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School of Fish: The Best Lesson Learned
The sad truth about excellent songwriters is that they’re typically troubled. They battle demons, overcome obstacles, find solace in drugs or alcohol. etc. And it’s because of this that they can write songs with such heartache and honesty. It’s also because of this that they often die young. Some of my favorite songwriters have gone away too early – Shannon Hoon (Blind Melon), Kurt Cobain (Nirvana), and Jimi Hendrix to name a few. These three found alternative ways to deal with their pain (drugs and/or suicide). Josh Clayton-Felt (of School of Fish), however, died because of testicular cancer at the young age of 32.
Josh Clayton-Felt
School of Fish, an alternative band founded by Josh Clayton-Felt (guitar and vocals) and Michael Ward (guitar), released two albums in the 1990s. Their first self-titled album, released in ’91, produced the single, “Three Strange Days”. The album was full of alternative pop rock tunes backed by drum machine-like percussion. In comparison, their second album, Human Cannonball, released in ’93, was a louder, tougher album with intense drums (by Josh Freese) and deep, heavy bass (by John Pierce). “Take Me Anywhere” was the album's single, released along with a music video.
Human Cannonball sounded like it came from a completely different band and I remember being put off by it immediately because of the drastic change in sound. It wasn’t as pop-oriented as the first album, which is what I had expected on their sophomore effort. After a few repeated hearings and allowing myself to remove my expectations, however, I realized three things: The first was that this was one of the best albums in my ever-growing collection. The second was that this was an incredibly bold and courageous move a little-known band could make.
The third and most important lesson was to not expect something from an artist and to listen to a new piece of work based on its own merit. I use this same tactic when watching a new film from a favorite director or studying a new work of art from a visual artist. It simply makes sense considering that most artists want to experiment and expand their techniques. It’s one of the traits I value most in artists. And out of respect, I should base my opinion of their new work solely on the new work – not in comparison to anything they’ve previously released.
School of Fish (with live performers Chris MacDonald and Chad Fischer)
In a short amount of time School of Fish not only released two well-rounded, completely different albums, but they also inadvertently defined me as a person and changed the way I view the arts. I will forever be grateful to School of Fish.
School of Fish on iTunes
Self-titled Debut Album: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/school-of-fish/id14327341
Human Cannonball: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/human-cannonball/id201974589
Josh Clayton-Felt's Website: www.joshclayton.com
Michael Ward's Website: www.wardworldwide.com
TRIVIA 1: Human Cannonball was originally titled Canine Cannonball but Capital Records deemed it too close to animal abuse.
TRIVIA 2: In 1994, School of Fish disbanded. Clayton-Felt went on to release several solo albums as did Ward. Ward has become a much sought after session guitarist and has played with various artists including Ben Harper, John Hiatt, and The Wallflowers.
Posted by 2nd First Look at 1:32 AM
Labels: Jav Rivera, music
By Lisa Adamowicz Kless
There’s a snapshot tucked away in one of my photo albums, showing a commonplace, weathered wall somewhere in Europe, one that I might have walked right past; except that spray painted in tall, jagged letters somewhere near the middle was the word “Freedom”. That caught my attention. I paused. I took a picture. Even if it’s since been painted over or scrubbed off, the graffiti served its purpose. It was noticed, it got its message across, provoked thought, and now sits immortalized forever in an album an ocean away.
Besides that brush with graffiti, the only other major exposure I’ve had was being stopped at a railroad crossing, watching the kaleidoscope of colors and patterns on trains go by at dizzying speeds. Then, just recently, graffiti was back on my radar, my awareness and understanding of it expanding and evolving. In large part, thanks for this goes to visual artist Mario Gonzales, who has given me a glimpse into the world of graffiti art and some of the inspiration of the people who create it. I’m clearer on the distinction between a tagger, who just scrawls their name on things, and a true graffiti artist. Gonzales is the latter. His work is intriguing, political, witty, engaging…I could go on. I’d rather just tell you a little bit about him first though, and then encourage you take a look at some of his work and judge for yourself.
Art, in a broad sense, is something that’s always intrigued Gonzales. Cartooning was his first passion, stemming from a childhood love of cartoon classics such as Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny. As he got a little bit older, comic book art grabbed his interest. In the early 1980s, his family moved to Milwaukee, WI, where he started to feel the pull of graffiti art. As a teen, he attended the Milwaukee High School of the Arts, where he was exposed to art ranging from abstract to modern, Renaissance to contemporary. He also had the opportunity to study and work in different mediums, widening his artistic range. His art has evolved as he’s gotten older; like many graffiti writers, he’s moved to using paper and canvas as his backdrops: a safer and much more legal means of expression. For Gonzales, subject matter comes from basically anything that inspires him to draw or paint. He says: “I tend to create whatever comes to mind and work with almost all art tools, from colored pencil to airbrush; I think artists should be knowledgeable in more than one medium.” His biggest goal is getting exposure for his art. It makes perfect sense. As a graffiti writer, a whole city has the potential to be your gallery. Gonzales may have shifted his art to canvases now, but it still grabs your attention in a big way. I was told that he was “all city” in his earlier years as a graffiti writer, and I have no doubt that as word of his work spreads among art communities, he’ll be all city again, simply in a different sense this time.
http://www.bluecanvas.com/saint38
Posted by 2nd First Look at 11:00 PM
Labels: Lisa Adamowicz Kless
Big Night: A Seven Course Film
In 1996, Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub starred in Big Night - directed by Campbell Scott and Stanley Tucci. That same year the Coen Brothers released Fargo and Anthony Minghella released The English Patient - two films that got major attention. It's easy to see then why Big Night was lost in the shuffle. Far from table scraps, however, this is certainly a seven-course film.
Big Night is the story of two brothers trying to run an Italian restaurant in the 1950's. Tucci plays Secondo, a smooth operator with plans to fulfill the American dream. Shalhoub plays older brother Primo, a brilliant chef trying to keep the restaurant authentically Italian. When Secondo seeks advice to neighboring restaurant owner Pascal (Ian Holm), Pascal pulls some strings to get famous jazz musician Louis Prima to visit their failing restaurant for one big night.
Tucci and Shalhoub work together like butter on warm bread. It's not surprising that the two have worked together again (Shalhoub plays a role in Tucci's follow up film, The Impostors, and Tucci cameos on Shalhoub's "Monk" TV series).
(Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott)
The supporting cast is impeccable as well - several of whom were still in the early stages of their career. You may have to do a double-take when you notice Marc Anthony, Liev Schreiber, and Allison Janney - all of whom have had great success in recent years but were relatively unknowns at the time. There's also the established actors such as Ian Holm (Chariots of Fire, The Lord of the Rings), Isabella Rossellini (Fearless, Blue Velvet), and Minnie Driver (Good Will Hunting, Grosse Pointe Blank) rounding out the cast.
I'm not afraid to claim that Big Night also has one of the best endings. It's a great example of the "show - don't tell" theory, which basically means let the body language and action explain a scene as opposed to using dialogue. It's one take with little to no dialogue and no music. It's simple, quiet and touching. I won't say more so as not to ruin it for those of you who haven't seen it.
(Stanley Tucci, Tony Shalhoub, and Marc Anthony)
There's a lot to love about this film and I highly recommend it - I easily list it in my top 20 favorite films. For more information, visit their IMDb page here: www.imdb.com/title/tt0115678. And to view their trailer, click on the following link: www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1404698905/
Oh...just a side note: make sure not to watch this film if you're hungry otherwise you will be tortured.
TRIVIA: Co-director Campbell Scott appears in the film as "Bob" the car salesman.
Posted by 2nd First Look at 7:55 PM
I have at least two friends that I’d consider film aficionados, and some of the best and most compelling cinema that I’ve been introduced to has been through their suggestions. Like many of us, I especially love work that challenges my thoughts or emotions in some way, or presents me with a viewpoint that I might not have considered before. Call me a late bloomer, but I hadn’t really watched many foreign films until a year or so ago, when both friends started giving me more suggestions. That was a slippery slope to start down though. Now, spur-of-the-moment foreign film binges are one of my favorite things. Give me a couple films and a free Friday or Saturday night, and I’m set.
Sometime last year, I was at it again. Among my selections for a weekend film night was 2007’s Arranged, from Film Movement. This wasn’t a recommendation, but one I’d just happened to stumble upon while browsing at the video store. The plot centers on two young teachers in a public school in Brooklyn. Rochel, an Orthodox Jewish woman (played by Zoe Lister Jones), and her colleague Nasira, a Muslim (Francis Benhamou), face the challenges of being first-year teachers. Their friendship really begins when a student asks a startling question about their religions during class. As with many real-life friendships and, of course, movie plots, they soon discover that they have a lot in common, not only in the workplace but in their personal lives too. Their bond is cemented when they find out that they’re both in the process of having marriages arranged for them.
I won’t go into too much detail because I don’t want to be a spoiler, but I can tell you what appealed to me most about this film. First, and undoubtedly, the characters of Rochel and Nasira. Both are young women in the midst of a balancing act. They’re staying true to their respective religions and cultural traditions, but still pushing for some self-determination, wanting marriages that are on their own terms, as much as possible. The film was filled with great lines from both characters. It was interesting to see that juxtaposition of how they’re embracing tradition, yet are still modern in many ways, with sharp wits and a sense of independence. Not being very familiar with either Islam or Orthodox Judaism, I’m not sure how accurately the religious practices and cultures were represented, but if (hopefully) the filmmakers did their research, that was one of the aspects I enjoyed too. It allowed me a glimpse into religions and cultures that otherwise, I knew very little about.
Don’t get me wrong: for the most part, this is a really upbeat film. Most of the heavier issues are treated with a dose of humor, and the loose ends are tied up into a happy ending. That said though, it still did for me all of the things that I want a film to do. There was feeling, it made me think, and by the end, I felt like I’d been enlightened in some way. Some big name video stores carry it, and it’s also on Netflix. Pick it up or add it to your queue, and settle in for a light-hearted, but thoroughly entertaining, film.
IMDb Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0848542/
The Sam Roberts Band: Rock Straight Up
I like my rock music. My taste spans all styles of music but rock is at the very heart of me. Rock can combine any other style of music and still make sense. (And while we're on the subject, is there another instrument other than the violin that works in EVERY style of music?) I digress - let's talk about Sam Roberts and his amazing rock band.
(Sam Roberts in middle w/ poncho)
Sam Roberts had some slow starts with other bands before releasing his first album, Brother Down, in 1999 which he recorded at home (and was nominated for two Juno Awards). An EP, The Inhuman Condition, soon followed which gained attention for its single "Brother Down" after it was re-released in 2002. People started taking notice and in 2003, Roberts and his band released We Were Born In A Flame which won three Juno Awards (Album of the Year, Rock Album of the Year, and Artist of the Year).
In 2006, they released Chemical City which was nominated for a Juno Award (Best Rock Album of the Year). The video for their single, "Bridge To Nowhere", won a Juno Award for Video of the Year. Their 2008 album, Love At The End Of The World, won Juno Awards for both Artist of the Year and Rock Album of the Year. These guys are clearly on a winning streak. More importantly, their on a ball. Despite the attention they've gained in Canada, they still produce rock albums that would make any classic rock band proud. There's no genre hybrids and no watering down - this is straight up rock.
Their single, "Them Kids" (from Love At The End Of The World) has one of the most clever videos. The song questions modern music and the loss of rock in the airwaves. The video showcases a family as SIMS characters and the change in times from rock-n-roll days to the digital age.
The Sam Roberts Band feels like a band with one mission: to make great rock tunes. Even if you're not a rock fan, check out their video for "Them Kids" - it's just plain fun to watch. Spread the word and keep an eye out for their forthcoming album - according to their website, they just finished some recording sessions. For more information on the band, check them out at their official website: www.samrobertsband.com.
Music Video for "Them Kids" directed by Dave Pawsey
And one quick question to you guys: what does "TD2ME SorG?" mean in text messaging lingo? It's in the video and I can't find an answer!
TRIVIA: Their 2011 album "Collider" is the first time the band uses the moniker "Sam Roberts Band" as opposed to "Sam Roberts".
Vincent, Evermore...
Some might argue with my choice on this. Yes, I know that Tim Burton is hardly an indie or little-known artist. Having your name associated--often--with a certain Mr. Depp and the cult classic The Nightmare Before Christmas certainly negates the "little" before the word "known". I'm going to insist that this charming little clip qualifies though.
Vincent is a 1982 stop motion film short by Burton and Rick Heinrichs. It follows an imaginative little boy whose ambition is to be "just like Vincent Price". The fact that Vincent Price himself actually narrates is sheer perfection. The opening sequence is sparse and backed by soft, melancholy flute music, setting the mood for the rest of the not-quite-six-minute film. Like many of the creepy, sometimes campy, horror flicks of yore, Vincent is in only black and white. There are a few moments where (like most Burton films) you have to practice suspended disbelief. Vincent is seven, but reads Edgar Allen Poe, and paints a portrait like a master artist. Still, like most things Burton, the journey you're taken on is well worth playing along. Seeing how elements of this film have continued into his later work is fun too. If you're familiar with them, you'll definitely pick up on things that are Corpse Bride and Nightmare-esque.
I'm sure it's no secret by now: I'm a big Burton fan. However...I'd venture to guess that the appeal of Vincent will go beyond the large circle of die-hard devotees. Anyone who felt misunderstood as a child (which I imagine is just about anyone walking planet Earth at the moment) can see a glimmer of themselves here. Any parent who has a child who treats their world of make-believe as reality will understand. Any adult who needs just a few minutes of escape and make believe again should find it time well spent. Go ahead--take a break. Reality will always be there when you get back.
Posted by 2nd First Look at 12:23 AM
CLUE: One of the Best Ensemble Casts
Jonathan Lynn's 1985 film, Clue: The Movie, based on the Parker Bros. board game, has one of the best ensemble casts ever put together. It's also one of the best mysteries ever written. And who’s behind the story? John Landis* and Jonathan Lynn; both have had their share of hits in the 80’s and 90’s but Landis was on one of the best hot streaks in the 80's, and this is no exception.
(left to right: Lesley Ann Warren, Martin Mull, Madeline Kahn, Michael McKean, Tim Curry, Christopher Lloyd, and Eileen Brennan)
Clue: The Movie finds six guests invited to a mysterious dinner in a frightful mansion. All six have been invited under questionable circumstances and little by little they discover their host’s true intentions. Once revealed, the murders begin and making it alive through the night becomes everyone’s number one goal…or so it would seem.
The dialogue is whip-smart and the performances are impeccable. Most of it feels highly improvised and I wouldn’t doubt it considering the caliber of talent. Young as they were, Michael McKeon (Spinal Tap), Christopher Lloyd (Back To The Future) and Madeline Kahn (Blazing Saddles) were in full bloom and laying down a foundation for a career of even more incredible future performances. And it would be a shame not to mention Tim Curry, Martin Mull and Eileen Brennan who never seem to get the attention they rightly deserve.
One of the best aspects of the film is the alternative endings and how comedic their performances become. The ham meter climbs to the top as the cast really lets loose. Madeline Kahn's little moment when she tries to explain how much she hates the French maid is absolutely precious: “I hated her….SO much…..fah-flames….coming out of my ear….”
It’s a film packed full of great lines and if there isn’t already a yearly screening of this film at your local art house theatre, there really should be. So spread the word, Readers. This is one of those movies that should be in every household and shown to every generation. And since at its core it’s really a mystery, this might be great for a Halloween treat. Fun for the whole family - just like the board game!
For more information (and great trivia) visit their IMDb page here: www.imdb.com/title/tt0088930
And watch the trailer at the following link: www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1207632665
*Keep an eye for John Landis' up-coming film, Burke and Hare starring Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis and Clue's Tim Curry. www.imdb.com/title/tt1320239
TRIVIA: The first movie based on a board game.
10 Scary Movies!
It's Halloween weekend! Are you looking for some scary movies to watch? Here's a list of 10 of my personal favorite horror and suspense films (listed in no particular order):
Låt den rätte komma in [English title: Let The Right One In] (Dir. Tomas Alfredson)
El orfanato [English title: The Orphanage] (Dir. Juan Antonio Bayona)
Psycho (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
Jacob's Ladder (Dir. Adrian Lyne)
The Exorcist (Dir. William Friedkin)
The Silence of the Lambs (Dir. Jonathan Demme)
The Shining (Dir. Stanley Kubrick)
Rosemary's Baby (Dir. Roman Polanski)
28 Days Later (Dir. Danny Boyle)
Se7en (Dir. David Fincher)
And here's an addition 5 movies that are a little more fun than scary:
Young Frankenstein (Dir. Mel Brooks)
An American Werewolf in London (Dir. John Landis)
Shaun of the Dead (Dir. Edgar Wright)
Zombieland (Dir. Ruben Fleischer)
Evil Dead II (Dir. Sam Raimi)
These are the ones that came to mind at the time of posting this. I'm sure after I post it I'll think of 10 more that I should have listed. Oh well. If you have more suggestions, post a comment! Have a great Halloween and happy haunting!
Sometimes, art gently moves you. Other times, it uses brute force and knocks you on your ass.
For me, it was the latter that inspired an epiphany. It happened when I came face to face with a monster created by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes. Allow me to explain.
I had the extreme good fortune to visit Spain for eight days in 1993. A starry-eyed teenager abroad for the first time, Spain had me at “bienvenido”. I was immediately and deeply in love with the country and its culture. I spent days and nights speaking faltering Spanish, missing home and wishing I’d never have to leave, all at once. And if the heavens hadn’t already smiled upon me enough, one lovely spring day, a visit to the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid was on our itinerary.
Wandering amongst the collections was exquisite. I’ve always loved art in many forms, so while other kids were grumbling and wishing we were on the bus, headed back to the hotel, I was wide-eyed and soaking it all in. Then, my perception was forever altered. Unexpectedly, I was in front of a large painting that made the breath catch in my throat; it was equal parts terrifying and captivating. “Saturn Devouring One of His Sons” is one of Goya’s “Black Paintings”, as they came to be known. This particular piece is roughly 5’ by 2.75‘, and depicts Saturn eating a bloody, headless, one-armed human torso. With its gruesome subject matter and its substantial size, it’s not much of a leap to imagine that this painting immediately caught my attention. It was Saturn’s eyes that really froze me in my tracks though. Goya painted the eyes and the expression on the face with so much skill that madness pulsates off of the canvas.* In fact, I was half convinced that Saturn might pause his cannibalism for a moment to leap from the painting. I was awestruck. I remember the rest of the group beginning to walk on while I stood there, transfixed, wanting to get out from under that awful stare, yet still riveted. I finally had to break away to catch up with my group, but I walked away fundamentally changed. In those few minutes, “the power of art” became tangible. There have been plenty of other times that wonderful art has moved me since. Yet decades later and an ocean away, nothing trumps the moment that Saturn made my blood run cold and I was awoken to the sheer force of great art. Mil gracias, Goya. Mil gracias, Prado y España.
*According to information on the Museo del Prado’s website (www.museodelprado.es), this painting was originally part of a mural in a house Goya lived in. These works were painted on the walls, and later, the house’s new owner had the paintings transferred to canvas. It states that “the works suffered enormously in the process, losing a large amount of paint.” This only heightens the impact of my experience for me; I can’t fathom how amazing the original must‘ve been.
I love art and I love Photoshop. The two are almost intertwined these days. Some traditionalists will say that art has died with the invention of “digital” art but I embrace technology and its influence on art. I have to admit, however, that in my heart I know that digital art will never impress me as much as some of most bizarre traditional art. M.C. Escher is one of those who will forever amaze me. To think that his work was done prior to the computer age is often difficult to wrap my head around.
(Hand with Reflecting Sphere, 1935 Lithograph)
Maurits Cornelis Escher was born on June 17, 1898 and is recognized mostly for impossible architectural artwork that often reflect infinite loops. In recent years, his work has been featured on t-shirts, posters, and calendars. Most recently, Christopher Nolan referenced Escher’s work in his film, Inception (2010).
(Relativity, 1953 Lithograph)
Despite this, how many of you know the man behind these unique works of art? I encourage you to Google him – I’m sure you’ll be surprised to learn how many obstacles he surpassed while pursing the life an artist. Like other artists, much of his work is influenced and inspired directly from his travels and personal life. Unlike others, however, his perception of landscape and personalities is exclusively unique. You’ll really never see anything like him.
(Dragon, 1925 Woodcut)
As always, my hope with these articles is to inspire you to seek out more information on the selected artist. In this case, I urge you to thumb through books that highlight his work. I’d be surprised if you weren’t absolutely astonished by his breadth of work.
For more information on M.C. Escher, visit the official website: www.mcescher.com as well as books at your local library and book shops.
TRIVIA: Escher didn't have mathematical training and apparently taught himself.
Labels: art, Jav Rivera
Once Upon A Time In The West: The Best Western
In 1968, Sergio Leone directed his masterpiece C'era una volta il West (translated as Once Upon A Time In The West) starring Henry Fonda, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards, and Charles Bronson. Many believe Leone’s best work was The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly starring Clint Eastwood, but in my opinion no other western embodies the isolation and mystery of character and the tension between civilization and wilderness. It’s also one of the best examples of sound and cinematography.
Henry Fonda plays against his typically “good guy” character and embodies Frank, a heartless murderer with money and power in his sites. The lovely Claudia Cardinale plays Jill McBain, a new bride who comes home to find her husband and adopted family murdered in their backyard. Jason Robards plays Cheyenne, a thief and convicted felon who just escaped prison. Charles Bronson rounds out the stellar cast as Harmonica, the lingering shadow whose intensions remain a mystery right up until the end. Every main character carries a history as their stories meld. Every character is also given their own distinctive musical theme.
They all play their characters with wit, charm and strength but it’s Bronson’s Harmonica who really draws me in viewing after viewing. The title sequence alone is one of the most technically and aesthetically pleasing scenes I’ve ever witnessed. It’s also probably the longest title sequence ever tried. Really it’s just three men waiting for a train but Jack Elam, Woody Strode, and Al Mulock embody their sinister characters so well that the scene plays out like a climatic ending of a film.
Of course they have help from the sound department using a squeaky windmill, a buzzing fly, knuckle-cracking and dripping water on a cowboy hat to assist in the annoyance of waiting for something to happen. It’s in this scene when we’re introduced to Bronson’s Harmonica with one of the best one-liners ever written. To recite it in this article would be to ruin a great moment in western cinema history.
The pace of the film is generally slow but one must understand its reason. Leone was a believer in dramatic tension. The film could not – and should not – be faster. Much like another great western, the recent The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (another personal favorite), the film had to be this pace or it would lose much of its charm. If you are delighted by the title sequence then sit back and be comforted by the fact that the rest of the film will equally delight you. If not, then I’d still say give it a try because this is one of western cinemas best.
Spread the word, cowboys and girls. To watch the film’s trailer click on the following link: www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi239075865. And to read more about the film, visit their IMDb page here: www.imdb.com/title/tt0064116
UPDATE: Once Upon A Time In The West is now on Bluray.
TRIVIA: The first draft of the script was 436 pages long.
Welcome to 2nd First Look!
Today, we officially launch 2nd First Look. Our goal is to highlight the works of filmmakers and musicians who don't normally get attention. Check back often for new articles. Feel free to make comments to our articles and we always encourage you to email us with suggestions to: 2ndFirstLook at gmail dot com
Labels: Staff
Perry Farrell Says We’ll Make Great Pets
Back in 1993, alternative rock band Porno For Pyros released their single, Pets, as well as a very unusual video. The single received heavy rotation on alternative radio stations and the video, directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, got major airplay on MTV and went on to be nominated in the “Best New Artist Music Video” category.
Porno For Pyros is the brainchild of Jane’s Addiction front man Perry Farrell and drummer Stephen Perkins who were joined by guitarist Peter DiStefano and bassist Martyn LeNoble. Their self-titled debut album reached the #3 position on the Billboard top 200 list and Pets reached #1 on Billboard’s U.S. Modern list.
The first time I heard Pets I was intrigued by the calmness of the music and child-like voice of Perry Farrell – not to mention that wonderfully weird video. In a time when grunge music was at its peak, came a song that was oddly tranquil and seemingly sweet - seemingly so because most people couldn’t understand the lyrics. Here in lies the reason I’ve named it one of my favorite songs of all times. With music that could ease a child to sleep, there was much to be interpreted by the lyrics. (Click here read the lyrics: "Pets").
The song refers to human race's steady decline and the fact that we would make “great pets” for the new race, which may or may not be aliens. It’s an honest opinion of mankind and cleverly hidden within a pop song that reached a mass audience. Unlike other artists who focus on what we can do to help make a positive change, Farrell instead focuses on the inevitable result of mankind’s destructive behavior. It allows the audience to find their own reasons for change and I personally feel it’s a stronger method.
And if you don’t care about change, just enjoy the tune. It’s smart, simple and a pleasure to listen to. And of course that video is just great to watch. Spread the word!
For more information on Porno For Pyros, visit the official website for Jane’s Addiction at: janesaddiction.org.
TRIVIA: Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris later went on to direct the feature film Little Miss Sunshine and the VW commercial featuring Nick Drake’s "Pink Moon" (see Nick’s article here: Nick Drake Article).
Let The Right One In….Pleeeeeease!
I just fell in love with a Swedish film about a vampire. Let The Right One In or in its native tongue, Låt den rätte komma in, follows Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant), a quiet boy who’s harassed by school mates and ignored at home. He finds friendship with his new neighbor, Eli (Lina Leandersson).
The acting is impeccable especially from the two children, Lina and Kåre. There’s something mysteriously genuine about these two young actors taking on such troubled characters. And as serious and dark as these actors have to portray their characters, there are still several moments when you see the child inside. Never do you feel as if they’re acting.
Kåre Hedebrant as "Oskar"
I wonder, then, why this film requires a U.S. remake, and so soon. The American version, directed by Matt Reeves, was release just two years later. The reviews have been positive for the most part but I can’t help but feel that it’s a cheap ploy to mooch off of a successful foreign film. It’s happened in the past with films like The Ring, which was based off the Japanese film, Ringu, and about to happen with David Fincher’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo based off of Män som hatar kvinnor from Denmark. As much as I adore Fincher’s work, I’m still apprehensive about the need for a U.S. version when the foreign version is so excellent.
Lina Leandersson as "Eli"
The best I can hope for is that people who watch the U.S. versions will seek out the original sources. I’d say it’s a safe bet to say that the originals will almost always be superior to the remakes. Even if you disagree about the reasons for U.S. remakes, I highly recommend you seek out the originals, especially Let The Right One In. It doesn’t matter if you like vampire movies; it’s a great story with flawless acting, beautiful cinematography and amazing sound design. Honestly, I could write a series of articles just on this film but, alas, I have to have an ending. So here it is…it’s great….PERIOD.
Spread the word! And for more information on Let The Right One In, visit their official website: www.lettherightoneinmovie.com.
TRIVIA: The title of the film refers to the fact that, according to myth, vampires must be invited in before they can enter someone's home.
Just The Ticket Is Just Right
I remember back in mid-90’s, I hated Andy Garcia. Not because I was judging his performances in anything – I’m not sure I had even seen him in anything at that point. I was just jealous because every girl I met was in love with him. This jealously is much like the one I had with Brad Pitt until I finally watched his incredible performance in 12 Monkeys. Garcia was one of those “gorgeous” men with matching talent. Something I was completely unaware until I watched Just The Ticket, that is, and then all prior judgments went out the window.
Just The Ticket (directed by Richard Wenk) came out in 1999 without much notice or publicity. I was working at a department store at that time and noticed the DVD on the shelf. Bored as any department store employee would be during an 8-hour shift, I decided to pick the DVD up and read the back. I’m not a romantic-comedy fan so I was immediately turned off – not to mention it starred Andy “Gorgeous” Garcia. But I was bored so I read on. Turns out the premise seemed clever – a ticket scalper named Gary Starke (Andy Garcia), a man with no identity and no responsibilities, is trying to make up with his ex, Linda Palinski (played by the lovely Andie MacDowell) by proving that he can be a legitimately honest man.
I was intrigued so I declared the DVD the property of the electronic department and opened it to watch on one of the thousand monitors at work. Now that I think about it, it seems like something Gary would have done. (Don’t worry – I ended up buying it). Anyone who knows this film understands why I was hooked the second it starts. Over the United Artists/MGM logo at the beginning of the film we hear a deep breath followed by a couple of knocks. A moment of silence and then another knock but this time it’s the famous “Shave and a haircut – Two bits” knock. A confessional booth window slides open and we see our hero waiting for the priest. Gary is a man with a million scams but is at a loss when it comes to winning back the heart of Linda. This is apparently his last resort.
Andy Garcia is guaranteed to charm the pants off of you but a lot of credit also belongs to MacDowell’s brilliant performance as a gifted chef with a tough-love mentality. Credit also goes to the superb supporting cast – much of whom have worked with Garcia in the past and chipped in favors to the production. The script had been around the block more than a few times before Garcia finally decided to “just make it” with little-to-no budget.
The DVD includes an audio commentary where it’s explained that many of the ticket scalping scenes took place on real streets with real customers. Several of the other scenes were improvised as well, including a hilarious moment when Garcia fakes a pain in his side fooling even MacDowell. Garcia is no doubt at the top of his game – something we don’t see again until City Island (2009), which has much of the same charm and strength of Just The Ticket.
Find it at your local rental shop or just buy the DVD – it’s well worth it. Spread the word! For more information on Just The Ticket, visit the IMDb page here: www.imdb.com/title/tt0134948.
TRIVIA: Andie MacDowell improvises a jingle to mock Gary about his idea for a drive-thru dental service called Gary's Plaque-O-Rama. A full big band version of that jingle is later used for the ending credits.
Nick Drake | Pink Moon
Nick Drake was 26 years old when he died in 1974. In that short time he produced 3 studio albums and several tracks that were released decades after his death. His colleagues as well as his manager, Joe Boyd, believed there was incredible potential in this young prodigy. But not only was his style of music difficult to sell, but Nick was also a reluctant performer. After a few ill-fated performances, Nick decided to never perform live again. Not much attention was given towards this unique musician until decades later, mostly due to a Volkswagon commercial that used the title track from Nick's most daring album.
So why is Pink Moon so daring? It’s not because of the production costs, nor the endless recording sessions, nor the hundreds of performers hired to play on the album. It’s none of those because the album didn’t have any of them. The album was extremely bare and deceivingly simple. Even his engineer, John Wood, was surprised when Nick stood up after finishing his 2nd two-hour recording session declaring the album complete. The album consists of Nick’s voice and his guitar (with one piano overdubbed on the title track). Of course, Nick’s guitar playing was always anything but simple. He used unusual guitar tunings – of his own devise – and sang in unique vocal melodies. It has been theorized that his vocals stem from his saxophone background. When you hear his melodies, you can almost hear his voice in place of a saxophone.
The stark sound of Pink Moon was also a dramatic turn in comparison to his previous two albums, which were full of orchestral arrangements and jazz-influenced, folk music. Pink Moon was a dark, blues-influenced sound with lyrical themes of hopelessness. It comes to no surprise then that Nick had a low opinion of his place as an artist.
He considered his previous two albums as failures because of the lack of sales. Any Nick Drake fan, however, will tell you differently. The 3 studio albums were all successes as far as significance and originality. Nick was a proficient guitarist with a warm, husky voice and poetic lyrics.
Sometimes a man’s greatest work comes from the darkest places. Pink Moon is the sound of a man at a low point in his life. How unfortunate that Nick isn’t around to receive the validity he lacked when he was creating his masterpieces. But it’s wonderful to know how much attention Nick Drake is getting these days. He’s a great example of talent being unrecognized despite the quality of work. Personally, I hope his music will be appreciated for generations – as I’m sure it will.
For more information, visit the official Estate of Nick Drake here: http://www.brytermusic.com/
Spread the word.
TRIVIA: During his school days, Nick Drake was very athletic and won several awards in track and field. His record for the 100-yard dash at Marlborough College in Wiltshire, England still stands (as of 2012).
Kula Shaker: Not Run of the Mill
Current band members L-R: Harry Broadbent, Crispian Mills, Paul Winterhart, and Alonza Bevan
Don’t be surprised if you don’t know who Kula Shaker is despite the fact that they’ve been making music since 1995, have 4 studio albums, 1 tenth anniversary reissue, credits on movie soundtracks, several critically-acclaimed covers (including Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and Deep Purple), worked with renown producers Rick Rubin and Bob Ezrin, and have a huge following in the UK and Japan. Instead, let me tell you why you should know them.
Kula Shaker was one of the many English bands that were smooched into the Brit-Pop category during the mid 1990’s – in the heyday of bands like Oasis and Radiohead. A unique sound seriously overlooked, it’s not fair to say Kula Shaker fits that category. They blend traditional Indian music with 60’s psychedelic rock with an ease that reminds you of The Beatles’ experimental phase. And along with English lyrics, they also write and sing in Sanskrit (Google “Sanskrit” if you want to be more impressed). Their albums consist of a wide range of styles – from hard rock anthems to delicate acoustic ballads, Indian chants to radio-friendly pop rock. One thing is for certain; this isn’t your run of the mill Brit-Pop band.
Original band members L-R: Paul Winterhart, Crispian Mills, Alonza Bevan, and Jay Darlington
The band consists of Crispian Mills (guitars/vocals), Alonza Bevan (bass), Paul Winterhart (drums), and Jay Darlington (keyboards/organ) who was later replaced by Harry Broadbent. Though their debut album K was critically a smash and brought them to the forefront of UK audiences, it was their sophomore effort, Peasants, Pigs and Astronauts where they had perfected their sound and energy. In fact, they’ve admitted to spending every penny they had on this album.
Unfortunately, not long after its release the band decided to part ways in 1999. They each worked on their own separate projects including Crispian and his new band, The Jeevas, which had a more classic 70’s rock sound (they are definitely worth a search as well by the way). By 2004, Crispian produced an album of all-traditional Indian music entitled School of Braja. It featured many artists including a reunited Kula Shaker. They announced news of their reunion and upcoming record Strangfolk due out in 2007. Fans didn’t have to wait long for their follow up album Pilgrim’s Progress, which was released in 2010. It has been applauded by the music press and is becoming their best-reviewed album since their debut.
Spread the word, Folks. For more information, check out Kula Shaker’s website: www.kulashaker.co.uk.
TRIVIA: The cover of Kula Shaker's debut album K contains famous persons and characters whose names begin with the letter "K".
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Jun 1, 1998 Issue
Tips from Other Journals
Quality of Life and Early Screening for Osteoporosis
Am Fam Physician. 1998 Jun 1;57(11):2850.
Programs designed to screen perimenopausal women for low bone density are controversial. After screening, women are often given hormone replacement therapy and may be labeled at “high risk” for osteoporosis, which may have a negative impact on their quality of life. From a cost perspective, the most significant expense of a screening program is the hormone replacement therapy, not the cost of measuring bone mineral density (BMD). Torgerson and colleagues evaluated the effect of a screening program on the use of hormone replacement therapy and quality of life.
A total of 1,600 women were selected from a community health index and randomized to either a BMD screening group or a control group. All of the women were 45 to 54 years of age. Women in the screening group were tested and advised of their BMD status, and received lifestyle advice from their physicians. Women in the control group were not screened or contacted at baseline. Baseline characteristics, including height, weight, educational level and history of hysterectomy, were similar in both groups. Two years later, the same women were surveyed to determine use of hormone replacement therapy and quality of life issues. A total of 607 women (76 percent) in the control group and 613 (77 percent) in the screening group completed this survey questionnaire.
Current use of hormone replacement therapy was significantly higher in the screening group than in the control group. A greater proportion of the women receiving hormone therapy cited low BMD or prevention of osteoporosis as the reason for therapy. Women with the lowest BMD in the screening group had a 19 percent increase in the use of hormone replacement therapy compared with women in the control group. In fact, these women were approximately 2.5 times more likely than women in the control group to receive hormone replacement therapy.
The use of therapy also tended to increase with age. The incidence of hormone replacement therapy use did not differ between groups in women 47 to 51 years of age; however, in women 52 to 56 years of age, there was a significant increase in therapy use (13 percent). Quality of life scores and self-reported fall and fracture rates did not differ between groups.
The authors conclude that BMD screening results in a modest increase in the use of hormone replacement therapy and that this increase becomes more evident as women age. However, after two years, screening did not appear to have any effect on quality-of-life issues, although this may change with a longer-term study. The study showed no fracture-related benefits of screening, but such benefits may not be apparent within two years of initial BMD measurements.
BARBARA APGAR, M.D., M.S.
Torgerson DJ, et al. Randomized trial of osteoporosis screening. Use of hormone replacement therapy and quality-of-life results. Arch Intern Med. October 13, 1997;157:2121–5.
Home / Journals / afp / Vol. 57/No. 11(June 1, 1998) / Quality of Life and Early Screening for Osteoporosis
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Cech Admits Arsenal Have Made It Difficult For Themselves In Europa League
Petr Cech has admitted that Arsenal have an uphill task in the Europa League after the 1-0 defeat to BATE Borisov (via Arsenal.com).
It was an infuriating result on Thursday night but what made things even worse for Arsenal was the performance against a relatively poor team.
The Gunners were dire against BATE Borisov, something which Petr Cech made clear after the match.
“We didn’t take our chances,” Cech declared.
“I think that in the first half we played well and created enough chances to go ahead in the game, but unfortunately we didn’t take our chances and we conceded in the last minute of the half, which obviously gives them a lot of confidence and belief.
“In the second half they were waiting for the counter-attack and we were trying to find our way to score the goal and we scored one, but it was ruled as offside.
“We got the result we didn’t want. We want to score goals and we want to win and we want to put ourselves in a good position for the second leg, but we’ve made it more difficult for ourselves.”
Arsenal certainly have made it difficult for themselves. The 0-1 scoreline will invite BATE Borisov to sit back and soak up the pressure at the Emirates next week and it’s not as if Arsenal have looked particularly creative in recent weeks. Let’s hope things improve.
More Stories: Arsenal, bate borisov, Europa League, Petr Cech
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Ambius Partners With BRE On Groundbreaking Biophilic Office Research
Reading, PA (May 22, 2018) – Ambius, the global leader in creating enhanced commercial spaces and the U.S.’s largest interior landscaping organization, is teaming up with BRE, a world leading building science center, as a core partner in the live, comprehensive study on the impact of biophilic design on office workers. Ambius seeks to further quantify the impact of biophilic design principals, including plant life, on the health, well-being and productivity of those within the office environment.
The research project centers on a 7,000-square-foot 1980s office building on the BRE campus in Watford, a town northwest of London. The building will be refurbished based on biophilic design principles Ambius joins with BRE and Oliver Heath Design, along with other supporting partners to gather data on the benefits of biophilic design on health, well-being and productivity of office occupants. Biophilic design uses the principles of biophilia to create a human centred approach to improve spaces. The term “biophilia” was coined by American biologist and researcher Edward O. Wilson in his 1984 book “Biophilia,” which describes humans’ innate attraction to nature and natural processes.
Ambius and the core partners will use the 30-month project to evaluate various impacts of biophilic design on the office environment such as daylight, lighting, indoor air quality, acoustic, thermal and humidity comfort, as well as human factors, such as health, well-being and workplace behaviours. Office occupants will be provided with wearable technology that allows researchers to track key health metrics and gain insight into the impact of biophilic design. They will undergo confidential health evaluations and participate in a series of online questionnaires and surveys. The products used will also undergo laboratory evaluation to establish whether a health and well-being potential can be quantified at product level. Partners involved in the study expect the results to be available in early 2020.
“The biophilic office project will deepen the evidence base for the impact of interiors on occupant health and wellbeing,” said Ed Suttie, project director for The Biophilic Office. “Plants are a key component of biophilic design and to have world-leading Ambius as a project partner will ensure we maximize the opportunity, guided by research evidence, to create positive, healthier and more energizing workplaces of the future from the offices of the past.”
“Ambius’s long history of research into the benefits of plants in buildings and biophilic design to enrich and enhance working environments puts us in a unique position to contribute to the project.,” said Kenneth Freeman, head of innovation at Ambius. “We look forward to playing an active part in the research and also gaining insights into how other elements of the interior design of offices can be used holistically to create healthy, engaging and effective workspaces, and to working closely with the other core partners in creating better offices in the future.”
Ambius’s participation will provide a firm foundation for guidance in the facilities management and a design strategy will be developed including tiers of interventions in zones within the office.
Other Core partners in the research program include:
• Interface: global manufacturer of modular flooring and pioneers in biophilic design.
• Biotecture: UK-based designer and supplier of living wall systems.
• Akzo Nobel: Global paints and coatings company, best known for “Dulux” brand.
• Plantronics: US-based developers of acoustic products, including the new Habitat Soundscaping systems.
• Royal Ahrend: Netherlands-based professional work environments, furniture products and services. Operates in the office sector.
• Coelux: Innovative skylights to reproduce natural light.
• Ecophon: Part of Saint Gobain. Global manufacturer of acoustic products and systems for working environments.
• GVA: Real estate and project management solutions. Operates in the facilities management sector throughout Europe and North America.
A number of organizations have also committed to becoming dissemination partners for ‘The Biophilic Office’. This includes: Construction Products Association (CPA), Chartered Institute of Architectural Technologists (CIAT), Constructing Excellence (CE), Plants@Work, Innovation Gateway, British Blind and Shutter Association (BBSA) and a range of media organisations. These bodies will disseminate findings to members and wider networks in the construction and property sector.
More information on the project can be found at www.bregroup.com/biophilic and on Twitter @BRE_Group and #biophilicoffice.
For more information about Ambius and their design capabilities, please visit www.ambius.com.
Ambius is the world’s largest provider of plants, holiday décor, replica foliage and flowers for commercial environments. Ambius offers a broad range of services, including scenting and living green walls, which can help improve employee productivity, reduce absenteeism and boost well-being in the built environment. Founded in 1963, Ambius is a division of Rentokil Initial plc. For more information, visit Ambius at www.ambius.com and connect with Ambius on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.
About BRE:
We are a world leading building science centre and the authority on all aspects of the built environment. We generate new knowledge through research that is used to create products, tools and standards that drive positive change across the built environment. We enable our government and private sector clients to meet the environmental, social and economic challenges they face by delivering higher performing, better quality, safer, more secure and more sustainable products homes, buildings and communities. We are owned by the BRE Trust, a registered charity, which funds research and education that advances knowledge of the built environment. We are committed to building a better world together. bregroup.com.
Tap into our expertise
Daylight analysis to large tree sourcing.
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Features, General
November 12, 2013 by Lachlan Aird
Dennis Altman’s 1971 debut work, Homosexual: Oppression & Liberation, heralded a longstanding career as an academic and expert on sexuality and politics.
Forty years on, his latest work, The End of the Homosexual? reflects on the progress homosexuality has made since Homosexual was first published. This follow-up is a detailed history of homosexuality before, during and after the Gay Movement, drawing from Altman’s experiences in both personal and academic capacities. The End of the Homosexual? is actually the title of the last chapter of 1971’s Homosexual, with this question acting as Altman’s main thesis. This doesn’t suggest that homosexuality as a concept will end, but rather that social, political and cultural trends will evolve to an extent where people will no longer define identity based on sexuality. While this may have been the prediction of gay liberationists in 1971, it is still not a reality in 2013. Atlman shares some of the thoughts on why this may be the case with The Adelaide Review ahead of his pending visit for Adelaide’s Feast Festival. “I think there may be an end of a specific homosexual identity in the way we now think of it,” Altman explains. “I thought that 40 years ago and that was one of the things I was wrong about! One of the things I always have to say to people is that political scientists are particularly bad at predictions – although we’re not quite as bad at economists, who are the worst. All I can say is that there isn’t anybody today who could tell you what sex and gender will look like in 40 years time. The only thing I’d be prepared to say is that it probably won’t look as it does now.” Altman then shares a topic that he wishes he included in the book but didn’t: the idea of science fiction writing and its failure to acknowledge changing gender and sexuality. “One of the things that always annoys me about a lot of science fiction writing is that it imagines these extraordinary changes to almost everything except sex and gender. There are exceptions [such as China Miéville and Margaret Atwood], which are really interesting, but for the classic boys’ science fiction, as it has traditionally been male, by and large people can imagine these radical changes yet somehow assume that sex and gender are constants — and that is so ahistorical.” While Altman does address the increasing global debate around sexual rights, including cases in Uganda, Nigeria and Malaysia, the timing of the book’s publication meant that discussion on Russia’s anti-gay legislation could not be included. This is proof that the politics of sexuality is an ever-changing landscape that can shift dramatically without warning. Altman shares his insight of how he may have addressed that particular case if given the chance. “I think the Russian situation for some reason has gotten through to a lot of people who were ignoring what was happening in other parts of the world… There is terrible persecution going on in many parts of the world and by and large no one in Australia seemed to register that until, for some reason, the Russian situation, which has registered with a lot more people. I notice in the gay press a lot more coverage on [Russia] than previous issues. It’s not necessarily because it’s worse than what has happened elsewhere, but because for some reason – and we can speculate what that is – it has caught the imagination of a lot of people.” Altman also offers some intriguing insights into his views on the growing public discourse for humanitarian interventions and impositions on Russia. “It’s a really interesting and tough question,” Altman begins. “I think often making grand statements of support boomerang, making things worse for people in countries being persecuted. We’ve seen examples of that when Hilary Clinton and David Cameron, for undoubtedly good motives, proclaimed gay rights as very important and just fed an anti-Imperialist, anti-Western position on a number of governments. I think that what we do has to be thought through very carefully and has to be done on the advice and along with the groups in Russia themselves. When, for example, people call for the boycotting of the Winter Olympics in Russia, it sounds great and I’m not against it, but I want to know first of all–if we can find out–if that is what the lesbian and gay movement in Russia wants, and what the impact on them would be. We could boycott or go to the Winter Olympics and wave rainbow flags and then go home, but they’re the ones who will get beaten up. I think there’s a real danger of grandstanding by people in countries like Australia. We can feel morally righteous without actually helping people.” This is a harsh reality that is difficult to digest, yet illustrates how delicate sexuality is within governance. With the case of Australia, which is the country where The End of the Homosexual? is anchored, there has inarguably been much progress towards the legislative and cultural acceptance of homosexuality. Altman is quick to note that there is, however, an important distinction to be made between progress and success, where he refers back to a recent conversation that he had with leading feminist Anne Summers on a panel at the recent Melbourne Writers Festival. “I would say that there’s been a great deal of progress, but that doesn’t mean there has been total success. We know coming out is still very traumatic for a lot of people and there is still a lot of bigotry… I think there are a lot of markers in our culture, but we know through research that is not true across the world, and there are huge variations in social attitudes between countries and cultures. There is growing hostility and homophobia in some parts of the world, usually connected with religious and nationalist tendencies.” Altman is visiting Adelaide during the Feast Festival this month to host a forum following a screening of Jeffrey Schwartz’s documentary Vito, which depicts the experiences of leading American LGBT activist and author of The Celluloid Closet, Vito Russo. Altman and Russo were friends, detailing some of their experiences and political objectives in The End Of The Homosexual?. However, when asked about the ongoing contentious debate surrounding same-sex marriage, which has recently re-entered the public discourse following the Federal Government’s opposition to the ACT’s legalisation of same-sex marriage, Altman offers a curious perspective, likening the plight to that of the Australian republic. “I don’t feel passionate about either issue as I feel they are both largely symbolic. I recognise that to others they are much more important than they are to me. The more important point I was making was that everybody on the Left in the 90s when Paul Keating was talking about the republic would have said that it was going to happen within a decade – and it didn’t – and I think that’s a very interesting warning.” Another issue that Altman illuminates through The End of the Homosexual? is his account of how the AIDS epidemic in the 80s unfolded, the disease responsible for Russo’s death. Given the severe loss that Altman experienced through the passing of his partner of 22 years, Anthony Smith, last year to lung cancer before the book was completed, his reflection on this tumultuous time in history is especially poignant. “What is clear is that for people who didn’t live through that terrible period when a lot of people were dying, for them it’s probably like what it is for me when I read about World War II – a sense of large-scale death that you didn’t personally experience. However, for people in my generation and any gay man over 50, there’s a sense of ongoing loss and I don’t think that’s talked about nearly enough – and I don’t think people have come to terms with it. I lost my partner last year and I’ve thought a lot about loss and grief and the fact is that you live with it. It doesn’t go away. At a communal level that hasn’t been sufficiently recognised and thought through.” While Altman’s book, like its predecessor, is an important insight into homosexuality and its global impact, Altman also wanted the book to be as much about Australian society. “I actually wanted to write a book that is as much about Australia as it is about homosexuality, by using what had happened [in the Gay Movement] to say a whole lot of things about how Australia had changed through the last 40 years.” This implies that while The End of the Homosexual? will no doubt become a beneficial addition to homosexual literature, it also captures the changing spirit and culture of Australia over the last four decades, and is therefore an important read for all Australians. Dennis Altman’s The End of the Homosexual? is published by University of Queensland Press. RRP: $29.95. The Feast Festival screening of Vito, followed by a forum with Dennis Altman, will take place at The Mercury Cinema on Tuesday, November 12. uqp.uq.edu.au feast.org.au
Tags: dennis altman, feast festival, lachlan aird
Drawn to the City: Sue Scarfe, The Volunteer
Original thinker
Loui Loui
Old-fashioned service never goes out of style
Drawn to the City: Kate Sutherland, Contemporary Jeweller
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Fuel tanker derailment south of Cantwell disrupts railroad service
Author: Alex DeMarban
Updated: January 16
Published January 15
A single Alaska Railroad railcar rolled off tracks near Cantwell, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019. (Photo provided by Alaska Railroad Corp.)
The Alaska Railroad Corp. is investigating after a single railcar carrying jet fuel rolled off the tracks near Cantwell on Tuesday, disrupting freight service for at least two days and possibly passenger service over the weekend.
The railroad has notified state and federal agencies about the accident that occurred about 3:14 a.m., according to a statement released Tuesday afternoon.
The car was hauling about 23,000 gallons of jet fuel. No leaks or injuries have been reported, the railroad said. The car was part of a 76-car train traveling from Anchorage to Fairbanks.
The accident occurred 3 miles south of Cantwell.
“The derailment has caused significant damages to a number of ties between MP 314 and 316.8 as well as to the ties on a bridge at MP 316.4, over the Cantwell River,” the statement said.
Repairs will take at least 48 hours, the railroad said.
Geoff Merrell, state on-scene coordinator for the Department of Environmental Conservation, said the railcar is near the tracks and upright.
“It’s, like, inches off the track,” he said.
The environmental agency is working with the railroad corporation to determine next steps.
“There was no leak, so that’s good," he said. "But do we put the tank car back on the track, or is it better to pump the contents in the tank car into something else? It’s now about evaluating options to make sure we don’t do something worse.”
Tim Sullivan Jr., a spokesman with the railroad, said the railroad is racing to get equipment to the scene to disconnect the railcar from cars behind it, in an effort to clear the tracks.
This is the railroad’s first “major” derailment in several years, he said.
Minor derailments are somewhat common, such as in rail yards when ice on tracks presents problems for slow-moving trains, he said.
The frame of the ’truck ’, which is underneath the train and holds the wheels and axles, was running on top of the ties, according to AK Railroad's Tim Sullivan. ’That's what did all the damage ’, he said. (Photo provided by Alaska Railroad Corp.)
Damage from the Nov. 30 magnitude 7.0 earthquake, or aftershocks, is not considered a cause “at this time,” he said. The earthquake struck near Anchorage about 150 miles south of Cantwell.
“We don’t know at this point (what the cause could be),” he said. “That’s part of the investigation.”
“The freight train consisted of 71 mixed freight cars and five locomotives. About half of the cars were separated from the derailed car and have headed north to complete the trip to Fairbanks,” the statement said.
“About 35 cars are still attached south of the derailed car,” the statement said.
Those cars are still on the tracks and extend across both sides of the damaged bridge, Sullivan said.
The cars will need to be removed before heavy equipment can arrive for repairs, and before repair work can be made to the bridge, the railroad said.
The railroad said it plans to determine impacts to freight service and this weekend’s Aurora Winter Train passenger service in the next 24 hours. The passenger service runs Saturday and Sunday between Anchorage and Fairbanks.
Alex DeMarban
Alex DeMarban is a longtime Alaska journalist who covers the oil and gas industries and general assignments. Reach him at 907-257-4317 or alex@adn.com.
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Diverted special fees under fire
James Salzer jsalzer@ajc.com
NONE —
The concept seems simple enough: The state charges special fees and fines to raise money for cleaning up old tire dumps or teaching teenagers to drive.
But much of that money, which by law is supposed to go to those special purposes, doesn’t go anywhere near those purposes.
So now the General Assembly is facing the spectacle of passing a new law that would force it to uphold old laws it already passed.
Such legislation, which overwhelmingly passed the House and is being considered by the Senate, would force the General Assembly to stop diverting about $40 million in fees and fines and start using it for the purposes for which it was intended.
“Which is more important, your child’s life, or wasting money on pork?” asked Alan Brown, whose son Joshua was killed in a single-car accident in 2003.
Joshua’s Law, passed two years later, tacks an extra fee onto fines for some traffic offenses. The money from the add-ons is supposed to fund drivers ed courses statewide.
Last year, however, the state collected $11 million in fine add-ons, but none of it went to pay for drivers ed.
Under House Bill 811, the General Assembly would have to reduce the fees and fines next year if too little of the money goes to what it was it was supposed to pay for.
“This is an attempt to actually fund some things most of our constituents thought were being funded,” said Rep. Paul Battles, R-Cartersville.
Sally Bethea, founding director of the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, which backs the bill, said, “It’s time to send a message that if you don’t appropriate the fees to where it’s supposed to go, the money shouldn’t be paid.”
Alan Essig, a former state budget analyst who heads the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, said he doubts lawmakers will actually reduce the fees and fines if the bill passes.
What’s more likely, he said, is that the state will have to put more money into cleanup programs for hazardous waste sites, tire dumps and abandoned landfills. It would have to boost efforts for recycling and waste reduction efforts and put much more money toward drivers ed programs and more toward indigent defense and police training.
But that could mean something else the state funds — possibly education or health care — will have to be cut to make up the difference. That’s because in the past, the fee and fine money has been used to fill gaps in the state budget.
“We have used all these resources we had to keep correctional officers in prisons, State Patrol officers on the road and teachers in the classroom,” said Senate Appropriations Chairman Jack Hill, R-Reidsville, whose committee is considering the bill.
Still, local governments, environmental and other groups have been complaining for years about the state diverting tens of millions of dollars collected from fees and fines.
In the early 1990s, lawmakers approved two pools of money, the Solid Waste and Hazardous Waste trust funds, to pay to clean up hazardous waste sites, to update unlined landfills, to clean up scrap tire dumps, to improve and expand solid waste collection and recycling and to eliminate open dumps along roads and streams.
Much of the money for the hazardous waste fund comes from landfill fees passed on to Georgians when they pay for garbage pickup. The solid waste program is funded by the $1 per tire charge Georgians pay when they buy new tires.
Combined, by the end of this year, the two programs will have collected almost $200 million since 2004. About $76 million of that has actually gone to those trust funds, according to Association County Commissioners of Georgia. The rest has gone elsewhere.
The raid on the funds has been more aggressive in the past decade because the state faced two recessions.
House Bill 811 also includes fees and fines collected for the Peace Officer and Prosecutors Training Fund, the Indigent Defense Fund and funding for Joshua’s Law, which included traffic add-on fines and bond payment money that were supposed to pay for drivers education. In each case, at least part of the fee or fine money has been annually diverted.
Alan Brown said the state has raised $58 million from traffic fine add-ons since Joshua’s Law passed. During the first few years, $8 million of that money went to drivers ed; last year the total was zero. The House on Monday is expected to vote on whether to extend the add-on fines that have funded Joshua’s Law through 2018.
House Bill 811 doesn’t cover every diversion of funds in state government, and it doesn’t stop new ones from cropping up.
For example, the Senate earlier this session approved a bill to increase the “lemon law” fee charged to new car buyers from $3 to $5. While the bill’s sponsor said it would help the Governor’s Office of Consumer Protection better enforce the law — which protects buyers who find their cars to be defective — the fee goes into the state’s general fund. Not all of it goes to administer the law.
The House also has not moved on a bill to prohibit state agencies from diverting bond money to other purposes without legislative approval. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported last month that state officials diverted about $185 million in bond money from projects approved by the General Assembly to other projects during the past decade.
In addition, the Senate has not taken up a proposed constitutional amendment by Senate Minority Leader Steve Henson, D-Tucker, to let lawmakers permanently designate where fee and fine money goes.
Under state law, legislators can approve a fee or fine and say it is going to a program or cause, but the money goes into the general fund and can be appropriated at the whim of the governor and lawmakers.
“I have been very disappointed we have told the people we were going to do one thing and then we don’t follow through and do it,” Henson said. “My only problem [with HB 811] is that they are not addressing a lot of other fees.”
Still, Houston County Commission Chairman Tommy Stalnaker said it’s a start.
Stalnaker said people in his county have probably paid $1.5 million into the hazardous waste trust fund over the years and gotten nothing back. County officials question whether the money will be there if they need it.
Stalnaker said his county received funding in the past to pay for a scrap tire amnesty program that coaxed locals to bring in used tires, which were then sent to recyclers. But he said the program was scrapped because the state didn’t have the money to fund it.
Stalnaker said state officials should have either reduced the fees or stopped diverting the money years ago.
“I know in this county, if we had done something like that, we wouldn’t have gotten re-elected,” he added.
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Hawks make qualifying offer to Teague, not Johnson
Chris Vivlamore, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Hawks have extended a qualifying offer to guard Jeff Teague, making him a restricted free agent, but not to forward/center Ivan Johnson.
The move allows the Hawks to match any offer to Teague from another team.
Johnson becomes an unrestricted free agent and is free to sign with any team, including the Hawks.
Teams had to make qualifying offers before July 1, the start of free agency. A qualifying offer constitutes a one-year guaranteed contract.
Teague played in 80 games last season, his fourth with the team after being drafted 19th overall in 2009. He averaged 14.6 points, third on the team. The point guard led the team with 7.2 assists per game. Johnson averaged 6.6 points and 3.9 rebounds in 69 games last season.
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We Salute You: Joseph Muretic Sr.
Joseph Muretic Sr., of Steelton, served in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1946.
He was wounded in combat on Dec. 19, 1944, and was awarded a Purple Heart. He is 94 years old.
We salute you and thank you for your service.
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Andrew Johnson As President
The U.S. president used his office to stoke racial divides and scapegoat racial minorities. In rambling speeches, he painted himself as a victim of shadowy conspiracies working to end his presidency.
May 16, 2018 · Andrew Johnson, the first president to be impeached. (AP) For three years, Johnson, a former slave-owner from Tennessee, had worked to restore racist ex-Rebels to power in the South. For all that time, Stevens, a radical humanitarian nicknamed the Great Commoner, had worked to stop him.
Jul 5, 2018. In 1866, President Andrew Johnson pressured Ulysses S. Grant into joining him in a series of rallies where he aired his vulgarity and racism.
Apr 25, 2017 · Rise to Power. Lincoln appointed Johnson to be the Military Governor of Tennessee during the Civil War, and then to serve as his own Vice President. After Lincoln was shot in 1865, just as the Union was securing its final victories over the.
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President Abraham Lincoln was winning the peace as he had already won the. President Andrew Johnson was called upon for positive leadership, and he did.
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There are 229 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: On May 16, 1868, at the U.S. Senate impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, 35 out of 54 senators voted to find Johnson guilty.
How have historians interpreted the impact of the failed impeachment attempt of Andrew Johnson? Answer. Andrew Johnson, the 17th president of the United.
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Andrew Johnson was the 17th president of the United States. In this lesson, find out more about Johnson's history, his remarkable rise to the vice.
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Andrew Johnson. In 1862 President Lincoln appointed him Military Governor of Tennessee, and Johnson used the state as a laboratory for reconstruction. In 1864 the Republicans, contending that their National Union Party was for all loyal men, nominated Johnson, a Southerner and a Democrat, for Vice President.
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Woodrow Wilson High School Logo Long Beach Unified School District Logo. Wilson High School. Learn More About Wilson at Our Web Site!. The CORE Index Reports provide a summary of school performance based on key academic and culture-climate measures. HOME OF THE PRESIDENTS. CLICK HERE FOR PBIS STUDENT CODE OF CONDUCT SURVEY (click on the image below for Dr. Johnson’s
Andrew Johnson was the 17th president of the United States. He assumed presidency after Lincoln’s assassination and began his term during the conclusion of the civil war. His views on reconstruction.
Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808 – July 31, 1875) was the 17th President of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. Johnson became president as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. A Democrat who ran with Lincoln on the National Union ticket, Johnson came to office as the Civil War concluded.
In its sixth presidential ranking since 1982, 157 scholars surveyed by the institute ranked Trump the third worst president of all time after Andrew Johnson (who was impeached) and James Buchanan.
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Sep 23, 2007 · To modern Americans, Andrew Johnson was the answer to a trivia question—up until 1998, that is: who was the only president to have been impeached. He was also the first man to succeed an assassinated president, the only Southern Senator who refused to join the Confederacy, and the first president to have a veto overturned.
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UNITED STATES INTERNAL REVENUE, ASSESSOR’S OFFICE, SECOND DISTRICT, OHIO, CINCINNATI, Aug. 31, 1868. His Excellency Andrew Johnson, President of the United States:View Full Article in Timesmachine
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and the possibility of Mr. JOHNSON becoming President, this paper says: "When such a man as ANDREW JOHNSON is lifted into this position of mere dignity, he dishonors it, the government and himself.".
against the President. However, only after the U.S. Senate has conducted a trial and found the defendant guilty (by a two-thirds vote) would the accused be removed from office. U.S. Presidents Andrew.
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Photo by Scott McCloskey Kevin Titus, an actor from Falls Village, Connecticut, takes a tour of West Virginia Independence Hall Thursday while portraying Andrew Johnson, the 17th president of the.
As President JOHNSON’s habits are known to have been very irregular. that Mr. COLLAMER was a man of more than average mind — for above the grade of ANDREW JOHNSON’s, and that though an opponent to.
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Full Professorship in marine biodiversity
Veröffentlicht am 1. Februar 2019 (vor 166 Tagen)
Bewerbungsende 15. März 2019 (vor 124 Tagen)
Aarhus University Roskilde (Dänemark) Auf der Karte anzeigen
Aarhus University is an academically diverse and research-intensive university with a strong commitment to high-quality research and education and the development of society nationally and globally. The university offers an inspiring research and teaching environment to its 39,000 students (FTEs) and 8,000 employees, and has an annual revenues of EUR 884 million Learn more at www.au.dk/en.
Is your research focus on marine biodiversity? Do you have a strong academic profile and are you interested in contributing significantly to the development of the marine sections and research of Department of Bioscience in a professor position?
The position is available as soon as possible.
The successful candidate must be able to strengthen the Department's profile in research on marine biodiversity topics with special emphasis on the European marine directives. You will be a part of the marine group that covers research, advisory tasks and some teaching across all aspects marine topics mainly related to Danish and Arctic waters, although we currently also have projects in the tropics.
Your research must support the Department's leading role in providing advice to the Danish authorities on environmental issues, which includes dissemination of research results to managers, politicians and other stakeholders. At the same time, the research must strengthen the Department's international profile within the topic of marine biodiversity.
The Department's research and advisory activities are project-driven with a solid tradition of cross-disciplinary research and strong team collaboration. Thus, we are looking for a candidate with proven collaborative skills and the ability to enrich the scientific environment in the Department by initiating and coordinating new research initiatives (e.g. EU H2020 and FP9, ERC, Danish national funding) and by strengthening the Department's scientific network both nationally and internationally. We expect that you have a documented track record of attracting substantial research funding.
We expect you to have a strong scientific background in biology or similar with focus on marine biodiversity, an international career and an extensive international network within marine science. You should have a PhD in biology or a related field and an international top-level research profile within one or more of the following key topics:
Marine biodiversity
Benthic flora and fauna
Phytoplankton and zooplankton
Invasive species in the marine environment
Relations between human pressures and key ecosystem components, including effects of climate change
State-of-the-art sampling and monitoring techniques in the marine environment
The candidate should be able to demonstrate excellent scientific leadership and have experience in supervising postdocs, PhD students and MSc students.
We expect that you are fluent in spoken and written English and ideally in one additional European language, and it is important to us that you are a team player and have strong inter-personal skills and international experience. You will be expected to learn spoken and written Danish within the first two to three years. Relevant courses will be offered.
The Department of Bioscience is engaged in research programmes, teaching curricula and consultancy covering all major biological sub-disciplines, and we conduct world-class research in the areas of aquatic biology and ecology, Arctic environment and ecosystems, biodiversity and conservation biology, genetics and evolution, microbiology and zoophysiology. The Department currently employs approximately 350 academic and technical staff and have around 75 PhD students and 500 BSc and MSc students.
The Department has a unique research environment at top international level in the field of aquatic biology and ecology. Our competencies cover a wide spectrum, from the biology of organisms to modelling water and nutrient cycles from land to sea. Research focus areas include human impact on species, the environment and the global nutrient cycle, the effects of global climate change on biological, chemical and physical processes in and around the aquatic environment, assessment of water quality and ecological status and studies on the effects of measures that can be used to manage and reduce the loss of carbon, nutrients and pollutants to the aquatic environment. The activities take place at a national and international level with main activities in Denmark and Northern Europe, including the Arctic.
The Department plays a leading role in providing advice to the Danish authorities on environmental issues including implementation and assessment of EU marine directives. We are also deeply involved in the national marine monitoring programme (NOVANA) and engaged in the management of the large national environmental databases.
The position is open for candidates as a full professor position, depending on qualifications. Please justify your application by outlining how your qualifications meet the criteria. Please note that we have two parallel opening of positions: one as senior researcher and one as professor. Only one of these positions will be filled as we wish to hire the best qualified candidate at the level of either professor or senior researcher. Requirements for the two types of positions can be found here. The position is physically located at the Department of Bioscience, AU Campus Roskilde (Frederiksborgvej 399, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark). Our research builds upon a strong infrastructure with several smaller boats as well as the large research vessel Aurora. We also host a number of well-equipped research laboratories.
The Department offers a vibrant and informal research environment with longstanding traditions for collaboration with international university partners in the absolute elite and with the Danish Ministry of Environment and Food. The working environment at the Department is based on teamwork and close working relations with developed professional and social network activities among young scientists. English is widely spoken and we welcome applicants from abroad. The Department has a good gender and age balance with a strong work-life balance policy. Read more about the special opportunities for junior researchers and services available when relocating to Aarhus University at www.au.dk/work.
Further information about the position can be obtained from the Head of the Section of Marine Diversity and Experimental Ecology, Karsten Dahl (+45 87158566 /+45 21201970; kda@bios.au.dk), or Head of Department Peter Henriksen (+45 87158557; pet@bios.au.dk).
Shortlisting is used. This means that after the deadline for applications and with the assistance from the assessment committee chairman, and the assessment committee if necessary, the head of department selects the candidates to be evaluated. The selection is made on the basis of an assessment of who of the candidates are most relevant considering the requirements of the advertisement. All applicants will be notified within 6 weeks whether or not their applications have been sent to an expert assessment committee for evaluation. The selected applicants will be informed about the composition of the committee and will receive his/her assessment. Once the recruitment process is completed a final letter of rejection is sent to the deselected applicants, including the main considerations emphasized during the selection process.
Formalities and salary range
Science and Technology refers to the Ministerial Order on the Appointment of Academic Staff at Danish Universities under the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.
The application must be in English and include a curriculum vitae, degree certificate, a complete list of publications, a statement of future research plans and information about research activities, teaching portfolio and verified information on previous teaching experience (if any). Guidelines for applicants can be found here.
Appointment shall be in accordance with the collective labour agreement between the Danish Ministry of Finance and the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations. Further information on qualification requirements and job content may be found in the Memorandum on Job Structure for Academic Staff at Danish Universities. (in Danish).
Salary depends on seniority as agreed between the Danish Ministry of Finance and the Confederation of Professional Associations.
All interested candidates are encouraged to apply, regardless of their personal background. Research activities will be evaluated in relation to actual research time. Thus, we encourage applicants to specify periods of leave without research activities, in order to be able to subtract these periods from the span of the scientific career during the evaluation of scientific productivity.
Aarhus University offers Relocation service to International researchers. You can read more about it here.
All applications must be made online and received by:
Erschienen auf academics am 1. Februar 2019
Aktuelle Suchbegriffe: Biologie, Umwelt, Professor/in, Lehre & Forschung, Wissenschaft, Andere Länder, Hochschule, Vollzeit
From your Bachelor directly into our PhD Program!
Saarbrücken is your place to be if you are looking for one of the best places internationally to pursue a PhD in Computer Science.
Stockholm (Schweden)
Professur (W2) für das Lehrgebiet Software-Architektur und Programmierung
Universitätsprofessur (W2) Environmental Data Science
Brandenburgische Technische Universität (BTU)
Müncheberg
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NBC Fall 2019 TV Schedule: 'Will and Grace' Moves to Midseason Alongside 'Blindspot' Final Season
The Thursday lineup features two new comedies including 'Perfect Harmony', which stars and is executive produced by Bradley Whitford, at 8.30 P.M. following 'Superstore'.
AceShowbiz - NBC has unveiled its lineup for 2019-2020 Fall TV schedule. The new schedule doesn't see major differences from the previous season, though a slew of series won't return until midseason.
"The Voice" is set to continue leading Mondays and Tuesdays at 8 P.M. slot. Kelly Clarkson, John Legend, Blake Shelton and Adam Levine return as the coaches for season 17. Following the long-running music competition series on Monday nights is new drama "Bluff City Law" starring Jimmy Smith.
Meanwhile, "This Is Us", which has been renewed through season 6, remains in the 9 P.M. slot on Tuesday nights before "New Amsterdam". As for Wednesdays, it's filled with Chicago franchises. "Chicago Med" opens at 8 P.M. with "Chicago Fire" and "Chicago P.D." at 9 P.M. and 10 P.M. respectively.
The Thursday lineup features two new comedies. "Perfect Harmony", starring and executive produced by Bradley Whitford, will airs 8.30 P.M. following "Superstore". "Sunnyside" is taking the 9.30 P.M. slot, being sandwiched by "The Good Place" and "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit".
Noticeably missing fom the schedule are "Good Girls", "Brooklyn Nine-Nine", "Manifest" and "Will & Grace", which are all moved to midseason. Fans also have to wait until midseason for the final season of "Blindspot" to arrive.
"We came into this season from the vantage point of extreme stability, but without any complacency," George Cheeks and Paul Telegdy, co-chairmen of NBC Entertainment, said in a statement. "Our 52-week schedule takes into account the seismic shift in viewing habits, balancing short-term wins with long-term potential. Comedy is at the heart of the NBC brand, and we've picked up four new comedies that we think viewers will love for generations to come. Our new dramas will compel audiences to tune in week after week to our network while also delivering binge-worthy storylines, and our unparalleled alternative programs continue to delight audiences of all ages, providing enviable launch pads for many of our new shows."
8-10 P.M. - "The Voice"
10-11 P.M. - "Bluff City Law" (New Series)
8-9 P.M. - "The Voice"
9-10 P.M. - "This Is Us"
10-11 P.M. - "New Amsterdam"
8-9 P.M. - "Chicago Med"
9-10 P.M. - "Chicago Fire"
10-11 P.M. - "Chicago P.D."
8-8:30 P.M. - "Superstore"
8:30-9 P.M. - "Perfect Harmony" (New Series)
9-9:30 P.M. - "The Good Place"
9:30-10 P.M. - "Sunnyside" (New Series)
10-11 P.M. - "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit"
8-9 P.M. - "The Blacklist:
9-11 P.M. - "Dateline"
9-10 P.M. - "Dateline Saturday Night Mystery"
10-11 P.M. - "Saturday Night Live" (encores)
7-8:20 P.M. - "Football Night in America"
8:20-11 P.M. - "NBC Sunday Night Football"
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Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis
AMMpro
A View of the Late Picasso Market: Julian Dawes
April 25, 2019 by Marion Maneker
Picasso, Mousquetaire a la pipe ($20-30m); Julian Dawes; Picasso, Femme au chien ($25-30m)
Julian Dawes, Head of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale in New York agreed to answer a few questions about these late Picasso works in Sotheby’s Evening sale next month:
You have two late Picasso works in the sale, neither of which have ever been at auction before. One, a painting of Jacqueline Roque from 1962, is a portrait of a woman and her dog. The other, a Mousquetaire a la pipe, is from 1968. There has been a sea change in the say the market sees the late works of Picasso over the last, say, 15 years. Can you give us a quick explanation of what brought about that change? Was it simply the scarcity of work or, as some say, the way that late Picasso fits more with Contemporary art? Or something else?
For late works by Picasso, there have been a few critical moments in the market that set the tone within the past decade.
The first was the 2009 Gagosian show of Picasso musketeers, Picasso: Mosqueteros. This was key in showcasing the scale and wall power of Picasso’s late works, and developing a taste for them among high-end contemporary art collectors. The parallels to de Kooning and Basquiat, among others, became clear.
Then, there were two important sales about 6-8 years ago. The first was L’Aubade from 1967, which achieved $23 million in our Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale in November 2011. This was the first time in history that a canvas from post 1960 broke the $20-million mark publicly. It had been a significant barrier, despite some exceptional, quality examples coming to auction between 2005 and 2010.
The next is Mousquetaire à la pipe from 1969, which sold for $30.9 million in our November 2013 Evening Sale. This was such a dynamic and exciting auction moment, and the painting has maintained the top auction price for any post-1960 work by Picasso ever since. Femme au chienis poised to challenge that record in our Evening Sale on May 14th.
Femme au chien also defies the conventional thinking that late works by Picassos are slapdash – executed quickly and in high volume. Although, these are not inherently negative qualities. They speak to Picasso’s virtuosity, his hunger to explore themes in unmatched depth and masterful ability to conjure arresting imagery without excessive labor, which, essentially became second nature by this point in his life. That said, Picasso took almost a month to create Femme au chien, as evidenced by the nearly 30 consecutive days marked on the reverse. The extensive energy that he applied to this particular work is shown in the layered complexity of the surface. It is a true masterpiece among masterpieces and an outlier within the duration of his conventional working process. It includes everything that collectors look for in a late Picasso: magnificent scale and gestural power, with the careful, thoroughly-worked quality of his earlier periods.
I see in the description that the Mousquetaire was shown in the 1976 Venice Biennale. Can you tell us more about the exhibition it appeared in?
Spain. Artistic Avant-Garde and Social Reality. 1936–1976 was a particularly poignant and controversial exhibition at the Venice Biennale, as it marked the 40th anniversary of the start of the Spanish Civil War. This exhibit was held at the International Pavilion, as the Spanish Pavilion was closed due to disagreements over the dictatorial leadership of Spain at the time. Tomàs Llorens, who served as one of the curators of the show, described the aims of the exhibition as making “clear how Spanish avant-garde art has been modeled, in its internal constitution, often with ambiguous characteristics, on the dialectic process of political struggle and, at a much deeper level, of class struggle in Spanish society.” In effect, the art historical narrative created in this exhibition helped determine later generations’ understanding of Modern Art and Spain’s role within its development.
An array of Picasso’s works, featuring among them a still life and portrait, both from 1944, and two other Mousquetaires from 1967 and 1968, were featured in this display. The imagery of the musketeer not only presents Picasso’s wide-ranging interests in historical literature and artistry—think Alexandre Dumas, and Old Master painters Hals, Rembrandt and Velázquez—but also plays on the politically-minded framework of the exhibition as a whole.
Speaking of exhibitions, the most expensive work from this series to sell at auction was also the work that appeared on the cover of a catalogue for the famous 1970 exhibition of Picasso’s late paintings held at the Palais des Papes in Avignon. Can you tell us a little about that show and why it is so important to these late Picasso paintings?
This exhibition, principally organized by the incomparable Christian Zervos, included over 200 works by Picasso, undertaken by the 88-year-old artist in the remarkably short span of one year. The artist’s enduring will to create was meticulously recorded in this exhibition, presenting to the public an array of works that document the passing of time in visual terms. The reverse of the works often bear the exact date of creation and completion, allowing viewers, even years later, to locate themselves in a specific moment in the artist’s life and oeuvre. For the first time in history, an entire year’s worth of Picasso’s artistic output was presented, highlighting a small portion of the modern master’s prolific genius. The significance of the Papal Palace at the exhibition’s setting cannot be overlooked; the site of which is not only a feat of architecture but also a marker of history, having served as a disputed epicenter of Catholicism and a site of massacre during the French Revolution, as well as a prison and barracks in the Napoleonic era. The parallels between Picasso’s musketeers, pugilistic and historical by definition, find ample resonance in such a storied locale.
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VIDEO: O'Brien delays Gleneagles decision
Trainer Aidan O'Brien walked the track at Ascot this afternoon ahead of QIPCO British Champions Day tomorrow, as he mulls over whether or not to run Gleneagles in the £1.1m Queen Elizabeth II Stakes Sponsored by QIPCO (2.30pm).
Ireland's champion trainer commented: "The ground is not perfect at the moment, but we will take Gleneagles to the races and see how it rides in the first few races tomorrow. Obviously, we would love to run but want to do what is right by the horse.
"It is very close to good ground in parts today. There are parts that are a bit slow at the moment but we will see how things are tomorrow.
"The ground is not far away from where it needs to be for him to run. You would hope it might tighten up a bit before his race tomorrow. A millimetre of rain though would be too much. After Ryan (Moore) has ridden on it tomorrow, he will know what it is like - he will know straight away. The times will tell us a lot as well.
"When I walked the course, there are strips that are good and strips that are a bit slow at the moment. From the three furlong pole to the furlong pole is where it is quicker.
"The horse has always come first and we want to be fair to him. If it doesn't rain, there is no heavy dew and when the lads have ridden on it and say it is good ground or better, especially Ryan, then we might take our chance. It's a close call - if the ground starts shifting and breaking off the top, we are going to be in trouble."
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« AFGHANISTAN: Nato ‘covered up’ botched night raid in Afghanistan that killed five
AFGHANISTAN: Afghanistan suicide bombings kill 31 »
PAKISTAN: Pakistan suicide attack kills 13
March 13, 2010 by warvictims
By CBC News
At least 13 people were killed and dozens injured after a suicide bomber blew himself up Saturday near a security checkpoint in Pakistan’s Swat Valley.
Police are calling the attack part of a renewed Taliban push in northwest Pakistan after the government launched a major offensive against militants last year.
Police say the bomber was driving a motorized rickshaw and was trying to get to a courthouse in the small town of Saidu Sharif.
Witnesses say the man blew himself up as he was confronted at a security checkpoint, killing civilians as well as two soldiers and two police officers.
The blast injured 52 people.
Speaking from his hospital bed, Zia-ur-Rehman said he was travelling in another rickshaw when the blast shook the street and violently jolted his vehicle.
“I thought somebody picked me up and then threw me down,” said the 24-year-old, who was covered with cuts and bruises. “Everybody was crying.”
The Pakistani army wrested control of the area from the Taliban in its massive military campaign, but maintaining security has been difficult.
On Friday, two suicide bombers attacked military vehicles in Lahore, killing dozens of people.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/03/13/pakistan-swat-valley.html
Posted in Civilian Casualties, Insurgents, Pakistan, South Asia, Suicide Bomb | Tagged Civilian Casualties, civilians wounded, Pakistan, suicide bomber, Swat Valley |
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« PAKISTAN: Revenge Attacks Feared after Osama Death
LIBYA: The Lives at the End of the Rockets’ Arc »
USA: Adm. William McRaven: The terrorist hunter on whose shoulders Osama bin Laden raid rested
May 9, 2011 by warvictims
The Washington Post, Staff writers Greg Miller, Dana Priest and Karen Tumulty and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
Vickers has known McRaven since he was a Navy SEAL lieutenant commander and Vickers an Army Special Forces captain. They’ve worked especially closely over the past four years, when Vickers served as the Pentagon’s top civilian official overseeing Special Operations forces, including units hunting al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders.
“Bill is a great leader but also a pretty big thinker,” Vickers said. “It’s a rare balance of these two skills.
McRaven returned to Washington after bin Laden’s death and briefed lawmakers in a closed session Wednesday on Capitol Hill. He declined to be interviewed for this article.He grew up as the son of an Air Force colonel who flew British Spitfires during World War II and played briefly in the NFL. McRaven graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied journalism, in 1977. His 1995 book analyzed eight famous moments in special-operations history, including the Israeli raid to free hostages on a hijacked airliner at Entebbe, Uganda.
Unlike some high-ranking military officers, McRaven is “definitely not a yeller-screamer,” said a former Special Operations official who has known him for years and spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the clandestine nature of their work. “He’s a guy that I think you can look at as a modern-day SEAL, a post-Vietnam-era SEAL — guys that are quiet, humble, smart.”
Under his leadership, the Joint Special Operations Command has expanded its reach beyond Afghanistan and Iraq. In September 2009, McRaven negotiated an agreement with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to conduct secret missions with Yemeni troops against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, an affiliate of bin Laden’s network that some officials say has become the primary terrorist threat to the United States.
But McRaven has spent most of his time in Afghanistan, where JSOC efforts have greatly intensified. His forces have killed or captured hundreds of insurgent leaders over the past year, primarily in nighttime raids, according to U.S. military officials.
They have portrayed the raids as a cornerstone of their war strategy. Although they acknowledge that such raids alone cannot defeat the Taliban, “the results have been staggering,” said the senior Obama administration official.
But the nighttime operations have strained relations with the Afghan government, which says that the raids often target the wrong individuals and that U.S. forces are not held accountable for lethal mistakes.n October, Special Operations forces accidentally killed a kidnapped British aid worker with a grenade during a botched mission. U.S. officials at first blamed the death on the Taliban but were forced to retract the assertion.
Also last year, after Special Operations forces killed five innocent Afghan civilians in another bungled raid, McRaven admitted that his team had committed “a terrible mistake” and visited the victims’ relatives to ask for forgiveness.
Paying homage to tribal honor codes, McRaven took two sheep to the village in Paktia province and offered to sacrifice them in a mercy-seeking gesture. Village elders spared the sheep but did accept a cash payment of about $30,000, according to an eyewitness account reported by the Times of London.
“I am a soldier,” McRaven told the father of two of the victims. “I have spent most of my career overseas, away from my family, but I have children as well, and my heart grieves for you.”
In an attempt to minimize further casualties, McRaven ordered the reinstallation of bright-white spotlights on AC-130 gunships that often accompany assault forces on the nighttime raids. Military officials describe the lights as an intimidating factor that encourages insurgents to give up, or at least not to flee and grab a weapon.
In March, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said he was recommending McRaven for promotion to four-star admiral and leader of the U.S. Special Operations Command, based in Tampa.
The move is subject to Senate approval. But Shuster, the congressman, said that given McRaven’s role in bin Laden’s capture, “they won’t be able to confirm him quickly enough.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/adm-william-mcraven-the-terrorist-hunter-on-whose-shoulders-osama-bin-laden-raid-rested/2011/05/04/AFsEv4rF_story_1.html
Posted in Afghanistan, Civilian Casualties, Compensation, Middle-East, Military, Pakistan | Tagged civilian ca, Compensation, Osama bin Laden |
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SERIES Narrativas hispánicas
PUBLICATION 18/04/2006
SERIES:Narrativas hispánicas
Rights for the following countries are managed by Anagrama:
Germany, Brazil, Canada (french), France, Greece, The Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia
for other countries, please, contact Carmen Balcells Agency.
TRANSLATION RIGHTS SALES
Germany (Antje Kunstmann)
Canada (Les Allusifs)
Brasil (Companhia das Letras)
Italy (Adelphi)
Roberto Bolaño was born on April 28, 1953, in Santiago, Chile .For most of
his youth Bolaño was a nomad, living at one time or another in Chile,
Mexico, El Salvador, France and Spain, where he finally settled down in the
early eighties in the small catalan beachtown of Blanes. He died in
Barcelona in 2003 of a liver disorder he suffered from for more than a
decade.
He was awarded several prizes, among them, the Municipal Prize for Literature Santiago de Chile - the country's most prestigious literary prize - for Llamadas telefonicas in 1998.In the same year he was also awarded the Herralde Prize for Los detectives salvajes, which in 1999 also achieved the Rómulo Gallegos Prize, the most coveted award for fiction in Latin America. Nocturno de Chile was selected by the Los Angeles Times Book Review as one of The Ten Best Books of 2003. His last book, 2666, has been elected the best book of 2004 by the main Spanish and Latin American cultural supplements and newspapers and awarded, posthumous, with the Ciudad de Barcelona Prize, the Salambó Award, awarded by Spanish writers, the Altazor Award, awarded by Chilean writers, and the Municipal Prize for Literature Santiago de Chile.
OTHER TITLES BY Roberto Bolaño
2666 (NH 366)
The Insufferable Gaucho (NH 349)
Antwerpen (NH 331)
In Brackets (A 316)
Killer Prostitutes (NH 314)
By Night in Chile (NH 293)
Monsieur Pain (NH 275)
The Savage Detectives (NH 256)
Telephone Calls (NH 236)
Distant Star (NH 210)
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The Mike Toole Show
The Last Five
by Michael Toole, Mar 23rd 2014
At the beginning of this year, I pointed out my resolute desire to eliminate my entire backlog of unwatched, unloved anime TV shows on DVD. I'm doing this for a few reasons. First of all, it strikes me as kind of dumb to accumulate these cartoons at a faster rate than I watch them. It's like extremely wealthy people who buy up a huge collection of sports cars, but rarely drive most of them. But instead of crappy old Ferraris and Porsches, I'm accumulating awesome anime DVDs, which are definitely better than luxury cars. Secondly, having such a quantity of unwatched animation, unplayed games, and unread books can really put a weight on your mind. I want to lighten my load. Finally and most importantly, carefully digesting my collection helps broaden my appreciation and understanding of the anime medium. After all, that's why I watched Queen's Blade!
Originally, the goal was to consume one series per week, whether it was 13, 26, or even 52 episodes. Given my hectic work schedule and already heavy viewing habits, fitting all that anime-watchin’ in was going to be a challenge. I'm proud to say that, with this approach in mind, I lasted a whole one week. Hey, I got busy! But despite the occasional gap, I've managed to dig through several series in the first two months of 2014. Let's have a good look at the last five I watched.
I didn't know anything about Canaan when I started watching it. I didn't know, for example, that it was based on a scenario by Type Moon, the Fate/Zero people. I didn't know that it sprang forth from a visual novel, either. They don't always print that stuff on the box. This left some of the background and character relationships kind of inscrutable, but my failing to dig up the original game, entitled 428: Shibuya Blockaded, doesn't seem to have affected my enjoyment of the series. It's pretty good.
If you know action movies, you know that there isn't any better time and place for a terrorist attack than a major anti-terrorism conference. This doesn't stop cub reporter Maria Osawa from hitting Shanghai for just such an event, along with her dubious mentor, Minoru Morikawa. But while touring the city ahead of the conference, Maria is reunited with Canaan, an old friend from the past, who promptly yanks her into a world of gunplay, car chases, explosions, scary biological weapons, and shadowy people with inscrutable super powers. Even Canaan, a pretty but severe-looking blonde woman, has an edge over normal people—she's got synesthesia. But her version of the condition is an extreme one; she doesn't merely perceive sounds as colors, for example. She can shape all five of her senses into a single master sense, giving her a unity of perception that lets her make impossible gunshots, dodge incoming bullets, guess her adversaries’ intentions, and hunt down people and things. She's gonna need these senses, because she's facing off against bad guys with weird powers of their own.
You can tell when an action scene is taking place in a non-action series, because it's oddly flat and static—the director and his staff are getting the job done, but not thinking carefully of how the action progresses. That's something I learned when I met the director of this series, Masahiro Ando, at Otakon Vegas. Ando, who's also directed Blast of Tempest and Sword of the Stranger, is a recognized master of action animation, and at his panel he showed off a set of storyboards and reference materials that illustrate why he's one of the best. In short, Ando carefully maps out his action scenes. A balls-out battle atop a hurtling train car isn't just storyboarded, it's made more effective when Ando also supplies his animators with carefully researched drawings of the car from every angle, plus a “map” of where the characters move during the scene in ¾ view. Other animation directors do this, of course, but Ando's approach struck me as particularly methodical. As a result of his approach, Canaan's action scenes are flashy, muscular, and absolutely first rate. At its finest moments, of which there are many, the series is high-octane, Hollywood-style action, but with aesthetics more similar to a good ol’ Ringo Lam gun opera.
But it ain't perfect. Canaan slowly comes apart at the seams in its final third, its final battle an angry confrontation with an old rival that leaves little explained. In doing research, it doesn't really sound like the game would've filled in those blanks, either. Canaan herself is also weirdly charmless—I get that she's supposed to be a trained killer, but she does the exact same wavering between solemn and hopelessly awkward that Saber does in the Fate franchise. I liked the show overall—along with Ando's reliable direction, I'd also point to writer Mari Okada, who dutifully delivers not one but two terribly doomed romances. The scenery of Shanghai, a place I've been lucky enough to visit and enjoy, looks great. But ultimately, my enjoyment of the series is colored a bit by what it lacks in plot.
Last fall, I watched The Mars Daybreak, a 2004 BONES series about life aboard a pirate submarine on a watery, terraformed Mars. The show had a few fun characters and some good action scenes, but the most compelling thing about it was probably the one character who was literally a talking dolphin in a humanoid mecha suit. But while I found the show's story forgettable enough, I was a bit taken with its aesthetic. It was bursting with bright, primary colors, sleek oceangoing mecha, and vast expanses of scenery. It's the kind of show I could envision fitting right into Cartoon Network's then-daytime Toonami block, and I find myself wondering if the show's producers didn't feel the same way. After all, both Cowboy Bebop and Wolf's Rain were capturing the cartoon-loving public's imagination late at night, so why not try for a daytime hit? That's not too far-fetched, is it?
A year later, Telecom Animation created another submarine anime, this time entitled Tide-Line Blue. As I watched it last month, I found myself again taken with the way the series neatly fit in with a number of other late 90s/early 2000s action cartoons that ran on American TV. Were these studios really trying to copy an aesthetic, to create a formula for helping sell their wares overseas? Probably not, but I just like thinking of what it would've been like to see these shows at 6pm on weekdays.
Tide-Line Blue takes place not on Mars but on Earth, in a future time in which an environmental disaster has left 90% of the world's surface submerged, just like Waterworld. A pair of twin brothers, Keel and Teen (what are they gonna call Teen when he's an adult?!) find themselves on opposite sides of a struggle for resources; the human race has been trying to recover from the disaster, but just can't seem to cooperate. This series has some serious names behind it, like the late great Umanosuke Iida, who rescued Gundam: the 08th MS Team when its original director died, and also directed the fine Devilman and Mighty Space Miners OVAs. The show's oceangoing credibility is shored up by its other co-creator, Blue Submarine no. 6 creator Satoru Ozawa.
Unfortunately, Tide-Line Blue left me with just a few bright moments of neat-o naval warfare in a shining sea of lame, joyless bullshit. Keel and Teen are played as opposites, but are both dull and unlikeable, and there's a going lack of tension that will threaten to put you to sleep. The only character I liked was Isla, a tough but sweet teen mom who takes up with Keel on his sea trip. You can put the torpedoes on this show. One last note: the Bandai Entertainment DVD release has one of the strangest extras I've ever seen, a short video detailing the launch of a tiny scale replica of the show's submarine. You'll be amazed as you watch a handful of nerd press reporters snap photographs of a tiny model submarine zipping around a swimming pool.
Then, I finally watched Lupin the 3rd: The Woman Named Fujiko Mine from start to finish. I watched the stream in 2012, but put it on hold when Funimation announced plans to dub the series. I'm happy I waited, it gave me something good to look forward to. But how did I find the series, and its protagonist? I'll respond to that with a familiar old song:
Heathcliff, Heathcliff, no one should
terrify the neighborhood
but Heathcliff just won't be undone
stealing shit from everyone
Just replace the “Heathcliff”—specifically the driving force of Emily Bronte's novel Wuthering Heights, who's name-checked in the opening song—with Fujiko herself, and you've got it. Just like Heathcliff, Fujiko has a sketchy past, but her all-consuming passion is for theft rather than angrily destroying the lives of everyone around her. And while the book's storied character gets back at his tormentors by using complicated social gamesmanship, Fujiko uses her wits and her raw sexuality to get what she wants.
But what does Fujiko want? At first, it seems like treasure. Later, as she flits away from good ol’ Lupin himself, takes up with Jigen and then Goemon, and attempts to seduce Inspector Zenigata, it seems like what she's really after is power over men. Later on, pursued by creepily owl-faced antagonists, Fujiko will be forced to turn inward, and start digging up old bones from the past.
Series director Sayo Yamamoto was given pretty free rein to set the tone of Fujiko Mine, and the production is blessedly different from previous Lupin the 3rd installments as a result. I love the familiarity of the Lupin franchise to death, but sometimes you need to put those old boots aside and try on something new. Yamamoto teams up with old partner Takeshi Koike (they worked on the excellent Redline predecessor Trava: Fist Planet together, not to mention Redline itself!), who as character designer endows Lupin with an intense psychotic stare, Zenigata with a weird and sometimes malevolent handsomeness, and Fujiko herself with all the curves of a classic femme fatale and the pleading eyes of a born con artist.
The Fujiko Mine team don't stray from the formula altogether—after all, Lupin still has his crazy gadgets, Goemon still has his unbeatable sword, and Fujiko still has her penchant for double-crossery. Even the show's new character, Zenigata's peculiar and fawning assistant Oscar, is a spin on the old “Zenigata's useless sidekick” running gag. When the show wrapped up, most of my friends told me the ending was kind of a letdown, but I liked it—it brought the series all the way around to the first episode in some neat and unexpected ways, and gave the Lupin gang's heroine a deservedly emphatic victory. If I had any complaints, it's that Yamamoto's visual approach—a heavily-lined look that's reminiscent of both 1940s film noir and 1960s gekiga—is a strain on your average TV show's budget, and some scenes reach too far and look a bit busted as a result. In the anime director's chair, a field institutionally dominated by men, Yamamoto's a star—this and her prior directorial work, Michiko & Hatchin, are great fun. A new Lupin the 3rd film, directed by her collaborator Koike, has just been announced—I hope she's part of the team as well.
One aside: Fujiko Mine really cemented Miyuki Sawashiro as the new voice of the heroine, not to mention other relative newcomers Daisuke Namikawa as Goemon and Koichi Yamadera as Zenigata. But Kanichi Kurita and Kiyoshi Kobayashi still returned as Lupin and Jigen. I wonder when they'll be recast?
What's next? The Skull Man, that's what! Even though I'm a fan of the original creator of The Skull Man, Shotaro Ishinomori, I took a miss on this 2007 series at first—I'd already read the manga from Tokyopop and had mixed feelings about it. I liked the character, but found his story and circumstances boring. Eventually, The Skull Man came out on DVD here in North America, and given its budget, low-key release (subtitled-only, and missing the awesome OP animation from the Japanese version due to the involvement of band Tokio—thanks for nothing, Johnny Kitagawa!), it's easy to forget that this is from Bones and Yutaka Izubuchi, a rare talent who came up the ranks as a designer rather than an animator or writer.
Just like the original, The Skull Man takes place in a dirty old town menaced by shape-shifting monsters and a mysterious man with a skull-like mask. But Izubuchi has taken major liberties with the story, mostly to its benefit—the perspective shifts away from the dark title character to struggling photojournalist Hayato Mikogami, who arrives in town to hunt down the juicy story behind the Skull Man murders. He soon discovers the town's dark past, and while the Skull Man is fighting a great evil, he's doing it by systematically hunting down and murdering all those involved.
Rather than being an action series, this version of The Skull Man is a murder mystery, one that unravels slowly and satisfyingly over its episodes. There are a handful of really good action scenes, but the show mostly concerns itself with Mikogami quizzing rattled townspeople, sparring with a weird religious cult, and fearlessly confronting the masked killer when he finds him. It all works up to a genuinely shocking ending, one that ties up with some of Ishinomori's other works in a delightfully unexpected way.
Here's where my running “hey, where the hell is a copy of Galaxy Angel Rune volume 4?” joke comes to an end. Despite not really liking the show, I managed to snag the first three discs for a total of $10, shipped, so I felt weirdly obligated to complete the set. Also, I have the entire rest of the Galaxy Angel anime franchise, because it's cute and funny and totally awesome. So really: how hard was it gonna be to get that last disc? And how bad could watching Galaxy Angel Rune be?
Turns out both were pretty trying. I never actually located Galaxy Angel Rune volume 4 myself, I just was lucky enough to have an old friend who had connections to Bandai Visual and was able to scare me up a screener disc. It's not a pristine retail copy (the disc itself is stamped with “SCREENER” on the hub) but I don't mind. But if you're still looking, good luck, man! As for the quality of Galaxy Angel Rune? Oh my god, it's horrible!
I think part of the issue is that Galaxy Angel Rune is from an entirely new studio and creative staff, rather than the folks at Madhouse who made the original. The animation isn't as good, but more than that, the characters are dull and irritating. The main Angel brigade member this time around consists of Apricot Sakuraba, who has her sister Milfeulle's cutie-pie looks, but absolutely nothing else to make her interesting. There's a catgirl named Nano-Nano Pudding, who says “nano da” at the end of everything. The subtitles make no attempt to translate or address this, which is probably for the best. Like, how do you translate that, anyway? There's Lily, a tomboyish tough girl, and Anise, a tomboyish tough girl with a different haircut, and the gentle and innocent Kahlua, who sometimes turns into the mischievous and sultry Tequila, exactly like Lunch from Dragonball, except the joke is used so rarely you'll forget about it and be confused when it happens next.
There's also Princess Natsume, who only occasionally appears, and Kuken, a wacky drag queen character with a perpetual five oclock shadow who just goes CRAZY for handsome men!! Man, am I the only one getting tired of this hoary old stereotype? They did it in Gargantia last year and it was kind of off-putting. Out of the entire thirteen episodes, only one is even kind of funny; the rest are just dull. Not hilariously awful, not mind-bendingly bad, just… dull. That's worse, isn't it? Things improve slightly when the original cast appears for a cameo, but they bail after about ten minutes, because they probably realize they're in a bad show. Rune isn't bad enough to burn up all the good will engendered by the original show's 79 episodes, but it's really bad. Don't buy the cheap early discs, or you'll end up me, wandering the earth in search of the final disc of a series you don't really want!
So, that's what I've been watching lately. I've also been reading Moyoco Anno's Insufficient Direction, the somewhat-true tales of life in the household of a popular josei manga artist and her world-renowned anime director husband, Hideaki Anno. It's a fun read, and I'm kind of taken aback at how much my marriage resembles the gentle, cartoonish depiction in Anno's book. I mean man, I've had the exact same “alright, if you're not watching these DVDs, can you get them out of the living room please” conversation with my wife. Unlike Anno, I don't measure things in Kamen Riders, though. That'd be silly. (I measure them in Cyborg 009s. Or would that be Cyborgs 009?) In any case, it seems like both Mr. Anno and myself have a lot of DVDs.
So, fess up: maybe not on DVD, but what are the last five TV anime shows you watched, in full? Do you have time for TV anime these days? If so, how do you make that time, because I could use some advice in that area!
The Mike Toole Show homepage / archives
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UL Celebrates 100 years
New York, Sep 19, 2003
Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (UL), an ANSI member and accredited standards developer, is celebrating its 100th anniversary in standards development. UL has published more than 880 Standards for Safety since 1903 – for products ranging from firerated building materials to information technology equipment to electrical household appliances. As part of its centennial celebration, UL is serving as a sponsor of the ANSI Annual Conference on October 1, and other World Standards Week activities, September 29 through October 2.
Robert A. Williams, UL’s director of standards, and Keith Mowry, manager of global accreditation services, are two of seven executives selected for an ANSI Meritorious Service Award in recognition of their outstanding service in enabling ANSI to attain the objectives for which it was founded through significant contribution to the U.S. voluntary standardization system.
According to Williams, the future of UL as a standards developer will rely on keeping pace with emerging technology, anticipating new challenges and market demands, responding with flexible and efficient processes for developing standards and remaining committed to UL’s historic mission of public safety.
UL’s first Standard for Safety – UL 10A for Tin-Clad Fire Doors – has expanded into the 886 current UL standards, each developed and maintained with input by UL engineers in conjunction with industry, government agencies, regulatory authorities, members of academia and consumer advocates.
UL continues to focus on its public safety mission by participating in more than 200 international technical committees, serving in leadership positions on many, in an effort to actively pursue harmonization of U.S. standards with international standards. These activities seek to provide safe products to the global marketplace and global market access for UL's customers. Millions of products and their components have been tested to UL Safety Standards, which increase users’ confidence in the UL Mark on a product and provides a safer environment.
For more information on UL Standards for Safety, visit www.ul.com/info/standard.htm or contact Robert Williams at +1-919-549-1977.
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Edward M. Mullen, O.S.A.
1825 – 1888 (August 8)
Edward Michael Mullen, the son of Michael Mullen and Elizabeth Kain, was born in Ireland in March, 1825. When he was still an infant the Mullen family immigrated to the United States. His younger brother, Ambrose, and he studied together at Emmitsburg, Maryland, and in 1842 the pair sailed for Italy with Patrick Stanton, to make their novitiate in Tolentino. The professed vows in 1843 and went to Perugia to undertake studies in theology. Edward was ordained to the diaconate in Italy before he and his two companions were called back to the United States to continue their studies and to begin teaching classes at the college. He was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Kenrick on December 18, 1847, in the bishop’s private chapel.
Father Mullen served chiefly in parish ministry at Villanova, Our Mother of Consolation, Chestnut Hill, and in Philadelphia at Saint Augustine's. He also served at Saint Patrick’s Parish, Cambridge, New York. In 1865 he began service in Genazzano, Italy, at the Shrine of Our Mother of Good Counsel, where he remained, except for a brief period, until his death in 1888.
Father Edward Mullen was 63 when he died on August 8, 1888 at Genazzano. He is buried there in the chapel of the monastery at San Pio in Genazzano.
Newer PostJoseph P. Mullins, O.S.A.
Older Post Ambrose A. Mullen, O.S.A.
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After Bin Laden
Local experts discuss how one raid reshapes the world
By Richard Whittaker, 11:33AM, Sun. May 8, 2011
Dan Grant (r) in Kabul, 2003: "To those that say that capturing and killing bin Laden really won't have much of an effect because it's purely symbolic. Well, symbolism's important." (Photo courtesy of Dan Grant)
There has been a lot of armchair quarterbacking of what the death of Osama bin Laden means to the world. So we thought we would ask some real experts: Kamran Bokhari, an analyst with Austin-based risk assessment firm Stratfor, and international reconstruction expert Dan Grant
Having been present at the famous 2003 loya jirga that created Afghanistan's post-Taliban constitution, Grant knows Afghanistan. He was sure there was a big sigh of relief in Kabul that bin Laden was caught outside of Afghanistan's borders, but especially that he was caught inside their eastern neighbor. "Pakistan has been trying to turn Afghanistan into a client state for the better part of 30 years," Grant said, so the embarrassment caused by bin Laden's location could squash what the Afghans see as Pakistani meddling inside their borders.
It also means that Taliban commanders can re-start negotiations for a power-sharing deal: For some, it is an opportunity to end the fighting, while others may be more wary of drawing even greater ire from the US. Grant said, "The Obama administration could use this as an opportunity to accelerate the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. They'll still follow the same trajectory, it just might go on a faster path." This is unlikely to be a rush decision: Grant described the administration's foreign policy as "judicious and methodical
and I don't think that will change. I just think they will have more room to maneuver."
The spotlight now is directly on Pakistan. Bokhari said, "Serious observers knew that bin Laden was living somewhere in Pakistan. The idea was that he was somewhere along the border areas with Afghanistan. But the fact that he was found in a secure compound about two hours drive from the capitol of the country has really sent shock waves."
The US and Pakistan
So how will the raid affect the relationship between Washington and Islamabad? "It's too soon to tell," said Grant, "But there are a few directions this could go. One is that this could be an opportunity for the US government to take a harder line with Pakistan. Not necessarily abandoning it, but definitely becoming more direct and less compromising."
While technically allies in the war on terror, US-Pakistani relations are rocky to say the least. "Even before Osama bin Laden, the situation was pretty bad," Bokhari said. It was a two-way flow of bad blood. Washington was painfully aware that there were elements of the Pakistani civilian government and intelligence community that either backed al Qaeda or regarded it as politically useful. Military Times is reporting that the Blackhawk helicopter used during the raid may have been a stealth modified variant – a seeming sign that Washington wanted to keep Pakistan's intelligence service out of the loop. On the other hand, there are Pakistanis angry over the use of American UAV Predator drones within their borders. Then, Bokhari said, there was "the Raymond Davis affair. He was the CIA contractor arrested by the Pakistanis for killing two of their citizens, then he was released two weeks later as part of a deal."
Those incidents feed into a spectrum of anti-American sentiment in Pakistan. On one end are secular nationalists, who resent US interference in Pakistani politics. "On the extreme fringe end," Bokhari said, "there are those that think like al Qaeda, there are those that would like to fight." In between those two positions lie the bulk of the population. For those people, he added, "They say, 'We oppose the United States because of its policies, not because of what it stands for and not because of its people."
Obviously, the US is demanding to know how bin Laden had been living in the shadow of the Pakistani equivalent of Fort Bragg. Obviously, there are a lot of Pakistanis who want the same answers. The question is whether the Pakistani administration is capable of mounting a credible and meaningful inquiry. "In theory, those entities are in place, on paper and in a formal sense," said Bokhari. "There is parliament, there is a civilian government. The military establishment has its own mechanisms of oversight." However, there is already a major internal struggle over who will lead the investigation. Bokhari said, "The intelligence community and the army have dominated the Pakistani state for a long time, and they're not about to bring themselves under or subjugate themselves to civilian oversight."
The fate of al Qaeda
So where is al Qaeda in all of this?
That depends what al Qaeda you're talking about. There is al Qaeda the tight-knit organization built by bin Laden; Then there is al Qaeda the movement, represented by its loose affiliates; And then there is what Bokhari described as al Qaeda as part of the political landscape.
Grant said, "To those that say that capturing and killing bin Laden really won't have much of an effect because it's purely symbolic. Well, symbolism's important." It is not just that international Islamist terrorism has lost its biggest figurehead, but how it was done: "It is a hell of a thing to be able to find a guy, isolate him, go deep into Pakistani territory, kill him, remove a treasure trove of information and get out without the loss of a single American life. That is extraordinary, and it is a compliment to this administration and the people who organized and carried it off." That information grab may be as important as the death of al Qaeda's leader. Grant said, "Evidence seems to suggest that bin Laden had much more involvement in the day-to-day operational command-and-control and execution of world-wide al Qaeda activities, much more so than was publicly thought to be the case."
Yet the death of bin Laden has to be separated from the fate of al Qaeda. First, that requires rebuilding the misconceptions about al Qaeda's role in the world. Bokhari said, "Within the wider Muslim world, the Islamists – and here we don't mean Jihadists but all Islamists – most Islamists are non-violent. And within the Islamist landscape, the Jihadists are a further sub-set." Even within Jihadis, al Qaeda is a smaller sub-entity, and Bin Laden's shooting comes when al Qaeda is already a weakened force. "For the past ten years, al Qaeda has really been over-rated. In fact, Jihadism has been over-rated."
Move to the strategic view for a moment: "Had Osama bin Laden been eliminated two, three or even four years after 9-11, it would have been a big deal," Bokhari said, However, since 2005, "al Qaeda has ceased to be a strategic level threat to the international community. What I mean by that is that they have lost the ability to pull off attacks like Madrid, London, 9-11 [and] the Bali bombings." Rather than being an international strategic entity, it has now become a series of tactical, localized threats in specific countries across North Africa, Somalia and Yemen. Even at that level it has suffered major defeats. For example, "The Saudis within 18 months took care of their own insurgency when that broke out in early 2003," Bokhari said.
What happened to "al Qaeda prime" of bin Laden and his coterie?" It had become a largely symbolic entity that fits into a larger but diffuse structure of affiliates, allies and deals of convenience. Bokhari said, "They traded away operational control of the movement in exchange for physical control of their persons. So what they were effectively reduced to was issuing audio or video tapes, and in the last few years, those had become fewer and fewer."
So what of al Qaeda's attempts to become a permanent part of political thinking? Under what has been dubbed al Qaeda's strategy to the year 2020, strategist Muhammed Ibrahim Makkawi laid out the idea that al Qaeda needed to transfer from being a group or movement into a full-fledged philosophy – the landscape that Bokhari described. However, that landscape has already shifted around them, threatening to render both the group and the movement an irrelevancy. "While everyone has been writing about Jihadism, the Arab world has been moving in another direction," Bokhari said. "Just look at what is happening in the Middle East. It has nothing to do with al Qaeda. In other words, the masses of the Arab world, the core audience of the message of al Qaeda, is looking at Western-style political reforms and democracy and political reform."
Grant described those revolts as "largely secular or nationalist in nature.
There may have been religious elements as part of them, but more along the lines of when there's popular revolt anywhere, when everyone comes to the party." Those revolts and demonstrations must have been particularly galling to bin Laden, who sought to replace the existing governments with theocracies. He got his revolutions: They just rejected his philosophies. Grant said, "To see this happen, and for him to reduced to hiding out in a house for five years, only to be cornered and killed, I can think of no better just revenge."
Look to the East: The Indian Border
While much of the world is looking at how this affects Arabic Jihadism, analysts are turning their eyes away from Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. On the subcontinent, the big fear is a shooting match between India and Pakistan, which would make Afghanistan look like a side show. The two nations were on the brink of war over Kashmir in 2002, and the temperature got dangerously elevated again in 2008 after the Mumbai terrorist attacks - attacks that India has laid at the feet of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group. So what does this change in US-Pakistani relations mean for the high-friction situation between two of the region's nuclear powers?
"India has its concerns, to put it mildly, about anti-Indian terrorists finding safe harbor in Pakistan," said Bokhari. "Now the US has taken out bin Laden, and the way it was done, without any involvement of the Pakistani state, the Indians feel emboldened. 'If the United States can do it, then why can't we?'" That is where a cold chill may be running up some backs in diplomatic circles. If India decided to mimic the US' unilateral action, Bokhari said, "I have no doubt that it would lead to war." However, so far "the Indians are using the US action to put pressure on Pakistan. It shapes perception in Pakistan, puts them on the defensive."
Grant was doubtful that India would engage in any cross-border adventurism. "It's one thing for the United States to go in after one guy in particular who everyone on Earth knows that we are after, versus tit-for-tat engagements between India and Pakistan." He added, "There may be some sword rattling, but I doubt they're going to follow through."
A note to readers: Bold and uncensored, The Austin Chronicle has been Austin’s independent news source for almost 40 years, expressing the community’s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands.
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KEYWORDS FOR THIS POST
Terrorism, Afghanistan, Stratfor, Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, Dan Grant, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Mumbia, Kamran Bokhari, Kashmir
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September 2016 /
Meet Adriene Mishler, Austin’s YouTube yoga sensation
By Rose Cahalan
Published: September 2, 2016
Photo courtesy Adriene Mishler
For YouTube star Adriene Mishler, it took a failed creative project to lead to a successful one. After juggling work as an actor and a yoga teacher at several studios around Austin, Mishler met filmmaker Christopher Sharpe on the set of an indie horror movie in 2009. “The movie got shot to hell, and thankfully no one will ever see it, but we started talking,” Mishler says. Sharpe—who also produces the popular local YouTube cooking show Hilah Cooking—suggested they create a series of online yoga classes, and in September 2012, they uploaded their first video.
Four years later, Mishler, 31, has more than 1.5 million subscribers on her Yoga with Adriene YouTube channel. With titles like “Confidence Boost Yoga” and “Feel Good Flow,” her free classes have racked up as many as 7 million views. In addition to teaching on the internet, she hosts retreats and tours all over the world. Even actress Katherine Heigl is a fan. (“I really think we could be best friends,” Heigl wrote on Instagram.)
For her followers, Mishler’s tongue-in-cheek teaching style is a welcome change from the holier-than-thou sanctimony of some yoga studios. (In one video, she shouts, “Hey-oh! That was awkward,” during cow pose.) And perhaps because the instructor’s classes are free, her students come in all ages, ethnicities and body types. “Don’t have a yoga mat? No problem. Knee replacement? I got you,” she says. “My mission will always be to provide as much free yoga to as many people as possible.” We chatted with Mishler about her unconventional career path and what’s coming up next.
How did you start doing yoga?
I grew up as a theater kid in Austin. My mom was artistic director at St. Edward’s, and my dad was an actor and a writer, so I spent a lot of time in the green room. I knew I wanted to be an actor and that I also needed a way to make a living. ... In college at St. Edward’s, I took a kundalini yoga class, and it changed my life. Pretty soon I was teaching and basically hustling for all of my 20s, driving all around town to teach yoga.
Where’s the most unusual place you’ve ever done yoga?
I recently taught a couple classes on the pavilion at Rockefeller Center. St. Patrick’s Cathedral is right there, and you could hear all the sounds of New York City, but at the same time it was peaceful, like floating in the air above the city.
Favorite spots in Austin?
Salvage Vanguard Theater on the East Side is gone now, but I loved teaching there. I’d show up before class to sweep the floor and pick up feather boa pieces or beer bottles from a show the night before. I also really like teaching at the Blanton Museum of Art. There’s nothing like opening up a Warrior II to a Warhol!
What’s coming up next?
We are planning more retreats, and these are not your mama’s yoga retreat. They range from West Texas to New Zealand, and each one will have a theme. The West Texas one will be about creativity. I want to go beyond doing a 90-minute class and kind of curate a whole adventure.
Perfect your downward dog, attempt crow pose or try yoga for the first time during Austin Free Day of Yoga on Sept. 5. For a list of participating studios and events, visit freedayofyoga.com.
6 Places to Go in Austin for National Hot Dog Day
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Rand strengthens as Eskom proposal soothes traders? nerves
The rand rose to the strongest level since February after Eskom's biggest bondholder was said to have a rescue plan for the state-owned company.
The currency, which was already being buoyed by a global rally, added as much as 0.9%, bringing the dollar-rand pair close to crossing below its 200-week moving average. The nation's 2026 bonds rallied, putting the yield on course to closing below 8% for the first time in more than a year.
The Public Investment wants to convert its R90n holding into equity in return for a say over Eskom's management, including board representation, said five people with direct knowledge of the talks.
"A debt-equity swap means that a creditor becomes a shareholder, and if the amount of debt swapped is large enough, even potentially a controlling shareholder. In my lingo, that is tantamount to privatisation, albeit in stealth mode," said Cristian Maggio, the head of emerging-market strategy at TD Securities in London.
"Personally, I don't think it's going to happen unless the government accepts that privatization is needed. It would be a very welcome development, but it ain't gonna happen."
Eskom gets rescue option as PIC proposes debt-equity swap
A plan for the struggling utility would be a relief for government bonds and the rand, which have been weighed down by concerns over the impact of bailouts on the nation's finances. The potential proposal coincides with a rally in emerging markets, which advanced on bets the US will cut borrowing costs this month for the first time in more than 10 years.
The rand added 0.9% as of 14:29 in Johannesburg to 13.8650 per dollar. The main stock gauge was little changed.
Eskom, which supplies about 95% of the electricity used in Africa's most industrialised economy and has been labelled "too big to fail" by President Cyril Ramaphosa, has more than R440bn of debt, and doesn't generate enough cash to service it. The National Treasury is finalizing a bailout plan over and above the R68bn pledged in the February budget.
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ADB to raise $21 billion from capital markets this year
MANILA, Philippines - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Wednesday returned to the U.S. dollar bond market with the pricing of a $3.25 billion 3-year global benchmark bond issue, proceeds of which will be part of ADB's ordinary capital resources.
"The breadth and depth of investor sponsorship enjoyed by ADB was demonstrated by the achievement of a sizeable order book. This high level of support which enabled ADB to tighten the price guidance against a volatile market backdrop highlights the high regard for ADB's credit and development mandate," ADB Treasurer Pierre Van Peteghem said Wednesday.
The 3-year bond, with a coupon rate of 1.875% per annum payable semi-annually and a maturity date of 19 July 2022, was priced at 99.898% to yield 7.75 basis points over the 1.75% U.S. Treasury notes due June 2022.
The transaction was lead-managed by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BNP Paribas, Citi, and TD Securities. A syndicate group was also formed consisting of Commerzbank, DBS, Deutsche Bank, DNB Bank, and Nordea Bank.
With more than 75 investors taking part, the issue achieved wide primary market distribution with 59% of the bonds placed in Asia; 24% in the Americas; and 17% in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. By investor type, 71% of the bonds went to central banks and official institutions, 21% to banks, and 8% to fund managers and other types of investors.
ADB says it plans to raise around $21 billion from the capital markets in 2019.
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Arizona man sentenced to more than 15 years in online-dating scam
An Arizona man who was indicted on several charges related to an online-dating scam was sentenced to 15¾ years in prison.
Arizona man sentenced to more than 15 years in online-dating scam An Arizona man who was indicted on several charges related to an online-dating scam was sentenced to 15¾ years in prison. Check out this story on azcentral.com: http://azc.cc/2wPyJoE
Kelsey Mo, The Republic | azcentral.com Published 10:36 a.m. MT Aug. 11, 2017 | Updated 1:02 p.m. MT Aug. 11, 2017
These are some of the biggest red flags to keep an eye on. Wochit
Daylon G. Pierce(Photo: Maricopa County Sheriff's Office)
A man who was indicted on several charges related to an online-dating scam was sentenced Friday to 15¾ years in prison.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Reinstein sentenced Daylon G. Pierce, who also goes by Daylon Jung.
According to the Attorney General's Office, Pierce set up several profile pages on dating websites including Match.com, PlentyOfFish.com, BBPeopleMeet.com and Tinder.com. Pierce began romantic relationships with women he met through the websites and convinced them to invest thousands of dollars in fraudulent investments.
Pierce pleaded guilty to one count of fraudulent schemes and artifices in the dating scam and a similar charge in another case.
Before announcing the sentence, Reinstein told Pierce he delivered "heartache" to the victims.
Pierce told the victims that he was a successful stockbroker with his own business and investment company called Credit Investment Group LLC, according to officials.
According to court documents, the scams occurred between 2013 and 2016.
AG: Pierce ran multiple scams
Attorney General Mark Brnovich said Pierce also may have done something similar under different company names such as Rebuild Solution Group LLC.
The other case involved another defendant, Jason W. Seibert-Thomas, in which Pierce was accused of another credit-card scheme that targeted deceased credit-card holders, according to the Attorney General's Office.
A Tempe police investigation showed that Thomas and Pierce had used victims' personal information to duplicate credit cards and make thousands of dollars in fraudulent purchases from luxury stores and hotels, according to the Attorney General's Office.
Pierce was indicted in the dating scam on 13 counts of theft, 13 counts of transactions by an unregistered dealer or salesperson, two counts of illegal control of an enterprise and one count of fraud. In the other case, he was indicted on one count of fraud, one count of aggravated taking identity of another and one count of conspiracy.
Assistant Attorney General Scott Blake prosecuted the case and argued for a sentence of 15¾ years, citing Pierce’s extensive criminal history and the harm done to the victims. Blake said the financial harm in this case exceeds $1 million and Pierce spent that money on a lavish lifestyle, as opposed to investing the money on behalf of the victims.
In addition, Pierce caused emotional harm to the victims because the victims believed that they could trust him, but instead he used his position to benefit himself, Blake said.
Reinstein sentenced Pierce to 15¾ years in the dating scam, with a credit of 199 days served. The judge also sentenced him to 15 years in the other case, with 212 days credit. He ordered that the sentences run concurrently.
Victims testify
Three victims made statements Friday about the hardships they endured because of Pierce’s actions.
Sarah Schroeder said she felt taken advantage of and uncomfortable in her own skin.
Sarah Gary said that when she met Pierce she was a recently-divorced woman in search of a fresh start. Pierce had given her some financial advice, and she said she believed him.
“He said all the right things,” she said.
Gary said she went through four different jobs because she could not perform her duties properly and then had to seek counseling. She said she eventually figured out what Pierce had done and filed a police report.
Gary called Pierce to let him know what she had done, and he told her she would be arrested for spreading falsehoods, Gary testified.
Gary said that she is afraid of publicizing her workplace because she fears Pierce would come find her or send someone after her in retaliation. She also mentioned creditors were still calling her about the money Pierce stole from her and that her credit score was severely damaged.
Rose Reddy talked about the damage Pierce caused her and her daughter, stating that she had lost everything she worked for and that her daughter was unable to go to college.
"I've had to watch the light go out of her eyes," Reddy said.
Reddy said it was difficult to look in her daughter's eyes knowing that she took away from her because she trusted someone else.
Pierce: It 'kills me'
Pierce's defense attorneys, Seth Apfel and Christopher Doran, said there were significant mitigating factors in both cases.
Apfel said that Pierce has community support and has shown responsibility in accepting a plea deal. In addition, Pierce had no violent prior offenses, and his substance-abuse and mental-health issues also were factors for the judge to take into consideration.
Doran said that Pierce had an ability to relate to people going through hardship and it stemmed from his own rough childhood. Doran noted that he grew up without a father figure and his mother died when he was young.
Doran said Pierce could use his ability to relate to people for good with his friends but unfortunately used it for bad and exploited the victims in this case.
Doran also said Pierce had children of his own and he wanted to be present in their life, unlike his own parents.
Pierce also addressed the court and apologized for his actions, saying it "kills me" to know that there were 13 victims who worried about providing for themselves and their families.
Pierce said he was greatly remorseful and said he takes full responsibility for his actions.
'A career criminal'
Reinstein said he considered aggravating factors that included the multiple victims, the emotional impact to the victims and Pierce's prior convictions, along with the mitigating factors that included the fact he showed responsibility in taking a plea deal, the non-violent nature of the crimes and that some of the aggravating factors were built into the plea deal.
"Daylon Pierce is a career criminal and a con man who deserves to be locked up,” Attorney General Mark Brnovich said in a statement. “Unfortunately, online dating scams are becoming more common. Victims sign up hoping to find love and instead they’re left heartbroken with their life savings stolen.
"Our office will continue to work with the FBI to identify online dating scams and put those responsible behind bars.”
Arrest draws attention to online dating scams
Mesa mayor's photos used in 'catfishing' online-dating scheme
Read or Share this story: http://azc.cc/2wPyJoE
Scottsdale and Satanists face off in court
Man arrested in connection with back-to-back hit-and-runs
State: Fire PSPRS director who harassed employee
1 killed, 2 wounded in shooting at central Phoenix condo complex
Provocative conservative artist donates Trump artwork for AZ GOP fundraiser
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Bayocean, Oregon
The resort town destroyed by the sea
The Bayocean Story In Brief
Outside Reading
1949 Ackroyd Aerial Depicts Bayocean Hotel Ruins and Erosion
For years I've wondered about the posts in the bay visible during low tide that run parallel to Dike Rd. and the wider posts just barely reaching above the mud on low tide that cross the small inlet near the gate at the south end of the hills.
I've found no evidence of them in any aerial photos and maps from all my individual and archival sources as well as US Army Corps of Engineer records at the National Archives. I thought they might have been installed after the breakwater was built in 1956 because they were so far out into the bay before that time (though not to the end of the original dock). Perry Reeder told me they were there when he was a kid. He thought they probably once held boards that served to protect the bay side of Bayocean from erosion during storms. This recently discovered aerial, taken by Hugh Ackroyd in 1949, confirms Perry's recollections. It was taken from the southwest, so 12th leading down to the dock and main part of town is out of sight to the right.
Print and high-resolution digital versions of Ackroyd 01751-05 can be ordered at www.historicphotoarchive.net or by calling
Thomas Robinson at 503-460-0415. He was kind enough to allow me to display it here when I told him the significance.
Posts running parallel to Dike Rd and crossing the inlet from the gate at the base of the hills.
Comparing Ackroyd's 1949 aerial to a profile view from the north not long after the hotel was finished (at 100' elevation) in 1912 gives you a sense of the great volume of sand lost to erosion during the intervening 37 years. What was left of the hotel in 1949 were ruins caused by deconstruction. It was abandoned by 1932, when the Tillamook Bayocean Company (local businessmen who bought it out of receivership in 1928) gave up trying to make a go of it.
Bayocean photo #214 at the Tillamook County Pioneer Museum. Call (503) 842-4553 for print or digital copies.
The cottages shown at the top were all built by Johan Poulsen, Portland lumber baron, in 1912 for use by himself and his daughters' families. The most southerly of them, known then as the Hicks House, was moved to the mainland in 1952, just before Bayocean became an island. It had been rented out to the US Coast Guard to house a war dog beach patrol unit during World War II. They built the small building below it as additional housing. The other cottages were sold to A.T.Dolan. The one closest to the sea burned to the ground shortly after Ackroyd shot his aerial. Ocean erosion continued until the bay side cottage crashed to the sea in 1954. The last house (Notdurfts; hidden behind the trees to the right) succumbed in 1960.
See the Index page to find more stories like this.
Tillamook County Pioneer Museum Research Library
Please consider contributing to the institution that provided many of the photos and manuscripts used on this site. Helping them helps future researchers like me.
Also written by Jerry Sutherland
Jerry Sutherland
Buildings Moved or Salvaged (8)
Tillamook Indians (5)
1949 Ackroyd Aerial Depicts Bayocean Hotel Ruins a...
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As more research is done on the complexities surrounding addiction and substance abuse, we are provided with more information on how addictions form and how substance abuse and dependency can actually alter brain function. Medical professionals acknowledge that addiction is a chronic disease, not simply moral failing and weak personality traits as was professional opinion several years ago. Along with the acknowledgment that addiction is a disease, comes the research involved with dual diagnosis and co-occurring conditions. These disorders require more extensive treatment that is most often only available at a dual diagnosis treatment center. For immediate information call our trained counselors at 866-349-1770 for details.
What is PTSD?
PTSD stands for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, although in past decades, it was known by nicknames such as “shellshock” or “combat fatigue.” This is because it was most easily seen and diagnosed by medical professionals that treated soldiers in combat. PTSD is a psychological condition that occurs when a person is exposed to a very traumatic event. This can be the experience of combat, but it can also be sexual assault, an intense natural disaster, or even being victimized by “simple” crimes such as breaking and entering or assault.
The key factor is that an enormously upsetting situation has occurred, and it has long-term effects for the recipient. A person with PTSD may experience varying chronic symptoms, the most common of which is reliving the memories or emotions of that experience. In some cases, these PTSD relapses may occur for no discernible reason. In other cases, there may be a specific trigger, such as a combat veteran hearing an old car make noises similar to gunfire, or a sexual assault victim encountering a rape scene in a movie or television program.
Numbness Through Addiction
If someone lived in a constant state of fear, anxiety or dread, it would be easy to see why they would take measures—however drastic—to try to reduce the intensity or frequency of these feelings. This is where addiction comes in as a dangerous partner to PTSD that is often very difficult to dismiss because—at least in the short term—it works.
For people with PTSD, the numbness of alcohol or the euphoria of certain drugs as a quick, tangible fix that takes away the dread and other intense negative emotions. The only problem, of course, is that this doesn’t actually solve any problems, it merely makes an emotional state go away for a short period of time. This means that a person needs to continue using that substance to keep the feelings at bay and eventually PTSD and substance abuse become inextricably linked, with one enabling the other.
Treating PTSD and Addiction Together
Substance abuse and PTSD is a specific condition that experts treat with something called a dual diagnosis. This means that there’s already an understanding that addiction itself isn’t the cornerstone of the problem, something else is. So, just taking someone into a detoxification program and purging their system is going to do very little good in the long term. If PTSD is at the core of an addiction, then this means that once an addict returns to normal life, another PTSD episode—or series of them—will occur. When the feelings induced by these PTSD episodes gets to be too much, the addict will, understandably, return to substance abuse in order to escape the experiences.
Dual diagnosis means that both the PTSD and substance abuse are treated simultaneously. The first hurdle is the actual detox process. Depending on the type of substance abuse, the body may have developed a physical dependency on the substance, and so a “purge” is required, which usually involves a withdrawal period as the body adjusts to the shock of having the substance taken away.
Once the system has been cleared out both the substance abuse and the PTSD can then be addressed without any dangers of a physical addiction interfering. Only the psychological aspect remains, though this does not mean things are now easier.
Personalized Therapy
Dual diagnosis can occur for many different circumstances. Depression and anxiety can also be enablers of addiction; it’s not just PTSD and substance abuse. Depending on the type of condition, the substance abused, and the predisposition of the person involved, different therapies and treatments will be more suitable than others. It’s important in a substance abuse and PTSD case to ensure the exact needs of a particular person are being addressed.
Different types of therapy work better with certain individuals. While one-on-one counseling and group therapy are essential in all recovery treatment, there is a big difference in treating depression versus PTSD. Certain individuals will also have a much stronger response to different types of processes. Someone who is very religious, for example, will get a much more positive, affecting response from faith-based therapy than someone who is an atheist. On the other hand, someone with a deep love for animals may benefit from equine therapy, rather than drawing pictures or listening to music in art or music therapy.
Get Help with PTSD and Substance Abuse at Beachside
The goal with PTSD and substance abuse treatment is to help an individual to confront and overcome the PTSD itself. This means working towards mastering the fear and anxiety, eventually eliminating the PTSD episodes, or giving the tools to maintain control over them.
Contact Beachside today to begin the road to recovery.
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Home January 18, 2014
Back to Night Sky Archive
Bakersfield Night Sky – January 18, 2014
The schedule for the spring evening shows is now posted on the William M Thomas Planetarium's website at www.bakersfieldcollege.edu/planetarium . Tickets go on sale for "Dynamic Earth" on January 23rd. Tickets can be purchased online or over the phone at the BC Ticket Office (395-4326) but physical, hardcopy tickets will still need to be picked up at the ticket office or be mailed to you. Tickets will not be available at the door because the show will very likely be sold out by then (if history is any guide). Other shows in the schedule are the ever-popular "Black Holes" in March and "Ice Worlds" in April.
In my previous column I gave a preview of major upcoming astronomy and space exploration events coming in 2014. I missed two important events. Thankfully, I did not get any critical messages about the oversight. In my previous column I talked about the two eclipses that will happen in October: the total lunar eclipse on October 8th and the partial solar eclipse on October 23rd. It turns out we won't have to wait ten months for an eclipse.
In the very early hours of April 15th we will get to experience another total lunar eclipse when the Full Moon will go through the southern half of the Earth's umbra shadow. The umbra shadow is the region in which the light source would be totally blocked, so it is the darkest part of a shadow. The umbral part of the eclipse begins at 10:58 PM our time on April 14th and totality goes from 12:07 AM to 1:24 AM on April 15th. The Moon will leave the umbra at 2:33 AM. Although the Moon will be in the darkest part of the Earth's shadow, the Moon will have a reddish color as sunlight bends through the Earth's atmosphere to reach the Moon and the bluer colors in the sunlight are scattered away. If the Earth did not have an atmosphere, the Moon would be completely black when it was entirely inside the umbra shadow. I have diagrams describing lunar eclipses and photos of some in my online astronomy book. Go to www.astronomynotes.com/nakedeye/s14.htm to see them.
The other astronomy event is Bakersfield's own Astronomy Day put on by the Kern Astronomical Society. It will be on April 12th at Houchin Community Blood Bank, just two days before the lunar eclipse begins. It will be at Houchin's newest facility at 11515 Bolthouse Drive and it is FREE! Activities start at 11 AM and will go through 9 PM with star gazing but a real special treat will be the talk given by Alex Filippenko from 1 to 2 PM that you will definitely want to hear. Dr. Filippenko is an astronomy professor from UC Berkeley who was on the research team that discovered the universe is accelerating. His talk will be "Dark Energy and the Runaway Universe". He is an excellent, engaging speaker who has been voted UC Berkeley's top professor numerous times by the undergraduate students (most who are non-science majors) and he is a past-president of the premier astronomy education association, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, that brings science to the general public through the vehicle of astronomy. He has also recorded several series of lectures for the Teaching Company (aka The Great Courses). As I said, he is an excellent speaker.
Other activities at Astronomy Day include solar observing, learning about telescopes, black holes, a walk through the solar system (I'll lead that one), and more. See kernastro.org for more information about Astronomy Day on April 12th and remember that it is FREE!
Well, I should also note another astronomy event that will take place this spring. It is the "rebooting" of the Cosmos series. Carl Sagan's original Cosmos series was broadcast way back in 1980 and it has been viewed by literally hundreds of millions of people all over the world. Although I had pretty much decided upon my career path in astronomy by then, Sagan's Cosmos sealed it and I was astonished by the amazing beauty of the universe we lived in and how we could discover our deep connection to the cosmos through the endeavor called science. I continue to use one episode from the series in my Physics of the Cosmos class today. Although the dress fashion is thirty-some years old, Sagan's explanation of the life cycles of the stars and from where all of the atoms beyond hydrogen and helium came is still very applicable today. Neil deGrasse Tyson will be the public face of the 2014 edition of Cosmos but two of Sagan's collaborators on the original series, Ann Druyan (Sagan's widow) and Steven Soter have been deeply involved in creating Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey that begins airing on March 9th on Fox and the National Geographic Channel. The trailer for the new Cosmos shows fancier special effects than what was possible back in 1980 but I hope that the 2014 edition will still be as transformational and as able to connect people to the universe as the original series.
In researching about the new Cosmos series, I watched Bill Moyers's recent interview of Tyson. One part of the interview echoed a major part of my previous column about the value of exploration. Moyers asked Tyson about the practical difference of finding about dark matter or dark energy. Tyson replied by harkening back to 1920 when people were surely asking why so much brain energy was being devoted to understanding what's in the middle of an atom. Isn't it such a waste of all that brilliance? Tyson noted that in that decade, quantum physics was discovered. He continued with the economic impact of that seemingly esoteric pursuit: "Perhaps if you were around asking me that similar question then, you would've questioned the whole enterprise. Yet today, a third of the GDP of the world is generated on the creation, storage, and retrieval of information. And the entire IT revolution cannot exist without an understanding of what's going on inside the atom. It is a quantum physics phenomenon. So you ask me, 'Of what value [is research into dark matter/dark energy]? ' I have no idea what value." In fifty years we'll have a much better idea and probably even more than a third of the world's GDP will be based on discoveries made from unlocking the secrets of dark matter and dark energy.
Now for what's up in the sky for the latter part of January. Venus has now disappeared from our evening sky so Jupiter reigns alone in our early evening sky. Jupiter will already be up when the Sun sets. You'll see it as the very bright star low in east shortly after sunset. A little later after it has climbed up higher in the sky, the sky will have darkened enough for you to see the stars of Gemini surrounding Jupiter---see the first star chart below. To the right (in the southeast) you will see the brilliant stars of Orion. Follow the line of Orion's belt stars down to the left to the brightest true star in the night sky, Sirius, in the constellation Canis Major. A little after 8 PM the Waning Gibbous Moon will rise and wash out much of the night sky. Jupiter and Sirius will be bright enough to still see them easily, though. By midnight Mars will be visible low in the east in the middle of Virgo. Mars is getting closer to Virgo's brightest star, Spica. As shown in the second star chart below, a skinnier gibbous Moon will pass between Mars and Spica on the night of January 22nd/23rd. The following night, Mars and Spica may just barely fit within the same field of view of your binoculars. Mars will the bright orange object at about the 11 o'clock position and Spica the bright star at the 5 o'clock position (see the inset of the second star chart below). By the end of the month, they will easily fit within the same field of view of your binoculars.
Want to see more of the stars at night and save energy? Shield your lights so that the light only goes down toward the ground. See www.darksky.org for how.
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20 Best Affordable Master’s in Library Science
Home/Rankings of Top Master’s Degree Programs/20 Best Affordable Master’s in Library Science
The field of library science, especially in this Information Age, has evolved far beyond stacking books and memorizing the Dewey Decimal System. An advanced degree in library science can give you the key to enter a profession that conserves, transmits, and gives access to information, thereby preserving and advancing our world's cultural, social, and scientific knowledge. The constant churn and change in technological innovation call for people who understand more than the how, what, and why of digital information, but how to make use of the knowledge.
Text that once was available only on paper is being digitized at ever-increasing levels, filling the electronic archives and special collections in libraries, museums, and businesses. Graduates from the master's programs listed here gain familiarity with the concepts and language used in appraisal, arrangement, description, preservation, and conservation of information. Another popular career path is youth services and school librarianship which involve studying literature, oral-tradition storytelling, folklore, and relationships between readers and writers in various literacies.
The professional application of a master's degree in library science has numerous opportunities inside and outside the walls of the world's libraries. They include careers such as School or Law Librarian, Museum professional, Archivist, Web Analytics Manager, Web Developer or Administrator, Information Resources Specialist, Information Architect, Metadata Analyst, Acquisitions Manager, Business Researcher, Web Project Manager, Business Information Specialist, Database Administrator or Programmer, and many more!
Average salaries range from $44,000 as a museum professional to $80,000 as a database administrator. Other salary estimates include $57,000 a year as a public librarian, $60,000 as a law librarian, $75,000 as a web project manager, and over $47,000 as an archivist. It's no secret that the modern global workplace relies on fast, accurate information. Managers of this knowledge research, organize, and analyze information on which major strategic decisions are based. The colleges and universities on this list give the best combination of value and academic rigor for a master's degree in library science.
Ranking Methodology: "It's science!"
The researchers and writers at Best Master's Degrees don't make recommendations based upon preference– we back our rankings with science. Here's a quick breakdown of how we organize ranking data:
Finances (40%)
Academic Rigor (35%)
Student Gratification (25%)
Nearly half of the data used to score each ranking involves finances and are acquired from sources such as the National Center for Education Statistics, the U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Department of Education, Glassdoor, and PayScale. Financial data encompasses the cost of tuition, fees, and class supplied; the average price of living; access to financial aid and social services; and lastly, the projected annual salary acquired from degree outcomes and income for loan repayment. The second largest category of information involves the quality of education, how competitive degree applicants should be for consideration, and how exclusive a degree program is overall. The final 25 percent of collected data is dependent on student and alumni reviews from sources such as PayScale, Rate My Professor, and Students Review.
The amount of information available for specific degrees is plentiful, and Best Master's Degrees aims to provide as many resources as we can. Check out our Methodology page for more information and resource links.
#20 – University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
MS in Library and Information Science
llinois' MS in Library and Information Sciences program has six professional pathways.
The Library and Information Science program from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is made up of 40 credit hours of work and can be completed on the Champaign, IL, campus or online in 12 months. The degree is accredited by the American Library Association. All students take two core courses, then map out a path of coursework that aligns with their career goals. Pathways include youth and School Librarianship, Research and Information Services, or Knowledge and Management and Competitive Intelligence. Students in the program had a graduation rate of 86 percent or higher, both for on-campus and online study, for every academic year from 2012-13 to 2016-17. According to a survey conducted for Illinois' School of Information Services, 72.5 percent of master's program graduates from 2014 to 2018 were working full-time, with an average salary of $48,239. Illinois ranks No. 1 on U.S. News and World Report's list of Best Master's in Library and Information Studies Programs. Courses in the program include Fantasy Literature and Media for Youth; Museum Informatics; and Information Consulting. Application requirements include a resumé, three letters of reference, and a personal statement describing goals with the degree. GRE or GMAT scores aren't required if you earned a 3.0 GPA or better in the last two years of undergraduate study.
Net Price: $16,638
#19 – Florida State University
Master of Science in Information
The program doesn't require a thesis, but if you choose to do one it will use six of the 36 required credit hours.
Florida State's MS in Information degree requires 36 semester hours of coursework. Students take four core courses, then choose a path of study that best meets career goals. There are 10 career pathways which include General Librarianship, Health Informatics, Information Organization, Leadership & Management, and Technology & Networking. The master's program, as well as programs for specialist degrees and professional certificates, can be taken fully online. Each online class meets once a week in the evening. Online classes use a combination of the Blackboard and Collaborate platforms. On-campus students can take advantage of the IDEA Learning Program (Innovation, Digital fluency, Entrepreneurship, Advocacy), which emphasizes interdisciplinary collaboration in several career paths. Florida State's MS program is accredited by the American Library Association. It is tied for #12 on U.S. News and World Report's list of Best Master's in Library and Information Studies Programs. Application requirements include a resumé, a statement of purpose related to the degree, and a sample of academic or professional writing, such as a research paper. Students also can pursue a program that leads to an MS in Information and a JD from Florida State's College of Law. Interested students must be accepted in both the law college and the School of Information.
#18 – University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
Michigan's MS in Information program attracts students from more than 100 undergraduate majors.
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor's Masters of Science in Information (MSI) program requires 48 semester hours, of which 42 must be taken in the School of Information. Michigan is tied for No. 5 on U.S. News and World Report's list of Best Master's in Library and Information Studies Programs. The MS in Information degree can be completed in two years if you study full-time, or in three to four years if you go part-time. Students must take three hours of cognate instruction. Students have the opportunity to earn between six to nine credit hours with the School of Information's internship program. Students can opt for a double degree, adding the MSI to a degree earned in another school in the University of Michigan system. Students on the research- or academic-oriented track can do a master's thesis, which requires six credit hours. Students who decide not to do a thesis will then complete a three-hour mastery course instead, which demonstrates command of the knowledge and practices necessary for a particular career. Application requirements include an approved bachelor's degree, a resumé, three letters of recommendation, and a statement of purpose.
#17 – SUNY at Albany
MS in Information Science
Potential employers know a degree from SUNY at Albany represents up-to-date knowledge, versatility, and internship experience.
SUNY at Albany is tied for No. 22 on U.S. News and World Report's list of Best Master's in Library and Information Studies Programs. Its MS in Information Science requires 36 semester credit hours, which includes 12 credit hours of core work and up to 12 credit hours of career concentration coursework. The core component includes 150 hours of internship, which can be added to your portfolio as you pursue a career. Coursework has five career concentrations: Archives and Records Administration, Information Management and Technology, Library Information and Services, Intelligence Analysis, and Data Analytics. Two related degrees can be completed online: MS in Information Science and MS in Information Science School Library. The latter can lead to a teaching certification. Application requirements for the MS in Information Science include transcripts and a resumé, a statement of background and goals, and names and contact information for three recommenders. The degree is accredited by the American Library Association.
#16 – Rutgers University-New Brunswick
Master of Information
Rutgers-New Brunswick's Master of Information program attracts students with undergraduate backgrounds that range from humanities to computational expertise.
Rutgers University-New Brunswick's Master of Information program is designed to enable information professionals to take advantage of one another's expertise in an effective learning environment. The program has 36 semester credit hours that must be completed in three years. A full-time student can complete the program in one and a half to two years. Rutgers ranks No. 7 on U.S. News and World Report's list of Best Master's in Library and Information Studies Programs. The master's program is accredited by the American Library Association. There are six career concentrations: Library and Information Science, School Librarianship, Data Science, Archives and Preservation, Technology Information and Management, and Interaction Design and Informatics. All but the last concentration can be completed online. The sizes of online classes range from ten to 23 students. Classes include Metadata for the Information Professional, Transformative Library Leadership, and Competitive Intelligence. A statement of purpose and two letters of recommendation are requirements for application. GRE scores are waived for an undergraduate GPA of at least 3.0.
#15 – University of Wisconsin-Madison
Master of Arts in Library and Information Science
Classes in UW-Madison's iSchool include Intellectual Freedom, Information Ethics, and Digital Curation.
University of Wisconsin-Madison's Master of Arts in Library and Information and Science program has 39 semester credit hours. Only three courses are required, giving students the flexibility to pursue five career concentrations: Librarianship, Digital Archives, UX and Information Technology, Data/Information Management and Analytics, and Organization of Information. The program can be completed on-campus or online. The online program offers a one-week boot camp on the Madison, WI, campus that teaches you how to be an effective study-at-home learner. UW-Madison accepts students to its School of Information, or iSchool, once a year, for the fall semester. The first deadline is December 15. The program is accredited by the American Library Association. UW-Madison is tied for No. 14 on U.S. News and World Report's list of Best Master's in Library and Information Studies Programs. Minimum application requirements include a bachelor's degree, along with a GPA of 3.0 or higher for the last 60 credit hours of undergraduate work. A previous master's degree would need a cumulative GPA of at least 3.0. No GRE scores are required.
#14 – University of Arizona
Arizona's MA in Library and Information Science focuses on the organization of information, along with health sciences and law.
The University of Arizona's Master of Arts in Library and Information Science program has 37 semester credit hours. All classwork can be completed on the Tucson, AZ, campus or online through Arizona's School of Information which is a part of the College of Social & Behavioral Sciences. The program is accredited by the American Library Association. There are seven career concentrations: Academic Librarianship, Law Librarianship, Public Librarianship, Special Librarianship, Archival Studies, Digital Information Management, Legal Information and Scholarly Communication, and Medical and Community Health Information. The last five concentrations are offered as graduate certificate programs. There are 15 credits of core courses, nine credits of electives distributed over three approved categories, and another 12 credits of electives. Application requirements include a resumé or curriculum vitae, a statement of purpose and introduction which includes 750 to 1,000 words, GRE scores, and contact information for two recommenders.
#13 – University of Iowa
A thesis, in lieu of a career development portfolio, is available for Library and Information Studies students who want more research experience.
University of Iowa's School of Library & Information Science offers a graduate program that requires 36 semester credit hours. Iowa ranks No. 32 on U.S. News and World Report's list of Best Master's in Library and Information Studies Programs. The program gives students solid foundation in what it means to be a librarian, emphasizing the newest technological innovations. Students can complete the program in two years if they average nine credits a semester. The curriculum is two-tiered. The first tier is the five foundation courses. The second tier is the elective coursework. Specialized areas of study in librarianship include Digital Humanities, Informatics, School Media, Book Studies, and Law Librarianship. Courses include Cultural Heritage, Database Management, Health Informatics, and Information Behavior. Application requirements include a bachelor's degree with a minimum GPA of 3.0 (GRE scores are not required), a resumé or curriculum vitae, a statement of purpose, and three letters of recommendation.
#12 – University of California-Los Angeles
Master of Library & Information Science
From 2013 to 2017, 73 percent of applicants to UCLA's MLIS program were admitted.
The Master of Library & Information Science program at the University of California-Los Angeles gives students a strong combination of academic knowledge and practical experience. The program has 18 courses which make up 72 quarter units. Students take 16 units of required courses, four units of research method courses, and 52 units of electives. Fields of specialization include Archival Studies, Informatics, Library Studies, Media Archival Studies, as well as Rare Books, Print, and Visual Culture. An internship program involving over 300 organizations across Southern California gives students the chance to apply what they're learning to a professional environment. According to UCLA data, students complete the program in an average of two years. In addition, 99 percent of MLIS graduates between 2015 and 2018 hold jobs relative to their degree. The program is accredited by the American Library Association. UCLA is tied for No. 14 on U.S. News and World Report's list of Best Master's in Library and Information Studies Programs. Students are admitted to the program only during the fall quarter. In addition to a bachelor's or other advanced degrees, application requirements include a resumé or curriculum vitae, GRE scores, a statement of purpose, and three letters of recommendation. Applicants also must have successfully completed, with a "C" grade or better, a college-level class in statistics within the last five years.
#11 – University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
UWM's Coordinated Degree Program can help you pursue an MS in Library & Information Science and another master's degree at the same time.
The degree requires 36 graduate credits, of which 30 must be in Library and Information Science. The program can be completed in one and a half to three years. The program is accredited by the American Library Association. UWM is tied for No. 14 on U.S. News and World Report's list of Best Master's in Library and Information Studies Programs. Classes can be taken on the Milwaukee campus or entirely online. Most online students take six credit hours per semester. UWM has no application deadline for the MLIS program. Applicants are accepted in the fall and spring semesters. There are four core courses. Additional courses can be chosen to reflect an area of specialization such as Archival Studies, Information Organization, Information Technology, Library Administration, and different types of libraries such as public, academic, or digital. UWM offers a graduate certification in School Library Media. GRE scores aren't required if the applicant has an advanced degree or has completed undergraduate coursework with a GPA of 3.0 or better. Applicants also must supply two letters of recommendation.
#10 – University of Texas-Austin
Master of Science in Information Studies
The iSchool at Texas-Austin as has specialized research labs for subjects such as user experience, digital archiving, conservation, and information retrieval.
The Master of Science in Information Studies degree at the University of Texas-Austin requires 40 semester credit hours – nine hours of core courses in the university's School of Information known as iSchool, 27 hours of elective courses, and four hours for a Capstone Experience course. The program is accredited by the American Library Association. Texas is tied for No. 5 on U.S. News and World Report's list of Best Master's in Library and Information Studies Programs. The MSIS degree is not offered online but some support courses are web-based. Texas-Austin's iSchool teaches students how to design new tools, organize data, and ensure technology is accessible and effective. Students can design coursework around potential careers such as archival studies, social informatics, and information policy and ethics. Recent students in the iSchool had a 70 percent employment rate within three months of graduation. Application requirements include completion of a bachelor's or other advanced degrees with a GPA of at least 3.0, GRE scores, a personal statement of purpose, and letters of recommendation. Students can begin coursework in the fall or spring semesters.
#9 – Emporia State University
Master of Library Science
Emporia State students in the Master of Library Science program take all required courses as a cohort, working together and getting to know each other through projects that require collaboration.
The Master of Library Science program through Emporia State's School of Library and Information Management offers several options for non-traditional students. The program, accredited by the American Library Association, covers 36 semester credit hours. Full-time students can complete the course in four semesters Рabout 16 months. All classes are offered online, with most courses meeting for two weekend residential courses. Classes also are available at several regional locations beyond the main campus in Emporia, KS. Locations include Overland Park, KS; Denver, CO; Portland, OR; and Salt Lake City and Orem, UT. Students go through the MLS degree program as a cohort, which builds a support system during studies and creates a professional network after graduation. The goal of the MLS program is to prepare professionals who will provide effective, client-serving work in information agencies. The coursework is broken down into core theory classes, tool courses, applications courses, electives, and a capstone experience. Requirements for application include the completion of a bachelor's degree with a minimum GPA of 3.0, a resum̩ or curriculum vitae, a statement of objectives, and two letters of reference.
#8 – Valdosta State University
Master of Library and Information Science
Flexible scheduling and enrollment options make Valdosta State's Master of Library and Information Science program a good option for working professionals.
Valdosta State University's Master of Library and Information Science degree has 39 semester credit hours. The program, accredited by the American Libary Association, focuses on educating librarians for academic, public and special libraries in Georgia and beyond. The MLIS program does not require a thesis and is conducted primarily online. Professors are dedicated to distance education methods and the program has flexible scheduling so students can work and spend time with their families. MLIS students acquire skills in organizing and retrieving information, along with information services, resources, and systems. Optional tracks are available in cataloging and classification, library management, technology, and reference sources and services. Students must complete a capstone course in their final semester. Requirements for application include the completion of a bachelor's degree with a minimum GPA of 3.0, a resumé or curriculum vitae, three letters of recommendation, and a statement that describes your interest in the program.
#7 – Wayne State University
Graduates of Wayne State's Master of Library and Information Science program will be able to determine the significance of intellectual property, security, and privacy issues.
The goal of Wayne State University's Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) degree is to prepare students for future professional leadership roles in libraries and other information organizations. The program is accredited by the American Library Association. The MLIS degree requires 36 graduate semester credit hours, which is broken down into 18 credit hours in the information sciences core and at 18 credit hours in an area of professional specialization. A maximum of six credit hours in courses outside of Wayne State's School of Information Science can be accepted as cognates. The MLIS degree is available online. Selected classes are offered on-campus. The degree has three pillars: library services, information management, and archives and digital content management. Elective courses can drill down to more detailed specializations within these pillars. Application requirements include a resumé or curriculum vitae, an advanced degree or a bachelor's degree with a minimum 3.0 GPA, and a statement of academic background and experience.
#6 – University at Buffalo
Information and Library Science, MS
The music librarianship specialty in University of Buffalo's Information and Library Science degree combines a master's degree in music.
The University at Buffalo's Master in Information and Library Science program is offered fully online. Buffalo is tied for No. 22 on U.S. News and World Report's list of Best Master's in Library and Information Studies Programs. The program is accredited by the American Library Association. The Buffalo degree requires 36 credit hours. A full-time student can complete the program in four semesters. The program, however, does have the flexibility to accommodate distance-learning students who need a part-time course load. Specialized program options include music librarianship and law librarianship. There also are practicums, special projects and directed study courses that allow a student to gain real-world experience. The required credit hours include nine hours of core classes and 27 hours of coursework that align with professional specialties. Options include information management or organization; public or academic libraries; and special libraries such as museums and businesses. Application requirements include the completion of a bachelor's degree with a minimum 3.0 GPA, GRE/MAT scores which can be waived if you already have an advanced degree, contact information for three people who will be asked to write letters of recommendation, as well as a statement of education and career goals.
#5 – Indiana University Bloomington
Courses for Indiana's Master of Library Science include Database Design, Social Science Information, and Human-Computer Interaction.
Indiana University Bloomington's Master of Library Science is a 36 semester credit hour program that includes 15 hours of core courses and 21 hours of elective courses that match your professional goals. A degree program for a master's degree in Library and Information Services can be taken fully online. Indiana ranks No. 9 on U.S. News and World Report's list of Best Master's in Library and Information Studies Programs. The online and on-campus programs are accredited by the American Library Association. According to data from the university, 95 percent of MLS students found jobs or continued their education within 12 months of graduating. Indiana's MLS degree focuses on digital changes occurring with information and prepares students for the latest innovations. It also gives students experience with traditional sources such as rare books, manuscripts, and archives. Students can pursue dual master's degrees in Library Science and Information Science through Indiana's School of Informatics, Computing, & Engineering. Application requirements include GRE scores or an advanced degree, a resumé or curriculum vitae, three letters of recommendation, as well as a personal essay explaining academic and career objectives.
#4 – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Master of Science in Library Science
Graduates of North Carolina's Master of Science in Library Science program are prepared to develop strategies that improve access to information.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ranks No. 3 on U.S. News and World Report's list of Best Master's in Library and Information Studies Programs. The Master of Science in Library Science program is accredited by the American Library Association. The program calls for 48 semester hours of graduate-level coursework, including 22.5 hours of required core courses and 25.5 hours of elective core courses. Graduates also must complete a comprehensive exam and a master's paper or project. Online classes in the graduate program are not available. According to data from North Carolina's School of Information and Library Science, the average time to complete the master's degree is two years. Among students who graduated in 2018, 71 percent held jobs related to their degree within 12 months of graduation. Those who graduated in 2017 had a job rate of 89 percent. A Field Experience Program offered by SILS enables students to gain 135 hours of professional experience in an information organization while receiving three hours of class credit. MSLS study has several opportunities to study abroad in locations such as London, Prague, Berlin, Madrid, and Seoul. Applications require a resumé, GRE scores including a minimum score of 50 percent in the verbal and quantitative sections and at least a four in the writing section, a statement of purpose, and three letters of recommendation.
#3 – University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Master of Library and Information Studies
Many who apply to UNC-Greensboro's Master of Library and Information Studies program have worked in libraries as undergraduates and want to prepare for leadership in information organizations.
The Master of Library and Information Studies program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro prepares students for positions of leadership in academic, public, school, and special libraries, as well as roles in public and private agencies and cultural organizations as information specialists. UNC Greensboro is tied for No. 22 on U.S. News and World Report's list of Best Master's in Library and Information Studies Programs. The program is accredited by the American Library Association. The degree calls for 36 semester credit hours in UNC Greensboro's School of Education, but cognate classes from other departments can be substituted with approval. There are 13 hours of required courses, which includes a capstone project in lieu of a thesis. Nineteen credit hours can be electives that align with a career goal. Specialties can include cataloging, digital collections, school libraries, and public libraries. All coursework for the MLIS can be taken online, primarily with chats, video conferencing, and other live instruction. Application requirements include a bachelor's degree with a minimum 3.0 GPA or another advanced degree, a resumé, and a personal statement of academic and career goals.
#2 – University of Washington
Washington offers a Master of Library and Information Science degree with a specialization in law librarianship.
The University of Washington's Information School, known as the iSchool, offers a Master of Library and Information Science degree. Coursework can be taken on campus in Seattle, WA, or online. The program has a low student-to-faculty ratio and a strong track record of employment in libraries, nonprofits, and corporations. Recent graduates have gone to work as librarians, metadata specialists, web content managers, and taxonomists. Washington ranks No. 2 on U.S. News and World Report's list of Best Master's in Library and Information Studies Programs. The program is accredited by the American Library Association. The program is made up of 63 quarter credits which are spread across three elements. These are core courses, electives, and a final degree project. Both on-campus and online students have the same degree requirements. As for time required to complete the degree, 83 percent of on-campus students who entered the program in 2016 graduated in two years or less, and 71 percent who began online courses in 2015 graduated in three years or less. The curriculum includes a final capstone project. The iSchool offers study-abroad programs between the summer and autumn quarters. Locations include the Netherlands, South Korea, and China. Application requirements include a completed bachelor's degree with a minimum GPA of 3.0, a resumé or curriculum vitae, a personal statement of academic and career goals, and three letters of recommendation.
Net Price: $9,443
#1 – Queens College, City University of New York
Alumni of Queens College's Master of Library Science program include librarians at New York University-Shanghai and the creator/director of the Queens Memory Project.
The Master of Library Science degree at Queens College is designed to prepare graduates for positions in inside and outside academic venues – nearly anywhere information is stored, preserved, and accessed. Queens College ranks No. 40 on U.S. News and World Report's list of Best Master's in Library and Information Studies Programs. The program is accredited by the American Library Association. Students intern at institutions like the Center for Jewish History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Studies can align with career concentrations such as archiving and preservation, public library services, library media specialist, academic librarianship, and digital resources management. Students also can pursue a dual degree in library science and history. The MLS degree consists of 36 semester credit hours, which must be completed within four years of admission. There are four required core courses, plus a required project course that can be taken after 21 credit hours are completed. Applicants to the MLS degree program need undergraduate work with a GPA of at least 3.0. Those with a lower GPA may be required to take the GRE. Other application requirements include three letters of recommendation and an essay about your reasons for pursuing graduate study.
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Summer Commencement August 2018
Bethel University Summer Commencement to be held Saturday, Aug. 4
MCKENZIE, TN – Bethel University’s Summer 2018 Commencement will be held at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 4, in the Rosemary and Harry Crisp II Arena on the school’s McKenzie campus. The Honorable John Stevens, Senator of Tennessee’s 24th District, will serve as commencement speaker.
Senator Stevens’ roots run deep in Northwest Tennessee. A resident of Huntingdon, he was elected to the State Senate in 2012 as the first Republican to ever represent Obion and Weakley counties. While in Nashville, Mr. Stevens serves on the Finance, Ways & Means, Judiciary, and Transportation Committees. This year, he was named First Vice-Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and was appointed to serve as Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee, which reviews and approves or rejects all Senate amendments to the proposed budget.
Stevens is a practicing attorney with Thomas Walters, PLLC, which is a multi-state Estate Planning law firm. He is a 1992 graduate of Gallatin High School. He graduated cum laude from Tennessee-Martin in 1996, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in political science. He received his law degree from the University of Memphis in 2002 and worked for the Honorable Judge Don A. Ash before entering private practice.
Governor Bill Haslam appointed Sen. Stevens to the Governor’s Task Force on Sentencing and Recidivism, in addition to the Indigent Representation Task Force. He has also been appointed to numerous leadership programs, including the Delta Leadership Institute Executive Academy, the Henry Toll Fellows program, and the Emerging Leaders program GOPA.
Among Sen. Stevens’ honors are being named Mothers Against Drunk Driving 2016 Legislator of the Year; National Federation of Independent Business 2016 Guardian of Small Business; 2014 Champion of Commerce by the Tennessee Chambers of Commerce; and Legislator of the Year in 2013 by the Tennessee Association of Assessing Officers. He was named Taxpayer Hero from Americans for Prospering after receiving a 104% rating. He received a 100% rating from the American Conservative Union in 2015, and received a 96% rating from the ACU last year – making him the most conservative Tennessee State Senator for 2016.
A total of 268 students from the College of Arts and Sciences, College of Professional Studies, and College of Health Sciences are slated to receive diplomas during the ceremony. Seating for graduation services will begin one hour prior to service time. Graduates with questions should contact their specific school’s registrar.
For all other general questions, contact Myra Carlock at 731-352-4090 or at carlockm@bethelu.edu.
Posted by Jennifer Glass at 9:11 AM
« Bethel Alum Peter Lancaster Gives Much Credit to Bethel for Recent Emmy Win
August Graduation 2018 »
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love local jobs
Brighton Students take on Snowdonia as part of inspirational project to raise career aspirations
The LoveLocalJobs Foundation has launched its first employability themed outdoor pursuits adventure for sixteen lucky pupils from Brighton’s Dorothy Stringer High School. Sponsored and supported by The Straumann Group, students were given an opportunity to attend an outdoors pursuit centre, Dolawen, in Snowdonia. The five-day residential trip enabled students to get out of their comfort zones, experiencing hiking, gorge walking and weasling coordinated by E3 Adventures , and ultimately develop skills such as teamwork, leading and confidence which are essential for future employment.
Richard Baker, Deputy Head at Dorothy Stringer said “This trip has made a big impact on these children. They have made some good friendships and are much happier in school as a result. By all accounts it was a great success and we look forward to working with The LoveLocalJobs Foundation in the future to give more children such great experiences.”
In order to be a part of the trip, the students filled out an application and were then interviewed by representatives from The Straumann Group to provide them with a real insight into the process of how to get a job. The application process began in January and culminated with the outing 12th – 16th April. Throughout the trip, the team intertwined outdoor activities and employability skills, in order to provide the students with the confidence and hope they can secure future employment.
Debbie Womersley, HR Director at Straumann UK said “The Straumann Group are delighted to support and partner with The LoveLocalJobs Foundation to provide essential support to our local community. As a local employer, we believe that our local schools and children need to be supported and developed at a grass roots level, to give them a taste of what to experience within the world of work. This initiative was designed to build confidence and expose these students to challenges, helping them build strategies to overcome them and build, the confidence that comes from success.”
Gary Peters, Founder of The LoveLocalJobs Foundation said: “We created the foundation to give every day local kids the opportunity to thrive, to give them the skills needed to reach their full potential – both in life and professionally. Every day kids, just like you and I, just like we were all those years ago. I remember being given the opportunity to do this exact trip over 25 years ago and I loved every single second. It taught me to really push myself, to fall, to get back up and to work as part of a team – and most importantly to laugh, I loved every second. I’m proud of being able to give this opportunity to the guys from Dorothy Stringer, the school I went to many moons ago and I’m looking forward to many more trips in the not too distant future.”
The LoveLocalJobs Foundation was launched by Harry Redknapp in October 2018 and strives to help raise the aspirations of local young people. The Foundations initiatives aim to better connect education with the world of work and to enhance employability and soft skills via a range of inspirational experiences. The Foundation draws on a network of amazing organisations who generously support activities which help young people to realise their full potential and provide them with a stronger pathway for a positive future. The partnership with Straumann to enable sixteen pupils to attend Dolawen is a prime example of the work that can be done to support young people who deserve the opportunities.
This trip is only made possible through the generous sponsorship by Straumann, the support of The LoveLocalJobs Foundation, activity facilitation by E3 Adventures and the engagement from the participating school, Dorothy Stringer.
For more information on these events and other LoveLocalJobs Foundation initiatives, please contact The LoveLocalJobs Foundation on 01273 651100 or email info@lovelocaljobs.com
Tagged: love local jobs
Local School Students in Brighton Become Role Models
Local year 9 students learnt how to be role models for younger students as part of an on-going programme to improve their confidence and resilience. Students, aged between 13 and 14, are taking part in the inspirational Be the Change programme, which is happening for the first time in Brighton.
The students were encouraged to become positive role models and were taught that by working together they can have a positive influence and impact in their respective schools and communities. Overall the conference helps the young people to develop life skills and create positive cycles. The year 9 students were also taken by surprise and were joined by local primary school students for them to mentor at the Brighton Racecourse on Friday, March 1.
Organised by LoveLocalJobs.com in partnership with Graham Moore of metamoorephosis, the programme has more than 40 volunteers from local businesses and the public sector acting as business guides helping young people fulfil their potential and improve their life chances. Be the Change focuses on happiness, confidence, hope, relationships and employability by identifying and removing barriers to success, encouraging self-belief and raising aspirations. Over the course of the school year the students work with the business volunteers at inspirational conferences, one-to-one mentoring sessions and workplace visits.
This year’s programme would not be possible without support from this year’s sponsors: Sussex Police, Brandwatch, American Express, Legal and General, Focus Group and Brighton & Hove City Council.
Graham, who expertly led the delivery on the day said: “Our vision is for every young person to have raised hope and confidence, to have the chance to develop life skills and create positive cycles that will prepare them for life. Working with the younger children brings out the positive role model in our students. It promotes qualities such as leadership, team working and a sense of responsibility to those around them, especially younger and more vulnerable people. This activity also offers a great chance for the younger students to develop their confidence and experience of being around secondary school students in preparation for moving into higher education.”
David Reynolds, CFO of headline sponsor Brandwatch said: "As soon as we heard about the Be The Change programme we wanted to get involved. It has been great to work with some really inspiring school children across Brighton on building their confidence and creating aspirations for the future. A truly great initiative and we are proud to be part of it."
The secondary schools involved in this year’s programme are: Blatchington Mill, PACA, Varndean, Hove Park, Kings School, Longhill High School, Cardinal Newman and Dorothy Stringer. Year 6 primary school students took part in the Stepping Up activity from Downs Junior School.
Tagged: be the change, love local jobs
Love Local Jobs invite you to the 'Maximising your Current and Future Talent Breakfast Club'
Attend the Maximising your Current and Future Talent Breakfast Club.
LoveLocalJobs.com are hosting an engaging and thought provoking Breakfast Club at Hotel du Vin, Brighton on Friday 5th April (8:30am – 12:30pm).
What to expect on the day:
• This ground-breaking event is designed to give you the tools you need to step away from short-term tactical management of people and tasks, and shift your focus to longer-term strategic leadership and cultural development
• The Skills Farm will deliver two in-depth sessions to help you to ensure you are preparing your team for high performance
• LoveLocalJobs.com will deliver a session that highlights how you can give members of your team the opportunity to develop in areas outside of their day to day responsibilities, based on successful case studies
Select here to learn more about the event and to book your place. Please note that there are limited places available and facilitated for you at a much reduced cost courtesy of our corporate partner Search Consultancy:
Partner rate: £25 (inc. VAT), to claim your discount code, please reply to this email
Non Partner Rate: £35 (inc. VAT)
Tagged: love local jobs, talent, breakfast
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Home » Library » Articles » The Portuguese Family of Sir William Carr Beresford
The Portuguese Family of Sir William Carr Beresford
Subject Matter:
British Community and Family History
In April 1940 an enquiry reached this Association respecting the illegitimate children of Sir William Carr Beresford by a Portuguese lady of high rank. Before proceeding to relate the result of these researches it may be useful to recall that Beresford was charged with the reorganization of the Portuguese Army in 1809.
He was the illegitimate son of the Marquis of Waterford and benefited to some extent by family influence. Sir Charles Oman suggests that his appointment to command the Portuguese army was «a job» but adds that it was «a good job.» and he did most eminent service in creating order out of chaos and, in the short space of a year, a well-disciplined force that was capable of taking a creditable part in line with the British Army. This was not accomplished without friction and it cannot be said that Beresford was popular with his subordinates.
He seems to have been honest, inflexible, and hard working, but with this, and a personal courage that ran almost to excess, his capacities ended. His appearance, so familiar to all our members from the fine Lawrence portrait which hangs in the British Embassy, needs no description. There are singularly few tales or anecdotes connected with his name «from which» says Oman «I deduce that in British military circles he was neither much loved nor much hated.» To this it is only just to add that he was trusted by Wellington to an unusual degree.
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Inside Noah's Ark
The above image shows how Noah's Ark might have looked like from the inside. In regard to the Ark itself, God commanded that it be built according to his dimensions and using something called gopher wood. It was to be coated with pitch in order to make it leak-proof and sea worthy. The Bible records Noah was told to do the following.
(Speaking to Noah) Make an ark of cyprus timbers. You shall make rooms in the ark, and you shall pitch it inside and outside with pitch . . . You shall make a window in the ark, and you shall finish it to a cubit from above; and you shall set the door of the ark in the side of it. You shall make it with lower, second and third stories (Genesis 6:14, 16, HBFV).
Gopher wood's only mention in the entire Bible is in regard to Noah's Ark. This wood could have been the cypress tree used extensively by the Phoenicians or might have possibly been cedar wood. The 'pitch' used was likely bitumen, as there were extensive deposits of it in the Euphrates valley north of Babylon.
What does a rainbow symbolize?
The Life of Noah!
Inside Jerusalem's temple!
The above picture of Noah's Ark is a 1/32 scale model. The view shows the interior and the three decks God commanded be made. The inside and outside was coated with pitch. A window was set 18 inches (one cubit or roughly 45.7 centimeters) from the top (Genesis 6:16). Notice the ship's size in the above picture in comparison to the larger animals such as the hippopotamus! Also note the caging system used for the animals.
Noah's Ark was crafted to be big on the inside in order to survive the flooding of the entire surface of the earth with water. Although some theologians believe the flood was local in nature (occuring only in the area of Mount Ararat, where the ship ultimately grounded) such conclusions make no Biblical or geological sense.
"There are at least thirty such expressions of cataclysmic universality in the biblical record of the Flood . . . Biblical references to the Flood are not limited to the early chapters of Genesis but also occur frequently in later parts of the Bible (Psalm 29:1 - 11, Isaiah 54:9, Matthew 24:37 - 39, etc.), and all those passages can only be understood in the context of a universal Flood.
"Even if only the mountains in the immediate vicinity of the mountains of Ararat on which the ark grounded when the waters began to recede after 150 days of rising (Genesis 7:24 - 8:5) were covered, it would not have been possible for the floodwaters to be retained in the local vicinity.
The present Mount Ararat is seventeen thousand feet high, and it was two-and-a-half months after the ark grounded before the tops of any mountains could even be seen . . . To imagine that a year-long, seventeen-thousand-foot high flood could have been a local flood is absurd" (Science and the Bible by Henry M. Morris, chapter 3).
On a final note, only air breathing, land based animals were taken inside Noah's Ark (see Genesis 6:17,19 - 20, 7:22). Animals like whales, dolphins, alligators, fish, turtles, lobsters, and so on that could live in water did not need to hitch a ride on the ship in order to survive!
Why no rain before the flood?
How is Halloween linked to Noah?
How many animals did the Ark carry?
How many people died in the flood?
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Going teetotal improves women's mental health: report
PanArmenian.Net
PanARMENIAN.Net - A study by researchers at the University of Hong Kong has provided new evidence that women who stop drinking alcohol experience improved mental health, News medical reports.
Many women drink alcohol as a way to relax and unwind, but the new study suggests that stopping drinking altogether may be a better way to improve mental health.
"Our findings suggest caution in recommendations that moderate drinking could improve health-related quality of life," says study author Herbert Pang. "The risks and benefits of moderate drinking are not clear."
Co-author Michael Ni suggests that quitting alcohol altogether may be a better way to relax and feel calm and peaceful.
Reporting this week in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, the team writes that although the link between moderate alcohol consumption and certain health problems such as cardiovascular disease and cancer has been well documented, the broader effect on health-related quality of life is less clear.
"Our objective was to examine the association of drinking patterns with changes in physical and mental well-being across populations," writes the team.
For the study, Pang and team examined the association between alcohol drinking patterns and self-reported changes in physical and mental well-being among more than 10,000 people in Hong Kong and 31,000 people in the U.S. The analyses were stratified by gender and heavy drinkers were excluded from the study.
In both study populations, men and women who had abstained from drinking any alcohol across their lifetime reported the highest levels of mental well-being.
When those who were not abstainers were followed over time, which was around two years for the Hong Kong participants and around 3 years for the U.S group, giving up alcohol was associated with better changes in mental well-being among women, but not among men. The women who stopped drinking even reported levels of mental health that almost reached the levels reported by lifetime abstainers.
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‘Dabangg 3’ will take a lot of my time, effort, concentration: Arbaaz
Mumbai, March 7 (IANS) “Dabangg 3” will go on the floors in mid-2018, says actor-producer Arbaaz Khan, who is geared up to let the project take a lot of his time, effort and concentration.
Arbaaz attended a special screening of a short film titled “#METOO” here on Tuesday.
Asked if his production banner will focus on creating content for digital platform, Arbaaz said: “As of now, my concentration is on my production and on my next film because when I involve myself in a certain project, that time I need to have some time for and I personally get involved in it.
“So, after making my upcoming film, I do have plans to create content on digital platform — be it with a web series or short films… The options are pretty much open. As a producer, it is a wide spectrum of things that I want to do and for now, I am concentrating on ‘Dabangg 3’ which will go on floors mid this year. After that I will have more time because ‘Dabangg 3’ will take lot of my time, effort and concentration.”
ALSO READ: Why Chris Hemsworth opened up about his anxiety woes
On short film “#METOO”, Arbaaz said, “It’s an interesting short film. It is relevant with current #METOO campaign on social media. It is basically about women who come out in the open, talk about the experiences that they have had, not feel ashamed about what has happened and to expose the people who have done stuff like that.
“I think people who are along with the victims should support them like their partner or parents. It’s an interesting film made on that topic.”
Can such efforts bring about a change in people’s thought process?
Arbaaz said: “I think people should find the courage because there is no point keeping mum about things. So, I guess you have to take a stand and fight against it if you have been exploited in any manner.”
ALSO READ: Salman gets nostalgic while sketching
Wishing women for International Women’s Day, which falls on Thursday, Arbaaz said: “Women are wonderful and I wish them all the very best for their future endeavours.”
iv/rb/vm
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Film Schools & Colleges in the U.S.
American Film Institute Conservatory
Nestled in the hills above Hollywood, the AFI Conservatory offers graduate-level degree programs in Cinematography, Directing, Editing, Producing, Production Design, and Screenwriting. Students learn from master filmmakers and collaborate with one another to write, produce, design, direct, shoot and edit up to ten films over the course of their two years in the program. The school boasts an impressive 81% employment rate for recent graduates.
Chapman is situated in the charming town of Orange, just outside the bustling film industry in Los Angeles. Undergraduate degree offerings include Creative Producing, Digital Arts, Film Production, Film Studies, Broadcast Journalism and Documentary, Television Writing and Production, Public Relations & Advertising, Screen Acting, and Screenwriting. At the graduate level, the school offers master’s degrees in Film Production, Film Studies, Film & Television Producing, Documentary Filmmaking, Production Design, Television Writing and Producing, Screenwriting, and joint producing degree programs in conjunction with the law and business schools.
Columbia College Chicago
Columbia College Chicago offers undergraduate and graduate level programs in Writing, Producing and Directing for Film and Television, with areas of emphasis in Cinematography, Visual Effects, Editing and Sound, and Web-based and Mobile Media, along with interdisciplinary work in Documentary Production. Students benefit from networking, internship, and educational opportunities in one of the country’s largest media markets; they may also take advantage of Semester in LA, the only year-round academic program on a Hollywood studio lot.
Emerson College
Emerson’s Department of Visual and Media Arts features undergraduate degree programs in Comedic Arts, Film, Media Arts Production, Media Studies, Production, and Stage & Screen Design/Technology. The school also offers an MFA in Film and Media Arts and a low-residency MFA in Writing for Film and Television. Each year the school hosts the Emerson Film Festival, the Bright Lights Shorts program (student-produced narrative work), and It’s All True (documentary films).
At Full Sail, students learn through hands-on film set experience. In the school’s online Digital Cinematography bachelor’s degree program, coursework touches on directing, producing, art design, and location shooting. As part of the on-campus Film bachelor’s, students follow the film creation process from pre-production through post-production, ensuring they get a feel for each crew member’s role in the production. In the on-campus Film Production MFA program, areas of study include storytelling, directing, and the business of film.
The Los Angeles Film School
In the heart of Hollywood, the Los Angeles Film School offers undergraduate programs in Cinematography, Directing, Producing, Visual Effects, Audio Production, and Entertainment Business. Students here learn from working industry professionals and benefit from a regular guest speaker series featuring some of the biggest names in all aspects of the film business. Online programs include Digital Filmmaking and Entertainment Business.
At LMU, programs of study include Animation (BA), Film, Television, and Media Studies (BA), Film and Television Production (BA, MFA), Recording Arts (BA), Screenwriting (BA), Writing and Producing for Television (MFA), and Writing for the Screen (MFA). The school has intern program partnerships with over 400 area companies and regularly invites award-winning filmmakers to campus for inspiring and educational panels, screenings, and talks.
Faculty, students, and staff create over 5,000 films a year at NYU. Students receive a well-rounded undergraduate education in all aspects of filmmaking, whether they’re majoring in Acting & Directing, Animation, Cinematography, Documentary, History & Criticism, Post-production, Producing, Sound, Television, or Writing. Graduate level students focus intensely on writing/directing, with the option to pursue further education in concentrations in other areas of filmmaking.
Studio School
Studio School is a four-year entertainment college that was developed to help support and shape future entertainment professionals. Located at L.A. Center Studios, a working studio, we offer degrees in a wide range of entertainment mediums focusing on the creative and business aspects of the industry including film and digital content, acting, art and set design as well as the school’s renowned commercial dance program. Our core courses are rooted in project-oriented learning, dedicated to the craft of the entertainment industry and are designed to unleash the imagination by bringing creative ideas to fruition with hands-on, real-world experiences under the mentorship of industry professionals. We differentiate ourselves by our integration of entrepreneurship within the context of our programming; our career-focused curriculum which positions students for a successful post-graduate career path; the importance we place on collaboration within our school, with students and with industry and our philosophy that views every student across all disciplines as creators and storytellers. Studio School’s summer camps offer campers a similar experience to our year-round program. Campers will be able to utilize the studio working with live sets either behind-the-scenes or as performers and under the guidance of working professionals. Studio School is part of the fully integrated Studio Enterprise that includes Studio Institute Global and Studio Sidecar Productions. Studio School a branch campus of Hussian College.
University of California – Los Angeles
Students come from around the world to study filmmaking at UCLA. The award-winning faculty teaches undergraduate and graduate level coursework in Acting, Directing, Cinematography, Animation, Producing, and Screenwriting. UCLA hosts an annual film festival of student work and regular acting showcases. With deep roots in the Hollywood community, UCLA students benefit from unparalleled networking, educational, and collaborative opportunities.
One of the largest and most well-connected film schools in the country, USC’s Cinematic Arts Department features degree offerings in Animation & Digital Arts, Cinema & Media Studies, Film & Television Production, Media Arts & Practice, Producing, and Writing for Screen & Television. The faculty includes working professionals who have won Oscars, Emmys, Golden Globes, and NAACP Leadership Awards. The school is home to sound stages, screening rooms, and extensive production and post-production facilities.
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Schoolgirl, 13, is found dead at her home
Paige Brown
A middle school is mourning a pupil who was tragically found dead at her home on Friday evening.
The girl, said to be 13-years-old, was a student at Marston Vale Middle School in Stewartby.
Police were called to a home in Wilstead, Bedford
Police say there are no suspicious circumstances surrounding her death.
A police spokesman said: "We were called at around 8.20pm on Friday to reports of concern for the welfare of a child in Wilstead.
"Emergency services attended, but the child was pronounced dead at the scene."
The spokesman added: "The death is not being treated as suspicious and the file has been passed to the coroner.
The school is part of the Chiltern Learning Trust: A spokesman for the Trust told the T&C: “We were incredibly saddened that a young person from one of the schools in the Trust passed away over the weekend. All our thoughts are with the family and we have been in contact with them during this tragic time."
She added: "We have made sure that anyone at the school who has been affected by the news will have the necessary support available to them over the coming days.”
Governors at the middle school are holding a meeting this week about the tragedy and the way it is being dealt with by shocked staff and fellow pupils.
Chair of governors Jim Bryce said: The loss of a life at the age of 13 is tragic."
He added: "We are grateful to the support the school received from the Trust and external agencies to help the other children deal with it....The staff have been amazing - they have put the children first."
Bedfordshire police officer to appear at court accused of theft
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Quick Text
Brian Hartz
Tampa Bay Editor
Read more about Brian Hartz
If you've ever called a company's 1-800 number looking for some sort of assistance — and who among us hasn't? — and promptly been put on hold for what seems like an eternity, John Dalrymple feels your pain.
The founder of Tampa-based Mobex, Dalrymple has what he says is the perfect solution: a smartphone app called TextOurCompany.
Founded four years ago, Mobex provides intercom systems for office and residential buildings, as well as business phone systems. But its latest product, TextOurCompany, could be its biggest hit. TextOurCompany is in the early stages of deployment, Dalrymple says, with organizations such as the University of Tampa and the Pinellas County Democratic Party giving it a look.
But he says it's an idea whose time has come — one of those products you don't realize how much you need it until you hear about it.
“People aren't looking for [this technology] because they don't know it exists,” he says. He got the idea for TextOurCompany when he called a veterinarian's office to find out whether his Labrador retriever's medication was ready for pickup. Instead, he wound up being put on hold and passed back and forth between the receptionist and various staff members at the vet clinic.
“The whole thing probably took 10 to 15 minutes for a simple transaction,” he recalls.
The receptionist is in the middle of something, and is interrupted. That leads to series of “please holds” with no solution to the original question.
“And so it occurred to me that this really could be done via a text, or that it should be able to be done via text,” Dalrymple says. “The text transaction would've been very simple. Text them the question and then, if I get a response 15 minutes later, as a text, that the medicine is in, well, that's fine. And I've spent that 15 minutes doing other things.”
Dalrymple, 61, devised a plan to develop a web-based application that could make companies' business phone lines text-message compatible. Tampa-based Haneke Design did the behind-the-scenes work, coding and developing the app — which won first-place in technology at the 2017 New Venture Expo held in April at the University of Tampa.
Dalrymple has a patent application pending for TextOurCompany. Mobex, meanwhile, is rolling it out nationwide. “All you need is a computer with internet access and a business line,” Dalrymple says. “We text-enable the business line, but we don't change who your voice carrier is for the business line.”
TextOurCompany runs in a web browser and allows companies to set up multiple text message “identities” that can be tied to particular departments within the organization — billing, tech support, account inquiries, etc. When a customer submits a query, the business has the option of sending a scripted response or a personalized reply.
Customers pay a monthly fee for TextOurCompany that ranges from about $30 to $80, depending on how many text messages they think they'll need. There's no long-term contract, and Mobex offers a free 14-day trial run of the service.
Because the product is so new, Dalrymple declined to answer questions about revenue and usage. But he says TextOurCompany makes a big impact in the way it embraces rapid changes in how people prefer to communicate. For example, Dalrymple says the Pinellas County Democratic Party's volunteer outreach coordinator had stellar results after using TextOurCompany.
“He said, 'You know, I have been emailing these people. I've been calling these people. I have been Facebook messaging these people with very little response. But the minute I sent the text or within minutes of sending the text, I'm getting a tremendous amount of feedback,'” Dalrymple says.
TextOurCompany isn't a replacement for a business phone line, Dalrymple stresses. He says there will always be a need for voice calls. The app merely represents a chance for businesses and organizations to improve and enhance communications with customers and potential customers.
“The need is there, and people don't even know it,” Dalrymple says. “But hopefully, we'll get them to.”
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Trump Strikes Conciliatory Tone In Victory Speech
"Now it's time for America to bind the wounds of division."
By Salvador Hernandez
Salvador Hernandez BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on November 9, 2016, at 3:23 a.m. ET
Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
Donald Trump struck a conciliatory tone in his victory speech on Wednesday, calling for healing the divides ripped open during a raucous campaign.
"Now it's time for America to bind the wounds of division," Trump said, surrounded by his family and running mate Mike Pence. "Hillary has worked very long and very hard over a long period of time and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country."
Trump addressed a crowd of supporters, many of them waving red caps in the air, after what proved to be a surprising and overwhelming win.
As the night wore on, what seemed to be an unlikely path to the White House became a poll-defying victory that seemed to contradict practically every prediction for more than a year.
"This political stuff is nasty and it's tough," Trump said.
Though marred by a campaign in which he called Mexican immigrants rapists, proposed to ban all Muslims from entering the country, and repeatedly described inner cities as centers of violence, Trump promised to "be a president for all Americans."
It was a tone much different from that heard at rallies across the country that drew crowds of thousands.
"I say it is time for us to come together as one united people," Trump said. "For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, which there were a few people, I'm reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great country."
Noticeably missing from his victory speech were his regular calls to build a wall along the Mexico border and complaints about a rigged election system.
"I want to tell the world community that while we will always put America's interest first, we will deal fairly with everybody, everyone, all people and all other nations," he said.
Trump also thanked his surrogates and supporters for helping to propel a campaign that seemed to have caught most polls and experts by surprise at the end of a tough election.
"While the campaign is over, our work in this movement is only just the beginning," Trump said. "We're going to get to work immediately for the American people."
Watch his opening remarks here:
video-cdn.buzzfeed.com
Live Updates: Trump Wins Key Battleground States In Tight Race With Clinton
Salvador Hernandez is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Los Angeles.
Contact Salvador Hernandez at salvador.hernandez@buzzfeed.com.
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New York Police Fatally Shot A Black Man With A Mental Illness. He Was Holding A Metal Pipe.
After people called 911 reporting a man brandishing what looked like a gun, police said they believed the pipe Saheed Vassell was pointing at them was a firearm.
By Tasneem Nashrulla
Tasneem Nashrulla BuzzFeed News Reporter
Last updated on April 5, 2018, at 8:52 p.m. ET
Posted on April 5, 2018, at 10:01 a.m. ET
Saheed Vassell
New York City police said officers fatally shot a man with bipolar disorder who was carrying a pipe on a Brooklyn street corner on Wednesday after mistaking the metal rod for a gun, sparking peaceful demonstrations against the use of force.
The NYPD said they received three separate 911 calls describing a black man wearing a brown jacket and pointing "a silver firearm" at people on a Crown Heights street at 4:40 p.m. ET, NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan told reporters.
Surveillance video from buildings on the street showed a "man brandishing what appears to be a firearm — pointing it at people," Monahan said.
NYPD / youtube.com
Five officers — three in plainclothes and two in uniform — encountered the suspect at a street corner.
"The suspect then took a two-handed shooting stance and pointed an object at the approaching officers," Monahan said.
Four of the officers fired a total 10 rounds at the man, striking him.
He was transported to a local hospital, where he died.
The victim was identified as Saheed Vassell, a 34-year-old Brooklyn resident who had bipolar disorder, according to his family.
The "silver firearm" that police said they thought he was brandishing was a silver pipe with a knob at the end, authorities said.
New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman opened an investigation into Vassell's death on Thursday, his spokesperson, Amy Spitalnick, told BuzzFeed News.
"We’re committed to conducting an independent, comprehensive, and fair investigation," Spitalnick said.
The attorney general has the authority to oversee investigations into incidents where unarmed civilians die during interactions with police, or where there is significant question as to whether the civilian was armed and dangerous.
The NYPD released the 911 call transcripts and surveillance footage of Vassell's movements before the shooting.
"There's a guy walking around the street, he looks like he's crazy but he's pointing something at people that looks like a gun and he's like popping it as if like he's pulling the trigger," one caller said. Another caller told the 911 dispatcher that a man holding a gun in his hand was outside her store.
The victim's father, Eric Vassell, told the New York Times that his son had bipolar disorder and had been admitted to hospitals several times in recent years.
His family and neighbors said that he was a familiar figure on the street corner and was known to be mentally ill, even by local police.
Police told the Times that they had arrested Vassell before and had classified him as an "emotionally disturbed person."
Defending the officers' actions, Monahan said that the 911 calls they received on Wednesday were not for an "emotionally disturbed person."
"This was a call of a man pointing what 911 callers said they felt was a gun," Monahan said. "When we encounter him, he turns with what appears to be a gun at the officers."
None of the officers were wearing body cameras, according to Monahan.
"This is a tragedy because a man with a profound mental health problem was doing something that people perceived to be a threat to the safety of others," NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters on Thursday.
The mayor said that the 911 callers did not appear to mention that Vassell might have emotional distress or mental health problems.
He said that the NYPD officers who responded to the scene only knew that they "were dealing with a situation of someone armed who had been aiming that weapon."
Vassell's family have said that he was not on medication for his mental health problems.
"A man like this, if he had gotten the help he needed, hopefully would have never been in a situation where such a horrible and painful tragedy occurred," de Blasio said.
abc7ny.com
Eric Vassell
Eric Vassell told NY1 that his son didn't have access to his guns "because he's been sick for a long time." He described his son as a polite and kind man who just walked around the neighborhood.
"Police always have a choice," Eric Vassell told Eyewitness News. "They should not train them to kill. They should train them to protect life, to save life."
During a rally Thursday at the street corner where Vassell was killed, his mother, Lorna Brown-Vassell, called for justice, saying the officers had "no right to shoot him down the way they did."
"Saheed is no gunman," Lorna Brown-Vassell told the crowd.
"I want justice for Saheed,” she added, asking why the police couldn’t shoot him in the legs. “If he was paralyzed, I would take care of him.”
The fatal shooting happened less than three weeks after Sacramento police officers fatally shot an unarmed 22-year-old black man in his own backyard after he came at them with what they said they believed to be a weapon, but what turned out to be his cell phone. Stephon Clark was shot six times in the back and twice in his side, according to an autopsy commissioned by his family, triggering large national protests.
The fatal shooting of Vassell — who had a teenage son — took place on the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, and sparked anger among residents in the area who questioned why the police didn't restrain or taser him.
Several hundred people attended the rally Thursday before marching to the 71st precinct of the NYPD, where protesters chanted slogans against the department and called for the names of the officers involved in Vassell's death.
His family members also took part in a vigil organized by the National Action Network, the civil rights group founded by Rev. Al Sharpton.
Talal Ansari contributed additional reporting to this story.
Read the 911 call transcripts here:
Tasneem Nashrulla is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.
Contact Tasneem Nashrulla at tasneem.nashrulla@buzzfeed.com.
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The Journal of Laryngology & Otology
Assessment of deaf children: a ...
Freedman, David A. 1981. Speech, Language, and the Vocal-Auditory Connection. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, Vol. 36, Issue. 1, p. 105.
WALBY, A. P. and KERR, A. G. 1982. Streptomycin sulphate and deafness: a review of the literature. Clinical Otolaryngology, Vol. 7, Issue. 1, p. 63.
June 1973 , pp. 547-554
Assessment of deaf children: a 20-year appraisal
J. L. W. Wright (a1) and R. B. Bradshaw (a1)
Department of Otolaryngology, The Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 June 2007
COPYRIGHT: © JLO (1984) Limited 1973
Caplin, D. (1937) American Annals of the Deaf, 82, 234.
Dale, D. M. C. (1967) Deaf Children at Home and at School, University of London Press, London.
Gacek, R. (1971) Annals of Otology, Rhinology and Laryngology, 80, 289,
Galbraith, W. (1960) Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 53, 783.
Hall-Jones, J. (1970) Journal of Laryngology and Otology, 83, 1013.
Heider, F. K., and Heider, G. M. (1940) Psychological Monographs, 52, no. 232. 42.
Livingstone, G. (1961) Cerebral Palsy Bulletin, 3, 46.
Livingstone, G. (1962) Journal of Laryngology and Otology, 76, 469.
Livingstone, G. (1964) Practitioner, 192, 461.
Whetnall, E., and Fry, D. B. (1964) The Deaf Child. Heinemann, London.
URL: /core/journals/journal-of-laryngology-and-otology
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BIOGRAPHIES ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY: FEBRUARY 12
Go to Today's Date
170 Biographies
See Featured Events On This Day
president of United States
February 12, 1809 - April 15, 1865
Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States (1861–65), who preserved the Union during the American Civil War and brought about the emancipation of the slaves. (For a discussion of the history…
British naturalist
Charles Darwin, English naturalist whose scientific theory of evolution by natural selection became the foundation of modern evolutionary studies. An affable country gentleman, Darwin at first shocked…
Died On
German philosopher
April 22, 1724 - February 12, 1804
Immanuel Kant, German philosopher whose comprehensive and systematic work in epistemology (the theory of knowledge), ethics, and aesthetics greatly influenced all subsequent philosophy, especially the…
American politician and socialite
Alice Roosevelt Longworth, American socialite and daughter of U.S. Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, who was known for her wit and her political influence. At the time of Alice Roosevelt’s birth, her father was…
American basketball player
Bill Russell, American basketball player who was the first outstanding defensive centre in the history of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and one of the sport’s greatest icons. He won 11 NBA…
American cartoonist
November 26, 1922 - February 12, 2000
Charles Schulz, American cartoonist who created Peanuts, one of the most successful American comic strips of the mid-20th century. Schulz, the son of a barber, studied cartooning in an art correspondence…
Lady Jane Grey
October 1537 - February 12, 1554
Lady Jane Grey, titular queen of England for nine days in 1553. Beautiful and intelligent, she reluctantly allowed herself at age 15 to be put on the throne by unscrupulous politicians; her subsequent…
American computer scientist and futurist
Ray Kurzweil, American computer scientist and futurist who pioneered pattern-recognition technology and proselytized the inevitability of humanity’s merger with the technology it created. Kurzweil was…
Omar Nelson Bradley
United States general
February 12, 1893 - April 8, 1981
Omar Nelson Bradley, U.S. Army officer who commanded the Twelfth Army Group, which helped ensure the Allied victory over Germany during World War II; later he served as first chairman of the U.S. Joint…
Francis II
Holy Roman emperor
Francis II, the last Holy Roman emperor (1792–1806) and, as Francis I, emperor of Austria (1804–35); he was also, as Francis, king of Hungary (1792–1830) and king of Bohemia (1792–1836). He supported the…
Tom Landry
American football coach
Tom Landry, American professional gridiron football coach, notably with the National Football League (NFL) Dallas Cowboys from 1960 to 1989. He molded the Cowboys into a dominant team from the late 1960s…
American musician
February 12, 1939 - May 20, 2013
Ray Manzarek, (Raymond Daniel Manczarek, Jr.), American musician and songwriter (born Feb. 12, 1939, Chicago, Ill.—died May 20, 2013, Rosenheim, Ger.), was the cofounder (1965, together with singer-songwriter…
Russian ballerina
Anna Pavlova, Russian ballerina, the most-celebrated dancer of her time. Pavlova studied at the Imperial School of Ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre from 1891, joined the Imperial Ballet in 1899, and became…
Cotton Mather
American religious leader
Cotton Mather, American Congregational minister and author, supporter of the old order of the ruling clergy, who became the most celebrated of all New England Puritans. He combined a mystical strain (he…
American lawyer and politician
February 12, 1930 - October 14, 2012
Arlen Specter, American lawyer and politician who was a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania (1981–2011). Originally a Democrat, he became a Republican in the 1960s before switching back to the Democratic Party…
United States soldier
January 21, 1738 - February 12, 1789
Ethan Allen, soldier and frontiersman, leader of the Green Mountain Boys during the American Revolution. After fighting in the French and Indian War (1754–63), Allen settled in what is now Vermont. At…
American social psychologist
September 9, 1890 - February 12, 1947
Kurt Lewin, German-born American social psychologist known for his field theory of behaviour, which holds that human behaviour is a function of an individual’s psychological environment. Lewin studied…
American comedian
Sid Caesar, American comedian who pioneered the television variety show format with the programs Your Show of Shows (1950–54) and Caesar’s Hour (1954–57). Caesar was the son of European immigrants. He…
Grant Wood
American artist
Grant Wood, American painter who was one of the major exponents of Midwestern Regionalism, a movement that flourished in the United States during the 1930s. Wood was trained as a craftsman and designer…
French director
Jean Renoir, French film director, son of the Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir. His films, in both silent and later eras, were noted for their realism and strong narrative and include such classics…
prime minister of Israel
Ehud Barak, Israeli general and politician who was prime minister of Israel from 1999 to 2001. Barak was born in a kibbutz that had been founded by his father, an emigrant from Lithuania, in 1932. Barak…
American author
Judy Blume, American author known for creating juvenile fiction that featured people and situations identifiable to young readers. While her frankness, first-person narratives, and ability to portray the…
French chef
October 28, 1846 - February 12, 1935
Auguste Escoffier, French culinary artist, known as “the king of chefs and the chef of kings,” who earned a worldwide reputation as director of the kitchens at the Savoy Hotel (1890–99) and afterward at…
Lillie Langtry, British beauty and actress, known as the Jersey Lily. She was the daughter of the dean of Jersey. In 1874 she married Edward Langtry, who died in 1897, and in 1899 she married Hugo de Bathe,…
Lou Andreas-Salomé
German writer
February 12, 1861 - February 5, 1937
Lou Andreas-Salomé, Russian-German writer remembered for her friendships with the great men of her day. Salomé was the daughter of a Russian army officer of French Huguenot descent. She studied theology…
Italian director and producer
Franco Zeffirelli, Italian director, designer, and producer of opera, theatre, motion pictures, and television, particularly noted for the authentic details and grand scale of his opera productions and…
Argentine author
August 26, 1914 - February 12, 1984
Julio Cortázar, Argentine novelist and short-story writer who combined existential questioning with experimental writing techniques in his works. Cortázar was the son of Argentine parents and was educated…
Irish actor
July 11, 1929 - February 12, 2012
David Kelly, Irish actor (born July 11, 1929, Dublin, Ire.—died Feb. 12, 2012, Dublin), was a reliable character actor for more than 50 years on the Dublin stage, in movies, and on television programs,…
American artist and critic
Donald Judd, American artist and critic associated with Minimalism. Credited as Minimalism’s principal spokesman, Judd wrote what is considered to be one of the most significant texts of the movement,…
Stanisław II August Poniatowski
king of Poland
Stanisław II August Poniatowski, last king of an independent Poland (1764–95). He was unable to act effectively while Russia, Austria, and Prussia dismembered his nation. He was born the sixth child of…
Fanny Crosby
American hymn writer
March 24, 1820 - February 12, 1915
Fanny Crosby, American writer of hymns, the best known of which was “Safe in the Arms of Jesus.” Crosby lost her sight to an eye infection and medical ignorance at the age of six weeks. She nonetheless…
Austrian writer
February 9, 1931 or February 10, 1931 - February 12, 1989
Thomas Bernhard, Austrian writer who explored death, social injustice, and human misery in controversial literature that was deeply pessimistic about modern civilization in general and Austrian culture…
Soviet director
Dziga Vertov, Soviet motion-picture director whose kino-glaz (“film-eye”) theory—that the camera is an instrument, much like the human eye, that is best used to explore the actual happenings of real life—had…
Louis Buchalter
American crime boss
Louis Buchalter, American crime syndicate boss and founder of the murder-for-hire organization popularly known as Murder, Inc. Born on New York’s Lower East Side, Buchalter derived his nickname from “Lepkeleh”…
Friedrich Schleiermacher
German theologian
Friedrich Schleiermacher, German theologian, preacher, and classical philologist, generally recognized as the founder of modern Protestant theology. His major work, Der christliche Glaube (1821–22; 2nd…
Vasily Chuikov
Soviet general
February 12, 1900 - March 18, 1982
Vasily Chuikov, Soviet general (and later marshal) who in World War II commanded the defense at the Battle of Stalingrad, joined in turning Adolf Hitler’s armies back, and led the Soviet drive to Berlin.…
Costa-Gavras
Costa-Gavras, Greek-born naturalized French motion-picture director noted for films that have been both political arguments and entertainments (usually as mysteries or thrillers). The son of a Russian-born…
German painter
Max Beckmann, German Expressionist painter and printmaker whose works are notable for the boldness and power of their symbolic commentary on the tragic events of the 20th century. Beckmann was trained…
mayor of New York City
Robert F. Wagner, American Democratic Party politician and mayor of New York City (1954–65). Wagner was named for his father, a U.S. senator and sponsor of the Social Security Act. After an education at…
Adolf Frederick
king of Sweden
Adolf Frederick, king of Sweden from 1751 to 1771. He was the son of Christian Augustus (1673–1726), Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, and of Albertina Frederica of Baden-Durlach. While Adolf Frederick…
Louisa Adams
American first lady
Louisa Adams, American first lady (1825–29), the wife of John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States. Louisa Johnson was born to Joshua Johnson, an American businessman from Maryland, and an…
Julian Seymour Schwinger
American physicist
February 12, 1918 - July 16, 1994
Julian Seymour Schwinger, American physicist and joint winner, with Richard P. Feynman and Tomonaga Shin’ichirō, of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1965 for introducing new ideas and methods into quantum…
Imad Mugniyah
Lebanese militant
1962 - February 12, 2008
Imad Mugniyah, Lebanese militant who served as a senior official in the Lebanese militia group Hezbollah. He was believed to have orchestrated a campaign of suicide bombings, hijackings, and kidnappings…
French photographer
February 12, 1857 - August 4, 1927
Eugène Atget, French commercial photographer who specialized in photographing the architecture and associated arts of Paris and its environs at the turn of the 20th century. Very few biographical facts…
American businessman
J.C. Penney, merchant who established one of the largest chains of department stores in the United States. Penney’s first job was clerking in a general store for a salary of $2.27 per month. For medical…
American inventor and manufacturer
Peter Cooper, American inventor, manufacturer, and philanthropist who built the “Tom Thumb” locomotive and founded The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York City. Son of a Revolutionary…
French painter
Charles Le Brun, painter and designer who became the arbiter of artistic production in France during the last half of the 17th century. Possessing both technical facility and the capacity to organize and…
American labour leader
John L. Lewis, American labour leader who was president of the United Mine Workers of America (1920–60) and chief founder and first president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO; 1936–40).…
American painter
Joan Mitchell, American painter known for her large abstract paintings made with colourful gestural brushstrokes. Joan Mitchell was the daughter of poet Marion Strobel and physician James Herbert Mitchell…
Richard Dedekind
German mathematician
October 6, 1831 - February 12, 1916
Richard Dedekind, German mathematician who developed a major redefinition of irrational numbers in terms of arithmetic concepts. Although not fully recognized in his lifetime, his treatment of the ideas…
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The Saudi Spy Who Saved Chicago
Bruce Riedel Monday, January 3, 2011
Al-Qaeda had a simple but deadly plan for the eve of the 2010 American elections. Two parcel bombs would explode in the cargo holds of two cargo aircraft descending into Chicago on the eve of the elections, demonstrating the terror group could still disrupt the international airline business and strike the American homeland in what al-Qaeda called “Obama’s city.” What al-Qaeda did not count on was a defector, a Saudi, who revealed the details of the plot to the Saudi intelligence services, who in turn passed the information to the Americans and other countries so the bombs could be stopped in England and Dubai before getting into the United States.
Now the Saudis have aired the confession of the “al-Qaeda commander who came in from the cold,” as one Arabic paper described him, on Saudi television. Jabir Jubran al-Fayfi was a senior commander in al-Qaeda’s Yemen based franchise, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Pennisula (AQAP) until October 2010 when he approached the Saudi intelligence services and offered to provide inside information on the terrorists’ plans. He revealed the details behind the parcel-post bombs and more. He gave the Saudis information about another AQAP plot to attack targets in France using a cell of North Africans. The French arrested the cell before it could attack. Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux confirmed publicly the Saudi tipoff and told French TV that the AQAP threat in France is “real and active.”
So who is the Saudi informer? Jabir al-Fayfi was born in 1975 in Taif. A disgruntled prison guard in Jidda, he went to Afghanistan in 2000 to join the Taliban and train for jihad like many other young Saudis at the time. He hoped to gain battlefield experience and then go to Chechnya to fight the Russians. When the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan collapsed after the American invasion post-9/11, al-Fayfi fought with the Talban, then fled to Pakistan with other Arab fighters and was arrested by the Pakistani army. They in turn handed him over to the United States and he was sent to Guantanamo for five years.
Read the full article at nationalinterest.org »
Kings and Presidents
By Bruce Riedel
Financing the 2016 Election
Edited by David B. Magleby
The European Union and North Africa
Edited by Adel Abdel Ghafar
Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, Center for Middle East Policy
Director - The Intelligence Project
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Prince Harry’s Surprising Advice to Meghan Markle Amid Royal Feud With Kate Middleton
Dirk Winifred
Fans have long noticed that Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton do not seem to be on the best of terms. As such, reports of the two duchesses feuding with one another always seem to pop up in tabloid magazines and websites.
Recently, it was also revealed that Prince Harry has given his wife some advice concerning her poor relationship with the Duchess of Cambridge. So what exactly did Prince Harry say and will Markle follow his suggestion? Read on below to find out.
Why are Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton allegedly feuding?
Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle | Samir Hussein/WireImage
It’s hard to know exactly where the alleged feud between Markle and Middleton came from, but many royal followers believe that it could stem from the fact that they are quite different from one another.
For example, Markle is very bubbly and outgoing. Having been an actress in Hollywood, she understands how important the press was and often would not shy away from being photographed. Meanwhile, Middleton has always been more reserved and would actively try to avoid the cameras when living her daily life.
Their different backgrounds and personalities have led to a few reports of heated confrontations between the two ladies. Most notably, there are rumors of Markle making Middleton cry during Markle’s wedding last year as well as during baby Archie’s christening not long ago. Likewise, it has been said that Middleton also threw some harsh words out there when she criticized Markle for talking to the former’s staff members in a certain manner.
Not only do Markle and Middleton have feuding rumors between them, but their husbands allegedly are drifting apart as well. Some people believe that this is why Markle and Prince Harry moved out of Kensington Palace, set up their own communications office, and left the joint charity that Prince Harry started with his brother.
What advice did Prince Harry give Meghan Markle amid all the drama?
TRH The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are excited to announce that they have been asked to carry out a tour to Southern Africa this autumn. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office have requested a visit to South Africa as well as The Duke carrying out visits to Malawi and Angola . His Royal Highness will also do a short working visit to Botswana en route to the other countries. The Duke and Duchess are really looking forward to meeting so many of you on the ground and continuing to raise awareness of the high impact work local communities are doing across the Commonwealth and beyond. This will be their first official tour as a family!
A post shared by The Duke and Duchess of Sussex (@sussexroyal) on Jun 27, 2019 at 8:14am PDT
Prince Harry seems to be siding with Markle in these feuds, but it also looks like he wants her to be cautious with how she is handling everything. A source told Us Weekly that Prince Harry supports her in what she wants to do, such as trying to change some royal norms, but he also “recommends that she move with ease.”
The royal insider also shared: “It’s hard for Meghan in London because the press is so vicious to her there. This is her life. But her mentality is like, ‘Well, if this is what it’s going to be like, I’m going to do what I want to do. I won’t play by these rules.'”
Is Meghan Markle having trouble fitting in with the royals?
The Duchess of Cornwall, The Duchess of Cambridge and The Duke and Duchess of Sussex travel along the Mall to Trooping the Colour, The Queen's Birthday Parade. Trooping the Colour has marked the official birthday of the British Sovereign for over 260 years. Regimental flags of the @BritishArmy were historically described as ‘Colours’ because they displayed the uniform Colours and insignia worn by the soldiers of different units. The name ‘Colour’ continues to be used to this day. The principal role of a regiment’s Colours was to provide a rallying point on the battlefield. This was important because, without modern communications, it was all too easy for troops to become disoriented and separated from their unit during conflict. If Troops were to know what their Regiment’s Colours looked like, it was necessary to display them regularly. The way in which this was done was for young officers to march in between the ranks of troops formed up in lines with the Colours held high. This is the origin of the word ‘trooping’. So, what today is a great tradition began life as a vital and practical parade designed to aid unit recognition before a battle commenced. PA @TheRoyalFamily #TroopingtheColour #HorseGuardsParade #QBP2019
Markle’s feud with Middleton aside, it looks to many that the Duchess of Sussex is not having such a great time in the royal family.
Of course, this is to be expected when one moves to another country and lives among a completely new group of people. However, sources have shared that Markle’s headstrong personality isn’t helping her case as she often clashes with staff members and other folks who should be on her side.
There have been reports that her political views also does not sit well with people around Prince Harry. “She is ultra-liberal, and that trendy-lefty stuff does not go down well with some of Harry’s friends,” writer Lady Colin Campbell shared. “He has introduced her to them all at parties and weddings and private dinners, but she is very anti- a lot of the things that their world functions upon, such as shooting.”
The lack of a support system, constant media attention, and high expectations everywhere might be the reasons why fans believe that Markle is actually unhappy with royal life. It’s not clear how things will play out for Markle in the coming years, but one can only hope that this is merely a phase that will soon pass.
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Chelsea Defender: "This could definitely be the toughest Premier League ever!"
We are a week away from the start of the new Premier League season and according to Bransilav Ivanovic, it's going to be the toughes...
Latest, Premier League
https://www.chelseadaft.org/2016/08/chelsea-defender-this-could-definitely.html
We are a week away from the start of the new Premier League season and according to Bransilav Ivanovic, it's going to be the toughest Premier League ever!
New big name signings, new big name Managers looking to take to the challenge for the first time and everyone with more money, looking to strengthen their squads, it's arguably the most exciting season ever on paper. Will it live up to expectations? Only time will tell but as far as Bransilav Ivanovic is concerned, the Chelsea players will be doing everything they can this year to put things right after a nightmare title defence last term.
“I think at the moment it is very dangerous to say anything about the future because we know how difficult the league is.
We have promised to ourselves to give everything in every game with this passion and style we can improve and we will improve. How far can we go? I think we have to go step by step.
This could definitely be the toughest Premier League ever. Every team is strengthening and every team, after last season when Leicester won, want to be better and be the new surprise.
Of course, the big teams want to be good again. So it’s going to be very exciting.
So we just have to go step by step and game by game and every game will be a different story for us.
If all our squad is on top of our performances we can go very high.
This is a new season and not everything can work perfect in the beginning, but the passion you see during the games you also see it in the training sessions as well.
The manager wants to put us together as a team to be strong, to be motivated and hungry for every second during the game, which is positive and good.
I think we are still adapting and we can improve as a team a lot.
I think we are going to play in a different shape and it is going to be different for us and for the opponents, and we will see. I hope we are on the good road.”
Ivanovic is right, it is going to be the hardest, toughest Premier League ever but I still believe that Chelsea will bounce back this year. The new Manager has made an impact already and if a couple of months down the line we click into exactly what he wants, we could become a hard team to beat and hopefully a team that scores plenty of goals.
Right now, it can go either way and I really believe that no-one has an out-and-out favourite to win the League this year. You'd be better off heading to the Sunbets Promotion Code to spend your money rather than try to predict what is going to happen.
Chelsea have made excellent signings and now look like keeping hold of Diego Costa which is an added bonus. I really believe that we will finish well inside the top four but to challenge for the title? I am not so sure.
What do you think and do you agree that this year will be the toughest EVER?
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Ilitches to give Wayne State $40 million for new business school near Red Wings arena site
Bill Shea/Crain's Detroit Business
The model for the new Red Wings arena and surrounding area shows where the new Wayne State University business school will be built: directly north (or to the right and down in this photo) at the southwest corner of Woodward Avenue and Temple Street.
Detroit's Ilitch family plans to donate money and land totaling $40 million for a new business school building for Wayne State University, the largest donation in the school’s history, sources familiar with the situation told Crain's late Tuesday.
The Detroit Free Press first reported the development late Tuesday.
The university’s board of governors is expected to hold a special meeting Friday to approve plans for the school, sources told Crain’s on the condition of anonymity.
The plan calls for construction of a single 120,000-square-foot multistory building of classrooms, offices and other spaces for the business school at the southwest corner of Woodward Avenue and Temple Street.
It will be built on land the Ilitches have acquired for their District Detroit mixed-use development around the $532.5 million arena being built for the Ilitch-owned Detroit Red Wings. The Ilitches will retain ownership of the land, and lease it to the business school for a nominal fee such as a $1-a-year arrangement, Crain's was told.
The school, expected to open sometime in 2018, would be renamed the Mike Ilitch School of Business, Crain's was told. The donation would include $35 million to build the school plus a $5 million endowment.
The arena is scheduled to open in fall 2017.
Doug Kuiper, vice president of corporate communications for Ilitch Holdings Inc., declined to comment but said a statement likely will come soon.
It could come from Mike and Marian, or it could come from Ilitch Holdings President and CEO Christoper Ilitch, a son of Mike and Marian Ilitch who isresponsible for the day-to-day operations of the family's business portfolio anchored by the Little Caesars pizza chain, the hockey team and the Detroit Tigers. Ilitch Holdings reported $3.3 billion in 2014 revenue.
Wayne State Director of Communications Matthew Lockwood said the university could not comment on the report but it planned a special event Friday.
The arena is the centerpiece of a 45-block mixed-used urban revitalization plan called the District Detroit that includes $200 million in additional new housing, offices, retail and bar/restaurant space. A garage and hotel also are planned, along with a new headquarters building for Little Caesars adjacent to the Ilitch business headquarters inside the Fox Theatre.
The effort to create five neighborhoods around the arena will happen concurrently with construction of the arena, Olympia has said, and is privately funded.
Wayne State went public with a $750 million capital campaign last year, of which the Ilitch donation would be a part.
In July 2014, Mike and Marian Ilitch donated $8.5 million to WSU's Department of Surgery at the School of Medicine to create the Ilitch Chair for Surgical Innovation and establish an unrestricted fund to support research and development in surgical technologies.
The Ilitches were also donors to the nearby M-1 Rail project, which is set to have a station near the arena.
It wasn't immediately clear what WSU will do with the buildings the business school currently uses, the Meyer and Anna Prentis Building and neighboring Helen L. DeRoy Auditorium. Both opened in 1964.
Wayne State business school Dean Robert Forsythe told Crain's in January that the school was exploring a move downtown.
The business school, which began in 1946, has about 2,400 undergraduate students and 850 graduate students served by 85 faculty, according to university data.
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Razing a building to raise new WSU business school downtown
Groundbreaking set for Wayne State's Mike Ilitch School of Business
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Chris Froome wins 2018 Giro d’Italia after GC is neutralised on final day; Sam Bennett wins stage
Sam Bennett wins the final stage of the Giro d'Italia as GC is neutralised
Henry Robertshaw May 27, 2018 6:31 pm
Pink jersey Britain's rider of team Sky Christopher Froome (3rdL) crosses with teammates the finish line of the 21st and last stage of the 101st Giro d'Italia, Tour of Italy cycling race, on May 27, 2018 in Rome. - Britain's Chris Froome completed a sensational comeback to win the Giro d'Italia on Sunday for a rare Grand Tour treble after the 21st and final stage in Rome. Froome, 33, became the first Briton to win the race in the Giro's 101-year history after the 115km closed circuit race through the streets of the Italian capital. (Photo by LUK BENIES / AFP) (Photo credit should read LUK BENIES/AFP/Getty Images) Credit: LUK BENIES/AFP/Getty Images
Chris Froome (Team Sky) has won the 2018 Giro d’Italia after finishing safely on the final stage in Rome, which was won by Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe after being neutralised for the general classification after just three of 10 laps due to riders’ concerns about the course.
Already with four Tours de France and one Vuelta a España to his name, Froome is the first British rider to win the Giro d’Italia. He also becomes just second active rider to have won all three Grand Tours and just the third rider, after Eddy Merckx and Bernard Hinault, to hold all three Grand Tour titles at the same time.
>>> Five talking points from stage 21 of the Giro d’Italia
With the time gaps being taken after just three laps of the city centre circuit, Froome’s victory was confirmed early in the day, but there was still a lot to play for for the sprinters.
In the end it was Sam Bennett who took victory on the final stage, coming off the wheel of Elia Viviani (Quick-Step Floors in the final 200m to take his third stage win of the race.
Sam Bennett wins stage 21 of the 2018 Giro d’Italia (Credit: LUK BENIES/AFP/Getty Images)
The final stage of the Giro d’Italia saw the riders take on 10 laps of a circuit around the centre of Rome and unsurprisingly there was little action in the early stages after three tough weeks of racing.
In fact the early stages were dominated with intense discussions between riders and commissaires with Elia Viviani and Chris Froome dropping back to the cars to talk to race organisers as they were seemingly unhappy with the safety of the course, in particular the road surface.
As riders promenaded around the circuit, Froome agreed with the commissaires that the time for the stage would be taken after just three laps, meaning that the general classification contenders would not be forced to vie for position with the sprinters in the final kilometres.
When racing finally got underway with 78km to go it was no surprise to see Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) and Mads Würtz Schmidt (Katusha-Alpecin), representing two teams yet to get a stage win in this year’s Giro, go off the front.
With Chris Froome’s victory already confirmed, Team Sky were understandably not going to chase anything down, which allowed a large number of other riders to escape before Quick-Step Floors got their act together and started to control the race.
However before they were able to do that 16 riders joined Schmidt and Lutsenko at the front. They were Nico Denz (Ag2r La Mondiale), Davide Ballerini (Androni-Sidermec), Manuele Boaro (Bahrain-Merida), Francisco Ventoso (BMC Racing), Andreas Schillinger (Bora-Hansgrohe), Krists Neilands (Israel Cycling Academy), Christoper Juul Jensen (Mitchelton-Scott), Florian Senechal (Quick-Step Floors), Ben King (Dimension Data) Viacheslax Kutnesov (Katusha-Alpecin), Gijs Van Hoecke and Bert-Jan Lindeman (LottoNL-Jumbo), Laurent Didier (Trek-Segafredo), Marco Marcato (UAE Team Emirates), and Giuseppe Fonzi and Eugert Zhupa (Wilier Triestina-Selle Italia).
That group remained together until Krists Neilands attacked with 58km to go which kicked off a flurry of further attacks to trim the group down as Quick-Step Floors and EF Education First-Drapac chased in the peloton.
Eventually Juul Jensen and Kuznetsov were able to extricate themselves from the break but were never allowed to get more than 30 seconds ahead of the peloton.
With such a slender gap the break was never going to succeed, and Juul Jensen and Kuznetsov were duly caught with 12km remaining having spent a number of the previous kilometres locked in Quick-Step’s view just a few seconds off the front.
From there Quick-Step would have hoped for a simple lead-out, but Ryan Mullen (Trek-Segafredo) thwarted that with a big attack with 10km to go that quickly opened a gap. The good news for Quick-Step was that Florian Sénéchal was one of the riders to follow Mullen, with Tony Martin (Katusha-Alpecin) and sprinter Danny Van Poppel (LottoNL-Jumbo) also following to form a powerful foursome out front.
Although he wasn’t contributing to the pace-setting, Sénéchal’s presence in the break meant that it was up to Bora-Hansgrohe to do the chasing, while Mattia Cattaneo (Androni-Sidermec) put in a gargantuan effort to bridge across.
The bad news for Cattaneo was that the gap to the leaders was only seven seconds with five kilometres to go as Bora-Hansgrohe slowly but surely pulled the move back, but with Quick-Step Floors and Viviani positioned further back in the group.
Watch: Giro d’Italia stage 21 highlights
The junction was made with just under four kilometres to go and from there the pace got even higher as Manuele Boaro (Bahrain-Merida) hit the front hard before Quick-Step Floors moved to the front with 1.5km to go.
Zdenek Stybar led the peloton into the final kilometre, but as he swung off Bahrain-Merida hit the front in an attempt to set up Niccolo Bonifazio.
Bonifazio looked to be getting into the perfect position but was barged off the wheel of Viviani by Bennett who, after making mistakes with positioning in previous stages, was determined to get himself into the perfect position.
Viviani was the first to open his sprint on the cobbles with 200m to go, but had Bennett accelerating from behind. And the Irishman duly came around his Italian rival to take his third stage win of the race as Viviani sat up and was forced to settle for second.
More than 16 minutes after Bennett had won the stage, Chris Froome crossed the line alongside his six remaining team-mates, riding in formation across the finish to confirm his victory in the 2018 Giro d’Italia.
Giro d’Italia 2018, stage 21: Rome to Rome, 115km
1. Sam Bennett (Irl) Bora-Hansgrohe, in 2-50-49
2 Elia Viviani (Ita) Quick-Step Floors
3 Jean-Pierre Drucker (Lux) BMC Racing
4 Baptiste Planckaert (Bel) Katusha-Alpecin
5 Manuel Belletti (Ita) Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec
6 Sacha Modolo (Ita) EF Education First-Drapac
7 Niccolo Bonifazio (Ita) Bahrain-Merida
8 Clement Venturini (Fra) Ag2r La Mondiale
9 Paolo Simion (Ita) Bardiani CSF
10 Fabio Sabatini (Ita) Quick-Step Floors, all at same time
Final general classification
1. Chris Froome (GBr) Team Sky
2. Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Team Sunweb, at 46s
3. Miguel Angel Lopez (Col) Astana, at 4-57
4. Richard Carapaz (Ecu) Movistar, at 5-44
5. Domenico Pozzovivo (Ita) Bahrain-Merida, at 8-03
6. Pello Bilboa (Esp) Astana, at 11-50
7. Patrick Konrad (Aut) Bora-Hansgrohe, at 13-01
8. George Bennett (NZl) LottoNL-Jumbo, at 13-17
9. Sam Oomen (Ned) Team Sunweb, at 14-18
10. Davide Formolo (Ita) Bora-Hansgrohe, at 15-16
La Planche des Belles Filles: Taking on the Tour’s brutal summit finish
Under 6kg of disc brake bike
New Canyon Ultimate CF Evo Disc weighs in at under 6kg
Katusha-Alpecin finish the stage two team time trial of the 2019 Tour de France (Sunada)
Katusha-Alpecin boss denies rumours that team will fold
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Make Contribution to country’s development: PM
Published: 12:44 PM, 26 February 2019 Updated: 05:12 PM, 26 February 2019
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday urged the Bangladeshi engineers living abroad to make contribution to the ongoing development of country as the ‘son of the soil’.
The Prime Minister said this while inaugurating first NRB Engineer’s Convention at Hotel Sonargaon in the capital this morning.
“Non-resident Bangladeshi (NRB) engineers can play immense role in development of ICT sector, agricultural and industrial production, communication and sea resources extraction,” she said.
The prime minister said NRB engineers can play role in overcoming the policy and institutional levels challenges to expedite the country’s ongoing development.
“Though now you are living abroad but you came from any village of Bangladesh, which is the focal point of all our development. So, I will request you to find your root and particularly think of your own village development,” the premier said.
The prime minister said Bangladesh is moving forward and as an independent country, it’s a great fortune for us to take forward the country as dreamt by the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in a planned manner.
The prime minister said her government has focused on identifying an area for its specific development as well as the requisites to make the country developed in overall aspects. “Pragmatic plans helped Bangladesh to emerge as the 41st largest economy of the world and fifth fast growing nation,” she added.
Sheikh Hasina said her government has concentrated on its efforts to elevate the country’s growth to double digit in future and further reduce the poverty rate.
“Country’s poverty rate dropped to 21 percent from 40 percent over the last ten years and it has already declined further which would come to light after the census,” the prime minister said, adding that social safety net programs and “one-house one-farm” project are playing a big role in poverty reduction.
Sheikh Hasina said the government has taken steps for augmentation of food production through conservation of agricultural lands and application of modern technologies.
Economic Resources Division (ERD), Bridge to Bangladesh and A2I (Access to information in Bangladesh) jointly organized the two-day convention aimed at discussing the country’s development issues and finding ways to support to the government at policy making and institutional levels.
Bangladesh origin engineers living in around 30 different countries are attending the conference to discuss various development issues and creating a professional communication between the NRB engineers and different engineering and technical field levels people in the public and private sectors in Bangladesh.
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Senate confirms Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs
As assistant secretary, Tara Sweeney will oversee several agencies, including the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Indian Education
Senate confirms Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs As assistant secretary, Tara Sweeney will oversee several agencies, including the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Indian Education Check out this story on Daily-Times.com: http://www.daily-times.com/story/news/local/navajo-nation/2018/07/04/senate-confirms-assistant-secretary-indian-affairs/756550002/
Noel Lyn Smith, Farmington Daily Times Published 6:00 a.m. MT July 4, 2018
Navajo Nation(Photo: Daily Times stock image)
FARMINGTON — Alaska resident Tara Sweeney has been confirmed to serve as the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior.
The confirmation, the first time an Alaska Native was selected, received approval by the U.S. Senate on June 28.
Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye commended Sweeney's confirmation on Tuesday.
As assistant secretary, Sweeney will oversee several offices and agencies, including the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Indian Education, while maintaining the government-to-government relationship between the United States and tribes.
Sweeney is a member of the Native Village of Barrow and the Iñupiat Community of the Arctic Slope.
Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., is chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, which voted on June 6 in favor of the nomination.
He said in a statement the Senate's action to confirm Sweeney was "an important step" in assuring Indian Country has a strong leader and advocate at the department.
"Ms. Sweeney will be a powerful voice for Indian nations as she supports Secretary (Ryan) Zinke in upholding tribal sovereignty, promoting Native American self-determination and carrying out the federal government's trust responsibility to Indian tribes and Indians," Hoeven said.
Begaye welcomes appointment
"The sovereignty of tribal nations must be respected by those individuals at the highest level of government," President Begaye said in a release from his office.
"I look forward to working with Tara Sweeney and am confident in her ability to help empower the Navajo Nation, as well as all Native American and Alaskan Native tribes throughout the country," he said.
The release mentioned Begaye continues to oppose the proposal to reorganize the BIA.
The proposal is part of an executive order signed in March 2017 by President Trump for federal agencies to examine ways it could reorganize to improve efficiency, effectiveness and accountability.
Under the proposal, the Navajo Regional Office would be eliminated and the reservation would be reassigned to the Upper Colorado Basin and Lower Colorado Basin regions.
Begaye expressed his opinion about the proposal with federal officials during a consultation session with tribes on June 25 in Albuquerque.
Sweeney comes to the assistant secretary position after working as the executive vice president of external affairs for the Arctic Slope Regional Corp. in Barrow, Alaska.
She was nominated last October by President Trump.
Noel Lyn Smith covers the Navajo Nation for The Daily Times. She can be reached at 505-564-4636 or by email at nsmith@daily-times.com.
Read or Share this story: http://www.daily-times.com/story/news/local/navajo-nation/2018/07/04/senate-confirms-assistant-secretary-indian-affairs/756550002/
Motorcycle rider killed in vehicle collision
Jail guard injured in alleged fight with inmate
ATF posts $5,000 reward in LDS Church blaze
County nominates Shannon Pinto for Senate seat
Navajo Nation Council delegate resigns
Man accused of striking dog with a machete
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Category: Production and manufacturing
Another trillion tonnes: 250 years of global material use data
Global materials use, 1850-2100
Want to understand your society and economy and the fate of petro-industrial civilization? If so, don’t “follow the money.” The stock market casino, quantitative easing, derivatives and other “financial innovations,” and the trillions of e-dollars that flit through the global monetary system each day obscure the real economy—the production and destruction of actual wealth: mining, farming, processing, transport, manufacturing, consumption, disposal. To understand where we are and where we may be going, we must follow more tangible flows—things that are real. We must follow the oil, coal, steel, concrete, grain, copper, fertilizers, salt, gravel, and other materials.
Our cars, homes, phones, foods, fuels, clothes, and all the other products we consume or aspire to are made out of stuff—out of materials, out of wood, iron, cotton, etc. And our economies consume enormous quantities of those materials—tens-of-billions of tonnes per year.
The graph above shows 250 years of actual and projected material flows through our global economy. The graph may initially appear complicated, because it brings together seven different sources and datasets and includes a projection to the year 2100. But the details of the graph aren’t important. What is important is the overall shape: the ever-steepening upward trendline—the exponential growth.
In 1900, global material flows totalled approximately 7 billion tonnes. The technical term for these material flows is “utilized materials”—the stuff we dig out of mines, pump up from oil or natural gas wells, cut down in forests, grow on farms, catch from the sea, dig out of quarries, and otherwise appropriate for human uses. These tonnages do not include water, nor do they include unused overburden, but they do include mine tailings, though this last category adds just a few percent to the total.
Between 1900 and 2000, global material tonnage increased sevenfold—to approximately 49 billion tonnes (Krausman et al. 2009). Tonnage rose to approx. 70 billion tonnes by 2010 (UNEP/Schandl 2016), and to approx. 90 billion tonnes by 2018 (UNEP/Bringezu 2018). At the heart of our petro-industrial consumerist civilization is a network of globe-spanning conveyors that, each second, extract and propel nearly 3,000 tonnes of materials from Earth’s surface and subsurface to factories, cities, shops, and homes, and eventually on to landfills, rivers and oceans, and the atmosphere. At a rate of a quarter-billion tonnes per day we’re turning the Earth and biosphere into cities, homes, products, indulgences, and fleeting satisfactions; and emissions, by-products, toxins, and garbage.
And these extraction, consumption, and disposal rates are projected to continue rising—to double every 30 to 40 years (Lutz and Giljum 2009). Just as we increased material use sevenfold during the 20th century we’re on track to multiply it sevenfold during the 21st. If we maintain the “normal” economic growth rates of the 20th century through the 21st we will almost certainly increase the volume and mass of our extraction, production, and disposal sevenfold by 2100.
But 2100 is a long way away. Anything could happen by then. Granted. So let’s leave aside the long-term and look only at the coming decade. Material throughput now totals about 90 billion tonnes per year, and is projected to rise to about 120 billion tonnes per year over the coming decade. For ease of math, let’s say that the average over the coming decade will be 100 billion tonnes per year. That means that between 2019 and 2029 we will extract from within the Earth and from the biosphere one trillion tonnes of materials: coal, oil, wood, fish, nickel, aluminum, chromium, uranium, etc. …one trillion tonnes. And we’ll send most of that trillion tonnes on into disposal in the ground, air, or water—into landfills, skyfills, and seafills. In the coming decade, when you hear ever-more-frequent reports of the oceans filling with plastic and the atmosphere filling with carbon, think of that trillion tonnes.
Postscript: “dematerialization”
At conferences and in the media there’s a lot of talk of “dematerialization,” and its cousin “decarbonization.” The idea is this: creating a dollar of economic activity used to require X units of energy or materials, but now, in countries such as Canada and the United States, creating a dollar of economic activity requires only two-thirds-X units. Pundits and officials would have us believe that, because efficiency is increasing and less material and energy are needed per dollar, the economy is being “dematerialized.” They attempt to show that the economy can grow and grow but we need not use more materials or energy. Instead of consuming heavy steel cars, we will consume apps, massages, and manicures. But this argument is wrong. Global material and energy use increased manyfold during the 20th century. The increases continue. A business-as-usual scenario will see energy and materials use double every 30 to 40 years. And just because the sizes of our economies, measured in abstract currencies, are growing faster, this does not change the fact that our use of energy and materials is growing. “Dematerialization” has no useful meaning in a global economy in which we are using 90 billion tonnes of materials per year and projecting the use of 180 billion tonnes by 2050. Our rate of extraction and consumption of materials is rising; the fact that the volume of dollar flows is rising faster is merely a distraction.
Sources for material flow tonnage:
Fridolin Krausmann et al., “Growth in Global Materials Use, GDP, and Population During the 20th Century,” Ecological Economics 68, no. 10 (2009).
Christian Lutz and Stefan Giljum, “Global Resource Use in a Business-as-Usual World: Updated Results from the GINFORS Model,” in Sustainable Growth and Resource Productivity: Economic and Global Policy Issues, ed. Bleischwitz et al. (Sheffield, UK: Greenleaf Publishing, 2009).
Stefan Giljum et al., Sustainable Europe Research Institute (SERI), “Resource Efficiency for Sustainable Growth: Global Trends and European Policy Scenarios,” background paper, delivered Sept. 10, 2009, in Manila, Philippines.
Julia Steinberger et al., “Global Patterns of Materials Use: A Socioeconomic and Geophysical Analysis,” Ecological Economics 69, no. 5 (2010).
UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) and H. Schandl et al., Global Material Flows and Resource Productivity: An Assessment Study of the UNEP International Resource Panel (Paris: UNEP, 2016).
Krausmann et al., “Long-term Trends in Global Material and Energy Use,” in Social Ecology: Society-Nature Relations across Time and Space, ed. Haberl et al. (Switzerland: Springer, 2016).
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), International Resource Panel, and Stefan Bringezu et al., Assessing Global Resource Use: A Systems Approach to Resource Efficiency and Pollution Reduction (Nairobi: UNEP, 2017).
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Global Material Resources Outlook to 2060: Economic Drivers and Environmental Consequences (Paris: OECD Publishing, 2019)
Energy slaves, “hard work,” and the real sources of wealth
An excerpt from the online long-form comic "Energy Slaves" by Stuart McMillen
—http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/energy-slaves/#page-1
Check out this brilliant ‘long-form comic’ by Stuart McMillen: Energy Slaves. Click here or on the URL above.
Many Canadians and Americans struggle financially. Millions are unemployed. Many others live paycheque-to-paycheque. A 2017 report by the US Federal Reserve Board found that 40 percent of US citizens couldn’t cover an unexpected expense of $400 without selling something or borrowing money. There’s a lot of denial and misunderstanding regarding the financial challenges faced by a large portion of our fellow citizens.
Equally, though, there is misunderstanding, denial, and myth-making regarding those among us who are more financially secure, those who are well off—“the rich.” Most glaring is the way we mischaracterize the sources of our wealth, luxury, and ease. We lie to ourselves and each other regarding why we have it so good. The rich often claim that their wealth is a result of “hard work.” We hear people objecting to even the smallest tax increase, saying: “I worked hard for my money and no one is going to take it from me.”
The reality, however, is quite the opposite. The rich don’t work very hard. Every poor women or girl in Asia or Africa who gets up at dawn to walk many kilometres to carry home water or firewood for her family works harder than the world’s multi-millionaires and billionaires. Every farmer with a hoe or toiling behind an oxen works harder than any CEO. My farmer grandparents worked far harder than I do, yet I live much better. I would be self-delusional in the extreme to attribute my middle-class luxury to “hard work.”
No, those of us in North America, the European Union, and elsewhere in the world who enjoy privileged lives live well, not because we work hard, but because of the vast energy windfall of which we are the beneficiaries. We live lives of comfort and ease because our work is done for us by “energy slaves.”
A human worker can toil at a constant rate of about one-tenth horsepower. Working hard all year at that rate I can do about 200 horsepower-hours worth of work—hoeing or hauling or digging. But if I add up the work accomplished by non-human energy—by fossil fuels and machines and by electricity from various sources and electric motors—I find that, on a per-capita average, that quantity is 100 times my annual work output. For every unit of work I do, the motors and machines that surround me do 100 units. Those of us who live comfortable, high-consumption lives are subsidized 100-to-1 by work we do not do. And the richest among us enjoy the largest of those subsidies.
Let me state that another way: If I look around me, at the hurtling cars and trucks, the massive quantities of cloth and steel and concrete created each year, the rapidly expanding cities, the roads that get paved and the bridges built, I am seeing a quantity of building and digging and hauling and making that is 100 times greater than the humans around me could accomplish. Human muscles and energies provide one percent of the work needed to create and maintain our towering, hyper-productive, petro-industrial civilization; but electricity, fossil fuels, other energy sources, engines, and machines provide the other 99 percent. We and our human bodies put in 1 unit of work, but enjoy the benefits of 100. That is the reason so many of us live better than the kings, sultans, and emperors of previous centuries.
As Stuart McMillen brilliantly illustrates in his long-form comic, Energy Slaves, it is as if each of us has a whole troupe of slaves toiling for our benefit. It is the work of these virtual assistants that propel us along, create our homes and cities, raise our food, pump our water, and make our goods.
We will face many hard questions as we progress through the twenty-first century: can we continue to consume energy at the rates we do now? How can we generate that energy without fouling the atmosphere and destabilizing the climate? How do we more equitably share access to energy among our soon-to-be 11-billion-person population? How do we address energy poverty? And all these questions and issues are tied to others, such as to issues of income inequality. But a vital first step is to begin to talk honestly about the real sources of our wealth, to acknowledge that we enjoy undeserved subsidies, to admit that we are all (energy) lottery winners, and to approach the future with attitudes of humility and gratitude rather than entitlement. We cannot navigate the future if we cling to the self-serving and self-aggrandizing myths of the past.
Global plastics production, 1917 to 2050
Global plastic production, megatonnes, 1917 to 2017
This week’s graph shows global annual plastics production over the past 100 years. No surprise, we see exponential growth—a hallmark of our petro-industrial consumer civilization. Long-term graphs of nearly anything (nitrogen fertilizer production, energy use, automobile production, greenhouse gas emissions, air travel, etc.) display this same exponential take-off.
Plastics present a good news / bad news story. First, we should acknowledge that the production capacities we’ve developed are amazing! Worldwide, our factories now produce approximately 400 million tonnes of plastic per year. That’s more than a billion kilograms per day! Around the world we’ve built thousands of machines that can, collectively, produce plastic soft-drink and water bottles at a rate of nearly 20,000 per second. Our economic engines are so powerful that we’ve managed to double global plastic production tonnage in less than two decades.
But of course that’s also the bad news: we’ve doubled plastic production tonnage in less than two decades. And the world’s corporations and governments would have us go on doubling and redoubling plastics production. The graph below shows the projected four-fold increase in production tonnage by 2050.
Projected global plastics production to 2050
Source: UN GRID-Arendal
Plastics are a product of human ingenuity and innovation—one of civilization’s great solutions. They’re lightweight, durable, airtight, decay resistant, inexpensive, and moldable into a huge range of products. But projected 2050 levels of production are clearly too much of a good thing. Our growth-addicted economic system has a knack for turning every solution into a problem—every strength into a weakness.
At current and projected production levels, plastics are a big problem. Briefly:
1. Plastics are forever—well, almost. Except for the tonnage we’ve incinerated, nearly all the plastic ever produced still exists somewhere in the biosphere, although much of it is now invisible to humans, reduced to tiny particles in ocean and land ecosystems. Plastic is great because it lasts so long and resists decay. Plastic is a big problem for those same reasons.
2. Only 18 percent of plastic is recycled. This is the rate for plastics overall, including plastics in cars and buildings. For plastic packaging (water bottles, chip bags, supermarket packaging, etc.) the recycling rate is just 14 percent. But much of that plastic inflow is excluded during the sorting and recycling process, such that only 5 percent of plastic packaging material is actually returned to use through recycling. And one third of plastic packaging escapes garbage collection systems entirely and is lost directly into the environment: onto roadsides or into streams, lakes, and oceans.
3. Oceans are now receptacles for at least 8 billion kilograms of plastic annually—equivalent to a garbage truck full of plastic unloading into the ocean every minute. The growth rates projected above will mean that by 2050 the oceans will be receiving the equivalent of one truckload of plastic every 15 second, night and day. And unless we severely curtail plastic production and dumping, by 2050 the mass of plastic in our oceans will exceed the mass of fish. Once in the ocean, plastics persist for centuries, in the form of smaller and smaller particles. This massive contamination comes on top of other human impacts: overfishing, acidification, and ocean temperature increases.
4. Plastic is a fossil fuel product. Plastic is made from oil and natural gas feedstocks—molecules extracted from the oil and gas become the plastic. And oil, gas, and other energy sources are used to power the plastic-making processes. By one estimate, 4 percent of global oil production is consumed as raw materials for plastic and an additional 4 percent provides energy to run plastics factories.
5. Plastics contain additives than harm humans and other species: fire retardants, stabilizers, antibiotics, plasticizers, pigments, bisphenol A, phthalates, etc. Many such additives mimic hormones or disrupt hormone systems. The 150 billion kilograms of plastics currently in the oceans includes 23 billion kgs of additives, all of which will eventually be released into those ocean ecosystems.
It’s important to think about plastics, not just because doing so shows us that we’re doing something wrong, but because the tragic story of plastics shows us why and how our production and energy systems go wrong. The story of plastics reveals the role of exponential growth in turning solutions into problems. Thinking about the product-flow of plastics (oil well … factory … store … home … landfill/ocean) shows us why it is so critical to adopt closed-loop recycling and highly effective product-stewardship systems. And the entire plastics debacle illustrates the hidden costs of consumerism, the collateral damage of disposable products, and the failure of “the markets” to protect the planet.
In a recent paper that takes a big-picture, long-term look at plastics, scientists advise that “without a well-designed … management strategy for end-of-life plastics, humans are conducting a singular uncontrolled experiment on a global scale, in which billions of metric tons of material will accumulate across all major terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems on the planet.”
• 1950 to 2015 data from Geyer, Jambeck, and Law, “Production, Use, and Fate of All Plastics Ever Made,” Science Advances 3, no. 7 (July 2017).
• 2016 and 2017 data points are extrapolated at a 4.3 percent growth rate derived from the average growth rate during the previous 20 years.
• Pre-1950 production tonnage is assumed to be negligible, based on various sources and the very low production rates in 1950.
Happy motoring: Global automobile production 1900 to 2016
Global automobile production (cars, trucks, and buses), 1900-2016
This week’s graph shows global automobile production over the past 116 years—since the industry’s inception. The numbers include car, trucks, and buses. The graph speaks for itself. Nonetheless, a few observations may clarify our situation.
1. Global automobile production is at a record high, increasing rapidly, and almost certain to rise far higher.
2. Annual production has nearly doubled since 1997—the year the world’s governments signed the Kyoto climate change agreement.
3. China is now the world’s largest automobile producer. In terms of units made, Chinese production is double that of the United States. This graph tells us something about the ascendancy of China.
4. Most of the growth in the auto manufacturing sector is in Asia, especially Thailand, India, and China. In 2000, those three nations together manufactured 3 million cars. Last year their output totaled 34 million. After 67 years of production, Australia is about to shut down its last automobile plant. Most of its cars will be imported from Thailand, and perhaps a growing number from China.
5. Auto production in “high-wage countries” is declining. As noted, the Australian industry has been shuttered. US production is down 5 percent since 2000, and Canadian production is down 20 percent. Over that same period, production fell in France, Italy, and Japan, though not in Germany. Since 2000, auto production increases in Mexico (+1.7 million) are roughly equal to decreases in Canada and the US (-1.2 million).
6. There are some surprises in the data: Turkey, Slovakia, and Iran all make the top-20 in terms of production numbers.
Graph sources: Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association of the United States, World Motor Vehicle Data, 1981 Edition; Ward’s Communications, Ward’s World Motor Vehicle Data 2002; United States Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, National Transportation Statistics, Table 1-23
Deindustrialization: Or, what are half-a-billion Canadians and Americans going to do for a living?
United States Gross Domestic Product, by sector, 1947 to 2016
Canada and the US continue to undergo rapid deindustrialization. Our economies are increasingly service-based, and that should worry us.
The graph above looks complicated, but the key idea is contained in two trends. And both are negative. First, note the declining contribution manufacturing is making to United States (US) Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The red, dotted line shows manufacturing’s percentage contribution.
Manufacturing now makes up just 12 percent of US GDP, and less than 10 percent in Canada. The decline of manufacturing is even more evident when we look at employment rather than GDP. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, goods-producing industries (manufacturing, mining, construction, agriculture, etc.) now employ roughly 15 percent of America’s working population. Nearly 85 percent are employed in the service sector. The situation is similar in Canada. According to Statistics Canada data , approximately 77 percent of Canadian workers are employed in the service sector, and this percentage continues to rise. Both nations continue to deindustrialize.
Second, note the rise in the importance of three service sectors: 1. Finance, insurance, real estate, and rentals (the broad blue line); 2. Professional and business services (green line); and 3. Education and healthcare (red line). A US economy built upon General Motors, General Electric, and U.S. Steel has given way to one built upon JPMorgan Chase, Walmart, and UnitedHealth Group.
Note, especially, the blue line: finance and real estate. With the 2008 financial crisis still fresh in our minds, and its effects still resonating through global economies, it should worry North Americans that banking and real estate have replaced manufacturing as the one of the largest economic sectors.
Manufacturing is declining, our energy sectors may have to contract as we deal with climate change, most North American fisheries have been depleted and agriculture seems to need fewer farmers and workers each year, low-wage nations continue to claim Canadian and American jobs, and we’re told that the robots are coming. By mid-century there will be more than 450 million people living in Canada and the US. Every politician in every party and every engaged citizen should be asking the same question: what are nearly half-a-billion North Americans going to do for a living?
We are not doomed to decline, but decline will be our lot unless we actively engage in a collective democratic effort to build a new, sustainable economy for North America.
Graph source: US Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis
Back on track: North America needs high-speed passenger rail
Passenger train use, kilometers per person per year (average), selected countries, 2014 or 2015 data
Not every problem has a clear solution. Here’s one that does. The problem is the exponential growth in air travel and attendant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The solution is high-speed passenger rail.
Compared to airplanes, high-speed trains can move people faster, more comfortably and conveniently, more cheaply, and with a fraction of the GHG emissions. And Canada is uniquely placed to benefit from a passenger-rail renaissance; one of the world’s largest passenger-rail manufacturers, Bombardier, is a Canadian company.
Air travel is increasing exponentially. As I detailed in a previous blog post, air travelers now rack up about 7 trillion passenger-kilometres per year. And that figure is projected to double by 2030. If we are to retain a tolerable climate, most of the planes will soon need to be grounded, excepting perhaps those used for trans-oceanic flights.
While airplanes may remain our best option for crossing oceans, within continents higher-speed rail (130–200 km/h) and high-speed rail (200+ km/h) can move people faster and more comfortably. Such trains can transport passengers from city-centre to city-centre, eliminating the long drive to the airport. Trains do not require time-consuming, invasive airport security screenings. These factors, combined with high speeds, mean that for many trips, the total travel time is lower for trains than for planes. And because trains have much more leg-room and often include observation cars, restaurants, and lounges, they are much more comfortable and enjoyable.
Many people will know the Eurostar high-speed line that connects Paris and other European cities to London via the Channel Tunnel. Top speed for that train is 320 km/h. A trip from downtown London to Downtown Paris—nearly 500 kms—takes 2 hours and 20 minutes, about the time it takes the average North American to drive to the airport, check in, check baggage, clear security, and get to his or her airplane seat.
China recently inaugurated its Shanghai Maglev line, with a maximum speed of 430km/h and average speed of 250 km/h. Japan’s famous “bullet trains” went into service more than 50 years ago. They now travel on a network of 2,764 kms of track and reach speeds of 320 km/h.
North America has one high-speed line, the Acela Express that links Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. The maximum speed is 240 km/h, through average speeds are lower. Travel time from New York to Washington is 2 hours and 45 minutes, including time spent at intermediate stops: an average speed of 132 km/h. The Acela Express trains were built by a consortium 75 percent owned by Canada’s Bombardier.
This brings us to the truly good news: Canada is home to a world-leading passenger rail manufacturer, Bombardier. You will find the company’s rolling stock in the subways of New York, London, and more than a dozen other cities. Its intercity trains run throughout Europe, Asia, and North America. And its high-speed trains are currently moving passengers in China, Europe, and the US. Until a recent merger of two Chinese companies, Canada’s Bombardier was the largest passenger train manufacturer in the world. Canada has a huge opportunity to create jobs and economic activity while leading the world in low-emission, cutting-edge rail technology. As climate change forces Canada to scale back fossil-fuel production and maybe even auto manufacturing, Canada will need new economic engines. Passenger-rail manufacturing can be an economic engine of the future.
Not all the news is good, however. Many will have recent heard news reports about Bombardier. Over the past few years, Federal and provincial governments have provided cash injections to the company totaling more than a billion dollars, largely to cover costs on its C-Series passenger-jet program. Bombardier is in trouble. Indeed, it may have made one of the biggest business blunders in recent decades: financially imperiling a world-leading train maker to make a huge gamble on planes just as climate change forces us to ground the planes and build a trillion-dollar passenger rail system. Bombardier has recently announced that it may merge its train division with the German company Siemens.
Bombardier has been foolish. Canadian citizens and their governments have been equally foolish: handing over billions of taxpayer dollars and not receiving a single passenger train in return. But we can be smart. That means building a North American network of fast trains. Bombardier can prosper by being one of the main suppliers for that network. High-speed passenger rail can be a win-win-win: jobs for Canadians and Americans; fast, comfortable travel; and a high-tech, low-emission transportation system on this continent like the ones being built in Europe and Asia.
The graph at the top of this article shows average per-person passenger-train utilization. The data is from the most recent year available: 2014 or ’15. Passenger rail utilization rates in Canada and the US (an average of less than 40 kms per person per year) are among the lowest in the world. In China, average use is more than 800 kms per person per year and rising very rapidly. In many European nations, it is more than 1,000 kms per year per person—25 to 30 times the Canadian and US rates. There is huge growth potential for the passenger rail sector in North America.
Graph sources: OECD.
Unimaginable output: Global production of transistors
Approximate global production of transistors, per capita, selected years, 1955 to 2015
Global production of transistors has surpassed 20 trillion per second—hundreds of quintillions per year. Transistors are the primary building blocks of modern electronic devices: computers, smartphones, TVs, radios, and other devices. Transistors use semiconductor materials to amplify (think transistor radios) or switch (think digital computers) electronic signals and electrical power. Transistors can be individual components, but are found in far greater numbers embedded in integrated circuits—in computer “chips.”
The graph above shows global production of transistors per year per person. Per capita values are used here to make the size of the numbers more manageable. In 1955, production was one transistor per 1,000 people—essentially zero. Radios and TVs in the mid-’50s used vacuum tubes rather than transistors and integrated circuits.
Just ten years later, in 1965, production had increased 1,000-fold, to one transistor per person per year. Transistor radios were gaining popularity in the 1960s. Each radio contained several transistors—often 5 to 10.
While production in 1965 was one transistor per person per year, by 1975 it was nearly 1,500 per person. Individual transistor components had been replaced by semiconductor computer chips, each containing thousands or millions of individual transistors.
The 1980s saw the proliferation of computers and home electronics. By 1985 global production of transistors had surpassed 40 thousand per person per year. By 2000 it was 65 million. Today it is 56 billion per person.
The world now produces more transistors in one second that it did in one year in 1980.
The global population could not afford to purchase, on average, 56 billion transistors per person per year if prices had remained at 1965 or 1985 levels. In the latter-1950s, a transistor radio with 5 transistors cost nearly $500 in today’s dollars. Now, for not much more money, you can buy an iPhone that contains hundreds of billions of transistors.
A pound of rice sells for approximately one dollar and contains about 25,000 grains. For that same dollar you can buy—as part of a memory stick or a phone—not 25,000 transistors, but billions. A transistor today is thousands of times cheaper than a grain of rice.
Much of the news about the world is negative: famine, genocide, fisheries collapse, climate change, extinctions, resource depletion. But we also need to acknowledge that our global hyper-civilization is truly wondrous. We have built human systems of nearly incomprehensible power and productivity. This is both their great strength and their great peril. Nonetheless, if we are to safeguard some version of this civilization into the future we must appreciate and value it, despite its profound flaws. We must take the time to understand it. And we must work together to reform it.
Graph sources: VLSI Research. Note that values are approximate and were derived, not directly from data, but from an existing graph. Thus, while overall trends and conclusions are robust, individual values for specific years are approximate.
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https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/deerpark/news/article/City-school-construction-projects-to-keep-Deer-13475656.php
City, school construction projects to keep Deer Park buzzing in 2019
By Carissa D. Lamkahouan, CORRESPONDENT
Updated 4:37 pm CST, Friday, December 21, 2018
Scheduled to open in 2019 is the Deer Park Nature Preserve and Wetlands Mitigation, a 38-acre facility at the northeast corner of East Boulevard and 13th Street.
Photo: Kirk Sides / Staff Photographer
New year, new Deer Park? Maybe not completely, but the city and local school district have a list of projects coming online or getting started in 2019.
Money for several city projects was secured when voters approved sales taxes in 2011 for the city’s parks and recreation department and another for crime control in 2015. Voters renewed both taxes for 10 more years in 2016.
“Everything we have planned is being done to improve the quality of life here in Deer Park,” City Manager James Stokes said.
Nature center coming
One of the city’s biggest projects will be the Deer Park Nature Preserve and Wetlands Mitigation, a 38-acre facility at the northeast corner of East Boulevard and 13th Street.
“It’ll be a big hit when it’s up and running,” Stokes predicted.
The attraction, which may open in the first quarter, will feature walking and biking trails in and around three ecosystems — forest, grasslands and wetlands. Eventual plans are for an educational facility, pavilion and more parking.
The city acquired 4 acres through donations from the Sealey family in 1986 and 1988. Another 34 acres was purchased by Deer Park in 2000.
The project totals $900,000; however, the city was able to secure a $400,000 grant from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to help cover the expense.
EMS station planned
The city’s emergency workers also have good reason to look forward to 2019.
“We’ve just begun construction on a new emergency services building,” Stokes said. “Work is expected to take nine month; so we should be done by the end of 2019.”
The new station will be at 1700 East Blvd. The $4 million project means the city’s emergency workers will have their own space to rest and eat while they work their 24-hour shifts.
Now, the approximately 20 emergency services employees and volunteers share space at the city’s fire stations, which weren’t built to accommodate overnight staff.
“These folks will have a good place to sleep and eat when they’re on the clock but not actively working,” Stokes said of the planned facility.
Another new building set to open in 2019 is the city’s second Animal Shelter and Adoption Center.
“In early January, we’re going to open,” Stokes said. “The current facility has been around for several years and needs to be replaced. Also we definitely need more kennel space for cats and dogs.”
The animal shelter is a $2.4 million, 7,500-square foot construction project at 4213 Luella Ave. Work began in July 2017.
Not to be outdone, Deer Park ISD is also moving ahead on several construction projects that were approved through its most recent $156 million bond sale in 2017.
The district’s main building project for 2019 is the rebuild of Carpenter Elementary School, a 33.5 million project, district spokesman Matt Lucas said.
“Preliminary site work is already taking place, and the goal is for students to move into the new building in early 2020,” he said. “Two other major projects are extensive renovations of Deepwater Junior High and Deer Park Junior High.”
The district has already spent $3.4 million at Deepwater and plan for an additional $2 million more in improvements, Lucas said.
Lucas said the district will complete large-scale repairs and improvements to Deer Park Junior High School’s roof as well as its electrical and mechanical systems.
“For Deer Park Junior High, the majority of the work will start in summer of 2019, and we have yet to receive final pricing for the work,” Lucas explained, adding, “We estimate the project will cost a similar amount to what we have planned at Deepwater Junior High because both schools have many of the same needs.”
To date, the district has spent about $168,000 at Deer Park Junior High.
Also in 2019, students at Deer Park High School-North Campus will benefit from improvements to the east parking lot near McLean Stadium
These projects are part of the $70.6 million of the total bond money allocated to facilities projects over the next seven years.
Additionally, the district will purchase 1,200 iPads for all sixth- and ninth-graders, will replace the telephone system, and upgrade library computers stations and secondary school computer labs.
For more information on newspaper subscriptions and newspaper delivery, call (855) 460-6397 or email deliveryservice@hcnonline.com.
For information on local classifieds and other HCN advertising, call (281) 378-1000.
More Deer Park News
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Pony 14s open Coast Region Tournament
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Amin Joseph
Queens, New York, United States
Actor Amin Joseph was a versatile presence in feature and television projects ranging from "The Expendables" (2010) to "Baywatch" (2017) while also producing, starring in and directing a slew of his own independent entertainment efforts. Born April 26, 1980 in the New York City borough of Queens, he was raised in Harlem, where he interned at the famed Apollo Theater before earning a degree from Howard University. Joseph began his professional acting career in the early 2000s, appearing in independent and direct-to-video features and guest roles on television series like "The Shield" (FX, 2002-08). He soon balanced a schedule of minor roles in studio features like "The Mist" (2007) and "The Expendables" with his own productions - independently released comedy series like "Lbs" and action projects like "Touye Pwen: Kill Point" (2011), for which he served as actor, producer and director. In 2013, Joseph launched his own production company, Dark Energy Pictures, which issued several short films before releasing a feature, the crime drama "Call Me King" (2016), with Joseph serving as both star and producer. During this period, he continued to work in both independent and studio features, playing imposing figures on both sides of the law in "Homefront" (2013), "The Gambler" (2014) and "Baywatch." The latter year also proved to be one of his busiest, with series regular work on John Singleton's crime drama "Snowfall" (FX, 2017- ) and a supporting turn as disgraced Los Angeles police officer Kevin Gaines in "City of Lies" (2018), director Brad Furman's film about an investigation into the murders of hip-hop icons Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G.
Actor Credits
BaywatchFrankie
DopeThe Voice
Time LapseBig Joe
Sister CodeThomas
The GamblerNeville's Bookkeeper
HomefrontLead DEA Agent
G.I. Joe: RetaliationCobra Secret Service
StarletShadow
The ExpendablesPirate Leader
Rage and DisciplineActor
Call Me KingRhyis
Message From a MistressKingston
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What next for the FTSE 100?
Thursday 1 September 2016 1:11 pm
Lord Mayor heads to China to drum up business for London
Hayley Kirton Kirton
I'm a reporter at City A.M., mainly covering law, professional services and banking
The Lord Mayor of the City of London will be heading to China next week in a bid to strengthen commercial ties and promote Britain as a business partner.
Lord Mayor Jeffrey Mountevans will be leading a business delegation to Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin in mainland China as well as to Hong Kong on 7 September for a week.
"My visit comes at an opportune time to reassure government and industry that the UK remains open for business," said Lord Mayor Jeffrey Mountevans. "I will reiterate our commitment to deepening the long-standing links between the UK and China, I will celebrate the strengths and co-operation between our nations and I will explore new ways for us to work together.
"As the financial and commercial heart of both Britain and Europe, the City of London is a natural partner for Chinese investors and businesses that want to expand their global presence. We believe that opportunities to collaborate will continue to emerge, benefitting our own economies and wider global growth."
Read more: The Silicon Valley of South London takes UK fastest economic growth crown
The Lord Mayor will start in Hong Kong, where he will be for three days. While there, he will meet with meet financial secretary John Tsang to discuss international trade. He will also meet with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing.
Then, in mainland China, he will, among other activities, visit the Shanghai Stock Exchange and discuss red tape with the China Banking Regulatory Commission.
The Lord Mayor's visit comes not only less than three months after the UK opted to depart from the EU but also shortly after the new government stalled on the Hinkley Point decision, which would have been part-funded by China Nuclear Power Generation.
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Catholic University of America Seeks Librarian in Religious Studies
By Dr. Jeff Mirus (bio - articles - email) | Feb 27, 2007
Our good friend Tim Brown, a librarian at Catholic University of America, reports that CUA has a position open for a librarian in Religious Studies. Here is the job listing:
Religious Studies Librarian Needed
The Catholic University of America is inviting applications for the position of Religious Studies Librarian. For complete information, please see the University website at http://humanresources.cua.edu.
The Religious Studies Librarian is responsible for managing all activities of the Religious Studies collections; participating as a subject specialist in collection development and management; providing reference and research assistance and instruction to users; and serving as liaison to the faculty of the Schools of Theology and Religious Studies and Canon Law, the Department of Greek and Latin, and programs in Early Christian Studies and Medieval and Byzantine Studies. The Librarian collaborates with the staff of Rare Books/Special Collections and the American Catholic History Research Center and works closely with other members of Reference and Instructional Services.
The Religious Studies Librarian participates as a professional member in the University Library System with academic status, in shared collegial decision making and planning, and participates in and contributes to professional organizations and publications.
ALA accredited Master's degree in Library Science; second Master's degree in Religious Studies or Theology preferred. In-depth knowledge of the Catholic Church. Experience in the following areas: collection development processes; information, reference, and research services in Religious Studies and related areas; individual and group instruction; and electronic resources, information services, and systems as used in disciplines served by the division. Knowledge and awareness of current academic issues as they affect library operations and services, especially issues related to Religious Studies collections.
Bibliographic knowledge of Latin, Greek, and modern European languages. Skill in communicating with faculty, students, library patrons, and staff. Skill in database searching. Skill in using Endeavor Voyager or a similar library management system.
Ability to communicate clearly orally and in writing.
Minimum salary: $43,000. For more information on benefits, please visit http://humanresources.cua.edu.
Regardless of their religious or denominational affiliation, all employees are expected to respect and support the University's mission.
The Catholic University of America is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. EOE/AA/V/D/M/F.
To Apply: Please send letter of application, resume, and the names and contact information of at least three references, together with a CUA Application for Employment (http://humanresources.cua.edu/forms/) to : Employment Manager, Office of Human Resources, The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC 20064; fax: 202-319-5802; e-mail: [email protected]
If you are a fan of CatholicCulture.org and would like to discuss this position with Tim Brown before putting in an application, let us know, and we'll pass your email address along to Tim.
Jeffrey Mirus holds a Ph.D. in intellectual history from Princeton University. A co-founder of Christendom College, he also pioneered Catholic Internet services. He is the founder of Trinity Communications and CatholicCulture.org. See full bio.
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5 major moments in cellphone history
Forty years ago today, Motorola engineer Martin Cooper made the world's first public call from a mobile phone. To celebrate this anniversary, CBC News looks at the evolution of the handheld device, from "the brick" to its sleeker and more powerful recent incarnations.
Motorola engineer Martin Cooper made first public cellphone call on April 3, 1973
CBC News · Posted: Apr 03, 2013 5:33 AM ET | Last Updated: April 3, 2013
On April 3, 1973, a Motorola engineer made the first call from a mobile phone 3:05
Forty years ago today, Motorola engineer Martin Cooper — credited as the inventor of the cellphone — made the world's first public call from a mobile phone, choosing to get in touch with his rival in the race to create the device.
[IMAGEGALLERY galleryid=4010 size=small]
Cooper made the call on a New York City street in front of reporters from a device weighing about 1½ kilograms. Motorola spent almost $1 million producing the phone, Cooper later told the BBC. Cost of the phone for a consumer — when it became available 10 years later — would have been equal to almost $9,970 in today's currency.
Since then, cellphones have been rapidly evolving into the high-tech multitasking devices we use today. Here is a look at some of the most famous developments in mobile phone history.
First commercial cellphone
A decade after Cooper made that first call, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission approved Motorola's DynaTAC phone for public use. In 1984, the first DynaTACs became available for consumers.
Famous cellphones from pop culture
Large, outdated cellphones can be spotted in older films and TV shows, while new, high-tech gadgets are frequently used in recent flicks. Here's a look back at some famous mobile devices that made appearances on the big and small screens.
In the TV show Saved by the Bell, character Zack Morris hauled around a clunky cellphone believed to be a Motorola DynaTAC.
The Nokia 8110 was popularized after it was spotted in the 1999 movie The Matrix.
The Nokia 7650 was featured in the 2002 movie Minority Report featuring Tom Cruise.
In 2003, The Matrix trilogy switched to a Samsung SPH-N270.
The handheld device weighed 0.8 kilograms and its rechargeable battery was reported to last about eight hours, according to a company information sheet from the 1970s. Pressing an "off-hook" button — so-called to symbolize picking up a standard telephone from its base — would start a phone call, while pressing an "on-hook" button would end the conversation.
Motorola estimated service costs would run from $60 to $100 US a month. The company compared operating costs to those of an average car telephone service.
In the statement, the company said it believed people would continue using their car phones, and cellphones would "absolutely not" replace standard telephones.
The original smartphone
In 1993, Bellsouth and IBM announced their creation of the Simon personal communicator phone, touted as the world's first smartphone. Simon was designed to be a cellphone first and a computer second, according to the product's media release.
The device, with a $899 suggested pricetag, boasted such features as:
A pager.
A stylus for writing on the screen, with handwriting reflected as-is for faxes.
A complete keypad featuring letters and numbers.
A calendar that could be updated automatically from a remote computer.
Only 2,000 of the devices, which weighed less than 0.5 kilograms, were made.
Cellphone cameras
In 2002, the first phones with built-in cameras became publicly available, including the Nokia 7650 and the Sanyo SPC-5300.
The Nokia phone boasted "a large 176x208 pixel colour display," according to a media release at the time. The Sanyo version offered three user-controlled tones, white balance and zoom.
Today's iPhone 5, in contrast, offers an eight-megapixel camera with autofocus, flash and built-in face detection.
BlackBerry's first integrated phone
The Waterloo, Ont.-based smartphone giant, formerly called Research in Motion, unveiled its first integrated phone in 2003. Part of BlackBerry's Quark series, the BlackBerry 6210 was the company's first device to offer:
Texting.
A web browser.
BlackBerry Messenger service, allowing for web-based communication between BlackBerry users.
iPhone launch
In January 2007, Apple launched its first iPhone. The company described the phone as combining three products into one handheld device: a mobile phone, an iPod and a wireless communication device.
One of the original iPhone's more revolutionary features was that it allowed users to command the device using only their fingers on a touch screen.
Other new functions included a visual voicemail box, touchpad keyboard, a photo library that could be linked to a remote computer and an almost nine-centimetre display for watching movies and television.
Vintage cellphone photos mark 40 years of mobile calls
Are we too attached to our cellphones?
1973 Motorola press release: First cellphone call
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In Royal Circles
Britain's Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, celebrate Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of light, in Hendon, London, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2007. The couple joined 180 children in Hendon, northwest London, to mark the festival with games and performances.
Britain's Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, right, and Prince Charles, center, are shown the ship's bridge by Capt. Paul Wright during a visit to the Cunard liner Queen Victoria, in Southampton, southern England, Dec. 10, 2007. The Duchess officially named the ship and met volunteers during a reception on board.
Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, and Prince Charles are pictured on stage during the naming ceremony of the Cunard liner Queen Victoria, in Southampton, southern England, Dec. 10, 2007.
Queen Elizabeth II walks past children as she arrives at the Royal Festival in London. The Queen was on hand to mark the re-opening of the Royal Festival Hall.
South Africa captain John Smit receives the Prince William Cup from Britain's Prince William during the rugby union international friendly match between Wales and South Africa at the Millennium Stadium on Nov. 24, 2007, in Cardiff, Wales.
Credit: Getty Images/David Rogers
Denmark's Queen Margrethe II, third from right, and her husband Prince Henrik, second right, walk with the head of Chateau de Use Versailles Jean-Jacques Aillagon, left, and French Culture Minister Christine Albanel while attending the inauguration of an exhibit at Versailles Nov. 19, 2007. Seventy items from the Court of the Danish Royals will be part of the exhibit.
Credit: FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP/Getty
Princess Maxima from the Netherlands, left, and Princess Mathilde from Belgium leave the Gemeentemuseum after attending the introduction of a book about painting in the Netherlands on Dec. 4, 2007, in The Hague, the Netherlands.
Credit: GETTY IMAGES/Mark Renders
Wearing similar black and white check coats, Princess Maxima from the Netherlands, left, and Princess Mathilde from Belgium arrive at the Gemeentemuseum to attend the introduction of a book about painting in the Netherlands on Dec. 4 2007, in The Hague, the Netherlands.
Led by Prince Albert II of Monaco, right, the royal family attends Monaco's national day ceremony, Monday, Nov.19, 2007, in the Monaco palace. From left are Princess Charlotte Casiraghi, Prince Ernst August of Hanover, Princess Alexandra of Hanover, Princess Caroline of Hanover, Princess Stephanie of Monaco, and Prince Albert II.
Princess Caroline of Hanover points something out to her daughter, Princess Alexandra, on the palace balcony as her husband, Prince Ernst August of Hanover, right, and her brother, Prince Albert II of Monaco, left, look on during the national day ceremony, Monday, Nov. 19, 2007.
Prince Albert II of Monaco salutes as he and his sister, Princess Stephanie of Monaco, take part in Monaco's national day ceremony, Monday, Nov. 19, 2007, in the Monaco palace.
Prince Albert II of Monaco, his sisters Princess Caroline of Hanover, left, and Princess Stephanie of Monaco, right, are seen at the Monaco palace during Monaco's national day ceremony, Monday, Nov. 19, 2007. With them are the children of Princess Caroline of Hanover, Prince Pierre Casiraghi, second from right, and Princess Alexandra.
Prince Albert II of Monaco and Princess Stephanie of Monaco with Prince Pierre Casiraghi are seen at the opera of Monaco during Monaco's national day ceremony, Monday, Nov. 19, 2007.
Prince Albert II of Monaco and Princess Stephanie of Monaco arrive at the opera of Monaco during Monaco's national day ceremony, Monday, Nov. 19, 2007.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, left, and Morocco's King Mohammed VI attend a state dinner in Marrakesh. Behind them are Morocco's Princess Lalla Myriem; the King's wife, Princess Lalla Salma; and one of Sarkozy's sons.
Morocco's King Mohamed VI, center right, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, center left, attend a signing ceremony between French Minister for Justice Rachida Dati, left, and Morocco's Minister for Justice Abdelwahed Erradi at the Royal Palace in Marrakesh. Sarkozy was in Morocco for a three-day official visit.
Credit: CBS
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Spain's King Juan Carlos review royal guard troops during the traditional welcome ceremony at the Pardo Palace, near Madrid, Monday Dec. 3. 2007. Arroyo was on a three-day state visit to Spain. She also traveled to France and Britain.
Spain's King Juan Carlos, right, lifts his glass as he makes a toast with Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, center, and Crown Prince Felipe, left, during a gala dinner at the Royal Palace in Madrid, Monday, Dec. 3, 2007.
Notable guests wait to have their photo taken in the Royal Palace in Madrid, before a formal dinner Monday, Dec. 3, 2007. From left are Spain's Crown Prince Felipe, Queen Sofia, famed Spanish bullfighter Jose Miguel Arroyo, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Spanish King Juan Carlos and Princess Letizia.
Spain's King Juan Carlos, right, listens while Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo speaks before a gala dinner at the Royal Palace in Madrid, Monday, Dec. 3, 2007. The Philippine president was on an official visit to Spain.
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Patrick Buchanan: Is America up for a second cold war?
November 18, 2017 10:31:22 PM
Patrick Buchanan -
After the 19th national congress of the Chinese Communist Party in October, one may discern Premier Xi Jinping's vision of the emerging New World Order.
By 2049, the centennial of the triumph of Communist Revolution, China shall have become the first power on earth. Her occupation and humiliation by the West and Japan in the 19th and 20th centuries will have become hated but ancient history.
America will have been pushed out of Asia and the western Pacific back beyond the second chain of islands.
Taiwan will have been returned to the motherland, South Korea and the Philippines neutralized, Japan contained. China's claim to all the rocks, reefs and islets in the South China Sea will have been recognized by all current claimants.
Xi's "One Belt, One Road" strategy will have brought South and Central Asia into Beijing's orbit, and he will be in the Pantheon beside the Founding Father of Communist China, Mao Zedong.
Democracy has been rejected by China in favor of one-party rule of all political, economic, cultural and social life.
And as one views Europe, depopulating, riven by secessionism, fearful of a Third World migrant invasion, and America tearing herself apart over politics and ideology, China must appear to ambitious and rising powers as the model to emulate.
Indeed, has not China shown the world that authoritarianism can be compatible with national growth that outstrips a democratic West?
Over the last quarter century, China, thanks to economic nationalism and $4 trillion in trade surpluses with the United States, has exhibited growth unseen since 19th-century America.
Whatever we may think of Xi's methods, this vision must attract vast numbers of China's young -- they see their country displace America as first power, becoming the dominant people on earth.
What is America's vision? What is America's cause in the 21st century? What is the mission and goal that unites, inspires and drives us on?
After World War II, America's foreign policy was imposed upon her by the terrible realities the war produced: brutalitarian Stalinist domination of Eastern and Central Europe and much of Asia.
Under nine presidents, containment of the Soviet empire, while avoiding a war that would destroy civilization, was our policy. In Korea and Vietnam, Americans died in the thousands to sustain that policy.
But with the collapse of the Soviet Empire and the breakup of the USSR, it seemed that by 1992 our great work was done. Now democracy would flourish and be embraced by all advanced peoples and nations.
But it did not happen. The "end of history" never came. The New World Order of Bush I did not last. Bush II's democracy crusade to end tyranny in our world produced disasters from Libya to Afghanistan.
Authoritarianism is now ascendant and democracy is in retreat.
Is the United States prepared to accept a world in which China, growing at twice our rate, more united and purposeful, emerges as the dominant power? Are we willing to acquiesce in a Chinese Century?
Or will we adopt a policy to ensure that America remains the world's preeminent power?
Do we have what is required in wealth, power, stamina and will to pursue a Second Cold War to contain China, which, strategic weapons aside, is more powerful and has greater potential than the Soviet Union ever did?
On his Asia tour, President Trump spoke of the "Indo-Pacific," shorthand for the proposition that the U.S., Japan, Australia and India form the core of a coalition to maintain the balance of power in Asia and contain the expansion of China.
Yet, before we create some Asia-Pacific NATO to corral and contain China in this century, as we did the USSR in the 20th century, we need to ask ourselves why.
Does China, even if she rises to surpass the U.S. in manufacturing, technology and economic output, and is a comparable military power, truly threaten us as the USSR did, to where we should consider war to prevent its expansion in places like the South China Sea that are not vital to America?
While China is a great power, she has great problems.
She is feared and disliked by her neighbors. She has territorial quarrels with Russia, India, Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan. She has separatists in Tibet and Xinjiang. Christianity is growing while Communism, the state religion, is a dead faith. Moreover, the monopoly of power now enjoyed by the Communist Party and Xi Jinping mean that if things go wrong, there is no one else to blame.
Finally, why is the containment of China in Asia the responsibility of a United States 12 time zones away? For while China seeks to dominate Eurasia, she appears to have no desire to threaten the vital interests of the United States. China's Communism appears to be an ideology disbelieved by her own people, that she does not intend to impose it on Asia or the world.
Again, are we Americans up for a Second Cold War, and, if so, why?
Patrick J. Buchanan, a nationally syndicated columnist, was a senior advisor to presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. His website is http://buchanan.org/blog.
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Holiday Cruising
Smooth Jazz Cruise
Since 2004, The Smooth Jazz Cruise has provided nearly 40,000 guests with an amazing music cruise vacation that has set the standard for not only jazz cruises, but for all theme cruises. The constant interaction and inspiration between artists and guests results in a totally immersive music and cultural experience. Marcus Miller and Boney James are your hosts for this unrivaled music event as you cruise up close and personal for 7 days and nights with stars of the jazz world at "The Greatest Party at Sea.”
Blue Note Cruise
Blue Note at Sea is a collaboration of three titans in the world of music: Blue Note Jazz Clubs, Blue Note Records and the world leader in jazz cruises, Entertainment Cruise Productions. They have combined their expertise to produce a one-of-a-kind music experience at sea, headlined by artists who have combined to win more than 30 Grammy Awards: Marcus Miller, Robert Glasper, Gregory Porter, Kamasi Washington, Christian McBride, Melody Gardot, David Sanborn, and many more! On Blue Note at Sea, Great Music is the Only Rule!
The Jazz Cruise
Since 2001, The Jazz Cruise has presented the very best straight-ahead jazz in the world in a setting like no other. The Jazz Cruise will celebrate its 20th Anniversary in 2020 with an extra special sailing that combines exciting new talent with longtime favorites. Nowhere else can you find more than 100 top-flight jazz musicians performing more than 250 hours of music over a 7-day period, including renowned performing groups, all-star jam sessions, unique pairings and just about the hottest big band in the world. The Jazz Cruise is rightly known as "The Greatest Jazz Festival at Sea."
Ultimate Disco Cruise
Get onboard the Ultimate Disco Cruise for 5 nights of celebrating the greatest dance music EVER on the luxurious Celebrity Infinity! Relive the days of Studio 54 and get to know these innovative and trend-setting artists like never before. Enjoy over 40 LIVE performances and 20 celebrity interactive events including special Q&A sessions, wine tasting, panel discussions, dance classes and more. Sing your favorite disco numbers at karaoke and boogie to the music at our disco inspired club, Studio 55, with 2,000 other fans just like you! Sailing February 10-15, 2020 out of Miami, Florida to beautiful ports of Key West, Florida and Nassau, Bahamas. Can ya dig it?
'70s Rock & Romance Cruise
Experience the bands that rocked your world and your heart on the Feel Good Party At Sea. Enjoy an incredible music journey through the ’70s and relive some of the best concerts from Rock’s biggest era. Experience over 50 LIVE performances and 25 celebrity interactive events. Immerse yourself in the party as we sail to the beautiful ports of San Juan, Samana, Dominican Republic, and Labadee rockin’ all day and night to the songs that lit up the jukebox celebrating the era that made you feel so good.
Flower Power Cruise
We’re taking the love generation to the high seas for our fifth anniversary of peace, love and groovy music on the Flower Power Cruise. Relive the phenomenal era of the ’60s with award-winning artists of the Flower Power Era and enjoy over 50 LIVE performances and 25 celebrity interactive events. Immerse yourself in the music for seven days as we visit the sun-soaked ports of St. Thomas, Tortola, BVI, and Nassau, Bahamas. It’s going to be a party you don’t want to miss!
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Certain Affinity Partners with SMU Guildhall on Merit-Based Scholarship
Certain Affinity Nels Memorial Scholarship Commemorates Life and Work of Nels Nelson
Austin, TX (March 14, 2019) Certain Affinity, Austin’s largest independent video game developer, has expanded on its relationship with SMU Guildhall to offer an annual $5,000 merit-based scholarship to honor colleague Nels Nelson. The Certain Affinity Nels Memorial Scholarship commemorates the life and work of Nels Nelson and continues his legacy of excellence, generosity, and leadership by supporting talented future game developers. For more information about how to apply go to SMU Guildhall’s or Certain Affinity’s websites.
Nels Nelson joined Certain Affinity in 2013. Although an English major from Cornell, Nels’ love for computers and programming started at a young age. He taught beginner and advanced computer courses during high school and over his winter and summer breaks from college. As a hobby, Nels started designing video games, which turned into a professional game development career that spanned nearly two decades. “Nels’ passion, upstanding character and leadership made him a valued member of the Certain Affinity team,” said Max Hoberman, President of Certain Affinity. “We want to foster Guildhall students who embody his values and traits, and are honored to contribute to his memory.”
In addition to hiring several Guildhall alums, Certain Affinity currently supports Guildhall students through teaching, portfolio reviews, career days and guest lectures. The company recently celebrated its 12th anniversary; during its history it has developed or co-developed 29 products with more than 100 million units sold across 12 different franchises, including “Call of Duty,” “Halo,”, “DOOM,” and “Left 4 Dead.” Along with co-development work, the Austin studio is currently developing an ambitious original title as well as an original IP game.
Certain Affinity has also played an important part in the growth of the Austin game development industry. Its leaders are active and vocal members of the community, with Max Hoberman serving as an advisory board member for the Denius-Sams Gaming Academy at UT Austin and as the Vice Chair of Technology for the Austin Chamber of Commerce in 2017, and Mojdeh Gharbi, VP of Marketing and Operations, recently joining the boards of Goodwill of Central Texas and Workforce Solutions Capital Area. She also serves on the Media Production Advisory Committee representing the game industry at the Texas Film Commission, and is part of the leadership team for Good Work Austin.
Certain Affinity was recognized by the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce as part of its annual A-List that focuses on companies that have breakout potential. The company currently has more than 170 full-time employees in Austin, with plans for approximately 60 additional hires in its soon-to-open Toronto, Ontario, office, plus numerous additional hires in Austin.
About Certain Affinity
Certain Affinity (CA) was founded in 2006 as a bootstrap startup with the goal of creating innovative, top-quality action games. CA brings together an exceptionally experienced, unusually talented group to form one of the largest independent game developers in Austin, Texas. The company’s 170+ full-time employees include veterans from dozens of successful game studios, with Max Hoberman, CA’s founder and former Multiplayer and Online Lead for the Halo series, serving as President.
About SMU Guildhall
SMU Guildhall is the #1 Graduate Program for Game Design in the world, ranked by the Princeton Review in 2017 and 2018. Many of the school’s founders are industry icons, and classes are taught by industry veterans. Since 2003, the program has graduated over 700 students, who now work at more than 250 video game studios around the world. SMU Guildhall offers both a Master of Interactive Technology in Digital Game Development degree and a Professional Certificate of Interactive Technology in Digital Game Development, with specializations in Art, Design, Production, and Programming.
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By: Alison Guadiano
Blog: A Moxie Mom
We’ve been Harlem Globetrotter fans for years. We try to attend the show each January when it comes. It’s always entertains and exciting. We can count on the players for laughs, jokes, and lots of dancing. We enjoyed this year’s show do much that I’m disappointed the show don’t be back for a whole year, although it will be in nearby cities.
The Original Harlem Globetrotters are known for their amazing feats of basketball, humor, and acts of goodwill on and off the court. And they have always been about the fans, but this year, everything they do will bring fans closer to the action more than ever before. Join them as they celebrate fans during the all-new Fan Powered World Tour! There will be over 20 occasions before, during and after the game where you have the opportunity to directly interact with Globetrotters stars.
Don’t miss out – get your tickets today!
SAVE 25% for ALL Harlem Globetrotters Games with promo code FUNFAM http://harlemglobetrotters.com/tickets
Disclaimer: I received tickets in exchange for this post. Opinions are honest and my own.
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Jerry joined Conexus Indiana in July 2018 as Veteran Engagement Manager for the INvets initiative. In this role, Jerry will help educate veterans about the opportunities available for them in Indiana.
Prior to joining Conexus, Jerry worked as an outreach coordinator for the Indiana National Guard where he assisted soldiers and veterans on a variety of issues. Jerry is an AMVETS lifetime member and serves as a board member for the Indiana Military Alumni Association.
In January 2017, Jerry retired at the rank of sergeant first class from the Indiana Army National Guard after more than 20 years of combined service as a recruiter and Infantryman with the Army and a Munitions System Technician with the United States Air Force. In 2009, Jerry deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan in direct support of Operation Enduring Freedom where he served as quick reaction force squad leader and sergeant of the guard.
Jerry has completed the Infantry Maneuver Senior Leaders Course and the Munitions Handler Advanced Leaders Course. He has also worked in multiple manufacturing environments, including: automotive seating, commercial truck steering components and food production and packaging. Jerry will earn his Bachelor of Science Degree in Project Management from Colorado Technical University in 2019.
Contact Jerry at jyoung@conexusindiana.com.
Back to Our Team
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Competitive Fellowships and Awards
About Competitive Fellowships
Fellowships for Graduating Seniors and Graduate School
Graduate Fellowships in the Sciences
Graduate Fellowships for International Study
Graduate Fellowships for Public Service
Graduate Fellowships in the Humanities and Social Sciences
General Graduate School Fellowships
Fellowship Programs for Undergraduates
Fellowships & Awards
Home / Competitive Fellowships and Awards / Fellowships for Graduating Seniors and Graduate School / Graduate Fellowships for Public Service
Thomas Pickering Graduate Foreign Affairs Fellowship
The Graduate FAF Program provides fellowship funding to participants as they are prepared academically and professionally to enter the United States Department of State Foreign Service. Women, members of minority groups historically underrepresented in the Foreign Service, and students with financial need are encouraged to apply. To attract outstanding students who will be in master's degree programs in public policy, international affairs, public administration, or academic fields such as business, economics, political science, sociology or foreign languages, who represent all ethnic, racial and social backgrounds, and who have an interest in pursuing a Foreign Service career in the U.S. Department of State. Service Requirement.
ABA Legal Opportunity Scholarship Fund
This American Bar Association program seeks to encourage greater minority representation in the legal profession by providing financial support for legal studies.
Samuel Huntington Public Service Award
The Samuel Huntington Public Service Award provides an annual stipend of $10,000 for a graduating college senior to pursue public service anywhere in the world. This allows recipients to engage in a meaningful public service activity for one year before proceeding on to graduate school or a career. Ideal for students seeking to "take a year off" to perform some public or community service project.
Scoville Peace Fellowships
The Scoville Peace Fellowship is designed to give graduating seniors an opportunity to work in Washington, DC, and gain a perspective on key issues of peace and security. The fellowship provides funding for a six- to nine-month placement at a non-profit/ public-interest organization.
Villers Fellowship
The Villers fellow plays an integral role in Families USA’s work to expand access to health coverage for all Americans. Designed to provide the fellow with a national perspective on health care justice work, the fellowship is based in Families USA’s office in Washington, D.C. and will afford the fellow the opportunity to learn about a range of health care justice issues ranging from Medicaid policy, the crisis of the uninsured, Medicare, the private health insurance market, and racial disparities in health care. At the same time, the Villers fellow will learn about conducting health care campaigns with our network of grassroots advocates and organizations. Ideal for graduating seniors interested in health care administration, policy or public policy.
Wellstone Fellowship for Social Justice
The Wellstone fellowship is designed to increase the number of Black/African American, Latino, and American Indian social justice leaders. Candidates seeking consideration for the Wellstone fellowship must demonstrate an interest in health care policy and a commitment to contributing to social justice work following their year of hands-on experience as a fellow. Preference will be given to applicants who have experience with, or demonstrate a keen interest in, working with communities of color. While there is no bias in favor of any specific academic discipline, a college degree is preferred. There is no minimum GPA to qualify for consideration.
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Education Research:
Selected Research on Standards, Achievement, Learning, Assessment, and Technology Integration
This section for Education Research includes supporting pages of resources associated with State and National Standards.
Research Resources (Page 1 of 2) includes:
No Child Left Behind and Scientifically Based Research--a short essay
Efforts to Determine Product Effectiveness
Reading and Conducting Research, including Action Research
Finding Education Research on the Web
Research Resources (Page 2 of 2) includes summaries of selected research and resources related to:
Standards, Raising Achievement, Assessment, How People Learn
Get Adobe Acrobat Reader, free software for pdf files, which appear on this page.
American Educational Research Association. (2000, July). Position statement concerning high-stakes testing in preK-12 education.
The American Educational Research Association (AERA) is the nation's largest professional organization devoted to the scientific study of education. AERA's position statement on high-stakes testing is based on the 1999 Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. The Standards represent a professional consensus concerning sound and appropriate test use in education and psychology. The statement includes that high-stakes testing should meet all of the following criteria:
Protection against high-stakes decisions based on a single test; availability of alternative assessments where appropriate
Availability to adequate resources and opportunity to learn prior to stakeholders being held accountable for failure to meet standards
Validation for each separate intended use
Full disclosure of likely negative consequences of high-stakes testing programs
Alignment between the test and the curriculum; high stakes tests should not be limited to testing curriculum that is easiest to measure
Validity of passing scores and achievement levels
Opportunities for meaningful remediation for examinees who fail high-stakes tests
Appropriate attention to language differences among examinees
Appropriate attention to students with disabilities
Careful adherence to explicit rules for determining which students are to be tested
Sufficient reliability for each intended use
Ongoing evaluation of intended and unintended effects of high-stakes testing
American Federation of Teachers (2001). Making standards matter. Retrieved from http://www.aft.org/periodical/american-educator/winter-2001/making-standards-matter-2001
This report in four sections examined state efforts at setting standards, curriculum development, assessment, incentives, and intervention for students at risk of not meeting standards. It does not address professional development. The AFT made several recommendations. For example, states should (p. 7):
Provide examples of standards and student work at various grades and performance levels so that teachers, students, parents, and the public have a shared understanding of what is expected.
Specify the learning continuum in the core subjects to show the progression and development of critical knowledge and skills from grade to grade.
Identify instructional resources--reading materials, textbooks, software, and so forth--that are aligned to the standards.
Provide performance indicators to clarify the quality of student work required for mastery of the content standards
Develop lesson plan data banks that include exemplary lessons and student work related to instruction in the standards.
Australian Council for Educational Research posted a number of relevant publications on brain-based research and learning: https://www.acer.org/au
Banilower, E. R., Smith, P. S., Weiss, I. R., Malzahn, K. A., Campbell, K. M., & Weis, A. M. (2013). Report of the 2012 National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education. Chapel Hill, NC: Horizon Research, Inc. Retrieved from http://www.horizon-research.com/2012nssme/research-products/reports/technical-report/
The Report of the 2012 National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education "details the results of a survey of 7,752 science and mathematics teachers in schools across the United States. Areas addressed include: teacher backgrounds and beliefs, teachers as professionals, science and mathematics courses, instructional objectives and activities, instructional resources, and factors affecting instruction." The entire report or selected chapters can be downloaded. The following are among the multiple conclusions:
"[S]cience and mathematics teachers, especially in the elementary and middle grades, do not have strong content preparation in their respective subjects ... A large majority of teachers in all subject/grade-range categories believe that it is better to cover fewer topics in depth. However, many believe that students should be given definitions for new vocabulary at the beginning of instruction, that teachers should explain an idea to students before having them consider evidence for it" (pp. 31-32), and that "hands-on activities should be used primarily to reinforce ideas students have already learned, despite recommendations that these be used to help students develop their initial understanding of key concepts" (p. 22).
"Workshops are the most prevalent form of professional development, and participation in teacher study groups is also quite common. ... The emphasis of these professional development opportunities ... has largely been on planning instruction to enable students at different levels of achievement to enhance their understanding, monitoring student understanding during instruction, and assessing student understanding at the end of instruction on a topic. Learning how to use hands-on/manipulatives has also been focused on heavily in mathematics professional development, especially at the elementary level" (pp. 50-51).
"In mathematics, although most middle schools offer Algebra 1, relatively few students complete it prior to 9th grade" (pp. 66-67).
"Explanation of ideas and whole group discussion are also very prominent in mathematics instruction, as is the use of textbook/worksheet problems. Having students engage in practices consistent with the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics, such as explaining and justifying methods for solving a problem and comparing/contrasting different solution methods, is also a common weekly occurrence across grade ranges, although the frequency of use decreases as grade range increases. For example, 78 percent of elementary classes have students consider multiple representations in solving a problem at least once per week, compared to only 65 percent of high school classes. Similar to science, the use of technology in mathematics instruction is fairly low across grade levels" (p. 89).
"Across both science and mathematics, the same three publishers dominate [Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill, and Pearson], accounting for at least 75 percent of the market at each level. ... more than 70 percent of teachers in both subjects rate their textbooks as good or better. ... Textbooks appear to exert substantial influence on instruction, from the amount of class time spent using the textbook (especially in mathematics) to the ways teachers use them to plan for and organize instruction. At the same time, it is clear that teachers deviate from their published materials substantially, both skipping parts of the text (most often because teachers know of something better) and supplementing with other materials (most often to provide additional practice or to differentiate instruction)" (p. 107).
"In mathematics, only two factors are seen as a serious problem in a substantial proportion of schools: low student interest in the subject and low student reading abilities. Lack of student interest is more likely to be seen as a serious problem in middle and high schools than in elementary schools" (p. 116).
"[T]he use of special instructional arrangements—e.g., subject matter specialists or pull-out instruction for enrichment and/or remediation—is much more prevalent in mathematics than in science, perhaps because of accountability pressures associated with mathematics. The availability of federal funds for mathematics instruction probably also plays a role. ... [P]rograms to encourage student interest in mathematics are strikingly uncommon. For example, less than one-third of schools offer mathematics clubs. ... In mathematics, the substantial influence of state standards is evident in multiple ways, among them school-wide efforts to discuss and align instruction with standards" (p. 125).
Barley, Z., Lauer, P. A., Arens, S. A., Apthorp, H. S., Englert, K. S., Snow, D., & Akiba, M. (2002). Helping at-risk students meet standards: A synthesis of evidence-based classroom practices. Aurora, CO: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning. Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED475904
This research synthesis provides evidence of five strategies to help low-achieving students meet standards:
cognitively oriented instruction
heterogeneous grouping structures
computer-assisted instruction.
Brodersen, R. M., & Melluso, D. (2017). Summary of research on online and blended learning programs that offer differentiated learning options (REL 2017–228). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Regional Educational Laboratory Central. Retrieved from https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/project.asp?projectID=4499
Brodersen and Melluso (2017) summarized "the methodology, measures, and findings of research on the influence on student achievement outcomes of K–12 online and blended face-to-face and online learning programs that offer differentiated learning options. The report also describes the characteristics of the learning programs." Their findings revealed "In some of the most rigorous studies, statistically significant positive effects were found for four blended learning programs: Cognitive Tutor Algebra I, LeapTrack, READ 180, and Time To Know" (p. 1). "Studies were included only if the programs they examined directly involved a teacher in the delivery and monitoring of instruction and the study report clearly stated that the online or blended learning program being examined was used to support differentiated instruction. Online programs that were completely software-driven and that did not have a teacher facilitator were excluded" (pp. 2-3). Although 162 studies were reviewed, only 17 met eligibility criteria for inclusion. The excluded studies "did not focus on K–12 programs, assessed standalone online programs, or did not clearly offer differentiated learning options" (p. 9). Within the included studies, 15 used a randomized controlled trial or quasi-experimental design; and the other two were correlational studies. "The 17 studies examined 14 different online or blended learning programs" (p. 3). The report includes a list with 37 names of online and blended learning programs, most of which focus on math and/or reading (English language arts).
Deans for Impact. (2015). The Science of Learning. Austin, TX: Deans for Impact. Retrieved from http://deansforimpact.org/resources/the-science-of-learning/
In the Science of Learning, the Deans for Impact (2015) provide a valuable summary of cognitive science research on how learning takes place. In just 10 pages, you'll find concise cognitive principles and practical implications for the classroom related to six key questions on how students understand new ideas, learn and retain new information, and solve problems; how learning transfers to new situations; what motivates students to learn; and common misconceptions about how students think and learn.
Educational Leadership magazine, September 2001, is devoted to making standards work: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/sept01/vol59/num01/toc.aspx ASCD has made some of those articles available to help you understand more about standards:
Gandal, M. & Vranek, J. (2001, September). Standards: Here today, here tomorrow. Educational Leadership, 59(1) 6-13. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/sept01/vol59/num01/toc.aspx
Standards must be teachable to have an impact on what goes on in the classroom. Teachable standards contain clarity and specificity. In other words, they contain enough detail and precision so that teachers, students, and parents know what is to be learned. Making decisions as to what all students should learn is difficult. Including everything that a student could learn helps no one. This "laundry list" tends to undermine the power of standards as common expectations. Teachers feel overwhelmed by the enormity of what needs to be taught, and hence, in-depth coverage of concepts suffers.
According to Gandal and Vranek, those who design tests that measure state standards might consider three key principles:
If it's not in the standards, it shouldn't be on the test.
When the standards are rich and rigorous, the tests must be as well.
Tests should become more challenging in each succeeding grade.
Professional development linked to standards is key, but lacking for the majority of teachers in the United States. According to Education Week's (2001) Quality Counts survey, "fewer than half of teachers in the United States say that they have plenty of access to curriculum guides, textbooks, or other teaching materials or to specific training connected to state standards."
If standards truly define essential skills and knowledge that students should acquire, then students must be given a fighting chance to reach them, be it more time or extra targeted help on weaknesses through intervention and support programs. Schools require a focused curriculum aligned to standards. Students should have adequate preparation time for tests and multiple opportunities to retake tests, if they do not succeed on a first try.
Gayler, K., Chudowsky, N., Kober, N., Hamilton, M., & Yeager, M. (2004, August). State high school exit exams: A maturing reform. Washington, D.C.: Center on Education Policy. Available under section: High School Exit Exams at http://www.cep-dc.org/
Gayler, Chudowsky, Kober, Hamilton, and Yeager presented findings and recommendations about exit exams in 2004, which is the third annual report on this topic. In six chapters, the authors addressed how exit exams are affecting curriculum, instruction, and students; the characteristics of exit exams and how well they align with state standards; the kinds of exit exam supports and options that states are providing for students; the kinds of changes that states are making in exit exam systems; and how well exit exams are connected to other education policies such as No Child Left Behind. State profiles are included.
Gayler, K., Chudowsky, N., Kober, N., & Hamilton, M. (2003, August). State high school exit exams: Put to the test. Washington, D.C.: Center on Education Policy. Available under section: High School Exit Exams at http://www.cep-dc.org/
Gayler, Chudowsky, Kober, and Hamilton presented findings and recommendations about exit exams based on a survey study of 24 states with current or planned exit exams. This five chapter report, which is supported by review of literature on relevant studies of the prior year, addresses how exit exams are affecting curriculum, instruction, and students; the main features of state exit exams as they existed in 2003; the cost of implementing state exit exams; and the challenges that states face as they implement exit exams. This report also includes state high school exit exam profiles (data and descriptions) for all 24 states that have or plan to have mandatory exit exams by 2008. Test types administered are either standards-based, minimum competency, or end-of-course.
Among findings:
NCLB legislation is starting to impact the performance goals, content, and timetables of state exit exam systems.
Exit exams appear to encourage school districts to cover more of the content in state standards, better align curriculum with state standards, and add remedial and special courses to address needs of students at risk of failing.
Costs of implementing such systems are substantial, with many states expecting school districts to foot most of the bill. Hidden costs include that for professional development of teachers and prevention services for students at risk of failing. Such services include, for example, revamping instruction to align it with state standards, instituting early reading and math programs to prevent failure, and implementing special instructional programs to help English language learners and students with disabilities to learn the knowledge and skills being tested.
Gersten, R., Beckmann, S., Clarke, B., Foegen, A., Marsh, L., Star, J. R., & Witzel, B. (2009, April). Assisting students struggling with mathematics: Response to Intervention (RtI) for elementary and middle schools (NCEE 2009-4060). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/PracticeGuide/2
The authors' "goal in this practice guide is to provide suggestions for assessing students’ mathematics abilities and implementing mathematics interventions within an RtI framework, in a way that reflects the best evidence on effective practices in mathematics interventions" (p. 4). Eight recommendations are included, along with a list of 12 examples of math problems to illustrate concepts.
Hodgen, J., Foster, C., Marks, R., & Brown, M. (2018). Evidence for review of mathematics teaching: Improving mathematics in key stages two and three: Evidence review. London: Education Endowment Foundation. Retrieved from https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/evidence-summaries/evidence-reviews/improving-mathematics-in-key-stages-two-and-three/
This review was commissioned by the Education Endowment Foundation in the UK. Hodgen, Foster, Marks, and Brown synthesized the best available international research on teaching math to children aged 9-14 in a quest to answer a broad question: What is the evidence regarding the effectiveness of different strategies for teaching mathematics? Additional questions were included on "related to aspects of pupil learning, pedagogy, the use of resources, the teaching of specific mathematical content [e.g., algebra, number and calculation, geometry, statistics and probability], and pupil attitudes and motivation" (p. 4). To capture results of a broad spectrum of original studies, they focused on using "existing meta-analyses and systematic reviews." In this 200 page review, Hodgen and colleagues also presented an overview of developing mathematics competency.
The following are selected highlights among findings where the strength of evidence was HIGH:
Feedback and formative assessment: "Feedback should be used sparingly and predominantly reserved for more complex tasks, where it may support learners’ perseverance. The well-established literature on misconceptions and learners’ understandings in mathematics provides a fruitful framework to guide assessment and feedback in mathematics." (p. 7)
Collaborative learning (CL): CL "has a positive effect on attainment and attitude for all students, although the effects are larger at secondary. ... The evidence suggests that students need to be taught how to collaborate, and that this may take time and involve changes to the classroom culture." (p. 7)
Calculators: "Calculator use does not in general hinder students’ skills in arithmetic. When calculators are used as an integral part of testing and teaching, their use appears to have a positive effect on students’ calculation skills. Calculator use has a small positive impact on problem solving. The evidence suggests that primary students should not use calculators every day, but secondary students should have more frequent unrestricted access to calculators. As with any strategy, it matters how teachers and students use calculators. When integrated into the teaching of mental and other calculation approaches, calculators can be very effective for developing non-calculator computation skills; students become better at arithmetic in general and are likely to self-regulate their use of calculators, consequently making less (but better) use of them." (p. 10)
Concrete manipulatives: "Concrete manipulatives can be a powerful way of enabling learners to engage with mathematical ideas, provided that teachers ensure that learners understand the links between the manipulatives and the mathematical ideas they represent. Whilst learners need extended periods of time to develop their understanding by using manipulatives, using manipulatives for too long can hinder learners’ mathematical development." (p. 11)
Textbooks: "The organisation of the mathematics classroom and how textbooks can enable teachers to develop students’ understanding of, engagement in and motivation for mathematics is of greater significance than the choice of one particular textbook rather than another" (p. 12).
The review of other pedagogies included discussion, explicit teaching and direct instruction, mastery learning, problem solving, peer and cross-age tutoring, misconceptions; and thinking skills, metacognition, self-regulation. The review of other resources and tools also included technological tools and computer-assisted instruction, other representations beyond using concrete manipulatives, and the use of tasks.
Ito, M., Horst, H. A., Bittanti, M., Boyd, D., Herr-Stephenson, B., Lange, P. G., Pascoe, C. J., & Robinson, L. (2008, November). Living and learning with new media: Summary of findings from the digital youth project. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning. Retrieved from http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/report
The authors presented findings from an ethnographic study, called "the most extensive U.S. study of youth media use" to date. It was conducted over three years (2005-2008). More than 800 youth and their parents were interviewed by a team of 28 researchers and collaborators at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Berkeley. The team spent more than 5000 hours observing teens involved with social networking sites, and examined diaries of youth who documented their everyday use of digital media. Results contribute to an understanding of how young people learn and develop social skills online and have implications for educators.
Major findings included:
Youth use online media to extend friendships and interests.
Youth engage in peer-based, self-directed learning online.
Implications included:
Adults should facilitate young people's engagement with digital media. Contrary to adult perceptions, while hanging out online, youth are picking up basic social and technical skills they need to fully participate in contemporary society. Erecting barriers to participation deprives teens of access to these forms of learning.
Given the diversity of digital media, it is problematic to develop a standardized set of benchmarks against which to measure young people’s technical and new media literacy.
Youth using new media often learn from their peers, not teachers or adults. Yet, in interest-driven participation, adults have an important role to play (e.g. in setting learning goals).
To stay relevant in the 21st century, education institutions need to keep pace with the rapid changes introduced by digital media.
Kauffman, D., Johnson, S. M., Kardos, S. M., Liu, E., & Peske, H. G. (2002, March). Lost at sea: New teachers' experiences with curriculum and assessment. Teachers College, Columbia University: Teachers College Record, 104(2), 273-300. Retrieved from http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=10822
Research that included semi-structured interviews and brief surveys was conducted in 1999-2000 with a diverse group of 50 first and second year Massachusetts teachers working in a wide range of public schools to uncover their experiences with curriculum and assessment. Kauffman and colleagues indicated the results of the study might not be generalizeable to the nation as a whole, but do have an implication for practice.
In terms of the interaction of state standards and curricula, research revealed:
New teachers were often expected to use the state curriculum framework as the actual curriculum.
If curricula and teaching guides were at the school, they often did not fully align with the curriculum framework.
The state frameworks covered too much content.
Teachers experienced anxiety with too much content to cover and insufficient guidance on what topics to cover in depth and what topics to just introduce. Without support, teachers tended to focus on content addressed on the standardized test by "piecing together test-related materials and by using specific MCAS questions as the basis for instruction" (p. 290).
The authors recommended actions in three arenas: state policy, curriculum research and development, and collaboration around curriculum at the school site. Beyond developing standards and assessments, states must support their implementation. Research is necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of existing materials, the conditions under which those materials will be effective, and to develop additional materials for use in various academic subjects. School-based collaboration around curriculum development would go a long way towards orienting new teachers to the curriculum and helping them learn what to teach and how to teach it.
Marzano, R. (2003). What works in schools: Translating research into action. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. ISBN: 0-87120-717-6.
Marzano synthesized 35 years of research on effective schooling and identified 11 school, teacher, and student level factors that have the greatest affect on student achievement:
Guaranteed and viable curriculum
Challenging goals and effective feedback
Parent and community involvement
Safe and orderly environment
Collegiality and professionalism
Teacher Level
Classroom curriculum design
Student Level
Learned intelligence and background knowledge
McIntosh, S. (2012, September). State high school exit exams: A policy in transition. Washington, D.C.: Center on Education Policy. Available under section: High School Exit Exams at http://www.cep-dc.org/
This 11th annual report on the state of high school exit exams is based on data collected from personnel in 45 state education departments. Shelby McIntosh from the CEP reported three broad conclusions:
High School exit exams remain a substantial force in education policy with 25 states administering such exams in 2011-2012. Exit exams current affect nearly 7 of 10 students across the nation.
Exit exams are becoming assessments of college and career readiness. Many states plan to use the Common Core State Standards, and often the common assessments, as a vehicle for this transition.
Although the success of exit exam policies remains questionable, much can be learned from past implementations of new policies. Namely, successful implementation of a new exit exam policy often depends on states' willingness to maintain the support of key state leaders and the public, implement the new policies over several years rather than all at once, and make a full financial commitment. There are many challenges to a new policy implementation, such as "opposition from key education stakeholders, political disagreements or changes in state leadership, legal battles, low student passing rates, and high costs" (p. 1). "States have often responded to these challenges by offering alternate routes to graduation or alternate diplomas for some or all students and/or by funding remediation programs for students who struggle to pass exit exams" (p. 1).
McNeil, N. M., Grandau, L., Knuth, E. J., Alibali, M. W., Stephens, A. C., Hattikudur, S., & Krill, D. E. (2006). Middle-school students' understanding of the equal sign: The books they read can't help. Cognition and Instruction, 24(3), 367–385. Retrieved from https://labweb.education.wisc.edu/knuth/taar/papers_rep_pub/CI_galley.pdf
"This study examined how 4 middle school textbook series (2 skills-based, 2 standards-based) present equal signs. Equal signs were often presented in standard operations-equals-answer contexts (e.g., 3 + 4 = 7) and were rarely presented in nonstandard operations on both sides contexts (e.g., 3 + 4 = 5 + 2). They were, however, presented in other nonstandard contexts (e.g., 7 = 7). Two follow-up experiments showed that students’ interpretations of the equal sign depend on the context. The other nonstandard contexts were better than the operations-equals-answer context at eliciting a relational understanding of the equal sign, but the operations on both sides context was best. Results suggest that textbooks rarely present equal signs in contexts most likely to elicit a relational interpretation—an interpretation critical to success in algebra" (p. 367).
The four middle-school textbook series (Grades 6 to 8) analyzed included:
Skills-based: Saxon Math (Hake & Saxon, 2004) and Prentice Hall Mathematics (Charles, Branch-Boyd, Illingworth, Mills, & Reeves, 2004)
Standards-based: Connected Mathematics (Lappan, Fey, Fitzgerald, Friel, & Phillips, 1998) and Mathematics in Context (Romberg et al., 1998).
According to McNeil et al. (2006), "all four textbook series focus on both skills and concepts to some degree; however, [they classified] for the sake of comparison and conciseness" (p. 372).
The caveat to this study is that results might only apply to the four textbook series for grades 6-8 examined. Educators should examine their own texts for how the equal sign is used.
Morgan, P., Farkas, G., & Maczuga, S. (2014, June 25). Which instructional strategies most help first-grade students with and without mathematics difficulties? Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 20(10), 1-22. DOI: 10.3102/0162373714536608. Retrieved from http://epa.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/06/20/0162373714536608.full.pdf
A major finding from this study is that "First-grade teachers in the United States may need to increase their use of teacher-directed instruction if they are to raise the mathematics achievement of students with MD [mathematics difficulties]." Such teacher-directed instruction includes "routine practice and drill." Co-author Paul Morgan discusses major findings from this study in a video posted on YouTube.
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (2012, February). Large scale mathematics assessments and high-stakes decisions. Retrieved from https://www.nctm.org/Standards-and-Positions/Position-Statements/Large-Scale-Mathematics-Assessments-and-High-Stakes-Decisions/
NCTM has a section on its web site for standards and positions. With regard to large scale mathematics assessments and high-stakes decisions, NCTM stated:
Large-scale mathematics assessments are only one of a variety of measures that should be used when making high-stakes decisions that significantly impact schools and students. Such decisions should also take into account relevant and valid data on classroom-based performance, derived from assessments, both formative and summative, that offer students a range of opportunities to demonstrate their mathematical knowledge. Moreover, such decisions must consider the resources provided to support high-quality mathematics instruction as well as the opportunities afforded to students to meet the standards being assessed. When significant, high-stakes decisions are based on a single large-scale mathematics assessment, such as a state mandated end-of-year test, the likelihood of error stemming from the validity of inferences made from just one data point is higher. (para. 1)
Pellegrini, M., Lake, C., Inns, A., & Slavin, R. E. (2018, October). Effective programs in elementary mathematics: A best-evidence synthesis. Baltimore, MD: Center for Research and Reform in Education, Johns Hopkins University. Retrieved from http://www.bestevidence.org/math/elem/elem_math_2018.htm
Pellegrini, Lake, Inns, and Slavin (2018) reviewed research on mathematics achievement outcomes using 78 studies (65 randomized and 13 quaisi-experimental) that evaluated 61 programs in K-5. "Programs were organized in 8 categories. Particularly positive outcomes were found for tutoring programs. One-to-one and one-to-small group models had equal impacts, as did teachers and paraprofessionals as tutors. Technology programs showed modest positive impacts. Professional development approaches focused on helping teachers gain in understanding of math content and pedagogy had no impact on student achievement, but more promising outcomes were seen in studies focused on instructional processes, such as cooperative learning. Whole-school reform, social-emotional approaches, math curricula, and benchmark assessment programs found few positive effects, although there were one or more effective individual approaches in most categories. The findings suggest that programs emphasizing personalization, engagement, and motivation are most impactful in elementary mathematics instruction, while strategies focused on textbooks, professional development for math knowledge or pedagogy, and other strategies that do not substantially impact students’ daily experiences have little impact." (Abstract section, p. 2)
See the research for all of the programs that were listed in each category, as not all had significant outcomes. Programs meeting ESSA evidence standards with strong or moderate, the latter noted in parentheses, ratings included:
Tutoring: Math Recovery (moderate), Numbers Count, Catch-up Numeracy, Galaxy Math, Pirate Math, MathCorps, Number Rockets, FocusMATH, Fraction Face-Off, ROOTS
Programs incorporating technology: DreamBox Learning, Mathematics and Reasoning, SuccessMaker
Instructional process programs: PAX Good Behavior game (moderate)
Whole school reform: Center for Data-Driven Reform in Education
Social-emotional learning: Positive Action
Math curricula: Math Expressions, Math in Focus
Benchmark assessments: Acuity (pp. 79-80)
Rittle-Johnson, B., & Jordan, N. C. (2016). Synthesis of IES-Funded Research on Mathematics: 2002–2013 (NCER 2016-2003). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Research, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from https://ies.ed.gov/ncer/pubs/20162003/pdf/20162003.pdf
This report from the IES is highly relevant to math educators. It lists 28 ways that federally funded research during this time period contributed to what we know on how to teach mathematics and approaches to professional development. Almost 200 federally funded studies about math learning and teaching were analyzed. The report is organized into two sections: 1. Whole Numbers, Operations, and Word Problem Solving in Elementary School (10 contributions), and 2. Fractions and Algebra in Middle School (14 contributions). The report revealed 4 contributions related to professional development approaches.
Rosen, L. D. (2010). Rewired: Understanding the iGeneration and how they learn. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Rosen's book contains nine chapters and 256 pages:
Why tweens and teens hate school
Welcome to the iGeneration
An explosion of WMDs: wireless mobile devices
Multitasking madness
Real life or screen life?: the educational opportunities of immersive social networking and virtual worlds
Tapping into a very creative generation of students
Media literacy among 21st-century kids
Concerns, worries, and barriers
Rewiring education
Rosen suggested that teachers should begin to use cell phones as tools for mobile learning. Students should generate original content online as part of learning (e.g., via setting up a MySpace or Facebook page). They should be taught how to judge the trustworthiness of media sources and use the internet to help provide a global perspective. Teachers need to teach media literacy so that learners are not just gathering superficial information, but using it to gain deeper understanding.
Also see Michael Koliska's 2011 book review of Rewired: Understanding the iGeneration and how they learn, a professional resource published in the Journal of Media Literacy Education.
Rudner, L., & Schafer, W. (Eds.). (2002). What teachers need to know about assessment. Washington, D.C.: National Education Association. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237666611_What_Teachers_Need_to_Know_about_Assessment
This 111-page book in pdf format is available free online. You will learn fundamental concepts related to all assessments; essential classroom assessment concepts; and useful concepts and issues pertaining to district, state, and national assessments. Teachers will learn how to construct multiple choice and performance assessments, how to construct and evaluate scoring rubrics, and read about essential skills for students. This latter includes improving the quality of student notes, how to study for tests, and how to avoid the traps associated with standardized tests.
Scherer, M. (2001, September). How and why standards can improve student achievement: A conversation with Robert J. Marzano. Educational Leadership, 59(1), 14-18. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/sept01/vol59/num01/toc.aspx
In an era of accountability that has been created by technology and the information explosion, we must be specific about what students must know and be able to do. Marge Scherer, Editor in Chief of Educational Leadership, posed several key questions on how and why standards can improve student achievement in a conversation with Robert J. Marzano, Senior Fellow at the Midcontinent Research for Education and Learning Institute (McREL, http://www.mcrel.org). Marzano's comments fell into three categories: a manageable number of standards, a change in our record-keeping system that does not increase teacher clerical work, and the need for a repertoire of instructional strategies. Highlights follow.
Step one toward implementing standards is to cut the amount of content addressed within standards by about two-thirds. The sheer number of those standards is the biggest impediment to their implementation. Someone at the district or school level has to cut down the content to essentials related to standards. This would give teachers ample time to cover the essential knowledge in the time allotted and provide them with room to supplement that content. Schools and teachers are looking to state departments of education for guidance.
In addition to trimming standards, a monitoring system is needed that allows tracking of student progress on specific standards. Marzano suggested a change from our grading practices to standards-based grading. This would require a change in record keeping and the use of rubric scores or percentage scores on specific standards that were covered in a course. Administrators have to set up a record-keeping and monitoring system that is easy for teachers to use, if they expect teachers to implement standards. Over time, you would plot student progress on specific standards. Those patterns are more reliable and valid than a single score from a year-end test. Getting feedback on student progress as often as possible, at least once a year, is absolutely essential to the teaching and learning process.
Research at McREL identified classroom practices that generally lead to achievement gains. These include:
identifying similarities and differences
summarizing and note-taking
receiving reinforcement for effort and recognition for achievement
doing homework and practicing
using nonlinguistic representations
learning cooperatively
setting objectives and receiving feedback
generating and testing hypotheses
using cues, questions, and advanced organizers.
Schoenfeld, A. H. (2002). Making mathematics work for all children: Issues of standards, testing, and equity. Educational Researcher, 31(1), 13-25.
Schoenfeld discussed four conditions necessary for providing high quality mathematics instruction for all students: high quality curriculum; a stable, knowledgeable, and professional teaching community; high quality assessment that is aligned with curricular goals; and stability and mechanisms for the evolution of curricula, assessment and professional development.
It has taken time for curricula to be developed and implemented that is aligned to 1989 NCTM Principles and Standards, and more time for hard data based on large-scale implementations to be collected on their effectiveness. In terms of the current state, Schoenfeld stated that the body of data indicates the following (p. 16):
"On tests of basic skills, there are no significant performance differences between students who learn from traditional or reform curricula.
On tests of conceptual understanding and problem solving, students who learn from reform curricula consistently outperform students who learn from traditional curricula by a wide margin.
There is some encouraging evidence that reform curricula can narrow the performance gap between Whites and under-represented minorities."
Schoenfeld presented data from Pittsburgh Public Schools to illustrate effectiveness of reform curricula, and noted reform experiences in Michigan and Massachusetts.
He stated that "teaching is a profession more in name than in reality", which is "a national outrage and a national pathology" (p. 16). The reason for this stems from the need for more training, the typical expectation being that "one year of teacher training will prepare candidate teachers to take on full responsibilities of the classroom" and that once in the field "the vast majority of teachers have minimal opportunities for professional growth" (p. 16).
There are at least two large-scale assessments aligned with NCTM Principles and Standards. These are New Standards Mathematics Reference Examination and a standards-based assessment developed by the Mathematics Assessment Resource Service (MARS). See:
Briars, D., & Resnick, L. (2000, Aug). Standards, assessments -- and what else? The essential elements of standards-based school improvement (CSE Report 528). Los Angeles, CA: National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing. Retrieved from http://cresst.org/publications/cresst-publication-2900/ [This report discusses the Pittsburgh Public Schools experience and the New Standards Reference Examination for Mathematics and has examples of content.]
Ridgway, J., Crust, R., Burkhardt, H., Wilcox, S., Fisher, L., & Foster, D. (2000). MARS report on the 2000 tests. San Jose, CA: Mathematics Assessment Collaborative.
Siegler, R., Carpenter, T., Fennell, F., Geary, D., Lewis, J., Okamoto, Y., Thompson, L.m & Wray, J. (2010, September). Developing effective fractions instruction for kindergarten through 8th grade: A practice guide (NCEE #2010-4039). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/PracticeGuide/15
This practice guide is intended for teachers in K-8 to help their learners gain proficiency in understanding and problem-solving with fractions. "This document uses the term fractions rather than rational numbers. The term fractions refers to the full range of ways of expressing rational numbers, including decimals, percentages, and negative fractions" (p. 7). The following five recommendations are included. Each is accompanied by examples on how to carry out the recommendation:
Build on students’ informal understanding of sharing and proportionality to develop initial fraction concepts.
Help students recognize that fractions are numbers and that they expand the number system beyond whole numbers. Use number lines as a central representational tool in teaching this and other fraction concepts from the early grades onward.
Help students understand why procedures for computations with fractions make sense.
Develop students’ conceptual understanding of strategies for solving ratio, rate, and proportion problems before exposing them to cross-multiplication as a procedure to use to solve such problems.
Professional development programs should place a high priority on improving teachers’ understanding of fractions and of how to teach them.
Stepanek, J. (2000). Mathematics and science classrooms: Building a community of learners. It's just good teaching. Northwest Regional Education Laboratory Math and Science Center. Retrieved from http://www.nwrel.org/msec/just_good/10/titlepg.html
Stepanek has several chapters, but among them are three models for collaborative learning (democratic, caring, and ecological) and group process skills and strategies to eliminate stratification in groups.
Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS, formerly the Third International Mathematics and Science Study). TIMSS information is located at the National Center for Educational Statistics. For math, there is a sampling of questions (Dare to Compare) that appeared on prior TIMSS and National Assessment of Education Progress Exams: https://nces.ed.gov/timss/.
Walters, K., Smith, T., Leinwand, S., Surr, W., Stein, A., & Bailey, P. (2014, November). An up-close look at student-centered math teaching: A study of highly regarded high school teachers and their students. Quincy, MA: Nellie Mae Education Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.nmefoundation.org/resources/student-centered-learning/an-up-close-look-at-student-centered-math-teaching
This case study of 22 highly regarded high school teachers and their students in six New England states and New York was conducted by researchers from The American Institutes of Research (AIR), with support from the Nellie Mae Education Foundation. The team examined student-centered math instruction to "provide rich descriptions of how the approach [played] out in several classrooms, taking into account how teachers’ personal philosophy and the school’s instructional context might influence their practice. The case study also provided insights into students’ perspectives on different approaches to mathematics instruction. Second, the researchers [looked] across a larger sample of classrooms to determine the effects of varying degrees of student-centeredness on students’ engagement with learning and their problem-solving skills" (Executive summary, p. 3).
The researchers developed and then applied an analytic framework with four types of learning opportunities in mathematics. In student-centered mathematics learning environments, students have meaningful opportunities to:
Use mathematical reasoning to understand the “why” as well as the “how.”
Communicate their thinking and critique the reasoning of others.
Make connections between and among mathematical concepts and real-world concepts.
Engage and persevere in solving complex mathematical problems.
Data sources included videos of lessons, weekly instructional logs, teacher interviews, and student focus groups.
Key findings on student outcomes:
Students in math classrooms led by highly regarded teachers feel very positively about their teacher and the class. However, students with highly regarded teachers who implement more student-centered approaches to math instruction report that they find the content more interesting and meaningful.
Students in more student-centered math classrooms report being more engaged in how much they are learning and how interested they are in the material, compared to students in less student-centered classrooms.
Students in more student-centered math classrooms showed higher growth on a test of problem-solving skills than students in less student-centered classrooms.
As a summary of student-centered instructional practices of teachers, findings were reported on orchestration of discussion and instructional tasks, as follows.
Orchestration of discussion:
Focus on the “why” as well as the “how.”
Encourage students to justify and explain their solution strategies.
Encourage students to critique the mathematical reasoning of others.
Support students by advancing, but not taking over, their thinking as they engage in productive struggle with mathematics.
Elicit and make connections between different mathematical ideas and/or approaches to the same problem.
Instructional tasks:
Allow for multiple entry points and solution methods.
Challenge students to reason about mathematics by looking for patterns, making conjectures, conducting explorations, examining connections between and among mathematical concepts, and justifying mathematical solutions.
Make explicit the connections between mathematics and real-life experiences.
Encourage the use of different tools, including technology, to explore mathematics and solve mathematics problems.
Provide collaborative opportunities for students to communicate about and critique each other’s mathematical reasoning. (Executive summary, p. 6)
Two conclusions stand out among those provided: "Highly abstract mathematical concepts can be presented in student-centered ways, with positive outcomes for students." And, "Teaching philosophy and instructional context may affect how strongly and consistently teachers enact student-centered approaches." (Executive summary, p. 7).
Wagner, T. (2003, November 12). Beyond testing: The 7 disciplines for strengthening instruction. Education Week, 23(11), 28, 30. Retrieved from http://www.tonywagner.com/resources/beyond-testing
Tony Wagner, co-director of the Change Leadership Group (CLG) at Harvard University's graduate school of education, reported on strategies used for improving teaching in districts that have dramatically raised the level of student achievement for the lowest quartile of students, including those from the most at-risk populations. He discussed seven practices, which the CLG identified, that appear to be central to any successful instructional-improvement effort. All of these might not be implemented at once, some must come before others, but none can be skipped. Quoting his words:
The district creates an understanding and a sense of urgency among teachers and in the community for the necessity of improving all students' learning, and it regularly reports on progress. Data are disaggregated and are transparent to everyone. Qualitative data (for example, from focus groups and interviews), as well as quantitative data, are used to understand students' and recent graduates' experience of school.
There is a widely shared vision of what good teaching is, which is focused on rigorous expectations, the quality of student engagement, and effective strategies for personalizing learning for all students.
All adult meetings are about instruction and are models of good teaching.
There are well-defined standards and performance assessments for student work at all grade levels. Both teachers and students understand what quality work looks like, and there is consistency in standards of assessment.
Supervision is frequent, rigorous, and entirely focused on the improvement of instruction. It is done by people who know what good instruction looks like.
Professional development is primarily on-site, intensive, collaborative, and job-embedded, and is designed and led by educators who model the best teaching and learning practices.
Data are used diagnostically at frequent intervals by teams of teachers, schools, and districts to assess each student's learning and to identify the most effective teaching practices. There is time built into schedules for this shared work.
Wenglinsky, H. (2002, February 13). How schools matter: The link between teacher classroom practices and student academic performance. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 10(12). Retrieved from http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/index.php/epaa/issue/view/10
Wenglinsky found that teacher classroom practices have a significant effect on student achievement. Additionally, high-quality professional development focusing on higher-order thinking skills and diversity issues does appear to strongly influence classroom practice. Teacher quality and classroom practice can have an effect on student achievement equal to or exceeding that of socioeconomic status (SES) of students.
In addition, he noted aspects of teacher quality that are related to student achievement when class size and SES are taken into account. In particular, the following five variables are positively associated with achievement:
Teacher major
Professional development in higher-order thinking skills
Professional development in diversity
Use of hand-on learning in classrooms
Focus on higher-order thinking skills
Williams, T., Kirst, M., Haertel, E., et al. (2010). Gaining Ground in the Middle Grades: Why Some Schools Do Better. Mountain View, CA: EdSource. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED508674.pdf
Williams, Kirst, Haertel, et al. from EdSource and Stanford University conducted survey research in the 2008-09 school year, which involved 303 middle grades schools in California. The team surveyed 303 principals, 3752 English Language Arts (ELA) and math teachers in grades 6-8, and 157 superintendents of the districts and charter management organizations that oversee the schools. They analyzed the reported district and school practices, correlating them with California's spring 2009 standardized test results in ELA and math in grades 6, 7, and 8 taken by approximately 204,000 students in their sample. The study is significant for documenting the range of traditional and newer policies and practices that are in place in those middle schools and for identifying which of those practices and policies differentiated higher-performing schools from lower-performing schools with similar student populations on standards-based tests. Findings have implications for practices that might be incorporated in other settings, which lend themselves for achievement and better standardized testing results independent of student background.
The following are some of the major findings noted in the Narrative Summary of this study:
An intense schoolwide focus on improving academic outcomes most distinguishes higher- from lower-performing middle grades schools. Effective practices include (1) setting measureable goals for improved student outcomes on standards-based tests, including for interim benchmark tests. (2) There's a shared school mission to prepare students academically for the future. This includes strong regular communication on the importance of middle school achievement in preparation for high school and future goals. Instruction and curricula are designed so that learners leave middle school with strong foundational academic and study skills, are on track to pass the California High School Exit Exam, and are ready to take on courses required for college entrance. (3) Adults are held accountable and responsible for improved student outcomes, and (4) the school expects students and parents to share responsibility in student learning. This latter includes requirements and contracts for parent participation.
In higher-performing schools, curricula and instruction are closely aligned with state academic standards. Effective practices include (1) implementation of standards-based curricula and instructional practice that is tight and coherent. ELA and math teachers use the adopted curriculum programs daily. Teachers report collaborating frequently to discuss curriculum pacing, scope and sequence; to develop common benchmarks and assessments; to discuss how common benchmarks and assessments relate to instruction; and to break-down state content standards into prerequisite student skills. (2) Cohensive policies and strategies are implemented to further strengthen student learning of ELA and math in grades 7 and 8.
Higher-performing schools use assessment and other student data extensively to improve student learning and teacher practice. Data are used throughout the year in higher-performing schools, rather than just a few times a year as seen in lower-performing schools. Effective practices include (1) strong district support for using assessment data. For example, the district provides a computer-based system to enable school staff members to access and review student data, and has standards-based benchmark tests available for each grade and subject that it expects schools to administer. (2) Facility with and frequent use of assessment data indicates a changing role of principals in higher-performing schools. There is a culture shift to focus on student outcomes. Teachers report frequent use of assessment data to evaluate individual student achievement, achievement by subgroups, and to set goals; help students see steady and measureable progress in their learning; identify and correct gaps in their instruction; and analyze student assessment data to identify effective instructional practices. They frequently administer benchmark assessments, diagnostic assessments, and classroom-based assessments.
Higher-performing middle grades schools emphasize early identification and proactive intervention for student academic needs. Among effective practices (not exhaustive) are a comprehensive range of required and voluntary strategies to intervene for students who are two or more years below grade level or who are in danger of failure for the current year. The range of required intervention strategies includes such things as extra instructional time during the school day, perhaps in place of an elective; short-term interventions that run concurrent with class; intervention outside of the regular school day; required intersession or summer courses. Voluntary academic intervention for those at risk for failure in the current year might take the form of academic support during nonclassroom time (e.g., after school or during lunchtime); programs like Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID); and an online or intervention program. Teachers report using differentiated instruction for individuals or groups and flexible student groups during class time.
Every role in a professional community of educators is important to making gains in middle grades student outcomes. This includes practices by teachers, principals, and superintendents. Examples of best practices include useful professional development of teachers, a considerable amount of common planning time per month in 7th and 8th grade for ELA and math teachers. The report elaborates further on specific findings regarding key players in the professional community.
Woodward, J., Beckmann, S., Driscoll, M., Franke, M., Herzig, P., Jitendra, A., Koedinger, K. R., & Ogbuehi, P. (2012). Improving mathematical problem solving in grades 4 through 8: A practice guide (NCEE 2012-4055). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/PracticeGuide/16
Woodward and colleagues provided five recommendations for improving mathematical problems solving in grades 4-8 and discussion of the research supporting the following:
Prepare problems and use them in whole-class instruction.
Assist students in monitoring and reflecting on the problem-solving process.
Teach students how to use visual representations.
Expose students to multiple problem-solving strategies.
Help students recognize and articulate mathematical concepts and notation.
Recommendations 2 and 3 are supported by "strong" evidence, according to research reviewed for this practice guide.
Technology enhanced learning activities should be aligned with local, state, and national standards, should include well-defined assessments, should be accessible to all learners (including those with disabilities), and should contain multiple learning strategies. Strategies for technology integration that might be used include active learning strategies, constructivist learning strategies, cooperative learning strategies, authentic learning strategies, and intentional/reflective learning strategies.
Read more about Good Models of Teaching with Technology, a publication of the Education Alliance at Brown University.
Orey, M.(Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://epltt.coe.uga.edu/index.php This book is freely available online with articles, videos, animations, narrations, and images on learning and cognitive theories, instructional theories and models, inquiry and direct instruction strategies, and more. It's continually updated. You'll also find discussion on technology tools for teaching and learning. Highly recommended.
TechMatrix.org maintains a searchable database for math, reading, writing, and assistive technologies. The section on Research includes multiple articles on theory and practice for using technology to improve learning. For example, there are over 40 research articles on teaching math using technology in various forms.
Battista, M. T. (1998). Computer environments that engender students’ construction of mathematical ideas and reasoning: A constructivist perspective. Paper presented at the ENC Technology and NCTM Standards 2000 Conference. Arlington VA, June 5-6, 1998. Available from https://web.archive.org/web/20140925143322/http://mathforum.org/technology/papers/papers/battista/battista.html
Carrol, T. G. (2000). If we didn't have the schools we have today, would we create the schools we have today? Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 1(1), 117-140. Retrieved from http://www.citejournal.org/publication/volume-1/issue-1-00/
Carroll included discussion of the classroom of tomorrow and six reasons why the web has won.
Cheung, A., & Slavin, R. E. (2011, July). The effectiveness of educational technology applications for enhancing mathematics achievement in K-12 classrooms: A meta-analysis. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University, Center for Research and Reform in Education. Retrieved from http://www.bestevidence.org/math/tech/tech_math.htm
Cheung and Slavin included "74 qualifying studies, with a total sample size of 56,886 K-12 students" in this meta-analysis. Three categories of educational technology were reviewed: Computer managed learning (via the program Accelerated Math); Comprehensive models that included both computer assisted instruction (CAI, e.g., via programs Cognitive Tutor and I Can Learn) and non-CAI activities in math instruction; and Supplemental CAI technology for individualized CAI to supplement traditional instruction (e.g., via programs Jostens, PLATO, Larson Pre-Algebra, and SRA Drill and Practice). "Findings of the review indicate that educational technology applications produce a positive but small effect (ES=+0.16) on mathematics achievement. In particular, supplemental CAI had the largest effect, with an effect size of +0.19. The other two categories, computer-managed learning and comprehensive models, had a much smaller effect size, +0.09 and +0.06, respectively."
Learn more on how to interpret effect sizes.
"An effect size indicates the number of standard deviations by which the treatment group mean differs from the control group mean on the outcome measure of interest" (Morrison, Morrison, & Ross, 2016, p. 5). In other words, it's a way to quantify the size of the difference between two groups:
Effect size = ( [Mean of the experimental group] - [Mean of the control group] ) / Standard Deviation
In Effect Size Matters in Educational Research Robert Slavin (2013) commented that it is difficult to decide if a program is worth attempting in your own setting based on effect sizes reported in results of experimental research. Studies vary in quality and in their nature. According to Slavin:
"... many features of studies give hugely inflated estimates of effect sizes. In order of likely importance, here are some factors to watch for:
Use of measures made by the researchers.
Very brief studies (often, one hour or less)
Studies with small sample sizes
Studies that incorporate any of these elements can easily produce effect sizes of +1.00 or more. Such studies should be disregarded by readers serious about knowing what works in real classrooms and what does not" (para. 4).
The Institute of Education Sciences published a report by Mark Lipsey and colleagues (2012) on how to interpret effect sizes: Translating the Statistical Representation of the Effects of Education Interventions into More Readily Interpretable Forms. While studies might report significant results, practical significance (is implementation worth it) is another issue, which is also addressed. According to Lipsey et al. (2012):
"Practical significance is not an inherent characteristic of the numbers and statistics that result from intervention research—it is something that must be judged in some context of application. To interpret the practical significance of an intervention effect, therefore, it is necessary to invoke an appropriate frame of reference external to its statistical representation. We must have benchmarks that mark off degrees of recognized practical or substantive significance against which we can assess the intervention effect" (p. 26).
For example, in relation to student achievement, some useful benchmarks might consider how large the size of the effect is if you think about it in terms of the following:
"what it might add to a year of average academic growth for the target population of students"
"its ability to narrow a policy-relevant gap in student performance"
its "relation to what prior interventions have been able to accomplish"
"Do the benefits of a given intervention outweigh its costs?" (p. 26)
Slavin (2016a) further commented on effect sizes in his blog post, What is a Large Effect Size? In posing the question "When are they big enough to matter for practice?" (para. 5), he indicated "The answer turns out to mainly depend on just two factors: Sample size, and whether or not students, classes/teachers, or schools were randomly assigned (or assigned by matching) to treatment and control groups" (para. 6).
There are other factors to consider "beyond effect size or statistical significance in adopting a program to improve education outcomes" (Slavin, 2016b, para. 2). Staff might also consider the following factors:
Cost-effectiveness
Evidence from similar schools
Immediate and long-term payoffs
Breadth of impact
Low-hanging fruit (i.e. per Slavin, "interventions that so inexpensive or easy to adopt and implement that it would be foolish not to do so.")
Comprehensiveness (Slavin, 2016b, para. 2).
For a full report, see:
Cheung, A., & Slavin, R.E. (2015, September). How methodological features affect effect sizes in education. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University, Center for Research and Reform in Education. Retrieved from http://www.bestevidence.org/methods/methods.html
Johnson, J., & Toms Barker, L. (eds.) (2002). Assessing the impact of technology in teaching and learning: A sourcebook for evaluators. Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. Available from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242507859_Assessing_the_Impact_of_Technology_in_Teaching_and_Learning
This 184 page sourcebook, available for free in PDF format online, provides an overview of measurement issues in seven areas as well as examples of measures used in current projects. It would be of value to evaluators who are assessing the role of technology in American education. The areas include learner outcomes in the cognitive and affective domains and in adult education, teacher outcomes related to changed pedagogy and improving technology skills, technology integration, and disseminating the lessons of technology projects. The first chapter on learner outcomes in the cognitive domain, for example, includes the merits and difficulties of using standardized tests, tailored tests, and authentic assessments in the evaluation of educational projects.
Kerrey, B., & Isakson, J. (2000, December 19). The power of the Internet for learning: Moving from promise to practice. Washington, DC: Web-Based Technology Commission. Available as archived information: https://www2.ed.gov/offices/AC/WBEC/FinalReport/index.html
This final report of the Web-based Technology Commission contains over 100 pages and was presented to the President and the Congress of the United States in December, 2000. Among the contents are discussions of access to broadband technologies; professional development and how technology can enhance teaching; correcting the paucity of research and development; online content; removing regulatory restrictions to e-learning; privacy, protection, and safety; funding for e-learning, and the call for national action.
Kleiman, G. M. (2000, April-June). Myths and realities about technology in K-12 schools. Leadership & the New Technologies, 14. Retrieved from http://www.sfu.ca/educ260/documents/myths.pdf
Glenn Kleiman of The Center for Online Professional Education discussed the realities surrounding five myths that relate to computer availability in schools, goals and best practices for computer use in classrooms, teacher implementation stages for effective use, district technology plans, and equity and the digital divide. The message is that short term solutions will not work. The key is not how many computers are available, but, in his words, "how we define educational visions, prepare and support teachers, design curriculum, address issues of equity, and respond to the rapidly changing world" [Online].
Ray, B. (2005). Mining what we know about handheld computers: A review of the [anecdotal] evidence. The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, 4(2), article 1. Retrieved from http://www.tojet.net/articles/v4i2/421.pdf
According to Beverly Ray (2005) who reviewed the literature on handheld computers, "The empirical evidence suggests that the integration of handheld technology into the K-12 classrooms promotes 1) teacher productivity and 2) student-centered learning. However, despite a wealth of empirical and anecdotal evidence there is no research base to support these assertions. Further research supporting their effectiveness, however, remains to be done" (p. 5).
Reyes, I., Wijesekera, P., Reardon, J., Elazari, A., Razaghpanah, A., Vallina-Rodriguez, N., & Egelman, S. (2018). “Won’t Somebody Think of the Children?” Examining COPPA Compliance at Scale. Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies, 2018(3), 63–83. Retrieved from https://petsymposium.org/2018/files/papers/issue3/popets-2018-0021.pdf
Reyes, Wijesekera, Reardon, Elazari, Razaghpanah, Vallina-Rodriguez, and Egelman (2018) indicated that users of children's apps that have been certified as being COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) compliant should be aware that such certification does not necessarily mean that the certified-app does a better job at safeguarding privacy of personal data than a non-certified app. Their study focused on Android apps available on Google Play. "Based on [their] automated analysis of 5,855 of the most popular free children’s apps, [they] found that a majority are potentially in violation of COPPA, mainly due to their use of thirdparty SDKs" (p. 63). SDK means Software Development Kit. Reyes et al. included the list of seven companies in the COPPA Safe Harbor Program, which provide certifications that materials are COPPA compliant. Among those are iKeepSafe, kidSAFE, and TRUSTe.
Shields, J., & Poftak, A. (2002). A report card on handheld computing. Technology & Learning, 22(7), 24-36.
Jean Shields and Amy Poftak discussed the pros and cons of handheld computers in K-12. They present a short history of these small devices for one-on-one computing in schools, their potential for learning, and explore applications for integrating handhelds into instruction. They reference actual classrooms where handhelds are used and include a list of links to resources to learn more.
Wallace, A. (2013, October 25). CIPA: 10 years later, there is still confusion. TechLearning Magazine: Features. Retrieved from https://www.techlearning.com/news/cipa-10-years-later-there-is-still-confusion
Andrew Wallace tackled the confusion that still exists among those who are required to interpret the Child Internet Protection Act (CIPA) and implement it. Stating CIPA requirements in a nutshell:
School Districts must:
Use a “technology protection measure” to block images that are: child pornography, obscene, or harmful to minors.
Determine, with community input what content (visual or written) is inappropriate for minors.
Adopt an Internet safety policy that applies to both students and staff.
Teach students how interact on email, social networking sites, and in chat rooms.
Deliver instruction with a focus on cyberbullying.
Monitor in school use of the Internet. (Wallace, 2013, Quick Facts section)
Wells, J., & Lewis, L. (2006, November). Internet access in U.S. public schools and classrooms: 1994-2005 (NCES 2007020). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2007020
John Wells and Laurie Lewis presented survey findings (no survey in 2004) on school connnectivity, student access to computers and the Internet, technologies and procedures to prevent student access to inappropriate material on the Internet, teacher professional development on how to integrate the use of the Internet into the curriculum, and use of the Internet to provide opportunities and information for teaching and learning.
Weston, M. E. & Bain, A. (2010). The end of techno-critique: The naked truth about 1:1 laptop initiatives and educational change. Journal of Technology, Learning, and Assessment, 9(6). Retrieved from http://ejournals.bc.edu/ojs/index.php/jtla/article/view/1611
Weston and Bain analyze and respond to "a generation of criticism leveled at 1:1 laptop computer initiatives." They present "a review of the key themes of that criticism and [offer] suggestions for reframing the conversation about 1:1 computing among advocates and critics. Efforts at changing, innovating, and reforming education provide the context for reframing the conversation. Within that context, [they] raise questions about what classrooms and schools need to look and be like in order to realize the advantages of 1:1 computing. In doing so, [they] present a theoretical vision of self-organizing schools in which laptop computers or other such devices are essential tools" (Abstract section).
Willard, N. (2002). Keeping kids safe online. Education World. Retrieved from https://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech119.shtml
The Child Internet Protection Act requires districts to monitor student use of the Internet and to implement technology-based measures to protect against student access to online content that may be harmful to minors. Willard noted four core components for a comprehensive plan to address online safety and Internet use by districts:
A focus on the educational purpose with Internet use limited to activities that support education, enrichment, and career development;
Education about safe and responsible use, which is included in the ISTE standards developed for students, teachers, and administrators;
Supervision and monitoring that are age appropriate and based on circumstances of use;
Discipline that not only is appropriate to circumstances of misuse, but also educates students on standards for use.
July 24, 2007 Note: Willard also noted that districts that want to have blocking in place should consider the use of the Internet Content Rating Association system. ICRA is now part of the Family Online Safety Institute.
Continue your own research to implement standards-based instruction.
Need help? NoodleTools is a suite of interactive tools designed to aid students and professionals with their online research. Get the help you need to select a search engine, find some relevant sources, and cite those sources in MLA or APA style. http://www.noodletools.com/
Education Commission of the States maintains a database of readings on nearly any education issue of interest, such as accountability, assessment, closing the achievement gap, curriculum, distance education, mathematics, standards, technology. Visit http://www.ecs.org
Read these books online for free:
Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.). (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school: Expanded edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
This book is the expanded edition of the 1999 work by these authors. It has four parts. Part I, the Introduction, discusses learning from speculation to science. Part II is devoted to learners and learning: how experts differ from novices, learning and transfer, how children learn, and mind and brain. Part III delves into teachers and teaching: the design of learning environments, effective teaching examples in history, mathematics, and science, teacher learning, and technology for learning. Part IV includes future directions for the science of learning with conclusions and recommendations for research.
HOT!: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2018). How People Learn II: Learners, Contexts, and Cultures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
This book is an update to the Bransford, Brown, and Cocking 2000 book noted above. It "epands on the foundation laid in the 2000 report and takes an in-depth look at the constellation of influences that affect individual learning" (Description section). It examines context and culture, types of learning and the brain, processes that support learning, knowledge and reasoning, motivation to learn, implications for learning in school, digital technology, and learning across a lifespan.
For example, learning is influenced by social engagement, physical exercise, sleep, and nutrition. In terms of culture, learning can occur via observation of others doing a task. There's the culture of the school, classroom, and individual student. Learning is influenced by mental models and motivation. Factors to consider for digital technologies to affect learning include characteristics of the learner, type of learning being targeted, the social-cultural context, motivations, learning goals, professional development, and equitable access to the technology.
Center for Education. (2001). Investigating the Influence of Standards: A Framework for Research in Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Hamilton, L. S., Stecher, B. M., & Klein, S. P. (eds.). (2002). Making sense of test-based accountability in education. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation.
The authors discussed high-stakes testing and offer recommendations for more-effective test-based accountability systems. Content includes, for example, historical perspective of high-stakes tests and their use today, aligning tests with standards, technical criteria for evaluating tests, consequences of high-stakes testing on school and classroom practice, and the political view of accountability.
Lewis, A. C. (1999). Figuring it out: Standards based reforms in urban middle grades. New York, NY: Edna McConnell Clark Foundation. ERIC document ED439165.
Exemplary content includes how to design standards-based classrooms; the difference that standards make for students, teachers, and principals; what holds back standards-based reforms, and what reforms need to continue.
National Research Council. (2005). How students learn: History, science, and mathematics in the classroom. Committee on How People Learn, a targeted report for teachers, M. S. Donovan and J. D. Bransford, Editors. Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
This book has its roots in the book How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school (noted above). Its goal is to present "examples of how the principles and findings on learning can be used to guide the teaching of a set of topics that commonly appear in the K-12 curriculum. ... Each area is treated at three levels: elementary, middle, and high school" (p. vii).
Ball, D. L. (2003). Mathematical proficiency for all students: Toward a strategic research and development program in mathematics education. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation.
The RAND Mathematics Study Panel with Deborah Loewenberg Ball, Chair, proposed three areas for research that should be emphasized to improve math education:
Development of the mathematical knowledge that teachers need to effectively teach students from diverse backgrounds.
Teaching and learning required for mathematical thinking and problem solving.
Teaching and learning algebra from kindergarten through 12th grade, because algebra is central to proficiency in mathematics.
Lipsey, M., Puzio, K., Yun, C., Hebert, M., Steinka-Fry, K., Cole, M., et al. (2012). Translating the statistical representation of the effects of education interventions into more readily interpretable forms. Washington, DC: Institute of Education Sciences. Retrieved from https://ies.ed.gov/ncser/pubs/20133000/
Morrison, G., Morrison, J., & Ross, S. (2016, March). A review of the research literature on the infusion of technology into the school curriculum. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University, Center for Research and Reform in Education.
Slavin, R. (2013, January 9). Effect size matters in educational research [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/sputnik/2013/01/effect_size_matters_in_educational_research.html
Slavin, R. (2016a, March 10). What is a large effect size? [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-e-slavin/what-is-a-large-effect-si_b_9426372.html
Slavin, R. (2016b, May 26). How much difference does an education program make? [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-e-slavin/how-much-difference-does_b_10143048.html
Back to top Education Research: Page 1 | 2 |
Go to Related Topic: State and National Education Standards and The Best Rated Standards Resources
Deubel, P. (year from last revised). Education research: Selected research on standards, achievement, learning, assessment, and technology integration. Retrieved Month, Day, Year, from Computing Technology for Math Excellence Web site: https://www.ct4me.net/education-research-2.htm
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Dorothy Rich Greenberg Obituary
Aycock-Riverside Funeral and Cremation Center
1112 Military Trail, Jupiter, FL
Dorothy Rich Greenberg
March 9, 1925 – July 7, 2019
Dorothy Rich Greenberg of Palm Beach Gardens passed away from natural causes at the age of 94 on July 7, 2019. She was a loving, caring person who enjoyed people, social gatherings and music. She was open-minded and generous with a lively sense of humor.
Dottie was born and grew up in Philadelphia, the only child of John and Martha Rich. She graduated from Lower Merion High School and attended Bob Jones University in South Carolina. From an early age, she played the piano and sang, in church choirs but also in duets, quartets, in professional settings and on the radio. Throughout her life she was active in community musical theater and various choirs. For a time she was a member of the Philadelphia chapter of the Sweet Adelines, an international organization of women singers specializing in barbershop harmony; Dottie performed with that group on the Mike Douglas television show.
Dottie was working as a secretary at a Philadelphia hospital where she met Marvin Greenberg, a young doctor. The couple married in 1955 and were together until his death in 2018. They raised three daughters together in Penn Valley, PA. She enjoyed playing tennis, worked for many years as a real estate agent, sang in the Nantucket Unitarian Church choir, and volunteered at Planned Parenthood in West Palm Beach and A Safe Place on Nantucket. Dottie retired with Marvin in 1987 and lived on Nantucket, MA and Singer Island, FL.
In 2006, Marvin and Dottie moved to the La Posada residence in Palm Beach Gardens where they lived out their lives. Dottie is survived by three daughters, Laurel, Lisa “Fifi”, and Holly; and two grandsons, Gulliver and Eisen.
Memorial donations may be given to Planned Parenthood Federation of America www.plannedparenthood.org or A Safe Place Nantucket www.asafeplacenantucket.org.
In Memory Of Dorothy Rich Greenberg
https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/jupiter-fl/dorothy-greenberg-8773054
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Feinstein, Schumer, Whitehouse Report Calls for Stronger U.S. Response to Firearms Trafficking to Mexico
Urges Congress and the Administration to strengthen firearms laws to stem drug-related violence
70% of weapons recovered in Mexico originated in U.S. according to ATF
Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control to Hold Hearing on Illegal Tunnels on the Southwest Border
Washington, DC – Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Chairman of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, and Co-Chairman Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), will hold a hearing on Wednesday, June 15 at 2:30 p.m.
The hearing will examine the continued construction of illegal tunnels on the southwest border of the United States and the role these increasingly sophisticated tunnels may play in the transport of drugs, weapons and human beings.
Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control Holds Hearing on Efforts to Combat Drug Trafficking and Enhance Safety in Central America
Washington, DC – U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), co-chairs of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, held a hearing today on U.S. efforts to combat illegal drug trafficking and enhance security throughout Central America.
Following is the text of Senator Feinstein’s prepared opening remarks:
We are here today to explore ways for the United States to help combat rising violence in Central America.
Feinstein, Grassley Release Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control Report on Mexico
Senators Urge Congress and Administration to use report as a blueprint for cooperation with
Mexico to combat drug trafficking
Washington, DC – U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), co-chairs of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, today released a report outlining key steps and initiatives to combat Mexico’s brutal drug trafficking organizations and reduce violence in the country.
Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control Investigates Synthetic Cannabinoids and Stimulants
Hearing Explores Dangerous Synthetic Drugs, including Spice, K2, Bath Salts
Washington, DC – U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), co-chairs of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, held a hearing today on The Dangers of Synthetic Cannabinoids and Stimulants.
We are here today because there is an alarming, growing trend of abuse of synthetic marijuana and other dangerous stimulants.
Feinstein Introduces Bill to Ban Chemicals Used in Synthetic Drugs
Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) joined Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), and Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) today to introduce legislation to ban the chemicals commonly used in synthetic drugs known as “K2” or “Spice,” among other names.
Senators Feinstein, Grassley, and Whitehouse Urge Secretary Geithner to Crack Down on Pre-paid Cards Crossing U.S. – Mexico Border
Washington, DC – U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D- R.I.), members of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, urged Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to crack down on pre-paid gift and credit cards that are transported across the U.S. – Mexico border.
Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control Holds Hearing on Money Laundering and Bulk Cash Smuggling Across the Southwest Border
Washington, DC – U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), co-chairs of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, held a hearing today on Money Laundering and Bulk Cash Smuggling across the Southwest Border.
Senators Feinstein and Grassley Call for Increased Penalties for Drug Dealers Who Market Candy Flavored Drugs to Kids
Washington, DC – U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) today introduced legislation to increase the federal criminal penalties for drug dealers who add flavorings or use marketing to make drugs more appealing to children.
“This legislation sends a strong and clear message to drug dealers – if you flavor or candy up your drugs to try and entice our children, there will be a very heavy price to pay,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein.
Senator Feinstein Renews Call for U.S. State Department to Provide More Helicopters to Drug Enforcement Administration in Wake of Major Heroin Seizure in Afghanistan
Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, today renewed her call for the State Department to provide more helicopters to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in the wake of a major airborne drug raid that netted more than a ton of high-grade heroin in Nangarhar Province.
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The Great Midwestern Tech Startup Surge
Columbus, Ohio, is the fastest-growing city in the country for startup activity.
Image credit: Denis Tangney Jr | Getty Images
Dave Hochman
Founder of DJH Marketing Communications
October 21, 2016 7 min read
When one hears the phrase “Startup Hub,” the mind’s eye most likely automatically conjures up images of locations like New York City, San Francisco/Silicon Valley, Boston. However, the Midwest region has been developing some real challenger cities to the “Startup Hub” throne. According to The Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurship, which is an “umbrella of annual reports that measures U.S. entrepreneurship across national, state and top 40 metro levels,” Columbus, Ohio’s capital, is the fastest-growing city in the country for startup activity. According to CB Insights, Ohio had less than 10 active venture investors in 2009 but saw more than 40 different VCs invest in 2014.
Few know this better than Tom Walker, the president and CEO of Columbus-based venture development organization Rev1 Ventures. Rev1 Ventures describes themselves as “part VC, part accelerator -- with the expertise and connections to fuel startup success.” And that expertise involves recognizing potential and talent in places where others aren’t looking.
Related: Why Startups Fail and What Experts Have to Say About It (Infographic)
“When people want to see great art, they go to the Louvre,” Walker said. “That is, until they realize that there are also great paintings in museums right in their own backyards.”
While Columbus is gaining serious steam on the startup front, there are still very real obstacles to overcome. According to Walker, the West Coast, New England, New York City and even parts of Texas, attract more than 90 percent of available early-stage venture capital. While that leaves less than 10 percent of early stage venture capital for the rest of the country, it also leaves the door open for branding and growth.
“Instead of challenges, we see opportunities,” Walker said. “Our strategy is to create our own Midwest brand of ‘startup hub,’ with technology, talent and early stage capital. And all of this is connected in a way that’s uniquely Midwestern -- we call it ‘the backyard effect.’”
And the “backyard effect” isn’t something to be ignored. MentorcliQ is an award-winning mentoring software solution that helps organizations launch, support, and grow high-impact employee mentoring programs. It’s a Rev1 portfolio company and one of the company’s co-founders, Andy George, moved from California to Ohio to capitalize on the Columbus startup scene.
Related: Bootstrapping Is Not Just for Startups
“The community here is so close-knit and so supportive and helpful in wanting to see you succeed,” George said of Columbus. “It’s the best of both worlds, a close startup ecosystem and a really supportive corporate environment.”
According to Columbus.gov, Columbus is headquarters to at least 20 Fortune 1000 companies. In addition, blue-chip firms such as Limited Brands, Chase, Kroger and Anheuser-Busch have major facilities in the area.
“The reality on the ground is that capital is portable - it doesn't stay on the coasts if there are good opportunities in Ohio,” said Ian Sigalow, Partner and Co-Founder of Greycroft, a VC firm based in NYC and Los Angeles. Approximately 50 percent of Greycroft’s portfolio is in New York Tri-state area (NY/CT/NJ) and Los Angeles, 35 percent is elsewhere in the US, and 15 percent international. Greycroft funded Eloquii out of Columbus and Everything But The House out of Cincinnati. “Companies outside of New York and LA typically seek us out because we can help them expand into our core markets,” he added.
“The plusses begin with affordability. Eight of the 20 cities on Forbes’ Most Affordable Cities list in 2015 are in the Midwest, and 50 percent of those -- Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus and Akron are in Ohio,” Walker said. “ Whether you’re a software engineer paying off student loans or an entrepreneur trying to launch a startup, cost of living matters.”
Seth Miller, a 2014 graduate of Ohio University, is the co-founder and CEO of RapChat, an app that allows users to record sharable freestyle raps over instrumental beats. He’s traveled all over the US trying to grow his brand, and he knows exactly what Walker is talking about.
Related: 3 Reasons Why Startups Should Consider Launching in the Midwest
“The cost of living is a huge plus. The cost of talent, too. Out West a programmer will cost you at least $150,000, whereas a good programmer in Ohio can be employed for half of that,” Miller said. “And you can’t ignore the fact that there’s less competition. If you’re in the Valley trying to pitch firms on Sand Hill Road, you’re going against the best of the best...every single day, and you’re all fighting for the same investment dollars.”
Growing a startup in general is extremely hard, no matter where you are geographically,” Miller added. “A couple challenges you face in Ohio are a relative lack of funding resources and a paucity of talent, specifically with developers. But, both of those are beginning to change with new funds like Drive Capital and Rev1 Ventures.”
According to Sigalow, “the challenge in every upcoming market is hiring talented managers at every position, not just developers,” he continued: “How many CFOs in Columbus have taken a start-up public before? How many heads-of-sales have scaled a SaaS company from zero to $100 million in revenue? How many CTOs have scaled a developer organization to over a hundred people? You can probably count all these candidates on one hand. They all have to be relocated.”
Tech Crunch named Miller’s RapChat one of their “seven favorite companies from the 500 Startups Batch 15 Demo Day.” And according to TechCrunch, over 2.5 million raps have been created through the app and they have over 50,000 monthly users.
Miller lived on the West Coast for most of 2015, but he’s currently back in Columbus with the goal of making his hometown RapChat’s headquarters. In his mind, location doesn’t necessarily play a determining role in startup growth.
Miller also said that the type of startup plays a huge role in the funding one receives.
“It seriously depends on the type of of startup you have. For example, if you’re in bio-tech, SaaS or health-tech, Ohio is one of the best places you can be,” he said. “If you’re in consumer mobile like me, it’s still not a great place to be, but hey, we’re trying to change that.”
When it boils down to it, all signs are pointing to a startup surge in Columbus. Walker, George and Miller have all seen the signs.
“I’m seeing more and more opportunities in Columbus for companies at the “concept” stage,” Miller said. “That’s generally different than all the places I’ve been to. There are groups and people here who legitimately want to help companies take an idea and help them evolve it into a real company. That’s huge. If you go to the traditional hubs, they probably won’t even hear you out until you have a live product and thousands of users.”
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Percutaneous Dilation Tracheotomy Can Be a Safe, Effective Nonsurgical Option
by John Austin • September 1, 2006
CHICAGO- Percutaneous dilation tracheotomy (PDT) is becoming an accepted and increasingly popular alternative to surgical, or open, tracheotomy, particularly in the treatment of critically ill patients requiring prolonged intubation and mechanical ventilation. There are, however, important contraindications to consider and a learning curve that must be overcome in order to reduce the risk of complications, according to David Goldenberg, MD, Associate Professor of Head and Neck Surgery and Oncology at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center of Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, Pa.
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Dr. Goldenberg presented the results of a study looking at PDT complication rates to the Triological Society here at the 2006 Combined Otolaryngology Spring Meetings.
In our experience, we’ve found that the complication rate drops significantly with experience, not only of the surgeon, but of the whole tracheotomy team, Dr. Goldenberg said. We recommend adherence to contraindications and to a strict protocol, and emphasize that the learning curve is not just for the surgeon, but for the entire team that participates in performing these procedures.
Dr. Goldenberg and his colleagues undertook a retrospective chart review of 318 consecutive PDTs performed in the intensive care unit between the years 2002 and 2005. Procedural and postoperative complications in an earlier group (Group A) were compared with those in the later group (Group B) for both frequency and severity.
All these procedures were done with the same method, using the Blue Rhino, Ciaglia method, single-pass percutaneous dilation tracheotomy set, Dr. Goldenberg said. All patients were intubated and their airway was under control by an experienced anesthesiologist during the procedure.
All patients underwent the procedure with local anesthetic and simultaneous video bronchoscopic visualization. For the majority of patients, the indication was prolonged intubation and mechanical ventilation, while a few were termed airway protection, pulmonary toilet, or partial obstruction.
Some Complications Reported
The overall complication rate was 5.9 percent, with severe complications being zero, Dr. Goldenberg reported. In Group A, which represented the first 159 patients in that series, there were 12 complications, whereas in Group B there were a total of seven complications.
In Group A, three patients experienced during surgery what we deemed equipment malfunction, which forced us to open another set, and cannulation was delayed, he said. There was one accidental extubation on the anesthesiologist’s side. There was one patient who had cardiopulmonary arrest during the procedure, although this was a very sick individual and it probably had nothing to do with the procedure itself.
Pages: 1 2 3 | Single Page
Filed Under: Departments, Laryngology, Medical Education, Practice Focus Tagged With: guidelines, research, surgery, techniques, Tracheotomy, training, treatmentIssue: September 2006
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Funeral Announcement For Soldier Killed During Korean War (Mills, A.)
Release No: 18-182 Oct. 30, 2018
Albert Mills
WASHINGTON — The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, accounted-for from the Korean War, are being returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
Army Cpl. Albert E. Mills, 20, of Dallas, accounted for on July 13, 2018, will be buried November 12 in his hometown. In July 1950, Mills was a member of Company F, 2nd Battalion 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, blocking the Korean People’s Army from advancing along a corridor linking the cities of Taejon and Taegu. South Korea. On July 23, 1950, enemy forces attacked American defenses at Yongdong. Mills was reported missing in action on July 25, 1950, as a result of the fighting, when he could not be accounted for by his unit.
On March 28, 1950, based in information provided by a local witness, an American Graves Registration Search and Recovery team recovered two sets of remains from a mountain near Yongdong. The remains, designated X-851 and X-852, were interred in the United Nation’s Military Cemetery (UNMC) Tanggok in April 1951.
In an effort to support identification attempts, remains recovered throughout South Korea were sent to the Central Identification Command in Kokura, Japan, for identification. While X-851 was positively identified, X-852 could not be associated with any missing service members. The remains were subsequently transferred to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu and buried as a Korean Unknown.
On April 9, 2018, DPAA disinterred “X-852 Tanggok” from the Punchbowl and sent the remains to the laboratory for identification.
To identify Mills’ remains, scientists from DPAA used anthropological, and chest radiograph comparison analysis which; as well as circumstantial evidence.
DPAA is grateful to the Department of Veterans Affairs for their partnership in this mission.
Today, 7,676 Americans remain unaccounted for from the Korean War. Using modern technology, identifications continue to be made from remains that were previously returned by North Korean officials or recovered from North Korea by American recovery teams. Mills’ name is recorded on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, along with the others who are missing from the Korean War. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for Americans who went missing while serving our country, visit the DPAA website at www.dpaa.mil, find us on social media at www.facebook.com/dodpaa or call (703) 699-1420/1169.
Mills’ personnel profile can be viewed at https://dpaa.secure.force.com/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt0000000cdNpEAI
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Home · Celebrity
Tyrese Says He Didn’t Mean to Take Shots at Jay Z on Instagram
Tyrese says he didn't mean to diss Jay Z in the name of humanity, he was just asking powerful Black men to come together and save Black lives.
Paras Griffin/Getty Images for Coca Cola
By Amber McKynzie · July 28, 2016
For what seems like the first time this decade, celebrities won’t stop pleading for social and racial justice until equality is served.
Tyrese Gibson is the most recent Hollywood voice to chime in on an ever growing and never ending issue of police brutality on Black lives in America. The singer turned to Instagram yesterday to deliver a PSA to Hollywood’s powerful Black men.
His message included an image of Jay Z, Future, DJ Khaled and others on the set of DJ Khaled’s latest single, “I Got the Keys,” and read, “They scheduled a video….. I hope they’ve scheduled other meetings about the state of black men and WHAT we need to do to change the shit that’s going on……… ”
T.I. On Trump: “I Don’t Believe Any Lives Matter To Him”
They scheduled a video….. I hope they've scheduled other meetings about the state of black men and WHAT we need to do to change the shit that's going on……… I'm scared for our future I'm especially scared of the most powerful black men and influential black men of our generation NOT finding time to take what's really going on more serious and align our minds and powers to directly affect change……. I pretty much know everyone IN this pic so this ain't no sneak diss I don't need the attention trust me I'm good……. We matter so we have to put our minds together and decide HOW we're going to USE this God given stage of influence to directly affect change and create greater standards for our community…… We get killed faster, we go to jail longer, we are also killing each other - a tap on the hand for raw cocaine and 20 years for crack cocaine, they legalize marijuana then give you 6 years in jail when you're caught with a certain amount…. Even if you're licensed to carry - #carrying while #black will get you killed even when you're asked to SHOW your license….. So yeah videos are nice and the first week of sales are nice… But it's some real shit going on out here and it's time to DO something…… If #ALLLIVESMATTER this shouldn't just be about what what "we" as black people are dealing with… Show up for me…. This is when I need YOU the most…. Don't be my friend at your convenience…. Don't call me "off the record" to check up on me…… This is a human race issue right?? Show UP for me…… This is HOW you directly affect change… The power is in the presence and in the numbers….
A photo posted by TYRESE (@tyrese) on Jul 26, 2016 at 12:14pm PDT
According to TMZ, Tyrese’s post wasn’t intended to point fingers. Instead the “IG post was about all people of color needing to step up and come together — especially powerful men like Jay Z, who has the stage and voice to influence real change … like going to Congress to change gun and drug laws.”
The Fast and Furious actor told TMZ he plans on reaching out to Hov to establish a game plan to “save black men from killing each other and winding up in jail.”
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TOPICS: Celebrity Instagram Jay Z Tyrese
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Posted by Stephanie Baker on 2012-10-03 15:52:00 | Views: 6350 |
Ethiopia (play /?i?θi?o?pi?/) (Ge'ez: ????? ??ty???y?), officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa, and is the most populous landlocked country in the world. It is bordered by Eritrea to the north, Djibouti and Somalia to the east, Sudan and South Sudan to the west, and Kenya to the south. Ethiopia is the second-most populous nation on the African continent, with over 84,320,000 inhabitants, and the tenth largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2. Its capital, Addis Ababa, is known as "the political capital of Africa."
Ethiopia is one of the oldest sites of human existence known to scientists. It may be the region from which Homo sapiens first set out for the Middle East and points beyond. Ethiopia was a monarchy for most of its history until the last dynasty of Haile Selassie ended in 1974, and the Ethiopian dynasty traces its roots to the 2nd century BC.[9] Alongside Rome, Persia, China and India, the Kingdom of Aksum was one of the great world powers of the 3rd century and the first major empire in the world to officially adopt Christianity as a state religion in the 4th century. During the Scramble for Africa, Ethiopia was the only African country beside Liberia that retained its sovereignty as a recognized independent country, and was one of only four African members of the League of Nations. Ethiopia then became a founding member of the UN. When other African nations received their independence following World War II, many of them adopted the colors of Ethiopia's flag, and Addis Ababa became the location of several global organizations focused on Africa. Ethiopia is one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement, G-77 and the Organisation of African Unity. Addis Ababa is currently the headquarters of the African Union, the Pan African Chamber of Commerce, UNECA and the African Standby Force.
The ancient Ge'ez script is widely used in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian calendar is seven to eight years behind the Gregorian calendar. The country is a multilingual and multiethnic society of around 80 groups, with the two largest being the Oromo and the Amhara, both of which speak Afro-Asiatic languages. The majority of the population is Christian while a third of it is Muslim. Ethiopia is the site of the first Hijra in Islamic history and the oldest Muslim settlement in Africa at Negash. A substantial population of Ethiopian Jews resided in Ethiopia until the 1980s. The country is also the spiritual homeland of the Rastafari movement. There are 9 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Ethiopia.
Despite being the major source of the Nile, Ethiopia underwent a series of famines in the 1980s, exacerbated by adverse geopolitics and civil wars. The country has begun to recover, and it now has the biggest economy by GDP in East Africa and Central Africa. Ethiopia follows a federal republic political system and EPRDF has been the ruling party since 1991.
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Andriukaitis: Big data has ‘enormous’ potential to optimise healthcare
By Sarantis Michalopoulos | EURACTIV.com
29-01-2018 (updated: 08-02-2018 )
Expert: "Many IT experts claim that in the US, it’s a matter of fact that it’s much easier to run big data approaches because they are not slowed down by regulations on individuals’ protection." [Sarantis Michalopoulos]
This article is part of our special report Big data revolution and EU healthcare.
The healthcare sector generates massive volumes of data, which has “immense potential” to protect and promote health and to improve healthcare and cure, according to the EU’s Health Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis.
Speaking at the “Big Data: Connected solutions for better healthcare” conference held in Brussels last week (25-26 January), the EU health chief stressed the importance of big data in healthcare, saying that its usage could identify patterns that will, in turn, lead to new prevention, diagnostic and therapeutic techniques.
“At the same time, it could decrease inefficiencies and reduce waste, time and resources,” Andriukaitis noted.
He singled out the importance of the European Reference Networks, whose aim is to provide cross-border healthcare cooperation between European countries to treat rare and complex diseases.
“The success of ERNs also depends on big data: they will compile fragmented health data sets, generate new clinical, genetic, behavioural, and environmental data and make use of these data,” the EU official said.
Commission launches reference networks to face rare and complex diseases
In an effort to combat rare diseases and improve patient accessibility, the European Commission launched the European Reference Networks (ERNs) yesterday (28 February).
Andriukaitis also cited a recent public consultation on data protection, pointing out that 64% of respondents indicated that high-performance computing, big data analysis and cloud computing for health research should be advanced.
“In this sense, respondents have highlighted several application areas, such as health promotion and prevention, early diagnosis, cure and follow-up of treatment.”
“Secondly, 64% either agree or strongly agree that it would be useful to further develop digital infrastructure to pool health data and resources securely across the EU,” he added.
A new General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’) is coming up in May, which will basically regulate the processing by an individual, a company or an organisation of personal data relating to individuals in the EU.
“This regulation should improve the way we deal this data while simultaneously protecting individuals, which is not an easy thing to do,” Wolfgang Mähr, chairman of the supervisory board of the Alliance Healthcare Deutschland, told EURACTIV.com.
Several public health NGOs have expressed reservations about the rising tendency to use big data in healthcare, saying this may pose a threat to the right to privacy and ownership of personal data.
“That Big Data can be acquired from various sources that go beyond the healthcare domain is a big concern,” the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) said in April.
EPHA stressed that it might include data derived from patients and insurance records, wearable sensors, genetic data and those collected by mobile apps or social media.
“If you, like many others, use a mobile phone to track the number of steps you take, monitor how many calories you burn and count the number of hours slept at night, this information is also a base to create a profile of you as a patient, consumer, parent, employee, citizen,” EPHA said.
During the event, it was noted that there has been a massive increase in the use of big data from 2015 to 2017.
Quoting the 2017 statistics, experts said that every minute there were 452,000 tweets sent, 4.1 million YouTube videos were watched, 156 million emails were sent, 900,000 Facebook logins were done, 3.5 million search queries were made and 16 million text messages were sent.
E-health and the ‘fine line’ of big data
The introduction of digital technology in healthcare systems might be viewed by health stakeholders in a positive light. However, policymakers are yet to address issues related to data collection and use that are considered crucial in the management of chronic conditions like diabetes.
Tendency to regulate
Mähr told EURACTIV that the EU and its member states tended to favour regulation. “One area in which it stands out from the rest of world is data protection and the protection of individuals regarding data,” he said.
But the problem, according to Mähr, is that the protection of individuals on data is slowing developments in big data and the smart, intelligent use of the information available to us.
“Many IT experts claim that in the US, it’s a matter of fact that it’s much easier to run big data approaches because they are not slowed down by regulations on individuals’ protection,” he noted.
Referring to the GDPR, he noted: “You have one area of big data where you have a concrete target and concrete questions and get intelligence out of big data. This is covered by the new regulation.”
“What you are not able to do is go out, gather data and look for patterns that you might discover. This is like a discovery journey where you will collect data from various resources, then you look at whether there is a pattern that you can see, any intelligence, any value you can take out of it. This is not covered by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR),” he added.
Getting rid of the “old way”
The health expert stressed that pharmaceutical wholesalers have clear rules about temperature required to store and ship the goods to the clients and are therefore discussing necessary investments like appropriate cars, vehicles etc.
For Mähr, this is the old way and some companies have already started using the big data in a “smart way”.
“I know that a mailorder- pharmacy company has adopted a new approach and they are not discussing vehicles with air condition or temperature. They have included weather forecast data in their delivery algorithms so they exactly know, as long as the weather forecast is okay, under which weather conditions this product will be shipped tomorrow and depending on better weather conditions and the location of the patient, they will do the right quality of delivery.”
Regarding healthcare big data, the expert pointed out that there is huge potential to decrease costs by improving research, shortening clinical trials (speeding them up), and reducing side-effects like hospital (re)admissions.
He added that big data could also be used to do a biological modelling. In other words, we can use big data technology to do research and create new biological substances by artificially synthesising things, bypassing the traditional chemical processes.
When you have a product, you will always check what the reaction in your body is, and with the big data, you have the opportunity to discover a lot of other things, like side-effects, in a structured way that was not possible before.
For this to happen, real-world evidence is needed, which requires getting information from all patients.
“Currently, there is no data standardisation, each doctor puts in his IT system the same information in different ways. This is not structured and therefore it is always difficult to get information out of it. We need to clean up the information, standardise it and produce a value.”
Another example he cited was the devices which gather data already sold to the public, such as the fitness tracker or the Apple watch.
“This information can simply give feedback to actual medication. I know there are some talks between Apple and some pharmaceutical companies in the US to make big trials with thousands of people who have an Apple Watch who will get a specific application which will be sending continuous data to the centre and harness information concerning people.”
healthcare access
Vytenis Andriukaitis
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Public Release: 1-Aug-2014
Expressive writing may help breast cancer survivors
Asian-American breast cancer survivors focus of study
IMAGE: This is Qian Lu, assistant professor and director of the Culture and Health Research Center at the University of Houston. view more
Credit: University of Houston
Writing down fears, emotions and the benefits of a cancer diagnosis may improve health outcomes for Asian-American breast cancer survivors, according to a study conducted by a researcher at the University of Houston (UH).
"The key to developing an expressive writing intervention is the writing instruction. Otherwise, writing is just like a journal recording facts and events. Writing a journal can be therapeutic, but oftentimes we don't get the empirical evidence to determine whether it's effective or not," said Qian Lu, assistant professor and director of the Culture and Health Research Center at UH.
"In my research study, I found long-term physical and psychological health benefits when research participants wrote about their deepest fears and the benefits of a breast cancer diagnosis," she said.
Lu and colleagues published a study titled, "A Pilot Study of Expressive Writing Intervention Among Chinese-Speaking Breast Cancer Survivors," in Health Psychology. The goal of her research is to reduce the psychological burden among minority patients particularly among breast cancer survivors.
"Cancer patients, like war veterans in Iraq, can experience post-traumatic stress symptoms. Many times when cancer patients get diagnosed, they face lots of emotional trauma. There's a sense of loss, depression, anxiety about going into treatment and how they are going to face the future," said Lu. "They have a lot of emotional events going on in their life."
In her research, Lu, found little attention paid to Asian-American breast cancer survivor's psychological needs. Previous studies largely focused on non-Hispanic white samples, and she found a need to research this understudied population. Some of the challenges she noted with this population were feeling stigmatized, shame associated with cancer, cultural beliefs of bearing the burden alone to avoid disrupting harmony, suppressing emotions, and a lack of trained mental health professionals with cultural and linguistic competency.
"We thought of a very interesting way to help this problem. It's actually fairly basic. It's to express emotions using writing," she said. "What's so interesting is that it has been proven as a scientific paradigm."
According to Lu, previous research found that writing about emotionally difficult events for just 20 to 30 minutes at a time over three or four days increased the immune function. The release offered by writing had a direct impact on the body's capacity to withstand stress and fight off infection and disease.
"I based my study for Chinese-speaking breast cancer survivors on Pennebaker's research paradigm, and we have conducted a series of studies to modify the paradigm for Asian-Americans" said Lu.
Rather than going to a hospital, Lu worked with a community-based partner to recruit participants. Lu's research team asked participants to complete a standardized health assessment and then they were asked to write 20 minutes each week for three weeks. Three sealed envelopes were mailed simultaneously to the participants with each envelope containing different writing instructions for the corresponding week. Questionnaires assessing health outcomes were mailed to participants at three and six months after the completion of the writing assignments. Semi-structured phone interviews were conducted after the 6-month follow-up.
"The findings from the study suggest participants perceived the writing task to be easy, revealed their emotions, and disclosed their experiences in writing that they had not previously told others. Participants reported that they wrote down whatever they thought and felt and perceived the intervention to be appropriate and valuable," said Lu.
Lu added that health outcomes associated with the expressive writing intervention include a decrease of fatigue, intrusive thoughts, and reducing posttraumatic stress after three months. She also noted a decrease of fatigue, posttraumatic stress, and the increase of qualify of life and positive affect after six months.
Lu notes this research study contributes to the growing literature of expressive writing by illustrating the feasibility and potential benefits among Chinese-speaking breast cancer survivors using a community-based participatory research approach and a mixed method design. The results of the intervention demonstrate that writing was associated with health benefits at long-term follow-ups and how to adapt and utilize expressive writing intervention for minorities.
About the University of Houston
The University of Houston is a Carnegie-designated Tier One public research university recognized by The Princeton Review as one of the nation's best colleges for undergraduate education. UH serves the globally competitive Houston and Gulf Coast Region by providing world-class faculty, experiential learning and strategic industry partnerships. Located in the nation's fourth-largest city, UH serves more than 39,500 students in the most ethnically and culturally diverse region in the country. For more information about UH, visit the university's newsroom at http://www.uh.edu/news-events/.
Melissa Carroll
mcarroll@uh.edu
@UH_News
http://www.uh.edu/news-events
NIH/National Cancer Institute
TRAUMA/INJURY
Qian Lu, University of Houston (IMAGE)
Can gut infection trigger Parkinson's disease? University of Montreal
Stanford researchers identify possible drug target for deadly heart condition Stanford Medicine
Making cancer stem cells visible to the immune system German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ)
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HRW – Human Rights Watch
World Report 2019 - Tunisia
Tunisia stalled during 2018 on reforming repressive laws and establishing key institutions to protect human rights. Although freedom of expression was generally respected, with a variety of independent media able to operate freely, Tunisian authorities continued to prosecute speech considered offensive to “public morals” or “public decency.” The state of emergency, which was declared in November 2015 following a deadly attack on the presidential guard, was last extended in October 2018 for a period of one month. Authorities used the state of emergency to impose house arrest on hundreds of people accused of threatening state security.
On May 6, Tunisia held its first municipal elections since a popular uprising ousted authoritarian president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011. Independent lists came first nationwide, followed by lists from Ennahdha, the main Islamist party.
On June 12, a commission on Individual Freedoms and Equality, appointed by President Beji Caid Essebsi, delivered its report recommending decriminalizing sodomy, ensuring equality between men and women in inheritance, eliminating “morality” laws, and abolishing the death penalty. The president publicly endorsed the recommendation for legal equality in inheritance but has so far remained silent on the other recommendations.
Implementation of the Constitution
Because parliament had failed to elect its allotted quota of Constitutional Court members, the body could not begin to perform its function, affirmed in the constitution, of scrutinizing and invalidating existing laws that do not conform with human rights standards. Several other constitutional authorities, such as the Human Rights Commission and Commission on Corruption and Good Governance, have yet to be established.
Authorities made progress in harmonizing legislation with the constitution. In 2016, parliament revised the Code of Criminal Procedure to grant suspects the right to a lawyer from the onset of detention, and shortened the maximum duration of pre-charge detention to 48 hours, renewable once, for all crimes except for terrorism cases, where pre-charge detention can last up to 15 days. Defense lawyers welcomed the new law for making it easier for them to visit their detained clients and monitor their treatment. Nevertheless, spotty implementation meant that lawyers did not always get prompt access, and detainees still suffered from violations of their due-process rights while in pre-charge custody.
Freedom of Expression, Association and Assembly
Tunisian authorities continued to prosecute civilians in military courts based on articles in the code of military justice prohibiting the defamation of the army. A military court sentenced parliamentary deputy, Yassine Ayari, to three months in prison on June 26, 2018, for a Facebook post criticizing the army. He was also sentenced on March 27 to 16 days in prison for another blog post. On November 1, the military appeals court increased his sentence in this last case to three months in prison. The decision was not enforced and Ayari had not been imprisoned at time of writing.
Tunisian authorities continued to use articles in the penal code and other laws that criminalize freedom of speech, despite adopting, in November 2011, Decree Law 115 on freedom of the press that liberalizes the legal framework applicable to written media. On September 13, 2018, a first instance court in Ben Arous gave Amina Mansour, a blogger, a suspended two-month prison sentence for a Facebook post in which she declared the head of government’s “war on corruption” to be “fake.” She was sentenced on the basis of article 86 of the Telecommunications Code, which criminalizes the offense of “harming others or disturbing their well-being through the internet,” and article 128 of the penal code, which penalizes defaming public servants.
In trying to quell the social protests that gripped much of Tunisia during January 2018, police beat those arrested and denied their right to a lawyer under Tunisian law. They also arrested and held for up to two days some people for blogposts or for distributing leaflets that peacefully criticized government policy and called for social justice. The United Nations special rapporteur on the rights to peaceful assembly and association expressed concern about reports of arbitrary arrests and disproportionate use of force during the protests.
Parliament adopted, on July 27, a new law creating a National Registry of Organizations that encroaches on Decree Law 88, adopted in 2011, which liberalized the legal framework governing associations. Under the new law, an association is required to file a “registration receipt,” a document the government is required to deliver to the association once it submits its bylaws and constitutive documents.
Unlike Decree law 88, which provides that the registration receipt is presumed received if the government does not respond within 30 days, the new law does not provide for automatic registration when authorities withhold it, thus making legal recognition dependent on the administration’s good will. In a December 2017 report, the International Financial Action Task Force (FATF) listed Tunisia as among the countries deficient in combating money laundering and terrorism financing. It recommended enhancing transparency of the non-profit sector. The law creating a national registry is seen in part as addressing the FATF’s recommendations.
Tunisia adopted legislation in 2013 to deal with the crimes of the past, which included the creation of a Truth and Dignity Commission. The commission was mandated to investigate all serious human rights violations from 1955 to 2013 and is designed to provide accountability for torture, forced disappearances, and other abuses of the past. It has received more than 62,000 complaints and held confidential hearings for more than 50,000 of these.
Parliament undermined the process of transitional justice by voting not to allow the Truth and Dignity Commission to exercise its prerogative to extend its mandate by one year.
The Transitional Justice Law mandates the commission to transfer serious crimes to specialized chambers to be established within the country’s court system that “will have jurisdiction over widespread or systematic human rights violations, including deliberate killing, rape and sexual violence, torture, enforced disappearance, and execution without fair trial guarantees.”
On May 29, the first trial of past violations in a specialized chamber opened in the city of Gabes. The trial related to the forced disappearance of Kamel Matmati, an Islamist activist whom the police arrested in 1991.
The commission transferred to the specialized courts 16 other cases of human rights violations, including cases of torture, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary detentions. As of November, no verdicts had been reached.
Security and State of Emergency
The state of emergency President Essebsi declared after a 2015 suicide attack on a bus that killed 12 presidential guards remained in effect at time of writing. It is based on a 1978 decree that empowers authorities to ban strikes or demonstrations deemed to threaten public order, and to prohibit gatherings “likely to provoke or sustain disorder.” Under the decree, authorities have placed hundreds of Tunisians under house arrest. Conditions of the house arrests were eased in 2018, but many who remained under house arrest were also placed under a travel ban procedure called “S17,” which applied to anyone the state suspects of intending to join a fighting group abroad. The procedure allows restrictions on movement both abroad and inside Tunisia. A person placed under the S17 procedure risks lengthy questioning whenever they are stopped at a routine police check. The procedure is based on vague language in the law regulating the work of the Ministry of Interior.
A Commission on Individual Freedoms and Equality, appointed by President Essebsi in 2017, issued its final report on June 12, 2018. The commission recommended, among other things, equality between men and women in inheritance.
On August 13, the president endorsed this recommendation, pledging to introduce a bill to amend the personal status code that would eliminate discrimination against women on inheritance except when a person opts out of the equality rule by formally expressing such a wish in his will. At time of writing, no such bill has been introduced in parliament.
Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation
Despite accepting a recommendation during its Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council in May 2017 to end the discredited police practice of administering anal testing to “prove” homosexuality, the government has not yet taken any steps to carry out this pledge. Authorities have continued to prosecute and imprison presumed gay men under article 230 of the penal code, which provides up to three years in prison for “sodomy.”
Key International Actors
In February, the European Parliament failed to override the classification of Tunisia as a high-risk country for money-laundering and terror funding by the European Commission. The actions of the European Union bodies followed the critical reports on Tunisia by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
The UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief conducted a visit to Tunisia in April 2018. He noted that there are few explicit restrictions on freedom of religion or belief, but that some groups—such as Tunisia’s small Bahai community—face indirect restrictions, especially through failure to obtain registration as associations that would grant them the legal status they need to carry out several institutional functions or display their faith publicly.
Jahresbericht zur Menschenrechtssituation im Jahr 2018
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/tunisia
17. Jänner 2019
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U.S. Education Department Awards Nearly $2 Million to Tribal Education Agencies to Improve Education for American Indian and Alaska Native Students
The U.S. Department of Education today announced the award of four competitive grants totaling nearly $2 million to tribal education agencies (TEAs), under the State Tribal Education Partnership (STEP) program.
Tags:OregonOklahomaNew MexicoIdahoState Tribal Education Partnership (STEP)Press Releases
Department of Education Approves New Mexico's Request for Flexibility from No Child Left Behind
WASHINGTON – New Mexico’s commitment to adopt bold reforms around standards, accountability and teacher effectiveness has qualified the state to receive flexibility from No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the current federal education law, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced today.
Tags:New MexicoESEA FlexibilityPress Releases
Assistant Secretary to Visit New Mexico Schools, Meet with State and Local Education Officials to Discuss Jobs and School Reform
U.S. Department of Education Assistant Secretary Thelma Meléndez de Santa Ana will visit Adobe Acres Elementary, a Title I School, and El Camino Real Charter School in Albuquerque, New Mexico on Friday, September 3, to meet with school leadership, teachers and students.
Tags:New MexicoMedia Advisories
Colorado, Connecticut, New Mexico, and Wisconsin Will Receive Funds to Support Education Jobs
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced that Colorado will receive $159.5 million, Connecticut will receive $110.5 million, New Mexico will receive $64.9 million, and Wisconsin will receive $179.7 million to support education jobs.
Tags:WisconsinNew MexicoConnecticutColoradoEducation Jobs FundTeachersPress Releases
New Mexico to Receive More Than $28 Million to Turn Around Its Persistently Lowest Achieving Schools
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced that New Mexico will receive more than $28 million to turn around its persistently lowest achieving schools through the School Improvement Grants (SIG) program. These funds are part of the $3.5 billion that will be made available to states this spring from money set aside in the 2009 budget and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Tags:New MexicoSchool Improvement GrantsRecovery ActP-12 ReformPress Releases
U.S. Department of Education Awards More Than $137,000 to Help Three School Districts Recover from a Series of Student Suicides and a School Shooting
The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools has awarded three new Project School Emergency Response to Violence (SERV) grants, totaling more than $137,000, to school districts in California, New Mexico and Alabama to assist with ongoing recovery efforts following a series of student suicides and a middle school shooting.
Tags:New MexicoCaliforniaAlabamaProject SERV (School Emergency Response to Violence)Press Releases
New Mexico To Receive $4.17 Million To Turn Around Its Persistently Lowest-Achieving Schools
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced that New Mexico will receive $4.17 million to turn around its persistently lowest achieving schools through the School Improvement Grants (SIG) program. The funds are part of $546 million available to states for the SIG program in fiscal year 2010. In fiscal year 2009, states received a total of $3.5 billion for the SIG program.
New Mexico to Receive Nearly $86 Million in Additional Recovery Funds
U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced that an additional $85,944,012 is now available for New Mexico under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. To date, New Mexico has received $577,767,216 through the Recovery Act. The State recently reported that recovery dollars have been used to provide funding for more than 2,300 education jobs from Oct. 1 to Dec.
Tags:New MexicoState Fiscal Stabilization FundRecovery ActP-12 ReformPress Releases
U.S. Education Department Awards $82 Million in Charter School Grants to Five States to Increase Public School Options
The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII) today announced the award of five charter school grants, totaling $82 million, to state education agencies in Arizona, Louisiana, New Mexico, Tennessee and Wisconsin to increase public school options in those states.
Tags:WisconsinTennesseeNew MexicoLouisianaArizonaPublic Charter Schools ProgramP-12 ReformPress Releases
More Than $213 Million in Recovery Funds now Available for New Mexico to Save Jobs and Drive Education Reform
U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced that more than $213 million is now available for New Mexico under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. This funding will lay the foundation for a generation of education reform and help save hundreds of thousands of teaching jobs at risk of state and local budget cuts.
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Home > Doctorate > Victoria
Doctorate in Victoria
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Doctor of Philosophy (International Students)
Institution: Deakin University Melbourne Campus at Burwood
Doctor of Philosophy (International Students) Research doctoral degrees may be undertaken in all five Schools of the Faculty: School of Accounting, Economics and Finance, School of Information Systems, School of Law, Bowater School of Management and Marketing and...
Doctor of Philosophy (International Students) A full-time member of the academic staff, experienced in research, will be appointed as supervisor for each student in the Doctor of Philosophy - Information Technology. Associate supervisors, internal or external,...
Doctor of Philosophy (International Students) A full-time member of the academic staff, experienced in research, will be appointed as supervisor for each student in the Doctor of Philosophy - Biological and Chemical Sciences. Associate supervisors, internal or...
Doctor of Philosophy (International Students) A full-time member of the academic staff, experienced in research, will be appointed as supervisor for each student in the Doctor of Philosophy - Environmental Science. Associate supervisors, internal or external, will...
Doctor of Philosophy (International Students) This is a supervised research program taken by thesis or folio. The research of each candidate is conducted under the supervision of a full-time member of the academic staff. Candidates are required to participate in...
Doctor of Philosophy (International Students) PhD research in health promotion; evaluation and health impact assessment; public health policy; rural health; health and the environment; social determinants of health; disability; social work; occupational therapy...
Doctor of Philosophy (International Students) PhD research in health promotion; health education and advancement; public health policy; household ecology encompassing sustainability, decision making and community involvement; and social determinants of health with...
Doctor of Philosophy (International Students) PhD research in the areas of health psychology and quality of life; human sexuality and relationships; human factors such as auditory and visual perception; and clinical and forensic psychology. Off campus studiesInternational...
Doctor of Philosophy (International Students) The School of Nursing, through its clinical partnership program and community links, has an established research program grounded in clinical practice while embracing the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings...
Doctor of Philosophy (International Students) PhD research in exercise science/sport and physical activity and nutrition, include epidemiological, behavioural and social science analyses of activity in whole populations and special groups such as older adults;...
Institution: Deakin University Geelong Campus at Waurn Ponds
Doctor of Philosophy (International Students) A full-time member of the academic staff, experienced in research, will be appointed as supervisor for each student in the Doctor of Philosophy - Engineering. Associate supervisors, internal or external, will be appointed...
Doctor of Philosophy Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) is a supervised research program. Your research will be conducted under the supervision of a panel, which is chaired by the principal supervisor who is a full-time member of staff experienced in research. Other members...
Doctor of Philosophy PhD research in the areas of health psychology and quality of life; human sexuality and relationships; human factors such as auditory and visual perception; and clinical and forensic psychology. Research informationThe Faculty of Health, Medicine,...
Doctor of Philosophy Research doctoral degrees may be undertaken in all five Schools of the Faculty: School of Accounting, Economics and Finance, School of Information Systems, School of Law, Bowater School of Management and Marketing and Deakin Business School....
Doctor of Philosophy PhD research in exercise science/sport and physical activity and nutrition, include epidemiological, behavioural and social science analyses of activity in whole populations and special groups such as older adults; studies of muscle and bone...
Doctor of Philosophy PhD research in health promotion; health education and advancement; public health policy; household ecology encompassing sustainability, decision making and community involvement; and social determinants of health with a focus on gender, ethnicity...
Doctor of Philosophy PhD research in health promotion; evaluation and health impact assessment; public health policy; rural health; health and the environment; social determinants of health; disability; social work; occupational therapy and community health. Research...
Doctor of Philosophy PhD medical research includes: blood cells and disorders and molecular cell biology and chemistry. Research informationThe Faculty of Health, Medicine, Nursing and Behavioural Sciences provides a range of higher degree by research programs...
Doctor of Philosophy The School of Nursing, through its clinical partnership program and community links, has an established research program grounded in clinical practice while embracing the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of nursing. A major research...
Doctor of Business Administration The Doctor of Business Administration is designed to provide students with an advanced understanding of key business disciplines and research methodologies relevant to business. It also aims to develop critical thinking and the...
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Doctorate Business Programmes Victoria 2 2
Doctorate Humanities Victoria 21 21
Doctorate Distance Victoria 2
Doctorate Online - on campus Victoria 1
Doctorate Victoria
Doctorate Geelong 3
Doctorate Melbourne 20
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The Commerce Department Has Good Recommendations For Fixing Copyright Law - But More is Needed
Commentary by Kit Walsh and Mitch Stoltz
The U.S. Commerce Department released its long-awaited White Paper on fixes to copyright law yesterday and it's a pretty mixed bag. It includes some good recommendations on how Congress should change the law, but punts on some crucial enduring problems.
This paper grew out of a series of hearings in 2013 and 2014 in which EFF and other public interest organizations and academics gave evidence, along with people from the media and publishing industries. The Commerce Department panel deserves praise for inviting many different viewpoint. It covers three issues: remixes, the ability to re-sell and lend digital goods (called “first sale” rights), and copyright's civil penalties (called “statutory damages”). The paper makes some recommendations to Congress that will help promote innovation and free speech, and will hopefully help begin a conversation about other needed fixes. And the Commerce Department panel did a good job of inviting and hearing many different viewpoints. Still, their recommendations in these three areas don't go far enough to fix the problems they identify.
Legal Protection for Creative Remixes
The term 'remix' has come to stand for a wide range of creative activities that are disfavored by the current copyright regime because they rely on cultural works that are owned by others. The category includes photomanipulations, fan fiction, mashups of music and video, fan edits, redubs, video game modifications, and many other forms of expression that are ubiquitous on the Internet. Technology has made it easier than ever before for the average person to remix blockbusters and other pop culture, and remix is common way for people to highlight or critique the way they are represented or excluded in mass media—a tradition stretching back to Star Trek fanfic writers who told stories about Captain Nyota Uhura commanding the Enterprise rather than being its communications officer or stories that described Kirk and Spock in love.
These activities require copying or imitating aspects of a copyrighted work, leading some rightsholders to send cease and desist letters to remixers who criticize them, whose politics or aesthetics they disagree with, who depict adult content, or who commercialize their remix even in a way that has no impact on the market for the original.
But many remixes would be protected by the doctrine of fair use—assuming the remixer had the financial means and wherewithal to take a risk in court. Facing the risk of statutory damages and the time-consuming nature of resolving fair use cases, most remixers back down instead.
Thus, the current regime of expansive rights for copyright holders, a lack of clear safe harbors for important speech activities, and astronomical statutory damages gives copyright owners the de facto power to censor remix. The effect is aggravated by private arrangements such as YouTube's ContentID or Facebook's copyright monitoring system. ContentID, for example, uses a computer algorithm to detect copyrighted works and enables rightsholders to censor or divert profits from the speech of others, even when copyright law gives them no right to do so.
The fact that copyright law represses a crucial channel for ordinary people, including underrepresented minorities, to speak and be heard reflects a serious problem in the law. This problem should be taken just as seriously as it would be in other areas of law where certain speakers or media are chilled by government regulation.
The Commerce Department undertook to solicit public input and make recommendations regarding how copyright law could be changed to accommodate remix. We explained [PDF] the chilling effect copyright has on important remix speech and suggested a clear and narrow delineation of copyright owners' ability to restrict derivative works like remixes. The ability to control derivative works would only cover faithful adaptations such as translations, novelizations, or abridgements, and would not reach creative works using the original as inspiration or raw material. The Commerce Department panel did not discuss our recommendation in its comments.
The Task Force instead focused its discussion of remix on three categories: the creation of a remix 'safe harbor,' the development of a compulsory licensing regime for remix, and encouraging voluntary licensing practices. It concluded that no binding measures should be adopted, but that voluntary licensing and education for remixers to know their fair use rights would be valuable.
While it certainly would be valuable for all remixers to know the extent of their rights, artists who know the state of the law are often more chilled than those who assume that online norms around shared culture are reflected in the law. More knowledge about a broken system is not a great fix.
Similarly, we have little hope that licensing regimes will address the chilling effect of an overly restrictive copyright system. The trend has been for rightsholders to seek an expansion of rights to generate revenue from every use of copyrighted works that they can detect, and in the Commerce proceeding many spoke of a desire to censor uses they found offensive (a right they do not have under existing US law). Existing licensing practices can be a death knell for entire art forms: commercial sampling, for example, was decimated when artists believed they had to license samples and those licenses were not forthcoming on reasonable terms (or sometimes on any terms at all). Similarly, licensed online music was barren for years because of unwillingness to license on reasonable terms.
Although we are disappointed that the panel didn't recommend stronger protection for remixes, we will continue to advocate for the rights of ordinary people to express themselves using elements of popular culture and push back against copyright law when it sabotages the creation of new cultural works.
Re-Selling Digital Goods – the “First Sale” right
Another topic that the White Paper talks about is people’s ability to re-sell, lend, or give away digital goods. The legal term for this is “first sale” or “exhaustion of rights.” EFF and consumer groups told the Commerce Department panel that the freedoms we take for granted with physical goods, like loaning a book to a friend, selling used DVDs, or renting video games, are under regular assault in the world of digital downloads. Digital goods like ebooks, downloaded movies and games can’t easily be re-sold or given away. That’s mostly because of the fine-print “license agreements” that come with digital goods. The agreements say that we don’t actually own those downloaded goods, even after paying for them and clicking a “Buy” button. And we can lose access to “purchased” digital goods entirely when online stores and servers shut down.
EFF recommended that Congress should change the Copyright Act to make it clear that “lawful possessors” rather than “owners” have the right to sell or give away their copies, and to prevent sellers of digital goods from taking away important buyers’ rights in the fine print.
The White Paper acknowledged these problems, but also talked about newer DRM-based “family plan” and “rental” business models, and subscription-based services like Netflix and Spotify. According to the panel, these new business models “provide[] some of the benefits traditionally provided by the first sale doctrine,” but not the ease of selling or lending copies. Unfortunately, the panel concluded that it was too “difficult . . . to evaluate what consumers have lost” when the freedom to sell, lend, or give away digital goods without permission is taken away. And the panel seemed to be swayed by complaints from the movie and publishing industries that they should not have to compete with legally purchased and re-sold copies of their works.
This is disappointing. The freedom and privacy that come from having full ownership over the things we buy may be difficult to put a price tag on, but that doesn't make them unimportant. There’s lots more that can be done to preserve first sale rights for digital goods and protect buyers, particularly by making the most abusive clauses of fine-print license agreements invalid and protecting customers’ investments. The White Paper did say strongly that words like “Buy,” “Own,” and “Purchase” are misleading when all the customer gets is a “license” and some ephemeral permission to use their downloads. We hope that consumer protection agencies like the Federal Trade Commission and state consumer bureaus take notice of that.
Statutory Damages – Copyright's Broken Penalty Regime
The White Paper also called out copyright law’s massive and unpredictable civil penalties (called “statutory damages”) as a problem that needs a legislative fix. (We agree!) Copyright allows courts to impose damages of up to $30,000 per work, or $150,000 if the infringement is willful, without the copyright holder ever having to prove that they were harmed. That sort of giveaway to plaintiffs doesn’t exist in almost any other area of law, and most countries don’t allow it for copyright.
The White Paper quoted evidence that EFF and many others submitted about the unfairness of statutory damages and the chilling effect they have on innovation. It shows that damages awards often have little or no connection to the actual harm caused by infringement. It also shows that damages amounts for the same type of conduct vary widely and often exceed even large corporations’ ability to pay, making copyright lawsuits a game of financial Russian roulette. And the White Paper mentions how the threat of massive statutory damages fuels the abusive behavior of copyright trolls.
The big media and entertainment companies don’t want rational and predictable copyright penalties, because the current regime gives them a big club to wield against technology companies and innovations in digital media technology that they don’t control. The White Paper quoted their stonewalling responses as well, but didn’t give in to them.
The panel heard lots of proposals for how to fix statutory damages. It recommended three of them:
Add guidelines to the statute to help judges set the amount of statutory damages.
Strengthen the “innocent infringer” defense so that those who rely on fair use and other important limitations to copyright won’t risk massively large damages; and
For online businesses whose users interact with many different copyrighted works, allow judges to calculate damages as a whole rather than per work.
These recommendations are welcome, but they don’t go far enough. The “innocent infringer” defense only lowers the minimum amount of damages that judges can award per work—it doesn’t affect the maximum (schools, libraries, and archives get a bit more protection). That means that an artist or innovative business that relied on fair use in a reasonable way could face ruinous penalties of up to $30,000 per work if a court ultimately disagreed with their fair use rationale. It means that artists and innovators in digital media would still face unnecessary risks. Even the “innocent infringer's” minimum penalty of $200 per work may be disproportionate and unfair if the copyright holder suffered no actual harm.
A better approach would be to eliminate statutory damages entirely when a defendant reasonably relies on fair use or on copyright’s other limitations. That would avoid a chilling effect on speech and innovation. Congress should also separate compensation and punishment into two different damages calculations, the way that most other areas of the law do. And Congress should change the definition of “willful” infringement to something more like the one used in patent law. Today, even relying on a good-faith fair use rationale is sometimes called willful infringement, and that must stop. The White Paper doesn’t rule out these approaches, but only says that more discussion is needed.
We welcome that discussion. Let's hope this long-awaited document helps move it forward.
Fixing Copyright? The 2013-2016 Copyright Review Process
Deeplinks Blog by Ernesto Falcon | July 10, 2019
The Senate Judiciary Committee intends to vote on the CASE Act, legislation that would create a brand new quasi-court for copyright infringement claims. We have expressed numerous concerns with the legislation, and serious problems inherent with the bill have not been remedied by Congress before moving it forward. In...
Deeplinks Blog by Alex Moss | May 21, 2019
Reddit Commenter's Fight for Anonymity Is a Win for Free Speech and Fair Use
A fight over unmasking an anonymous Reddit commenter has turned into a significant win for online speech and fair use. A federal court has affirmed the right to share copyrighted material for criticism and commentary, and shot down arguments that Internet users from outside the United States can’t...
Press Release | May 14, 2019
YouTube User Fights Unfair Takedown Campaign from UFC
San Francisco – The creator of popular post-fight commentary videos on YouTube is demanding an end to the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)’s unfair practice of sending takedown notices based on bogus copyright claims. The creator, John MacKay, is represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). MacKay operates the “Boxing...
Press Release | May 2, 2019
Media Alert: Court Hearing Monday for Redditor Fighting to Stay Anonymous
San Francisco – On Monday, May 6 at 11am, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will argue that a San Francisco court should quash a subpoena from the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society aimed at getting the identity of an anonymous Reddit commenter. Watch Tower is the supervising body...
Deeplinks Blog by Katharine Trendacosta | April 14, 2019
EFF’s Tweet About an Overzealous DMCA Takedown Is Now Subject to an Overzealous Takedown
Get ready for a tale as good as anything you’d see on television. Here’s the sequence of events: the website TorrentFreak publishes an article about a leak of TV episodes, including shows from the network Starz. TorrentFreak tweets its article, Starz sends a copyright takedown notice. TorrentFreak writes about the...
Deeplinks Blog by Danny O'Brien | March 26, 2019
EU’s Parliament Signs Off on Disastrous Internet Law: What Happens Next?
In a stunning rejection of the will of five million online petitioners, and over 100,000 protestors this weekend, the European Parliament has abandoned common-sense and the advice of academics, technologists, and UN human rights experts, and approved the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive in its entirety...
Deeplinks Blog by Cory Doctorow | March 22, 2019
This Could Be It: Key Polish Political Party Comes Out Against Article 13
With only days to go before the final EU debate and vote on the new Copyright Directive (we're told the debate will be at 0900h CET on Tuesday, 26 March, and the vote will happen at 1200h CET), things could not be more urgent and fraught. That's why...
Deeplinks Blog by Jason Kelley | March 13, 2019
If It Really Wants To Restore Debate, Facebook Should Update Its Ad Policy
Last week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a new “privacy-focused” direction for the company that, while sounding great in theory, also set off several alarm bells—including concerns about competition as the company moves to make its messaging properties indistinguishable from one another. As usual for Zuckerberg, it’s all...
Deeplinks Blog by Elliot Harmon | March 1, 2019
Don’t Sacrifice Fair Use to the Bots
Three years ago, we warned of a string of dangerous new policy proposals on the horizon. Under these proposals, platforms would be forced to implement copyright bots that sniffed all of the media that users uploaded to them, deleting your uploads with no human review. It’s happening. The European...
Deeplinks Blog by Michael Barclay | February 25, 2019
EFF Asks the Supreme Court to Clean Up the Oracle v. Google Mess
EFF has just filed an amicus brief in support of Google’s petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the long-running case of Oracle v. Google. The case asks whether functional aspects of computer programs are copyrightable, and...
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Edmonton mayor enjoys youthful outlook
Courtney Fingar | 15/06/2017 12:00 pm
The Canadian city of Edmonton has leapfrogged capital Ottawa in size, thanks to its youthful and booming population, drawn to a diverse range of industries and high living standards, mayor Don Iveson tells Courtney Fingar.
Q: What assets does Edmonton have that make it attractive for FDI?
A: The city has surged to be now the fifth largest in the country, surpassing Ottawa within the past couple of years, on a metropolitan basis. It is the youngest major city in the country and has six post-secondary institutions churning out 10,000 graduates a year.
So it’s all about human capital, which is where Edmonton shines. The work that we do here ranges from healthcare to finance, insurance and real estate. We are the financial capital of western Canada, with more than $100bn under management of the different institutions in the city.
There is a lot of manufacturing and logistics here as well, connected to oil and gas but also serving mining, forestry, agriculture and resources. Although oil investment has slowed down, there are still a lot of innovative things happening in natural gas, for example, and diamond mining in the Northwest Territories.
So Edmonton is the hub for a much larger catchment than other metropolitan areas in the country. And with people in all of those different industries, we actually have a much more diversified economy than people would expect, and it really is because of the human capital.
Another thing that attracts people here is that incomes are higher than the national average and housing is less expensive than the other top five Canadian cities. We have a very high disposable income, which in turn supports a bustling arts community and an extraordinary culinary scene for a city of our size. So in addition to the economic opportunities, there is a phenomenal arts and culture scene, and a food and outdoor-living lifestyle that people fall in love with once they find it.
Q: Is the population growth coming from people migrating from elsewhere or is there some organic growth too?
A: It’s all of the above. We have had a baby boom in the past couple of years because it’s a younger city. We have had international immigration of both of skilled labour coming here to work and the technical side of things – but also, Canada has been very welcoming to refugees from other parts of the world. And there has been a lot of migration within Alberta and Canada to Edmonton for economic opportunity.
We have seen that slow down because of lower oil prices but we haven’t seen it stop. The city has continued to grow and has been the fastest growing city in the country over the past five years.
Q: With the oil price slowing down, did it spur any new action to try to diversify the city's economy even more?
A: We have been focused on diversification for a long time here, knowing that the oil and gas industry has fuelled our prosperity and will continue to because there is still decades, if not generations, of work to do with the existing investment.
One distinction that I like to point out is that Calgary is very much the deal-flow centre for new capital expenditure in oil and gas but Edmonton is where things get implemented, and operated and maintained, and ultimately remediated from. So Calgary does the deal and Edmonton has 50 years’ worth of work to do after that.
That has really buffered us. It’s highly technical work, whether it is environmental science to reduce water consumption or greenhouse gas intensity in operations or whether it’s advanced materials and metallurgy to support the durability of infrastructure in industrial processes and harsh climates.
Edmonton is where a lot of that engineering and problem solving and innovation occurs. And that comes with export opportunities to other markets in oil and gas. But also there is the prospect of transferability of particularly some of the work that we are doing around advanced materials and nanotechnology into other fields.
That has been part of the strategy for a long time. There is no doubt the imperative in terms of new economic growth and jobs is going to be more on the knowledge base in the long term. But that is an area of strength for us and, in that sense, our prospects look very positive.
Edmonton's intelligent learning
Secondary cities: first-class destinations
Canada makes global ICT waves
Canada, a Top IT Outsourcing Destination
Super 60 secondary cities: closing the gap?
Best economic potential
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The Quantum Science Fiction Programme (1977–1981): Isaac Asimov, Ben Bova, John Varley, Gregory Benford et al
In 1977, a self-described "international publishing venture" was launched. Selected and edited by authors Isaac Asimov and Ben Bova (ostensibly; as Todd Mason notes in the comments, the real editor was D. R. Bensen) and published in the first instance by the Dial Press in the US, the Quantum Science Fiction programme proclaimed on the cover of its first book that it would be "presenting the best in modern science fiction". Over a five-year period nine books would be published under the Quantum umbrella – two per year, then one in the final year of the programme – penned by some of the brightest new talents in SF (plus a couple of older hands, including one of the editors). It was a Quantum project for the quantum age... and yet these days it barely merits a footnote in the history of SF.
I learned of the Quantum Science Fiction programme recently having become interested in the work of SF authors John Varley and Gregory Benford, who both had early novels issued under Quantum's imprimatur. Though the programme seems to have been a Dial Press (where Asimov was an editorial board member) initiative – aside from an isfdb list of series titles (which neglects to include Orson Scott Card's Songmaster) there's next to no information about it online – most of the books included (bar Card's two entries) were also published by Sidgwick & Jackson in the UK, and it's in those editions that I bought Varley's debut novel, The Ophiuchi Hotline, and Benford's fourth, In the Ocean of Night. With the books in my hands it was hard to miss the Quantum connection: where in the US they were issued with illustrated wrappers utilising a border design that deployed the Quantum identification discreetly, in the UK Sidgwick & Jackson used the Quantum 'Q' logo as the key element in their near-uniform typographic gold dust jacket designs.
The authors and books published in the Quantum Science Fiction Programme were as follows:
1. John Varley, The Ophiuchi Hotline (1977)
2. Gregory Benford, In the Ocean of Night (1977)
3. Gordon R. Dickson, The Far Call (1978)
4. John Varley, The Persistence of Vision (alias In the Hall of the Martian Kings) (1978)
5. Spider and Jeanne Robinson, Stardance (1979)
6. Ben Bova, Kinsman (1979)
7. Orson Scott Card, Songmaster (1980)
8. Joan D. Vinge, The Snow Queen (1980)
9. Orson Scott Card, Unaccompanied Sonata and Other Stories (1981)
I've no idea how well received the programme was at the time – the scant information available online suggests it's at least not terribly well remembered – but it certainly started strongly. Varley and Benford were I guess back then the (relatively speaking) 'hip young gunslingers' of science fiction, The Ophiuchi Hotline and In the Ocean of Night the opening shots in their respective Eight Worlds and Galactic Centre sagas: distinctive, exciting SF offering fresh perspectives on space opera. Thereafter, while the fourth Quantum offering, Varley's first short story collection, The Persistence of Vision – UK title In the Hall of the Martian Kings – was and is highly regarded, the third one, veteran Gordon R. Dickson's The Far Call, was and is perhaps less so – witness this withering contemporaneous Kirkus review and this scathing 2015 one (although this review from 2000 is kinder) – while the inclusion of fellow veteran Ben Bova's own Kinsman smacks slightly of favouritism.
In any case, the Quantum brand clearly propagated further than the Dial Press and Sidgwick & Jackson first editions. Subsequent paperback editions of some of the Quantum books also carried the 'Q' logo and the "international publishing venture" legend, while Sidgwick & Jackson seemingly did their best to extract as much capital as possible out of the brand by publishing three Quantum Specials – omnibuses which paired the initial six books in the series (counterparts to the publisher's long-running Science Fiction Special series), as follows:
Quantum Special 1 (1979): The Ophiuchi Hotline and In the Ocean of the Night
Quantum Special 2 (1981): The Far Call and In the Hall of the Martian Kings
Quantum Special 3 (1981): Stardance and Kinsman
Despite all this, by 1981 the Dial Press had dropped any mention of Quantum from the jacket (front or back) of the final book in the programme, Orson Scott Card's Unaccompanied Sonata and Other Stories (although it still carried the Quantum logo and the legend "A Quantum Book" on its title page). And that was pretty much it for Quantum Science Fiction – and pretty much as much as I've been able to find out about it. Still, at least in the unlikely event that anyone else goes looking for information about the programme – and I'm still wondering what on earth possessed me not only to do so myself, but to then write a fairly lengthy blog post about it – there's a bit more readily available now. And if anyone can shed any more light on Quantum, please do leave a comment.
Linked in Friday's Forgotten Books, 29/9/17.
Labels: book collecting, first edition, Gregory Benford, John Varley, publishing, science fiction, space opera
Todd Mason 29 September 2017 at 11:28
The Real editor of the Quantum line was D. R. Bensen; I've written a bit about this recently and you can check him out in the SF ENCYCLOPEDIA and elsewhere. James Wade's collapse as a publisher, I think, was the killing blow, more than mediocre sales, even given the partnership with the Dial Press, a division of Dell, which probably could've continued the program on its own, but I believe they might've had other fish to fry at the time...though I think it was another decade before they were acquired and merged into Bantam Doubleday Dell. And a snotty KIRKUS REVIEW note is par for the course.
Nick Jones (Louis XIV, the Sun King) 2 October 2017 at 04:43
Fair point about Kirkus, Todd – and thanks for the additional info about D. R. Bensen and Dial Press!
Rick Robinson 29 September 2017 at 18:37
I had many of these titles, but I don't believe they were in the Quantum editions you show, but rather in other, probably later paperbacks.
You probably had mostly the Dell paperbacks, Rick, rather than the Futura paperbacks from the UK Nick displays along with the S&J hardcovers. The earliest Dell pbs had Quantum tags on them as well, albeit also less blatant than the S&G branding.
The Quantum Science Fiction Programme (1977–1981):...
Donald E. Westlake, Richard Stark, James Mitchell,...
Diamond Dogs and the Revelation Space Novellas and...
Andrea Camilleri had the latest, but greatest, career in crime writing | Mark Lawson
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From Taiwanese LGBTQ Films to Taiwanese LGBTQ movement
Dear EX Film Poster
Taiwanese queer film of the last few years have received less international attention compared to earlier films from the Taiwanese New Wave. Again, reasons for this include that more recent Taiwanese film in general remain overshadowed by the Taiwanese New Wave internationally, as well as that there is no visual language for contemporary Taiwanese film which has led them to be recognizably grouped together in a manner similar to the New Wave. Taiwanese films emergent after 2008 with the revival of domestic film following the domestic hit, Cape No. 7, have thus often been underexamined by international critics.
In discerning the characteristics of Taiwanese queer film released post-2008, then, one observes that such films often reflects decidedly contemporary social concerns, with what is often quite visibly the attempt to present a political viewpoint regarding queer issues. In this sense, if contemporary Taiwanese queer film does pick up threads from the earlier New Wave, one sees less often the attempt to present queer desire naturalistically, say, as it appears in Tsai Ming-Liang’s Vive L’Amour or Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s Rebels Of The Neon God, but rather the attempt to inform pedagogically, somewhat more along the lines of what is present in Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet.
A great deal of this likely returns to that for the past few years, Taiwan has been hailed as on the verge of becoming the first country in Asia to legalize gay marriage. Directors, producers, and actors, then, have likely attempted to use film as a medium to inform. We can see this particularly in films released in the last four years, as it was initially a campaign promise of current Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-Wen to legalize gay marriage in her election campaigning in 2016. Nevertheless, Tsai eventually backed down from this campaign promise in the face of larger than expected social opposition to gay marriage–in this sense, the role of film as a medium which can inform may be more important than ever in present-day Taiwan.
The 2018 film Dear EX, which was nominated for 8 Golden Horse awards, focuses on Song Cheng-xi who, along with his mother, Liu San-lian, discovers that his recently deceased father was gay and left his inheritance to his male lover instead of to his son. Song, however, ends up finding an unexpected role model in his father’s former lover, Ah-Jie, a theater director, moving in with Ah-Jie in order to escape his overbearing mother.
Still from Dear EX
Bao Bao, also from 2018, tells the story of a lesbian couple who want to have children, and decide to do so through cooperating with a gay couple. The film is set in both the UK and in Taiwan, touching upon the lives of the LGBTQ Taiwanese diaspora in the UK, and addressing the desire of lesbian and gay couples to have children to meet the expectation of their parents for grandchildren.
Still from Bao Bao
The 2017 film Alifu, the Prince/ss focuses on the eponymous Alifu, who was born male yet wishes to transition to being female. However, Alifu also faces the fact that, as the only child of a tribal chief, she cannot inherit her father’s position as chief if she does so, there being few precedents for female chiefs. At the same time as Alifu attempts to find a resolution to these issues, she begins to find himself in a relationship with a lesbian woman who had recently broken up with her partner.
Alifu, the Prince/ss Film Poster
Still from Alifu, the Prince/ss
What one observes in all three of these films is the means by which contemporary discourse regarding LGBTQ and other social issues take a central role. Dear EX makes the fact that gay men and lesbian women enter into heterosexual marriages to hide their sexuality into its central plot element, this having also provided the basis for the plot of The Wedding Banquet, although it takes the perspective of the son and wife of a closeted gay man instead of focusing on a gay couple putting on a sham marriage. But whereas the couple focused on in The Wedding Banquet is simply putting on an act, Dear EX engages seriously with the issue of gay men who enter into heterosexual marriages because they want to be “normal”, and what the resultant effects are on those who are left outside of the institutions of heterosexual marriage, particularly since they may be denied rights of inheritance, denied from making medical decisions on behalf of their partner, or even not allowed deathbed visits.
Bao Bao picks up a similar thread, although instead of focusing on gay men, it primarily focuses on a lesbian couple. This couple is motivated by similar desires to please their parents by producing a grandchild, hence why they enter into a pact with a gay couple so that both sets of couples will be able to satisfy the demands of filial piety. One notes that, through this unusual grouping of two lesbian women and two gay men as parents in Bao Bao and the grouping of the wife, son, and lover of a closeted gay man in Dear EX, Dear EX and Bao Bao pick up a thread continued from The Wedding Banquet of suggesting the potentialities of non-heteronormative, non-dyadic family units.
As the history of Taiwanese queer cinema has disproportionately focused on the representation of gay men, perhaps in this way, Bao Bao can be seen as indirectly indicating that the lens of contemporary Taiwanese queer cinema has widened to become more inclusive. This can also said to be the case with Alifu, the Prince/ss.
The conflict between traditions of the heteropatriarchal family and more modern, pluralistic sexual identities has primarily figured in Taiwanese queer cinema through focus on those of ethnic Han descent, figured as the clash between a queer identity sometimes figured as “western” and the traditional Confucian family unit. The clash between the traditional family and queer identity, however, figures in Alifu instead by way of indigenous Paiwan traditions, and the film further touches on the contemporary social issue of indigenous young people seeking to preserve tradition in a majority Han society.
In particular, with many indigenous young people living in cities today, rather than in the countryside, indigenous cultural traditions face the threat of being swept away by urban modernity. This, too, has been an issue which has been widely discussed in Taiwan in recent years, particularly after heated protest by indigenous groups against the Tsai administration’s failure to return indigenous territories, despite its apologizing to indigenous for their mistreatment on behalf of the Republic of China government. Such protests are often led by indigenous young people.
Indeed, Alifu also focuses on a trans protagonist, which is still a rarity in Taiwanese queer film. Moreover, Alifu suggests both a non-essentialist vision of sexual and gender identity with regards to its trans protagonist, and the notion of fluid sexualities and gender identities, as present in the central relationship between Alifu and Li Pei-zhen, a lesbian woman that enters into a relationship with the pre-transition Alifu, and a character who is a straight man that performs drag. In general, from the 1980s to the present, one observes an increasing engagement with trans issues in Taiwanese queer film, and a less essentialist view of gender and sexual identity.
On the other hand, Thanatos, Drunk, a 2015 film directed by Chang Tso-chi, picks up threads more readily visible in Tsai Ming-liang’s Vive L’Amour, per se, by featuring gay characters among a larger cast of individuals, but without this necessarily serving as the central driving issue of the plot. Thanatos, Drunk was nominated for ten Golden Horse Award nominations in 2015, with some perceiving it to be an upset that it did not win best film, even seeing this as a slight against the film for being to a large degree spoken in Taiwanese instead of Mandarin.
Thanatos, Drunk Film Poster
Thanatos, Drunk also has the characteristic shared with Tsai Ming-liang films of dividing its time between a large cast of characters, with multiple intersecting plotlines. Thanatos, Drunk focuses on two brothers dealing with the death of their mother, as well as their cousin and her boyfriend, a male gigolo named Shuo, to whom one of the brothers seems attracted to and who seems to reciprocate–this raising questions of bisexuality, incest, and social taboo.
Compared to other Taiwanese queer film in recent years, Thanatos, Drunk lacks any didactic message that it hopes to impart to viewers, with greater emphasis on the aesthetic value of the work, the existentialist themes in its plot, its mytho-poetic story framing, and a conclusion for the film which is ultimately open-ended. Yet we note, that in comparison with other queer film, the family unit still is the basis of the film’s master narrative, with the plot focused on the tensions within a family.
The aspirations of Thanatos, Drunk, are more directly towards the art film. However, what this perhaps indirectly points to is the fact that a great deal more contemporary Taiwanese queer film aspires towards commercial film, rather than art film. This has not prevented contemporary Taiwanese queer film from being widely acclaimed among Sinophone film, as observed in that Dear EX, Alifu, the Prince/ss, and Thanatos, Drunk were all contenders in the Golden Horse Awards. Nonetheless, the aspiration of contemporary Taiwanese film after Cape No. 7 has been much more towards commercial film, rather than art film, and this is also true of Taiwanese queer film, which is subject to these broader trends.
At the same time, contemporary Taiwanese commercial cinema still has a large shadow cast on it by the Taiwanese New Wave and its reception internationally has been strongly influenced by it in that way, seeing as the Taiwanese New Wave still largely shapes international perceptions of what Taiwanese films are. But whereas the aspirations of the New Wave were towards a form of neorealism, these films tend to be more stylized. This is visible in the use of animation in Dear EX, surreal scenes in Bao Bao, or the strong use of music synchronized with image in both Thanatos, Drunk and Dear EX. And as the rise of social issue-focused Taiwanese documentaries has taken place concurrently with the development of post-2008 Taiwanese queer film, one suggests that this has also been a strong influence on the focus on contemporary social issues readily visible in recent Taiwanese queer film.
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Call for Independent Verifier after Questions Raised on India’s Statistics Data
By Sylvia Davis On February 15, 2019
After questions were raised on the integrity of the statistics that the Indian government released, a necessity for an independent organization set up to assess the official data was necessary. The view comes after a think tank set up by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) a few weeks after the government released a data that showed the budget deficit to be at 3.4% of GDP for the current fiscal year ending this March and the next. Analysts were surprised by the numbers as this was narrower than expected even as PM Modi is pushing for some populist measures because of the upcoming general elections to be held this May.
In the recent budget, the government announced many consumer stimuli like paying cash to farmers which costs the exchequer around $10.6 billion. It was announced on the assumption that the revenue will grow at 14% YoY. However, record books show that the aggregate fiscal deficit which includes all its states has been at an average of 6.5% GDP, and in the past five years the government has been in power has missed the income targets.
Missed targets:
In its interim budget, the government announced that it hopes to reduce the fiscal deficit to 3.1% of GDP by the year 2020. The target has already been missed, and the rating companies think of it as negative credit. Apart from the reliability of the statistics provided by the Modi government, there is a major concern on the missed targets, and also on top of these many questions have been raised. Recently two people resigned from the National Statistical Commission due to concerns about the labor and revisions of GDP data.
Amartya Lahiri, the director at the Centre for Advanced Financial Research and Learning, CAFRAL, Mumbai said that the assumptions made for the deficits and the economic growth in this year’s interim budget are subject to debate. She also mentioned in an interview that ‘We have an unhappy situation where markets, agencies, and foreign investors are all making their assumptions.’ The CAFRAL also showed their estimates which pegged the central government’s budget deficit to be around 3.7% of GDP and the combined deficit to be around 7%. He further added ‘for a country which needs foreign capital inflows to the tune of nearly $100 billion every year; the data processor has to be independent. Right now we are standing at the precipice, and it’s a very slippery slope from here. Having an independent body to vet numbers would go a long way in restoring the credibility’.
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Community Read events include keynote address March 29
Fitchburg State continues its year-long Community Read of The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan this this month with events including a keynote address by the author on Thursday, March 29. Admission to all the events is free and open to the public.
The best-selling book tells the story of the young women of Oak Ridge, Tenn., who unwittingly played a crucial role in one of the most significant moments in U.S. history: the development of the atomic bomb.
The Lunenburg Council on Aging will host a book discussion and brunch at 10 a.m. Monday, March 19. The discussion is co-sponsored by the Lunenburg Public Library and the Lunenburg Council on Aging.
Fitchburg High School will host a screening of the film “The Atomic Café” at 4 p.m. Wednesday, March 21. The acclaimed documentary uses archival footage from the atomic age to mine both humor and horror from the age of “duck and cover” drills. Fitchburg High School librarian Kim Cochrane and Fitchburg Public Library librarian Marcia Ladd will lead a post-screening discussion.
The Community Read Keynote Address will take place Thursday, March 29, when the campus hosts The Girls of Atomic City author Denise Kiernan. Kiernan will attend a reception and book signing at 5:30 p.m. followed by an author talk at 7 p.m., both in the main lounge of Hammond Hall, 160 Pearl St.
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Oil & Gas Millionaire: 3 Top Energy Stocks Hitting New 52-Week Lows
The Motley Fool Canada » Dividend Stocks » Revealing 3 Powerful Tips to Make You Rich
Revealing 3 Powerful Tips to Make You Rich
Kay Ng | October 7, 2018 | More on: OTEX CNI ATD.B CNR OTEX
One way to make you wealthy is by saving and investing. Do this as early as possible, save as much as you can and invest the savings intelligently. Stocks offer the best long-term returns when compared to bonds and other fixed-income investments.
Every $2,000 (or monthly savings of merely $167) compounded annually at a rate of return of 12% will transform into about $35,100 in 10 years, about $144,100 in 20 years, +$482,600 in 30 years, and +$1,534,100 in 40 years.
Notice that the returns did not merely double when the investment period was doubled to 20 years. The returns quadrupled!
At the end of year 30, the returns were nearly 14 times as much as the returns at the end of year 10.
The longer you save and invest your money for a decent rate of return, the richer you become thanks to the magic of compounding over time.
Invest in quality businesses that outperform in the long run
Identify quality businesses that have outperformed the market in the long run. Across multiple periods, the stocks of OpenText (TSX:OTEX)(NASDAQ:OTEX), Canadian National Railway (TSX:CNR)(NYSE:CNI), and Alimentation Couche-Tard (TSX:ATD.B) have outperformed.
In the past 10 years or so, an investment in OpenText and Canadian National Railway delivered annualized rates of return of about 19%, while Couche-Tard delivered a market-crushing rate of return almost 31% in the period. These returns outperformed the market’s (i.e., S&P 500 Composite Index’) annualized rate of return of about 16%.
Invest in these businesses at good valuations
These three winners are very well managed businesses with long-term track records of success. However, individual investors need to buy them at reasonable (or better yet, discounted) valuations to get outperforming returns.
Right now, OpenText and Couche-Tard offer better value than Canadian National Railway. Specifically, they have PEG ratios of about 1.2 and 1.3, respectively, versus Canadian National Railway’s PEG ratio of about 2.3.
All three stocks are expected to continue growing at a double-digit rate. However, an investment in OpenText or Couche-Tard has a better chance of delivering rates of returns of +12% than does Canadian National Railway due to their cheaper valuations.
Aim to hold forever
After you buy these quality businesses at reasonable valuations, aim for a holding period of forever to let compounding work its magic — unless the businesses change for the worse.
A $10,000 investment in OpenText, Couche-Tard, and Canadian National Railway just 12 years ago would have transformed into +$110,700, +$118,500, and +$70,000, respectively. If the dividends were reinvested into these stocks, the returns would have been even more astounding!
Investor takeaway
A safe way to get rich from investing in stocks is by buying long-term winning businesses when they’re reasonably priced. Right now, OpenText and Couche-Tard are reasonably priced. If you plan to invest for a long time, they’re great stocks to start buying today.
Canadian National Railway is also a wonderful business. However, it’s currently a bit pricey. Over the next 12 months, it’ll be a great buy if it gets close to $100 per share.
Fool contributor Kay Ng owns shares of Couche-Tard and Open Text. David Gardner owns shares of Canadian National Railway. The Motley Fool owns shares of Canadian National Railway and OpenText. OpenText, CN and Alimentation Couche-Tard are recommendations of Stock Advisor Canada.
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RER station Issy - Val de Seine
Transport in Issy-les-Moulineaux
Vacation rentals in the Hauts-de-Seine
Compare reviews, photos and rates with an interactive map. Promotions and weekend offers.
Plan my stay
The RER station Issy - Val de Seine is a hub in the French transport network enabling travellers to reach the region around Issy-les-Moulineaux (Hauts-de-Seine, Ile-de-France). This place provides an easy connection to other forms of road transport if necessary.
Near this destinationTown centre of Issy-les-MoulineauxTransport - Metro station Corentin CeltonTransport - Metro station Mairie d'IssyTransport - RER station IssyTransport - RER station Issy - Val de SeineTransport - Train station of IssyTransport - Train station of Issy - Val de SeineTransport - Aerodrome Héliport Paris (Paris)Transport - Metro station Balard (Paris)Transport - Metro station Chardon-Lagache (Paris)Transport - Metro station Exelmans (Paris)Transport - Metro station Lourmel (Paris)Transport - Metro station Marcel Sembat (Boulogne-Billancourt)Transport - Metro station Michel-Ange - Molitor (Paris)Transport - Metro station Porte de Saint-Cloud - Parc des Princes (Paris)Transport - RER station Pont du Garigliano (Paris)Information point - Tourist Office of Issy-les-MoulineauxLeisure centre - Museum of La Carte à JouerLeisure centre - Aquatic Park Aquaboulevard de Paris (Paris)Leisure centre - Museum of the Sport (Paris)Monument - Castle of IssyMonument - Church Notre-Dame-des-PauvresMonument - Church Saint-ÉtienneMonument - Tower Aux figuresPerformance hall - Auditorium NiedermeyerPerformance hall - PACI - Palais des Arts et des CongrèsPerformance hall - Carré Belle-Feuille (Boulogne-Billancourt)Performance hall - Exhibition Park Paris Porte de Versailles (Paris)Performance hall - Sports Park Parc des Princes (Paris)Performance hall - Stadium Jean-Bouin (Paris)
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Other transport nearby
Train station of Issy - Val de Seine
Aerodrome Héliport Paris
Paris (900 yd)
Metro station Mairie d'Issy
Metro station Porte de Saint-Cloud - Parc des Princes
Paris (1130 yd)
RER station Issy
Train station of Issy
Metro station Corentin Celton
RER station Pont du Garigliano
Daytime Segway Tour of Paris (in English only)
Entertainment in Paris
Spend a day exploring paris on a modern and comfortable mode of transport: the segway! Aboard this vehicle you will see all the unmissable sights and monuments of the city: from the eiffel tower to the louvre, the tuileries gardens, the musée…
Located 2.1 mi away from the RER station Issy - Val de Seine
Evening Segway Tour of Paris
Explore Paris by night on a modern and comfortable mode of transport: the Segway! During this evening tour, you will see all the unmissable sights and monuments of the city: from the Eiffel Tower to the Louvre, the Tuileries Gardens, the Musée…
Tour of the Eiffel Tower with English-speaking Guide – Priority access to the 2nd floor
Culture and education in Paris
Accompanied by your guide (commentary in English), discover the most famous Parisian monument with priority access! Thanks to your skip-the-line tickets, you'll get to visit the first two floors of the Eiffel Tower without waiting in the long…
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Il Pastaio
Italian restaurant in Issy-les-Moulineaux
Located 190 yd away from the RER station Issy - Val de Seine
River Café
French cuisine restaurant in Issy-les-Moulineaux
"CAST OFF - The River Café opens its doors on the banks of the Seine. Simultaneously a luxury barge, a barge of charm and a garden in the city, you will find an ideal setting to share a delicious moment between friends, family or for your business…
Issy Tokyo
Japanese restaurant in Issy-les-Moulineaux
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My Home You - Luxury B & B Paris center
Apartment with 4 bedrooms in Paris
170 € to 245 € per double room
A guest house in the center of Paris - 'My Home For You' is a new urban guest house that will open its doors at the end of 2015. Located in the center of Paris, on the Grands Boulevards, our 4 bedrooms guest rooms, particularly spacious (from…
Good Night Paris
The discreet and yet beautiful door, solid wood and wrought iron, is an invitation to discover the 4 guest rooms nestled in this old house of the Marais, whose origin dates back to 1609. Spacious and independent from the main house, they have…
Studio Gabrielle
Apartment with 1 bedroom in Paris
For business or vacation in Paris, we propose a comfortable studio for. Rent close to Place de la Nation on a daily, weekly or a long-weekend basis. Completely renovated in 2008, this studio located on the 5th and top floor (same as the owners)…
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Apartment for 2 people in Garches
Apart Lilas “two-room” (≈ 29 m², accommodates 2 people and up to 4 with additional rent) located in Garches in a residential area, facing Parc de Saint Cloud, with separate entrance, private garden. Situated 300 m to Garches' train/bus station…
Canal suites
Apartment for 100 people in Paris
In a rehabilitated area, Canal Suites offers easy access to the Paris Philharmonie and the Zenith. The modern residence offers a space for relaxation with large, well-lit common areas. Its suites are spacious and air conditioned. A rich buffet…
House for 10 people in Argenteuil
1410 € per week
House fully renovated comfortable near transport 10 to 15 minutes from Saint Lazare, comfortable, kitchen dining room a large living room 2 TVs 5 bedrooms including 3 with possibility of double beds 180/200 or single 90 / 200,2 bedroom with…
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Camping de Paris
Campsite in Paris
2810 € to 4020 € per day (2 pers / tent / car)
Right in the green center of Bois de Boulogne along the river Seine. The campsite of Paris extends over an area of 7ha. An ideal place to go and visit Paris. 510 pitches are available on this beautiful green area. Come with your tent, caravan…
Located 3 mi away from the RER station Issy - Val de Seine
Campsite in Versailles
Versailles camping (Ile-de-France region) enables you and your family to visit the historic town of Versailles, its Château, yet you can also escape to Paris (station rer C Porchefontaine which is accessible from the camping on foot, and be…
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Novotel Suites Paris Issy Les Moulineaux
Hotel in Issy-les-Moulineaux
Novotel Suites Paris Issy Les Moulineaux offers spacious, air-conditioned suites in Issy-Les-Moulineaux, just 30 minutes drive from central Paris and 2.2 km from Parc des Princes Stadium. Porte de Versailles Exhibition Centre is just a 7-minute…
ibis budget Issy Les Moulineaux Paris Ouest
ibis budget Issy Les Moulineaux Paris Ouest offers accommodation in Issy-les-Moulineaux, a 1-minute walk from Jacques-Henri Lartigue Tram Station. Paris Expo Porte de Versailles Exhibition Centre is a 11-minute ride by tram from the property.…
Mercure Paris Boulogne
Hotel in Boulogne-Billancourt
Mercure Paris Boulogne is located a 10-minute drive from Paris and an 8-minute drive from Paris Expo Porte de Versailles Exhibition Centre. It has a fitness centre, a terrace and a heated seasonal outdoor swimming pool. The air-conditioned guest…
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Guide of the Hauts-de-Seine
Unmissable places and recommendations in the Hauts-de-Seine
Guide of Issy-les-Moulineaux
Tourism, breaks and holidays around Issy-les-Moulineaux
Municipality of Issy-les-Moulineaux
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Frontiers in Genetics
Evolutionary and Genomic Microbiology
This article is part of the Research Topic
Evolution of Genetic Mechanisms of Antibiotic Resistance View all 15 Articles
Elena Perrin
University of Florence, Italy
Henning Seedorf
Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, Singapore
Vasvi Chaudhry
University of Tübingen, Germany
Discussion and Conclusion
Methods ARTICLE
Front. Genet., 14 August 2018 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2018.00312
Construction and Characterization of Synthetic Bacterial Community for Experimental Ecology and Evolution
Johannes Cairns1†, Roosa Jokela1‡, Jenni Hultman1§, Manu Tamminen2||, Marko Virta1¶ and Teppo Hiltunen1,2*
1Department of Microbiology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
2Department of Biology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland
Experimental microbial ecology and evolution have yielded foundational insights into ecological and evolutionary processes using simple microcosm setups and phenotypic assays with one- or two-species model systems. The fields are now increasingly incorporating more complex systems and exploration of the molecular basis of observations. For this purpose, simplified, manageable and well-defined multispecies model systems are required that can be easily investigated using culturing and high-throughput sequencing approaches, bridging the gap between simpler and more complex synthetic or natural systems. Here we address this need by constructing a completely synthetic 33 bacterial strain community that can be cultured in simple laboratory conditions. We provide whole-genome data for all the strains as well as metadata about genomic features and phenotypic traits that allow resolving individual strains by amplicon sequencing and facilitate a variety of envisioned mechanistic studies. We further show that a large proportion of the strains exhibit coexistence in co-culture over serial transfer for 48 days in the absence of any experimental manipulation to maintain diversity. The constructed bacterial community can be a valuable resource in future experimental work.
Testing ecological and evolutionary theory in a highly controlled manner using simple laboratory setups with one or two microbial species (Fraser and Keddy, 1997; Buckling et al., 2009) has produced important insights into ecological interactions–e.g., competition, cooperation, and cross-feeding interactions (Helling et al., 1987; Treves et al., 1998; Rozen and Lenski, 2000; Shou et al., 2007; Harcombe, 2010); the role of cheaters (MacLean and Gudelj, 2006); predator–prey interactions (Shertzer et al., 2002); and host–parasite interactions (Morgan et al., 2005)–and evolutionary processes–e.g., the evolution of coexistence (Good et al., 2017), coevolution between species (Hall et al., 2011; Brockhurst and Koskella, 2013), and eco-evolutionary feedback dynamics (Yoshida et al., 2003; Hiltunen and Becks, 2014). However, there is an increasing awareness that ecological and evolutionary processes can be fundamentally altered in more complex multispecies communities owing to several features such as altered competitive interactions and multiple selection pressures (Dunham, 2007). Recent empirical findings show, for example, that pairwise interactions can be strongly altered in the presence of other species (Kastman et al., 2016) and the rate of adaptation of species can differ between monocultures and communities (Lawrence et al., 2012). Even a basic understanding of certain characteristics of microbial life such as horizontal gene transfer (Smillie et al., 2011), metabolic interactions and spatial heterogeneity (Elias and Banin, 2012; van Gestel et al., 2014) requires investigation of multispecies settings integral to them. Furthermore, several key ecological features are specific to multispecies communities, such as diversity, stability, succession and high-order (e.g., four-way) species interactions (Bairey et al., 2016). There is therefore a profound need to expand the biotic complexity of study systems used in the fields of experimental microbial ecology and evolution.
The design of multispecies model communities in experimental ecology and evolution is part of the emerging field of synthetic ecology where synthetic communities are used for a plethora of basic and applied purposes. Several research attempts have sought mechanistic understanding of specific natural systems, such as methane consuming communities (Yu et al., 2017), plant root colonizing bacteria (Lebeis et al., 2015), the human gut microbiota (Goodman et al., 2011), and cheese rind communities (Wolfe et al., 2014), by complementing observational findings with findings from controlled in vitro or in vivo studies using synthetic communities. These studies focus on designing synthetic communities that capture the essential features of the natural system being investigated. A typical approach is to determine the prevalent taxa in the natural system or in the core microbiome (Shade and Handelsman, 2012) common to similar systems, to construct a synthetic community of taxonomically representative strains isolated from the natural system, and to culture the community in conditions mimicking the natural system. The limitations of this approach include the potentially important role in ecological functions or evolutionary processes of low-abundance taxa (Liu et al., 2017), microdiversity (Chase et al., 2017), or interactions between bacteria and members of other taxonomic groups such as viruses, unicellular eukaryotic predators or fungi, as well as technical difficulties in mimicking natural conditions in the laboratory (Wolfe, 2018). Likely owing to such limitations, among these studies, cases have been observed both where simple synthetic communities representing predominant taxa in natural systems recapitulate the dynamics in natural systems (Goodman et al., 2011; Wolfe et al., 2014; Lebeis et al., 2015) and where major differences are observed between synthetic and natural systems (Yu et al., 2016).
Compared with studies employing synthetic communities to understand specific natural systems, more applied studies focusing, among others, on medical therapeutics (Petrof et al., 2013; Sheth et al., 2016), bioremediation (Dejonghe et al., 2003; Zomorrodi and Segre, 2016), or biofuel production (Wang et al., 2015), rely even more heavily on a detailed understanding of the characteristics and functions of specific bacterial taxa in natural systems to engineer communities that can successfully perform desired functions. In contrast, studies attempting to investigate highly general ecological or evolutionary processes, similar to traditional experimental microbial ecology and evolution using one- or two-species model systems, do not necessarily seek to, or prefer simple culture conditions over the ability to, accurately represent a particular natural community. For instance, a synthetic community of 72 bacterial strains isolated from tree-hole bacterial communities–but limited to aerobic heterotrophs cultivable in simple laboratory conditions–has been used to investigate several key ecological questions, including the relationship between diversity and ecosystem productivity (Bell et al., 2005) and the success of multispecies invasions during different stages of ecological succession (Rivett et al., 2018). Celiker and Gore (2014), in turn, used a completely synthetic model community comprising six apparently random soil bacterial strains from culture collections to examine the repeatability of change in community composition over time.
In simplified synthetic communities, verisimilitude is sacrificed to obtain relative ease of analysis and modeling, and control of species interactions, non-linear effects from added traits and strains, and evolutionary change (Widder et al., 2016). There is ongoing debate about the utility of simple microcosm setups to understand ecological and evolutionary phenomena (Carpenter, 1996, 1999; Fraser and Keddy, 1997; Drenner and Mazumder, 1999; Benton et al., 2007; Buckling et al., 2009), yet the approach continues to produce major scientific discoveries (van Houte et al., 2016; Good et al., 2017; Betts et al., 2018; Frickel et al., 2018). Similarly, the definition of, need for, and necessary level of representativeness of synthetic communities remain matters of debate (Dolinsek et al., 2016; Widder et al., 2016; Zomorrodi and Segre, 2016; Wolfe, 2018), and are likely strongly dependent on the research questions. Although debated, completely synthetic communities composed of strains isolated from different habitats can also be used to study general questions as well as having special use in studying questions such as community assembly and the evolution of coexistence in newly formed communities.
In this context, the detailed, mechanistic understanding of simpler, less representative synthetic communities can be thought to inform, or even be a prerequisite to, understanding more complex synthetic systems, and ultimately, natural systems. It has been argued that such efforts should focus on understanding a limited set of well-defined model synthetic communities, which would make results comparable between studies and allow collaborative efforts toward mechanistic understanding (Widder et al., 2016). However, not many such systems exist to our knowledge despite the general boom in synthetic ecology. Furthermore, the highly general level studies that exist primarily focus on simple phenotypic analyses (Bell et al., 2005; Foster and Bell, 2012; Celiker and Gore, 2014; Rivett et al., 2016, 2018; Rivett and Bell, 2018), although high-throughput molecular methods, such as amplicon sequencing, (meta)genomics, (meta) transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics, which have been promisingly utilized in studies focusing on synthetic systems mimicking natural systems (Goodman et al., 2011; Wolfe et al., 2014; Lebeis et al., 2015; Stopnisek et al., 2016; Yu et al., 2017), could provide valuable insights into the mechanisms behind observed phenotypic and community level features.
To address these needs, we here constructed a simplified experimental system comprising a completely synthetic community of 33 bacterial strains representing two phyla and six classes that can be cultured individually and in co-culture in highly simple laboratory conditions, and that can be individually resolved based on amplicon sequencing. Furthermore, we present draft-level whole genome sequence data as well as information regarding genomic features and phenotypic traits for all strains in the community, facilitating further mechanistic studies. We also present proof of concept for coexistence of a large proportion (14/33) of the strains in co-culture after serial passage of cultures for 48 days. Such a community can be a highly useful resource for experimental microbial ecology and evolution. For instance, we recently used a closely related model system to track the mobility of antibiotic resistance genes in a complex bacterial community (Cairns et al., 2018). For future studies, we envision, for example, exploration of the trajectories of ecosystem composition and genetic structure in response to environmental perturbations or variability in functional trait space. We are also considering using the community as an internal control for improving high-throughput microbial single cell genome sequencing techniques such as epicPCR (Spencer et al., 2016) or metagenome assemblies.
Constructing Model Community
Strains from the University of Helsinki culture collection (HAMBI) representing diverse taxa were initially screened for the ability to grow individually at 28°C in two complex liquid media: the nutrient-rich proteose peptone yeast extract (PPY: 20 g proteose peptone and 2.5 g yeast extract in 1 l deionized H2O) medium or a custom lower-nutrient-level medium containing M9 salt solution and King’s B (KB) nutrients at a 1% concentration compared with full-strength medium (concentrations used: 0.2 g peptone number 3 and 0.1 ml of 85% glycerol in 1 l of dH2O), and 0.2 g l-1 protozoan pellets (Carolina Biological Supply Co., Burlington, United States). Protozoan pellets were prepared by dissolving in dH2O, bringing to boil and filtering through 40 μm to remove particulate matter. Notably, the strains were not selected based on being representative of any particular natural system but rather as a collection of strains, each representing a different taxonomic group, that can grow in simple, uniform laboratory conditions and therefore be easily used to test general ecological and evolutionary theory or techniques (Wolfe, 2018).
Previously, we performed a serial transfer experiment with an initial version of the model community consisting of 62 strains, including the Escherichia coli K-12 strain JE2571(RP4) harboring the multidrug resistance plasmid RP4 (Bradley, 1980; Cairns et al., 2018). The study demonstrates the ability of dozens of the strains to coexist in culture over 40 days, as well as a method for manipulating the level of spatial heterogeneity (biofilm mass) in community cultures. For tracking strain abundance over time in the study, we Sanger sequenced the near-full-length 16S rRNA gene sequences of the strains for use as a reference database for mapping high-throughput sequencing amplicons from experimental samples (Cairns et al., 2018). Based on these previous data, we refined the model community, removing strains with > 97% identity of 16S rRNA gene sequence with another strain in the community or uncertain strain identity. This resulted in a set of 33 gram-negative strains with confirmed culture collection identity that can be tracked at strain-level resolution through amplicon sequencing (Supplementary Tables S1, S2). The community was given the acronym HMC 33.1 (standing for HAMBI Mock Community containing 33 strains, version 1). The strains represent three classes in the phylum Proteobacteria (Alpha-, Beta- and Gammaproteobacteria) and three classes in the phylum Bacteroidetes (Chitinophagia, Flavobacteriia and Sphingobacteriia) (Figure 1). Each class contains a minimum of two strains, with the most representatives (13 strains) for the class Gammaproteobacteria. The strains have been isolated from diverse environments across the globe (Supplementary Table S2). Most of the strains originate from the soil, and the second highest group is human associated bacteria. Other sources include animals, aquatic environments, plants and the industry.
FIGURE 1. Phylogenetic relatedness and isolation origin of model community strains. Pictograms depict the isolation origin of the strains and the colored ovals their phylogenetic classes.
We further refined the co-culture medium to contain 1 g l-1 R2A solution and 0.5 g l-1 of cereal grass medium (Ward’s Science, St. Catharines, ON, Canada) in M9 salt solution. Cereal grass medium stock was prepared by autoclaving in dH2O and removing particulate matter by filtering through 5 μm.
To provide proof of concept for the coexistence of the strains in the medium, we performed a 48-day serial transfer experiment. The strains were grown separately for 4 days at 28°C with constant rotation at 50 rpm in the new medium and pooled together at equal volumes for the serial transfer experiment. The growth curves of strains when growth separately for 4 days are shown in Supplementary Figure S1. The stock community was stored in 30% glycerol at –80°C. The experiment was started by adding 10 μl of 100-fold diluted freeze-stored stock community to wells in a ABgeneTM 96 Well 2.2 ml Polypropylene Deepwell Storage Plate (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, United States) containing 550 μl of medium. The community was grown at 28°C with constant rotation at 100 rpm. The experiment was maintained every 96 h by transferring 10% to fresh medium. To determine bacterial density, optical density values at 600 nm were obtained for undiluted grown cultures after each growth cycle (Tecan Infinite M200 well-plate reader), and samples were frozen in glycerol for further analysis.
Phenotypic Analyses
Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) was determined for each strain for six antibiotics representing different antibiotic classes: ampicillin (class: penam), erythromycin (macrolide), kanamycin (aminoglycoside), nalidixic acid (fluoroquinolone), rifampicin (rifamycin), and streptomycin (aminoglycoside). For MIC determination, bacterial inoculum from an individual colony was suspended in M9 salt solution to 0.5 McFarland standard turbidity. Subsequently, 100 μl was spread-plated on 50% PPY agar medium containing a Liofilchem® MIC test strip (Liofilchem, Italy) for a specific antibiotic. The MIC was interpreted according to manufacturer’s instructions after culturing at 28°C for 2 days, or for slow-growing strains, 6 days. Therefore, MICs were estimated in customized standard conditions rather than strain-specific optimal growth conditions or standard conditions recommended by the European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (EUCAST) for clinical bacterial isolates (Kahlmeter et al., 2006), and the data might therefore not be comparable with clinical MIC data.
The ability of the strains to utilize 31 different carbon sources was assessed using the Biolog EcoPlate system (Biolog, Inc., Hayward, CA, United States), with the exception of HAMBI 2948 which grew poorly in experimental conditions. The experimental procedure was modified from MacLean et al. (2004). Strains were precultured in liquid PPY medium for 48 or 96 h, depending on strain growth ability, at 28°C with constant rotation. Subsequently, cells were spinned down, resuspended in M9 salt solution and nutrient-starved for 48–72 h. Starved cells were spinned down to remove any carryover nutrients in the supernatant, and resuspended in fresh M9 salt solution. Following 100-fold dilution into M9 salt solution, 150 μl of the culture was pipetted to wells in an EcoPlate (one EcoPlate per strain) containing three technical replicate wells for each carbon source and a negative control. The ability of a strain to utilize a particular carbon source was interpreted as a significantly higher optical density, based on a t-test, at 590 nm (measured with Tecan Infinite M200 well-plate reader) compared to the negative control after culturing for 7 days at 28°C.
DNA Extraction and Sequencing for 16S rRNA Amplicon Analysis
DNA from three technical replicates from the original pooled bacterial community and three replicate communities from days 16, 32, and 48 in the serial transfer experiment was extracted using DNeasy 96 Blood & Tissue Kit (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany). DNA extraction was performed according to the manufacturer’s instructions using 400–600 μl of sample. DNA concentrations were measured using the Qubit® 3.0 fluorometer (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, United States).
Paired-end sequencing was performed using the Illumina MiSeq platform at the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM) amplifying the V3 and V4 regions of ribosomal RNA with Phusion High Fidelity PCR Master Mix (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, United States). Reactions were done with a 2-step PCR method with primers carrying Illumina adapter tails (PCR1: forward 5′-ACACTCTTTCCCT ACACGACGCTCTTCCGATCTCTCCTACGGGAGGCAGCAG-3′, reverse 5-′AGACGTGTGCTCTTCCGATCTTCTRCGMATT YCACYKCTACAC-3′; PCR2: forward 5′-ACACTCTTTCCCT ACACGACGCTCTTCCGATCTGACTACHVGGGTATCTAATC C-3′, reverse 5′-AGACGTGTGCTCTTCCGATCTCCTACGGGN GGCWGCAG-3′). For PCR2, the primers are the same but the locus-specific part and adapter part have been paired vice versa to create more diversity in the final sequencing library. Products from PCR1 and PCR2 were pooled together and indexed with two Illumina P5/P7 index primers (every sample had their own unique combination).
PCR amplification was performed in a volume of 20 μl containing approx. 20 ng of sample DNA, 1 μl (5 μM) of each locus-specific primer (final concentration 0.25 μM), and 10 μl of 2 × Phusion High-Fidelity PCR Master Mix, and the reaction mix was brought to a final volume with laboratory grade water. The cycling conditions were as follows: 98°C for 30 s, 27 cycles of 98°C for 10 s, 62°C for 30 s, and 72°C for 15 s, with a final extension at 72°C for 10 min, followed by hold at 10°C.
Sample indexing was performed in a volume of 20 μl containing 1.5 μl (5 μM) of each index primer (final concentration 0.375 μM), 10 μl of 2 × Phusion High-Fidelity PCR Master Mix (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, United States) and 1 μl of pooled PCR product. The reaction mix was brought to a final volume with laboratory grade water. The cycling conditions were as follows: 98°C for 30 s, 8 cycles of 98°C for 10 s, 65°C for 30 s, and 72°C for 20 s, with a final extension at 72°C for 5 min, followed by hold at 10°C.
After PCR, random samples were measured with LabChip GX Touch HT DNA High Sensitivity Reagent Kit (Perkin Elmer, Waltham, MA, United States) to check that the PCR was successful with the correct product size. The same run was repeated after indexing. Samples were pooled together in equal volumes and purified with Agencourt® AMPure® XP beads (Beckman Coulter, Brea, CA, United States) twice using 0.8 × volume of beads compared to the sample pool volume (40 μl). The ready amplicon library was diluted to 1:10 and 1:20 and quantified with the Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer High Sensitivity DNA Analysis Kit (Agilent Genomics, Santa Clara, CA, United States). The 16S rRNA gene amplicon pool was sequenced with Illumina MiSeq System using the Illumina MiSeq Reagent Kit v3 600 cycles kit (Illumina, San Diego, CA, United States). The read length for the paired-end run was 2 × 300 bp.
DNA Extraction and Sequencing for Whole-Genome Analysis
For this study, 16 of the 33 model community strains were whole-genome sequenced (Table 1). For the remaining 17 strains, 16 assembled genomes were obtained from the NCBI Reference Sequence Database (RefSeq) and 1 raw sequence dataset was obtained from the Joint Genome Institute Genomes OnLine Database (JGI GOLD; Supplementary Table S1). For the strains sequenced, DNA was extracted from 1 ml of liquid culture using the DNeasy 96 Blood & Tissue Kit (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany) according to manufacturer’s instructions. DNA concentrations were measured using the Qubit® 3.0 fluorometer (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, United States). High-throughput sequencing was performed by the Next Generation Sequencing Services, Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM). For this, 2.5 ng of dsDNA was prepared according to the Nextera XT DNA Library Prep Kit Reference Guide (Illumina, San Diego, GA, United States) with the following modifications: All reactions were performed in half of the normal volume, and normalization was done according to the concentration measured on LabChip GX Touch HT (PerkinElmer, United States). 530–670 bp fragments were size selected from the pool using BluePippin (Sage Science, United States). Sequencing was performed with the Illumina HiSeq2500 system in the HiSeq high output mode using v4 kits (Illumina, San Diego, CA, United States). The read length for the paired-end run was 2 × 101 bp.
TABLE 1. Genome sequencing and assembly metrics.
16S rRNA Amplicon Analysis
Sequencing adapters were removed from unpaired sequence data using Cutadapt 1.12 (Martin, 2011), with the parameter –minimum-length 100. Sequence pairing was done with Pear 0.9.11 (Zhang et al., 2014). Quality was assessed before and after Cutadapt and Pear with FASTQC1, and further trimming was done with PRINSEQ (Schmieder and Edwards, 2011) using the parameters -trim_left 5 and -trim_right 40 to obtain better quality. Quality filtering was done with the USEARCH 10 (Edgar, 2013) command –fastq_filter with fastq_maxee setting 1.0 (to discard all reads with > 1.0 total expected errors). The command –usearch_global was used to align the sequences to the 16S rRNA fragment database of the strains with > 97% identity. The Shannon diversity index was computed using the USEARCH 10 command -alpha_div. Difference in community composition between days 16–48 (disregarding initial stock at time point 0 that might not represent viable cell counts for each strain) was assessed in R 3.4.0 (R Core Team, 2017) using permutational multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA) as implemented in the adonis function in the vegan package (Anderson, 2001; Oksanen et al., 2016).
Genome Assembly and Annotation
Prior to genome assembly, Cutadapt 1.12 (Martin, 2011) was used to remove sequencing adapters and quality trim sequence data, with the parameters -O 10 (minimum overlap for an adapter match) and -q 28 (quality cutoff for the 3′ end of each read). Sequence data quality before and after Cutadapt was assessed using FASTQC1 and multiQC (Ewels et al., 2016). Genome assembly was performed using SPAdes 3.11.1 (Bankevich et al., 2012) with default settings (i.e., no specified parameters since SPAdes performs estimation of e.g., k-mer sizes, coverage cutoff value and PHRED quality offset for input reads). Following assembly, contigs were filtered by minimum coverage 30 and minimum length 1000 bp. Genome assembly quality was assessed using QUAST 4.0 (Gurevich et al., 2013), and by mapping reads back to the assembly using Bowtie 2 with default settings (Langmead and Salzberg, 2012) combined with the Picard2 command CollectWgsMetrics performed for alignment files after sorting with SAMtools (Li et al., 2009) and marking duplicates with Picard (Table 1). Subsequently, all assemblies, including those obtained from databases, were annotated using Prokka 1.12 (Seemann, 2014), providing genus and species names, with the parameters –centre X, –compliant, and –usegenus.
We identified and aligned genes conserved among all community members using Roary 3.8.0-0 (Page et al., 2015) with minimum BLASTp identity set to 65% and protein group limit set to 200,000 to account for high diversity in the community. The core gene alignment, consisting of four ribosomal proteins (rplN, rpmA, rpsL, and rpsS) and the ATP synthase subunit beta (atpD), was used to create a phylogenetic tree with PhyML (Guindon et al., 2010), visualized in iTol (Letunic and Bork, 2016).
Characterization of Genomic Features
To generate comprehensive genomic metadata for model community strains, the genome assemblies were scanned for genomic elements using several tools, with default parameters unless otherwise specified. The Metabolic And Physiological potentiaL Evaluator (MAPLE) 2.3.0 (Takami et al., 2016) was used to map genes in assemblies to functional modules as defined by the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and for calculating module completion ratios (MCR). Genomic islands, i.e., large genomic regions assumed to have horizontal origins, were predicted using IslandViewer 4 (Bertelli et al., 2017). For strains other than E. coli K-12, HAMBI 216, HAMBI 1923 and HAMBI 2659 which have closed genomes, genomic island predictions were obtained for incomplete genomes with contigs ordered against closely related reference genomes (Supplementary Table S3) using the Mauve contig orderer (Rissman et al., 2009; Bertelli et al., 2017).
Plasmid-derived sequences were predicted using cBar 1.2 (Zhou and Xu, 2010) and PlasmidFinder 1.3 (Carattoli et al., 2014), which was implemented through ABRicate3 using databases dated 2018-01-02. In addition, for genomes assembled for this study, plasmidSPAdes (Antipov et al., 2016) implemented in SPAdes 3.11.1 (Bankevich et al., 2012) was used, with assignment of plasmid annotation to > 1000 bp regions in genome assembly contigs displaying 100% BLASTn (Altschul et al., 1990) identity with plasmid assemblies generated by plasmidSPAdes.
Antibiotic resistance and virulence genes were predicted with ABRicate (https://github.com/tseemann/abricate, databases dated 2018-01-02) using ResFinder 3.0 (Zankari et al., 2012), the comprehensive antibiotic resistance database (CARD) (Jia et al., 2017), and the virulence factors database (VFDB) (Chen et al., 2016), discarding hits with proportion of gene covered < 50%. Prophages, integrons, insertion sequences, and clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) were predicted using the PHAge Search Tool – Enhanced Release (PHASTER; accessed 2018-01-08) (Arndt et al., 2016), Integron Finder 1.5.1 (Cury et al., 2016), ISEScan 1.5.4.3 (Xie and Tang, 2017) and CRISPRFinder (accessed 2018-02-01) (Grissa et al., 2007), respectively. Notably, in the absence of further validation steps, plasmid predictions obtained with cBar or plasmidSPAdes have low accuracy (Arredondo-Alonso et al., 2017), and genomic island predictions for draft level genomes may contain errors (Bertelli et al., 2017), and the predicted loci must therefore be considered as regions of interest rather than high-confidence predictions.
Genomic Composition
The strains display high variability in genome size and genomic content, including the resistome, mobilome and functionome (Figure 2). Antibiotic resistance and virulence genes are particularly prevalent among strains in the Gammaproteobacteria class (Figures 1, 2). Genomic elements associated with horizontal gene transfer, including plasmids, genomic islands, prophages, integrons, and insertion sequences, occur frequently among the strains, as do CRISPR arrays that might be associated with CRISPR/Cas systems conferring adaptive immunity against mobile genetic elements.
FIGURE 2. Genomic features of model community strains. E. coli K-12, HAMBI 216, HAMBI 1923 and HAMBI 2659 are closed genomes composed of a single chromosome. Other genomes are composed of blocks of adjacent contigs whose order may not reflect genomic position. Contigs are ordered by size for genomes assembled in this study and by order of appearance in assembly file for genomes obtained from databases. Predicted features are depicted by colored blocks along the genome. These include plasmid-derived sequences, genomic islands, prophages, integrons, insertion sequences, antibiotic resistance genes, virulence factors, and CRISPR loci.
Metabolic and Physiological Characteristics
The strains display diverse antibiotic susceptibility and carbon source utilization phenotypes (Figure 3). Antibiotic resistance phenotypes are variably associated with the presence of bioinformatically predicted resistance factors to the antibiotic class. The number of carbon sources on which the strains can grow displays high variability, with a maximum of 25 out of 31 carbon sources (HAMBI 2159 and 2494, which both belong to the genus Paraburkholderia), indicating large differences between strains in metabolic capacity and fastidiousness. Furthermore, the presence of genomic functional modules for benzoic acid, galactonic acid, galacturonic acid or lactose metabolism is frequently associated with the ability of a strain to grow with a corresponding compound as the sole carbon source (Figure 3).
FIGURE 3. Functional characteristics of model community strains. Both phenotypic (empty circle) and bioinformatically predicted (filled circle) susceptibility to antibiotics (upper panel) and ability to grow on a carbon source (lower panel) are shown. Matching between carbon source utilization phenotypes and functions predicted from genome sequences was only performed for 4-hydroxy benzoic acid, glucose-1-phosphate, D-galactonic acid γ-lactone, D-galacturonic acid and α-D-lactose where filled circles represent the presence of genomic modules for benzoic acid, glucose, galactonic acid, galacturonic acid and lactose metabolism, respectively. The strains are depicted in descending order of total number of carbon sources utilized. MIC, minimum inhibitory concentration.
The metabolic characteristics predicted from the genome sequences by MAPLE display hierarchical clustering by phylogenetic classes of the isolates as well as by their isolation origin (Figure 4). Soil isolates typically cluster separately from isolates from humans and animals. Most of this clustering is driven by metabolic functions related to environmental information processing. Core metabolic pathways such as the tricarboxylic acid cycle are present across all isolates while specialized metabolic features, such as utilization of less common carbohydrates, exhibit differences in their distribution across the isolates.
FIGURE 4. Metabolic pathways of model community strains. The pathways were predicted from genome sequences using MAPLE. Pathway completeness (MAPLE score) is depicted as shades of gray in a heat map organized by the phylogenetic class and isolation origin of model community strains (columns) and by the presence of metabolic pathways predicted by MAPLE (rows). The metabolic characteristics display hierarchical clustering by the phylogenetic class and isolation origin of the isolates.
Coexistence of Strains in Co-culture
Serially transferring the 33 strain community for 48 days seemingly led to a loss of over half of the strains within the first 16 days, although the initial number of viable strains is uncertain owing to different growth dynamics of individual strains prior to initiating the experiment (Supplementary Figure S1 and Figure 5). After these transient dynamics, there was only a marginally significant change in community composition over time between days 16 and 48 (PERMANOVA: F1,7 = 3.018, r2 = 0.301, p = 0.074). Furthermore, the apparent initial loss in richness (strain count) was accompanied by an increase in evenness, seen as a relatively small temporal change in Shannon diversity, which accounts for both factors. There were three dominant strains: Elizabethkingia meningoseptica HAMBI 1875, Aeromonas caviae HAMBI 1972 and Pseudomonas chlororaphis HAMBI 1977. However, the degree to which the dominance of these strains is caused by their relative abundance or viability in the input community (strain mix) or competitive ability during co-culture is uncertain.
FIGURE 5. Persistence of strains in model community when serially transferred for 48 days (three replicate communities). The upper panel shows the relative abundance of the 15 most abundant taxa and a proxy for total cell density (optical density, OD, at 600 nm). The lower panel shows two diversity indices, richness (strain count) and the Shannon index.
We developed a multispecies synthetic bacterial community, which was characterized at the genomic and phenotypic levels, revealing high diversity in the resistome, mobilome and functionome of the community. Furthermore, we demonstrated the utility of the community by showing coexistence of a large proportion (14/33) of the strains in co-culture over serial transfer for 48 days. These observations indicate that the community is suitable for use as a cultivated model community to ask a wide range of biological questions.
Along with characterizing the community, we produced comprehensive genomic and phenotypic metadata for the community members. This facilitates future mechanistic work with the community. For instance, our pipeline allows the use of amplicon sequencing to track community composition over time at strain-level resolution. Moreover, the genome assemblies provide a reference database for (meta)genomic and (meta)transcriptomic studies. Isolation of individual colonies combined with colony PCR, in turn, allows the rapid identification of substrains possessing mutations or horizontal gene transfer events of interest.
Our model community is composed of diverse bacterial strains isolated from different environments and hence does not mimic any specific natural community. Therefore, the community is more suited to study general questions about ecology and evolution such as community assembly and response to environmental perturbations rather than to explain patterns in any particular natural microbial community (Wolfe, 2018). The ability of the community to answer general questions may be limited by the potential absence of focal taxonomic groups or high-order interactions that occur in more complex communities. The community is composed of bacteria alone, while interactions between bacteria and fungi, protozoa or bacteriophages often play a key role in natural microbial communities. In a separate study, however, we have introduced a method for incorporating protozoa in the community (Cairns et al., 2018).
The utility of the 33-strain model community and its predecessor is demonstrated in the current and previous work by us (Cairns et al., 2018). Here we present the community and a collection of methods and metadata to the scientific community. A previous version of the community has already been successfully used for tracking the mobility of antibiotic resistance genes (Cairns et al., 2018), and as prominent cases of future use we envision, for instance, replicated ecosystem microcosms to explore the trajectories of ecosystem composition and genetic structure in response to various environmental perturbations. We also envision the community as an efficient spike-in control to increase the statistical rigor of high-throughput microbial single cell assays such as epicPCR (Spencer et al., 2016) or as a test system for validating metagenome assemblers.
Raw fastq files and genome assemblies for the genomes sequenced or assembled in this study (N = 17) have been deposited in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Sequence Read Archive (SRA) and GenBank, respectively, under the BioProject Accession Number PRJNA476209. Accession numbers for raw fastq files or genome assemblies obtained for this study from databases are listed in Supplementary Table S1. Previously Sanger sequenced near-full-length 16S rRNA gene sequences for all strains are available in the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA) under the Accession Number PRJEB21728 (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/data/view/PRJEB21728). The complete sequence for the plasmid RP4 harbored by E. coli K-12 JE2571(RP4) is available from GenBank under the accession BN000925 (Pansegrau et al., 1994). Genome annotations, including those obtained in this study for previously sequenced or assembled genomes, are available upon request.
The following community metadata is available via Dryad (doi: 10.5061/dryad.53b6n5f): Genomic predictions for functional modules obtained using MAPLE 2.3.0 (Takami et al., 2016); genomic feature data collated into a single data frame, using custom R scripts (R Core Team, 2017), displaying strain, contig, locus, and genomic feature information; antibiotic MICs; and carbon source utilization phenotypes. Raw output files for each strain from all genomic feature prediction tools are available upon request.
The model community strains, except for E. coli K-12 strain JE2571(RP4), are available individually from the HAMBI culture collection at the University of Helsinki, Finland (http://www.helsinki.fi/hambi/). For further requests concerning the use of the model community, please contact the corresponding author.
JC and TH designed the experiments. RJ contributed to phenotypic measurements, proof of concept experiments, and performed sequence analyses for 16S rRNA amplicon data. TH, JH, and MV provided sequencing resources. JC and JH designed the sequence analyses. JC performed sequence analyses for whole-genome data and drafted the manuscript. JC, MT, and RJ contributed to data visualization. RJ, JH, MT, MV, and TH edited and commented on the manuscript. All authors gave final approval for publication and accept accountability for the content and work performed.
This work was supported by Academy of Finland projects (Grant Nos. 308128 and 314114 to JH and 307213 to TH), University of Helsinki (3-year Grant to JH), and Doctoral Programme in Microbiology and Biotechnology, University of Helsinki (funding to JC).
We thank Anna Hartikainen and Liisa Ruusulehto for technical assistance, and acknowledge CSC – IT Center for Science Ltd., for the allocation of computational resources.
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2018.00312/full#supplementary-material
^http://www.bioinformatics.babraham.ac.uk/projects/fastqc
^http://broadinstitute.github.io/picard
^https://github.com/tseemann/abricate
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Keywords: microbial community, model system, synthetic ecology, experimental evolution, whole-genome sequencing
Citation: Cairns J, Jokela R, Hultman J, Tamminen M, Virta M and Hiltunen T (2018) Construction and Characterization of Synthetic Bacterial Community for Experimental Ecology and Evolution. Front. Genet. 9:312. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2018.00312
Received: 27 April 2018; Accepted: 23 July 2018;
Published: 14 August 2018.
Elena Perrin, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Italy
Henning Seedorf, Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, Singapore
Vasvi Chaudhry, Institute of Microbial Technology (CSIR), India
Copyright © 2018 Cairns, Jokela, Hultman, Tamminen, Virta and Hiltunen. 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) and the copyright owner(s) 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: Teppo Hiltunen, teppo.hiltunen@helsinki.fi
†orcid.org/0000-0003-1329-2025
‡orcid.org/0000-0002-4144-6573
§orcid.org/0000-0002-3431-1785
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Home Remanufactured Engines vs All New Replacements - Pros and Cons
Remanufactured Engines vs All New Replacements - Pros and Cons
If you're reading this, it’s probably because catastrophic engine failure left you stranded. When you were towed to the shop, you were probably given two choices: sell your broken down vehicle for scrap, or buy a new engine.
For many, scrapping a car isn't an option. The down payment and extra monthly commitment simply don't fit into the budget. This leaves purchasing a replacement engine - either a new replacement engine or a "reman" (remanufactured) unit. What to do - is a reman engine OK, or is new replacement the only way to go?
We'll break down the pros and cons.
First, What’s the Difference?
Simply put, new engines are…well, new. Every component is fresh off the assembly line, and the engine looks and performs like that of a new car.
Remanufactured, or reman, GM engines, are designed to be as good as new at a substantially reduced price. This is because a remanufactured engine uses a combination of new and recycled parts. Basically:
Old engines (which may have a serious problem) are disassembled. Any obviously damaged or broken parts are scrapped.
All the remaining components – including the heads, the block, the crankshaft, camshafts, rods, pistons, water pump, etc. - are carefully inspected
Inspections are comprehensive - engine blocks and cylinder heads are x-rayed, pistons are measured with micrometers - so that any and all issues not viewable by the naked eye are caught
All the parts that pass the inspection process are used to make "new" engines, along with new bearings, piston rings, etc. When the reman process is complete, the completed engine is tested to ensure the highest quality.
New Replacement vs. Reman Engine Cost
The most obvious difference between new and reman engines is the cost. A new engine uses all new parts including an engine block, crankshaft, cylinder heads, connecting rods, camshaft, pistons, and valves. Because of this, a new engine will cost considerably more than a reman engine.
A reman engine uses parts from previous engines. When an engine fails, many of the components can still be used. It’s these parts that are cleaned up and remanufactured into a new engine. Since these parts are basically free (damaged engines have a very low "core" value), most of what you're paying for when you buy a remanufactured engine is a handful of new parts and a thorough inspection.
For all the reasons given, remanufactured engines are considerably less expensive than new engines.
New Replacement vs Reman - Warranty and Performance
Because remanufactured engines employ used parts, they usually come with an extended warranty. This doesn't mean anything will go wrong with the engine, but it offers additional assurance that you're getting a quality product that GM believes in.
As for performance, the average consumer will not be able to tell the difference between a remanufactured engine and a new engine. Both will run smooth with a fresh-off-the-lot feel.
However, if you’re the racing type, remanufactured engines might not be for you. Racing puts substantial stress on engines, and used parts are that much more likely to fail in racing situations.
What About Used Engines?
Used engines are not the same as remanufactured engines. A used engine is usually pulled from a vehicle that's been scrapped - a wrecked car, a vehicle with flood damage, etc. Sometimes, a used engine is a great deal. If the previous owner was good to their engine, and the vehicle was scrapped due to a car accident that didn't damage the engine, you might have a great experience.
But often times, you can't determine if a used engine was in a flood, how the previous owner took care of it, or even how long the engine has been sitting in a junkyard.
Unless you simply can't afford to buy a remanufactured engine, we do not recommend buying a used engine. It's very much a roll of the dice. Considering how expensive engine replacements are (hours and hours of labor), it's not something you want to do twice. A reman engine is a safer choice.
What About Rebuilt Engines?
When shopping online, you might see a “rebuilt” engine available alongside other options. While the price tag is inviting, we advise you to stay away from a rebuilt engine as it's not the same thing as a reman engine.
Remanufactured engines are built to be as close to new as possible and are rigorously tested to ensure their viability. Rebuilt engines are reconditioned by replacing only the worn or broken parts. Serviceable pieces are then reused if they fit within the manufacturer’s wear limits, and the quality varies from rebuilder to rebuilder.
Also, most engine rebuilders do not go to the same lengths as remanufacturers do in terms of inspection. Checking an engine block for microfractures is something that remanufacturers do, but most rebuilders to not.
Remanufactured: Better than New?
Because of the way remanufactured parts are sourced, they are often a better deal than new parts:
Remanufactured engines are built from parts sourced from broken down engines
All the parts are carefully inspected before they are used in new assemblies
Many of the bearings are replaced in a remanufactured engine, as are seals and other wearables
The engine is assembled in the same type of facility that builds new engines
When it's all done, a remanufactured engine comes with a substantial warranty
Considering the excellent pricing, the rigorous testing and assembly standards, and the warranty, it's hard to argue against remanufactured engines. Unless you're racing, reman is probably the way to go.
If you’re interested in learning more about reman engines, call now speak with one of our GM parts experts.
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GoodTherapy.org >
PsychPedia A-G
> Equality
Equality is a concept in law, politics, philosophy, sociology, psychology, and many other fields based upon the notions of equal treatment, equal access to resources, and similar concepts.
What is Equality?
Philosophers and political scientists have debated the meaning of equality for generations, and the definition of equality tends to change with each generation. The United States Declaration of Independence declared that all men are created equal at a time when many men could not vote and slavery was a major force. However, notions of equality in the United States are often based upon this original declaration of equality, though they have evolved significantly.
Equality is sometimes used synonymously with fair treatment, and popular notions of equality do not necessarily require equal outcomes. The fact that one person is a manager while another is a CEO does not necessarily indicate unequal treatment, but refusing to promote a manager due to his or her race, sex, or religion would be an example of inequality. Similarly, institutional policies that make it difficult for people who are members of historically oppressed groups to advance are commonly used as indices of inequality.
Common definitions of equality include:
Presuming that all people are equal
Treating people as equals
Providing equal access to opportunities
Combating stereotypes and prejudicial treatment
Compensating for the losses associated with inequality – for example, by using affirmative action measures
Equality in Psychology
The presumption of equality is of major importance in contemporary mental health settings. Measures designed to increase cultural competence, for example, increase the likelihood that people from minority groups will be treated fairly and equally. Many mental health advocates have pushed for equal treatment of people diagnosed with mental conditions, and this includes participation in treatment decisions as well as an end to discrimination against those with mental health conditions. Some mental health professionals have worked to be aware of the ways in which subtle biases can affect treatment. For example, a therapist engaged in marriage counseling might be influenced by gender stereotypes when counseling a couple.
Equality. (n.d.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equality/
Wilkinson, R. G., & Pickett, K. (2011). The spirit level: Why greater equality makes societies stronger. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Press.
Last Updated: 08-7-2015
Prejudice / Discrimination
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/ NLRB Weighs in on Interpreting the Independent Contractor Standard
NLRB Weighs in on Interpreting the Independent Contractor Standard
By: Elizabeth CowitStephen R. Donat
On Jan. 25, in SuperShuttle DFW, 367 N.L.R.B., No. 75, 2019 WL 342288 (Jan. 25, 2019), the National Labor Relations Board (“Board”) reversed an Obama-era standard for determining independent contractor status. This decision makes it easier for New Jersey employers to establish contractor status under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)—which provides employees, but not contractors, the right to unionize and engage in collective bargaining. Id., 29 U.S.C. §152(3). The facts and results of SuperShuttle, involving a gig economy platform, are likely to raise further interest and consideration for the contractor analysis, especially in the technology-infused work environment that increasingly extends beyond the traditional business model.
The ‘SuperShuttle’ Decision
In SuperShuttle, the Amalgamated Transit Union (“Union”) sought to represent a unit of drivers who offered shared-ride services to and from area airports for SuperShuttle Dallas Fort Worth (“SuperShuttle”), an independent business entity that licenses the right to use the SuperShuttle trademark and transportation system in vans displaying the SuperShuttle “name, logo, and color scheme.” Pursuant to franchise agreements, the drivers were described as non-employee franchisees. SuperShuttle, at **4, 5.
SuperShuttle challenged the Union’s attempt at representation, claiming the drivers were franchisees and, consequently, independent contractors. The Acting Regional Director of the Board sided with SuperShuttle, concluding that the drivers were not employees and, thus, not entitled to NLRA protection. Id., at *10. The Union sought Board review of the Director’s decision, and the Board upheld contractor classification. Id., at *20. In reaching its decision, the Board reversed its 2014 ruling in FedEx Home Delivery, 361 NLRB 610 (2014), enf. denied, 849 F.3d 1123 (D.C. Cir. 2017), in which it held that “entrepreneurial opportunity,” should be considered in the context of whether an individual was providing services “as part of an independent business.” Id. The Board found that the FedEx Home Delivery decision impermissibly changed the “traditional common law test” (and Board precedent) for determining classification issues, by minimizing the importance of “entrepreneurial opportunity” in the classification analysis, and overruled the decision to the extent it changed the independent contractor test. SuperShuttle, at **1, 12, 13.
In SuperShuttle, the Board returned to its “traditional common law agency” test to determine employment status, which considers a “non-exhaustive” list of 10 factors: (1) a company’s “control” over an individual’s work; (2) whether the individual is “engaged in a distinct operation;” (3) the type of occupation involved, and whether the work is usually performed without direction or supervision from an employer; (4) the level of skill involved; (5) whether the individual supplies his own tools and equipment; (6) the length of employment; (7) the “method of payment;” (8) whether the work is “part of” a company’s “regular business;” (9) the parties’ understanding as to whether an employment relationship exists; and (10) whether the individual is in business for himself. Id., at *2, citing NLRB v. United Insurance Co. of America, 390 U.S. 254, 256 (1968). The Board also reaffirmed that “entrepreneurial opportunity” (like “control”)” is a principle through which to consider the common law factors (as properly recognized by prior Board and court decisions, and improperly rejected by the FedEx majority), explaining that “control” and entrepreneurial opportunity are “opposite sides of the same coin”—the more control, the less chance for entrepreneurial opportunity. SuperShuttle, at ** 12, 15, 16.
Within this framework, the Board then applied the common law factors to the relationship between SuperShuttle and the franchisees. To start, the Board found that the “common law” “control” factor favored contractor status. The Board found significant that the franchisees, without involvement from SuperShuttle, “set their own schedule(s),” determined (with limited exception) which trips to accept, chose where to work, had no set routes, decided when to take breaks and when to end their days, and provided indemnification to SuperShuttle. Id., **17-18. The Board found that the airport’s imposition of certain restrictions on franchisees (e.g., requiring them to wear a uniform, display certain decals on their vans, comply with maintenance standards, etc.) did not demonstrate “control” because such restrictions were mandated by the airport, not SuperShuttle. To the extent SuperShuttle imposed its own requirements on the franchisees (e.g., subjecting them to vehicle inspections, mandating they accept SuperShuttle vouchers and coupons, etc.), the Board found the franchisees’ “substantial control” over their own working conditions outweighed these requirements. Id., at *18.
The Board also found that the “method of payment” factor favored contractor status, because the franchisees paid a flat monthly fee to SuperShuttle (which did not vary based on revenue), and they did not share any fees with SuperShuttle. Id., at *19.
The Board considered that the franchisees purchased or leased vans (at a significant cost to themselves), paid for their own Nextel devices (used to communicate with SuperShuttle), and were responsible for their own expenses (such as “gas, tolls, [and] repairs”), and that these arrangements favored contractor status under the common law factors. Id., at *19.
The Board also found relevant the franchisees’ freedom to perform work unsupervised and the parties’ understanding—as set forth in the franchise agreement—of a contractor and not employment arrangement, and found that the limited common law factors that were neutral to the classification analysis (e.g., length of arrangement) or favored employment status (e.g., drivers were not in “specialized occupation”) did not outweigh those factors supporting contractor classification. Id., at ** 19-20.
After considering the common law factors, the Board held that the franchisees had “significant entrepreneurial opportunity” and control over their earnings and affirmed the Director’s finding that the franchisees were contractors, not employees. Id., at **19-20.
Employee/Contractor Classification in Other Contexts
Although the revised Board standard is favorable to New Jersey (and other) employers in the NLRA context, businesses must still comply with a myriad of state and federal standards in determining contractor status, for different legal purposes.
As an example, the SuperShuttle decision has no bearing on New Jersey’s test for determining employment status under the New Jersey Wage and Hour Law (WHL), and the New Jersey Wage Payment Law (WPL), known as the “ABC” test, and as set forth in Hargrove v. Sleepy’s, 220 N.J. 289 (2015).
Under the ABC test, an individual who performs services for a company for compensation, is considered an employee, unless a company can establish each of the following factors: (A) the “individual has been and will continue to be free from control or direction over the performance of such service[s], both under his contract of service and in fact”; (B) the “service is either outside the usual course of the [company’s] business” for which services are provided, or “such service is performed outside of all the places of business” of the company for which services are performed; (C) the “individual is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, profession or business.” Hargrove, at 305, citing, N.J.S.A. 43:21-19(i)(6). If a company satisfies all three factors, the individual is properly classified as a contractor under the New Jersey WHL and WPL and not subject to statutory requirements such a minimum wage, overtime, wage deductions, timing and mode of payments, and other requirements. Hargrove, at 314. This test is more demanding for employers than the Board test, particularly given it does not consider the other factors under NLRB law or the existence of entrepreneurial opportunity.
New Jersey employers must also consider federal standards for determining contractor status for the purposes of complying with federal laws (including the Fair Labor Standards Act), and multi-state employers must consider applicable state wage-hour and other laws throughout the United States.
Recently, on Jan. 29, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued a precedential opinion in Bedoya v. American Eagle Express, No. 18-1641 (3d Cir. Jan. 29, 2019), in which the plaintiffs, airline delivery drivers, filed a putative class action claiming they were misclassified as contractors and that they were employees under the New Jersey WHL and WPL. Defendant moved for dismissal on the grounds that the drivers’ claims were preempted by the Federal Aviation Authorization Administration Act of 1994 (FAAAA), and the issue went to the Third Circuit on interlocutory appeal. The Third Circuit held that the FAAAA does not preempt New Jersey’s ABC test for determining classification under the wage-hour and wage-payment laws, as the test did not have a “direct,” “indirect” or “significant impact” on “carrier prices, routes or services,” and rejected defendant/airline’s argument that applying New Jersey law may require it to change from using contractors to hiring employees, resulting in increased costs and prices. Id., at **20-23. While this decision concerns a preemption argument specific to the airline industry, it demonstrates the broad reach of New Jersey’s wage-payment and wage-hour laws concerning how workers are classified and paid.
As the independent contractor/employee debate continues and evolves in New Jersey and elsewhere, employers face significant compliance challenges, particularly given the ever-expanding gig economy and trend toward a more flexible workforce. Employers must be aware of the varied tests applied in determining classification status, under different laws, applying to many facets of the employment relationship; must continue to monitor the ever-changing standards; and ensure that workers are properly classified under all applicable laws.
Reprinted with permission from the February 25, 2019 issue of the New Jersey Law Journal. © 2019 ALM Media Properties, LLC. Further duplication without permission is prohibited. All rights reserved. For information, contact 877-257-3382 or reprints@alm.com or visit www.almreprints.com.
Employment Law Alert
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MedX Health Corp. Continuing to Receive Subscriptions for Second Tranche of Non-Brokered Private Placement
July 13, 2016 22:02 ET | Source: MedX Health Corp.
MISSISSAUGA, ON--(Marketwired - July 13, 2016) -
NOT FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES OR FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES
MedX Health Corp. ("MedX" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: MDX). The Company announces it is extending the completion of a second tranche of a previously announced non- brokered private placement. In the first tranche, the Company raised proceeds of $560,400.15 to its treasury by issuance of 8,621,540 units, comprising 8,621,540 common shares and 8,621,540 share purchase warrants ("Warrants") at $0.065 per unit. Each Warrant entitles the holder to purchase one additional common share during the period expiring June 6, 2019, at $0.14 per share.
The Company had announced on May 30, 2016 a non-brokered private placement of a minimum of 7,692,307 units and a maximum of 23,076,923 units at a price of $0.065 per unit, for gross proceeds of a minimum of $500,000 and a maximum of $1,500,000, subject to receipt of applicable regulatory approvals including acceptance of the TSX Venture Exchange. The Company is continuing to receive subscriptions for a second tranche closing that it expects will occur on or before August 14, 2016
About MedX
MedX, headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, is a leading medical device company focused on skin cancer with its SIAscopy technology. This technology is imbedded in its products SIAMETRICS™, SIMSYS, and MoleMate™, which MedX manufactures in its ISO 13485 certified facility. SIMSYS, and MoleMate™ include hand-held devices that use patented technology utilizing light and its remittance to view up to 2 mm beneath suspicious moles and lesions in a pain free, non-invasive manner, with its software then creating real-time images for physicians and dermatologists to evaluate all types of moles or lesions within seconds. The devices are sold to physicians and clinics, as well as being deployed in pharmacies and remote clinics from where the images are sent to dermatologists who perform a diagnosis. These products are Health Canada, FDA (US), ARTG and CE approved for use in Canada, the US, Australia, the European Union and Turkey. SIAMETRICS™ is a unique product used in a specialized market for research into the clinical effectiveness of medical treatments of certain skin conditions. MedX also designs, manufactures and distributes quality laser and light therapy technologies for use in numerous medical settings, approved in major jurisdictions, to provide drug free and non-invasive treatment of tissue damage and pain. For more information and a complete profile of MedX and its products visit www.medxhealth.com.
This press release does not constitute an offer of any securities for sale. This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ, including, without limitation, the company's limited operating history and history of losses, the inability to successfully obtain further funding, the inability to raise capital on terms acceptable to the company, the inability to compete effectively in the marketplace, the inability to complete the proposed acquisition and such other risks that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those contained in the company's projections or forward-looking statements. All forward looking statements in this press release are based on information available to the company as of the date hereof, and the company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of this press release.
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.
Robert von der Porten
MedX Health Corp.
investor@medxhealth.com
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Dr Sui Wong
MBBS MD MA MRCP DTM&H
Consultant Neurologist
Neuro-ophthalmology, Neuro
Dr Sui H. Wong is a consultant neurologist and neuro-ophthalmologist. Her NHS practice is based at both Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and Guys & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. She is also an honorary consultant at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery. In addition to her NHS practice, Dr Wong has a private practice based in central London.
Dr Wong sees patients with neurological conditions, and has a specialist interest in neuro-ophthalmology.
Neuro-ophthalmology, visual symptoms from neurological causes, Ocular Myasthenia Gravis, Optic Neuritis, Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension, Visual pathway disorders, Migraine
Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
HCA UK at The Shard
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Professor Christopher Eden
MBSS MS FRCS(Urol)
Consultant Urological Surgeon
Urological cancers, Prostate cancer
Self-Pay options available: This consultant offers some treatments at a fixed price
Christopher Eden attended Guy’s Hospital and King’s College Hospital Medical Schools, achieving an MBBS in 1985 from the University of London after winning Surgery and Paediatric Prizes. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1995 and achieved a Master of Surgery degree from the University of London in 1997. He is currently Professor of Urology at the University of Surrey, Consultant Urological Surgeon at The Royal Surrey County Hospital, Guildford, UK and Co-Director of Santis, London.
As a surgical trainee he became a pioneer of laparoscopy urological surgery and performed the UK’s first laparoscopic pyeloplasty in 1994, first laparoscopic radical prostatectomy in 2000, first laparoscopic radical cystectomy in 2001, first robotic Retzius-sparing radical prostatectomy in 2016 and first laparoscopic Retzius-sparing radical prostatectomy in 2016. He has one of the world’s largest personal series of minimal access urological procedures at over 3,000 cases and has published more than 50 peer-reviewed papers on laparoscopic urology, 9 book chapters and a book.
Surgery for high-risk prostate cancer, Robotic surgery for prostate cancer
Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Trust
Professor Christopher Eden Fixed Price Packages
At HCA UK we recognise the importance of giving our patients peace of mind. That's why our guaranteed fixed prices are fully inclusive, with no hidden extras.
Robot assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy including cystoscopy
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FHSU's Heim out at least this week with knee injury
Rick Peterson Jr., rpeterson@dailynews.net
At least for the time being, the No. 5-ranked Fort Hays State women's basketball team will have to make do without the player coach Tony Hobson calls the rock of the Tigers' team.
FHSU senior point guard Carly Heim will miss this week's road games at Pittsburg State and Missouri Southern after suffering a knee injury in last week's 74-64 overtime win at Nebraska-Kearney. As of Tuesday afternoon, Hobson said Heim's long-term status was unclear.
"There's nothing definite yet. She did have a test (on Tuesday). We should find out something (Wednesday), if not before the game on Thursday," Hobson said. "Definitely out this week. We're just hoping for the best, but just making plans and trying to retool a lot of things in our offense and defensively because she's such a big part of our team."
Hobson said junior guard Kacey Kennett will slide over to point guard in Heim's absence with Taylor Rolfs and Hailey Walker also expected to play some at the point.
"We'll just see what works," Hobson said. "There's some things that work better that we run offensively with a true point guard; there's other things that doesn't really matter. The good thing is we have so many kids on our team that are versatile.
"Kacey's such a versatile player. She can play one through four, and it's really valuable to have players like that who are capable of moving around the floor and you really don't lose much."
Kennett said she's comfortable playing point and will do her best to help fill Heim's void.
"I played some point in high school, and this past year or two I've played some point. Definitely not as good as Carly," Kennett said with a smile. "She's little, she can penetrate, she's quick. But hopefully I can get my team some open shots and take over that role."
Kennett said the Tigers (19-1, 10-1 MIAA) will try to use Heim's injury as motivation.
"Hopefully we'll all kind of play with a chip on our shoulder for Carly," Kennett said.
Hobson said Heim's absence will have a ripple effect on the Tigers.
"We have good players that we can put in the starting lineup to replace Carly, but then you lose a really good player coming off the bench," Hobson said. "It just totally changes your rotation, changes people's roles. ... You just have to make the adjustments you think will be most beneficial to your team and go with it."
The MIAA-leading Tigers, who railed from a 20-point third-quarter deficit at UNK, will play Pittsburg State at 5:30 p.m. Thursday in John Lance Arena. Pitt State enters 17-4 overall and 9-3 in conference play.
"This will be one of our toughest games we have left, I think," Hobson said. "... They're a solid team. They're deep and pretty athletic, and like usual, they don't miss very many threes. They're just really good shooters."
Tiger men looking to regroup from UNK loss
The Fort Hays men will look to regain their offensive rhythm for Thursday's 7:30 p.m. game with Pittsburg State after struggling in a 59-56 loss to Nebraska-Kearney on Saturday.
"I think the biggest thing was we couldn't get Brady (Werth) the ball in the post," FHSU coach Mark Johnson said. "It was a physical game. They were able to push Brady off the block so we weren't able to get as much done on the block as we have in the past. When that doesn't happen, I think that affects our perimeter shooters. They don't get quite the same looks compared to when Brady's having a really good night down low."
The Tigers (13-7, 7-4 MIAA) sit in fifth place in the conference standings but are just a game back of Lincoln and Washburn for second place.
"We're right there battling with these teams," Johnson said. "I think Northwest has clearly won the league. But this can go a lot of different ways. We can work our way all the way up to No. 2, and we might have to still win a game to get in the conference tournament. It can go a lot of different ways. We just have to take it game by game."
Junior guard Aaron Nicholson was a bright spot in the Tigers' loss to UNK, scoring 15 points. Nicholson is averaging 10.6 points per game and has had a steady year, Johnson said.
"He's gaining confidence," Johnson said. "Aaron's a guy that's taken a while to believe in himself. I think he's finally getting confidence. He does a good job of shooting the three. He's not the most athletic guy you ever saw but he's sneaky and he goes a really good job of finishing at the rim for his size. We need him to really have a good, strong finish and continue to do what's he's done all year and be a guy that gets double figures most nights."
The Tiger men also are dealing with injury concerns after senior guard Marcus Cooper injured his hand in the Kearney. The full extent of the injury wasn't known as of Tuesday afternoon.
Pittsburg State enters 14-7 overall and 7-5 in league play. The Gorillas are led by Grant Lozoya (24 points per game) and Donovan Franklin (21.7 per game).
"They're two of the more gifted players (in the league)," Johnson said. "They've got great size, 6-3, 6-4 guards that can drive it, shoot it and they're athletic. You got to find a way to limit those two. I think they're going to get their numbers, it's just how many shots are we going to make them take to put up those numbers."
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NSW Public Health Training Program
Trainee recruitment and selection
Program Structure and Content
Trainee recruitment and selection Currently selected
NSW Public Health Training Program Competency Framework
Signing up for job alerts for NSW Biostatistics Training Program and NSW Public Health Training Program
Traineeships are awarded through a competitive merit selection process. Successful applicants are offered temporary full-time employment as a Trainee Public Health Officer for a three year period.
Trainee Public Health Officers are temporary full-time employees of the NSW Ministry of Health, appointed under Section 43 (1) (b) of the Government Sector Employment Act 2013. Appointments are renewable annually, subject to satisfactory performance.
Trainee Public Health Officers from non-medical backgrounds are paid in the range $94,782 to $104,918 per annum. Trainee Public Health Officers who are registered medical practitioners in NSW are paid in the range $108,044 to $119,061 per annum. Trainee Public Health Officers usually commence on the lowest salary rate and receive a salary increase upon the satisfactory completion of each year of employment. No review of salary can be undertaken once a Trainee has commenced duty.
In order to be eligible for a traineeship, applicants are required to meet a number of pre-requisites, including the successful completion of a masters or doctoral degree in a public health field, and a minimum of three years of full-time equivalent health related employment. Applicants for medical Trainee Public Health Officer roles are also required to hold general registration as a medical practitioner with the Medical Board of Australia.
Applicants must be able to demonstrate competence in a number of capabilities outlined in the NSW Public Sector Capability Framework including self-management, effective communication, thinking and problem solving, and project management, and must hold a work visa that gives them permission to work in Australia for the duration of the traineeship.
Page Updated: Wednesday 12 September 2018
Contact page owner: Centre for Epidemiology and Evidence
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• Antibiotics
Surprising Tactic in War Against Antibiotic Resistance
WEDNESDAY, Sept. 5, 2018 (HealthDay News) -- Combining four or five antibiotics might help fight the growing problem of antibiotic resistance, researchers report.
Biologists at the University of California, Los Angeles, identified more than 8,100 combinations of four or five antibiotics that appear effective against harmful bacteria.
"There is a tradition of using just one drug, maybe two," said co-senior author Pamela Yeh, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.
"We're offering an alternative that looks very promising. We shouldn't limit ourselves to just single drugs or two-drug combinations in our medical toolbox. We expect several of these combinations, or more, will work much better than existing antibiotics," Yeh said in a university news release.
It's long been believed that using three or more antibiotics would not lead to better patient outcomes because interactions among the drugs would cancel out their benefits.
But working with eight antibiotics, the research team identified nearly 1,700 four-antibiotic combinations and more than 6,400 five-antibiotic combinations that are more effective than expected at stopping E. coli bacteria.
Yeh's colleague, study senior co-author Van Savage, voiced surprise. "I was blown away by how many effective combinations there are as we increased the number of drugs," said Savage, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and of biomathematics.
"People may think they know how drug combinations will interact, but they really don't," he added.
"It's like attacking a castle or fortress. Combining different methods of attacking may be more effective than just a single approach," Savage said.
While these results are promising, the antibiotic combinations have only been tested in a laboratory. It will be years before they might be evaluated as possible treatments, Yeh noted.
Still, the news was welcomed by experts concerned that antibiotics are losing their power.
"With the specter of antibiotic resistance threatening to turn back health care to the pre-antibiotic era, the ability to more judiciously use combinations of existing antibiotics that singly are losing potency is welcome," said Michael Kurilla, director of clinical innovation at the U.S. National Center for Advancing Translational Science.
"This work will accelerate the testing in humans of promising antibiotic combinations for bacterial infections that we are ill-equipped to deal with today," Kurilla added.
The UCLA researchers are creating open-access software based on their work so that other scientists can do their own research on these antibiotic combinations. They said the software should be available next year.
The study was published Sept. 3 in the journal npj Systems Biology and Applications.
The American Academy of Family Physicians has more on antibiotics.
SOURCE: University of California, Los Angeles, news release, Sept. 3, 2018
• Specialty Chemicals and Products
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Peter Berkowitz, The Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow, Stanford University, Hoover Institution Wins 2017 Bradley Prize
News | News/Press
Peter Berkowitz, a political scientist and the Tad and Diane Taube Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, is one of four recipients of the 2017 Bradley Prize. The honor recognizes individuals of extraordinary talent and dedication who have made contributions in areas consistent with the mission of The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.
Varieties of Conservatism in America edited by Peter Berkowitz
Although conservatives may all look alike to their critics, they disagree among themselves about what it means to be a conservative and who is entitled to bear the name.
Arad on Israel’s national security challenges
Uzi Arad visited the Hoover Institution on Friday, April 26, 2013, to discuss Israel’s national security challenges and US-Israel relations. Richard Sousa, senior associate director, and Peter Berkowitz, the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, also attended the event.
Read Renewing the American Constitutional Tradition, a new collection from the Hoover Institution Press
The Hoover Institution has recently released a new volume edited by Hoover’s Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow Peter Berkowitz entitled Renewing the American Constitutional Tradition.
Hoover's Task Force on Virtues of a Free Society Hosts Meeting
Discussion at the Hoover Institution’s Boyd and Jill Smith Task Force on Virtues of a Free Society meeting during June 8 and 9 covered a range of topics, including political philosophy, U.S. political history, the social costs of Internet pornography, and President Barack Obama’s way of thinking.
Hoover Institution: Fight Club Politics Author Juliet Eilperin Uncovers How Leadership in the House of Representatives Has Failed America
by Hoover research fellows Peter Berkowitz and Tod Lindberg and published in cooperation with the Hoover ...
Hoover fellows on the John Batchelor Radio Show
John Batchelor, host of the nationally syndicated John Batchelor Radio Show, which is broadcast by WABC radio in New York, took his program on the road to the Hoover Institution to tape an hour-long program in front of a live studio audience. A number of Hoover fellows, addressing a wide variety of topics, were featured on recent Batchelor Radio Show programs.
Summer 2013 Board of Overseers’ Meeting at Hoover
The Hoover Institution hosted its annual Board of Overseers’ summer meeting during July 9–11, 2013.
The program began on Tuesday evening with before-dinner remarks by Paul D. Clement, a partner at Bancroft PLLC. Clement served as the forty-third solicitor general of the United States from June 2005 until June 2008. He has argued more than sixty-five cases before the US Supreme Court. During Clement’s speech, titled “Federalism in the Roberts Court,” he talked about the revitalization of federalism in the Rehnquist court “imposing some limits on the federal government’s power vis-a-vis the states.”
Hoover Institution Press Today Releases Book Highlighting The Meaning of Current American Conservatism Conserving Liberty By Mark Blitz
In this book, Blitz clarifies and defends contemporary American conservatism. He explains the beliefs, practices, and institutions that play a crucial role in forming and sustaining liberty in America.
Hoover Institution Spring Retreat 2006
David Brooks, New York Times columnist and author, was the featured speaker at the opening dinner, Sunday, April 30, of the 2006 Hoover Spring Retreat.
The Hoover Institution April Retreat 2008
P. J. O’Rourke and Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers Deliver Before-Dinner Remarks at Retreat.
Hoover Institution Spring 2013 Retreat
The Hoover Institution hosted its annual Spring Retreat beginning on Sunday, April 21, 2013, with before-dinner remarks by Kevin Warsh, a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. His speech, titled “The Economy over the Horizon: Unknown Knowns,” emphasized the importance of the state of the economy, which currently has a 2 percent growth rate, and understanding the concept of “unknown knowns,” a reference to former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Hoover Institution April 2009 Retreat
The Honorable John Howard, former Australian prime minister, offered before–dinner remarks at the Hoover Institution’s April 2009 Spring Retreat on Sunday, April 26.
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10 Best Things to Do for Couples in Washington DC
Washington DC’s Most Romantic Places
Washington DC attracts traveling couples and honeymooners with its idyllic parks and lavish estates. The city may be known for its historical monuments and memorials to former leaders, but there are plenty of fun and romantic activities to enjoy with your loved one.
Art lovers can spend hours marveling at thousands of masterpieces by renowned artists from all over the world. The city’s diverse dining scene offers plenty of food options for any budget, from casual food markets to Michelin-starred restaurants. Check out our guide of Washington DC’s most romantic places.
A romantic bike ride around the National Mall
Rent a bike to explore the park’s historical landmarks
The National Mall is where you can explore Washington DC’s most iconic buildings, including the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, and the Smithsonian museums. While you can easily explore the pedestrian-friendly park on foot, a joint bike ride offers plenty of romantic moments with your significant other. Springtime in the city brings blooming cherry trees around the Tidal Basin, while autumn (mid- to late-October) is when the monuments and memorials stand out against a backdrop of red and gold foliage.
Good for:
photo by Shashi Bellamkonda (CC BY 2.0) modified
Go for a paddleboat ride on the Tidal Basin
See blooming cherry trees in springtime
The Tidal Basin is a manmade pond overlooked by many Washington landmarks, including the Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King Jr. Memorials. The 2-mile-long pond is a popular spot for cycling and jogging all year round, but it draws a big crowd in spring as hundreds of cherry trees are in full bloom during this season. Paddleboat rides are available between March and October and cost about $18 an hour for a 2-person boat or $30 for a 4-person boat.
Location: 1501 Maine Ave SW, Washington, DC 20024, USA
Explore the United States Botanic Garden
Check out the Jurassic-themed exhibit in the conservatory
The United States Botanic Garden was founded in 1820, making it one of the oldest gardens in the country. The conservatory is home to a variety of medicinal plants, succulents, orchids, and rare flowers, and even a reconstructed landscape of ancient plant groups dating back to prehistoric times. Free talks, demonstrations, and exhibitions are available for those who want to learn more about the garden. Located in Maryland Avenue, the United States Botanic Garden is next to the US Capitol and the Library of Congress.
Location: 100 Maryland Ave SW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
Open: Daily from 10am to 5pm
photo by Ingfbruno (CC BY-SA 3.0) modified
Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens
Enjoy a romantic stroll through the opulent mansion and landscaped gardens
The Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens is an opulent mansion located 1.5 miles north of Rock Creek Park. It belonged to heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post back in the 19th century, who furnished this estate with Russian porcelain and religious items as well as French decorative art dating back to the 18th century. You can join a guided tour of the entire mansion, with its library, breakfast room, and pavilion being some of its most elaborately decorated rooms. Outside are 13 acres of grounds with several themed gardens, including a French Parterre and Japanese-inspired garden.
Location: 4155 Linnean Ave NW, Washington, DC 20008, USA
Open: Tuesday – Sunday from 10am to 5pm (closed on Mondays)
Watch a play by the Shakespeare Theatre Company
Catch Shakespearean classics by this renowned company
The Shakespeare Theatre Company hosts classic plays at Lansburgh Theatre and Sidney Harman Hall, both located in downtown Washington DC. Fans of William Shakespeare’s creations can enjoy classics such as Romeo & Juliet, and Twelfth Night, as well as plays by prominent playwrights such as Tennessee Williams, Oscar Wilde, and Friedrich Schiller. For 2 weeks during summertime, the Shakespeare Theatre Company offers free performances to 200 people at the Sidney Harman Hall.
Location: Sidney Harman Hall, 610 F Street NW, Washington, DC 20004, USA
Open: Monday – Sunday from 12pm to 6pm
photo by Ecragg (CC BY-SA 3.0) modified
Enjoy an evening stroll at U Street
Catch live jazz at this vibrant nightlife hub
U Street, known as the birthplace of jazz legend Duke Ellington, houses some of the busiest nightclubs, jazz clubs, and theatres in Washington DC. From the internationally-acclaimed 9:30 Club to underground U Street Music Hall, there’s always a live gig happening on U Street. Even if you’re not there for drinks and music, you can find many art galleries, vintage shops, and wall murals while exploring this colorful neighborhood.
Location: U St NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
photo by ianakoz (CC BY-SA 4.0) modified
Get active at Rock Creek Park
Join a guided trail ride at the Horse Center
Rock Creek Park is one of the largest green expanse in Washington DC. Hiking is a popular activity as the park has more than 30 trails to suit any fitness level. The Rock Creek Park Horse Center offers daily horseback riding lessons and guided trail rides for those looking to explore the park at a leisurely pace. It’s also a popular spot for picnics, jogging, tennis, and cycling, so expect huge crowds if you’re visiting on weekends or national holidays.
Location: Washington, DC 20008, USA
photo by Dion Hinchcliffe (CC BY-SA 2.0) modified
Explore Dupont Circle
Check out modern paintings at The Philips Collection
Dupont Circle is a trendy neighborhood about a mile northwest of Lafayatte Square, in the city center. Known as the LGBT-friendly district of Washington DC, it has a rather youthful vibe thanks to its many trendy cafés, art galleries, and boutiques. Crowds often gather at the marble fountain in Dupont Circle for a variety of events, such as chess matches and street performances. Art lovers can visit The Phillips Collection, which displays over 4,000 modern artworks by renowned French and American artists.
Location: Dupont Circle, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, DC, USA
Check out rare artwork at the National Gallery of Art
Go for a walk in the Sculpture Garden
The National Gallery of Art displays more 140,000 artwork from Europe and America from different time periods. Its West and East Buildings are connected by an underground concourse that’s fitted with Leo Villareal’s Multiverse installation, where you can see over 41,000 LED nodes creating hypnotic trailing lights and abstract sculptures. A highlight here is the Sculpture Garden, which has a large fountain that functions as an ice rink during winter. Admission to the National Gallery of Art is free all year round.
Location: 6th & Constitution Ave NW, Washington, DC 20565, USA
Open: Monday – Saturday from 10am to 5pm, Sunday from 11am to 6pm
End the day with a romantic dinner
Reserve a table at Plume, a fine-dining restaurant at The Jefferson
Washington DC is teeming with Michelin-starred restaurants, which are great places to end the day on a romantic note. One of the city’s top fine-dining spot is the Michelin-starred Plume at The Jefferson hotel. Choose a cozy spot by the fireplace and enjoy its prix-fixe menu of European fare. The restaurant also has an extensive wine list of 1,300 labels, including 50 vintages and the largest collection of Maideira wines in the USA.
Location: 1200 16th St NW, Washington, DC 20036, USA
Open: Tuesday – Saturday from 5.30pm to 9pm (closed on Sundays and Mondays)
Penny Wong | Compulsive Traveler
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What iProspect’s Mentorship Program Taught Me About Informal Leadership
by Alexi Glines,
When I joined iProspect, I was an Associate Project Manager with just a couple of years of professional experience. My previous company was much smaller than iProspect, and frankly, I was overwhelmed at first by the more complex processes of a larger organization. While iProspect had (and still has) an excellent training program for new employees, there were still some gaps: where can I find our employee handbook, who do I talk to about getting a key fob, and most importantly, what’s the best lunch spot around? So, I was delighted when I heard that iProspect was launching a mentorship program with the aims of helping new employees get settled and guiding more senior employees in developing their careers.
iProspect introduced their mentorship program in October of 2017, which put them in good company; according to the Wall Street Journal, “about 70% of Fortune 500 companies offer mentoring programs.” The program currently features three tracks: iStart (for new hires) iConnect (for inter-department collaboration and growth), and iProsper (for managers and directors hoping to further develop their careers). As of Q2 2018, over 170 participants have completed one of the mentorship tracks or are currently enrolled. I’ve personally mentored four colleagues so far and have learned a lot about expectation-setting, accountability and flexibility.
When establishing a mentoring relationship, it’s important to set expectations up front. Mentees should have one to two goals outlined at the start of the relationship. (Ideally, these goals will be in the SMART format). In one case, I helped my mentee determine their initial goals, based on their broad ideas of how they could improve some of their professional skills. Additionally, creating ground rules can provide a shared sense of purpose for both the mentee and the mentor. These ground rules can cover meeting frequency, roles and responsibilities and communication format, to name a few. A successful mentorship relationship is based on a solid framework, which is created early by setting clear expectations.
Accountability is not just about one person keeping tabs on another – it’s a two-way street. As Mary Teresa Bitti wrote in her article in the Financial Post, “Mentoring is two-way learning. The mentor learns to improve on the skill of developing others, while you as the mentee benefit from their experience and wisdom.” As a mentor, I’m accountable to my mentee to come to meetings prepared, to listen thoughtfully (no multi-tasking during meetings) and to help support my mentee in reaching their goals. Being accountable to my mentee motivated me to give them my best; after all, they’re counting on me to give them thoughtful advice! Mentees, in turn, must drive the agenda and be open to suggestions for improvement. The dual accountability provides motivation to both parties to follow through on their commitments, which in turn enables growth.
The mentor/mentee relationship is unique in the workplace; it’s neither a formal reporting flow nor a casual acquaintance. This distinction is important because it allows for more freedom and safety than a manager/employee relationship, but more structure than mere colleagues or office buddies. Because of this unique structure, I quickly realized the importance of flexibility in my approach. Some mentees respond better to open-ended suggestions and free-flowing conversations, while others prefer a more direct approach. According to an article from Chronus, when setting up a mentorship program, “flexibility is essential to support varying individual mentoring needs across specific learning goals, preferences, and learning styles.”
A successful mentorship can be achieved by ensuring that expectations are clear from the outset, making sure each party is accountable to the other, and by allowing space for flexibility. As I reflect on what I’ve learned from working with my first few mentees, I’m excited to continue my own professional growth via our mentorship program – maybe even as a mentee next time!
A Balancing Act: Celebrating Progress while Establishing a Renewed Purpose
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Saturday 15 June 2019 - 05:09
Congress will block Trump's arms sales to Saudi Arabia: Pelosi
Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi speaks to the press on June 13, 2019, during her weekly press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (AFP photo)
Islam Times - US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that Congress will block President Donald Trump's arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which has been carrying out a war of aggression against the impoverished people of Yemen since 2015.
Speaking at a forum in New York on Thursday night, Pelosi said the House of Representatives would soon vote to block the transfer of weapons to Saudi Arabia, America’s strongest ally in the Persian Gulf.
"There will be a vote to remove any authority to make those sales to Saudi Arabia," Pelosi said during an interview with Fareed Zakaria hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations. "This is something that we will fight, and we'll have bipartisan support to fight."
The White House said last month it was making an emergency provision within the country’s arms control law to enable the billions of dollars of arms sales to the Saudi kingdom and the United Arab Emirates, the US’s strongest allies in the Persian Gulf. The recourse helps the president spare congressional review for the exports.
The Trump administration had cited “alleged threats from Iran” to justify resorting to the provision.
Trump has been accused of creating a “phony” emergency to bypass Congress to approve the $8 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia.
R. Clarke Cooper, the State Department's assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday where he was grilled over the $8 billion “'emergency” arms sale to Saudis.
Democratic members of the House committee said the president’s action violated the law because there was no actual emergency.
They also said Trump’s action shows that the United States is tolerating worst human rights abuses by Saudi Arabia in its war on Yemen.
"There is no emergency. It's phony. It's made up. And it's an abuse of the law," said Representative Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
The US has been supporting a 2015-present Saudi-led war against Yemen that seeks to bring back the impoverished country’s former Riyadh-backed officials. The American patronage has featured aerial refueling, which the US only stopped earlier in the year after the Saudi-led coalition grew independent of it, as well as logistical and commando support.
Tens of thousands have died since the onset of the war, and the entire Yemen has been pushed close to the edge of outright famine.
A year after the war was launched, Trump made his maiden foreign visit to Saudi Arabia, announcing more than $100 billion in arms sales to the kingdom.
‘Follow the money’
In her interview on Thursday night, Pelosi noted that Trump's first trip abroad as president was to Saudi Arabia, where he struck the massive arms deal. She warned that Trump's arms deal "includes nuclear technology that he is transferring to Saudi Arabia."
"Follow the money. What's going on here?" she said. "And there's a question of who is financially benefiting from the nuclear part of the sales to Saudi Arabia. ... The case against Saudi Arabia — in terms of Yemen, in terms of Khashoggi, in terms of so much — that they should not be receiving these weapons sales is very strongly bipartisan in the Congress."
Pelosi also denounced Trump’s renewed war rhetoric accusations against Iran and his decision to pull out from the Iran nuclear deal negotiated under the Obama administration.
"I'm not going to accuse anybody of instigating anything, but we're not having a policy that would smooth the waters, so to speak," she added. "I think he probably knows that there's no appetite for war among the American people."
Trump's NATO speech 'disrespected our closest allies': Pelosi
Islam Times - US House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi has censured President Donald Trump’s speech at a NATO summit last week, saying the lecture ...
Trump scaring US children by threatening deportation: Pelosi
Trump's State of the Union address still not happening: Pelosi
No 'hostilities' with Iran unless Congress approves: Pelosi
GOP Rep. Hurd criticizes Trump for tweeting edited Pelosi video
Trump says ‘no amnesty for Dreamers,’ warns Pelosi
Trump endangers US troops, lawmakers: Pelosi
Insider Trading Reaps High-Ranking Members of U.S. Congress Millions
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Bar Council 125 years young, and 100 years of women lawyers
Today marked the 125th anniversary of the Bar Council of England & Wales, and 100 years since women were given the chance to become lawyers.
To mark this event the City Corporation held an event celebrating the legal profession and its service to the public. We heard from Dame Heather Carol Hallett DBE PC styled The Rt Hon. Lady Justice Hallett, is an English judge of the Court of Appeal, and first female chairman of the Bar Council in the 1990s.
Her words were a great reminder of the importance of legal aid, and the importance of a fair legal system, where we can access good legal advice. The importance of our Bar’s contribution to rights not only at home in a England & Wales but also in support of lawyers abroad should not be forgotten. Dame Heather’s reminder of the support for apartheid era lawyers for example shows how much impact the English bar can have.
Without question we must ensure our legal system works for all, and never forget the risk to the innocent of a lack of access to good lawyers. A thought provoking evening and I wish we had more discussion of the importance to the public good of a good legal system and the importance of public funds in legal aid.
New Spitalfields Committee Visit
New Spitalfield is the UK's highest turnover horticultural market, with the largest number of wholesalers-New Spitalfields Market was custom-designed for the fresh produce and flower business in the early 1990s to offer trading facilities that rank as second to none. Today our markets committee
Assembly News
Speeches in Parliament
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What are the possible side effects after getting Gardasil® vaccine?
Side effects that can happen but pass in a day or two include:
Occasionally girls faint after getting any injection. Girls will be advised to sit down for 15 minutes after vaccination which helps prevent fainting.
1 in 10 girls will have pain, swelling and redness at the injection site and/or headache.
You can give her paracetamol or ibuprofen to ease any pain.
Between 1 in 1000 and 1 in 10,000 girls will get an itchy rash or hives.
Between 1 in 10,000 and 1 in 100,000 girls will have wheezing (bronchospasm).
1 in 1 million girls will have a serious allergic reaction.
As usual seek medical advice if you are concerned.
Before the next dose of the vaccine, you should tell the vaccination team if there has been any changes to your daughter ’s medical history.
How do we know that the Gardasil® vaccine is safe?
The HSE is guided by the recommendations of the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
All vaccines used by the HSE including Gardasil® are licensed by the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA). These agencies have strict procedures for the licensing and monitoring of all vaccines to ensure their safety and effectiveness.By December 2017, over 244 million doses of Gardasil® have been distributed worldwide, either as part of national immunisation programmes or by private doctors.
Gardasil®/Gardasil9® is currently used in 84 government funded HPV immunisation programmes worldwide including the UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to protect girls from cervical cancer.
In Ireland 730,000 doses of Gardasil® have been distributed and more than 240,000 girls have been fully vaccinated against HPV.
All national and international regulatory bodies have stated HPV vaccines are safe.
The World Health Organization (WHO) Global Advisory Committee for Vaccine Safety (GACVS) has reviewed the evidence on the safety of Gardasil vaccine in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2013, 2014 and 2015. WHO has never reported safety concerns with HPV vaccines.
WHO has again reported in July 2017 that HPV vaccines are considered to be extremely safe. Further information can be found here http://www.who.int/vaccine_safety/committee/topics/hpv/en/
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), US, states HPV vaccination is recommended because the benefit of, preventing cancer, far outweigh the risks of possible side effects.
Since the HPV vaccine Gardasil was licensed in Ireland in 2006 the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA) has continually reported that the majority of the reports received following vaccination are side effects known to occur with the vaccine.
There is no scientific evidence in Ireland or in any other country that the HPV vaccine causes any long term medical condition.
No country has raised a safety signal for HPV vaccine Gardasil®.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, US, which monitors vaccine safety in the US, has monitored the safety of the HPV vaccine for over 12 years, provides an information leaflet for parents on the safety of Gardasil vaccine, updated in August 2016, available at http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/pdf/data-summary-hpv-gardasil-vaccine-is-safe.pdf and further information at http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/vaccines/hpv/hpv-safety-faqs.html
In January 2017 all 69 US National Cancer Institute NCI-designated Cancer Centers Endorsed HPV Vaccination
“As national leaders in cancer research and clinical care, we are compelled to collectively call upon parents and health care providers to increase vaccination rates so our nation’s children don’t grow up to become cancer patients.
HPV vaccines, like all vaccines (used in the U.S.), have passed extensive safety testing before and after being approved.
The vaccines have a safety profile similar to that of other vaccines approved for adolescents in the U.S.
Internationally, the safety of HPV vaccines has been tested and approved by the World Health Organization’s Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety”.
In 2018 all 70 US National Cancer Institute NCI-designated Cancer Centers endorsed goal of eliminating HPV related cancers by HPV vaccination and screening.
High HPV vaccination rates combined with cervical cancer screening and treatment will result in the elimination of cervical cancer in the near future and elimination of other HPV-related cancers thereafter.
See information at
http://www.who.int/vaccine_safety/committee/topics/hpv/en/
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/pdf/data-summary-hpv-gardasil-vaccine-is-safe.pdf
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/vaccines/hpv/hpv-safety-faqs.html
https://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/news/images/pdf/HPVConsensusStatement_Jan2017.pdf
http://hpvroundtable.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Cancer-Center-HPVConsensusStatement_FINAL_06.01.2018.pdf
https://www.cdc.gov/hpv/index.html
HPV Vaccine Safety and Effectiveness
Since HPV vaccine was licensed in 2006 research has been conducted all over the world that shows that the vaccine is safe and prevents cancer. The evidence has been steadily growing since 2006 and now an enormous bank of research exists which proves the safety and effectiveness of this vaccine.
Click here to read more about the research.
This page was updated on 2 October 2018
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Former Fox News executive Bill Shine resigns as Donald Trump's communications director
Former Fox News executive served less than a year as White House's top communicator
Former Fox News executive Bill Shine resigns as Donald Trump's communications director Former Fox News executive served less than a year as White House's top communicator Check out this story on htrnews.com: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/03/08/bill-shine-resigns-donald-trumps-communications-director/3103947002/
David Jackson, USA TODAY Published 11:03 a.m. CT March 8, 2019 | Updated 5:54 p.m. CT March 8, 2019
Former Fox news executive Bill Shine has resigned from his White House post as Communications Director. Shine spent eight months in the position. USA TODAY
WASHINGTON – Bill Shine is resigning as White House communications director after less than one year on the job, officials said Friday.
"Bill continues to support President Trump and his agenda and will serve as Senior Advisor to the 2020 re-election campaign,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said.
Shine, who has been criticized for his connections to Fox News, called his White House stint "the most rewarding experience" of his life, and "I’m looking forward to working on President Trump’s reelection campaign and spending more time with my family.”
Shine offered his resignation Thursday night and Trump accepted it, officials said.
Trump said Shine "has done an outstanding job" and will be "totally involved" in the 2020 campaign.
Bill Shine (Photo: SAUL LOEB, AFP/Getty Images)
Shine was the fifth communications director for an administration that has been in office only two years and two months.
The others included Mike Dubke, who lasted a little less than three months; Anthony Scaramucci, who served a tumultuous 11 days before losing his job over attacks on colleagues; and Hope Hicks, a long-time Trump aide who left nearly a year ago. Then-Press Secretary Sean Spicer also did two brief stints as communications director.
Starting the job in early July, Shine wound up as Trump's longest-serving communications director at a little more than eight months. He came to the White House after a long career as an executive at Fox News.
Shine's tenure saw the near-end of the White House press briefing – there has only been one this year – and repeated clashes between Trump and reporters he disdains as "Fake News."
Along the way, Shine reportedly found himself under criticism from Trump for his portrayals in the media; Trump has said he believes he is his own best communicator.
For Trump's critics, Shine's appointment symbolized a nearly symbiotic relationship between the White House and Fox News.
"The White House and Fox interact so seamlessly that it can be hard to determine, during a particular news cycle, which one is following the other’s lead," said a recent article in New Yorker magazine.
As news of Shine's departure became public, White House officials praised his departure. Sanders said that Shine "has been a great leader on our team," and "brought a tremendous amount of talent and expertise to the Administration."
In welcoming Shine as a new senior adviser, Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said he "will bring insight and talent" to the effort. "The President's re-election effort just got stronger," Parscale said.
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/03/08/bill-shine-resigns-donald-trumps-communications-director/3103947002/
At 99, this Wisconsin farmer still drives a tractor
Woman dies after being hit by car while walking in Reedsville
Manitowoc rollover crash results in damage to 5 vehicles
Manitowoc vigil addresses border detention facility conditions
Warren's restaurant closed for not meeting state rule
Manitowoc high-speed chase hit 115 mph, results in 2 arrests
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