting (March 28)
Retired Deputy General Manager of BoC, Mr. Jayasooriya also testifying confirmed that it was he who represented the chairman of BoC at the second state banks meeting held on March 30.
He again ascertained that on this second state bank meeting, the rates and volumes had been given to bid at the March 31 auction.
Justice Prasanna Jayawardena: The yield rates given to you were lower than market rates, right?
Justice Jayawardena: Does BoC normally engage in such action?
W: Not normally.
J: But you decided, why?
W: Because at that meeting there was an undertaking that higher rates would not be accepted at the auction. Mr. Vasantha Kumar also voiced his concerns about this at the second meeting that the undertaking given in the previous meeting had been violated. At that moment they said that it won’t happen on this occasion.
ASG Dappula De Livera: Who told you that?
W: The Minister
ASG: Who is the Minister?
W: Ravi Karunanayake
ASG: But what happened after the auction?
W: Higher rates had been accepted at the auction.
ASG: So, the undertaking given by the then Minister Ravi Karunanayake at the meeting had been violated, right?
W: Yes, that undertaking was violated.
It was also revealed that both the Commission and the Attorney Genral’s Department officials had officially and personally informed President’s Counsel Rienzy Arsekularatne, who was appearing for Mr. Ravi Karunanayake to attend yesterday’s proceedings, but there were no appearance marked for the former Minister at the Commission.
The Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) comprising Justice K.T. Chitrasiri (Chairman), Justice Prsanna Jayawardena and retired Deputy Auditor General Velupillai Kandasamy, will meet again at 10 am on Friday. (Shehan Chamika Silva) (Pix by Nisal Baduge)
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A combined accelerator mass spectrometry-positron emission tomography human microdose study with 14C- and 11C-labelled verapamil
Wagner, Claudia C. and Simpson, Marie and Zeitlinger, Markus and Bauer, Martin and Karch, Rudolf and Abrahim, Aiman and Feurstein, Thomas and Schutz, Matthius and Kletter, Kurt and Muller, Markus and Lappin, Graham and Langer, Oliver (2011) A combined accelerator mass spectrometry-positron emission tomography human microdose study with 14C- and 11C-labelled verapamil. Clinical Pharmacokinetics, 50 (2). pp. 111-120. ISSN 0312-5963
Full content URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.2165/11537250-000000000-00000
Background and Objective: In microdose studies, the pharmacokinetic profile of a drug in blood after administration of a dose up to 100 mg is measured with sensitive analytical techniques, such as accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS). As most drugs exert their effect in tissue rather than blood, methodology is needed for extending pharmacokinetic analysis to different tissue compartments. In the present study,we combined, for the first time,AMS analysis with positron emission tomography (PET) in order to determine the pharmacokinetic profile of the model drug verapamil in plasma and brain of humans. In order to assess pharmacokinetic dose linearity of verapamil, data were acquired and compared after administration of an intravenous microdose and after an intravenous microdose administered concomitantly with an oral therapeutic dose. Methods: Six healthy male subjects received an intravenous microdose 0.05 mg (period 1) and an intravenous microdose administered concomitantly with an oral therapeutic dose 80 mg of verapamil (period 2) in a randomized, crossover, two-period study design. The intravenous dose was a mixture of (R/S)-14C verapamil and (R)-11Cverapamil and the oral dose was unlabelled racaemic verapamil. Brain distribution of radioactivity was measured with PET whereas plasma pharmacokinetics of (R)- and (S)-verapamil were determined with AMS. PET data were analysed by pharmacokinetic modelling to estimate the rate constants for transfer (k2) of radioactivity across the blood-brain barrier. Results: Most pharmacokinetic parameters of (R)- and (S)-verapamil as well as parameters describing exchange of radioactivity between plasma and brain (influx rate constant K1 = 0.030 ± 0.003 and 0.031 ± 0.005mL/ mL/min and efflux rate constant k2 = 0.099 ± 0.006 and 0.095 ± 0.008 min-1 for period 1 and 2, respectively) were not statistically different between the two periods although there was a trend for nonlinear pharmacokinetics for the (R)-enantiomer. On the other hand, all pharmacokinetic parameters (except for the terminal elimination halflife t 1/2) differed significantly between the (R)± and (S)±enantiomers for both periods. The maximum plasma concentration (Cmax), area under the plasma concentration-time curve (AUC�) from 0 to 24 hours (AUC24) and AUC from time zero to infinity (AUC1) were higher and the total clearance (CL), volume of distribution (Vd) and volume of distribution at steady state (Vss) were lower for the (R)± than for the (S)-enantiomer. Conclusion: Combining AMS and PET microdosing allows long-term pharmacokinetic data along with information on drug tissue distribution to be acquired in the same subjects thus making it a promising approach to maximize data output from a single clinical study. © 2011 Adis Data Information BV. All rights reserved.
carbon 11, carbon 14, verapamil, accelerator mass spectrometry, adult, area under the curve, article, blood brain barrier, brain, crossover procedure, distribution volume, dizziness, drug absorption, drug blood level, drug clearance, drug distribution, drug half life, drug induced headache, enantiomer, human, human experiment, isotope labeling, male, mass spectrometry, maximum plasma concentration, normal human, plasma, plasma concentration-time curve, positron emission tomography, priority journal, radioactivity, randomized controlled trial, steady state, tissue distribution, Area Under Curve, Blood-Brain Barrier, Calcium Channel Blockers, Carbon Radioisotopes, Clinical Trials, Phase I as Topic, Half-Life, Humans, Models, Biological, Positron-Emission Tomography, Tandem Mass Spectrometry, Verapamil
College of Science > School of Pharmacy
http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
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