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CommentOpinion
comment, opinion,
If you scratch one of our pollies they will undoubtedly claim that they are in politics “to make a difference”. Some are. Some genuinely have our “national interest” at heart. But, for an increasing majority, they need to add two words to their claim, namely I am in politics “to make a difference for myself”. Over the last couple of decades we have seen an increasing penetration of what are called “apparatchiks” – those who have only ever worked in the political process – making a transition from say university politics, to some political “job” in local government, in a party organisation, in a union, in a minister’s office, and so on. The point is they have never actually had a “real job” before entering politics. Yet, if they play their cards right, they may end up as a senior minister, with responsibility for a multibillion-dollar portfolio, with basically zero management experience, nor relevant skills. Looking at the succession of recent scandals, from helicopter rides to forgetting to pay for a family holiday, to cheating on their expenses, to other and various conflicts of interest, and abuses of position and expenses, the voters have essentially seen through it all. They have had enough of this selfish behaviour, and are now desperate to register a “protest”. Pollies may argue that they “are entitled” under the “rules” of the Finance Department, but it often breaches common sense and certainly fails the pub test. Voters should register a “protest”. So many pollies have abused our trust and what is essentially a very clear and important “social licence” to represent us, as their constituents, to somehow maximise their capacity to get their snouts in the public expenditure trough. Their recent behaviour is most revealing as we are now obviously in the run up to a federal election in mid-May. All of a sudden they want to doorknock, turn up at train stations and bus stops, hit the local media, letterbox drop, hit the social media, and so on. They would have you believe that this is what they have been doing all through their term. They all claim, of course, how they are “in touch with their electorates”. However, the same-sex marriage postal survey laid that bare, across all political allegiances, as many were forced to realise that they had actually misjudged their voters. Big “No" votes in many seats where they had hoped that it would be marginal, and much stronger “Yes” votes than they had contemplated in other seats. The most conspicuous “surprises” were in the National Party-held seats where 15 of 16 voted “Yes”, and in Tony Abbott’s seat of Warringah where, heavily as a protest, they voted some 75 per cent “Yes”. Most disturbingly, Abbott was still unwilling to represent the wishes of his electorate – he abstained and actually walked out of the chamber when the vote was on. Clearly, sticking with Abbott as an example, he has not even tried to represent the wishes of his constituents, and has trashed the standing of the government by pursuing what was only ever a revengeful personal vendetta against Malcolm Turnbull, forcing his departure. Abbott’s preselection should have been cancelled. His voters will, and should, throw him out for appalling disloyalty, and consistently putting his personal interests ahead of our national interest. There are many, including many so-called traditional Liberals, who are now so annoyed at what was inflicted on Turnbull by the blatant and totally unjustified disloyalty, notionally in support of two buffoons in Abbott and Dutton, that they will find it hard to support a Liberal/National candidate and may record a protest by voting for an independent, or even voting informally. Similarly, many traditional National Party voters simply can’t believe that, yet again, Barnaby Joyce is being so blatantly disloyal to their leader Michael McCormack. Yet again it is all about Barnaby, hang everyone else! Is it really any wonder that voters are increasingly losing faith and trust in our politicians and, more broadly, in out political processes? Unfortunately voters at the next election are being forced to choose between the lesser of two evils – both Morrison and Shorten are recording net negative support from voters in most polls. And then, whomever they choose to vote for, they will have to live with the “evil of two lessers” as neither major party is even attempting to address their significant cost-of-living concerns. John Hewson is a professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU, and a former Liberal opposition leader.
https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/jvRqbJ7xAN2nzdLa48pxun/d865cf01-de01-4d9f-917e-1db52de29535.jpg/r28_671_7058_4643_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg
Hewson's View: In it for themselves, not the nation
Enemy within: John Hewson says Warringah voters should throw out Tony Abbott for "appalling disloyalty, and consistently putting his personal interests ahead of our national interest".
If you scratch one of our pollies they will undoubtedly claim that they are in politics “to make a difference”. Some are. Some genuinely have our “national interest” at heart. But, for an increasing majority, they need to add two words to their claim, namely I am in politics “to make a difference for myself”.
Over the last couple of decades we have seen an increasing penetration of what are called “apparatchiks” – those who have only ever worked in the political process – making a transition from say university politics, to some political “job” in local government, in a party organisation, in a union, in a minister’s office, and so on. The point is they have never actually had a “real job” before entering politics. Yet, if they play their cards right, they may end up as a senior minister, with responsibility for a multibillion-dollar portfolio, with basically zero management experience, nor relevant skills.
Looking at the succession of recent scandals, from helicopter rides to forgetting to pay for a family holiday, to cheating on their expenses, to other and various conflicts of interest, and abuses of position and expenses, the voters have essentially seen through it all. They have had enough of this selfish behaviour, and are now desperate to register a “protest”.
Pollies may argue that they “are entitled” under the “rules” of the Finance Department, but it often breaches common sense and certainly fails the pub test.
Voters should register a “protest”. So many pollies have abused our trust and what is essentially a very clear and important “social licence” to represent us, as their constituents, to somehow maximise their capacity to get their snouts in the public expenditure trough.
Their recent behaviour is most revealing as we are now obviously in the run up to a federal election in mid-May. All of a sudden they want to doorknock, turn up at train stations and bus stops, hit the local media, letterbox drop, hit the social media, and so on. They would have you believe that this is what they have been doing all through their term.
They all claim, of course, how they are “in touch with their electorates”. However, the same-sex marriage postal survey laid that bare, across all political allegiances, as many were forced to realise that they had actually misjudged their voters.
Big “No" votes in many seats where they had hoped that it would be marginal, and much stronger “Yes” votes than they had contemplated in other seats. The most conspicuous “surprises” were in the National Party-held seats where 15 of 16 voted “Yes”, and in Tony Abbott’s seat of Warringah where, heavily as a protest, they voted some 75 per cent “Yes”.
Most disturbingly, Abbott was still unwilling to represent the wishes of his electorate – he abstained and actually walked out of the chamber when the vote was on.
Clearly, sticking with Abbott as an example, he has not even tried to represent the wishes of his constituents, and has trashed the standing of the government by pursuing what was only ever a revengeful personal vendetta against Malcolm Turnbull, forcing his departure. Abbott’s preselection should have been cancelled. His voters will, and should, throw him out for appalling disloyalty, and consistently putting his personal interests ahead of our national interest.
There are many, including many so-called traditional Liberals, who are now so annoyed at what was inflicted on Turnbull by the blatant and totally unjustified disloyalty, notionally in support of two buffoons in Abbott and Dutton, that they will find it hard to support a Liberal/National candidate and may record a protest by voting for an independent, or even voting informally.
Similarly, many traditional National Party voters simply can’t believe that, yet again, Barnaby Joyce is being so blatantly disloyal to their leader Michael McCormack. Yet again it is all about Barnaby, hang everyone else!
Is it really any wonder that voters are increasingly losing faith and trust in our politicians and, more broadly, in out political processes?
(Abbott) has not even tried to represent the wishes of his constituents.
Unfortunately voters at the next election are being forced to choose between the lesser of two evils – both Morrison and Shorten are recording net negative support from voters in most polls.
And then, whomever they choose to vote for, they will have to live with the “evil of two lessers” as neither major party is even attempting to address their significant cost-of-living concerns.
John Hewson is a professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU, and a former Liberal opposition leader.
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The Icelandic-Born Woman Shaping Los Angeles' Design Scene
I cover women making a difference.
Kimpton La Peer Hotel, in Los Angeles
Laure Joliet
Not long after Gulla Jónsdóttir leased a space in West Hollywood for her design business, the landlord delivered the bad news that a new hotel would be going up on the spot. He also had good news: the developer wanted her to design the hotel.
The La Peer Kimpton opened a few months ago in Los Angeles' thriving Design District and later this summer, Jónsdóttir will open an atelier adjacent to its lobby. The atelier will showcase her limited-edition furniture line as well as display the work of female artists. "Opening the atelier on the site is coming full circle," says the Icelandic-born founder of Gulla Jónsdóttir Architecture & Design.
Gulla Jonsdittor
Courtesy of Gulla Jonsdittor
Jónsdóttir's Los Angeles-based company designs residential, commercial and hospitality projects as well as her furniture line. Though the La Peer is not the first hotel Jonsdottir and her all-women team has completed, the collaboration has been particularly satisfying and personal. In addition to the atelier, the penthouse showcases her complete furniture collection and the paintings, photos and poetry of colleagues and friends are scattered through the hotel.
Jónsdóttir describes her aesthetic as nature-inspired and poetic, with each project further influenced by its location. The La Peer is a short walk away from the Pacific Design Center and Melrose Avenue, and the neighborhood’s art, fashion, film and design vibe permeates Jónsdóttir's design--leather walls, bronze columns, an eclectic mix of art and sculpture, and most strikingly, surfaces that play with expectations. A white wall sculpture created from a map of L.A.’s topography hangs behind a reception desk that seems to flow. The lobby’s white oak floor has unexpected curves.
“I grew up in a dramatic landscape, with glaciers and cliffs. I like curved lines and shapes that are a bit voluptuous,” she says. “Everything has a tactile effect. I want people to touch things and for the spaces to feel good, and that is a key to my design. It is important to look good but that is less important that the flow of a space.”
The reception desk at the Kimpton La Peer Hotel in Los Angeles.
Jónsdóttir initially came to the US to study architecture and wound up making it her home, albeit with stints abroad as she worked on projects around the world, including Tokyo and Mexico. “After school I had a working visa and figured I’d take a chance and try to work with Frank Gehry or Richard Meier,” she says. Job offers came from both, but Meier’s came first and she worked with him on the Getty Center. “I say that project spoiled me for smaller projects. It takes me the same abut of time to do something small as it does to design a skyscraper. It is all the power of thought.”
She then worked for Walt Disney Imagineering and Dowd Mitchell Design before launching her own company. “It was the recession and I figured it was now or never,” she says. “Maybe it is because I’m from Iceland but I tend to believe that things will work out. I’ve just learned to always follow your heart and your instincts. If you have a passion for something you have to trust and let it go.”
She started with two clients, one of which fell through. With hotel projects in short supply during the downturn, Jónsdóttir focused on restaurants and nightclubs, building a small staff and expanding her industry contacts and reputation. A gig to design a restaurant in Mexico turned into designing an entire hotel, her award-winning Cabo Azul Hotel.
Puzzle Table
Her move into designing furniture was born of necessity. “I was frustrated because I couldn’t find the pieces I wanted for my projects and designing my own became a passion project. It is satisfying, as it takes about two months to design a table and about five years to design a hotel.” Standouts of the limited edition line are a puzzle table and a petal chair. The pieces have garnered praise across the industry, but regardless of demand she’s committed to producing only limited editions and custom pieces. After all, there are plenty more big visions to turn into reality.
I've been covering entrepreneurs for more than a decade. I've been an editor at Money and BusinessWeek, and contribute to Atlantic.com, Fortune.com, FastCompany.com, and...
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Football | August 9, 2015
Advocaat: Not good enough
Sunderland manager Dick Advocaat says his players were not up to scratch after losing 4-2 to Leicester City at the King Power Stadium on Saturday.
The Black Cats suffered a disastrous start to their league campaign when Jamie Vardy opened the scoring for Leicester before Riyad Mahrez hit a first-half brace and Marc Albrighton completed the scoring for the Foxes.
Jermain Defoe and Steven Fletcher each got a goal back in the second half, but it wasn't enough to undo the damage caused before the break.
"You can always lose if the other team is better, I can accept that, but the way we played in the first half was not good enough," Advocaat told Sky Sports.
"There was no sharpness and we didn't show that we wanted to win. Leicester wanted to win and we were always too late.
"I have seen what I already knew, it's difficult to change that at the moment but we have to change something because we cannot go on this way."
"In the first half, Leicester were sharper, better and deserved to win. We struggled to cope with their pace in midfield and at the back, so we have to think about what we need to do this week."
Home Football Premier League Advocaat: Not good enough
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← The Magnificent Penguin
The Wizardry and Ultima Sequels →
One day in 1979 Antonio Antiochia visited Eastern Michigan University with his father, who taught classes there on statistics and computers. Dad had some meetings to take, so he left Antonio in an empty computer lab, one of the few at the university equipped with real video terminals in lieu of the more common teletypes. The terminals were cool, but this was otherwise not an unusual scenario. Antonio had been hanging out at his father’s workplace for the past five years now, tinkering with the various big computers there. Now 13 years old, he could already program fairly well in FORTRAN and operate a keypunch machine. Indeed, he was all too familiar with the traditional method of mainframe programming — deliver a stack of cards to a friendly computer operator, then wait for the printed results. He had even spent many months working on a game. Called Terroron, it was an homage to the Japanese monster movies he loved; the player got to control a monster rampaging through a city. (From the great-minds-think-alike department: this is also the theme of Crush, Crumble, and Chomp!, arguably the most inspired use of the Automated Simulations DunjonQuest engine, as well as the later, more refined The Movie Monster Game.)
So, Antonio knew pretty well what he was doing as he started poking at one of the terminals to see what was what. He didn’t have an account on this system, but found that as Guest he had access to games. Not bad! Inside he found mostly the usual suspects, from Tic Tac Toe to The Oregon Trail. But wait, here was something new… something called ADVENT. He started the program, and was greeted with the text that launched a thousand careers and a million obsessions:
YOU ARE STANDING AT THE END OF A ROAD BEFORE A SMALL BRICK BUILDING. AROUND YOU IS A FOREST. A SMALL STREAM FLOWS OUT OF THE BUILDING AND DOWN A GULLY.
Antonio didn’t know quite what he was supposed to do next; for some reason this build of the game was missing the usual offer of instructions at the beginning. He flailed at it for a while and gave up. But it continued to tickle at the back of his mind, and a month or so later he tried again. This time he managed to find his way underground, and from there he was hooked. Terroron was quickly forgotten.
But when he finished Adventure at last, he had no more adventure games to play. It was the only one of its type on the university’s computers, and his family had no computer at home as yet. And he lacked the skill to make one of his own; working with text in FORTRAN was notoriously difficult. So, he used his imagination:
I came up with dozens of adventure plots in my spare time (and a few other games), drawing their outlines, their maps, etc., based on a wide variety of themes (a bit heavy on the fantasy genre) — simply out of the joy of creativity and discovery. It was cool.
Antonio had a particular reason to want to retreat into fantasy at this stage of his life. His mother, with whom he had been very close, had just died of cancer, leaving him and his father alone. The world inside his imaginary adventure games often felt much more welcoming than the real one.
One day Antonio mentioned Adventure to a friend of his from school, who in turn delivered the shocking news that there were a number of such games available on microcomputers, written by a guy named Scott Adams. The same friend told him about the Ann Arbor Community High School Computer Club, which had a collection of PCs available for use by the public for a small fee. Antonio became a regular there, playing the Scott Adams games and, eventually, starting to work on a real one of his own at last, a fantasy game called The Land of Ghaja; his adventure-gaming friend did him the final service of helping him to figure out how to parse text in BASIC. When the club was closed, he fed his addiction by visiting local computer stores and using their machines for as long as they would let him.
Antonio had of course been pestering his father for a computer of his own for months, and at last Dad could resist no longer. He brought home a new Apple II Plus, with the condition that the two would share it. Antonio quickly finished Land of Ghaja. “It was a little bit primitive,” he admits today. Still, he passed the game around his local circle of friends and fellow computer-club members, to a pretty good reception.
With time and privacy for his projects at last thanks to his father’s purchase, he started on another game that would benefit from what he had learned from the first. It would not only be more technically advanced, but would have a more unique setting. He was a big fan of Halloween and of classic movie horror of the Boris Karloff / Bela Lugosi / Lon Chaney, Jr. era. His new game would be horror — but a fun, retro, slightly campy sort of horror, more The Wolfman than the horror sensation of the moment, The Shining. Like one of his favorite movies, Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Antonio threw it all in: a werewolf, a vampire, even an alien and his UFO. He eventually named the game Transylvania. Not that he had ever been there or knew much of anything about the real place. His Transylvania was the land of old horror movies and tales and, of course, imagination.
Antonio’s father helped out as editor and coach. An Italian immigrant who spoke English with a strong accent, he nevertheless had an excellent command of English grammar and style, and was a steadfast source of encouragement. Antonio honed the game over a period of several months. Satisfied at last, he passed it among his friends and made plans to start another; the thought of doing anything else with it had yet to enter his mind. His father, meanwhile, had started ordering computer supplies from Mark Pelczarski’s post-SoftSide, pre-Penguin venture Micro Co-op. One day while placing an order over the phone he mentioned that his son had written a really impressive adventure game. Mark said that he was starting a publishing company (“Co-op Software”) to go along with the mail-order business. “Send it to us. We’d like to see it.” From that chance exchange was born the eventual Penguin Software’s first adventure game.
Mark immediately liked the game, but he was also aware that it was getting harder to sell pure text adventures on the Apple II in the wake of On-Line’s Hi-Res Adventure line. And there was something a little bit off about “the leader in Apple II graphics” releasing a game with no graphics. Could Antonio add some pictures? To help him, he was willing to give him all of his latest graphics software, including programs that would eventually become a part of The Graphics Magician, but that hadn’t yet been released at this point (summer 1981). Antonio wasn’t an artist and had no experience with computer graphics, but he was a trooper. While Penguin Software established and consolidated their position as “the graphics people,” Antonio sat at home laboriously drawing picture after picture using the software Mark had provided and the standard pair of paddles that came with every Apple II. Doing so ended up taking much more time than actually writing the game had — some nine months. His patient labor yielded some of the best graphics of the “hi-res adventure” era. (I’ve added a blurring effect to the image below and all of those that follow to try to convey what they would have looked like on a contemporary monitor, where the dithering would have smeared the pixels together to create many more apparent colors than the Apple II’s standard six. Our pixel-perfect digital screens otherwise just can’t do them justice.)
With the graphics done at last, Mark and the others at Penguin stepped in to do the final polishing. They cleaned up the original BASIC code, adding in some assembly-language routines to handle the graphics. And they put the game through considerable playtesting, adding responses to various actions that Antonio hadn’t anticipated. They also had some fun. “Werewolves of London,” the one hit single of the great Warren Zevon, was in heavy rotation at the Penguin offices as they worked on the game. Soon more and more of the song was finding its way into the game. Zevon’s caustic wit would have made an interesting contrast with Antonio’s more innocent monster-movie fixations, but in the end most of the former was edited out again. Messages like “He ripped your lungs out, Jim” just prompted too much confusion (“Who the heck is Jim?”) from people who didn’t know the song. Only one fragment remains in the released version.
The game that finally emerged from Penguin that summer of 1982 is one of the most charming of its genre and era. Yes, its parser and world model are extremely primitive in comparison to the contemporary games of Infocom. Yet it plays within its formal limitations beautifully. In fact, it’s an almost uniquely playable example of its type, thanks both to a lots of addition by subtraction — no maze, no guess-the-verb puzzles — and, well, lots of addition by addition: a collection of simple object-based puzzles that are commonsensical and play smartly within the strict limits set by the game’s technical underpinnings. The design as a whole is unusually open, crafted in a way that usually gives you lots of puzzles to work on in whatever order you choose. As Mark Pelczarski wrote in an email to me:
With Transylvania you could wander from puzzle to puzzle and see much of the Transylvania universe without getting stuck. At most points in the game there were maybe 3-5 or more open puzzles to solve. Each lead you further into the game, but seldom was one single puzzle a sticking point or roadblock (until you solved all the others).
Given this level of non-linearity and the limited amount of text in the game, Transylvania is inevitably more of a pastiche of fragments taken from other fictions than a coherent narrative experience of its own. Early on we find a note which tells us in all of four words everything we need to know about the plot: that a Princess Sabrina is going to be killed at dawn (Ach! A time limit!) and that it’s up to us to rescue her.
A pastiche it may be, but Transylvania absolutely nails the half Gothic, half campy atmosphere of a classic Universal monster movie. And anyway, by the time they got to the 1940s and the likes of Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman or Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, the Universal films were themselves little more than mix-and-match pastiches.
Like those movies, Transylvania has its chills, especially in the wandering werewolf and vampire who can creep up on you at any time, but there’s something almost comfortingly innocent about it all. This is safe horror that never trangresses certain well-understood boundaries.
Still, and just to remind us that it was after all written some 30 years after its inspirations went out of fashion, Antonio also threw in a UFO right out of Steven Spielberg.
Antonio told me recently that he had quite a twist on the classic monster movie in mind: that the vampire had actually come on the UFO, was actually an alien. He was “quite proud of myself and thought this was original” in this era before vampires were absolutely everywhere in pop culture, although it’s not something that can really be gleaned from the finished game. He describes the game today as “unsophisticated” but with a “simple playfulness” that makes it “likable.” I couldn’t agree more. Transylvania charmed me in a way akin to Ultima, the issue of another bright, precocious kid who wanted to pack as much cool stuff into his game as possible in the hope that you would like it all as much as he did.
Some time after Transylvania‘s release, and as Antonio was going through the surreal experience of coming home from school to find royalty checks for thousands of dollars in his mailbox, Penguin received a rather unusual package that came from an entire grade-school class in Australia. Its ostensible purpose was to ask for a hint book, but each kid in the class also contributed a crayon drawing inspired by the game. Antonio has kept and cherished the package to this day: “When I go through sad or frustrating times, I will sometimes read through those old letters to cheer myself up.” Indeed, making a class of schoolchildren happy is about as worthy an achievement as there is in life. I spend a lot of time on this blog talking about the progress of the art of ludic narrative and all that, but adventure games are most of all supposed to be fun, and are supposed to make people happy. And Transylvania delivers.
If you want to have some fun of your own, here’s an Apple II disk image of Transylvania. Or those of you with iOS devices can buy a port.
(My sincere thanks to Antonio Antiochia and, once again, to Mark Pelczarski for lending their memories and perspectives to this article.)
Posted by Jimmy Maher on October 3, 2012 in Digital Antiquaria, Interactive Fiction
Tags: apple ii, penguin, transylvania
12 Responses to Transylvania
Jonathan Blask
Great. I’ve been looking forward to Transylvania for several posts. In that bit about Crush, Crumble and Chomp!, did you actually mean The Movie Monster Game (as an example of a more-refined version)? Mail Order Monsters was mostly about battle and had little to do with attacking cities.
Yes, you’re right. Corrected — and thanks!
Andrew Plotkin
“Sabrina dies at dawn” is four words, it turns out. :)
What’s an “at” here or there among friends?
Okay, okay… fixed. :)
J.P. McDevitt
Just an FYI for people interested in buying the iOS version – it appears it might be broken for newer devices (iPhone 6 specifically, tried on a friend’s as well with same result – gets to the title screen but crashes when you try to launch the game).
Jimmy, perhaps you could pass that along to Antonio?
Jeff Holden
Love this site / blog! Many memories from my past using the TRS-80 (remember the Olympic Games program where u had to press 2 buttons in sequence for the 100 meter or the pole vault???), Apple II – finally had the parents get us the IIc lol! The Ultimas and Wizardry!! Taxman!! Lode Runner!!
Anyways – I can’t find any comments (here or in Wikipedia) about Phoenix Software – I absolutely loved the 2 games: Masquerade and Sherwood Forest! The graphics involved for these text / graphic picture adventure games were amazing for the time!! Any knowledge / comments about them??
I know of those games, but no, I haven’t written about or researched Phoenix Software. There is some information here that you might find interesting: http://gue.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/index.php?pub=1&item=0&id=1&key=0.
Allison Newman
Oh, I *loved* this game when I played it as a kid – enough that I have tried to find it for my Mac without much success. I have a vivid memory of just thinking about the game every waking moment. One particular moment sticks in my mind – I was stuck because I hadn’t figured out what to do in the hunting lodge, and I basically just ran through the entire game in my mind – every object, every location, every verb, thinking through possible combinations that could help me – whilst sitting in the back of my parents car coming back from dinner at my grandparents house (a trip that lasted typically 45 minutes).
And here’s the thing. That exercise generated two or three things to try, and the next morning, as soon as I was up, I got onto the computer and tried, and sure enough, I had found the answer! It was somewhat magical experience.
I wasn’t a novice to adventure games at this point, I had played through most of Adventure by myself on my first computer (a Compucolor II – you can find an online emulator here: http://compucolor.org/emu.html (thanks Jim Battles!)), and by the time I found Transylvania I was already using a Mac, and had already had time to buy one of those books that teaches you to write an adventure game in BASIC). But there was something so satisfying about the puzzles in Transylvania – they were logical, you could figure out what had to be done by thinking things through.
Magical game – I think I may have to try the iOS port!
Linda chadwick
Transylvania and Frogger were my favourite games. Transylvania had a special place in my heart. I played it for many years with my nephews. They loved it too. Is there any sites that have the source code for the original Macintosh version. I became a Mac programmer using mac pascal and mcbasic and some assembly. I would love to see how it was written, especially how the vampire appeared overlayed on the graphics.
As I continue reading through this blog, entry by entry, I find myself compelled to praise you at every corner. Although I’ve given my bit of criticism as well a few times, just know that it is a testament to your critical attention to detail that invites such careful thought and discussion. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoy every bit of it.
I grew up with a Commodore-64 in the 1980s, and have always been a fan of interactive fiction from the likes of Infocom, Sierra On-Line, and LucasFilms. Therefore, I am not very familiar with some of these older games for the Apple ][ or the TRS-80, but I am charmed by your depictions of them, which entices me to give them a chance.
As I read along in chronological order, I’m eagerly awaiting the timely landing of your blog in the C=64 era. (Indeed, I’ve already scoped in the index a couple of articles dedicated to Fahrenheit 451 — one of my most favourite game of all time, and the one that got me reading literature to my Father’s eternal pride and gratitude!)
I can’t wait to read more. Thanks for keeping this blog alive!
But wait, here was something new… something called WANDER.
But surely the text that follows is from ADVENT?
This was the command used to start Adventure on that computer system, according to Antonio. But the fact that there was another adventure system known as Wander, first discovered after I interviewed him and wrote this article, does make me wonder if he was confused about the game he was playing. As it is, I agree that it’s needlessly confusing for the reader. I’ve elected to replace the letter of Antonio’s memory with the spirit, replacing WANDER with ADVENT. Thanks!
Leave a Reply to Jimmy Maher Cancel reply
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Chick-Fil-A won't be landing at Buffalo airport
Protest by local assemblyman kills plan by chain to open outlet, following a similar recent move in San Antonio. Chicl-Fil-A has 2,400 locations.
Chick-Fil-A won't be landing at Buffalo airport Protest by local assemblyman kills plan by chain to open outlet, following a similar recent move in San Antonio. Chicl-Fil-A has 2,400 locations. Check out this story on Freep.com: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/04/01/buffalo-airport-says-no-new-airport-location-chick-fil-a/3336958002/
Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY Published 7:00 p.m. ET April 1, 2019 | Updated 4:53 p.m. ET April 2, 2019
Mayor Pete opens up about his views on Chick-fil-A and it might not be what you’re expecting. Veuer’s Nick Cardona has that story. Buzz60
The Chick-Fil-A fast-food chain has been disinvited from opening a location at the Buffalo airport, its second local snafu in two weeks.
The decision was due to the company's "long history of supporting and funding anti-LGBTQ organizations," according to New York State Assemblyman Sean Ryan, who had fought having Chick-Fil-A at the airport.
Just last week, the San Antonio City Council also declined to approve plans by Chick-Fil-A to open at the local airport because of the company's "legacy of anti-LGBTQ behavior."
Update: I applaud the decision that has been made to remove Chick-fil-A from plans for the Buffalo Niagara International Airport. Thank you to everyone who reached out to share their opinion. pic.twitter.com/HA5t1CjwkV
— Assemblyman Sean Ryan (@SeanMRyan149) March 29, 2019
The Georgia-based chain has 2,400 locations that specialize in fried and grilled chicken. The company closes every Sunday to lets its workers "spend the day to rest and worship," and it is also active in donating to what critics say are groups that discriminate against gays and lesbians.
According to advocacy group Think Progress, the chain gave $1.8 million to what it calls "discriminatory groups" in 2017, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, \the Paul Anderson Youth Home, and the Salvation Army, which it says "spread an anti-LGBTQ message," and teach that homosexuality is a sin.
“Recent coverage about Chick-fil-A continues to drive an inaccurate narrative about our brand," the company said in a statement. "We want to make it clear that our sole focus is on providing delicious food and welcoming everyone – not being a part of a national political conversation. We do not have a political or social agenda. More than 145,000 people from different backgrounds and beliefs represent the Chick-fil-A brand. We embrace all people, regardless of religion, race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity.“
Additionally, the company posted a response on its website, saying coverage of its donations has been misleading. Chick-Fil-A donates to "programs that support a diverse array of youth and educational programs nationwide," the company says.
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The decision in Buffalo predictably polarized responses from across the political spectrum.
"We know that @chickfila has a great reputation for welcoming all people into their stores," wrote evangelical leader Franklin Graham on Twitter.
I think San Antonio residents should hold their city council members accountable for this unfair decision. We know that @ChickfilA has a great reputation for welcoming all people into their stores. And, no question, they serve a great chicken sandwich! 2/2 https://t.co/Ii6XUuGxAL
— Franklin Graham (@Franklin_Graham) April 1, 2019
"Fox & Friends," the popular morning show on the conservative Fox News cable network, mused in a tweet whether the left was "taking it too far," in protesting the chain.
A week after being banned from a Texas airport, Chick-fil-A has now been banned from Buffalo, NY’s airport over their alleged support of anti-LGBTQ organizations. Is this taking it too far? pic.twitter.com/q3cmaECFNF
— Fox & Friends First (@FoxFriendsFirst) April 1, 2019
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/04/01/buffalo-airport-says-no-new-airport-location-chick-fil-a/3336958002/
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Frontiers in Earth Science
What is an AR?
Structure of an AR: Observation and Modeling
Methods to Identify Atmospheric Rivers
A Climatological View of ARs
Impact of Landfalling ARs
Ability of Models to Predict ARs
Large-Scale Ocean-Atmosphere Dynamics and ARs
Atmospheric Rivers in a Changing Climate
Mini Review ARTICLE
Front. Earth Sci., 05 March 2014 | https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2014.00002
Atmospheric rivers: a mini-review
Luis Gimeno1*, Raquel Nieto1, Marta Vázquez1 and David A. Lavers2
1EPhyslab, Departamento de Física Aplicada, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Vigo, Ourense, Spain
2IHR-Hydroscience & Engineering, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA
Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are narrow regions responsible for the majority of the poleward water vapor transport across the midlatitudes. They are characterized by high water vapor content and strong low level winds, and form a part of the broader warm conveyor belt of extratropical cyclones. Although the meridional water vapor transport within ARs is critical for water resources, ARs can also cause disastrous floods especially when encountering mountainous terrain. They were labeled as atmospheric rivers in the 1990s, and have since become a well-studied feature of the midlatitude climate. We briefly review the conceptual model, the methods used to identify them, their main climatological characteristics, their impacts, the predictive ability of numerical weather prediction models, their relationship with large-scale ocean-atmosphere dynamics, possible changes under future climates, and some future challenges.
Atmospheric scientists must consider and study both climatological and meteorological aspects of the transport of moisture in the atmosphere (Gimeno et al., 2012; Gimeno, 2013). It is particularly important to review the conceptual models of moisture transport to aid research into the origin of continental precipitation. The notion of the atmospheric river (AR) is key to the study of water vapor transport in extratropical regions. In this mini-review we summarize the main characteristics of ARs, which are responsible for the transport of large amounts of water along relatively narrow “rivers” across the midlatitudes toward higher latitudes.
Most of the water vapor transported meridionally across the midlatitudes (>90% of the total midlatitude vertically integrated water vapor flux) takes place through narrow corridors called atmospheric rivers (Zhu and Newell, 1998). These transient filamentary regions occur within the warm conveyor belt (WCB) of extratropical cyclones, and are characterized by high water vapor content and strong low level winds (a low level jet). Although first discovered some time ago (e.g., Namias, 1939; Palmén and Newton, 1969; Browning and Pardoe, 1973) we start our mini-review with the seminal work of Newell et al. (1992), who termed these long (about 2000 km), narrow (about 300–500 km wide) bands of enhanced water vapor flux “tropospheric rivers” (Figure 1). They used the term “rivers” because they transport water at volumetric flow rates similar to those of the world's largest rivers. The word “tropospheric” has since fallen out of favor, and we now use “atmospheric rivers” (ARs, Zhu and Newell, 1998), although there is still some disagreement on the appropriateness of this term, with alternatives being “tropical moisture exports” (Knippertz and Wernli, 2010) or “moisture conveyor belts” (Bao et al., 2006). This last term is thanks to an analogy with the conveyor belt model of extratropical cyclones (Carlson, 1980), in which the WCB is a broader feature of extratropical cyclones that plays a central role in the transport of sensible and latent heat polewards, to balance the contribution of other components of the cyclone that transport relatively cool and dry air equatorwards. ARs also have colloquial names, such as “Hawaiian fire hose,” or “Pineapple Express” (Lackmann and Gyakum, 1999), non-technical terms commonly used by forecasters to refer to ARs that connect tropical moisture near the Hawaiian Islands with the west coast of North America; over the central United States ARs have been named the “Maya Express” (Dirmeyer and Kinter, 2009).
Figure 1. (A) Composite Integrated Total Column of Water Vapor (IWV) between 00 and 18 UTC 19 November 2009 showing an atmospheric river (AR) associated with extreme precipitation events that affected the United Kingdom (UK). Data: ERA-Interim. (B) A general distribution of areas of occurrence of ARs (red contours) based on Waliser et al. (2012) and Zhu and Newell (1998). White contours showed the continental areas where there are reported cases of ARs linked with extreme precipitation and floods (listed in Supplementary Table III).
Supplementary Table I lists the key observational and modeling studies concerning the structure of ARs. A typical AR resides within the warm conveyor belt in the pre-cold-frontal region of an extratropical cyclone. Its properties include (Ralph et al., 2004, 2005): (1) a concentrated band of enhanced low-level specific humidity (frontal convergence forces the air to ascend and is responsible for the vertical expansion of this band of enhanced humidity.), (2) a pre-cold-frontal low level jet due to the temperature gradient across the cold front (owing to the thermal wind relationship), and (3) the vertical distribution of the equivalent potential temperature shows moist-neutral stratification in the area of the AR, low-level potential instability on the cold side of the front, and an area of subsidence at low levels ahead of the AR associated with the dry cap on top of the trade wind inversion. The moisture in an AR has two origins (Bao et al., 2006): (1) local moisture convergence along the cold front of the extratropical cyclone, and (2) direct poleward transport of tropical moisture. The different precipitation regimes observed in an AR event include (Matrosov, 2013) “cold” rainfall (mostly formed by ice precipitation above the freezing level for more northern latitudes); “warm” rainfall (limited amounts of ice in precipitation for temperatures above the freezing level); and regions of mixed precipitation with both warm and cold rainfall. These three regimes occur, on average, with equal frequency. Figure 2 illustrates the typical structure and dimensions of an AR.
Figure 2. Conceptual model scheme of an atmospheric river (AR) over the northeastern Pacific Ocean. (1) Plan-view schematic showing the relative positions of the polar-cold-front and the Low Level Jet (LLJ). The big arrow shows the AR and the blue one the LLJ. In dark green it is showed the concentrated integrated total column of water vapor (IWV) ≥2 cm and in red the associated rain-rate enhancement (RR) ≥0.5 mm/h along the AR. The broken blue line defines a symbolic area of precipitation associated to the full system. The magenta line A–B defines a cross-section projection for (3). The pink segments over the pre-cold-frontal LLJ (with a–b) marked the limits with profiles for (2) are integrated. At the bottom in light green it is showed the tropical IWV reservoir (>3 cm). (Note that the thresholds are regional in essence and the fact of including values in the text and in the diagram is only with illustrative sense) (2) Vertical structure of moisture flux (in red), moist static stability (in green) and wind speed (in blue) along the LLJ [a–b in (1)]. (3) Cross section schematic through an AR [along A–B in (1)] highlighting the vertical structure of the along front isotachs (blue contours; m/s), water vapor specific humidity (dotted green contours; g/kg), and horizontal along front moisture flux (red contours and shading; ×105 kg/s). This figure is a composition using figures adapted from Figure 23(a) by Ralph et al. (2004) for (1), from Figure 13(b) by Ralph et al. (2005) for (2) and from Figure 23(b) by Ralph et al. (2004) for (3) (American Meteorological Society. Used with permission).
There are two main approaches used to detect ARs: (i) by using Integrated Water Vapor (IWV) from satellite measurements (e.g., Ralph et al., 2004), reanalyses or models (e.g., Dettinger et al., 2011) and then applying criteria on the IWV (in terms of IWV amount, length and width e.g., areas with IWV greater than 2 cm, narrower than 1000 km, and longer than about 2000 km); and (ii) methods that calculate the vertically integrated horizontal water vapor transport (IVT) between 1000 hPa and 300 hPa from atmospheric reanalyses or models (e.g., Zhu and Newell, 1998), and then employ thresholds on IVT to define an AR (e.g., IVT250, which defines an AR as a contiguous region ≥2000 km in length with IVT ≥250 kg m−1 s−1). A summary of the main characteristics of these methods and typical thresholds used in the detection of ARs can be found in Supplementary Table II. A further technique relates to the identification of hydrological extremes, such as extreme precipitation or floods, and then assessing the atmospheric state (e.g., IWV/IVT/specific humidity, and wind fields) to determine whether an AR caused the extremes (e.g., Ralph et al., 2006; Lavers et al., 2011; Neiman et al., 2011).
At any time, there are typically three-to-five major conduits in each Hemisphere, each of which transports large amounts of water vapor in narrow streams across the midlatitudes (e.g., Zhu and Newell, 1998). At 35°N, it is estimated that 90% of the total meridional water vapor flux is due to ARs and that these structures cover about 10% of the total hemispheric circumference. Zhu and Newell (1998) related ARs to the Northern Hemisphere winter planetary wave number 4–5, values normally associated with synoptic-scale extratropical cyclones. Climatologically there are more ARs during the winter half-year because of the strong association between ARs and extra-tropical cyclones, which are prevalent in winter. Waliser et al. (2012) produced a global climatology for 2 years (from May 2008 to April 2010) by manual inspection of daily maps using the criteria of IWV from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) and the criteria of Ralph et al. (2004), and identified a total of 259 ARs (122 in the first year and 137 in the second; Figure 1B). These IWV areas match the areas of high moisture transport from the tropics to the extratropics as found by Knippertz et al. (2013). Waliser et al. (2012) also found that the maximum number of ARs occurred in the northeastern Pacific. In regional studies over longer periods, about 15 landfalling ARs per year were counted in California (Neiman et al., 2008), and on average about 8–10 persistent winter ARs (of at least 18 h duration) affected Great Britain (Lavers et al., 2012). In terms of duration, Ralph et al. (2013b) found that AR conditions lasted an average of 20 h, although the most persistent 10% lasted an average of 40 h with streamflows seven times higher than for the average events.
ARs clearly have a dual impact in that they are both responsible for hazards and are the main agent of water resources in many coastal regions (Ralph and Dettinger, 2011). When a vapor-rich AR with lower-tropospheric moist neutrality and strong horizontal winds encounters mountainous terrain, the AR is forced upwards, at which point orographic enhancement of rainfall can occur producing extreme precipitation events and catastrophic flooding (e.g., Ralph et al., 2006). At the same time ARs represent a significant source of precipitation for water resources. Guan et al. (2010) and Dettinger et al. (2011) estimated that rainfall delivered by ARs provided 25–50% of California's water supply. Heavy rainfall is the most studied aspect of landfalling ARs, however, and the relationships between ARs and flooding on the US West Coast, the central United States, Europe and South America are well documented. Supplementary Table III lists a comprehensive set of studies linking ARs with heavy rainfall and flooding, indicating both geographical areas and the main impacts. In most of these studies it was shown that the dominant precipitation forcing mechanism is orographic lifting, although other synoptic- and mesoscale processes can play a role both in the intensity of precipitation and the duration of events, such as vertical air motions associated with convection which can intensify precipitation, and mesoscale frontal waves that can increase the duration of AR conditions (Ralph et al., 2011). In any case, the most influential parameters for storm-total precipitation are the strength of the AR (as expressed both as water vapor content and low-level winds), its width, the wind orientation with respect to the mountains, and the movement of the overall AR and cold front. Ralph et al. (2013a) defined thresholds of these parameters, above which extreme precipitation is likely to occur on the US West Coast; this approach could well be used for other regions as well. They found that when IWV exceeds 2 cm and IVT fluxes are greater than 15 cm (m s−1) for more than 32 h, extreme precipitation is likely; additionally if the soil moisture exceeds 35% at representative sites, intense streamflows tend to occur.
The important question remains of how well ARs can be represented and predicted by numerical weather prediction (NWP) models. Ralph et al. (2010) showed that NWP models can have large forecasting errors in the landfalling of ARs. An analysis of the ability of a model to identify and predict an AR is possible via its ability to identify and predict the key characteristics of ARs, such as position, water vapor transport, extent, or frequency of occurrence. Wick et al. (2013) assessed the ability of ensemble forecast systems for a region of the Northeast Pacific Ocean from five leading forecasting centers to accurately predict and reproduce the water vapor signature of ARs, AR width, AR strength (IWV content along the AR axis), and position of the AR on reaching land. They found that models were able to forecast the overall presence of ARs, even 10 days beforehand, but the forecasts failed in the timing and position of landfall, particularly for longer lead times.
The connection between occurrence and activity of ARs and large-scale ocean-atmosphere dynamics is very poorly understood. In a single case study (the high-impact AR landfall in the Pacific Northwest during March 2005), Ralph et al. (2011) found that tropical water vapor was entrained in the AR thanks to the successive combination of different planetary-scale phenomena: (1) a Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) convective signal initially forming over the tropical Indian Ocean; (2) eastward-propagating Kelvin waves in the tropics; (3) a wave packet (EWP) propagating from western Asia to the Pacific in the extratropics, amplifying ridges and troughs in the eastern Pacific; and (4) deep penetration into the tropics by the EWP, which together with the Kelvin waves favored the uptake of tropical moisture by the AR. Jiang and Deng (2011) found a link between AR activity in the North Pacific and East Asian cold surges (EACS), advances of a polar airmass toward the east coast of the Eurasian continent which enhances extratropical cyclogenesis, and intensifies the amplitudes of atmospheric disturbances ranging from synoptic to sub-seasonal time scales. They found that EACS modulate the daily occurrence probability of ARs over the eastern North Pacific, increasing the daily occurrence probability of ARs near the west coast of the USA by 50% relative to the climatological value. The mechanism takes place via a combination of baroclinic and barotropic disturbances. In the initial phase of an EACS there is a significant poleward moisture transport toward the western North Pacific and Gulf of Alaska because of baroclinic disturbances that develop over these two areas; then, the merging of high frequency troughs favors the development of barotropic disturbances that increase the daily occurrence probability of ARs. Guan et al. (2012) showed that when enhanced convection associated with the MJO was located in the western Pacific, the largest number of high-impact AR landfalls occurred in the Sierra Nevada, and in a subsequent study Guan et al. (2013) found that during the negative phase of Arctic Oscillation (AO) and Pacific/North American (PNA) more winter ARs occurred in California for the period 1998–2011. The estimated increase in ARs during the negative and positive phases (as opposed to their opposite phases) was 90% for the AO and 50% for the PNA. Studies of ARs impacting Britain found a significant negative relationship between winter ARs and the Scandinavian Pattern (SCP; Lavers et al., 2012). In subsequent work covering Western Europe, Lavers and Villarini (2013) found that the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) affected AR activity in different parts of Europe; in southern Europe ARs are concurrent with negative NAO phases, whereas in northern Europe a more positive NAO-type pattern is associated with AR occurrence. The roles of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) are still unclear, although Bao et al. (2006) hypothesized that because the direct poleward transport of tropical moisture within an AR is most likely during the neutral ENSO phase and least likely during the El Niño phase, at least in the Pacific, ARs should be less frequent during the El Niño phase. Dettinger (2004) suggested that ARs are most pronounced during warm PDO (i.e., El Niño-like) and neutral/near-neutral ENSO conditions.
Understanding the possible changes in the frequency and intensity of ARs in future climates is of considerable importance. Changes in the number or intensity of ARs could affect the frequency and magnitude of flooding in a changing climate. It is possible that AR frequency will alter due to changes in the storm track (Ulbrich et al., 2008), and AR intensity is likely to increase because of an increase in atmospheric moisture in a warmer climate. This is because atmospheric water vapor content is expected to rise due to higher temperatures in line with the Clausius–Clapeyron equation. Two studies have been published along these lines, one on ARs for California (Dettinger, 2011), and the other for Europe (Lavers et al., 2013). In the Californian study seven climate models were used, and the results suggest that the risk of flooding (associated with ARs) in a future climate will increase because of increased water vapor transport within ARs, more years with high AR frequency, and an increase in the length of the AR season. All the evidence for California points toward an enhanced flood risk from ARs. In the European study, results from five state-of-the-art global climate models (GCMs) in the fifth Climate Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) show a greater number and intensity (increased IVT) in North Atlantic ARs, possibly leading to an increase in the frequency and magnitude of flood events. An extreme result is the doubling of the frequency of ARs for the high emissions scenario (RCP8.5) for 2074–2099.
The main advantage of the AR conceptual model is its ability to link intense atmospheric transport of moisture across the midlatitudes with heavy precipitation events. There are plenty of articles in the scientific literature in which strong relationships are shown between ARs and flooding in the midlatitudes, (e.g., western North America, South America, the Norwegian coast and the British Isles). Another important advantage is that the AR model is simple, intuitive, and easy to visualize, allowing simple computations on AR positions, changes, and regional and global contributions of ARs to the hydrological cycle. Finally, the model has the power to attribute major socioeconomic losses to a meteorological phenomenon that is responsible for many of the largest winter floods in the midlatitudes.
The authors would like to thank the Spanish Government, which funded this work through the TRAMO project (cofounded by FEDER).
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: http://www.frontiersin.org/journal/10.3389/feart.2014.00002/abstract
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Waliser, D. E., Moncrieff, M. W., Burridge, D., Fink, A. H., Gochis, D., Goswami, B. N., et al. (2012). The year of tropical convection (May 2008–April 2010): climate variability and weather highlights. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. 93, 1189–1218. doi: 10.1175/2011BAMS3095.1
Wick, G. A., Neiman, P. J., Ralph, F. M., and Hamill, T. (2013). Evaluation of forecasts of the water vapor signature of atmospheric rivers in operational numerical weather prediction models. Wea. Forecast. 28, 1337–1352. doi: 10.1175/WAF-D-13-00025.1
Zhu, Y., and Newell, R. (1998). A proposed algorithm for moisture fluxes from atmospheric rivers. Mon. Wea. Rev. 126, 725–735. doi: 10.1175/1520-0493(1998)126%3C0725:APAFMF%3E2.0.CO;2
Keywords: atmospheric rivers, transport of moisture, atmospheric branch of the hydrological cycle, intense precipitation, extratropical cyclones
Citation: Gimeno L, Nieto R, Vázquez M and Lavers DA (2014) Atmospheric rivers: a mini-review. Front. Earth Sci. 2:2. doi: 10.3389/feart.2014.00002
Received: 27 November 2013; Paper pending published: 14 January 2014;
Accepted: 14 February 2014; Published online: 05 March 2014.
Ricardo M. Trigo, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
Olivia Martius, University of Bern, Switzerland
Federico Porcu, University of Ferrara, Italy
Helen Dacre, University of Reading, UK
Copyright © 2014 Gimeno, Nieto, Vázquez and Lavers. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Luis Gimeno, EPhyslab, Departamento de Física Aplicada, Universidad de Vigo, Campus As Lagoas, 32004 Ourense, Spain e-mail: l.gimeno@uvigo.es
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Digital Illusions to develop new PC game for EA
Battlefield developer to create game based on a DICE brand; unnamed shooter set for release next spring.
By Gamespot Staff on June 21, 2005 at 10:07AM PDT
$12.89 on Walmart
Swedish developer Digital Illusions CE (DICE), the company behind Electronic Arts' extremely successful Battlefield series, has announced that it has signed a contract with EA to develop a new shooter for the PC. The game, currently untitled, is scheduled "for a spring 2006 debut," according to the company's official Web site.
2006 has already been a busy year for Digital Illusions. Battlefield 2, set to be released tomorrow, marks the latest entry in Digital Illusions' popular franchise. DICE is also currently at work on Battlefield: Modern Combat for current-generation consoles and recently announced that a version for Sony's PlayStation Portable is in the works from an EA UK studio. The company also recently announced several unnamed games for various platforms and shut down its New York operations earlier this month. In January, EA became the majority owner of the company when it acquired more than 3 million shares on the open market.
DICE's Canadian studios, located in London, Ontario, will be working on the project announced today. The game will be based on an existing DICE franchise, meaning that it could be an expansion to a Battlefield game or its anticipated sequel. Neither DICE nor EA have made any official comment on specifics of the game.
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E3 2002: Capcom's pre-E3 conference
Capcom shows Resident Evil 0, Devil May Cry 2, and Steel Battalion and talks about the future of its VS series.
By Giancarlo Varanini on May 21, 2002 at 1:04PM PDT
Earlier this morning, Capcom held a pre-E3 press conference where it showed footage from a number of games, including Devil May Cry 2, Resident Evil 0, and Red Dead Revolver. Atsushi Inaba also gave a brief demonstration of Steel Battalion for the Xbox.
The conference began with Mega Man character designer Keiji Inafune giving a brief overview of the North American version of Onimusha 2. He basically said that much of Onimusha 2 was designed in response to some of the complaints about the original game, such as the game's relatively short length and lack of difficulty. Inafune went on to say that he chose Yusaku Matsuda to "play" Jubei Yagyu because he knew that actor would appeal to a much broader audience. Inafune also made a few comments on Onimusha 3. He said that he would like to use full 3D backgrounds for the game because they're much more natural looking, especially when weather effects are involved. In addition, he said that would personally like the Onimusha series to end as a trilogy, but like Star Wars, there's always the possibility of examining other storylines.
Next up was JoJo's Bizarre Adventure for the PlayStation 2. Noritaka Funamizu, producer on the Street Fighter series, and Yoshihiro Tsuda, who is also producing Auto Modellista, gave a brief description of the game, explaining that the game is much more adventure-like in nature as opposed to the previous JoJo fighting game. The game will utilize cel-shaded graphics, which will help bring the game back to its manga roots.
There wasn't very much shown of Auto Modellista except for a compilation of replays. Funamizu and Tsuda said that the goal for Auto Modellista is to create a unique racing experience via the game's controls, cel-shaded graphics, and network features--though, online play is apparently still up in the air for the North American and European markets, due to uncertainties involving Sony's online plans. The tracks in the game will take place in city streets, on highways, and through mountain passes. It was also explained that there isn't a noticeable damage model in the game because different manufacturers have different requirements as far as damage is concerned. Tsuda also added that car manufacturers were actually quite excited about the concept of Auto Modellista because they thought the idea of a cel-shaded driving game was unique.
After the Auto Modellista demo, Funamizu answered a few questions about Capcom's lineup of "versus" games. While he wouldn't go into specifics, he did say that Capcom has been investigating the possibility of doing a Marvel vs. DC game, and that the Capcom vs. SNK series has not been affected by SNK's demise and subsequent legal problems.
The producer of Devil May Cry 2, Tsuyoshi Tanaka, then took the stage. The Devil May Cry 2 footage showed a large city environment where Dante--who looks noticeably different from the original Dante character design--was standing on top of a building before he takes a Matrix-like leap toward the ground below to take out a group of enemies. The battle sequence looked similar to the battles that took place in the original game, only Dante's hair moves around while he swings his massive sword. We only caught a brief glimpse of the other playable character in Devil May Cry 2, but Tanaka did say that she would be able to use throwing knives as a weapon, and that she and Dante will have different abilities. In addition, Tanaka said that the camera system in Devil May Cry 2 will actually come closer to the action so players can see more detail in the characters.
Capcom then showed two videos of Red Dead Revolver, a third-person shooter based on old Western films (it actually started out as a SWAT game, but was later changed by Capcom). There will be two methods of control in the game. The first is designed to be accessible enough for players who want to jump right in, so the game will perform auto-targeting on enemies. The second control mode, which is called revolver style, not only lets players manually target enemies, but it also lets them target specific parts such as feet, hands, or heads. Red Dead Revolver will be mission-based, but interestingly, executive producer Ray Nakazato said that the game won't take very long to complete, and that in addition to a story mode, there will be another mode in the game (called bounty-hunter mode), in which players will be able to earn money for some unspecified purpose. Red Dead Revolver will also have support for up to four players.
Even in its relatively early state, Red Dead Revolver looks very good. The indoor environments are visibly dusty, as you can see beams of light bursting through the windows of what appears to be a saloon. The character models also look detailed, and the main character is animated well, especially when he performs rolls and an assortment of gunslinging moves. The development team is also trying very hard to make sure that players feel like they're out in the scorching sun at high noon. Most of the visual technology in the game comes courtesy of Angel Studios, but Nakazato said that Capcom is always sending people over to Angel to help develop the game.
Capcom then showed a video of Resident Evil 0. Graphically, the game looks quite similar to the recently released remake of Resident Evil for the GameCube. The rain effects shown while Rebecca was walking outside of the train and the water effects shown in an indoor area were particularly noteworthy because they reacted to the movement of the train. As mentioned in previous reports, the biggest difference between Resident Evil 0 and other Resident Evil games is that players can instantly change control from Rebecca Chambers to ex-Navy officer Billy Cohen. They can also drop items anywhere on the level if either character's inventory is full and then return later to pick up the same items. When both characters are onscreen at once, the computer will take control of one character, but players can still equip the computer-controlled character with a weapon of their choosing or prevent the other character from attacking entirely.
The producer for Resident Evil 0, Tsuyoshi Tanaka, answered a few questions about the game. Apparently, the save system from previous Resident Evil games will return, as will the multiple control schemes from the Resident Evil remake. He also said that the train portion revealed in early screenshots of the game is only one section of the game.
Not much was shown of the Breath of Fire game for the PlayStation 2. There was a brief video showing off the cel-shaded look of the game, as well as the battle system, which will be turn-based based.
Perhaps the biggest highlight of the show occurred when Atsushi Inaba demonstrated the massive Steel Battalion controller. Not surprisingly, the idea for the controller actually came before the idea for a game because the development team wanted to create an experience in which players really felt as though they were piloting a mech. Upon starting the game, Inaba took his seat behind the controller and got in the game. The first thing he did was a press a button on the far right side of the controller, which closed the hatch. He then pressed another button to charge the mech's general power systems. Then, by flicking a series of switches on the bottom left side of the controller, he turned on the mech's subsystems. Once the mech is ready to move, players can zoom the camera in and out by using buttons on the right panel, fire and move the reticle around the screen by using the right analog stick, and maneuver the mech by using the left stick. The massive controller also features an eject button, which can be used if a mech receives too much damage.
The environments in Steel Battalion are fully destructible, as was shown by Inaba when he took down a communication tower with a machine gun and a large building with a series of missiles. He also showed that mechs can fall over if players take turns at high speeds.
Steel Batallion looks pretty good at this point. The ground textures are sharp and clear, the frame rate remains steady, and the lighting effects are impressive. When an explosion occurs close to your mech, dust will accumulate on the screen, forcing you to clean it manually with a quick spray of water.
One stage in the game appears to have taken its inspiration from Saving Private Ryan, as a group of mechs were loaded off a carrier and sent toward a beach populated with barricades and massive bunkers. The sun would produce an amazing lighting effect on other mechs heading toward the beach. Steel Batallion will have 12 stages and approximately 25 missions, though that may change by the time the game is released. Unfortunately, no details were given regarding the price of the Steel Battalion controller, but Inaba said that they would let other companies support it if they received proposals.
Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny
Steel Battalion
JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken: Ougon no Kaze
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Mr. Driller Hands-On
We drill right into the mobile version of Namco's classic puzzle game.
By Alex Navarro on October 28, 2004 at 11:49AM PDT
Mr. Driller
$129.99 on Amazon
During our time at the CTIA convention, we had the opportunity to take a look at the new mobile version of Namco's Mr. Driller. Originally released in the US on the PlayStation and Dreamcast in 2000, Mr. Driller was basically a puzzle game in which you, as the titular Mr. Driller, had to drill down through a level filled with colored blocks of all shapes and sizes. However, your air would be depleted while you were doing this, which meant you had to drill toward specific air-giving items while moving along at the same time. Additionally, you had to watch the timing of your movement through the level, because blocks had an unpleasant tendency to come crashing down on your head. It was a cute and fun concept that is now being translated to mobile phones, and, seemingly, it's being translated well.
The port of the game seems to be derived from the PlayStation version, and it came across as quite well produced and accurate during our time spent with it. The control mechanics are both good and mapped out well to make effective use of the keypad, and the graphics and frame rate both seemed more than solid for a mobile translation.
It would seem to be a fairly safe bet that if you were a fan of Mr. Driller's old-school adventures, this latest translation of the original game would be well suited to your mobile phone. We'll give you the final word on the game when it's made available this winter.
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THQ trims Q1 loss
Despite a dip in revenue, the SmackDown! and Saints Row publisher cuts April-June shortfall to $9.3 million, reaffirms $1.15 billion full-year guidance, reconfirms new Red Faction.
By Tor Thorsen on August 3, 2007 at 1:29PM PDT
When is a loss not a loss? Technically, never. However, when a company beats its own expectations by losing less money, it is considered a win of sorts, as THQ found out today. This morning, the Agoura Hills, California-based publisher posted a $9.3 million net loss ($0.14 cents a share) for the quarter months ending June 30. That's down from the $12.1 million ($0.19 per share) it lost during the same three months in 2006, and nearly half the $0.26 per share loss the company itself predicted.
THQ's net sales for the quarter were $104.5 million, down considerably from $138.8 million the previous year. The publisher's licensing deal with Disney/Pixar continued to pay off, with the multiplatform tie-in to the blockbuster film Ratatouille shipping over 1 million units since its June 26 release. Another Pixar-inspired game, last year's Cars, also sold well during the quarter, as the wrestler SmackDown! vs. RAW 2007
THQ's brief earnings overview emphasized the company was sticking with its guidance for the 2008 fiscal year. When the current quarter ends, the company believes it will have taken in net sales of around $240 million and net income of approximately $0.10 per share.
For the full fiscal year, which ends on March 31, 2008, the publisher expects net sales of between $1.12 billion to $1.15 billion and net income between $1.34 to $1.44 per share. In a postreport conference call, THQ president and CEO Brian J. Farrell told analysts that he expects five internally developed multiplatform titles to sell over 1 million units during FY08: Frontlines: Fuel of War, Stuntman Ignition, MX vs. ATV Untamed, Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights, and the latest Destroy All Humans! game.
Farrell also dated the highly anticipated Stuntman Ignition would ship on August 28 and the console actioner Conan would arrive earlier than expected in October. MX vs. ATV Untamed also moved ahead, shifting from a January to December release. In addition, he reconfirmed that THQ is resurrecting its popular Red Faction series, a fact first revealed back in February.
Unfortunately, THQ's optimism was not infectious on Wall Street. The publisher's stock was clobbered on Wall Street in early-morning trading, losing as much as $1.56 per share, or over 5 percent of its value. As of press time, it was trading at around $27.25 per share.
Stuntman Ignition
Destroy All Humans! Big Willy Unleashed
MX vs. ATV Untamed
Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon
Conan (2007)
Disney/Pixar Ratatouille
Disney/Pixar Ratatouille: Food Frenzy
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The weekend's best live music
By Jason GilmerGateHouse Media
Need to jam? While the Grateful Dead played its last notes together in 1995, the experience is still available and it’s coming to Charlotte.
The offshoot of the legendary jam band, Dead & Company, will perform at 7 p.m. Friday, June 28, at the PNC Pavilion in Charlotte.
Dead & Company consists of surviving Grateful Dead members Bob Weir (guitar, vocals), Bill Kreutzmann (drummer), and Mickey Hart (drummer) along with rock superstar John Mayer, bassist Oteil Burbridge, and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti.
The group, which first played together in 2015, brings the Grateful Dead’s music back to life with extended jams, a following of Deadheads and musicianship that stretches across genres. Songs like “Fire On The Mountain,” “Truckin’” and “Uncle John’s Band” have made the setlists for recent shows.
Dead & Company announced last fall that it would embark on a 19-date summer tour, which began on May 31 and ends with two nights at Folsom Field in Boulder, Colo., on July 5 and 6.
Can’t make it out for Dead and Company, but want to hear some live music this weekend? Here are your best bets for a good time:
1. The Evening Muse will host a Dead & Company after party with Casey and the Comrades playing at 10:30 p.m., Friday, June 28, 3227 N Davidson St., Charlotte. The group is led by Casey Cranford, of the band Big Something, and features “expansive jazz sounds combined with the unique space dance odyssey that only Cranford and his band can deliver.”
This will be the group’s first show at The Evening Muse and features members Ben Vinograd (Big Something), Julian Sizemore (The Mantras), Bill Stevens, and William Trentini.
2. Legendary hip-hop artist Biz Markie will play at The Fillmore, 820 Hamilton St., Charlotte at 8 p.m. Saturday, June 29. Markie is best known for his 1990 hit “Just A Friend,” which reached No. 9 on Billboard’s singles chart.
The show is a called “80s vs 90s” and Markie serves as DJ during the event, playing snippets of songs from the decades as fans dance to the music.
3. Female rock and rollers Michelle Malone and Sarah Peacock bring their “Kickin’ and Singin’” tour to the Neighborhood Theatre, 511 E. 36th St., Charlotte, for an 8 p.m. show on Saturday, June 29.
Malone is an Atlanta-based singer-songwriter who mixes blues and Americana tunes and has shared the stage with many big-named Southern artists, like Greg Allman, Brandi Carlisle and ZZ Top. She’s released more than a dozen albums, including 2018’s “Slings and Arrows.”
Peacock is another Georgia native who has made her mark on the music scene through years of touring. Her songs have won several awards and she’s currently participating in a Kickstarter fundraiser for her new album “Burn The Witch.”
4. Genesis was one of the 1980s biggest acts, right up there with Madonna, Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen. The group, first led by Peter Gabriel and then by Phil Collins, was started in the late-1960s and stopped playing together in 2007.
Their progressive music, though, lives on with tribute bands. Charlotte’s version, ABACAB, plays at 8:30 p.m. Saturday, June 29, at The Visulite Theatre, 1615 Elizabeth Ave., Charlotte. The group is comprised of vocalist/multi instrumentalist Pete Lents, bassist/rhythm guitarist Cliff Stankiewicz, keyboardist Patrick Raymaker, lead guitarist James Nelson and drummer Matthew Hedrick.
They are sure to play all of the Genesis songs — like “Follow You Follow Me,” “Invisible Touch,” and “Land of Confusion” — that made Genesis such a mega-hit in the 1980s.
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‘Girlfriend’s Day’ Trailer: This Year’s Perfect Valentine’s Day Movie
By The Movie God | @ | January 18th, 2017 at 1:00 pm
A trailer has been released for Girlfriend’s Day, an upcoming Netflix original movie from director Michael Paul Stephenson.
The movie stars Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul, Mr. Show) as a greeting card writer who finds himself in the middle of a nasty situation as people compete to pen the perfect card for a newly created holiday, Girlfriend’s Day. Odenkirk is joined by an impressive cast on the dark comedy, including Amber Tamblyn, Natasha Lyonne, Ed Begley Jr., Stacy Keach, Rich Sommer, June Diane Raphael, Andy Richter, Stephanie Courtney, Toby Huss, Stephen Michael Quezada, Derek Waters, Larry Fessenden, and Echo Kellum.
You can read an official synopsis for the movie and watch the new trailer below.
Tags: Amber Tamblyn, Andy Richter, Bob Odenkirk, Derek Waters, Echo Kellum, Ed Begley Jr., Girlfriend's Day, June Diane Raphael, Larry Fessenden, Michael Paul Stephenson, Natasha Lyonne, Netflix, Rich Sommer, Stacy Keach, Stephanie Courtney, Stephen Michael Quezada, Toby Huss, Valentines Day
SDCC 2015: Conan Hosts Doctor Who & ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’!
By Olympus Athens | @ | July 12th, 2015 at 12:43 pm
Conan has been at San Diego Comic-Con all week and and host Conan O’Brien has been working furiously (and also announced he would do it again next year!). Wednesday night’s guests were Elijah Wood and Chris Hardwick, after a Mad Max: Fury Road intro and some crazy Wolverine auditions. He hosted the cast of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 on Thursday night, and that was a blast. On Friday night, he hosted the ultimate fanboy’s dream: Danai Gurira, Steven Yeun, and Norman Reedus of The Walking Dead, and the cast of Game of Thrones.
I think he beat his Friday night guests when Doctor Who and the cast of X-Men: Apocalypse showed up.
Check out all the delicious videos below.
Topics: Conventions, Movies, News, SDCC, Television
Tags: Andy Richter, Conan, Conan O'Brien, Evan Peters, James McAvoy, Marvel, Michael Fassbender, Nicholas Hoult, Olivia Munn, Oscar Isaac, Peter Capaldi, San Diego Comic Con, SDCC, SDCC 2015, TBS, X-Men: Apocalypse
SDCC 2015: Conan Hosts The Cast Of ‘Game Of Thrones’
By Olympus Athens | @ | July 11th, 2015 at 1:46 pm
Conan is live at San Diego Comic-Con this week, and host Conan O’Brien‘s had my dream job with guest Chris Hardwick on Wednesday night, after a Mad Max intro and some loony Wolverine auditions. He also had a lot of swearing with the cast of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 on Thursday night.
Last night he got the pleasure of interviewing the cast of two of my favorite shows, Game Of Thrones and The Walking Dead.
Watch both parts of the GoT interview below.
Topics: Conventions, News, SDCC, Television
Tags: Alfie Allen, Andy Richter, Carice van Houten, Conan, Conan O'Brien, Conleth Hill, Game of Thrones, Hannah Murray, John Bradley, Liam Cunningham, Maisie Williams, Natalie Dormer, San Diego Comic Con, SDCC, SDCC 2015, Sophie Turner, TBS
SDCC 2015: Conan Hosts The Cast Of ‘The Walking Dead’
By Olympus Athens | @ | July 11th, 2015 at 10:30 am
Conan is live at San Diego Comic-Con this week, and host Conan O’Brien‘s had a lot of fun stuff going with guests like Elijah Wood and Chris Hardwick on Wednesday night, after a Mad Max intro and some crazy Wolverine auditions. He also had a great time with the cast of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 on Thursday night.
But last night he hosted two of my favorite shows, The Walking Dead and Game Of Thrones. Danai Gurira (Michonne), Steven Yeun (Glenn), and Norman Reedus (Daryl) from The Walking Dead visited the Conan set and had a grand old time.
Watch the three delightful videos below.
Topics: Conventions, News, SDCC, Television, Videos
Tags: Andy Richter, Conan, Conan O'Brien, Danai Gurira, Norman Reedus, San Diego Comic Con, SDCC, SDCC 2015, Steven Yeun, TBS, The Walking Dead
SDCC 2015: Conan Rides To Comic-Con Like Mad Max!
By Olympus Athens | @ | July 9th, 2015 at 12:08 am
“Coming to you from San Diego, it’s Conan at Comic-Con!”
Conan is at SDCC 2015 all week and true to Conan O’Brien‘s style, he and Andy Richter (and the band) arrive via spoofy tribute to Mad Max: Fury Road.
Check out the parody video here below.
Tags: Andy Richter, Conan, Conan O'Brien, Mad Max, Mad Max: Fury Road, SDCC, SDCC 2015, TBS
J.J. Abrams Premieres Very Brief Scene From ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ On ‘Conan’
By BAADASSSSS! | October 5th, 2012 at 3:23 pm
Conan O’Brien‘s nightly talk show on TBS is really becoming quite the hot spot for surprise major movie announcements. Hot on the heels of Will Ferrell announcing in March that an Anchorman sequel had been given the green light for a release sometime in 2013 comes the world premiere of finished footage from one of next summer’s hotly-anticipated motion picture events.
Last night J.J. Abrams stopped by Conan to discuss, among other things, his upcoming film Star Trek Into Darkness, the long-awaited sequel to his blockbuster 2009 reboot of the continuing voyages of the starship Enterprise, Star Trek. During the interview Abrams surprised O’Brien and sidekick Andy Richter with the news that he had wanted to bring with him the first footage from the movie to premiere on the show. Unfortunately Paramount Pictures had a slight problem with that, but after Abrams’ insistence the studio relented, but only on the condition that Abrams limit the footage shown to just three frames of film.
You can watch the video here below. The actual scene begins – and ends – at the 1:50 mark.
Topics: Humor, Movies, News, Sequels, Videos
Tags: Andy Richter, Conan O'Brien, J.J. Abrams, Paramount Pictures, Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, Zachary Quinto
Movie Review: Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop
By WordSlinger | July 30th, 2011 at 4:24 pm
Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop
Directed by Rodman Flender
Starring: Conan O’Brien, Andy Richter
Release Date: June 24, 2011 (limited)
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last year and half, you’ve at least heard of The Tonight Show debacle that happened last year. Conan O’Brien‘s short-lived reign as the show’s host only lasted 7 months, but the fallout from his departure lasted significantly longer. Though it was certain O’Brien would land another show with ease, as part of his exit deal with NBC, O’Brien was prohibited from appearing on TV and radio for six months. To fill the gap, O’Brien went on his “Legally Prohibited from being Funny on Television Tour.” But even during this time, O’Brien often found himself in front of a camera, as Rodman Flender filmed a documentary about the trip. Nearly a year later, the film is now showing in a very limited amount of theaters.
The appropriately titled Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop opens with a brief summary of the events that led O’Brien to leave his post and follows the tour from conception to its aftermath. Starting with the idea of a road show, O’Brien and his team of writers and producers hastily lay out plans for a 90-minute program that is little more than an idea even after tickets have gone on sale. Pressure begins to mount quickly as, to the visible surprise of everyone, the first two shows sell out in less than 20 minutes.
Topics: Movie Reviews, Movies, Reviews, Television
Tags: Andy Richter, Conan O'Brien, Documentary, The Tonight Show
25 Days of Geek TV Christmas: Day 12 – 30 Rock
By Goodman | December 12th, 2010 at 4:50 pm
The most wonderful time of the year is once again upon us. The Christmas season is here and with that comes Christmas TV episodes!
For the 25 days leading up til Christmas Day this month, we’ll be spotlighting some of the best Christmas-themed episodes from some of Geek culture’s greatest shows. Each day we’ll cover different shows and episodes and encourage you to watch along with us. So come one, come all, to the 25 Days of Geek TV Christmas!
Sunday, December 12th, 2010 – Day 12: 30 Rock
Season 2, Episode 09: “Ludachristmas”
Directed by: Don Scardino
Written by: Tami Sagher
Starring: Tina Fey, Tracy Morgan, Jane Krakowski, Jack McBrayer, Scott Adsit, Judah Friedlander, Alec Baldwin, Katrina Bowden, Elaine Stritch, Andy Richter, and Keith Powell
Original Air Date: December 13, 2007
You can stream the episode over at Hulu Plus or you can also purchase a copy of the episode at Amazon or iTunes.
Topics: Features, Holidays, Television
Tags: 30 Rock, Alec Baldwin, Andy Richter, Elaine Stritch, Jack McBrayer, Jane Krakowski, Judah Friedlander, Katrina Bowden, Keith Powell, Scott Adsit, Tina Fey, Tracy Morgan
Andy Richter Set To Re-Join Conan O’Brien On TBS Show ‘Conan’
By The Movie God | @ | October 12th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Through all of the drama that has unfolded involving Conan O’Brien and NBC’s The Tonight Show, the light at the end of the tunnel was always where he would end up next. Second to that, we all wondered just how similar Conan’s new show would be to his old ones.
Lost in the talk show drama fire, we know that all of the crazy things that O’Brien created while at NBC — such as Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, for example — are the property of the network and will not be used again. What NBC doesn’t own, however, are the human beings that have worked with Conan in the past, and one has been confirmed for the reunion.
It’s being reported that none other than Andy Richter will indeed join O’Brien on his new TBS show, titled Conan, when it debuts on November 8, 2010. Richter was a beloved member of Late Night with Conan O’Brien back in the good old days before he left the show to try out his acting chops. The duo reunited when Conan took over The Tonight Show from Jay Leno, but we all know how well that played out.
Topics: News, Television
Tags: Andy Richter, Conan, Conan O'Brien, TBS, Team CoCo
Conan O’Brien’s Live Tour Confirmed WITH Dates & Locations
By The Movie God | @ | March 12th, 2010 at 10:00 am
Rumors have been dancing around for a month or so now that Conan O’Brien would be going on a big tour in his time off before choosing which network will be the lucky one chosen to pay O’Brien a ton of money to host a late-night show for them (Read: Conan O’Brien To Go On Tour For His Fans Before Choosing New Job?).
This exciting possibility has now in fact been confirmed by Conan via his Twitter account. The tour is called the Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television tour, and it will span 30 different cities, with many of the cities such as Boston, Chicago, and New York having second shows added already. You can find all of the dates and details over at TeamCoco.com!
Topics: Celebrity, News, Television
Tags: Andy Richter, Conan O’Brien, NBC, tour
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EC Qualification
Neuer targets Bayern treble, Euro 2016 glory
By Tom Webber
Bongarts
The shot-stopper replaced Bastian Schweinsteiger as national captain in Dublin, and has set his sights on a vast trophy haul at the end of the current campaign
Manuel Neuer has revealed his lofty ambitions for the season, with a Bayern Munich treble and Germany winning Euro 2016 on his hit-list.
Bayern lead the way in the Bundesliga, holding a seven-point advantage over second-placed Borussia Dortmund after eight games played.
The aim for further glory on the international stage hit a snag with 2014 World Cup winners Germany losing 1-0 to the Republic of Ireland on Thursday, meaning Joachim Low's men are yet to secure their place in France.
However, Neuer is confident they can get at least the point they require to book a spot at the European Championships when they host Georgia in their final qualifying clash on Sunday.
"The treble with Bayern Munich would naturally be the ultimate goal for all of us," Neuer told reporters at a press conference.
"And of course I want to win the European Championship with the national team this summer."
"We will beat Georgia and go to France.
"We are very confident. Of course we will not go into the next match with the best feeling. But we know we did not play that bad against Ireland.
"I hope we saved the goals we did not score against Ireland and will score against Georgia."
With Bastian Schweinsteiger absent due to injury, goalkeeper Neuer wore the captain's armband in Dublin.
Although the midfielder could return to the side in Leipzig, Neuer claimed the added responsibility of leading the team did not have an adverse effect.
"In my role, nothing is changed by the captain's armband. I also count on the players to take responsibility," he said.
"From my position, I can see what is going on on the pitch very well and therefore I can have an influence."
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Everton sign Walcott, Chelsea in for Sanchez and Mkhitaryan to Arsenal? The latest odds from Goal's Daily Transfer Show
Oliver Lines
Shaun Botterill/Getty Images
Manchester City v Newcastle United
Arsenal v Crystal Palace
Chelsea v Norwich City
Brighton & Hove Albion v Chelsea
Burnley v Manchester United
Host Miles Chambers sat down with Peter Staunton to discuss all of Tuesday's transfer news, with the Gunners and the Red Devils featuring heavily
Today’s show began with the breaking news that Arsenal have agreed to sell Theo Walcott to Everton for around £20 million, which marks the Toffees’ second major signing of the transfer window following the purchase of Cenk Tosun for a reported £27 million.
Sam Allardyce’s men have lost all four of their matches in 2018 and sit seven points above the relegation zone in ninth, and are a chunky 50/1 (51.0) with dabblebet to be relegated.
Meanwhile, Alexis Sanchez’s proposed move to Manchester United seems to be edging closer as Manchester City have confirmed that they were not willing to meet the Gunners’ asking price.
The Chilean is not cup tied for any competition, having only played in the Europa League this season whilst missing out on Arsenal’s FA Cup third round loss to Nottingham Forest, which means the Red Devils would be free to select him for their Champions League exploits.
Jose Mourinho’s men face Sevilla in the Round of 16 and can be backed at 11/8 (2.38) to win a tricky first leg in Spain, or 2/5 (1.40) to qualify for the quarter-finals.
United are 14/1 (15.0) to go all the way, trailing a multitude of teams including their cross-city rivals, who are 11/4 (3.75) with dabblebet, PSG at 4/1 (5.0) and Barcelona at 13/2 (7.50).
In the Premier League, the Red Devils sit second after a resounding 3-0 win over Stoke City and can be backed at 6/4 (2.50) in the “without Man City” market, which is essentially a bet on who will come second at this point, given the Citizens’ dominance.
The Sanchez deal could see Arsene Wenger receiving £35 million and out-of-favour midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who would add a degree of attacking flair and talent to an Arsenal team that is eight points off the top four – and can be backed at 6/1 (7.0) with dabblebet to make up that ground come the end of the campaign.
On top of that, Borussia Dortmund striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang could also be set for a move to the Emirates Stadium following multiple disciplinary issues in Germany, and could join up with Bordeaux winger Malcom, whose big-money transfer to north London is getting closer with each passing day.
All of those potential signings would be eligible to play for Arsenal in the Europa League – which represents a realistic chance of silverware and an alternative passage to the Champions League next season – and are available at a solid 6/1 (7.0) to win Europe’s second-tier club competition, with Atletico Madrid installed as 7/2 (4.50) favourites.
Chelsea are also making moves in the transfer window as they are aiming to pip Man United to Sanchez, whilst still keeping tabs on West Ham striker Andy Carroll and Watford star Richarlison.
The Blues are still chasing glory in three major cup competitions, with the two domestic trophies likely to be a priority as, should they beat Norwich City in a Third Round reply on Tuesday night, a home tie against Newcastle United awaits. The Londoners can be backed at just 2/7 (1.28) to win against the Canaries and 11/2 (6.50) to lift the trophy for the first time since 2012.
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'Giggs will have to turn up for games!' - Toshack teases Wales boss over friendly record
Cetin Cem Yilmaz
The former coach has pointed out that he was often unable to call upon the Manchester United legend during his time in charge of the national side
Ryan Giggs is the new man in charge of Wales, with John Toshack teasing the Manchester United legend by pointing out he will now have to “turn up for the games”.
In his playing days, the former Red Devils winger would often be made unavailable for non-competitive fixtures.
As a result, despite being part of the Welsh set-up for 16 years, he only earned 64 caps for his country.
Toshack was among those managers to be left frustrated by Sir Alex Ferguson’s reluctance to release key United stars for friendly games, but Giggs is now at the helm himself and about to experience firsthand how difficult life in the dugout can be.
“The first thing Ryan will have to do is to turn up for the games!” Toshack told Goal when reflecting on the appointment of the 44-year-old as Wales’ new boss.
“Because when he was a player, he never turned up for half the matches. Any time we had a friendly match, Fergie pulled him out! He never came!
“So the first thing he’s got to do is turn up, just to be there for friendly games. And then we’ll have to see then what develops.
“I’m not quite sure what kind of coaches he’ll have in there with him. I think there’s a solid base there for him to start with now but within 12-18 months, they’re going to have to start to turn things around again and that’s always a difficult transitional period.
“But obviously, we wish him the very best. He played at the very highest level, won everything there is to win in the game. We’re not going to learn anything about Ryan Giggs the player now, but management is a different thing, we’ll have to wait and see.”
Toshack has taken in two spells as Wales coach – firstly in 1994 and then again between 2004 and 2010 – and he acknowledges that Giggs will face similar challenges to him when it comes to picking from a limited talent pool.
The ex-Real Madrid manager added: “I know this Welsh side very well. I managed Wales for six years at a very difficult time, when the old players were finishing. We had to push a lot of these young players through.
“If you’re a manager of a national side, you can’t buy players. You can’t sell them, either. I would have sold a few, if I could! You’re stuck with what you’ve got. And we were in a position where we had to push these young players through.
“[Wayne] Hennessey, the goalkeeper, 19. Ashley Williams, the centre back, 22. Gareth Bale was 17, Aaron Ramsey, 18. Strikers Simon Church, Ched Evans. All young players. So we had to play a little bit of damage limitation to a system: You can’t be going out and getting beat two or three every week.
“They were six frustrating years, we had Gareth Bale with a bad injury and Aaron Ramsey with a broken leg. And it was very difficult.
“I’ve been gone seven years and the side that reached the semi-final at the European Championships, of the starting line-up, nine of those players have made their debut with us as youngsters. And we’ve been gone six, seven years. So that tells you the manager at that particular time, Chris Coleman, who I know very well, I was responsible for him getting the job at Real Sociedad, had a far easier job than what we had seven years earlier.
“This was a group of players, they were boys when we had them and they’re young men now. They picked up experience.
“I remember when I used to go and watch, I hardly watched a Premiership match. Apart from Ryan Giggs and Craig Bellamy, I did not have players in the Premiership. Now all this team have grown and grown and grown and they are all Premiership players now.
“So, it was a disappointment for Wales and the Wales public that they missed out on the World Cup. I was at that game where they missed out against the Republic of Ireland. It was a big, big disappointment because that Welsh side should have qualified for this coming World Cup.
“But now, over the next 12-18 months, there is another rebuilding job that is going to be have to be done.
“They’ve named Ryan Giggs as manager over a four-year period. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens. Ryan has no experience of management at any level. It’ll be interesting to see what happens because this group have probably another year or 18 months in them and there’s a rebuilding job to be done with Wales.”
Arsenal may have got best of Alexis swap deal - Giggs Giggs keen to help Bale overcome injury woes Ryan Giggs' career stats, trophies & records Giggs had counselling post-Man Utd
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Italy must work hard to make up for shortcomings - Conte
By Joe Wright
The Azzurri need to work hard to make up for a lack of quality compared to Euro 2016's best sides, their coach has said
Antonio Conte wants Italy to bridge the gap to the strongest sides at Euro 2016 by working harder than any of their rivals.
Italy finished top of their qualifying group after going unbeaten in their 10 matches, but the Euro 2012 finalists are not widely considered among the major candidates to dethrone holders Spain in France later this year.
Conte, who will step down from his role as head coach at the end of the tournament, concedes that some squads boast more quality but has challenged his players to fight harder than the rest in order to go one better than four years ago.
"I am really willing to work well. I am excited because we have a very important rendezvous in June. We have worked two years to get there," he said.
"I am really fired up and ready to work on every point of view. I repeat – these are experiences that might happen only once in a lifetime. I have great pride to be here. I feel some responsibility, that’s inevitable. I really want to work with the boys.
"We are building an important working group. We are aware that, on paper, there are other national teams who are stronger than us, but we also know that we can fill the gap with our dedication and commitment."
Italy face Spain and world champions Germany in this month's friendly matches.
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About DGR
Riding for Men's Health
Host A Ride
The Rides
The Faces Of Dgr London
The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride. A parade through the hearts of over 600 cities around the world, showcasing dapper riders and their valiant classic and vintage style steeds and raising funds and awareness for prostate cancer and men’s mental health on behalf of charity partner, the Movember Foundation. A lovely reminder, but you already knew that. We know all about the global style of this event, and what makes it so unique, but every now and then, we get a glimpse into what makes each individual ride unique. The city, the host, the riders. Today, we look at the people that made DGR London the powerhouse that it is, and the photographer who told their stories through a lens.
London was the showcase event last year, raising $222,307 USD and hosting over 1000 riders through the picturesque city landscape. Capturing these sights is no easy feat - and capturing its riders, even more so - but for the past two years, and this year again, photographer Fabio Affuso will be combining his passion for photography and motorcycling to spread the message of DGR - and give the riders of London a chance to get their portraits professionally shot.
As with all great stories, we start at the beginning of Fabio’s story, and how his photography evolved from snapping a few shots for a bit of fun, to something so much more. With bit of know-how picked up from taking film pictures with a friend’s old Olympus and his fathers 35mm Praktica, Fabio took a leap-of-faith and nurtured his love for photography. “I was going through a lot at the time, this was 2005, and one day I decided to leave England and go to the US for a bit. It’s there that I did a course and started shooting mostly models and nightlife. I was going through this change and I thought - let me give it a shot…”
“I’ve been into portraits from the very beginning really. I like to meet new people and connect with them. It’s a challenge, and photography is a free pass into people’s lives and hearing their stories. You don’t know if it’s going to work, if they’re going to like you or if you’ll like them, or even how the pictures are going to come out. At the end of the day whatever comes out is not just an image of the person, but the result of my connection with him or her.”
This message is one that stands steadfastly with the DGR ethos. Everyone that rides has a story, a reason for participating. For Fabio, classic motorcycles have always been a part of his life, so getting involved with his local The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride event just made sense. “As an Italian, back in the high school days, if you didn’t have a Vespa or a bike you were done, caput! You were just stuck. I remember in the early 90’s, public transport in Southern Italy was just as bad as it could be, and for a young boy to have a social life or even go to school it was tough. My dad was always into bikes, and by the time my sister and I showed up, he had downgraded from Laverda and Guzzi, to a spanking red PK50 - what you do for love! - so I started with that. But in summertime I would go and work at the café and butcher to pay for my next bike! Fast forward today, I ride a 1985 SR500 and a 1986 Suzuki GS850G. And a Vespa of course!”
“I heard about DGR 3 or 4 years ago, but in the beginning I just saw the event in the press and online. Then my work started to gravitate more towards motorcycles and I thought, ‘What can I do and how can I get involved with this?’ I haven’t met these people, and I knew I had to… Although I do have some history in my family relating to the cause, I didn’t get involved because the issue relates to me personally. Of course I’m more aware and sensitive to the issues, but to be honest I think there are so many unwell people out there, and so many great humans contributing positively to it, that it’s just natural to want to be part of this. Isn’t it?”
For Fabio though, riding nowadays means more that just commuting. “I ride all the time, to commute, de-stress, enjoy a day out, go on a trip - whenever I can really. But I never thought about it in terms of health, and you’re absolutely right. The feeling of freedom and happiness I get form riding does influence my mental health for sure.” Bringing his two passions together, saw Fabio feeling more aware of why motorcycling is so important for people’s mental health, and helped develop more awareness around the issue - but most importantly, it showed him the importance of bringing people together, meeting new people, and communicating about their stories. “The DGR definitely brings positive people together who are ready to go to the front-line to make a change, by riding dapper, sharing stories, and create awareness. The positive vibes are huge, and that’s what we all shared before, during and after the event. I always try to chat a connect with whomever I’m photographing, to look them in the eyes and get a sense of who they are.”
“It was lovely to see people remembering me from the previous year and make their picture again, it was like a reunion, or an anniversary. A key ingredient has been the support of the Movember team, what a great bunch! Thank you guys, this wouldn’t have been possible without you! “ For 2018, Fabio will be back again, shooting the Distinguished Gentlefolk of London’s DGR. When you see him, don’t hold back - say hello, share your story, and get yourself a dapper DGR portrait.
Fabio, thank your for bringing your passion to this event. People like you are what make each event unique, and bring that touch of personality on-the-ground and to each person you meet. We cannot wait to see what you come back with for this year’s London ride.
Tally Ho!
For more of Fabio's work, head to his Instagram Page!
Copenhagen: The City of Spires
The city of Copenhagen has always been a stunning ride, this Scandinavian haven always inspires beau...
3rd Highest Fundraiser, Rob Fowler
You might know this man - a man who has achieved superstar status, fundraising to be the 3rd highest...
Beautiful Bikes of DGR - Part 2
Hamburg, Germany - Michael Pfeiffer Part 2 of The Beautiful Bikes of DGR is here, where we wil...
DGR Rider Stories: Brian Kitzman
Meet Brian Kitzman, 50 year-old Industrial/Organisational psychologist from Chicago, IL, USA and 5th...
Hamilton - A Small Canadian Town That's ...
We’ve heard stories from hosts who have carried the torch of DGR all the way back to its inaug...
With The Distinguished Gentleman's Ride being the stunningly visual event that it is, we find oursel...
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We exhibited in Art Karlsruhe 2015 for the fifth time this year from the 5th to the 8th of March. It was a pleasure to have you in our beautiful stand!
For more information visit: https://www.art-karlsruhe.de/de/home/homepage.jsp
We have been very please to participate to the prestigious art Karlsruhe fair in Germany once again this year!
We would like to thank all our clients who came and visited us during this week.
Please click on the link below to find out more about the fair.
We were excited to take part to a new challenge: Kunst Messe Frankfurt is a new launched fair in the exhibition center of Frankfurt.
For more information: https://www.kunstmessefrankfurt.de/
We were glad to exhibit at this prestigious Art Fair this year for the sixth time. We exhibited new acquisitions by the following artists: Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Henri Matisse, Joan Miro, Sam Francis, Alexander Calder, Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Henri Moore and Ben Nicholson.
More information about the London Art Fair
We were excited to exhibit at Kunst Messe Munich where Gilden’s Arts Gallery will exhibit for the first time at stand G4.
The fair is a leading artfair in Germany and is annually held at the Munich Postpalast. For more information please visit:https://www.kunstmesse-muenchen.com/en/
For this special occasion we have shown an outstanding selection of works by Modern Masters, including Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Max Ernst, Gerhard Richter and other acclaimed artists.
We were very happy to partecipate into Fine Art Asia in Hong Kong for the second time this year. Fine Art Asia is recognised by the international art world as Asia’s leading annual fine art fair. It is unique in Asia,
being the only fair to showcase a wide range of collectible fine art from both East and West. Exciting!
For more information please visit: https://www.fineartasia.com/
The Olympia International Fine Art & Antiques Fair was pleased to announce the launch of Olympia Contemporary 2013, in association with the Contemporary Art Society, the Craft Council, Arts Council England
and LAPADA Modern, showcasing a selection of pieces from some of their most established contemporary and modern dealers.
We have participated three times to this prestigious fair in the heart of Kensington, London.
More information at https://www.olympia-art-antiques.com/
We were pleased to be part of the LAPADA Art & Antiques Fair 2012 at Berkeley Square from the 19th to the 23rd September 2012.
The LAPADA Art & Antiques Fair is set within Berkeley Square, historic heart of the vibrant fine art arena that is Mayfair. For more information visit:
https://www.lapadalondon.com/
AVENUE Shows produces prestigious art and antique shows that showcase a world-class selection of dealers in New York’s most elegant atmospheres. Featuring a wide range of interests, from 18th to 21st-century fine furniture and accessories to sculpture, fine, modern art and contemporary art, objets, jewelry, silver, rugs, porcelain, rare books and more, the Shows offer something for everyone’s taste and budget. With a full slate of events including galas, private events, panel discussions and visually stunning merchandise.
For more information go on:
https://www.avenueshows.com/
Collectors, trade and international visitors were among the 23,540 people who flocked to the 21stWinter Fine Art & Antiques Fair, Olympia 2011, eager to get their hands on the finest art and antiques on offer from the 125 assembled dealers.
for more info: https://www.olympia-antiques.com/
We take part in important international Art Fairs all around the world.You can find our forthcoming Fairs listed below, as well as the past Art Fairs we partecipated in the archive section. Please contact us if you like to receive an invitation for our next Fair.
Art Karlsruhe
March 2015 We exhibited in Art Karlsruhe 2015 for the fifth time this year from the 5th to the 8th of March. It was a pleasure to have you in our beautiful stand! For more information visit: https://www.art-karlsruhe.de/de/home/homepage.jsp March 2014 We have been very please to participate to the prestigious art Karlsruhe fair in Germany once again this
February 2015 We gladly exhibited at Palm Beach Jewelry, Art and Antiques Show at the Palm Beach County Convention Center from the 13th to the 17th of Febrary 2015 for the first time this year. For more information please visit: https://www.palmbeachshow.com/
Kunst Messe Frankfurt
January 2015 We were excited to take part to a new challenge: Kunst Messe Frankfurt is a new launched fair in the exhibition center of Frankfurt. For more information: https://www.kunstmessefrankfurt.de/
London Art Fair
January 2015 We were glad to exhibit at this prestigious Art Fair this year for the sixth time. We exhibited new acquisitions by the following artists: Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Henri Matisse, Joan Miro, Sam Francis, Alexander Calder, Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Henri Moore and Ben Nicholson.
Kunst Messe Munich 2014
November 2014 We were excited to exhibit at Kunst Messe Munich where Gilden’s Arts Gallery will exhibit for the first time at stand G4. The fair is a leading artfair in Germany and is annually held at the Munich Postpalast. For more information please visit:https://www.kunstmesse-muenchen.com/en/ For this special occasion we have shown an outstanding selection of works by
Fine Art Asia
October 2014 We were very happy to partecipate into Fine Art Asia in Hong Kong for the second time this year. Fine Art Asia is recognised by the international art world as Asia’s leading annual fine art fair. It is unique in Asia, being the only fair to showcase a wide range of collectible fine art from both East
Olympia Fine Art Fair
June 2014 The Olympia International Fine Art & Antiques Fair was pleased to announce the launch of Olympia Contemporary 2013, in association with the Contemporary Art Society, the Craft Council, Arts Council England and LAPADA Modern, showcasing a selection of pieces from some of their most established contemporary and modern dealers. We have participated three
LAPADA Art & Antiques
September 2012 We were pleased to be part of the LAPADA Art & Antiques Fair 2012 at Berkeley Square from the 19th to the 23rd September 2012. The LAPADA Art & Antiques Fair is set within Berkeley Square, historic heart of the vibrant fine art arena that is Mayfair. For more information visit: https://www.lapadalondon.com/
The Avenue Shows at the Armory
September 2011 AVENUE Shows produces prestigious art and antique shows that showcase a world-class selection of dealers in New York’s most elegant atmospheres. Featuring a wide range of interests, from 18th to 21st-century fine furniture and accessories to sculpture, fine, modern art and contemporary art, objets, jewelry, silver, rugs, porcelain, rare books and more, the
Olympia Winter Art&Antiques
November 2011 Collectors, trade and international visitors were among the 23,540 people who flocked to the 21stWinter Fine Art & Antiques Fair, Olympia 2011, eager to get their hands on the finest art and antiques on offer from the 125 assembled dealers. for more info: https://www.olympia-antiques.com/
Art Fairs (42)
Aquatint Post War
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Former Ciudad Real-player to Switzerland
19:06 03-August-2016
Former Ciudad Real-player to Switzerland
Foto: bsvbernmuri.ch.
The Croatian right back Nikola Kedžo has signed a 2-year contract with the Swiss club BSV Bern Muri to the summer of 2018.
Once he was announced as one of the biggest talents of the world. Now he hopes to find his former level in Bern. The 27-year-old former Croatian national player Nikola Kedžo has played in a number of European clubs, but is now determined to find happiness in Switzerland. Last season he played in the Polish club Gwardia Opole, but terminated his contract in November.
BSV Bern Muri participate in the Swiss National League A, where they finished a sixth place last season. The club have won the Swiss championship three times (1961, 1980, 1985).
Nikola Kedžo has played for the following clubs:
-2005: RK Split, Croatia
2005-2007: BM Ciudad Real, Spain
2007-2008: BM Alcobendas, Spain
2008-2009: SD Teucro, Spain
2009-2010: HSG Düsseldorf, Germany
2010-2012: RK Nexe, Croatia
2012-2013: Csurgoi KK, Hungary
2013-2014: RK Metalurg, Macedonia
2014-2014: HCM Constanta, Romania
2014-2015: Qatar Sports Club, Qatar
2015-2015: Gwardia Opole, Poland
Sunday's handball matches - 16.10.2016
Brazilian national player leaves Celje
Today's news overview
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A Grief Support Blog
This blog will allow you the opportunity to acquire both support and guidance after experiencing a significant loss.
The Grief That Comes With Suicide
stephen moeller, grief recovery specialist
Some years ago, Robin Williams was famously quoted as saying that “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” On the face of it, this sounds very logical. The problem is that the thought of ending one’s life via suicide is a very emotional choice, often related to issues that have brought grief into that person’s life, many times as a result of mental illness. Emotions are rarely impacted by logic. For the person contemplating taking their own life, their problems often seem insurmountable and hardly temporary. For many, it’s seen as a “permanent solution to a permanent (or never ending) problem.” The error of using logic to deal with emotional issues is something that we have focused on for years at The Grief Recovery Institute.
There are a number of reasons that people might choose suicide. Discussing the reasons behind this is not the purpose of this article. There are a variety of websites that deal with suicide and suicide prevention that can be located with a Google search. Our focus, at the Grief Recovery Institute, is in helping people deal with the aftermath of this act. Suffice it to say that a majority of those who choose to end their lives never take into consideration how those that they leave behind will be negatively impacted by the action they have taken.
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. Sadly, it’s not just the United States that is impacted by suicide. This is an action that impacts people worldwide!
The problem with the use of the term, “Suicide Survivor.”
People who have been emotionally impacted by suicide are frequently referred to as “suicide survivors.” In truth, this clever label is really a misnomer. The only true suicide survivors are those who fail to be successful in taking their lives. Those who are left behind to deal with the emotional pain of such a loss are, in fact, grievers. Giving them any other label simply serves to try and avoid the term “griever.” Offering people a label does little to help them recover from their emotional pain.
The concept of giving grievers different labels has become quite popular in the past few years. Complicated Grief, Delayed Grief, Anticipatory Grief, Masked Grief, and Cumulative Grief are but a few of the common ones. Sometimes that “label” can form a deterrent to taking recovery action. If someone tells you that you are suffering from a particular kind of grief, but does not offer you possible steps to moving beyond that power, it’s very easy to simply accept that label as your lot in life and continue to suffer. Our society is very good at telling people what is wrong with them, but not necessarily offering solutions for taking recovery focused action.
Why is it that those dealing with the suicide of a loved one suffer so much?
Suicide can leave an aftermath of overwhelming feelings in its wake. The question of “why did they do it,” is often one that can never be completely answered, even if they have left a note. Most of us have never learned any mechanism that can help us deal the emotional incompleteness associated with this question.
Following a suicide, those that are left behind also spend a great deal of time wondering if there were signs that we missed or ways we could have prevented it from happening. These are normal and natural thoughts faced by these grievers. It’s easy, in hindsight, for anyone to see different choices they might have made when faced with such a tragic event. Once again, it’s a situation of trying to use logic to deal with an emotional event. There is no question that, had they known that this person was actually planning to take their life, these friends and loved ones might have acted differently. The obvious problem is that we can never really know what is going on in someone else’s head, no matter how we try to convince ourselves otherwise.
Sadly, as well, some people find far less positive and useful support from those around them after such an emotionally painful loss. While attitudes have changed with the passage of time, as more has been said and written about suicide, many are still hesitant to share with others that this was the cause of death. Within many, there is still a sense of fear in telling others that a loved one took their own life, based on the concern of how others might react. This may be a particularly problem within some faith communities, where suicide is still viewed as a “sinful” act. This inability to comfortably share with others the emotional pain with which we are dealing further complicates the grieving process. The fears of questions and comments that might come from others results in these grievers further suppressing their emotions, rather than actually taking steps to effectively move through the grief and recovery process.
Grief is the normal and natural response to any major change that happens in our life! When this change is caused by a sudden and unexpected death, those that are left behind are often faced with an enormous amount of “unfinished business” in that emotional relationship.
These grievers find themselves thinking of all of the conversations and discussions that were never completely resolved. They think of things that they wish might have might have been different in that relationship. They also find themselves facing a future that is far different than the one they had expected, that person still being a part of their life. Simply described, they tend to focus on the things that they wish might have been different, better, or more in that relationship.
Such questions and emotional issues are common for all grievers. Unfortunately, most people never learned or were never given any useful tools on how to deal with them. Most of use spend a lifetime learning how to suppress our feelings of pain and sadness, rather than learning how to move beyond their devastating and strangling power.
The good news is that there is a positive and effective way to move through this difficult grieving process!
The Grief Recovery Method is a truly effective approach to dealing with any emotional loss if your life. Its design makes it a particularly effective mechanism for those dealing with the loss of a loved one by suicide.
This Method is all about dealing with unfinished business in relationships. It’s spelled out in “The Grief Recovery Handbook,” By John James and Russell Friedman. Rather than being a textbook that just tells you what to do, it’s a guided journey that starts with an explanation of “misinformation,” that most of us learned at an early age, on how to deal with emotionally painful events. More often than not, we are told to “be strong,” “keep busy”, and “don’t feel bad” when we feel sad. This rarely makes us feel better, but instead encourages us to “stuff” our feelings. That emotional pain does not go away, but instead comes to mind when we remember that loss or situation. Every time that sadness resurfaces, it’s a reminder that we have never effectively dealt with that emotional pain.
The authors then guide you through the necessary steps to deal with that emotional pain, illustrating each one with examples of how they took those same recovery actions. The net result is that you will be able to enjoy the fond memories of what that person brought to your life, rather than constantly focusing on their death. In those situations where that person left you with a great deal of emotional pain (and very few fond memories), it gives you the needed action plan to escape from forever being a captive of those painful events.
This is an action plan you can take on your own, or with the assistance of a trained Grief Recovery Method Specialist, who has been certified by The Grief Recovery Institute®. There is a list of such people available to you at www.GriefRecoveryMethod.com.
Unlike a traditional support group, which often simply forces you to constantly relive your emotional pain with little hope of recovery, this program is focused on moving you forward. It allows you to let go of painful memories once and for all.
I have worked with more than 100 people, over the years, who lost loved ones to suicide and seen this work for them. It can work for you as well!
James Casey
For those who have suffered the loss of a loved one, close friend or coworker, even if you recognized the warning signs with advanced training, you would not have been able to stop the act of suicide. Completing the emotional relationship that now seems lost is vital for your healing. Learning to communicate love and gratitude for those who remain in your life brings honor to the memory of that which you have lost. Bringing honor to the life that has been cut short keeps memories and love alive. Hope grows from the ashes of death.
For more information, please read our FREE e-book,
The Grief Recovery Method® Guide For Loss.
Copyrights © / Trademarks (TM). ©1993-2015 Grief Recovery Institute®, John W. James, and Russell P. Friedman. All Grief Recovery Institute® related copyrights/trademarks are owned by The Grief Recovery Institute, John W. James, and Russell P. Friedman including but not limited to: The Grief Recovery Institute®, The Grief Recovery Method®, Certified Grief Recovery Specialist®, Grief Recovery®, and AARAM Formula®. All rights reserved.
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Gazprom Talks Nord Stream 2 with Uniper
Source: www.gulfoilandgas.com 2/15/2019, Location: Asia
A working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, and Bernhard Reutersberg, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Uniper, took place in Saint Petersburg on February 13th, 2019.
The parties discussed ongoing and future cooperation, including Russian gas supplies to Germany. It was noted that the amount of gas exports to the country was maintained at the level of the previous year due to warm February weather. Between January 1 and February 12, Gazprom delivered an estimated 7.7 billion cubic meters of gas to Germany, an increase of 0.7 per cent against the same period of 2018.
Particular attention at the meeting was paid to the progress of the Nord Stream 2 project. It was stressed that pipelaying works in the Baltic Sea were going according to schedule.
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Kinder Morgan & Tallgrass Energy to Increase Crude Capacity out of the Bakken
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ADNOC Closes $4 bln Pipeline Deal with KKR & BlackRock
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In Immigrant Rights
Cynthia Buiza
Executive Director, California Immigrant Policy Center
Recognizing trailblazing Asian American women who are leading and influencing social justice movements in California.
This interview was originally published in the article 5 Asian American Women Who Are Leading and Influencing Social Justice Movements in California.
Can you give us some background about what you do?
I am currently the Executive Director of the CA Immigrant Policy Center or CIPC. I provide the vision for the mission of California’s premier immigrant rights organization. I came to this role after successfully managing a statewide capacity building project, involving nine regional coalitions in California, which strengthened their viability through a combination of highly customized training, grant-making and leadership coaching. I have two decades of experience in nonprofit management and human rights advocacy. I worked on international refugee, migration, human rights and civil rights issues in Southeast Asia before working with ACLU as Policy Director for its San Diego regional affiliate. I was also Policy and Advocacy Director at CHIRLA in Los Angeles from 2007–2010. Before moving to the United States, I worked with various international organizations, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Open Society Institute-Burma Education Project in Thailand, and the Jesuit Refugee Service. In June, 2003, I co-authored the book Anywhere But War, about the armed conflict and internal displacement in the Indonesian Province of Aceh.
How did you become involved in social justice and activism?
I grew up in the civil war in the Philippines during the Marcos dictatorship. My first job was an organizer for a non-profit working to assist families displaced by the civil war. In college, one of our professors was abducted by the military and she was never found again. Growing up poor and under a dictatorial regime was enough to seed a very different consciousness in me, one that was borne of questioning the forces that imposed the hardship meted out on my family and my community. I knew at a very young age that something was terribly wrong with the society I lived in and that questioning and seeking spirit, let me to the path I am in today.
What are you fighting to achieve in this world?
Like many women in the social change movement, I want one fundamental thing: that we can leave a lasting legacy of societies that are better than when we found them. It’s a challenging quest, especially in these times: the right to live with dignity and respect, the right to have opportunities that help us thrive, and most importantly, sustainable communities that makes a complete break with dark legacies of racism, sexism, and inequality.
Why is it important for women to be involved in the social justice movement? Who inspires you? Do you have any idols?
I also grew up in the feminist movement in the Philippines. I was a student activist and I have been marching on the streets for as long as I can remember. However, my mother, my aunts and my sisters did not have the privilege of “wokeness” that I have experienced. In these spaces where we are fully aware of what is needed to truly transform oppressive conditions, are opportunities for women social justice workers to help other women get to a place where we can own our power and if not total freedom, then the ability to make choices that empower us.
To this day, my key inspiration is my dead mother who lived her values of love, courage and compassion without asking for anything in return. I am mostly inspired by other women, mostly the unsung male and female workers in the immigrant rights movement who do the work everyday, without expecting any credit or public adulation. They are the people that shift the current under the iceberg.
I do not have idols, except maybe some really good literary writers and they are too many to mention.
If you could give one piece of advice to any young woman reading this who is hoping to create change one day and lead a movement, what would it be?
I would like her to ask herself: because you decided to do this, think about the one good, powerful legacy you want to leave behind. You are not obligated to finish the work, no one can really finish it, but you can be part of a great movement of women who left something good and lasting in the world, much better than when they found it.
5 Asian American Women Who Are Leading and Influencing Social Justice Movements…
Advancing Justice-LA on Medium
Video Perspective
Cristina Jiménez
The co-founder and executive director of United We Dream talks about how to move from fear to power in immigrant communities.
Natalie Bui
Maricela Gutiérrez
SIREN Executive Director Maricela Gutiérrez talks about the stress and uncertainty facing immigrant communities, and the support people need to stay safe and successful.
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The Van and Its Driver
The Good People
GOOD PLANET PROJECT
Dylan Leeder
Iceberg In Bonavista: The Chase And The Irony
Seeing an iceberg is exciting from the first moment you get a glimpse of it - it could just be a minuscule detail in the distance, but you can still feel the significance that it radiates. From the first sighting the excitement builds as you get closer and it gets bigger and bigger. In a way it’s addicting, you just want to get closer and closer and see every unique feature on it. This addiction is exactly what came over us during our visit to Bonavista, Newfoundland.
Word spreads across the province when there’s an iceberg sighting, “Oh, I think there’s one on its way to Bonavista” and “Yeah, I heard a big one is bottomed there!”, but icebergs can move surprisingly quick and who knows how fast word spreads. The only hope is to get there quick and hope for the best, and that’s exactly what we did. Arriving to Bonavista we were both giddy with high hopes of seeing the rumoured iceberg and upon arriving we were not disappointed.
Coming over a hill into town you could instantly see it far in the distance and the relief of having not missed it was substantial. Without hesitation we were maneuvering blindly through the iconic little village to get to what looked like the closest peninsula of land near the iceberg. After a few wrong turns, some locals advice, and some perseverance we arrived at (what we thought) was the nearest shore. There it was, in all its glory… but… we just. weren’t. close. enough.
After discussing our amazement at the fact that we were finally able to locate such a rare sighting we continued on our hunt to get closer. We asked more locals and continued on their advice out to the iconic lighthouse that was, in fact, closer.
While standing beside the famous lighthouse and discussing our fortune to have gotten a glimpse of the rumoured iceberg we couldn't help but play with the idea of getting closer. The looming question of “how close can we get?”, potentially fuelled by greed, just wouldn't go away. After a serious contemplation of travel funds vs. “once in a lifetime opportunities” we decided, the next morning, we were finding a boat and getting as close as we actually could.
In the morning we joined up with the guys at Boavista Puffin & Whale Boat Tours and headed out into the cold ocean to get up close and personal with the ‘berg we’ve been obsessed with for the last 24 hours. As we expected, the closer we got the more excited we became. The closer you got the more details you could see; the different coloured lines, the smooth edges where the water meets the ice, and the pools of water forming on top. We learned that a tell-tale sign that it was grounded was the fact that the birds were willing to land on it, that it was literally just the ‘tip of the iceberg’ and it went 400 feet below the surface, and we ultimately learned that we were right by knowing that we needed to get closer.
Now, as much as the beauty of seeing an iceberg could potentially be a ‘must-do’ in anyone’s lifetime, I still couldn't help but contemplate the bigger picture and why it was there. While in awe of the beauty in front me, I couldn't help but think of the article I read the previous day that ‘Antarctica Ice Melt ‘Has Accelerated’. Although this iceberg was likely from Greenland, and not Antartica, it is still humbling to consider it a visual representation of the fact that climate change has drastically increased the rate at which our polar caps are melting.
There’s a certain irony in watching these 10,000 year old icebergs float down to warmer waters. On one hand, this natural occurrence that’s been happening since the beginning of time is something I will always feel lucky to have seen, but, on the other hand, a part of me wishes, perhaps, that the glaciers up north would stop melting; or at least melt at a much slower rate than they are now.
Older Post24 Hours In Gros Morne
The Good Planet Project may contain affiliate links, but takes pride in our transparency. We don't promote products we don't support and all profits go directly back into the project.
All photos And Text © Dylan Leeder. 2017.
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Grahame Gardner celebrates important accreditations
Grahame Gardner Ltd has achieved an important NHS accreditation which ensures the company is delivering the highest possible ethical standards in its factories both in the UK and abroad.
The Leicester-based firm, which has provided workwear to the NHS since the service was founded in 1948, has gained level three of the Labour Standards Assurance System (LSAS), the NHS’s own benchmark, to ensure that the businesses it works with are ethically sound and protect its labour market.
Simon Ward, group director of Grahame Gardner, said: “We are extremely proud of our long-standing relationship with the NHS having provided workwear to them over the last 70 years which continues to this day.
“As a family business, founded in 1906 with family values at our core, we never compromise on the ethical side of our business and it is extremely important to us that we know the factories we work with in the UK as well as in other parts of the world have the highest possible standards. LSAS allows us to demonstrate this and we are delighted to have moved up from level two to three on our recent assessment.”
In other good news, for the third year running, the company has also been confirmed as a rated supplier on the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply Sustainability Index (CIPS). This covers Grahame Gardner, as well as its sister company Gymphlex Ltd and the GFORCE sportswear brand.
CIPS offers a comprehensive assessment of environmental, economic and social sustainability. It is the only independent, verified measurement tool allowing suppliers to share their sustainability credentials with buyers . Areas included within the scoring mechanism include: financial governance, robustness, integrity and ethics, waste management, environmental consumption, water consumption,employment practice, people management and development and human rights compliance.
Added Simon: “For us as a supplier, CIPS helps us to demonstrate excellence in sustainability to industry-approved levels, strengthening information sharing with our customers and supporting any new business bids. We are really pleased to have achieved this standard for the third year running.
“We performed very well indeed for economic and social criteria with marks both over 90% and we are within the industry standard for environmental, however there is room for improvement here and this is something that will are already looking at in readiness for our next review in 2019.”
Founded in 1906, Grahame Gardner Ltd has more than a century of expertise within the workwear industry, designing and manufacturing innovative garments for a wide variety of sectors from hospitality to healthcare.
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Home Research > Members > 1715-1754 > WINNINGTON, Francis (b.1704)
WINNINGTON, Francis (b.1704), of Broadway, Worcs.
Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715-1754, ed. R. Sedgwick, 1970
9 Dec. 1747 - 1754
b. Feb. or Mar. 1704, 1st s. of Francis Winnington of Broadway, Worcs. (e. bro. of Edward Jefferies, formerly Winnington) by Anne, da. of Thomas Jackson of London. educ. Westminster, Jan. 1717, aged 12; Trinity, Oxf. 29 Mar. 1721, aged 17; M. Temple 1722, called 1728. m. Susannah Courtney, 2da.
Solicitor to Admiralty 1733-June 1747.
Francis Winnington was the first cousin of Thomas Winnington, to whom he presumably owed his appointment as solicitor to the Admiralty in 1733. He resigned this post to stand for Droitwich in 1747 to preserve the family interest there till his nephew, Edward Winnington, Thomas Winnington’s heir, came of age. Returned on petition, he is probably the Mr. Winnington who lost a secret service pension of £200 a year in 1754,1d when he did not stand. The date of his death is unknown.
Author: Romney R. Sedgwick
1. Add. 33038, f. 352.
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Media Release Business Year 2008
In the fourth quarter of 2008, the contracting construction industry worsened rapidly in a number of markets
Higher costs for energy and other inputs as well as unfavorable currency effects impacted the income statement negatively
Swift capacity adjustments based on demand development; two additional plants mothballed in the US
Decisive cutback of fixed costs at Group and Group company level
Balance sheet remains strong with a high level of liquidity
Payout ratio remains unchanged; dividend will be distributed in shares which are entitled to a dividend for the full year 2009
Stimulus programs will support the construction industry and the sector will particularly benefit from an economic upswing
Holcim is holding its own in a difficult environment
The sharp economic slowdown has led to a recession both in North America and in parts of Europe, with the construction sectors of the US, Spain and the UK badly affected. Even though the global economy further lost momentum in the second half of the year, trends in the growth markets of Latin America, Africa, Asia and eastern Europe were predominantly positive.
Even under these more difficult conditions, Holcim has held up well in 2008 with a full-year operating EBITDA of CHF 5.3 billion. Europe once again made the largest contribution to the results. The Group companies in central and eastern Europe made progress compared with the previous year, as did Azerbaijan. In contrast, Holcim saw marked declines in its business in Russia and France, particularly in the fourth quarter. As a result of market conditions, Holcim suffered its biggest setback in North America, where operating EBITDA was halved in comparison with 2007. Latin America posted good results, despite some deterioration in performance during the last three months of 2008, partly because of currency factors. Group region Africa Middle East also fared well thanks to strong construction activity in Morocco and Lebanon. The second-largest EBITDA contribution was made by Asia Pacific, due in large part to the results coming from the two Indian Group companies. Holcim Indonesia also experienced substantial growth.
Holcim's solidity is accentuated by the fact that the Group generated free cash flow of some CHF 2.6 billion in 2008. Thanks to a cautious financial policy, strong cash flow and strict management of net current assets, Holcim's liquidity at the end of 2008 remained at a high level of CHF 5.6 billion. In combination with a strong balance sheet, this has served to maintain a solid rating.
In Europe, consolidated deliveries of cement dropped by 1.7 percent to 33.7 million tonnes. Sales of aggregates decreased by 10.3 percent to 97.6 million tonnes. In contrast, after adjustment for market conditions and acquisitions, sales of ready-mix concrete increased by 6.1 percent to 21 million cubic meters. Operating EBITDA decreased by 16.5 percent to CHF 2 billion. The main reason for the weaker result was a heavy decline in demand in the UK and Spain throughout the year, as well as one-off costs in connection with the restructuring and the announced plant closure in Spain. Additionally, economic conditions deteriorated strikingly during the fourth quarter 2008. In particular, the Group companies in Russia, France and Italy were financially hit. Most eastern European companies as well as Azerbaijan posted higher contributions. It was possible to offset a substantial proportion of the increase in energy costs by means of price adjustments and improvements in efficiency. Overall, internal operating EBITDA development was negative at -10.6 percent.
In North America, cement deliveries declined by 12.2 percent to 14.4 million tonnes. Consolidated sales of aggregates fell by 13.4 percent to 49.3 million tonnes. As a result of acquisitions, sales of ready-mix concrete were the same as the previous year at 7.3 million cubic meters. The operating result in Swiss francs was depressed by a combination of the unsatisfactory sales, higher input costs for energy and raw materials, one-off costs for plant closures and the weak US dollar. Operating EBITDA for Group region North America decreased by 51.4 percent to CHF 486 million. At -46.2 percent, internal operating EBITDA development was also negative. Especially, the US Group companies were unable to match the previous year's performance. At Holcim US, prices decreased slightly and the decline in sales volumes and higher input costs were only partially offset by efficiency gains. With its products, Aggregate Industries US was operating in a more stable price environment. However, the result was affected by the decline in sales of aggregates and ready-mix concrete and the general surge in costs. On a like-for-like basis and in local currency, St. Lawrence Cement almost matched the prior-year result.
In Latin America, most Group companies were able to achieve increases in sales of cement. On a consolidated basis, deliveries rose by 2.3 percent to 27.2 million tonnes. Sales of aggregates increased by 7.2 percent to 13.4 million tonnes, while sales of ready-mix concrete advanced by 10.4 percent to 11.7 million cubic meters. Despite the massive rise in energy prices and more price control by the authorities, Group region Latin America reported a significant increase in operating EBITDA in local currency terms. Due to the deterioration in the exchange rate versus the Swiss franc - in the case of Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and Chile - operating EBITDA declined by 4.9 percent to CHF 1.2 billion. The Group region result also reflects the tougher business conditions in some markets during the fourth quarter. The Group region posted internal operating EBITDA growth of 6 percent. Almost all Group companies increased their contributions in local currency, with the key exception being Cemento Polpaico in Chile, where increasingly fierce competition had a negative impact. Holcim Apasco in Mexico was not quite able to match its previous-year results. Holcim Costa Rica and Cemento Panama posted clear improvements in their results. Holcim also fared better in local currency terms in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil.
In Group region Africa Middle East, sales volumes declined substantially in all segments as a consequence of the deconsolidations in South Africa and Egypt. On a like-for-like basis, Holcim's deliveries increased: 9.7 percent for cement, 1.8 percent for aggregates and 11.8 percent for ready-mix concrete. The changes in the scope of consolidation also affected the Group region's financial results, but on a like-for-like basis operating EBITDA increased by 6.9 percent to CHF 368 million.
In Asia Pacific, cement sales grew by 1.1 percent to 65.6 million tonnes. Deliveries of aggregates rose by 17.5 percent to 4.7 million tonnes. Ready-mix concrete enjoyed the strongest growth, rising 25.9 percent to 7.3 million cubic meters. This reflects progressive vertical integration in the region's main urban centers. The consolidated operating EBITDA decreased by 18.9 percent to CHF 1.5 billion. At -6.2 percent, internal operating EBITDA development was negative. The positive volumes contrasted with massive increases in the cost of energy, raw materials and transportation. Efficiency gains and price adjustments only partially compensated for the additional expense. Government anti-inflation measures limited in particular the two Indian Group companies' ability to pass on the sharp rise in purchasing costs. Finally, the deterioration in the exchange rate situation put pressure on the results in Swiss francs. Only Holcim Indonesia and Holcim Vietnam increased their contributions to the result of this Group region.
Holcim has reacted quickly to a changing environment
The crisis in the construction sector has made plant closures and cost-cutting programs unavoidable. Throughout the Holcim Group, fixed costs were proactively adjusted in response to declining demand. In the markets most critically affected, more than 100 production locations across all segments were shut down. These include the three cement plants in the US and Spain that were permanently closed. To minimize the impact on its people, Holcim is seeking where possible to achieve the job cuts by means of palliative measures such as natural attrition or early retirement.
Well prepared for the future
It is uncertain for how long the weakness in demand will last. Nevertheless, Holcim remains confident based on a worldwide market presence, a portfolio of proven and innovative products and a low-impact and cost-conscious management of resources and energy. Above all, the Group can rely on a management which has been crisis-proven.
Holcim will constantly review capacities in all segments and close more operations, if only temporarily, as demand should necessitate. Thus, the plants of Artesia and Mason City in North America will be additionally mothballed.
With the exception of strategically important expansions in growth markets and the completion of the plant on the Mississippi - in total approximately 25 million tonnes of cement capacity - no further new capital investments will be made to increase capacity. Additionally, spending on replacement and rationalization is presently being reduced to a minimum. A focused adjustment of fixed costs is in progress in all areas at the Group and Group company level.
This lower investment activity combined with financing measures both at the Group and the Group company level in the last few months, Holcim has succeeded in maintaining a high level of liquidity. Holcim will continue the systematic implementation of this strategy and expect that, by year end, Group debt will remain at the previous year's level on a like-for-like basis.
Even amid the current turmoil, Holcim is standing by the principles of environmental and social responsibility.
In the 2008 Dow Jones Sustainability Index, Holcim was designated "Leader of the Industry" for the fourth year in succession and received, for the second time, the "Sector Leader" and "SAM Gold Class" accolades of the Sustainable Asset Management Group (SAM) in cooperation with PricewaterhouseCoopers. The partnership with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) on the preservation of ecosystems has proven valuable and represents another step to sustainable economic activity. Holcim also makes a contribution toward sustainable construction through the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction. In the current 2007 to 2009 competition cycle, 5,000 construction projects from around the world were submitted. This spring, an independent jury will award prizes to the three best sustainable construction projects selected from15 regional winners.
Health and safety at work were systematically pursued under the slogan "Passion for Safety". There are clear indications of improvements. The Board of Directors and the Executive Committee are making every effort to ensure that a comprehensive safety culture is effectively practiced throughout the Group.
Standing by the established dividend policy
Holcim has a policy of distributing one third of consolidated profit attributable to the shareholders of Holcim Ltd (CHF 1.8 billion in 2008) as a dividend. The Board of Directors has decided to leave the payout ratio at this level. However, because of the difficult economic situation, the uncertainty over the future trend of the economy and to preserve liquidity, the proposal at the General Meeting will be to pay the dividend in shares rather than in cash. Each shareholder will receive one tradable subscription right for every registered share held. 20 subscription rights will entitle the holder to one free share, which will be entitled to the full dividend for the 2009 financial year. Hence, the shareholder has the opportunity to draw up new shares or to sell the subscription rights and therewith realize a cash return. The Board of Directors is convinced that this proposal is in the best interests of the company and its shareholders.
Post-balance sheet events
Due to the continuing unfavorable demand situation in the US, the Group company has decided to mothball the plants of Artesia and Mason City with a combined annual capacity of 1.4 million tonnes.
In a memorandum of understanding, Holcim and the state of Venezuela stipulated that Holcim Venezuela will be nationalized. Holcim will sell the company to the government and keep a remaining stake of 15 percent. In the meantime, the state has taken control of Holcim Venezuela without payment of the agreed compensation of USD 550 million. Holcim considers to appeal to the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes in Washington D.C.
2009 will be another difficult year for the construction and building materials sectors. Although government support programs have been announced, Holcim has to expect a further decline in demand.
In the final months of 2008, the economy of Europe declined more sharply than expected, and the business environment will remain difficult in 2009. Holcim expects sales of building materials in western Europe to decline further in line with the general economic development. In the east and southeast of the continent as well, construction activity will lose momentum. All Group companies have launched programs to cut costs and adjust capacity.
In North America, the US construction sector appears set for a further slowdown in 2009. The economic aid package announced by the new US administration should provide some stimulus for the infrastructure sector toward the end of the year. In Canada, Holcim expects the market to weaken, particularly in Ontario and Quebec.
In Latin America, the change in the global economic environment and falling commodity prices will have a negative impact on economic activity. Demand volumes in the construction sector are therefore expected to decline. The downturn can be expected to be more acute in Mexico and Central America because of their proximity to the US markets. Market conditions should be more stable in South America and particularly in Brazil.
Group region Africa Middle East should for the most part continue to make progress in 2009. Morocco is expected to see more moderate growth. The construction materials markets of Lebanon, West Africa and the Indian Ocean should also positively develop under stable political conditions. The Group region as a whole is expected to see satisfactory sales volumes and operating results.
In line with the global economic trend for 2009, Asia Pacific can be expected to see a further slowdown in growth. The development of the Chinese and Indian economy will be important for the region. Demand in the construction sector is expected to progress due to an increasing demand for affordable housing and major infrastructure projects. Sales of cement and ready-mix concrete should therefore increase overall.
Holcim offers the right products and services, and its corporate culture is customer-oriented. The Group is well positioned in all important markets. A high priority is given to a solid balance sheet and a high level of liquidity. Holcim is convinced that the Group can emerge from the current economic cycle stronger than before, and that the "post-crisis Holcim" will be a better company than the "pre-crisis Holcim".In the absence of key forecast data on the trend of the global economy, the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee refrain from communicating any predictions about the Group's performance in 2009. The focus will be on rigorous cost management and maximizing cash flow generation. Holcim's main objective is to preserve the financial stability of the Group.
Key figures (extended)
Holcim also refers to the detailed comments in the presentation of the annual results.
www.holcim.com/handout
Holcim is one of the world's leading suppliers of cement and aggregates (crushed stone, gravel and sand) as well as further activities such as ready-mix concrete and asphalt including services. The Group holds majority and minority interests in more than 70 countries on all continents.
The Annual Report 2008 is available at
Annual Report - Presentation 2008
Press conference:
Wednesday, March 4, 2009, 9:30 a.m., Holcim, Hagenholzstrasse 85, 8050 Zurich
Webcast, March 4, 12:00 noon (CET), presentation in English,
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18/06/2017 12:43 AM AEST | Updated 18/06/2017 10:13 PM AEST
Laverne Cox Opens Up About Cisgender Actors Playing Transgender Women
By Michelangelo Signorile, opinionColumnist
Brian Killian via Getty Images
With Season Five of “Orange Is The New Black” released earlier this month, Laverne Cox has a lot to say about her groundbreaking role in the Netflix hit, which earned her an Emmy nomination in 2014.
Always opinionated and wonderfully energetic, Cox, in an interview with me on SiriusXM Progress, opened up about so much else, too ― including trans actors like herself playing non-trans roles, and cisgender male actors playing transgender women.
“Prisons are working exactly the way they’re supposed to,” she first explained bluntly, in discussing how her character, Sophia Bursett, a transgender prison inmate, spent much of Season 4 in solitary confinement, a reality faced by so many transgender women of color in prison. “Prisons have existed, really, as this new Jim Crow. As a way to enslave black people. And that brutality is working exactly as it’s supposed to.”
Though someone like her could be a success today, Cox said, our institutions, including our electoral system ― as reflected by the 2016 presidential race ― are haunted by the history of slavery in America.
“I think when we look at America, a country we love, a country where ― I mean, my story is not possible, I think, anywhere else in the world, that a black trans woman from Mobile, Alabama, can be living this dream out loud on an international level,” she reflected. “It’s pretty remarkable. I love this country. But the truth of this country is that it was built on the backs of slaves. And even something like the Electoral College was designed to keep southern states from letting northern states get too much power, so they could keep slaves. The Electoral College is this antiquated thing that we need to let go of.”
And on the topic of what roles transgender actors should play and whether or not cisgender men ― like Matt Bomer, currently embroiled in controversy regarding his role in the new film “Anything” ― should play transgender women, Cox expounded a great deal.
“My experience as a trans woman playing a trans character is that I have found that audiences not only have empathy for the character that I play but they find themselves having empathy for the actor who plays that character,” she said. “And I think there’s a lot of evidence that this moment happening with me and ‘Orange’ has created an enormous amount of social change. Right? I mean, like just look at the resume! The proof is there.”
She then pointed to a recent essay by Emmy-nominated transgender writer, actress and producer Jen Richards, “Why Straight Men Kill The Trans Women They Love.”
“Jen Richards said that she believes that when cisgender men or non-transgender men play trans women it sends a message to people who don’t know trans folks that trans women are really men,” Cox explained. “And then, as brilliant as Jefffrey Tambor is, as brilliant as Jared Leto is, and all these actors who play trans women, when people who don’t know anything about trans folks and trans women see the very sexy Jared Leto and his beard accepting an Oscar for playing a trans woman, the message that it sends is that trans women are really men. So when men find themselves attracted to trans women they have anxiety about that because of their own internalized homophobia and transphobia and they’ve gotten this message that trans women are really men and then this leads to violence. [Jen Richards] contends that this leads to violence against trans women. And I think she makes a really strong argument.”
But Cox isn’t an absolutist ― “I would never want to tell another actor that they should or shouldn’t play a part” ― and would leave it to actors to make their own decisions. She simply wants them to think more about the outcome, the effect.
“Art is art,” she said. “And artists should have the freedom to do whatever we want. But there are consequences to that. There’s freedom of speech and freedom of expression, but there’s consequences to that speech. So Jen Richards’ arguments I think are worth considering when we think of casting trans folks. And I think that trans folks should not just be playing roles that are expressly trans. I just did a pilot for ABC and played a part that was not written as trans. But the producers, after looking at lot of different actors, thought that the qualities that I have as an actor would lend themselves to this character. And it didn’t get picked up but they loved what I did and I tested very well with audiences apparently, which is exciting to hear.”
All of these issues, very dear to her, are part the basis for Cox’s desire now to create her own scripted television show. It’s not something she’s ready to offer many details about, she said, but it’s been a “long-term goal” she’s currently working on.
“So that’s, hopefully, the future of trans folks acting,” she continued. “That we are cast as roles that we are right for. There a lot of trans stories to tell. We’ve only tapped the surface. And that’s why I want to create my own show.”
Which means much more of Laverne Cox to look forward to ― something we can all celebrate.
Follow Michelangelo Signorile on Twitter: www.twitter.com/msignorile
Michelangelo Signorile Queer Voices Editor-at-Large, The Huffington Post
MORE: Arts and Entertainment entertainment hate speech laverne cox lgbti lgbtq LGBTQ Sexuality Michelangelo Signorile trans Transgender Transgender issues
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Injured barn owl rescued by A14 road worker
Updated: Wednesday, July 10, 2019 (16:56)
A14 worker Martin Lefty and Liz McQuilan from the Raptor Foundation sanctuary releasing the recovered barn owl.
A injured barn owl has been rescued by a machine operator working on the A14 road upgrade project at Brampton.
The bird was discovered by Martin Lefty, who was using his excavator to move materials and soil.
Its leg was bruised and it was unable to fly, so Martin together with Duncan Healey, one of the environmental managers on the road scheme, decided to take the owl to the Raptor Foundation near Wyton.
Two weeks later they learned the bird had made a good recovery and were able to join the Raptor Foundation's Liz McQuilan to set the owl free near the site where they had found it.
Martin said: "Protecting and enhancing the environment is an important part of what we do while building the new A14, so when I saw the injured owl I knew I couldn't just carry on with my day's work - I had to ensure it was okay. It was great to see it make a full recovery, and to be a part of setting it free again."
Highways England, which is managing the upgrade project, said barn owls were not the only protected species the A14 team was working to safeguard, fellow creatures on the route have included kestrels, otters, swifts, great crested newts, badgers, water voles, bats and butterflies.
Carol Hardingham, environmental lead for the A14 on behalf of Highways England, said: "Building a new road changes the local environment around it, but it can also bring new opportunities to protect and enhance it. The countryside along the 21 miles of the A14 upgrade is mainly arable land, which can pose challenges to biodiversity and wildlife. The new road is making it possible to create connected corridors and new habitats for wildlife, as well as opportunities to provide new ground for some of the rare local flora to thrive.
"With all the measures we are putting in place, we're confident that once the new A14 opens our work will leave a positive impact on the new road's local environment."
Some of the measures taken to protect and enhance the A14's local environment include tunnels beneath the new 12-mile stretch of the new road which will bypass Huntingdon to the south, with shrubs carefully planted to direct animals to ensure they have a safe way to cross the road, which carries up to 85,000 drivers every day.
A trio of new habitats for newts have been built, including ponds and log piles, which they hibernate beneath through the winter.
Main construction to upgrade the A14 between Cambridge and Huntingdon is progressing well and reached the half way mark in November 2018.
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Geoffrey Mutai produces a dominating run in the 2012 Ottawa 10km (Victah Sailer) © Copyright
15 JAN 2014 General News Ottawa, Canada
Geoffrey Mutai returns to Ottawa 10K looking to regain his crown
Kenya’s Geoffrey Mutai, the 2011 Boston Marathon champion, and two-time New York Marathon champion, will return to the Ottawa 10K on 24 May and run the event for the third consecutive year, the event organisers announced on Wednesday (15).
Mutai will compete in the IAAF Silver Label Road Race just six weeks after his scheduled appearance in the 2014 London Marathon.
“We’re very excited to welcome Geoffrey Mutai back to Ottawa this year,” said the elite athlete coordinator Manny Rodrigues.
“Despite finishing third (in 2013), it was Geoffrey who set the pace for last year’s very fast and very competitive race. Building on last year’s success, we think we may see an even stronger field in 2014. We may even have a new London Marathon champion in the field,” he added.
Mutai won in Ottawa in 2012. Last year, he set out on course-record pace and led until the final metres, when he was passed by Morocco’s El Hassan El Abassi and Ethiopia’s Adugna Bikila in a thrilling finish which saw the first three men home finish within three seconds of each other.
El Abassi won in a personal best of 27:36, 12 seconds off the course record of 27:24 set in 2009 by Deriba Merga, while Bikila and Mutai finished in 27:37 and 27:38 respectively.
“I like the race, and the good and friendly people of the organisation," said Mutai. "The course is okay and I like the competition with the female athletes. For me it’s good to test myself how will be my shape after my marathon in April 2014."
Over the past five years, the 32-year-old Mutai has built one of the most impressive reputations in distance running.
He has won the Berlin, Boston and New York Marathons, and his 2:03:02 course record at the 2011 Boston Marathon, which is slightly downhill and not eligible as a world record course, is the fastest ever recorded time for the distance.
He can also boast of personal bests of 58:58 for the half marathon and 27:19 for 10km on the road.
“It is always exciting to watch the world’s best run here in Ottawa,” continued Rodrigues. “With Mutai in the field, the course record is definitely in play. Ottawa is in for a treat.”
The Ottawa 10K is part of the Tamarack Ottawa Race Weekend, Canada’s largest multi-day running event and home of the Ottawa Marathon on 25 May, also an IAAF Silver Label Road Race.
Approximately 40,000 people annually take part in the various events across the Ottawa Race Weekend.
Organisers for the IAAF
16 JAN 2014 General News Pearson will defend her world indoor hurdles crown in Sopot
15 JAN 2014 General News Mathathi the top man at Marugame Half Marathon
El Hassan El Abassi wins at the 2013 Ottawa 10km (Victah Sailer - organisers) © Copyright
All pages related to this article
Geoffrey Kiprono Mutai
IAAF Label Road Races
Ottawa 10K Road Race
26 MAY 2013 Double Moroccan victories in Ottawa 10km
27 MAY 2012 Mutai destroys field on warm night in Ottawa
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Yield of a Square Reinforced Concrete Slab on Simple Supports, Allowing for Membrane Forces
Author: Kemp, K O
First published: N/A
Standard: £9 + VAT
Members/Subscribers: Free
Kemp, K O
An upper bound solution for the yield load of a simply supported, reinforced concrete, square slab is developed which allows for the effects of membrane action. The solution is based on an assumed rigid perfectly plastic behaviour. The loading on the slab considered is uniformly distributed but certain other symmetrical loadings could be analysed in a similar way. K.O. Kemp
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Woman to appear in PE court over toddler’s kidnapping
Eastern Cape / 7 January 2019, 4:43pm / Raahil Sain
File picture
Port Elizabeth - A 25-year-old woman is expected to make a first appearance in the Port Elizabeth Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday in connection with the kidnapping of three-year-old Nefrin Roberts.
The toddler was allegedly kidnapped from a Summerstrand beach last week while out with his grandmother.
Police spokesperson, Colonel Priscilla Naidu said they were at the beach and waiting for the child’s mother.
“While there, a woman -- [who] introduced herself as Meagan from Shauderville -- struck up a conversation with the grandmother and after a while both women went to the nearby shopping centre to buy liquor.”
Naidu said they went back to the beach and waited for the child’s mother who never arrived.
The two women stayed on the beach and a while later the woman went back to the shopping centre to buy cigarettes. She took the child with her and never returned.
On Sunday, the toddler was found by police with the 25-year-old woman who was arrested in a shack in Victoria Park Drive.
According to the woman, she alleged that when she returned with the child after going to the shop, she could not find the grandmother so she took the child with her.
Naidu said the woman could not give a reasonable explanation as to why she did not contact the police.
The child was taken to Dora Nginza hospital for a medical examination and apart from being malnourished, he was fine.
The toddler has since been re-united with his family.
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One dead, seven injured in crash outside Ladysmith
KwaZulu-Natal / 26 December 2018, 8:28pm / ANA Reporter
Durban - One person was killed and seven others sustained various injuries when their bakkie overturned on the Hobsland Road outside Ladysmith on Wednesday, according to ER24 spokesman, Werner Vermaak.
Vermaak said that at approximately 2.40pm, paramedics from ER24, EMRS and officials from Ladysmith public safety arrived at the scene where they found the occupants ejected from the vehicle.
"Upon further assessment, they found that the driver of the vehicle sustained fatal injuries. There was nothing that could be done for him and he was declared dead at the scene. Seven occupants from the vehicle were treated for injuries ranging from minor to moderate. They were later transported to a nearby hospital for further medical care," said Vermaak.
The exact circumstances surrounding the incident are unknown and police are investigating.
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AFCON Tables
Blitz hungry for trophy ahead of #MSLT20 final
Domestic / 13 December 2018, 9:30pm / Zaahier Adams
Quinton de Kock and his Cape Town Blitz team mates are confident they will be holding the trophy on Sunday. Photo: Ryan Wilkisky/BackpagePix
After enjoying a couple of days off, the Cape Town Blitz are “hungry” to lift the inaugural Mzansi Super League title on Sunday at Newlands.
The Blitz secured qualification last week already for the final and have looked on from the comfort of their living rooms this week as teams have fought tooth and nail for a spot in the playoffs.
They now wait for the outcome of the playoff between Jozi Stars and Paarl Rocks on Friday at the Wanderers to determine their opposition in the final.
Opener Quinton de Kock, though, is just grateful the Blitz have had an opportunity to recuperate after enduring a hectic schedule the past couple of weeks.
“I think we are all little bit tired with all the back-to-back games, so for us to qualify for the final last week already has allowed us to rest up a couple of days was much-needed for the whole team,” De Kock said. “It was nice to have a little break, but now we come back hungry to get the show on the road again.”
De Kock would certainly have benefited a great deal from the couple of days spent back in Johannesburg. The Proteas wicket-keeper has been busier than even most of his teammates after returning from the national tour mid-way through the MSL T20.
With captain Farhaan Behardien, all-rounder Andile Phehlukwayo and fast bowler Dale Steyn having also done service in Australia, the break can only benefit the Blitz.
“Obviously, I think there was some difficulties, but that’s just professional sport. Unfortunately is not always good being a sportsman, and tough decisions need to be made but we are where we want to be because of those decisions,” he said.
De Kock will certainly hope to play a big role in Sunday’s final. He is currently just three runs shy of the top run-scorer in the tournament – Jozi Stars’ Rassie van der Dussen (410 runs) – even though he has played three games less.
But it is not only the 25-year-old’s runs that the Blitz depend on, especially with their misfiring middle-order, but also the impetus he creates at the top of the innings.
De Kock’s 407 runs at an average of 67.83 have come at the amazing strike-rate of 174.67. Only Jozi Stars’ Australian all-rounder Dan Christian has a higher strike-rate (194.05) among the top 15 batsmen in the MSL T20.
The final is scheduled for a 3:30pm start at Newlands on Sunday.
@ZaahierAdams
IOL Sport
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Ipsos MORI Thinks
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Quality and Transparency
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Ipsos MORI
News & Polls : News
Poll on privacy and data sharing for The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust
A new Ipsos MORI poll for The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust finds that Britons support the police and intelligence agencies accessing data about personal electronic communications in certain circumstances (when that person is a suspect), but that a senior judge and not politicians or parliament should decide when surveillance is appropriate.
Almost half (48%) of the public feel that a senior judge in a court of law should be responsible for approving requests from police and UK intelligence agencies to collect and look at the electronic communications or private individuals. A fifth (20%) feel these should be approved by a senior authorised officer within the police force or agency seeking the permission and 15% a government minister.
Similarly a third (32%) say that a senior judge in court should set limits on the powers UK intelligence agencies have to collect communications data from the general population, with 22% saying this should be the job of parliament.
The public are most confident in the ability of a senior judge in a court of law to hold the UK intelligence agencies to account (75%) with around two fifths being confident in the ability of the Prime Minister or other government ministers to do this job (both 44%).
Two fifths say they have confidence in the current system of a committee of politicians to hold the intelligence agencies to account. The same proportion (41%) say they have confidence when told that the committee is appointed by and reports to the Prime Minister, with the Prime Minister having final say over what can be published in the committee’s reports.
The majority support allowing the police and UK intelligence agencies to access information about personal communications for types of criminal activity where that person is a suspect in the case, rising from 61% supporting this for minor crimes to 88% who say this should be allowed in terrorism investigations or situations where there is a criminal threat to life.
There is less support for allowing the police and UK intelligence agencies access to information about personal communications where that person is not a suspect, with majority support for this only in the case of a terrorism investigation or situation where there is a criminal threat to life (54%), compared with only 22% who think this should be allowed in a minor crime investigation when that person is not a suspect.
Maintaining the privacy of personal financial records, such as bank statements, pension and savings was seen as essential or very important by 93% of the public, with the privacy of medical records and the content of post also essential or very important for the vast majority (both 82%).
The majority (55%) say they are confident that Government departments and public services will protect their personal information, with two fifths (41%) feeling this is true of web-based email services, and 38% that their personal data will be protected by private companies.
Overall, two fifths think that the current balance between privacy and security is currently about right (40%), with more saying that the balance is too much in favour of security (25%) than feel it is too much in favour of privacy (12%).
There is little appetite for data sharing among Government bodies, with 63% disagreeing that if a government department or other public body holds some data about you, other government departments and public bodies should have access to that information, and less than a fifth (18%) agreeing.
Similarly, just under half (45%) say that the government should never be allowed to share data they have about you with private companies, with around a quarter (26%) saying they should do this only if you opt in to data sharing and one in eight (12%) that they should be allowed to do so as long as you do not opt out.
The public are even less likely to want to see the government selling personal data to private companies, with 67% saying this should never be the case.
There is also opposition to the government and private companies storing and processing data outside of the UK, with 69% saying that they would oppose the Government doing this and 77% saying that private companies should not store or process data outside of the UK.
Download the topline results (PDF)
Topline results are based on 1,958 responses to the Ipsos MORI face-to-face Omnibus.
Respondents are British adults aged 15+.
Fieldwork took place face-to-face between 25 April-3 May 2014.
The survey data were weighted to be nationally representative of GB adults.
An * denotes a percentage which is greater than 0 but less than 0.5.
Where responses do not sum to 100% this is either because the question was multi response or due to percentage rounding.
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Britain ranks alongside Sweden as top for prioritising human rights in international trade. The finding comes from a major 24-country, 17,000-interview online survey by Ipsos MORI and King’s College London.
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Battle for Equality Down Under
By Cecilia Godoy
For the past couple of months, Australia has seen complications in its legal battle to change its constitutional definition of marriage and finally legalize same-sex marriages. It has been a long process, “a national vote was first proposed by the government in 2015 when Australia was already far behind many other English-speaking nations” and the definitive answer should be known by November 15. Even though Australia has had a difficult history accepting and respecting same-sex romantic relations, the majority of Australians are united in their support for marriage equality and the change to the Commonwealth Law. Namely, the opposition has been led by forces in politics and in churches.
In 2004, then-prime minister, John Howard changed the Marriage Act to clarify the definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman, strictly discriminating against partnerships that did not fall under that description. This was the first spark that ignited the fight for equal marriage rights and that has seen a lot of scrutiny in the political process even since. After years of having conservative leadership, in 2015 “Tony Abbott announced there would be a national vote, or plebiscite, to decide the future of marriage equality”[1]. There were two attempts at passing legislation, in 2016 and 2017, but they were rejected for lack of support from the Labour and Green Parties. Finally, after the last failed attempt to pass it through a parliamentary vote, the current Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull decided he "would instead hold a national postal vote”[2].
Now that the political blockade has been dealt with, the referendum has seen growing opposition from religious communities over the last couple of weeks. The postal vote to legalize same sex marriage has been seized on by church leaders in the once predominantly Christian country. Even though religious belief has been on the steady decline in the country, religious leaders see this as a deciding moment in the country’s history in terms of preserving the sanctity of marriage as well as the Christian faith itself. Another more important reason is, if Australians vote yes on the referendum, "this could potentially lead to a weakening of the church’s power and influence in an increasingly secular society"[4], which visibly goes against church interest. While expressing respect for gay couple’s love, “religious officials assert that if the referendum passes, religious institutions, including churches, hospitals and schools, could come under attack”[3]. Even though 70% of country considers itself Christian, a great majority also believes that same sex marriage should be recognized in a legal and federal setting. According to the advocates of the law, very little will change in terms of the benefits heterosexual couples enjoy.
What appears to be in dispute currently, is the difference between the legal and religious definitions of marriage and the acceptance that the recognition of one does not diminish the other. Not only do homosexual couples deserve the right to not be discriminated against, they also reserve the right to enjoy the same privileges as a heterosexual couple in terms of recognition and financial benefits. Accepting the romantic union between partners of the same sex does not diminish a country’s religious sanctity, but rather highlights the ability to compromise beliefs in pursuit of the greater equality of the population.
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USA vs DPRK
September 28, 2017 by BUIAA IR Review
Written by Cecilia Godoy
In recent months, a cornerstone of President Trump’s foreign policy has been to curb North Korean efforts to develop weapons of Mass Destruction. This was in response to North Korean officials claiming they had successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb, also known as a thermonuclear weapon, which could be fitted atop a long range missile capable of striking the US.” According to the seismological data, “the weapon was the most powerful ever detonated.” The nuclear weapon would serve as the ultimate survival mechanism for Kim Jong Un’s antiquated, dictatorial regime and would help him realize the international dominance he has been trying to establish for years on the world stage.
Currently, most of the American policies in place to halt North Korea's nuclear objectives are economic in nature. Nikki Haley, the American ambassador to the United States, “urged her colleagues to adopt the strongest sanctions possible to stop Pyongyang’s nuclear program” Other countries, such as China, believe that sanctions alone will not be enough to deter the aggressive measures being pursued by North Korea. The Chinese government additionally advocated for the suspension of all US and South Korea military drills in an attempt to lower the rising tensions in the region. Additionally, the United States has been pressuring Southeast Asian countries to do more to address the North Korean threat. China – North Korea’s economic lifeline – “has long been hesitant to completely cut off the crude oil supply to North Korea, worried that economic instability could bring a flood of refugees to the Chinese border." The options available to the United States boils down to sanctions or negotiations, the latter looking increasingly unlikely.
The current tension with North Korea is somewhat reminiscent of old Cold War dynamics between Soviet Union and the United States, however the strategies implemented then are not suitable to curb the current North Korean crisis. During the Cold War, the United States practiced a policy of containment, which “relie[s] on each nation’s interest in self-preservation to prevent either from launching strike”. As effective as that policy was during the duration of the Cold war, it is unlikely that a policy of containment, would work as well in this situation, mainly because such a policy was not designed to rollback the aggression of rogue nations. Despite the high level of hostility between the two superpowers then, it was always understood that both the United States and the Soviet Union were rational players in the global international order. The same cannot be said for North Korea, therefore creating difficulties in how to handle the North Korean nuclear proliferation issue from a American foreign policy perspective.
North Korea seems to not only be doubting the ability of super powers to stop its militaristic endeavors, but is also seriously questioning the major tenets on which the United Nations was founded upon. It is important to acknowledge that in this case, perhaps the United Nations and its reliance on soft power may not be enough to deter threats from rogue nations such as North Korea. Similarly, since North Korea has spent the last 50 years being self-reliant, it is unlikely that economic sanctions will hinder its nuclear ambitions or domestic political legitimacy. The United States should also be cautious of pursuing an overly militaristic foreign policy in fear of being seen as a willingness to engage in an outright conflict. It appears therefore, that American foreign policy as it relates to North Korea demands a careful balancing act in which offensive measures also exercise some degree of strategic restraint to prevent a full blown war.
Berlinger, Joshua. "N. Korea Believed to Be Moving Intercontinental Missile, Seoul Lawmaker Says." CNN. Cable News Network, 05 Sept. 2017. Web.
Hunt, Katie. "What Happens If Kim Attacks? 5 Things to Know about North Korea." CNN. Cable News Network, 05 Sept. 2017. Web.
Gearan, Anne, and Emily Rauhala. "Trump Renews Threat of Force against North Korea over Nuclear Weapons." The Washington Post. WP Company, 07 Sept. 2017. Web.
September 28, 2017 /BUIAA IR Review
North Korea, Cecilia Godoy, International Relations Review, Boston University
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Forged IVF Consent Form Triggers Unique Breach of Contract Claim
Category: News
Healthy children are a blessing and, even where their birth arises from a breach of contract, the costs of bringing them up cannot be recovered as compensation. The Court of Appeal made that point in the case of a father whose ex-partner gave birth to his daughter after forging his signature on an IVF consent form.
The ex-couple previously had a son after undergoing IVF treatment at a fertility clinic. Following that procedure, fertilised embryos were frozen in case they were needed in future. Following the breakdown of their relationship, an embryo was thawed after the mother forged the father’s signature on the form. She was subsequently implanted with the embryo and, in due course, gave birth to a healthy baby girl.
The father was unaware of what she had done until after she was pregnant. In those circumstances, he launched proceedings with a view to recovering the costs of bringing up his daughter to adulthood, but his claim was dismissed by a judge on public policy grounds.
In ruling on the father’s appeal against that decision, the Court found that the clinic had been under an absolute imperative to obtain his written consent to the embryo being thawed and implanted. The requirement for such consent was a cornerstone of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. The clinic had been duped by the mother, and had not been negligent, but the use of reasonable care provided it with no defence to the father’s claim.
In dismissing the appeal, however, the Court noted the impossibility of calculating the value to be attributed to the benefit of a healthy child, so as to set off such value against the financial burden of bringing up that child. The Court also observed that legal authorities on the issue are pervaded by a sense that it is morally unacceptable to regard a healthy child as a financial burden.
General, Contract, Family and Matrimonial, Personal Injury and Clinical Negligence
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Why Apples Don't Grow on Trees
This post by John Maeda first appeared in WSJ, 12/14/13
I’m often asked, “What’s another successful design-led company besides Apple?” And I have to pause—not because companies like Ferrari and IKEA aren’t great examples of design-led organizations but because I find myself wondering why Apple dominates popular conversation about design to the extent that it does. After reading Hartmut Esslinger’s “Keep It Simple” and Leander Kahney’s “Jony Ive,” however, it all made sense. What we love about Apple isn’t necessarily the company’s approach to design, which in truth isn’t much different from other great design-led businesses like Muji or Bang & Olufsen. What makes Apple unique is that, nearly from its founding, Steve Jobs placed an emphasis on creating sublime objects and experiences in the computer industry, when technological advances alone were enough to make his products stand out.
Traditionally, design is treated like marketing—a superficial way to make a product seem more desirable. This proverbial “lipstick on a pig” approach to design has always been a generally reliable strategy for an existing product in a mature market with many similar competitors. But in industries in the midst of rapid technological advancement—like the car industry in the 1910s or the personal-computer industry in the 1980s—companies tend not to prioritize design as part of their appeal. There is no need.
Jobs, by contrast, made design central to Apple’s product-development process when it wasn’t a “need to have.” Its designers helped imagine how their devices would feel to people rather than superficially “spraying on” design as the finishing coat to the technical requirements of engineers. The designers, in fact, were the ones creating the requirements for the technologists to achieve. This was risky in the early days, because it made Apple’s products more expensive and unnecessarily different. Yet decades later, this experience of being a design-led company, with technology as a close second, has sustained Apple’s success in a highly competitive market.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started putting together the first Apple computers from a Palo Alto, Calif., garage in 1976. The Apple I was followed by the more successful Apple II (and later the Apple III, the Lisa and the Macintosh). At that point, the personal computer was an object you’d have a hard time finding anywhere, and if you did, after parting with thousands of dollars at an electronics shop, you’d bring it home and plug it in to the wall, and it would do absolutely nothing—just blink at you and respond with “Syntax Error” to most everything you typed.
Then, in 1982, Jobs ambitiously retained the German designer Hartmut Esslinger to shape Apple’s “design language,” or “distinctive style.” Jobs took the paradoxical approach of introducing sophisticated, classical design concepts to a market that was still full of early adopters. These adventurous souls, ready and willing to stand up to the blinking cursor, weren’t necessarily looking for an object of beauty. Or even one of intuitive elegance. Jobs gave them one anyhow, and along the way, taught many technologists (myself included) how to appreciate design in the digital age.
Most of the iconic Apple products that followed incorporated Mr. Esslinger’s “Snow White” design language. (“Snow White” refers not to the color of the products, which were beige, but to a design-competition entry by Mr. Esslinger that introduced seven members of a product family like the seven dwarfs.) Mr. Esslinger’s “Keep It Simple” is filled with prototypes and drawings in the “Snow White” style, as well as many familiar finished designs. The one he will likely be remembered for is the original Macintosh, whose compact, appliance-like appearance gave it an approachable friendliness that helped change the way people thought about computers in their homes.
We need to give credit to Mr. Esslinger for being a true visionary. He worked with Jobs on what the latter called a “bicycle for the mind” during a period when the computer was hardly a bicycle—it was more like a hand-carved stone wheel with a bamboo stick through it. Patiently, meticulously, Mr. Esslinger identified numerous relationships between a virtual rectangle of space and a person sitting or standing in front of it. Mr. Esslinger also dared to imagine that the little box that did absolutely nothing might one day do something important, as Jobs had promised all along.
After Jobs was forced out in 1985 by Apple CEO John Sculley, Mr. Esslinger stopped designing for the company. During the next decade, Apple’s fortunes slid. Microsoft improved its Windows software to match that of the Mac. Apple’s hardware design—at least according to Leander Kahney’s account in “Jony Ive”—gradually became an afterthought, with designers doing “skin jobs” for products created by committee rather than dreaming up objects themselves. In other words, putting lipstick on a pig.
When Jobs returned to Apple as CEO in 1997, design head Robert Brunner had recently resigned, and his deputy Jonathan Ive was thinking of leaving, too. Mr. Ive decided to stick around, though, and he and his team proceeded to craft some of the most memorable products in decades. The translucent, candy-colored iMac helped arrest Apple’s nosedive, and Mr. Ive and his team went on to devise new form factors for all the new i-devices that Apple kept developing—iPods, iPhones, iPads. Mr. Kahney’s biography takes us inside the creation of these memorable objects, if not inside the mind of the man himself.
Mr. Ive is a true genius in crafting the physical feeling we get when holding one of his devices. Mr. Kahney shows how, as a student in England, Mr. Ive was trained from a young age as a maker—someone who could draft and sculpt exquisitely with his own hands. As a result, he wasn’t afraid to delve deeply into the minutiae of a problem—one time he went over his boss’s head to Jobs to fight for using a specific type of screw on the Power Mac G4. It’s a choice that may have seemed minuscule to others but was gravely important to him—like a skilled chef who knows the taste of a dish using salt from one region can be completely different than salt taken from another.
But all that genius might have gone to waste if Jobs hadn’t elevated design to the role he did. To Jobs, design was never just about plastic versus aluminum (though such choices were always made with great care). Apple’s approach under Jobs recognized that great design had to be flawlessly manufactured and marketed at a profit margin advantageous to Apple. That is, producing the right product required not only Mr. Ive identifying the perfect aluminum but CEO Tim Cook locking down the raw materials at a sustainable price. Though on the surface Apple appears to be dominated by the guys in black turtlenecks, what truly distinguishes the company is how integrated its efforts are—the manufacturing requirements and supply-chain logistics are included in the design process.
In the past decade, when the “computer for the rest of us” really started to be for “the rest of us,” Apple carried the integrated design philosophy that it had pioneered for early adopters to the mainstream, which now wanted a computer in every pot and in every pocket. The company’s early investment in design is paying off because, for consumers, the marginal value of new technologies is fading. We used to make purchasing decisions based on technology, always wanting more, like a faster processor to play videogames on our phones or more hard-disk space to fit all our photos. Now we care less about gigabytes and more about how a computer makes us feel, or look, or aspire to live. In other words, our technological needs are largely met. Computing devices have matured as a category, and design is becoming the defining factor in the industry—indeed, the tech industry sometimes seems about to merge with the fashion industry.
So much of Apple’s current decision-making process is shrouded in secrecy. For more insight into how Apple’s organizational expertise held up in this next generation, we might need to wait a few more decades, until Mr. Ive produces as generous a volume as Mr. Esslinger. The latter nods to Mr. Ive’s brilliance, though somewhat grudgingly. The ultimate irony revealed in the book, given the amount of credit Mr. Ive gets today, is the code name of Mr. Esslinger’s last design for Apple: “Jonathan.”
Mr. Maeda is the outgoing president of the Rhode Island School of Design. He will be joining Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as their first design partner.
Mastering the Art of Pricing: What the Textbooks Dont Teach You
Don't Be Afraid To Bet On Yourself
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Commissioners to vote on approval of new multimillion-dollar BernCo headquarters
Megan Abundis
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Bernalillo County wants to turn the vacant Alvarado Square office space into what they say will be a one-stop shop for the public.
"A customer service center on the first floor, the treasurer will be there collecting the money, the assessor, the clerk, solid waste will be there, human resources, building, planning, zoning," said Bernalillo County Chief Project Manager Shiree Mckenzie.
It is a multimillion dollar project to consolidate all of the Bernalillo County departments. The county originally bought the office building for less than $3 million, but now says renovation costs will be well over $45 million.
Bernalillo County officials say they will put about 900 people at Alvarado Square. It will include new chambers for the Bernalillo County Commission, splitting their ties with the current shared space with the city in Civic Plaza.
There's also talk of an on-site medical clinic and child care services just for county employees.
"We are really doing this project to benefit the community," Mckenzie said.
She said that each square foot will cost taxpayers 142 dollars. County officials report that the cost numbers are climbing. They plan to pay for the renovations through the 2017 GRT bonds, general obligation bonds and general fund money.
Bernalillo County will offset some of the cost by selling some of its buildings too.
On Tuesday the Bernalillo County Board of Commissioners will vote to approve the design-build of the project. Once the deal is finalized, construction will take about two years.
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Fatalities at house fire on Old Guysborough Road
Posted: January 7, 2015 - 12:00 am
Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2015 (Halifax, NS) – Halifax Regional Fire & Emergency crews are still battling a house fire on the Old Guysborough Road near what’s known locally as Wyses Corner.
When fire crews arrived more than one body was found dead inside the home.
The call came in at 4:35 p.m., and crews were on the road to the fire within three minutes.
Five Halifax Regional Fire & Emergency stations responded, along with support from Milford & District Emergency Services as well as Lantz Fire & Emergency Services.
The first truck arrived on scene at 4:55 p.m.
By 11 p.m. firefighters were still unable to enter the building and were fighting hotspots from outside. At its peak there were 10 trucks on scene and approximately 30 firefighters.
What made fighting this fire particularly challenging was the metal roof, which kept the interior of the house extremely hot. Also, there was no natural way for the fire to ventilate out of the top of the house.
Fire investigators are at the scene and given the sensitivities surrounding this fire, investigators with the integrated Halifax Regional Police & RCMP Integrated Major Crime unit are also investigating.
© 2019 Halifax Regional Municipality. Content last modified January 7 2015.
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Out for a Spin Pulls Off 52-1 Shocker in 82nd Running of $500,000 Central Bank Ashland
Out for a Spin Pulls Off 52-1 Shocker in
82nd Running of $500,000 Central Bank Ashland
LEXINGTON, KY (April 6, 2019) – Commonwealth Stable’s Out for a Spin, the longest shot on the board at 52-1, turned back a challenge from Restless Rider in the stretch to win the 82nd running of the $500,000 Central Bank Ashland (G1) for 3-year-old fillies by a neck.
Trained by Dallas Stewart and ridden by Paco Lopez, Out for a Spin covered the 1 1/16 miles on a fast main track in 1:44.95. It is the first victory in the race for Stewart and Lopez.
The victory was worth $300,000 and 100 points on the road to the $1.25 million Kentucky Oaks (G1), to be run May 3 at Churchill Downs. A total of 34 fillies that have run in the Ashland have gone on to win the Oaks, including Monomoy Girl last year.
Out for a Spin, whose two previous victories from four starts had come over wet tracks, tracked favored Jaywalk, the champion 2-year-old filly of 2018, through fractions of :23.19 and :46.46. On the far turn, Restless Rider ranged up to make it a three-way scramble before Jaywalk backed out of the fray.
Restless Rider appeared to take aim on Out for a Spin, but with Lopez riding the rail, Out for a Spin surged again to prevail by a neck.
Out for a Spin has 100 Oaks points, fifth on the leaderboard, and a secure spot in the starting gate for the 1 1/8-mile race that is limited to the top 14 point earners that pass the entry box. Restless Rider, making her 2019 debut, picked up 40 points to boost her total to 62 (eighth) that also should be enough to get in the gate. Third-place Jaywalk added 20 points to hike her total to 55 (10th).
A Keeneland September Yearling Sale graduate, Out for a Spin is a Virginia-bred daughter of Hard Spun out of the Came Home mare My Mammy. Now with a record of 5-3-0-1, Out for a Spin has earned $354,903.
Out for a Spin returned $106.20, $23.40 and $6.60. Restless Rider, ridden by Brian Hernandez Jr., returned $4.20 and $2.60 and finished 1¾ lengths in front of Jaywalk, who paid $2.60 to show under Javier Castellano.
It was another 4¼ lengths back to Bizwhacks in fourth with Lady Kate, Chocolate Kisses and Bell’s the One following in order. Bizwhacks added 10 points to her Oaks resume for a total of 20 (23rd).
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Sports posted Mar 3, 2018 @ 10:03am by Lorne White
Summerland forces Game 7 tonight against Chiefs at Rutland Arena
The Kelowna Chiefs and Summerland Steam will decide their Kootenay International Junior Hockey League playoff series tonight (7 p.m.) at the Rutland Arena.
Backed by the stellar goaltending of Matthew Huber, the Steam pulled even at three games apiece with the Chiefs in the best-of-seven Okanagan Division semifinal series with a 3-1 victory on home ice on Friday.
For a second straight night, the Chiefs outshot (33-26) and outchanced the Steam, but couldn’t finish against the 21-year-old Calgary native, selected the home star of the game. A night earlier in Kelowna, the 21-year-old stopped 48 of 50 shots in leading his team to a 4-2 win.
Down 3-1 in the series, the Steam have clawed their way back to give themselves the opportunity to take the series and move on against the division’s first-place Osoyoos Coyotes.
Having won two of three games in the series at the Rutland Arena, it appears the Chiefs’ home-ice advantage is of little consequence and has no effect on the Steam — or Huber.
Chiefs’ head coach, Jason Tansem, had little to say after Friday’s game other than he felt his team played well, but just couldn’t score.
“I thought we made it easy for him (Huber),” said Tansem. “And I thought we deserved a better outcome. They (the Steam) didn’t create much in the game other than taking advantage of our own mistakes.”
His thoughts on tonight’s final game of the series?
Simply: “Who wouldn’t take a winner-take-all game?”
The Steam, third-place finishers in the regular season — one point back of the Chiefs — certainly will. Outscored 29-8 by Kelowna in their final three regular-season games, the Steam were considered decisive underdogs in the series.
And while they’ve gotten the goaltending they've needed in the playoffs, the experience and scoring touch of 21-year-old Scott Robinson has also been a major factor in the past two games.
A native of England, but a graduate of the Okanagan Academy in Penticton, the 6’6”, 240-pound forward scored all four goals for the Steam on Thursday and sparked his team with the lone goal of the first period on Friday.
He also assisted on what would be the winning goal midway through the second period — the Steam’s first powerplay marker in the past 19 tries against the Chiefs and goaltender Joseph McLeod.
Morey Babakaiff rounded out the Summerland scoring with 5:21 remaining in the second period while Brett Witala was the lone Chiefs scorer, getting a powerplay marker early in the middle frame.
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Ketchikan eighth-grader headed to national spelling bee
Posted by Leila Kheiry | Apr 19, 2018
A Ketchikan middle-school student is headed to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in late May.
Grace Parrott won Ketchikan’s districtwide spelling bee in late February, and went on to compete in the state bee in Anchorage. She didn’t win that competition, but she still gets to go to nationals.
https://krbd-org.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/17NatBee.mp3
Grace Parrott was the last speller standing during Ketchikan’s spelling bee in February. She won with the word Haversack. (KRBD file photo by Leila Kheiry)
Of course, whenever you’re in a competition the goal is to win. Even though she didn’t win the statewide spelling bee in Anchorage, though, Grace Parrott was overall pleased with her performance.
“It was very cool. I think it actually went pretty well,” she said. “I was top-30 in the state out of 150. I think that that’s enough, even if I didn’t win.”
She said it was a lot of fun, and very different from the district spelling bee she won earlier this spring, which had just six competitors.
“It was a little intimidating at first. But as we started getting into it, I kind of lost the anxiety,” she said. “It was kind of similar to what I’d experienced before at the district level, but at the same time it was like a whole new thing entirely.”
The national bee in Washington, D.C., will take that to an even higher level.
Grace is able to attend that national competition through a brand-new program Scripps offered this year called RSVBee. It allows more students to participate in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, especially those from under-represented areas.
The bee process starts with classroom competitions. Class winners go to the school bee, school winners go to the district, and district winners go to state. After that, there are different ways to get to the national competition: You can win the state bee, a sponsored district can send you, and, now, you can apply through RSVBee.
About 200 students were picked through that new program, and Grace found out she’d been accepted just before the state bee.
When she didn’t win state, she said she debated whether to attend the national bee.
“Because it does cost money, along with the application, to be able to take advantage of that opportunity,” she said. “But overall I think it’s kind of a once-in-a-lifetime deal and if I don’t take advantage of that now, I might be regretting that decision later.”
To attend the Anchorage bee, Grace did a lot of fundraising for travel expenses. She’s fundraising again to help pay for Washington, D.C.
Grace said she enjoys spelling, and figuring out how to spell certain words based on their origin. She kinda skirted a question about how much she enjoys reading, but her mom, Katie Parrott, didn’t let her get away it.
“She is already testing into English 111 at the college level,” she said. “She’s already started her first novel. She has 60 single-spaced pages of writing. I’ve never written anything 60 single-spaced pages in my life!”
To prepare for the national bee, Grace said she’s studying spelling words two hours a day. She was sent a whole new list of words.
“They’re way, way harder than the other ones,” she said. “I can’t even pronounce like half of them! But I bet by studying hard I can probably spell them.”
According to Valerie Miller of Scripps, the digital database shows no previous Ketchikan student has participated in the national bee. But in 2010, then-eighth-grader Oliver Price of Craig was a national competitor.
This year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee is May 29 through June 1. Two other Alaska students will join Parrott at the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Joshua Saylor of Chugiak won the statewide bee in Anchorage. Fairbanks North Star Borough School District is sending Daniel Doudna, the winner of that district’s regional competition.
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Kansas Facts: Jewell County Facts
Jewell County is located in the northernmost tier of counties, 150 miles from the Missouri River. The county is thirty miles square, divided into twenty-five Congressional townships, and contains 900 square miles, or 576,000 acres of land. The county is among the first in the State in agricultural resources. Its central portion is rolling, and in places somewhat broken, but contains many fine farms and much good pasture land. The valley of Marsh and Buffalo Creeks - a tract embracing the southeast quarter of the county - is, next to the White Rock Valley, the finest, richest and most densely settled portion of the county. It is about fifty or seventy-five feet below the central portion, and is exceedingly fertile, and just rolling enough to afford proper drainage.
Jewell County, one of the northern tier, is the second county west of the 6th principal meridian. It contains 900 square miles and is divided into 25 civil townships, each of which is a Congressional town ship. It is bounded on the north by the State of Nebraska; on the east by Republic and Cloud counties; on the south by Mitchell, and on the west by Smith. Jewell was one of the counties on the line of the historic Pawnee road, and also one of the counties crossed by Lieut. Pike in 1806. The surface is rolling prairie gradually rising to table lands in the central portion. The branches of the Republican and Solomon form its water system.
This county was named in honor of Lewis R. Jewell, lieutenant colonel of the Sixth Kansas cavalry, who died of wounds received in the battle of Cane Hill, Ark. The earliest known settlement was made by William Harshberger and wife on White Rock creek in 1862. They were driven out by the Indians and no other attempt to settle the county was made until 1866, when a number of families, including those of William Knapp, John Rice and Nicholas Ward, settled on White Rock creek. Two raids by the Cheyennes, one in Aug.,1866, and the other in April, 1867, broke up the settlement. Many were killed, including the Ward family, and the others were driven away. In the spring of 1868 another attempt at settlement was broken up by Indians and again in October of the same year the extension of the Scandinavian colony up White Rock creek from Republic county was driven back. In May, 1869, the Excelsior colony (q. v.) from New York, number ing about 100 people, took claims along White Rock creek and built a blockhouse at a point 8 miles north of the present town of Mankato. By June, 1869, they were all driven out, and the county was in the hands of the Indians. In the fall of 1869 a number of land entries were made and the next year the flood of immigration coming into Kansas extended into Jewell county in spite of the dangers. In the early part of May, 1870, great excitement prevailed over the news that the Cheyennes were on the warpath. On the 13th the settlers met at "Hoffer's Shanty" to devise means of protection. A company of 28 men, known as the "Buffalo Militia," was organized with William D. Street as captain ; Charles Lew, first lieutenant; Louis A. Dapron, sec ond lieutenant; James A. Scarborough, orderly sergeant. The per sonnel of the company was as follows: L. J. Calvin, F. A. May, W. M. Jones, Samuel Krape, Louis A. Dapron, C. L. Seeley, J. A. Scarborough, Cyrus Richart, Chris. Bender, J. H. Worick, David J. Rockey, James W. Hall, Richard D. Fardy, Charles J. Lewis, C. A. Belknap, A. J. Wise, John Hoffer, William Cox, S. R. Worick, Allen Lightner, James F. Queen, J. F. Fogel, J. A. Sorick, R. F. Hudsonpiller, I. A. Swain, Henry Sorick, William D. Street and John R. Wilson.
A fort was built where Jewell City now stands, and was held by the "Buffalo Militia" for about a month, when the Third U. S. mounted artillery took possession and relieved the settlers. (See Fort Jewell.) No more attacks were made, and from that time Jewell county has been free from hostile Indians.
Some time during this year the ruins of what is supposed to have been an old Spanish fort were discovered, which seemed to be a land mark of some former occupation of the country by white men. It was located on the claim of Oliver Smith 2 miles east of Fort Jewell, and is described as an "irregular inclosure containing some 2 or 3 acres of ground." At that time it was overgrown with sod and was 2 feet high and 4 feet thick. Its origin is not known.
A number of settlements were made in 1870. William Friend, C. J. Jones, O. F. Johnson, M. Hofiveimer, Lewis Spiegle and Silas Mann settled the Marsh creek district, and at Burr Oak the settlers were A. W. Mann, Zack Norman, Lee M. Tingley, Richard Comstock, Frank Gilbert, A. J. Godfrey, D. H. Godfrey, Allen Ives, John E. Faidley and E. E. Blake. A claim was preempted by Jack Mango at Jewell Center (Mankato); A. N. Cole homesteaded near the present town of Ionia in 1869; and in 1871 H. M. George and H. L. Browning started a steam sawmill on the freight road between Cawker City and Hastings, Neb., where Salem now stands.
In July, 1870, Col. E. Barker and Orville McClurg petitioned Gov. Harvey for county organization and on July 14 the governor appointed C. L. Seeley, E. T. Gandy and A. I. Davis county commissioners, and James A. Scarborough, county clerk. The first meeting of the commissioners was held at Jewell City on Aug. 22. On Sept. 27 an election was held, at which Jewell City was chosen the county seat, and the following county officers were elected: Dennis Taylor, Thomas Coverdale and Samuel C. Bowles, commissioners; James A. Scar borough, clerk; Henry Sorick, treasurer; N. H. Billings, surveyor; S. O. Carman, register of deeds; Charles L. Sully, probate judge; A. J. Davis, sheriff; R. S. Worick, county superintendent. At the November election Felix T. Candy was elected the first representative in the legis lature. The population of the county at that time was 207.
The first marriage was that of a couple from Cloud county, the ceremony being performed by O. F. Johnson, justice of the peace, Jan. 2, 1871. The first marriage of residents was between Lawton McCord and Evaline Davis of Highland township. Feb. 22, 1872. The first birth occurred in Aug., 1870, on the Buffalo creek, the child being Jewell Kittenhouse. He was presented with a lot by the town com pany of Jewell City. The first regular mail was established in July, 1870. weekly from Sibley, John Hoffer, carrier. The first postofhces were Amity, Highland township, 1872, James Mitchell postmaster; Burr Oak, Burr Oak township, James McCormack, postmaster; Jewell Center, Center township, 1872, J. D. Vance, postmaster; 1ohnsonville, Vicksburg township, 1872, P. F. Johnson postmaster.
Before 1873 the following towns had been established: Jewell City, Jewell Center, Burr Oak, Salem, Ionia and Holmwood, and the county had six newspapers. By 1886 Randall, Omia. Gregory and Rubens had been added to the list of towns. Some of these towns have ceased to exist and the present list is as follows: Athens, Burr Oak, Dentonia, Esbon, Formosa, Gregory, Harrison, Ionia, Jewell, Lovewell. Mankato, Mayview, Montrose, North Branch, Otego. Randall. Rubens, Salem, Steuben and Webber.
The townships of Jewell county are: Allen. Athens, Brown Creek, Burr Oak, Buffalo, Calvin. Center, Erving, Ebson, Grant, Harrison, Highland, Sinclair, Vicksburg, Walnut, Washington, White Mound, Holmwood, Ionia, Jackson, Limestone, Montana, Odessa, Prairie and Richland.
Schools were established in several of the townships in 1872. Five years later the number of organized districts was 133; the total num ber of school houses, 60; value of school property, $21,412; and the school population, 4,561. In 1910 the population was 18,148, and the assessed valuation of property was $38,625,285.
Source: Blackmar's Cyclopedia of Kansas History Vol. II pp. 28-31, 1912
County Seat: Mankato, Kansas
Date organized: July 14, 1870
Cutler's History of the State of Kansas, Jewell County
Burr Oak School
Burr Oak United Methodist Church
O.W. Francis House
Jewell County Courthouse
Jewell County Jail
Jewell County Historical Society
Web sites about the county:
Jewell County on Wikipedia
Mankato, Kansas
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Javadekar outlines India's approach on Climate Change
Thread: Javadekar outlines India's approach on Climate Change
Javadekar outlines India’s approach for Climate Change
Shri Prakash Javadekar, addressing media prior to his departure to Lima for attending the United Nations Climate Change conference said that India’s stand on climate change would be rooted on its need to address pressing domestic issues like poverty eradication, food security and nutrition, universal access to health and education, womens empowerment and gender equality, water and sanitation, clean energy, employment generation, creating sustainable cities. The Hon’ble Minister for Environment, Forest & Climate Change further said that the Government had pursued voluntarily set targets with commitment, conviction and followed-up action and had played an active and positive role in tackling the Climate Change.
Shri Javadekar further opined that the Conference of Parties in Lima should build trust and pave the foundation for the Paris Global Climate agreement to be held in 2015. This could be achieved by constructing credibility of existing mechanisms by comprehensive treatment of all issues under the UNFCCC processes. He said that the Lima conference should outline clear, transparent and coherent articulation of processes, reflecting a balance between the right to development and Climate sustainability.
The Minister said that “Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs)” as part of 2015 agreement would be addressed in the context of enhanced actions and would include all issues - mitigation, adaptation, capacity building and transparency of action and support. The comprehensive INDC would also project the requirement of support in terms of finance and technology transfer. It would cover all the national missions and other initiatives under National Action Plan on Climate Change as well as State Action Plans on Climate Change.
Shri Javadekar said that the immediate upscaling of ambition in the second Commitment period of Kyoto Protocol and its early ratification by all Kyoto Protocol parties would be a step in the right direction. Concerning mitigation, India is of the view that distinction enshrined in the Convention between Annex I (Developed) and non-Annex I (developing) Parties must be maintained in accordance with the principles of Equity, CBDR and other provisions of the Conventions. Announcement of contributions for Green Climate Fund (GCF) and its actual deposit should be ensured by developed countries. GCF could be used to purchase Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) of climate friendly technologies. He expressed concern that the non capitalization of the Green Climate Fund was a matter of concern and could affect the 2015 Climate agreement.
India is of the view that historical emissions of developed countries as laid down in the Conventions should be the basis for differentiation. The developing countries’ need for inclusive growth, sustainable development, poverty eradication, and energy access to all must be recognized as fundamental to the approach to differentiation, he emphasized.
Shri Javadekar also outlined the various budgetary announcements on Solar power, increase in clean energy cess, climate adaptation fund, National Mission on Himalayan Studies, Integrated Ganga Conservation Mission and launch of National Air Quality Index as initiatives that the government had undertaken on voluntary basis with its own resources in pursuance of a sustainable development strategy.
climate change, conservation news, lima, prakash javadekar, unccc
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PNE
Where are they now? - Revisiting Great Britain's 2012 Olympic Games football team
The 2012 Olympic Games saw Great Britain field their first football team at the event since 1960, and the side exited in the quarter-finals after a heartbreaking penalty shootout lost to South Korea.
Saturday 22 June 2019 12:00
Richie Boon
Here's where all the squad are now...
1. Jack Butland - Goalkeeper
The stopper now has 12 England caps to his name, and is set to make a 20 million to Aston Villa this summer.
2. Jason Steele - Goalkeeper
After spells with Blackpool and Sunderland, Steele is now on the books at Premier League side Brighton, and will be looking to push for the number one shirt next season.
3. Craig Dawson - Defender
The powerful centre-back is still at West Bromwich Albion, and has become an integral member of the squad over the last few years.
4. Neil Taylor - Defender
The Welshman will be playing Premier League football with Aston Villa next season, after his side powered into the top tier via the 2018/19 Championship play-offs.
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Tom Moylan
et al. v. Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice
Oklahoma House Bill No. 1970
Terry Cline
Oklahoma Supreme Court
abortion drugs
Planned Parenthood v. Casey
California court opinions
California courts
California Official Reports
Electronic Advance Sheet
Kevin LaCroix
SEC Actions
Thomas Gorman
Washington court opinions
U.S. High Court Changes Mind, Won’t Review Oklahoma Ruling Stopping Abortion Drug Ban
WASHINGTON, D.C. — (Mealey's) The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 4 decided not to review an Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling that found that the state’s ban on off-label use of abortion drugs is unconstitutional (Terry Cline, et al. v. Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice, et al., No. 12-1094, U.S. Sup. [lexis.com subscribers may access Supreme Court briefs for this case]).
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in the case. On Nov. 4, it dismissed the writ, saying it was improvidently granted.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s action comes just seven days after the Oklahoma Supreme Court answered two questions the U.S. high court certified to the state high court. The questions were: “Whether H.B. [House Bill] No. 1970, Section 1, Chapter 216, O.S.L. 2011 prohibits: (1) the use of misoprostol to induce abortions, including the use of misoprostol in conjunction with mifepristone according to a protocol approved by the Food and Drug Administration; and (2) the use of methotrexate to treat ectopic pregnancies.”
Effectively Banned Medical Abortion
In its Oct. 29 decision, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that Oklahoma House Bill No. 1970 (H.B. 1970) prohibited the use of the drugs, effectively banning medical abortions (Terry Cline, et al. v. Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice, et al., No. 2013 OK 93, Okla. Sup.; 2013 OK 93; 2013 Okla. LEXIS 124 [enhanced opinion available to lexis.com subscribers]). Previously, the Oklahoma Supreme Court had affirmed a lower court ruling that H.B. 1970’s restrictions on the drugs is unconstitutional.
H.B. 1970 prohibits physicians from using mifepristone (also known as RU-486) “or any abortion-inducing drug” in an off-label manner not authorized by the Food and Drug Administration.
The Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice and Nova Health Systems, doing business as Reproductive Services, challenged the law in the Oklahoma County District Court. The District Court found the law unconstitutional and issued a permanent injunction preventing enforcement of the law.
The Oklahoma attorney general appealed, and in December, the Oklahoma Supreme Court affirmed the District Court ruling, finding that the law was facially unconstitutional under the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (505 U.S. 833 [1992] [enhanced opinion]).
Drug’s Protocols Changed
At issue is the approved protocol for mifepristone versus the current standard-of-care use. The protocol approved by the FDA in 2000 was that a woman be given 600 milligrams of mifepristone orally during her first doctor’s office visit, be given 0.4 milligrams two days later during an office visit and be seen two weeks later in the office to verify that the procedure was successful.
The approved label also says mifepristone can be used through 49 days of pregnancy.
Post-approval clinical trials led to new protocols for using mifepristone, which are off-label or an “evidence-based regimen.” They allow women to take one-third the recommended dosage of mifepristone during the first visit and to take another drug, misoprostol, also known as Cytotec, at home.
The new protocols also extend the use of mifepristone from 49 days to 63 days.
Off-Label Use
Misoprostol has not been approved by the FDA for use in abortions, but the approved mifepristone label and evidence-based regimens require that the two drugs be used together.
Other evidence-based protocol call for the use of methotrexate, a drug frequently used to terminate early ectopic pregnancy without surgery to avoid grave risks to the mother.
In a per curiam opinion, the Supreme Court said the exclusionary language of H.B. 1970 “indicates the Legislature intended to ban the off-label use of methotrexate, including its use in the treatment of ectopic pregnancies.”
Ectopic Pregnancies Affected
“We find that both misoprostol and methotrexate are abortion-inducing drugs as the term is used in Subsection A; therefore, under the plain language of Subsection C of the statute, the off-label use of both misoprostol and methotrexate is prohibited,” the court held.
The court noted that medical research and advances don’t stop when a drug is approved by the FDA and that through clinical trials and experience, doctors learn about alternative dosing and new uses for drugs. It said 96 percent of medical abortions (as opposed to surgical abortions) are performed through regimens not on an FDA-approved label.
The FDA-approved regimen, the court said, is no longer the standard of care, and it said the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the World Health Organization have endorsed the alternate regimens as safer and more effective than the outdated FDA-approved label.
The court also noted that in other areas of the law, the Oklahoma Legislature has recognized the importance of allowing doctors to prescribe drugs based on science and their medical judgment “rather than dogmatic adherence to FDA labeling.” In addition, the court said state law prohibits health insurers from denying coverage for drugs prescribed for off-label uses.
Effectively Bans Medical Abortions
“The use of misoprostol and the protocol described in the mifepristone FDA-approved label is an off-label use prohibited by the terms of H.B. 1970, and the use of methotrexate in treating ectopic pregnancies is an off-label use also prohibited by H.B. 1970,” the court said. “H.B. 1970 effectively bars all medical abortions.”
Concurring were Vice-Chief Justice John F. Reif and Justices Yvonne Kauger, James R. Winchester, James E. Edmundson, Steven W. Taylor, Douglas L. Combs and Norma Gurich. Chief Justice Tom Colbert and Justice Joseph M. Watt did not vote.
The state is represented by Oklahoma Attorney General E. Scott Pruitt and Solicitor General Patrick R. Wyrick of the Attorney General’s Office in Oklahoma City.
The respondents are represented by Anne E. Zachritz of Oklahoma City; Martha M. Hardwick of the Hardwick Law Office in Pauls Valley, Okla., Michelle Movahed of the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York and E. Joshua Rosenkranz and Eric A. Shumsky of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe in New York.
Amicus Counsel
Randy Grau of Cheek & Falcone in Oklahoma City represents amici curiae 83 Oklahoma legislators and Americans United for Life Action.
Aaron Parks of Norman, Okla., Samuel B. Casey and Amy T. Pedagno of the Jubilee Campaign — Law of Life Project in Fairfax, Va., and Steven H. Aden of the Alliance Defending Freedom in Washington represent amici Mary Martin, M.D., Rita Sanders, D.O., Pablo Pinzon, M.D., and Michael Glass, M.D.
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JUNE DATE PROPOSED FOR JOINT LOCAL AND EUROPEAN ELECTIONS
The cabinet of the Welsh Assembly Government has decided to hold a consultation exercise on the proposal to delay l...
The cabinet of the Welsh Assembly Government has decided to hold a consultation exercise on the proposal to delay local elections due on 6 May 2004 until the date of the European Parliament elections, due five weeks later on 10 June.
Local government minister Sue Essex said: 'On balance, I believe that the convenience of the voter is of paramount importance and that it is more likely that a good turnout will take place for both sets of elections if they are held on the same day. Voters will find it hard to understand why two elections are held so close together if we had the power to hold them on the same day.
'The Local Government Act 2003 gives the assembly the power to bring this about but as a first step I will be consulting on this matter and I will welcome comments on the proposal, particularly in relation to the issue of electoral pilots.
'Last week the UK government introduced the European Parliamentary and Local Elections (Pilots) Billwhich opens up the possibility for whole regions of the UK (of which Wales is one) to operate electoral pilot methods at combined elections.
'I will be putting the assembly government's view to the Electoral Commission - who will be advising the UK government - that Wales is very well placed to operate an all-postal election in combined elections next June.'
Welsh secretary Peter Hain added:
'This is something I have been advocating for some time. It will be welcomed I am sure by returning officers, the political parties and most importantly by voters. It is far more convenient for the public to have these elections on the same day and will I hope be an encouragement for more people to vote.
'I am also pressing the Electoral Commission very strongly to make Wales a pilot area to test all postal voting for parliamentary, council and community council elections. It was proven in my constituency in Neath and in other parts of Wales last time that when the public is en couraged to use postal voting, the response is very positive. Voter apathy is a threat to democracy and we must explore all ways to get the public more involved in the democratic process.'
Grayling accused of 'micromanaging' over metric system warning
Transport secretary Chris Grayling has blasted some council chiefs for “acting beyond their powers” by opting to use the metric system of kilometres and metres used in European road signs, over the UK’s standard imperial units of miles and yards.
Returning officers guarantee pay for EU poll staff
Regional and local returning officers are facing the prospect of not being paid for the time they’ve spent organising the European elections, in the event that they are cancelled.
'Imaginative exercise' of no-deal Brexit planning stood down
Councils are being instructed by government to hold fire on contingency plans for a no-deal Brexit, in light the further extension of the Article 50 period to October 31.
Joint Committee Programme Management Officer
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Dodgers trying to keep up with pace-of-play changes
By Andy McCulloughStaff Writer
By now, as he enters his 19th season in professional baseball, Dodgers veteran Chase Utley operates by instinct. At certain moments in a game, he can sense when his presence is required on the mound. He will leave his post at second base, trot toward the pitcher and offer some insight.
Before 2018, Utley’s visits to the mound counted only toward his intrinsic value to the Dodgers, who re-signed the 39-year-old to a two-year contract this offseason. Now those visits will be cataloged on the scoreboard, part of Major League Baseball’s implementation of a mound-visit restriction for this season.
“I’ve always felt like having the ability to slow the game down in certain situations for the betterment of play is important,” Utley said. “There will still be some opportunities to do that. Just not quite as many.”
Utley’s impulse to momentarily decelerate the game’s pace to help his team win a game contradicts the apparent mandate of Commissioner Rob Manfred, who has made speeding up the sport a crucial part of his tenure since taking over in 2015.
Manfred has announced a six-visit cap on mound visits for the 2018 season. The league did not implement a pitch clock, which pleased players, but the labor force has still expressed discontent with the interference with the sport’s natural order. Spring-training games will provide umpires and teams a chance to see the rules in action.
After Friday’s Cactus League opener, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts met with Joe Torre, the former Dodgers manager and now MLB’s vice president for baseball operations. Torre tried to explain some of the standards that umpires will enforce in 2018. The Dodgers expect to receive video from the commissioner’s office outlining what constitutes a mound visit, and what does not.
“Right now, we’re still working through it,” Roberts said.
Roberts can conjure plenty of scenarios that fall into a gray area: What if a third baseman approaches the center of the diamond to offer advice on a bunting batter? What if the first baseman confers with the pitcher after they meet near the bag on a ground ball? The variations feel endless.
Utley intends to adjust to the rules. He is unsure how he will handle his instincts under the new parameters. He expected the level of communication between innings to increase, but he stressed that certain situations on the field require conversation, too.
“It’ll be interesting how it plays out,” Utley said. “It’s probably going to take a little bit of time for everyone to get used to. I understand the reasoning behind it. I’m just hoping it doesn’t affect the quality of play.”
Farmer loosens up behind the plate
For catcher Kyle Farmer, two teammates block a path to the majors. The Dodgers already employ Yasmani Grandal and Austin Barnes, who were one of the most valuable catching duos in baseball in 2017, and Farmer resides third on the depth chart. He aided the team in the second half and appeared in the postseason as an ancillary component, most notable because his presence allowed the Dodgers to use Grandal or Barnes as a pinch-hitter.
Farmer sought to create a more prominent role for himself in 2018. In addition to taking ground balls at third base, he engaged in a series of exercises in the offseason designed to improve the flexibility of his hips and the fluidity of his receiving. He took Pilates classes and completed exercises sent by strength and conditioning coach Brandon McDaniel.
“His hips were really tight,” Roberts said. “And so he couldn’t squat. As he tried to get into that squatting position, it was more of a stab at the low ball. Now he can work underneath the baseball. Now his hips are more naturally down lower.”
The Dodgers are expected to carry a four-man bench to start the season. One catcher will already occupy a spot. With Enrique Hernandez, Chase Utley and Matt Kemp in the mix, Farmer appears bound for a regular spot catching with triple-A Oklahoma City.
At least, until the Dodgers require him at the major league level.
“He adds value in so many different ways,” Roberts said. “And his ability to conduct an at-bat off the bench, that’s hard to do. That opens up opportunities for the other two catchers, and he can defend at third base.”
andy.mccullough@latimes.com
Twitter: @McCulloughTimes
Andy McCullough
Andy McCullough is the national baseball writer at the Los Angeles Times.
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Cornell Law SchoolSearch Cornell
liibulletin
DEITRICK v. GREANEY.
309 U.S. 190 (60 S.Ct. 480, 84 L.Ed. 694)
No. 246.
Argued: Jan. 10, 1940.
Decided: Feb. 12, 1940.
opinion, STONE [HTML]
See 309 U.S. 697, 60 S.Ct. 611, 84 L.Ed. -.
Mr. George P. Barse, of Washington, D.C., for petitioner.
Mr. David Stoneman, of Boston, Mass., for respondent.
Mr. Justice STONE delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question to be decided is whether a receiver of a national bank may compel payment of a promissory note knowingly given to the bank by one of its directors as a substitute, among its assets, for shares of its own stock illegally purchased and retained by the bank but with the understanding that it was to retain its interest in the stock and that the note was not to be paid.
Petitioner, receiver appointed by the Comptroller of the Currency for the Boston-Continental Bank, a national banking association, brought suit against respondent, a director of the bank, and others, in the District Court for Massachusetts to collect an assessment upon shares of stock in the insolvent bank and to recover on respondent's promissory note, found by the receiver among its assets.
The trial court found that the Boston National Bank, predecessor of the insolvent bank had acquired by purchase, 190 shares of its outstanding capital stock in violation of R.S. § 5201, 12 U.S.C. 83, 12 U.S.C.A. § 83, which declares that 'No association shall * * * be the purchaser or holder of any such shares'; 1 that respondent as a means of concealing the illegal acquisition of the stock and of enabling the bank to retain its ownership of the stock, prevailed upon his co-defendant Karnow to execute an accommodation note, payable to the bank, the proceeds of which were deposited in another bank to the credit of respondent who then paid them to the Boston National Bank for the 190 shares of stock which were then transferred to the respondent on the books of the bank.
Following a renewal of the Karnow note respondent transferred the shares to him on the books of the bank and upon consolidation of the Boston with the Continental National Bank, to form the Boston-Continental National Bank of which petitioner later became receiver, new shares of the consolidated bank were issued in exchange for the old. Part of them were sold and the proceeds used in reduction of the Karnow note. Respondent then gave to the bank his own note for the balance, in substitution for Karnow's note and caused the remaining shares to be transferred to the name of Mahoney also a defendant in the suit, without informing him of the transfer.
The court found that the entire transaction was devised and carried out by respondent for the purpose of concealing the bank's ownership of the stock by ostensibly removing the shares of stock from its assets and carrying the successive notes in their stead as receivables on the books of the bank with a secret agreement that the stock should be held for the Boston and later for the Boston-Continental Bank without liability on the part of the maker of the note. The court found liability of respondent for the assessment upon the shares held by Mahoney for his account, concluded that he was estopped to deny liability on the note and decreed accordingly that respondent alone should pay the stock assessment and the amount due on the note, 23 Fed.Supp. 758.
The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed so much of the decree as allowed recovery on the note. 103 F.2d 83. It confirmed the finding of the trial court. But it held that the circumstances which they detailed did not preclude the defense of want of consideration to the demand of the receiver, more than to that of the bank itself.
We granted certiorari, October 9, 1939, on petition of the receiver because of the public importance of the question in the administration of the National Bank Act and of the conflict of the decision below with that of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Federal Reserve Bank v. Crothers, 289 F. 777 and that of the Fifth Circuit in Bohning v. Caldwell, 10 F.2d 298.
The National Bank Act (12 U.S.C.A.) § 21 et seq.) constitutes 'by itself a complete system for the establishment and government of national banks'. Cook County National Bank v. United States, 107 U.S. 445, 448, 2 S.Ct. 561, 564, 27 L.Ed. 537. In addition to the sections of the Act conferring on national banking associations the authority to conduct a public banking business the Act contains numerous provisions designed for the protection of the bank's depositors and other creditors. It establishes minimum requirements for the amount of capital with which a bank may begin business, R.S. § 5138, 12 U.S.C. 51, 12 U.S.C.A. § 51, and makes special provisions for securing the payment into the bank of the authorized capital, R.S. §§ 5140, 5141, 12 U.S.C. 53, 54, 12 U.S.C.A. §§ 53, 54. It prohibits the purchase by a bank of its own shares of stock and their retention when purchased, R.S. § 5201, 12 U.S.C. 83, 12 U.S.C.A. § 83. Impairment of capital of an association through its withdrawal by payment of dividends or otherwise is prohibited, R.S. § 5204, 12 U.S.C. 56, 12 U.S.C.A. § 56. Any bank whose capital has become impaired is required under direction of the Comptroller to make up the deficiency by assessment of its shareholders and in the event of its failure to do so a receiver may be appointed to wind up its business, R.S. § 5205, 12 U.S.C. 55, 12 U.S.C.A. § 55.
To insure performance of these duties and as a safeguard to creditors and the public, violation of the provisions of the Act by any director or officer of the bank or by any person aiding or abetting him, is made a criminal offense, R.S. § 5209, 12 U.S.C. 592, 12 U.S.C.A. § 592, and in the event of such a violation, the association may be required to forfeit all its rights and privileges, R.S. § 5239, 12 U.S.C. 93, 12 U.S.C.A. § 93. Further, by R.S. § 5240, 12 U.S.C. 481, 484, 12 U.S.C.A. §§ 481, 484, the Comptroller of the Currency is required to appoint examiners who shall examine the affairs of every bank at least twice in each calendar year with power to administer oaths and examine officers and agents of the bank under oath and who 'shall make a full and detailed report' of the bank to him. By R.S. § 5211, 12 U.S.C. 161, 12 U.S.C.A. § 161, every association is required to meke to the Comptroller of the Currency not less than three reports each year exhibiting in detail and under appropriate heads the resources and liabilities of the association, and the Comptroller is given power to call for special reports whenever, in his judgment, the same are necessary in order to obtain a full and complete knowledge of the condition of the reporting bank.
The obvious purpose of prohibiting the purchase by a bank of its own stock is to prevent the impairment of its capital resources and the consequent injury to its creditors in the event of insolvency. The provisions of the Act requiring periodic examinations and reports and the powers of the Comptroller are designed to insure prompt discovery of violations of the Act and in that event prompt remedial action by the Comptroller. These purposes would be defeated and the command of the statute nullified if a director or officer or any other by his connivance could place in the bank's portfolio his obligation good on its face, as a substitute for its stock illegally acquired, and if he remained free to set up that the obligation was, in effect, fictitious, intended only to aid in the accomplishment of the injury at which the statute is aimed.
Here, respondent, with full knowledge of the unlawful purpose to conceal the presence of the stock among the bank's assets, gave in exchange for it, first another's note and then his own, knowing that it was to be availed of as an apparently valid and lawful asset so as to forestall the remedies available under the statute for the unlawful purchase. The notes were thus carried as receivables on the books of the bank for a period of more than two years, respondent's own note or renewals of it being lodged with the bank from May 4, 1931 until the bank closed its doors in December, 1931.
If the matter were of importance we could not assume, in the absence of proof, that the bank examiners did not perform their statutory duty or that respondent's note was not as it was intended to be the effective means of concealing the impairment of the bank's capital structure and preventing resort to the remedies for it which the statute affords. But it is enough for present purposes that the respondent, after placing his note among the bank's receivables in substitution for the shares of stock, as the means of avoiding the consequences of violation of the statute, may not now take the benefit of the secret and illegal agreement that his note except for purposes of deceiving the bank examiners was to be regarded as a nullity. If respondent were free to set up the unlawful agreement as a defense and thus cast the loss from the unlawful stock purchase on the creditors of the bank in receivership, he would be enabled to defeat the purpose of the statute by taking advantage of an agreement which it condemns as unlawful. That, we think, the law does not allow.
It is a principle of the widest application that equity will not permit one to rely on his own wrongful act, as against those affected by it but who have not participated in it, to support his own asserted legal title or to defeat a remedy which except for his misconduct would not be available. See United States v. Dunn, 268 U.S. 121, 133, 45 S.Ct. 451, 454, 69 L.Ed. 876, Independent Coal & Coke Co. v. United States, 274 U.S. 640, 648, 47 S.Ct. 714, 717, 71 L.Ed. 1270. Applied in cases like the present, the rule that the illegal agreement may not be set up to defeat the obligation of the note is sometimes denominated an equitable estoppel. 2 Lyons v. Westwater, 3 Cir., 181 F. 681; Westwater v. Lyons, 3 Cir., 193 F. 817; Federal Reserve Bank v. Crothers, 4 Cir., 289 F. 777; Bohning v. Caldwell, 5 Cir., 10 F.2d 298 certiorari denied, 271 U.S. 663, 46 S.Ct. 475, 70 L.Ed. 1139; Utley v. Clarke et al., D.C., 16 F.Supp. 435; Iglehart v. Todd, 203 Ind. 427, 178 N.E. 685; Denny v. Fishter, 238 Ky. 127, 36 S.W.2d 864; Prudential Trust Co. v. Moore, 245 Mass. 311, 139 N.E. 645; Longley v. Coons, 244 App.Div. 391, 280 N.Y.S. 17, affirmed 268 N.Y. 712, 198 N.E. 571; Bay Parkway Nat. Bank v. Shalom, 270 N.Y. 172, 200 N.E. 685; see First National Bank of Williamsburg v. Smith, 132 Pa.Super. 73, 200 A. 215.
In a strict and technical sense an estoppel arises only when a misrepresentation has prejudiced another who has relied upon it. For that reason courts have sometimes held that one in the position of respondent is not estopped to set up the agreement against the bank or the receiver either because it did not appear that the bank was deceived by the concealment and misrepresentation or because injury to creditors was not shown to have resulted from them, cf. Peterson v. Tillinghast, 6 Cir., 192 F. 287; Cutler v. Fry, D.C., 240 F. 238; First State Bank v. Morton, 146 Ky. 287, 293, 142 S.W. 694; Quincy Trust Co. v. Woodbury, Mass., 13 N.E.2d 377; Agricultural Credit Corp. v. Scandia American Bank, 184 Minn. 68, 237 N.W. 823. But stated more precisely, the doctrine with which we are now concerned is not strictly that of estoppel as thus defined. It is a principle which derives its force from the circumstances that respondent's act, apart from its possible injurious consequences to creditors, is itself a violation of the statute; and that the statute, read in the light of its purposes and policy, precludes resort to the very acts which it condemns, as the means of thwarting those purposes by visiting on the receiver and creditors whom he represents the burden of the bank's unlawful purchase. Pauly v. O'Brien, C.C., 69 F. 460; Niblack v. Farley, 286 Ill. 536, 122 N.E. 160; Iglehart v. Todd, supra, 203 Ind. 427, 442, 178 N.E. 685; Cedar State Bank v. Olson, 116 Kan. 320, 323, 226 P. 995; Denny v. Fishter, supra; Parker v. Parker, 287 Mich. 49, 282 N.W. 897; German-American Finance Co. v. Merchants & Mfgrs. State Bank, 177 Minn. 529, 225 N.W. 891, 64 A.L.R. 582; Vallely v. Devaney, 49 N.D. 1107, 194 N.W. 903; Bay Parkway Nat. Bank v. Shalom, supra; Mount Vernon Trust Co. v. Bergoff, 272 N.Y. 192, 196, 5 N.E.2d 196; Putnam v. Chase, 106 Or. 440, 212 P. 365. See Schmid v. Haines, 115 N.J.L. 271, 178 A. 801; Williston on Contracts (Rev. ed.) § 1632; Zollman, Banks and Banking, § 4783.
Since it is by virtue of the statute that respondent's agreement is unlawful and that the benefit of it as a defense to the note is denied; and as the purpose of the statute is to protect creditors of the bank from the hazard of violations of the Act like the present, it is immaterial that the bank's officers were participants in the illegal transaction, Texas & Pacific Ry. v. Pottorff, 291 U.S. 245, 54 S.Ct. 416, 78 L.Ed. 777; City of Marion, Ill., v. Sneeden, 291 U.S. 262, 54 S.Ct. 421, 78 L.Ed. 787; Awotin v. Atlas Exchange National Bank, 295 U.S. 209, 55 S.Ct. 674, 79 L.Ed. 1393, or that the receiver has not shown that the creditors have been deceived or specifically injured as the result of the illegal contract. Cf. Mount Vernon Trust Co. v. Bergoff, supra, 272 N.Y. 192, 196, 5 N.E.2d 196. It is the evil tendency of the prohibited acts at which the statute is aimed and its aid, in condemnation of them, and in preventing the consequences which the Act was designed to prevent, may be invoked by the receiver representing the creditors for whose benefit the statute was enacted.
Rankin v. City National Bank, 208 U.S. 541, 28 S.Ct. 346, 52 L.Ed. 610, and Deitrick v. Standard Surety & Casualty Co., 303 U.S. 471, 58 S.Ct. 696, 82 L.Ed. 962, on which respondent relies do not call for any different conclusion. Because of certain statements obiter in the opinion in the Rankin case, it has been taken as controlling in a number of cases resembling the present, by the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, 3 and in one case in the Sixth Circuit. 4 In cases already cited, Courts of Appeals in other circuits have reached a different conclusion. It was to resolve this conflict that we granted certiorari. The Rankin case was tried below and decided here upon the concession of counsel that the transaction involved was not illegal, 208 U.S. 541, 547, 28 S.Ct. 346, 349, 52 L.Ed. 610. Here it is the reach of the statute making respondent's acts illegal and affording protection from them to the creditors which governs our decision.
In the Deitrick case, suit was brought against a surety company, on its surety bonds, by a bank's receiver not alleged to represent any innocent creditors who were injured because of their reliance on the bond. The company's agent, as alleged and as found by the two courts below, had, to the knowledge of the bank's president, executed and delivered the bonds to the bank without consideration and without the company's knowledge or authority, all in collusion with the bank's officers in a fraudulent conspiracy to deceive the bank examiner. The company insisted that as it was the innocent victim of its agent's unauthorized acts in carrying out the conspiracy it could not be charged with responsibility for them on the theory of estoppel or of its own participation in the illegal transaction. Because of this state of the pleadings and of the record, the court found itself unable to hold that the National Bank Act imposed liability on the surety company. The decision of this Court was rested specifically, as was that of the Circuit Court of Appeals below, on the ground that the pleadings had limited the receiver's demand to the right of the bank to recover upon the bond procured by the fraud of its officers. This was shown, the Court declared, by the failure of the pleadings to allege any wrongful act for which the company was chargeable or which was injurious to creditors. It said, 303 U.S. at page 480, 58 S.Ct. at page 701, 82 L.Ed. 962, that the receiver 'makes no suggestion of a purpose attributable to the company to mislead creditors or others; makes no allegations of damage, except that sustained by the bank. He sets up no facts which could render unconscionable a denial of liability upon the bond because of the agent's fraud obviously induced by the president of the bank.' We did not decide that in an action against one who, like respondent, is alleged and proved to be a participant in the illegal transaction, he can be heard to set up the defense of his illegal action to defeat the statutory policy aimed at the protection of creditors.
A point much discussed in brief and argument, upon the assumption that local law will guide our decision, see Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188, 114 A.L.R. 1487, is whether, by Massachusetts law respondent is precluded from setting up the illegality of the transaction as a defense to his note. But it is the federal statute which condemns as unlawful respondent's acts. The extent and nature of the legal consequences of this condemnation though left by the statute to judicial determination, are nevertheless to be derived from it and the federal policy which it has adopted, see, Board of Commissioners of Jackson County, Kan., v. United States, 308 U.S. 343, 60 S.Ct. 285, 84 L.Ed. 313, decided December 18, 1939, and cases cited. We have recently held that the judicial determination of the legal consequences which flow from acts condemned as unlawful by the National Bank Act involves decision of a federal, not a state question. Awotin v. Atlas Exchange National Bank, supra.
Mr. Justice MURPHY took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Mr. Justice ROBERTS.
I think the judgment should be affirmed on the authority of Deitrick v. Standard Surety & Casualty Co., 303 U.S. 471, 58 S.Ct. 696, 82 L.Ed. 962, decided March 28, 1938. That case followed and reaffirmed the principle announced in Rankin v. City National Bank, 208 U.S. 541, 28 S.Ct. 346, 52 L.Ed. 610, that where the receiver of a national bank sues to recover on a chose in action which was an asset of the bank, his rights rise no higher than those of the bank, even though the obligation was given to deceive creditors or the bank examiner. The doctrine of the Rankin case has been applied in suits by receivers of national banks for more than thirty years. 1
Deitrick v. Standard Surety & Casualty Company is on all fours with the present case. There the very arguments and authorities now relied upon and cited on behalf of this petitioner were pressed without avail.
In the earlier case the same receiver brought actions at law to recover on surety bonds as assets of the bank. The facts were that the bank held worthless notes, known to its president to be such. To give a false appearance of worth to these assets he conspired with the agent of a surety company to procure surety bonds guaranteeing payment of the notes, to be used as 'window dressing' and to be shown to the bank examiners if they should ask to see the collateral for the notes. The bank was afterwards examined and, as a result of the examiners' report, additional capital was subscribed. We may assume they saw the bonds. The bank remained open for a period and deposits continued to be made. Later the Comptroller determined the bank was insolvent and a receiver was appointed.
In his declaration in each action the receiver alleged his appointment, recited the execution and delivery of the surety bond to the bank and attached a copy of it. He alleged that the note or notes in question in each case was or were in default and that the surety was liable according to the terms of its bond. The surety company answered in each case setting up that no consideration was paid for the giving of the bond and that it was agreed and understood that no liability was to ensue from the execution and delivery. 2
The District Court entered judgment for the surety company and the Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. 3 That court, after stating that the knowledge of the president was the knowledge of the bank, held that the receiver was not an agent of the bank's creditors; that he stood in no better position than the bank; that all defenses open to the surety company as against the bank were open as against the receiver; that the suit was merely one to recover assets of the bank and that the declarations stated no cause of action other than that arising from the contract of suretyship. The court called attention to the fact that the pleadings contained no allegation that the receiver based his action on any alleged deception of, or injury to, creditors of the bank and no allegation that the receiver was suing on behalf of creditors, and held that, upon the pleadings, it was not open to the receiver to urge that he represented creditors. It refused to decide whether, on different pleadings, the receiver could recover if he alleged and proved injury resulting to creditors from the transaction.
This court affirmed the judgment on the grounds stated by the court below, citing and relying on Rankin v. City National Bank, supra.
The surety also pleaded that its agent had exceeded his authority in issuing the bonds, as the bank's president knew. The Circuit Court of Appeals did not pass upon this defense, since it held the receiver could not recover even if the surety company had authorized the giving of the bonds. In the opinion of this court, the surety's contention that it was not bound by its agent's unauthorized act was mentioned but was not considered or discussed as a ground of decision. The sole basis of the decision is stated as follows (303 U.S. 471, 58 S.Ct. 701, 82 L.Ed. 962):
'An examination of the pleadings makes it quite clear that the receiver undertook to set up rights acquired by the insolvent bank through duly executed contracts between it and the surety company. He makes no suggestion of a purpose attributable to the company to mislead creditors or others; makes no allegations of damage, except that sustained by the bank. He sets up no facts which would render unconscionable a denial of liability upon the bond because of the agent's fraud obviously induced by the president of the bank. In this state of the pleadings the receiver may not have judgment; he cannot rely on something not complained of; nor can he have damages because of supposed deceptions which the pleadings fail to suggest.'
After so stating the court refers to the Rankin case and says: 'We adhere to the doctrine there approved and regard it as decisive of the present cause.'
Turning to the instant case, the facts are these: The bank had acquired shares of its own stock illegally. Such shares, so held, were inadmissible assets. The bank's president, knowing that such acquisition of its own stock was an illegal dissipation of its capital, worked out an ostensible sale of the stock for a note which it was understood was to be placed amongst the assets of the bank for the purpose of deceiving the examiners. The note was without consideration and the understanding was that it would not be collected. It was, of course, unenforceable by the bank. Subsequently deposits were made in the bank. It does not appear that the examiners saw the note. After the Comptroller had found the bank insolvent and appointed a receiver that officer filed a bill against the maker of the note, first, to collect an assessment from him as owner of the stock and, second, to recover the face amount of the note, with interest. In this bill he alleged his appointment as receiver, the acquisition of the stock by the bank, and the placing of it in straw names, the giving of the note for the purchase price of the stock and claimed 'the unpaid principal amount of said note * * * together with interest thereon is due the plaintiff * * *.' His prayers were for a decree for the amount of the assessment and for the principal amount, with interest, of the note.
The answer outlined the true transaction, asserted that the defendant's note was an accommodation note, that no consideration passed for it, and there could, therefore, be no recovery upon it.
The District Court entered a decree for the amount of the assessment and for the principal of the note with interest. The Circuit Court affirmed as to the assessment but reversed the judgment upon the note.
Here, as in the earlier case, there was no allegation that any creditors were deceived; none of any loss to the creditors resulting from the giving of the note; none that the receiver sued on behalf of creditors, and no cause of action asserted save one to recover upon the note as an asset of the bank. Here, as in the earlier case, the receiver has urged upon this court that he does represent creditors; that the public policy evidenced by the National Bank Act disables the defendant, in view of the intended deception, from asserting the lack of consideration for the note. Here, in contrast to the earlier case, the court accepts the view which was there rejected because not within the issues tendered.
In Deitrick v. Standard Surety & Casualty Co., supra, the receiver urged upon this court the very contentions which he again advanced in the instant case; cited in support of those contentions numerous authorities which he now cites, which are relied upon in the opinion now announced; sought to have this court adopt the proposition, now affirmed by the opinion in the present case, that the defendant was liable on the surety bond because of the public policy evidenced in the National Bank Act which, broadly speaking, estopped the surety to set up, as against the receiver, appointed pursuant to the national banking law, a wrong against that law in which it had participated. 4 His contentions were held to be unavailing in view of the cause of action he had pleaded.
In view of what has been said, it is apparent that, under the guise of distinguishing the earlier case, the court in fact overrules it.
Mr. Justice McREYNOLDS joins in this opinion.
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'No association shall make any loan or discount on the security of the shares of its own capital stock, nor be the purchaser or holder of any such shares, unless such security or purchase shall be necessary to prevent loss upon a debt previously contracted in good faith; and stock so purchased or acquired shall, within six months from the time of its purchase, be sold or disposed of at public or private sale; or, in default thereof, a receiver may be appointed to close up the business of the association, according to section fifty-two hundred and thirty-four ( 12 U.S.C. 192, 12 U.S.C.A. § 192).'
In a number of cases it has been held that the indirect benefit of the transaction to the obligor as a creditor or shareholder of the bank is sufficient consideration to support recovery. See New v. Page, 144 Md. 606, 125 A. 403; Hurd v. Kelly, 78 N.Y. 588, 34 Am.Rep. 567; State ex rel. Lattanner v. Hills, 94 Ohio St. 171, 113 N.E. 1045, L.R.A.1917B, 684; First National Bank v. Boxley, 129 Okl. 159, 264 P. 184, 64 A.L.R. 588; Arthur v. Brown, 91 S.C. 316, 74 S.E. 652. But whether the liability is sustained on this ground or that of estoppel it is apparent that the statutory policy of protection to creditors underlies both. See Brannan, Negotiable Instruments Law (6th ed.) 459.
Yates Center National Bank v. Schaede, D.C., 240 F. 240, 241; Hookway v. First National Bank, 36 F.2d 166; Andresen v. Kaercher, 38 F.2d 462. Cf. Cutler v. Fry, D.C., 240 F. 238; Keyes v. First National Bank of Aberdeen, D.C., 20 F.2d 678.
Peterson v. Tillinghast, 192 F. 287.
Peterson v. Tillinghast, 6 Cir., 192 F. 287, 289; Skud v. Tillinghast, 6 Cir., 195 F. 1, 5; Cutler v. Fry, D.C., 240 F. 238; Yates Center National Bank v. Schaede, D.C., 240 F. 240; Keyes v. First Nat. Bank, D.C., 20 F.2d 678, 686; Hookway v. First National Bank, 8 Cir., 36 F.2d 166, 170; Kaercher v. Citizens' National Bank, 8 Cir., 57 F.2d 58; Varden v. First Christian Church, D.C., 13 F.Supp. 159, 161; Drake v. Moore, D.C., 14 F.Supp. 89, 90; Seaborn v. Reno Nat. Bank, D.C., 20 F.Supp. 835, 838; Federal Deposit Ins. Corp. v. Pendleton, D.C., 29 F.Supp. 779, 781.
The surety company also filed bills seeking cancellation of each of the bonds and, in his answers, the receiver reiterated his averment that the surety company owed him the amounts stipulated in the bonds, and asked judgment for such amounts.
90 F.2d 862.
Out of sixty-eight pages of argument in petitioner's brief thirty-nine were devoted to this contention; and every proposition now relied upon to sustain the conclusion of the court was advanced in that brief.
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UNITED STATES et al. v. ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PA.
GUARANTY TRUST CO. OF NEW YORK v. YORK.
HEISER v. WOODRUFF et al.
Supreme Court Toolbox
Archive of cases
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Derek Greatorex
Privacy Policy Updated: January 2016
Legacy.com, Inc. provides various features tools that allow users to access obituaries, express condolences and share remembrances of friends and loved ones. Legacy.com, Inc. offers these features and tools at www.legacy.com and other websites and applications (“App”) powered by Legacy.com (collectively, the “Services”). Please read the following privacy policy ("Privacy Policy") carefully before using the Services.
1. WHAT THIS PRIVACY POLICY COVERS
5. PRIVACY ALERT: YOUR POSTINGS GENERALLY ARE ACCESSIBLE TO THE PUBLIC
7. OWNERSHIP
9. CORRECTING OR UPDATING INFORMATION
10. OPT-OUT PROCEDURES
11. THIRD PARTY ADVERTISING AND AD DELIVERY
13. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
This Privacy Policy covers how Legacy.com, Inc. (collectively, "Legacy.com", "we", "us", or "our") treats user or personally identifiable information that the Services collect and receive. If, however, you are accessing this Privacy Policy from a website operated in conjunction with one of our affiliates ("Affiliates"), the privacy policy of the Affiliate will govern unless such policy states otherwise.
Subject to the above, this Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of companies that Legacy.com, Inc. does not own, operate or control, or to people that it does not employ or manage.
In general, you can browse the Services without telling us who you are or revealing any information about yourself to us. Legacy.com, Inc. does not collect personally identifiable information about individuals, except when specifically and knowingly provided by such individuals on interactive areas of the Services. "Personally Identifiable Information" is information that can be used to uniquely identify, contact, or locate a single person, such as name, postal address, email address, phone number, and credit card number, among other information, and that is not otherwise publicly available. Any posting made while using the Services, and any other information that can be viewed by the public and therefore is not considered "personal information" or "Personally Identifiable Information", and is not the type of information covered by this Privacy Policy.
Personally Identifiable Information.
Examples of Personally Identifiable Information we may collect include name, postal address, email address, credit card number and related information, and phone number. We may also collect your date of birth, geo-location, social networking profile picture and the date of birth and date of death for the deceased person in connection with certain features of the Services. We also maintain a record of all information that you submit to us, including email and other correspondence. We may collect Personally Identifiable Information when you register to receive alerts or offerings, sponsor, access or submit information in connection with certain Services, post other content through the Services, purchase products or other services, opt-in to receive special offers and discounts from us and our selected partners or participate in other activities offered or administered by Legacy.com.
We may also collect Personally Identifiable Information about your transactions with us and with some of our business partners. This information might include information necessary to process payments due to us from you, such as your credit card number.
Legacy.com allows certain social media platforms to host plug-ins or widgets on the Sites which may collect certain information about those users who choose to use those plug-ins or widgets.
We do not intentionally collect Personally Identifiable Information about children under the age of 13. Please see the section on "Children’s Privacy" below.
Other Anonymous Information.
Like most websites, Legacy.com also receives and records information on our server logs from your browser automatically and through the use of electronic tools such as cookies, web beacons and locally shared objects (LSOs). Our server logs automatically receive and record information from your browser (including, for example, your IP address, and the page(s) you visit). The information gathered through these methods is not "personally identifiable;" i.e., it cannot be used to uniquely identify, contact, or locate a single person. Some browsers allow you to indicate that you would not like your online activities tracked, using “Do Not Track” indicators (“DNT Indicators”), however we are not obligated to respond to these indicators. Presently we are not set up to respond to DNT Indicators. This means that we may use latent information about your online activities to improve your use of our Services, but such usage is consistent with the provisions of this Privacy Policy.
We will use your information only as permitted by law, and subject to the terms of our Privacy Policy;
Use of Personally Identifiable Information:
We do not sell or share your Personally Identifiable Information with unrelated third parties for their direct marketing purposes.
Personally Identifiable Information and other personal information you specifically provide may be used:
to provide the Services we offer, to process transactions and billing, for identification and authentication purposes, to communicate with you concerning transactions, security, privacy, and administrative issues relating to your use of the Services, to improve Services, to do something you have asked us to do, or to tell you of Services that we think may be of interest to you.
to communicate with you regarding the Services.
for the administration of and troubleshooting regarding the Services. Certain third parties who provide technical support for the operation of the Services (our web hosting service, for example), may need to access such information from time to time, but are not permitted to disclose such information to others.
We may disclose Personally Identifiable Information about you under the following circumstances:
In the course of operating our business, it may be necessary or appropriate for us to provide access to your Personally Identifiable Information to others such as our service providers, contractors, select vendors and Affiliates so that we can operate the Services and our business. Where practical, we will seek to obtain confidentiality agreements consistent with this Privacy Policy and that limit others’ use or disclosure of the information you have shared.
We may share your Personally Identifiable Information if we are required to do so by law or we in good faith believe that such action is necessary to: (1) comply with the law or with legal process (such as pursuant to court order, subpoena, or a request by law enforcement officials); (2) protect, enforce, and defend our Terms of Use, rights and property; (3) protect against misuse or unauthorized use of this the Services; or (4) protect the personal safety or property of our users or the public (among other things, this means that if you provide false information or attempt to pose as someone else, information about you may be disclosed as part of any investigation into your actions.)
Use of Anonymous Information:
Certain information that we collect automatically or with electronic tools or tags (such as cookies) is used to anonymously track and measure user traffic for the Services and to enhance your experience with the Services and our business partners. For example:
IP Addresses/Session Information. We occasionally may obtain IP addresses from users depending upon how you access the Services. IP addresses, browser, and session information may be used for various purposes, including to help administer the Services and diagnose and prevent service or other technology problems related to the Services. This information also may be used to estimate the total number of users downloading any App and browsing other Services from specific geographical areas, to help determine which users have access privileges to certain content or services that we offer, and to monitor and prevent fraud and abuse. IP addresses are not linked to Personally Identifiable Information
Cookies. A cookie is a small amount of data that often includes an anonymous unique identifier that is sent to your browser from a website’s computers and stored on your computer’s hard drive or comparable storage media on your mobile device. You can configure your browser to accept cookies, reject them, or notify you when a cookie is set. If you reject cookies, you may not be able to use the Services that require you to sign in, or to take full advantage of all our offerings. Cookies may involve the transmission of information either directly to us or to another party we authorize to collect information on our behalf. We use our own cookies to transmit information for a number of purposes, including to:
require you to re-enter your password after a certain period of time has elapsed to protect you against others accessing your account contents;
keep track of preferences you specify while you are using the Services;
estimate and report our total audience size and traffic;
conduct research to improve the content and Services.
We let other entities that show advertisements on some of our web pages or assist us with conducting research to improve the content and Services set and access their cookies on your computer or mobile device. Other entities’ use of their cookies is subject to their own privacy policies and not this Privacy Policy. Advertisers or other entities do not have access to our cookies.
Page Visit Data. We may record information about certain pages that you visit on our site (e.g. specific obituaries) in order to recall that data when you visit one of our partners’ sites. For example, we may record the name and address of the funeral home associated with an obituary to facilitate a flower order.
We may share anonymous information aggregated to measure the number of App downloads, number of visits, average time spent on the Services websites, pages viewed, etc. with our partners, advertisers and others.
Your own use of the Services may disclose personal information or Personally Identifiable Information to the public. For example:
Submissions and other postings to our Services are available for viewing by all our visitors unless the sponsor or host of a Service selects a privacy setting that restricts public access. Please remember that any information disclosed on a non-restricted Service becomes public information and may be collected and used by others without our knowledge. You therefore should exercise caution when disclosing any personal information or Personally Identifiable Information in these forums.
When you post a message to the Services via message board, blog, or other public forum available through the Services, your user ID or alias that you are posting under may be visible to other users, and you have the ability to post a message that may include personal information.
If you post Personally Identifiable Information online that is accessible to the public, you may receive unsolicited messages from other parties in return. Such activities are beyond the control of Legacy.com, Inc. and the coverage of this Privacy Policy. Please be careful and responsible whenever you are online. In addition, although we employ technology and software designed to minimize spam sent to users and unsolicited, automatic posts to message boards, blogs, or other public forums available through the Services (like the CAPTCHA word verification you see on email and registration forms), we cannot ensure such measures to be 100% reliable or satisfactory.
Legacy.com, Inc. does not intentionally collect from or maintain Personally Identifiable Information of children under the age of 13, nor do we offer any content targeted to such children.
In the event that Legacy.com, Inc. becomes aware that a user of the Services is under the age of 13, the following additional privacy terms and notices apply:
Prior to collecting any Personally Identifiable Information about a child that Legacy.com, Inc. has become aware is under the age of 13, Legacy.com, Inc. will make reasonable efforts to contact the child’s parent, to inform the parent about the types of information Legacy.com, Inc. will collect, how it will be used, and under what circumstances it will be disclosed, and to obtain consent from the child’s parent to collection and use of such information.
Although Legacy.com, Inc. will apply these children’s privacy terms whenever it becomes aware that a user who submits Personally Identifiable Information is less than 13 years old, no method is foolproof. Legacy.com, Inc. strongly encourages parents and guardians to supervise their children’s online activities and consider using parental control tools available from online services and software manufacturers to help provide a child-friendly online environment. These tools also can prevent children from disclosing online their name, address, and other personal information without parental permission.
Personally Identifiable Information collected from children may include any of the information defined above as Personally Identifiable Information with respect to general users of the Services and may be used by Legacy.com, Inc. for the same purposes. Except as necessary to process a child’s requests or orders placed with advertisers or merchants featured through the Services, Legacy.com, Inc. does not rent, sell, barter or give away any lists containing a child’s Personally Identifiable Information for use by any outside company.
A child’s parent or legal guardian may request Legacy.com, Inc. to provide a description of the Personally Identifiable Information that Legacy.com, Inc. has collected from the child, as well as instruct Legacy.com, Inc. to cease further use, maintenance and collection of Personally Identifiable Information from the child.
If a child voluntarily discloses his or her name, email address or other personally-identifying information on chat areas, bulletin boards or other forums or public posting areas, such disclosures may result in unsolicited messages from other parties.
Legacy.com, Inc. and/or the Affiliate Newspaper(s) are the sole owner(s) of all non-personally identifiable information they collect through the Services. This paragraph shall not apply to Material subject to the license granted by users to Legacy.com, Inc. pursuant to Section 3 of the Terms of Use governing the Services.
The security and confidentiality of your Personally Identifiable Information is extremely important to us. We have implemented technical, administrative, and physical security measures to protect guest information from unauthorized access and improper use. From time to time, we review our security procedures in order to consider appropriate new technology and methods. Please be aware though that, despite our best efforts, no security measures are perfect or impenetrable, and no data transmissions over the web can be guaranteed 100% secure. Consequently, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us and you do so at your own risk.
You may modify and correct Personally Identifiable Information provided directly to Legacy.com, Inc. in connection with the Services, if necessary. Legacy.com, Inc. offers users the following options for updating information:
Send an email to us at Contact Us; or
Send a letter to us via postal mail to the following address:
Legacy.com, Inc., 820 Davis Street Suite 210, Evanston, IL 60201 Attention: Operations
You may opt out of receiving future mailings or other information from Legacy.com, Inc. If the mailing does not have an email cancellation form, send an email to Contact Us detailing the type of information that you no longer wish to receive.
This Service contains links to other sites that may be of interest to our visitors. This Privacy Policy applies only to Legacy.com and not to other companies’ or organizations’ Web sites to which we link. We are not responsible for the content or the privacy practices employed by other sites.
Legacy.com works with third parties, including, but not limited to DoubleClick and ADTECH US, Inc. (collectively, the "Ad Delivery Parties:"), for the purpose of advertisement delivery on the Services including online behavioral advertising (“OBA”) and multi-site advertising. Information collected about a consumer’s visits to the Services, including, but not limited to, certain information from your Web browser, your IP address and your email, may be used by third parties, including the Ad Delivery Parties, in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. These Ad Delivery Parties retain data collected and used for these activities only as long as necessary to fulfill a legitimate Legacy.com business need, or as required by law.
The Ad Delivery Parties may also set cookies and Audience Management tags to assist with advertisement delivery services. For more information about Doubleclick, please visit http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/. For more information about ADTECH US, Inc., please visit http://privacy.aol.com/
If you would like to obtain more information about the practices of some of these Ad Delivery Parties, or if you would like to make choices about their use of your information, please click here: http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/
The Ad Delivery Parties adhere to the Network Advertising Initiative’s Self-Regulatory Code of conduct. For more information please visit http://www.networkadvertising.org/about-nai
Legacy.com shall obtain your prior express consent (opt-in) before using any of your “sensitive consumer information” as that term is defined in the NAI Principles.
Legacy.com may also share your social media identification and account information with the corresponding social media service to allow the service to provide you with advertisements about goods and services of interest to you.
Please keep in mind that if you click on an advertisement on the Services and link to a third party’s website, then Legacy.com’s Privacy Policy will not apply to any Personally Identifiable Information collected on that third party’s website and you must read the privacy policy posted on that site to see how your Personally Identifiable Information will be handled.
We may periodically edit or update this Privacy Policy. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy whenever you provide information on this Web site. Your use of the Services after changes of the terms of the Privacy Policy have been posted will mean that you accept the changes.
Questions regarding the Legacy.com Privacy Policy should be directed to Contact Us or
(As provided by California Civil Code Section 1798.83)
A California resident who has provided personal information to a business with whom he/she has established a business relationship for personal, family, or household purposes ("California customer") is entitled to request information about whether the business has disclosed personal information to any third parties for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes.
Legacy.com, Inc. does not share information with third parties for their direct marketing purposes. If, however, you are accessing this Privacy Policy from one of our Affiliate sites, the privacy policy of our Affiliate will apply to the collection of your information unless the Affiliate’s privacy policy specifically states otherwise. You should review the privacy policy of the Affiliate to understand what information may be collected from you and how it may be used.
California customers may request further information about our compliance with this law by emailing Contact Us.
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Lavers joins Lisciotti Development
Richard J. Lavers, Jr., has joined Lisciotti Development as general counsel, focusing on permitting and acquisitions.
Lavers was previously at the law firm of Erb & Erb, and is a graduate of Boston College and Suffolk Law School. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife, Christen, who is a policy advisor for New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch.
"We look forward to his experience as we continue to grow the company as real estate opportunities present themselves in this buyers' market," said Gregg Lisciotti.
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What Is Body Contouring?
One of the most commonly-sought cosmetic procedures, body contouring (also known as body shaping or body sculpting) is the creation of a more attractive silhouette through a variety of aesthetic modalities, most often involving the treatment or surgical removal of fat.
The gold standard is liposuction, a surgical procedure with inherent risks that many patients wish to avoid. Numerous, less invasive energy-based alternatives are available. Reducing adipocytes (fat cells) through apoptosis-inducing radiofrequency is an easy and comfortable way to deliver circumferential reduction. Utilising a specialised frequency (27.12 MHz) to selectively target and heat adipocytes to the optimal temperature to cause denaturation of cells, leading to apoptosis (cell death).
Why 27.12 MHz Is The Magic Number
The 27.12 MHz frequency is selectively absorbed by adipocytes. As a result, adipocytes are more responsive than cells in the epidermis, dermis, or muscles, making this frequency ideally suited to precisely target adipocytes.
The apoptosis-inducing radiofrequency penetrates deep into the tissue, targeting the adipocytes. The adipocytes are energised and oscillate rapidly generating frictional heat. The frictional heat raises the adipocyte temperature to 45 degrees celsius at which point the cells denaturise. This denaturation causes changes in the integrity of the adipocyte membrane, leading to apoptosis and expulsion of the intracellular lipid. The body’s natural removal process then takes over, permanently removing the damaged cells.
Tissue stain on treated swine tissue, clearly show apoptosis of adipocytes after only a single 300 W 20 minute treatment.
Image Courtesy of ChungAng University Hospital
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iMac 333MHz
By Allyson Bates
Apple's candy-coated iMac, now equipped with a 333MHz PowerPC CPU, is faster than ever, yet the new version carries the same $1,199 price tag as the previous 266MHz model. But CPU speed is just one factor that influences overall system performance, and while this new model is faster than earlier iMacs, it's no match for a 333MHz Power Mac G3. In Macworld Lab's Processor test, we found that it barely kept up with Apple's blue Power Mac G3/300MHz (see "Faster iMac").
Apple's blue 300MHz G3 systems feature a 150MHz cache bus and a 100MHz system bus. The new iMac, in contrast, sports a 133MHz cache bus and a 66MHz system bus. In plain English, this means Apple's high-end G3 systems feed data to the CPU at a higher rate. The new iMac gives you a 333MHz CPU, and it's considerably faster than its predecessor, but as you can see in the MacBench 5.0 Processor scores, its CPU performance is comparable to that of the 300MHz reference system.
Aside from the faster processor, the new-model iMac offers the same design and features as the previous model. It still costs only $1,199 and sports the same 6GB hard drive and 32MB of RAM (expandable to 256MB). Like the previous 266MHz iMac, it features a built-in 15-inch, 1,024-by-768-pixel display; a 24 x CD-ROM drive; 10/100BaseT Ethernet; a 56-Kbps modem; an ATI Rage Pro graphics accelerator (with 6MB of SGRAM); and two USB ports.
Beyond the specs, the new iMac shares the same strengths and weaknesses as the old onethese computers still suffer from limited expandability and an unergonomic mouse. Although Apple has yet to replace this oddly shaped input device, a tiny indentation on the mouse button helps you figure out which end is up. On the plus side, the iMac is easy to use, features a colorful design, and offers enough computing power for just about any task you'd want to perform at home or in the office.
With its powerful CPU and affordable price, the 333MHz iMac remains the leader among consumer PCs. Aside from its lack of expansion options, it continues to be the computer that dares to be different.
PROS: Great value; creative design; faster performance. CONS: Limited expansion; difficult mouse. COMPANY: Apple Computer (800/795-1000, http://www.apple.com ). LIST PRICE: $1,199.
July 1999 page: 47
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Work Development
CNOOC targets rapid growth in 2006
HONG KONG, Jan. 23 (Xinhuanet) -- CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Corporation) Limited announced here Monday that its total budgeted net production volume in 2006 will increase 9 percent over the previous year.
Speaking at a press conference about the Company's business strategy and development plan for 2006, Executive Vice President of the Company Yang Hua said that the company's total budgeted net production volume in 2006 is approximately 168-170 million barrels of oil equivalent (BOE), about a 9 percent year-on-year (YOY) increase over the estimated 153-157 million BOE in 2005.
Net production offshore China is estimated to be 148-149 million BOE in 2006. The Company's overseas output is expected to be enhanced by the North West Shelf Project in Australia, which is scheduled to supply gas to Guangdong LNG terminal in the first half of this year. With this project, the Company's net entitlement overseas is expected to reach 20-21 million BOE, Yang said.
During the year, ten projects offshore China are expected to come on stream, two of which are ready for production. Overall, for 2006 and 2007, it is expected that 16 projects will be completed, Yang added.
On the exploration front, the Company plans to conduct more drilling, seismic acquisition activities offshore China, particularly in Bohai Bay and the South China Sea.
In order to explore oil and gas potentials, the overseas exploration activities will be further strengthened, the company said, adding that the exploration budget is estimated to increase 72 percent to reach the level of 455 million U.S. dollars and the reserve replacement ratio is targeted to be more than 100 percent in 2006.
At the same time, the Company expects to spend 2.59 billion U.S. dollars in development, a 30 percent YOY increase. In total, the Company's 2006 capital expenditure is budgeted at 3.06 billion U.S.dollars, 35 percent up from last year's figure, the company disclosed.
With the commencement of new gas projects and CNOOC's Guangdong LNG terminal, it is believed that the Company will further strengthen its leading position in gas business in coastal China.
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Net Links
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Jump to a Program Apply Now Request Info
BA degrees offered in Traditional and Online formats
Art and Design (BA)
Three-Year Fast Track: Art History and Visual Culture (BA)
Pre-Art Conservation Emphasis
Pre-Art Therapy (BA)
Art History and Visual Culture Minor
Philosophy and the Arts Minor
Art History and Visual Culture (MA)
One-Year Fast Track: Art History and Visual Culture (MA)
Graduate Certificate in Art History
Fashion Business and Entrepreneurship
Game Design (BA)
The Art History Department at Lindenwood University is devoted to the study of visual materials, from painting and sculpture to photography and digital art.
As an art history student at Lindenwood University, you will gain a broad foundation and critical understanding of visual culture in the context of art history. You will have a diverse selection of courses, which range from the art of Europe and America to the non-Western arts of Africa and Asia.
As an art history student at Lindenwood University, you will learn to analyze works of art as products of the cultures in which they were created and to explore such questions as why the object was created, how it was made, who might have seen and appreciated it, and what it may mean to its owners and audiences.
The art history courses at Lindenwood place the methods and objectives of art history into their many contexts. Relationships among cultures over time, including our own, become apparent through the course of study. As a student, you will develop an appreciation for the innate desire to create that is basic to the human experience and hone your written, oral, and visual presentation skills.
Lindenwood University Art History Faculty
The art history faculty at Lindenwood University have many years of educational and professional experience in their chosen fields. They know what they are talking about, and they are passing on that knowledge to you.
Earning a Degree in Art History at Lindenwood University
Lindenwood University offers a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Visual Culture and a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Visual Culture with an emphasis in Pre-Art Conservation. The Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Visual Culture degree requires 36 credit hours in a variety of art history courses, while the addition of Pre-Art Conservation requires 70 credit hours. You will study the history of western and non-western art and a variety of topics ranging from baroque and medieval art to modern and contemporary art.
Three-Year Fast Track, BA in Art History and Visual Culture
Lindenwood is now offering a specialized track that allows students pursuing a BA in Art History and Visual Culture to complete their education in three years. This is a great option for students interested in accelerating their education, while saving a quarter of the cost. Students will take the same classes that are included in the traditional four year track, but with the added flexibility of online and on-ground coursework. Flexibility is maximized by offering options to take eight week courses or traditional 16 week courses.
Interested students will have their first term fees for taking over 18 credit hours waived. To be considered, students must also have at least a 3.3 GPA that should be maintained throughout the accelerated track.
What You Can Do with an Art History Degree from Lindenwood University
When you have a degree in art history from Lindenwood University, you will develop skills that not only apply to art but to a variety of careers. Please see the Occupational Outlook Handbook at the Bureau of Labor Statistics website for information relevant to your career path.
Earning a Minor in Art History at Lindenwood University
Lindenwood University offers a Minor in Art History and Visual Culture. A minor is simply a secondary academic subject to add to your knowledge, whether it is of professional or personal interest.
This minor requires 18 credit hours. You will study a variety of eras and styles of art in areas as diverse as renaissance and classical myth.
Dr. James Hutson
Program Manager, Art History and Visual Culture
(636) 949-4863 jhutson@lindenwood.edu
Dr. Jason Dude Lively
Dean, School of Arts, Media, and Communications
(636) 949-4696 jlively@lindenwood.edu
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Royal Mail stamps celebrate Beatrix Potter’s 150th birth anniversary
Aug 4, 2016, 9 AM
Characters from Beatrix Potter books for children are pictured on these six stamps issued by Great Britain’s Royal Mail July 28 to mark the 150th anniversary of her birth on July 28, 1866.
Great Britain’s Beatrix Potter souvenir sheet shows illustrations from The Tale of Peter Rabbit.
By Denise McCarty
Great Britain’s Royal Mail celebrated Beatrix Potter’s 150th birth anniversary on postage stamps, a souvenir sheet, and two booklets issued July 28.
The designs depict characters she created and illustrated in her more than 20 books for children.
Born Helen Beatrix Potter July 28, 1866, in Kensington, London, she began keeping a journal and drawing at a young age.
The Peter Rabbit website of Penguin Books Ltd. said: “Beatrix was always encouraged to draw, and she spent many hours making intricate sketches of animals and plants, revealing an early fascination for the natural world that would continue throughout her life. Although she never went to school, Beatrix was an intelligent and industrious student, and her parents employed an art teacher, Miss Cameron, and a number of governesses, including Annie Moore, to whom she remained close throughout her life.”
The character of Peter Rabbit originated in an illustrated letter that Potter sent to Moore’s son Noel, then 5 years old.
In 1901, Potter self-published A Tale of Peter Rabbit in book form for her family and friends; the following year it was published by Frederick Warne. Since then it has been translated into more than 30 languages, and more than 45 million copies have been sold.
The souvenir sheet features this tale. Inscribed in the selvage to the left of the block of four stamps is “The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter” and the book’s opening sentence, “Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were — Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter.”
The first stamp in the upper left of the sheet shows Mother buttoning up Peter’s blue coat. She tells him and his siblings, “NOW run along, and don’t get into mischief. I am going out.”
She warned them not to go into Mr. McGregor’s garden, but Peter, who was naughty, headed straight there, squeezing under the garden gate, as shown on the next stamp, a £1.33 denomination.
After filling up on lettuce, French beans and radishes, he starts to feel sick and goes to find some parsley. This scene is featured on the nondenominated first-class stamp in the lower right. A sparrow also is pictured in the illustration.
The final stamp, another £1.33 denomination, shows Peter, who has lost his jacket and shoes, slipping underneath the gate as Mr. McGregor chases him with a hoe.
The other six stamps in this Beatrix Potter issue are in se-tenant (side-by-side) pairs printed in sheets of 60 (sold in panes of 30 at most postal outlets).
Peter is pictured on one stamp in the nondenominated first-class pair. The other stamp shows a hedgehog washerwoman, the title character of The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle (published in 1905).
The two £1.33 stamps depict Squirrel Nutkin (The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, 1903) and Jemima Puddle-Duck (The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck, 1908).
Pictured on the stamps in the £1.52 pair are Tom Kitten (The Tale of Tom Kitten, 1907) and Peter’s cousin, Benjamin Bunny (The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, 1904).
The stamps denominated £1.33 pay the rate for international mail up to 20 grams, and the £1.52 stamps pay the rate for mail to Europe weighing up to 100 grams. The first-class rate is currently 64 pence.
Charlie Smith Design designed the six stamps in se-tenant pairs, and Magpie Studio designed the souvenir sheet and the four stamps in it.
All of the stamp designs are based on illustrations by Potter. Frederick Warne &. Co. is the owner of all rights, copyrights and trademarks in the Beatrix Potter character names and illustrations.
The stamps in the souvenir sheet are square, 35 millimeters by 35mm, and are perforated gauge 14.5. The sheet measures 115mm by 89mm.
The other six stamps measure 35mm by 37mm each, and are perforated gauge 14 by 14.5.
One of the two new Beatrix Potter booklets is a prestige booklet containing text and illustrations in addition to four panes of stamps.
Three of the panes contain the new Beatrix Potter stamps, and the fourth contains eight Queen Elizabeth II Machin stamps (three 5p, two 10p and three £1.05 denominations) with a label in the center showing a photographic portrait of Potter.
The other booklet contains six stamps: the first-class Peter Rabbit and Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle stamps and four first-class Queen Elizabeth II Machin definitives.
Royal Mail’s other products for this Beatrix Potter set include first-day covers; a presentation pack with mint examples of the stamps and text by Emma Laws, the Warne curator of children’s literature at the Victoria and Albert Museum; and 11 postcards reproducing the designs of the 10 stamps and the souvenir sheet.
Ordering information is available from Royal Mail, Tallents House, 21 S. Gyle Crescent, Edinburgh, EH12 9PB, Scotland. They can be ordered online here.
Royal Mail’s two agencies in the United States are Interpost, Box 420, Hewlett, NY 11557; and the British Stamp Service in North America, 1 Unicover Center, Cheyenne, WY 82008.
Beatrix Potter characters have appeared on other stamps from Great Britain. The first was the Peter Rabbit stamp in the 1979 International Year of the Child set (Scott 867). In addition to showing Peter Rabbit, this stamp also pictures Jemima Puddle Duck and Squirrel Nutkin.
Peter Rabbit is depicted with his mother on a 1993 Greetings stamp (Scott 1484) and is shown mailing a letter on a 1994 Greetings stamp (1543).
The frog Jeremy Fisher is included on a stamp in the 2006 set showing animals from children’s books (2334). Royal Mail also issued a prestige booklet in 1993 titled “The Story of Beatrix Potter.”
Watch these awesome 'Alice in Wonderland' Vines from Royal Mail
Paddington Bear stars in new movie and on British stamps
Born July 28: Beatrix Potter
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The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine (Hardcover)
By Mark Twain, Philip C. Stead, Erin Stead (Illustrator)
(Picture Book)
Imaginative, original, and simply delightful. This is a new and wonderful work of art from Philip and Erin Stead, and -- oh yeah! -- Mark Twain. After several pages of an incomplete Mark Twain fairy tale were discovered a few years ago, the publisher approached the Steads to finish it. What Phil and Erin ended up doing is something truly remarkable -- the illustrations are gorgeous, and the story itself borrows notes from Kurt Vonnegut and Charlie Kaufman. It is a book that has meaning, speaks to present day, will become a classic, and moved me.
— From Mike's Picks
New York Times Bestseller!
A School Library Journal Best Book of 2017
A never-before-published, previously unfinished Mark Twain children’s story is brought to life by Philip and Erin Stead, creators of the Caldecott Medal-winning A Sick Day for Amos McGee.
In a hotel in Paris one evening in 1879, Mark Twain sat with his young daughters, who begged their father for a story. Twain began telling them the tale of Johnny, a poor boy in possession of some magical seeds. Later, Twain would jot down some rough notes about the story, but the tale was left unfinished . . . until now.
Plucked from the Mark Twain archive at the University of California at Berkeley, Twain’s notes now form the foundation of a fairy tale picked up over a century later. With only Twain’s fragmentary script and a story that stops partway as his guide, author Philip Stead has written a tale that imagines what might have been if Twain had fully realized this work.
Johnny, forlorn and alone except for his pet chicken, meets a kind woman who gives him seeds that change his fortune, allowing him to speak with animals and sending him on a quest to rescue a stolen prince. In the face of a bullying tyrant king, Johnny and his animal friends come to understand that generosity, empathy, and quiet courage are gifts more precious in this world than power and gold.
Illuminated by Erin Stead’s graceful, humorous, and achingly poignant artwork, this is a story that reaches through time and brings us a new book from America’s most legendary writer, envisioned by two of today’s most important names in children’s literature.
A Bank Street College of Education 2018 Best Children's Book of the Year
"will capture the imaginations of readers of all ages"—USA Today, ★ ★ ★ ★ (out of four stars)
★ "Samuel Langhorne Clemens himself would be proud."—Booklist, starred review
★ "a cast of eccentric characters, celestially fine writing, and a crusade against pomp that doesn't sacrifice humor."—Publishers Weekly, starred review
★ "Completing a story penned by arguably America's greatest author is no easy feat, but the Caldecott-winning author-illustrator (and husband-wife) team proves more than equal to the task. . . . A pensive and whimsical work that Twain would applaud."—Kirkus, starred review
★ "The combination of Twain’s (often sarcastic) humor and “lessons of life,” a touch of allegory, and Stead’s own storytelling skills result in an awesome piece of fantasy."—School Library Journal, starred review
★ "Beautifully understated and nuanced illustrations by Erin Stead add the finishing flourishes to this remarkable work."—Shelf Awareness, starred review
“drawn with a graceful crosshatched intelligence that seems close to the best of Wyeth.”—Adam Gopnik, The New York Times
"Twain and the two Steads have created what could become a read-aloud classic, perfect for families to enjoy together."—The Horn Book
"artful and meta and elegant”—The Wall Street Journal
"should inspire readers young and old to seek further adventures with Twain."—The Washington Post
MARK TWAIN (1835–1910), considered one of the greatest writers in American literature, was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida, Missouri. As a young child, he moved with his family to Hannibal, Missouri, on the banks of the Mississippi River, a setting that inspired his two best-known novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twain and his wife, Olivia Langdon Clemens, had four children—a son, Langdon, who died as an infant, and three daughters, Susy, Clara, and Jean.
PHILIP STEAD is the author of the Caldecott Medal–winning book A Sick Day for Amos McGee. With his wife, illustrator Erin Stead, he also created Bear Has a Story to Tell, Lenny & Lucy, and The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine. Philip has also written and illustrated his own books, including Hello, My Name Is Ruby; Jonathan and the Big Blue Boat; and A Home for Bird. Philip and Erin live in northern Michigan. Visit Philip online at philipstead.com.
ERIN STEAD is the illustrator of eight highly-acclaimed picture books: the Caldecott Medal–winning A Sick Day for Amos McGee; The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine; Tony; And Then It’s Spring; Bear Has a Story to Tell; Lenny & Lucy; If You Want to See a Whale; and The Uncorker of Ocean Bottles. She lives in northern Michigan with her husband, author/illustrator Philip Stead. Visit Erin online at erinstead.com.
"Johnny is destined to become as much a part of Twain lore as Tom, Huck, Jim and The Mysterious Stranger."—Hartford Courant
"bound to become a reading staple for all ages."—RealSimple.com
"Philip Stead brilliantly captures Twain's style, his homespun humor, his wordplay, his biting wit, his sympathy for the powerless and his disdain for the mighty."—The Buffalo News
Publisher: Doubleday Books for Young Readers
Maximum Age: 12
Minimum Grade Level: 3
Maximum Grade Level: 7
Juvenile Fiction / Fairy Tales & Folklore
Juvenile Fiction / Animals
Library Binding (September 26th, 2017): $27.99
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Minority students are underrepresented at the nation’s top public colleges
By Jillian Berman
Published: Oct 16, 2016 8:22 a.m. ET
More evidence our nation’s top public schools are turning into bastions of wealthy, white students
Students celebrate graduating from Rutgers University earlier this year. Black and Hispanic students are underrepresented at the nation’s top public colleges, a new study shows.
JillianBerman
Our public higher education system, typically thought of as a great equalizer, isn’t as great an engine of social mobility as we imagine, a new study suggests.
Just 9% of African-American students and 12% of Latino students enrolled in public colleges were at the nation’s top public research universities, according to an analysis of government data released Thursday by the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank. But these students were overrepresented at less-selective schools; 40% of black students enrolled at public colleges were in four-year regional schools and 51% were at community and technical colleges, the analysis found. More than 30% of Latino students in public college were enrolled in four-year regional colleges and 56% were at community colleges.
White students fared better; 19% of white students enrolled in public college attended a top public university and the other roughly 80% was split basically evenly between community colleges and less-selective four-year schools.
Students Share at top public
research universities Share at four-year
regional colleges Share at community
and technical college
All 18% 38% 45%
White 19% 40% 41%
Black 9% 40% 51%
Latino 12% 32% 56%
The research adds to the growing body of evidence that black, Latino and less-wealthy students aren’t getting as much out of our nation’s higher education system as their white, wealthier peers. Black students are overrepresented in some of the nation’s lowest-paying majors and underrepresented in the highest paying fields, according to an analysis published earlier this year by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. A major reason why: Black students are more likely to be in less-selective and under-resourced schools that don’t have the funds to offer a wide variety of science and technology majors.
“The implications really get down to the returns of a college education,” said Elizabeth Baylor, the director of postsecondary education at CAP and the author of the report published Thursday. “If you attend a top public college you have a wider range of career and academic possibilities in front of you.” That’s in part because students at elite public colleges are more likely to complete school, but also because of the reputation of their degrees. “Even if students complete a community college program, they just have a narrower range of possibilities,” Baylor added.
It’s hard to say exactly why minority students are overrepresented at less-selective schools and underrepresented at top public colleges. Admissions policies may play a role. Though colleges are increasingly reaching out to minority and low-income students, there’s evidence to suggest they’re still not reaching anywhere near all of the nation’s qualified, but underrepresented students.
Controversy over affirmative action has also made it difficult for schools to explicitly target these students. The Supreme Court narrowly upheld the University of Texas’ affirmative-action program a few months ago, but schools still face challenges considering race in admissions. For example, in 2006 Michigan residents voted to ban the use of affirmative action for public sector hiring and education in the state.
State disinvestment in public higher education may also be contributing to the low-level of minority students at the top public colleges, the study noted. Schools feeling the pressure of budget cuts may be inclined to use their aid dollars to lure wealthier, out-of-state students at the expense of low-income and, in some cases, minority students. Research from think tank New America shows that top public colleges are increasingly using out-of-state students who, even with the discount, will still wind up paying more than in-state students. These merit scholarships going to out-of-state students may be taking away from the money available to provide awards to students based on need, New America found.
Without sufficient funding at elite public schools, minority and low-income students may be making the rational choice to minimize their costs and debt loads by attending a cheaper school or one closer to where they’re from so they can live at home and minimize their debt, Baylor said.
“It’s not a perfect system,” she said. “The availability of financial aid that limits student loans really can help minority students and low-income students maximize their academic potential.”
Read more about inequality in higher education:
Here’s why women and minorities struggle to get ahead — even with a college degree
Why big state colleges are increasingly dominated by wealthy students
These beautiful student apartment buildings will make you envious
Jillian Berman
Jillian Berman covers student debt and millennial finance. You can follow her on Twitter @JillianBerman.
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Discussion papers and briefings
Productivity, Competitiveness & Growth
Urbanization & Infrastructure
China's e-tail revolution
May 14, 2013 | Article
By Richard Cooper and Richard Dobbs
By 2020, China’s e-tail market could be as large as today’s markets in the US, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France combined, write Richard Cooper and Richard Dobbs in Project Syndicate.
When you think about centers of technological innovation, Silicon Valley, Seattle, and Seoul are probably the first places that come to mind. After all, they are the homes of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Intel, Microsoft, and Samsung – companies whose innovations transform the way other sectors, from financial services to telecoms and media, do business.
Now, however, the rise of “e-tail” (consumer-facing e-commerce) in China is enabling Hangzhou – the base of Alibaba, China’s largest online retailer – to join their ranks. Indeed, on April 29, Alibaba signaled its ambitions by buying an 18% stake in Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter. And, as with technology hubs elsewhere, innovations born in Hangzhou are determining the development path of related industries.
China’s e-tail market is the world’s second largest (after that of the United States), with an estimated $210 billion in revenue last year. Since 2003, the market has posted a compound annual growth rate of over 110%. By 2020, China’s e-tail market could be as large as today’s markets in the US, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France combined.
Despite a broadband penetration rate of only 30%, e-tail commanded 5-6% of total retail sales in China in 2012, on par with the US. And the sector is already profitable: Chinese e-tailers are logging margins of 8-10% of earnings before interest, taxes, and amortization, which is slightly larger than the average margin for physical retailers.
Two features of Chinese e-commerce stand out. First, roughly 90% of Chinese e-tail is conducted on ad-funded virtual marketplaces. On these platforms – which resemble eBay and Amazon Marketplace – manufacturers, retailers, and individuals offer products and services to consumers through online storefronts. By contrast, in the US, Europe, and Japan, roughly 70% of the market is composed of e-tailers running their own Web sites, whether online-only merchants like Amazon or traditional brick-and-mortar retailers such as Carrefour, Dixons, and Walmart.
Moreover, according to a study by the McKinsey Global Institute, online purchases in China do not simply replace offline purchases. Rather, e-tail supports incremental consumption: $1 of online consumption seems to generate roughly $0.40 of additional sales. And incremental spending as a share of total spending is even higher in China’s less-developed cities, where a shortage of brick-and-mortar retailers means that online shopping provides access to otherwise unavailable products and brands.
Mass consumption in China and other emerging economies is coming of age in the Internet era. Given that industry structures are still developing in many of these countries, e-tail is set to shape not only the retail landscape, but also the manufacturing and financial-services industries – and even the urban landscape itself.
In most countries, the retail sector has typically developed in three stages: first, local or regional players dominate, before a smaller number of national companies takes over, with e-tailers ultimately challenging traditional businesses. But China lacks national leaders, with the top five Chinese retailers in different product categories commanding less than 20% of the market, compared to up to 60% in the US. And establishing a strong physical presence throughout the country will be time-consuming and expensive.
By contrast, Alibaba (which owns marketplaces such as Taobao) and 360buy.com (which focuses on electronics) rank among China’s top ten retailers, and already provide national coverage through the reach of express delivery companies. As a result, China’s retail sector seems more likely to follow a two-stage development path, with e-tailers emerging as the major national players.
The ability afforded by online marketplaces to new players to attain national – and international – prominence without massive upfront investment will profoundly affect how both retailers and manufacturers approach new consumer markets. The Japanese retailer Uniqlo, for example, used such marketplaces to expand into China in 2009.
Likewise, by removing some of the benefits of scale and specialization that characterize the consumer-goods industry elsewhere, e-tail enables new manufacturers to join the market, selling goods like apparel and cosmetics directly from workshops and factories to consumers. Such businesses are also leveraging their broad access and widely recognized brands to expand their role in the financial-services sector.
Finally, e-tail could shape China’s urban development and transform leisure activities. Urban centers worldwide revolve around shops, whether on main street or at the mall, with many consumers viewing shopping as a leisure activity. China’s evolution will likely entail smaller main streets and malls, with large distribution centers near city limits. Citizens will spend more free time engaging in other activities, such as dining out. All of these changes could alter the use and pricing of real estate.
Other emerging markets are likely to follow a similar course. Chinese e-tailers are already using their advantages in exporting products from the country’s factories to expand internationally. And enterprises in other countries are adopting a similar online business model.
China may have largely missed the Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century. But its approach to e-tail is poised to be one of the forces shaping the emerging-market Internet revolution of the twenty-first century.
This article originally ran in Project Syndicate.
Report - McKinsey Global Institute
China’s e-tail revolution
Beyond Korean style: Shaping a new growth formula
Manufacturing the future: The next era of global growth and innovation
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Back James Baldwin: Early Novels & Stories Print
James Baldwin: Early Novels & Stories
Go Tell It on the Mountain | Giovanni’s Room | Another Country | Going to Meet the Man (stories) More
Edited by Toni Morrison
“James Baldwin’s gift to our literary tradition is that rarest of treasures, a rhetoric of fiction and the essay that is, at once, Henry Jamesian and King Jamesian.” — Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Sara Jaffe: From James Baldwin to Lynne Tillman—four influences on Dryland
James Baldwin, resurgent on screen and on the page in 2015
Darryl Pinckney: James Baldwin “stood his ground and paid a price”
Save $26 when you buy all three James Baldwin volumes.
“The civil rights struggle,” said The New York Times Book Review, “found eloquent expression in [Baldwin’s] novels. His historical importance is indisputable.” Here, in a Library of America volume edited by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, is the fiction that established James Baldwin’s reputation as a writer who fused unblinking realism and rare verbal eloquence.
His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), tells the story, rooted in Baldwin’s own experience, of a preacher’s son coming of age in 1930’s Harlem. Ten years in the writing, its exploration of religious, sexual, and generational conflicts was described by Baldwin as “an attempt to exorcise something, to find out what happened to my father, what happened to all of us.”
Giovanni’s Room (1956) is a searching, and in its day controversial, treatment of the tragic self-delusions of a young American expatriate at war with his own homosexuality. Another Country (1962), a wide-ranging exploration of America’s racial and sexual boundaries, depicts the suicide of a gifted jazz musician and its ripple effect on those who knew him. Complex in structure and turbulent in mood, it is in many ways Baldwin’s most ambitious novel.
Going to Meet the Man (1965) collects Baldwin’s short fiction, including the masterful “Sonny’s Blues,” the unforgettable portrait of a jazz musician struggling with drug addiction in which Baldwin came closest to defining his goal as a writer: “For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it must be heard. There isn’t any other tale to tell, it’s the only light we’ve got in all this darkness.”
Toni Morrison, volume editor, is the author of a number of award-winning novels, including Love, Jazz, Beloved, Song of Solomon, Sula, and The Bluest Eye. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. She is presently Robert F. Goheen Professor of Humanities at Princeton University.
This Library of America series edition is printed on acid-free paper and features Smyth-sewn binding, a full cloth cover, and a ribbon marker.
James Baldwin: Early Novels and Stories is kept in print by a gift from Frank A. Bennack Jr. to the Guardians of American Letters Fund.
James Baldwin: Some degrees of separation
Literary scholar Rafia Zafar reflects on how the New York City...
On Toni Morrison’s 80th birthday: Remembering her friendship with James Baldwin
James Baldwin: Sentences like no one else
Coming attractions: A little Moonlight shines on Beale Street
Giovanni’s Room
Going to Meet the Man
The Rockpile
The Outing
The Man Child
Previous Condition
Sonny’s Blues
This Morning, This Evening, So Soon
Come Out the Wilderness
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ISBN: 978-1-88301151-2 970 pages
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Zora Neale Hurston: Novels & Stories LOA N°74
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Get 10% off your first Library of America purchase.
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Kraut Law Group Criminal & DUI Lawyers Home
Contact Kraut Law Group Criminal & DUI Lawyers
Glendale DUI Lawyer
Glendale DUI Vehicular Manslaughter
Someone can be charged with Glendale Vehicular Manslaughter pursuant to California Penal Code Section 191.5(b) PC and/or California Penal Code Section 191.5(a) PC when they are driving a vehicle and are involved in an accident in which there was a violation of a traffic law or negligence and the collision results in a death. Both of these offenses involve impaired driving; however it is possible in some cases to be charged with Glendale Vehicular Manslaughter even when there were no drugs or alcohol involved. In those cases, charges of Glendale Vehicular Manslaughter under California Penal Code Section 192(c) PC may be filed.
Just as Glendale DUI with Injury cases may be charged as felonies, Glendale Vehicular Manslaughter can be a felony with enhanced Glendale DUI Penalties.
Glendale Vehicular Manslaughter While Intoxicated Charges
California Penal Code Section 191.5(b) PC – Glendale Vehicular Manslaughter While Intoxicated
To prove the elements of Glendale Vehicular Manslaughter While Intoxicated under California Penal Code Section 191.5(b), the prosecutor must establish that a driver who was involved in an accident in which someone lost their life was under the influence of drugs or alcohol when the collision occurred, that the driver was negligent in their driving or committed an unlawful action, and that the death occurred as a result of the driver’s negligence.
Under the Penal Code, Glendale Vehicular Manslaughter While Intoxicated is a “wobbler” offense which may be charged as a felony or misdemeanor, depending on the circumstances of the case and the criminal history, if any, of the driver. If a Glendale Vehicular Manslaughter While Intoxicated allegation is charged as a felony, penalties would include prison time, court fines and victim restitution.
California Penal Code Section 191.5(a) – Glendale Gross Vehicular Manslaughter While Intoxicated
Glendale Gross Vehicular Manslaughter While Intoxicated is almost identical to Glendale Vehicular Manslaughter While Intoxicated, with the additional requirement that the prosecutor prove “gross” negligence. Gross negligence requires negligence beyond what would be considered ordinary carelessness, inattentiveness or misjudgments. A person exhibits gross negligence when that person engages in reckless activity that is inherently risky to the safety of others. The driver additionally should have known that acting in this manner is considered risky. Glendale Gross Vehicular Manslaughter While Intoxicated is always a felony.
The act of driving while intoxicated itself is not enough to constitute ordinary negligence or gross negligence. There has to be an additional negligent act or omission. However, in making a determination about whether “gross negligence” existed, the degree of intoxication, driving conduct, and any other relevant factors are considered.
“Great bodily injury,” as described in the statute, is defined as a serious physical injury that goes beyond a minor or moderate injury.
Also under the Glendale Gross Vehicular Manslaughter While Intoxicated statute, an act will be deemed to have caused the death of another person if that death was a direct consequence of the act, and if the act had not happened, the resulting death would not have taken place.
A “natural and probable consequence” is defined as something that would reasonably be expected to occur without some sort of intervention. In deciding if a consequence should be considered “natural and probable,” it is critical to weigh the entirety of the evidence.
An injured party can potentially die as a result of a variety of different acts. For the Glendale Gross Vehicular Manslaughter charge to be applicable, the defendant’s action must have constituted a substantial factor in the death of the victim. The act or omission must be more than minor or trivial.
If you or a loved one were involved in an automobile accident that resulted in the death of another, it is imperative that you contact a Glendale Vehicular Manslaughter attorney immediately. Glendale Vehicular Manslaughter Attorney Michael Kraut is adept at handling charges of this nature and making sure that his clients have the best defense possible. The sooner Mr. Kraut is retained and working on your case, the sooner he can activate his team of investigators and experts who can gather and evaluate crucial evidence that may have been missed. Mr. Kraut employs experts to perform accident reconstructions, evaluate toxicology reports and perform independent toxicology tests, as well as securing statements from favorable witnesses that may have been missed by law enforcement.
Prosecutors and law enforcement often charge these cases excessively so that people will simply plead quickly for state prison sentences. However, crucial evidence may have been overlooked that could exculpate the defendant. In many cases, Mr. Kraut is able to present this evidence to the district attorney to avoid or limit charges altogether. Mr. Kraut is a former deputy district attorney with over 14 years of prosecutorial experience. Mr. Kraut is highly respected throughout the court system as a dedicated advocate for his clients.
For more information about Glendale Vehicular Manslaughter, and to schedule your free consultation, contact Glendale Vehicular Manslaughter Attorney Michael Kraut at the Kraut Law Group located 450 North Brand Boulevard, Suite 600, Glendale, CA 91203. Mr. Kraut can be reached 24/7 at 888-334-6344 or 818-507-9123.
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Glendale DUI Vehicular Manslaughter | Glendale DUI Vehicular Manslaughter Lawyer Michael Kraut
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17/07/2019 Admin Low Tuition Universities, Study in Europe, Study in UK 0
List of low tuition universities in the UK, tuition fees, cost of living, visa, how to apply and admission requirements are what you will find in this article. UK is an excellent study abroad destination located in Europe and many international students desire to spend their study years there.
Tuition fees in UK for an average undergraduate UK course per year:
Courses Fees
Foundation courses £4,000 to £14,000
Arts courses £7,000 to £10,000
Science courses £7,500 to £25,000
Clinical courses £10,000 to £30,000
For postgraduate (Masters/MSc):
Arts and humanities courses £7,000 to £15,000
MBA £4,000 to more than £50,000
Note that these fees do not include fees for practical.
Cost of living in UK is amazingly low and affordable for international students who wish to study abroad in UK. It is estimated at £800 to £1200 per month. This amount certainly covers the accommodation cost, books and stationery, travels, food, and so on. The only factor that can alter this expense rate is the student’s way of managing his/her resources.
For undergraduate courses, a student usually needs to have achieved further education qualifications (such as A-levels, International Baccalaureate, Scottish Higher, or equivalent qualifications from your country) in related subjects.
For Admission to Master’s Degree a UK Bachelor’s degree in an appropriate subject, awarded with first or 2nd-class Honors, or a qualification of an equivalent standard from a university or educational institution in your country is required. Where the US/Canadian marking scheme is used, a minimum grade point average (GPA) of 3.0 is required
If English isn’t your first language, the university or college may ask you to take an English language test or show your English language qualifications before you can enroll. This may also be necessary for your visa application.
You may be required to show a result from any of these English tests.
International English Language Testing Service (IELTS) with score 6 or above depending on the course and institution
Grade C in Cambridge Proficiency of English or Cambridge Advanced English; Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) with score 550 or above.
NEAB University Entrance Test in English for speakers of other languages at Grade 3.
If you want to study in the UK as an international student, you will need a Tier 4 (General) student visa. For your visa application to be valid, you must satisfy these requirements;
You must have been offered admission to study a course
You must have enough money to support yourself and pay for your course
You must hail from a country that’s not in the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland
Note this also: You can apply for a visa up to 3 months before the start of your course. And you should get a decision on your visa within 3 weeks.
See more details at the VISA category of this blog.
The universities in the UK accept online application. For undergraduate study, you will need to apply through UCAS. Also visit your university of choice’s webpage.
List of low tuition Universities in the UK with Fees/year
Name of School Undergraduate Postgraduate
Glyndwr University £7,450 £8,100
Staffordshire University £9,875 –
University of Bedfordshire £9,600 £9,600
Edinburgh Napier University £10,080 £10,760
Queen Margaret University £10,170 £10,170
Robert Gordon University 9,900 £10,000
Royal Agricultural University £9,000 –
Cardiff Metropolitan University £9,700 £10,000
Aberystwyth university £9,750 £10,750
Southampton Solent University £9,785 £10,300
Leeds Trinity University £9,300 £8,500
Leeds Metropolitan University £9,500 £10,100
Canterbury Christ Church University £9,710 £10,510
The University of West London £9,350 £9,950
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Cost of co-working spaces rising as start-ups push up demand, figures show
June 02 ,2016 | by Erin O’Neill
Topic: News - Entrepreneurs & Startups
The cost of co-working spaces is rising as more start-ups are choosing to work in a flexible and collaborative environment.
Figures from SpareOffice revealed that the most expensive rents for co-working spaces are in cities with a thriving tech sector, indicating that more start-ups are choosing to work in these environments.
London topped the list at £357 per month, followed by Edinburgh at £284 per space and person, Bristol at £265, and Oxford at £262.
The figures also revealed the cheapest locations for co-working, with Newcastle offering affordable space at £218, followed by Glasgow at £210 and Sheffield at £205.
SpareOffice Chief Executive Joe Vallender commented on the findings, stating that it was no surprise that London topped the list of the most expensive cities for co-working spaces, as property values in the city are higher than anywhere else.
Over the past ten years, there has been an increase in demand for co-working spaces as start-ups are now favouring flexible workspaces over traditional office environment.
According to Vallender, it is difficult to predict how prices will change in the future as new spaces are being added to the market.
“However, we believe that prices will continue to rise as more and more companies embrace the flexible arrangements and collaborative environment offered by the co-working space providers,” he said.
Erin O’Neill
Erin O’Neill is an LSBF News Writer who reports on small business, careers, technology and education news.
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Zhang has not been charged with espionage, though prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office left open the possibility that more charges could come after a thorough analysis of Zhang’s trove of electronics found either on her person or in her hotel room — including several cellphones, an external hard drive and a “signal-detector” device that is used to detect hidden cameras.
Yujing Zhang Yujing Zhang's passport photo.
National security experts said Zhang’s effort to attend an event at Mar-a-Lago could also be part of a cover story planned in advance by a foreign intelligence agency. At the very least, Zhang’s arrest has reinvigorated a broader federal investigation into possible Chinese espionage operations in South Florida, which was initiated late last year.
The wire-transfer receipt submitted by the defense as evidence, dated Feb. 19, 2019, showed that Zhang had paid 135,000 yuan, approximately $20,000, to a Beijing-based company used to collect payments from Chinese guests planning to attend events at Mar-a-Lago at the invitation of Li “Cindy” Yang, the former Asian day-spa owner who had launched a consulting company advertising access to Donald Trump and his family.
Yang had an associate, Weitan Li, a Chinese national who goes by Dr. Charles Lee and runs a group called the United Nations Chinese Friendship Association to bring overseas clients to Mar-a-Lago. The group has no apparent connection to the United Nations.
At Mar-a-Lago in January 2018, Cindy Yang poses with Dr. Charles Lee, who promotes her events to his clients in China. WeChat
Zhang told authorities she had been invited to Mar-a-Lago by “Charles,” who Adler said was Charles Lee. Lee has used the company that received Zhang’s wire transfer, Beijing Peace and Friendship Management Consulting Co., Ltd., to process payments from Chinese clients who purchase his business diplomacy travel packages, according to Lee’s website which has since been taken down.
On the site, Lee advertised a travel package that included a 2018 Mar-a-Lago “Safari Night” charity gala. In order to attend the event, Lee’s clients were directed to make $13,000 payments to Beijing Peace and Friendship Management Consulting Co., Ltd. — the same company Zhang paid $20,000 in 2019.
Mar-a-Lago has become a top destination for Trump tourism. Experts say Mar-a-Lago in particular provides unprecedented levels of access by people to the president.
Although Lee is not listed on the corporate records for Beijing Peace and Friendship Management Consulting Co., Ltd, the executive director, Xinyuan Wang, was listed as “secretary of international liaison” and “executive director” of Lee’s United Nations Chinese Friendship Association. Beijing Peace and Friendship Management Consulting Co., Ltd. also posted ads on Lee’s site.
Wang could not immediately be reached for comment. Lee’s website was taken down after a brief phone call with a Herald reporter that concluded with Lee saying he was in Europe and hanging up.
Even if Zhang told the truth to federal agents about the event, and cooperated with officers when she gave them permission to look at her phones, that wouldn’t prove she is not a foreign intelligence officer or asset, said David Kris, an assistant attorney general for national security in the Obama administration and founder of the consulting firm Culper Partners.
“It’s plausible for an intelligence officer to pretend to cooperate and try ... giving a credible cover story that would have been planned in advance,” said Kris, who added that the charges of lying may be an attempt to keep Zhang in custody while the government tries to get more information.
The semi-public nature of Mar-a-Lago has been a source of concern in the security community. For a fee of $200,000 anyone can become a member — something experts say foreign intelligence agencies are sure to attempt to exploit. Lee and Yang have brought dozens of guests to events at Mar-a-Lago over the past 18 months.
Who has gained access to President Trump and Mar-a-Lago through Cindy Yang?
Zhang initially told federal agents she had come to Mar-a-Lago to use the pool, according to an affidavit filed by a U.S. Secret Service agent. She then stated she had been invited to attend a “United Nations Friendship Event” between China and the United States, the affidavit states.
In court on Monday, a federal prosecutor marked that as two lies: one because Zhang had no swimming suit in her bag (she was wearing a gray dress), and another because there was no event scheduled at Mar-a-Lago called “United Nations” anything.
There was, however, an event previously scheduled for that day, one heavily promoted online by Yang. Before its last-minute cancellation, Safari Night 2019 was to be held on March 30. The charity gala was canceled after the Miami Herald revealed that Yang had taken photographs with Trump and other Republican leaders and used them to advertise her ability to get Chinese clients into events with the president at Mar-a-Lago.
Zhang told agents she had been invited to show up early for an event to be held later that evening, Adler said. She said she had wanted to use the opportunity to talk with members of the Trump family. According to a source familiar with the case, on Zhang’s previous two trips to the United States in July 2016 and January 2017, she had stayed at a Trump hotel in New York City.
Secret Service agent Samuel Ivanovich, who interviewed Zhang on the day of her arrest, testified Monday that despite flashing an event invitation in Chinese on her phone, Zhang offered no indication that she actually planned to attend the canceled Safari Night. However, it’s possible Zhang had not known the event’s name, and had made reference to Lee’s United Nation’s group as the organizer instead. It’s also possible Zhang was never informed of the cancellation.
Both Lee and Yang had been promoting Safari Night 2019 with a flier in Chinese promoting the event as an “International Elite Forum” and a chance for Chinese businessmen to meet Elizabeth Trump Grau and other U.S. “elites” at the first-ever Chinese-led dinner at Mar-a-Lago. It was the perfect opportunity to “do propaganda” in the home of the U.S. president, Yang’s ad announced. The president’s sister’s face was printed on the flier promoted by Yang.
Nowhere did the flier mention “Safari Night,” though it was clearly advertising the same event, given the listed date and guest of honor.
A translation of an event promoted on Yang’s GY US Investments website advertised a forum for international Chinese elites to take place at Mar-a-Lago on the same date as the previously scheduled Safari Night 2019. That 2019 event was canceled.
Ivanovich acknowledged on the witness stand that the Secret Service had conducted no searches to determine whether Safari Night had been advertised on Chinese social media under a different name and description.
Federal prosecutors and investigators have discounted the possible confusion regarding names and believe Zhang had made up the event as a pretext to enter Mar-a-Lago, according to a source familiar with the case. The information about the U.N. event that Zhang showed agents was just text, and appeared to be written by Zhang herself, the source said. It was not the same flier that Yang had been using to promote the Safari Night event.
Ivanovich also testified that a preliminary analysis of Zhang’s phone showed no evidence that she had been in contact with Lee or Yang. He did not specify which of the phones.
The defense provided the receipt as evidence that Zhang used channels previously established by Yang and Lee to bring guests to Mar-a-Lago events.
Adler said Monday the defense will consider a subpoena to have Lee testify. However he acknowledged that his team has been unsuccessful in attempts to contact Lee and has no idea where he is.
Yang had been on the list of Safari Night 2019 attendees, according to event organizer Terry Bomar. Zhang was not on the list, Bomar told the Herald last week.
Yang has not made a public appearance since she went on TV two weeks ago to declare she has done nothing wrong. Her spokesperson says she is taking a vacation and remains in the United States. Yang sold her Wellington home last month, according to property records.
Building an espionage case
While she has been charged only with lying and unlawful entry, Adler said that the criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office hinted strongly that his client was actually suspected of espionage. Federal prosecutor Rolando Garcia replied that “there is no allegation [in the criminal complaint] she was involved in espionage,” but later clarified to say there is still a chance that more charges could come after they finish their investigation.
Federal investigators are continuing to analyze malware found on a thumb drive Zhang carried with her the day she was arrested at Mar-a-Lago. During the initial examination, the malware began immediately downloading files to the analyst’s computer — something Ivanovich said the forensic analysis called “very unusual” — forcing them to halt the examination temporarily.
Authorities also searched Zhang’s Palm Beach hotel room after her arrest and found nine USB drives, five SIM cards, another cellphone, the device to detect hidden cameras, and over $8,000 cash.
“In my experience, normal people do not carry special camera detectors and multiple USB drives. By normal person we mean a person not trying to do anything nefarious or wrong,” Kris said. “It’s conceivable that a high-end criminal would have it but it seems more likely that it’s somebody who is bent on trying to extract information.”
Zhang had originally told a judge that she had less than $5,000 in her Wells Fargo account, and did not disclose how much cash she had, something prosecutors consider another potential lie, according to a source familiar with the case.
She told the judge that she maintains a U.S. bank account with “not much money” in it and also carries cash when she travels to the United States. Asked by the judge whether the bank account held more than $5,000, Zhang replied: “If I add the cash to it, maybe it would be over $5,000. I’m not sure.”
Her detention hearing will resume next Monday, April 15, at the same time as Zhang’s arraignment. Prosecutors are preparing an indictment, likely to charge her with making a false statement to a federal officer and trespassing on private property.
The State Department has revoked Zhang’s B1 tourist visa, and immigration authorities have placed a detainer on her. That means that even if she’s granted a bond, she won’t be released because she will immediately be placed in immigration custody.
Miami Herald writer Selina Cheng contributed to this report.
Follow more of our reporting on Trump Tourism: Access for Sale
With classified filing, feds eye national security case against Mar-a-Lago intruder
Federal prosecutors demand Cindy Yang records from Mar-a-Lago, Trump campaign
See all 9 stories
Caitlin Ostroff
Caitlin Ostroff is a data reporter for McClatchy’s DC Bureau, based at the Miami Herald. She uses data analysis and coding to present and report information as part of the investigative team.
Sarah Blaskey
Sarah Blaskey covers local government in municipalities across Miami-Dade County. She holds a master’s degree from Columbia University’s school of journalism and is the recent recipient of a Pulitzer Center grant for her work on shark fishing and human trafficking in Central America.
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The Miami Herald is investigating how U.S. President Donald J. Trump has become a favorite target of a little-known Chinese industry peddling access to the rich and powerful. At the center of this “Trump Tourism” is Cindy Yang, a former Asian day spa owner, who sold access to Mar-a-Lago and the White House, raising concerns about national security. Read more:
‘She lies to everyone’: Feds say Mar-a-Lago intruder had hidden-camera detector in hotel
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‘Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 3’ Release Date: Why I’m still hoping for a game that may never happen
By Jacob Kleinman
Last weekend, I retreated from the city to a house in the woods with spotty cellphone service and my old PlayStation 2. Amazingly, the 15-year-old system (purchased with the funds from my bar mitzvah) still works, but most of the games no longer work, with one notable exception: Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance.
I’ve played the original Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance so many times I’m surprised the disc still functions. I also sprinted through Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2 in a week-long marathon session with my brother after renting it from the local Blockbuster in the early 2000s.
The sequel ends in a dramatic cliffhanger, just like the original, but 13 years later I’m still waiting for some resolution. Here’s why we need Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 3 now more than ever.
What’s so special about Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance anyway?
Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance belongs to a special family of hack-and-slack dungeon-crawler games. Played from an overhead, bird’s eye view, you pick from a group of diverse heroes — dwarves, elves and humans, both male and female — and make your way through a series of dimly lit rooms and tunnels to eventually take out the big bad villain and save the day.
If you’ve played even one of these games you know how satisfying it can be to fight through wave after wave of increasingly monstrous enemies, ideally with a friend by your side. There are plenty of titles that fit this description, like the Gauntlet and Torchlight games. But Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance, with its seamless gameplay mechanics based on Dungeons and Dragons rules and charming graphics, scratched that itch better than any other console game.
The most obvious modern equivalent to Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance is Diablo 3, which offers a similar dungeon-crawling experience. But where the Diablo series essentially repeats the same basic story in each iteration, Dark Alliance featured a great story that kept raising the stakes.
The first Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance ended with a shocking twist. A humanoid lizard character that helped you through your journey turns out to be evil (go figure). He betrays your heroes, teleporting them to a dangerous land where they are quickly imprisoned. As the game ends, the forces of evil prepare to bring their true plans into action.
Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2 picks up soon afterwards with a new cast of heroes and a new villain. Again, the game ends with a twist: Mordoc, the evil vampire you just spent the entire game defeating was nothing but a pawn in the plan of some even more powerful enemy. The true villain appears in the game’s final cinematic cutscene just before the credits roll, hidden inside a massive sarcophagus.
And that’s it.
For 13 years I’ve been waiting to find out who the true big bad of Dark Alliance is and dive back into the world of Baldur’s Gate. Unfortunately, there are a few reasons why that will likely never happen.
The sad, true story of Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 3
Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 3 was actually in development at one point, but it never saw the light of day after the game’s developer sued the publisher for using its game engine in other titles without permission. The game was canceled and today, all of the companies involved are essentially defunct.
The only real shred of hope lies with the original Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance distributor, Vivendi, which was merged into Activision and subsequently became Activision Blizzard. So the gaming behemoth behind huge franchises like Call of Duty and Overwatch could be our best shot at a new entry in the series.
However, considering that Activision Blizzard also happens to be the company behind Diablo 3, which is still adding new content more than five years after it was first released, it seems unlikely we’ll see Dark Alliance re-emerge to challenge Diablo’s dominance in the dungeon-crawling market.
Still, I’m holding out hope for a final return to the franchise. In a world of dominated by online multiplayer games, we could all use a good, old-fashioned local co-op dungeon crawl. And if any game is going to offer that experience it might as well be Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 3 (aka the one we really wanted all along).
Crazier things have happened, right?
More gaming news and updates
Check out the latest from Mic, like this deep dive into the cultural origins of Gamergate. Also, be sure to read this essay about what it’s like to cosplay while black, a roundup of family-friendly games to play with your kids and our interview with Adi Shankar, producer of the animated Castlevania Netflix series.
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'Lost Ark' Set for IMAX Debut
Hollywood's classic 1981 adventure movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is to be released in select IMAX theaters for a week next month, Paramount said.
The one-week engagement is to begin Sept. 7.
"When I saw the stunning quality of the picture and heard the enhanced sound in an IMAX theater, I was quite literally blown away and hope that audiences will enjoy the experience as much as I did," said director Steven Spielberg.
"We are honored to present all the excitement of Indiana Jones in a way it's never been experienced before -- IMAX," said Greg Foster, chairman and president of IMAX Filmed Entertainment. "We look forward to celebrating this iconic film with longtime fans as well as a new generation of moviegoers."
The four Indiana Jones movies, starring Harrison Ford as the swashbuckling archeologist, will be released by Lucasfilm Ltd. and Paramount Home Media Distribution on Blu-ray as part of "Indiana Jones: The Complete Adventures" Sept. 18. The set features 7 hours of bonus material, including a new two-part documentary entitled "On Set with Raiders of the Lost Ark -- From Jungle to Desert and From Adventure to Legend."
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DVD of the Week: City Girl
The German director F. W. Murnau thought big; for his first American film, “Sunrise,” from 1927, he had a mile-long trolley track laid from the suburbs to the city and filmed from the perspective of the short train that ran on it. For his third—to be titled “Our Daily Bread” and which, like “Sunrise,” would also contrast urban and rural life—he wanted to film on location in Chicago, and he actually purchased a farm in Oregon in order to film in its wheat fields. He wanted to show, as promised by the title, the step-by-step process of the making of bread, from the growing and harvesting of wheat through the manufacture of flour to the work of bakers to the delivery of loaves to the city. His intention was to see the hidden labor on which urban life is based; he thought that the alienating chill of the city was a result of its insulation from the source of its sustenance.
After the commercial failure of “Sunrise,” Murnau’s studio, Fox, forced him to scale down his ambitious plans. The movie (which I discuss in the clip above) was retitled “City Girl”; its sequences set in Chicago were shot in the studio; and the movie was pared back to the dramatic essence of its story, about a young farmer who goes to town, meets a waitress, marries her, and brings her home, to the dismay of his tyrannical father. Then, for its 1929 release, by which time talking pictures had become all the rage, the studio added a dialogue track and cut the movie to about an hour.
In recent years, Murnau’s fuller, silent cut has resurfaced; it was released on DVD last year in the massive “Murnau, Borzage and Fox” boxed set. Though one can dream of what’s missing, the film that remains is still to be savored. Its aesthetic is sparer and starker than that of “Sunrise”; where that film tended toward the mythic, “City Girl” reflects Murnau’s interest in the particular and the concrete, and he directs with a stark clarity that seems to suggest the coming styles of the era of talkies.
P.S. Murnau’s second American film, “4 Devils,” is lost; the Fox Box features a sumptuously illustrated book about it, by Janet Bergstrom.
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A Letter to a Friend in a Time of Trump
By Adam Gopnik
PHOTOGRAPH BY DANIEL ACKER / BLOOMBERG / GETTY
A friend, the great sleight-of-hand man and skeptic Jamy Ian Swiss, wrote in some despair about the United States Presidential election—not about the result alone but about the possibility of “advocating the construction and expansion of a liberal society” in its aftermath. Rather inadequately, I wrote this in response:
Dear Jamy: I don’t know if I can answer your question, but I very badly want to try—for my own sake as much as anything. My inner life, as is the case for many of us, has been in turmoil since around eight-thirty last Tuesday evening. For months, I had been saying that Trump was a threat to liberal democracy—and now I am praying that I was wrong! But you raise a deeper problem than one of political predictions about the future, both immediate and far off. How can we imagine a positive liberal future in so dark and discouraging a moment? That is the right question, and so I am going to try to answer it if I can.
How do we maintain hopes for a liberal, open society in the time of Trump? Well, I think that the construction of liberal society rests on several ideas, and one of the key, slightly paradoxical ones is that its politics really do rise from the ground up. (By “liberal,” I mean the consensus that extends from libertarians, constitutional conservatives, and Christian democrats to social democrats and democratic socialists, all of whom differ on economics, but all of whom share some values, too.) The Enlightenment, from which liberal society descends, wasn’t really a political project. (Or at least the parts of it that were, early on, conscious political projects often led to the worst political results, such as the Reign of Terror.) It was a philosophical project, a social project, and a scientific project, even a poetic project, which became a political project later. It came from people, often under brutal regimes, turning telescopes toward the stars and meeting at cafés to argue and building libraries of previously forbidden books. They carved out a space for the mind in extremely inhospitable terrain. It was the values learned there that were later applied to society at large. These values included the benefits of free argument, open discussion, engagement on basic facts. Skepticism about the laws of the universe became a path toward liberty. Adam Smith thought something similar: that the free market was self-organizing; that the state need not set up market towns but should take instruction from them. (He was really a liberal, not a neo-liberal, by which I mean that he thought that freedom was essential to a free market, not that a free market could magically produce free people.)
What comfort can this distant truth provide in the face of an authoritarian entering the White House? Perhaps only that it reminds us that the point of politics in a liberal society is to give us a space to be private in. The really great changes of our lifetime were all social and cultural in the first place, and political only later. They were garden-grown, park-manufactured, Mall-march-made. I don’t diminish the Voting Rights Act or the Civil Rights Act, but I also recognize that they were responses to social movements, not the movements themselves. Women’s rights were won by women. Gay rights broadened as gay and lesbian people acted up, sure, but also as they acted to live out their lives without permission. Same-sex marriage was performed by couples and their friends and codified by the state, not created by it.
There is a false choice this week between private withdrawal and political action. Liberalism insists that we don’t have to take everything to the legislature, or even to the street, to fight sadism or advance human happiness; we do a lot at our kitchen tables and conferences and clubs, broadly speaking. We can do a lot at our offices; after all, most Americans build their “social capital” at their jobs. (It’s a small thing, but the C.E.O. who emphasizes that cruel or predatory language won’t be tolerated is doing something significant.) If we are not cruel or sadistic in our interactions—if we welcome Muslims, protect other minorities, give comfort to the oppressed—then we are taking political steps. We can protect women on their way to abortion clinics, volunteer for the A.C.L.U.—a thousand things that are every bit as significant, as we attempt to build our society, as the antiquated system that made a loser into a winner. Politics don’t stop on Election Day, because they didn’t start there. I wrote once about how Voltaire came to understand that homemaking, which ought to make people more selfish, makes them less so; it gives them a stake in other people’s houses. It is not so much the establishment of a garden but the ownership of a gate that moves people from liking a society based on feudal favors to one based on rights. Enclosing his garden broadened Voltaire’s circle of compassion. When people were dragged from their gardens to be tortured and killed in the name of faith, he began to take it personally.
That’s why tyrants always want to destroy private life, because they intuit that that’s where real opposition begins. That hasn’t happened here, at least not yet. Nothing—yet—prevents us from pursing the same lines of action and community that are the real foundation of politics. (Think of the Eastern Europeans who showed that Frank Zappa was a more potent political figure than Leo Strauss.) Politics is not what creates our world and values. It is the after-effect our values create.
The other truth is that liberals believe in the possibility of progress but should never believe in its inevitability. We are farther along than we once were. If our opponents do their worst, and they will try hard—by negating Obamacare, taking away Roe v. Wade—they still can’t entirely change the reality that we have made. (Can twenty million people be deprived of medical insurance without consequence? We’ll see.) Things slip back, or are forced back—but almost never all the way back. Our obsession with the spectacle of politics may blind us to the truth that politics of the Presidential kind sometimes has, or can be made to have, a tangential relationship to our lives. Sometimes it doesn’t. Presidents start wars and sign laws that make it harder for parents to take care of their children; they can expel DREAMers and appoint Supreme Court Justices who outlaw abortion, and all the rest. We have to protect ourselves from those actions, and above all protect the most vulnerable. Tyrants of all kinds want us to identify our politics with their police. We are not always obliged to join in.
Liberals should have no illusions that small sanities can save us from the grim playing out of power politics. I’ve written a lot about how nationalist xenophobia is the default condition of humanity. I’m told that’s a grim view of human nature. But, in a way, it’s a positive one. It advises us to expect the worst and search for a respite within it. There’s a lot of indirection and redundancy and countervailing force built into a big country. (Many of us obsess about Washington but live in states and cities whose values and politics are radically unlike those of the new bosses.) I fear that an autocrat with sufficiently brutal ambitions and no real opposition will clear those impediments all away. But—he may not. Can the residual normative energies and ongoing practices of a liberal democracy—the subsidiary arrangements and independent centers of power—survive a new ruling class uncomprehending of that democracy’s basic premises? We’ll find out. All we can do is all we can do.
Adam Gopnik, a staff writer, has been contributing to The New Yorker since 1986. He is the author of, most recently, “A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism.”
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With this interactive, change voters’ political loyalties to build a winning coalition.
Steve Bannon Will Lead Trump’s White House
When Bannon was asked about racist and anti-Semitic appeals during the Trump campaign, he insisted, implausibly, that he favors nationalism, not white nationalism.
By Ryan Lizza
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US, World, and Ancient Coins
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Why Alexander Hamilton is on the $10 Bill
Started by KK4FPK, January 31, 2012
KK4FPK
(S)uper Collector
Location: AL, USA
Found this on Yahoo and thought it was interesting....
$10 Bill: Why is Alexander Hamilton, who wasn't president, on U.S. currency?
Bugmann1974
Up 20 words per minute since I signed up
Member: Seasoned Veteran
Joined: November 2, 2008
The same reason Ben Franklin is on the $100 bill and half dollars?
coinman_23885
TOTAL NEWBIE
He was the first Secretary of Treasury, and he pushed for the Bank of the United States. In the realm of constitutional law, he was also an early proponent of a (at least in his times) broader interpretation of Congress's power under the Commerce Clause of Article I, Section VIII, starting an early (and quite an informative) debate about constitutional interpretation (i.e. strict v. broad interpretation).
Frank Provasek
I am gonna miss that car.
Location: Fort Worth, TX
A good summary of Hamilton
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/burr/hamiltonbio.htm
ComicConnoisseur
Joined: January 8, 2010
Location: Legendary Hall of Fame board member.
Just like Andrew Jackson would be upset right now if he knew he was on the 20 dollar bill. Andrew Jackson hated banks and paper money.
Andrew Jackson was the anti-Alexander Hamilton.
Edited February 2, 2012 by ComicConnoisseur
BillJones
Joined: March 9, 2002
If it had not been for Alexander Hamilton, our monetary system might be very different today, and the contry might not have ended up as strong. Hamilton was the expert on monetary policy and government finance of his day. Jefferson, his leading opponent, knew a great many things about government and political philosophy, but he did know anything about financial matters and money.
When Jefferson was elected president in 1801 (The election went to the House of Representatives that year.) Jefferson wanted to dismantle Hamilton's monetary system, but even he admitted that Hamilton had put too much in place to take it apart. Fortunately a great deal of Hamilton's monetary system stayed in place.
I'm not sure that Jackson hated banks per se, rather he hated the Bank of the United States. He had no qualms about transferring BUS funds to so called "wildcat banks" often under the influence and control of political/personal allies. In fairness, I don't think he should be on the $20 bill or venerated in any way. He was known for three things 1.) being the first so-called "*D-e-m-o-c--r-a-t" (I believe); 2.) the spoils system/corruption; and 3.) poor fiscal policies that caused a depression. I don't think any of these warrant him being honored.
There are a couple of good things you can say about Andrew Jackson's presidency.
1. He spread democracy, which was a very positive thing. Jackson recognized before any other major politician of his era that presidential elections were going to be won at the ballot box and not in the congressional caucus where previous presidents had been picked since the early 1800s.
2. Jackson initiated the first major fight over the preservation of the Union when he opposed the South Carolina nullification movement. The issue then was over the protective tariff, and the South actually had a very legitimate issue in that case. BUT many people saw the issue of states’ rights and federal law would eventually come down to the slavery issue.
3. Jackson’s spoils system was not all bad. An argument could be made it made room for people with less than significant political connections were allowed to participate in government.
But, yes, Jackson’s anti-national bank policies were detrimental to the economy, and the people paid for it. The charter for the Bank of the United States was flawed, but doing away with the whole thing was not a wise answer.
Conder101
Joined: February 2, 2002
Location: East central Indiana
He was known for three things 1.) being the first so-called "*D-e-m-o-c--r-a-t" (I believe); 2.) the spoils system/corruption; and 3.) poor fiscal policies that caused a depression.
4.)The forced resettlement of the Indians from the east coast to the western lands, the infamous "Trail of tears.".
Add he got the US the state of Florida to the list! (thumbs u
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> Everything You Should Know About Outlaw King
Everything You Should Know About Outlaw King
By Sophie Lambert - October 30, 2018
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An epic historical tale which follows the life of Robert the Bruce and his fierce quest for Scottish independence, Outlaw King is being hailed as Scotland’s biggest film production to date. Scheduled for release this November, this all-action Netflix Original undoubtedly marks a moment in history for Scottish cinema. Brush up on your knowledge of this gritty blockbuster with these essential facts…
The Outlaw King Cast Getty Images
27 Outlaw King Facts
1. A Netflix Original, the historical drama will be available to watch for Netflix users from 9th November 2018.
2. The film premiered at Toronto International Film Festival in Canada, September 2018.
Some of the Outlaw King cast at Toronto Film Festival. Getty Images
3. The epic film is set in early 14th Century Scotland, and is based on the true life events of the First War of Scottish Independence – the earliest battles between Scottish and English forces.
4. The red carpet was rolled out for the crew and cast at a glitzy Scottish premiere held at the Vue cinema in Edinburgh’s Omni centre on 19 October 2018.
5. Los Angeles-born Chris Pine will star as Robert the Bruce, legendary warrior and King of Scotland. Robert the Bruce was born in 1274 and died in 1329 at the Manor of Cardross, near Dumbarton. His body is buried in Dunfermline Abbey (one of the film’s shooting locations) and his heart is in the ruins of Melrose Abbey.
6. Outlaw King isn’t the first collaboration between director David Mackenzie and lead actor Chris Pine; they previously worked together on 2016’s award-winning Hell or High Water.
Outlaw King Director, David Mackenzie Getty Images
7. The production was filmed at 45 locations across Scotland, including Glasgow University, Linlithgow Palace, Dunfermline Abbey, Blackness Castle and Mugdock Country Park. If the film’s stunning scenery leaves you wanting more, check out Visit Scotland’s Outlaw King Film Locations Tour, where you’ll get to spend a day visiting some of the flick’s most beautiful filming sites.
8. Rather fittingly, some of the filming took place in the historical town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which, due its proximity to the border, was a site of conflict for centuries and changed hands many times between Scotland and England, before being finally claimed by England in 1482.
9. Scottish director David Mackenzie has directed 10 feature films in total, including Young Adam (2003), Hallam Foe (2007) and You Instead (2011) – all of which are also set in Scotland.
10. Leading man Chris Pine’s first ever screen appearance was in 2003, in TV series E.R. in which he plays a patient at the hospital who is recovering from a five-day drinking bender. He has since starred in films such as the Star Trek series, Unstoppable (2010) and Wonder Woman (2017).
Chris Pine has been working hard on his Scottish accent, Getty Images
11. Chris Pine told the Press Association that in order to prepare for his Scots-speaking role, he would listen to YouTube videos of a Scottish rugby captain to help hone his accent.
12. Scottish veteran actor James Cosmo, who plays Robert the Bruce’s father in the film, is known for his roles in other set-in-Scotland cinema classics such as Highlander (1986), Braveheart (1995) and Trainspotting (1996).
13. Perthshire-born director David Mackenzie studied at Dundee’s very own Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design. After graduating, he embarked on his directorial career with a series of successful short films, which won awards internationally.
14. Playing Robert the Bruce’s right-hand man, Lord Douglas, English actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson is no stranger to the big screen. He has starred in films such as Shanghai Knights (2003); Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008); and Nowhere Boy (2009) – where he met his now-wife, director Sam Taylor-Johnson.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays alongside Chris. Getty Images
15. Co-star English actress Florence Pugh will play Robert the Bruce’s second wife, Elizabeth de Burgh. The young star’s breakthrough performance was her leading role in Lady Macbeth (2016), which caught the eye of critics and saw her win several awards.
16. Whilst Chris Pine’s Scottish accent may be unexpectedly convincing, he has confessed he’s not much a fan of haggis and deep-fried mars bars.
17. With films such as Suffragette (2015) and Genius (2016) under her belt, Outlaw King’s costume designer, Fife-born Jane Petrie, is a bit of a dab hand at period costume. Her work on critically acclaimed drama series The Crown – another Netflix Original – saw her scoop up a prize at the prestigious Costume Designers Guild Awards in 2018.
18. After the premiere in Toronto, director David Mackenzie decided to cut the film from 137 minutes down to approximately 117, based on feedback from critics.
19. Not just a star of the screen, leading man Chris Pine became the face of Armani’s fragrance campaign in 2014, and has starred in multiple ads for the company.
20. The film’s initial trailer received a staggering 26 million views in the first 24 hours.
21. Although he isn’t a method actor, Chris Pine admitted he tried to keep up his Scottish accent in breaks during filming – including down the pub!
22. One of the film’s shooting locations, Blackness Castle, also featured in the popular TV series Outlander, where it was used to represent Fort William.
Blackness Castle Istock Images
23. Next year will see the release of another film chronicling the history of the King of Scots, Robert the Bruce (2019), which will feature Glaswegian actor Angus Macfadyen playing the title role – the same character as he played in 1995’s Braveheart.
24. The film culminates in an epic and brutal battle scene, which sees Robert the Bruce and his 500-strong army of Scots go up against more than 3000 English troops.
25. Chris Pine’s full-frontal nude scene in the film has caused quite a stir, but the actor admits he doesn’t know what all the fuss is about. He believes the reaction has revealed gender-related ‘double standards’, because nobody commented on his female co-star’s nudity, suggesting there is more of an expectation for women to strip off for the big screen.
26. The cast and crew returned to the medieval Borthwick Castle, one of the filming locations, for the international press launch. The event was attended by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, and beer was provided by Loch Leven Brewery.
27. Outlaw King is produced by Sigma Films – a Glasgow-based film production company, co-founded by the film’s director David Mackenzie. It’s the company behind films such as Red Road (2006), Starred Up (2013) and Under the Skin (2013).
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You are here: Netherlands worldwide Latest News Benelux Seminar: 60 years of cooperation celebrated in Ireland
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Benelux Seminar: 60 years of cooperation celebrated in Ireland
News item | 19-10-2018 | 15:56
On the 18th of October the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade oF Ireland hosted a seminar, in collaboration with the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg Embassies, celebrating the 60th anniversary of Benelux cooperation, on the topic ‘Amplifying the voice of smaller Member States in the EU’
Keynote Speaker Ms. Caroline de Gruyter
©DUB
The seminar was hosted at the beautiful Iveagh House, the home of the Department OF Foreign Affairs and Trade. Renowned Dutch journalist and writer Caroline de Gruyter gave the keynote address, focusing on the joint interest of smaller Member States OF the European Union, post Brexit. Smaller countries, in her view, will need to rely on each other more and, realising their common interest, have started building new coalitions. Caroline de Gruyter's engaging keynote speech initiated an exchange of views between panel members and the audience, astutely moderated by Ms. Noelle O’Connell, Executive Director of the European Movement Ireland.
The panel consisted of, alongside Ms. De Gruyter, Mr. Thomas Antoine, Secretary General of the Benelux Union, Dr. Mario Hirsch, Visiting Senior Research fellow of the EU Institute for Security Studies, Prof. Alexander Mattelaer, Director of European Affairs at the Egmont Institute and Mr. Bobby McDonagh, former ambassador of Ireland to the UK, Italy and the EU. Tellingly, Ms. O’Connell opened the discussion with the followig quote from First Vice-President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans: “there are two kinds of Member States in Europe: small ones, and those who don’t know yet they are small”.
The seminar panel
Image: ©DUB / DUB
Mr. Antoine said that both the Benelux and the EU should strive to be more than simply the sum of their Member States. The Benelux is, in his view, an example of successful, intensive cooperation between different countries, working on concrete projects for combating euroscepticism and hostility to the EU. The panel shared the lessons that they take from 60 years of Benelux. It reiterated the value of networking amongst EU Member States and how cooperation between groups of Member States only serves to strengthen the EU. In the ensuing discussion with the audience the importance was stressed of keeping the Benelux pilot light burning.
Belgian Ambassador to Ireland Pierre-Emmanuel De Bauw concluded the seminar, which was followed by an engaging reception. Secretary General of the Irish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Niall Burgess, spoke some words of thanks to the guests, amongst whom was our own SG, Ms. Yoka Brandt. Throughout the seminar and subsequent reception, the late Ambassador of the Netherlands to Ireland, Mr. Peter Kok, who recently passed away, was also fondly remembered, not only for having initiated this event but also for his enthusiasm for continued Benelux and European cooperation and close Irish relations.
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Newbury man jailed for drunken threats to kill
Revenge attack after sexual assault allegation
John Garvey
chris.ord@newburynews.co.uk
A NEWBURY man who terrorised the woman who wrongly accused him of sexual assault has been jailed.
Last year a jury found Liam Mason, of The Oaks, not guilty of sexually assaulting her.
But, by then, the false allegation had already cost the 31-year-old his job as a fork-lift truck driver.
And so, late one night, after drinking heavily, he stormed round to the woman's house and began banging on the window so hard she and her mother thought it would smash.
Mike Mason, prosecuting, told Reading Crown Court on Thursday, June 29, that, as he hammered on the glass, Mason repeatedly swore while screaming: “Open the door – I’m going to get you. Watch your step because I’m going to kill you. Be careful when you go out on your own. I’m going to have you – I’m not kidding.”
As they cowered inside, expecting the glass to shatter any second, the pair dialled 999 and Mason was arrested.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, the woman said the incident had ruined her life, that she had had to give up work because she was now terrified of men and felt suicidal.
She added: “I suffer greatly with sleepless nights or nightmares involving Liam.
“I’m terrified of what he will do next. “He’s been telling everyone he won’t let it go. I’ve been physically shaking and unable to breathe.
“I’ve lost my confidence and have to have someone with me at all times.
“I constantly check the doors and windows to make sure they’re locked.”
The woman’s mother said in a statement that, since the incident: “I can’t sleep at night and don’t like people walking near, or behind, me.”
Mr Mason reminded the court of the need to “protect the integrity of the criminal justice system” and added that the defendant’s actions were “clearly premeditated”.
Mason initially denied threatening to take revenge on his accuser by making verbal threats to her on April 15 last year, but changed his plea to guilty on the day the trial was due to take place.
In addition he has one previous conviction for fraud and two for breaching the consequent court orders, the judge was told.
Kellie Enever, defending, said her client had suffered greatly as a result of the sex assault charge, despite his eventual acquittal.
She said his boss had dismissed him from his forklift driving job, telling him: “We’ve got women that work here – you can’t continue.”
The trial had strained Mason’s relationship with his partner, said Ms Enever and he lost friends.
She added: “People think: ‘There’s no smoke without fire.’
“The consequences for him were far-reaching and they continue to this day.
“He just didn’t think of the consequences of his actions that night.”
Judge Angela Morris told Mason: “Accused of a sexual assault, you allowed the criminal justice system to take its course and, at the end of it, you were acquitted.
“That should have been the end of it. Unfortunately, it was not.
“You took it upon yourself to go to the house and bang on the door and windows and make verbal threats to kill her and warn her to be careful because you were going to get her.”
Judge Morris said she had taken into consideration the fact that this was an impulsive act born out of drunken frustration.
However, she added: “If anyone should have known that they cannot take the law into their own hands, it should have been you, Mr Mason.
“People must understand that if they do choose to take the law into their own hands before, during or after the criminal trial process is concluded, then the rule of law and the criminal justice system would collapse.”
Mason was jailed for 12 months and ordered to pay a statutory victim services surcharge of £140.
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Should universities favor ethnic minorities?
Should the outcome of an ongoing legal battle put an end to positive discrimination in university applications, the resulting loss of diversity would be bad news for all students
What’s the best way for universities to promote diversity?
By Rebecca Searles
When Abigail Fisher’s application to study at the University of Texas at Austin was met with rejection, she didn’t take the rebuff lying down. Fisher, a 23-year-old white woman, sued the university, alleging that she had been discriminated against because of her race – a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
Universities around the US practice affirmative action – favoring students from ethnic minorities. Should Fisher win her case, the practice, which is already banned in California, Washington state, and Florida, could be outlawed across the country. But would a ban benefit students?
The University of Texas (UT) accepts the top-performing 10 per cent of students from each high school in the state. The remainder of the university’s intake – roughly 15 per cent – is made up of candidates who pass assessments based on academic and personal criteria, including race.
Proponents of affirmative action argue that students from ethnic minorities are more likely to come from families with a lower socioeconomic status, and could be expected to achieve lower educational attainment and poorer earnings than their white peers. Affirmative action, it is argued, goes some way to leveling the playing field for these students, who might have the potential, but not the grades, to succeed.
But an ethnically diverse learning environment appears to benefit all students, regardless of their race.
That’s what John Matlock and his colleagues at the University of Michigan found when they tracked a group of 400 undergraduates between 1990 and 1994. The team discovered that ethnically diverse brainstorming groups, for example, came up with more feasible and effective ideas than those composed only of white students.
The big ban
Affirmative action policies do create more ethnically diverse student populations. Since UT implemented its policies in 2004, the enrollment of African American students has doubled, while the enrollment of Hispanic students has increased by 50 per cent.
Should affirmative action policies be banned, the university could expect to see the same decline in enrollment of students from ethnic minorities that universities in California have experienced. In a study published in 2012, Kate Antonovics and her colleagues at the University of California, San Diego, found that, since affirmative action policies were banned in 1998, the percentage of students from ethnic minorities enrolled at the Los Angeles campus decreased by 25 per cent.
“The problem isn’t that [ethnic minority students] have stopped applying, they’re just not coming to the table with the same set of academic credentials,” says Antonovics.
To restore racial diversity without using explicit racial criteria, University of California schools have altered their admissions policies to implicitly favor minorities. At Berkeley, for instance, a prospective student’s parent’s language and education level – factors that can correlate to underrepresented minorities – are considered alongside academic results.
“Banning affirmative action is such a fascinating thing, because you’re not taking away universities’ interest in promoting diversity, you’re just forcing them to think about it in different ways,” Antonovics says.
However, these policies aren’t as effective as affirmative action in increasing diversity, says Antonovics.
Jumping through hoops
Should Fisher v. University of Texas eventually put a halt to affirmative action programs in the US by setting a nationwide legal precedent, Antonovics says we can expect to see more universities getting creative with their admissions policies.
“One of the negative consequences of banning affirmative action is that universities do start to go through all of these hoops,” she says. “But in switching around admissions rules, it’s not clear that you’re actually helping – you run the risk of lowering the quality of your academic background in the name of promoting racial diversity.”
A better way for universities to generate and maintain diversity may be by emphasizing outreach programs that tackle the problem earlier in students’ academic careers.
“I think it is time for colleges to become far more involved with, and partner with, schools at the elementary and middle-school levels,” says Noliwe Rooks, an associate professor of Africana Studies at Cornell University, New York.
Whether affirmative action is a good or bad thing, diversity is, for many reasons, very important to colleges. “Universities believe that there are social and academic benefits that go along with interactions with people from different racial and economic groups,” Antonovics says. “And from a political standpoint, for public universities, it’s problematic when they don’t represent the population of the state. They want to show that people from all walks of life can succeed.”
The lay of the law
Over the past 35 years, the outcomes of five important legal battles have been shaping colleges’ admissions policies
1978 – Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
A Caucasian student claimed that UC Davis School of Medicine’s admissions policy violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, after he was twice denied admission, despite having higher test scores than many admitted applicants. The ruling said that schools cannot exclude applicants based on race, but they can use it as a “plus” factor alongside academic criteria.
1996 – Hopwood v. Texas
Four rejected white applicants sued the UT Law School, claiming the school’s affirmative action program gave unfair preference to less qualified minorities. The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found the Bakke decision invalid and banned affirmative action in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
1998 – Farmer v. Ramsay
After being rejected from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Rob Farmer filed suit for admissions discrimination, arguing that his grades were higher than those of accepted black students. A federal judge dismissed the case in 2001, holding that the denial of admission was based on academic credentials, not race.
2003 – Grutter v. Bollinger
Caucasian Barbara Grutter filed suit against University of Michigan Law School for racial discrimination in admissions. The Supreme Court upheld the school’s affirmative action policy, ruling that it used race as a “plus” factor only, and considered such efforts constitutional because they narrowly considered race in the compelling interest of promoting diversity. This overturned the Hopwood decision, and ruled that affirmative action policies are not unconstitutional.
Ongoing – Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin
When she was denied admission in 2008, Caucasian Abigail Fisher filed suit against UT for discrimination on the basis of race. While the District Court and Fifth Circuit court both ruled in the University’s favor, the Supreme Court decided in June to remand the case for further consideration by the lower courts.
This article appeared in print under the headline “The race question”
Magazine issue 2936 , published 28 September 2013
Leaky microwaves can power your kitchen gadgets
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Books on Asberger's and autism
By BETH WHITEHOUSE beth.whitehouse@newsday.com Updated March 26, 2010 5:34 PM
"The Best Kind of Different: Our Family's Journey With Asperger's Syndrome" (William Morrow, $25.99) by Shonda Schilling with an introduction by her husband, retired Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, tells the story of the Schillings' son Grant's life with Asperger's syndrome.
"Healing Our Autistic Children: A Medical Plan for Restoring Your Child's Health" (Palgrave Macmillan, $18) is part author Dr. Julie Buckley's personal struggle to help her autistic daughter, part guide for parents about new treatments and diets. Buckley is a pediatrician who specializes in autism disorders.
"Growing Up on the Spectrum: A Guide to Life, Love and Learning for Teens and Young Adults with Autism and Asperger's" (Penguin, $16) by Lynn Kern Koegel and Claire Lazebnik is a guide to helping teens with autism. It's written by the authors of "Overcoming Autism." It's separated into five sections: friendship, romantic relationships, schooling, life beyond the college years and improving daily life.
"Making Sense of Autistic Spectrum Disorders: Create the Brightest Future for Your Child with the Best Treatment Options" (Bantam, $25) by Dr. James Coplan includes descriptions of leading intervention programs and state-of-the-art medications. Coplan is a neurodevelopmental pediatrician who specializes in assessment of autistic children.
By BETH WHITEHOUSE beth.whitehouse@newsday.com
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Ed Miliband's speech to the Fabian conference: full text
Read the Labour leader's first speech of the new year on how "One Nation" Labour will reshape the economy.
By Ed Miliband
It is great to be here at the Fabians.
Today I want to talk to you about the idea of One Nation.
The idea of a country which we rebuild together, where everyone plays their part.
It is not an idea rooted in Fabian pamphlets.
Though I bow to nobody in being an avid reader of them.
It is not an idea either rooted in academic studies of Sweden or any other country.
Though as some of you know, again I can talk at length about these subjects too.
It is an idea rooted deep in British history.
Because it is rooted deep in the soul of the British people.
Deep in the daily way we go about our lives.
Our relationships with our family, our friends, our neighbours.
We know this idea is a deep part of our national story because we have so many different ways of describing it.
“All hands to the pump.”
“Mucking in.”
“Pulling your weight.”
“Doing your bit.”
And every day we see it at work in our country.
On Christmas Day, I helped out somebody down the street from me who makes Christmas lunches for elderly people in the area living on their own, it’s that spirit.
The same spirit we saw last year in the Olympic Games.
Now because this idea is so much part of who we are as a nation, of how we think of ourselves, all politicians try to embrace it.
But its real potential, and what I want to talk about today, comes when we understand the deeper lesson for the way we run our country.
Turning this spirit of collective endeavour, of looking out for each other, from something we do in our daily lives, to the way our nation is run.
That is what One Nation Labour is about.
Taking the common decency and values of the British people and saying we must make it the way we run the country as well.
And why does this idea - the idea of One Nation - speak so directly to the state of Britain today?
Because we are so far from being One Nation.
While a very few people at the top are doing well, so many people feel their prospects diminishing, their insecurity rising.
They feel on their own.
Not part of a common endeavour.
You know, a young woman came up to me recently and told me she had decided to go to University in Holland because she said she couldn’t afford to do so in Britain.
Believe it or not, to a government minister her departure will seem a success because if more people leave the country it will help them meet their net migration target.
But it doesn’t feel like a success to me to have talented young people fleeing abroad.
In Britain that young woman doesn’t feel part of a country where she can play her part, she feels on her own.
And it’s not just our young people who are finding it so hard to do their bit.
There are so many people across Britain who want to play their part but don’t feel they can.
Those running small businesses are struggling just to keep their business afloat in the face of rising energy bills and banks that won’t help.
They don’t feel part of a Britain we rebuild together, they feel on their own.
And then take all the people struggling to make ends meet, to pay the bills, doing two or three jobs, they feel on their own with nobody on their side.
So what do so many people in Britain have in common today?
They believe the system is rigged against them.
They believe that the country isn’t working for them.
And you know, it’s not that any of them thinks Britain owes them a living or an easy life.
All they want is a sense of hope, they want to believe there is a vision for a future we can build together.
And that is why One Nation is such a powerful idea right now: because it is about our country and what it faces.
Can David Cameron answer this call for One Nation?
This week shows yet again why he can’t.
What did they call it on Monday?
The Ronseal re-launch.
But what did we discover?
The tin was empty.
And they have no vision for the country.
And what have we also seen this week?
The appalling attempt to denigrate all those who are looking for work.
To pretend that a Bill that hits 7 million working people is somehow promoting responsibility.
And all the time an attempt to divide the country between so-called scroungers and strivers.
To point the finger of blame at others, so people don’t point the finger of blame at this government.
Nasty, divisive politics which we should never accept.
It should be the first duty of any Prime Minister to be able to walk in the shoes of others.
This week he has shown he just can’t do it.
No empathy.
And no vision either.
So my overwhelming feeling in looking at this government is simple:
Britain can do better than this.
I have said what it means to be a One Nation Prime Minister.
To strive always to walk in the shoes of others.
But One Nation tells us more than that.
It tells us that we need to bring the country together so everyone can play their part.
And let me explain what One Nation is about in our economy, our society and our politics.
Let me start with the economy.
One Nation Labour is about reshaping our economy from its foundations, so that all do have the opportunity to play their part, not just a few.
And to understand what a One Nation economy means, we need to recognise how it differs from what New Labour did and also how it differs from the current government.
New Labour rightly broke from Old Labour and celebrated the power of private enterprise to energise our country.
It helped get people back into work, and introduced the minimum wage and tax credits to help make work pay.
And it used tax revenues to overcome decades of neglect and invest in hospitals, schools and the places where people live.
There are millions of people who have better lives because of those decisions.
It is a far cry from what we see today.
We’re back to the old trickle-down philosophy.
Cut taxes for the richest.
For everyone else, increase insecurity at work to make them work harder.
In other words, for the 99 per cent: you’re on your own.
Sink or swim.
For the top 1 per cent: we’ll cut your taxes.
We don’t need a crystal ball to know what this will mean, because the last two and a half years have shown us.
Business as usual at the banks, squeezed living standards, a stagnating economy.
No plan for rebuilding the British economy.
But the One Nation Labour solution is not to say that we need to go back to the past, to carry on as we did in government.
One Nation Labour learns the lessons of the financial crisis.
It begins from the truth that New Labour did not do enough to take on the vested interests and bring about structural change in our economy.
To make it an economy that works for the many not just the few.
From the banks on our high streets to the City of London to the big energy companies.
Now, New Labour did challenge the old trickle-down economics by redistributing from the top.
But again it didn’t do enough to change our economy so that it grew from the middle out, not from the top down.
One Nation Labour is explicitly about reshaping our economy so that it can help what I call the forgotten wealth creators of Britain.
The millions of men and women who work the shifts, put in the hours.
Who are out to work while George Osborne’s curtains are still closed.
And are still out at work when he has gone to bed.
Those who have gone to university and those who haven’t.
The people who don’t take home millions or hundreds of thousands, but make a hard, honest and difficult living.
These are the people on whom our future national prosperity truly depends.
So what do we need to do today?
We need to reform our economy.
To take on the vested interests that block the opportunities for our small businesses and for all the other forgotten wealth-creators.
We need a new deal for our small businesses who have been let down by the banks.
We have to tackle short-termism in the City to enable companies to play their part to contribute to long-term wealth creation.
We have to work with business radically to reform our apprenticeships and vocational education, so we use the talents of all young people, including the 50 per cent who don’t go to University.
And we have to promote a living wage to make work pay.
That is the way that we rebuild our economy.
From the middle out.
Not from the top down.
That’s what One Nation Labour is about in the economy.
So we learn the lesson of New Labour’s successes, embracing wealth creation.
We learn the lessons of what it didn’t do well enough, reshaping our economy and creating shared prosperity.
And we recognise there will be less money around because of the deficit we inherit.
That’s why Ed Balls rightly came to this conference last year, to say if we were in government today we would have to put jobs in the public sector ahead of pay increases.
And in a way that we did not have to be under New Labour, we will have to be ruthless in the priorities we have. And clear that we will have to deliver more with less.
So One Nation Labour adapts to new times, in particular straitened economic circumstances.
And the power of the idea of One Nation also shapes the kind of society I believe in.
One Nation Labour is based on a Britain we rebuild together.
That means sharing the vision of a common life, not a country divided by class, race, gender, income and wealth.
And that’s so far from where we are in Britain today.
We can only build that kind of society, where we share a common life, if people right across it, from top to bottom, feel a sense of responsibility to each other.
Now, New Labour, unlike Old Labour, pioneered the idea of rights and responsibilities.
From crime to welfare to anti-social behaviour, it was clear that we owe duties to each other as citizens.
It knew we do not live as individuals on our own.
And it knew that strong confident communities are the way that you build a strong confident nation.
All of this is so far again from what we have seen from this government.
This government preaches responsibility.
But do nothing to make it possible for people to play their part.
They demand people work, but won’t take the basic action to ensure that the work is available.
They talk about a “big society”.
But then it makes life harder for our charities, our community groups.
But here again the answer is not simply to carry on where we left off in government.
New Labour was right to talk about rights and responsibilities but was too timid in enforcing them, especially at the top of society.
And it was too sanguine about the consequences of rampant free markets which we know can threaten our common way of life.
Learning from our history, One Nation Labour is clear that we need to do more to create a society where everyone genuinely plays their part.
A One Nation country cannot be one:
Where Chief Executive pay goes up and up and up and everybody else’s is stagnant.
Where major corporations are located in Britain, sell in Britain, make profits in Britain but do not pay taxes in Britain.
And where at the top of elite institutions, from newspapers to politics, some people just seem to believe that the rules do not apply to them.
To turn things round in Britain, we all have to play our part.
Especially in hard times.
We are right to say that responsibility should apply to those on social security.
But we need to say that responsibility matters at the top too.
That’s the essence of One Nation Labour.
It shares New Labour’s insight about our obligations to each other.
And it learns the lessons of what New Labour didn’t do well enough, ensuring responsibilities go all the way through society from top to bottom.
And what does One Nation Labour mean for the way we do our politics?
It starts from the idea that people should have more power and control over their lives, so that everyone feels able to play their part, not left on their own.
New Labour began with a bold agenda for the distribution of power in Britain.
And it stood for a Labour party not dominated by one sectional interest, but reaching out into parts of Britain that Old Labour had never spoken to.
Inviting people from all walks of life to join the party and to play their part.
It wanted too, to open up our system of government and oversaw the biggest Constitutional changes for generations, including devolution to Scotland and Wales.
The contrast with this government is clear.
The way they operate, the high-handed arrogance of their way of doing things.
They cannot claim to be opening up politics.
And they certainly cannot claim to be rooted in the lives of the British people.
But once again we have to move on from New Labour, as well as from this government.
Because although New Labour often started with the right intentions, over time it did not do enough to change the balance of power in this country.
That was true of the Labour Party itself.
Of our democracy.
And of our public services.
By the time we left office, too many people in Britain didn’t feel as if the Labour party was open to their influence, or listening to them.
Take immigration.
I am proud to celebrate the multi-ethnic, diverse nature of Britain.
But high levels of migration were having huge effects on the lives of people in our country.
And too often those in power seemed not to accept this.
The fact that they didn’t explains partly why people turned against us in the last general election.
So we must work to ensure that it never happens again.
And what is the lesson for One Nation Labour?
It is to change the way that power and politics works in our own Party right away.
That is what you will be seeing from One Nation Labour in 2013.
Opening up in new ways.
Recruiting MPs from every part of British life: from business to the military to working people from across every community.
Seeking support in every part of the United Kingdom, across the South of the country as well as the North.
Building a party that is dedicated to working with people to help them improve their own lives—even before government.
So for example, Labour Party members going to door to door offering people practical to help switch energy suppliers and cut their bills.
Creating a policy-making process that enables people directly to shape our policies so that they reflect their own concerns.
Jonathan Primett from Chatham wrote to us recently, complaining about rogue landlords at a time when the private rented sector is growing fast in our country.
Today I want to respond to him.
Britain is in danger of having two nations divided between those who own their one homes and those who rent.
If we are going to build One Nation, people who rent their homes should have rights and protections as well.
That’s about rooting out the rogue landlords.
Stopping families being ripped off by letting agents.
And giving new security to families who rent.
So we will introduce a national register of landlords, to give greater powers for local authorities to root out and strike off rogue landlords.
We will end the confusing, inconsistent fees and charges in the private rented sector.
And we will seek to give greater security to families who rent and remove the barriers that stand in the way of longer term tenancies.
That is a real example of how a One Nation Labour Party, by opening up our politics, is responding to the new challenges that the British people care about today.
One Nation Labour is also practising a new approach to campaigning—through community organising—which doesn’t just seek to win votes but build new relationships in every part of Britain.
For example, taking up local issues from high streets dominated by betting shops to taking on payday loan companies.
And, of course, a One Nation Labour government should open up too.
If devolution to Scotland and Wales is right, so it must be right that the next Labour government devolves power to local government in England.
And reforms our public services so that the people who use them and the people that work in them, feel as if they have a real chance of shaping the way they operate.
That’s the way to ensure we can all work together, to rebuild our country, with everyone playing their part.
That’s what One Nation Labour is about.
It learns the lesson of New Labour’s successes, seeking to reach out to parts of Britain that Old Labour ignored.
It learns the lessons of what it didn’t do well enough, of where New Labour left people behind.
And it recognises that in 2013, as the world has changed, politics has to change with it.
I talked about it in my Labour Party conference speech a few months ago about why I came into politics.
It was because of my personal faith.
A faith that we are better, stronger together than when we are on our own.
A faith that when good people come together they can overcome any odds.
For me, that’s what One Nation Labour is all about.
This faith isn’t unique to me.
It is deeply rooted in our country.
One Nation Labour is different from the current government.
And from New Labour and Old Labour too.
It will take on the vested interests in order to reshape our economy in the interests of all.
It will insist on responsibility throughout society, including at the top so we can build a united, not divided, Britain.
It will strive to spread power as well as working for prosperity.
We must build One Nation.
It is what the British people demand of us.
And, together, it is what we can achieve.
› The EU question exposes our leaders' flimsy slogans
Labour leader Ed Miliband said One Nation Labour was about "reshaping our economy from its foundations". Photograph: Getty Images.
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A City Neglected
By The New Yorker
I arrived in New Orleans two days after the levees broke in 2005 and spent much of the following nine months here, writing about the disaster of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath for The New Yorker. Now I am back for four months, with Margaret, my wife and writing partner, to work on a book and to keep this online journal.
The drive from Colorado took us three days, with stops in Texas, to visit a former New Orleans cop, and at the old Louisiana statehouse, to finger the bullet-pocked marble from the assassination of Huey Long. Pulling into New Orleans on Wednesday, under a cold, iron-gray sky, I was surprised, first at how much had changed, and then at how little. The French Quarter, the Garden District, and the yuppie-trendy Magazine Street neighborhood locally known as the Isle of Denial did not flood during Katrina, and when I last visited, in May, they were up and running. But now big swatches of Mid-City, where the depth finder in the bass boat I’d ridden in during the flood had registered ten feet of water, had come to life. The razor-straight lines of black filth that slashed the façades of the houses along Carrollton Avenue from Interstate 10 to City Park had mostly been scrubbed away. Stores and restaurants were open, blue tarps were gone from rooftops, children played on stoops. The barbecued-shrimp po’boy at Liuzza’s by the Track was as fiery and briny as ever. Traffic was positively annoying.
Beyond the Industrial Canal, the Lower Ninth Ward seemed frozen in time, ruined and vacant, as it was more than a year ago. I revisited two iconic Lower Nine houses that stand within sight of each other. One, knifed in half by a fallen tree and rotted from within by eighteen months of rainwater, still had spray-painted across its front: “4 Sale As Is: $30,000.” The other: “Not for Sale at Any Price. I’m Staying Put.” Neither house looked as though it had attracted much attention from buyers or owners since I was last here. No surprise, really, that the Lower Nine languishes; the recent, thoroughly televised Senatorial visit was a fine reminder.
When I got out of the car and walked through the “functioning” parts of the city, I saw how beaten down they are. Beside a bustling restaurant on Carrollton Avenue lay a field of rubble. Flanking a rebuilt apartment were townhouses that resembled skulls with plywood eyes. Most buildings needed paint. Street lights and traffic signals still dangled uselessly. Many houses stood vacant—peeling and splintered, with shattered windows. Worse, the people on the street had acquired the worn-out, hollow-eyed look of figures in a Walker Evans photograph—their shoulders hunched, their faces sallow and puffy, their voices flat. Within a couple of hours, two strangers separately told us that they were “over” New Orleans and scheming to leave.
New Orleans’s acute crisis seems to have lapsed into a chronic crisis; the vibe is one of siege. I felt the same sense of wonder we all felt in the days after Katrina: that the United States, with its wealth, its generosity, and its professed affection for the culture of this idiosyncratic little city, would stand aside and let New Orleans suffer alone. At first glance, there are improvements, but the overwhelming sense, this first day, was of a city neglected. You might say that the sky is still empty of helicopters.
We’re staying in a neighborhood about a mile east of, and just across the tracks from, the French Quarter. The Bywater is what locals call it, unless it serves them to say “Ninth Ward.” “Recovery is not a sprint, it’s a marathon,” a sign in the neighborhood admonishes, and it’s clear that not everyone will make it to the finish line. But even now, in as dark an hour as the city has ever faced, yellow, green, and purple decorations flutter everywhere as Mardi Gras season enters its fifth week. “The City That Care Forgot” may have become, as locals like to say, “The City That Bush Forgot,” but, regardless of what happens in Washington, it hasn’t yet decided to die.
The New Yorker offers a signature blend of news, culture, and the arts. It has been published since February 21, 1925.
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Packaging/Sterilization
December 1, 2018 | Medical | Test & Measurement | Markets | Packaging & Sterilization
Biaxial Testing of Medical Devices, Consumer Products, & Drug-Delivery Devices
Globally, the use of medical consumables continues to rise due to an aging population and the increasing prevalence of day surgeries. As the use of medical consumables continues to rise, the testing required to ensure that these products meet specifications also increases. Syringes and other medical products with Luer connectors are the most common medical consumables found in the industry, as they are used to connect a wide variety of medical products. Luer connections come in two forms: either a slip or tapered connection, or a threaded locking connection. Most commonly, Luer connectors are used to connect a needle to a syringe body or to connect various types of medical tubing (such as a catheter) to an IV bag, or a needle to catheter.
When considering a biaxial test machine, users should carefully assess the method development procedure. (Credit: Instron)
In order to measure both the safety and usability properties of these products, they must be tested with a biaxial system that measures both force and torque simultaneously. Traditionally, biaxial systems are difficult to set up, require specialized operator training, and require complex software programming. In addition, a variety of mechanical testing equipment suppliers offer different types of biaxial test systems that can further confuse users. This article discusses the most common biaxial tests performed in the medical device and pharmaceutical industries, as well as discuss the differences between biaxial test systems and what users should consider before designing a testing protocol.
When and Why to Test
Biaxial testing of Luer connectors that are used to connect a needle to a syringe body is one of the most common uses of this type of mechanical test. (Credit: Instron)
In practice, assembling the Luer slip or Luer lock connector requires a healthcare practitioner to apply an axial downward force onto the connector while simultaneously rotating the connector to lock it into place. Due to the simultaneous pushing and twisting motion required to assemble a Luer connection, Luer slip and lock testing is one of the most common biaxial tests in the medical device industry. ISO 80369-20 outlines the mechanical testing procedures for testing a variety of connection properties of Luer connectors including assembly, as well as various properties associated with overriding and disconnecting the connector.
In addition to testing Luer locks and slips, another common need for biaxial testing in the medical device industry is for testing bone screws. Bone screws are most commonly made from titanium due to the fact that titanium's inertness, biocompatibility, and mechanical strength closely match those of bone. In cases of severe fracture, bone screws are most commonly used to hold a fracture fixation plate in place, which allows the bone to heal in the correct orientation. In many cases, a fracture fixation plate and bone screws are temporary, and the patient must undergo a second surgery to remove them once the bone is fully healed. In order to ensure easy insertion and removal, bone screws are most commonly tested to the ASTM F543 standard. ASTM F543 is composed of four testing annexes that are designed to quantify a bone screw's insertion properties, override properties, axial pull-out properties, and, when applicable, the self-tapping properties of self-tapping bone screws. Unsurprisingly, the testing of bone screws requires measurement of force, axial displacement, torque, and rotational displacement, thus requiring a biaxial testing system.
Biaxial testing is extremely common in the orthopedics industry, and despite bone screw testing being more of a static biaxial test, most biaxial testing performed on orthopedic devices is designed to measure fatigue. For example, ASTM F1717 describes test methods for quantifying the axial and torsional properties of spinal fixation devices in fatigue. Orthopedic applications require linear-torsion fatigue testing because orthopedic devices remain permanently implanted in a patient's body, and most withstand at least a decade of wear.
While biaxial testing is very common in the medical device industry, packaging of consumer products such as childproof medicine bottles, mouthwash containers, and makeup containers also requires the same push and twist mechanism. Despite the simplicity of these applications, it is critical for global consumer brands to test their product's packaging to ensure both ease of use as well as safety. In many cases the packaging is just as important as the product inside, and if the package is difficult to open or easily opened by a child, the repercussions could be catastrophic.
Focusing further on product usability, many manufacturers of high-end products require the usability of their products to be superior to that of their competition. With a biaxial test system, packaging labs can simulate a variety of product-use cases to quantify product usability attributes and ensure that their products are performing up to the desired standard. For example, a high-end makeup brand can test a variety of usability properties on the packaging of mascara, lipstick, and other cosmetics by determining the torque needed to unscrew a mascara wand while maintaining a zero axial force on the container, followed by an axial tensile test to determine the force require to pull the mascara wand out of the mascara container. While this is one simple example of biaxial testing on a consumer product, the biaxial testing on consumer packaging is nearly limitless.
Choosing the Right Test System
Biaxial testing systems are used to measure axial and torsional forces required to insert and remove bone screws. (Credit: Instron)
From Luer connectors and spinal implants to mascara containers, with such a variety of biaxial testing applications, it can be difficult for users to determine what type of biaxial test system is right for them. In general, biaxial test systems can be broken down into three different types of systems: torsional test systems that allow users to use dead-weights to hold a static force, static biaxial test systems that allow for full axial test control and simple rotational control, and biaxial fatigue test systems that allow for full axial and torsional test control.
Torsion systems that allow users to use dead-weights to hold a static axial force are often the simplest systems. Many users prefer these test systems when rotational or torque testing is the primary mode of test control. More specifically, applications that require a product or material to be held in tension or compression and rotated or twisted to failure are best suited for torsion-only systems. In addition, labs that need to quantify shear stress, shear strain, or shear modulus are best suited for a torsion system, as this identifies that rotation or torque is the primary mode of control.
Static biaxial test systems that allow full axial test control and simple rotation are most commonly used for Luer connectors, bones screws, and consumer products given the versatility of these testing systems. Universal testing systems, also known as static test systems, are most commonly used for tension, compression, and simple cyclic testing. Often a rotational unit can be added to this test system (this is often referred to as a torsion add-on). Static test systems equipped with a torsion addon are designed for simultaneous axial and rotational testing. One common requirement of users testing medical devices, specifically Luer connectors, is the ability to hold a torque value during a test, while simultaneously performing some sort of axial control. When users look to identify a biaxial test system for Luer lock testing to ISO 80369, it is critical that users choose a system that is capable of holding a torque value while also having the full ability to control the axial testing parameters of linear displacement and force.
As mentioned, linear-torsion fatigue test systems are most commonly used in the orthopedic industry. However, biaxial fatigue testing also extends to other industries that require long-term fatigue characterization such as dental and aerospace applications. While bone screw testing is most commonly conducted on static test systems with a torsion add-on, some laboratories perform bone screw testing using a linear-torsion fatigue system. It is important to note that nearly all testing performed on a torsion-only system and a static biaxial test system can also be performed on a linear-torsion fatigue system. One of the primary reasons why a lab would choose bone screw testing on a linear-torsion fatigue system is if the lab has other applications that require fatigue testing. This is very common in orthopedics labs, as the majority of orthopedic devices have to be tested to simulate years of use in a patient's body.
While there are a variety of mechanical testing systems on the market that can be used to measure force, axial displacement, torque, and rotational displacement, one of the most important differences impacting their users is the type of software used to program these systems. Biaxial testing requires dual-axis programming, which can be intimidating. Considering this, it is critical that the software be intuitive and easy to use. Research has shown that a touch-based user interface is most intuitive. Software programs that have been optimized for a touch interface tend to be easier to use, because the icons are larger and the interface is flat, which eliminates the need for the right-click mechanism and enables all parameters to be clearly displayed on one interface along with descriptive icons. A flat user interface is especially helpful for programming a test method for axial and rotational control.
When considering a biaxial test machine, users should carefully assess the method development procedure to ensure that the axial and rotational axis can easily be programmed for testing speed, and that starting and stopping axial and rotational control are easily set for a variety of scenarios. In additional to the software interface, the software program should have an extensive library of calculations that ensures the user has flexibility to automatically calculate test results. In many cases, as in Luer lock testing, ISO 80369 specifies multiple required steps in order to assemble and disconnect a Luer fitting. This requires multiple axial and rotational ramps or steps to be programmed, and a variety of duplicate calculations need to be reported. For instance, a maximum torque during assembly and maximum torque during disassembly both need to be reported in a given test.
Overall, when determining which biaxial test system is best for an application, users should consider their test requirements, the future requirements of their lab, and the flexibility and intuitiveness of the software program. While biaxial testing is often considered complex and difficult to program and set up, with an intuitive user interface, users can easily write testing methods without compromising on the flexibility or performance of the system.
This article was written by Elayne Gordonov, Biomedical Market Manager and Software Product Manager, Instron, Norwood, MA. For more information, visit here.
INSIDER: Markets
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April 24, 2019 | Materials | Wearables | Software
Patch Could Limit Muscle Damage after Heart Attack
Hearts with the computer optimized patch (second column from the left) remodeled less than those with no patch at all (far left column) and hearts patched with suboptimal properties (right columns). (Credit: Brown University)
Guided by computer simulations, an international team of researchers has developed an adhesive patch that can provide support for damaged heart tissue, potentially reducing the stretching of heart muscle that’s common after a heart attack.
The patch, made from a water-based hydrogel material, was developed using computer simulations of heart function in order to fine tune the material’s mechanical properties. A study in rats showed that the patch was effective in preventing left ventricle remodeling — a stretching of the heart muscle that’s common after a heart attack and can reduce the function of the heart’s main pumping chamber. The research also showed that the computer-optimized patch outperformed patches whose mechanical properties had been selected on an ad hoc basis.
To develop those principles, the researchers developed a computer model of a beating heart, which captured the mechanical dynamics of both the heart itself and the patch when fixed to the heart’s exterior. The team developed a hydrogel material made from food-sourced starch that could match the properties from the model. The key to the material is that it’s viscoelastic, meaning it combines fluid and solid properties. It has fluid properties up to a certain amount of stress, at which point it solidifies and becomes stiffer.
Biochemical markers showed that the patch reduced cell death, scar tissue accumulation and oxidative stress in tissue damaged by heart attack.
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Use this Reading Guide 15 minutes a day and become a cultivated scholar with all the elements of a liberal education in one year
Year Month Day 90 Day Challenge
Jan 1: FRANKLIN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Franklin's Advice for the New Year
"Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without
fail what you resolve"—was one of the rules for success
framed by America's first "self-made" man.
Read from FRANKLIN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY .......... Vol. I, pp. 79-85
Jan 2: MILTON'S POEMS
School-Day Poems of John Milton
At the age of sixteen, Milton first appeared before the public
eye as a promising young poet. These early verses, written while
he was a boy in school, indicate his brilliant future.
Read: MILTON'S POEMS ............................ Vol. 4, pp. 7-18
Jan 3: Cicero ON FRIENDSHIP
Cicero on Friendship
"Fire and water are not of more universal use than friendship"—
such is the high value put upon this great human relationship
by the most famous orator of Rome.
Read from Cicero ON FRIENDSHIP ............... Vol. 9, pp. 16-26
Jan 4: GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES
A Flounder Fish Story
A fisherman, so the story goes, once caught a flounder that spoke,
begging to be released. This was granted, whereupon the fisherman's
wife demanded that it grant her one miracle after another,
until even the flounder was disgusted.
Read from GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES ........................ Vol. 17, pp. 83-90
Jan 5: Mazzini's BYRON AND GOETHE
The Soaring Eagle and Contented Stork
Mazzini labored for the freedom of Italy, but was exiled. Byron
and Goethe also battled for liberty. Mazzini wrote an essay
in which he compared Byron to a soaring eagle and Goethe to
a contented stork.
Read: Mazzini's BYRON AND GOETHE ........ Vol. 32, pp. 377-396
Jan 6: Virgil's AENEID
Warned by Hector's Ghost
In the dead of night Hector's ghost appeared to warn Aeneas
of the impending doom to come upon the walled city of Troy.
Aeneas lifted his aged father on his back and, taking his son by
the hand, sought safety in flight. Off to Latium!
Read from Virgil's AENEID .................. Vol. 13, pp. 109-127
Jan 7: THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
If He Yawned, She Lost Her Head!
The Sultan had a habit of beheading each dawn his beautiful
bride of the night before, until he encountered Scheherazade.
Cleverly she saved her life a thousand and one mornings.
Read from THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS ...... Vol. 16, pp. 5-13
Jan 8: THE BOOK OF JOB
Trying the Patience of Job
God was pleased with the piety of Job, but Satan accredited the
piety to Job's prosperity and happiness. So a trial was made.
See how each succeeding affliction visited on Job shook the
depths of his nature, and how he survived.
Read from THE BOOK OF JOB ................... Vol. 44, pp. 71-87
Jan 9: Nichol's SIR FRANCIS DRAKE REVIVED
A Treasure Hunt in Nombre de Dios
With only fifty-two men, Sir Francis Drake conceives the idea
of attacking his archenemy, Spain, at her most vulnerable point
the treasure at Nombre de Dios.
Read from Nichol's SIR FRANCIS DRAKE REVIVED .... Vol. 33, pp. 135-145
Jan 10: Euripides' THE BACCHAE
Where Love Lies Waiting
King Pantheus of Thebes contended against Dionysus, the God,
for the adoration of the Theban women. The god was winning
by bewitching the women when the king interceded. Euripides
tells the story in a masterpiece of Greek drama.
Read from Euripides' THE BACCHAE ......... Vol. 8, pp. 368-372
Jan 11: THE FEDERALIST
Hamilton—Father of Wall Street
Hamilton organized the Treasury Department. He penned
most of the Federalist papers, which were greatly influential
in bringing New York into the Union—the first step toward its
eminent position in national and world finance.
Read: THE FEDERALIST .................. Vol. 43, pp. 199-207
Jan 12: Burke ON TASTE
What Is Good Taste?
A Turkish sultan, relates Burke, when shown a picture of the
beheaded John the Baptist, praised many things, but pointed
out one gruesome defect. Did this observation show the sultan
to be an inferior judge of art?
Read: Burke ON TASTE ....................... Vol. 24, pp. 11-26
Jan 13: Rousseau's INQUIRY ON INEQUALITY
Rousseau Seeks Sanctuary in England
Rousseau taught that men were not created free and equal.
To substantiate his daring beliefs he traced man's history back
to his primitive beginnings. For his teachings, Rousseau was
forced to seek refuge in England.
Read from Rousseau's INQUIRY ON INEQUALITY ... Vol. 34, pp. 215-228
Jan 14: THE FUNDAMENTAL ORDERS OF CONNECTICUT
The First Step Toward Independence
The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut is "the first written
constitution as a permanent limitation on governmental power,
known in history." It is the work of the Connecticut Yankee.
Read: THE FUNDAMENTAL ORDERS OF CONNECTICUT ..... Vol. 43, pp. 60-65
Jan 15: THE RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM
"The Moving Finger Writes"
Omar Khayyam laughed and enjoyed the good things of life.
His "Rubaiyat," the most popular philosophic poem, is the best
of all books to dip into for an alluring thought.
Read from THE RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM ..... Vol. 41, pp. 943-953
Jan 16: AESOP'S FABLES
The Old Woman and the Wine Jar
An old woman once found a wine jar, but it was empty. She
sniffed at the mouth of the jar and said: "What memories cling
'round the instruments of our pleasure."
Read from AESOP'S FABLES ....... Vol. 17, pp. 43-44; also pp. 31-43
Jan 17: FRANKLIN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Franklin's Family Tree
Good middle-class people, Franklin boasts, were his ancestors.
Some have attributed his genius to his being the youngest son
of the youngest son for five generations. In his famous autobiography,
he reveals quaint family history.
Read from FRANKLIN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY ............... Vol. 1 , pp. 5-15
Jan 18: Aristophanes' THE FROGS
Origin of Yale "Brekekekex-Ko-ax"
"Shall I crack any of those old jokes, master, at which the audience
never fails to laugh?" Like an up-to-date vaudeville
team, Xanthias and Dionysus start off a dialogue that mingles
wit and poetry with humor and keen satire.
Read from Aristophanes' THE FROGS ............ Vol. 8, pp. 439-449
Jan 19: Poe's THE POETIC PRINCIPLE
Poe on Poetry
Regarded in Europe as one of America' s greatest writers, Poe
originated the detective story, perfected the mystery short story,
and produced America's first great poems. Here he unravels
the fabric of which all poetry is woven.
Read from Poe's THE POETIC PRINCIPLE ......... Vol. 28, pp. 371-380
Jan 20: Keats' EVE OF ST. AGNES
"Ah! It Is St. Agnes' Eve"
At midnight on the eve of St. Agnes there were certain solemn
ceremonies which all virgins must perform to have "visions of
delight and soft adorings from their loves." Porphyro took advantage
of this custom to win his bride.
Read: Keats' EVE OF ST. AGNES .................. Vol. 41, pp. 883-893
Jan 21: ANDERSEN'S TALES
The Nightingale's Healing Melody
The Emperor of China lies on his deathbed grieving for the
song of his favorite bird. Hark, the song! It charms, coaxes,
and bribes Death to depart. It brings new life to the master.
Read from ANDERSEN'S TALES ........... Vol. 17, pp. 301-310
Jan 22: Corneille's POLYEUCTE
A King's Pleasure Now Yours
The classic plays of French literature are produced to-day precisely
as when they were given for the resplendent kings they
were written to please. We are fortunate to have in English,
excellent translations of these noble plays.
Read from Corneille's POLYEUCTE ................ Vol. 26, pp. 77-87
Jan 23: Pascal's THE ART OF PERSUASION
Pascal Knew Men and Triangles
Pascal, the keen-minded philosopher and mathematician, fathomed
the human traits of man's nature with the same accurate
measurements which made him famous in the realm of geometry.
Read his searching analysis of man's conceit.
Read: Pascal's THE ART OF PERSUASION ......... Vol. 48, pp. 400-411
Jan 24: Homer's ODYSSEY
Odysseus Silenced the Sirens
When his ship approached the siren's rock, Odysseus stuffed
the ears of his crew with wax and had himself bound to the mast
that he might hear the alluring voice of the siren and yet not
wreck his ship on the enchanted rock.
Read from Homer's ODYSSEY .................. Vol. 22, pp. 165-173
Jan 25: TO A MOUSE and Burns' other poems
A Field Mouse Made Famous
A humble Scotchman, plowing his fields, turns over the nest of
a frightened mouse. He apologizes with the deepest sincerity
and explains how "the best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang
aft agley."
Read: To A MOUSE and Burns' other poems....... Vol. 6, pp. 119-120, 388-394
Jan 26: Herodotus' AN ACCOUNT OF EGYPT
In the Cradle of Civilization
A king who entombed his daughter in a golden cow—the worship
of the bull and the cat—scandal of the court and the gossip
of the temples is given by Herodotus in his delightful story of
old Egypt.
Read from Herodotus' AN ACCOUNT OF ECYPT ...... Vol. 33, pp. 65-75
Jan 27: Dante's DIVINE COMEDY
Dante and Beatrice in Paradise
Dante fell madly in love with Beatrice at first sight; but it is
doubted if he ever spoke to her in this world. He tells of his
happy meeting with Beatrice in Paradise.
Read from Dante's DIVINE COMEDY ...... Vol. 20, pp. 267-279
Jan 28: Thomas a Kempis
Man's Wings
A pure heart, says Thomas a Kempis, comprehends the very
depths of Heaven and Hell. And it is by the wings of simplicity
and purity that man is lifted above all earthly things.
Read from Thomas a Kempis ................. Vol. 7, pp. 242-249
Jan 29: Darwin's VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE
Visits the Land of Fire
South of Patagonia is Tierra del Fuego—"The Land of Fire."
The natives of that primitive country are to-day almost extinct.
Darwin made a careful and vitally interesting study of that land
and its ill-fated inhabitants.
Read from Darwin's VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE ..... Vol. 29, 209-221
Jan 30: Sophocles' ANTIGONE
First Problem Play Popular
Antigone, an orphan princess, defies a king's mandate and risks
her life to do her duty to her brother. What is this duty which
her brother calls her to perform and the king forbids?
Read from Sophocles' ANTIGONE ............. Vol. 8, pp. 255-266
Jan 31: DON QUIXOTE
What "Don Quixote " Really Slew
Slayer of windmills, rescuer of fair damsels in distress, eccentric
Don Quixote, scores of years behind his time, set out on a mad
quest of knight-errantry. Worlds of fun and killing satire are
in this absorbing story of Cervantes.
Read from DON QUIXOTE ....................... Vol. 14, pp. 60-67
Feb 1: Malory's THE HOLY GRAIL
King Arthur's Knights Find Holy Grail
The intrepid Knights of the Round Table were startled by
"crackling and crying of thunder" which rang through the great
hall of the castle. Then there entered " The Holy Grail covered
with white samite."
Read from Malory's THE HOLY GRAIL ...... Vol. 35, pp. 112-123
Feb 2: Shakespeare's HAMLET
"Apparel Oft Proclaims the Man "
Before his son, Laertes, departs for a foreign country, Polonius
advises him as to his conduct and dress, while Hamlet, the king's
son, has to learn by experience.
Read from Shakespeare's HAMLET ........... Vol. 46, pp. 107-120
Feb 3: Jonson's THE ALCHEMIST
A House of Mirth and Revelry
While the cat's away the mice will play. Boisterous and ludicrous
happenings occur in a house left in charge of a servant.
But in midst of merriment the master returns.
Read from Jonson's THE ALCHEMIST ......... Vol. 47, pp. 543-558
Feb 4: Carlyle's CHARACTERISTICS
"Genius, a Secret to Itself"
Thus wrote Carlyle, who affirms that great minds are unconscious
of their stupendous strength. And each of us has his
own peculiar mental attributes.
Read from Carlyle's CHARACTERISTICS ......... Vol. 25, pp. 319-327
Feb 5: THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
Trapped in a valley filled with huge diamonds guarded by
venomous serpents, Sindibad devised a clever means of escaping
with many of the glittering jewels.
Read from THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS ..... Vol. 16, pp. 243-250
Feb 6: Marlowe's EDWARD THE SECOND
Charles Lamb Suggests To-day's Reading
"The reluctant pangs of abdicating royalty in 'Edward' furnished
hints which Shakespeare scarcely improved in his 'Richard
the Second,' and the death scene of Marlowe's King moves to pity
and terror."—CHARLES LAMB.
Read from Marlowe's EDWARD THE SECOND ....... Vol. 46, pp. 73-89
Feb 7: LETTER TO LORD CHESTERFIELD
A Letter from a Lion
Johnson was not always a conventional guest. Graciously treated,
he responded in like manner, but offended, Johnson could wield
a pen dripping with vitriol.
Read: LETTER TO LORD CHESTERFIELD ......... Vol. 39, pp. 206-207
Feb 8: BURNS' POEMS
Tragic Death of a World-Famous Beauty
"But I, the Queen of a' Scotland, maun lie in prison Strang."
Burns sings of poor Mary bound by chains, yearning for the day
when flowers would "bloom on her peaceful grave."
Read from BURNS' POEMS ................... Vol. 6, pp. 396-406
Feb 9: Tacitus ON GERMANY
Rest Between Wars
Tacitus, the historian, visited the virile German tribes in their
primitive homes on the banks of the Rhine. He was surprised
to learn that the men so active and eager in war lolled in indolence
during the intervals between.
Read from Tacitus ON GERMANY .................... Vol. 33, pp. 93-102
Feb 10: Voltaire's LETTERS ON THE ENGLISH
No Fancy for a Plain Gentleman
Voltaire once visited Congreve. This famous dramatist requested
to be regarded only as a plain gentleman. "Had you been that
I should never have come to see you," Voltaire cynically
replies.
Read from Voltaire's LETTERS ON THE ENGLISH .... Vol. 34, pp. 130-140
Feb 11: Descartes' DISCOURSE ON METHOD
The Queen Freezes Her Philosophy
Descartes was slain through the eccentric whim of a queen who
demanded that he tutor her in the freezing dawn in the dead
of winter. His philosophy lives in this essay.
Read from Descartes' DISCOURSE ON METHOD .... Vol. 34, pp. 5-20
Feb 12: LINCOLN'S WRITINGS
Oxford Corrects Lincoln's Mistake
Lincoln himself thought his famous Gettysburg Address was a
failure. To-day the whole world acclaims its greatness. Cast
in bronze, it hangs on the wall of Balliol College, Oxford, regarded
as the perfection of English prose.
Read: LINCOLN'S WRITINGS ....................... Vol. 43, pp. 415-420
Feb 13: CELLINI'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
The Frank Story of an Amazing Life
At the age of fifty-eight Benvenuto Cellini shaved his head
and retired to a monastery to write his own story of murder, passion,
and great deeds of the Renaissance. His life is a vivid picture
of the most colorful period in history, a period when statecraft
and religion and black magic and assassination were naively
mingled in men's lives.
Read from CELLINI'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY .............. Vol. 31, pp. 68-80
Feb 14: Pascal's DISCOURSE ON THE PASSION OF LOVE
Love Always Young
Pascal—an original genius—purposed to master everything that
was new in art and science. He was a mathematician and scientist
as well as a religious enthusiast and moralist, and he shows a
decidedly human side of his nature in this superb essay on Love.
Read: Pascal's DISCOURSE ON THE PASSION OF LOVE ...... Vol. 48, pp. 411-421
Feb 15: Dryden's ALL FOR LOVE
The World Well Lost?
The romantic and heedless loves of Antony and Cleopatra figure
prominently in history, literature, and drama. Dryden made a
fascinating play from the story of Antony, who sacrificed the
leadership of Rome, reputation, and life itself for love of the
Egyptian queen, who followed h im in death.
Read from Dryden's ALL FOR LOVE ........... Vol. 18, pp. 53-69
Feb 16: Darwin's ORIGIN OF SPECIES
Social Circles Among Ants
Ants have slaves who work for them. These slaves make the
nests, feed the master ants, tend the eggs, and do the moving
when a colony of ants migrate. Darwin minutely describes the
habits and lives of the industrious ants and their marvelous social
organization—a wonder to mankind.
Read from Darwin's ORIGIN OF SPECIES ......... Vol. 11, pp. 264-268
Feb 17: Moliere's TARTUFFE
Death His Curtain Call
While acting in one of his own plays, Moliere was suddenly
stricken and died shortly after the final curtain. He took an important
role in "Tartuffe" which introduces to literature a character
as famous as Shakespeare's Falstaff.
Read from Moliere's TARTUFFE .................... Vol. 26, pp. 199-217
Feb 18: TREATY WITH GREAT BRITAIN
Lasting Peace with Great Britain
All Americans should know this treaty which finally inaugurated
an era of peace and good understanding with England.
For over a hundred years this peace has been unbroken.
Read: TREATY WITH GREAT BRITAIN (1814) ....... Vol. 43, pp. 255-264
Feb 19: BUDDHIST WRITINGS
Earthly Experience of a Chinese Goddess
The thousandth celestial wife of the Garland God slipped and
fell to earth, where she took mertal form and served as an attendant
in a temple. Death finally released her and she went
back to heaven to tell her lord of the ways of men.
Read from the BUDDHIST WRITINGS ............... Vol. 45, pp. 693-701
Voltaire Observes the Quakers
Because the early Quakers shook, trembled, and quaked when
they became inspired—they received the title of "Quakers." This
sect attracted the keen-minded Voltaire, who made interesting
notes on them during his visit to England.
Read from Voltaire's LETTERS ON THE ENGLISH .... Vol. 34, pp. 65-78
Feb 21: Newman's THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY
Does Football Make a College?
Just what makes a university? A group of fine buildings? A
library? A staff of well-trained teachers? A body of eager students?
A winning football team? Cardinal Newman defines
the prime functions of a university.
Read from Newman's THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY .... Vol. 28, pp. 31-39
Feb 22: BURNS' POEMS
An Ode for Washington's Birthday
Burns asks for Columbia's harp, and then sings of liberty. He
bewails the sad state of the land of Alfred and Wallace which
once championed liberty, and now fights for tyranny.
Read from BURNS' POEMS .................. Vol. 6, pp. 492-494
Feb 23: Stevenson's SAMUEL PEPYS
Pepys' Nose for News
Gossipy, witty Pepys had a curiosity that made him famous. He
knew all the news of court and street. Stevenson, who never
put his pen to a dull subject, writes of Pepys.
Read from Stevenson's SAMUEL PEPYS ..... Vol. 28, pp. 285-292
Feb 24: MILTON'S POEMS
Lights and Shadows of Milton
In a superb poem, Milton bids Loathed Melancholy begone to
some dark cell. He calls for the joys of youth and vows eternal
faith with them.
Read: MILTON'S POEMS ......................... Vol. 4, pp. 30-38
Feb 25: THE SHORTEST WAY WITH DISSENTERS
Punished for Too Sharp a Wit
The brilliant wit and cutting satire of Defoe made for him
friends and enemies—but mostly enemies. So piercing and twoedged
was "The Shortest-Way with Dissenters" that he was
fined, imprisoned and pilloried.
Read: THE SHORTEST-WAY WITH DISSENTERS ..... Vol. 27, pp. 133-147
Feb 26: HUGO'S PREFACE TO CROMWELL
A David Who Side-stepped Goliath
Hugo was insulted by the most powerful critics in France. He
put into the preface of a play "his sling and his stone" by which
others might slay "the classical Goliath."
Read: HUGO'S PREFACE TO CROMWELL ..... Vol. 39, pp. 337-349
Feb 27: LONGFELLOW'S POEMS
Poet Apostle of Good Cheer
"Tell me not in mournful numbers, life is but an empty dream . . ."
"Stars of the summer night! Far in yon azure deeps—"
So begin poems that have charmed and cheered thousands.
Read from LONGFELLOW'S POEMS .......... Vol. 42, pp. 1264-1280
Feb 28: Montaigne's ESSAYS
Spoke Latin First
Proficient in Latin even before he knew his own tongue, Montaigne
received an unusual education. His whole life was spent
in storing up his choice thoughts for our profit and pleasure.
Read from Montaigne's ESSAYS ...................... Vol. 32, pp. 29-40
Feb 29: HERMANN AND DOROTHEA
Goethe's Tale of a Maiden in Love
To either Saint Patrick or the Scottish Parliament of 1228 go
the honors—or dishonors—of originating the traditions attending
this day; says the latter, "ilka maiden ladee, of baith high and
lowe estait, shall hae libeitie to speak ye man she likes." The
course of true love runs smooth in Goethe's narrative poem, enduring
today for its characterization and swift-flowing lines.
Begin HERMANN AND DOROTHEA ............. Vol. 19, p. 337; also pp. 395-410
Mar 1: THE SPECTATOR CLUB
Invented Sir Roger de Coverly
Word pictures are often more vivid than photographs. Steele
had a gift for originating characters that are remembered longer
than flesh and blood people. Sir Roger de Coverly and Will
Honeycomb are now bold figures in literature.
Read: THE SPECTATOR CLUB ..................... Vol. 27, pp. 83-87
Mar 2: Dana's TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST
What Sailors Do on Sunday
"A sailor's liberty is but for a day," as Dana explains. Dressed
in his Sunday best, the sailor feels like a dashing Beau Brummel;
and sets out to enjoy his freedom. "While it lasts it is perfect.
He is under no one's eye and can do whatever he pleases."
Read from Dana's Two YEARS BEFORE THE MAST ... Vol. 23, pp. 112-119
Mar 3: Walton's LIFE OF GEORGE HERBERT
For Poets and Fishermen
Isaak Walton, famed patron of fishermen, appreciated other
arts and hobbies. He writes of George Herbert, a preacher
whose hobby was poetry.
Read from Walton's LIFE OF GEORGE HERBERT .... Vol. 15, pp. 373-382
Mar 4: Penn's SOME FRUITS OF SOLITUDE
Penn—Pioneer, Thinker, and Builder
Penn, true to Quaker beliefs, came before the king with his
hat on. The king overlooked this and later made him governor
of Pennsylvania. A sagacious Penn is revealed in his writings.
Read from Penn's SOME FRUITS OF SOLITUDE ..... Vol. 1, pp. 321-330
Mar 5: CELLINI'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Laughed at Locks
Prison walls were the least of Cellini's troubles. "Lock me well
up and watch me, for I shall certainly contrive to escape." In
spite of this warning, the utmost care of the jailers only furnished
amusement for the dauntless Cellini.
Read from CELLINI'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY ........... Vol. 31, pp. 214-224
Mar 6: Poe's THE RAVEN
West Point's Outcast, America's First Great Poet
Edgar Allan Poe was expelled from West Point and disinherited.
So poor was he that when his young wife lay dying, he could
not afford a fire to warm her. The weirdness and despair of
"The Raven" is particularly symbolic of his life.
Read: Poe's THE-RAVEN .................. Vol. 42, pp. 1227-1230
Mar 7: Bacon's OF JUDICATURE
Bacon Warns Judges
Bacon pointed out that a judge's duty was to interpret laws and
not to make laws. This single essay of Bacon's is a richly condensed
summary of the ethics of law.
Read: Bacon OF JUDICATURE ..................... Vol. 3, pp. 130-134
Mar 8: Cervantes' DON QUIXOTE
Dangerous Experiment with a Wife
Anselmo and Lothario were close friends. Anselmo, anxious to
learn if his wife were perfect, as he believed her to be, makes
an unusual proposal to his old friend.
Read from Cervantes' DON QUIXOTE ......... Vol. 14, pp. 307-319
Mar 9: TREATISE ON GOOD MANNERS
Common Sense and Good Manners
Swift regretted the laws against dueling because dueling at least
was a good means of ridding the country of bores and fools.
His keen eye penetrated social customs and saw the common
sense that governed good manners.
Read: TREATISE ON GOOD MANNERS ............. Vol. 27, pp. 99-103
Mar 10: PHILASTER
Beaumont—The Adonis of Elizabethan Playwrights
In the days when contact with the theatre meant exile from the
best society, Beaumont and Fletcher, men from good families,
dared to ally themselves with the stage as playwrights. "Philaster"
won them immortal praise.
Read from PHILASTER ......................... Vol. 47, pp. 667-677
Mar 11: Emerson's COMPENSATION
Gain Gleaned from Suffering
We are paid for our suffering and we pay for our happiness.
Every ache, every sorrow receives its recompense here on earth.
Emerson gives the basis for this conviction.
Read from Emerson's COMPENSATION ............. Vol. 5, pp. 85-92
Mar 12: Berkeley's THREE DIALOGUES
An Irish Bishop's Wit
Berkeley believed in a great religious future for America. He
lived three years in Rhode Island, and made plans for a college
in Bermuda.
Read from Berkeley's THREE DIALOGUES ......... Vol. 37, pp. 228-238
Mar 13: Manzoni's I PROMESSI SPOSI
Before Noblity Ran Tea Rooms
Manzoni has pictured in this thrilling romance of the seventeenth
century nobility, the pompous and sporting life of those good old
days when nobles lived sumptuously in spacious castles surrounded
by vast estates.
Read from Manzoni's I PROMESSI SPOSI ............ Vol. 21, pp. 318-332
Mar 14: THE HOLY GRAIL
A Maiden's Forfeit
"This gentlewoman that ye lead with you is a maid? " demanded
the knight. "Sir," said she, "a maid I am." "Then she must
yield us the custom of this castle."
Read from THE HOLY GRAIL ................... Vol. 35, pp. 194-200
Mar 15: Plutarch's Caesar
Beware the Ides of March!
Twice warned of the danger that threatened him on the Ides
of March, although "the earth rocked and the stars fell and
headless men walked in the Forum," Caesar goes to the doom
awaiting him in the Senate Chamber.
Read from Plutarch's CESAR ............... Vol. 12, pp. 315-321
Mar 16: Darwin's VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE
Crabs Climb Trees?
Many amazing things happen in the Malay jungles. For example,
Darwin tells about a crab that climbs trees and walks
down the trunks for an occasional bath in a pool.
Read from Darwin's VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE .... Vol. 29, pp. 466-475
Mar 17: THE POETRY OF THE CELTIC RACES
An Old Irish Legend
An old Irish legend tells how, while St. Patrick was preaching
about Paradise and Hell, several of his audience begged to be
allowed to investigate the reality of these places. St. Patrick
actually satisfied their curiosity.
Read from THE POETRY OF THE CELTIC RACES .... Vol. 32, pp. 174-182
Mar 18: A NEW WAY TO PAY OLD DEBTS
New Way to Pay Old Debts
A cunning uncle cheats his worthless nephew out of his fortune.
The nephew, laughing stock of his former servants, sets out to
retrieve his old position and riches.
Read from A NEW WAY TO PAY OLD DEBTS ..... Vol. 47, pp. 859-870
Mar 19: Herodotus' AN ACCOUNT OF EGYPT
Seeing Old Egypt
The mysterious Egyptian temples, the floating islands, the huge
pyramids and the many wonders of ancient Egypt are pictured
for you by Herodotus.
Read from Herodotus' AN ACCOUNT OF EGYPT .... Vol. 33, pp. 72-84
Mar 20: Voltaire's LETTERS ON THE ENGLISH
Apples, Feathers, and Coals
Sir Isaac Newton was aided in his momentous discoveries by the
most insignificant objects—even apples, feathers, and coal. Voltaire
discusses the wondrous discoveries of Newton.
Mar 21: Virgil's AENEID
1,000 Years of History on the Surface of a Shield
Venus, mother of Aeneas and wife of Vulcan, obtained from
her husband, by seductive witchery, a marvelous shield whose
surface reflected a thousand years of future events. Venus describes
the wonders of the magic armor.
Read from Virgil's AENEID ........................... Vol. 13, pp. 280-292
Mar 22: Goethe's FAUST
From Puppet Show to Majestic Drama
The Faust legend, which can be traced to puppet shows of earlier
days, portrays a philosopher who, through Satan's aid and in return
for the price of his soul, works magic at will. From this
rude framework Goethe has reared a drama of sublime grandeur.
Read from Goethe's FAUST .......................... Vol. 19, pp. 23-36
Mar 23: THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
First of a Thousand Harem Stories
Shahrazad, favorite of the treacherous Sultan's harem, selected
a most thrilling story for her bridal night. By leaving it unfinished
she was privileged to live to continue it the next night—and
so on for a thousand and one nights.
Read from THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS ....... Vol. 16, pp. 15-24
Mar 24: Morris' DEFENSE OF GUENEVERE
A Queen Pleads
Guenevere, King Arthur's queen, justly accused but harshly
treated, makes a noble and brave attempt to convince her court
that Gawaine lied and that Launcelot was true.
Read: Morris' DEFENSE OF GUENEVERE ...... Vol. 42, pp. 1183-1193
Mar 25: Shakespeare's HAMLET
How Conscience Makes Cowards of Us All
Hamlet pondered over which course contained the least unhappiness—
whether to suffer here and not incur new dangers, or
whether to end it all and chance the unknown terrors of the
next world. See how Hamlet reasoned.
Read from Shakespeare's HAMLET .................. Vol. 46, pp. 144-158
Mar 26: Aesop’s FABLES
"2,500 Years Ago Aesop Said . . ."
Men in all ages have recognized the ingenuity of the practical
philosophy and freshness of Aesop's allegories. Spend a few
delightful moments with the wit and wisdom of Aesop.
Read from Aesop's FABLES ................... Vol. 17, pp. 21-30
Mar 27: Stevenson's TRUTH OF INTERCOURSE
When Is a Lie Not a Lie?
Is lying or quibbling ever permissible? May one juggle words
so a truth is conveyed through a lie and a lie told by a truth?
Stevenson unravels this puzzle.
Read: Stevenson's TRUTH OF INTERCOURSE ..... Vol. 28, pp. 277-284
Mar 28: Adam Smith's WEALTH OF NATIONS
Pins and Other Points
The making of a simple pin is one of the most complex affairs
of modern industry. Adam Smith regards the process from the
worker's point of view, and shows the many and varied economic
principles that are involved in pin making.
Read from Adam Smith's WEALTH OF NATIONS .... Vol. 10, pp. 9-17
Mar 29: EPIC AND SAGA
Hero and Goddess Break Engagement
Brynhild, favorite goddess of Norse mythology, plighted troth
with Sigurd, fearless warrior. But Sigurd forgot Brynhild and
married Gudrun, whose brother, Gunner, then set out to win
the beautiful Brynhild. Complications very like a modern triangle
arose.
Read from EPIC AND SAGA .................... Vol. 49, pp. 307-317
The Plague of Milan
"I Promessi Sposi," a seventeenth century novel, vividly describes
the devastating plague of Milan. Then whole families sickened
in a few hours and died in less than a day's time of strange and
violent complaints whose symptoms were unknown to physicians.
Read from Manzoni's I PROMESSI SPOSI ........ Vol. 21, pp. 500-512
Mar 31: Walton's LIFE OF DR. DONNE
The Ghastly Whim of John Donne
Monuments are usually made from death masks, but John Donne
took pleasure in posing for his, wrapped from head to foot in a
shroud. Isaak Walton tells of this in his fascinating biography
of the eccentric poet.
Read from Walton's LIFE OF DR. DONNE ....... Vol. 15, pp. 364-369
Apr 1: BROWNING'S POEMS
"Oh! to Be in England Now That April's There"
Everyone knows the pangs of homesickness in the spring. Even
bright, sparkling Italy could not wean Browning's affection from
the green hedgerows of misty England.
Read: BROWNING'S POEMS ................. Vol. 42, pp. 1068-1074
Apr 2: Darwin's VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE
A Spoon Dances in the Moonlight
A huge spoon dressed in human finery, placed on a grave, appears
to become convulsed when the moon's rays fall on it and
dances to the tune of chanting natives. Weird sights, according
to Darwin, abound in the South Seas.
Read from Darwin's VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE ..... Vol. 29, pp. 462-471
Apr 3: Walton's LIFE OF GEORGE HERBERT
Romance with a Happy Ending
"As a conqueror enters a surprised city; love made such resolutions
as neither party was able to resist. She changed her name
into Herbert the third day after this first interview."
Read from Walton's LIFE OF GEORGE HERBERT ........ Vol. 15, pp. 392-404
Apr 4: SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER
The Mistakes of a Night
Genial and rollicking fun are provided in this highly entertaining
story of a man who mistakes a private house for an inn,
and who treats his host's daughter like a serving maid.
Read from SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER ........ Vol. 18, pp. 205-215
Apr 5: Hobbes' LEVIATHAN
You and Your Dreams
Dreams and their causes interested Hobbes. Without superstition,
the philosopher weighed the evidence of ghosts, goblins,
and witches.
Read from Hobbes' LEVIATHAN ................ Vol. 34, pp. 313-322
Apr 6: MARCUS AURELIUS' MEDITATIONS
Who Is Bad?
Badness has many interpretations, a different definition has been
the dictate of each new generation. The solution of the eternal
riddle was earnesdy sought by Marcus Aurelius.
Read: MARCUS AURELIUS' MEDITATIONS ........ Vol. 2, pp. 243-253
Apr 7: WORDSWORTH'S POEMS
Nature Guided His Pen
Wordsworth was so closely in touch with Nature that the simple
beauty of flowers, woods, and fields is reflected in his poems as
if Nature herself took up the pen and wrote.
Read: WORDSWORTH'S POEMS ................ Vol. 41, pp. 639-651
Apr 8: Aeschylus' THE LIBATION BEARERS
Beware the Vengeful Hounds!
Orestes, holding an avenging sword over his mother, is told:
"Beware thy mother's vengeful hounds." How he pays for disregarding
his mother's warning is told in this drama where a
mother is slain to avenge a father's ghost.
Read from Aeschylus' THE LIBATION BEARERS ....... Vol. 8, pp.111-121
Apr 9: Bacon's NEW ATLANTIS
A Perfect Land in a Wilderness of Waters
West of Peru there was reported to be a land where Truth and
Science were used to promote the happiness and freedom of man.
Here is Bacon's description of this ideal commonwealth.
Read from Bacon's NEW ATLANTIS ............... Vol. 3, pp. 145-155
Apr 10: First Charter of Virginia
Americans—by Will of the King
Before English adventurers could attempt settlement in America
it was necessary first to get permission from the King . The
charter of King James to the oldest American colony is an extremely
important historical document.
Read: FIRST CHARTER OF VIRGINIA ................. Vol. 43, pp. 49-58
Apr 11: Goethe's FAUST
Danger in Being Young and Fair
The virgin beauty of Margaret enchanted Faust, who dazzled
her with the brilliance of many gems. Margaret innocently took
his gifts, believing that beauty should not "blush unseen"—but
unmindful of consequences to follow.
Read from Goethe's FAUST ................... Vol. 19, pp. 115-131
Apr 12: Berkeley's THREE DIALOGUES
The Perfect Argument
You would doubdess like to know how to hold your own in any
argument. Read what Leslie Stephen declares the finest specimen
in our language of the conduct of argument.
Read from Berkeley's THREE DIALOGUES ...... Vol. 37, pp. 230-240
Apr 13: CELLINI'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Michelangelo His Boon Companion
Kings, emperors, the greatest artists and sculptors of the Renaissance
at its most magnificent period, walk through the pages of
his autobiography—not as cold, austere, historical character,
but as the intimate friends of Cellini.
Read from CELLINI'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY ............... Vol. 31, pp. 23-35
Apr 14: Biggs' DRAKE'S GREAT ARMADA
A Raid on Spanish Treasure in America
Spanish towns in the New World were rich in treasure and tempting
booty for English soldiers of fortune, who were venturesome
and merciless. "Ho! for the Spanish Main!" was the rallying
cry for all freebooters and buccaneers.
Read from Biggs' DRAKE'S GREAT ARMADA ....... Vol. 33, pp. 229-242
Apr 15: WHITMAN'S POEMS
The rugged, genuine Lincoln was idealized by Walt Whitman—
the founder of the new school of American poetry. Two of
Whitman's finest poems were inspired by Lincoln.
Read: WHITMAN'S POEMS ............... Vol. 42, pp. 1412-1420
Apr 16: Dante's DIVINE COMEDY
Inside the Gates of Hell
The city of Dis, within the gates of Hell, was guarded by monsters
and surrounded by a moat filled with the tormented. Dante,
protected by Virgil, entered the forbidden city, and viewed
sights never before seen by living man.
Read from Dante's DIVINE COMEDY ............... Vol. 20, pp. 32-39
Apr 17: FRANKLIN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Benjamin Franklin—Book Salesman
In 1731 there were not many books in America. Franklin saw
the need for more books and by house-to-house canvassing persuaded
Philadelphians to aid him in founding a public library
which to-day stands as a lasting memorial to Franklin.
Read from FRANKLIN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY .............. Vol. 1, pp. 66-77
Apr 18: Cervantes' DON QUIXOTE
Ready for Adventures and Conquests
Reading too many romances of knights and valorous deeds caused
a poor Spanish gentleman to polish up his great-grandfather's
armor, rechristen his old nag, and sally forth. "Don Quixote,"
besides holding a secure niche in literature as the work that
quashed the romantic school of knight-errantry, is at the same
time one of the most widely-read stories in the world.
Read from Cervantes' DON QUIXOTE ........... Vol. 14, pp. 17-28
Apr 19: Emerson's CONCORD HYMN
Battle of Concord
Dr. Eliot says of the opening stanza of the "Concord Hymn":
"In twenty-eight words here are the whole scene and all the
essential circumstances . . . what an accurate, moving, immortal
description is this!"
Read: Emerson's CONCORD HYMN .......... Vol. 42, pp. 1245-1246
Apr 20: BYRON'S POEMS
Byron Gave His Life for Freedom
England's romantic poet died while fighting against the Turkson
the side of the Greeks. His poems, "The Isles of Greece" and
"The Prisoner of Chillon," proclaim freedom.
Read: BYRON'S POEMS ...................... Vol. 41, pp. 801-815
Apr 21: INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH LITERATURE
Books as Windows to the Past
Through the pages of a book the reader sees the life of past days.
Carnivals, processions, battles, coronations, voyages—the whole
history of the world and its people is revealed in a stupendous
pageant. Taine was a Frenchman who wrote an unsurpassed
history of English literature; its introduction reveals the unusual
combination of an imaginative and an analytical style.
Read from INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH LITERATURE .... Vol. 39, pp. 410-418
Apr 22: FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF MORALS
Happiness as a Duty
Immanuel Kant, the most influential of German philosophers,
taught that it was man's duty to be happy, for an unhappy man
is tempted to sin. Seekers after happiness find aid and inspiration
in Kant's writings.
Read from FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF MORALS ........ Vol. 32, pp. 310-317
Apr 23: Shakespeare's KING LEAR
"If You Have Poison for Me, I Will Drink It"
Shaken and disillusioned by the treachery of his elder daughter,
King Lear suspected even the faithful Cordelia of evil designs.
Her most tender efforts to comfort him failed to drive away the
insistent specter of his madness.
Read from Shakespeare's KING LEAR ......... Vol. 46, pp. 293-303
Apr 24: Darwin's ORIGIN OF SPECIES
Nineteen Million Elephants
At the rate at which elephants naturally increase, Darwin estimated
that in 750 years there could be nearly 19,000,000 elephants.
But did Darwin consider the ravages of civilization and circuses?
Read from Darwin's ORIGIN OF SPECIES ............ Vol. 11, pp. 74-86
Apr 25: Tacitus' ON GERMANY
Mighty Rome Feared These Men
Men who danced among sharp swords—who gambled with their
lives—who took their women to the battlefields to encourage the
brave and shame the cowardly—these were the primitive Germans
who made Roman emperors tremble.
Read from Tacitus' ON GERMANY ............... Vol. 33, pp. 106-120
Apr 26: Hume ON MIRACLES
Do Miracles Still Happen
Just what constitutes a miracle? Does Science indorse miracles?
One wonders why such marvelous things do not happen often
nowadays. Hume tells why.
Read from Hume ON MIRACLES .............. Vol. 37, pp. 375-385
Apr 27: Emerson's BEAUTY
He Dared to See Forbidden Beauty
The Puritan world feared Beauty. Emerson, great American
essayist and philosopher, declared that the world was made for
beauty, and openly worshiped at beauty's shrine.
Read: Emerson's BEAUTY ....................... Vol. 5, pp. 297-310
Apr 28: THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES
"Vanity of Vanities," Saith the Preacher
Three hundred years before Christ, a preacher in Jerusalem complained
that there was no new thing under the sun. Everything
considered new had really existed in the time of the fathers.
Sophisticated and modern is this writer of 2,300 years ago.
Read from THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES .............. Vol. 44, pp. 335-341
Apr 29: THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
How I Got Rich — by Sindbad the Sailor
Sindbad, a poor man, recited woeful verses before the magnificent
dwelling of Sindbad of the Sea. The great Sindbad, hearing him,
invited the poor Sindbad to a feast and told the wonderful story
of his fabulous fortune.
Apr 30: Washington's FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS
Washington's Dictum on Private Life
Washington declared that the strength of the new nation lay in
the "pure and immutable principles of private morality." A free
government, fortified by the virtues and affection of its citizens,
can command the respect of the world.
Read: Washington's FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS .... Vol. 43, pp. 225-228
May 1: PERSONS ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN
What Would You Ask Judas Iscariot?
Once Hazlitt and his friends took to discussing the famous people
they would like to meet—Guy Fawkes, Sir Isaac Newton,
Chaucer, Boccaccio, Cromwell, Garrick, and Judas.
Read: PERSONS ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN ..... Vol. 27, pp. 270-283
May 2: Faraday's MAGNETISM—ELECTRICITY
First Sparks of Electricity
Everything has to have a beginning, so too with the science of
electricity. Here we learn the very rudiments, the inceptions
of science that have revolutionized the world. Faraday explains
in a simple way the truths of electricity.
Read: Faraday's MAGNETISM—ELECTRICITY ...... Vol. 30, pp. 61-72
May 3: Machiavelli's THE PRINCE
Why "Machiavellian"?
Traveling from court to court in the stirring days of the Renaissance,
Machiavelli studied the intrigues of princes. His writings
have affected the destiny of mighty dynasties.
Read from Machiavelli's THE PRINCE ................. Vol. 36, pp. 7-17
May 4: SCIENCE AND CULTURE
A Champion of Science
When science was struggling for a place in popular education,
Huxley distinguished himself as its champion. While the arts
were to beautify life and increase pleasure, Huxley saw science
as a means of benefiting man's prosperity.
Read from SCIENCE AND CULTURE .......... Vol. 28, pp. 209-319
May 5: Calderon's LIFE IS A DREAM
Strange Adventures in Man's Clothes
Disguised as a man, a Russian noblewoman exploring the mountains
of Poland came upon a secret prison. Fate linked the
lives of this woman and the unknown prisoner.
Read from Calderon's LIFE IS A DREAM ............. Vol. 26, pp. 7-21
May 6: CELLINI'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
A Poor Artist Defies a Rich Duke
"Benvenuto, the figure cannot succeed in bronze," so spoke the
patron Duke. Cellini, stung to fury, passionately burst out:
"You do not understand art." Feverishly he began the casting
of the statue—but read his own account of the tilt with the Duke.
Read from CELLINI'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY ........ Vol. 31, pp. 373-384
May 7: BROWNING'S POEMS
A Bishop Bargains
A haughty aristocrat, who murdered his wife for enjoying life
more than he, now bargaining for a new bride; a crafty bishop
begging and bullying his heirs for a tomb richer than that of
his rival; these are subjects of Browning's pen.
Read from BROWNING'S POEMS ......... Vol. 42, pp. 1074-1078
May 8: Sheridan's SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL
Behind the Screen in t h e School for Scandal
Lady Teazle hides in haste when her husband is unexpectedly
announced. Situations which set many tongues wagging and
fed the fire of gossip in Scandal-land, startle the reader.
Read from Sheridan's SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL ..... Vol. 18, pp. 164-176
May 9: Schiller's ON AESTHETIC EDUCATION
Relation of Art to Freedom
Who has ever thought the arts had anything to do with freedom?
Schiller did. Forced by a German noble to enter a military
school, he escaped. Struggling to achieve freedom, he wrote
a series of letters on the relation of art to freedom.
Read: Schiller's ON AESTHETIC EDUCATION ..... Vol. 32, pp. 209-217
May 10: Raleigh's DISCOVERY OF GUIANA
A Knight Among Cannibals
Savages who drink the powdered bones of their dead mixed with
wine, Amazons who hold riotous festivals, the worship of golden
statues, all the primitive wonders of Guiana are described by
the famous Elizabethan gallant, Sir Walter Raleigh.
Read from Raleigh's DISCOVERY OF GUIANA .... Vol. 33, pp. 326-341
May 11: Webster's THE DUCHESS OF MALFI
Latest Gossip in Malfi
Latest news abroad in Malfi: The Duchess has run off with her
butler. But this happened before the days of newspapers or
radio, so Webster made from it an exciting play.
Read from Webster's THE DUCHESS OF MALFI .... Vol. 47, pp. 721-737
May 12: ROSSETTI'S POEMS
His Wife's Golden Hair Enshrined His Poems
The manuscripts of many of the best poems of Rossetti were
buried with his wife. Friends prevailed upon him to allow
them to be exhumed—and these poems, once buried with the
dead, are now a treasure of the living.
Read: ROSSETTI'S POEMS .... Vol. 42, pp. 1149-1153, 1178-1181
May 13: Burns' THE TWA DOGS
What Does Your Dog Think of You?
Two dogs fell a-gossiping about their masters and about a dog's
life among the humble Scotch folk. Each "rejoic'd they werena
men but dogs; an' each took aff his several way."
Read: Burns' THE TWA DOGS ................ Vol. 6, pp. 151-157
May 14: VACCINATION AGAINST SMALLPOX
Jenner's Amazing Smallpox Cure
Edward Jenner found that disease in the heel of a horse, transmitted
through a cow to the dairy attendants, was an agent in
making human beings immune from smallpox. His amazing
experiments inaugurated a new epoch.
Read: VACCINATION AGAINST SMALLPOX ......... Vol. 38, pp. 145-154
May 15: Dante's DIVINE COMEDY
Glimpses Into the Beyond
The best part of the Divine Comedy for a few minutes'
reading is the "Inferno." There the reader finds the most vivid
descriptions, the most startling and unforgettable pictures.
Read from Dante's DIVINE COMEDY ........ Vol. 20, pp. 102-114
May 16: THE POETRY OF THE CELTIC RACES
Favorite Superstitions of Celtic Imagination
Chessboards on which, of their own accord, black pieces played
against white; chariots that swiftly turned hither and yon without
a driver; pots in which a coward's meat would not cook—
all these are woven into bewitching stories.
May 17: Plato's APOLOGY OF SOCRATES
An Honest Life's Reward
Condemned for impiety, Socrates felt so justified in the virtue
of his past action that instead of receiving a death sentence, he
told the judges he should be maintained at public expense as a
public benefactor.
Read: Plato's APOLOGY OF SOCRATES .......... Vol. 2, pp. 24-30
May 18: ANDERSEN'S TALES
The Night Life of Flowers
Flowers often tire of their stationary life and sometimes at night
frolic away to a ball in a beautiful castle. Thus a fanciful storyteller
accounts for their drooping condition in the morning.
Read: ANDERSEN'S TALES ........................ Vol. 17, pp. 334-341
May 19: Epictetus' GOLDEN SAYINGS
Golden Advice on Manners
When a man is invited to a banquet he must be satisfied with
the dishes put before him. Epictetus reasoned that man should
be content with what life offers, and in serenity find happiness.
Read: Epictetus' GOLDEN SAYINGS ............ Vol. 2, pp. 128-138
May 20: Shakespeare's SONNETS
Shakespeare's Finest Work
The most concentrated beauty of Shakespeare's unbounded creative
genius is found in his sonnets. Written as personal messages
to friends and not intended for publication, they reveal the
inner Shakespeare more truly than do any of his great plays.
Read from Shakespeare's SONNETS ............... Vol. 40, pp. 270-276
May 21: Pope's ESSAY ON MAN
An Honest Man Defined
The sharp tongue of Alexander Pope made him celebrated, yet
widely feared. In a representative product of his versatile pen,
he gracefully combines his flashing wit with sage advice.
Read from Pope's ESSAY ON MAN ........... Vol. 40, pp. 430-440
May 22: Manzoni's I PROMESSI SPOSI
True Love in Difficulty
Because of a fancy for a peasant girl, the tyrannical lord of an
Italian village sent desperadoes to threaten the priest if he married
the girl to her village lover.
Read from Manzoni's I PROMESSI SPOSI ............. Vol. 21, pp. 7-24
May 23: HOOD'S POEMS
A Plea for an Unfortunate
From the river her body was tenderly lifted—the girl who could
find no place in the vast city. Thomas Hood pleads for her—
eloquently and justly. Read this gem of pathos.
Read: HOOD'S POEMS ........................ Vol. 41, pp. 907-911
May 24: Adam Smith's WEALTH OF NATIONS
They Had No Money—Yet Bought and Sold
Debts were not always paid in money. Not so long ago the
butcher paid for his keg of beer with a slab of beef, and oxen
were exchanged for land and wives. Adam Smith tells the interesting
story of the origin and use of money.
Read from Adam Smith's WEALTH OF NATIONS ...... Vol. 10, pp. 22-33
May 25: Emerson's HEROISM
Do What You Fear
Emerson startled the world by fearlessly declaring his beliefs.
Such apparent paradoxes as we find in his inspirational essay,
"Heroism," makes him the most stimulating yet profound thinker
America has produced.
Read: Emerson's HEROISM .................... Vol. 5, pp. 121-131
May 26: Shakespeare's KING LEAR
Daughter Declares Her Love
Goneril and Regan falsely swore they loved their father, King
Lear, more than life itself. Cordelia could find no words to express
her sincere devotion. Then King Lear made the decision
that started a series of exciting events.
Read from Shakespeare's KING LEAR ........... Vol. 46, pp. 215-225
May 27: THE EDUCATION OF THE HUMAN RACE
Lessing's Courageous Stand for Toleration
To advance freedom of thought, Lessing published an essay of
one hundred paragraphs outlining the history of religion. The
wrath of orthodox churchmen was hurled at his head, and Lessing
was left alone to defend his daring theories.
Read from THE EDUCATION OF THE HUMAN RACE ..... Vol. 32, pp. 185-195
May 28: MOORE'S POEMS
Master of Melodious Lyrics
Any one of these poems, " The Harp That Once Through Tara's
Halls," "The Last Rose of Summer," "The Light of Other
Days," would alone have made Moore immortal.
Read: MOORE'S POEMS ..................... Vol. 41, pp. 816-822
May 29: THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
Adventures in Bagdad
A Bagdad merchant dreamed of the money he would make from
the sale of a tray of glassware, and of marrying the king's daughter.
But, daydreaming, he kicked over the tray.
May 30: Longfellow's THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP
When the Throb of the War Drum Is Stifl'd
At the close of the war, a torn and bleeding nation set about to
rebuild its shattered frame. The result was a stronger nation
rising from an almost disrupted union.
Read: Longfellow's THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP .... Vol. 42, pp. 1280-1290
May 31: Whitman's PREFACE TO LEAVES OF GRASS
America's Most Surprising Poet
Walt Whitman is the most original and startling of modern poets.
An irony of his life is that while he wrote for the contemporary
masses, only a limited number of followers appreciated his
genius, now universally recognized.
Read: Whitman's PREFACE TO LEAVES OF GRASS .... Vol. 39, pp. 388-398
Jun 1: Marlowe's DR. FAUSTUS
Thrilling Play by Tutor of Shakespeare
For the best blank verse in English, read "Dr. Faustus," the masterpiece
of Marlowe, who gave Shakespeare lessons in playwriting.
This genius knew the secret of gripping drama.
Read from Marlowe's DR. FAUSTUS ................... Vol. 19, pp. 241-250
Jun 2: Rousseau's A SAVOYARD VICAR
"Back to Nature" in the Seventeenth Century
A "Back to Nature" movement in the seventeenth century was
headed by Rousseau, who believed that civilization was degrading.
To save money for his work, he entrusted each of his children
to the tender mercies of a foundling house.
Read from Rousseau's A SAVOYARD VICAR ..... Vol. 34, pp. 239-249
Jun 3: MOTION OF THE HEART AND BLOOD
Pulse Aids Epochal Discoveries
Galileo, by holding his pulse while watching a swinging cathedral
lamp, evolved a theory that made clocks possible. Harvey,
by feeling his pulse, educed that arteries carry blood.
Read from MOTION OF THE HEART AND BLOOD .... Vol. 38, pp. 75-86
Jun 4: Goethe's EGMONT
'Neath the Iron Hand of Spain
Spain sent the Duke of Alva to subdue the Netherlands. In
quelling disorder he killed the people's hero, Count Egmont.
From this story Goethe made a famous play.
Read from Goethe's EGMONT ............ Vol. 19, pp. 253-259
Jun 5: Adam Smith's WEALTH OF NATIONS
The Rent of Land from Human Food
Even to-day rent is paid in terms of human food. It sounds
primitive, but it happens right at your door—here in the United
States, in compliance with a law as old as man.
Read from Adam Smith's WEALTH OF NATIONS .... Vol. 10, pp. 149-157
Jun 6: Dana's TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST
A Shrill Cry in the Night!
A crew faced the hazardous prospect of rounding the bleak Cape
Horn in midwinter. Imagine the terror when a sudden scream
pierced the misery-laden air. What was it? A man overboard
or a lost soul?
Read from Dana's Two YEARS BEFORE THE MAST .... Vol. 23, pp. 285-295
Jun 7: HAMLET
"There's Rosemary—that's for Remembrance!"
Do you know the rest of Ophelia's famous line? "Hamlet" is
the most popular play in the entire world. It has been quoted
so often that reading it is like meeting an old friend.
Read from HAMLET ........................ Vol. 46, pp. 176-183
Jun 8: WOOLMAN'S JOURNAL
Eloquence Wins Over Prejudice
The plain, homely appearance of Woolman impressed unfavorably
the orthodox Quakers in London whom he was sent to
meet. They told him his coming was not necessary. But
Woolman spoke with such simplicity and sincerity that even
those most opposed became his friends.
Read from WOOLMAN'S JOURNAL ............. Vol. 1, pp. 302-312
Jun 9: THE PSALMS
Enchanting Songs of David
The songs of David pleased King Saul, but when David became
too popular with the people, the king feared for his throne and
banished him.
Read from THE PSALMS ..................... Vol. 44, pp. 168-179
Jun 10: Sophocles' OEDIPUS, KING OF THEBES
Horrible Prophecy Fulfilled
King OEdipus of Thebes as a babe was abandoned on Mount
Cithaeron to die. Years after he was thought dead he returns
to Thebes and unknowingly slays his father, marries his mother—
and thus fulfills the word of the oracle.
Read from Sophocles' OEDIPUS, KING OF THEBES ... Vol. 8, pp. 209-223
Jun 11: Spenser's THE EPITHALAMIUM
He Sang of His Beautiful Elizabeth
To commemorate his marriage to the beautiful Elizabeth, Spenser
wrote one of the most enchanting nuptial hymns.
Read: Spenser's THE EPITHALAMIUM ........... Vol. 40, pp. 234-245
Jun 12: THE BHAGAVAD-GITA
Vishnu Holds Up a Battle
"Two armies of ancient India were about to engage in a momentous
battle. Arjuna, heroic leader of the Pandu hosts, foreseeing
great slaughter, hesitates. He implores the divine Vishnu to
intervene. The conversation of the warrior and the god is a
gem of Hindu literature.
Read from THE BHAGAVAD-GITA ................ Vol. 45, pp. 785-798
Jun 13: Plutarch's ARISTIDES
Athens Flouts Aristides
Athenians gave Aristides the title of "The Just." Later they
wanted to banish him. One voter wanted Aristides banished
merely because he was weary of hearing him called " The Just."
Read from Plutarch's ARISTIDES ............... Vol. 12, pp. 85-94
Jun 14: Plato's CRITO
A Philosopher Prefers Prison Cell
"Socrates unceasingly strove for beauty, truth, and perfection.
Sentenced to death on a false charge, he refused to escape from
the death cell, even when opportunity was offered.
Read: Plato's CRITO ............................... Vol. 2, pp. 31-43
Jun 15: Froissart's WAT TYLER'S REBELLION
Strikers Storm the Tower of London
Led by Wat Tyler in 1381, great troops of villagers and rustics
marched on London—laid siege to the Tower—sacked the apartments
of the King and murdered his ministers. Froissart gives
first-hand information of this rebellion.
Read from Froissart's WAT TYLER'S REBELLION ....... Vol. 35, pp. 60-72
Jun 16: Byron's MANFRED
Spirits at the Top of the World
The inaccessible mountain tops were ever venerated as the haunts
of all mysteries. Manfred, hero of Byron's play, seeks upon the
high Alps the aid of spirits, specters, and goblins. What unearthly
adventures await him!
Read from Byron's MANFRED .................... Vol. 18, pp. 415-428
Jun 17: Eliot's BRIEF NARRATIVE
Risked His Scalp in Prayer
John Eliot put his life at the mercy of the redmen to get them
to listen to his preachings. He wrote vividly about his settlements
of Christian Indians. Now villages and Indians have disappeared.
Only his story remains.
Read: Eliot's BRIEF NARRATIVE ................ Vol. 43, pp. 138-146
Jun 18: GRIMM'S TALES
Cinderella Lives To-day
Cinderella inspires all alike—the artist's brush, the author's pen,
the child's fancy. To-day she is a living, vital character to be seen
on stage and screen. No one ever forgets her lightning change.
Read from GRIMM'S TALES ....................... Vol. 17, pp. 98-104
Jun 19: Holinshed's OUR ENGLISH DOGS
Freaks of the Dog Fad in England
A writer of Elizabethan times said that no other country had as
many dogs as England. Once Henry VII ordered all mastiffs
to be hung because they "durst presume to fight against the
lion," England's regal beast.
Read: Holinshed's OUR ENGLISH DOGS ....... Vol. 35, pp. 350-356
Jun 20: Darwin's VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE
No Salt for These Birds
Galapagos Islands are the home of fearless birds, to which horses,
cows, and men are only roosting places. Darwin saw the South
Pacific when few travelers knew that wonderland.
Jun 21: Ruskin's SESAME
Would You Converse with Royalty?
Why gossip with lesser persons when you might be talking to
queens and kings? Just how we may get to talk to queens
and kings, Ruskin delightfully points out and escorts us to the
very doors of the audience chamber.
Read from Ruskin's SESAME .................. Vol. 28, pp. 99-110
Jun 22: Pliny's LETTERS
Pliny Tells Ghost Stories
Pliny, who lived in the first century after Christ, tells of a ghost
who dragged his jangling chains through a house in Athens and
so terrified the inmates that they fled panic-stricken. But the
ghost met his equal.
Read from Pliny's LETTERS .................... Vol. 9, pp. 311-314
Jun 23: Mill's AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Greek Scholar at Three
John Stuart Mill—one of the greatest intellects in England—tells
how his father educated him. At the early age of three years
he began the study of Greek, and at twelve started writing a
book of his own .
Read from Mill's AUTOBIOGRAPHY ............. Vol. 25, pp. 9-20
Jun 24: THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
Had No Right Hand
A handsome young man was seen to eat only with his left hand,
which was contrary to the customs of Arabia. The youth, when
urged, told why he used only his left hand, and revealed a
story of love and adventure and the lover's need for gold—all
happening in ancient Cairo.
Read from THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS .... Vol. 16, pp. 120-133
Jun 25: HERRICK'S POEMS
Advice to Virgins from a Wise Man
"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today, to-morrow will be
dying? "Herrick was only a humble country minister with a
wealth of wisdom and a keen appreciation of life, which he
expressed in lyrics of wonderful beauty and melody.
Read: HERRICK'S POEMS .................. Vol. 40, pp. 334-340
Jun 26: BEOWULF
In the Lair of the Green-Eyed Monster
At the bottom of the ocean was the home of the monster who
had desolated the king's halls. Beowulf, bravest of warriors,
descended beneath the waves to fight the beast. The king's
men, waiting above, saw the waves become colored with blood.
Hero or monster—who had won?
Read from BEOWULF ............................ Vol. 49, pp. 45-50
Jun 27: BACON'S ESSAYS
Do You Take Poison Daily?
There is a human trait most poisonous to a man's blood. Man
seeks to avoid it because he knows that it lies like a curse upon
him. Just what is the poisonous human failing? Who are most
subject to it? Bacon tells you in one of his best essays.
Read from BACON'S ESSAYS ..................... Vol. 3, pp. 22-26
Pages from the Pampas Book of Etiquette
A very definite etiquette is followed by a stranger on the vast
plains of South America. "Ave Maria" is the common salutation.
If the stranger is on horseback, he does not alight until
invited to do so by his host. Once in the house, the stranger must
converse a while before asking shelter for the night.
Read from Darwin's VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE ...... Vol. 29, pp. 51-60
Jun 29: Shakespeare's MACBETH
"Is That a Dagger I See Before Me?"
Macbeth, spurred on by the ambitious and crafty Lady Macbeth,
committed murder to secure the crown of Scotland. But he
paid dearly for his gain. Ghostly guests appeared at his banquet
and threatened him with dire threats.
Read from Shakespeare's MACBETH .......... Vol. 46, pp. 357-365
Jun 30: Mill's ON LIBERTY
Rather King Than Majority
"Democracy" has not always been the choice of oppressed people.
The tyranny of the majority is a recognized evil as harmful as the
misrule of a king. And rather than exchange a lesser evil for a
greater, a rule by king has often been preferred to a republic.
Read: Mill's ON LIBERTY ..................... Vol. 25, pp. 195-203
Jul 1: Darwin's ORIGIN OF SPECIES
Darwin Not First Evolutionist
While Darwin was working on his theory of evolution, another
scientist independently arrived at the same conclusions. Darwin,
then, was not the first to study evolution.
Read from Darwin's ORIGIN OF SPECIES ......... Vol. 11, pp. 5-17
Jul 2: Plutarch's CESAR
"Julius" Becomes "July"
So that the date for certain festivals would not fall one year in
midwinter and in the heat of summer another year, Cesar reformed
the calendar. July was named for him.
Read from Plutarch's CESAR ...................... Vol. 12, pp. 310-315
Jul 3: Haskell's BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG
Gettysburg by an Eyewitness
An officer in that momentous battle narrates every major action
of both armies. Thus we see the swarming lines of Confederates
advance—the hand-to-hand struggle.
Read from Haskell's BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG .... Vol. 43, pp. 326-335
Jul 4: DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
Some Chose to Remain British Subjects
Some Americans preferred to be loyal to England and did not
want independent government. Their hesitation is better understood
when the finality of the Declaration is realized.
Read: DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE ........... Vol. 43, pp. 150-155
Jul 5: THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
A Tailor Entertains a King
Here is another of those fanciful Oriental stories that proclaims
the democracy of Eastern despotism. A tailor might talk with a
king and receive either a death sentence or the office of Grand
Vizier as a reward.
Jul 6: More's UTOPIA
The Origin of "Utopia"
When Europe was suffering from evil rulers, heavy taxes, and
despair, Sir Thomas More dreamed of a happy land where an
intelligently managed state perfected happiness.
Read from More's UTOPIA ................. Vol. 36, pp. 135-142
Jul 7: Sheridan's SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL
Scandal That Lurked Behind Lace and Powder
The painted lips of the eighteenth century ladies and gallants
vied with one another in whispering scathing gossip, in gleefully
furthering the destruction of a good name. Sheridan depicts
this gay world with a brilliant spicy pen.
Read from Sheridan's SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL ...... Vol. 18, pp. 115-128
Jul 8: Shelley's CENCI
Italy's Fair Assassin
When the monstrous Cenci forced his daughter Beatrice into a
horrible situation, she revolted and boldly struck for freedom.
Shelley tells her pitiful story in one of his best works.
Read from Shelley's CENCI .................. Vol. 18, pp. 288-300
Jul 9: BACON'S ESSAYS
A Little Lying Now and Then
"What is Truth?" asked Pilate. For an answer Bacon discourses
not on human nature as it should be, but as it is. These shrewd
observations on making a life and a living admit occasional departures
from truth.
Read from BACON'S ESSAYS ............................... Vol. 3, pp. 7-19
Jul 10: THE VOYAGES TO VINLAND
America's First Immigrants
The shadow of a phantom cast upon the cradle of Snorri, the
first white child born in America, was a warning of an Indian
attack on the settlement of courageous Norsemen who had
risked the terrors of unknown seas to visit "Wineland."
Read from THE VOYAGES TO VINLAND ..... Vol. 43. pp. 14-20
Jul 11: Newcomb's THE EXTENT OF THE UNIVERSE
Star Gazing—A Cure for Tired Minds
The greatest spectacle offered man is a view of the magnificent
vault of heaven. Under the stupendous arch of the Milky Way
the cares of the world roll off.
Read: Newcomb's THE EXTENT OF THE UNIVERSE ..... Vol. 30, pp. 311-321
Jul 12: Thoreau's WALKING
But He Walked!
Thoreau's individuality was unique and original. He had no
profession; he never married; he never went to church; he never
voted or paid taxes; he never smoked; he never drank wine. His
amusement was walking, to observe and meditate.
Read from Thoreau's WALKING .................. Vol. 28, pp. 395-405
Jul 13: Plutarch's PERICLES
Athenians Also Complained of Taxes
Pericles used public money to beautify Athens. The citizens
protested against the expense, as citizens in all ages do. By a
clever stroke Pericles w o n their support to his ambitious plans.
Read from Plutarch's PERICLES ................. Vol. 12, pp. 47-57
Jul 14: Burke's THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE
The French People Triumph
What the Fourth of July is to Americans, the Fourteenth of July
is to Frenchmen. It commemorates an oppressive tyranny overthrown
by a freedom-loving people.
Read from Burke's THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE ..... Vol. 24, pp. 268-273
Jul 15: HOLINSHED'S CHRONICLES
When Elizabeth Dined
Meals in the houses of the gentry and noblemen in Elizabethan
England were taken most seriously. No one spoke. Holinshed
records the strange table etiquette of our ancestors.
Read from HOLINSHED'S CHRONICLES ........ Vol. 35, pp. 271-288
Jul 16: THE KORAN
The Mohammedan Jesus
The sacred book of the Moslems, the Koran, gives an account of
the birth of Christ. The Koran gives Jesus a high position among
the prophets but holds the first place for Mohammed.
Read from THE KORAN ......................... Vol. 45, pp. 908-913
Jul 17: Racine's PHAEDRE
A Throne for Son or Stepson?
Phaedre first persecuted Hippolytus, her handsome stepson, then
loved him. Suddenly he and her own son became rivals for the
throne. Should she push her son's claims or let Hippolytus take
the crown?
Read from Racine's PHAEDRE ................... Vol. 26, pp. 133-148
Jul 18: Browning's BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON
They Loved in Vain
"Browning's play has thrown me into a perfect passion of sorrow,"
wrote Charles Dickens of "The Blot in the 'Scutcheon."
Like Shakespeare's Juliet, Browning's Mildred plays the role of
a youthful lover in a tragic drama.
Read from Browning's BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON ....... Vol. 18, pp. 359-368
Jul 19: Raleigh's DISCOVERY OF GUIANA
She Wanted Heroes All to Herself
The famous gallant who spread his gorgeous cloak so the dainty
slipper of his queen would be unspotted, soon lost the high favor
this action won for him. In spite of his glorious voyages, Raleigh
condemned himself when he fell in love with another woman.
Read from Raleigh's DISCOVERY OF GUIANA ..... Vol. 33, pp. 311-320
Jul 20: Bunyan's PILGRIM'S PROGRESS
A Cobbler in Jail
John Bunyan, imprisoned for preaching without a license, gave
to the world "Pilgrim's Progress," the greatest allegory in any
language, second only to the Bible.
Read from Bunyan's PILGRIM'S PROGRESS ....... Vol. 15, pp. 59-69
Jul 21: BURNS' POEMS
Scotland's Own Poet
The songs of Burns are the links, the watchwords, the symbols
of the Scots. He is the last of the ballad singers. In his works
are preserved the best songs of his people.
Read from BURNS' POEMS ....................... Vol. 6, pp. 70-79
Jul 22: Homer's ODYSSEY
Trapped in a Cave with a Frenzied Giant
Odysseus was wrecked with his men on an island inhabited
by one-eyed giants. Trapped in the cave of a giant who gobbled
up some of the crew for supper, the cunning Odysseus blinded
the giant and rescued the survivors of his crew.
Read from Homer's ODYSSEY ................... Vol. 22, pp. 120-129
Jul 23: BACON'S ESSAYS
Friendship Above Love?
There are styles in friendship as well as in clothes. The mode
of friendship of Bacon's time went out with plumed hats and
long hose. But Bacon knew the true test of a friend.
Read from BACON'S ESSAYS ................... Vol. 3, pp. 65-72
Jul 24: Darwin's THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE
Indian Sorcery Blamed for an Earthquake
Darwin visited a South American city ruined by an earthquake.
There he heard the superstitious account of the phenomenon.
The ignorant people accused Indian women of bewitching the
volcano. But Darwin has another explanation.
Read from Darwin's THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE ...... Vol. 29, pp. 306-316
Jul 25: LAY OF BRYNHILD
A Goddess and Her Mortal Lover
Brynhild, Woden's daughter, carried the dead heroes to Valhalla
where they could feast and fight without dying; until a sin divested
her of divinity, and she fell in love with Sigurd.
Read: LAY OF BRYNHILD .......................... Vol. 49, pp. 391-395
Jul 26: Thomas a Kempis
Peace Amid Strife
While Europe was shaken with wars, Thomas a Kempis lived
in happy seclusion in his convent. His writings convincingly
reflect the serenity and happiness of a man who has found peace—
a peace that surpasses all understanding.
Read from Thomas a Kempis ....................... Vol. 7, pp. 205-211
Jul 27: ON THE ANTISEPTIC PRINCIPLES
Once Surgeons Operated in Frock Coats
The use of antiseptics in surgery is new. Hardly more than a
half century ago surgeons operated in frock coats. Lord Lister,
surgeon to Queen Victoria, was among the first to advocate
scrupulous cleanliness in dressing wounds.
Read: ON THE ANTISEPTIC PRINCIPLES .......... Vol. 38, pp. 257-267
Jul 28: Cowley's OF AGRICULTURE
An Idyl of Agriculture
Cowley portrays the ideal life—that of a farmer, and blazons it
forth in heraldry. "A plow in a field arable"—to him, the most
honorable of all emblems.
Read: Cowley's OF AGRICULTURE ............. Vol. 27, pp. 61-69
Jul 29: Emerson's STONEHENGE
Stonehenge—England's Unsolved Mystery
Stonehenge, that group of huge, rudely architectural stones on a
vast plain in England, was erected no man knows when, nor
why, nor how. Emerson, America's greatest thinker, visited this
monument and was amazed at the "uncanny stones."
Read: Emerson's STONEHENGE ................. Vol. 5, pp. 453-462
Jul 30: Gilbert's VOYAGE TO NEWFOUNDLAND
The First English Colony in North America
When the whole coast of America north of Florida was free to
the first comer, Sir Humphrey Gilbert naively chose to settle
on the rugged shores of Newfoundland. Read the glowing account
of his great adventure "to plant Christian inhabitants in
places convenient."
Read: Gilbert's VOYAGE TO NEWFOUNDLAND ....... Vol. 33, pp. 263-273
Jul 31: Defoe's EDUCATION OF WOMEN
Charm School for Women
Lack of education, writes Defoe, makes a woman "turbulent,
clamorous, noisy—" Defoe defied his generation and preached
equal education for women. To-day we have co-education, but
have we the benefits Defoe predicted?
Read: Defoe's EDUCATION OF WOMEN ......... Vol. 27, pp. 148-150
Aug 1: Calvin's DEDICATION
His Influence Still Lives
Steadfast allegiance to duty, simple living and adherence to plain,
honest, homely doctrines are Calvin's principles. Are not these
same old-fashioned truths followed to-day?
Read from Calvin's DEDICATION ................... Vol. 39, pp. 27-33
Aug 2: DRUMMOND'S POEMS
Poems from a Heart of Love
"Here is the pleasant place—and nothing wanting is, save She,
alas!" How often we too are faced with like adversity. So
sings Drummond—a master songster and composer.
Read from DRUMMOND'S POEMS ........... Vol. 40, pp. 326-330
Aug 3: Virgil's AENEID
When the Greeks Sacked Troy
They battered down the palace gates and ravaged with fire and
sword the chambers of King Priam's hundred wives. Through
halls resounding with shrieks of terror, Priam and his household
fled to sanctuary.
Read from Virgil's AENEID ..................... Vol. 13, pp. 110-117
Aug 4: ANDERSEN'S TALES
World's Greatest Bedtime Stories
Hans Christian Andersen had an extraordinary capacity for amusing
children. Were he living to-day he might be in great demand
as a radio bedtime story man.
Read: ANDERSEN'S TALES .......................... Vol. 17, pp. 221-230
Aug 5: Burns' COTTERS' SATURDAY NIGHT
Joys of the Simple Life
"Cotter's Saturday Night" for generations to come will remain
the choicest picture of Scotch home life. Into this poem Burns
instills the sense of all-pervading peace and happiness that comes
at the end of a well-spent day.
Read: Burns' COTTERS' SATURDAY NIGHT ........... Vol. 6, pp. 134-140
Aug 6: Tennyson's LOCKSLEY HALL
A Prophet of Aerial Warfare
"For I dipt into the future—saw the nation's airy navies grappling
in the central blue." We are amazed at the accuracy of
Tennyson's prediction. But he also foretells "the federation of
the world"—yet to be fulfilled.
Read: Tennyson's LOCKSLEY HALL ............. Vol. 42, pp. 979-986
Aug 7: Plato's PHAEDO
The Last Golden Words of Socrates
The death sentence of Socrates could not be executed until the
return of the sacred ship from Delos. One day his friends learned
that the ship had returned. They hastened to the prison to listen
to the last words of Athens' sage.
Read from Plato's PHAEDO .......................... Vol. 2, pp. 45-54
Aug 8: Homer's ODYSSEY
Men Transformed by Circe's Wand
Unfavorable winds sent by angry gods blew the ships of Odysseus
far off their course. The sailors were cast upon a remote island,
governed by an enchantress where, for their coarse manners, they
were put under a magic spell.
Read from Homer's ODYSSEY ....................... Vol. 22, pp. 133-144
Aug 9: Walton's LIFE OF DR. DONNE
English Bridal Party Jailed
Minister and witness, bride and groom were arrested by an enraged
father when John Donne married his employer's niece.
Donne was soon released, but he found himself without money,
position or bride.
Read from Walton's LIFE OF DR. DONNE .......... Vol. 15, pp. 326-334
Aug 10: Burke's THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE
"Give Them Cake," said the Queen
When the people of Paris howled because they had no bread to
eat, Queen Marie Antoinette exclaimed: "Well, then, let them
eat cake!" Such an attitude hastened the revolution.
Read from Burke's THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE ...... Vol. 24, pp. 143-157
Aug 11: Epictetus' GOLDEN SAYINGS
Clever Repartee of Epictetus
Epictetus advises that if a person speaks ill of you, make no defense,
but answer: "He surely knew not of my other faults, else
he would not have mentioned these only."
Read from Epictetus' GOLDEN SAYINGS .............. Vol. 2, pp. 176-182
Aug 12: LOWELL'S POEMS
Zekle's Courtin'
Huldy, the rustic belle, sat alone peeling apples. She was bashful
in her consciousness that Zekle would come soon. When he did,
she merely blushed and timidly said: "Ma's sprinklin' clo'es," and
Read: LOWELL'S POEMS ..................... Vol. 42, pp. 1376-1379
Aug 13: Southey's AFTER BLENHEIM and Other Poems
Too Close to See the Battle
England and France came to battle near Blenheim. Years later
the people of Blenheim called it a "famous victory," but could
not tell whose victory it was.
Read: Southey's AFTER BLENHEIM and other poems ...... Vol. 41, pp. 732-735
Aug 14: Dana's TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST
A College Boy Goes to Sea
Leaving Harvard on account of ill health, Dana sought adventure
and thrilling experience aboard a sailing vessel that rounded
Cape Horn. He turned the dangers, hardships, and keen joys
of a sailor's life into a fascinating story.
Read from Dana's Two YEARS BEFORE THE MAST ..... Vol. 23, pp. 30-37
Aug 15: THE SONG OF ROLAND
Into Death's Face He Flung This Song
Charlemagne's rear guard was attacked by the Basques in the
valley of Roncesvaux. Roland, its leader, fought a courageous
fight, and, though conquered, became immortal.
Read from THE SONG OF ROLAND ............ Vol. 49, pp. 166-173
Aug 16: THE PSALMS
Inspiring Ritual of Temple Worship
David—the psalm singer—knew the wondrous ways of the Lord
and praised H im in his psalms. Burdened souls in all ages have
found comfort in these songs that once were used in the gorgeous
ritual of Jerusalem's temple.
Read from THE PSALMS ......................... Vol. 44, pp. 286-295
Aug 17: Luther's ADDRESS TO THE NOBILITY
Three Walls Luther Saw
Luther declared that the unreformed church had drawn its doctrines
like three walls so closely about the people that they served
not as protection but were the cause of untold misery and distress.
This he hoped to relieve by the Reformation.
Read: Luther's ADDRESS TO THE NOBILITY .......... Vol. 36, pp. 263-275
Aug 18: CELLINI'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
"I Took Her by the Hair and Dragged Her Up and Down"
In Cellini's day the model's life was a hazardous one. Cellini's
Autobiography reveals how some models were treated. You
will find it more thrilling than the most modern novel.
Read from CELLINI'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY ....... Vol. 31, pp. 312-323
Aug 19: Pare's JOURNEYS IN DIVERSE PLACES
Roses Boiled in Wine
Astonishing treatments and cures are related by Ambroise Pare,
famed surgeon of the fifteenth century. One remedy, for instance,
used to cure a distinguished nobleman, was red roses
boiled in white wine,—and it was effective.
Read from Pare's JOURNEYS IN DIVERSE PLACES ...... Vol. 38, pp. 50-58
Aug 20: Milton's PARADISE LOST
Plot Against Eve
Driven from Heaven, Satan meditated revenge. He decided
his greatest opportunity to injure God was to bring sin to mankind.
Satan's plot against Eve is told by Milton.
Read from Milton's PARADISE LOST ................ Vol. 4, pp. 154-164
Aug 21: CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE
Hidden Treasures in an Old Book
A certain man was willed a Bible. He scorned the legacy until
one day, penniless and downcast, he turned to the book for consolation.
Imagine his amazement on finding hundred dollar
bills between the pages. St. Augustine explains how he found
even greater treasures in the Bible.
Read from CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE ............ Vol. 7, pp. 118-126
Aboard the Old Sailing Ships
In the days when sailing ships plied the seven seas, common
sailors were often subject to a brutal captain whose whim was
law. Dana, a Boston college boy, makes an exciting story of his
sea experiences.
Read from Dana's Two YEARS BEFORE THE MAST ...... Vol. 23, pp. 99-111
Aug 23: Burke's ON THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL
Which Is a Beautiful Woman?
The Hottentot thinks his wife beautiful. Every American believes
his wife also to be beautiful. But the American and the
Hottentot are quite different. What, after all, is Beauty?
Read from Burke's ON THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL ....... Vol. 24, pp. 78-88
Aug 24: Pliny's LETTERS
Survivor's Story of Vesuvius
The eruption of Vesuvius that demolished Pompeii and buried
thousands of people was witnessed by Pliny. He describes his
panic-stricken flight with his mother from the doomed villa
through falling ashes and sulphurous fumes. His famous uncle,
the elder Pliny, lost his life while investigating the eruption and
aiding refugees.
Read from Pliny's LETTERS ...................... Vol. 9, pp. 284-291
Aug 25: Kelvin's TIDES
Britain Saved by a Full Moon
We to-day know that there is a direct relation between the moon
and tides. When Julius Caesar went to conquer Britain his transports
were wrecked because he did not know the tides on the
English coast; a knowledge of which might have changed the
whole course of history.
Read from Kelvin's TIDES ........................... Vol. 30, pp. 274-285
Aug 26: FROISSART'S CHRONICLES
The Prince of Wales Wins His Spurs
A brilliant victory for the English king was gained in this battle,
a fight in which vast numbers of French nobility, many princes,
and the aged King John of Bohemia were slain. Froissart describes
all in detail.
Read from FROISSART'S CHRONICLES ............... Vol. 35, pp. 27-33
Aug 27: Burns' POEMS AND SONGS
Priceless Treasures of Memory
"A man's a man for a' that." "Should auld acquaintance be forgot."
"To see her is to love her and love but her forever." "Flow
gently, sweet Afton." Every stanza of Burns is treasured. How
many have you stored up?
Read from Burns' POEMS AND SONGS ......... Vol. 6, pp. 317, 417, 442, 511
Aug 28: Goethe's FAUST
The World's Love Tragedy
"Almighty God, I am undone." With this cry of despair, Margaret
witnessed the fiendish work of Faust, her lover, who bartered
his immortal soul for worldly pleasure. A thrilling drama, based
on a famous medieval legend.
Aug 29: Plutarch's ANTONY
Cleopatra Bewitches Mark Antony
Cleopatra rode to meet Antony in a gilded barge with sails of
purple; oars of silver beat time to the music of flutes and fifes
and harps. She went as Venus, and her attendants were dressed
as Cupids and Nymphs.
Read from Plutarch's ANTONY .................. Vol. 12, pp. 339-349
Aug 30: Marcus Aurelius' MEDITATIONS
Simple Life in a Palace
Every luxury, all the wealth in the world at his command—yet
Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of haughty Rome, led a simple life
even in a palace. He left his secret in his "Meditations."
Read from Marcus Aurelius' MEDITATIONS ...... Vol. 2, pp. 222-228
Aug 31: Emerson's AMERICAN SCHOLAR
America's Greatest Thinker
Emerson was included in Dr. Eliot's recent selection of the
world's ten greatest educators of all time. Here the great thinker
discusses this force within man that makes him a scholar.
Read: Emerson's AMERICAN SCHOLAR ................ Vol. 3, pp. 5-15
Sep 1: Penn's SOME FRUITS OF SOLITUDE
Expelled from College, Founded a City
While at Oxford, Penn rejected the student's gown and thereby
created a furore. Later he founded a city where he sought to
put his new ideas into practice.
Read from Penn's SOME FRUITS OF SOLITUDE ........ Vol. 1, pp. 321-331
Sep 2: Dryden's ALL FOR LOVE
Too Great a Price for Love
While his soldiers fought the battle of Actium, Antony fled to
the arms of Cleopatra. By his flight he forfeited his right to an
empire. Dryden's story of Antony's love makes us realize the
folly of his infatuation for the Nile siren.
Read from Dryden's ALL FOR LOVE ........... Vol. 18, pp. 88-100
Sep 3: TREATY WITH GREAT BRITAIN
Seven Years to Reach England
Until 1783 the British refused to believe that the Liberty Bell
had rung. Then they signed a treaty formally recognizing the
Colonies as free and independent states.
Sep 4: Voltaire's LETTERS ON THE ENGLISH
Voltaire Criticizes
Voltaire's daring courage led him to publish a series of letters
which contained unfavorable comparisons of French customs
with the English. For this he was threatened with the Bastille.
Read: Voltaire's LETTERS ON THE ENGLISH ...... Vol. 34, pp. 85-93
Sep 5: Darwin's ORIGIN OF SPECIES
Just as the individual has a definite length of life, so have species
a limited duration. The progress and transition of the world,
Darwin declares, will see the extinction of certain variants of
human life.
Read from Darwin's ORIGIN OF SPECIES .......... Vol. 11 , pp. 353-357
Sep 6: Carlyle's SIR WALTER SCOTT
The Pride of All Scotchmen
Many sons of Scotland have striven eagerly for the great place
held by Sir Walter Scott. Carlyle describes the qualities that combined
to make him the idol of his people and the master of historical
Read Carlyle's SIR WALTER SCOTT ..................... Vol. 25, pp. 393-403
Sep 7: DESTRUCTION OF DA DERGA'S HOSTEL
The King's Love
There she was undoing her hair—the loveliest woman the eyes of
men ever beheld, the light of wooing in her regal eyes. A longing
for her overwhelmed the warrior-king.
Read from DESTRUCTION OF DA DERGA'S HOSTEL ..... Vol. 49, pp. 199-209
Sep 8: Helmholtz's ICE AND GLACIERS
When Europe Lay Under Ice
There was a time when the snow fell and did not melt in summer.
Then from the frozen north there descended huge masses
of ice that covered northern Europe and most of North America.
Glaciers reveal a new world to us.
Read from Helmholtz's ICE AND GLACIERS ...... Vol. 30, pp. 211-223
Sep 9: Emerson's NATURE
When Nature Beckons
"There are days during the year," says Emerson, "when the
world of nature reaches perfection." Can anyone escape this call,
especially in the glorious Indian Summer?
Read: Emerson's NATURE ........................ Vol. 5, pp. 223-230
Sep 10: Holmes' POEMS
Famous Poet-Physician
One of America's famous New Englanders, Oliver Wendell
Holmes, devoted his life principally to medicine. His name,
however, was made famous through his poem, "Old Ironsides,"
by which he saved America's most famous battleship from destruction
when her fighting days were ended.
Read: Holmes' POEMS ............................. Vol. 42, pp. 1365-1370
Sep 11: Adam Smith's WEALTH OF NATIONS
Wages—Why and How Much?
What regulates wages, on what do they depend? Adam Smith,
world's authority on economic problems, advances his theories
on these matters.
Sep 12: SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE
Love Letters of Elizabeth Browning
In all literary history there is no happier love story than that of
Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. During their secret
courtship Miss Barrett sent Browning many beautiful love letters
written in verse.
Read: SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE ...... Vol. 41, pp. 923-932
Sep 13: Bunyan's PILGRIM'S PROGRESS
Good That Came from a Game Pit
From cockfighting, bear baiting, and like sports, the wife of John
Bunyan converted him to a life of humility and reverence. While
imprisoned for preaching, he used his idle time in writing a fantastic
story of a soul's salvation—probably the most famous allegory
ever written.
Read from Bunyan's PILGRIM'S PROGRESS ........... Vol. 15, pp. 13-23
Sep 14: Dante's DIVINE COMEDY
Dante and St. Peter
Dante, having journeyed through Hell and Purgatory, comes at
last to St. Peter on his throne. St. Peter calls for the aid of St.
James and St. John before passing final judgment on Dante's
righteousness.
Read from Dante's DIVINE COMEDY ............ Vol. 20, pp. 387-395
Sep 15: Washington's FAREWELL ADDRESS
Refused to Serve Three Terms
George Washington retired to private life in 1796, entrusting
"the preservation of the Union" to the "love of liberty." His
last appeal is a vital message to American citizens, as pertinent
today as when he penned it.
Read: Washington's FAREWELL ADDRESS ......... Vol. 43, pp. 233-249
Sep 16: HOLINSHED'S CHRONICLES
Penalty for Silence
"Such felons as stand mute [do not confess] are pressed to death
by huge weights laid upon a board that lieth over their breast
and a sharp stone under their backs." Old English punishments,
recorded by Holinshed, make startling reading.
Read from HOLINSHED'S CHRONICLES .............. Vol. 35, pp. 363-370
Sep 17: WHITTIER'S POEMS
Romance on a New England Farm
"For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: 'It
might have been.' " On this theme Whittier based the story of
a fair farmer girl and a rich judge.
Read: WHITTIER'S POEMS .................... Vol. 42, pp. 1351-1364
Sep 18: Dana's TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST
Home After Storms and Adventures
"Every sight was full of beauty. We were coming back to our
homes, and the signs of civilization from which we had been so
long banished—" wrote Dana, as his ship entered Boston Harbor.
Read from Dana's Two YEARS BEFORE THE MAST ....... Vol. 23, pp. 348-356
Sep 19: Cervantes' DON QUIXOTE
Humor That Survived Slavery
Held as a Moorish slave for five years, Cervantes was submitted
to almost daily tortures. But even the horrors of slavery could
not dull his sense of humor, as evinced by his most witty and
amusing novel.
Read from Cervantes' DON QUIXOTE .......... Vol. 14, pp. 48-54
Sep 20: THE KORAN
Women's Rights in the Harem
The Koran defines the powers of a husband over his wives. Thus
a woman unfaithful to her lord may be walled up alive.
Read from THE KORAN ........................ Vol. 45, pp. 967-974
Sep 21: Virgil's AENEID
Aeneas and the Old Witch
The Sybil, an old witch, personally conducts Aeneas through the
gate and into the jaws of hell, where terrors abound on every
hand and frightful mysterious forms rule. There he is told of
the greatness and glory that was to come.
Read from Virgil's AENEID ................... Vol. 13, pp. 207-218
Sep 22: FROISSART'S CHRONICLES
A King for a Souvenir
In the days when kings rode to battle leading their troops it was
possible to make good the boast of the doughboy: "I'll bring you
a king for a souvenir."
Read from FROISSART'S CHRONICLES .............. Vol. 35, pp. 42-53
Sep 23: Montaigne's TO LEARN HOW TO DIE
Dying Concerns Every Man
The Romans made an art of dying. The Egyptians looked on
death with complacency. Moderns fear it. Montaigne argues
that the purpose of philosophy is to teach men how to die.
Read from Montaigne's To LEARN HOW TO DIE ...... Vol. 32, pp. 9-22
Sep 24: Plutarch's THEMISTOCLES
Citizens Lured from Their Homes
When the serpent of Minerva disappeared from her temple, the
priests said that the goddess had left Athens for the sea. Moreover,
the oracles urged the Athenians to seek safety in their ships.
Themistocles prompted these deceits. Why?
Read from Plutarch's THEMISTOCLES ................ Vol. 12, pp. 13-23
Sep 25: Mill's AUTOBIOGRAPHY
A Courtship of Twenty Years
John Stuart Mill in his autobiography boldly tells of his love for
his friend's wife. After twenty years, she was freed from her first
husband and was happily married to John Stuart Mill. Read the
account of Mill's courtship.
Read from Mill's AUTOBIOGRAPHY ......... Vol. 25, pp. 116-120, 149
And the World Rocked with Laughter
The gaunt lunatic, Don Quixote, saw the world through glasses
colored with romanticism that had gone out of style hundreds of
years before he was born. Cervantes made the world laugh at
the exaggerated stories it had been devouring.
Read from Cervantes' DON QUIXOTE ............... Vol. 14, pp. 29-35
Sep 27: PASCAL'S THOUGHTS
Pascal's Fundamentals of Religion
To-day we have Fundamentalists and Modernists, each striving
for the same goal. Pascal, two hundred and fifty years ago, gave
his precepts of the fundamentals of religious thought.
Read from PASCAL'S THOUGHTS ................ Vol. 48, pp. 181-192
Sep 28: Pasteur's THE GERM THEORY
He Introduced the Germ
Proof that germs cause many contagious diseases was established
by Louis Pasteur. His discoveries revolutionized modern science
and lessened the ravages of every type of disease.
Read: Pasteur's THE GERM THEORY ................ Vol. 38, pp. 364-370
Sep 29: SAYINGS OF CONFUCIUS
Prophet of 400 Million People
Confucius was a Chinese magistrate in 500 B.C. He lost the favor
of the Emperor and wandered from city to city, teaching and giving
counsel. After his death, Emperor and people alike bowed
before his shrine.
Read from SAYINGS OF CONFUCIUS .................. Vol. 44, pp. 5-14
Sep 30: Emerson's MANNERS
A Gentleman According to Emerson
An etiquette book and a good tailor do not always produce a
gentleman—neither does the Social Register include only gentlemen.
Emerson by quaint stories tells how fashion and manners
combine to make that rare product—a gentleman.
Read from Emerson's MANNERS ...................... Vol. 5, pp. 199-208
Oct 1: Machiavelli's THE PRINCE
Princes To-day and Yesterday
To-day the chief duty of a prince is to be the nation's friend
maker. Years ago princes desired supreme power and, by fair
means or foul, strove for control. Machiavelli was a guide for
such ambitious princes.
Read from Machiavelli's THE PRINCE ........ Vol. 36, pp. 36-44
Oct 2: Darwin's VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE
Veteran Tells of Indian War
Just before Darwin visited Bahia Blanca, an Indian insurrection
had been ruthlessly put down. A veteran of the Indian war told
Darwin how Indians had been treated.
Read from Darwin's VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE ...... Vol. 29, pp. 107-111
Oct 3: CHAUCER'S POEMS
Good Enough for Chaucer
When polite English society conversed in French—considering
English a vulgar tongue, fit only for servants and working people—
Chaucer, nevertheless, wrote poems in this "vulgar" English,
which charm us because of their quaint words.
Read: CHAUCER'S POEMS ........................ Vol. 40, pp. 11-20
Oct 4: Plutarch's DEMOSTHENES
His Mouth Full of Pebbles
The man who put pebbles in his mouth and orated to the sea,
shaved one-half of his head so that he would be obliged to stay
at home until he had perfected his oratory—a strange method of
attaining eminence, but a successful one.
Read from Plutarch's DEMOSTHENES ............. Vol. 12, pp. 196-205
Oct 5: Newman's UNIVERSITY LIFE AT ATHENS
Amateur Athlete in Old Athens
A boxer in public games desired to study philosophy at Athens.
There were no furnaces to tend, no tables to wait on, no books
or magazines to peddle, yet this sturdy young Greek managed
to work his way through college.
Read from Newman's UNIVERSITY LIFE AT ATHENS ....... Vol. 28, pp. 51-61
Oct 6: Burke's REVOLUTION IN FRANCE
The Atrocious Spectacle of October 6th
Wakened by the death cries of her sentry, Marie Antoinette,
Queen of France, fled by a secret passage from the fury of a vile
mob. The royal family was arrested and taken to Paris to await
their fate.
Read from Burke's REVOLUTION IN FRANCE ........ Vol. 24, pp. 208-217
Oct 7: THE JOURNAL OF JOHN WOOLMAN
An Uncanonized American Saint
John Woolman was the foremost leader of the early Quakers
and contributed much to the spiritual life of the American Colonies.
He was a pioneer in the crusade against slavery.
Read from THE JOURNAL OF JOHN WOOLMAN .......... Vol. 1, pp. 283-288
Oct 8: Fielding's PREFACE TO JOSEPH ANDREWS
Fielding's Parody Becomes History
Fielding wrote a lengthy story to burlesque a novel of Richardson.
But the travesty overshot its mark. Instead of a mere parody,
it became a masterpiece.
Read: Fielding's PREFACE TO JOSEPH ANDREWS ...... Vol. 39, pp. 176-181
Oct 9: LATIN HYMNS
Songs Shake the Walls of Jericho
Do you know that many of your favorite hymns have echoed
for hundreds of years through vast cathedrals, and resounded
from the walls of Jericho during the Crusades?
Read: LATIN HYMNS ........... Vol. 45, pp. 546-556; also pp. 567-568
Oct 10: Cervantes' DON QUIXOTE
A Fugitive in Boy's Clothes
The romance-stricken Don Quixote sees a fair youth seated by the
side of a stream, "his feet like two crystals, his hands like snowflakes."
The youth was a charming girl!
Read from Cervantes' DON QUIXOTE ................ Vol. 14, pp. 252-266
Oct 11: Virgil's AENEID
Aeneas Flees from an Inconsolable Love
Aeneas, mythological founder of the Roman race, leaving Carthage
and its lovely Queen Dido, was driven by a storm to the
coast of Sicily. There the hospitality of King Acestes helped
him to forget his relinquished love.
Read from Virgil's AENEID ....................... Vol. 13, pp. 178-188
Oct 12: LETTER OF COLUMBUS
Columbus' Letter Miraculously Found
Historical documents, now priceless, were often used as wrapping
paper. Rescued by chance was a letter of Columbus telling of
his voyages—of the amazing bargains made with timid natives—
of Amazon women who fought like men and made marriage
treaties with cannibals.
Read: LETTER OF COLUMBUS..................... Vol. 43, pp. 21-27
Oct 13: Marcus Aurelius' MEDITATIONS
Pagan Virtue Perpetuated
A man of virtue, although a pagan, Marcus Aurelius ruled with
benevolence and wisdom. Cruel in persecution of Christians as
lawbreakers, no trace of this sternness appears in his writings.
Read from Marcus Aurelius' MEDITATIONS .......... Vol. 2, pp. 193-199
Oct 14: Adam Smith's WEALTH OF NATIONS
No Spice and Little Gold
All colonies are founded to gain territory or treasure. Spain
expected spice and gold from Columbus's expedition, but got no
spice and little gold. Adam Smith tells the true motive of the
colonizing Greeks, Romans, English, and Spaniards.
Read from Adam Smith's WEALTH OF NATIONS ......... Vol. 10, pp. 395-404
Oct 15: VESPUCCI'S ACCOUNT OF HIS FIRST VOYAGE
First Families of America
"They are a people smooth and clean of body because of continually
washing themselves—they eat all their enemies whom
they kill or capture." Amerigo Vespucci thus writes of the New
World inhabitants.
Read: VESPUCCI'S ACCOUNT OF HIS FIRST VOYAGE ....... Vol. 43, pp. 28-44
Oct 16: HIPPOCRATES' OATH AND LAW
When Medicine Was a Mystery
Once physicians treated the sick with a mixture of medicine and
charms. In those days medicine was regarded as a dark art like
magic, and those practicing it formed guilds to protect themselves.
Read: HIPPOCRATES' OATH AND LAW ................ Vol. 38, pp. 3-5
Oct 17: Browne's RELIGIO MEDICI
Reason His Only Religion
The religion of Thomas Browne—a liberal man in a most intolerant
time—was not taken from either Rome or Geneva, but
from his own reason.
Read from Browne's RELIGIO MEDICI ................ Vol. 3, pp. 253-265
Oct 18: SHELLEY'S POEMS
"If Winter Comes"
From the title of a recently popular novel, we know that one
prominent fiction writer of to-day was inspired by the verses of
Shelley. Many others have also felt the stirring vigor of his poetry.
What is your reaction?
Read: SHELLEY'S POEMS .......................... Vol. 41, pp. 829-835
Oct 19: Hunt's ESSAYS
Virtue in Smiles
Weep if you must. It is far better than to repress your tears.
But Leigh Hunt finds greater virtue in cheerfulness. Fanciful
and graceful—his writings exerted a wholesome influence on all
nineteenth century journalism.
Read: Hunt's ESSAYS ........................... Vol. 27, pp. 285-295
Oct 20: Homer's ODYSSEUS
Odysseus Adrift on a Raft
The gods met in council and decreed that Odysseus be set adrift.
Poseidon, God of the Sea, shattered the raft and Odysseus was cast
ashore to encounter further adventures.
Read from Homer's ODYSSEUS .......................... Vol. 22, pp. 68-80
Oct 21: Cicero's ON OLD AGE
No Fault to Find with Old Age
Cicero agrees with Browning that old age is the golden time of
life, when the fruits of a well-spent life are harvested. Cicero,
the wise Roman, welcomed old age for its gifts: wisdom, sound
judgment, and contentment.
Read from Cicero's ON OLD AGE ................ Vol. 9, pp. 45-56
Oct 22: Thackeray's JONATHAN SWIFT
Swift's Love Problems
Swift was embarrassed by two women; Stella, whom he really
loved, and Vanessa, with whom he had flirted and who had
taken him seriously. Marriage to either one would break the
heart of the other.
Read from Thackeray's JONATHAN SWIFT ........... Vol. 28, pp. 23-28
Oct 23: Plutarch's CAESAR
When Caesar Turned the Tables
When only a boy, Caesar was captured by pirates. While awaiting
ransom he entered into every sport and game with them. Once
freed, he quickly returned with forces that captured the outlaws.
Then he took deliberate revenge.
Read from Plutarch's CESAR .................... Vol. 12, pp. 264-273
Oct 24: Aeschylus' AGAMEMNON
Clytemnestra Meets Her Rival
Cassandra knew through a prophetic vision that a sword would
pierce her heart. Agamemnon, her captor, took her to his home
where an avenging wife, Clytemnestra, awaited. The tragedies
of the doom that requited the sins of the House of Atreus are
among the most powerful ever written.
Read from Aeschylus' AGAMEMNON .............. Vol. 8, pp. 52-64
Oct 25: Macaulay's MACHIAVELLI
Greatly Encouraged Intrigue
After the publication of Machiavelli's " The Prince," the Sultans
became more addicted to strangling their brothers, tyrants became
more merciless, and murderous plots increased. The
influence of that book, as Macaulay points out, spread over Europe
and Asia.
Read from Macaulay's MACHIAVELLI ................ Vol. 27, pp. 363-372
Oct 26: Franklin's AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Franklin Learned the Secret
Poor at twenty, rich at forty, internationally famous at fifty. Benjamin
Franklin once walked the streets of Philadelphia alone,
poor, and with no education. Yet he rose to be a leader because
he learned the secret of careful reading.
Read from Franklin's AUTOBIOGRAPHY ................... Vol. 1, pp. 14-21
Oct 27: BUDDHIST WRITINGS
Fruit of Seven Years' Silence
Siddhartha Gautama, who became the god Buddha, renounced
the world and spent seven years in meditation. Then one day,
while sitting under a fig tree, he became inspired with exalted
and sublime conceptions of life and death. The rest of his life
was spent in teaching and converting mankind.
Read from BUDDHIST WRITINGS ............... Vol. 45, pp. 661-674
Oct 28: SOME THOUGHTS CONCERNING EDUCATION
How Dice Taught Spelling
Locke taught children by means of games. He tells of a game
whereby children were taught to spell with dice on which the
letters of the alphabet were pasted. This was more than 200 years
before modern kindergarten methods. Today's children would
respond to such wise direction as Locke recommends.
Read: SOME THOUGHTS CONCERNING EDUCATION ......... Vol. 37, pp. 128-136
Oct 29: KEATS' POEMS
Genius Rises from a Stable
Though the son of a stable man, John Keats wrote the most exquisite
and sublime poetry in our language. He was the friend
of Shelley, Lord Byron, and the other literary leaders of the time—
his genius recognized by all.
Read: KEATS' POEMS ................................ Vol. 41, pp. 874-882
Oct 30: Lyell's THE PROGRESS OF GEOLOGY
Geology's Greatest Benefactor
Lyell has been called the founder of modern geology. Darwin,
the master scientist, called h im "Geology's Greatest Benefactor."
Lyell's research revolutionized ideas on that subject.
Read from Lyell's THE PROGRESS OF GEOLOGY ........... Vol. 38, pp. 385-391
Oct 31: BURNS' POEMS
Witches Walk To-night
Beware of magic! Once a year uneasy spirits are released and
walk the earth from midnight until dawn. Spooks and goblins
invade the most secure homes and the canniest must watch out
for danger lurking in every dark corner.
Read from BURNS' POEMS ........................... Vol. 6, pp. 110-119
Nov 1: Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST
Last Strokes of Shakespeare's Pen
Monsters of the earth, weird creatures of the air, magic romance,
and shipwreck are mingled by a master hand in his thrilling
drama. The fanciful, enchanting "Tempest" is the last work
of the great bard of Stratford.
Read from Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST ........... Vol. 46, pp. 397-410
Nov 2: Dante's DIVINE COMEDY
Journey Through a Hot Country
Dante recorded the awful scenes of a journey through the pits
of the underworld, and wrote in such a vivid, realistic way that
men tremble at the terrors depicted.
Read from Dante's DIVINE COMEDY ............. Vol. 20, pp. 13-20
Nov 3: Pliny's LETTERS
Letters to an Emperor
Pliny sought the advice of the Emperor Trajan for dealing with
the Christians who were alarmingly on the increase. He casually
relates how he had tortured two Christians.
Nov 4: Corneille's POLYEUCTE
Gold or Glory?
Polyeucte, an Armenian noble, wanted to become a Christian. If
he were baptized, he would have to give up his high position,
his wealth and his pagan wife. Was the heavenly crown worth
this sacrifice?
Read from Corneille's POLYEUCTE ............. Vol. 26, pp. 87-97
Nov 5: Roper's LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE
Costly Opinion on Divorce
A divorce always means trouble for some one. So with Sir
Thomas More when he refused to agree with King Henry over
the king's separation. More was made to pay one of the highest
prices ever paid for a difference of opinion.
Read from Roper's LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE ........ Vol. 36, pp. 89-99
Nov 6: Faraday's FORCE OF GRAVITATION
A Genius Needs Few Tools
Two sticks, a table, and a pail were the commonplace implements
used by Michael Faraday to demonstrate great scientific truths.
Read: Faraday's FORCE OF GRAVITATION .......... Vol. 30, pp. 13-21
Nov 7: THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
The Voice from a Stone-Dead City
Suddenly all the sinful city's inhabitants were turned to stone.
When a beautiful woman from Bagdad came to the dead city,
night overtook her there. Sleeping in the palace, she was awakened
by a man's voice calling.
Read from THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS ........ Vol. 16, pp. 100-107
Nov 8: Milton's PARADISE REGAINED
Blind But Unconquered
Milton's indomitable courage kept him at his work even after he
lost his sight. Blind, he dictated a sequel to his "Paradise Lost,"
which he called "Paradise Regained."
Read from Milton's PARADISE REGAINED ........ Vol. 4, pp. 359-369
Nov 9: THE PSALMS
Once War Songs, Now Pious Prayers
The Psalms have been an inspiration to men in many ages. They
have become so associated with the peaceful spirit of Christianity
that we forget some of them were once war songs and songs of
triumph.
Read from THE PSALMS .......................... Vol. 44, pp. 318-327
Nov 10: Goldsmith's THE DESERTED VILLAGE
A Poet Who Piped for His Supper
Goldsmith traveled through Belgium, France, and Italy, winning
his daily bread by playing at farmhouses. He wrote the
most brilliant comedy, the best novel, and the finest poem of
his age.
Read: Goldsmith's THE DESERTED VILLACE ......... Vol. 41, pp. 509-520
Nov 11: WHITMAN'S POEMS
America's Doughboy Glorified
The youth of America—typified in the doughboy of the past
war—was gloriously portrayed by Walt Whitman. He also sang
of the vast plains and the beauty of America.
Read: WHITMAN'S POEMS ................. Vol. 42, pp. 1402-1412
Nov 12: Milton's PARADISE LOST
Story of the First Dresses
Milton's version tells how the Serpent induced Eve to eat the
forbidden fruit. Eve offered it to Adam. Then they became
conscious for the first time that they were not clothed.
Read from Milton's PARADISE LOST ............ Vol. 4, pp. 278-290
Nov 13: CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE
When Carthage Was Monte Carlo
Carthage was the playground of the ancient world. In that city
of many sins, Augustine was a leader of the revels. His conversion
to Christianity amazed those who knew him.
Read from the CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE ...... Vol. 7, pp. 31-38
Nov 14: Lyell's UNIFORMITY OF CHANGE
He Worried About It
We wonder if the man who worried about the "scientifical" prediction
that "The sun's heat will give out in ten million years
more," had read Lyell on the gradual changes in the earth's
Read: Lyell's UNIFORMITY OF CHANGE ............... Vol. 38, pp. 398-405
Nov 15: Manzoni's I PROMESSI SPOSI
Food Profiteers 300 Years Ago
Food profiteering was as active in plague-stricken Milan 300 years
ago as in modern times. Shops were stormed for food. Read how
the Council strove heroically to fix fair rates.
Read from Manzoni's I PROMESSI SPOSI ............. Vol. 21, pp. 450-460
Nov 16: TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST
Just Before the Gold Rush
When the glorious Western coast was only partly settled, Dana
visited the Presidios. He saw frontier life at a time when Spanish
splendor still gilded California.
Read from Two YEARS BEFORE THE MAST .......... Vol. 23, pp. 164-168
Nov 17: Carlyle's SIR WALTER SCOTT
At Thirty Scott Began to Write
Are you curious about famous people, their lives, habits, personalities?
Carlyle discusses the intimate life of his illustrious countryman,
and reveals Scott, the man, and Scott, the genius who
entertained Christendom with his stories.
Read: Carlyle's SIR WALTER SCOTT ..................... Vol. 25, pp. 410-420
Nov 18: Schiller's WILHELM TELL
Apple or Son the Arrow's Mark
The arrow shot from his bow with a twang and whizzed through
the air. Tell covered his eyes, fearing to see where the arrow hit.
Then the shout of triumph, a shout of the people and not of the
tyrant—but the end was not yet.
Read from Schiller's WILHELM TELL ................. Vol. 26, pp. 441-449
Nov 19: Tennyson's MORTE D'ARTHUR
No Man Knows His Resting Place
A barge with black sails bearing three black robed queens with
crowns of gold carried away the dying King Arthur. Will they
bring him back and fulfill Merlin's prophecy?
Read: Tennyson's MORTE D'ARTHUR ............ Vol. 42, pp. 986-992
Nov 20: GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES
Old Stories Ever New
When the cold winds howled about the thatched huts of the
German peasant, the mother drew her children to her side and
told them stories. Collected and retold by the Grimm brothers,
these stories have perennial charm.
Read from GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES ................. Vol. 17, pp. 90-98
Nov 21: Voltaire's LETTERS
Bargains in Wives
The beautiful daughters of the Circassians were in demand for
the seraglios of the Turkish Sultan. Voltaire tells how these
beauties were protected from smallpox centuries before modern
vaccination.
Read from Voltaire's LETTERS .................... Vol. 34, pp. 93-97
Nov 22: Virgil's AENEID
How a Queen Died for Love
Deserted by her lover, Queen Dido applied to her heart the only
balm that could ease her pain.
Read from Virgil's AENEID .......................... Vol. 13, pp. 167-177
Nov 23: PASCAL'S THOUGHTS
Less Than Star Dust
According to Pascal, a man is not even as significant as a speck
of star dust in the universe. Pascal's thoughts on the subject are
startling to the modern reader, and they furnish rich food for
the imagination.
Read from PASCAL'S THOUGHTS .................... Vol. 48, pp. 26-36
Nov 24: Darwin's ORIGIN OF SPECIES
The Book that Upset Tennessee
The signal for the beginning of a great controversy, still raging,
was the publication of Darwin's "Origin of Species." This was
the first complete statement of the evolution theory, which had
been privately advanced but never publicly taught. A new epoch
in science dates from this great work.
Read from Darwin's ORIGIN OF SPECIES ............. Vol. 11, pp. 23-30
Nov 25: Dekker's THE SHOEMAKER'S HOLIDAY
Cupid as a Shoemaker
We are indebted to Thomas Dekker for one of the most humorous
characters in all Elizabethan literature; namely, Simon Eyre, an
old shoemaker whose affairs became hilariously involved with
those of the gentry.
Read from Dekker's THE SHOEMAKER'S HOLIDAY ......... Vol. 47, pp. 469-483
Nov 26: Lamb ON THE TRAGEDIES OF SHAKESPEARE
Shakespeare Should Be Heard
Charles Lamb, favorite essayist, thought that no stage could do
justice to Shakespeare's tragedies. He advocated reading the
plays, and with the imagination costuming the players and building
the gorgeous scenery in a way equaled by no scene painter
or costumer.
Read: Lamb ON THE TRAGEDIES OF SHAKESPEARE .............. Vol. 27, pp. 299-310
Nov 27: Sir Thomas More's UTOPIA
What Land is This?
In wondrous Utopia pearls and precious stones were used as
playthings for little children. Gold rings and bracelets were only
worn by outcasts, while great golden chains shackled criminals
and felons. When ambassadors from foreign lands came in fine
raiment, the Utopians treated the plainest dressed as the greatest;
the others seemed to them like children.
Read from Sir Thomas More's UTOPIA ............... Vol. 36, pp. 191-204
Nov 28: BLAKE'S POEMS
Poems Made from Visions
"To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower—"
Such was the exaltation of the mysticism of William Blake, who
reflected in his poetry the ecstasy of his visions. Simplicity is the
keynote of his genius.
Read: BLAKE'S POEMS .......................... Vol. 41, pp. 583-592
Nov 29: Hume's OF THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS
How Ideas Originate
Did you ever stop to think just how you thought? What inner
emotions, what outer influences make up the fathomless depths
of mind and intellect? Hume explains how we draw our
thoughts, then clumsily put them into tangible shape called ideas.
Read: Hume's OF THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS ............... Vol. 37, pp. 299-303
Nov 30: Swift's ESSAY ON CONVERSATION
"Don'ts" for Conversation
To harp on one's illnesses, giving all the symptoms and circumstances,
has been a blemish on conversation for ages. Two
hundred years ago Swift complained of persons who continually
talked about themselves.
Read: Swift's ESSAY ON CONVERSATION .............. Vol. 27, pp. 91-98
Dec 1: Berkeley's THREE DIALOGUES
Are Skeptics Faulty Thinkers?
Offhand we say a skeptic is one who doubts everything. But
does he? And are his doubts caused by too much learning, or too
little? Berkeley presents both sides of skepticism.
Read from Berkeley's THREE DIALOGUES ............. Vol. 37, pp. 189-199
Dec 2: THE HOLY GRAIL
Practical Jokes in King Arthur's Day
Attacked in fun by two masked knights, Sir Galahad smote one
so that both horse and rider went down. Turning on the other
jester, he slashed open his helmet.
Read from THE HOLY GRAIL ................ Vol. 35, pp. 128-134
Dec 3: THE BIRTH OF THE BUDDHA
Met the Gods of Ten Thousand Worlds
After three awesome messengers have issued three warnings, the
gods of ten thousand worlds decide who is to be the new Buddha.
Then the parents, the conception, the birth of the god-child demand
constant vigilance.
Read: THE BIRTH OF THE BUDDHA ................... Vol. 45, pp. 603-612
Dec 4: Virgil's AENEID
The Queen Weds a Poor Stranger
Aeneas and Dido, world-famous lovers, while hunting in the
forest, were trapped in a cave by a furious storm. There the
marriage between the proud African queen and the homeless
wanderer was completed.
Dec 5: CHRISTINA ROSSETTI'S POEMS
Poems by an Artist's Model
So beautiful that many painters sought her for a model—
Christina Rossetti, sister of the famous poet, Dante Rossetti, combined
with her unusual beauty a rare poetic sense.
Read: CHRISTINA ROSSETTI'S POEMS .................... Vol. 42, pp. 1181-1183
Dec 6: Addison's ESSAYS
Moralizing as a Seductive Art
"The Vision of Mirza" and "Westminster Abbey," first printed
in "The Spectator," are examples of Addison's wondrous gift
of expression. He leads us to higher realms.
Read: Addison's ESSAYS ...................... Vol. 27, pp. 73-80
Dec 7: Plutarch's CICERO
What Cicero Least Expected
After being governor of Sicily, Cicero returned to Rome expecting
a hero's welcome. When he asked what the Romans thought
of his recent achievements, he received an astounding answer.
Read from Plutarch's CICERO ...................... Vol. 12, pp. 222-231
Dec 8: LEVANA AND OUR LADIES OF SORROW
Dream Women Shaped His Destiny
De Quincy imagined that three women were sent to him so that
he might know the depths of his soul. Real women could not
have wielded greater influence. It is fortunate that everyone does
not meet these weird women.
Read: LEVANA AND OUR LADIES OF SORROW ................ Vol. 27, pp. 319-325
Dec 9: THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT
Slavery's Last Stand
By the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 stringent laws were made to
prevent assistance being given to any slaves attempting to escape.
The antislavery answer to these laws was a perfection of the
"Underground Railroad."
Read: THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT ..................... Vol. 43, pp. 306-312
Dec 10: CELLINI'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Benvenuto Boasts of Gallantry
Taking offense at a soldier who made advances toward his
favorite lady, Cellini jumped from the window, knife in hand,
to avenge himself. This incident was recorded with characteristic
conceit by Cellini in his amazing diary.
Dec 11: Plutarch's ALCIBIADES
The Most Dashing Figure in Athens
The handsome Alcibiades, cunning in politics, bold in war, was
the lion of Athenian society until he violated the secrets of a
mysterious religious cult. Then all outraged Athens united to
dash their idol to the ground.
Read from Plutarch's ALCIBIADES ............... Vol. 12, pp. 106-117
Dec 12: BROWNING'S POEMS
How the Glorious News was Carried to Aix
Three brave men began the heroic ride from Ghent to Aix. Only
one man arrived to tell the thrilling story of the tempestuous
ride. In one of his most bewitching poems, in lines that haunt
the memory, Browning retells the story.
Read: BROWNING'S POEMS ................ Vol. 42, pp. 1066-1068
Dec 13: DRAKE'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD
To the South Seas with the Gallant Drake
A famous voyage was Sir Francis Drake's around the world.
Drake's crew, the first white men to visit many parts of the
world, received amazing receptions from the natives.
Read from DRAKE'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD ........ Vol. 33, pp. 199-208
Dec 14: MARVELL'S POEMS
Pastoral Poems and Politics
The many-sided Marvell, who wielded a pen that was both
feared and courted, is seen at his best in stirring verse. "A
Garden," "Prospect of Flowers," with the "Horatian Ode upon
Cromwell," show the power of his genius.
Read: MARVELL'S POEMS .................... Vol. 40, pp. 370-379
Dec 15: Homer's ODYSSEY
Odysseus Talks with Ghosts
This is another of those marvelous and unforgetable tales of the
wandering Odysseus. The fantasy takes him into regions where
he discourses with deceased heroes.
Dec 16: Burke's THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL
How Man's Courtship Differs from Animal's
Beauty is an important factor in the attraction between man and
woman. It is knowing beauty that differentiates man from the
animals, which only require that their mates be of the same
species.
Read from Burke's THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL ............ Vol. 24, pp. 37-48
Dec 17: CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE
Dies on the Eve of Her Son's Conversion
The mother of St. Augustine prayed unceasingly for her son's
conversion. The most touching, most soul-revealing writing St.
Augustine did is in the description of his mother's death.
Read from CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE .......... Vol. 7, pp. 150-160
Dec 18: SOME THOUGHTS CONCERNING EDUCATION
For a Gentleman
Every schoolboy asks: "What's the use of learning Latin?"
John Locke, one of the greatest educators of all time, maintains
that Latin is absolutely essential to a well-bred gentleman, and
explains why.
Read from SOME THOUGHTS CONCERNING EDUCATION ............ Vol. 37, pp. 136-145
Dec 19: Milton's SAMSON AGONISTES
Samson Finds a Champion
The mighty Samson was blinded while a captive of the
Philistines. He sought revenge—a revenge devastating and cosdy.
Milton, himself a giant of intellect, blind and imprisoned, wrote
of this sightless giant of other days.
Read: Milton's SAMSON AGONISTES ................ Vol. 4, pp. 444-459
Dec 20: Herodotus' AN ACCOUNT OF EGYPT
Egypt Visited by the First Reporter
All phases of life were pictured by Herodotus in his history.
Like a modern newspaper reporter, he combines weird stories,
scandals, and battle accounts with descriptions of places, persons,
and sights about town.
Read from Herodotus' AN ACCOUNT OF EGYPT ............ Vol. 33, pp. 7-17
Dec 21: Bunyan's PILGRIM'S PROGRESS
"Madam Bubble" Not to Be Discouraged
"Madam Bubble," or this vain world, presented both herself and
her purse to the wayfarer. Repulsed and scorned, yet she serenely
flaunts her bribes enticingly before his bewildered eyes.
Read from Bunyan's PILGRIM'S PROGRESS ............. Vol. 15, pp. 306-318
Dec 22: Darwin's VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE
Rubbing Noses in New Zealand
Darwin, in exploring New Zealand, finds cannibalism, tattooing,
and many weird customs among the natives. Instead of shaking
hands, the salutation is by rubbing noses.
Read from Darwin's VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE ........... Vol. 29, pp. 425-434
Dec 23: Sainte-Beuve's WHAT IS A CLASSIC?
Saved from a Bonfire of Books
If all the books in the world were on fire, some men would risk
their lives to save certain priceless writings: the world's classics.
Sainte-Beuve here tells why.
Read: Sainte-Beuve's WHAT IS A CLASSIC? ............ Vol. 32, pp. 121-133
Dec 24: HOLINSHED'S CHRONICLES
Christmas Made a Dull Day
Before the Reformation in England almost every third day was
a holy day. But the Puritans abolished all the holy days, even
Read from HOLINSHED'S CHRONICLES .......... Vol. 35, pp. 266-270
Dec 25: GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE
Luke was a Greek physician, a man of culture, trained in the
best universities of the ancient world. He became imbued with
the spirit of Christ, and wrote the most beautiful story of the
birth and life of Jesus.
Read from the GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE ........... Vol. 44, pp. 357-360
Dec 26: Shakespeare's KING LEAR
Silence Cost Her a Kingdom
Cordelia, daughter of old King Lear, could not convince her
father of her love for him. Afterward, when misfortunes made
him accept her aid, he learned too late of her real devotion.
Read from Shakespeare's KING LEAR .......... Vol. 46, pp. 288-300
Million-Year-Old Islands
It was the new-old lands that Darwin visited on his voyage of
the "Beagle." The strange specimens of prehistoric life he saw
there made the world gape and shudder.
Read from Darwin's VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE ......... Vol. 29, pp. 376-389
Dec 28: DRAKE'S GREAT ARMADA
Ho! for the Spanish Main!
Drake with a fleet of twenty-five ships and twenty-three hundred
men sets sail to plunder and lay waste Spain's treasure hoards in
the New World. Gold and silver bar, nuggets and jewels awaited
the bold adventurers.
Read from DRAKE'S GREAT ARMADA ............. Vol. 33, pp. 229-240
These Guests Outstayed Their Welcome
After twenty years' absence, Odysseus returned home to find his
house filled with strangers rioting and wasting his treasure.
Crafty Odysseus, with the aid of his son and the gods, devised a
bold plan to rid his home of the unwelcome guests.
Read from Homer's ODYSSEY ...................... Vol. 22, pp. 296-309
Dec 30: Dana's TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST
Dana Meets a Tattooed Sailor
Dana's description of the picturesque, pre-gold-rush California
is unique. While he was on the Pacific coast he met a British
sailor who was elaborately tattooed and of an unforgetable appearance
Read from Dana's Two YEARS BEFORE THE MAST ............... Vol. 23, pp. 77-86
Dec 31: Carlyle's INAUGURAL ADDRESS
Curiosity and Interest as Guides to Reading
The most unhappy man, Carlyle says, is the man who has no
real work—no interest in life. To avoid this miserable state, he
advises faithful and diligent reading along the lines dictated by
curiosity and interest.
Read from Carlyle's INAUGURAL ADDRESS ............ Vol. 25, pp. 364-374
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Most Pro-Life Laws are Based on Sound Science
By Michael J. New
About Michael J. New
Follow Michael J. New on Twitter
Pro-life signs outside the Supreme Court, June 2014 (Reuters photo: Jim Bourg)
Pro-abortion groups and much of the media want you to think otherwise.
Last month, the Guttmacher Institute released a policy analysis claiming that many state pro-life laws have no scientific basis. The analysis considers various categories of state-level pro-life laws and concludes that 53 percent of women of childbearing age live in a state with at least two restrictions “that conflict with the scientific evidence.” In the news release that accompanied the policy analysis, one author claims that “the antiabortion movement has long been an evidence-free zone and many of its signature initiatives and proposals are devoid of any factual foundation.”
The Guttmacher analysis evaluates ten major types of pro-life laws and details the ways in which they supposedly conflict with established science. The restrictions are grouped into three broad topic areas: 1) restrictions targeting abortion providers, 2) counseling and waiting-period requirements, and 3) restrictions using fetal pain as a pretext. Unsurprisingly, the Guttmacher analysis is very selective in terms of the scientific research it cites. A broader view of the same research topics clearly shows that many pro-life laws in each of these three categories are consistent with high-quality, established, peer-reviewed science.
Restrictions Targeting Abortion Providers
The deplorable conditions in Kermit Gosnell’s Philadelphia clinic received national attention during the abortionist’s 2013 criminal trial for violating state abortion-safety laws. While they don’t often receive similar attention, several other investigations have revealed that many abortions are performed in substandard conditions.
Over the past six years, over 175 abortion facilities have faced investigations, criminal charges, administrative complaints, and civil lawsuits related to the conditions in which abortions were provided. Clinic regulations established in Virginia in 2011 allowed for the discovery that several clinics were performing abortions in unsanitary conditions.
Opponents of abortion-clinic regulations often target hall-width requirements for particular ridicule. In reality, these requirements are put in place to ensure that patients can be quickly and safely evacuated in case of a medical emergency. In Gosnell’s case, for example, the maze-like structure of the hallways made it impossible for emergency medical respondents to remove a woman from the clinic, and that delay contributed to her eventual death from abortion complications.
Counseling and Waiting-Period Requirements
Groups that support legal abortion often claim that abortion does not increase the risk of physical- or psychological-health problems. These activists attempt to shut down debate by trotting out a list of statements from professional and academic organizations asserting that abortion does not, in fact, increase health risks in a variety of areas. But the claims from these academic organizations do not always reflect the best research or any kind of scholarly consensus. Sometimes the positions simply reflect the attitudes of those who are most involved with the organizations, often pro-abortion groups. Furthermore, academic and professional organizations at times adopt positions for political reasons rather than because of their accuracy.
This is especially evident in the case of abortion, and a closer look at the research tells a different story from the one that pro-abortion groups like Guttmacher present. Skeptics of the abortion–breast cancer link often argue that the Danish study by Melbye et al., published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1997, is the methodologically strongest study on the topic. They often ignore the fact that this study found that abortions after 18 weeks of gestation are correlated with a statistically significant increase in the risk of breast cancer. Furthermore, a meta-analysis of 22 studies examining the pregnancy experiences of over 800,000 women, published by the British Journal of Psychiatry, showed that women who had abortions were at a significantly greater risk for mental-health problems.
Regarding waiting periods, Guttmacher’s own analysis of Utah’s 72-hour waiting period demonstrates the scientific merit of that particular policy. The pro-abortion group in fact found that, of 500 women seeking abortions, approximately 8 percent did not go through with the procedure. Importantly, women who remained pregnant reported a higher-than-average degree of conflict about obtaining an abortion. In other words, these women were less confident in their decision to seek an abortion.
When the pregnant women were asked why they did not go through with the abortion, 71 percent said that they had changed their mind, rather than as the result of state restrictions. The study only identified one woman who legally could not get an abortion because her pregnancy reached the gestational age limit. Overall, the Utah study nicely demonstrates that waiting-period laws are grounded in good science. A non-trivial percentage of women who seek abortions are conflicted about the decision, and waiting periods often result in some of those conflicted women choosing life-affirming alternatives.
Fetal Pain
The Chronicle of Higher Education ran a useful article in the summer of 2011 detailing the ongoing debate within the scientific community on this topic. The article cited a number of prominent neonatal and pediatric researchers, who argue that unborn children can feel pain at 20 weeks. Among those researchers were Martin Ward Platt, an honorary clinical reader in neonatal and pediatric medicine at Newcastle University, and Sunny Anand, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Arkansas. Notably, none of the researchers cited or quoted in the article have been involved with the pro-life movement.
Groups that support legal abortion, along with their allies in the mainstream media, tend to portray abortion-policy debates as being between credentialed scientists on one side and ignorant pro-life activists on the other. The reality is far more complicated. There are rich and nuanced debates about many aspects of public policy related to abortion. Unsurprisingly, the authors of the Guttmacher analysis are very selective in the studies they cite. A broader review of the relevant research indicates that most pro-life laws are based on sound scientific principles.
Planned Parenthood’s Annual Report: Abortions Are Up, Prenatal Care Is Down
Undercover Video: ‘I Might… Pull Off a Leg or Two’
Kermit Gosnell’s Labyrinth of Terrors
– Michael J. New is a visiting associate professor at Ave Maria University and an associate scholar with the Charlotte Lozier Institute.
Michael J. New is a visiting assistant professor of social research and political science at the Catholic University of America and an associate scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute in Washington, D.C. @Michael_J_New
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Jeff McCausland Trump's North Korea summit failed because he doesn't understand what Kim Jong Un really wants
So much for that Nobel Peace Prize. What happened in Hanoi says a great deal about how Trump perceives his own negotiating skills.
President Donald Trump meets North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Feb. 27, 2019, in Hanoi.Evan Vucci / AP
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March 5, 2019, 11:11 PM UTC / Updated March 5, 2019, 11:13 PM UTC
By Jeff McCausland, retired U.S. Army colonel and former member of the National Security Council
President Donald Trump’s apparent desire to be awarded the Nobel Prize for his negotiations with North Korea was one of the casualties of the Hanoi summit at the end of February. He likely reflected on that fact and what to do in the future as Air Force One headed home.
Trump claims Obama told him that he was "so close to starting a big war with North Korea."
He then says Prime Minister Abe of Japan nominated him for the Nobel Prize, and also takes credit for "stopping the slaughter of perhaps 3 million people" in Syria. pic.twitter.com/6Pmn31eEWQ
The president has now travelled to Asia twice to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and achieved virtually nothing. The vague goal of a denuclearized Korean peninsula — the essence of the Singapore communique — has yet to be clearly defined, and there is still no clear roadmap to achieve this objective. Indeed on Tuesday, NBC News reported that North Korea is pursuing the "rapid rebuilding" of the long-range rocket site at Sohae Launch Facility.
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There are many reasons for what has clearly been a massive foreign policy failure. Importantly, Trump has eschewed the traditional “bottom-up” approach to diplomacy. This approach allows diplomats to negotiate a myriad of issues prior to the actual summit, which is often largely a signing ceremony. In contrast, Trump reportedly brushed off warnings from advisors who claimed the North Koreans were unwilling to give up their nuclear stockpile, and even suggested the summit be postponed. To the chagrin of these experts, Trump remained convinced that he could achieve success due to his negotiating skills, force of personality and relationship with Kim.
While Trump was always fighting an uphill battle, his latest failure will likely make future negotiations even more challenging.
He was wrong. And while Trump was always fighting an uphill battle, his latest failure will likely make future negotiations even more challenging. Compromise will be difficult now that both leaders have personally staked out their respective lines in the sand. Thus, what happened in Hanoi ultimately says a great deal about how Trump perceives his own negotiating skills. But it also offers more clues about what exactly it is the enigmatic Kim Jong Un wants.
The president went to summit with the goal of trading the removal of U.S. sanctions for the complete elimination of North Korea’s nuclear capabilities. Kim was not willing to accept this plan. In his press conference, Trump stated that Kim insisted the U.S. should remove all sanctions in return for the DPRK closing the Yongbyon nuclear complex, which the president deemed insufficient. The North Koreans disputed this description and claimed they only sought a partial removal of sanctions.
Clearly, there were major misunderstandings and false assumptions on both sides. Kim may have believed that Trump needed a win after months of significant pressure and political setbacks at home. It also appears that the North Koreans were surprised by what the U.S. delegation knew about secret North Korean facilities.
Was Trump's diplomatic team ready for North Korea meeting?
March 3, 201910:29
One of Trump’s biggest mistakes was his assumption that Kim needs the U.S. to dramatically improve its economic situation, and thus the nukes for sanctions trade makes sense. This is not accurate. An improved economy is not an ends for Kim, but rather a means. He clearly wants to stop the economic strangulation of his country, address widespread malnutrition to avoid social unrest and gain access to Western goods and technologies to modernize his military. But his primary goal is to maintain his iron-clad control over the regime. He may wish to end starvation in his country, but the transformation of North Korean society that might result from dramatic economic development and greater access to the West could have catastrophic consequences for the dictator.
Kim is a smart man with an understanding of history. He very likely recalls Mikhail Gorbachev’s effort to restructure the Soviet economy and provide greater transparency for its population, an effort which led to not only his demise but the end of the USSR. The North Korean press also covered the demise of both Moammar Gadhafi and Saddam Hussein. The lesson was clear: Forfeiture of a nation’s nuclear weapons program was an invitation for destruction.
Instead, Kim Jong Un probably hopes that eventually the DPRK can emulate India and Pakistan. Both countries acquired nuclear weapons in the 1990s and were initially declared international pariahs for their failure to subscribe to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Over time, however, their status as nuclear powers has been accepted by the international community. This historical context seems to have escaped Trump, however, if not his foreign policy experts. The calculations have changed.
Robert Gates, former secretary of defense in both the Barack Obama and George W. Bush administrations, once said the three words most infrequently uttered in Washington are “and then what?" Trump and his advisers are certainly considering this question now that it seems unlikely a third North Korea summit is going to happen anytime soon.
But while the original goal of the summit is now out of reach, Trump can absolutely make the existing situation worse. To make sure this doesn’t happen, he needs to do several things.
NewsNorth Korea rebuilding long-range rocket site, photos show
First, he needs to avoid the rhetoric of “fire and fury” or “little rocket man.” Insults have gotten Trump nowhere. Instead, a return to the more tedious bottom-up approach of diplomacy is now warranted. Such efforts could focus on intermediate goals such as confidence-building measures, exchange of liaison missions to respective capitals and discussions about broader security concerns such as proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by North Korea, etc. The administration might even consider reviving the so-called six-party talks that included the U.S., South Korea, DPRK, China and Russia.
Trump must also work to continue to reassure U.S. allies in the region. South Korean President Moon Jae-in is likely very disappointed by the failure to achieve an agreement. He has staked his political future on improved relations with the North following two meetings with Kim Jong Un and a historic trip to Pyongyang. Moon is likely going to press the Trump administration to allow inter-Korean economic development and humanitarian assistance outside the existing sanctions.
Many Japanese leaders on the other hand were concerned that the Trump administration would ignore their concerns about North Korea’s short-range missiles that threaten Tokyo in a desire to achieve a breakthrough. Japan and South Korea remain not only two of America’s closest allies but also very important trading partners. Disputes with these allies over trade coupled with the surprise announcement that the U.S. would be ending large-scale joint military exercises with South Korea have strained relations. Kim knows this and will likely attempt to exploit any weaknesses in the diplomatic fabric.
OpinionTrump's reported desire to leave NATO is a belated Christmas present for Putin
China’s role in the situation is particularly important. North Korea will portray itself as an aggrieved party who sought peace with the United States and was frustrated. Furthermore, the Singapore and Hanoi summits have elevated Kim on the international stage and may make maintenance of international support for sanctions even more difficult. Trump’s upcoming trade meeting with President Xi Jingping of China will be critical in this regard. The leaders will undoubtedly discuss North Korea as Chinese support for the sanctions is essential if the U.S. is going to maintain pressure on North Korea.
Winston Churchill once remarked “to jaw-jaw always is better than to war-war.” Trump deserves credit for initiating a dialogue with North Korea that had been absent for many years. He claims to have created a “special relationship” with Kim who, at 35 years of age, could rule North Korea for decades to come. But the problem that is North Korea remains after Hanoi.
In every crisis there is often an opportunity, and the Trump administration must now create a more holistic approach as it continues to work with Pyongyang and negotiate the changing nature of international security in northeast Asia. This will require painstaking discussions on not only about nuclear weapons but also proliferation, the conventional threat North Korea poses to the South Korea, DPRK arms sales in Africa and the Middle East, as well as Pyongyang’s abysmal human rights record. None of this will be achievable, however, until the Trump White House stops treating diplomacy like an episode of “The Apprentice” and tries to actually figure out what motivates the North Korean leader.
Jeff McCausland
Jeff McCausland is a retired U.S. Army colonel and national security consultant for CBS Radio. He commanded a battalion in combat, was a member of the National Security Council in the White House, and Dean of the U.S. Army War College.
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Brian J. Neary
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NEW JERSEY BAIL REFORM IS COMING IN 2017
Posted on September 7, 2016 October 12, 2017 by bneary
Major changes, due to take effect in January 2017, are afoot in New Jersey with respect to how bail is set for criminal defendants. One of the most important things for criminal defendants to know when bail reform takes effect is that it will be very important—much more so than before—to be represented by an attorney before the first court appearance, which takes place very shortly after arrest.
Across the country, states have come to recognize that their existing bail systems are not working as intended, and a few, like New Jersey, have taken steps to make the system work in a way that is more consistent with its goals.
The purpose of having a bail system in the first place is twofold: first, to ensure public safety, and second, to make certain that criminal defendants will return to court. In most states, the system, as it stands, is an imperfect fit for those goals and has a host of unintended consequences.
Why is Bail Reform Needed?
Most states have a resource-based bail system: a judge sets an amount of bail depending on the circumstances of the criminal matter at hand. If defendants can post the amount ordered, they are released pending their next court date. If not, they languish in jail. The majority of people currently in local jails haven’t been convicted of any crime; they are waiting for the disposition of their cases.
Most of these people are awaiting trial on nonviolent offenses. Many are in jail not because they represent a danger to public safety or a flight risk, but because they were financially unable to post bail. Keeping these defendants locked up pending trial costs local governments across the country billions of dollars per year.
Not only is there a financial impact on communities, there is a huge cost to the individual defendants and their families. Criminal justice experts note that for defendants who are employed, pretrial jail time often costs them their jobs. This in turn hampers their ability to support their families. And the only difference between these defendants and other defendants accused of identical crimes is that some have the money to make bail, and some don’t. Those who don’t may pose no greater risk than those who do, but they suffer disproportionately.
Conversely, there are defendants whose history shows that they pose a risk to the public or specific others if released. Under the old bail policy in New Jersey, it’s possible that a dangerous offender who has the resources for bail would be released while a defendant with no criminal history, charged with a non-violent crime, would be detained due to financial inability to post bail.
New Jersey’s New Bail Policy
New Jersey is one of a handful of states that has elected to shift from a commercial or resource-based system to a risk-based system. This change is expected to have a number of advantages. First and foremost, eligible defendants will be granted release, or not, depending on an objective, standardized risk assessment. The risk assessment tool evaluates the likelihood of a defendant being arrested for a new crime or for a new violent crime, or failing to appear in court.
Following the risk assessment, an eligible defendant may be released on his or her own recognizance; granted a non-monetary release with certain conditions; released with monetary bail only to ensure a future appearance; or released with some combination of monetary bail and conditions. There is also the possibility that a defendant will not be released, but remain in detention. This would happen only following a motion by the State and a hearing on the motion, not simply at the court’s request. The new law puts legal protections in place for defendants in the event of such a motion and the detention hearing that would follow.
These protections include the right to be represented by counsel and to cross-examine witnesses. In these cases where a defendant’s release or detention hinges on the outcome of a detention hearing, it is going to be especially critical to have an attorney’s representation as soon as possible.
In the months leading up to New Jersey’s new bail policy taking effect, we will continue to post information about the changes in the law, including who is an “eligible defendant,” and details on the risk assessment process, the various types of release, and the process for granting release or detention.
Attorney Brian Neary has been instrumental in educating New Jersey attorneys on this sweeping reform, including speaking at the 2016 New Jersey State Bar Convention and before the Hudson County Bar Association. He has also served as a faculty member for NJICLE’s “New Jersey’s Comprehensive Bail Reform Law: 2016 Update.“
Posted in New Jersey Bail Law
ATTORNEY BRIAN J. NEARY NAMED TO NEW JERSEY STATE BAR FOUNDATION BOARD OF TRUSTEES
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Diary of a Guidebook Writer: Why Bill Bryson should return to Hammerfest
by admin · Published August 12, 2016 · Updated August 8, 2016
Photo: David Nikel
A walk up a steep zig-zag path rewards you with a view of the city.
David Nikel
When it comes to travel writing, my undisputed hero is Bill Bryson. King of the first-person narrative, his fondness for Britain also earns him a special place on my bookshelves. As a Brit living abroad, I can identify with some of his observations on how Brits behave in his book Notes from a Small Island. You learn a lot about yourself when living abroad!
But it’s one of his earlier books that I want to talk about today. Neither Here Nor There chronicles his travels around Europe in an age before low-cost airlines, internet booking sites, and social media.
A long way from anywhere
He starts his travels, quite surprisingly, in Hammerfest. It claims to be the world’s northernmost town and while that’s up for debate (it comes down to definitions), let’s just agree to say Hammerfest is a very long way from anywhere. It’s not just a long way north from the rest of the country; it’s a long way east, too. Hammerfest lies almost due north of Helsinki, Finland, and as such, my iPhone kept trying to switch into Eastern European Time.
So why did Bryson choose Hammerfest of all places to begin his trip? It’s fairly simple. He wanted to see the northern lights:
“It is a place of dark and brutal winters where the sun sinks into the Arctic Ocean in November and does not rise again for ten weeks. I wanted to see the northern lights. Also, I had long harbored a half-formed urge to experience what life was like in such a remote and forbidding place. Sitting at home in England with a glass of whiskey and a book of maps, this had seemed like a capital idea. But now, as I picked my way through the grey, late December slush of Oslo, I was beginning to have my doubts.”
His doubts were confirmed as he experienced a very quiet town gripped by high winds and winter storms. But at least he saw the northern lights. As much as that’s a magnetic attraction, I wouldn’t recommend a visit in the depths of winter to anyone. Many attractions are closed, and low temperatures, storms, and constant darkness mean you need to have a real desire to visit. You’re better off choosing Tromsø, which is a much livelier destination in the wintertime with just as much chance of sighting the northern lights.
Hammerfest’s smart new waterfront is lined with hotels and restaurants.
Summertime visit
I visited in July and I have to say, Hammerfest was a pleasant place. I was lucky enough to visit in the middle of a heatwave and experienced a remarkable temperature of 84°F at 8:00 a.m.! This was freak weather and Arctic summers are usually much milder, albeit with guaranteed sunshine 24 hours a day unless the clouds get in the way.
Since Bryson’s visit, the city has undergone rapid transformation thanks to the construction of the gas-processing facility on the nearby Melkøya island, which serves the vast Snøhvit (Snow White) natural gas field in the Norwegian Sea.
All of a sudden, the city and its citizens became affluent, new hotels sprung up, a smart new boardwalk was built, and new shops and cafés moved in.
Plenty to do
As I visited in the summer, I found plenty to do. Gammelveien (The Old Road) is a gravelly path that circles the town. Built at the very end of the 19th century, a stretch of the path zig-zags its way up the cliff face that towers over downtown. In the winter, this path is closed as ice and snow make it too dangerous.
The Museum of Reconstruction features example homes from the post-war era.
The bleak yet fascinating Museum of Reconstruction tells the story of Hammerfest’s destruction during World War II and its subsequent revival. Meanwhile, although the town’s emblem is a polar bear, it’s reindeer that roam the town’s streets during the summer. Be wary when you drive—although locals get frustrated with the animals, they won’t take too kindly to a foreigner knocking one down.
There’s even a UNESCO World Heritage site in the town, or part of one at least. Hammerfest marks the northernmost point of the Struve Geodetic Arc, a chain of survey triangulations stretching through ten countries to the Black Sea, which yielded the first accurate measurement of a meridian. A monument marks the spot.
However, the real joy in Hammerfest is using the town as a base to explore Finnmark county, whether by hiking, fishing, sailing, or enjoying a picnic in front of the midnight sun. The comfortable hotels, restaurants, museums, shops, and bars of the city will be waiting for you when you return. Hammerfest is also a great place to base yourself if you’re heading to the North Cape, which I’ll talk about next month.
Despite his digs throughout the chapter, Bryson left Hammerfest with a certain fondness for the place and its people. I just think he’d like it far more were he to visit in the summer!
David Nikel is a freelance writer based in Norway. He runs the popular www.lifeinnorway.net blog and is the author of the upcoming MOON Norway guidebook.
This article originally appeared in the Aug. 12, 2016, issue of The Norwegian American. To subscribe, visit SUBSCRIBE or call us at (206) 784-4617.
Tags: David NikelHammerfestsummer in Hammerfest
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01/03/2019 — Novalpina Capital
Response to Open Letter to Novalpina Capital on 18 February 2019
R3D: Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales
Robert L. Bernstein Institute for Human Rights, NYU School of Law and Global Justice Clinic, NYU School of Law
Cc: Citizen Lab
I write in reply to your open letter to Novalpina Capital on 18 February 2019. Please consider this reply to be an open letter for you to publish and share freely. In the interests of transparency, I have also copied Citizen Lab on this correspondence as they have contacted us separately with a number of questions similar to your own, and I hope this reply will also provide them with helpful background and explanation.
I would like to state at the outset that I welcome your collective willingness to engage in informed dialogue on the governance of NSO Group (“NSO”) specifically and the cybersecurity sector more generally.
In my reply, I will provide you with important context on my own background, on Novalpina Capital and on the thinking behind our decision to invest in NSO. I will then set out the steps we intend to take – together with NSO’s executive management team and through engagement with human rights groups, civil society groups and other relevant stakeholders – which I believe will address over time the key points you have set out in your letter to us.
Firstly, I want to state my own clear commitment to good corporate governance, to the rights of NGOs, journalists and dissidents to hold both governments and corporations accountable for their actions, and to the protection of human rights. Besides my relatively extensive experience in international private equity investment, I have an academic and practical background in policy relating to social justice, development, governance and anti-corruption. This included studying in 2014-2015 at the Institute of Global Affairs at Yale (on whose board I now sit) and a Visiting Fellowship at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford from 2016-2018. I have also been involved with a number of NGOs including Global Witness (where I was a board member from 2015 until I recently stepped down) and the Open Contracting Partnership, where I have been an Advisory Board member since 2016 and am currently Chair.
The private equity fund that I co-founded and co-lead, Novalpina Capital, is committed to operating under the highest standards of corporate governance, acting with integrity and a respect for human rights at all times. We are a signatory to the UN Principles on Responsible Investing, and we build ESG evaluations (including from a human rights perspective) into our investment decision processes and operating practices. We believe that in addition to creating financial returns for our investors, we should aim to eliminate during our ownership, as far as possible, any societal harms a business may produce.
We believe that every business in which we invest – including NSO – can and should be operated in accordance with all aspects of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (the “UN Guiding Principles”), including a commitment to robust transparency in line with those Principles.
We fully understand that the cybersecurity industry within which NSO operates is contentious and has concerned human rights groups for some time. I would like to set out why all of us at Novalpina Capital – with our strong commitment to human rights – believe it is right to have made this acquisition. I will also provide you with an initial outline as to how we intend to be a good, responsible and ethical owner of this company whose work (for reasons I explain below) is of such importance.
As you know, in recent years there has been a rapid growth worldwide in the use of end-to-end encrypted communications. There are very significant societal benefits associated with widespread adoption of end-to-end encryption algorithms in messaging platforms, web browsing and other forms of electronic communications. This technology enables citizens to communicate with a high degree of confidence that their fundamental human rights will be protected. As the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye, concluded in his 2015 report to the UN Human Rights Council, encryption and anonymity “provide the privacy and security necessary for the exercise of the right to freedom of opinion and expression in the digital age.”. End-to-end encryption is also vital for business, industry and government; for example, without it e-commerce and online banking could not function as no organisation would be willing to transfer funds over a potentially insecure connection.
However, the growth of end-to-end encryption – while greatly positive for the reasons I outline above – also presents society with a paradox. End-to-end encryption makes it extremely difficult for law enforcement and intelligence agencies to gain access to the content of communications between individuals intent on causing harm to the public. The bodies tasked with protecting the public from serious harms have found that their ability to identify, monitor and disrupt a wide range of criminal and terrorist activities has been degraded as a consequence of virtually unbreakable encryption. This is particularly the case for cross-border organised crime such as child sexual abuse networks, drug smuggling and human trafficking and for terrorist-related activity. In effect, the technology that protects the public is also increasingly putting the public at risk; an unintended consequence that requires a rational and proportionate discussion on the way forward.
I know that this point arouses concern among human rights and civil society groups who are worried that the inevitable direction of travel is an overall weakening of the effectiveness of end-to-end encryption and therefore an erosion of what is unarguably an important layer of protection for human rights worldwide. We fully understand that concern. We would point out, though, that if intelligence agencies and law enforcement are unable to intervene effectively when they are lawfully authorised to do so, the risk to the human rights of victims of terrorism, drug smugglers, people traffickers and child sexual abuse rings (among many other such examples) is far from inconsequential. The harms involved cannot be discounted; they are real, and growing.
In our view, a commitment to protect one aspect of human rights (the citizen’s right to privacy and freedom of expression) that is strengthened by the use of end-to-end encryption must be matched by a willingness to act when it is clear that another aspect of human rights (the citizen’s right to life, personal liberty, security and bodily integrity) is at risk as a result of that technology. I am sure you would agree that all fundamental human rights are equally important. In that respect, we believe that inaction to address the encryption paradox is simply untenable.
A number of law enforcement and intelligence agencies have told the company that the timely and targeted deployment of the type of technology supplied by NSO has played a direct and critical role in preventing loss of life and serious injury, including (to provide you with one recent example, the details of which cannot be disclosed for operational reasons) the disruption of plans for a terrorist attack at a crowded stadium in Europe. NSO technology is also used in a number of other public safety applications. This includes providing assistance to the Brazilian authorities in the search for the remains of people killed in the recent Brumadinho mining dam collapse, assisting rescue teams searching for people trapped under ruins after the 2017 Mexican earthquake, and helping the emergency services locate construction workers trapped when a parking garage collapsed in Tel Aviv in 2016.
I would also like to highlight another important aspect of our thinking in choosing to invest in NSO. For the reasons I outline above, many governments, law enforcement bodies and intelligence agencies are seriously concerned that many individuals intent on public harm are able to communicate and coordinate over end-to-end encrypted channels free from the potential of lawful agency intervention. In a number of countries, those concerns have prompted legislative debates focused on the potential for end-to-end encrypted communications to be decrypted at the core telecommunications network level so that agencies can gain access to communications content in the clear.
Network-level decryption – via so-called network ‘backdoors’ or man-in-the-middle decryption technologies – is fraught with enormous risk. As telecoms operators and human rights groups have pointed out, this approach would compromise overall network integrity, putting all users of those networks at risk. It would also provide governments with the capabilities required (should they choose to use them) to implement mass surveillance regimes, utilising decryption technology built into core networks to gain cleartext access to all traffic transiting across them.
We believe that any and all actions by law enforcement and intelligence agencies must be proportionate and targeted, operating within robust and clear legal frameworks. As has been reported publicly in a number of countries, the technology developed by NSO enables investigators to focus on a small number of specific individuals of concern at the device level. NSO’s technology is highly targeted by design. From a human rights perspective, we believe it is a compelling alternative to what would otherwise be the seemingly inevitable outcome from current government and agency discussions worldwide: the weakening of end-to-end encryption at the network level and, in turn, the re-emergence of widespread mass surveillance regimes enabled by network ‘backdoor’/man-in-the-middle decryption.
Our overall thinking in considering the human rights aspects of an investment in NSO was therefore informed by two beliefs:
the long-term viability of ubiquitous end-to-end encryption – with all of its benefits for the protection of human rights – depends on urgent action to address the role that end-to-end encryption also plays in facilitating human rights abuse by individuals intent on harming the public such as terrorists and criminals, and;
any action in this area should be proportionate and targeted, with processes in place in line with the UN Guiding Principles to mitigate any potential human rights risks arising as a consequence of that action.
Prior to making our investment in NSO, we conducted thorough due diligence on the company. In addition to a detailed assessment of the company’s financial and operating data for investment purposes, our due diligence focused on its legal compliance framework and approach to a wide range of ESG matters.
The due diligence programme was led and coordinated by myself and my partner Stefan Kowski, and was supported by four investment professionals in the Novalpina Capital team. We drew on the expertise of a number of specialist external legal advisers with a background in corporate governance and international human rights, and assessed NSO’s compliance with best practice in the cybersecurity industry. The external advisers involved included:
the international law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges (with a team of 22 lawyers under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schmidt) for legal compliance due diligence;
Dr Günter Schmid (co-founder of KERBEROS Compliance Managementsysteme GmbH (https://kerberos-cms.com) and an experienced corporate executive with a background in compliance) for overall corporate governance due diligence including ESG;
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (with a team of approximately 20 accountants under the leadership of Mark Diffey) for financial and tax due diligence; and
the international law firm, White & Case for financing parties’ due diligence.
The design of the due diligence programme was informed by a number of human rights guidelines including the UN Guiding Principles, the European Union ICT Sector Guide on Implementing the UN Guiding Principles and UK Guidance on Assessing Cyber Security Export Risks.
We were given the opportunity to interview the NSO senior management team at length and explored with them all of the available information regarding allegations of misuse and the results of the subsequent related investigations carried out by NSO. Detailed interviews were conducted with:
Chief Executive Officer;
Chief Financial Officer;
Chief Business Officer;
Chief Product Officer;
Chief Operating Officer;
VP Human Resources;
Head of Business Development; and
General Counsel, Legal & Compliance.
We also engaged with independent members of NSO’s Business Ethics Committee (“BEC”), the governance body that oversees the selection of end-user organisations and any investigations into instances of alleged misuse, as described further below.
I would add that in designing the due diligence programme ahead of our acquisition of NSO, our approach was directly informed by a detailed analysis of prior concerns and allegations expressed by human rights groups and academic research organisations in a wide range of public statements and research reports.
In your letter of 18 February, you set out your concerns regarding matters that predate Novalpina Capital’s involvement with NSO. We examined NSO’s approach in response to allegations of misuse of the company’s technology as part of the due diligence process outlined above.
We spent four weeks engaging intensively with NSO management and the members of the BEC. We found no indication that the process followed by the company to investigate alleged misuse of its technology was partial or otherwise flawed, nor anything to substantiate the misuse allegations. We found that the company’s commitment to investigating such incidents was underpinned by a significant allocation of resources, and we identified three investigations over the last three years that led to NSO deciding to terminate a contract.
I would highlight that in the cybersecurity industry, there can sometimes be an asymmetry of access to reliable information, with multiple separate parties potentially involved in a particular episode of concern. Similarly, attribution of responsibility can be a challenge when there is ambiguity about the origin and design of a particular technology. NSO is not the only company in the cybersecurity industry providing device-level capabilities to intelligence agencies and law enforcement. Nor is it necessarily the only company that makes use of a particular technique in designing such capabilities. It is therefore wholly feasible that the some of the allegations made centre on the misuse of commercial decryption technology supplied by companies other than NSO but which – in the absence of evidence to the contrary – have been deemed by human rights groups and others to be the responsibility of NSO. I would add that the number of allegations reported publicly appears inconsistent with the limited number of licences supplied by NSO to organisations authorised to deploy the company’s technology, which is (as I explain above) designed to be used in a highly targeted manner.
This is not to dismiss lightly any of the claims made about past attempts to compromise devices used by human rights activists, journalists, lawyers or any other member of civil society groups. For the avoidance of doubt, we abhor any abuse of human rights of any kind, including any instance in which it were proven that human rights abuse was facilitated by the misuse of NSO’s technology. As I will set out later in my reply to you, we intend to explore options to provide much greater protection for individuals in such roles in future.
We understand fully our responsibilities under s.15(c) (“processes to enable the remediation of any adverse human rights impacts”) and s.22 (“where business enterprises identify that they have caused or contributed to adverse impacts, they should provide for or cooperate in their remediation through legitimate processes”) of the UN Guiding Principles. As part of our work to strengthen the current governance framework at NSO to bring this into line with the UN Guiding Principles, we will address the requirement for remediation (including for any substantiated historic abuses) as stipulated under the Principles.
You also ask for more information about the current management structure, governance processes and operating procedures of NSO. At this point prior to the closing of the acquisition, we are prohibited under the terms of our sale and purchase agreement and non-disclosure agreement with NSO from disclosing certain information relating to the company and the acquisition. Once the acquisition has closed – and as part of our commitment to robust transparency in line with the Guiding Principles – we will move to a much greater level of disclosure than is possible at this point.
I will summarise below the key points as far as I can at this stage. Before I do so, I would emphasise again that this is simply a snapshot of the status quo. As I explain later in my reply, we intend to build on these arrangements significantly in future.
Ownership and Board composition
Post the closing of the acquisition, a fund managed by Novalpina Capital will hold the majority of the shares in NSO, with management and the company’s founders owning the balance. The Board of Directors will comprise representatives from Novalpina Capital (including myself) and the NSO management and founders. The Board of Directors will be ultimately responsible for the governance of the company. I will chair the Board. The executive management team will be appointed by the Board of Directors and report to it. Once the acquisition has closed, we will make public the names and backgrounds of the Directors on the Board as well as the executive leadership team.
The very large majority of contracts with end-user organisations to deploy NSO’s technology under licence require an export licence from the government of country of export. Export licences are typically (although not exclusively) granted by the Israeli authorities. Although Israel is not a signatory to the Wassenaar Arrangement, the Israeli authorities apply the Wassenaar control lists in administering export controls and closely regulate the companies involved. NSO’s end-user technology is regulated by the Israeli Defense Export Control Agency (“DECA”), and NSO is registered with DECA.
The first step in engaging with potential end-user organisations in a new market involves securing a marketing licence from DECA which permits sales staff to visit the country to enter into discussions, up to and including negotiating a purchase agreement. At that stage, an export licence is then required to proceed any further with the transaction. The application to DECA for an export licence is accompanied by an End-User Undertaking (“EEU”) signed by the ultimate end-user of the technology. The EEU includes information relating to the use of the system, the identity of the end-user, and undertakings that the system will not be transferred to any other user. DECA carries out periodic audits of NSO’s facilities to ensure compliance with its rules and record keeping requirements. Our due diligence confirmed there have been no adverse findings from those audits.
Some of NSO’s products are exported from the EU (either Bulgaria or Cyprus), where the relevant authorities apply the EU control list (which is based on the Wassenaar control list). For every sale, a consultation is held with the appropriate authority to determine whether or not an export licence is necessary, with such a licence then obtained if required.
Business Ethics Committee
Any form of marketing engagement or proposed contract that is assessed to be compliant with export control rules under the regulatory regime summarised above must then be reviewed by the NSO Business Ethics Committee (the “BEC”) before proceeding.
The BEC is a key Committee of the NSO Board and comprises seven members: three NSO executives, and four external independent members. The external independent members are individuals of international standing in the fields of law, technology, security and international relations that are relevant to NSO’s business activities.
The BEC has the final say over whether or not NSO will enter into a contract with an
end-user organisation; without the Committee’s approval, purchase agreements with potential end-user organisations will not proceed to signed contracts.
The BEC’s mandate is focused purely on matters of ethics; factors such as commercial value are extraneous to its discussions and decisions. The Committee considers all ethical matters including the potential for the risk of misuse of the company’s technology and consideration of any related human rights aspects. Those considerations include assessing the extent of risk that a particular government or agency could misuse NSO technology to target journalists, political opponents or other critics. The Committee takes account of a broad range of inputs and considerations in its decision-making process, including undertaking research that may take several months to complete.
The BEC regularly declines the opportunity for new contracts on ethical grounds. As has been publicly stated by NSO in previous media reports, the company has rejected more than
$100 million of potential contracts over the last three years, with significantly more deferred for further review. This is in the context of company revenues in 2018 of $250 million. The BEC also must approve the renewal of maintenance contracts.
End-user organisation contracts
NSO enters into detailed contracts with the end-user organisations licensed to deploy NSO technology. Under the company’s standard-form contract, the end-user organisation is subject to comprehensive compliance obligations stipulating that use of NSO technology must comply with all applicable laws including those related to privacy and national security. Furthermore, the contractual terms state clearly that NSO technology is to be deployed in order to prevent and investigate crime and terrorism and must not be used in a manner which violates human rights.
Investigation of claims or suspicion of misuse
As I stated earlier in summarising the due diligence undertaken by Novalpina Capital, NSO has a process in place to investigate whenever it becomes aware of a potential misuse of its technology. A team consisting of between 5 and 10 people (depending on the complexity of the matter under investigation) is convened and takes immediate action to seek to secure the necessary evidence. That team involves members drawn from the R&D department and operational team with guidance and support from members of NSO senior management and the in-house legal team. The most complex investigations are overseen by the general counsel of NSO, who provides briefings to the BEC and the NSO Board on progress.
The process typically consists of three parallel workstreams: operational, technical and legal/compliance. Investigations typically reach a conclusion within 2-4 weeks, and every step is documented.
Operational Workstream: the investigation team may meet the end-user organisation suspected of misuse in order to conduct interviews and gather detailed information. Investigation meetings typically include the head of the organisation in question together with senior members of NSO management and an NSO legal representative. These meetings go into the detail of alleged misuses, including in many cases asking the organisation’s representatives to explain the legal process they followed in specific use cases, together with an explanation of the permissions required from relevant authorities for any such actions. The investigation team will also typically meet senior government officials to cross-reference information supplied by the organisation involved, and to ask additional questions.
Technical Workstream: with the permission of the end-user organisation under investigation, NSO R&D department investigators access the audit database of the organisation’s system to review operational data relevant to the alleged misuse case. The searches are conducted at arm’s length (by design, NSO investigators do not have access to any private communications data) against parameters provided by the complainant, whistle-blower or other sources.
Legal/compliance workstream: The legal and compliance team monitors the progress of NSO’s investigations and receives input from the BEC and the company’s Board of Directors on a regular basis. If the investigation identifies evidence of misuse of NSO’s technology (and therefore a breach of the licence conditions), NSO can suspend or curtail an end-user organisation’s technology licence while the investigation continues. At the end of an investigation, NSO management and the BEC review the findings. If the conclusion is that there is proven misuse of NSO’s technology, the organisation’s licence is immediately suspended.
You also asked for a number of assurances about our plans for NSO Group in future.
NSO already operates under an ethical governance framework that is significantly more robust than any of its peers. This is one of the reasons why we first contemplated acquiring the business. Our intention is to build on that framework to bring the company’s governance and operating procedures into line with the UN Guiding Principles. We are also following closely the submissions from civil society groups to the United Nations Special Rapporteur David Kaye in preparation for his report to the General Assembly in October 2019 and will take the recommendations in those submissions into account in developing our approach, as well as those that will be issued later this year by the Special Rapporteur. The strengthened governance framework for NSO will include a robust transparency programme that will be in line with s.21 of the Principles.
Once the transaction has closed, we will be supported in this work by a number of specialist external advisers with a background in corporate governance, ESG, human rights and transparency.
We will also commission an independent Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) to ensure that the governance framework reflects a comprehensive external analysis of all associated human rights risks and is fully informed by the concerns of all stakeholders, including human rights NGOs and other civil society groups. We will publish the findings of the HRIA as part of our broader commitment to robust transparency.
The governance framework will include additional safeguards to ensure that technology designed to save life and protect the public from harm is not also misused to undermine other fundamental human rights including privacy and freedom of expression. I would add that we are particularly mindful of the work of
human rights activists, journalists, lawyers and members of other civil society groups. Current NSO technology licence conditions already expressly prohibit the misuse of the company’s technology, and we intend to explore further measures to protect those who find themselves vulnerable to human rights abuse for no reason other than their commitment to protect human rights.
I hope all of the above provides you with some assurance that we approach our investment in NSO with a strong commitment to the protection of human rights. Your experiences, insights and guidance will be invaluable in helping to shape our understanding of the future for NSO as a highly ethical and responsible company grounded in a respect for human rights – setting the standard for its industry. We would greatly welcome direct engagement with all of you to discuss this further.
Stephen Peel
Novalpina Capital
Stefan Kowski – Founding Partner, Novalpina Capital
Bastian Lueken – Founding Partner, Novalpina Capital
Shalev Hulio -CEO and Founder, NSO
Francisco Partners
14/06/2019 — Press Release
Novalpina Capital LLP to Unveil New Governance Framework at NSO Group Within 90 Days
NSO’s board and Novalpina are progressing well on the development of a new governance framework at NSO New framework will bring NSO Group in full alignment with UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights NSO will in future aim to disclose all information of relevance and importance unless it is expressly prohibited in law […]
Response to Open Letter to Novalpina Capital on 15 April 2019
Amnesty International Access Now Citizen Lab Committee to Protect Journalists Human Rights Watch Privacy International R3D: Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales Reporters Without Borders Robert L. Bernstein Institute for Human Rights, NYU School of Law and Global Justice Clinic, NYU School of Law Response to Open Letter to Novalpina Capital on 15 April […]
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Tim A. Lee is the Partner responsible for Investor Relations at Novalpina Capital.
Prior to joining Novalpina, Tim was a Managing Director at Park Hill where he was responsible for advising institutional investors in Europe and the Middle East. Prior to Park Hill, Tim was a Principal at Mercury Capital Advisors, where he covered European investors and was a voting member of the Fund Selection Operating Committee. Previously, Tim was Head of Investor Relations and Business Development at Zouk Capital a European private equity and infrastructure manager and at the Jefferies Private Equity Fund Placement Group. Mr. Lee started his career at Access Capital Partners, a European private equity fund-of-funds.
Tim holds a BA from the University of Paris X and a MSc in Management from the Neoma Business School.
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Audio/Video Bundle: Martin Luther and the Origins of Protestant Christianity + The Reformations - 8 Discs Total
Saint Mary’s College of California
Associate Professor of History, Kean University
2 Course Bundle: 21 Lectures (8 Discs) Including an Electronic Study Guide
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Martin Luther and the Origins of Protestant Christianity - Audio CD Set
Originally: $99.95
The Reformations - DVD Set
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Martin Luther and the Origins of Protestant Christianity - Audio CD Set +$37.95
The Reformations - DVD Set +$37.00
Topic Titles
About Your Presenter
This is a special discounted price for a bundle of these two programs:
Martin Luther and the Origins of Protestant Christianity*
Audio CD set by Prof. David Zachariah Flanagin, Ph.D.
The Reformations
Video DVD set by Prof. Christopher M. Bellitto, Ph.D.
*Indicates this course does not contain a study guide.
Looking for the audio only version of this bundle? Click here
Your Free Electronic Study Guide! When you order this bundle, we will send you a free electronic study guide for each program (excluding those with *) that you can access in 3 convenient ways:
1) You can check your order confirmation email. It will include a link that enables you to download your guides.
2) The back of your program package also contains a copy of this link. You can access your guides by simply entering this URL into your browser.
3) Your case of CDs or DVDs will contain a copy of your electronic guide on CD. Simply insert this disc into your computer's CD/DVD drive to access your guide.
Martin Luther and the Origins of Protestant Christianity
Meeting Martin Luther
The 95 Theses and Their Aftermath
Justification by Grace through Faith Alone
The Priesthood of All Believers
Free Will and Predestination
The Eucharist
The Challenge of the Radical Reformers
Introduction: Where in World History Are the Reformations?
Catholicism Chastened: The Avignon Papacy and the Great
Western Schism
Catholic Reform Before Luther: Missed Opportunities
Popular Piety and Humanism: The Devotio Moderna and Erasmus
Core Challenges: Crisis of Authority in Religion and Society
Luther and Lutheranism
Calvinism, Anabaptists, and Radical Reformers
Henry VIII and an Anglican Church
The Council of Trent and Early Modern Catholicism
Catholicism on the Rebound: Europe and Abroad
Wars of Religion
Lessons and Legacies of the Reformations
Dr. Christopher M. Bellitto, Ph.D., is an award-winning historian and Professor of History at Kean University in New Jersey. He received a Ph.D. in History from Fordham University. He is the author of ten books and the co-editor of six others; his writing has been honored by the American Catholic Historical Association and the Catholic Press Association. A frequent public speaker and media commentator on Church history and contemporary Catholicism, he has appeared on the History and Travel channels, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and other radio and television stations. He has received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant and is on the Fulbright Specialist Roster.
Dr. Bellitto’s books include Ageless Wisdom: Lifetime Lessons from the Bible (Paulist Press, 2016), 101 Questions and Answers on Popes and the Papacy (Paulist Press, 2008), The Living Church and Church History 101 (Liguori Publications, 2011, 2008), and the companion volumes Renewing Christianity: A History of Church Reform from Day One to Vatican II and The General Councils: A History of the 21 Church Councils from Nicaea to Vatican II (Paulist Press,...
Dr. Bellitto’s books include Ageless Wisdom: Lifetime Lessons from the Bible (Paulist Press, 2016), 101 Questions and Answers on Popes and the Papacy (Paulist Press, 2008), The Living Church and Church History 101 (Liguori Publications, 2011, 2008), and the companion volumes Renewing Christianity: A History of Church Reform from Day One to Vatican II and The General Councils: A History of the 21 Church Councils from Nicaea to Vatican II (Paulist Press, 2001-2002). His articles have appeared in Catholic Historical Review, Church History, Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, Cristianesimo nella storia, America, Commonweal, U.S. Catholic, and other journals and magazines. Dr. Bellitto also serves as series Editor-in-Chief of Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition.
Praise for Christopher Bellitto
“Christopher Bellitto is one of the most compelling and accessible Church historians working today. He brings together the skills of a journalist with scholar’s expertise.”
– Dr. C. Colt Anderson, Dean, Fordham University
“One discovers in Professor Bellitto that all too rare combination of scholarly expertise and exquisite communicator. His lectures weave humor with erudition, prophetic challenge with passion for the people of God, and historical objectivity with deep care for the Church.”
– Dr. Elena Procario-Foley, Iona College
“Dynamic and accessible, Professor Christopher Bellitto breathes life into Church history in ways that resonate with the experiences of contemporary audiences. Weaving solid scholarship with engaging stories he brings fresh perspectives to the events and people that influence the rich diversity of the Roman Catholic tradition.”
– Dr. Carmen Nanko-Fernández, Catholic Theological Union
“Prof. Christopher Bellitto is an outstanding scholar who is widely admired for his great clarity as well as for the depth and breadth of his knowledge. Prof. Bellitto is an excellent guide in all matters of church history, and has a special gift for presenting complex realities in a compelling and clear manner.”
– Mary Doak, University of San Diego
“Master teacher, expert scholar, and superb communicator, Bellitto presents exquisitely masterful interpretations of the significance of the various eras of Church history that enlighten and delight. Media commentator on all things papal and episcopal, Bellitto captures the importance of the meaning of the past for the Church in the contemporary moment.”
– Elena Procario-Foley, Iona College
“Prof. Bellitto is one of the best contemporary historians of Christian history. His profound knowledge of the subject matter, decades of teaching, eloquent and effective communication skills, make his work an indispensable reference for anyone interested in the thousand year-old Christian story.”
– Ines Angeli Murzaku Ph.D., Seton Hall University
Learn More About This Professor
David Zachariah Flanagin, Ph.D., is Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Saint Mary’s College of California, where he teaches courses in the development of Christian thought and in biblical studies. His teaching has earned him recognition by the student body as Faculty Member of the Year. Prof. Flanagin received his doctorate in the History of Christianity from the Divinity School at the University of Chicago. He is the author of a number of articles on late-medieval ecclesiology and biblical interpretation. He is the co-editor (with Christopher M. Bellitto) of Reassessing Reform: A Historical Investigation into Church Renewal, published by Catholic University of America Press. In addition to his academic duties, he lectures frequently at churches on topics in the Bible and theology.
Praise for Zach Flanagin
“Zach Flanagin is an outstanding historian… thoroughly grounded in his material, but with special gifts as a lecturer. His works in late medieval spirituality are top-notch and I commend him for searching out the origins of this spirituality in its very beginnings.”
– Gerald...
– Gerald Christianson, Professor Emeritus of Church History, Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary
“Zach Flanagin enjoys the unique combination of deep learning and clear teaching, which is why I recommended him to Now You Know Media. He can communicate complicated subjects in an accessible manner that raises the level of conversation. You will leave his courses with greater insights into church history and the spirituality that drives it.”
– Christopher Bellitto, Ph.D., History Department, Kean University
“He is an energetic, captivating and enthusiastic lecturer who speaks to both experienced and beginning Bible students. His knowledge and love of the Bible resonates with adults. He not only covers the history and message of each book, but always inspires his listener to find meaning and application for life today.”
– Nora Petersen, Director of Adult Formation at St. John Vianney Parish, CA
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Heavier Teen Pot Smoking Linked To Problems In Young Adults : Shots - Health News Daily smokers are less likely to graduate from high school or college and are at higher risk of suicide, according to an analysis of three long-term studies of teenagers in Australia and New Zealand.
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Heavier Teen Pot Smoking Linked To Problems In Young Adults
September 10, 201412:00 PM ET
Nancy Shute
Does smoking pot make it less likely that you'll go to college? iStockphoto hide caption
Does smoking pot make it less likely that you'll go to college?
There's a lot of argument over how teenage marijuana use might affect people through life, but distressingly little data to help figure it out. That leaves parents, policymakers and young people pretty much in the dark when it comes to making decisions about use and legalization.
Three long-running studies of teenagers and young adults in Australia and New Zealand might help. An analysis of the studies found a dose-response relationship: The more someone smoked pot as a teenager, the more likely that person would struggle as a young adult.
People who were daily marijuana smokers before age 17 were much more likely to have not completed high school or graduated from college than were those who never smoked; their odds were 63 percent and 62 percent lower. They were also much more likely to be dependent on marijuana and to be using other illegal drugs in adulthood. The risk of a suicide attempt also increased, though more modestly than the other factors.
When Science Becomes News, The Facts Can Go Up In Smoke
Earlier studies also have found that marijuana use makes it less likely that students will succeed in school. But those findings, and all of these studies, look at correlation, not causation. And they are muddied by confounding factors, like the fact that adolescents living in low-income communities are more likely to use marijuana.
There will almost certainly never be a randomized controlled trial on teenage marijuana use, so observational studies, confounders and all, are what we've got. The studies used in this analysis are among the best: long-term studies with lots of participants that tracked their behavior and health in real time, rather than retrospectively. Altogether the studies followed 3,765 teenagers starting at age 13 until they reached age 30.
The researchers looked at two milestones in making the transition to adulthood: graduating from high school or college. They also looked at whether the young adults were dependent on marijuana; used other illicit drugs; had attempted suicide; were diagnosed with depression; or were dependent on welfare.
Evidence On Marijuana's Health Effects Is Hazy At Best
Once the researchers used statistical analyses to adjust for confounding factors, they found that depression and welfare dependence were not associated with adolescent pot use. But the associations with completing school, drug use and suicide attempts remained strong. The likelihood of problems increased as smoking frequency increased, on a scale that ranged from less than monthly to daily.
The results were reported Wednesday in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry.
Earlier studies have found that heavy marijuana use in adolescence affects learning and memory, and that teenagers' thinking skills are more impaired than those of adults. But they didn't look at long-term effects.
"Youth is a very vulnerable period in life," Merete Nordentoft, a suicide prevention researcher at the University of Copenhagen, wrote in a commentary accompanying the study. It's a time when people are developing skills to meet the demands of adult life, she notes. "Cannabis use, especially frequent uses, impairs this development and reduces the likelihood that a young person will be able to establish a satisfactory adult life."
Poll: Yes To Medical Marijuana, Not So Much For Recreational Pot
Surveys in the United States, including one poll conducted earlier this year by NPR, find that although almost half of people support legalization of marijuana, they overwhelmingly oppose legalization for teenagers. And half of our respondents also thought that there should be age restrictions on use of medical marijuana.
"The reason that people are concerned is that they recognize that this is an addictive substance, and some portion of the population that uses it will become addicted to it and have very bad outcomes," Dr. Sharon Levy, director of the adolescent substance abuse program at Boston Children's Hospital, told Shots in May. "As with all addictive products, the risk is greatest in adolescence."
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How Trump's Embrace Of Authoritarian Rulers Has Impacted The World NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with Robin Wright, of The New Yorker and the Wilson Center, about President Trump's embrace of authoritarian leaders.
How Trump's Embrace Of Authoritarian Rulers Has Impacted The World
How Trump's Embrace Of Authoritarian Rulers Has Impacted The World 4:40
< How Trump's Embrace Of Authoritarian Rulers Has Impacted The World
May 14, 20194:30 PM ET
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
When Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orban, visited the White House yesterday, President Trump showered him with praise.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: People have a lot of respect for this prime minister. He's a respected man. And I know he's a tough man, but he's a respected man. And he's done the right thing according to many people on immigration.
SHAPIRO: During Orban's time in office, he has undermined the free press and the independent judiciary. Human rights advocates worry that he is eroding democracy and minority rights in Hungary. President Trump has warmly embraced a number of authoritarian rulers during his two years in office. Here is how he spoke about the leaders of Egypt, Russia and North Korea.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
TRUMP: We are very much behind President el-Sissi. He's done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation. President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial. And then we fell in love, OK? No, really. He wrote me beautiful letters.
SHAPIRO: That was about Kim Jong Un. Well, Robin Wright of The New Yorker joins us now to discuss this president's support for world leaders who undermine democracy.
Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
ROBIN WRIGHT: Always great to be with you.
SHAPIRO: These leaders come from all over the world from different kinds of political parties. How would you describe what they have in common?
WRIGHT: The one common denominator is that they are not great democrats. They are not great practitioners of human rights. They have abused many of their own people. They are interested in personal power and not in the kind of principles of the 21st century.
SHAPIRO: So what are the consequences of this kind of praise in these leaders' home countries? You know, when they go back to Brazil or Turkey or the Philippines having had warm words from President Trump, what does that do for them?
WRIGHT: It obviously encourages their supporters and makes it much more difficult for anyone who opposes them. And I think this is the - one of the most striking things. For the past 40 years, there's been talk of whether it's the end of history and the emergence of democratic movements, whether it's the end of communism in Eastern Europe, the end of apartheid and minority rule in Africa, the end of military dictatorships in Latin America. And we're seeing this sweep now, this reversal, whether it's the populists taking over, the thugs, the autocrats coming back into power. And I think this undermines many of the principles that had defined the post-Cold War world and had been the aspiration of Republican and Democratic presidents before him.
SHAPIRO: But are the words of an American president really that powerful? I mean, when Trump says Orban is respected, tough, doing the right thing, does that actually make a difference in Hungary?
WRIGHT: Well, he - Orban was elected. In some of these cases, the leaders were elected. And they reflect - whether it's anti-immigration sentiment or sectarian policies, it reflects the realities on the ground in many of these countries. But it also makes it much harder for any of the opposition groups to be daring, to take to the streets, to run for office. Many of these leaders feel empowered so that they can act against their own people. You look at President Erdogan in Turkey and what he's done in arresting thousands of people. This is - this leads to actions that make it easier for autocrats and more difficult for those who are the democrats.
SHAPIRO: There's a long history of American presidents making alliances out of convenience with countries whose values don't necessarily align with the United States - Saudi Arabia, for example. Is this fundamentally different from that?
WRIGHT: Well, for a long time, the United States, because of the Cold War, supported autocratic regimes and despots because they were so opposed to the Soviet Union. They took our side in that conflict. In the post-Cold War world, we've had more leverage to push - whether it's human rights, nation building, independence movements. And you're right. Saudi Arabia is one of the consonant exceptions. But what makes this particular regime in Saudi Arabia so egregious is we've just gone through a case where Jamal Khashoggi, who was living in the United States - a prominent Saudi journalist - was murdered and dismembered. And we know that to be a fact. Saudi Arabia is one that has been the consonant exception. This particular leader is one that stands out.
SHAPIRO: Trump supporters will say there's a geopolitical strategy here, that it is to America's advantage to have some of these leaders feel close to the U.S. and to have a positive relationship there. Do you think that argument holds up?
WRIGHT: Well, the question, really, is, what do you want out of your foreign policy? Do you want stability or do you want values? And that's been something that has torn American leaders for centuries. And in the post-Cold War world, there was a sense this was a time to move toward our values. And I think we're moving back increasingly toward those regimes that can guarantee stability, even if it means through draconian tactics.
SHAPIRO: Robin Wright is a Wilson Center fellow and correspondent for The New Yorker magazine. Thanks for joining us.
WRIGHT: Thank you.
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» News » 2016 » NREL Serves as the Energy Department's Showcase for Cutting-Edge Fuel Cell Cars
NREL Serves as the Energy Department's Showcase for Cutting-Edge Fuel Cell Cars
The Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) recently received a 2015 Tucson Fuel Cell vehicle on loan from Hyundai through a one-year Cooperative Research and Development Agreement and a B-Class F-CELL on loan from Mercedes-Benz to support a one-year Technical Services Agreement with the automaker.
NREL is partnering with Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai to evaluate the interaction of the vehicles' high-pressure hydrogen storage systems with NREL's hydrogen fueling system equipment and to test the user experience by refueling fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) at the lab's new state-of-the-art hydrogen fueling station.
"The data gathered by NREL will be used to analyze station reliability and performance of the refueling infrastructure components," said Keith Wipke, NREL Laboratory Program Manager for Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Technologies. "This analysis will be used to help address infrastructure reliability, which is the leading economic and technical challenge facing the widespread adoption of fuel cell vehicles in the United States."
The vehicles are fueled with renewable hydrogen produced at the Hydrogen Infrastructure Testing and Research Facility (HITRF) located at NREL's Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF). NREL is using the HITRF to demonstrate hydrogen fueling technologies and infrastructure as part of the Energy Department's Hydrogen Fueling Infrastructure Research and Station Technology (H2FIRST) project. The goal of the H2FIRST project, led by NREL and Sandia National Laboratories and coordinated through the Energy Department's Fuel Cell Technologies Office, is to ensure that fuel cell vehicle customers have a positive fueling experience similar to conventional gasoline and diesel stations. These activities directly support H2USA, the public-private partnership co-launched by the Energy Department and industry in 2013 to address the challenge of hydrogen infrastructure.
The addition of the Hyundai and Mercedes-Benz vehicles to NREL's FCEV test and evaluation fleet—which also includes two Toyota fuel cell hybrid SUVs and a Toyota Mirai—allows NREL to both educate the public about hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and evaluate the hydrogen fueling experience and equipment using a variety of vehicle types that reflect what will happen at a commercial hydrogen fueling station.
As NREL employees drive the vehicles for business and research purposes, they will record their driving and fueling experiences. Researchers will gather data from the hydrogen fueling station, combine it with the vehicle logs and driver feedback, and analyze the combined information to understand how to optimize the driver-station interface as well as vehicle and station performance. NREL will publish the resulting data and feedback for use by auto manufacturers and hydrogen fueling station stakeholders.
The Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell, the world's first commercially available fuel cell electric sport utility vehicle, is currently being sold in Korea and parts of Europe and is available for lease in Southern California. The Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-CELL can also be leased in select U.S. markets.
In addition to using the FCEVs to transport visitors around the lab's campus, NREL will showcase the vehicles on loan at a variety of events to educate the public about advanced vehicle technologies and hydrogen fueling infrastructure.
The HITRF is designed to support projects funded by the Energy Department's Fuel Cell Technologies Office in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy as well as industry, government, and university partners.
Learn more about NREL's hydrogen and fuel cell research.
—Sara Havig
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Minister of Energy of the United Arab Emirates, UAE, Suhail Mohamed Al Mazrouei talks with Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo, from left, OPEC Secretary General of Nigeria prior to the start of a meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, at their headquarters in Vienna, Austria, Thursday, Dec. 6, 2018. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak)
Khalid Al-Falih Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources of Saudi Arabia speaks prior to the start of a meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, at their headquarters in Vienna, Austria, Thursday, Dec. 6, 2018. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak)
Iraq's Minister of Oil, Thamir Abbas Al Ghadhban speaks prior to the start of a meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, at their headquarters in Vienna, Austria, Thursday, Dec. 6, 2018. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak)
Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi Minister of State for Energy Affairs of Qatar speaks prior to the start of a meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, at their headquarters in Vienna, Austria, Thursday, Dec. 6, 2018. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak)
People stand in front of the headquarters of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, in Vienna, Austria, Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak)
Bakheet S. Al-Rashidi Minister of Oil and Minister of Electricity & Water of Kuwait arrives for an informal meeting of oil ministers from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) at the OPEC headquarters in Vienna, Austria, Wednesday, Dec.5, 2018. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak)
People stand in front of the headquarters of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, in Vienna, Austria, Wednesday, Dec.5, 2018. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak)
OPEC delays oil output decision pending Russia talks
PUBLISHED 12:57 PM ET Dec. 06, 2018 PUBLISHED December 6, 2018 @12:57 PM
VIENNA (AP) — OPEC countries hoping to support the price of oil put off their decision Thursday on how much to reduce oil production until they negotiate with ally Russia on Friday on how much it will contribute to the cut.
Some saw it as a sign that the group of oil-producing nations may not have the political unity to rein in supply and is suffering under political pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to not push prices up again. Others interpreted it as a tactic to get Russia to agree to big cuts as well.
The price of oil has fallen about 25 percent because major producers — including the U.S. — are pumping oil at high rates. It fell further on Thursday after OPEC's lack of action and amid broader concerns about global economic growth.
Saudi Arabia, the heavyweight within OPEC, said Thursday it was in favor of a cut of about a million barrels a day.
But upon leaving the meeting, Saudi oil minister Khalid Al-Falih said "we're still deliberating." He said the OPEC countries were still discussing the distribution of the cuts between them.
Iran, Saudi's regional rival and fellow OPEC member, has resisted any notion of cutting its output as its crude exports are being pinched already by U.S. sanctions. It has wanted an exemption.
The OPEC countries will now discuss the meeting with Russia, which is not part of OPEC but has been coordinating its output levels to support the market.
Al-Falih said a decision would take all day Friday.
"I'm not confident," he added.
Some experts saw that as a tactical move by OPEC countries to not announce a production level as they prepare to ask Russia and several other smaller non-OPEC countries to also cut their output.
"If they would, then (Russia and others) could adjust their negotiation strategy," said Jan Edelmann, analyst at HSH Nordbank.
Whatever the logic, the lack of clarity put another dent in the price of oil. The international benchmark, Brent, was down $2.20 at $59.36 a barrel on a day when stock markets also fell sharply around the world.
The fall in the price of oil will be a help to many consumers as well as energy-hungry businesses, particularly at a time when global growth is slowing. And Trump has been putting pressure publicly on OPEC to not cut production. He tweeted Wednesday that "Hopefully OPEC will be keeping oil flows as is, not restricted. The World does not want to see, or need, higher oil prices!"
While Saudi Arabia has indicated it is willing to cut production, its decision may be complicated by Trump's decision to not sanction the country over the killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. U.S. Senators say, after a briefing with intelligence services, that they are convinced that Saudi's de-facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman , was involved in Khashoggi's death. Some experts say that gives the U.S. some leverage over the Saudis, though Al-Falih denied that on Thursday.
When asked if the Saudis had permission from Trump to cut production, Al-Falih replied: "I don't need permission from any foreign governments."
Experts say this week's meetings of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will influence the price of oil over the coming months. How strongly it does so could depend on Russia's contribution.
Analysts estimate that if Russia is willing to step up its production cuts, OPEC and non-OPEC countries could trim production by a combined 1.3-1.4 million barrels a day. A cut of 1 million barrels would be the minimum to support the market, and anything less could see the price of oil fall another $10 a barrel, according to Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com.
"The cartel has to go above and beyond the 1 million barrels cut, to at least 1.4 million to really steady the ship," said Wilson. "The stakes are high now for OPEC."
OPEC's reliance on non-members like Russia highlights the cartel's waning influence in oil markets, which it had dominated for decades. The OPEC-Russia alliance was made necessary in 2016 to compete with the United States' vastly increased production of oil in recent years. By some estimates, the U.S. this year became the world's top crude producer.
OPEC is also riven by internal conflict, particularly the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Meanwhile, Qatar, a Saudi rival and Iranian ally, said this week it would leave OPEC in January. While it said it was purely a practical decision because it mainly produces natural gas and little oil, the move was viewed as a symbolic snub to the Saudi-dominated organization.
David Rising and Geir Moulson in Berlin and Anthony Mills in Vienna contributed to this report. Piovano reported from London.
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East Village Residents Say 'L-pocalypse' Noise Already Too Much to Bear
By Jose Martinez Manhattan
PUBLISHED 7:22 AM ET Dec. 12, 2018 PUBLISHED December 12, 2018 @7:22 AM
NEW YORK - Residents joined business owners and elected officials in a rally outside MTA offices Tuesday, bringing attention to their concerns over the L train shutdown this spring.
The group gathered in Lower Manhattan to demand the MTA address issues like noise, air quality, and dust that the project's construction will bring.
They say they already have health concerns about the work that's already underway along 14th Street.
"Lights, sheds, pollution, dust, hosing down work, making sure there’s no dust mitigation. Time and time again, these concerns her not being listened to. We asked the MTA to do more, they must do more," said State Assemblyman Harvey Epstein.
"The Construction goes 16 hours a day. It starts at 7 a.m., but of course the workers are there at 6:30, making noise, back-up beeping. We never get to sleep in," said Penny Pennline, a 14th Street resident.
That preliminary work on 14th Street is being done to prepare for 15 months of repairs to the Canarsie Tunnel, which was heavily damaged by Superstorm Sandy.
Protesters want the MTA's 24/7 work permit for the site revoked.
But the MTA says crews will limit their work to underground tunnels during late night hours.
Governor Andrew Cuomo will do a walk through of the tunnel on Thursday to review the MTA's plans.
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Archives|U.N. Women's Forum Is a Test for Pope's Advocate
https://nyti.ms/29iK6fx
U.N. Women's Forum Is a Test for Pope's Advocate
By FOX BUTTERFIELD AUG. 29, 1995
August 29, 1995, Page 00003Buy Reprints The New York Times Archives
Mary Ann Glendon, the Harvard law professor who is the Vatican's surprising choice to head its delegation to the United Nations Conference on Women that starts next week in Beijing, does not fit easily into stereotypes.
A pioneer in her profession who had to battle discrimination, she rejects what she calls "radical feminism." A social conservative, she worked in the civil rights movement in Mississippi and champions radical economic measures to benefit the third world.
Though an implacable foe of unrestricted abortion, through her legal writings she is known as a searcher for common ground -- promoting, for example, more local control over abortion laws along with greater aid to pregnant women and mothers.
Yet she says she could not agree more with John Paul II, a Pope known for his rigid defense of traditional Catholic teachings not only on abortion but also on contraception and the role of women in the church.
Now, Ms. Glendon's skill as a quiet persuader is apt to be sorely tested as she is thrust into the cacophony of a United Nations conference. It is the kind of forum where quiet reasoning is often shouted down and the Vatican often finds itself battling much of the world over the precise wording of resolutions on "reproductive health" or the role of the family.
It remains to be seen whether Ms. Glendon, 56, will prove to be a kind of stealth weapon for the Vatican line, as her critics contend, or represents a new Vatican intention to seek out consensus.
In her office at Harvard last week, Ms. Glendon was unperturbed by the challenge, calling it "a great honor."
She was raised as a Catholic but has a personal history that is as complex as her politics. In her early twenties, she went to Mississippi to take part in the civil rights movement. There she met her first husband, whom she describes as "an African-American lawyer," and with whom she had her first child.
They later divorced, although Ms. Glendon takes pains to note that it had been a "civil marriage." She considers her subsequent church-sanctioned marriage to Edward Lev, now a retired lawyer and writer and a Jew, as "my first marriage."
It is a measure of both her academic achievements and diplomatic skills that she wins high praise even from liberal colleagues at Harvard Law School, where political divisions tend to be bitter.
Laurence H. Tribe, a professor of constitutional law who supports a woman's right to have an abortion, described Ms. Glendon as "an insightful and probing scholar" who is "charming and persuasive and can be authoritative without being overbearing."
Of her political views, Ms. Glendon says: "I always laugh when I hear myself described as a conservative." She characterizes herself as "politically homeless," because she believes that she is "more liberal than the hard right wing of the Republican Party and more conservative than the liberal wing of the Democratic Party."
On most economic issues, Ms. Glendon said: "My thinking grows straight out of the social teachings of the Catholic church. The earth and its resources are the common heritage of mankind and the rich are privileged and should give to their brothers and sisters." This has led her to favor debt reduction policies embraced by the developing world and made her a powerful advocate of greater support for women and children in divorce.
On abortion, Ms. Glendon does not mince words. "The whole question about abortion is related to the coarsening of the social fabric," she said. "It promotes a certain callousness which has frightening implications for the future." What message, she asks, does such easy access to abortion send to today's children "about helplessness and inconvenient life?"
Ms. Glendon, still one of only a handful of professors at Harvard Law who are women, faced insults and discrimination for years.
When she graduated from law school at the University of Chicago at the age of only 21 and as an editor of its law review, she recalled, she interviewed for a job on Wall Street. At one prestigious law firm a male receptionist, after looking over the young blond woman in front of him, told her: "We don't hire female secretaries. They have to go on overnight trips with the partners."
Despite that personal history, she rejects much of the feminist movement as irrelevant.
"Some of my best friends are radical feminists," she said. "These are women of great intelligence and character." But she added: "The feminist movement of the 1970's is already an old-line sideline movement that has made itself marginal to the concerns of most women."
"What made it obsolete is loyalty tests, like abortion, and lack of concern with the real problems of American women," she added. "The real question is, how do I have a decent family life plus participate in the world of work. For most women, the problem is poverty."
Ms. Glendon was born in the small town of Dalton, in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, where her father was a reporter for the Berkshire Eagle. When she was 12, he taught her how to keep score in baseball, then had her cover a semi-pro league, a job she kept through high school and summers while at college at the University of Chicago.
She has three daughters, now all in their twenties: one from her first marriage, one adopted from Korea, and one with Mr. Lev.
"We are very proud to celebrate diversity in our family," she said. "One of the things I love about the Catholic church is that it embraces one billion people in all corners of the earth."
Ms. Glendon still goes to Mass every Sunday and her daughters have all been raised as Catholics.
Ms. Glendon's popular writing includes nine books, most recently "A Nation Under Lawyers: How the Crisis in the Legal Profession Is Transforming American Society."
She often harks back to the values of her upbringing. What is rapidly deteriorating in America and what is badly needed, she believes, are "structures" like the family, neighborhoods, religious groups and labor unions -- potential buffers between what she sees as the damage inflicted by too much individualism and the dangers of big government.
Whatever critics think of Ms. Glendon's views on abortion, what makes her difficult to attack is her personal charm, many of her friends and colleagues say. "Along with being very smart, Mary Ann is everyone's favorite most reasonable person," said David Blankenhorn, the president of the Institute for Americian Values in New York. "If you think of a person who you would want to bring two sides together to see where there is common ground, it is her," Mr. Blankenhorn said.
Those who have fought Ms. Glendon's views see her appointment with chagrin. "The bottom line is, the Pope chose someone who is more conservative than he is, an anti-abortionist, not a women's rights advocate," said Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice, in Washington. "He picked a person who can stand up in the public relations battle, who can speak the language of women, who is modern, smart, and professional, who can go toe to toe with Hillary Clinton."
Behind her charm Ms. Glendon can be relentlessly tenacious on the principles she holds dear. Still, on some issues, like contraception, she seems to waver from the Vatican's unyielding stance.
Asked how she would represent the Pope's views on this issue, Ms. Glendon said, "I think it is very difficult for people to understand the church's teaching in a permissive, secular society." She insisted that the church is "not opposed to family planning." Decisions on the number and spacing of children should be made by parents "in view of their responsibility to each other, existing children, and God," she said.
Only events will tell, but Ms. Glendon may well be the perfect weapon in Beijing for a Vatican that knows it will never get its way entirely but hopes to steer the world toward its own vision of women's progress.
A version of this article appears in print on August 29, 1995, on Page A00003 of the National edition with the headline: U.N. Women's Forum Is a Test for Pope's Advocate. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
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Magazine|Depression’s Upside
Depression’s Upside
By JONAH LEHRER FEB. 25, 2010
Credit Ben Weeks
The Victorians had many names for depression, and Charles Darwin used them all. There were his “fits” brought on by “excitements,” “flurries” leading to an “uncomfortable palpitation of the heart” and “air fatigues” that triggered his “head symptoms.” In one particularly pitiful letter, written to a specialist in “psychological medicine,” he confessed to “extreme spasmodic daily and nightly flatulence” and “hysterical crying” whenever Emma, his devoted wife, left him alone.
While there has been endless speculation about Darwin’s mysterious ailment — his symptoms have been attributed to everything from lactose intolerance to Chagas disease — Darwin himself was most troubled by his recurring mental problems. His depression left him “not able to do anything one day out of three,” choking on his “bitter mortification.” He despaired of the weakness of mind that ran in his family. “The ‘race is for the strong,’ ” Darwin wrote. “I shall probably do little more but be content to admire the strides others made in Science.”
Darwin, of course, was wrong; his recurring fits didn’t prevent him from succeeding in science. Instead, the pain may actually have accelerated the pace of his research, allowing him to withdraw from the world and concentrate entirely on his work. His letters are filled with references to the salvation of study, which allowed him to temporarily escape his gloomy moods. “Work is the only thing which makes life endurable to me,” Darwin wrote and later remarked that it was his “sole enjoyment in life.”
For Darwin, depression was a clarifying force, focusing the mind on its most essential problems. In his autobiography, he speculated on the purpose of such misery; his evolutionary theory was shadowed by his own life story. “Pain or suffering of any kind,” he wrote, “if long continued, causes depression and lessens the power of action, yet it is well adapted to make a creature guard itself against any great or sudden evil.” And so sorrow was explained away, because pleasure was not enough. Sometimes, Darwin wrote, it is the sadness that informs as it “leads an animal to pursue that course of action which is most beneficial.” The darkness was a kind of light.
The mystery of depression is not that it exists — the mind, like the flesh, is prone to malfunction. Instead, the paradox of depression has long been its prevalence. While most mental illnesses are extremely rare — schizophrenia, for example, is seen in less than 1 percent of the population — depression is everywhere, as inescapable as the common cold. Every year, approximately 7 percent of us will be afflicted to some degree by the awful mental state that William Styron described as a “gray drizzle of horror . . . a storm of murk.” Obsessed with our pain, we will retreat from everything. We will stop eating, unless we start eating too much. Sex will lose its appeal; sleep will become a frustrating pursuit. We will always be tired, even though we will do less and less. We will think a lot about death.
The persistence of this affliction — and the fact that it seemed to be heritable — posed a serious challenge to Darwin’s new evolutionary theory. If depression was a disorder, then evolution had made a tragic mistake, allowing an illness that impedes reproduction — it leads people to stop having sex and consider suicide — to spread throughout the population. For some unknown reason, the modern human mind is tilted toward sadness and, as we’ve now come to think, needs drugs to rescue itself.
The alternative, of course, is that depression has a secret purpose and our medical interventions are making a bad situation even worse. Like a fever that helps the immune system fight off infection — increased body temperature sends white blood cells into overdrive — depression might be an unpleasant yet adaptive response to affliction. Maybe Darwin was right. We suffer — we suffer terribly — but we don’t suffer in vain.
ANDY THOMSON IS a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia. He has a scruffy gray beard and steep cheekbones. When Thomson talks, he tends to close his eyes, as if he needs to concentrate on what he’s saying. But mostly what he does is listen: For the last 32 years, Thomson has been tending to his private practice in Charlottesville. “I tend to get the real hard cases,” Thomson told me recently. “A lot of the people I see have already tried multiple treatments. They arrive without much hope.” On one of the days I spent with Thomson earlier this winter, he checked his phone constantly for e-mail updates. A patient of his on “welfare watch” who was required to check in with him regularly had not done so, and Thomson was worried. “I’ve never gotten used to treating patients in mental pain,” he said. “Maybe it’s because every story is unique. You see one case of iron-deficiency anemia, you’ve seen them all. But the people who walk into my office are all hurting for a different reason.”
In the late 1990s, Thomson became interested in evolutionary psychology, which tries to explain the features of the human mind in terms of natural selection. The starting premise of the field is that the brain has a vast evolutionary history, and that this history shapes human nature. We are not a blank slate but a byproduct of imperfect adaptations, stuck with a mind that was designed to meet the needs of Pleistocene hunter-gatherers on the African savanna. While the specifics of evolutionary psychology remain controversial — it’s never easy proving theories about the distant past — its underlying assumption is largely accepted by mainstream scientists. There is no longer much debate over whether evolution sculptured the fleshy machine inside our head. Instead, researchers have moved on to new questions like when and how this sculpturing happened and which of our mental traits are adaptations and which are accidents.
In 2004, Thomson met Paul Andrews, an evolutionary psychologist at Virginia Commonwealth University, who had long been interested in the depression paradox — why a disorder that’s so costly is also so common. Andrews has long dark brown hair and an aquiline nose. Before he begins to talk, he often writes down an outline of his answer on scratch paper. “This is a very delicate subject,” he says. “I don’t want to say something reckless.”
Andrews and Thomson struck up an extended conversation on the evolutionary roots of depression. They began by focusing on the thought process that defines the disorder, which is known as rumination. (The verb is derived from the Latin word for “chewed over,” which describes the act of digestion in cattle, in which they swallow, regurgitate and then rechew their food.) In recent decades, psychiatry has come to see rumination as a dangerous mental habit, because it leads people to fixate on their flaws and problems, thus extending their negative moods. Consider “The Depressed Person,” a short story by David Foster Wallace, which chronicles a consciousness in the grip of the ruminative cycle. (Wallace struggled with severe depression for years before committing suicide in 2008.) The story is a long lament, a portrait of a mind hating itself, filled with sentences like this: “What terms might be used to describe such a solipsistic, self-consumed, bottomless emotional vacuum and sponge as she now appeared to herself to be?” The dark thoughts of “The Depressed Person” soon grow tedious and trying, but that’s precisely Wallace’s point. There is nothing profound about depressive rumination. There is just a recursive loop of woe.
The bleakness of this thought process helps explain why, according to the Yale psychologist Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, people with “ruminative tendencies” are more likely to become depressed. They’re also more likely to become unnerved by stressful events: for instance, Nolen-Hoeksema found that residents of San Francisco who self-identified as ruminators showed significantly more depressive symptoms after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. And then there are the cognitive deficits. Because rumination hijacks the stream of consciousness — we become exquisitely attentive to our pain — numerous studies have found that depressed subjects struggle to think about anything else, just like Wallace’s character. The end result is poor performance on tests for memory and executive function, especially when the task involves lots of information. (These deficits disappear when test subjects are first distracted from their depression and thus better able to focus on the exercise.) Such research has reinforced the view that rumination is a useless kind of pessimism, a perfect waste of mental energy.
That, at least, was the scientific consensus when Andrews and Thomson began exploring the depression paradox. Their evolutionary perspective, however — they see the mind as a fine-tuned machine that is not prone to pointless programming bugs — led them to wonder if rumination had a purpose. They started with the observation that rumination was often a response to a specific psychological blow, like the death of a loved one or the loss of a job. (Darwin was plunged into a debilitating grief after his 10-year-old daughter, Annie, died following a bout of scarlet fever.) Although the D.S.M. manual, the diagnostic bible for psychiatrists, does not take such stressors into account when diagnosing depressive disorder — the exception is grief caused by bereavement, as long as the grief doesn’t last longer than two months — it’s clear that the problems of everyday life play a huge role in causing mental illness. “Of course, rumination is unpleasant,” Andrews says. “But it’s usually a response to something real, a real setback. It didn’t seem right that the brain would go haywire just when we need it most.”
Imagine, for instance, a depression triggered by a bitter divorce. The ruminations might take the form of regret (“I should have been a better spouse”), recurring counterfactuals (“What if I hadn’t had my affair?”) and anxiety about the future (“How will the kids deal with it? Can I afford my alimony payments?”). While such thoughts reinforce the depression — that’s why therapists try to stop the ruminative cycle — Andrews and Thomson wondered if they might also help people prepare for bachelorhood or allow people to learn from their mistakes. “I started thinking about how, even if you are depressed for a few months, the depression might be worth it if it helps you better understand social relationships,” Andrews says. “Maybe you realize you need to be less rigid or more loving. Those are insights that can come out of depression, and they can be very valuable.”
This radical idea — the scientists were suggesting that depressive disorder came with a net mental benefit — has a long intellectual history. Aristotle was there first, stating in the fourth century B.C. “that all men who have attained excellence in philosophy, in poetry, in art and in politics, even Socrates and Plato, had a melancholic habitus; indeed some suffered even from melancholic disease.” This belief was revived during the Renaissance, leading Milton to exclaim, in his poem “Il Penseroso”: “Hail divinest Melancholy/Whose saintly visage is too bright/To hit the sense of human sight.” The Romantic poets took the veneration of sadness to its logical extreme and described suffering as a prerequisite for the literary life. As Keats wrote, “Do you not see how necessary a World of Pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?”
But Andrews and Thomson weren’t interested in ancient aphorisms or poetic apologias. Their daunting challenge was to show how rumination might lead to improved outcomes, especially when it comes to solving life’s most difficult dilemmas. Their first speculations focused on the core features of depression, like the inability of depressed subjects to experience pleasure or their lack of interest in food, sex and social interactions. According to Andrews and Thomson, these awful symptoms came with a productive side effect, because they reduced the possibility of becoming distracted from the pressing problem.
The capacity for intense focus, they note, relies in large part on a brain area called the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), which is located a few inches behind the forehead. While this area has been associated with a wide variety of mental talents, like conceptual knowledge and verb conjugation, it seems to be especially important for maintaining attention. Experiments show that neurons in the VLPFC must fire continuously to keep us on task so that we don’t become sidetracked by irrelevant information. Furthermore, deficits in the VLPFC have been associated with attention-deficit disorder.
Several studies found an increase in brain activity (as measured indirectly by blood flow) in the VLPFC of depressed patients. Most recently, a paper to be published next month by neuroscientists in China found a spike in “functional connectivity” between the lateral prefrontal cortex and other parts of the brain in depressed patients, with more severe depressions leading to more prefrontal activity. One explanation for this finding is that the hyperactive VLPFC underlies rumination, allowing people to stay focused on their problem. (Andrews and Thomson argue that this relentless fixation also explains the cognitive deficits of depressed subjects, as they are too busy thinking about their real-life problems to bother with an artificial lab exercise; their VLPFC can’t be bothered to care.) Human attention is a scarce resource — the neural effects of depression make sure the resource is efficiently allocated.
But the reliance on the VLPFC doesn’t just lead us to fixate on our depressing situation; it also leads to an extremely analytical style of thinking. That’s because rumination is largely rooted in working memory, a kind of mental scratchpad that allows us to “work” with all the information stuck in consciousness. When people rely on working memory — and it doesn’t matter if they’re doing long division or contemplating a relationship gone wrong — they tend to think in a more deliberate fashion, breaking down their complex problems into their simpler parts.
The bad news is that this deliberate thought process is slow, tiresome and prone to distraction; the prefrontal cortex soon grows exhausted and gives out. Andrews and Thomson see depression as a way of bolstering our feeble analytical skills, making it easier to pay continuous attention to a difficult dilemma. The downcast mood and activation of the VLPFC are part of a “coordinated system” that, Andrews and Thomson say, exists “for the specific purpose of effectively analyzing the complex life problem that triggered the depression.” If depression didn’t exist — if we didn’t react to stress and trauma with endless ruminations — then we would be less likely to solve our predicaments. Wisdom isn’t cheap, and we pay for it with pain.
Consider a young professor on tenure track who was treated by Thomson. The patient was having difficulties with his academic department. “This guy was used to success coming easy, but now it wasn’t,” Thomson says. “I made it clear that I thought he’d need some time to figure out his next step. His problem was like a splinter, and the pain wouldn’t go away until the splinter was removed.” Should the patient leave the department? Should he leave academia? Or should he try to resolve the disagreement? Over the next several weeks, Thomson helped the patient analyze his situation and carefully think through the alternatives. “We took it one variable at a time,” Thomson says. “And it eventually became clear to him that the departmental issues couldn’t be fixed. He needed to leave. Once he came to that conclusion, he started feeling better.”
The publication of Andrews and Thomson’s 36,000-word paper in the July 2009 issue of Psychological Review had a polarizing effect on the field. While some researchers, like Jerome Wakefield, a professor at New York University who specializes in the conceptual foundations of clinical theory, greeted the paper as “an extremely important first step toward the re-evaluation of depression,” other psychiatrists regarded it as little more than irresponsible speculation, a justification for human suffering. Peter Kramer, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University, describes the paper as “a ladder with a series of weak rungs.” Kramer has long defended the use of antidepressants — his landmark work, “Listening to Prozac,” chronicled the profound improvements of patients taking the drugs — and criticized those who romanticized depression, which he compares to the glamorization of tuberculosis in the late 19th century. In a series of e-mail messages to me, Kramer suggested that Andrews and Thomson neglect the variants of depression that don’t fit their evolutionary theory. “This study says nothing about chronic depression and the sort of self-hating, paralyzing, hopeless, circular rumination it inspires,” Kramer wrote. And what about post-stroke depression? Late-life depression? Extreme depressive condition? Kramer argues that there’s a clear category difference between a healthy response to social stressors and the response of people with depressive disorder. “Depression is not really like sadness,” Kramer has written. “It’s more an oppressive flattening of feeling.”
Even scientists who are sympathetic to what Andrews and Thomson call the “analytic-rumination hypothesis” remain critical of its details. Ed Hagen, an anthropologist at Washington State University who is working on a book with Andrews, says that while the analytic-rumination hypothesis has persuaded him that some depressive symptoms might improve problem-solving skills, he remains unconvinced that it is a sufficient explanation for depression. “Individuals with major depression often don’t groom, bathe and sometimes don’t even use the toilet,” Hagen says. They also significantly “reduce investment in child care,” which could have detrimental effects on the survival of offspring. The steep fitness costs of these behaviors, Hagen says, would not be offset by “more uninterrupted time to think.”
Other scientists, including Randolph Nesse at the University of Michigan, say that complex psychiatric disorders like depression rarely have simple evolutionary explanations. In fact, the analytic-rumination hypothesis is merely the latest attempt to explain the prevalence of depression. There is, for example, the “plea for help” theory, which suggests that depression is a way of eliciting assistance from loved ones. There’s also the “signal of defeat” hypothesis, which argues that feelings of despair after a loss in social status help prevent unnecessary attacks; we’re too busy sulking to fight back. And then there’s “depressive realism”: several studies have found that people with depression have a more accurate view of reality and are better at predicting future outcomes. While each of these speculations has scientific support, none are sufficient to explain an illness that afflicts so many people. The moral, Nesse says, is that sadness, like happiness, has many functions.
Although Nesse says he admires the analytic-rumination hypothesis, he adds that it fails to capture the heterogeneity of depressive disorder. Andrews and Thomson compare depression to a fever helping to fight off infection, but Nesse says a more accurate metaphor is chronic pain, which can arise for innumerable reasons. “Sometimes, the pain is going to have an organic source,” he says. “Maybe you’ve slipped a disc or pinched a nerve, in which case you’ve got to solve that underlying problem. But much of the time there is no origin for the pain. The pain itself is the dysfunction.”
Andrews and Thomson respond to such criticisms by acknowledging that depression is a vast continuum, a catch-all term for a spectrum of symptoms. While the analytic-rumination hypothesis might explain those patients reacting to an “acute stressor,” it can’t account for those whose suffering has no discernible cause or whose sadness refuses to lift for years at a time. “To say that depression can be useful doesn’t mean it’s always going to be useful,” Thomson says. “Sometimes, the symptoms can spiral out of control. The problem, though, is that as a society, we’ve come to see depression as something that must always be avoided or medicated away. We’ve been so eager to remove the stigma from depression that we’ve ended up stigmatizing sadness.”
For Thomson, this new theory of depression has directly affected his medical practice. “That’s the litmus test for me,” he says. “Do these ideas help me treat my patients better?” In recent years, Thomson has cut back on antidepressant prescriptions, because, he says, he now believes that the drugs can sometimes interfere with genuine recovery, making it harder for people to resolve their social dilemmas. “I remember one patient who came in and said she needed to reduce her dosage,” he says. “I asked her if the antidepressants were working, and she said something I’ll never forget. ‘Yes, they’re working great,’ she told me. ‘I feel so much better. But I’m still married to the same alcoholic son of a bitch. It’s just now he’s tolerable.’ ”
The point is the woman was depressed for a reason; her pain was about something. While the drugs made her feel better, no real progress was ever made. Thomson’s skepticism about antidepressants is bolstered by recent studies questioning their benefits, at least for patients with moderate depression. Consider a 2005 paper led by Steven Hollon, a psychologist at Vanderbilt University: he found that people on antidepressants had a 76 percent chance of relapse within a year when the drugs were discontinued. In contrast, patients given a form of cognitive talk therapy had a relapse rate of 31 percent. And Hollon’s data aren’t unusual: several studies found that patients treated with medication were approximately twice as likely to relapse as patients treated with cognitive behavior therapy. “The high relapse rate suggests that the drugs aren’t really solving anything,” Thomson says. “In fact, they seem to be interfering with the solution, so that patients are discouraged from dealing with their problems. We end up having to keep people on the drugs forever. It was as if these people have a bodily infection, and modern psychiatry is just treating their fever.”
Thomson describes a college student who was referred to his practice. “It was clear that this patient was in a lot of pain,” Thomson says. “He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t study. He had some family issues” — his parents were recently divorced — “and his father was exerting a tremendous amount of pressure on him to go to graduate school. Because he’s got a family history of depression, the standard of care would be to put him on drugs right away. And a few years ago, that’s what I would have done.”
Instead, Thomson was determined to help the student solve his problem. “What you’re trying to do is speed along the rumination process,” Thomson says. “Once you show people the dilemma they need to solve, they almost always start feeling better.” He cites as evidence a recent study that found “expressive writing” — asking depressed subjects to write essays about their feelings — led to significantly shorter depressive episodes. The reason, Thomson suggests, is that writing is a form of thinking, which enhances our natural problem-solving abilities. “This doesn’t mean there’s some miracle cure,” he says. “In most cases, the recovery period is going to be long and difficult. And that’s what I told this young student. I said: ‘I know you’re hurting. I know these problems seem impossible. But they’re not. And I can help you solve them.’ ”
IT’S TOO SOON to judge the analytic-rumination hypothesis. Nobody knows if depression is an adaptation or if Andrews and Thomson have merely spun another “Just So” story, a clever evolutionary tale that lacks direct evidence. Nevertheless, their speculation is part of a larger scientific re-evaluation of negative moods, which have long been seen as emotional states to avoid. The dismissal of sadness and its synonyms is perhaps best exemplified by the rise of positive psychology, a scientific field devoted to the pursuit of happiness. In recent years, a number of positive psychologists have written popular self-help books, like “The How of Happiness” and “Authentic Happiness,” that try to outline the scientific principles behind “lasting fulfillment” and “getting the life we want.”
The new research on negative moods, however, suggests that sadness comes with its own set of benefits and that even our most unpleasant feelings serve an important purpose. Joe Forgas, a social psychologist at the University of New South Wales in Australia, has repeatedly demonstrated in experiments that negative moods lead to better decisions in complex situations. The reason, Forgas suggests, is rooted in the intertwined nature of mood and cognition: sadness promotes “information-processing strategies best suited to dealing with more-demanding situations.” This helps explain why test subjects who are melancholy — Forgas induces the mood with a short film about death and cancer — are better at judging the accuracy of rumors and recalling past events; they’re also much less likely to stereotype strangers.
Last year Forgas ventured beyond the lab and began conducting studies in a small stationery store in suburban Sydney, Australia. The experiment itself was simple: Forgas placed a variety of trinkets, like toy soldiers, plastic animals and miniature cars, near the checkout counter. As shoppers exited, Forgas tested their memory, asking them to list as many of the items as possible. To control for the effect of mood, Forgas conducted the survey on gray, rainy days — he accentuated the weather by playing Verdi’s “Requiem” — and on sunny days, using a soundtrack of Gilbert and Sullivan. The results were clear: shoppers in the “low mood” condition remembered nearly four times as many of the trinkets. The wet weather made them sad, and their sadness made them more aware and attentive.
The enhancement of these mental skills might also explain the striking correlation between creative production and depressive disorders. In a survey led by the neuroscientist Nancy Andreasen, 30 writers from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop were interviewed about their mental history. Eighty percent of the writers met the formal diagnostic criteria for some form of depression. A similar theme emerged from biographical studies of British writers and artists by Kay Redfield Jamison, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, who found that successful individuals were eight times as likely as people in the general population to suffer from major depressive illness.
Why is mental illness so closely associated with creativity? Andreasen argues that depression is intertwined with a “cognitive style” that makes people more likely to produce successful works of art. In the creative process, Andreasen says, “one of the most important qualities is persistence.” Based on the Iowa sample, Andreasen found that “successful writers are like prizefighters who keep on getting hit but won’t go down. They’ll stick with it until it’s right.” While Andreasen acknowledges the burden of mental illness — she quotes Robert Lowell on depression not being a “gift of the Muse” and describes his reliance on lithium to escape the pain — she argues that many forms of creativity benefit from the relentless focus it makes possible. “Unfortunately, this type of thinking is often inseparable from the suffering,” she says. “If you’re at the cutting edge, then you’re going to bleed.”
And then there’s the virtue of self-loathing, which is one of the symptoms of depression. When people are stuck in the ruminative spiral, their achievements become invisible; the mind is only interested in what has gone wrong. While this condition is typically linked to withdrawal and silence — people become unwilling to communicate — there’s some suggestive evidence that states of unhappiness can actually improve our expressive abilities. Forgas said he has found that sadness correlates with clearer and more compelling sentences, and that negative moods “promote a more concrete, accommodative and ultimately more successful communication style.” Because we’re more critical of what we’re writing, we produce more refined prose, the sentences polished by our angst. As Roland Barthes observed, “A creative writer is one for whom writing is a problem.”
This line of research led Andrews to conduct his own experiment, as he sought to better understand the link between negative mood and improved analytical abilities. He gave 115 undergraduates an abstract-reasoning test known as Raven’s Progressive Matrices, which requires subjects to identify a missing segment in a larger pattern. (Performance on the task strongly predicts general intelligence.) The first thing Andrews found was that nondepressed students showed an increase in “depressed affect” after taking the test. In other words, the mere presence of a challenging problem — even an abstract puzzle — induced a kind of attentive trance, which led to feelings of sadness. It doesn’t matter if we’re working on a mathematical equation or working through a broken heart: the anatomy of focus is inseparable from the anatomy of melancholy. This suggests that depressive disorder is an extreme form of an ordinary thought process, part of the dismal machinery that draws us toward our problems, like a magnet to metal.
But is that closeness effective? Does the despondency help us solve anything? Andrews found a significant correlation between depressed affect and individual performance on the intelligence test, at least once the subjects were distracted from their pain: lower moods were associated with higher scores. “The results were clear,” Andrews says. “Depressed affect made people think better.” The challenge, of course, is persuading people to accept their misery, to embrace the tonic of despair. To say that depression has a purpose or that sadness makes us smarter says nothing about its awfulness. A fever, after all, might have benefits, but we still take pills to make it go away. This is the paradox of evolution: even if our pain is useful, the urge to escape from the pain remains the most powerful instinct of all.
An article on Feb. 28 about the benefits of depression misstated the name of a university in Australia where studies have been done on the subject. It is the University of New South Wales, not South Wales.
Jonah Lehrer is the author of “How We Decide” and of the blog The Frontal Cortex. This is his first article for the magazine.
A version of this article appears in print on February 28, 2010, on Page MM38 of the Sunday Magazine with the headline: Depression’s Upside. Today's Paper|Subscribe
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It’s Not Your Money, Dr Cullen
A commentator recently wrote as follows:
The notion that it is better to allow people to keep more of their own money than to snatch it from them as tax and then return it to them as a credit against that tax, is alien to a man who really believes that the national income is his, and it is for him to decide how much of his money to share with citizens.
The man in question was not finance minister Michael Cullen, though it could have been. Rather, it was Gordon Brown, the British chancellor of the exchequer and soon to be prime minister when Tony Blair steps down next month.
The parallels between the two are striking. There were no reductions in personal taxes in this year’s budget, even though polls indicate most New Zealanders are calling for them. Dr Cullen misleadingly represents the Working for Families scheme as a tax reduction, but it does nothing to reduce overall taxation. It effectively involves ‘snatching’ money as tax and returning it as a handout, often to the very people (middle and higher income earners with families) who paid the tax in the first place.
The parallels go further. In his first term of office, Gordon Brown kept a lid on government spending, as did Dr Cullen. Since then, spending and taxation have blown out in both countries. Both governments now take roughly 43 percent of their nations’ income in taxation, virtually the same proportion as in the bloated welfare state of Germany .
And in respect of the welfare state in Britain , the commentator quoted earlier suggested middle class support for it is waning:
That support rested on two pillars. The first was a (mistaken) belief on the part of the middle class that the value of the direct benefits they received exceeded the taxes extracted from them. These benefits were always recognised explicitly by the Left as a necessity – an unfortunate one, but a necessity nevertheless – to buy voter support for the redistribution that is at the heart of the welfare state. Unfortunately for Brown, he has used up his bribe money: he can’t afford any more goodies for the middle class, on which he has loaded a succession of tax increases. And he has presided over the pouring of huge sums down the rat hole of an unreformed health service.
Spot another parallel: health was the main recipient of Dr Cullen’s spending largesse in the budget, yet Treasury analysis suggests productivity in the government-run health system is falling.
Dr Cullen’s mindset was revealed recently when he told the Dominion Post: “If you give most people a tax cut, they will spend it.” Give!? The money is not his to give. The government did not work to earn it. And who is he to tell people that they should not spend what they have earned? The largest and most wasteful spender in the country is undoubtedly central government.
Dr Cullen has conned too many people into believing there is no right time to cut tax: it only stokes the inflationary fires and pushes up interest rates. Or at best taxes can only be cut if the economy is flat on its back, and can do with some life-preserving ‘stimulus’.
This is absurd. The Howard government In Australia has cut taxes five years in succession without igniting inflation. Here the government has raised tax burdens enormously, and reignited inflationary pressures.
Dr Cullen’s specious argument makes him the slave of a now-defunct economist – John Maynard Keynes – whose closed economy theory of demand-pull inflation was discredited by the stagflation of the 1970s.
Economists have long since accepted Milton Friedman’s argument that monetary policy – ‘printing money’ – is the single cause of inflation, whether in boom times or in recession. Inflation is about too much money chasing too few goods. So the first requirement for non-inflationary growth is for the Reserve Bank to run a sound monetary policy. Inflationary pressures in New Zealand can be also eased by addressing the problem of too few goods – by increasing the productive capacity of the economy through lower taxes and other measures that would help reverse the alarming decline in business sector productivity growth since the government took office.
Regrettably, we saw few moves in the budget towards a better fiscal and economic strategy. Government spending continues to grow rapidly without any evident attention to whether it represents value for money to taxpayers. The cut in company tax was overdue but it is a baby step and doesn’t help the many businesses that are not companies. The McLeod tax review principles of lowering top personal and other tax rates to align with the company and trust rates were not followed.
And far from moving towards a freer environment which is necessary for growth, we saw another Nanny State intrusion in the form of a KiwiSaver scheme that includes a compulsory employer element. Once again freedoms and responsibilities are ignored, and there is no free lunch for workers. The burden of compulsory increases in the cost of employment will fall eventually on labour through lower take-home pay, fewer non-wage benefits, or higher consumer prices. Employees will be dissatisfied and employers frustrated. Further regulation to deal with unintended consequences is virtually guaranteed.
The bottom line in the budget is that the combination of excessive government spending, taxation and regulation is dragging down the economy’s growth rate. Far from GDP growth accelerating to Dr Cullen’s target of 4 percent a year or more, necessary to haul New Zealand back up the OECD income ladder, the medium-term outlook is for an average growth rate of just 2.5 percent. Dr Cullen’s legacy is likely to be that of a failed finance minister who inherited the highly successful reforms of the 1980s and early 1990s and largely squandered the gains.
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SPORT | Rugby
Gregor Paul: How New Zealand Rugby is losing control over top All Blacks
9 Feb, 2019 7:00am
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All Blacks players are filtering in as the Blues gear up for a huge season under new coach Leon MacDonald
By: Gregor Paul
gregor.paul@nzherald.co.nz
There's no doubt that the sabbatical concept has served New Zealand Rugby well.
Richie McCaw insists he wouldn't have made it to the 2015 World Cup if he hadn't sat out Super Rugby in 2013 and Ben Smith returned to being a world-class force in 2018 after missing the back half of the 2017 season.
Conrad Smith is another who regenerated himself after taking extended time out of the game and New Zealand's ground-breaking move to selectively grant their best players paid time off has been instrumental in not only retaining talent but also keeping the All Blacks a step ahead in the last decade.
The biggest enemy to performance is fatigue and New Zealand have been smart in the way they have fought against burning out their most influential players.
If the idea of New Zealand's best players being absent from work for months at a time was a hard sell at first – a concept that invited opprobrium and cynicism - most followers have come to appreciate the necessity and value of battered athletes having a break.
Prolonged rest gave McCaw at least another season as an All Black, as it did Conrad and Ben Smith and so from being a seemingly gimmicky idea that was potentially too heavily weighted in favour of the player, New Zealand's ability to offer contracts with a sabbatical clause has become the envy of the world.
But the sand has shifted under everyone's feet in the last six months and the definition of a sabbatical has been broadened to a near-farcical extent.
New Zealand Rugby is trying to sell the impending contract extensions of Beauden Barrett and Brodie Retallick as long-term deals that will have a pre-agreed sabbatical period.
Brodie Retallick and Beauden Barrett are set to be offered the opportunity to play in Japan. Photo / Getty
While neither player has actually confirmed their intentions post-2019, it is believed they are both hoping to play in Japan in 2020 and then return to New Zealand in 2021, staying at least until the 2023 World Cup.
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The attraction of Japan is that the 2019 club programme is being moved to avoid clashing with the World Cup so 2020 will present a one-time-only opportunity for players to fit two campaigns into one calendar year.
For Barrett and Retallick 2020 presents a life-changing financial opportunity and it seems that it is easier for NZR to swallow this reality if they sell it to themselves and the public as four-year contract extensions with a one-year sabbatical clause.
Sabbaticals are a universally accepted part of the contracting landscape so if a year of Barrett and Retallick making money in Japan can be sold under that banner it creates the illusion of this being business as usual.
But taking a contract to play in another country for a year is not a sabbatical.
The original sabbatical contract in New Zealand was offered to Daniel Carter in 2008 when he was already in advanced talks to play for Perpignan in France.
Rather than him leave for two years NZR scrambled a deal where they persuaded him to go to France for six months as a sanctioned component of a three-year contract extension.
When Carter damaged his Achilles after three games with Perpignan and didn't play again, it highlighted the problem with time off not being time off.
Carter had played a full season in New Zealand in 2008 to then head to France in December of that year without a break.
Dan Carter was the first All Black to be granted a sabbatical - with Perpignan in 2008. Photo / Getty
He was tired and therefore vulnerable to injury, which was much the same with Ma'a Nonu who played in Japan after the 2011 World Cup and returned to New Zealand in 2012 shattered and well off the pace.
It was at that point the penny dropped that it wasn't really a sabbatical when players opted to play offshore rather than use their break to rest and travel.
And yet here we are, about to be told that the sabbatical clause has once again kept two of the country's best players in New Zealand longer term.
But that's not really true.
What's happening is that Retallick and Barrett are going to be playing a lot of rugby for a different employer for a significant amount of time.
It's debatable whether condensing two seasons into one, albeit at a less intense level, will enhance their career-longevity or rejuvenate them mentally and physically.
In all probability a year in Japan will take as much out of them as a year in New Zealand would and if they sign deals to be absent in 2020, at what point will they be ready to play again in New Zealand?
They can't return from Japan in January 2021 and come straight back into Super Rugby.
If they do that they will break and most likely if Retallick and Barrett do go to Japan it will require them to miss all of 2020 plus much of Super Rugby in 2021.
Everyone can see that this is vastly different to McCaw sitting out the first six months of 2013 to rest a tired body and enthuse a beleaguered mind.
Barrett re-signed with the All Blacks in 2016. Photo / Getty
NZR are trying to suggest they have no alternative but to accept that this is the best of a number of bad scenarios: that if they didn't grant Retallick and Barrett sanctioned leave, they would lose them permanently.
Maybe so but isn't that kind of the point of contract negotiations?
If playing elsewhere for a period is so important to Barrett and Retallick then let them choose between that and being All Blacks.
Offer them the chance to have a non-playing sabbatical as part of a four-year deal to stay, but tell them that if they want a year in Japan then they can do it without an NZR contract waiting for them at the end of it.
Let the risk sit with the players – pull the safety net away and say there are no guarantees about a contract at the end of their Japanese stint.
NZR is trying to portray itself as a victim of market forces when it appears to be more a victim of its own decision-making.
A sabbatical in the true sense has value in preserving careers and endorsing NZR as an employer that cares.
Allowing players to make millions offshore with the certainty they can come home after a year and resume their test career seems like the first step on a slippery slope towards losing control.
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Robert "Shrimp" D. Swecker
April 3, 1928 ~ March 27, 2000 (age 71)
Robert D. “Shrimp” Swecker, 71, of Glen Allen, died Monday, March 27, 2000, at Henrico Doctors Hospital in Richmond.
He was born April 3, 1928, at Brownsburg, Pa., a son of Arlie David and Isabelle (Crayne) Swecker.
On October 19, 1963, he married JoAnn Swecker.
He retired from the U.S. Postal Service, having served as postmaster in Blue Grass for 28 years. He was a graduate of Dunsmore Business College in Staunton. He served in the Amy during the Korean War. He was a former member of the Blue Grass Ruritan Club.
Survivors include his wife, JoAnn Swecker, of Glenn Allen; a daughter, Lisa Rogers, of Richmond; two grandsons, Cody Allen and Jeremy David Rogers, of Richmond; and a brother, Dale Swecker, of Maryland.
A service will be conducted at 2 p.m. Thursday, at Blue Grass Cemetery, by the Rev. Richard S. Gibson.
Pallbearers will be Conley Colaw, Carl Hull, Bardon Warner, Jimmy Will, George Colaw, Olin Sponaugle and Carl Lee Simmons.
Honorary pallbearers will be friends attending the service.
Friends may call at Obaugh Funeral Home.
Memorials may be made to the Highland County Rescue Squad, P.O. Box 268, Monterey, Va. 24465.
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