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Colby-Sawyer College Appoints Deans of its School of Nursing andHealth Professions
June 24, 2018 • Saved under News
NEW LONDON, N.H. – Colby-Sawyer College has named Joan Loftus, associate professor of Nursing, as dean of its School of Nursing and Health Professions and Shari Goldberg, professor of Nursing and Public Health, as associate dean. Both professors assume their roles July 1.
As dean, Dr. Loftus will oversee the undergraduate and master’s nursing programs; provide support and development for the school’s faculty; and sit on Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s medical education committee. She succeeds Susan Reeves ’88, who joined the college in 2003 and last summer was named Chief Nursing Executive for the Dartmouth-Hitchcock (D-H) Health System and in February was appointed as Executive Vice President for D-H Research and Education.
Dr. Loftus joined the faculty at Colby-Sawyer in 2008 and has more than a dozen years’ experience at D-H with expertise in critical care nursing, geriatrics and evidence-based nursing practice. She holds a B.S. in nursing from Wilkes College, an M.S. in nursing from Georgetown University and a D.N.P. from Wilkes University.
“Dr. Loftus assumed operational leadership and oversight of the undergraduate nursing programs last year with Dr. Reeves’s appointments at D-H, and after this successful year of transition, Academic Vice President and Dean of Faculty Laura Sykes and I are delighted that she will become the Dean of the School of Nursing and Health Professions,” President Susan D. Stuebner said. “Colby-Sawyer is fortunate to have the leadership and talents of both Dr. Loftus and Dr. Goldberg. And, I am exceedingly grateful to Dr. Reeves for her transformative leadership and for her continuing efforts to deepen the partnership between Dartmouth-Hitchcock and Colby-Sawyer. She has made significant, long-lasting contributions to her alma mater.”
In 2016, Dr. Loftus accepted a commendation from then-New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan that recognized the members of Colby-Sawyer’s 2016 undergraduate nursing class, which achieved a 100 percent pass rate of the National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses (NCLEX-RN) on their first attempt. The members of the Classes of 2017 and 2018 achieved the same distinction of a 100 percent pass rate on their first attempts, as well.
“I am honored and excited to have the opportunity to continue the great work that Sue Reeves has done here at Colby-Sawyer,” Dr. Loftus said. “It has been an absolute pleasure working with her over the past ten years, and I look forward to the work we will continue to do together to further strengthen our partnership with D-H.”
As associate dean, Dr. Goldberg will continue her leadership of the Public Health Program and assume leadership of the RN to BS program. She has taught at Colby-Sawyer since 2000 and played a central role in developing the public health, RN to BS and MS in Nursing programs Her areas of expertise include community and public health, the development and sustainability of academic-community partnerships, and health promotion behaviors. Dr. Goldberg has served on the State of N.H. Public Health Improvement Services Council, and participated in a national effort aimed at integrating public health into undergraduate liberal arts education. She holds a B.S. in nursing from the University of New Hampshire, a M.S. in nursing from Boston College and a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.
About Nursing at Colby-Sawyer College
The Colby-Sawyer College Nursing Program was established in 1981 in partnership with Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, its clinical education facility. It is accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE) and approved by the New Hampshire Board of Nursing. The undergraduate nursing major combines clinical work at the world-class Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center with hands-on learning in campus classrooms and simulation laboratories, as well as individual and group research.
This spring, 100 percent of Colby-Sawyer’s first cohort of Master of Science in Nursing (M.S.N.) students passed the Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL) certification exam on their first attempt.
Colby-Sawyer’s online RN to BS program provides a flexible and affordable way for practicing nurses with associate degrees to earn their undergraduate degree.
Learn more at colby-sawyer.edu/nursing.
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Ermeni Araştırmaları
Review Of Armenian Studies
Uluslararası Suçlar ve Tarih / International Crimes and History
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CHAPTER BY CHAPTER SYNOPSIS AND REVIEW OF TURKS AND ARMENIANS: NATIONALISM AND CONFLICT IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE BY JUSTIN MCCARTHY - 6
Analysis No : 2015 / 23
Author : AVİM
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Chapter 6: World War I
McCarthy tries to give an overall picture of the most critical phases of Ottoman-Armenian relations in this very densely informative chapter. He concludes that the war was devastating for all people in Anatolia and states that “at the end of the war, the population of eastern Anatolia was far different than it had been for centuries… Armenians were gone… number of Muslims were greatly diminished”. The result of the World War I was a region that was left with ruins, disease, and devastation.
McCarthy begins his narration by explaining the events that led to this ruin. He argues that the reemergence of the Armenian rebellion in eastern Anatolia, their joining of forces with the Russians, and coordinated assistance for the Russian advance in Eastern Anatolia proved successful as the Armenians and Russians occupied Van. Armenians provided intelligence, struck a blow to communications between Ottoman army outposts, raided civilian posts to divert attention of the Ottoman security forces behind the front lines and therefore successfully forced the Ottoman army to detach one third of its forces to fight the Armenians in and around Van. Armenians proved very helpful for the Ottoman defeat and tried make the occupation even easier for the Russians when they began the occupation of Van in advance of the anticipated Russian occupation.
As McCarthy delicately highlights, the Armenian rebellion became uncontrollable when the Russians realized they were taking action not only against the Ottoman forces in the region but rather acted against the Muslim civilian population. Russians were later defeated and during their retreat they abandoned the Armenians in Van, determined not to seek Armenian support again in the future.
McCarthy argues that the main effect of the rebellion in Anatolia was to create chaos in the interior and draw away soldiers who should have been fighting the Russians. Ottoman government realized that the Armenian rebellion was a critical factor and their success was a direct result of local support, either voluntary or involuntary. Thus McCarthy later describes some of the prominent rebellions by the Armenians that occurred in 1915 that reflects the level of the threat to internal security of Anatolia; in Sasun-Muş-Bitlis (February 1915), Sivas-Karahisar (February 1915), Zeytun-Maraş (January 1915), Urfa (August 1915), Musadağı (August 1915). As a result, Ottoman government had to treat these rebellion as an extensive insurgency and therefore took measures to deal with this growing security threat during a time of war. Ottoman government lacked the adequate resources and manpower to come up with a gradual counterinsurgency policy, thus it necessitated a more radical approach, namely what McCarthy calls the “forced migration” of the Armenian population from the provinces in active, large-scale rebellion and/or occupied previously by the Russians. McCarthy recommends the use term “forced migration”, but he continues to use the terms “relocation” and “transfer” interchangeably and frequently during the chapter.
McCarthy argues that the forced migration process did not include all the Armenians. Accordingly most Armenians in western Anatolia and Ottoman Europe, who were not considered a danger, were excluded from the relocation order. All the orders and regulations regarding the process indicated to the fact that there was concern for the well-being of the relocated Armenians and in no way reflected a desire to cause death or directly kill Armenians. In fact, as McCarthy correctly points out, there were no documents, regulations, or orders that directly indicated an intention or will to destroy Armenians. All the evidence, with regard to the official policy of the state, proves the opposite. McCarthy admits that Armenians suffered greatly from the process, as did all the peoples in the empire who bore the effects of the war in Anatolia, but this was due to government inefficiency, lack of resources, and rapaciousness of Kurdish tribes, criminals, and even some avaricious Ottoman officials. McCarthy states that in theory the relocation process were to be orderly and well supervised, but the system could not cope with the process.
McCarthy tries to give some estimates with regard to the number of people who were relocated, which is only possible when someone makes use of the relocation statistics, what is known of the relocation process, and population records. Accordingly, McCarthy argues that slightly more than half of Armenians in territory controlled by the Ottomans were not relocated; most of them also either left before or during the war for Istanbul and other cities, or other countries such as Greece, US, Canada, France, Bulgaria, and Egypt.
One of the most important arguments McCarthy makes in this chapter with regard to the intention of the Ottoman government to keep the well-being of the Armenians who were relocated is that the Ottoman government openly supported and invited the American efforts to aid the Armenians in need. Ottoman government accepted missionary aid to Armenians that amounted to approximately 10 billion dollars today, which McCarthy correctly calls the greatest expenditure of non-governmental relief funds in history. He also points to the fact that at the same period, Muslim population in Anatolia was also suffering from diseases and starvation, but they could only make use of the limited government resources.
McCarthy uses this example to show that Ottoman attempts to protect the Armenians were deficient. But he also argues that the Ottoman government could not protect the Armenians from other threats besides starvation and disease. Ottomans were incapable of properly protecting either the Armenians or even its own troops from the attacks of the Kurdish tribes, bandits, looters etc. However, explaining the underlying reasons behind the attacks against the Armenians in the region, McCarthy claims that a good deal of the hatred and vengeance against the Armenians was an inevitable result of their earlier attacks and collaboration with the Russians, and their rebellion that cost the lives of the Muslim civilian population in the region. The existence of over 250,000 Muslim refugees who were forced out of Southern Caucasus and their sufferings at the hands of the Armenians under Russian command could probably be another factor. In the end, McCarthy states that there were unprincipled state officials who misbehaved against the Armenians, but Ottoman government recognized these crimes took place and responded with investigations that led to trials and even executions at the time. He correctly points out to the fact that neither the Russians nor the Armenians ever tried those who were guilty of crimes against Muslims.
McCarthy suggests that the Armenian killings and expulsion of the Muslims was not a result of pragmatic interest calculation. Armenians were destroying the region and cities together with the infrastructure and the settlements, the space that they were aiming to take under control. According to McCarthy, the only remaining explanation was the hatred felt against the Muslims, because the level of destruction made no sense. Even when in 1916 Russians invaded eastern Anatolia again, Armenians proved uncontrollable by continuing murders of Muslims, and therefore Russians began to court-martial the Armenians in the region prior to their retreat in 1917 revolution.
McCarthy shows that the atrocities by the Armenians continued after the Russian retreat to the South Caucasus. Anticipating Ottoman advance, Armenians fought the Muslims in the region, especially the Kurdish tribes, and when the Ottoman forces began to take control of the region the remaining Armenians fled, leaving devastation and committing mass killings on their way. Armenian executions of the Ottoman prisoners of war, who were kept under guard by the Russians were an example of the hatred McCarthy mentions throughout the chapter.
McCarthy analyzes the Armenian attempts to establish control over the lands in the south, mainly in Adana, by assisting the French occupation in the region and argues that in the end this attempt also failed due to Armenian atrocities against the Muslim population in the region, which resulted in a coordinated collaboration between the Turks and Kurds against the French and the Armenians. Armenians were abandoned by the French as a result, and most of those Armenians fled with the French.
McCarthy’s evaluation of the World War I is full of details despite the shortage of space. He successfully points out to several critical points that clearly shows how the Ottoman state fairly perceived a direct threat that had been gradually developing before and during the war. Despite the physical and social devastation of the threat McCarthy also shows how the Ottoman government displayed a delicate concern for the civilian lives, however deficient the implementation of the process, and showed good intentions by admitting to the fact that the administration of the precautions for the safety of the Ottoman state were inadequate and therefore any help to that end were welcome. He profoundly demonstrates how the Armenian rebellion and insurgency were abandoned by the foreign powers at the end of the war and even then how the Armenians played a devastating role for the region.
© 2009-2018 Center for Eurasian Studies (AVİM) All Rights Reserved
Author's Other Articles
“QUIET DIPLOMACY” IN NAGORNO KARABAKH CONFLICT AND ARMENIAN ELECTIONS
AVİM
ARMENIAN JOURNEY FROM “OPERATION NEMESIS”, ASALA MURDERS AND KHOJALY MASSACRE TO PRESENT DAY “ARMENOPHOBIA” FABRICATION
WE ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO A WORLD FREE FROM THE CRUEL AND ODIOUS CRIME OF GENOCIDE
DIASPORA ARMENIANS AND THEIR INITIATIVES FOR COMPENSATION: THE REFLECTIONS OF THE MOVSESIAN CASE
CENTURY OLD “WHITE SUPREMACISM” AND THE FAR-RIGHT’S RISE IN SWEDEN: A CREDIBLE CHALLENGE TO PROGRESSIVE VALUES AND POLICIES?
Teoman Ertuğrul TULUN
THE DUTCH PARLIAMENT’S FEBRUARY 22 DECISION ON THE 1915 EVENTS
Mehmet Oğuzhan TULUN
THE JUDGEMENT OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS GRAND CHAMBER ON PERİNÇEK v. SWITZERLAND CASE in PERSPECTIVE - 1: PRELIMINARY REMARKS
Turgut Kerem TUNCEL
THE DISPUTE OVER THE ELECTION OF THE ARMENIAN PATRIARCH OF ISTANBUL CONTINUES
THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT’S RESOLUTION REGARDING THE 2014 PROGRESS REPORT ON TURKEY
Ali Murat TAŞKENT
Kaynaklar:
Türk-Ermeni Uyuşmazlığı Üzerine Ömer Engin Lütem Konferansları 2018
Ermeni Sorunuyla İlgili İngiliz Belgeleri (1912-1923) - British Documents on Armenian Question (1912-1923)
Turkish-Russian Academics: A Historical Study on the Caucasus
Gürcistan'daki Müslüman Topluluklar: Azınlık Hakları, Kimlik, Siyaset
Armenian Diaspora: Diaspora, State and the Imagination of the Republic of Armenia
Ermeni Sorunu Temel Bilgi ve Belgeler (2. Baskı)
Ermeni Araştırmaları 62. Sayı
Review Of Armenian Studies 38. Sayı
Uluslararası Suçlar ve Tarih / International Crimes and History 19. Sayı
Avrasya Dünyası/ Eurasian World 4. Sayı
“EURASIA FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF TURKEY AND MONGOLIA”
SECURITY, STABILITY AND COOPERATION IN THE WIDER BLACK SEA REGION
25 YEARS OF TURKEY-UKRAINE DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS: REGIONAL DEVELOPMENTS AND PROSPECTS FOR ENHANCED COOPERATION
PROFESSOR NORMAN STONE BURIED IN TURKEY
THE PASSING AWAY OF PROF. NORMAN STONE
THE PASSING AWAY OF JEAN-LOUIS MATTEI
CTCA CELEBRATES TURKISH CYPRIOT CULTURE AT THEIR TRAILBLAZING FESTIVAL FOR THE THIRD TIME
THE CONFERENCE TITLED “MURDER AND MEMORY: ARMENIAN TERRORISM” WAS HELD AT AVİM
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Browse: Home / “Snowy Morning” by Settai Komura, c. 1924
“Snowy Morning” by Settai Komura, c. 1924
☛ The Art of Japan: “Snowy Morning” (alternatively “Morning Snow”) by Settai Komura, privately published, 17.25 x 11.5 in., the illustration was created or first published c. 1924, whereas the print reproduced above was made posthumously in 1942.
Many of Settai Komura’s print were published posthumously (I’m thankful to Richard Waldman for providing me with this information). In this particular case, I’ve found the likely date of creation (first publication) of the print in an article by The Japan Times (see below).
But first a few words about the source of this image and the life of Settai Komura. The Art of Japan is the official website of two art dealers ―Richard Waldman and Douglas Frazer― specialized “in fine Japanese prints and paintings 18th – 20th C.”. They provide a “bio” page for Settai Komura along with a quote from Donald Jenkins’s catalog Images of a Changing world, Japanese Prints of the Twentieth Century (University of Washington Press, 1983). They currently have 12 prints to sell by Settai Komura.
Another biographical notice can be found in the book Guide to Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: 1900-1975 by Helen Merritt and Nanako Yamada (University of Hawaii Press, 1995, p. 75).
However, a recent article in The Japan Times offers what appears to be the most detailed essay about Settai Komura available online at the moment: “Komura Settai finds a new modern audience” by Matthew Larking (July 9, 2010). His article is actually a review of the exhibition The World of Komura Settai: The Aesthetic Sense and Sensibility of an Unknown Virtuoso Painter held at the Kiyomizu Sannenzaka Museum, Kyoto, in 2010. Here are a few excerpts, including one where the above print is identified and described:
It is often difficult to fathom how an artist so popular in his own time slides into oblivion in subsequent generations. 2010 has been a good year for one such artist, Komura Settai (1887-1940), who in his time was a prolific creator, producing illustrations, woodblock prints and stage designs. His recent artistic rehabilitation began with a large-scale exhibition of his varied career at the Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, followed by a special edition of the art monthly “Geijutsu Shincho” dedicated to the artist. […]
It was not until 1922, when he began work on book illustrations for the novelist Satomi Ton (1888-1983), that Komura’s career started to define itself. His illustrations for Kunieda Kanji’s (1892-1956) 1934 serialized novel “Osen,” which was published in the Asahi Shimbun, helped Komura’s reputation to spread further. Set between 1764-72, Kanji’s period novel followed the life of the heroine Osen, who worked in a tea house. It was ostensibly based upon a real beauty of the Edo Period depicted by the luminary ukiyo-e artist Suzuki Harunobu (1724-1770), an artist whose artwork had a strong stylistic influence on the more minimalist work of Komura.
“Osen” (“Umbrella”) (c.1941) shows Komura’s representative style, with fine vertical lines of rain streaming down on a myriad of raised umbrellas of gathered townsfolk who are frantically searching for Osen.
Though successful as an illustrator, Komura occasionally revived his fine-art aspirations with non-narrative paintings. His “Fallen Leaves” (c. 1924) depicts an autumnal scattering on and around a roofed tatami-mat pavilion that is devoid of a subject other than the solitude with which the site is invested. Similarly, in “Willow Tree” (c. 1924) we find a shamisen and two drums set on the floor of a room that opens onto a veranda, and yet there is no one in sight to play them. The same is true of “Morning Snow” (c. 1924), in which the lights inside a traditional wooden house are on, but there is no human presence.
In theses images, it appears that Komura, who took up stage design for kabuki and film shortly after his debut as an illustrator, was transferring his design skills to fine art with mixed results.
FInally, for those interested, the private museum Nihon no hanga has recently produced and published a catalog featuring the work of Settai Komura: Nostalgia and Modernity: The Styles of Komura Settai and Kawanishi Hide (64 pp, pb, full colour, c. 50 illustrations, spring 2012).
First spotted at Martin Klash. Thanks to P-E Fronning (Martin Klash), Fosco Lucarelli (Socks Studio) and John Resig (Ukiyo-e Search) for helping me identifying this print.
• By Philippe Theophanidis on December 27, 2012 ― Published in Art, Illustration, Woodcut | Tagged: house, Japan, Settai Komura, snow, winter, woodblock printing
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HANSARD 1803–2005 → 1960s → 1962 → March 1962 → 14 March 1962 → Commons Sitting
OFFICIAL SECRETS ACT, 1911 (AMENDMENT)
§ Mr. Leslie Hale (Oldham, West)
I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Official Secrets Act, 1911. The history of this Measure is surprising and unusual. It was, I think, first introduced into this House in 1889, at the time when the only thing that was secret was what Gladstone said. It was passed through almost on the nod. It was amended in 1911, when the whole question of international espionage was a matter of considerable concern.
I am glad to see in his place my right hon. Friend who wrote so brilliantly of that period of the days of "We want eight, and we won't be late", of Mr. Mulliner and Coventry. It was the period of Esterhazy and of Alfred Redl.
Even so, it is surprising to recall the inefficiency of international espionage. It has to be remembered that the principal counter-espionage service was performed by a French charwoman with a wastepaper basket, and that the Russian secret service actually anticipated I.T.V. by half a century by sending a blonde and bosomy baroness to seduce the head of the Austrian Secret Service who was known to half Vienna as a transvestist homosexual. In the end, they had to pay cash like everybody else.
When the Act was amended in 1911, Lord Haldane put forward a somewhat unfelicitous explanation for the necessities of Section 1. He said that the Government had found a mysterious gentleman on a secret service station, and he had explained that he was listening to the birds. As it was midwinter, they doubted his ornithological enthusiasm, though they were not able positively to disprove it. I do not think that anyone would doubt that if someone found on a secret station, if one insists on having them, a gentleman looking like Mr. Erich von Stroheim, with a dachshund, an Anglo-German phrase-book, carrying a camera and a swordstick, his suspicions might be aroused. It would be exceedingly difficult to bring positive evidence as to what his intentions were, and this was the dilemma. Positive undertakings were 1322 given to the House time and time again that this Section related to espionage, and espionage only, and would not be used for any other purpose.
I will content myself with one quotation, taken from the speech of the Attorney-General of the day, Sir Gordon Hewart, later Lord Chief Justice of England. He said: It could never be contended that in a Bill to amend the Official Secrets Act, 1911. and clearly referring to the first Section of the Act of 1911, the words 'purpose prejudicial to the interests or safety of the State' referred to something of a different character from that which was being dealt with in 1911, which is the matter of spying."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th December, 1920, Vol. 136. c. 946.] I am asking leave to introduce a one-Clause Bill which will give effect to the undertaking the Attorney-General gave the House in 1920, and provide that anyone, if he can establish that there was no connection with spying, shall have a defence to a prosecution under this Act which was introduced solely and positively on the most solemn undertakings that it would never be applied to any other purpose.
I do not want to do more than briefly refer to one or two matters. The House will recall that in about 1938, a young, rather naïve Member of the House, who was a second-lieutenant in the Territorials, endeavoured to put down Questions of great importance relating to the shortage of weapons for anti-aircraft defence. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman because in September, 1939, I joined one of the first Bofors regiments, which did not have Bofors guns for a long time, and our principal equipment consisted of two rusty cisterns in which an eczemous cook used to provide aromatic dishes of liver and onions.
The House will remember that on that occasion the then Attorney-General sent for the hon. Member, that he was summoned to what the Press called a court-martial, what they called a court of inquiry, and the Committee of Privileges thought was something else, and there was a considerable investigation. Many people thought at the time that the hon. Member had been selected merely because he was related by marriage to a distinguished Parliamentarian, whom we are all very happy to have with us today, and who, at that time, was rendering a great service to the country, but had been 1323 sent to Coventry by his Parliamentary workmates for a breach of trade union rules. He criticised his leader, which is never permissible unless the leader is a Communist.
There has been some apprehension that I might make some reference to more recent events, but I have no intention of doing so. My position on the Opposition ship as a sort of excommunicate cabin boy hardly permits me to make a clear and comprehensive survey of current affairs. Occasionally, I look up through the forecastle hatchway and see a small portion of blue sky and a lot of gold braid. When the ship shivers from stem to stern on contact with a rock a voice calls down to ask, "What the deuce do you think you are doing?" The rest, as Shakespeare said, is Silenus.
No one will dispute that it has long been our custom for the judges to say that we cannot look at the collective wisdom of Parliament. This would be a dangerous thing to do. We have to look only at what Parliament said. And there are many historic examples of this devotion to the letter of the law. Suetonius records that Tiberius observed the law that chastity should be respected and that no maiden should be executed. In order not to violate the law he arranged for the violation of the maiden. Suetonius does not record it, but it seems implicit in the circumstances that when some of the Left-wing conscript fathers sought to raise the matter in the Senate they were assured by the appropriate Minister that from the very moment that the ukase had been issued committing the maiden to the bloody hands of the executioner, the whole question of virginity was then sub judice.
The House will recall that it was in the same Senate that questions were asked about troubles in Judea, and the quaestor for colonial affairs said that this was a matter of the Royal prerogative and that the proconsul had acted at the request of the King of the Jews. Local news brought by the fastest camel to the Mediterranean shore reported that there was no concern among the Pharisees or Sadducees, who were the leaders of public opinion in the colony at the time. 1324 The discussion ended only when the hoary-headed and experienced praetor for Rome affairs, from the Tarpeian Rock to the Bacchanalia, intervened to say that His Most Gracious and Imperial Majesty had been making, at Capri, a careful study of the process of human dissolution and that orders had been given that public crucifixions should be conducted with decency and decorum which could not offend the youngest member of the audience.
I wish briefly to call the attention of the House to one basic fact. If music is the international language of the heart, the concept of justice is the international currency of the mind. That concept of justice is something which we have valued in this country for centuries. Those of us who sometimes decry some of the miracles of the Church might recall some of the miracles of that concept. The bones of Mateotti called from his unlocated grave with greater eloquence than he ever spoke even in the Italian Parliament. This human concept appealed to all. Breshkovskaya, from her prison in Siberia, could call across the pacific to Eugene Debs.
This concept was something which we managed to preserve in this country and even the smoke and horrors of the gas chambers left that little light burning. If that light is extinguished, I know not where is that Promethean heat that will that light relume. We have said in the most solemn declaration of this House, what we still call the Great Charter, that to none will we deny justice; that the freed-man shall be punished after the manner of his offence, not for offences he did not commit. Have we preserved that? Are we preserving it today? Are we nurturing that concept in the light of what was said in the undertaking given to the House by the then Attorney-General in 1920, and by many others, in the course of those long debates? The palladium of our great liberties and freedoms is one which we cannot afford to allow to be eroded or to decay. If it does it cannot be refashioned.
I recall the story told to Shelley, by the … traveller from an antique land, Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. … 'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair !' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.'
§ Mr. Charles Doughty (Surrey, East)
I rise to oppose the granting of leave to bring in this Bill and I have no hesitation in doing so, even though I may have had a considerable smile from time to time from the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale), who introduced the Motion. I cannot promise to take the House upon a holiday tour or any other form of tour, with or without the company of a buxom blonde, to Egypt, Rome, or to anywhere else. I wish to bring hon. Members back to this House, or, rather, to the House which existed before the bombing took place in 1941, and to look, as the hon. Member for Oldham, West scarcely did, at the matter which we are discussing, namely, the Official Secrets Act, 1911.
The hon. Member referred to the Act of 1889, which was completely re-enacted by the Act of 1911. Hon. Members may be shocked to know that the Bill which was introduced in 1911 was debated on 18th August of that year, which, if my recollection serves me right and my researches are correct, was the hottest summer which has ever been experienced. Nevertheless, the Second Reading, Committee stage, Report and Third Reading all went through on that day. I do not propose to weary the House with the full details of the debate. Suffice it to say that it is that Measure and no other which we are discussing today.
Nobody suggested in that debate that the Bill under discussion referred only to spying. In the debate in 1920, to which I shall refer in a moment or two, hon. Members were constantly advised to read the 1911 Act. If one reads the Measure one sees that the words quoted are very wide. They cover the matter of disclosure and proper disclosure of official secrets of many different kinds. Indeed, the 1911 Act starts by saying: If any person for purposes prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State approaches or is in the neighbourhood of, or enters any prohibited place within the meaning of this Act … That Measure was passed not completely on the nod. There was one Division and an hon. Member asked whether or not he had to give notice of an intention to call a Division to Mr. Speaker and whether the right way of calling a Division and acting as a Teller was standing in his place.
1326 I pass from the Act of 1911, although that is the matter which we are discussing today. An excerpt has been read from the debate in 1920 on what was an amending Act, but which did not amend any material part of the Section which I have read to the House. It is suggested—indeed, the passage was read from the Committee stage debates on the Bill—'that this Act applied only to spying. That is not so. I will read a further extract to the House, because this question was before the House. Although it was the Measure of 1920, the matter was before the House at that time.
Sir Gordon Hewart was the Attorney-General and moved the Bill for the Government. He had not spoken for long before Commander Bellairs asked: Can the right hon. Gentleman make it quite clear at this point that the Bill deals only with spying? The answer of the Attorney-General was: I cannot possibly say that it deals only with spying. If the hon. Member will have patience he will see that it deals also with certain other things."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd December, 1920; Vol. 135, c. 1537.] During the Committee stage debate, when Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy had said that the Bill dealt only with spying, the Attorney-General said: It is quite evident from what he said that he still cherishes the belief that in some way or other this Bill is aimed at opinion or at the suppression of opinion, and that this particular Section is so aimed."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th December, 1920; Vol. 136, c. 943.] The Attorney-General assured the hon. Member that that was not so.
On the next day—I am sorry to weary the House with this, but it is important to know what was said during the passage of the Bill—Lieut-Commander Ken worthy said: The reading we have of this Bill is that it is purely a contre-espionage Bill dealing with spies. We have been told that again and again, and the right hon. Gentleman's words are inscribed in the OFFICIAL REPORT. The Attorney-General said: If I sat still during what the hon. Member now says it might lead to some misunderstanding. Had the hon. Member been in the House during the Second Reading debate, he would have known that I was asked the question whether the Bill related only to spies. I pointed out that that was not strictly correct, and that there were also two other matters to which the Bill refers, I adhere to that statement."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th December, 1920; Vol. 136, c. 979.] 1327 The other provisions of Section 1 (1)—the subsection that deals with approaching prohibited places—remain the law, which was made by the House when it passed the Bill in 1911. Any attempt to restrict the matter solely to spying would leave the field open to saboteurs and anybody who improperly wished to go upon prohibited places—and, unfortunately, we have a number in this country today.
For the reasons that I have given, which I could have adumbrated, but do not wish to in the short time at my disposal, I ask the House to refuse the hon. Member leave to bring in the Bill.
§ I hope that what I have said has convinced the House that no undertaking of the kind referred to was given by the Attorney-General of the day, and that to bring in today a Measure to alter the law of 1911 or 1920 would be incorrect, and not in accordance with the wishes of the House when it passed those Measures.
§ Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 12 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of Public Business):—
§ The House divided: Ayes 70, Noes 196.
Division No. 126.] AYES [3.51 p.m.
Abse, Leo Holt, Arthur Probert, Arthur
Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.) Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire) Rankin, John
Allen, Scholefield (Crewe) Hunter, A. E. Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Awbery, Stan Hynd, H. (Accrington) Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.
Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.) Jones, Rt. Hn. A. Creech (Wakefield) Silverman, Julius (Aston)
Bowles, Frank Jones, Dan (Burnley) Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)
Boyden, James Kelley, Richard Sorensen, R. W.
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.) King, Dr Horace Spriggs, Leslie
Cullen, Mrs. Alice Lee, Frederick (Newton) Stones, William
Darling, George Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock) Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)
Davies, Harold (Leek) Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.) Symonds, J. B.
Davies, S. O. (Merthyr) Loughlin, Charles Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)
Dodds, Norman Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.) Thorpe, Jeremy
Donnelly, Desmond Manuel, Archie C. Wade, Donald
Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly) Mellish, R. J. Warbey, William
Edwards, Robert (Bilston) Mendelson, J. J. Watkins, Tudor
Fernyhough, E. Millan, Bruce Whitlock, William
Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale) Monslow, Walter Wigg, George
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley) Morris, John Wilkins, W. A.
Grimond, Rt. Hon. J. Oram, A. E. Zilliacus, K.
Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.) Owen, Will
Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvll (Colne Valley) Parker, John TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Hart, Mrs. Judith Pavitt, Laurence Mr. Sydney Silverman and
Hill, J. (Midlothian) Plummer, Sir Leslie Mr. Lipton.
NOES
Agnew, Sir Peter Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn) Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)
Allason, James Carr, Compton (Barons Court) Freeth, Denzil
Arbuthnot, John Channon, H. P. G. Gammans, Lady
Atkins, Humphrey Chataway, Christopher Gibson-Watt, David
Balniel, Lord Chichester-Clark, R. Gilmour, Sir John
Barlow, Sir John Churchill, Rt. Hon. Sir Winston Glover, Sir Douglas
Batsford, Brian Clark, William (Nottingham, S.) Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)
Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmouth, W.) Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)
Bell, Ronald Cleaver, Leonard Goodhew, Victor
Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm) Collard, Richard Cough, Frederick
Berkeley, Humphry Cooke, Robert Gower, Raymond
Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald Cooper-Key, Sir Neill Grant, Rt. Hon. William
Biffen, John Costain, A. P. Green, Alan
Biggs-Davison, John Craddock, Sir Beresford Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.
Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel Critchley, Jullan Gurden, Harold
Bishop, F. P. Cunningham, Knox Hall, John (Wycombe)
Black, Sir Cyril Dalkeith, Earl of Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)
Bossom, Clive Dance, James Harris, Reader (Heston)
Bourne-Arton, A. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry Harvey, Sir Arthur vere (Macclesf'd)
Box, Donald Deedes, W. F. Hastings, Stephen
Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon, J. Digby, Simon Wingfleld Hay, John
Braine, Bernard Drayson, G. B. Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Brewis, John du Cann, Edward Hendry, Forbes
Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. SirWalter Eden, John Hiley, Joseph
Brown, Alan (Tottenham) Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton) Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)
Browne, Percy (Torrington) Emery, Peter Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)
Bryan, Paul Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn Hirst, Geoffrey
Bullard, Denys Farey-Jones, F. W. Hobson, Sir John
Bullus, Wing Commander Eric Farr, John Holland, Philip
Butcher, Sir Herbert Finlay, Graeme Hollingworth, John
Hornby, R. P. Mills, Stratton Spearman, Sir Alexander
Howard, John (Southampton, Test) Montgomery, Fergus Stanley, Hon. Richard
Hughes-Young, Michael More, Jasper (Ludlow) Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm
Hutchison, Michael Clark Morgan, William Storey, Sir Samuel
Iremonger, T. L. Morrison, John Studholme, Sir Henry
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rys) Nabarro, Gerald Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)
James, David Neave, Airey Talbot, John E.
Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich) Nicholls, Sir Harmar Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)
Jennings, J. C. Nicholson, Sir Godfrey Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)
Johnson, Eric (Blackley) Noble, Michael Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)
Kaberry, Sir Donald Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard Taylor, W. J. (Bradford, N.)
Kerane, Cdr, J. S. Orr-Ewing, C. Ian Teeling, Sir William
Kimball, Marcus Osborn, John (Hallam) Temple, John M.
Lancaster, Col, C. G. Page, John (Harrow, West) Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret
Leather, E. H. C. Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale) Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)
Leavey, J. A. Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe) Thomas, Peter (Conway)
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry Peel, John Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland) Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon
Lilley, F. J. P. Pllklngton, Sir Richard Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.
Litchfield, Capt. John Pott, Percivall Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John
Longbottom, Charles Prior, J. M. L. Vickers, Miss Joan
Longden, Gilbert Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis
Loveys, Walter H. Proudfoot, Wilfred Wall, Patrick
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Pym, Francis Ward, Dame Irene
Mac Arthur, Ian Ramsden, James Whitelaw, William
McLaren, Martin Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)
Maclay, Rt. Hon. John Rees, Hugh Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)
Macleod, Rt. Hn. lain (Enfield, W.) Renton, David Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)
Maddan, Martin Ridley, Hon. Nicholas Wise, A. R.
Maitland, Sir John Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley) Woodnutt, Mark
Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest Robson Brown, Sir William Woollam, John
Marten, Neil Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard Worsley, Marcus
Mathew, Robert (Honlton) Russell, Ronald
Matthews, Gordon (Meriden) Scott-Hopkins, James TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Mawby, Ray Skeet, T. H. H. Mr. Doughty and
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J. Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd & Chiswick) Commander Donaldson,
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C. Smithers, Peter
Back to North-East (New Industry)
Forward to ORDERS OF THE DAY
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Sports - Asia
Much hinges on Manchester’s weather in India vs Pakistan
Indian fans cheer for their team before the start of the Cricket World Cup match between India and Pakistan outside Old Trafford in Manchester, England, Sunday, June 16, 2019. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)
LONDON (AP) — Much hinges on Manchester’s weather and whether or not the group-stage encounter of the Cricket World Cup achieves a result between India and Pakistan.
It was overcast and cool on Sunday morning, an hour before the scheduled toss at Old Trafford. The stadium was expected to be at a capacity of 23,500 people — tickets which could have been sold 20-times over.
India has beaten Pakistan in all six previous World Cup encounters, including the 2011 semifinal at Mohali before it went on to win the title on home soil.
But Pakistan had an upset win over India in the Champions Trophy final in England two years ago and has won more games overall in the meetings in one-day internationals.
The forecast includes showers and generally overcast conditions on Sunday, but organizers were hoping to at least get the game started on schedule at 10:30 a.m. local time.
India won its opening games against South Africa and defending champion Australia before having to share the points with 2015 finalist New Zealand following a washout in Nottingham.
Pakistan lost its opening game to West Indies, and then rebounded to upset top-ranked England. It followed that with a washout against Sri Lanka and a loss to Australia on Wednesday.
More AP cricket: www.apnews.com/cricket and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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ArDarius Stewart
Dylan Donahue
Jets WR Stewart suspended 2 games by NFL for PEDs
By DENNIS WASZAK Jr.July 27, 2018
New York Jets wide receiver ArDarius Stewart works out during NFL football training camp, Friday, July 27, 2018, in Florham Park, N.J. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
FLORHAM PARK, N.J. (AP) — New York Jets wide receiver ArDarius Stewart has been suspended by the NFL without pay for the first two games of the regular season for violating the league’s policy on performance-enhancing substances.
Stewart, entering his second NFL season, can return to the active roster on Sept. 17. He’s eligible to take part in all preseason practices and games. Stewart participated in the Jets’ first practice of training camp Friday.
Stewart was a third-round draft pick out of Alabama last year. He had six catches for 82 yards in limited action in his rookie season with the Jets.
New York could start the season with a handful of players serving suspensions. Cornerback Rashard Robinson must sit out the first four games for violating the league’s substance abuse policy, while wide receiver Robby Anderson, linebacker Dylan Donahue and tight end Chris Herndon are all facing potential discipline for off-field issues.
For more AP NFL coverage: www.pro32.ap.org and www.twitter.com/AP_NFL
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Refugees & Asylum
Managed Migration
Ageing populations
Changing societies
Labour Market Participation
Why refugees from Myanmar have flocked to a tiny Australian town
Nhill's success in settling new arrivals shows the country can be as welcoming as the city
This German mayor faced a knife attack for making refugees welcome
To cope with a million refugees, German cities have had to get smart
Camps won’t solve the world’s refugee crises — but cities might
Ten years ago, the most unusual thing about Nhill — a country town of just over 2,000 people in south-eastern Australia — might have been the Australian Pinball Museum on its one main street. Some 400 kilometres north-west of Melbourne, Nhill doesn’t look much like a hub for new immigrants.
But since early 2010, several hundred refugees from Myanmar’s Karen ethnic minority have moved to the town for work. Their settlement, led by the area’s largest private employer and supported by Nhill community groups, has been a boon to an area with an ageing and declining population.
The Karen have added millions of dollars to the region’s economy, and become eager participants in volunteering and the town’s community life. And Nhill’s experience, those involved say, offers lessons about the importance for successful integration of local leadership and paying attention to refugees’ varied backgrounds.
Big duck, small pond
Karen refugees were brought to Australia as part of the government’s annual resettlement scheme, but they mostly settled in Werribee, a western suburb of Melbourne. It took active steps starting in 2009 from Luv-A-Duck, a poultry company founded in Nhill, to lure them to more regional areas.
Luv-A-Duck were struggling to fill vacancies and were considering relocation of some processing facilities, according to Phil King, from the local Hindmarsh Shire Council. As the largest private employer in the area, any relocation would have been a significant blow to Nhill. “That would have left a lot of other people out of work,” King said.
But the company’s expansion plans were being hampered by a declining population. Hindmarsh Shire’s population fell nearly 10% from 2001 to 2016, and the prime working-age population by more than 21%. “We’re a big fish in a small pond,” said John Millington, who was general manager of Luv-A-Duck at the time.
The solution came when Millington attended a meeting in a larger city south of Nhill, and heard about the community of Karen refugees in Melbourne. In coordination with AMES, a non-profit supporting migrant employment, Millington and his wife Margaret spoke to members of the Karen community in Melbourne about Nhill and the employment opportunities at Luv-A-Duck in November 2009.
“We didn’t go in half-cocked and have people say, ‘What the hell’s Millington done now?’”
A few months later, around 30 Karen migrants made a weekend trip to Nhill to see the town in person. “They went away, and they rang up Monday morning and said, ‘We’re ready to come, can we come this week?’”, Millington said. Five families started work a week later.
More Karen refugees started at Luv-A-Duck over the next year, and after that in other jobs in the area. Around 200 new arrivals now work for 18 employers in the area, including the local hospital and mechanic, and make up almost 10% of Nhill’s population.
Community leadership was vital
It was a significant shift for a small town. “Immigrantion to the local area certainly isn’t something new,” King said. “But not to the extent as what we’ve got with the Karen.” The key to handling that change was the early involvement of the Nhill community.
Discussions in the town — with everyone from the police and schools to sports groups — began even before Luv-A-Duck had committed to hiring any Karen, Millington said. “We didn’t go in half-cocked and have people say, ‘What the hell’s Millington done now?’”
“John and Marg are very much pillars of the community,” King said. Their efforts in Nhill meant that there was “a fairly smooth transition” as the refugees started to arrive. The Millingtons arranged housing for the early arrivals, and made themselves available as a trusted point of contact.
Volunteers with the Nhill Learning Centre helped welcome family members who weren’t working. “They were just marvellous in helping them to settle in,” Millington said. “Take them shopping, take them to the banks, just get them out of the house and have a walk around the town.”
The Learning Centre has since helped to set up Paw Po, a social enterprise selling traditional woven products made by Karen women in Nhill. And the newcomers have had very high volunteering rates, helping to plant trees and repair a boardwalk.
That’s led to them being welcomed by the locals. “There were so many people that were involved” in helping the Karen settle, according to Millington. “It was a community-driven and community-supported thing.”
Research from the University of Amsterdam found that, since the arrival of the Karen, Nhill residents have become more trusting of refugees and more supportive of resettlement than residents of similar country towns. And according to a 2015 report from Deloitte Access Economics, Karen resettlement also boosted the area’s economy. Hindmarsh’s gross regional product was lifted by 4.4% — A$12 million, or US$8.8 million — in 2013-14.
Cities aren’t always best
The other secret to Nhill’s success was simple: unlike Melbourne, it was the kind of place Karen refugees were used to. Most Karen had lived in rural villages, where they were able to grow their own food, according to Margaret Millington.
“The city was quite foreign to them,” she said. “When they came to Nhill and saw what we had to offer, that straight away ignited the hope that they could have a life that resembled something similar to their own back home. The federal government in Australia has tended to settle newly-arrived refugees in major urban areas, where there is a higher concentration of language and employment services. “They omit to think about what the immigrants really need,” said John.
The closer fit with refugees’ experience and preferences has also helped Nhill. Phil King said that many young people leave the area for university. “Then the hardest thing is to attract them back,” he said.
Young people from the Karen community, by contrast, more often return to Nhill. Some have come back to work in the local hospital after training as nurses. “They were happy to come here and create their own community in a rural village,” Margaret said. “That’s why a lot of the young Karen kids come back here, because they’re very community-minded.”
Nhill and the Karen have proved an unlikely but excellent fit. The refugees have thrown themselves into community life, and been welcomed for it. “The Rotary would say, we’re going to work down on the boardwalk, and fifty would turn up,” John Millington recalled. “Straight away, the message goes around that these people are digging in and helping us. You think, well, they must be good people.” — Fergus Peace
(Picture credit: Flickr/denisbin)
Hindmarsh Shire Karen Community Plan, 2017-2021
http://www.hindmarsh.vic.gov.au/content/images/2017-2021KarenCommunityPlan.pdf
Small Towns, Big Returns - Economic and social impact of the Karen resettlement in Nhill
https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/au/Documents/Economics/deloitte-au-economics-small-towns-big-returns-nhill-resettlement-270415.pdf
When refugees work: The social capital effects of resettlement on host communities
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByAKLglVxn3od3k4YXp2UWQ1b1E/view
Thousands of refugees can’t prove they have degrees — this scheme could help
What Ghana can teach us about integrating refugees
Meeting locals is crucial for refugees. Choirs and football are helping
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« Luminescent Somno- lescence
Chocolate, Cigarettes and Compassion »
Pizzas, Street Parlours and Prisons
February 12, 2013 //
Arnie (not his real name) was a regular visitor at the little church I pastored. I often welcomed him into the church boardroom which functioned as a vistor’s parlour where I would offer him a cup of tea or coffee and something to eat…sometimes it was a slice of pizza leftover from an earlier committee lunch meeting.
But Arnie rarely had an appetite for food. His suffering was too great, intense and immediate to enjoy the simple pleasure of food. What he wanted was whatever money I could spare so that he could go to the liquor store. He needed the alcohol to numb the unrelenting pain.
Then, without warning, a week passed and then another with no sign of Arnie. I wondered what had become of him. He had talked about wanting to go back home to his people’s First Nation Reservation in Saskatchewan, and so I hoped against hope that he had finally got his “ducks in a row” in order to make his dream come true. But I also I feared the worse. You see, Arnie was homeless and it was getting cold at night. I imagined him lying dead in an alleyway after succumbing to hypothermia or worse yet, beat up and left for dead in a ditch. I finally called the RCMP to put in a missing person report. The officer informed me–with a prejudicial tone and sarcastic edge that shredded any remaining vestiges of my idealized hero’s image of the RCMP–that Arnie was staying warm and dry at a regional correctional centre at taxpayers’ expense. The officer assumed I shared his jaded view, that Arnie was not one of “us” but rather a free loading criminal who belonged to the world of “them.” But to me, Arnie was a friend, a child of God, and I was simply relieved to learn that he was alive and relatively safe.
I would eventually see Arnie again, at his request. This time, however it was me who came knocking on his door, or rather his warden’s door at the correctional centre. Had Arnie been at his home in Saskatchewan I’m sure he would have taken great pride in saying, “Welcome to my parlour,” or something equivalent. Instead, with his head down, a prison guard ushered him into a visitor’s cubicle very similar to the one pictured below.
Photo credit: http://www.whitmancounty.org/ssi.aspx?ssid=50
Recently, Vic Toews, the Minister of Public Safety–in response to the public outcry over his knee jerk reaction to cancel takeout pizza food orders to prison–defended his decision by saying that he wants to ensure that prisons act as a deterrent. He’s afraid that prisoners once released will commit further crimes in order to come back to the warm pizza parlour atmosphere of prison. I kid you not, this is what he said:
A primary goal of any correctional system is to ensure that prisons are places no one wants to go to and to which no one would want to return. That’s why we feel it’s not in the public interest to provide pizza parties to criminals. —Globe and Mail, January 5, 2013
Vic Toews is right to be concerned about recidivism rates. But it’s not the pizza parties that keep some coming back. Arnie taught me that something much more basic is at stake. In our visit, Arnie admitted that he deliberately got himself arrested in order to have shelter and safety during the wet and cold west coast winter. And he is not an isolated case. It’s not the pizza that keeps repeat offenders coming back, but a respite from the streets – especially in winter.
Photo credit: http://gowanuslounge.blogspot.ca/2007/12/street-couch-series-noble-seating.html
Whether or not they get “coddled” by the occasional pizza or chicken takeout dinner will make not an iota of difference to these repeat offenders. Even restrictive regimes become tolerable for the sake of shelter from the elements.
In the government’s eyes, the world is simple: there are “bad” people (those who have broken the law), and there are “good” people (everyone else). —Edward Greenspan and Anthony N. Doob
Our government–through its “tough on crime” agenda” wants us to view all offenders through the lens of uncomplicated evil provided by the Paul Bernardos of this world. But as Daniel Baird points out in Rough Justice, “…petty thefts, street-level disputes and drunken episodes do not exactly involve big-time evil,” but they are the crimes that “most often get punished because these are the cheapest and easiest to prosecute. This weights the brunt of the justice system against the poor, the underprivileged and minorities.”
Rather than giving us a picture of uncomplicated evil, Aboriginal inmates–who continue to be over-represented in Canada’s correctional system (27% in provincial custody and 20% in federal custody) illustrate the complicated sources of crime. All share a background of childhood deprivation and trauma characterized by parental absence, severe poverty and physical and sexual abuse.
Using language such as “ordinary Canadians” versus “criminals” Vic Toews makes it all too easy for us to cast our punitive gaze solely on the offender rather than seeing “the offender in relationship to Canadian society of which he or she is a troubled part,” as Baird rightly points out. It was not always so. Back in 1971, Eldon M. Wooliams, the justice critic for the Progressive Conservative party recognized that crime is a community problem and the community needs to participate in the solution.
…crime is not just a sordid happening but rather a result of human behaviour brought about by our economic and social conditions which we have failed to change.
….crime is not only the fault of the prisoner but the fault of society as well. Everyone is born as clean as a white piece of paper. It is society that creates the environment which leads to crime.
You can read more excerpts from Wooliams speech here.
Last Friday, in his announcement of legislation that would make it tougher for high risk offenders with mental illness to get unescorted day passes, Prime Minister Harper spoke of the unbalances in the justice system when it focuses solely on the rights of the person convicted of the crime while ignoring the rights of victims. While I support our government’s desire to make the justice system more equitable, I pray that its field of vision continues to expand beyond the “offender – victim” dichotomy to encompass the responsibility Canadian society bears in creating the conditions, such as poverty and homelessness, that contribute to incarceration in the first place–especially among our aboriginal citizen population–and to work towards solutions to eliminate them.
Other links of interest:
Mr. Toews Doesn’t Understand Prisons
The Ethics of Pizza, Prison and Punishment
Aboriginal Incarceration in Canada A National Shame
The Justice System and Aboriginal People
Tags aboriginal canadians, canadian politics, criminal justice, Edward Greenspan, prisons, social ethics, Vic Toews
Vida Jaugelis says:
Due to a technical oversight, the comments for this post did not make the ride over with the rest of my imported content from Posterous.
Here is what Allen Jorgenson wrote on February 16:
Thanks Vida. This is a great post, even though – or perhaps because – the whole scenario is so frustrating. As i read it, I also thought of indigenous parents who were incarcerated for not sending their children to residential school: folk for whom going to prison becomes a badge of honour. Toews is so adrift on this file that it is embarrassing to the nation.
You can also follow Allen’s delightful blog “stillvoicing” here: http://stillvoicing.wordpress.com/
On February 17, I replied:
Thank-you for taking the time to respond.
Yes, Frustrating indeed when Vic Toews pits public safety against the rehabilitation needs of offenders as if a rehabilitated former prisoner is not in the public interest. Sheesh.
Aboriginal Incarceration in Canada a National Shame | Critical Social Justice says:
[…] Pizzas, Street Parlours and Prisons […]
Feeding Hungry Ghosts | A Sparrow's Cry says:
[…] arrested by the site of Arnie, an old friend whom I had lost track of (I wrote about Arnie in this post). It’s been three years since I last saw Arnie. Back then, he was trying to get home to his […]
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Perpetually Apocalyptic
By Michael Barron on February 11, 2019 Book Reviews
Edge of the Known Bus Line
By James R. Gapinski
Etchings Press, 2018
134 Pages, $12.00
Review by Michael Barron
One morning, the unnamed narrator of James R. Gapinski’s short speculative novel Edge of the Known Bus Line (Etchings Press, 2018) boards a seemingly normal city bus, which mysteriously transports her down an impossibly long tunnel to Out of Service, a wasteland populated by desperate men, women, and children, each of whom also boarded a normal bus and were dumped into this squalor, forced to survive on rats and the occasional human corpse. One might describe this world as “post-apocalyptic,” but a more accurate description might be “perpetually-apocalyptic,” an area that has always been impoverished and as far as we can tell, and always will be.
The narrator finds herself pulled out of an acceptable (if not terribly happy) existence and plunged into an environment full of hunger, poverty and abuse. She never shares her name and the details of her background are few: she grew up on a farm, worked in a deli, escaped a toxic marriage. Also, she may have had a child who passed away.
Initially she looks down upon other members of the community, refusing to accept that she is one of them now. She doesn’t even want to know their names, instead providing us with descriptive titles such as “Ass-Starer,” “Naked-Boy” and “Toothless-Teen.” One of her first reactions: “Apparently nobody bathes in Out of Service.” The misery of living in Out of Service pushes her to try to break out of the normal habits of her life. She eventually becomes the community’s butcher, a vital position in their society, forming connections with other people. Because of her hardship, she actually starts to take the initiative to improve her life.
Edge of the Known Bus Line shows us a side to the struggling youth story that we don’t often see. The novel doesn’t just depict the lone individual persisting, it also portrays hundreds of peers who either deliberately or unintentionally do everything within their power to keep her as unfortunate as they are. Gapinski uses this society to comment on how in the real world, people who have been so trampled by forces beyond their control, often cope by blaming misfortunes upon higher powers. Instead of trying to take control of their own destinies and return home on their own, they place every ounce of their faith in a magic bus that is clearly never going to arrive. The novel is a harsh critique on humanity and at times a brazen reflection on our own culture, but it’s also a poignant one.
Book Review Edge of the Known Bus Line Etchings Press James R Gapinski Michael Barron
Michael Barron
Michael Barron’s short fiction has appeared in Miracle Monocle, Ink Stains and the Sonora Review. He has traveled to over twenty countries, worked on several film sets and has interned at Nickelodeon Studios, and is currently working as a librarian. You can currently follow his write up of every book on Amazon’s list of “100 Sci-Fi & Fantasy Books to Read in a Lifetime” and and other writing on his blog michaeljbarron.com.
A Genre-Mixing Collection To Rival Your Streaming Obsession
Cultivating Loneliness
Chapbook Highlights
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Obama Supports Creation of National Black History Museum
By Bauce
A new national museum telling the history of Black life, art, and culture will soon begin taking shape as the 19th museum in the Smithsonian Institution to explore stories that have sometimes been left out on the National Mall.
President Barack Obama and former first lady Laura Bush will join Wednesday in celebrating the start of construction for the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which comes during Black History Month.
It will be built between the Washington Monument and the National Museum of American History as a seven-level structure with much of its exhibit space below ground. A bronze-coated “corona,” a crown that rises as an inverse pyramid, will be its most distinctive feature. Organizers said the design is inspired by African-American metalwork from New Orleans and Charleston, S.C., and also evokes African roots.
Some exhibits will eventually include a Jim Crow-era segregated railroad car, galleries devoted to military and sports history and Louis Armstrong’s trumpet, among thousands of items. There will also be a court for quiet reflection, Museum Director Lonnie Bunch said.
“We will have stories that will make you smile and stories that will make you cry,” he told The Associated Press. “In a positive sense, this will be an emotional roller coaster, so you want to give people chances to reflect and to think about what this means to them.”
In many ways, the museum already exists. It has staff collecting artifacts and working to raise $250 million to fund the construction. Congress pledged to provide half the $500 million construction cost. It is scheduled to open in 2015.
The future museum already has a gallery at the Smithsonian’s American history museum with rotating exhibits to showcase its new collection and test different themes and approaches with visitors.
The newest exhibit explores Thomas Jefferson’s lifelong ownership of slaves and his conflict and advocacy against slavery, while also looking at the lives of six slave families who lived on his Monticello plantation in Virginia to humanize the issue of slavery.
AKA Ain’t Just for the Light Skinned Chicks
How to Temporarily Hide Tattoos
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Freight forwarders query whether government i...
Freight forwarders query whether government is listening
This week’s news that very few companies have registered for a new government online system designed to protect value added tax revenues on foreign parcels in the event of a no-deal Brexit has led the UK representative body for freight forwarding and logistics companies to question whether Government is listening to advice from industry experts.
Robert Keen, Director General of the British International Freight Association (BIFA) says: “We are not surprised that few companies have signed up for the scheme.
“In principle, the UK’s VAT policy on small parcels, relative mainly to e-commerce trade, expatriates the liability for UK import VAT to businesses that are not established in the UK, thereby significantly reducing HMRC’s ability to enforce VAT compliance and revenue collection; potentially forcing freight forwarders and customs agents to become indirect representatives liable for import VAT and other import charges.
“BIFA and its Customs Policy Group advised HMRC that this would not work in practice, but that advice appears to have been ignored.
“This is not the first time and several recent policy announcements have caused us significant concerns relative to the UK’s Brexit preparations.
“Earlier this year we expressed our concerns privately about the contradictory information on the use of EORI numbers when completing customs entries post-Brexit. The initial guidance was that they could be used, late in the day the decision was reversed, and trade was advised that this was not possible and that EU traders would have to register and obtain a UK EORI number.
“We have also aired our concerns publicly about Transitional Simplified Procedures (TSP), the Government’s flagship policy aimed at alleviating the congestion at the frontier and facilitating the work of customs agents. We are still lacking detail of the data required to complete the supplementary declaration despite the fact that the original Brexit date has long since passed.
“We are still uncertain whether the proposed TSP procedures will work, post October 31st, when systems are largely untried, communication links between the parties involved on the processes are not established, many remain unaware of their responsibilities, and the freight forwarding companies that are at the heart of international trade movements appear to be excluded from them.”
As an apolitical body, BIFA’s policy for many years has been to work positively with government departures and provide constructive criticism and practical suggestions as to how to improve policies, where it is deemed appropriate.
Brexit has highlighted differences between government policy and the sector of the economy that is responsible for managing the supply chains that underpin the UK’s visible international trade, sometimes straining the relationship and, on occasion, resulting in Government consultation that has been rushed and led to some public policy announcements being made before they have been fully thought through.
Keen concludes: “To date, BIFA has refrained from publicly criticising Government departments. However, recent policy announcements have caused us significant concerns relative to the UK’s Brexit preparations and we feel it appropriate to highlight areas where planning needs considerable improvement.
“We echo the recent words of the Public Accounts Committee chair Meg Hillier and agree that with less than four months to go before the UK is expected to leave the EU, momentum appears to have slowed in Whitehall. Departments must listen to trade associations such as BIFA, urgently step up their preparations and ensure that the country is ready.”
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« Early Buffs TV Ad Harbors Memories
The Yount Brothers: MLB Extremes »
Oh Give Us a Home Where the Buffalos Roamed
How the End of Baseball Season Once Looked
Back in the Day at Buff Stadium
If you were traveling north by auto on the Gulf Freeway post its 1948 completion, this is how a close up of Buff Stadium would appear on the right as you crossed Cullen Blvd at its intersection with I-45 South.
The Spanish architecture of the club offices, with their red tile roofs, are perched just above the main entrance and turnstiles.
And, as you’ve heard me describe them many times before, the upper perimeter of the roof, from far down each of the left and right field lines to this visible middle portion near the front grand entry, are a few of the 36″ diameter steel buffalo medallions that once graced the decorative facade of Buff Stadium from its 1928 first season to its 1961 finale. Each medallion featured a brown buffalo silhouette, surrounded by a perimeter circle of inwardly pointing orange triangles.
For this nine-year old first time fan visitor to Buff Stadium with his dad and little brother, John, in 1947, those buffalo medallions were the stuff that dreams are made of.
When they were tearing down Buff (later Busch) Stadium in the early 1960’s period of Houston’s first years as a big league club, untold numbers of the buffalo medallions fell to their destruction in the process. Somehow, and thankfully, many were salvaged and sold to individual fans and collectors who had come to witness “the sad times takedown” on a daily basis for the doable price of $4.00 each.
Wish I could have been there, but graduate school at Tulane in New Orleans made that possibility out of the question for me.
A close up look at one of the buffalo medallions described here.
Nobody knows for sure how many have survived to this day, but we do know that the Houston Astros are now in control of two medallions (see above) that have reached them as part of their fairly recent artifacts collection of items once owned and displayed by the Sammy Finger family at the Houston Sports Museum that once existed at the Finger Furniture store that once existed on the site of the former Buff Stadium. It is hoped that the Astros eventually will have a plan for displaying these important artifacts from the city’s earlier baseball history.
And thank you, Larry Hajduk, for bringing this favorite photo of the Buffalo Stadium exterior again to mind.
Tags: Oh Give Us a Home Where the Buffalos Roamed
This entry was posted on September 15, 2018 at 4:00 am and is filed under Baseball, culture, History, Houston. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
One Response to “Oh Give Us a Home Where the Buffalos Roamed”
Tom Hunter Says:
Bill: I enjoyed your implied comparison of the buffalo medallions to the significance of the Maltese Falcon as described by Bogart with a line borrowed from Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
Like your first trip to Buff Stadium with your dad and brother in 1947, I had the same reaction to the outside of the ball park on my first visit in the summer of 1956 for a game between the Buffs and the Fort Worth Cats. I went with my aunt, uncle, mother, and father and remember thinking it was the most beautiful place I had ever seen.
Who knows what Buff Stadium’s infield skin, outfield grass, and walls of advertising actually looked like. Ray Bradbury was once criticized by a reviewer of his novel “Dandelion Wine” of describing his hometown of Waukegan, Illinois (Green Town) as magical place. The reviewer said that Waukegan was ugly and depressing–but not to a twelve-year-old boy.
The Buffs are mentioned several times in a movie, The Trip to Bountiful, set in Houston in 1947.
The stuff that dreams are made of, indeed.
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A Proclamation Declaring “Billy Graham Day”
Forty-five years ago, Billy Graham was presented a certificate during his 1974 Crusade in California.
The certificate was given to Mr. Graham by Tom Bradley, then mayor of Los Angeles, commending Graham for his outstanding evangelistic work and declaring Monday, April 29, 1974, “Billy Graham Day” in LA.
The certificate reads:
William F. “Billy” Graham
A world-wide symbol of evangelism, has preached the Gospel to more millions than anyone in history; and
whereas, born in North Carolina and ordained by Southern Baptists in 1940, Billy Graham’s Crusades have been held in virtually every state in the United States and more than 50 foreign countries; and
whereas, since the late 1940’s, Mr. Graham’s schedule has left little time to indulge in his favorite hobbies of golf, swimming and jogging or to be with his wife, Ruth, and their children at their Montreat, North Carolina, home in the mountains; and
whereas, he married Ruth McCue Bell in 1943 and the couple has three daughters and two sons ranging in age from 13 to 26; and
whereas, his books, “Peace with God,” “The Secret of Happiness,” “My Answer,” “World Aflame,” and “The Challenge” have been read by millions and the author has been the subject of several biographies and personality features in the world’s leading magazines and newspapers; “The Jesus Generation,” Billy Graham’s newest book sold 200,000 copies in the first two weeks after publication and has been published in 15 languages; and
whereas, his Los Angeles, New York and four London Crusades probably stand out as the highlights in his career as an evangelist; and
whereas, his counsel has been sought by presidents and his appeal to both the secular and non-secular worlds is shown by the wide range of groups that have honored him, these recognitions ranging from addressing the president’s National Prayer Breakfast to the Gold Award of the George Washington Carver Memorial Institute in 1963, from the Speaker of the Year Award in 1964 to the Salvation Army’s distinguished service medal; and
whereas, Billy Graham is regularly listed as one of the “ten most admired men in the world” and has been named “man of the year” by Time Magazine; and
whereas, Billy Graham is founder of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association leading the weekly “Hour of Decision” program which is broadcast by more than 900 stations around the world and author of a column, “My Answer,” which appears in many of the nation’s foremost newspapers on a daily basis.
Now, therefore, be it resolved, that by the adoption of this resolution, the City Council of the city of Los Angeles commends Billy Graham for his outstanding evangelistic work and declares Monday, April 29, 1974,
Billy Graham Day in the city of Los Angeles.
See more from the Billy Graham Library archive collection.
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Legal Notices Obituaries Jobs Homes
Utah officials celebrate 100th anniversary of traffic signal
Transportation • Salt Lake City police officer gets credit but not patent for his 1912 creation.
Paul Fraughton | The Salt Lake Tribune A display of the evolution of traffic signals, beginning with a replica of the 1912 protot Paul Fraughton | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Department of Transportation Executive Director John Njord stands Thursday in front o
Paul Fraughton | The Salt Lake Tribune A display of the evolution of traffic signals, beginning with a replica of the 1912 prototype, has been created in the public lobby of the Utah Department of Transportation Traffic Operations Center in Salt Lake City. Paul Fraughton | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Department of Transportation Executive Director John Njord stands Thursday in front of a replica of the traffic signal invented by Lester Wire in 1912 and installed at the intersection of 200 South and Main Street in Salt Lake City. Thursday, October 4, 2012
By David Montero The Salt Lake Tribune
· October 4, 2012 9:14 pm
This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
If you're stuck at a red light, blame Lester Wire. Got the green light? He gets credit there, too.
But let's slow down and put a yellow caution light to that for a minute.
Utah Department of Transportation officials on Thursday celebrated the invention of the traffic light 100 years ago by Lester Wire, a police officer in Salt Lake City who they said had grown troubled by the congestion and danger developing from traffic at the intersection of Main Street and 200 South.
UDOT's celebration of Wire's invention included the unveiling of a replica of his traffic light at its Traffic Operations Center in Taylorsville.
Wire's invention looked like a large birdhouse with lights dipped in green and red paint and placed into circular holes on each side. It was manually operated, with a police officer standing next to the signal mounted on a 10-foot pole. During peak times, the policeman's job was to flick a switch to change it from red to green.
UDOT Executive Director John Njord said the invention changed motor vehicle history.
"We can imagine what life would be like without signals at all," Njord said. "It's not a pretty picture to imagine."
But Njord acknowledged that, while they believe Wire's traffic signal in 1912 was the first, he didn't get the patent for creating the technology.
That patent instead went to James Hoge, who saw his traffic-light invention installed in Cleveland in 1914. A cruder version featuring two semaphore arms directing traffic to stop is believed to have debuted in London in 1868
Lisa Miller, UDOT spokeswoman, said it's believed Wire got drafted and served in World War I and was unable to see the patent process through.
UDOT officials said they now oversee traffic lights in about 1,200 intersections throughout the state using sophisticated technology that allows them to control car flows directly from their traffic control center or allowing a pressure plate system on the roads to determine the time each light stays red or green.
Mark Taylor, a traffic signal operations engineer, said that, for example, vehicle flow on Foothill Boulevard for a University of Utah football game is altered to allow the high volume of cars to flow more easily.
That is accomplished, he said, by keeping the lights synchronized and expanding the time they're green from the usual 60- to 90-second intervals to four-minute intervals.
It's miles away from what Wire first propped up on the 1912 street shared by cars, bikes, horses and pedestrians all traveling at different speeds and in different directions.
"People laughed when they first saw it," Miller said. "They thought it was confusing."
Njord said Wire's influence is seen everywhere today and he thinks he'd be amazed at what his invention had spawned
"From a converted birdhouse on Main Street in Salt Lake City, the traffic signal can now be found throughout the world," he said. "Even in the most remote locations."
dmontero@sltrib.com
Twitter: @davemontero
The history of traffic signals
The Utah Department of Transportation has established a public display tracing the evolution of the traffic signal, beginning with a replica of the 1912 version invented by Salt Laker Lester Wire. The birdhouse-like prototype, along with three later versions, can be viewed in the lobby of the UDOT Traffic Operations Center at 2060 S. 2760 West in Salt Lake City.
Utah's Right
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US company Textron will provide Ukraine with its Survivable Combat Tactical Vehicles (SCTV) 30202162
Posted On Tuesday, 02 February 2016 09:58
Defence & Security News - Textron Systems
US company Textron will provide Ukraine with its Survivable Combat Tactical Vehicles (SCTV)
Textron Systems Marine and Land Systems, a Textron Inc. business, announced February 1 a contract with SpetsTechnoExport (STE), a subsidiary of Ukroboronprom (UOP), for the sale of three Survivable Combat Tactical Vehicles (SCTV™). This agreement marks the first sale of the SCTV for Textron Systems Marine and Land Systems.
Survivable combat Tactical Vehicle (SCTV)
The contract entails the sale of three SCTVs that will be delivered to Ukraine in an ongoing effort to improve the survivability and mobility of its light tactical vehicle fleet.
“We are excited to be working with the UOP on upgrading its HMMWVs (High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle) to the Textron Systems Marine and Land Systems SCTV,” says Textron Systems Director of Business Operations, Europe and Africa, Bear Midkiff. “With this contract marking the first sale of our SCTV, this is a great accomplishment for Textron Systems Marine and Land Systems. In addition, we are honored to be ‘the other half’ of this new, exciting relationship with Ukraine.”
UOP’s interest in the SCTV was realized due to an emerging requirement for increased security and mobility for Ukrainian security, defense and law enforcement agencies. The SCTV meets these requirements due to its numerous protection and mobility enhancements. It features a fully-armored, monocoque v-hull crew survivability capsule designed to provide the highest levels of protection technology available in its class of vehicles. Additionally, engine upgrades and suspension enhancements provide for superior performance and mobility.
According to UOP Director General Roman Romanov, “The Marine and Land Systems SCTV will provide significant improvement to performance and durability for Ukrainian HMMWVs, as well as enhancing crew protection. More specifically, the SCTV will provide a strengthened chassis and improved anti-mine and ballistic protection similar to that of MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) protection, which is designed specifically to withstand improvised explosive device attacks and ambushes.”
Developed to provide a more robust platform for the contemporary battlefield while increasing blast and ballistic protection levels to meet the modern day threats of the asymmetric battlefield, the SCTV redefines survivability for the HMMWV. Using patented armor technologies, the SCTV is equipped to handle a variety of missions including fire support, command and control, reconnaissance, engineer support and troop transport. Textron Systems Marine and Land Systems’ innovative SCTV is comprised of three modular upgrade kits that offer superior crew protection while restoring lost vehicle performance and extending the life span of the vehicle.
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the Smashing Pumpkins – Zeitgeist (7.0/10)
Posted on February 8, 2009 by flyingpiranha92
The Smashing Pumpkins: Zeitgeist
“this disc has enough of its own merit to stand next to the rest of the Pumpkins’ discography, even with Iha and Wretzkey out of the picture.”
1. Doomsday Clock
2. 7 Shades of Black
3. Bleeding the Orchid
4. That’s the Way (My Love Is)
5. Tarantula
6. Starz
7. United States
8. Neverlost
9. Bring the Light
10. (Come One) Let’s Go!
11. For God and Country
12. Pomp and Circumstances
The return of the Smashing Pumpkins was met with criticism from most corners, and their comeback album was downright torn to shreds. But, after letting the dust settle, the bias can be seen through and the truth can come out: it’s really not that bad.
Sure, it can’t touch Siamese Dream (1993) or Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (1995), but this disc has enough of its own merit to stand next to the rest of the Pumpkins’ discography, even with Iha and Wretzkey out of the picture.
Musically, it’s the standard Pumpkins fare, blending metal and classic rock together in a furious combination, and vocally, Corgan can still hit all the notes he needs to. Unlike fellow alt. rocker Eddie Vedder, his voice still has the power it had a decade earlier.
But, despite Corgan’s form, there’s a problem – there’s too much of him. Most of the songs have layer after layer of vocals on piled on top of each other, the result of Roy Thomas Baker’s production. And Corgan’s voice has always been an acquired taste – even the most adamant of fans will find that it becomes quite jarring, and quickly.
There’s also another inherent problem that plagues Zeitgeist – there’s moments that sound completely forced and veer straight into a brick wall. Corgan’s cries for revolution in ‘United States’ sound juvenile, and his lyrics in ‘That’s the Way’ are saccharine somewhat overbearing.
That doesn’t mean that Zeitgeist is unlistenable – it’s far from it. There’s plenty hard rocking and sincere moments, and they make it a fun and interesting album. There’s nowhere near as much fat as there is on Mellon Collie, and it doesn’t drift out of focus like MACHINA (2000). It’s much easier to ‘get’ as a result, and you don’t need to be feeling any particular way to give it a spin.
As a whole, Zeitgeist gives the Pumpkins another shot at the 21st century – revitalizing a damn good band that had lay dead far too long. It’s straightforward; it rocks hard, and it also shows that with a good songwriter at the helm, a band can live on without all of its original members.
Posted in Album ReviewsTagged Billy, Chamberlain, Corgan, D'arcy, If All Goes Wrong, Iha, James, Jimmy, Mellon Collie, Pumpkins, Smashing, WreztkyLeave a comment
← New Guns N’ Roses single “Chinese Democracy”
Queens of the Stone Age – Era Vulgaris →
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Asian · Books · Exploitation & Erotica · Horror
Book Reviews: Video Premieres, Vampires on Video, Jackie Chan, Immoral Tales, Filmmaking on the Fringe, Horror and Science Fiction Films
VideoHound’s Vampires on Video, by J. Gordon Melton (Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1997). Trade paper, $17.95, 335pp. ISBN 1-57859-002-7.
Vampires continue to be an important fixture on the cultural landscape, and no wonder. With their radical sexuality that obeys neither natural nor man-made laws, they’re as timely today as ever. The fearful resonances of blood as a result of diseases like AIDS have also buttressed their standing as very contemporary monsters.
In the present climate, it’s better to have our vampires between the pages of a book than lurking outside our window. J. Gordon Melton’s book obligingly puts them there in this comprehensive, reasonably useful compendium of every kind of vampire movie imaginable. It’s especially timely given that 1997 is the 100th anniversary of the publication of the book that started it all: Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Melton’s setup is based on a kind of grid that’s present in other VideoHound books. We get a title, a brief plot summary with a judgment call, an indication of parental caveats (“brief nudity, some violence”), along with date, rating, running time, country where the film was produced, cast and crew, awards, formats (VHS and laser only), and the distributor. A good resource on this basis.
Less compelling is Melton’s writing, which is plodding and not particularly insightful. Example: he says It’s Alive “rises above its origins to focus questions about human interference in the birth process.” This gives short shrift to the film’s powerful critique of the family and society. Luckily, most of the text consists of simple plot readings. Sidebars devoted to stars like Ingrid Pitt and Peter Cushing, and to generic detours like “Vampire Comedies” add interest.
VideoHound’s Video Premieres, by Mike Mayo. (Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1997). Trade paper, $17.95, 431pp. ISBN 0-7876-0825-4.
The idea behind VideoHound’s series of movie guidebooks is a worthy one – to help the overwhelmed consumer wade through the acres of titles available at the local video store. Mike Mayo’s entry in the series takes a particularly unusual tack. The subtitle of his book is “The Only Guide to Video Originals and Limited Releases,” and happily, this umbrella covers a wide array of direct-to-video productions, obscure independents, and imported art-house fare that surely need this kind of notice. The writing style is just lively enough to make the book fun to dip randomly into. On Dracula Rising: “The budget is anemic; the cast is young, attractive, and stiff.” On Guns of Honor: “Confusing Western is no better than the senseless title.” Mayo knows his stuff and – as in other books in this series – unearths many quite rare items, some of which are not available on video. The range is wide enough to include acclaimed imports like Krysztof Kieslowski’s Blue and home-grown horrors like Lobster Man from Mars. A lengthy cross-index at the back adds research value.
Immoral Tales, by Cathal Tohill & Pete Tombs. (New York: St. Martin’s/Griffin, 1995). Trade paper, $17.95, 272pp. ISBN 0-312-13519-X
In the Obscure-o-rama Sweepstakes, this hefty look at European sex and horror movies from what I suppose can be called the “golden age” of such stuff (1956 to 1984) marks some kind of milestone. Readers who’ve searched in frustration for references to the work of subterranean trash-meisters like Jean Rollin, Jesus Franco, and (gasp) Alain Robbe-Grillet will welcome this study of these and three other auteurs of the demimonde. The authors are convincing in defining what amounts to outsider art. “These bizarre flicks defy simple pigeon-holing. They’re too lowbrow to be considered arty, but too intelligent and personal to be described simply as Euro-trash. They’re a curious hybrid, milking the dynamism of popular literature and comic books, combining it with the perverse romanticism of real Art.”
Familiar exploitation titles like The Awful Dr. Orloff get the full-dress treatment, with lots of background info and critical appraisal, but so do lesser known (in some cases, virtually unknown) works like Walerian Borowczyk’s Story of a Sin. The same director’s The Bear caused a scandal when it was shown at a London film festival. The authors quote a review from the New Statesman that typifies the amusingly transgressive powers of these “immoral tales”: “What on earth does the British Film Institute think it is up to?” The film “featured only two characters – a bear and a woman – who then engaged interminably in sexual intercourse.” A fun, useful look at a little-known corner of cultural sleaze.
Filmmaking on the Fringe: The Good, the Bad, and the Deviant Director, by Maitland McDonagh. (New York: Citadel Press, 1995). Trade paper, $18.95, 236pp. ISBN 0-8065-1557-0.
McDonagh is a rarity in the general sludge that constitutes most writing on exploitation cinema. She has something to say, and she knows how to say it. This pulls Filmmaking on the Fringe ahead of the pack.
The book is divided into six sections that cover many of the shining lights (and in some cases, dim bulbs) of trash filmmaking, from Jim Wynorski to Zalman King to Charles Band to those who’ve won mainstream acclaim like Sam Raimi, Wes Craven, and Joe Dante. The chapter on Zalman King (of dreaded Wild Orchid fame) is typical. King is almost unique in the field, making kitschy soft-core sleaze with “respectable” name actors like Mickey Rourke, Kim Basinger, and Sherilyn Fenn. Author McDonagh uncovers a surprisingly thoughtful, if somewhat self-deluded, character behind the man viewers have every right to assume is an idiot.
Charles Band is another rarely noticed toiler on the exploitation highway who gets some deserved exposure here. Band’s interview is typical of the relentless self-promotion low-budget directors must engage in to survive, but McDonagh wisely adds context by quoting a disgruntled former associate who describes in detail how he was ripped off, financially and artistically, by Band’s company over a film called Psychos in Love.
The author provokes her subjects to confront some of the more troubling aspects of their work with bracing, sometimes brutal questions and comments. Discussing Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left with the director, she says it “certainly isn’t titillating; it’s disgusting and disturbing.” This triggers a discussion about violence toward women, Vietnam, the place of the disenfranchised exploitation director, and a host of other intriguing topics. Pithy sketches and filmographies of a large number of additional filmmakers conclude the book. Highly recommended.
Jackie Chan: Inside the Dragon, by Clyde Gentry III. (Dallas: Taylor Publishing Co., 1997). Trade paper, $18.95, 194pp. ISBN 0-87833-970-1.
Hard to believe, but this appears to be the first serious English-language bio on one of the superstars of world cinema. (I can’t be certain about this; there may have been others published in Hong Kong that haven’t made it to these shores.) It has the additional virtue of being based on primary sources – interviews with Chan, his co-stars, his directors (including Stanley Tong), and the stuntmen who’ve risked their lives alongside him.
This book is review-proof. Since there’s nothing else out there, there’s little point in going into an extended discussion of the merits or demerits of the writing or the level of insight; anyone in the English-speaking world who’s interested in this extraordinary talent will simply have to buy the book. I will mention some of the unusual items it contains in case anyone needs a nudge. There’s a comprehensive filmography, including bit parts; a diagram of the star’s body showing all of his injuries; sidebars devoted to various martial arts styles; a list of resources for Chanabilia, web sites, and fan clubs; and a rendering of film titles and actors’ names in both English and Chinese characters, to ease that visit to the local Chinese video store (or market) to get first dibs on his latest titles.
The author is the editor-in-chief of the zine Hong Kong Connection.
Horror and Science Fiction Films IV, by Donald C. Willis. (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1997). Cloth, library binding, $89.50, 643pp. ISBN 0-8108-3055-8.
Save your pennies, kids – this one is it. In the search for new cultural forms to document and describe, the publishing industry has responded mightily. Even a glance at this group of book reviews shows how far publishers are willing to go in ferreting out the unusual and the obscure for readers obviously starved for this stuff – with understandably mixed results. Some cinematic guidebooks are indispensable (Maltin’s TV Movies), some are useful but too expensive (the Psychotronic series), some qualify as impulse buys (John Stanley’s Creatures Features books), and others are only for fans with empty space on their shelves and too much money (no need to name names here).
Donald Willis’s large, thick, overpriced-but-worth-every-penny fourth volume in a series is a stunning achievement in the field. Willis has a wonderful sensibility and a genuine writing talent, using a kind of witty shorthand style to bring these often strange films to brief, vivid life. Some of the reviews are almost maniacally terse, undoubtedly due to the lack of information on the film. The 1907 French movie Le Ceinture Electrique, for example, sounds weirdly intriguing in its single line of description: “‘Electric belt’ jolts wearer into ‘super-vitality.'” The quoted phrases here appear to have been culled from one of the author’s many sources of information and quotes: poster art, pressbooks, video boxes, archival catalogs, reviews. The 1987(?) Hong Kong epic Centipede Horror gets a longer, hilarious entry that’s typical of the breezy style and deserves to be quoted in full:
“When she died, many insects crawled out from her wounds” – a sure sign of the “most venomous spell in S.E. Asia . . . the centipede spell.” A cobra-coming-out-of-the-head spell, however, finishes our evil wizard; the masses of centipedes attacking the hero wilt and die; and the possessed heroine, Yeuk Chee, vomits up a last lovely bunch of centipedes. . . Standard Hong Kong sorcerer-vs.-sorcerer stuff delivers worms-plus yuckiness. Unusual elements here include (during a climactic magic duel) a flying burning chicken skeleton and, earlier, a priest who “rears ghosts”: “He steals the corpses of children, grills [their] chins . . . until the oil drips out,” then places two dolls in the oil, and the dolls become “his adopted ghosts.” The latter prove handy during exorcisms, when they make the possessed vomit up blood and scorpions.
Author Willis includes a dazzling amount of info even on some of the most obscure titles, and some of the films included here, I think it can safely be said, won’t be found anywhere else. These include everything from South Korean ghost stories (Samwonnyo, 1981), to Indian “were-snake” epics (Naan Nagin, 1989), to Austrian science fiction (Time Troopers, 1984.) The inclusion of shorts and a long list of alternative titles adds solid research value.
Scarecrow Press should be applauded for publishing this kind of book, and cursed for pricing it out of most buyers’ reach. You can order it from your local bookstore or direct from Scarecrow at 1-800-462-6420.
— Gary Morris
Gary Morris founded Bright Lights Film Journal as a print publication in 1974; it became a web-only magazine in 1996. He is the author of the monograph Roger Corman (Twayne Publishers, 1985) and the editor of Action! Interviews with Directors from Classical Hollywood to Contemporary Iran (Anthem Press, 2009).
Previous story Seconds in Eternity: Experimental Film Master Gregory Markopoulos
Next story Seduction Is Universal: Thoughts on Radley Metzger
Also in Bright Lights
A Brutal Nobility: Painting Death in The House with Laughing Windows (Pupi Avati, 1976) June 30, 2014
Bella Donna: Lilith, Gaia, and the Spectral Mother in Mario Bava’s Black Sunday October 31, 2017
The Devils (the Angels): Sympathy for John Landis July 9, 2014
Book review: Robert Altman, by Mitchell Zuckoff May 23, 2010
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Ron Clark “like no other school in America”
It’s being called, “like no other school in America,” a transformative journey from middle school student to super-achiever. At the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, ‘skipping school’ is not part of the kids’ lexicon. Kim Bearden and Ron Clark, co-founders, shared an enthusiasm and love for molding kids into exemplary-beings – as proven by their early chance meeting.
Their first encounter was back in 2000, when they were honored by Disney as Teachers of the Year. They started talking in the fall of 2004 – purchased the warehouse building that would transform their idea into a ‘dream school’ in November 2005, and poof… the magic started September 4, 2007.
The building is a 50,000 square foot warehouse in South Atlanta, transformed into the sort of place J.K. Rowling dreamed up for “Harry Potter.” Every classroom has an elaborate theme — there’s a dragon and a two-story bungee jump and kids have to be “slide-certified” — a symbol they’ve signed on for something different, reports CBS News.
5th – 8th grade students throughout the Atlanta area are living the dream – and what a dream it is! “It is a place that’s about passion, energy,” says Ron Clark. “I wanted to create a school where you could feel the spirit, wanted kids to walk into this school and say, ‘I love coming here.’ If you’ve got individuals who are passionate about making a difference in the lives of kids, they’re going to be successful.”
The school’s mission places the focus on not just learning, but passion – “To deliver the highest quality educational experience where global citizens are born through advanced rigor, engaging teaching methods, and a passionate climate and culture.“
We need more of what Ron Clark and Kim Bearden are selling throughout the world – not just in education, in healthcare, in government, in retail, in manufacturing – in life. What they figured out early on in the process is what many fail to discover in the course of a lifetime.
To step out and be different; embrace the unknown, take on the big challenges, and create a TRANSFORMATIVE movement in education that will leave the critics speechless, and the rest of the folks simply shaking their heads (hopefully while they’re doing the Nae Nae).
Even more exciting is the school’s vision statement – “To be the best school in the world by demonstrating transformative methods and techniques that are embraced and replicated everywhere.“
I’ve already scheduled this on my ‘must stop by list’ when I next visit the Atlanta region. The school has a complete list of etiquette rules to help keep adults in-line when they visit the school – smart thinking (we know the big kids can be more of a handful than school kids!).
VISITATION ETIQUETTE
* Bring your energy and enthusiasm!
* Make an effort to get to know the other attendees. We can all learn from each other.
* Dress casually. Groups can wear the school colors or school shirts.
* Please be on time and considerate of the jam-packed schedule. Doors open at 8:15AM.
* Wear pants if you are adventurous enough to slide or jump on the trampoline!
* Please honor the Essential 55 Rule #22, “no gum chewing.”
* Please silence your cell phones and do not accept phone calls during class or workshops.
* Please turn off your video cameras. Still photography is allowed ONLY in workshops and during transitions. Please do not take photos during classroom observations.
* Honor the privacy of our students. Please do not ask them for their email or contact information.
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My Uber interview with JFL’s funny expat, Katherine Ryan
By Bill Brioux January 21, 2019
Last July I flew back from a brief stop at the Television Critics Association press tour in Los Angeles to head directly to Montreal and the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival. One of the people I most wanted to speak with there hosts The Stand-up Show with Katherine Ryan, premiering Tuesday, Jan. 22, on The Comedy Network.
The eight episode series features Ryan delivering both sweetness and shock. As it says on her site, “Her look says ‘Piano Recital’; Her mouth say, ‘Choke on your mother’s implants.'” She also presents several other stand-up comedians, including Andy Kindler, Colin Quinn and Canadians Mark Forward, Mark Little and Rebecca Kohler.
The 35-year-old, from Sarnia, Ont., is one of those rare Canadian comedians who, like Russell Peters, is way more famous outside of North America than in her home and native land. Peters sells out arenas for comedy shows throughout Asia; Ryan is a big deal on the Telly as a presenter and a panelist over in The UK.
Unfortunately, the window to speak with Ryan, who taped several shows in Montreal, was rather slim. It basically came down to one option: interview her on my cell phone during my 30-minute Uber ride to LAX.
Which is what we did, with me holding my digital recorder up to my cell phone while the car inched along the 405 South. I thought it would be a disaster, with the conversation dropping out under every bridge. In fact it went swimmingly, with Ryan friendly and sympathetic every kilometer along the way.
I knew things would go well after the very first question. After explaining the kooky Uber-office circumstances, I asked, “Where’s the strangest place you’ve ever done an interview?”
“Ooo,” said Ryan, who paused briefly and said, “I think maybe in the London Eye.”
Next time I interview Ryan I hope it is here.
Last summer was quite busy for me, travel wise. I had just been in London a month earlier interviewing John Krasinski about his amazing action hero transformation on Amazon Prime’s Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. So when Katherine Ryan asked if I was familiar with the giant ferris wheel on the Thames, I could honestly say yes, I had just seen it up close, and it does look spectacular. I had, in fact, walked across the bridge from my hotel and taken a closer look at The Eye, passing right in front of the entrance which is in the middle of a very crowded tourist park. The enormous white wheel rotates once every half-hour or so, offering visitors in each attached pod a spectacular view of the British Parliament buildings. Those iconic chambers were being renovated and were covered in scaffolding at the time of my visit. The British landmark looked as if it was being disguised to hide it from Donald Trump, who made an official visit a few weeks later. (Remember that big, diapered, Trump balloon?)
Ryan told me she had recently been interviewed in one of the pods, “and you know what? It’s a strange location, but it’s soundproof and it takes exactly 30 minutes, so in a way it’s not a bad office.”
“I would think that’s probably the best place ever to do an interview,” I replied, “because, even if I ask a stupid question, you can’t leave.”
“Exactly,” said Ryan, who laughed, which gave me permission to go on with my other stupid questions.
Read more smart answers from Ryan here at this feature I wrote for The Canadian Press.
Just For LaughsKatherine RossThe Comedy NetworkThe London Eye
VIDEO: Pure’s Ryan Robbins takes Five Questions
January 21, 2019 2 Mins Read
RATINGS: Why OMNI numbers never add up
firestarterapkk 6 months ago Reply
One of the leading voices on the North American media and television scene, Bill has worked as a Columnist for The Toronto Sun, Senior Editor at TV Guide in Toronto and Los Angeles, and for over a decade as a weekly contributor to The Canadian Press firestarterapkk
One of the best sites in recent times that we have come across.
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6 Ways to Master the Art of Willpower
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by Nicole Pajer
Life continuously tests our willpower. It’s inevitable: On Day 1 of your diet, you walk into work to find a plate of fresh chocolate cream donuts from your favorite bakery staring at you. Your half-marathon is quickly approaching, and you haven’t mustered the motivation to begin your training program. You’ve been meaning to quit smoking for some time but you’re dragging your feet on making it a priority. After a long day on the job, you plop down on the couch and fight your daily battle of Netflix versus the gym.
Willpower is not an easy skill to master; however, it’s hard to meet our performance or weight-loss goals, advance in our careers or better ourselves without it. We reached out to several professionals who seem to have the whole willpower thing dialed in to bring you their favorite techniques for resisting those daily temptations and finding the motivation to do the things bogging down our to-do lists
Kelsey Robinson, professional indoor volleyball player and 2016 Olympic bronze medalist for Team USA, knows a way to build willpower is to not take things too seriously. “I try to make everything I do a game. Whether I’m weightlifting and really exhausted on the third set or if I’m going somewhere where the food will be super indulgent and negatively impactful on my performance, I’m always trying to push myself and challenge myself in a competitive way,” she says. “This helps motivate me to be better and to work harder on and off the court. It challenges me, which makes it fun!”
FOCUS ON DISCIPLINE INSTEAD OF WILLPOWER
Patti Johnson, a Los Angeles-based licensed psychologist, is quick to tell her patients willpower is extremely difficult to master, even for a trained mental health professional such as herself. Discipline, on the other hand, is much easier to come by. “I believe that cultivating willpower is overrated. It’s better to focus on cultivating discipline,” she explains. To help her patients grasp this concept, she has come up with the following example: “Willpower is buying your favorite candy a week before Halloween and then trying not to eat it. Discipline is not buying it until the day of Halloween and then buying a type you don’t like. Trying to succeed with willpower alone isn’t very effective. Add discipline, and you eliminate the struggle.”
PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU REALLY WANT
It’s important to hone in on exactly what it is you want to accomplish. “To say no when you need to say no, and yes when you need to say yes, you need a third power: the ability to remember what you really want,” says Kelly McGonigal, Stanford psychologist and author of “The Willpower Instinct.” “I know, you think that what you really want is the brownie, the third martini or the day off, but when you’re facing temptation or flirting with procrastination, you need to remember that what you really want is to fit into your skinny jeans, get the promotion, get out of credit card debt, stay in your marriage … Otherwise, what’s going to stop you from following your immediate desires?”
DON’T GO IT ALONE
Chris Hodges, who runs GoTRIBE, a global personal training company, knows sticking to a diet or exercise regimen can be daunting. To combat this, he encourages his clients to find a way to hold themselves accountable for the steps necessary to meet their goals. “Personal willpower is at its strongest when coupled with accountability. Whether that’s a friend, a fitness app or a journal, it’s a lot easier to have strong willpower when we track our goals,” he says.
TUNE OUT THE NAYSAYERS
As a former NFL player and the current director of the Dallas Cowboys Academy, Terrence Wheatley’s entire career has been centered around his ability to tap into his willpower. “It’s the single most important skill an athlete can have; the ability to have perseverance is what separates the average Joe from the true elite in sports,” he explains. The pro football alum stresses, however, that to get to the top, you have to ignore those who tell you that you won’t make it. “Willpower is not something you are born with, it is a skill that must be learned. We live in a world where we are told that we can’t be great. Well, if you have willpower, you have the one skill that allows you as an athlete to say ‘yes I can.’ Willpower allows any athlete to achieve greatness because to be in that 1% you must be great at everything, not just one thing. Willpower is that 1%.”
READ MORE > LACK OF WILLPOWER MIGHT NOT BE TO BLAME WHEN DIETS FAIL
VISUALIZE YOUR GOALS BEING PLAYED OUT
As a professional skier, Bernie Rosow is constantly pushing himself to new heights. Luckily, he has a tool to help him get there. “For me, skiing is all about a combination of confidence, visualization and skill. To have the willpower to try a new trick or ski a hard line, all three of those things need to line up.” Before tackling a new slope, the freeskier puts himself in a mental state where he feels he will succeed. “I like to visualize new tricks in first and third person,” he explains. “I practice the tricks I know to create muscle memory awareness. All of this comes together to create confidence and confidence can be the hardest part in finding the willpower to push yourself.”
TagsFitness Tipslosing weightwellness
Nicole Pajer
Nicole is freelance writer and health advocate that lives, works, and exercises in Los Angeles, California. She is published in The New York Times, Woman’s Day, Men’s Journal, Hemisphere’s, Men’s Fitness, and Parade. You can read more from Nicole at her website, or follow her on Twitter at @nicolepajer.
Let’s Go: Total Mind and Body Wellness
Should You Get an Extra Hour of Sleep or a Workout?
Healthy Habits For Life: 10 Tips For Better Sleep
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Global Social Media Impact Study
Aim and Objectives
Fieldsites
Global Social Media Impact Study »
Telegraphs
Communicating death in an Indian village
ShriramVenkatraman14 August 2013
Photo by Matt Zimmerman (Creative Commons)
Communicating the occurence of a life event to one’s social group (relatives, friends, colleagues etc.) is something that is seen in most societies around the world. However, the patterns and processes of communicating such events differ between societies. It is not a rarity to find extensive use of Facebook and other social networking sites as major platforms to communicate major life events such as the birth of a child, birthdays (where now reminders from the social networking sites now help to prompt the sending of messages), wedding anniversaries, deaths and so on. Exploring instances of how life events such as news of the death of a close relative or someone important are communicated becomes very interesting and given that one of the areas of focus for the project is to also explore death and memorialization, it definitely becomes an area worth observing.
The death of one of my informant’s grandfather occurred a couple of days ago, right at a time when there was a yearly religious village carnival going on in my field site. This was unexpected, though the village elder who had passed away was paralysed and had been “suffering” for almost a year now. He was 82 years old. The death was now viewed as pollution (theetu) as it had happened right in the middle of a sacred week. Further, given that a lot of money had already been spent on preparing for the celebrations, the idea was to cremate the “dead body” as soon as possible and to go on with the celebrations without cancelling any of the planned events.
Within an hour’s of the death people from at least five to six neighbouring villages and also from the closest city had gathered there to offer their respects to this village elder who had passed away. It was fascinating to see how so many people (between 1500–2000) had assembled within such a short span of time. As it was the death of the head of a lineage (Thala Kattu), the ceremony had to have all the regalia and the ceremonial and ritualistic arrangements befitting the status of the dead person and all this had to be prepared in a very short time. Normally, a dead person’s body is kept in state for at least a day or two so that everyone around the area gets a chance to come and pay their last respects. Further, the day is also used to make arrangements for the cremation. However, this time it was different, the body had to be taken off from the area as soon as possible as it would halt the religious ceremony. What normally happens over 48 hours happened in just five to six hours. The speed at which communication worked and the news spread was something worth observing/exploring. The reason was very clearly discernible – it was use of mobile technology – cell phone at its best.
The original classical method of spreading the message of someone’s death in this village was to send people in all the four directions to convey the message to their kin in other villages and let the neighbouring village heads know of this, so people could come in to offer their last respects to the dead. Though this was still followed as a ritualistic process in order to maintain their age old practice, the urgency which the situation demanded seemed to be negotiated with the help of cell phones. It was clear that it was a mix of both voice and text that seemed to accomplish things. However, there was a clear distinction of purposes to which the use of voice and/or text was assigned. Communicating the news of death in person to the very senior elderly people and the head of the villages was considered respect and was a formalized unwritten protocol and that was still followed. However, communicating the message of death to middle aged and other elderly people always ensured a voice communication through cell phones as it was once again considered respect to use one’s voice to communicate such messages while text seemed fine with the younger generation. Logistical requirements and their arrangements like flowers, fireworks etc. happened over voice communication on cell phones.
Although an unsaid prohibition of not taking pictures of the dead body was followed, it was pretty much evident that there were a few youngsters (relatives of the now dead village elder) taking pictures of the dead body on their mobile phones. A casual chat revealed that they were planning on sending picture messages to their relatives and friends who were not able to make it to the ceremony. However, they were certain that they would not put it up on their Facebook or other social networking sites as they were only interested in sending this to people to whom this mattered. Putting this news on Facebook or other SNS would be seen as insulting the dead person, in short they were trying to focus their communication to reach the target audience (though marketers use this all the time, but have more of “brand pages” which was not the case here). Further, they did joke that some of their friends would “Like” the picture post, or sometimes even send in unwanted comments and if someone from the family saw that, then it would result in unwanted issues. Further, not all their counterparts or kin used social networking sites, but they had cell phones. The events as they unfolded very clearly revealed the power of technology; however, they also revealed that constant negotiation with the type of technology to use, the purpose of using them and how they were used even during a single event differed widely.
There was an urge to understand if such communication during death worked the same way when telephones found a place in this society too. The idea that communication of a message of death might have changed first when telephones came in which in a way is a gradual process of upgrading from manual news carriers to telephones and then to cell phones is something that most think as being true, as these steps seem to be the logical order. However, very soon it was revealed that most of them in the village here never had a telephone, as telephones (specifically from the government) were pretty hard to secure and their names in the waiting list seemed to have a permanent fixed position, thereby ensuring that most households in the village never had a telephone. The process was a movement from manual carriers directly to cell phones, bypassing the era of telephones. So how did they communicate messages of death to their social circle living in far off places? – Telegrams. They came in very handy when telephones were not available to the common masses as cell phones are now spread out.
Telegraps were the text messages and forerunner of the today’s text messaging. Telegraphs did have their own lingo as the messages now do, as charges incurred depended on the number of words. It was called “Thandhi” in Tamil. Most villages/small towns in India, as in my fieldsite did associate “Thandhi” with death. They assumed that such urgent messages meant the death of someone they knew, though telegraphic services did carry countless other messages too. But, it was symbolically associated with the announcement of death. This was prevalent in my fieldsite too. However, last month the Indian Telegraphic Service closed shop after 162 years and the idea of symbolically associating it to death had its death then.
Filed under Death, India
Tags: Cell phones, communication, countryside, cremation, death, face-to-face, life event, mobile phones, pollution, religion, Telegrams, Telegraphs, Telephones, Texts, verbal, village heads, villages
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Talking to the BBC about social media in China
Visualising Facebook by Daniel Miller and Jolynna Sinanan
“The Value of Social Media” at the AAA conference
From Facebook to ‘fakebook’ – who controls the information on social media?
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Social Network Sites & Social Science
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Home Latest News A man of solitude celebrates a healing Mass
A man of solitude celebrates a healing Mass
Several hundred people came to Assumption Church in Wildwood Crest on a recent Wednesday afternoon, drawn by admiration for two Franciscan friars — one a hermit and the other a saint who bore the wounds of Christ — and the promise of healing.
Father Pio Mandato of the Diocese of Scranton, Pa., celebrated a healing Mass at the church, one of the worship sites of Notre Dame de la Mer Parish, Wildwood, on Wednesday, June 27.
At the end of Mass people lined up to be blessed with a relic of the Italian stigmatist St. Padre Pio, a glove he wore on one of his bleeding hands.
It was from the hands of St. Padre Pio, who was canonized by Pope John Paul II 10 years ago, that Father Mandato received his first holy Communion.
Father Mandato was born in Pietrelcina in Southern Italy, the same town where St. Padre Pio was born. He grew up in New Jersey and he entered the Capuchin Franciscans — the community of St. Padre Pio — at age 17, where he received his Franciscan formation and later priestly formation.
Ordained in 1985, he served as a hospital chaplain and ministered to the homeless. In 1998, he was accepted into the Diocese of Scranton and has lived a life of prayer as a hermit in solitude, occasionally traveling around the country to celebrate healing Masses.
Hermits, according to Catechism of the Catholic Church, “devote their life to the praise of God and salvation of the world through a stricter separation from the world, the silence of solitude and assiduous prayer and penance.”
Concelebrating the June 27 Mass with Father Mandato was Father Joseph D. Wallace of Notre Dame de la Mer Parish.
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Listen to Clips From ‘Rejected’ David Bowie Early Demos
Potter, Express, Getty Images
Clips of three tracks that were recorded for David Bowie’s debut album but later rejected were released ahead of the reel-to-reel master tape being auctioned in the U.K. later this month.
Bowie laid down the songs “Funny Smile,” “Bunny Thing” and “Pussy Cat” during 1966 and 1967, along with “Did You Ever Have a Dream,” which later appeared on the 1981 compilation Another Face.
You can listen to the clips below.
Bowie expert Paul Kinder told the Guardian that “Bunny Thing” was a “beat poem about rabbits smuggling drugs, complete with in-character reminiscences of an aged German bunny.” He described “Funny Smile” as “a very solid and catchy R&B number” and noted Bowie’s “totally weird music hall mockney accent” on “Pussy Cat.” “For Bowie fans, these tracks represent part of the holy grail of unreleased recordings,” he noted.
Released on June 1, 1967, David Bowie bore little resemblance to the pop music of the time, or indeed to the standalone singles released before and after the LP. Instead, it presented a selection of music-hall style songs that explored a theatrical direction.
"I haven’t much to say about that in its favor," Bowie later admitted. "Musically, it’s quite bizarre. I don’t know where I was at.”
Omega Auctions will conduct the demo tape sale on May 21. The lot was described as a “boxed reel of 1/4" Ampex recording tape, containing four tracks recorded by David Bowie at Decca Studio 2 in West Hampstead, London circa 1967." “Please note that this item is sold as an artifact only and no copyright(s) are included with this sale,” it noted.
The starting price will be £3,000 ($3,900) and the estimated sale price is between £5,000 and £8,000 ($6,500-$10,400).
The Best Song From Every David Bowie Album
Next: Top 20 David Bowie Videos
Source: Listen to Clips From ‘Rejected’ David Bowie Early Demos
Filed Under: David Bowie
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Posted in Anime by beijingblogsaru
Anime. What is it? And what is it not? Don’t ask me because I don’t know. And neither does a good majority of the anime community.
Let’s be real here, as much time as we all spend watching anime, not many of us really know what defines an anime as an anime. Sure, we know that an animated series or movie created in Japan is anime. That’s a no brainer. But, when we are confronted with shows that look like they’re anime, but not made in Japan, or shows that have elements of an anime, but again, are not made in Japan, the lines become heavily blurred. This is where conflict arises.
It really depends on who you ask in the anime community whether a show is an anime or not. Some specifically restrict the heavenly title of “anime” to series and films only made in Japan. However, you can ask someone else and they will tell you that as long as it’s in the style of anime — big eyes, over exagerated expressions, ect — then yes, it is an anime. Then there are people who will shrug and say that they don’t know and move on with their day. Normally, I am that last person. However, that doesn’t exactly make for a good blog post does it?
If you ask me, it really doesn’t matter whether these questionable shows are anime or not. A show is a show and as long as it’s good and I like the art style then I really don’t think it matters. I’ll watch what I want to watch; end of story. If you don’t agree then that’s completely fine as well. As long as you don’t create a superiority complex around that, or begin picking on people because they either are a “nerd” for watching an “anime” or accusing them of not being a “true anime fan” because they watch something that’s a questionable anime, then you do you. My point is to just be nice to other people.
However, I digress, despite my heavily neutral standpoint on this issue, I would like to put my two cents in on this argument. I personally lean towards the side of “if it’s in the style of anime, then it’s an anime”. This is because I feel that it’s slightly exclusionary to put labels on these shows that fall into a grey area just because they are not made in Japan. Furthermore, there are a couple of points that support these questionable shows. Here, I will be addressing them while using RWBY as an example.
I could use several other series as an example — Avatar: The Last Airbender for example — but because I am a enormous RWBY fairy, I shall be using this series as an example. Plus, I haven’t watched any other questionable series — that I know of anyway. Sorry.
Wow, this is a really long intro. If you haven’t skipped over it yet, I applaud you! However, this is getting too much even for me, so let’s begin!
1) It Adheres to the Japanese Meaning of the Word “Anime”
Huh. Uh, well last time I checked, RWBY is an animated series. Can we move on now?
2) It Adheres to the English Definition of the Word “Anime”
Key words, “style of animation originating from Japan” and “a Japanese style”. Nowhere is it stated that the show must be from Japan. The requirements for a show to be an anime are very loose, and therefore shows that a lot of the so called “standards” a show must meet in order to be categorized as an anime are very much so made up by the anime community.
Furthermore, the couple of optional things that the definition gives as notes to identify a show as an anime are things that RWBY meets. Colorful art and characters? Check.
Futuristic setting or fantastic themes? Check. Violence? Check.
Sexuality? One word. Yang.
I think it’s safe to say that RWBY fits the English definition of anime pretty well.
I think that’s that then. Of course if you don’t agree then that’s completely fine. This isn’t exactly the debate of the century here. I do however reccomend you watch RWBY regardless of this topic. The animation is nice and it gets better and better as the series progresses. The same can be said about the plot. If you enjoy video games you will probably enjoy this series as well.
This was a rather silly post, and I don’t think it went anywhere but I still hope you enjoyed reading it all the same. However, if you are going to take away anything from this post then it should be to just be nice to people, and not harrass others because of silly issues like this. Just be nice to people. End of story.
animation, Anime, debate, definition, list, random, reasons, rooster teeth, RWBY, web series, why Leave a comment
I guess this officially makes me a disgrace to the anime community now.
Welcome once again fairies and cheshires to this month’s Beijing’s Picks! As for this month, we shall be exploring my top three favorite yaoi mangas! The yaois highlighted in this blog post are exclusive to mangas because that is the predominant media yaoi is seen in. It is also my personal preference of tending to enjoy manga over anime, but that’s just me.
Despite yaoi being a part anime I do not hold it to the same standards as my overall anime favorites. I do the same thing for any genre favorite picks. The reason for my overall picks being overall picks is because of the overall impact that those series left on me after I watched/read them — that’s a lot of “overalls” in one sentence! With genre picks my criteria is more geared towards character development, plot, and my personal analysis of the characters. To me there are two types of people: those who put emphasis on plot, and those who put emphasis on characters. I am the latter of the two. I of course believe that a good plot is important, but I also belive that a mediocre plot can be upheld by strong characters. Therefore to me, a story with phenomenal characters is much more important to me than a complex plot — which is probably why I enjoy romance over horror or physiological/deep animes. Furthermore, because yaoi is a part of the romance genre, I also have picked these based on their romantic qualities such as the character dynamic and developement of the romance. Yes, yes, all very offical stuffs.
Now that we are clear on the criteria, let us descend into yaoi hell!
3) Love Lesson
“Shall I give you a love lesson?”
A simple phrase is all that it took to send Ayami and Mineyuki down their path of love.
Love Lesson is full of fluffy romance scences between the two protagonists, but still contains healthy doses of smut and angst. It would be a lie to say that the plot line used in Love Lesson is not over done, but despite the copious amounts of cliché just seeping through the pages, the dynamic of Ayami and Mineyuki’s relationship just continues to pull me in.
Mineyuki is absolutely adorable in his timid way of progressing his relationship with Ayami. Ayami is his first true love; meaning that while he is experienced in dating others, Ayami has been the first he’s experienced real romantic attraction to, and he’s scared. Moreover, he is also afraid of what others will think of their relationship, and rightfully so, with both of them being entertainers. Mineyuki only wants the best for Ayami and it is shown in the final chapters that he is willing to give up what is most precious to him if it means that Ayami will be safe, prosperous, and happy. Mineyuki is definately not your typical uke — submissive one in the relationship — who relies on his seme — dominant one in the relationship — to protect him. If anything, Mineyuki is more of the protector.
But let’s not leave out the sweet cinnamon bun Ayami! Ayami is absolutely clueless about love which leads to him being rather dependent on Mineyuki — in the respect of love at least. However that does not mean that Mineyuki is the only one putting any effort into their relationship. While Mineyuki is insecure about his emotions and scared of what the future holds for the two of them, Ayami is confident and acts a pillar of support for Mineyuki to lean on when he doubts both himself or their relationship. Because Ayami only knows of true, pure love, he has no doubts that his relationship with Mineyuki is real. Ayami is definitely the ideal boyfriend!
2) Hana to Usagi
“…I can’t see his face, so I don’t get what he’s thinking, but I think… he’s not a bad person.”
The terribly shy bunny and the cheerful and upbeat delivery guy. It’s the perfect recipe for romance!
I have already meantioned Hana to Usagi in “Tea Party Talks: My Opinion on Yaoi” which explores my personal opinion on both yaoi and it’s fandom. There, I use Hana to Usagi as an example of yaoi done well, and here, I stand by that opinion. Not only is Hana to Usagi adorable and funny, but it also gives highlight to the simplicity of pure romance between two people who love each other. There is no noncon, incest, or complicated angst, just pure love. That is not to say that this manga is void of conflict, but the conflict that occurs is out of pure love. Furthermore, the conflict is not unnecessarily drawn out, and the same conflict doesn’t repeat itself. The characters fix the problem, talk about it, get to the root of the problem, then establish what must be done so it doesn’t happen again. You know, like mature adults in a healthy relationship.
See! If a person who is so insecure that they have to wear a bunny head can have a healthy and happy relationship with someone then — almost — anyone should be able to. Right?
1) Sayonara Note
“I will do anything for the sake of that smile. I will let go of you so please don’t notice. I have always liked [you].”
Love, trust, selflessness, and moving forwards. All of it tied up in a neat little bow.
This manga. This manga is — and forever will be — the holy grail of yaoi. Sayonara Note is a one volume manga that packs a real punch. To the feels. Filled to the brim with the angst that comes with pure — thought to be — unrequited love, Sayonara Note will forever leave a — good — dent in your little fairy heart. Not only are the characters lovely, amazing, and all deserve a big hug, the plot is also well paced, and very thought through. Our two protagonists — Takumasa and Ken — are both lovely little cinnamon buns who honestly care about each other more than should be humanly possible.
Both Takumasa and Ken are willing to give up on their own love for each other if that means the other will be happy. Due to each of their selflessness, intense love and care for one another, and lack of communication however, their best trait ends up turning against them. Both think that they are doing the right thing by letting the other go when really they are only hurting both each other and themselves by doing so. This is why communication is key in any relationship kids.
However, both learn from this experience and by the end of the manga, they have the happy and healthy relationship that they both deserve.
I recommend this manga to anyone who is interested in romance mangas period. Despite Sayonara Note being classified as a yaoi/shounen-ai, I honestly believe this manga to be an exemplary manga for romance manga across the board. Sayonara Note highlights on the purity of true love in an amazing way that is both captivating and truly heart-wrenching. It is a shame that more people do not know about this manga.
If you couldn’t tell by now, I have an obvious bias towards romances with pure, caring love between innocent little cinnamon buns. I also tend to bias lesser known mangas for some reason. Perhaps this is a mindset or perhaps I am subconsciously trying to be a “special little snowflake”. I have honestly no clue. In any case, if you are already a yaoi fan fairy then yay! I just pushed you deeper into yaoi hell! And if you are new here, even better! I honestly hope you enjoy living amongst us trash! But in all seriousness, I do hope you enjoy these titles, and remember, love is love, no matter the form it takes.
Anime, boy's love, cute, favorites, fluff, hana to usagi, hidden gems, less known mangas, list, love, love lesson, Manga, romance, sayonara note, shounen-ai, yaoi Leave a comment
Posted in Anime, Tea Party Talks by beijingblogsaru
I like both.
Okay, well good bye everyone; it’s time for me to get buried alive now.
But really, in all seriousness. Why does it matter? Both franchises have their good points and their bad points. At the end of the day, it really comes down to what your personal preferences are. I like both, but I like both for different reasons. For me, I prefer the plot of Digimon and the anime itself, but I prefer the aesthetic of Pokemon over Digimon.
To make things easier I have split this post up into two parts. The first part will address what I like and dislike about Pokémon while the second will do the same for Digimon. This is just my opinion so feel free to leave your own opinion in the comments! But please no fandom wars. This is a no hate zone thank you. Now grab yourself a cup of tea and let’s begin!
Pokemon:
As I have already established, the thing that I like most about Pokémon is the overall aesthetic of the pokemon themselves. I like how there is a large variety of pokémon which allows for anyone to find at least one that they like. I personally really like Umbreon. To some people this may come as a shock because my personal aesthetic matches Slyveon the best and I refer to both myself and other advid fans as “fairies” — a word that I use as a gender neutral term for “fangirl” because “fan” doesn’t imply the needed amount of obsession and not all advid fans are girls. However, I digress, my point is that even if you are not interested in the soft cuteness of some pokémon, there are still other pokémon that could draw you into the franchise. What I belive the Pokémon franchise does the best is creating all types of creatures and characters that can appeal to, and be marketed to, a wide range of people regardless of gender, age, or any other factors.
At the very same time however, there are a few things that I do dislike about Pokémon. Probably the biggest reason why I dislike Pokémon — besides personal preference — is because of the anime. I don’t like the repedativeness of the show and even as a kid I didn’t like it. You can argue that Pokémon is a show that is directed at childeren, and I understand that. I am not trying to compare Pokémon to Death Note because that is illogical. However, Digimon was also an anime that was directed at childern, but I still enjoy it as one of my favorites to this day. Nothing new happens in the show which makes it extremely predictable. After a while, you don’t even have to watch the show to know what will happen next.
Digimon:
Digimon was my first anime that I watched as a kid. I still have fond memories of watching the Disney English dub on Jetex “late” at night with my cousins. As a kid the show completely captivated me and I still enjoy the series with not just nostalgia, but enjoyment as well. Despite the show being directed at a younger audience there are still a healthy amount of mature themes that could be enjoyed by all age groups. The creators were, and still are, not afraid to kill off beloved characters — still mourning Wizardmon here — nor are they afraid to tackle more mature topics.
*SPOILER WARNING*
For example, in Digimon Tamers Jeri’s partner Leomon was killed right in front of her, and because of the nature of the relationships the digidestined have with their digimon partners, this event was severally traumatic for Jeri. Furthermore, Jeri already had issues with loss with her mom having died when Jeri was a still a young girl. As a result, Jeri ended up falling into deep despair which lead to her being taken over by the D-Reaper — a lifeform that was originally a computer program meant to eradicate all digimon — and becoming a host for it. To say the very least, Tamers was extremely dark — I still question why it’s called a “kid’s show”.
*END SPOILER WARNING*
Anyway, my point is that the plot and character developement of the Digimon anime(s) was well done and is up to par with some other adventure animes — at least in my opinion.
However, as much as I absolutely adore the anime, I do have one major problem with the Digimon franchise. The way the franchise was marketed to be specific. Digimon was a show that was solely marketed towards boys. Looking at the digimon themselves it is quite understandable why this was done, but that doesn’t make it right that Digimon was marketed as being exclusively for boys. As the times have gone on, Digimon has slowly been becoming something more for all kids and the diversity of what the digimon look like has broadened, but at this point, it might not matter. The idea that Digimon is specifically for boys, the “one category” theme for the appearence of the digital monsters, and the fact that not many people know about Digimon has already been laid as a foundation for the franchise. The marketing of the franchise and the amount of diversity in the appearence of the digimon could have been done better if you ask me.
At the end of the day fairies and cheshires, it really doesn’t matter. Like what you want to like and dislike what you want to dislike. So long as you are not hurting anyone for what they like or dislike then it really doesn’t matter. After all, the rest of the world is just going to call us geeks anyway.
Anime, debate, digimon, dislike, like, pokemon, preference, versus Leave a comment
Yaoi. Also known as: Boys Love(BL), Shounen-Ai, gay porn, and useless crap. Then again, I think you can describe all anime with that last one.
Okay, well, there goes the few followers I had.
However, in all seriousness, I do have to admit that I am a yaoi fan fairy — or fujoshi — myself. Call me a pervert, sinner, or an untrue anime fan if you must, but I honestly do not think that liking yaoi should be a thing that you are ashamed to admit. Yaoi is just another genre in anime; just like how shoujo is a genre. Furthermore, to like a certain genre shouldn’t make you any less of a fan of the media art form as any other fan. As much as we — refering to the anime community as a whole — tries to shun out the yaoi, yuri, and eiichi fans in our community, they still exist, and we will always exist.
While the anime community is slowly growing and becoming more excepted in western culture, we are still a minority in everyday life. What do I mean by this? I mean that even though our presence on the internet is large, respected, and noticable, we are still vastly outnumbered by the “jocks”, “populars”, and “cheerleaders” encountered in our day to day lives. Heck, just the other day some random stranger called out “NERDS” as they drove past me and my friends while we were walking to our local anime convention. At least we think that’s what they said; all we heard was “RRDS”. Man, if you are going to insult us, at least do it right! However, I digress. My point is that while our community as a whole has been becoming more excepted, we are still a minority, and with so many spiteful people out there that decide to attack our little safe haven, we shouldn’t be making our safe haven a hateful place by holding prejudice against those who like a certain genre.
To make things easier I have split this blog post up into two parts; one discussing the fans of yaoi, and the second discussing my opinion on the genre itself. This is all done based on my own opinion — obviously — and I in no way represent the yaoi community or anime community as a whole. I also don’t mean for this blog post to pursuade you to watch or read yaoi if you don’t want to. If anything, I hope that this post helps to ease out the tensions in the anime community towards yaoi and its community.
Part 1) The Fans
Before I go any further I would like to make it clear that I am not saying that we yaoi fan fairies are perfectly innocent; we are to blame as well. A lot of hate towards the anime community does stem from the bad attitudes that a small minority of us have. However, that can also be said about that same minority of general anime fans who start wars with other fandoms as well. What I mean is, there will always be a small minority of “bad” fans in any fandom or community no matter the genre or medium. However, those fans are exactly that, a minority. Not every single yaoi fan is a rabid fangirl that fetishizes gay men, and not every anime fan uses random Japanese in everyday speech and hates anyone who doesn’t like anime. Just because the more annoying people in the fandom are more vocal and prominent doesn’t mean that everyone in the fandom is like that.
However, like I said we yaoi fan fairies are not completely innocent. I do admit to shipping certain things that really don’t make sense — Norway x Denmark anyone? Additionally, I am not denying the existence of the several badly written yaoi fanfictions that exist nor the totally irrational internet wars we have either started are participated in. Furthermore, it would be a blatant lie to say that yaoi has not turned me into a pervert and made me really kinky. However, I would say that the previous version of myself was about a thousand times worse, but that is a story for another time. Moreover, there are nonsensical straight ships too — Lucy x any male character in Fairy Taill for example. There are also many badly written anime fanfictions in general and the anime fandom is kind of known for internet wars. So really, we are really no different from normal anime fans.
While the things you like are a minor part of your personality, for the most part, they really don’t effect your personality traits much. I have met so many sweet, kind, and shy yaoi fans through interaction with the community. We are all individuals and that means that we are all different. At the end of the day, we are all severally different people who all just so happen to enjoy gay romance.
Part 2) The Genre
It’s not for children. Let’s just make this clear, most — if not all — yaoi is basically just gay porn with plot and I don’t think anyone is going to argue that point with you. At the same time however, there are many heartfelt and sweet scenes in yaoi. The way I think about it is that shounen-ais — pure gay romance with no sex — are like shoujos — romances for young girls — while yaois are like joseis — romances for older teens and young women. It can be argued that yaois are more closely related to eiichis, but I feel that that only accounts for certain works. An example of a said work I feel is more like an eiichi is Koisuru Boukun — pictured above — because this manga has way more sex than some other works and also has noncon — nonconsensual sex.
Speaking of noncon, why don’t we discuss the morality of some yaois!
The morality seen in the yaoi genre is one of the most highly debated topics in the anime community. I will not deny that many yaoi works contain rape, molestation, pedophilia, and incest. However, this only accounts for a fraction of the works in the yaoi genre. There are several beautiful romances in the yaoi genre that I simply adore with no immoral actions at all. Furthermore, there is a lot of sweet romantic fluff in yaoi. Despite popular belief, not all yaois only have sex scene after sex scene after sex scene. One work that I think is a perfect example of this, and is one of my favorite works, is Hana to Usagi — pictured below.
This romance story is filled to the brim with cute and funny scenes that just made my heart swell. I simply adore all of the characters and the main couple is nothing less than adorable. No noncon, no incest, no molestation, no pedophilia, just straight up sweet romance between two guys who love each other.
However, there is also the issue of pushing a gay romance into the mold of a heterosexual romance. I being a cisgendered female with no romance experience at all am not the best person to dicuss real life romance with. As a result, I don’t think I can say whether the romance in any yaois are accurate or not. Yet, I, nor any other [non] self-respecting yaoi fan, really and truly believe that any real gay romance is like the ones we read. I know that makes us sound like hypocrites and perverts who fetishize gay romance, but hear me out. Do you honestly go in reading a shoujo manga thinking that real life romance is like that? I don’t know about you, but I don’t, and neither does my friend who is the self proclaimed, “Queen of Shoujo”. Romance is meant to fantasy. I get that misrepresentation is something totally different than that, and that saying this may sound like I am calling real gay romance “fantasy”, but if we are talking about how realistic a story that is meant to be complete fiction is, then I really don’t think that’s fair. I do however believe that we do need to normalize homosexual relationships more across the board, but that is not what yaoi is about. I actually hope that one day we can have an action anime with a homosexual relationship and no one will even bat an eye, but that’s not what yaoi is nor what it was meant to be.
Maybe yaois are about fetishizing gay men. I honestly have no idea, but know that even if you think that and even if that’s what yaoi is meant to be, us fans of it do not see it like that; at least not the majority of us do. To us, yaois and shounen-ais are just cute relationships between two guys that love each other.
If you’re really asking for my opinion, I belive that at the end of the day, yaoi is just a genre and us yaoi fan fairies are just plain ol’ anime fan fairies.
Anime, boy's love, fan, fandom, Flower and Bunny, Hana to Usgai, how I feel, Koisuru Boukun, Love Stage, Manga, my opinion, opinion, romance, Sekaiichi Hatsukoi, shounen-ai, talk, yaoi Leave a comment
Anime is a medium of story telling that holds a wide range of content. Ranging from cute romances filled with fluff, to absolutely horrifying tales of death and despair, there is really something for everyone. Being an advid fan of anime and manga for many years, I would like to say that I have seen my fair share of animes and mangas. In that sea of madness, I have found a couple of gems that I would like to share.
Here I will presenting to you my top three favorite animes/mangas.
I have had the pleasure to have these wonderful stories enter into my life and touch my life in an unimaginable way. As I have stated in my blog post “Mainstream Animes: Why I Don’t Watch Them”, I put a lot of weight on what I personally can take away from an anime or manga after I experience it. To me, the true mark of an amazing story is how the viewer feels after they experience the story and overall, if they learn something from the story. All of the amazing stories I will be sharing with you are memorable stories that I believe, truly changed my life for the better.
However, be warned, spoilers lie ahead, so proceed with the upmost caution. That being said, I hope you enjoy this list!
3) Nanatsu no Taizai/The Seven Deadly Sins
This is an anime/manga that I have already addressed in my previous blog post, “Mainstream Animes: Why I Don’t Watch Them”, and there I stated that this is the only Shounen anime/manga that I have watched and enjoyed. Why exactly? Well the simple answer is because of how well each and every character is crafted.
I do admit that the anime was rather… subpar in the way that it was ended with so many loose ends — thankfully a second season is being released soon. However, the manga is honestly one of the best things I have ever read. Here, I will focus on the manga.
Nakaba-sensei does an amazing job of revealing the backstories and motives behind all of his characters. Every character — even the seemingly insignificant ones — holds a heart wrenching backstory. You can tell that everything has been put into all of the characters. I find myself ridiculously attached to all the characters, and this includes the antagonists. There are no “throw-away” characters that just are there to be there, and all of them have their own distinct personality. The personalities of each character are consistent and defined while still being layered and deep.
2) Puella Magi Madoka Magica
This anime. I could honestly go on about it forever. If you have been in the anime community for at least a decent amount of time, you have probably heard of this anime. Puella Magi Madoka Magica is the most well known dark magical girl anime and is the one that all other dark magical girl animes are — sadly — compared to. This anime is also one that has a rather bad reputation for being “overrated”. I do agree that this anime is not perfect, but what anime is? However, I have a more… personal reason for liking this anime so much.
Madoka Magica was the anime that I believe saved my life, if I am being totally honest. At the time that I watched Madoka Magica I was going through a very hard time in my life to say the least. However, as I watched this anime and saw all the tragedy and pain these girls went through, I began to think. I thought about the messages and underlying themes behind this anime and even to this day, I still turn to those lessons when in hard times. There are several things that I learned from this anime, but I think the most important one is about moving forward.
You probably thought I was going to say hope, right? After all, the message of hope is the most prominent one that this anime tells, and even in my takeaway, hope is a big part of my main one. However, for me, I was going through a time of intense self-pity and self-loathing. I honestly despised myself and my life, and I was always dwelling on the past. As I saw Homura, one of the main characters, continuously try to go back and change the past, only to make it worse, I saw a lot of myself. Homura almost fell into despair because of her constant efforts to change the past, and that was honestly the big slap to the face that I needed at the time. It took forever, but it finally clicked in my mind that if I choose to dwell on the past and try to change it instead of moving forwards, I will always remain in a state of self-pity and self-loathing until I eventually fall into despair. After that, I feel like I have become a more optimistic and generally happy person, and this anime was what caused that change.
See, anime is not useless!
1) Akatsuki no Yona/Yona of the Dawn
This is the anime that I hold almost anything and everything to as a standard. The manga is the holy grail in my eyes and Mizuho-sensei is a goddess. Everything from art style, the romance, the characters, the plot, the action scenes, just everything is incredible. It is, of course, with it’s faults, but this manga, is just the best thing I have ever seen. I can honestly go on and write an entire article about all the characters in this anime, but I’ll try to make this brief. I’ll only discuss two characters; these two being the two major reasons for my complete and adoration of this manga.
Let’s just start off with Yona, the heroine. Yona is my favorite female character of all time; no exceptions. The way that she has developed so much from a selfish and bratty princess and into a strong, kind, and brave warrior is astonishing. Her character developement is the best that I have ever seen, and the pacing of her developement is well done. It doesn’t happen over night; it takes time for her to move forward after the death of her father and to become strong, and it takes even more time for her to get over her feelings for her long time childhood crush that completely betrayed her. Yona is amazing and a very independent and capable young woman that I look up to a lot.
Furthermore, I am completely head over heels for the main antagonist of this story, Soo-won. Yes, I said antagonist. In this artfully written story the main antagonist is Yona’s childhood friend, cousin, and previous crush who kills her father in order to take the throne and as revenge for him supposedly killing his father. However, there is much more to Soo-won than what meets the eye. Soo-won is probably the most dynamic and layered character I have ever seen. He benevolent, logical, a person who puts his people first, thoughtful, shy, cheerful, nice, brave, and above all else, a person that is both capable and willing to put his own emotions aside for the greater good.
What is especially interesting to me about this manga is that the protagonist and the antagonist have the same goal; to better the Kingdom of Kouka. However, while Yona leads with her heart, Soo-won leads with his mind, and the constant push and pull between these two dynamic characters is absolutely beautiful and completely enthralling.
Anime and manga have a lot to share with us and as the loyal fans we are, these many stories will forever touch our lives in unimaginable ways. I honestly encourage you to think about all of these lovely stories and to allow them to touch your lives as well, because stories are the most important thing we have in this world.
akatsuki no yona, analysis, Anime, characters, favorites, list, madoka magica, magical girl, Manga, messages, nanatsu no taizai, puella magi madoka magica, reverse harem, shoujo, shounen, the seven deadly sins, yona of the dawn 11 Comments
Yes, the “mainstream animes”. These are animes like Attack on Titan, Sailor Moon, Pokemon, and One Piece. The things that non-anime fans first think of when they hear the word “anime”.
There is nothing wrong with these animes, just I don’t like them nor watch them. Nothing really more to it than that they really aren’t to my personal taste. I guess what I’m saying is that if you like the more “mainstream” titles of anime then that’s completely fine and I am in no way saying that there is something wrong with that; all I am going to address here are my personal reasons for not liking the more “mainstream” titles.
Usually, I wouldn’t post content that addresses something that I don’t like since I don’t really like stirring up more negativity than there already is, but in case you don’t follow my Twitter — which you should do since that’s where I post updates — I am traveling right now. What does this have to do with anything? Well recently I went into I guess an “Asian Gift Shop” where they sold various good from the general Far East; one of the things they sold were “mainstream” anime merchandise. As I looked around at the items I couldn’t help thinking to myself “ugh, I wish I was more into the mainstream animes so it would be easier for me to find merchandise”. Then I began thinking, why don’t I like “mainstream” anime? As a result, I have come up with these two main reasons.
Keep in mind that this is all based on my own personal opinion and my own likes and dislikes. This blog post is in no way hating on “mainstream” animes, but just explaining my reasoning for why I personally do not enjoy them.
1) They are LONG
You are probably thinking “oh but Beijing, what’s wrong with an anime being long?” Well there isn’t anything innately wrong with an anime being long; after all, a longer series means more content, right? One of my very few problems with long animes is that they are almost impossible to catch up on if you start them when the series is already pretty far in. Me being a student, I just don’t have the time to get through fifty-plus episodes of anime.
Furthermore, I find that most animes when they run on the longer side, they easily become repetitive and boring; at least to me. The usual formula is, meet new people, gain new power or go to new place, conflict arises, fight — or have confrontation with — people, fight — or have confrontation with– more people, win, rinse, wash, and repeat. I get that the situation is different every time and that it’s all steps to reach the main goal, but after the third or fourth time, it gets really boring.
2) Most of Them are Shounen Titles
I’m probably going to get killed for this, but, I don’t like — most — Shounen or Shoujo titles. I’m sorry but I find most of these quite boring. I like animes that make you think of deeper meaning and pull out curve balls, and I don’t mean “rabbit-out-of-a-hat” tricks like defeating the enemy with “nakama” power. I of course like cute fluff but I personally prefer reading a Yuri or Yaoi manga if that’s what I’m looking for. Sorry, but that is just my preference.
The only Shounen anime that I really enjoyed was Nanatsu no Taizai, or The Seven Deadly Sins. This anime was wonderfully done, and the manga is even better. Why is it that this is the one Shounen anime that I enjoyed? Nanatsu no Taizai does a wonderful job of blurring the lines of “good” and “evil”. It makes you think about who really is right and who is wrong. This idea is one that I entertain frequently and to see it presented in the way Nakaba sensei has is interesting, thought-provoking, and extremely engaging. I highly recommend the manga and if you are not able to read it, watch the anime.
Where am I going with this you ask? Most Shounen titles focus more on the team work and friendship aspect or simply showing death. There is nothing wrong with these themes, but for me personally, they do not capture my attention as much as theories on morality.
If you enjoy “mainstream” animes then that’s perfectly fine, and in fact, that’s great actually; you get to have an easy time finding merchandise. I envy you honestly.
Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/BeijingAru (Pssstt, follow here for updates!)
Anime, attack on titan, mainstream, Manga, merchandise, nanatsu no taizai, one piece, personal, reasons, sailor moon, why 2 Comments
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Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee 20 November 2018
Decision on Taking Business in Private, Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1.
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Decision on Taking Business in Private Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
The Convener (Gillian Martin)
Good morning and welcome to the 34th meeting in 2018 of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee. I remind everyone to switch off their mobile phones, as they might affect the broadcasting system.
Agenda item 1 is a decision on taking business in private. Are members content to take agenda item 3 in private?
Members indicated agreement.
Under agenda item 2, the committee will take evidence on the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill. This is the sixth of the committee’s evidence sessions with stakeholders.
I am delighted to welcome our first panel this morning. Teresa Anderson is policy and communications officer on climate and resilience with Action Aid International; Jim Densham is senior land use policy officer with the RSPB Scotland, and is representing Scottish Environment LINK; Gina Hanrahan is head of policy at WWF Scotland; Professor Tahseen Jafry is the director of the centre for climate justice; Alan Munro is a member of Young Friends of the Earth Scotland; Siri Pantzar is policy operational volunteer with the 2050 climate group; and Caroline Rance is climate campaigner with Friends of the Earth Scotland.
There will be a lot of questions that all of you may think that you have something to say about. In order to manage our time, I have asked members to direct their questions to individuals. Do not think that you have to answer every question; we will run out of time if you do that. We are going to be efficient and targeted.
I will open up the questioning with a question about the bill, the Paris agreement and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent report. Perhaps all of you can answer this question briefly. Is the bill adequate in terms of compliance with the Paris agreement and the recent IPCC report?
Caroline Rance (Friends of the Earth Scotland)
The Paris agreement commits all nations to holding the increase in local temperature rise to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursuing efforts to limit that to 1.5°C. The IPCC report, which came out just a few weeks ago, made the pathway that we need to be on to meet those targets very clear, and it talked about the need for urgent and rapid transformational change.
On the targets in the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill, as introduced, we have particular concern about the pathway to 2030, which has not significantly changed from the pathway that was set out in the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009. Obviously, the targets in the 2009 act were set more than nine years ago and, at that time, we assumed that a global deal would be made in Copenhagen that would limit the temperature rise. That failed to happen, of course. When we set those targets, we had not yet breached a 1°C temperature rise. It is quite inconceivable to think that a pathway that we set in those circumstances more than nine years ago remains consistent with the significant increase in ambition under the Paris agreement.
The First Minister has spoken very clearly about the need for Scotland to play our full part in delivering the Paris agreement but, unfortunately, with the targets that have been brought forward, the bill will not deliver it.
Teresa Anderson (Action Aid International)
The IPCC gave us a lot of new, very clear information that we really need to take to heart. If we take seriously the mission to limit the increase in warming to 1.5°C and to avert runaway climate change, we really need to listen to the science from the IPCC, which has told us that we will pretty much use up the carbon budget for 1.5°C within 12 years unless we take absolutely radical transformation action right now. There is no avoiding that—the science is very clear.
I recognise that the bill was drafted before the IPCC report came out, but if you are serious in asking the question of yourselves, for the sake of Scotland and the world you need to understand what that will mean and acknowledge that the bill is not strong enough in a number of ways. We are talking about a 12-year timeline and having a net zero target by 2050, but 2050 is almost irrelevant if we use up the budget within 12 years. We need a much steeper curve of emissions reduction in the near term rather than focusing on the long-term target.
It is not enough just to set targets; we need to achieve the targets. Are the pathways clear enough in the bill, or will setting targets force everything else to happen? We have heard views on that question over the past few weeks. We do not want to set targets that we will fail to reach, because we want to be a world leader on the issue. If we fail, the message will be that the targets are unachievable. What are your views on that?
Teresa Anderson
We are treating something that is so important as an existential crisis. It is better to set high targets that force us to achieve more than to set achievable targets that could lead to planetary breakdown. Failure to meet a political goal is less of a disaster than failure to meet climate targets.
Stewart Stevenson (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP)
I want to pick up on the word “science”, which I think that both Caroline Rance and Teresa Anderson used. The IPCC report is a review of the science. Who should choose the numbers in the targets? Should it be politicians or scientists?
Caroline Rance
It is pretty clear that our targets should be based on what climate science and climate justice demand as being Scotland’s fair and equitable contribution to our legal international obligations under the Paris agreement and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. How we implement those targets is a political decision, which should be based on what is right for Scotland.
Stewart Stevenson
I understand perfectly the definition of climate science. However, climate justice, which I know about from looking at the work of the Mary Robinson Foundation, is not a science-based observation but a moral observation—which I support, by the way. Is that a correct interpretation?
Climate justice is about ensuring that we acknowledge our historical responsibilities, which is an important point to take into account whenever we look at the targets. The Paris agreement does not set out only the temperature goals. Article 2.1 sets out those goals, and article 2.2 says:
“This Agreement will be implemented to reflect equity”.
Climate justice is an important consideration that is embedded in the heart of the Paris agreement, so it is fundamental that we consider climate justice when we apportion the global carbon budget in order to come up with our targets.
Siri Pantzar (2050 Climate Group)
On the one hand, we are looking at international equity and justice, and, on the other, we are looking at intergenerational equity and justice. As we have discussed, if we run out of our carbon budget after 12 years—or a bit longer, if we manage to expand our ambition—it will be much more difficult for those of us who will be dealing with the issue in 2030 or 2040 if we have no budget to balance. It will be much more just and productive to make the change at this point, when we have a bit of wriggle room and a bit of space for a managed transition, rather than in 2030 or 2040. We might not have that budget then, so our options would be different.
Gina Hanrahan (WWF Scotland)
I go back, if I may, to the convener’s first question, which was whether the bill is adequate in terms of delivering on the Paris agreement.
One of the fundamental questions that needs to be answered about the bill is what temperature target it is aiming for. There has not yet been enough clarity about that from the Scottish Government. The IPCC report lays bare the stark difference in effects between 1.5°C and 2°C. If we go for 2°C, 60 million more people would be exposed to severe drought and 1.3 billion more people would be exposed to extreme heat waves. It would mean an ice-free Arctic ocean once every 10 years as opposed to once every 100 years. It would also mean that we would lose virtually all our coral reefs, whereas with a 1.5°C target, we have a chance of saving up to 30 per cent. Losing coral reefs is obviously a fundamental problem in itself, but the reefs are also an ecosystem on which 1 billion people depend. From our perspective, the bill needs to aim for the 1.5°C target.
It is clear from the IPCC report that the globe as a whole needs to aim for net zero carbon roughly in the 2050 range. As we have been told, that is the target that the bill is aiming for: 90 per cent equals carbon neutrality. However, that would place Scotland only at the global average effort by 2050, which would not do enough to tackle the equity dimension. It would also not do enough to acknowledge Scotland’s huge economic potential from our vast renewable resources and vast carbon storage potential. If we cannot do this, I do not see which other country can do it. We would like the bill to set iconic long-term targets to eliminate our contribution to climate change entirely by 2050, and stronger early action.
We could spend quite a bit of time exploring the feasibility question, if the committee is interested in that. The bill has set a 90 per cent target because the United Kingdom Committee on Climate Change, when it produced its advice in 2017, said that that was at the limits of feasibility. That was based on 2015 advice developed for the fifth carbon budget at the UK level. There is a really exciting global conversation happening now about net zero and 1.5°C, stimulated by the Paris agreement, which means that a plethora of new research is being produced that tackles the feasibility question.
Yesterday, for instance, new evidence came through from the Energy Transitions Commission, which is led by Adair Turner, the former chair of the CCC, and involves lots of oil and gas majors. It shows that we can make huge progress towards net zero in the industrial, hard-to-treat sectors. Pathways have been developed at the European level by the European Climate Foundation. There has been new evidence on the potential for negative emissions from the Royal Academy of Engineering and a number of other sources, including some Scottish academics.
My colleagues will address the feasibility question later, so we will have ample opportunity to discuss that. Professor Jafry wanted to say something in response to the first question.
Professor Tahseen Jafry (Centre for Climate Justice)
I echo what my colleagues have said, and what the IPCC report says. The headline that everyone talks about is that every extra bit of warming matters. In that context, there are challenges in going from 1.5°C to 2°C, not just for our ecosystems but for society, in terms of human health and wellbeing, and the achievement of the UN’s sustainable development goals. In particular, there is the difference that it will make to the risk of droughts, food shortages, floods and heat-related deaths. It is important to bear in mind the implications of 2°C for people living in the global south, the Arctic regions and the most challenging and vulnerable parts of the world.
I want to pick up on the point about climate science, and whether climate justice is a science. We very much advocate consideration of the impact that small temperature hikes will have on society as a whole. We need to build an evidence base around that—the difference that such hikes will make to people’s livelihoods and the implications for society’s ability to build resilience and live sustainably. It is important that we build on the evidence, get that right and drill right down into the human aspects. We need to consider the implications of not reducing our carbon emissions and not reaching our targets. I feel that there is still a bit of a gap there—it is a bit of an unknown.
You are talking about how not reducing our carbon emissions would impact on individuals.
Professor Jafry
Jim Densham (Scottish Environment LINK)
I want to talk about the impacts on wildlife. We cannot afford to look at some of the pathways and think that we can have an overshoot—that is, we go beyond 1.5°C and then come back to it through sequestration and the removal of carbon from the atmosphere. Wildlife is already being seriously affected. We are not talking about a future threat; this is a threat that is happening right now and is affecting many species, even in Scotland. We used to say that 2°C was safe warming, but we have a great deal more science now, as well as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, and we can see that we need to stick to 1.5°C and not go beyond it. If we come back from beyond 1.5°C, it might be fine for humans, but it will have serious impacts for a lot of wildlife.
The United Kingdom Committee on Climate Change talked about the need for us to have emissions reductions of around 89 to 97 per cent by 2050 in order for us to return to 1.5°C. We need to ensure that we do not go beyond 1.5°C. Many of us in the wildlife non-governmental organisations want to ensure that we have net zero emissions by 2050 in order to avoid that catastrophic prospect for many species.
Of course, the implications for people are catastrophic as well. The IPCC report says that 20 to 40 per cent of people now live in a 1.5°C location—we are not talking about a world where everywhere is warming by more than 1.5°C; we are talking about hot spots and cold spots. We are quite fortunate here in that we have only 1°C of warming, although the North Sea is warming by 2°C. There are differences all over the place, and we need to ensure that the world is safe for wildlife and people.
Mark Ruskell (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Green)
The difference between 1.5°C and 2°C is interesting. This committee has not really covered what implicit target is in the bill with regard to global temperature and Scotland’s contribution to that. The IPCC took a global view of the impacts. Has there been any analysis of what that means for Scotland?
Jim Densham
I do not think that there has been any analysis of what the difference between 1.5°C and 2°C means for Scotland.
Mark Ruskell
Do we have any species that would be threatened by such warming? Might we see an increasing refugee crisis in Europe?
There are many species that are already experiencing the impacts of climate change—we set some of that out in the evidence that we provided. I mentioned that the North Sea is warming by 2°C. That has affected the marine food chain quite a lot. The sand eel story is quite well known. In the North Sea, the food chain starts with the phytoplankton, which the zooplankton—the copepods and the other small plankton—feed on. However, those cold-water plankton are vulnerable to temperature changes and we have found that they have moved north and have been replaced by warmer-water plankton that are not as nutritious, which means that the sand eels that feed on them cannot thrive and their numbers reduce, which has an impact on our sea birds. Sand eels are a key species for kittiwakes and puffins, and we have already seen a 60 per cent reduction in Scotland’s kittiwakes, even without massive amounts of climate change—in areas such as Orkney and Shetland, there has been an 80 per cent reduction. The warming of the sea is affecting us right now, and we are likely to see whole colonies being wiped out.
We will move to questions from Finlay Carson. Everyone will have ample opportunity to make points that they have not had a chance to make so far.
Finlay Carson (Galloway and West Dumfries) (Con)
The bill will amend only those parts of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 that relate to emissions reduction targets and associated reporting duties. The consultation focused on the strategic ambition and not delivery mechanisms. Is it realistic that we should consider increased target setting without also considering what will be required to meet the targets?
Target setting is important, but I also recognise the importance of thinking about our infrastructure and what is needed to enable us to achieve those targets.
We have just finished for the Scottish Government the Arctic mapping report, which looks at moving away from oil and gas exploration towards decommissioning and the benefits of renewable energy. The Scottish Government has an opportunity to step into that zone and demonstrate global leadership, but there are also huge opportunities for the economy in terms of jobs if people get behind the development of the infrastructure for renewable energy technology. In any case, whether it happens through the jobs market, technology and innovation or the partnerships and links that are built with other organisations, we need to ensure that this is at the heart and core of what we stand for. It is critical that we bring all of these things together.
Siri Pantzar
Whether the investment in innovation and infrastructure comes from business or the public sector, it will still follow the setting of ambitious targets and predictable policy. The direction of movement needs to be clearly set out not only for the public sector but for small to medium-sized enterprises, other businesses and, indeed, the people of Scotland—for example, young people trying to decide what they want to study and looking at the direction in which society is going. It is important to focus on how we achieve targets, but having the targets in the first place will open up the solution-making process to all of Scottish society, where there is a lot of creativity and innovation capacity both within and outwith the public sector.
Gina Hanrahan
The bill presents a huge opportunity to align targets with the sectoral policy effort that is needed to deliver them. I suppose that the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 set a precedent in the way that it covered many sectoral policy areas, and Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, which several of us around the table are members of, has been calling for a number of sectoral policies to be enshrined in the new legislation. For example, it is asking for action to be taken in our building sector through the setting of an energy performance certificate standard of C by 2025 or 2030, which perhaps the committee can explore with the Existing Homes Alliance Scotland in the next evidence session; for fossil-fuel vehicles to be phased out by 2030; and for a nitrogen budget to be set for the agriculture sector. Those are our policy areas, but we would argue that they all fall within the scope of the bill, because they are about setting emissions targets for those specific sectors.
Another interesting question is how the bill deals with investment and the budget. We would like it to tidy up some of the provisions around the budget, particularly with regard to section 94 reporting, to ensure that we report on the change in emissions instead of the emissions in any given year. We also want the bill to ensure that there is a low-carbon element to the infrastructure commission, because we need to get our capital investment right for the future. Finally, we want the new budgetary process to be aligned with the monitoring process for the climate change plan. The bill presents opportunities that the committee should consider.
I would also remind members of the lesson to be drawn from the development of renewables, which have far outperformed what was projected for them in terms of scale, pricing, feasibility and so on. If people had planned things on the basis of what they thought that renewables were going to do, they would have very much underestimated their potential. That is a really strong lesson for us, because we need to remember that political feasibility changes once you change the politics. You cannot define everything on the basis of what is considered to be politically feasible at a particular time. If ever there was going to be a time for a bill to take a leap of faith, this would be the time.
Staying with that theme of learning lessons from the past, I think that we should remember what happened with the 2009 act. The target of a 42 per cent reduction in emissions by 2020 was set not because we knew exactly how it would be met but because it was the right one based on climate science and Scotland’s contribution to tackling climate change. In fact, the first report on proposals and policies, which was published in 2011, did not set out the entire pathway to meeting that target. Now we are well on course to exceeding it.
Rhoda Grant (Highlands and Islands) (Lab)
We have heard why we, as a developed country, have to take on a larger share of responsibility, and we all agree that there has to be transformational change. The committee heard evidence at earlier sessions on how that impacts on different people. For example, people in rural areas people might not have access to public transport and might live in old draughty houses that are hard to insulate. The reasonably well off will be able to afford electric cars, photovoltaics to charge them and good insulation.
When using a carrot-and-stick approach to change behaviour, how do we make sure that we are not penalising people who do not have the wherewithal to do anything about it?
We need to develop a policy that has ensuring social justice and equality at its heart. With a changing climate, it is inevitable that the poorest will suffer the most. Those who are already able to adapt to the environment will channel their way out of the situation. With behavioural and societal change, expectations can be unmanageable. We need to be realistic about how to achieve behavioural change in society and make sure that there are structures and resources in place to support those who are in the most vulnerable situations. They also need to be part of the conversation.
On temperature change, the opening up of the Arctic oceans will have significant implications for people in Scotland, particularly those who live in rural and remote communities in the Highlands and Islands. That presents opportunities, challenges and risks. We need to bear in mind that those are the areas where much of the impact will be as a result of the geopolitical governance of the opening up of the Arctic seas.
An interesting element in the 2009 act is the provision for the CCC to give advice on targets. It is required to balance a number of different factors, including the top-down science and the economics. There are backstops in the existing legislation to ensure that, for example, rural and island communities and connectivity are considered, and that we do not leave anyone behind in the transition. Balancing all those important factors is to the forefront of minds when the CCC advises on targets.
The CCC does not have the same criteria to consider when thinking about policy effort. That might be something to look at for the bill. Is there a role for the CCC in giving stronger policy advice to the Scottish Government that considers those factors in more depth?
I want to go back to Caroline Rance’s point about the 2009 act, which I took through Parliament.
If I recall correctly, the United Kingdom Committee on Climate Change recommended a 34 per cent target and said that 42 per cent was at the limits of practicality. That was the phrase then used, which is exactly the same phrase as is being used about 90 per cent. Is my recollection wrong?
I was not around at the time of the 2009 act, but I believe that it was the case that the 42 per cent target was put forward on the assumption that higher targets would come through from other countries, including from the European Union. That did not happen.
In any case, whether 42 per cent was thought to be the limit of feasibility at the time, we have clearly shown in the nine years since that target was set that setting strong targets has driven the technological and social change that has led to the cutting of emissions by almost half.
We will move on to some questions from Angus MacDonald.
Angus MacDonald (Falkirk East) (SNP)
I have two quick questions. We know that the Scottish Government consulted on the bill over the summer of 2017, and we know what the main themes of the consultation were. Are the results of the consultation adequately reflected in the bill? Many of the respondents to the consultation stated that the bill should set a net zero target. Should a net zero target and other matters, such as the delivery of the target and the establishment of a just transition commission, have been consulted on?
Analysis that we did of the responses to the consultation showed that 99 per cent of the people who responded—someone else will correct me if that is not right—wanted a net zero target to be set. You cannot get a much stronger response than that—unless, of course, you get 100 per cent. Why does the bill not include a target of achieving net zero emissions by 2050? It is clear that it should do.
I agree with Jim Densham. A net zero target was called for in the consultation, and it is clear that the Scottish public are keen to drive that forward. Such a target would be a powerful image that would make it clear to the public that we are talking about transformational change. A target of a 90 per cent reduction leaves a little bit of space, which allows everybody to think that they do not have to change by quite as much. A net zero target would serve as a clear image for the public and would let all sectors know that they needed to look at what work they were doing. There is a public drive for having a net zero target.
I want to pick up on the reference to a just transition commission. As someone who works in the university sector, I have not seen much on what that commission would be about and what it would involve. I have asked for advice on some of the things that it could consider. I think that there is a huge overlap between the targets to do with achieving a just transition and the targets to do with achieving a climate-just world. The overlap between the two is a grey area. Much remains unknown about that shady area. There are some challenging and difficult questions to do with the possibility of people losing their jobs and being redeployed, and there are sectoral implications for infrastructure and so on. I would welcome a conversation that would unpack those issues in much more detail.
I have a point to make about the just transition commission proposal, which ties in with Rhoda Grant’s question about how we make sure that the transition to a low-carbon economy is fair to everyone in Scotland. At the heart of the issue is the idea that, as we make that inevitable transition, we must ensure that it does not damage workers and communities that are currently dependent on high-carbon industries.
Friends of the Earth Scotland is a member of the just transition partnership, and we strongly believe that a just transition commission should be established in legislation and that it should be there for the long term. We will need the commission to advise us for as long as it takes us to make the transition, because the challenges will change over time. It is a case of ensuring that the right people—the people who are impacted—are at the table and have a say in how we make that transition, and that they help us to go in the right direction and to choose the right policies.
Angus MacDonald
That was helpful.
I have a follow-up question. I am interested in your views on the role of oil and gas in the Scottish Government’s plans and the target. Do you think that oil and gas have a future in 2050? Oil & Gas UK has told us that oil and gas will be meeting 67 per cent of our energy demands in 2050. Is that implicit in the Scottish Government’s targets?
The 2009 act as it is currently designed is primarily about production emissions rather than consumption emissions. We count oil and gas sector emissions, particularly as they apply to refining, and what gets burnt in transport and other sectors. A lot of evidence has emerged over recent years that shows that we can completely decarbonise the energy sectors in particular. We have already made enormous progress on electricity in that respect, the transition is accelerating in transport at an enormous pace, and there is clarity that we can now push on with electrification, particularly in the heat sector.
By 2050, the demand for oil and gas products will be significantly reduced. I do not have a figure for what that will look like, but obviously it is something to test. However, there will clearly need to be a recognition that the sector must have a managed decline. The just transition commission will play an extremely important role in that context.
How important is carbon capture and storage in the mix? Everything that I read seems to say that it is an essential part of the solution, but we had the situation in which UK Government funding for CCS projects was taken away.
I remember when the UK Government decided that, instead of investing in emission reductions, it would invest its climate change budget in CCS. That was about nine years ago, but we have had very little to show for it. Hundreds of millions or billions of pounds have been invested in CCS, but there is nothing to show for it. It breaks my heart to think of all the emissions reductions and climate action that could have happened in that time instead of the pathway that was chosen. The UK Government has made the right choice now to dial back a bit from that CCS investment, but we still keep hearing about this imaginary, magical future technology, which everybody else doubts will be able to deliver anything like on the scale that some parties promise.
Maybe the problem is that the funding was taken away from CCS at a crucial point. Stewart Stevenson will know very well that a project in his constituency was very close to winning a bid at that time.
It is not only the technology that has limits; it is the scale. Even if the technical barriers are overcome, the scale of storage potential is still very limited. A lot of proponents believe that bio-energy with carbon capture and storage—BECCS—would be able to increase the potential, but that has massive socioeconomic costs because it would lead to conflict over land use.
In the conversation that took place around the Peterhead project, the focus was very much on a power sector model for CCS. The power sector has massively evolved in recent years and we now know that we do not particularly need CCS to decarbonise the power sector. However, there might be a role for CCS in the future in the hard-to-treat sectors, particularly the industrial sector. The debate is rightly focused there at this stage.
There are big questions about the role of bio-energy plus CCS in the future. We need to be absolutely clear that we are not going to use a conversation about the development of BECCS to delay doing what we know how to do now. That is the plea that I would make to the committee.
The IPPC’s 1.5° report that was recently released talks about BECCS and CCS being uncertain and entailing “clear risks”. The technologies have not been developed enough, which is perhaps a failure of investment and understanding. We are concerned about talk of BECCS models on a massive global scale, because they would have clear land-use change impacts and knock-on biodiversity impacts.
It is the same for Scotland. If we are going to use a lot of our land for bio-energy crops, then burn them, capture that carbon and put it underground, we have to think about the impacts of that on wildlife, society and livelihoods. If we do not want to have a bad impact on our wildlife and our rural communities, we need to do all the things that we can do now rather than rely on a future technology.
I want to ask Teresa Anderson where she got the statement that we had limited carbon storage capacity. My understanding is that we have hundreds of years’ worth of storage in the North Sea for all the carbonic acid that we could possibly produce from everything in Scotland. It might be that what I am hearing is a more global statement. I just want to be clear about what was meant.
You are quite right. I am looking at the global picture.
Perhaps we could hear a view from each panel member, if that would be all right, convener. I want to come back to the question of there being a net zero carbon target or a net zero greenhouse gas emissions target. When should it be set? Should it be in the bill? Do we have clarity about the pathways to get there, and does that matter? When should a net zero greenhouse gas emissions target be set for?
First, we should clarify what we mean by net zero emissions. We have heard people referring to net zero carbon, to net zero carbon dioxide and to net zero greenhouse gas emissions. It is important to clarify that the bill sets out clearly what is meant by “net zero” in the Scottish context: it is a 100 per cent emissions reduction for all greenhouse gases. There has been a bit of unhelpful confusion through use of the term “carbon”.
Friends of the Earth Scotland has taken a very heavy equity steer on the targets that we are considering for the bill. We have used the fairshares methodology that was drawn up by the Stockholm Environment Institute. That methodology’s premise is that we can burn a finite amount of greenhouse gases to stay well below 2°C or 1.5°C. That is the carbon budget. To apportion the carbon budget, fairshares looks at two things: our historical responsibility or our cumulative contribution to climate change over the years, and at the capability of different countries in terms of finance and technology. The methodology comes up with a net zero emissions target for Scotland in the range of years from 2036 to 2041. Friends of the Earth Scotland supports a target date of 2040.
We also believe that the most important target in the bill is the 2030 target. Using fairshares, that will mean a reduction of at least 77 per cent by 2030.
The 2050 Climate Group is a membership organisation: we have not set a specific target figure in our consultation of our members. We consulted more than 75 young people when we were looking into our consultation response, and we had support for the net zero emissions by 2050 and net zero emissions by 2040 targets.
The crucial point for us is that the target needs to be in the bill so that the signal that there must be transformational change comes out from it loud and clear. Also, similar to the way in which the Paris agreement works, it is important that the bill contains clear mechanisms for raising ambition, and that we bring the target forward as we see more pathways becoming clear.
Alan Munro (Young Friends of the Earth Scotland)
I represent a membership organisation that has not had specific conversations about the actual date at which we would like to reach net zero emissions, but we would, obviously, support a target that is based on Scotland achieving its fair share of global emissions reductions as soon as possible. We support Friends of the Earth Scotland’s analysis using fairshares, which calls for net zero emissions by 2040.
As young people, we see the 2030 target as being the most important for us. As things stand, the 2030 target is no more ambitious than what is in the current legislation, which we see as the Government failing to acknowledge the crisis that we are in. That is, effectively, passing on the burden for the more radical transformative action to young people: we will have to address it in the future if you do not address it now.
We are disappointed to see that a linear gradualist approach to emissions reduction targets has been taken—instead of setting a target to immediately reduce a higher percentage of emissions—with the net zero target being addressed later.
My rationale is based on objectivity more than anything else. Realism comes into play, but there is a huge opportunity for the Scottish Government to be very ambitious and to set a net zero target for 2040. We have the knowledge, the skills, the technology and the know-how to allow us to get there and to set a realistic target based on what can be achieved and delivered, underpinned by a robust plan. That plan needs to have community engagement at its core, and to have issues related to the economy, governance and society framing it. We need to be very ambitious and bold, but we must also be realistic and have a very clear step plan on how to achieve the target.
WWF Scotland supports the target of net zero emissions by 2050 at the latest. We think that legislating for the target will have an important effect on communities, citizens and businesses, and that it signals that we need to innovate and to change cultural and economic practices.
I will be honest; our position is already a compromise, because we need to balance the scientific argument, which is clear that we need to hit net zero as soon as possible, against what we knew at the time about the feasibility evidence, which showed that there was no clear pathway before 2050. As I said, a lot of new evidence has since been made available, but I emphasise to the committee that WWF supports the target of net zero emissions by 2050 at the latest.
We have since produced, with Vivid Economics, work at UK level that will be published tomorrow, that looks at the earliest possible date for a net zero target. It takes a primarily technology-focused view and shows that the UK as a whole can hit net zero by 2045 under some scenarios. There is a clear possibility that Scotland can go further, so we will also commission Scotland-specific analysis.
As others would, Scottish Environment LINK would like to see net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, at the latest. It is interesting that in its programme for government the Scottish Government talks about net zero CO2 by that date, so there is a question about non-CO2 emissions, which seems to be the aspect with which the Government does not know how to deal. Those emissions mainly come from farming and land use, so what is the pathway for them?
On pathways, RSPB Scotland has this week published a report called “Balancing Act: How farming can support a net-zero emission target in Scotland”, which asks how we will address non-CO2 emissions from farming and land use. As the title says, it is a balancing act: it is about reducing emissions through efficiency savings as far as possible—which the committee heard a lot about in last week’s session about agriculture—and about boosting the massive potential that we have in Scotland for sequestration through peatland restoration, tree planting, blue carbon and many other things, including habitats. The scientific papers that are quoted in the report state that we have massive potential to do that in Scotland.
It can be hard to see the pathways ahead. The IPCC report says that we need “rapid and far-reaching” transition, that it be unprecedented in scale but not in speed. That struck me: we need to do it on a massive and unprecedented scale—across the globe and across Scotland—that is not, however, unprecedented in speed. We have done things very fast before and we can make the change quickly. If we get on with it and take steps now, as the Committee on Climate Change’s “Land use: Reducing emissions and preparing for climate change” report that came out last week says, we can do that.
Action Aid uses the Stockholm Environment Institute methodology that has been used by Friends of the Earth. I strongly encourage the committee, if it has the chance, to look at the online equity reference calculator to see what different countries’ fair shares, which take into account historic per capita emissions, would be. It is a very interesting tool: the institute has taken the global carbon budget and figured out what each country’s fair share should be.
On that basis, we agree with the analysis that 77 per cent reductions by 2030 and net zero by 2040 would be in line with the fairshares approach, and that all greenhouse gases should be looked at, including non-CO2 gases.
We should bear in mind the point about the steeper curve, which is absolutely critical. The 2030 target is the key issue. The graphs in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s special report “Emissions Scenarios” are very clear, and scenario 1 is especially clear. If you look at the scenarios, you will see that the first scenario is the socially hopeful one for which we all want to reach. That curve is much steeper, and it does not rely on future technologies that have not yet been invented to solve the problem. If we want to keep in line with the IPCC, that steeper curve is critical. The focus should really be on the 2030 target, with 2040 as the net zero emissions point.
I want to pick up on Jim Densham’s point and the submission from Scottish Environment LINK. I was interested to see in that submission a call to
“Establish a duty for a ‘sunset clause’ for peat extraction in Scotland”.
Peatland restoration has been mentioned. Will Jim Densham expand on that suggestion?
We have really good targets for peatland restoration in the climate change plan, but the plan is about protection. A sunset clause would relate to areas of land on which consent for extraction of peat has been given. Peat extraction is totally damaging because it releases lots of carbon. Obviously, peat helps people to grow plants, but there are many alternatives. There are many consents out there that companies have been sitting on for many years, of which a vast proportion have not been turned into permissions to extract; they are consents to extract at some point in the future.
We want a sunset clause with a date by which people will need to have stated that they will or will not remove peat, because we believe that many consents will never be removed, but extraction will never happen. If we were to be clear about how much peat would be removed in the future, we could think about how to recompense companies not to extract, and we would be much more certain about how much extraction there will be. If we used that as a way in which to educate people that the practice is very damaging, and that we should not use peat for our horticulture, it would reduce people’s desire to buy the product and, I hope, reduce future extraction. That is a very practical suggestion.
I am conscious of the time. Questions and answers should be kept short.
Claudia Beamish (South Scotland) (Lab)
I say for the record that I lodged a stage 2 amendment to the planning bill to that effect, and I understand that the Minister for Local Government, Housing and Planning is prepared to work on that to make it better for stage 3.
What bill was it?
Claudia Beamish
It was the Planning (Scotland) Bill. I hope that I said “planning”, because I am a bit obsessed with climate.
I want to go back to Jim Densham. Will you briefly explain to us the open letter on setting targets from farmers and Scottish Environment LINK? The group of signatories is significant and broad. The answer will lead me on to my main question, which is on the significance and importance of the interim targets, for anyone who has not yet spoken about them.
Agriculture, farming and land use have been seen as quite hard areas in which to reduce emissions. The Government set only a 9 per cent reduction envelope for agriculture in the climate change plan. We believe that that is neither sufficient to move the sector forward nor is it fair, so we drew together people who were keen that we do more, and that the Government provide leadership, to suggest measures that they want. There were 50 signatories to the letter, which called for carbon-neutral farming. We referred to “carbon-neutral farming” so that people would understand the letter, but it is really about greenhouse-gas-neutral farming.
As I said, 50 organisations and individuals, including non-governmental organisations, farming organisations, farmers, academics and other rural groups that were interested signed the letter. People were a bit mixed up on the actual target that we were aiming for, which was a net zero target, but we felt that the most important thing was that those people were keen on the measures that we were talking about. They include, as our submission sets out, better soil management, agroforestry, reducing emissions intensity, helping farmers to become more efficient and much better provision of advice.
I suggest that the committee looks at the evidence from Scottish Environment LINK to be absolutely clear what we were calling for, but there were four measures that the organisations that signed the letter were keen be delivered.
Perhaps I should ask for brief answers so that we can get through all our other questions. Can Scottish Environment LINK and other panel members tell me how the interim targets relate to what the IPCC has said on the need for urgent and rapid transformational change?
There is a lot of evidence and advice out there on the need for rapid transformational change. We want a target of a 77 per cent reduction by 2030, because if we continue on our current trajectory before we act, we will just allow the status quo to continue as we wait for someone else to act. We need to put in place today or tomorrow the things that we need to do.
Are the things that you have proposed realistic at the moment? You do not need to go into detail—a simple yes, no or maybe will suit us fine.
Absolutely. In its report “Balancing Act: How farming can support a net-zero emission target in Scotland”, RSPB Scotland makes 10 suggestions for things to be done in the long term—
I am sorry, but I was talking about the interim targets. Just for clarity, can anything be done now in that respect?
Absolutely. The report sets out 10 recommendations for improving the climate change plan, which would help us to achieve a 9 per cent reduction and then take things further, and makes 10 other very serious suggestions for taking us much further than the 9 per cent target. It sets out a much faster trajectory for how agriculture can help to achieve a 77 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030.
Does anyone else want to come in?
Perhaps I can explain how we arrived at our ask of a 77 per cent reduction by 2030. There is a needs-based case and a feasibility case for it. With regard to the former, we have based our analysis on the carbon law principle that was developed by Johan Rockström at the Stockholm Resilience Centre and which relies on our halving emissions every decade, as the science tells us we need to do.
On the feasibility case for the 77 per cent target, the fact is that we definitely can get significantly further than the 66 per cent that has already been legislated for: indeed, the Government itself has shown that 71 per cent is a point on the linear trajectory through to net zero by 2050, and in analysing scenarios for the climate change plan that have been published by the Committee on Climate Change and by the Government, and looking at ambitious but credible envelopes within them for specific sectors, we have found that we can easily reach a 73 per cent target by 2032 if we take credible and realistic action. Indeed, in a stretch scenario, we could even get up to 79 per cent—if we do not use the windfall in the land-use sector that the Scottish Government used to backtrack on an ambition in the final climate change plan.
It is important to recognise that in its recent progress report the CCC recognised the need to build in contingency now if we are to meet more stretching targets in the future. Our analysis shows that we can do that and that there are credible policies through which to do it.
My colleagues have responded better than I can to the feasibility question; I am not a technology expert. However, I can say that the setting of credible early targets will allow Scotland to continue along its leadership path and will give it first-mover advantage in building cases for business opportunities and developing the technology of the future.
In addition, I want to highlight that between 2040 and 2050 we will be dealing with adaptation as well as mitigation. The more steps we can take now, while we have the world as we know it, the less we will have to push for radical change at a time when the world will be changing drastically around us.
Alan Munro
On the 2030 targets, I re-emphasise the moral urgency that I am here to project. The ambition of the action that we take now is more important than ever because, as has been alluded to, our share of the carbon budget is being used up rapidly. Some reports say that we have up to 12 years left before our fairshares contribution to global emissions reduction has been used up. We need to deliver the emissions reduction consistently with what is demanded by climate science and climate justice. I re-emphasise that young people around the world are already experiencing the impacts of climate change—
We are running out of time, and re-emphasis of points that have already been made will eat into our time for other questions. I apologise.
In looking ahead at what can be done up until 2030, I reference the climate change plan. The committee spent a great deal of time scrutinising the climate change plan and making thorough recommendations on what could be done to improve it. However, when we saw the final plan earlier this year, we found that the policies in the draft climate change plan that would deliver 1 million tonnes of savings were not in the final climate change plan. There was a rollback in ambition in the final plan from what was in the draft plan. There is a suite of policies that the Scottish Government has already considered and costed, that the CCC has already put forward and which the committee has already scrutinised, that give us significant potential to go further in relation to the targets for 2030.
John Scott (Ayr) (Con)
What are the practical implications of the interim targets that you have proposed for 2030, for example? The Scotch Whisky Association said that, if the 2020 target were revised, meeting the new target would not be easily achievable—“not realistic” are the words that it used. In perhaps accepting that what the Scotch Whisky Association has said are fair comments, could you talk about the implications of the 2030 targets? I declare an interest as a farmer.
I go back to the original question on whether the bill matches the IPCC report. If there was one key word to take away from the IPCC report, it would be “urgency”. Interim targets are clearly necessary in order to meet the urgency question; 2050 targets would not respond sufficiently to that urgency.
You asked about the implications. As has been said, the land and agricultural sector certainly has a role to play—I say that given that you are a farmer. Agriculture accounts for a significant amount of emissions, particularly non-CO2 emissions. As has been alluded to, there are savings to be made that could enhance food security and adaptations, particularly through soil management.
Last week’s CCC report identified that there is a lot of potential if we consider the role of diets as part of land management. Many reports that have come out in the past months have confirmed that analysis. The role of diets and how we use land management in that context will be a big part of future strategies. A lot of gains can be made in the short term by considering that.
Underpinning the question on the practical implications of the target for 2030 is what will be the driving force to achieve the target and to make it practical and realistic. We need to mobilise the private sector very quickly to drive emissions reductions in order to meet the target. On the practicalities of reaching a target, conversations with the private sector are critical, and multi-stakeholder conversations need to happen very quickly in order to get buy-in.
Last week, we discussed the implications of driving change by legislation or by incentivisation. What are your preferred options, particularly on land use—an issue that I know a bit about—and in relation to the new agriculture bill that will be introduced for when we leave the common agricultural policy?
Legislation can sometimes be seen as being top down, particularly in the land use and farming sectors. People who work in that sector come from different socioeconomic strata. If we are driving change by legislation alone, my recommendation would be that we should get good buy-in to the legislation to support its roll-out.
Legislation is not necessarily something that the committee will want simply to give to the agriculture sector. Building engagement with all groups in the sector, including young people, will be crucial to make sure that there are answers to the questions from people who work with the land. Their questions might be different from the questions from people who do not work with the land. Consultation is key in all of this, and that includes building the sense of urgency.
To pick up on John Scott’s question, none of the proposals will be easily achieved. They will be difficult whether they are done now or in the future. There will be difficult choices to be made, but they will be easier to make now than at later stages. None of us thinks that the changes will be easy, but they are necessary.
As the committee heard at last week’s meeting, the voluntary approach in farming has not produced significant emissions reductions so far. We need to build on it. We certainly need to broaden “Farming for a Better Climate”. We need to give more advice to farmers, to help them to understand. We need a basic level of regulation in order to bring some farmers up to a minimum level. We have talked before about compulsory soil testing to ensure that the basic planning for fertiliser use is in place and that all farmers are doing that testing.
With any new CAP or post-Brexit system of farm payments, there will need to be conditional payments. It is not all about regulation. It is about different layers—some basic regulation, conditional and supported payments, and rewarding farmers for sequestration in future so that, if they need to change their land use and have the opportunity to do so, they can be compensated for payments foregone.
Should the ability to modify targets in both directions be included in the bill?
Could we have short answers to the question? We have a lot of questions still to ask.
We discussed that point at length with the bill team, who convened a discussion group on the technical elements of the bill over the winter.
Instinctively, it feels wrong to allow a mechanism for targets to come down in future. We always want to be driving for more ambition to do better and go further. It is part of the proposal for an inventory freeze to protect annual targets from baseline changes and in the inventories. We are content that the mechanism to bring targets down as well as up is insulated within one part of the bill and that there are significant safeguards to ensure that targets could be brought down only with advice and as the result of an inventory change. That could be done only by regulation, which would be brought before the Parliament for scrutiny.
Finlay Carson
Section 5 sets out the target-setting criteria, which include scientific knowledge, technology, energy policy and so on. The criteria have been updated since the 2009 act to include
“current international carbon reporting practice.”
Are the target-setting criteria appropriate? Stop Climate Chaos Scotland suggested that there should be a definition for “fair and safe” in
“the objective of not exceeding the fair and safe Scottish emissions budget”.
Are the criteria appropriate now?
There was a proposal in the consultation to remove the criterion relating to
“the fair and safe Scottish emissions budget”
and we are pleased to see that that objective will be kept in the bill. That is the fundamental, basic, overarching criteria that we should be considering when we set our climate targets.
We are pleased that that is in the bill, but we would like the definition to be strengthened. At present, the definition refers more to the “safe” part of the fair and safe budget; it does not really reflect the “fair” aspect. We think that the UNFCCC principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities should be included, and we would like there to be a requirement for the CCC to consider our fair and safe emissions budget when it produces its five-yearly advice and to include it in its calculations.
With regard to whether the target-setting criteria are still relevant, you are right to say that there is quite a long list of criteria. As I said, we consider the fair and safe budget one, the one that considers our obligations under science and the one that concerns the UNFCCC protocols to be the most important, and we consider the ones that come below that to be more about how we implement the policies.
A criterion that we see as notably missing is one around public health. A lot of other factors are under consideration, but a lot of the policies that tackle climate change have huge co-benefits in terms of public health, which you can see if you think about initiatives such as insulating people’s homes, ensuring that homes are free of damp and draughts, encouraging people to cycle and walk instead of using their cars, where appropriate, and reducing air pollution. Those initiatives are as much about avoiding costs to the national health service as anything else, and we need to ensure that the CCC can balance that in its criteria.
Caroline Rance talked about the first three criteria being the top ones because they are the ones that are important, scientifically speaking. I think that the criterion in section 2B(1)(j) of the 2009 act, which is
“environmental considerations and, in particular, the likely impact of the targets on biodiversity”
should also be a top criterion, because, when we are setting targets, we have to make sure that we do not impact on our wildlife and on wildlife around the globe.
To ensure that I ask my question in the right context, I want to confirm that we have a shared understanding of what the term “net zero emissions target” means. I think that sections 1 and 15 clearly say that “net zero emissions” means that there will still be emissions, not least because when we speak, we create carbon dioxide. However, earlier, there seemed to be a suggestion that we were looking to bring emissions of each of the seven gases to zero. I see that Gina Hanrahan is shaking her head. Fine—I will move to my question.
In relation to the advice that the CCC gives the Government, and which we all see, how should the word “achievable” be defined? A lot of the debate is anchored in different views of what that word means.
That is a fundamental question with regard to the bill. The bill gives achievability a status that it did not have in the previous legislation. Previously, feasibility of technology was one of the criteria that had to be balanced along with a number of other factors, including science and economics, when the CCC was giving advice. In the bill, the only reason why we would set the net zero target is if we know that it is achievable.
What does achievable mean? As Jim Skea made clear in your first evidence session on the bill, the IPCC has six layers with regard to how it considers feasibility, going from the geophysical issues, through the techno-economic issues to the socio-political issues. The really big question about whether something is achievable is whether there is enough political will to put it in place.
The feasibility conversation has moved on considerably; I have already alluded to that. However, I caution against giving it paramount status in the bill.
Are we also talking about technical issues? Ten years ago, we thought that tidal energy was one of the big things, but nothing has happened in that area. However, in other areas of electricity generation, we have greatly surpassed the previous situation. Our ability to see the future is pretty limited, so is it important that we also look at technical possibilities?
Yes. We have to explore the innovation potential for Scotland. We have enormous research expertise here that we would like to see exploited towards a low-carbon transition. A lot of analysis by the CCC to date has centred on the technological feasibility; it has done extensive economic modelling and looked at what the models tell it at any given point in time. However, feasibility is an evolutionary concept, so we cannot capture it at one moment in time for all time. We need to find ways of ensuring that the new pathways that are coming are adequately legislated for. To paraphrase the cabinet secretary, “Show me the pathway and I will legislate for it.” Now, I think—
Forgive me but, like the convener, I am watching the clock and I know that Caroline Rance wants to come in.
You said that the ability to see the future is pretty limited, but the IPCC report very accurately painted a picture of the impacts that we will face if we do not do what is required. The question should be less about what achievable means and more about whether we should use that concept in our target-setting criteria rather than legislate for what is necessary.
The IPCC scenarios looked at what was achievable, but they were not constrained by what was perceived to be politically achievable at the time, which can move very quickly once the politics change. The question of how we define “achievable” is a good one, but I would go with the IPCC model of what is necessary and showing the pathways that could be done if we set our minds to that.
I will skip the next bullet point, as most of it has been covered, and turn to another issue that has come up. Caroline Rance seemed to indicate that it might be worth considering, in some circumstances, changing targets. The bill moves towards expressing targets in percentages, but the 2009 act expressed targets in tonnes, so re-baselining blew the targets off arithmetically. Does the bill’s move to percentages remove the need to consider reducing targets, because re-baselining will no longer have the effects that it previously had?
The problem with the 2009 act was that some targets were expressed in percentage terms and some were expressed in megatonnes. Whenever we changed the baselines, the difference between the targets in megatonnes and the targets in percentages caused a problem.
However, I reiterate that I do not want to see targets coming back down; I always like to see them going up. There will be a mechanism for dealing with any big changes to the measurement science that would require a change to targets.
We support the move to percentages, but it is important that we still have a view to Scotland’s total emissions. That is where the CCC recommendations on a total, fair and safe cumulative budget continue to be important, and we need an update on that.
We have not touched on carbon credits, but I am keen to hear whether the panel agrees with the Government’s approach to retaining an option to use carbon credits; and to hear its views on the circumstances in which that power might be used—for example, to achieve a net zero target.
Just to clarify, the bill reverses the position in the 2009 act, so that the default position that we could use credits becomes the default position that we will proactively have to seek to use credits. However, we will still be able to use credits for up to 20 per cent of the planned reduction in any given year.
There is a question over what it would be realistic to expect from carbon credits by 2050, when we will be living in an increasingly carbon-constrained world. Carbon credits will not be floating around extensively, and if they are available, it will be at an enormous price. It is right that we should seek to push forward as much as possible on domestic action, because carbon credits will not be around in the long term.
There is an interesting question about how flexibility works at a global level in a net zero world. We have scope for carbon storage, afforestation and other things that other countries might not have, but that is different from the carbon credits question.
When the bill that became the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 was going through Parliament, we argued against the inclusion of carbon credits. A compromise was proposed that involved imposing a limit on the use of credits, which Friends of the Earth Scotland was reasonably content with.
Jim Densham talked extensively about the great capacity that we have in Scotland for sequestration and for enhancing our carbon sinks. It is highly unlikely that Scotland will need to use credits at all, and the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform has said that the Scottish Government does not intend to use them. We are minded to agree that we will not need to use them.
Gina Hanrahan mentioned the 20 per cent limit. I would be keen to hear the panel’s view on whether that is a suitable percentage.
We have not had a conversation about what the appropriate limit is. It is very hard to say what it should be. The principle is that we should exploit all possible domestic action first. It is critical that we do not think about credits in the short term. Credits are a conversation for the long term, at which point they will not be available, and if they are, they will be extraordinarily expensive.
We move on to questions from Richard Lyle.
Richard Lyle (Uddingston and Bellshill) (SNP)
The bill seeks to rationalise the annual report that is produced under sections 33 and 34 of the 2009 act so that it contains only information that is directly related to the outcome of the emissions reduction target for the relevant year. Is the panel content with the new approach to annual reporting? What are the advantages and disadvantages of annual sectoral reporting on the climate change plan? Are you content with what is proposed?
We are certainly content with the change to the annual reporting. I am sure that the committee will be aware that the 2009 act laid down that the statutory report on annual targets had to be produced every October. However, because the reports have been ready in June, that is when we have ended up having the statement. Having the statement in June and again in October has meant that we have been duplicating content.
The bill legislates for the target result to be available in June and for the October statement to talk more about progress on the policies, which is definitely welcome. That means that, in June, we will be able to look at the big picture of how we are doing against the targets and, in October, we will be able to look at how we are progressing against the policies that we have said we will deliver in the climate change plan—the policies on transport, agriculture and energy efficiency. The new arrangement will allow for an additional level of scrutiny in all sectors and all departments so that we can see how the efforts are faring. We definitely welcome that.
Would anyone else like to comment?
Richard Lyle
Everyone is content—that is good. It is nice to see that everyone agrees.
The committee previously recommended that there should be no limit on Parliament in considering the climate change plan. What is the panel’s view on having a 90-day limit for consideration of the climate change plan?
The issue is one that some of us touched on in the technical discussions with the Government. The problem with the most recent climate change plan is that the amount of time for consideration of the plan was far too short for us and other organisations to get comments in, and for the committee to look at it and the Parliament to give its opinion. Various options for timescales were discussed, and I think that we were content with the proposed period.
There is a balance to be struck between allowing Parliament and stakeholders significant time to adequately scrutinise the plan, and ensuring that we drive the plan forward and get to the implementation stage. We need to be cognisant of the need to ensure that the process does not drift on open-endedly.
There is also an important point about the length of time between when the committees produced their final reports and when the Government published its final plan. That was a very long period in this context—I think that it took up to nine months from the initial parliamentary scrutiny to the publication of the final climate change plan. To be fair, very little changed; in fact, in some ways we went backwards from the initial plan in that nine-month period. We need to ensure that, during that period, there is an opportunity for constructive, substantive discussions on how to improve the plan.
I want to go back to carbon credits. Gina Hanrahan may feel that she has already answered this question, but I just want some clarity. In correspondence, the Scottish Government said:
“The estimated cost of using credits to make up the gap between what is technically feasible domestically here in Scotland and a net-zero target in 2050 would be around £15 billion over the period to 2050.”
I am sure that you will know how that pathway is derived. Will you pass comment on that? Did you say essentially that no carbon would be bought or sold, so it would not be a cost?
My understanding of how that figure has been reached is that the Scottish Government took the trajectory from 2030 to 2050 and the gap between a 90 per cent target and a net zero target, and applied the current understanding of the current or future carbon credit price to that. That is an odd sum to do, if you like, because we know that we have not exhausted all domestic effort, so why would we invest £15 billion in carbon credits when we could be investing £15 billion to create a thriving low-carbon economy, with all the co-benefits that we have outlined. I think that that analysis is not particularly robust.
No. You have made a very good point. Do others share that view?
One of the reasons why I think that Gina Hanrahan is referring to the lack of availability of carbon credits in other countries is that the Paris agreement requires all countries to develop their own nationally determined contributions. Under the Kyoto protocol, countries such as Gabon would have sold their mitigation savings as a carbon credit, but those will now be part of their domestic action plans. Those could be funded by climate finance directly and not necessarily as carbon offsets, which would be excellent. Carbon credits will now be used up by countries, which is why they will not be freely available. Anything else that is available will not be the low-hanging fruit; it will be very high-cost rather than cost-efficient measures.
The answer to John Scott’s question is perhaps less to do with whether credits are available and more to do with what would be considered to be technically feasible. What we have not touched on is the fact that the CCC will come back in a few months’ time with new advice. The CCC will update its models, significantly update its advice and bring in the IPCC findings. It is pretty inconceivable that, after all that, the CCC will come back and say that nothing will change. We are pretty sure that it will come back with much stronger targets for 2030 and 2050; indeed, earlier this month, it advertised a vacancy for a net zero emissions analyst. You can take from that what you will.
Sadly, we have run out of time. I apologise to anybody who wanted to come in with a supplementary question. If there is anything that our witnesses feel that they did not get a chance to say, they can contact the committee. I thank everyone for the evidence this morning—it has been very useful.
10:59 Meeting suspended. 11:06 On resuming—
I am delighted to welcome our second panel of witnesses. Joining us are Dr Diana Casey, the senior advisor on energy and climate change at the Mineral Products Association; Professor Paul Jowitt of Heriot-Watt University; Elizabeth Leighton, a director of The Existing Homes Alliance Scotland; Fabrice Leveque, a senior policy manager at Scottish Renewables; and Will Webster, an energy policy manager at Oil and Gas UK. I welcome you all.
Those of you who were in the public gallery to watch the earlier part of the meeting will know that I asked the previous witnesses whether they thought that the bill complies with the Paris agreement and the more recent IPCC report. Would anyone like to answer that question? Do you have any views on whether it does or does not?
Elizabeth Leighton (Existing Homes Alliance Scotland)
Thank you for inviting me along. The Existing Homes Alliance Scotland is a coalition of housing and environmental industry fuel poverty bodies whose agenda is to improve our existing housing stock to achieve climate change and fuel poverty objectives.
The question was whether the bill meets the ambition of the Paris agreement. As you will guess, our focus is very much on energy efficiency and whether the bill provides the plans, direction and targets that will support achieving an ambitious overall climate change target for Scotland. We argue that it does not. We have argued for the bill to include measures that will progress action on the important topic of energy efficiency.
We believe that there is cross-party support in Parliament for more action on energy efficiency. We have put forward a strong energy-efficient Scotland programme, but it lacks statutory underpinning. We have therefore argued for a statutory framework for an energy-efficient Scotland to be included in the bill. That framework would include targets, would set up an oversight budget and would make sure that the budget was aligned with meeting those energy efficiency targets.
Fabrice Leveque (Scottish Renewables)
Thank you for inviting us along. Scottish Renewables is the industry association for renewable energy in Scotland. We represent about 250 members, which are primarily in the electricity and heat sectors and range from developers, installers and manufacturers to legal experts and professional services that provide renewable energy.
We understand the bill to be an interpretation of the Paris agreement, which increased climate change ambitions from aiming to meet a below-2°C target to aiming for a 1.5°C target. That sends a political signal to businesses and consumers about the future direction of travel, which is particularly crucial to an industry such as ours, which can provide solutions.
Ours is quite a highly regulated industry, and political risk must be managed, because it affects investment, the long-term supply chain decisions that we make and the long-term infrastructure that we build. For the signal to be effective and clear, we need to know what we are aiming for and when we need to achieve it by. Key to our understanding of the bill is knowing that there is a firm political commitment that can be translated into policy regarding when we need to reduce emissions by and the level we must reduce them to.
Professor Paul Jowitt (Heriot-Watt University)
I am probably a bit more of a generalist than most of this panel and the previous panel. My guess is that, in broad terms, the bill’s intention is to meet the Paris agreement, but I well understand why people from particular areas have particular misgivings about certain aspects of it. In a sense, then, my responses will come from a more generalist point of view.
It might be useful to tell you a bit about my background. I am an academic at Heriot-Watt University and, for 15 years, I ran the Scottish Institute of Sustainable Technology, which was originally a spin-out owned by the university and Scottish Enterprise and then a consultancy. I am a past president of the Institution of Civil Engineers, which makes John Scott one of my members, and I am on the committee for awarding the Saltire prize for marine energy, which was mentioned in connection with tidal energy being the hope of the future but something that has yet to fulfil its dream. My real interest is in systems analysis, looking at the big picture and the decision making around that, and my comments this morning will reflect that position.
My next question is for Will Webster. I realise that a lot of asks have been made of the sector that you represent. What has been the buy-in to something that, on the surface, might lead to the demise of oil and gas as we know it?
Will Webster (Oil & Gas UK)
We represent around 400 members including not just exploration and production companies but a vast range of supply-chain businesses and infrastructure owners. They are following this discussion closely and are very much engaged in enabling the whole energy transition, either by providing services to alternative energy providers or through direct investment.
What we have seen from the first phase of energy transition is that rapid progress can be achieved if the targets are aligned and in step with the technological possibilities, consumer acceptability and what is going on in politics and society. That must be a key part of the next phase of target setting. I go back to the point about just transition that was made in the previous session, because there is a more positive story to tell in that respect about the success of the oil and gas sector, how it has contributed to offshore investment and how we can take advantage of the expertise involved, the investment that has been made historically and the hundreds of thousands of workers in the sector not just in Scotland but across the UK.
I should say that I ask this question as a constituency MSP for Aberdeenshire. How are you preparing for that transition? How much are you preparing for what I would say is the inevitability of thousands of people who currently work in oil and gas having to move to other sectors as we try to tackle climate change?
Will Webster
We are looking at the issue in a couple of timeframes, the first of which is the timeframe to 2035, which was mentioned earlier. According to the forecast by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the UK will, at that point, still be using oil and gas to meet about three quarters of its energy needs.
Our projections up to that point are that production levels in the North Sea will always be below the UK’s consumption level, even given the fairly ambitious targets that are being set, so we are not competing with renewables investment and other sources of supply. We have developed a vision for the next stage of investment in the North Sea, which will run to about 2035, which adds an extra generation of production. We are not trying to maintain production at the current level of about 1.7 million barrels a day; we are trying to manage the decline in production to about 1.1 million barrels a day.
After that, there are quite a few uncertainties about where different technologies will go, as your earlier witnesses said. We see the need for a flexible approach that can take account of how technology develops, how consumer acceptability develops and how society and political discussion move. That is why we appreciate the flexibility in the bill whereby the Government will be able to take account of advice and revise targets through an iterative approach to target setting.
Should we prepare for a shift in the use of hydrocarbons, so that they are not used for heat and the electricity supply? If we are to continue taking oil out of the ground, should we be using it differently?
If we look at the carbon reductions that have been achieved so far, more or less all of which have been achieved in the electricity sector, we see that a lot of those reductions have come from increased use of gas—there has been a lot of switching from coal to gas, which has reduced emissions—and from the success of offshore renewables, in particular.
If we look forward, we see a crossroads in policy, particularly on heat and industrial processes. That is where we really need the next stage of development of CCS and a clear Government policy of developing commercial and regulatory frameworks with legislation around CCS, the use of decarbonised gas and the development of the hydrogen economy. Our members are actively investing in and carrying out research and development in all those things; they are ready to enable some of the transition, particularly into the use of decarbonised gas and hydrogen. That has to be an important part of the climate change plans that are developed on the back of the bill.
On the face of it, the signs are not good for your sector globally. New Zealand is no longer issuing permits for offshore oil and gas exploration; countries around the world are banning the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2030; Sweden’s ban on the use of fossil fuels in heating will come into force in the next two years; and the governor of the Bank of England is talking about “stranded” assets and warning markets not to invest in your sector. However, your written submission to the committee is quite bullish about the role of oil and gas in the future. What is your plan B? On the face of it, the sector looks finished.
We see a pretty good future for the sector over the next 10 to 15 years. The sector in the UK and globally really needs investment—
What will happen after 15 years?
That takes us back to the discussion about a just transition that maintains reliable services for consumers. If we look at global forecasts—for example, those of the International Energy Agency—we find that, even in the IEA’s sustainable development scenario, a gap will emerge in the supply of oil and gas globally.
Scotland and the UK have become global leaders in climate policy by setting stretching but realistic targets and hitting them without damaging the consensus on the need to make progress in climate policy. Not every country has managed to do that. It is really important that targets are set in a flexible way that allows credible policies to be developed and brings about the investment that is needed in the conventional sector as well as the alternative sector, so that the transition will be something that consumers and the economy can take—albeit that it will be difficult. That is a really important feature of the climate policy that is needed.
Do you accept that there will be an end point for oil and gas? When is that going to be?
Decarbonised gas has to be part of the long-term picture, as does even oil. Even if you take out all the passenger vehicles and light-duty vehicles, that is about 30 million tonnes of oil equivalent out of a current total demand of about 150 million tonnes for oil and gas. There are a lot of other uses for oil and gas in sectors that are difficult to decarbonise—industry, heavy goods transport, marine transport and aviation. Those things will all need to be serviced over the next decades from oil and gas.
The bill only amends reduction targets and reporting duties. The consultation is therefore focused on the strategic ambition, not on delivery mechanisms. Should increased target setting be considered without considering what will be realistically required to meet the targets?
Dr Diana Casey (Mineral Products Association)
Our main issue is to do with the delivery rather than the targets themselves. The industries that I represent are energy intensive and the key issue is competitiveness. The question is how the burden of meeting those targets is shared across different sectors of the economy. Our sectors, along with the power sector, have taken considerable action already. When you stretch the targets, you need to consider how you will meet them. The focus has to change from those sectors that have already done a lot to other sectors that are harder to decarbonise.
I am not saying that our sectors should not carry on decarbonising—we have road maps showing how we can get there. However, we have to protect our competitiveness, because the materials that we supply are vital to other sectors decarbonising, to the transition to a low-carbon economy and to climate change adaptation. Our key concern is how the burden will be shared and that is to do with delivery rather than the targets themselves.
Elizabeth Leighton
We have argued that the inclusion of energy efficiency measures and targets relating to energy efficiency would be in scope because that is part of plans to support the transition. That would build on the 2009 act, which included a significant section on energy efficiency policy. The new bill is framed around setting emissions reduction targets, so we believe that including energy efficiency measures is compatible with the principles of the bill.
That aside, in terms of the mechanics, you have already heard that targets are essential in order to drive innovation and provide certainty for business. Evidence has been provided during this stage 1 scrutiny that we risk losing all the economic benefits—the jobs benefits and the benefits to the wider economy—if we do not provide certainty so that businesses and home owners invest. Having that clear pathway set in statute will give them more confidence to go ahead and invest. We can then win those jobs benefits rather than seeing them gradually leaking to other parts of the UK or even Europe because our supply chain has not developed.
It is critical that we have the targets and that we have the statutory underpinning. The UKCCC progress report highlights the energy efficient Scotland programme as an exemplar for other sectors and it specifically mentions that there is a “statutory underpinning” to the commitments. I would argue that there is not a statutory underpinning unless something is included in the bill.
I should add that we are aware that the Government has indicated that there is potential for consideration of an energy efficient Scotland bill at some point in the future. However, failing any firm commitment to that bill or details on what it might contain, I fear that we would be failing the chance to meet the climate change targets if energy efficiency targets were not included in the bill. We need to take advantage of the opportunity at hand and avoid further delays. The timing fits quite well with the implementation of the energy efficient Scotland programme, which will go into the implementation phase from 2020.
Fabrice Leveque
When it comes to near-term delivery, if the question is whether there are areas of current climate policy in Scotland that could be improved, the answer is yes—there are areas of planning policy and heat policy that could be improved. A bill is always an opportunity to do that.
On whether the target works as a long-term signal, as I said, it is about setting the problem and allowing us to work out the solution. At the moment, the way the target is phrased is kind of saying, “We will endeavour to get to net zero—that is roughly the ambition.” Our industry can point to those words, but that is very different from a firm target with a number and a date. In terms of policy risk, for a business that is looking at the bill, if there is a line in it that says what we are roughly aiming towards, that is very different from having clear targets with dates and numbers attached. A firmer target gives feedback into greater clarity and certainty.
We have touched a little on the point about technical feasibility and whether we should set a target now given the uncertainty around driving the last few emissions out of the system. I have a point on long-term targets and near-term ones. Near-term targets such as the 2020 renewables targets have to be achievable, because we have to think that we can get to them and they have to instil confidence. Long-term targets such as the 2050 target, which is more than 30 years away, are more about saying, “Here is where we would like to be.” It is about setting a challenge and allowing us to work out solutions. To clarify, with the near term, we absolutely have to be grounded in what is feasible. In the longer term, given the scale of what we are talking about, we have to consider the time that there is to work out the solutions.
Credible ambitious targets are good in that they provide credibility to investors and allow them to modify their strategies and think about what sort of businesses they want to be in future. The same goes for households to an extent. Ambitious targets that are based on evidence of what is achievable and what can be delivered in terms of consumer acceptability have a positive essence in that they give policy makers cover for giving strong positive incentives to investors to deliver the investment that is needed. To an extent, that has been the experience of the first phase of decarbonisation. The initial set of targets allowed positive policies to be developed that brought about a significant amount of investment in technologies from the private sector. There is a lesson to be learned from that for the next phase.
Professor Jowitt
Setting long-term targets does not mean that you can leave them and not do anything about them—you have to start to deal with them now. So far, some of the big hits in carbon reduction in Scotland and the UK and in the developed world generally have been made by exporting our carbon emissions to developing countries and reimporting goods. That has been a quick win for us in some ways. However, the longer-term targets will involve a degree of behaviour change, which is much more difficult to do and needs to be started now.
In the decision-making world of politics, in setting long-term targets, you quickly get involved in discounted cash flow and discounting. Of course, the reality of discounting is that, by definition, it discounts the future—that is what it says on the tin. To deal with that, we need to start making investments now to get the long-term benefits that we need.
To be honest, large-scale complex problems are not easily dealt with by cost benefit analysis. During a talk that I once gave in Australia on climate change and international development, I asked the audience—admittedly, it was mainly engineers—given that the two most important decisions that we make in life are on our house and our partner, who among them had ever made either of those decisions using that method. One person put their hand up. I have to say that it was a man, although I did not ask whether the decision was on the wife or the house.
Clearly, large-scale problems need a more mature decision-making mechanism than some of the instruments commonly used in government and by treasuries. The world is at a critical point and we need to start making long-term decisions and take actions now, or it will be too late.
In your first answer, you suggested that you had misgivings and talked about “credible targets”. Is there a risk that, if we do not have credible targets, we will not get the investors that we so desperately need following the process?
Yes. We need to start making real decisions that will have a real impact, not wiffle-waffle ones.
To underline the point, credible targets allow policy makers to develop credible policies. The targets feed through into the climate change plans and policies. Making climate policies is not an easy task. There needs to be an appropriate framework for Governments to do it, and that comes from having targets that are in tune with what is going on and what we think will be going on in the next 20 years.
We heard some useful and interesting evidence at the beginning of our scrutiny of the bill from Swedish witnesses. They discussed how the Swedish Government working with industry put in place sector action plans, particularly for the steel and cement sectors. Where do you see the UK in terms of that sectoral approach? Have we put enough focus on transformative technologies and linking those to where the sectors see themselves in global markets and how they position their products and services?
Probably not, but we need to be careful that we do not lull everyone into the idea that technology will fix it. We need to change what we do as individuals, rather than just hope that technology is going to come in with a magic bullet and solve the issue for us. I will come back to that point later, if the committee would like.
Dr Casey
We have an action plan for the UK cement sector that the sector produced with the UK Government, on the back of the road map that was published in 2015. The action plan is not exactly what we thought it was going to be. The road map showed what reductions could be made, the barriers and the main technologies, and we hoped that the action plan would put in place what we need to get there. It does not go quite that far, but it is the start of a conversation with the Government. We have valued that.
We know the three technologies that will decarbonise the cement sector. One is CCUS—carbon capture, utilisation and storage—which is the breakthrough technology. The sector itself has done a lot of research. A lot of the projects are in Europe rather than the UK, but the MPA and the majority of our members are involved. A couple are at the point where funding is required for demonstration projects. We are not expecting everyone to do the work for us, but we need support. I think that about €90 million is needed for the two demonstration projects. At the moment, those are on hold until we have the EU emissions trading system phase 4 innovation fund. Industry has committed a considerable amount, but there is still work to be done.
Are you concerned about the possible hiatus with the ETS after Brexit and about whether we will see the same level of funds going into the innovation fund if we end up with a carbon tax for a year, or a return to an ETS but under a different guise?
Yes, definitely. I do not want to say that we are pinning our hopes on the innovation fund, but it should be a good source of support for those kinds of projects. Brexit introduces a huge amount of uncertainty.
We are worried about the carbon tax for other reasons. As a sector, we would like emissions reduction at lowest cost. The carbon tax that the chancellor announced at £16 per tonne of CO2 would render us uncompetitive. In a no-deal Brexit, the chances are that the carbon price would crash. We would then be paying far higher than our competitors in Europe. That leads on to the carbon leakage that Professor Jowitt mentioned, which is a real concern.
So we are not at the limit of technical feasibility with your sector.
The technology definitely exists, but there is work to be done to get it to commercial deployment.
The advances in cement production have been quite remarkable, but in construction we have to distinguish between capital expenditure carbon and operating expenditure carbon. Opex carbon—that is, the energy efficiency in use—will dominate the carbon budget of any construction project. A bridge can be built with very little carbon, but the traffic usage over it will be the killer and the method of cement production does not have an impact on that.
A carbon tax and carbon trading were referred to. I would be very worried if anybody pinned the future of the planet on the market and hoped that it would come to save them. It will not. If the carbon price dropped by 20 per cent on Monday, would that mean that the value of the planet had somehow fallen by 20 per cent? Of course it would not. We need to be very careful about the extent to which we rely on the market to fix the CO2 problem.
Rhoda Grant
I think that we all agree that we need transformational change to meet the targets, but sometimes such change leaves people behind. How can we have transformational change in a fair and just manner? We have heard before about the move to electric vehicles, which is fine if people can afford them, and about people ensuring that their houses are insulated and have all the latest renewables. People who can afford that do that and end up saving money, so it is a win-win for them, but people who do not have the money cannot do it, so they miss out twice. They are penalised by taxation to discourage the use of energy, for example.
I am pleased that you have asked that question, because a just transition has to be fair for users of energy as well. Ensuring that a low-carbon transition does not lead to unaffordable energy when we are trying to tackle fuel poverty is a real issue. There is a big commitment coming from the Government in that way. With energy efficiency, we have a chance to redress the balance between rural and urban and to invest in properties that have been neglected in many of the programmes that there have been to date. We have the chance to say that there will be greater investment so that those properties will be among the first places to benefit from the transition to low carbon through investment in moving from very expensive oil heat to some kind of renewable heat and very energy-efficient properties.
That is an example of where people will benefit from the low-regrets options that are now available, which should be taken forward as part of the fuel poverty programme for those who cannot afford them. They should be part of the warmer homes Scotland scheme and the investment to meet the fuel poverty targets that are set out in the energy efficient Scotland programme. That emphasises the benefits of energy efficiency, which is quite mature in Scotland. There has been a lot of investment in energy efficiency to date, and we should build on that track record and put the targets into statute through the bill.
Is there enough for the people in the middle? I am thinking about draughty old croft houses in my constituency. We all hear about the croft houses in picturesque places that are going for huge amounts of money, but many croft houses have very little value. They do not have a value that would allow people to invest and borrow against them to really make a change to their insulation. Is enough available for those people who are earning but might not be on high incomes and who might need to clad their houses totally to make them efficient? Is enough available on the spectrum of assistance to help them?
That is one reason why we have argued that the budget needs to be aligned with meeting the targets that are set out in the energy efficient Scotland programme. The work has not been done to see whether there is enough in the programme, estimating what would come from the public sector and what would be levered in from the private sector and householders. Is that a realistic balance? What financial incentives, loan schemes and so on are being used to achieve that balance? Perhaps that modelling has been done—I have not seen it published—to give us and the home owner market confidence that it will be able to achieve the vision that it should be able to achieve as part of the just transition to low-carbon, warm and affordable-to-heat homes all over Scotland.
Just transition is an important concept and an important part of successful transition. It means making the most of the expertise that we have in the traditional energy sectors, including the several hundred thousand jobs that there are in oil and gas. That expertise is a resource that we need to make the most of in the energy transition. All our offshore expertise can and is being used in the alternative sectors, and it has to be an important part of the energy transition that is put in place in Scotland and the UK.
A just transition is also one that avoids a dislocation of the energy system. That is important for consumers. We are now approaching the winter and you will remember that, last year, we had to import a lot of liquefied natural gas, particularly during the latter stages of the winter. That comes at huge cost because you are paying Japanese LNG prices of £1 a therm or £1.50 a therm whereas the usual price is around 50p a therm. You pay three times the price if you end up with a dislocation of your supplies as a result of an energy transition that is not considered and in line with what is credible and good for consumers.
I have two comments. First, we are not storing enough gas. There are two gasometers on the M8 just outside Glasgow that have not been used for years.
On loft insulation, the boiler scrappage scheme and all the other different programmes, I was a councillor for 30 years and I have seen more of those programmes in the past 10 years in my local area of North Lanarkshire. There is a tremendous number of heat-saving schemes. I am sure that you know about Myton houses, which were built in the 50s and have cement on the outside. In an area of Motherwell, which is not in my constituency, a section of Myton houses is being encapsulated in foam and then roughcast.
There is a tremendous number of programmes but, in my experience, housing associations are sometimes not tapping into them. Thank you.
No, I just wanted to make those comments.
On the point about just transition, the offshore wind sector is working with the oil and gas sector to look at the ambitions of both sectors for 2030 and beyond. For the offshore wind sector, that is about securing skills and making sure that we have the jobs and expertise to deliver the increasing ambitions of the sector now that costs have reduced significantly. It is also about working with the oil and gas sector to make sure that there are opportunities. One issue that that sector is trying to deal with is the fact that it has an aging workforce. The two sectors can work well together and we are starting to do that. Things are starting to come together already.
I have some questions on the Scottish Government consultation on the bill, which took place during the summer before last. You heard me ask the previous panel about the consultation. I am keen to hear your views on whether the results of the consultation are adequately reflected in the bill. Should there have been proper consultation on a net zero target and so on, including the delivery of the target and the establishment of a just transition commission, which we have just discussed?
Would anyone like to go first? Are there no comments?
Perhaps there are comments on the just transition commission, as I imagine that the witnesses would say that that should have been consulted on.
It could help to have a reporting body that can make a judgment on certain matters. Our view is that the processes that are set out in the bill are quite useful because they will allow an iterative discussion to take place on setting a net zero target and revising the targets, with advice from suitable parties.
Given our organisation’s focus, in our response we did not comment specifically on the overall target. However, we have started to have dialogue with the just transition commission about fuel poverty and affordable energy. The commission is therefore aware that those issues are on its agenda.
I have a supplementary question on the Scottish Government’s consultation. Are the results of the consultation adequately or properly reflected in the bill? Would you rather see the bill take a different shape?
As I said, we thought that there should be more about plans—and, I would add, policy programmes—that support the achievement of the targets. We have argued specifically for measures on energy efficiency targets to underpin the energy efficient Scotland programme. We put that in our consultation response, and I am aware that others did so too. I do not think that the bill reflects those consultation responses.
I cannot give an answer on the detailed specifics but, as I said earlier, our view is that an opportunity to set a specific date was missed. That is our key takeaway from the bill.
It is commendable that Scotland is setting ambitious targets, but our concerns are about going above and beyond what the rest of the UK and the rest of the world are doing. That takes me back to my earlier point about competitiveness. In some ways, we were hoping that we would stay aligned with the UK, but it is commendable that Scotland is setting those stretching targets.
Talking of targets, we move to questions from Claudia Beamish.
I have a quick supplementary question for Will Webster and Fabrice Leveque on the decarbonisation of heat. Will Webster highlighted the need for fossil fuel to be imported for that, if I understood him rightly. I would like both your takes on whether there is a choice and whether there could be a transition to other forms of heat. I fully respect the importance of fuel poverty as an issue, of course.
A lot is going on in that area. The gas distribution companies, including Scottish Gas Networks, Cadent and Northern Gas Networks, are running several projects to look at the feasibility of reforming natural gas—methane—into hydrogen and capturing the CO2 by applying known technologies that can, to a degree, be bought off the shelf. For example, there was an initial study on converting the whole of Leeds to hydrogen heating. A report by Northern Gas Networks into whether that could be extended to the whole north of England is coming out on Friday.
The committee might well know of similar initiatives, such as the Pale Blue Dot Energy project in the Aberdeen area, and the Cadent project, which is about converting six or seven industrial users to hydrogen in the Liverpool and Manchester areas. All those projects are at the feasibility stage, and they will be part of the gas distribution networks’ thinking on the future supply of gas. There is also a CO2 capture and storage element to such projects.
To a certain extent, all those technologies exist—there are things that are being, and can be, done. The work is around how we put the technologies together to make hydrogen a part of domestic heating and industrial use.
What is stopping us doing that?
That is a good question. It is not just a question of finance. However, financial support is important for the demonstration stages of such technologies and for developing a commercial framework that can reproduce, to an extent, the success that we have had with offshore wind, for example.
The other aspect that needs to be thought about is the legislative framework. If we want to roll out something at scale and to have people invest in it, they need to have an idea of the parameters in which we will be operating. Energy suppliers across the board are pretty highly regulated, so if a supplier is looking at a new product—a new source of energy—they will already be thinking about how they will be regulated in that world. That issue is not particularly present in the discussion.
We need to think about the commercial framework and the regulatory framework. We hope that Governments will address those matters in response to the initiatives that I have mentioned.
The Scottish Government’s energy strategy sets out two extremely different scenarios for the energy system. One scenario primarily involves electrification and using electricity, with either ground-source or air-source heat pumps being used in buildings. The other scenario involves hydrogen, which, primarily, would be produced from natural gas, with the carbon sequestered. Those are the two options. Under the electrification scenario, there would be much less fossil-fuel use, although I do not think that it would be entirely ruled out. The primary energy supply would come from electricity.
Clearly, those are two extreme examples. On which scenario is better, our view is that the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle. We have some concerns regarding hydrogen. As we have heard, there is an awful lot of additional work to be done in putting the various bits together, demonstrating the full chain and rolling it out—it is quite a big infrastructure project. Our concern is that we do not want that work to distract from building on the technologies that we have today.
For example, there is arguably still quite a lot that could be done with heat pumps to help to grow the market as we have grown the wind turbines market. We have provided confidence by saying that we will do it at volume, which has allowed supply chains to grow and get cheaper.
We have not done that with electric heat; we are only beginning that work. Things are getting much better, because the grid has decarbonised. Five years ago, a heat pump produced roughly the same emissions as those from a gas boiler. Today, thanks to the rapid decarbonisation of the electricity grid, a heat pump produces something like 25 to 30 per cent of the emissions from a gas boiler. Therefore, such pumps have become a true source of low-carbon heat. We still need to do more to help the sector by rolling out the technology and working out some of the issues.
The same goes for district heat networks, which is another technology that we could roll out in the near term. The networks are large pipes in the ground through which we pipe to buildings the heat that is generated in power stations. They could take large-scale heat pumps, perhaps by drawing on energy from rivers or the air. Again, that is a technology that is tried and trusted, and we do not want the focus on longer-term infrastructure, such as that for hydrogen, to detract from the nearer-term technologies that we can use.
Decarbonisation of heat is also relevant to industry. Biomass has not been mentioned yet, and the cement sector has done quite a lot of fuel switching to biomass. The Government provides incentives for the biomass to go elsewhere—to smaller domestic users through the renewable heat incentive or to larger power generators through the renewables obligation, for example—but one of the things that is stopping us converting is that we unfortunately fall right down the middle and do not get any incentives. The concern is that, instead of increasing the use of biomass and reducing emissions overall, we are just diverting it.
I have another point to make about hydrogen and the barriers to its use. As other members of the panel have said, more work is needed. Whatever fuel is used in the cement sector can have an impact on the quality of the product—that is one potential barrier. There are also safety risks with the use of hydrogen that require careful assessment.
Diana Casey has highlighted competitiveness and the challenges that that brings, which we are all aware of. There is also the question of innovation and the fact that we do not know what will happen in the 2030s and 2040s.
The bill proposes a 90 per cent target, but should it set a net zero target for all greenhouse gas emissions? What are the options? I am looking for some short comments on that.
The bill sets a target of a 90 per cent reduction. Building on what Fabrice Leveque said, we need to think about and develop all the technologies if we are to succeed in achieving that objective. It will be a case of horses for courses. We need to remember that we start from a position in which 80 per cent of homes in the UK—the proportion in Scotland is probably similar—have a gas boiler. To an extent, we must work with what we have got. We will need to have CCS to achieve an 80 or 90 per cent target. All the international papers on the subject show that CCS is a necessary part of the mix if we are to achieve that level of greenhouse gas reductions.
As far as a net zero target is concerned, we understand the process that is set out in the bill, which we think is quite a sensible one, in that it involves a set of criteria, a process for getting advice from an independent party and a democratic decision-making process. Having such a framework seems to be a sensible approach, rather than including in the bill a date by which net zero emissions will be achieved.
As I said, we have not commented on the overall target, but we are firmly supportive of the target in the energy efficient Scotland programme of having near zero carbon building stock by 2050. In fact, we have said that that should be brought forward for the domestic stock, because we are further ahead on that than we are on the non-domestic stock. It would therefore be reasonable to expect action to be taken more quickly on the domestic stock.
We should remind ourselves that the IPCC special report emphasises the need for urgent action over the next decade. We need to innovate and to look at longer-term solutions. At the same time, we cannot delay in doing what we can do now with the tried-and-tested technologies and the very-near-term technologies. We know that cost-effective energy efficiency measures can reduce our energy demand—this is a UK figure—by 25 per cent. Over the next 20 years, that is equivalent to the annual output of six nuclear power stations.
There is a lot that can be done now, which is why there is a need to drive action through statutory targets and to put more emphasis on things such as making the jump from F-rated property to net zero carbon property. Through schemes such as the Dutch Energiesprong scheme, that can be done on a street-by-street basis, with little disruption, using off-site construction, and it can be paid for using the fuel savings. The solutions are at hand; we simply need to up the scale. The area-based schemes have been a big success, but they are not going fast enough or are not taking multiple measures—some schemes deal only with insulation, for example. The fuel poverty programme is a really good programme, but it is tackling only 4,000 homes a year. That must be multiplied many times.
Stewart Stevenson wants to ask a quick question.
My question is specifically for Elizabeth Leighton. Should we revisit the EPC definitions? Under the current definitions, my house cannot get to zero, because we have two-foot-thick walls with no place to put cavity wall insulation. You get 10 points for having such insulation, but the fact is that we are better insulated than we would be with it. However, even though we are doing better in practice, the EPC definitions prevent us from getting an A rating.
There are similar difficulties with the other ways in which the system works. For example, it does not actually measure a house’s outputs and inputs; instead, it uses surrogates to make estimates that are in some cases imperfect.
The EPC, which uses an A to G scale, is a useful metric because it is simple. People understand it and it is used for appliances, cars and so on. However, I agree that its underpinning methodology needs to be updated, and that it should keep up with new technologies and new knowledge of traditional buildings. A working group that is hosted by the Government is looking at the matter; I hope that it will address such issues. Obviously, not every house can get an A rating, but we should be striving to get as close to that as we can.
I come back to Claudia Beamish’s question about the 90 per cent and net zero targets. To Scottish Renewables the science is very clear: the ambition is to get to net zero emissions by mid-century. I point out that, 30 years ago, the European wind industry was building its first turbines to demonstrate the concept of wind energy; 30 years later, we are providing something like 25 per cent of the UK’s electricity, and we could be providing 50 to 60 per cent by 2030. We have come on in leaps and bounds in 30 years.
However, there are sectors that will be affected by the target that have not yet really felt the pull of the policy change on what they need to do. The message is that in those sectors another five or 10 years might elapse before they start to work towards the target.
Should the bill clearly define pathways for sectors?
The bill needs to contain some near-term measures, because some actions need to be strengthened with regard to what we are doing today. I do not think that the bill needs to set out a technological pathway all the way to 2050; that timescale is very long term, and the point of the target should be to allow technical challenges to be recognised and to let industry innovate and work out what it needs to do in order to deliver the target.
Is the message getting across strongly enough about the economic benefits and business incentives that are out there, and about the fact that there will be some real wins for industry if investment is made in innovation?
Clearly that message has come across strongly enough in the renewables electricity sector, given the benefits that we are reaping from years of investment. However, action takes a long time to happen in the transport and heat sectors, in which the conversation is just starting. The fact is that support for the technologies, particularly in the heat sector, has ebbed and flowed over the years, so it has been difficult to make the case that could be made for offshore wind and to say, “Give us 10GW of volume and we’ll deliver a turbine facility and investment in ports across the east coast.” The heat sector has not been able to do that, because of uncertainty about political ambition in that regard.
You are therefore right to suggest that the potential benefits have not been advertised enough, but there are large benefits to be had. We just need to have the confidence to go after them.
So, has a lack of consistency in Government policy made everyone nervous?
That is what we are looking for in the Government response to the CCS cost-reduction task force report, which emphasised the regional nature of the industrial clusters in which CCS can be made to work, and the knock-on industrial policy benefit from developing those poles of activity in co-ordination with what already exists for the oil and gas and renewables sectors. We have a chance to build on that for a new energy sector, so we are looking for the Scottish Government and UK Government to respond positively to the report.
Other countries are doing things, but—of course—there are two Governments in charge of policy.
Are you saying that it is not enough for just the Scottish Government to set targets and to take a consistent approach, but that the message needs to go to the UK Government, too?
That is right.
You spoke about hydrogen earlier, but not in relation to the transport sector. I appreciate that it is not necessarily a sector that you would be expert in, but is the future for transport electric or is it hydrogen?
The jury is still out; it depends on the nature of the transport. For personal and commercial vehicles, especially ones that return to base a lot—even public transport—electricity seems to be fairly promising. We start with the assumption that the electricity future for transport is already real and can only get bigger. Hydrogen is being used for trains and buses in Aberdeen, for example, and there is the potential to use it for personal passenger vehicles.
We start from the idea that we will not necessarily get to a point at which one will dominate the other: what will happen will depend on the circumstances and what consumers choose. Consumers do not always choose the best technology—they choose what they find to be most convenient or what looks nicest. That is not quite the right way of putting it, but there is a sense that we cannot, as though we were an all-powerful entity, say that everyone will chose this or that.
There are several technologies around. People can go on several types of journey—that applies to transporting goods, as well. It depends on the circumstances. Hydrogen has most potential for large-scale, long-distance transport, including heavy goods vehicles and shipping, which currently use a lot of gas and will continue to do so for a number of years.
Would we be able to produce enough hydrogen? I saw last week that Shell was all over Twitter, promoting hydrogen for cars. In the last 50, 60 or 100 years we have changed and used many different types of energy. Is not that the case?
That is absolutely true. When cities were still using town gas, it was made from 50 or 60 per cent hydrogen. Use of hydrogen is therefore possible: the technology is out there. Governments should look closely at it and think about what needs to be done in respect of the commercial and regulatory framework.
I will ask about the interim targets, in particular the 2030 target. The IPCC has refocused us on the importance of taking action in the next decade. Do you think that the 2030 target is sufficiently challenging?
Can you clarify whether you mean the target that we have today or the one that is proposed by the bill?
I mean the target that is proposed in the bill.
I cannot comment on whether the target is sufficiently challenging in terms of the climate science, but I think that it is achievable. For the 2030 target it is a question of costs, rather than technical feasibility: we could hit other targets, but the questions are: at what cost, and how would the costs be distributed? In the energy system—electricity and heat—we have the technologies to do it, but we need political backing and a programme that will bring costs down properly.
I will come back to heat. I had heard that we are still installing oil-fired boilers as part of fuel poverty schemes in Scotland, which seems to be odd. Are our policies sufficiently joined up? That seems to be extremely low-hanging fruit in terms of making progress. Are there other areas, particularly around heat, in which we could be accelerating progress in the near term? You talked about the long-term picture and whether we will electrify heat or use alternatives to natural gas, but what actions could we take in the next few years that might get us back on track for a higher 2030 target?
In respect of the near term, the point that Mark Ruskell made about oil-fired boilers is important. The fact that that is happening demonstrates that there is not quite a proper read-across from the climate targets through all the different parts of Scottish Government policy. Arguably, if we are paying to replace heating systems, we should be fitting something that is future proof—a heat pump or a biomass boiler, for example.
The problem that Mark Ruskell highlights is also the case in the new-build sector. The Scottish Government has powers to set standards for new buildings, but the majority of new buildings currently have fossil-fuel heating systems, some of which are oil systems. The review is currently on-going, which gives us an ideal opportunity to ensure that we are installing low-carbon heating systems in new buildings.
New build is the cheapest place to do that, and it allows the supply chain to do more, which is what we really need to ensure is happening if we want to keep costs down. We have a fragmented and relatively small heat supply chain. With a larger market—which would be created by ensuring that all new buildings have low-carbon heating systems—the supply chain companies could reduce their overheads, improve co-installers’ confidence and knowledge, and expand the distribution and supply chains so that they can serve all of Scotland with the relevant skills. Right now, some areas have to pay a premium because installers have to travel from quite far away.
Do we have a skills shortage in relation to installation of future-proofed systems?
That is not the case at all. With regard to people who supply low-carbon heat systems in domestic buildings, the supply chain has shrunk over the past three or four years in Scotland as the market has dipped. That has happened partly because incentives have been cut, which has created a public perception that it is not really worth doing any more. Further, the oil price in rural areas has dropped, and the high oil price was one of the things that drove a lot of people in rural areas to consider alternative heating systems. There is probably quite a bit of slack in the supply chain.
Of course, if we were really ambitious and go more quickly, we would have to make sure that we had the right skills and training in place. We can do that in Scotland. It is not beyond us to ensure that we have a planned approach and that people have the skills that they need.
I agree that there needs to be a bit more joining up, because we are still connecting people to the gas grid—we are extending the gas grid. Most people would assume that there will just be a switch over to hydrogen at some point, so they do not have to worry about anything. However, if that is a solution—there are many questions about whether it is—it is a distant prospect, so we must do all that we can now with regard to low-hanging and middle-hanging fruit in energy-efficiency schemes and low-carbon heat. We have to join the two approaches together. Area-based schemes can no longer be just about solid-wall insulation; they also have to involve ways of addressing the heat issue.
I think that we should be a bit careful about talking about things that are either long-term or distant. As Fabrice Leveque said, over the past 30 years, the wind sector has gone from a low base to where we are now, with 12MW turbines being built. Ever such a lot can be done in a 20 or 30-year period. Hydrogen technology exists and is out there; it is not so experimental. To an extent, progress in that area is about overcoming the chicken-and-egg issues that exist with any big change from one system to another system.
The issue about fuel poverty schemes comes down to the circumstances of the individual case. Not all homes are suitable for heat pumps, for example, and some are not connected to the system. It is not an area in which we have a lot of expertise. The specificity of individual cases must be taken into account.
We have talked a lot about decarbonising heat itself. Our concern is about Scottish Government policies on the fabric of buildings. We have evidence that heavyweight building materials can save a lot of carbon. On the reporting side, we feel that a lot of carbon savings can be made from looking at cement and concrete over their whole life. Concrete absorbs CO2 and stores it during its life, but that is not measured or reported on. If we are looking for a net zero emissions target, we need to be sure that we include all possible carbon sinks. We are coming up with a methodology to measure that so that it can be included in reporting.
Heavyweight materials also provide thermal mass, which keeps the temperature of buildings stable, so their occupants are less likely to turn up the thermostat. Whatever people’s heating choices—oil, electric or whatever—they use less of it, which goes back to the energy efficiency points that have been made.
We are concerned about the near-term targets. If we strongly promote use of timber in construction, we will lose out on the benefits that I have just described. In the long term, the operational carbon of a building could end up being worse.
You have brought us nicely to my question. What scenarios might require changes to the interim targets that have just been described? Might other scenarios require changes to the interim targets before 2030, for example? What are the practical implications of getting to those interim targets?
The witnesses do not seem to have any answers to those questions, which is absolutely fine.
Should the ability to modify the targets in both directions be included in the bill? We are asking all the panels that question.
Common sense would say yes.
That is all the answer that we are looking for.
If the bill sets out a good governance process for that, it will be quite valuable in policy making.
Section 5 sets out the target-setting criteria, including scientific knowledge, technology, energy policy and so on. Are the target-setting criteria fit for purpose and appropriate? Should they align more closely with the climate change plan’s sectoral approach?
Our response sets out five criteria that need to be included. They cover whether we have the cost-effective technology to meet the targets; economic circumstances and the competitiveness thing that I have been going on about; policy; fuel availability and whether there is enough biomass to go around the decarbonised sectors that need biomass; and interaction with industrial strategy and clean growth. Those are the five criteria that we would like to be included in the bill.
I think that our consultation response said that the criteria should make sure that we take into account the social benefits. We have talked a lot about economic benefits and impacts, but widespread social, health and wellbeing benefits are associated with the transition to low carbon. They are well documented in the case of energy efficiency and housing. That criterion should be taken into account in target setting.
I generally think that the targets make a lot of sense and go back to some of the points that we made earlier about a just transition and so on. I will not repeat those points.
It is good to have a holistic set of criteria that policy makers can use to make a sensible judgment about all the various aspects and implications of adopting a target.
I am not familiar with the target-setting criteria, but I guess that there is a fairly strict definition of technical credibility and the ability to show a pathway. I go back to my previous point that, for our members and our industry, the long-term target, which is 30-plus years away, is a political signal that tells us where we need to be. We do not expect the Government to draw a line and tell us exactly what the solutions will be—that is mostly for our industries to do. It is possible that the technical criteria and eligibility have been set very strictly and that that is why we have come to the current proposal, which is a process to set a date in the future but not now.
Let me develop that theme. I know that the aviation sector is driven by the criteria and regulations that are set for it. It seems to have the ability to develop more and more clever and fuel-efficient engines. Are you saying the same of your sectors? Mr Webster rather hinted that the hydrogen sector needs regulations and criteria to be put in place to allow people to develop the innovation that is definitely out there. Is that correct?
Yes. That is not necessarily part of the technical criteria for choosing an emissions target, but we need a suitably ambitious target that is achievable and that is backed up with the appropriate legislation to allow innovative technologies to come in. That can be about the commercial investment framework or the legislative framework for issues such as dealing with customers. All those things need to be in place to give investors reasonable certainty about the nature of the investment, particularly if it is something relatively new.
Would it be helpful if that was in the bill?
It does not necessarily have to be an integral part of the bill. The process that is set out in the bill, of going from the targets to the climate change plan and into the policies, is a sensible way of proceeding. In fact, it makes more sense to have those things sequential than to put everything in one great big bill that tries to cover everything at the same time.
The bill talks about advice from the Committee on Climate Change, particularly in relation to the net zero target being “achievable”. What does “achievable” mean to each of you, or to those who wish to comment?
I would say that “achievable” is about decarbonisation without deindustrialisation.
Just to check, are you saying that it is not linked to some magic insight about technology that will be available but is simply about a guiding set of principles that will get us to the destination?
Obviously, the technology has to be part of it. My comment is about the need to keep our foundation industries in Scotland. We know what technologies we need to get us there, so let us support our industries to get commercial deployment of those technologies, so that we get decarbonisation without having to import materials that we currently produce in this country.
“Achievable” means that, theoretically, there is a way to reduce emissions to the level that we have set. My understanding is that the ways in which we do that for the very last few bits of emissions are still relatively speculative and will require a fair amount of innovation. However, that is within the bounds of possibility and is, therefore, achievable.
The issue of costs is a different question. That will be mediated by public and political appetite for reducing emissions. There is no worry that the costs will not be mulled over and factored into our decision making; rather, the danger is that they will weigh down on what we do. In terms of an ambition for emissions, “achievable” should mean what is plausibly doable and what we know we have to do; we can let politicians and the public fight over the speed at which we do it.
If we look back at the history of climate policy, we see that the reason for uncertainty and, for example, the reason why we have not developed manufacturing of wind turbines in the UK is the back and forth of policy. We need clarity over decades to make such investments. There is no danger of business, commercial or competitiveness worries coming into this debate. For the purpose of the bill and the long-term target, the debate must be about what the science is telling us to do and where we are aiming to get to.
Given that the scientific evidence of climate change is overwhelming to most people with a rational mind, the need to set a target should be blindingly obvious. If we do not do it, it will be too late. The question, then, is: how do we get there? Some people will not like it or the impact that it might have on our “quality of life”—I put that phrase in inverted commas—or, in the phrase used in the bill, “sustainable economic growth”. Given that perpetual growth defies the second law of thermodynamics, we are going to have to re-look at that. I think that it might be “sustainable economic development” that is needed rather than “economic growth”.
As we move towards the target that we have to set, the question is whether you approach it as a technological optimist or a technological sceptic. I have highlighted the risk of assuming that technology will sort things out. The fact is that, if you start as a technological optimist, there is no guarantee that such an approach will work. However, if you start as a technological sceptic, there is no guarantee that that will work, either. You therefore have to think about what the outcomes will be if you adopt the technological optimism path. If it turns out that the game’s a bogey, you are rather up the creek; if you take a slightly more cautious approach, saying, “Technology won’t necessarily fix this—it’s going to need a change in behaviour,” and it turns out that technology can help you, you will be better off.
There is a wonderful paper, written by a chap in the United States called Costanza—I will happily give the reference to the committee after the meeting—in which he explores this issue and sets out four scenarios. On the one hand, with the technological optimist approach, you get what he calls the “Star Trek” outcome if it works and the “Mad Max” outcome if it does not. On the other hand, with the technological sceptic approach, you end up with either big government or ecotopia. He gets people to consider the decisions that they might make and the regrets that they might have. It really is quite staggering. Committee members might like to look at that paper. I am happy to provide a copy if that would be useful.
We will take a copy of it.
I have always had doubts about the second law of thermodynamics and the whole business of entropy, given that we originated in the singularity, in which neither time nor energy existed. Energy can be created from nothing, but let us not go there.
Well, we will collapse into nothing if we do not do something about this.
Indeed, but let us really not go there.
The remaining question that is worth asking is whether the interim targets are good enough to motivate industries and get us to the kind of destination that, in a broad sense, we all see that we need to reach—particularly in the next 15 years, given that there are certain things that we need to deliver over the next 15 years that we probably need to have started already.
Can we have very short answers to that question, please? We are running out of time, and a couple of members still wish to ask questions.
The interim targets will increase ambition. Speaking self-interestedly, I think that our industry will deliver most towards meeting them; it is therefore in our interests for this to happen, and it will help to drive investment. After all, if we are struggling to meet a particular target, it might help if we move it, because some of the things that we are not doing at the moment but that I have mentioned, such as new builds, district heating networks and rural heating, are absolute givens in a higher-target scenario. It would therefore help to pull through more activity.
I am keen to hear whether you agree with the Government’s approach in retaining an option to use carbon credits. How might they be used in, say, achieving the net zero target?
Does anyone have any thoughts on that?
I had difficulty in understanding that part of the bill, as it is rather obscure. I am really worried when we imagine that the future of the planet can be left to the market. That reflects the comments that I made earlier.
There is an element of that in offsetting and carbon credits. I find it slightly dishonest that we would be prepared to buy something from somebody else that would allow us to carry on behaving badly. It would be like donating money to a charity for fallen women while still using the brothel. It is not a road that I would prefer to go down. If we think that carbon is important, we should reduce our use of it; we should not try to pretend that we are helping the world by buying a few credits from some other poor country to help it to improve its lot. We should do that anyway. Our moral obligation is to help countries that are less fortunate than ourselves to get into a much better position. We should not be doing that on the pretext that we are helping while we continue to pollute the planet.
The final question will come from Richard Lyle.
Is the panel content with the new approach to annual reporting?
Do you mean the percentage bit?
The way in which annual reporting is done is going to change. The policy memorandum says:
“the Bill rationalises the annual report produced under sections 33 and 34 of the 2009 Act so that it contains only information directly related to the outcome of the emissions reduction target for the relevant year.”
The bill will change the way in which the outcomes are reported. Are you content with that?
I am probably ambivalent about that.
I take it that you are on the fence.
Perhaps your second question will be more relevant.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of annual sectoral reporting on the climate change plan?
Let us imagine that the oil and gas sector had to report as a sector.
We have a lot of obligations to report the cost of using carbon in our processes. We already have a number of reporting obligations—I could give you a list, but I will not.
The key thing that we have to come to terms with is the implication of a base for the emissions trading scheme. That piece of legislation, if it is used in the UK, will significantly increase the cost of emitting CO2 from our production processes and most of the other sectors that are covered. We have already seen the emissions certificate price go from around €5 per tonne up to €25 at one point, and it is now at about €20. That will be a significant cost for the sector, and there will be quite a bit of activity in dealing with it.
As well as the reporting requirements, these are the things that will drive different behaviours rather than the oversight of different pieces of legislation.
Energy-intensive industries are already reporting into many different schemes. It is a massive burden; please do not burden us with any more reporting.
Perhaps I should report that my son works in the oil and gas industry in Aberdeen, just to keep myself correct.
Taking sectoral reporting more for the climate change plan and how that has been broken down, it would be advantageous to have sectoral reporting so that we could understand progress against the targets. I presume that that would be supported by reports from the UKCCC.
Such reporting would also show how progress aligns with the budget. We need adequate resources if we are going to make the targets credible. There also needs to be a plan for corrective action if the policies fall behind what they set out to achieve. That has been a failing of previous climate change plans, even though the detail is useful.
I will comment briefly on the “achievable” targets. I hope that the committee looks at what comes from the UKCCC. You have asked for advice on the issue, and I presume that it will give you some advice on the interim and final targets. If it says that the targets are achievable, that will give some comfort that the Parliament is providing good leadership in Scotland and the UK, and to other parts of the world, in responding to the IPCC’s report with targets that will address the challenge that has been set for us.
That is a good note to end on. Thank you for all your evidence this morning.
At its next meeting, on 27 November, the committee will continue its consideration of the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill by hearing evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform.
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Equalities and Human Rights Committee 22 June 2017
Bullying and Harassment of Children and Young People in Schools.
Bullying and Harassment of Children and Young People in Schools
The Convener (Christina McKelvie)
Good morning, and welcome to the 17th meeting in 2017 of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee. I make the usual request for mobile phones to be switched off or set to airplane mode. We have received no apologies. Linda Fabiani will join us in the course of the meeting.
Our first agenda item is our final oral evidence session in our inquiry into the bullying and harassment of children and young people in schools. The purpose of the session is to hear from the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, John Swinney.
We have heard much evidence over the past months on the topic, and we are really keen to hear from the cabinet secretary, whom I welcome to the meeting. I also welcome Fiona Page, the head of the support and wellbeing unit in the Scottish Government’s learning directorate, and I welcome back Maggie Fallon, who is a senior education officer with Education Scotland. We are grateful to you for giving us your time.
We have many searching questions on this sensitive topic, and we are keen to hear from you all this morning, especially you, Deputy First Minister. I believe that you have a brief opening statement.
The Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills (John Swinney)
Yes, convener. I will make a brief opening statement if I may.
I welcome the opportunity to confirm to the committee the Government’s approach to this important issue. I make it absolutely clear that the Government considers bullying of any kind to be completely unacceptable. Wherever it occurs, we have a responsibility to take action to deal with it quickly and effectively. The Government believes that there is no place in Scotland for prejudice or discrimination and that everyone deserves to be treated fairly. We must tackle prejudice and discrimination and promote equality and diversity, and that work must begin early in our school system. We have made absolutely clear the Government’s commitment to improving children’s health and wellbeing and their learning opportunities. We want all children and young people to learn the importance of tolerance, respect and good citizenship, to stamp out prejudice in our society and to build the foundations of strong, healthier relationships that are founded on inclusion and equality.
The starting point for developing that is in our schools and early learning settings, which is why anti-bullying policy should be at the heart of the whole-school approach, driven by strong leadership, to create a positive and inclusive learning environment that promotes learning and welcomes and values diversity.
It is vital that all anti-bullying approaches promote effective action wherever bullying occurs, as we must recognise the harm and damage that it causes. That is why this Government is refreshing the national approach to anti-bullying, to highlight the impact of prejudice-based bullying and to identify how all organisations, including schools and youth organisations, can respond appropriately, which is what underpins and informs all our work through the national anti-bullying service, respect me.
I am aware that as part of its inquiry into bullying the committee has taken evidence from a wide range of people and organisations, and I look forward to receiving your conclusions on that work. As you will be aware, I have held back the finalisation and publication of our review of the national approach to anti-bullying until I see the committee’s work, on which I will reflect very closely and carefully when it is published.
Evidence tells us that investing time and resources in improving relationships and behaviour in schools leads to improved health and wellbeing; better attainment, inclusion and engagement; and stronger communities and cohesion in the longer term. The committee will be aware that I recently established the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex inclusive education working group, to work with the time for inclusive education campaign to develop an improved approach to inclusion in our schools. Its first meeting took place on 9 May and I look forward to receiving the group’s recommendations in due course.
As part of the mental health strategy, the Government has committed to a review of personal and social education, which will consider the role of pastoral guidance in local authority schools and counselling services for children and young people in our schools. The review is currently developing its scope and I am keen for its work to be progressed.
I look forward to working with the committee to identify what more we can do to stop bullying and improve inclusiveness in our schools in Scotland.
Thank you. In November, we had a round-table evidence session with young people, who raised concerns about anti-bullying strategies and how they work and talked about their input into such strategies. We were very grateful when you delayed the publication of the strategy to allow the committee to undertake some in-depth work on the issue. We have done that both on and off the record, because for some young people the issues were so sensitive and painful that the work had to be done off the record. We have the permission of some of those young people to refer to their evidence, which is very helpful.
The key element for young people seems to be the impact on them as individuals and on their family and community. One aspect that we will look at in our report is the impact on young people’s health and wellbeing, which is, as you know, a key pillar of curriculum for excellence. A young woman told us that she wanted education on not just healthy relationships but healthy friendships, which I know is a key element of the work on the strategy and the work that respect me is doing. Therefore, we would push for an all-Government approach to bullying. It is not just an education issue; it is a public health issue as well, because the impact on young people as they move into adult life seems to be profound.
I suppose that we agree with you, our evidence agrees with you and all the young people to whom we have spoken agree with you that the earlier the intervention, the better. How do we implement that at the earliest stage, even maybe at pre-school and primary school, to ensure that young people have a clear understanding of what bullying is, its impact and where they can go for help? Are teachers equipped to give that help? It is also very important to ensure that young people understand consent, as that was another key element of why people felt bullied.
I have just chucked all of that at you. I hope that you have some answers. Each committee member will go into other details individually.
John Swinney
The fundamental point, which I accept, is that the earlier that intervention takes place, the better. That intervention should not only be reactive and take place when a problem arises; it should be proactive. That is the fundamental ethos that is enshrined in curriculum for excellence and that underpins our approach to the development of education in its broadest sense in our early learning and schools settings.
Curriculum for excellence is founded on and enshrines the values that we want young people to reflect, which, as I set out in my opening statement, are about tolerance, respect and respecting difference. I come back to my point about the necessity to look at this not just as a reactive measure but as something that we encourage in young people from the earliest possible age. We must encourage young people to behave with respect towards others and, as a consequence, to develop the type of healthy relationships and friendships that will militate against the emergence of bullying.
However, I also live in the real world, and I realise that there will be incidents that will cause individuals great distress. Convener, you highlighted a point that emerged from the evidence from young people and which I think is striking and, indeed, inescapable: bullying has an impact on individual young people. That is what matters, and that is what has to be rectified. We can take all the steps that I have set out with regard to early intervention, prevention and the creation of good practice and good relationships, but where bullying actually happens, we must ensure that young people are alert to the support that is available and know, first, that bullying is wrong and, with that realisation, that they are able to go to someone for help. Again, that comes back to early intervention: young people need to know that it is a bad thing and that they are entitled to get help to address it. That help must be available, invariably, in the early learning or school setting in which the young person operates.
Crucially, we must ensure that those who are likely to be delivering that support to young people are well equipped in that respect. That is where the importance of taking the correct approach in initial teacher education comes in, because we must equip professionals with the capacity to provide the support that young people require.
In your opening comments, you mentioned the mental health strategy, which has just been published and contains very welcome elements that target young people on their journey through school. How will the new anti-bullying strategy link up and work together with the mental health strategy? I come back to my point about having, in essence, almost an all-Government approach. How will the two strategies work together to resolve the situation?
A number of elements come together here: the mental health strategy, the anti-bullying strategy, our relationships approach and the approach to personal and social education. The Government must ensure—and I assure the committee that this is uppermost in the minds of ministers as we work across Government on this matter—that the same common themes and attitudes percolate through the different elements. That is an important aspect of ensuring consistency between the different approaches, which are fundamentally anchored in the foundations of Government policy for young people—in other words, getting it right for every child. That links back to your earlier remark about the impact of bullying being felt by individual young people; with getting it right for every child, we have to focus on addressing issues as they affect every young person and ensure that we have that focus in all of our policy interventions in this respect.
Mary Fee (West Scotland) (Lab)
Good morning, cabinet secretary. In almost every evidence-taking session that we have had on this issue, there has been a focus on the guidance that is available in schools. I have something of a bee in my bonnet about guidance; it is required, necessary and good, but it can sit on a shelf, get taken down once every six months or year and be dusted off, read and then put back on the shelf again, and I do not want that. I understand that changes have been or will be made to the guidance and that it will be regularly refreshed. However, in your answer to the convener, you made a point about the ethos of the curriculum for excellence, and it is my belief that there should be an ethos in schools that is supportive and understanding, tackles bullying and understands how children feel.
Last week, we heard evidence from a school in Kirkcaldy that has developed that very ethos. Its management works with the pupils, there are pupil councils and a pupils’ mentor, and pupils support each other. I am conscious that, like the convener, I am flinging a lot at you in my question, but how do you ensure that the guidance in schools is a living document, and how do you support schools to develop the ethos that we heard about last week?
The answer to that is deeply enshrined in the approach of curriculum for excellence and in the aspiration to have inclusive schools. I have visited Kirkcaldy high school and am familiar with the approach that it takes. From my conversations with the rector and with senior pupils, I understand how that ethos is brought to life within the school—I would say that it can only be brought to life within individual schools.
I will give you an example from the other end of the country. I recently visited Elgin academy, which has developed a model in which the school library is, essentially, a place of inclusion, safety and welcome for anybody who perhaps feels not safe and not included. It is presided over by a very welcoming and supportive librarian, who has led the process of engaging senior pupils in the school to provide mentoring and nurturing support to more vulnerable younger pupils, so that their journey through the school is a happier one than it would have been without that intervention.
The challenge on this issue is no different from any of the challenges that I face, in that we have 2,500 schools around the country and, fundamentally, this is about getting those values and that practice enshrined within those schools. My observation is that, if we went to any school in the country and asked the headteacher whether they are trying to run an inclusive school, the answer would be yes; but there will be varying degrees of success in that regard. One of the key points—this is at the heart of some of the reforms that I am proposing around education—is to ensure that some of the outstanding practice, such as the practice in Kirkcaldy high school that the committee has heard about, can be more widely understood within the system, so that other schools can aspire to deliver that.
I totally accept the point that Mary Fee makes about not wanting guidance just to sit on a shelf—there is no point in that. Guidance has to be brought to life to ensure that young people experience the type of education system that the guidance aspires to deliver.
I recognise the importance of ensuring that young people are included and feel safe and involved in their school. As the convener said, it is important that every young person feels like that—nobody should not feel like that. However, it is also critically important from the point of view of attainment, because young people are unlikely to attain their full potential if they are not happy, safe and included in their schools.
I have no reason to counter the sentiment that was expressed in the question, but our challenge is to ensure that that is replicated in operational practice in schools around the country.
Mary Fee
I know from speaking to teachers that, in every school, there are teachers who are keen and enthusiastic and who want to work in a more inclusive manner and work with pupils, but there are other teachers who are very traditional and do not want to move away from a rigid set of guidelines.
One of the other things that we heard about when we took evidence was the amount of training that is given to teachers when they are doing their teacher training on the signs that they should look out for to help them to recognise bullying and on how they can tackle it. Is it now time to change the way in which we teach new teachers about how to recognise bullying and strategies for handling it?
Yes. It is important that initial teacher education reflects the values and aspirations that were set out in your question. As I am sure Mary Fee will recognise, Scottish education has changed significantly. Across the education system, I frequently see the type of inclusive, nurturing environment that I am outlining. Some very good work has been done to ensure that support is available in schools to overcome the challenges that young people face and so help them to feel more included in individual schools.
There is a necessity to ensure that initial teacher education equips teachers with those capacities, but it is also important to recognise the change and the need for further change in our school system to ensure that those values are reflected in the experience of young people.
One of the aspects of teacher training that the committee is looking at is the continuing professional development of already-trained teachers. I come from a professional social work background and there was a certain amount of CPD that was compulsory. Would you go to those lengths to ensure that teachers get CPD sessions and turn up to attend them? We have heard evidence that training is available, but that some teachers do not take it. That has been evident where we have seen poor practice. There is a clear connection between continuous professional development and its uptake, so would the Government go so far as to make CPD compulsory?
In the proposals on education governance that I set out to Parliament last Thursday there is a heavy emphasis on CPD and the enhancement of learning and teaching in the education system. That is the purpose behind the regional collaboratives that I have proposed. I want to ensure that the quality interventions to enhance learning and teaching, and to enhance the quality of our schools, are available systemically in Scottish education. I am sympathetic to the approach that you suggest, convener.
As the committee will be aware, in the guidance that was issued to the education system in August 2016 by the chief inspector of education, of the eight curriculum areas in curriculum for excellence we identified literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing as the most important—if I can put it like that. The purpose of that was to make clear the importance of focusing on enhancing health and wellbeing—along with literacy and numeracy—to ensure that young people have the strongest and most secure foundations possible to meet their aspirations.
Annie Wells (Glasgow) (Con)
When we take into consideration bullying based on prejudice related to things such as race and religion, how will the national strategy be localised where that is needed, for example in places such as Glasgow, which has 50 per cent of Scotland’s Muslim population?
I return to the reforms that I set out last Thursday and the similar point that I made to Mary Fee, which is that fundamentally the proposals are about what goes on in individual schools. The profile of a school in the centre of Glasgow will be very different from the profile of a school in Ms Ross’s constituency. We must ensure that the approach is tailored to meet the needs of young people in different circumstances. However, regardless of whether bullying is due to relationship issues in a school in rural Scotland, or due to racial prejudice in a school in central Glasgow, it is totally unacceptable.
The anti-bullying strategy will establish the principles and values and set out that, whatever shape or form bullying takes and wherever it happens, it is not on. Therefore, we have to ensure that schools tailor their individual responses to meet the requirements in different localities. That is why I want headteachers to be able to lead that process in their schools as effectively as possible.
Annie Wells
Last week, the headteacher of Kirkcaldy high school told us that he had replaced three quarters of the teaching staff, which had helped to create an inclusive school. He had to do that to get it right. How do we ensure that we have the right teachers in the right jobs so that we have inclusive schools and we can take steps forward?
We need to have good leadership that makes it clear that the creation of inclusive schools matters. Certainly, that leadership exists in Government and I know that it exists in local authorities, but we have to ensure that it exists throughout our school system. Some of the issues that we have talked about in initial teacher education are significant in helping to get the new teaching population off on the right footing.
The issues that the convener raised with me about continuing professional development are also important to help us to ensure that, to go back to Mary Fee’s point, the guidance is not something abstract that is in a filing cabinet but part of the living and breathing values of a school, and that teachers identify how they can contribute towards that environment as a consequence of the delivery of their professional practice.
Gail Ross (Caithness, Sutherland and Ross) (SNP)
Good morning, panel, and thank you for your time.
Cabinet secretary, you talked about the updated guidance for personal and social education in schools, which is absolutely welcome and important. I want to go back to Annie Wells’s point about faith-based bullying. We know that a lot of bullying and prejudice in society as a whole come from fear, because people are perceived as different and there is a lack of understanding of their beliefs and culture. What are we doing to ensure that different religions are not just supported but taught about so that pupils understand those different beliefs?
Religious and moral education is a taught subject in the curriculum, so there is a recognition of the necessity of educating young people about the breadth of religious practice and involvement to give an understanding of those different characteristics. That is one element of the approach that we have to take to ensure that young people are equipped with that knowledge. They must also be able to set that knowledge in the context of their wider educational experience, which has to be in an inclusive environment where we are respectful of difference and diversity in the education system. It is very important that that understanding is set within the context of how we behave towards each other, which should be in a fashion that is respectful, rather than intolerant, of difference.
Gail Ross
Prejudice among kids is displayed not just in a school setting. I realise that we are talking about education, but is there anything that schools can do to work with the wider community to promote inclusiveness?
Yes, a lot can be done on that. All the learning and evidence tells us that much can be achieved in our schools but not everything can. Therefore, the relationships between schools and communities are important, and how those relationships are struck and structured is critical. The ethos that we try to encourage in our schools is for them to be involved in the communities of which they are a part.
In my constituency—I have seen this for myself—school pupils are actively involved in the delivery of services and activities in care homes for the elderly. Those young people are experiencing what it is like to work with and support vulnerable elderly people in care homes. From what I saw, they are providing a great deal of joy to elderly members of our society. That is just one example of how schools can make a profound contribution to our communities. Such experience can also be of profound benefit to the young people themselves.
That work is part of the process of reinforcing the ethos of a respectful and inclusive society in which people are respectful not just to elderly members of the community, but to a variety of groups in our society. There are many ways in which our schools can reach out beyond their boundaries to be actively involved in communities and to create the right ethos that supports that.
I have a very rural constituency, which does not have the rich mixture of faiths that constituencies in the central belt, such as Annie Wells’s, and elsewhere have. A few days ago, I spoke to a representative of Interfaith Scotland, who told me that it can be quite challenging for teachers in rural schools. How can someone gain an understanding of another faith just by sitting in a classroom if they have never met a person of that faith? How can we make that learning experience more interactive?
I will make two points in response to that question. First, Scotland is changing as a country before our eyes. When I look at the population mix in my son’s class—his primary school is in Blairgowrie in rural Scotland—I see that a significant proportion of the children are from families who have come to Scotland very recently; many of them are from eastern Europe. Those families are now very much part of our community. The class has a very diverse population base, even though it is in rural Scotland. That illustrates why the approach that we take must reach all parts of the country. There will be different types of diversity in different parts of Scotland; the character of that diversity will vary.
Secondly, we must ensure that young people have the knowledge and experience of different religious practice to equip them to handle diversity as effectively as possible. Religious and moral education is an important part of schooling, but it is also important that schools ensure that young people gain a sufficient breadth of experience and appreciation of diversity to enable them to understand the differences that exist between different denominations and different religious traditions. That way, they will be able to live out the values of respect that we all want to be lived out in our schools.
I have one more question. It will probably be quite a difficult one to answer, but I feel that I would be letting down the young person concerned if I did not ask it.
On Tuesday, we took some quite harrowing evidence from a young disabled woman who was in a wheelchair. She told us about several extremely distressing episodes in her school, which were perpetrated not by the pupils but, unfortunately, by the teachers. To put it nicely, the teachers were either unsympathetic towards her or dismissive of her problems and issues. To put it bluntly, the teachers added to her distress by making her feel worthless and making her feel that she deserved to be treated in the way that she was. She took the matter to the local authority and, unfortunately, what she said was dismissed at that level, too.
We talk about how we punish children for treating other children in that way at school. How do we deal with teachers who act in such a way?
I have not been sighted on the case that has been raised, but I return to the fundamental point that I made in my opening remarks, in response to the convener: there is no circumstance in which bullying is acceptable, and there is no circumstance in which bullying that is perpetrated by one individual is any less significant or less concerning than that which is perpetrated by any other. Bullying is not acceptable; whether we are talking about the way in which bullying has been perpetrated, or the way in which it has not been properly investigated or held to account, it is completely at odds with the aspirations of our approach.
If there are specific details, I am very happy to pursue them to identify and satisfy myself that everything that needs to be done about those concerns is being properly addressed. I am happy to do that, if the committee wishes to bring that case to me.
We have to make sure that implicit in the professional standards that we expect from teachers is that they should properly and fully respect and implement the guidance that we set out. Those issues of professional practice can be addressed as part of the approach that we take. At the heart of the issue is children’s rights. It is critical in our society that the rights of children are respected; one of the most important rights is children’s ability to express their concerns and to have them addressed. As a society, we must be prepared to do exactly that, without fear or favour.
Jeremy Balfour (Lothian) (Con)
Good morning, cabinet secretary, and thank you for coming.
Before this committee inquiry, I had not appreciated—perhaps slightly naively—where we are in Scotland on this. We have learned that all five protected characteristics have some form of bullying in some of our schools. As the convener said, some of the stories that we have heard over the past few months have been quite harrowing.
I caveat my questions by saying that I was a local councillor and I appreciate that you have to deal with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities; I will come on to that. I am totally convinced that you and your Government are completely committed to the anti-bullying strategy. How do we implement your fine and good words, which I take to be absolutely genuine, and get them down to the P2 or S4 classroom across Scotland? For me, there is a disjoint between what comes from Government and local authorities and what happens on the ground in a school.
The lack of recording has surprised me. We have heard evidence that headteachers or teachers are scared to record incidents of bullying, because they do not want their school to be known for bullying, whether it is racial, sexual or whatever. How do we get round that issue? Can we add to school inspections that a robust account has to be given of whether the school has had bullying in the past five years? I appreciate that that is a big question.
The answer fundamentally lies in leadership, and it goes back to Mary Fee’s point about guidance. It is all very well having guidance documents, but if they are not living, breathing parts of the system, they are not much use. It is all about leadership; I demonstrate the leadership that the Government takes on the issue, and I am certain that the 32 local authority leaders and directors of education will support that direction, because there is no way that any of them will take a different view from me about the unacceptability of bullying in our schools. I am certain that the success of our measures will depend significantly on how we deploy that leadership and ensure that it is felt in schools around Scotland.
Ultimately, all aspects of our school practice rely on the strength of the work that is undertaken in schools and the strength of the leadership there. By leadership, I mean not just headteachers but what happens in individual classrooms; after all, as Mr Balfour is right to point out, a classroom approach has to be taken here. The leadership in our system is crucial to the success of our approach to education—that is my principal answer to the question of how we ensure that this percolates through the system.
The issue of recording is very specific and material, and I am considering it. Obviously I will listen carefully to what the committee says; indeed, I did not go to publication of the strategy because I wanted to hear the committee’s views on this question. Given that these issues transcend party-political considerations, I am interested in finding out what those views are. In fact, Mr Balfour’s question highlights some of the dilemmas here. No school will want to acquire a reputation as one with a bullying problem; equally, though, a school will want to be able to take the necessary action to tackle the issue, and that is what matters.
As for inspections, I would expect bullying issues to be considered as part of an inspection. When inspectors go into school, they have open discussions with young people; indeed, inspectors put a very significant emphasis on the quality of those discussions and the need for privacy in that respect. I certainly know from my experience of going into schools and talking to pupils and teachers that, if I have those discussions in a private space, they can tell me how it is, and inspectors will do exactly the same thing into the bargain. Those issues will be very much central to the approach to inspection by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education.
Jeremy Balfour
My second question, too, is a very big one, so I suppose that I will just throw it out there. One of the concerns that I and perhaps other committee members have is that, although good work is being done by the respect me service, the Scottish Government, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and Education Scotland, all of it needs to be linked so that we do not end up with lots of people doing a bit of work in their own wee area and we miss putting in place the kind of big, strategic role that then percolates down. I am not saying that we should get rid of any of the organisations—they all have a role to play—but I have a slight fear with regard to ensuring that the left hand is talking to the right hand.
I acknowledge the importance of having a focused approach to delivering this work in Scotland, but to be frank, that is no different from the approach that we need for a myriad other issues in our education system where we need cohesive action in order to deliver.
For those reasons, I have come to the conclusion that we need a much more focused approach in general to deliver improvement in education and to strengthen performance in our schools. That is why I have made the proposals on regional collaboratives that I set out last Thursday; the fact is that we need more cohesion in this work. Indeed, the reforms that I announced last week are important, because they will give us the mechanisms and approaches that will give us more confidence that the improvements in practice that we have talked about will be deployed across the board in our education system.
Alex Cole-Hamilton (Edinburgh Western) (LD)
Good morning cabinet secretary, and good morning to the panel. It is good to see you all again. Thank you for coming to see us.
I would like to cover a couple of areas. There has been a bit of discussion today about the need to create an understanding in children of what healthy relationships look like, as a means of preventing bullying and fostering a culture of respect and resilience in schools. That struck me because, for two years, I served on the ministerial task force on child sexual exploitation and the same approach was adopted there. An understanding of what healthy relationships look like is a means of stopping exploitative relationships, and bullying is a form of exploitation.
I was the youngest member of the task force; age presented a barrier in the sense that we had a belief about what is happening in schools that was often wide of the mark. The arena in which there is child sexual exploitation can also be where bullying can take place, particularly through abuse in online forums. What steps have you taken to enlist young people and to mine them for intelligence about where the newest fora are in which bullying might take place, or the means by which it might take place? We might remember how things were when we were at school, but that is very different to the theatres in which bullying might happen nowadays.
Things have certainly changed significantly since I was at school—there is a world of difference.
There is an important issue about engagement of young people in policy formulation. We are making a positive journey towards changing that in the Government. I will give an example. I was at the Education and Skills Committee a while ago to talk about senior phase qualifications, and I was talking at length about the assessment of qualifications group. Ross Greer asked me whether there were any young people on the group. I had a moment when I thought, “I know what answer is going to have to be given here and it’s not going to sound very good.” That answer was, “None”, which is ridiculous. That was a moment when the blunt reality hit a Government minister: we were sitting there talking about qualifications, and although I did not know how old the youngest person in the room was, I would have been surprised if any one was younger than 30. I am amending that situation.
That was the bad example. The better examples are around engagement with organisations such as Young Scot. It is just one organisation, but it has good mechanisms and a relaxed and participative way of establishing what issues we need to confront with young people, and draw on their experience of, in shaping policy. During the governance review, I enlisted the help of Young Scot and Children in Scotland to undertake dialogue with young people. We are doing that increasingly in the Government.
The First Minister convened a meeting of the Cabinet with representatives of the Children’s Parliament and the Scottish Youth Parliament. It was held around the Cabinet table. That might have been viewed as a rather daunting experience for the young people, but it was actually the other way round; it was more daunting for the ministers who were involved.
We have to capture the sentiment that lies at the heart of Mr Cole-Hamilton’s question. If we do not, we will not capture the reality of what young people are experiencing.
When I look at how my working life has changed in the past five years because of digital technology, and look at how young people’s lives are being formed by digital technology, I see a need for us to better understand all those issues and to make sure that our approaches and guidance tackle them adequately. I assure the committee that we are now much more mindful of and active about how we enlist the input of young people.
Alex Cole-Hamilton
That is gratifying to hear. I thank the cabinet secretary for his answer. It speaks to the rights that children should enjoy under article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to have their voices heard in decisions that affect them.
It is a slippery fish—I am sure that Governments of all hues struggle with how best to engage young people in decisions that affect them. The criticism that was fairly levelled at the process for recruiting the new Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland is something that we should reflect on: there was no panel session in which children could be part of the interview process. That said, the Government engages very well with children and young people in other areas.
Is there a better mechanism, policy or process that we could adopt at every level of government in Scotland, in Parliament or across directorates, that could nail that down? Is there something that we are not doing that would ensure that we do not have gaps such as the one in the process of recruiting the children’s commissioner?
It would be wrong for me to transgress into that issue because the children’s commissioner is a parliamentary appointment. The Government is not involved in that recruitment process.
For the Government’s part, the examples that I cited in my earlier answer are an indication that we acknowledge that our existing practice in interacting and engaging with young people has not been good enough. A standard Government consultation in the glossy documents that we produce will not engage young people at all, but the interactive sessions that Young Scot and other organisations facilitate for us give us very rich evidence in the issues that we need to address. That practice is now becoming much more commonplace within Government, and our sharing of good professional practice within the civil service is designed to make sure that it is more widely used as an habitual part of our approach. That work should not be the end of the journey; there will be other aspects that we need to consider in order to make sure that we get the approach right.
I have one final point to make. At this point, I remind my colleagues of my entry in the register of interests on my having formerly been convener of the Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights. The cabinet secretary mentioned in a previous answer that children should have the right to raise their concerns and to have them addressed, whatever they may be. That, again, speaks to article 12, and several others, of the UNCRC.
The only mechanism that we have to recognise the UNCRC in Scots law is in part 1 of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014, which really only puts a duty on ministers to raise awareness of the UNCRC. There are elements of Scottish society that believe that that is not enough and that it denies children access to justice in respect of violations of their rights and when they encounter problems. Does the cabinet secretary see us changing that any time soon? It is three years since the 2014 act came into force. Is it enough, or do we need to consider enhancing it in forthcoming legislation on children and young people, perhaps by bringing it into line with legislation in Wales or other European countries, and perhaps even to the extent of full incorporation of the UNCRC?
I will make two points in response to that question. The first is that within the Government we have an on-going process of assessing our position in relation to the UNCRC. That is a very detailed and comprehensive exercise—we have to consider the issues that are raised by the UNCRC. I suppose that the answer to Mr Cole-Hamilton’s question is that it is a work in progress. There will continue to be issues that we have to address, and we will advise Parliament about any changes that we intend to make to policy in that respect.
My second point is that there is the facility for a children’s rights impact assessment on all new policies. That is a really important part of the process. Institutionally, it gives a role and structure to the type of dialogue with young people that I was talking about that might be facilitated by Young Scot, to ensure that we are looking at the issues that matter from the position and perspective of young people and reflecting that in our approach to the delivery of policy.
Thank you. I have no further questions.
I want to pick up on Alex Cole-Hamilton’s question. Last week, Hannah Brisbane and Susie McGuiness, who are youth advocates at Girlguiding Scotland, gave evidence to the committee about how the law is implemented in schools. They gave some horrifying accounts of sexual assault and issues around consent, which are affecting not just upper-school pupils but younger pupils—in many cases, young women from the age of 12. It seems that schools do not understand what is criminal behaviour.
In one example that we heard about, a young woman was sexually assaulted, the assault was videoed and the video was passed about. It is not just Facebook now—that is old hat to kids; things are now streamed through Snapchat, and stuff like that. It seems that adults questioned whether the young woman had given consent. She was under 16, so as far as I am concerned there is no issue about consent: she could not give consent. However, there seems to be evidence from such cases that teachers and other adults in the system do not understand that what has happened is criminal behaviour and that they have a responsibility to deal with the matter under child protection and criminal law procedures.
I do not think that your strategy will go into such detail, but are you minded to consider the matter so that we can seriously impress on adults that when a matter is a criminal or child protection issue they have a duty of care and a responsibility?
I cannot conceive of circumstances in which it would be justifiable for such issues not to be reported to the police. It is not for a teacher or for me to determine what is criminal; that is a matter for the police and the procurator fiscal.
I will explore the example that you have given, but I think that all the issues that it raises should be adequately covered by the knowledge and expertise about child protection that we expect in every school. I do not think that what you have raised are in any way specialist issues—they are absolutely mainstream issues to do with child protection.
The idea that somehow there is no proper route whereby such matters can be considered is one that I reject completely; the procedures are crystal clear and the child protection regime is crystal clear. Mr McDonald and I invited Catherine Dyer—the former Crown Agent—to review our child protection regime. She has given us strong reassurance about the strength of the arrangements. Obviously, we must ensure that they remain strong.
Our arrangements are strong, clear and robust, and the police and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service have roles in pursuing issues of a criminal nature in general, and sexual assault in particular. Those are huge priorities for Police Scotland and for the Lord Advocate and the Crown. I cannot see any aspect of that area of policy in which there is not crystal-clear direction about what should be done in circumstances such as the convener has described.
Thank you for that clarification.
David Torrance (Kirkcaldy) (SNP)
We have heard about the role that headteachers and staff play in the education environment. What role do outside agencies from the third sector play? Some high schools have full-time counsellors, who do successful work on pupils’ mental health and wellbeing. How can we expand the approach across the education system?
There is certainly the opportunity for third sector organisations to participate in our schools, and there are many good programmes whereby schools have reached out to such organisations to establish partnerships to enable such participation.
The reforms that I have put in place around pupil equity funding are opening up the possibility of more flexibility being deployed by headteachers and staff to enlist third sector organisations to contribute to the life of schools. The proposals that I announced to Parliament last Thursday, including the emphasis on the headteachers charter and the creation of more flexibility for headteachers, will create further opportunities for that.
There are many good existing examples of how such services can be enlisted into schools, and the policy reforms that I have proposed are designed to further that. The review of PSE that is being undertaken will have an effect, which may assist us in the further development of policy.
We have a supplementary question from Mary Fee.
It is a kind of supplementary to your question, convener.
Go for it.
The convener has touched on a couple of the issues that I wanted to explore in relation to the recording and sharing of information on sexual assaults. To be frank, I found some of the evidence that we heard last week from Girlguiding Scotland quite horrifying—the idea that things like that have been going on in our schools, it would appear, almost on a weekly basis. One of the young women told us that, when she went to her school to report something, she was told, “Boys will be boys,” and it would not be recorded.
The recording of incidents is of crucial importance. In my view, every single incident, no matter how small, should be reported. I can understand it from a school’s perspective. The staff may take the view that, if they record all of it, their school will be viewed in a particular light. How do we move away from that? How can we ensure that, if a school reports something and perhaps asks for help in dealing with it, acknowledging that it has an issue, a light may be shone on that school not to say that it is doing something wrong but to say that it is doing something right—given that it has recognised a problem and is going to deal with it? How do we support schools to ensure that things are properly recorded?
That is one of the many $64 million questions with which I wrestle. It captures the dilemma. As I told Parliament last week, I do not control the media. Obviously, the circumstances that Mary Fee narrates could be ill construed. They could be construed as, “Look at how robust this school is at tackling bullying,” or they could be portrayed as, “Look at the awful record of bullying that exists in that school.” We all live in the real world, and we know that it is much more likely to be, “Look at the awful record of bullying in that school.” That is an example of the sorts of dilemmas that we have to wrestle with in relation to recording, and my comments in response to Mr Balfour’s question were designed to address some of those dilemmas.
The question of reporting follows on from the circumstances that the convener raised with me and the example that you cite, Ms Fee, from the guides. If an incident is of the substance that has been raised with me this morning, there are no circumstances where it should not be reported. The child protection arrangements and our criminal framework as a society are crystal clear that such issues should be reported to the proper authorities.
That is different from the question whether we should be recording every incident that might be construed as bullying. We have to work through all the issues about what that says about reputation and what it do for bureaucracy. I am trying to strip bureaucracy out of our schools. How is that affected? I also want to ensure that young people feel safe and that they have the opportunity to have their concerns addressed whenever they arise.
There are dilemmas in this area but, fundamentally, if there is an incident of this nature, it must be reported properly.
We have received a number of recommendations for the strategy from the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights. I wanted to get on the record one of its recommendations in particular. We heard quite a lot from asylum seekers and refugees in our inquiry into destitution, asylum and insecure immigration status in Scotland. CRER mentioned asylum seekers, refugees and Gypsy Travellers in one of its recommendations and asked for
“The addition of a line such as ‘Some bullying behaviour against these groups may be of a racist nature, which can have equality law and hate crime implications.’”,
although it said that
“Care should be taken to ensure clarity that only some incidents would be racist”.
I simply want reassurance that you will look at those recommendations.
I am very happy to do so. As I have already indicated to the committee, I have deliberately held off from finalising the strategy so that I can hear the committee’s views. Obviously, its reflections will be important in helping me to come to the conclusions that I have to come to. It is important that we very clearly and broadly have low levels of tolerance of anything that might resemble prejudice-based bullying and that we construct the strategy on that basis.
The clerks have reminded me that we need to ensure that we have comments on two issues, the first of which is resourcing, whether within schools or for teachers to attend continuing professional development. One issue that the committee has looked at is that, if we engage in early intervention, which means early spend, that will save a lot of money later in the system.
Let us take the example of the young woman we spoke to on Tuesday, the impact that there has been on her young life—she is 22 now—and the services and interventions that she has needed in order to cope with the outcome. One issue that we are considering is the economic impact of preventative spend and early spend. Will that reckon in your deliberations? In social work, it used to be said that, if we spent a pound on a child at an early stage, that would save £9 in the system at a later stage. I would not like to put a money tag on the issue, because I do not think that we should, but the reality is that you do not have endless resources. How can we channel those resources much better at an earlier stage in order to save money at a later stage?
The committee will not be surprised to hear that it will be impossible to get the old finance minister out of me. I totally accept the premise of the question, which is a hallmark of the Government’s approach to early intervention. That is good and the right thing to do. To take the young lady’s circumstances that the convener narrated, no young person should experience that difficulty, and the earlier we can address such issues, intervene and resolve them, the better. The person’s quality of life will then be better. None of us wants to see such difficulties being perpetuated. It is clear that the quicker we address such issues, the more we will minimise the risk of long-term problems, particularly mental health problems, for young people. Such intervention is very valuable.
The whole focus of Government policy, whether on health or offending in the judicial system, is on undertaking early intervention to avoid more expensive and pressing demands arising in later years, which will make the public services unsustainable. At every level—whether we are talking about doing the right thing to enable an individual to have a better quality of life or saving long-term costs to the taxpayer—the arguments for early intervention are compelling.
How do we do that? We are taking steps through pupil equity funding, for example. We are putting resources directly into schools, some of which have been used by schools to establish the very interventions that the convener has talked about. That is about creating more effective pastoral care. In their judgment—there is sound educational rationale for this—if they can sort out some of the personal and pastoral care issues for young people more effectively, the learning potential of those individuals will be enhanced and that will help us to close the poverty-related attainment gap. That might feel like a circuitous route, but improving educational performance by tackling an underlying problem that is a challenge to a young person is a route that is well evidenced.
There is an organisation in my constituency called Wholistic Life, which is doing fantastic work in Larkhall academy, and the headteacher has used the pupil equity fund money for that. I was in the school last week, and the impact on the young people cannot be measured, because it is staring you in the face. It has made such a difference to pupils who were struggling last year but are not struggling as much this year.
That is where we rely on the professional judgment of our educational professionals. We have to give them the space and time to work out what interventions will matter. In some circumstances, interventions of that nature—I am not surprised to hear of the route that Larkhall academy has taken—will be the best way, in the judgment of those professionals, of properly addressing some of the underlying issues that are impediments to the learning capability of young people.
I whole-heartedly agree.
I have one last question, and we are grateful for your patience with us this morning, cabinet secretary. Last week, I was in Dublin doing some work on gender budgeting, which is another aspect of the work that the committee will look at. I managed to meet an organisation called BeLonG To, which delivers inclusive education, especially for LGBTI young people in the school education system in Ireland. It takes a whole-school approach and has a fantastic school resource pack with a rapid impact assessment that not only the teachers but the kids do. It would be interesting to compare what the teachers say about their school with what the young people say about it. The organisation uses all of that to deliver an inclusive education.
One of the tensions that we had at the beginning of our inquiry was about faith-based education and the impact of moral education on young people who are struggling with their sexuality. I would hold up BeLonG To and the schools approach as a good example, and I wonder whether you would look to that example as a way to move forward. I know that we have the working group, which is gratefully received, and I know from talking to young people who are involved in the working group that they believe that it will deliver results, but how can Government draw on the best examples, such as the one in Ireland, so that we are not reinventing the wheel but can identify best practice and use it to move forward more quickly?
The committee will be aware of the establishment of the LGBTI inclusive education working group. I have deliberately appointed a broad membership to that group to ensure that we can have all those issues considered in a dispassionate way, and I am engaging heavily on that question. It is important to look at best practice in other jurisdictions and to learn lessons to address the issues that we need to address here. We need to find a way that allows all of us to be comfortable with the approaches that are taken, and one of my objectives is to ensure that we use the process in such a fashion as to address issues for all, so that we can take an approach to inclusive education that will address the need of young people in the LGBTI community and properly include their perspectives.
We have not exhausted our topics, but we have exhausted our time. We have gathered a huge amount of evidence and we will now deliberate on how we can put that evidence into a report that will be useful for all of us so that we can move forward. We are grateful for your time this morning, cabinet secretary, and for that of your officials. Thank you for allowing us the time to conduct this inquiry. I think that it will make life a lot better for everyone in education, especially the young people to whom we have been speaking.
For my part, convener, I have appreciated the opportunity to have the committee’s perspective on those issues. It is an example of how Government can benefit from a committee’s clear deliberations on hard issues, and I look forward to receiving the committee’s input. As I said in my statement, I will not finalise the approach that we will take until such time as I have considered the committee’s report.
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About Beth McDonald
Beth McDonald is a Santa Barbara-based psychic, astrologer, writer, and business consultant. She provides spiritually-based guidance and insight to corporations, businesses, and their executives. Beth’s primary demographic is higher educated working women, aged 25-65, seeking more customized, integrated solutions.
solving problems, bringing peace
Regardless of the client, Beth’s goal is always the same: to design and execute strategies specifically created to help them meet their goals on time, on budget, and in ways that bring them greater peace. Additionally, she works with individuals, couples, families, children, pets, and groups to help them identify and achieve goals, solve problems, or to communicate with the souls of loved ones on the other side. She also is a writer, teacher, and public speaker.
Though clairvoyant since childhood, Beth had a traditional education. The daughter of an Air Force officer, she attended a number of schools before graduating from Moorestown High, a reputable college preparatory high school in New Jersey.
Beth first attended the University of South Florida in Tampa, where she studied cultural anthropology and comparative religions. But eventually the Golden State beckoned. A California native, Beth eagerly returned to attend the University of California at Santa Barbara. She graduated with honors in 1987 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature. Since graduating, Beth continues to study business administration, psychology, political science, religious studies, and the metaphysical arts.
utilizing her gifts for good
After the birth of her son, Abel, in 1991, Beth had a series of life-changing events and experiences that literally forced her to re-examine and embrace her psychic heritage. Although strong psychic abilities had run on both sides of her family tree for generations, there had been no formal training or indoctrination up to that point. Unlike most psychics, Beth is one of those rare talents who receives insight and psychic information in all three ways: visually (clairvoyance), aurally (clairaudience) and kinesthetically (clairsentience). Because of this, as the depth of her native abilities was revealed, she was strongly urged by a series of professionals to develop and utilize these gifts in the service of the higher good.
With the support of her family she did so, and since the early 1990s she has trained in a variety of different methods and styles of reading, regressing, and energetic healing with such notables luminaries as Gary Douglas, Renée Fleming, Susan Powers, Dr. Brian Weiss, William Peters, Dr. David Cumes, Gary Malkin, and Dr. Donald Epstein, the founder of Network Chiropractic and the 12 Stages of Healing Philosophy and Method
She studied astrology for three years with Jennifer Freed and Dorothy Boswell, as part of a group that later became the ACS Psychological Astrology program. Beth has been working professionally as a psychic since 1994 and as an astrologer since 1997.
Contact Beth Now
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Bible > Commentaries > Sermon
◄ Luke 3 ►
Sermon Bible
Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene,
I. How shall we picture John the Baptist to ourselves? Great painters, greater than the world seems likely to see again, have exercised their fancy upon his face, his figure, and his actions. We must put out of our minds, I fear, at once, many of the loveliest of them all, those in which Raffaelle and others have depicted the child John, in his camel's-hair raiment, with a child's cross in his hand, worshipping the Infant Christ. There is also one exquisite picture, by Annibale Caracci, in which the blessed Babe is lying asleep, and the blessed Virgin signs to St. John, pressing forward to adore Him, not to awake his sleeping Lord and God. But such imaginations, beautiful as they are and true in heavenly, spiritual sense, which therefore is true eternally for you and me and all mankind, are not historic fact. For St. John the Baptist said himself, "And I knew Him not." The best picture which I can recollect of John is the great picture by Guido of the magnificent lad sitting on the rock, half-clad in his camel's-hair robe, his stalwart hand lifted up to denounce he hardly knows what, save that things are going all wrong, utterly wrong to him. The wild rocks are around him, the clear sky is over him, and nothing more.
II. St. John preached the most common—let me say boldly, the most vulgar, in the good old sense of the word—the most vulgar morality. He tells his hearers that an awful ruin was coming unless they repented and mended. How fearfully true his words were the next fifty years proved. The axe, he said, was laid to the root of the tree, and the axe was the heathen Roman, even then master of the land. But God, not the Roman Cæsar merely, was laying the axe. And He was a good God, who only wanted goodness, which He would preserve; not badness, which He would destroy. Therefore men must not merely repent and do penance, they must bring forth fruits meet for penance; do right instead of doing wrong lest they be found barren trees to be cut down and cast into that everlasting fire of God, which, thanks be to His Holy Name, burns for ever, unquenchable by all men's politics and systems and political or other economies, to destroy out of God's kingdom all that offendeth and whatsoever loveth and maketh a lie—oppressors, quacks, cheats, hypocrites, and the rest.
C. Kingsley, All Saints' Day and Other Sermons, p. 256.
Reference: Luke 3:2.—J. M. Sloan, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 355.
Luke 3:3I. The teaching of St. John the Baptist, as it is described to us in Scripture, was perhaps different to what many would have expected. He had not only been sanctified to God in the world, and had been born of holy parents and kept unspotted from the world; but when he came forth to preach repentance he had been dwelling for thirty years in the wilderness, not only apart from other men, but living in a very hard and severe way, unlike other men. When, therefore, he came down among the cities of men as the great preacher of repentance; and found himself surrounded with multitudes of all kinds given up to sins and vices of which he knew nothing; we might have expected that he would have said something of the desert and his own more excellent mode of life, that he would have called upon all men to retire from so wicked a world, and to live, like himself, quite disengaged from all temporal things. But the holy Baptist's teaching was far different from this; he was as gentle and considerate to others as he was severe and unsparing to himself; they confessed their sins unto him, and he entered into all their temptations; and instead of requiring of them great and difficult things, he told them to avoid their besetting sins and temptations, and so amend their lives.
II. It may be observed that the teaching of the Bible is throughout of this nature. Men are inclined to put themselves forward for great things, and for putting great things before others, because this gratifies the secret pride of our hearts; and certain it is that there is nothing so great but that we ought to do it in religion and which God will, if we seek Him, give us strength to do. But this great thing probably lies much nearer home than we are willing to suppose; it consists in overcoming ourselves and in breaking through some besetting sin which may seem a small matter: so it was in the teaching of the great preacher of repentance; he told men of some besetting temptation which lay at their own door—of that evil spirit who was watching and waiting for them in their daily life; which was first and beyond all things to be attended to.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. i., p. 20.
References: Luke 3:3.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. x., p. 99. Luke 3:3, Luke 3:4.—F. W. Robertson, The Human Race and Other Sermons, p. 267.
Luke 3:4It may be that many have never clearly understood what was meant by John being Christ's forerunner, why any forerunner was needed, and what truth is declared to us in this part of God's dispensations, which showed that he was needed.
I. The subject is very vast, and might be illustrated by many examples, taken either from history or from private life. And the truth contained in it is this: that Christ's work has never been done effectually in men's hearts, except so far as the work of His forerunner has been done beforehand; that the baptism of the Spirit requires the previous baptism of water; or, in other words, that no man can profitably receive the truths of the Gospel, unless they find his heart made ready by repentance; unless they find him in that state that he knows the evil of his heart, and hates it, and longs to be delivered from it.
II. Why is it that, within our own knowledge, the work of Christ's Spirit is yet wrought so imperfectly? Why are not our lives and thoughts Christian, as well as our outward profession? Is it not because with us too, in so many instances, Christ had been preached to us without His forerunner; because we have never been prepared by repentance to seek His salvation aright?
III. Again, the preparation of Christ's forerunner is needed, because we are apt, as the world goes on, to take up our notions of right and wrong from those about us; to call good what the world calls good, and evil what the world calls evil. The business of Christ's forerunner was to make men aware of this; to show them that their notions of good and evil wanted correction; that far less faults than they dreamed of would be their condemnation in God's judgment; that far higher virtues than those which they thought excellent were needed to enter into the kingdom of heaven.
T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. vi., p. 109.
Luke 3:4-6Earnestness.
Of all men that ever lived, John the Baptist was one great concentrated earnestness. The earnestness of which I wish to speak consists in a "prepared way" and straight paths.
I. Before there can be earnestness, there must first be: (1) A fixed conviction that God loves you; that God desires to have you; that Christ is waiting to come into your heart; that He will soon be here; and that your eternal happiness depends upon whether you are ready to meet Him as a forgiven man, as a holy man, as a prepared man. (2) Next, upon these facts it is to have made up your mind thoroughly, once and for all, that you will be a Christian—cost what it may. (3) It is to have made up your mind that nothing whatever shall stand in the way—no object, however dear, no sin, however pleasant. (4) It is to have some great object in view, something steadily in hand, something you are living up to—some good work which you will enterprise, something for love, something for God. (5) It is to be faithful and diligent in the use of means, as one who feels very weak, whose new warmth makes him feel very cold. (6) It is to do all as in a very short time. "My Saviour will soon be here,—I must keep all the approaches clear."
II. Let me ask three things: (1) Are you, as yet, really in earnest about your soul? Are you earnest in proportion to the greatness of the subject? (2) Is the way of God prepared? Is it a highway? Could He come in and find everything open and ready to receive Him? (3) Are all your "paths," your little "ways"—your paths, are they all straight, quite straight? With a God so earnest in all He is doing for you, with death so earnest all about you, with an enemy so very earnest in your breast, with so much to be done in that heart of yours before it is ready, with such a work for God to be done in the world before you die, with such issues at stake—a Christ so near—it is time to be earnest.
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 1871, p. 137.
References: Luke 3:4.—Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 3. Luke 3:7.—New Manual of Sunday School Addresses, p. 52. Luke 3:7-18.—Preacher's Monthly, vol. i., p. 127. Luke 3:8, Luke 3:9.—Ibid., p. 46.
Luke 3:10Duty.
The final stage of religion is duty. Everything else, however comforting, however holy, however true, is only its cradle. The maturity of man is his obedience. If I had to define duty, I should say that it is doing what is right—that is, what conscience and the Bible tell us to do—in any relation of life. And since we have all a relation to God in everything we do, it is doing what is right towards God, or what is right towards man, for God's sake. But we have to do this morning with duty as it connects itself with Advent. And let me mention one of the two points in which duty and Advent meet.
I. In every Advent of Christ, whether it be those continual Advents by which He now approaches and knocks at the door of a man's heart, or whether it be the early harbingers and the tokens of His arrival, when He shall return to our earth again, it is of immense importance that we shall be able quickly to recognise and clearly to perceive it. Now keen religious perception always goes with a high moral state. Trace it as you may, the fact is certain, that a life of duty and a ready apprehension of truth always go together.
II. Another link which fastens duty to Advent is this: that our Lord, when He comes, would wish to find us each at our own proper work, whatever that work may be. I gather this from three things: (1) First, as far as we have any record, Christ, when He came before, always chose those whom He found at their work. The call did not find them in their retirement, but in their engagements. (2) Christ Himself has said it, speaking of domestic duties, "Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when He cometh, shall find so doing." (3) The Advent will be the end of all earthly work; and therefore it must find it done, else it will be undone for ever. Would you not wish Christ to have the joy of finding you, when He comes, where you ought to be, copying His busy, useful life, and doing right and important things for His glory, with the very motive that may be blessed when He comes to see you?
Luke 3:10-14I. St. John's three answers all go upon the principle of "doing our duty in that state of life unto which it hath pleased God to call us;" but they are the more striking as coming from a person like St. John, a person so entirely out of the ordinary course, to whom any of the names with which careless people delighted to brand those who have been led to a more than usually solemn sense of their condition before God, might be most fitly applied; he might be called an enthusiast, one who held very strange notions, a man whose religion had turned his head, and so forth; and yet you will perceive that this strange preacher of repentance who appeared to hold such extreme views about fasting and penance and the like, did, when applied to, give rules of holiness which seem to err all on the other side. Some persons would tell us that there is no religion in them at all, that they are only rules of morality, and that spiritual religion is something different from and beyond morality. Well, be it so; but still these were St. John's directions for preparing to meet Christ.
II. St. John did not say that this was the whole of the religion which He who came after him would have to teach; on the other hand, he used some mysterious language about a "baptism with the Holy Ghost and with fire," which should contrast strongly with his own baptism, which was merely a baptism with water unto repentance. But although St. John knew better than most men the truth that Christ was coming as a revealer of mysteries, and a founder of a more spiritual religion, and a medium of much nearer communion with God than any which had yet been vouchsafed to man, he still laid the foundation in the performance of common duties, he still preached this as the best preparation for the coming of Christ, that men should each in their own calling do their duty as in the fear of God. Do your duty where God has placed you; be honest, be diligent, be kind, be pitiful, not slothful in business, but yet in all things fearing the Lord; and though this may not be all, yet at least it is the beginning of all good things, and is the true foundation of the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, 4th series, p. 346.
References: Luke 3:10-14.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. viii., p. 151. Luke 3:10-15.—Outline Sermons to Children, p. 153. Luke 3:15-22.—Preacher's Monthly, vol. i., p. 449.
Luke 3:16Expectation.
Have you never observed that everyone's character is determined by what he is living up to? Why is the Mohammedan an idle and self-indulgent man? Because he lives up to a corporeal and indolent and sensuous heaven. Why is the Brahmin a man of apathy? Because, after all his transmigrations, he has nothing to expect, according to his creed, but annihilation, absolute annihilation. Why does the believer grow holy and loving, but because he is always realising in his mind the heaven of holiness and love to which he is going? Certainly expectation is a duty.
I. But God has done with this faculty of expectation what He has done with all the natural powers and habits of the human mind—He has sanctified it and elevated it. And this is the way God has done it. He has thrown into it first truth, then affection, and then great delight, so He has made it hope. What is it? Expectation with desire from the beginning, hope has been the great principle of God's moral government of the world. The moment that man fell, and the present became unhappy, the antidote was hope: "I will put enmity;" "the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." Observe, at once, the mind was sent off into the future for its comfort. It was the same with Abraham; he had nothing, he was to have everything. The Jews lived by their prophecies. All sacrifice speaks the same language. And now what is the aim, the consolation, the theme, the life of the whole Church, but the coming back of her dear Lord? And when He comes, there may be another future to look forward to still, and probably another and another and another.
II. Notice in this long line of expectation that the next thing in the succession is always greater and better than that which preceded it. The series is always rising—every prophecy has its range of fulfilment; first an early and historical one, then an inward and spiritual one, then an evangelical one in the life and death of Jesus Christ, then an ultimate one in yet future glories. If you could read it so, whenever anything happy comes to you—an answered prayer, a gift of God—you may always hear it saying, "I am only a pledge of something else; there is something better than I am behind." All along, at every stage, the principle is the same, and the words of the Baptist have their echo and their counterpart everywhere: "One mightier than I cometh."
References: Luke 3:16.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xviii., No. 1044; Homiletic Magazine, vol. i., p. 99.
Luke 3:17Judaism and Christianity.
Christ came and hewed out for the waters of the old Judaism a new and fitting channel. He led it away from the political groove where it would have been destroyed by uniting it with a spiritual kingdom. He added to it other and deeper thoughts. Instead of saying that Christ caused a revolution which put back the progress of the world, we should say that He saved the revolution which was necessary from the violence which would have brought about its ruin; that He saved it from having to be done all over again; as, to give a political illustration, has been the case with the French Revolution. What now were the characteristics of the revolution?
I. It was destructive. Christ saw that the time had come, that the whole world of Jews and heathens was so choked up with chaff that a slow process would be ruin. He seized the moment, He accepted its dangers, and He sent forth ideas which flew along like flame, consuming, destroying, but also assimilating. "The chaff He burned up with unquenchable fire."
II. But if Christianity was destructive as a revolution it was also preservative. If Christ sent forth ideas which consumed the chaff, He sent them forth also to gather the wheat into His garner. No noble feelings or true thought, either in Judaism or in heathenism, perished. They were taken up and woven into the new fabric.
III. Its third element was a civilising power. Neither Greek science nor Roman culture had power to spread beyond themselves. Rome did not try to civilise in the right way. Instead of drawing forth the native energies of conquered nations, it imposed on them from without the Roman education. It tried to turn them into Romans. The Christian teachers reversed the Roman mode of proceeding. Hence the peculiar character of any nation was not lost in Christianity, but so far as it was good developed and intensified. The people grew naturally into their distinctive place in the world.
S. A. Brooke, Christ in Modern Life, p. 47.
References: Luke 3:18-20.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. xi., p. 49. Luke 3:19, Luke 3:20.—Ibid., p. 235; F. W. Robertson, Sermons, 3rd series, p. 270.
Luke 3:21-22Christ's Baptism, a Token of Pentecost.
Without all question, there is a deep and mysterious connection between the baptism of our Saviour and the coming of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles. They are, if we may so speak, parts of the same wonderful work of God, the saving Christian people by the kingdom of heaven. Christ's baptism was the beginning, the coming down of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost was the middle, the baptism of each Christian is, in a certain sense, part of the end.
I. Our Saviour was praying after His baptism when the Holy Ghost came upon Him; so the Apostles, when they returned from witnessing His ascension, continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, until He sent the Comforter, according to His promise. As it was the same heavenly Person who came down first upon the Head and afterwards upon the members, so there was, by God's providence, a great resemblance between the outward tokens given in the one case and in the other.
II. These outward tokens of the Holy Comforter's presence do not only make us sure of that presence, but also instruct us not a little in the manner and in the greatness of the change He works in us. (1) Water, for example, pure water, springing out of the earth, or dropping from heaven by the immediate gift of God, who sees not that it represents the refreshing and cleansing power of that Divine grace which, coming direct from God, purifies the stain of our hearts, and makes us strong and active to keep the commandments? Who is not reminded by it of the living water which the Lord has promised to give us, not only to quench our thirst for the time, but to be in us "a well of water springing up to everlasting life"? (2) Again, what signified the fiery tongues? Surely they had the substance of of fire, because of the searching power of Christ's Spirit, which in a wonderful manner tries every man's heart of what sort it is, penetrating into all the dark corners of our souls, and where it is not resisted, enlightening, warming, melting all. (3) What are we to learn from the appearance of the Holy Ghost as a dove? The voice of the Holy Ghost in prayer, inwardly uttered in a Christian's heart, is like the unwearied melancholy tones of the dove. This reason is given us by a great and holy bishop, St. Augustine; and he adds another—the simple, harmless innocence of the dove; and yet another—its gentle, peaceful, loving nature, whereby it becomes the token both of truth and charity.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. vii., p. 136; see also J. Keble, Sermons from Ascension Day to Trinity, p. 176.
References: Luke 3:21, Luke 3:22.—G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 75; Homiletic Magazine, vol. vi., p. 75; vol. x., p. 294. Luke 3:21-23.—W. Hanna, Our Lord's Life on Earth, p. 50.
Luke 3:22The descent of the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove was an emblem of the new dispensation which the Saviour came to announce; and instead of the fiery law, delivered in the midst of blackness and darkness and tempest, and the deafening sound of the trumpet, the blessed Spirit descended in the form of a dove, and the assuring truth was taught that grace and truth had come by Jesus Christ.
I. As the brooding of the Spirit of God upon the face of the deep produced order and life in the beginning, so does He impart new life to the soul and open the eyes of the understanding, that we may behold the wonders of God's law.
II. In the fact that the Holy Ghost descended upon the Lord Jesus in the form of a dove, we are reminded that quietness is often essential to many of the operations of grace.
III. As the dove is an appropriate emblem of love, so the soul which is influenced by the blessed Spirit will abound in love to God and love to His people, IV. The descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove should remind us that gentleness is a distinguishing mark of Christian character in which most of us have very much to learn. The sight of a gentle dove picking its food quietly in the midst of a crowded street, noisy with the busy hum of traffic, suggested a pleasant thought. The beautiful bird did not seem out of place, but it rather appeared to say, by its guileless, innocent ways, that worldly employments have no triumphs so complete as to excuse the surrender of the pure and meek virtues of which the dove is a symbol. Its white glistening plumage casts rays of brightness even on the stony pavement, trodden by the hurried footsteps of the trader and the money-changers, and its gentle eyes reflected the spirit of the Saviour's words: "Be ye wise as serpents, and harmless as doves."
J. N. Norton, Every Sunday, p. 288.
Luke 3:23The Divinity of Christ.
Our discourse will turn upon the words, "As was supposed." Our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was "supposed" to be the son of Joseph. But the words of the text seem to imply that He was not actually the son of Joseph: they are an indirect testimony to that grand truth which the evangelist St. Luke has already recorded, and the taking away of which would be the overthrow of the Christian religion: "Therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God."
I. There is no dispute that Christ is spoken of in the Bible as God, but there is much dispute as to the sense in which the language ought to be understood. There can be no dispute that the name "God" is often used in the Bible, when it cannot for a moment be supposed that it is used in its high and incommunicable sense. Thus it is said to Moses, "I have made thee a god to Pharaoh,"—where Moses is so called evidently not as being properly a god, but as being in that instance or circumstance in the place of God, and doing that which it is God's office to do. But when you turn to the Bible, in order to determine whether it can only be in this secondary or figurative way that Christ is styled God, we are overwhelmed with proof that it must be in the same sense, and in as high a sense as the Father Himself is so styled. For Christ is called the Jehovah—a word of absolute signification, which is never given to any but the one true God.
II. Not only the titles but the attributes of Deity are ascribed in Scripture to Christ. The eternity of the Son is distinctly asserted; for Christ spoke of Himself as "He which is, and which was, and which is to come"—words which, like the name Jehovah, can only be interpreted as denoting independent and therefore eternal substance. Christ is also declared to be immutable, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and for ever;" omniscient, "Lord, Thou knowest all things;" omnipresent, "Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them." These attributes are all ascribed to Him whom some suppose to have been only Joseph's son, and regard it as monstrous to look upon Him as God. Who can God be, if Christ be only man—Christ the eternal, Christ the omniscient, Christ the omnipresent?
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2,281.
Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.
And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins;
As it is written in the book of the words of Esaias the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth;
And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.
Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.
And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then?
He answereth and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.
Then came also publicans to be baptized, and said unto him, Master, what shall we do?
And he said unto them, Exact no more than that which is appointed you.
And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages.
And as the people were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ, or not;
John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire:
Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable.
And many other things in his exhortation preached he unto the people.
But Herod the tetrarch, being reproved by him for Herodias his brother Philip's wife, and for all the evils which Herod had done,
Added yet this above all, that he shut up John in prison.
Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened,
And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.
And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli,
Which was the son of Matthat, which was the son of Levi, which was the son of Melchi, which was the son of Janna, which was the son of Joseph,
Which was the son of Mattathias, which was the son of Amos, which was the son of Naum, which was the son of Esli, which was the son of Nagge,
Which was the son of Maath, which was the son of Mattathias, which was the son of Semei, which was the son of Joseph, which was the son of Juda,
Which was the son of Joanna, which was the son of Rhesa, which was the son of Zorobabel, which was the son of Salathiel, which was the son of Neri,
Which was the son of Melchi, which was the son of Addi, which was the son of Cosam, which was the son of Elmodam, which was the son of Er,
Which was the son of Jose, which was the son of Eliezer, which was the son of Jorim, which was the son of Matthat, which was the son of Levi,
Which was the son of Simeon, which was the son of Juda, which was the son of Joseph, which was the son of Jonan, which was the son of Eliakim,
Which was the son of Melea, which was the son of Menan, which was the son of Mattatha, which was the son of Nathan, which was the son of David,
Which was the son of Jesse, which was the son of Obed, which was the son of Booz, which was the son of Salmon, which was the son of Naasson,
Which was the son of Aminadab, which was the son of Aram, which was the son of Esrom, which was the son of Phares, which was the son of Juda,
Which was the son of Jacob, which was the son of Isaac, which was the son of Abraham, which was the son of Thara, which was the son of Nachor,
Which was the son of Saruch, which was the son of Ragau, which was the son of Phalec, which was the son of Heber, which was the son of Sala,
Which was the son of Cainan, which was the son of Arphaxad, which was the son of Sem, which was the son of Noe, which was the son of Lamech,
Which was the son of Mathusala, which was the son of Enoch, which was the son of Jared, which was the son of Maleleel, which was the son of Cainan,
Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.
William Robertson Nicoll's Sermon Bible
Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission.
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Will Smith Celebrates Son Jaden's 20th Birthday With Sweet Spider-Man Throwback Photo
By Daniel S. Levine - July 8, 2018 04:31 pm EDT
Jaden Smith celebrated his 20th birthday on Sunday, and parents Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith reminded him that he was once a cute toddler with throwback photos.
Smith joked about his son's love of superheroes, sharing a photo of him wearing a Spider-Man costume.
(Photo: Instagram/Will Smith)
"Happy Bday, Jaden. 20 Years Old ~ WHOA," the Men in Black star wrote. "And Wait... I don’t know what the big deal was when you wore a White Batman Suit to Prom? You have ALWAYS worn superhero suits on your dates!"
Coincidentally, Jaden's co-star in the photo is Jordyn Woods, best known today as Kylie Jenner's best friend.
Smith's comment also referenced the infamous white Batman suit Jaden wore to Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's wedding in 2014, when he was 16. Jaden recycled the suit a year later when he went to his high school prom with friend Mecca Kalani.
In an interview with GQ in 2015, Jaden admitted he would wear a Batman suit or Spider-Man suit with duck boots as a kid and "never take them off." As for his unique Batman formal wear, he said he wanted to protect everyone at the wedding.
"I wore the Batman suit to heighten my experience at the wedding and prom which was fun, but also at the wedding I felt as though I needed to protect everyone there and needed to have the proper gear to do so," Jaden explained.
He also said his style icons are Batman, Robin, Nightwing, Superman and West.
Jaden's mom, Pinkett-Smith, also celebrated her son's birthday by sharing a photo of him while he was still in diapers.
"Jaden is 20 today and I’m ALL in my feelings about it. I’ve enjoyed watching him get older until the teen dropped off the number lol. You’re still my baby Jaden ... I really don’t think that will ever change:) Happy Birthday my love. Thank you for always making my heart smile," Pinkett Smith wrote.
Pinkett Smith and Smith are also parents to Willow, 17. Smith also has a son from his first marriage to Sheree Zampino, 25-year-old Trey.
When Willow's birthday comes up in October, the family will be sure to celebrate in a different way. Pinkett Smith said on her Facebook Watch show Red Table Talk that the siblings could not be more different.
"Jaden and Willow have always been different. They were born that way," Pinkett Smith said. "A lot of people think that it came from my rearing, but no, it just so happened that that’s how they came into the world and I had to get in order. I had to be open enough to receive it."
Jaden starred alongside his father in After Earth (2013) and The Pursuit of Happyness (2006). He also released his new album, SYRELand, this weekend.
Photo credit: Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Netflix
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Home News Health Ambode speaks as Buhari inaugurates Ayinke House
Ambode speaks as Buhari inaugurates Ayinke House
President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday in Lagos inaugurated the Institute of Maternal and Child Health (Ayinke House) located within the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja.
Buhari, shortly after arriving the venue at 10.58am, did the unveiling of the plaque and cutting of the tape, and thereafter took a tour of the facility accompanied by Gov. Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State.
He was also accompanied by Governors Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun, Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti, Rotimi Akerodolu of Ondo and Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State among others.
Buhari is in Lagos to inaugurate some projects executed by the State Government.
Aside the maternity building, the President will inaugurate other projects including the Lagos Theatre, Oshodi Transport Interchange and International Airport Road as well as 820 Mass Transit buses.
Speaking at the Ayinke House inauguration, Ambode described the development as historic, expressing optimism that the facility would provide world-class childbirth and maternal care services to Lagosians and Nigerians at large, NAN reports.
Recalling how the journey began, he said the facility was commissioned exactly 29 years ago, with the late philanthropist, Sir Mobolaji Bank-Anthony donating the first dedicated maternal and child care facility to the State Government, in memory of his mother; hence the christened name “Ayinke House”.
He said the hospital, which started with just one surgical theatre, soon assumed a life of its own as a first-class childbirth and maternal care centre in the health sector of Nigeria, as well as first choice for expectant mothers.
The governor said that the hospital later became over-stretched beyond capacity and somehow obsolete, hence, in recognition of the need to sustain the Bank-Anthony’s philanthropy, the State Government, during the administration of former Governor Babatunde Fashola, awarded the contract for the expansion and reconstruction of the facility.
“Today, seven years after the closure of the facility, the new edifice is now a 170-bed facility with five surgical theatres.
“It has a 16-bed emergency care unit with three organ support facilities, 30-bed special baby care unit, five neo-natal intensive care units, a fully equipped laboratory with support services, laboratories and a blood bank.
“Beyond the significance for the health sector, this institute is a major contribution to our education sector also; as it becomes a veritable platform for our medical students in the State University to enhance their exposure and experience with the top-class medical equipment provided,” Ambode said.
He said that Ayinke House had also been completely digitalised with state-of-the-art medical equipment as well as information technology services supported by the State Ministry of Science and Technology.
Ambode said in view of President Buhari’s determination of making universal and basic primary healthcare one of the cardinal priorities of his administration, the State Government, under him, had consciously worked to bring quality, affordable and modern healthcare to all our citizenry, among other initiatives in the health sector.
“Just last year, we launched the Lagos State Health Insurance Scheme to allow residents access top quality medical care with a little contribution and support from the State government.
“These and other efforts are directed at improving the lives of our people, especially the women and children; and by extension the productivity of our nation,” he said.
While congratulating President Buhari on his resounding victory at the recent presidential election, Ambode thanked him for finding time to personally commission Ayinke House and other projects in the state.
He said that the completion of the projects would not have been possible without the President’s support, administrative direction and encouragement.
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by John Devine on July 17, 2019
Click here to book a free in-home consultation
International students are beating a path to Georgian College classrooms this fall, and they need a place to live. Local families are being encouraged to help by participating in the Homestay program.
The college is expecting about 1,200 new international students across its Barrie, Orangeville, Orillia, Owen Sound and South Georgian Bay campuses. As well as the Homestay program, the college is encouraging property owners and landlords to list furnished rental units on places4students.com.
While the college welcomes traditional rentals, students in the Homestay program expect to learn about life in Canada – and adjust to their new community – with the help of host families. They’re looking to experience typical Canadian family dynamics, make new friends, and improve their English.
Homestay host Lisa Tooke has lived in a few different countries and has also travelled extensively. She’s always looking for new ways to help her two sons experience different cultures.
“We’re not able to travel the world right now so I expose them to different languages, foods and cultures whenever I can,” said Tooke, who has hosted students from China, Japan, Brazil and Panama over the past four years and says her family has much about their customs, culture and family life.
In turn, her Homestay students have discovered what life in Canada is like from a family perspective.
“They’ve seen how I raise my two sons versus how they have been raised, which may be totally different.”
Tooke includes her students in all her family activities.
“We’ve gone camping and taken road trips to Manitoulin Island, Tobermory, and through Muskoka to see the fall colours. They’re part of all our celebrations.”
She also encourages them to take advantage of the free activities they can tap into in Barrie. Tooke said she would totally recommend becoming a Homestay host.
“We can all learn from others and gain an awareness of different cultures and a broader look at life. You’re sharing your life with a stranger who soon becomes a friend and family member.”
She added that most students want to be a part of everything Canadian – especially being part of a family unit.
“We’ve learned to be patient when English is not their first language, and Google Translate helps a lot when we’re stuck,” she laughed.
Tom and Maureen Staples have also hosted several international students through the Homestay program. They have seven children, but six are grown and have moved away.
“We were so used to having children around – and a full house. It was just a no brainer,” explained Maureen. “I get to have new daughters and new sons, from all over the world.”
When you make the decision to welcome an international student into your home, you’re giving them a head start on their transition into Canadian life, explained Marina Tomchak, who manages international student housing at Georgian.
“Students require support, but many host families gain so much more than they give. Some build friendships that last a lifetime.”
Homestay students pay $600 to $900 monthly, depending on whether hosts provide meals. Hosts must provide a furnished private bedroom, as well as access to laundry machines, kitchen and bathroom facilities, and Wi-Fi. Hosts opting to feed their students must provide food for three nutritious meals every day.
Anyone interested in becoming a Homestay host should apply at whyihost.canadahomestaynetwork.ca. People with furnished rooms who don’t wish to host can list their rental units on places4students.com or send an email to gcintlhousing@georgiancollege.ca.
Gracious hosts: The Staples (right) and their Homestay guests (left) enjoy breakfast on the back deck. Family meals are a big draw for international students looking for accommodations through the Homestay program. (Georgian College / Doug Crawford)
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A swim advisory has been recommended by the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit (SMDHU) for Minets Point Beach due to elevated bacteriological results.
Samples were taken on Monday and re-sampling is scheduled to occur Tuesday afternoon, with results expected Wednesday afternoon.
According to the health unit, water quality can change daily or even hourly depending on the weather and other conditions. Swimmers are encouraged to make smart decisions about beach-water quality before swimming.
Water quality at designated public beaches is tested regularly for bacteria. However, due to the delay in receiving lab results, beachgoers cannot rely on only lab results to know if it is safe to swim. Swimmers are advised to consider a number of factors before going in the water, such as rain, wind, the presence of waterfowl, wet sand and shallow water.
The coming days are expected to be among the hottest of the summer, with real temperatures soaring into the 30s.
With such heat forecast, the City of Barrie reminds residents to keep cool and stay safe. During a high heat alert, the public are reminded to:
• Rest frequently in shaded areas
• Drink plenty of fluids
• Never leave infants, children or pets in a parked car
• Dress in cool, loose clothing and shade your head with a hat or umbrella
• Check regularly on family, friends or neighbours who are at higher risk of heat-related illnesses and who do not have air conditioning
• Plan to attend the festivities during cooler parts of the day
• Seek shelter indoors or in the shade.
Barrie has a number of amenities that can help residents beat the heat, including:
• Head to the beach. Barrie is lucky to have several locations to choose from. Lifeguards are on duty at Centennial and Johnson’s beaches from Friday, June 29 to Sunday, August 19 from 11:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. daily, weather permitting. There is no supervision available at any of the other waterfront locations. Residents are reminded to practice water safety; there is no substitute for parent supervision. Stay within arm’s reach, swim with a buddy and get trained. Visit www.barrie.ca/beaches for more information
• Jump in a pool. Those looking to avoid the sun but still enjoy the water, can visit one of the pools located at the City’s recreation centres including Allandale Recreation Centre, Holly Community Centre and East Bayfield Community Centre. Visit www.barrie.ca/DropIns for pool schedules
• Splash around at the splash pad at Lampman Lane Park or the popular water feature at Heritage Park
• The City’s recreation centres and libraries are open and available to the public during regular operating hours.
For the eighth year running, Barrie firefighters are having a meet-and-greet session to ‘cool down’ local residents.
In what has become an annual tradition, the Barrie Fire and Emergency Service (BFES) is participating in Hot Summer Nights, a free summertime event offered by the City of Barrie.
Kids of all ages can check out the cooling fire truck shower, meet firefighters, ask fire safety questions and participate in hands-on activities such as a retro combat gear challenge to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the service. Domino’s Pizza will be on site at the events selling pizza slices for $1 each, with proceeds going to charity.
“Events like Hot Summer Nights reflect our vision of getting to know the community better and educating residents to ensure they are safe, all while having fun,” says Samantha Hoffmann, Public Fire and Life Safety Officer, BFES.
Hot Summer Nights take place from 6 to 8 p.m. during July and August, weather permitting, on the following dates:
• July 18 – Shear Park, 21-23 Holgate Street
• July 25 – Pringle Park, 29 Pringle Drive
• Aug. 1 – Sunnidale Park, 227 Sunnidale Road
• Aug. 8 – Painswick Park, 231 Ashford Drive
• Aug. 15 – Batteaux Park, 443 Mapleton Avenue
• Aug. 21 – Lawnchair Luminata at Meridian Place, downtown Barrie (note: this event takes place from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m.)
For more information, visit barrie.ca. If any of the above dates are cancelled due to weather, a notice will be shared on Barrie Fire’s Twitter account.
The City of Barrie is accepting applications from community organizations for up to $7,000 in one-time funding for LGBTQIA2+ programs and initiatives, including Pride celebrations and anti-bullying programs that benefit the Barrie community.
In May, Council approved $14,000 in funding for LGBTQIA2+ initiatives, including the installation of a rainbow crosswalk across Simcoe Street at Meridian Place. The crosswalk was installed at a cost of $7,000, funded by private donations. The City is investing an additional $7,000 to support LGBTQIA2+ programs through one-time community grants.
Eligible organizations are encouraged to apply for the following two grant streams:
• Investing in Community Organizations Grant – funding for existing, not-for-profit organizations dedicated to improving the lives of LGBTQIA2+ youth and families. Funding must be for either a new program or resource, or to scale an existing program to meet an identified need in the community.
• Building Community Grant – funding for existing or new organizations who are seeking to establish or grow the LGBTQIA2+ members or services in their community. Funding must be for a campaign, program or resource to be deployed within their community. Priority will be given to those organizations serving Indigenous/First Nations communities, new Canadians, and youth at risk. If the applicant organization is not a registered not-for-profit, they must apply in partnership with a registered not for profit organization. The City of Barrie encourages community partnerships for this grant program.
A jury of individuals from outside of Barrie with expertise in LGBTQIA2+ issues will be recruited to review the submissions and make recommendations on the awards. Individuals affiliated in any way with the organizations submitting proposals will be ineligible to participate on the jury. Applications are being accepted until August 9, 2019. For more information, including the application form and guidelines, visitbarrie.ca/CulturalGrants.
Georgian College is hosting a summer event on July 16 to support mature students interested in going back to college.
Get Help to Go Back offers an opportunity to connect with college admissions and recruitment staff. Participants can speak to a career consultant, go on a campus tour, get one-on-one support with both full- and part-time program research, college applications, and more.
Plus, if you apply in person at the event, Georgian will cover your Ontario College Application Service (OCAS) application fee.
“We’ve had a great response to our Get Help to Go Back events – especially for those who have been out of school for a while,” said Kailey Hawkins, Interim Manager of Student Recruitment at Georgian.
“If you’re thinking of training for a new career but aren’t sure where to start, our knowledgeable and friendly staff from our student recruitment team, part-time studies and academic upgrading are here to help with ideas and provide information about how to take that next step. We can make the process easier for mature learners.”
Anyone interested in participating should RSVP online to ensure adequate staffing. Get Help to Go Back will take place at all seven campus locations in Barrie, Midland, Muskoka (Bracebridge), Orillia, Owen Sound, Orangeville and South Georgian Bay (Collingwood), from 5 to 7 p.m. on July 16.
Participants are welcome to bring family and friends. Parking is free for Get Help to Go Back guests. You will receive detailed instructions about how to access complimentary parking when you RSVP online.
Ward 9 councillor Sergio Morales
Shot down at council, Ward 9 councillor Sergio Morales has turned to the Barrie Police Service Board for information on the financial and operational implications of a safe injection site on police services.
The vote on whether to approve the site proposed for 90 Mulcaster Street was deferred until October during a July 4 council meeting. At that session Morales tabled an amendment that council ask the Barrie Police Service for a memo outlining the possible financial and operational implications if a site were to be approved and located in Barrie.
“Unfortunately, that amendment failed a vote. Considering that Mayor Jeff Lehman made it clear that we should have all the information we need before the (site) recommendation comes back to (council) in the fall, and to not leave request for information to the last minute, I was surprised and shocked that the amendment failed,” he writes in a letter to the Police Service Board.
Continuing that he considers it to be “within my scope, and most importantly, within my duty to ask for such information,” Morales says he has contacted both Mayor Jeff Lehman and Chief Kimberly Greenwood, who encouraged him to direct his request to the board’s directors.
In his letter to the board, he writes “I am contacting you … with the request that (council) is provided with a memo outlining the possible financial and operational implications if a (site) were to be approved and located in the City of Barrie, by September 30th, 2019 at 4:30 p.m, so that we have it by the time” the matter returns to council.
Morales also seeks information on Barrie Police Service resources, operational and financial, “that have been allocated to opioid-related events, including but not related to overdoses, calls for service” at the Barrie Public Library, “businesses, and residential homes, and extra calls for service in neighbourhoods where a (site) is established, amongst others metrics” the board feels are relevant.
“Including metric information from enough years back before reported opioid-related events began to spike would assist us in quantifying the existing impact opioids are having on (police).”
Here’s a link to the councillor’s Facebook page where the letter is posted.
by John Devine on July 4, 2019
Gaining practical, on-the-job experience is a crucial component for success for post-secondary education students studying in the fields of science, technology, engineering, mathematics and business. The opportunity to work in an industry setting also helps students align technical, foundational and work-ready skills that Canadian employers need.
Georgian College and the Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC) have announced a partnership agreement to help bridge the skills gap in high-growth sectors in the digital economy and work toward providing opportunities for students to be better prepared for the digital workforce as part of ICTC’s Workplace Integrated Learning (WIL) Digital Program.
Both organizations recognize the benefits of fostering collaboration between business, academia and associations to prepare students with the skills needs of business, both parties will work together to strengthen relations with industry and increase communications about the education perspective and needs.
“Georgian is Ontario’s number one co-op college and a leader in work integrated learning,” said MaryLynn West-Moynes, President and CEO, Georgian College.
“Today’s workplace requires advanced technical and social skills and through our collaborative partnerships with area employers and organizations like ICTC, we are ensuring our students are prepared to contribute, innovate and thrive when they graduate.”
Elizabeth Mills, ICTC’S Director Skills Development, says they are pleased to have signed a memorandum of understanding with the college.
“To preserve Canada’s competitiveness in response to rapid technological change and increasing global competition, industry and post-secondary education institutions must collaborate on the preparation of a highly skilled workforce.
“Georgian College is a leader in engaging business in this way and with facilitating work integrated learning opportunities for its students. Annually the college facilitates over 3,500 co-op and internship work terms. Through WIL Digital agreement, employers working with Georgian will be able to increase the number of work terms they offer and Georgian will be able to engage employers that have not been able to provide work terms.”
ICTC is a not-for-profit national centre of expertise for the digital economy. It is the trusted source for evidence-based policy advice, forward looking research, and creative capacity building programs for the digital economy.
The ICTC WIL Digital Program is designed to work with academic institutions and industry to give students the skills needed to work in emerging technology sectors. Over four years, WIL Digital will create over a thousand high-quality work experiences for students across Canada. The program is funded by the Government of Canada’s Student Work Placement Program.
Barrie ready to enforce new smoking rules, including cannabis, vaping and e-cigarettes
Barrie’s new smoking bylaw which went into effect on June 17, 2019 has been has been expanded to include cannabis, vaping and e-cigarettes, and increased restrictions on where smoking can take place, in accordance with the Smoke-Free Ontario Act.
Some of the main updated smoking restrictions include:
• Recreation centres/arenas are completely smoke-free on the property as well an additional 20 metre radius surrounding the property.
• Smoking is not permitted on all property owned or operated by the City of Barrie which has been designated as parkland (e.g. sports fields, splash pads, fitness areas, playgrounds, etc.)
• Smoking is not permitted on or within nine metres surrounding an outdoor food service patio.
• The definition of ‘smoke’ has been updated to include cannabis and tobacco. As well, the definition of ‘smoking’ has been updated to include vaping, e-cigarettes or any similar product whether the product is lit or not.
New signage is being installed at parks and facilities throughout the city to remind people where smoking is not permitted, however if in doubt, put it out. City enforcement staff will be out in the community educating people on the new regulations and conducting enforcement when required.
For more information about the new smoking by-law, please visit barrie.ca/SmokingBylaw.
by John Devine on June 28, 2019
Where activities may be water-based, young children should always be supervised and wear a proper personal floatation device (PFD) or lifejacket no matter how strong a swimmer or how old they may be.
The Barrie Police Service is reminding the residents that they have the ability to make the summer of 2019 one to remember for all the right reasons.
By simply incorporating a few extra minutes into your planning and preparation, this will ensure that you and your family can enjoy the whole summer and not just part of it.
The family vehicle will no doubt be the one of the most important items that should be properly checked before heading anywhere this summer. By making sure that vehicle is road worthy, you want to make sure that everything from the tires to the engine is working properly and that all the fluid levels are topped off.
A mechanical inspection and tuneup are good ideas to give the peace of mind that your vehicle will deliver you to and from your destinations. This holds true for travel trailers and boats as well – by taking the time now, you will ensure that they can deliver what they are meant to provide when you are away.
For people who may be away for an extended period of time, it is important to give your home the look that someone is there, even when you may not be. Having the lawn cut, picking up papers and flyers, interior and exterior lights on timers and even a neighbour’s car in the driveway can all help.
Where activities may be water-based, young children should always be supervised and wear a proper personal floatation device (PFD) or lifejacket no matter how strong a swimmer or how old they may be. Non-swimmers should always wear a PFD when entering a pool or a lake as we have seen far too many people lose their lives because they were not prepared properly for the water they entered.
When packing your vehicle and trailer, always ensure that any loose items are properly secured and remember to stop occasionally to check that nothing has loosed up while you have travelling. Drivers should also pack a little patience and always give yourself plenty of time to get to where you wish to go. As motorists, you have no control over road closures, lane reductions due to seasonal construction or broken down vehicles that create a visual distraction for everyone travelling on that stretch of road.
Don’t become a victim of crime as it is preventable in most cases. By always locking your vehicle, securing valuables out of sight and following some of these safety tips, your summer can be one to remember for the right reasons.
It promises to be a fun-filled weekend in Barrie, with an airshow, Promenade days, and Canada Day fireworks scheduled.
The following municipal services will be affected in Barrie this Canada Day weekend:
Barrie Transit
Free Air Show Shuttle: A section of Route 1 and Route 8 will be free to encourage airshow visitors to park at either East Bayfield Community Centre or Allandale Recreation Centre. The times and locations of free service are listedwww.barrie.ca/TransitNotice. Barrie Transit will run Regular Sunday Service on Monday, July 1.
Curbside Collection
There will be no garbage, organics, recycling, and yard waste collection on Canada Day, Monday. Collection during the week of this holiday will occur one day later throughout the week. (www.barrie.ca/CurbsideCollection). Reminder: materials must always be curbside by 7 a.m. on your collection day and the landfill site is closed to the public every Sunday and Monday.
Downtown parking (on-street and lots) is free on all statutory holidays. Waterfront parking is enforced 24/7/365. Residents must display their permits and visitors are required to pay $3 per hour with a daily maximum of $20 (www.barrie.ca/parking).
Barrie City Hall will be closed on Monday, July 1.
All recreation centres will be closed on Monday, July 1.
Summer officially arrived June 21, but for those looking for the signs of summer, it could be today (June 28) when lifeguards take their posts on Barrie’s beaches.
City lifeguards will be on duty at Centennial and Johnson’s beaches starting today from 11:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. daily, weather permitting.
Signs will be posted to note when lifeguards are on duty and buoy lines will mark the designated supervised swimming areas. There is no supervision available at any of the other waterfront locations, including Minet’s Point Park Beach, Tyndale Park Beach, Heritage Park Water Feature, and Wilkins Beach.
Once again this summer, the City of Barrie is partnering with the Canadian Red Cross for the PFD Loan Service. This program allows visitors to borrow Personal Flotation Devices for FREE (a $10 refundable deposit is required) from the lifeguard office at Centennial Beach and Johnson’s Beach during times that lifeguards are on duty. More than 260 people participated in the program in 2018. For more information about Barrie’s beaches, visit barrie.ca/beaches.
While lifeguards will be on duty this weekend, residents are reminded that water restrictions will be in place to ensure the safety of both the public and participants during the Barrie Air Show. The following restrictions will be in place on Friday, from 12 – 9 p.m. and Saturday, from 12 – 5 p.m. Times may be extended if the air show is delayed.
• A safety line will be placed in the water from Johnson’s Beach to Minet’s Point Park, which will be enforced by the Barrie Police and their service partners on Lake Simcoe. Public viewing by boat will be permitted east of the safety line.
• Boating and water-based activities will be restricted west of that line, including boating, swimming, kayaking, canoeing and SUPing. Centennial and Johnson’s beaches are within the restricted area.
• Barrie Marina and Tiffin boat launches will be closed all day June 28 and June 29 until 5 p.m. Boaters are encouraged to use nearby public launches, including Innisfil, Orillia area and Shanty Bay.
Police investigate death of man found in wooded area
On Monday at 2:27 p.m., members of the Barrie Police Service responded to a report of deceased male located in a heavily wood area adjacent to the onramp to southbound Highway 400 from southbound Bayfield Street in the City of Barrie.
As a result of the investigation which was conducted by the Barrie Police Criminal Investigation Division, who were assisted by the Forensic Identification Unit, the 40-year old victim has been positively identified and next of kin notifications have been made.
The deceased was removed from the scene late Monday afternoon and transported to the Office of the Chief Coroner and Forensic Pathology Service (OCC-OFPS) in Toronto where a post mortem is scheduled to take place today.
This death investigation is continuing and police are assisting the Coroner.
Police believe suspect in two armed robberies the same man
Barrie police seek the public’s assistance in identifying a suspect wanted for two recent armed robberies in Barrie.
On Monday, June 17, at approximately 2 a.m., the suspect entered the Ultramar gas station located at 375 Mapleview Drive. The suspect, police report, immediately walked to the counter, displayed a weapon and made a demand for cash. The suspect obtained a quantity of cash before fleeing southwest from the store on foot. The employee was not physically injured as a result of the incident.
On Monday, June 24, at approximately 2:00 a.m., the same suspect entered the Circle K located at 420 Leacock Drive. The suspect immediately walked to the counter, displayed a weapon and made a demand for cash. The suspect obtained a quantity of cash before fleeing from the store on foot. The employee was not physically injured as a result of the incident.
The same suspect is believed to be responsible for both robberies, and iOS described as:
• White, male
• Mid 20s to early 30s
• About 5’8” – 6’0” tall, medium build
• Wearing a black hooded sweatshirt with a logo on the front left, light coloured piping and a logo on the back bottom right and a dark grey shirt underneath the hooded sweatshirt, a black bandana with white lettering covering his face and green running shoes.
In the first occurrence, the suspect was wearing black track pants and grey gardening gloves with black palms. In the second occurrence, the suspect was wearing what is believed to be the same pants turned inside out and yellow gardening gloves with black palms.
Investigating officers are asking anyone who may have information to please contact the Barrie Police Service at 705-725-7025 ext. 2129. Any information can be provided anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS or leave an anonymous tip online at www.p3tips.com.
Canada’s Snowbirds and the CF-18 Demo Team return to Barrie for Canada Day festivities, including a free airshow on Friday and Saturday.
The high-flying act is presented in partnership with the City of Barrie, Downtown Barrie BIA, and Canadian Forces Base Borden. To cap the weekend off, the City is hosting its annual Canada Day party July 1 in conjunction with Downtown Barrie’s Promenade Days.
Barrie Air Show
The Canadian Forces Snowbirds and CF-18 Demo Team will perform two shows over Kempenfelt Bay on Friday at 6 p.m., and Saturday, at 1 p.m. There will also be a practice run on Friday, at approximately 1 p.m. Recommended viewing for the show is at Heritage Park, Centennial Park, Allandale Station Park, and the parks along the north and south shore of Kempenfelt Bay. Tune in to 87.9 FM from the waterfront to follow along with show commentary.
The fun continues with Canadian Forces Base Borden displays and a kiddie commando course in Heritage Park from 11 a.m. – 7 p.m. on Friday. Enjoy aviation-themed activities at Terminal 4 at Five Points Theatre, presented by Pratt Homes & Development, featuring flight simulators, displays, story time, vendors and more from 11 a.m. – 6 p.m., Saturday to Monday. On Saturday at 9:30 p.m., head to Meridian Place for a special outdoor screening of Top Gun.
Viewing from water
In order to ensure the safety of both the public and the air show participants during this event, the following restrictions will be in place on Friday from 12 – 9 p.m. and Saturday from 12 – 5 p.m. Times may be extended if the air show is delayed.
• A safety line will be placed in the water from Johnson’s Beach to Minet’s Point Park, which will be enforced by the Barrie Police and their service partners on Lake Simcoe.
• Public viewing by boat will be permitted east of the safety line.
• Boats and water-based activities will be restricted west of that line including boating, swimming, kayaking, canoeing and SUPing.
• Barrie Marina and Tiffin boat launches will be closed all day Saturday and Friday until 5 p.m. Boaters are encouraged to use nearby public launches, including Innisfil, Orillia area and Shanty Bay.
On Monday, head downtown to enjoy family activities and vendors in Heritage Park as well as live entertainment, funded in part by the Government of Canada and Tim Hortons.
The Promenade Days Stage at Meridian Place will be headlined by CCMA Award winner (2018 Songwriter of the Year) and Canadian Country Music star, Aaron Goodvin, and supported by up-and-comer Kalsey Kulyk. There will be a birthday cake cut by local dignitaries and a variety of activities including face painting, Canadian wildlife displays, inflatables, vendors and games from 1 to 9 p.m.
Capping off the night on Monday, the City of Barrie will present a spectacular fireworks show over Kempenfelt Bay starting at 10 p.m. In case of inclement weather, fireworks will be held Tuesday, July 2. This information will be shared on Creative Barrie social media accounts at twitter.com/CreativeBarrie and facebook.com/CreativeBarrie, and the Special Events line 705-739-4285.
The celebrations continue with Promenade Days, happening June 28 to July 1 in downtown Barrie. Promenade Days is presented by the Downtown Barrie BIA and features vendors, street patios, family activities, and entertainment along Dunlop Street. downtownbarrie.ca/promenade-days For more information about the Canada Day weekend celebrations, including the Barrie Air Show and full entertainment schedule, visit barrie.ca/CanadaDay.
General Richard Rohmer receives honorary degree from Georgian College
General Richard Rohmer was the recipient of an honorary degree at Georgian College’s convocation ceremonies
A decorated and well-known World War Two and D-Day veteran was honoured at a ceremony this week at the Barrie Molson Centre.
Georgian College presented decorated Canadian aviator and respected lawyer Honorary Lieutenant-General Richard Rohmer with the Board of Governors’ Honorary Bachelor of Applied Studies.
College President and CEO MaryLynn West-Moynes and Board of Governors’ Chair Don Gordon presented the degree to Rohmer during convocation ceremonies at the Barrie Molson Centre, this past Tuesday.
“General Rohmer embodies all the criteria and exemplifies the college’s values in many ways,” said West-Moynes. “He has consistently achieved excellence in all his endeavours, including his outstanding service in the Canadian Armed Forces, his successful career as a lawyer and honorary posts in a number of organizations.”
The college’s Board of Governors’ Honorary Bachelor of Applied Studies is presented to a recipient who has enhanced or promoted the college’s image and reputation in Ontario or elsewhere; made a significant contribution to society; and achieved noted accomplishments in a particular field of study or applied education.
General Rohmer took part in D-Day and is a senior Canadian veteran of the battles of Normandy, Belgium and Holland. As Ministerial Advisor to the Minister of Veterans Affairs, he took part in the planning and preparation of the government’s celebration of the 70th anniversary of D-Day at Juno Beach in Normandy in 2014, and was engaged in plans for the in-Holland Canadian celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Liberation of the Netherlands in 2015.
He also co-chaired the Ontario advisory committee that created the veterans’ memorial unveiled in September 2006 in front of the provincial legislature at Queen’s Park in Toronto.
A lawyer and member of the Ontario Bar, General Rohmer completed his legal studies at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. He remains an active senior member of the Toronto law firm of Rohmer & Fenn, an international and national aviation and commercial litigation practice.
“General Rohmer is an exceptional role model for Georgian students and all Canadians,” said West-Moynes. “Among his many accolades, he is Senior Honorary Commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police, Honorary Chief of the Ontario Association of Paramedic Chiefs and Honorary Chief of Toronto Paramedic Services. For his great service to our country we all owe him a debt of gratitude.”
General Rohmer is author of more than 30 books and a recognized historian who lives in Collingwood. He is also Chancellor Emeritus of the University of Windsor.
Police seek public’s help in fail-to-remain investigation
The Barrie Police Service is seeking the public’s assistance after a fail-to-remain collision that took place last Sunday, involving a nine-year-old boy.
On Sunday at 12:58 p.m., the Barrie boy was riding his bicycle on Agnes Street when a car travelling in the same direction came into contact with him, causing him to fall from his bike onto the roadway, police report. The driver got out for a brief moment, but jumped back into his car only to drive away at a high rate of speed. The entire incident was captured by a home video surveillance camera. The young cyclist sustained non-life threatening injuries as a result of this fail to remain collision.
The involved motor vehicle, which is believed to be a white Chrysler 300, has black sport style rims and should have some damage to the passenger side, front right corner. The driver is described as male tanned, heavy build, short black curly hair and was dressed in all black clothing.
Anyone with information on this incident is asked to contact Constable Guerrero at 705-725-7025, ext. 2628 or by email at dguerrero@barriepolice.ca. You can also contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477) or leave an anonymous tip online at www.p3tips.com.
Police are encouraging the driver to either contact the investigating officer or attend to the Barrie Police Service Headquarters located at 29 Sperling Drive so that this collision can be properly investigated.
A ‘game-changer’ centre at Georgian College named after local philanthropist and businessman Peter B. Moore
Peter B. Moore’s family helped celebrate the official unveiling of the external signage for the Peter B. Moore Advanced Technology Centre at the Barrie Campus on June 20. From left to right: Alison Moore, Stephen Moore (holding Henry), Phillip Moore, Peter B. Moore, Trevor O’Hara, Pamela Moore and Lois O’Hara. (Georgian College / Doug Crawford)
Signage for a centre that is being called a “game-changer” at Georgian College was unveiled at a special ceremony, Thursday.
The centre is called the Peter B. Moore Advanced Technology Centre, named after “local philanthropist and businessman Peter B. Moore,” according to the college. It was funded by four levels of government and “generous donors,” and is a “game-changer for research and innovation in central Ontario for both students and industry.”
In addition to Moore and family members, others in attendance were Don Gordon, Chair, Board of Governors; MaryLynn West-Moynes, President and CEO, Georgian College; board of governors, senior leadership, major donors, industry partners, staff and students.
A tour of the centre following formal remarks and the unveiling of signage. The event will take place in front of the centre (N building, near the roundabout at the Barrie campus).
Job fair features 18 local manufacturers with jobs to offer
A job fair hosted by the City is scheduled for Wednesday, from 2 to 6 p.m. at the Holly Community Centre.
The fair features 18 local manufacturers seeking qualified candidates for a variety of opportunities. The event is an opportunity to learn more about a career in manufacturing and speak directly to local employers who are hiring. Attendees should bring a resume and be prepared for on-the-spot interviews.
The following companies will be in attendance: Albarrie Canada, Barrie Trim and Moulding, Ben-Mor, Brotech Precision CNC, CR-Systems, Busch Systems, CSR Cosmetics, Flags Unlimited, Gantem, Innovative Automation, Linear Transfer, Maclean Engineering, Moore Packaging, Napoleon, Prodomax, Southbrook Cabinetry, Honda, and Southmedic.
Anyone looking for more information about the event can contact Nora Gavarre atnora.gavarre@barrie.ca
Federal grant lets Georgian deepen collaboration with regional manufacturers
On hand for the NSERC announcement at Georgian College were, left to right: Zvi Lifshiz, Executive Director, Invest Barrie; Don Gordon, Chair, Georgian College Board of Governors; Dr. MaryLynn West-Moynes, President and CEO, Georgian College; The Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science and Sport; Dr. Mira Ray, Director of Research and Innovation, Georgian College; Dr. Marc Fortin, Chief Operating Officer and Vice-President, Research Partnerships, NSERC; Warden George Cornell, County of Simcoe; Janice Skot, President and CEO, Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre; and Kevin Weaver, Vice President, Academic, Georgian College. (Georgian College / Doug Crawford)
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A $2 million grant from the federal government will help Georgian College support the needs of regional manufacturers, college officials say.
The college is getting a BUILD Innovation Enhancement (BUILD IE) grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada’s (NSERC) College and Community Innovation (CCI) Program.
The announcement was made Thursday at the Barrie Campus by Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science and Sport.
The grant, to be disbursed over five years, will be used toward Georgian’s Competitive Smart Manufacturing (CSM) program – a growing part of research and innovation at the college.
“Georgian’s CSM program supports regional manufacturers with the implementation of advanced technologies and information strategies that ultimately improve traditional approaches to manufacturing and boost competitiveness,” said Dr. MaryLynn West-Moynes, President and CEO of Georgian College.
“Our program has grown steadily over the past two years. With this NSERC funding, Georgian is well positioned to double its CSM activity within five years.”
The program operates out of the Alectra Centre for Research, Innovation and Commercialization (C-RIC), located in Georgian’s Peter B. Moore Advanced Technology Centre.
The college recently invested funds, contributed by individual donors and local industry partners, to equip the C-RIC with most of the Industry 4.0 infrastructure required by the CSM program to operate. Additional required equipment – including a virtual reality system, 3D scanner and printer, and fabrication machinery – will be purchased with the BUILD IE funds and research projects will focus on the development of smart products and production systems, Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity, automation and robotics.
“Georgian will leverage the $2 million from NSERC and funding from partners to invest $6 million over five years toward Competitive Smart Manufacturing collaborative research activities with small to medium-sized companies,” said Dr. West-Moynes. “It is this competitiveness that ensures good jobs and attracts new opportunities to stay and grow in our community.”
The funding will also make training industry, students and faculty on advanced manufacturing and Industry 4.0 technologies a priority.
“The NSERC BUILD IE grant will allow new ways for Georgian to contribute to the growing research and innovation cluster in Central Ontario, ultimately leading to a stronger region, province and country,” said Dr. Mira Ray, Director of Research and Innovation at Georgian.
“This grant gives our researchers the opportunity to work hand-in-hand with local companies to advance their research and development objectives.”
Dr. Ray added that this is an exciting time for Georgian’s students and researchers.
“New technology, increased connectivity, and access to data are changing the way products are developed and made,” she said. “Through Georgian’s CSM program, we have already helped companies make decisions regarding large infrastructure equipment investments, integrate Industry 4.0 practices into their operations, and look at their data with new, critical perspectives.”
The funds Georgian received were part of an announcement by Minister Duncan of $57 million awarded to 77 recipients through the College and Community Innovation (CCI) program, one of the largest vehicles for funding research at colleges, polytechnics and CÉGEPs across the country. The CCI program develops highly skilled people, builds research knowledge and provides opportunities to share this expertise with local businesses, particularly small- and medium-sized companies, to improve processes and technologies.
City appoints new GM of Infrastructure and Growth Management department
Andrea (Bourrie) Miller, the City’s new General Manager of Infrastructure and Growth Management.
Andrea (Bourrie) Miller is Barrie’s new General Manager of Infrastructure and Growth Management.
An experienced professional planner with almost 30 years of North American experience on large, challenging projects, Miller has a degree in planning from the University of Waterloo and post graduate education in business management and leadership from the University of St. Gallen and International Institute for Management Development (IMD) – both in Switzerland.
“Andrea brings groups together to discover innovative ways of exploring opportunities and issues,” said Michael Prowse, City of Barrie CAO.
“She is known for her ability to translate strategic ideas into actionable tasks. Andrea is respected in the industry for delivering solutions to complex planning and engineering problems, offering strategic advice on regulatory risk management, facilitating resolution of government and community issues, as well as building consensus across diverse groups of stakeholders.”
Miller joined the City of Barrie in June 2017 as Director of Planning and Building Services, after having spent her entire career in the private sector. In her short time in Barrie, she has implemented numerous process improvements, initiated policy updates, facilitated a more holistic approach to tackling various growth management and community issues and has spoken to community stakeholders on a variety of topics, according to the City release.
In addition to her role as Director of Planning and Building Services, Miller has been serving as the Acting General Manager Infrastructure and Growth Management for the last nine months. The division includes Environmental Services (Water, Wastewater and Waste), Engineering, Roads, Parks and Fleet and Planning and Building Services.
Remaining Raptors’ games to be shown at Barrie Molson Centre
by John Devine on June 7, 2019
The Barrie Molson Centre (BMC), located at 555 Bayview Drive is the place to be to cheer on the Toronto Raptors to victory. The BMC will continue to be the free public viewing location for the rest of the NBA Finals.
Schedule of upcoming games be shown at the BMC:
Game Date Time
Game 4 (Tonight) Friday, June 7 9 p.m. (Doors at 8 p.m.)
Game 5 Monday, June 10 9 p.m. (Doors at 8 p.m.
Game 6 (if needed) Thursday, June 13 9 p.m. (Doors at 8 p.m.)
Game 7 (if needed) Sunday, June 16 8 p.m. (Doors at 7 p.m.)
For each game, there will be a family-friendly section and concession stands will be open. No outside food or drink is allowed to be brought into the BMC. Attendees can enter from the East and West gates.
Development charges put on hold as Barrie council commits funds for public viewings of Raptors’ games
Update: Games 4 and 5 will also be shown for free at the Barrie Molson Centre. Game time for both games is 9 p.m. Doors open at 8 p.m. Location of public viewing for Game 6 and 7 (if required), TBD based on weather forecast.
As the midnight hour approached and with Barrie city council fully immersed in a discussion over development charges, Mayor Jeff Lehman abruptly changed subjects, and as a result Toronto Raptors’ fans can watch public viewings of the remaining five games of the NBA finals against the Golden State Warriors.
Lehman asked council’s support to bring in a motion without notice, saying that plans to publicly air the final games were threatened if a motion wasn’t dealt with before midnight came and went. That support was granted.
As a result, council committed up to $22,500 to present a viewing of game three at the Barrie Molson Centre, and games four through seven at Meridian Place. If inclement weather prevents the outdoor viewing, the games would be shown at Molson Centre.
The series is tied 1-1 following the Raptors’ win in game one, and the Warriors’ win in game two. Both games were played in Toronto at Scotiabank Arena. Game three is scheduled for Wednesday, from Oakland. Game four is on Friday, same place.
Game five switches back to Toronto, six back to Oakland, and seven back to TO, as the Raptors have home court advantage. Check here for times and dates.
A viewing of the second game had been planned for Sunday night at Meridian Place, but was cancelled due to weather.
Barrie firefighters invite residents to fill their boots for charity
by John Devine on May 30, 2019
The Barrie Professional Firefighters Association is invited residents to fill their boots this weekend.
The association is holding its 49th Annual Boot Drive for Muscular Dystrophy this weekend at various locations around Barrie. Since this campaign began in 1970, Barrie has helped raise over $2.6 million for charitable organizations.
The Barrie Professional Firefighters Association, family members and fellow volunteers will be soliciting monetary donations from Barrie residents from Thursday to Sunday at locations around Barrie.
“This important fundraising event is a tradition among fire departments across North America. Part of being a firefighter is helping out the community, giving back as much as possible,” says Barrie firefighter and event organizer Charlie Gray.
“It’s one of the best things about being a firefighter and we love helping out the citizens of Barrie.”
All donations collected during this campaign goes to Muscular Dystrophy Canada and Barrie Fire Community Projects. Barrie Fire Community Projects help various charities, organizations and individuals who are in need of financial assistance.
City invites Raptors’ fans to Meridian Place to watch game 2 of NBA finals
Want to watch the Toronto Raptors match claws with the Golden State Warriors for the NBA crown?
Meridian Place will be the place to be for Raptors’ fans looking to watch game 2 of the NBA finals, Sunday night. The game will air live on a large screen in Meridian Place so fans can gather and cheer on the Raptors. The game will broadcast rain or shine starting at 8 p.m.
The City has made a special exemption to the noise bylaw in anticipation that the game may go later than 11 p.m. Downtown Barrie has plenty of parking available. Visit www.barrie.ca/Parking to see a map of parking lots.
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How Do We Detoxify California's Poison Tap Water? More Democracy
The public water boards in the southern San Joaquin Valley are only nominally public. Of 565 water board seats in Fresno, Kern, Kings and Tulare counties, 491 — a stunning 87% — went uncontested in elections over the last four years, according to the Visalia-based Community Water Center. Candidates ran unopposed so often that three-quarters of the boards didn’t even bother to hold elections.
These boards are the closest thing to local government in more than 300 unincorporated communities in the water-scarce San Joaquin Valley. They manage delivery of drinking water to residents and water to farms and dairies. They fund investments in pumps and pipes, set water rates and collect fees, and in some cases manage groundwater consumption.
Most pertinently, they are responsible for water quality in agricultural communities where chemical runoff and naturally occurring contaminants such as arsenic have poisoned wells. As a result, a million or more Californians, most of them living in poor farmworker communities, can’t safely drink the water that comes out of their taps.
As Laurel Firestone, the Community Water Center’s co-executive director, explained to me, local water boards have the potential to change that, particularly if board members are drawn from the communities that are directly affected by the boards’ decisions.
Unfortunately, as the San Joaquin Valley study showed, few boards meet that criterion. Instead, power gets concentrated in the same set of hands over time, often district “good old boys” — older white males who may not even live where water quality is the worst.
The story of West Goshen, an unincorporated town of 500 or so mostly Latino farmworkers and their families in Tulare County, shows both the harm that unrepresentative boards can do and the benefits of invigorating them.
Until 2007, most West Goshen residents didn’t even know that an elected local water board existed. Then the board, in the form of the West Goshen Mutual Water Co., quadrupled their water rates.
It turned out that a single family had run the board and the company for more than a decade, according to Lucy Hernandez, a West Goshen resident who led opposition to the incumbents. West Goshen homeowners should have been voting regularly for those who oversee their water, but partly because of the board’s obscurity, the members never faced opposition; they skipped elections. The board held “public” meetings that community members didn’t know about. “Father, wife, son, niece — it was like a family business,” Hernandez told me.
The rate increase, which was triggered by the need to repair a broken pump, provoked a community revolt. When new board members took over, West Goshen applied for state grants and received money to fix the pump.
But the system’s problems weren’t over. A few years later, tests showed West Goshen’s water was contaminated with nitrate from agricultural runoff. Residents could use their tap water, risking health problems from diarrhea to cancer to death, or they could spend a sizeable portion of their scant incomes on bottled water.
Again the board applied for state grants, this time $3 million, so that its constituents could be hooked up to the robust water system in the neighboring city of Visalia. Not only was West Goshen’s drinking water made safe, but the town’s rates dropped by half or more because it was sharing costs with Visalia.
West Goshen’s success story stands for the crucial work water boards do at the local level. But Firestone believes such grassroots water activism will also have an impact on statewide water policy. Not least because their members often move on to seats on regional water boards, where their power multiplies.
Here’s an example of what’s at stake. Gov. Jerry Brown’s current budget includes provisions for a Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund, which would provide money to fix tainted drinking water systems throughout the state — its approval would constitute one of Brown’s most important accomplishments. Payments for the fund would come from farmers, as a way of resolving their legal responsibility for the water contamination caused by agricultural chemicals, and from a 95-cent monthly fee on municipal utility users’ water bills (with low-income residents exempted).
Farmers, environmentalists and water-stressed communities support the fund. The primary opponent is the Assn. of California Water Agencies, a statewide coalition of 448 public water agencies. Timothy Quinn, ACWA’s executive director, told the Sacramento Bee last week that a problem caused largely by farming shouldn’t be solved “by putting a charge on somebody’s bill in Los Angeles or San Diego or San Francisco.” Given that approval requires a two-thirds vote of the Legislature, ACWA’s opposition could prevent passage of the measure.
ACWA’s position “shows how disconnected many water agencies are from the communities within their own jurisdictions,” Firestone said. With more local representation on the water boards, the agency’s stance could change.
The Community Water Center has held workshops in unincorporated communities to explain the water boards’ significance and the opportunity to run for seats. Some residents have felt too intimidated to run, so the center has established a “water leaders” network for current and newly elected board members to share information and support.
The benefits are obvious. Sham democracy gets replaced with the real thing, and we get that much closer to making good on the human right to clean water for hundreds of thousands of Californians.
Learn more at L.A. Times
PoliticsElana Aliping June 8, 2018 water, C.A., politics, a story, environment
They're Sick, Traumatized, Malnourished and Transient — What Child Poverty Looks Like in Los Angeles
JusticeElana Aliping June 9, 2018 L.A., health, a story, economics, justice
Homelessness Spending Gets Boost in Budget Deal Reached by Governor, Legislative Leaders
EconomicsElana Aliping June 8, 2018 politics, C.A., economics, homelessness
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About John Hill
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Sport in Schools
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FROM THE DESK OF THE COUNSELLOR – JOHN HILL (1990s)
I was talking to a parent today and when she and her husband were deciding which school they wanted for their children they were told by some that on the sporting arena, particularly rugby, Aloysius’ was seen as the “easy beats”. That goes back many years. Numerically we are smaller than the other CAS schools and this has been the case for so long now. Yet when we were able to defeat Knox two weeks ago in an extremely exciting match there was such jubilation that it was the equivalent of a grand final win. It is always good to win. We can so easily lose but a win here and there helps us a lot in so many ways.
Now when I was talking to another family theaspect of the school that rang so loud and clear was that SAC was an unpretentious school. I see this as such a wonderful compliment on the college. What they meant was that there were no false airs, no snobbery, no being anything other than what we set out to be. There is then nothing to prove as such because what you see is what you get.
I have always found that there is a need for a balance to be struck between what we want of ourselves and the needs of the school through its students. It is here that I want to open up the matter of self esteem and the ability to own with pride who we are and what we are able to achieve. We don’t have that problem so much in other areas such as music, debating, academics etc. We only had to watch New Faces some nights back to see Mark Nivet win convincingly in front of a critical panel. But when we talk of rugby there is always a certain apprehension and we may be tempted to put it in the too hard basket.
We are always going to see ourselves better in some things rather than others. But all the same we are more than spectators. We are participants in the whole gambit of CAS activities. It is here that I want to share some of my thoughts on the mythology of sport relating to us as Australians and in this instance part of our belonging to SAC. The recent hype in Barcelona and our enthusiasm toward our winners brings this home to us. Let’s start with the mythology of sport in Australia. A myth is a strong explaining a value or a practice and is expressive of the cultural values of our social group which we readily maintain. We live with myths. But perhaps one of our strongest is the myth of sport.
Sport has its ritual, its text and its rules. It has its festivals for the victors, as we saw in the First XV’s victory against Knox. Those boys were our heroes, particularly since it had been a David and Goliath match. The camaraderie, the oneness, the ensuing rituals, the talk, the pride. This was all part of it. The closer wewere to the victors the more we experienced the sense of victory. The fact that we would no longer be the “easy-beats”, that we could compete
did something to engender a certain pride in being part of the school. We would see the result only too well in the Sunday morning paper. This would serve as a warning to the other schools that we could compete with them.
We had our heroes and our leaders, our coaches, linesmen, physio, first aid mean and all the spectators. They were all there to celebrate. Isn’t this what genuine sport is all about? We could endure the cold and the rain while the players were able to bear the many aches and pains. Yet sport if not put in a proper perspective can become an obsession and even bring out the worst in us. We need only look at the use of steroids and banishment form the Olympic village as just one example. For once sport becomes a socially manufactured product, once it is artificial and just made for consumption and the big buck then we have lost something that is meant to enhance self esteem. We see it so clearly when a school decides to buy up players from an Australian school boys’ rugby team so as to win a GPS competition in the centenary year of that school. When a school decides to have sporting scholarships so as to have a strong rugby team and win merely for the sake of winning then we have a problem. It is here that victory is based on abusive power and one-upmanship. It is pyrrhic but nothing more. It is nothing short of cheating. If sport is just about winning then we have lost the plot.
The goal of sport is in a sense the ecstasy of achievement. This is to do with the harmony of muscle and mind. There is always the moment of victory or defeat. The gallant loser still has his sense of worth and his integrity intact. The conqueror can take pride in his ability to win through and has immediate satisfaction for all the effort involved. As we saw in the closing ceremony of the recent Olympics there was the festivity of the gathered people, participation and the achievement of togetherness. This is what brotherhood is
meant to be. There was a liturgy for the billion or so viewers as well as for the participants. What that liturgy was trying to do was to express what was in the heart of man.
Sport is not the be all and end all of life. It is a very important part though of our culture. The mythology of sport will always be etched in our psyche and it is our attitude that determines our response. Does it enhance who we are as human beings or does it set us back on a tribalistic path? For us here at SAC we need to work on our priorities. Perhaps we would like to be winners most of the time. Self esteem is central to any growth and winning is an important recipe for this. But is it everything? Getting back to our starting point. We no longer want to be seen as the “easy-beats” yet we always want to proudly be seen as the college that has no pretensions. How do we work it out? I am sure we do not need to have twenty year old high school certificate repeaters playing, nor the distribution of sporting scholarships nor the buying of an Australian schoolboys rugby team to be the greatest. What I think we need is to focus on the value of sport as a character building reality. While we want our win over Knox to be more frequent we will not sell our integrity in the process. But we need also believe that victory in whatever form lies within us. In this way we will be gallant in victory, gracious in defeat and unpretentious in attitude.
From the School Counsellor
Mum Shirl Smith
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Vascular Compression Syndromes
Filed under Cardiovascular
Chapter 62 Vascular Compression Syndromes
Timothy K. Williams, Nancy Harthun, Herbert I. Machleder, Julie Ann Freischlag
Neurovascular structures can be compressed by adjacent tissues in several areas in the body. Although not common, there are clinical sequelae to these situations. The anatomical regions most associated with compression syndromes are the thoracic outlet, popliteal fossa, and proximal portion of the celiac artery as it passes the arcuate ligament. The basic pathophysiology behind these lesions is occasionally seen elsewhere in unusual diseases such as the nutcracker syndrome (compression of the left renal vein between the aorta and superior mesenteric artery [SMA]), adductor canal compression syndrome (abnormal bands from the adductor magnus compressing the superficial femoral artery [SFA]), or compression of the distal external iliac artery (EIA) just proximal to the inguinal ligament in bicyclists. This chapter focuses on the more commonly encountered syndromes.
Thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS) describes a broad spectrum of symptoms and signs all related to compression or injury of the key anatomical structures that traverse this narrow aperture on their way to the upper extremity. This syndrome manifests in three main forms on the basis of the tissues involved: neurogenic, venous, and arterial. Neurogenic thoracic outlet is by far the most common, accounting for 98% of cases.1 At a distant second, venous thoracic outlet occurs in 1.5%, followed by arterial at 0.5%. Considerable controversy surrounds the diagnosis of TOS, especially the neurogenic form. However, decades of research have served to better establish pathophysiology, diagnosis, and treatment of this syndrome.
In 1956, Peet et al. caused a major shift in the modern conception of TOS when they coined the term thoracic outlet syndrome and described a therapeutic exercise program, essentially the first physical therapy program for TOS.2 This coincided with a shift of therapeutic focus to surgical intervention. In 1962, Clagett described high thoracoplasty for first rib resection, an operation requiring division of the trapezius and rhomboid muscles.3 In 1966, Roos described what has become for many the modern treatment of choice for TOS, the transaxillary first rib resection.4 This operation was fashioned after the transaxillary sympathectomy. First rib resection by this route offered reasonable exposure and minimal morbidity, especially when compared with previously employed techniques.
Anatomy of the Thoracic Outlet
The limited space and large number of important structures that must traverse the neck and chest areas on their way to the upper arm make the thoracic outlet an area like no other in the body. Although any number of anatomical anomalies predispose or directly cause compression to the neural, venous, or arterial structures within its confines, the normal anatomy itself does not leave much room for stress positioning.
Definitions may vary from author to author, but it is generally accepted that the thoracic outlet is the area from the edge of the first rib extending medially to the upper mediastinum and superiorly to the fifth cervical nerve. The clavicle and subclavius muscles can be pictured as forming a roof, and the superior surface of the first rib forms the floor. Machleder’s description of the thoracic outlet as a triangle with its apex pointed toward the manubrium is helpful in visualizing the three-dimensional (3D) orientation of the structures, as well as the dynamic changes that can lead to injury.5 In this model, the clavicle and its underlying subclavius muscle and tendon form the superior limb, and the base is the first thoracic rib. The point at which these two structures “overlap” medially can be pictured as the fulcrum of a pair of scissors that opens and closes as the arm moves, potentially causing compression of the thoracic outlet contents (Fig. 62-1).
Figure 62-1 Useful schematic for visualizing the thoracic outlet, demonstrating “scissoring” effect between clavicle and first rib.
Although a simplification, it suggests how removal of either the clavicle or first rib can decompress the region.
Although most TOS symptoms are related to nerve compression, almost any structure that travels through the thoracic outlet can be involved. Moving from anterior to posterior, one first encounters the exiting subclavian vein, usually positioned adjacent to the region where the first rib and clavicular head fuse to form a fibrocartilaginous joint with the manubrium. Immediately posterior to the vein is the anterior scalene muscle, which inserts onto a prominence on the first rib. Next encountered is the subclavian artery, with the anterior scalene muscle lying between the artery and vein. The brachial plexus is the next structure encountered, oriented superior, posterior, and lateral to the artery. The C4-C6 roots are superiorly oriented, and the C7-T1 roots inferior. Posterior and lateral to the plexus, there is a generally rather broad attachment of the middle scalene muscle to the first rib (Fig. 62-2).
Figure 62-2 Diagram showing complex anatomical relationships within thoracic outlet, including broad-based attachment of middle scalene muscle.
Clavicle has been removed for exposure.
Other structures encountered in the thoracic outlet include the phrenic and dorsal scapular nerves, stellate ganglion, long thoracic nerve (as it emerges through the middle scalene), thoracic duct, and the cupola of the lung. The thoracic duct may be encountered if a left supraclavicular approach is undertaken, and care must be taken not to injure or ligate it if injury occurs. Finally, one must watch for pleural injury in any approach to TOS and be prepared to evacuate pneumothoraces when indicated.
Some authors further classify the thoracic outlet on the basis of three anatomical apertures within this broader space: the interscalene triangle, costoclavicular space, and subpectoral space.6 The most medial aperture that can result in neurovascular compression is within the interscalene triangle. The artery and brachial plexus together pass through this space formed by the anterior scalene anteriorly, middle scalene posteriorly, and first rib inferiorly. Abnormalities of the anterior or middle scalene, presence of a scalenus minimus muscle (seen in <50% of patients, originating between the T1 nerve root and the anterior and inserting onto the pleura and first rib), presence of a cervical rib (0.5% incidence), and presence of fibrous bands (scarring or congenital) can lead to neurovascular compression in this space.6
Lateral and anterior, one can describe the costoclavicular space, bound by the clavicle with its subclavius muscle and tendon anteromedially, the first rib, anterior and middle scalene muscles posteromedially, and the scapula posterolaterally. Bony abnormalities, either congenital or acquired, can narrow this space and result in neurovascular compression. The subclavian vein is especially susceptible to compression in this region as it passes through the narrow space created by the confluence of the clavicle, subclavius muscle and tendon, and the first rib.6
Just deep to the insertion of the pectoralis minor muscle on the coracoid process is the subpectoral aperture. Rarely, neurovascular compression can occur in this space, usually as a result of hyperabduction of the arm, compressing the structures against the chest wall.6
Pathophysiology of Thoracic Outlet Syndrome
Fundamentally, the pathophysiology of TOS is based on the presence of one or more anatomical abnormalities that narrow the thoracic outlet and extrinsically compress the neurovascular structures contained within. Anatomical abnormalities associated with TOS can be broadly classified as soft tissue or bony and may be acquired or congenital. Acquired may be related to bony or soft-tissue injury, as well as physical activity leading to muscle hypertrophy.
The congenital soft-tissue anomalies believed to predispose one to TOS have been well described in the literature. Cadaver studies done by Juvonen, Raymond, and others shed light on the incidence of specific anatomical anomalies in the general population.7 This work is based on the initial observations of Roos, who extensively classified the muscular and fibrous band anomalies seen in patients presenting with TOS.8
Many acquired soft-tissue injuries leading to TOS are the direct result of physical trauma. Studies suggest that soft-tissue injury following motor vehicle trauma (e.g., whiplash) may be the most common underlying etiology.9,10 Other injury patterns include falling onto one’s head and shoulder, causing a lateral stretch injury. In a review of operative TOS patients by Sanders and Hammond,11 86% had a history of trauma. This prevalence of trauma is considerably higher than in many other reports, but stresses the role trauma can play in the disorder.11
Repetitive stress and poor postural habits are also leading causes of TOS.10 Vocations associated with TOS include typists, violinists, or assembly line workers. Other activities include weight lifting or strenuous sports, which lead to hypertrophied scalene musculature. Anatomical studies have documented compression of the subclavian vein into the costoclavicular notch by this muscle.12 This has clear implications for axillosubclavian vein thrombosis. Additionally, some surgeons see a link between Paget-Schroetter’s syndrome and subclavius tendon hypertrophy, particularly in the presence of an enlarged insertion tubercle. Others have implicated a role for the pectoralis minor muscle.13 Rarely, connective tissue disorders have been implicated as a direct causative agent, namely localized scleroderma.14
A number of bony abnormalities are found in association with TOS, with the presence of a cervical rib being most common. Autopsy studies indicate that approximately 0.5% of the general population has this structure15 (Fig. 62-3). Further, routine chest radiography demonstrates a cervical rib in roughly 0.7% of individuals.16 Historically, series from the United States report cervical ribs in 10% to 65% of TOS patients, while the European literature reports 25%.15,17 The reason for this discrepancy is not known. It may be at least in part due to variable recognition of neurogenic thoracic outlet in the general population, thus adding bias to these figures. Modern data suggest the percentage of TOS patients with cervical ribs is much lower.
Figure 62-3 Chest radiogram demonstrating a left cervical rib (arrow).
Cervical ribs can be completely formed or rudimentary. In the latter case, there is almost always a compressive band of tissue extending to the first thoracic rib. As they project from transverse processes, cervical ribs displace the involved structures forward. The subclavian artery is particularly vulnerable to damage in this configuration, and some surgeons feel that arterial changes secondary to TOS rarely occur in the absence of a cervical rib. Another common bony anomaly is the presence of an elongated C7 transverse process, which can similarly impinge on the neurovascular structures. Fibrous bands may also be present from an elongated C7 transverse process to the first rib, further worsening the problem.9 Posttraumatic changes following clavicular or first rib fractures are commonly reported, with callous formation at the clavicle and pseudoarthroses of the first rib.18 These changes can frequently be appreciated radiographically.
Presentation of Thoracic Outlet Syndrome
Neurogenic THORACIC OUTLET SYNDROME
Patients can present with the symptoms of neurogenic TOS at any age, although it most commonly occurs in otherwise healthy young to middle-aged individuals. Women are affected three times more frequently than men.1 Neurogenic symptoms can range in severity from nuisance to severely debilitating pain. The most common symptom is pain in an arm, shoulder, and/or the neck. Paresthesias are also commonly present to varying degrees. Although less common, perceived weakness or loss of dexterity can be seen. This occasionally manifests as a decrease in grip strength.1 However, gross motor dysfunction and wasting of the upper extremity is unusual. Gilliat and colleagues description of classic neurogenic TOS with muscle wasting in the hand is seldom seen.19
Pain may originate anywhere in the upper extremity, but the most common site is the back of the shoulder. The suprascapular portion of the trapezius may be involved. From the shoulder, pain can spread up the ipsilateral extremity along the back and neck, or even up the face. This situation can lead to hemicranial headaches that can be labeled as migraines.
Pain involving the arm can be focused to a particular nerve distribution or generalized. When localized, ulnar symptoms tend to be the most common, leading to pain and/or paresthesias involving the ring and small fingers. These so-called lower plexus (C8-T1) symptoms are commonly seen. However, upper plexus (C5-C7) manifestations can also be seen, manifesting as pain in the lateral arm and forearm, lateral neck, and deltopectoral region.1
Patients may report pain at rest that is not relieved by positioning. However, the typical patient reports that stress positioning exacerbates symptoms. This is particularly the case with work-related situations. People who must perform tasks with elevated arms or hold their arms in other awkward positions note they are no longer able to perform these tasks. Examples include waitresses, mechanics, and truck drivers. With prolonged stress positioning, patients may report finger discoloration, coolness of the extremity, or even swelling. Driving an automobile can be difficult with the concomitant numbness and tingling in the fingers that can occur.
Patients often report that their symptom complex started after a traumatic event. These can be chronic repetitive-type injuries, such as seen with pitchers and other athletes. Direct injury to the chest wall or shoulder can also precipitate symptoms, particularly if associated with a clavicular fracture or acromioclavicular joint dislocation. As mentioned previously, whiplash-type injuries are also associated with TOS. Even a minor injury can unmask the syndrome in a previously completely asymptomatic individual.
Venous thoracic outlet syndrome (paget-schroetter’s syndrome)
Paget-Schroetter’s syndrome (axillosubclavian vein thrombosis or “effort” thrombosis) usually presents suddenly in a previously healthy patient without antecedent symptoms. Typically the patient is a young athlete or worker with a component to their sport or job that requires prolonged or repetitive stressful positioning of the arm. Examples include baseball players, swimmers, weight lifters, volleyball players, and mechanics. The presentation is usually acute and dramatic, often prompting urgent medical care.
The involved extremity becomes acutely swollen with varying degrees of discoloration ranging from rubor to cyanosis. The redness may be confused with the erythema of an infection, leading to a delay in diagnosis. Physical examination may reveal the presence of dilated collateral veins around the shoulder and upper arm. The remainder of the physical examination is usually normal.
Occasionally, aching pain due to tightness of the skin may also be present, but is absent in the majority of patients.20 However, the typical spectrum of symptoms seen in patients with neurogenic TOS are not usually associated with Paget-Schroetter’s syndrome. Although uncommon, ipsilateral sympathetic hyperactivity can be seen with this condition.
An alternate presentation may occur with an acute traumatic injury. Typically, after an injury to the shoulder area, a few days pass and ipsilateral arm swelling occurs. The natural history of this variant of Paget-Schroetter’s syndrome is the same, reflecting the fact that the injury most likely contributed to compression in the thoracic outlet. Thus, the thrombosis associated with injury is really the same insult seen in “spontaneous” thrombosis.
If the condition is left untreated, the swelling typically resolves over the course of days or weeks. The patient typically does not have symptoms at rest but cannot use the arm for any period of time, particularly in a stressed (abducted, externally rotated) position. The collateral channels that develop and allow the swelling to abate are rarely adequate to accommodate the increased venous return that occurs with activity.
Arterial thoracic outlet syndrome
Arterial TOS is the most rare and varied form of TOS. Chronic compression of the artery leads to insidiously progressive inflammatory changes and scarring of the vessel. These patients rarely present early in the course of this process. Even after they seek medical care, many will have a history that supports the diagnosis, including symptoms such as episodic pallor, cyanosis, and cold intolerance. Patients may present with an array of complaints and physical findings, ranging from intermittent arm claudication to signs of distal embolization or frank ischemia. Rarely, patients may present with aneurysm rupture from long-standing poststenotic dilatation.16
Patients not infrequently are misdiagnosed with collagen vascular disease, various forms of arteritis, or Raynaud’s disease. However, when symptoms are unilateral and isolated to circulation distal to the subclavian artery, one should be alerted to the possibility of arterial TOS. Because there is overlap between the clinical presentation of arterial insufficiency and neurogenic disorders, patients may be misdiagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome, cervical disc disease, or even neurogenic TOS. It is important to maintain a high index of suspicion for this entity because its clinical presentation is not straightforward.16
Diagnosis of Thoracic Outlet Syndrome
No generally accepted battery of tests must be performed to confirm the presence of TOS. Most physicians and surgeons familiar with the disorder require, at minimum, a physical examination consistent with the symptoms, cervical radiographs to rule out disc disease, and a chest radiograph to visualize any bony abnormalities. Other tests may be applied as needed when the diagnosis is not clear. The need for invasive or expensive tests is an area of considerable debate.
History and physical examination
Because the overwhelming majority of patients who present with a suspected diagnosis of TOS will be of the neurogenic type, this section mainly focuses on this type of TOS. Venous and arterial forms will be discussed later. As with any initial evaluation, an extensive history should be taken, including any injuries and the patient’s occupation. Exacerbating and ameliorating factors should be identified if present. In conjunction with a good history, most cases of TOS can be diagnosed on the basis of physical examination. A thorough examination should focus not only on the site of complaints but also on other areas commonly involved in neurological conditions. This includes the patient’s general appearance and other signs of symptom impact. Deep tendon reflexes, grip strength, and pulses should also routinely be assessed. Palmar hyperhidrosis should be noted if present. Machleder points out that even in neurogenic TOS, changes in pulses can occasionally be detected.21
Note should be made of symmetry of the muscle groups of the shoulders and upper extremities. Although serratus anterior atrophy is occasionally present with TOS (as demonstrated by a winged scapula), patients generally do not have obvious muscle atrophy. In fact, they often have essentially normal gross baseline sensory and motor examinations. However, useful information can still be obtained if one uses an organized approach. Initial palpation of the structures of the chest wall, cervical region, and shoulder can be useful before undertaking provocative testing. The region overlying the anterior scalene muscle is often exquisitely tender in the face of brachial plexus entrapment or irritation. In addition, percussion of the clavicle can reproduce pains and paresthesias in TOS patients. Point tenderness can sometimes be elicited along the anterior border of the trapezius at the junction of the neck and shoulder (band spot). These simple maneuvers should be performed before more complex maneuvering of the patient, which may cloud later findings.
The physical examination also plays an important role in ruling out other causes of a patient’s symptoms. Although cervical symptoms are common with TOS, limited cervical range should not be seen, nor should there be excessive tenderness over the vertebral bodies. The presence of either of these suggests an alternate diagnosis. Specific neurological evaluations such as the Spurling test, eliciting a Tinel sign, and the Phalen maneuver can also be used to rule out other diagnoses.
After this general neurological assessment, tests more specific for the presence of TOS can be undertaken. The most useful test to aid in the diagnosis of TOS is the elevated arm stress test (EAST), which was originally described by Roos in 1966 as a means of eliciting upper-extremity claudication and neurological symptoms.22 In the test, the patient’s arms are placed in 90 degrees of abduction and external rotation, with 90 degrees of flexion at the elbow (“hold-up position”). The patient is then asked to repeatedly clench and unclench the hands. This positioning is designed to constrict the space within the thoracic outlet in an effort to reproduce the patient’s symptoms. When positive in patients with TOS, this test should bring on weakness and paresthesias in the ulnar and median nerve distributions within 3 minutes. Inability to complete testing owing to symptoms is also considered a positive result. Attention should also be made to the color of the hands during the EAST because one may become pale and ischemic if arterial compromise is involved. Proponents of EAST argue that it is specific for TOS and that the length of time to onset of symptoms correlates with severity of TOS. However, some question the anatomical basis for the test, particularly how clenching and unclenching the hand can lead to stress on the brachial plexus.23 This test is not without its detractors. Although anecdotally reported to have excellent specificity, a study from 1985 found a positive test in more than 80% of patients with carpal tunnel syndrome. Other studies conducted using healthy subjects have also reported a high rate of false positives.24,25
Closely related to the EAST is the abduction and external rotation (AER) test. The arm is abducted and rotated and held in that position. This test works by a similar mechanism and likewise produces the weakness and numbness seen with EAST in a similar distribution, namely the C8 to T1 fibers supplying the median and ulnar nerves. In addition, one can sometimes detect a bruit below the lateral portion of the clavicle that is attributable to partial compression of the axillary artery. Both of these tests appear particularly suited to work-related and repetitive motion–associated TOS.26
Although many clinicians routinely assess for pulse changes with these provocative maneuvers, this adds little useful information to such testing. The original Adson test (chin elevation and head rotation toward affected side) consisted of assessment of the radial pulse; Adson sign is subsequent loss of the radial pulse. Although it has historically been used to screen for TOS, Adson sign is also frequently seen in patients without TOS and is unreliably present in those with confirmed TOS. Therefore, it should not be used to establish the diagnosis.1,27 Additionally, Wright described the hyperabduction position back in 1945, which is also of little clinical utility, given its positive result in most healthy individuals. Furthermore, as many as 60% of healthy subjects who undergo EAST will have diminution of the radial pulse.25
None of these aforementioned tests is pathognomonic, but the presence of one or more of them can help support the diagnosis of TOS. Combined with a proper history, the diagnosis of TOS can be established, other disorders can be effectively ruled out, and further tests avoided.
Objective testing
Although numerous objective modalities have proven useful in the diagnosis of TOS, none are diagnostic and remain adjuncts to a proper history and physical examination. Perhaps the most useful study is a plain chest radiograph. This inexpensive study can readily identify cervical ribs, evidence of previous rib or clavicular fracture, or other chest wall abnormalities that have been linked to TOS. It is also important to exclude other potential etiologies for the patient’s symptoms, namely cervical spine disease, so cervical spine imaging is commonly used. Cervical spine x-rays can be obtained, although this modality has been widely supplanted by computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the diagnosis of cervical spine pathology.
Use of objective neurodiagnostic tests for TOS has met with some success, although it continues to be an area of considerable controversy. This modality came to the forefront in the early 1960s, but the anatomical constraints of attempting to measure changes across the brachial plexus have always made its application in this position difficult. Specific techniques vary, but principally these studies evaluate nerve conduction velocity as well as amplitude. The most common and basic electrophysiological studies involve direct motor and sensory nerve testing at the root, cord, trunk, and/or nerve level. Tests are considered abnormal when the velocities and amplitudes deviate from accepted norms. Perhaps the main criticism of these tests is that they only tend to be positive in patients with advanced disease, in whom history and physical examination should be sufficient. Roos suggests they offer “little definitive diagnostic information” and that one “still must rely on careful history and physical.”24 All of this reflects the fact that most electrophysiological tests evaluate larger myelinated nerve fibers, not the smaller fibers whose injury mediates the pain associated with TOS. A study by Franklin et al. found that of 158 TOS patients, only 7.6% had abnormalities in their electrodiagnostic tests.28 Furthermore, this diagnostic modality is subject to significant interobserver bias. No standardized easily reproducible technique has been adopted, nor has any been extensively studied and proven useful in suspected TOS patients. Beyond the limited role of establishing the diagnosis of TOS, these studies can result in significant discomfort for the patient who is already suffering from disabling pain. They should therefore be used only in special instances. These techniques can be useful, however, to exclude the diagnosis of TOS in cases where another neurological process is suspected (e.g., carpal tunnel syndrome).
Let us look closer at some specific techniques that have been used in patients with neurological disorders of the upper extremity. First, several authors have described their experience using ulnar conduction velocity from Erb’s point (above the clavicle and lateral to the insertion of the sternocleidomastoid muscle) to the elbow to assess for TOS, but this technique has been criticized.21 However, if there is severe disease with concomitant axonal damage, changes in ulnar action potentials can be demonstrated. A reasonable approach to conduction studies includes sensory testing of the median and ulnar nerves at the wrist to screen for carpel tunnel syndrome and TOS, respectively.
Electromyography is capable of providing objective data supporting the diagnosis of TOS in a setting of advanced disease. This study demonstrates spontaneous firing of acutely denervated muscle fibers (positive sharp waves, fibrillation potentials), but this is not the usual clinical situation for TOS. Rather, after reinnervation, prolonged and irregular potentials are seen. Because this is a reflection of previous denervation injury, many of these patients have atrophy of the involved muscle groups, and the electromyogram (EMG) can confirm that the lower trunk of the brachial plexus was injured. However, in patients without evidence of atrophy, this test is not likely to reveal these findings. This fact is supported by studies showing that standard EMG tests are negative in 62% of TOS patients.29 However, these tests can be used to examine the paraspinal muscles, which can be important in ruling out radiculopathy as the cause of the patient’s symptoms.
F-wave studies are an attractive concept for evaluating TOS because they allow for propagation of the stimulus back to the spinal cord, thus crossing the brachial plexus and obviating the need for proximal nerve access. In this technique, nerve stimulation at the wrist leads to not only an immediate action potential in the affected muscle groups, but also to this proximal propagation with a concomitant reflection from the cord, leading to a secondary action potential. This returning potential is the F-wave. Generally, multiple trials are recorded, and the shortest period between percutaneous stimulus and the secondary response is taken as the latency. This period is delayed if the nerve fibers are damaged, as can be seen with TOS. These tests tend to be poorly tolerated by many patients, and it is prudent to avoid their use unless other tests have proved unrewarding and further diagnostic information is required.
Somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEPs) can play a role in the workup of TOS. Currently, assessment of the ulnar and median nerves can be used for evidence of their compression at the thoracic outlet. When abnormal, these studies tend to show lower plexus injury (ulnar) with normal median function. This is seen primarily as a blunting of Erb’s point peak. Machleder et al.30 showed that 74% of their patients carrying a clinical diagnosis of TOS had abnormal evoked responses. Furthermore, when these patients were studied following operative decompression of their thoracic outlets, more than 90% had correlation between improved symptoms and normalization of their SSEPs.30 Increases of the sensitivity of these tests can be achieved with provocative maneuvers such as arm positioning, although these maneuvers can also cause SSEP changes in patients with no clinical evidence of TOS. Although neurodiagnostic testing remains useful as exclusionary testing, its role in establishing the diagnosis of neurogenic TOS remains limited.
One diagnostic technique that has proven quite useful in suspected TOS patients is anterior scalene muscle blockade. This is typically accomplished by injecting lidocaine into the anterior scalene muscle to induce muscle relaxation. Essentially this test simulates the decompression achieved with first rib resection and scalenectomy. It is therefore believed that symptomatic improvement with blockade is predictive of a positive response to surgical intervention. Imprecise needle placement can contribute to false-negative results of this test, as well as confound the problem by causing nerve injury or inadvertent somatic or autonomic denervation. Electromyogram with ultrasound or CT guidance can be used to localize the anterior scalene muscle, thus facilitating proper needle placement.
In a study by Jordan and Machleder, 122 patients underwent EMG-guided scalene blockade for a suspected diagnosis of TOS. Reduction in pain was then assessed with provocative maneuvers (generally the EAST); 38 patients went on to have surgical decompression, 32 of whom had a positive result with muscle blockade. The 94% of patients who had a positive response to blockade had a positive long-term result with surgery, as opposed to only 50% of patients with a negative block.31
Beyond its utility as a predictor of good outcome following surgery, lidocaine blockade does offer patients some transient relief while awaiting surgery. However, this effect rarely lasts beyond 1 month. Some groups advocate botulinum toxin injection over lidocaine because of its longer duration of action. This is particularly useful in patients who may have a delay between scalene block and surgery. Jordan et al. also demonstrated in a cohort of 22 patients that botulinum injection results in a 50% reduction of symptoms for a least 1 month in 64% of patients (mean duration of 88 days). This is in contrast to only 12% of patients with continued symptomatic relief beyond 1 month when receiving lidocaine alone.32
Finally, some centers advocate the use of duplex ultrasonography to assess for the presence of TOS. To perform this test, provocative maneuvers in conjunction with color Doppler are used to assess blood flow velocities in the subclavian artery and vein. In theory, patients without TOS will have minimal velocity changes within the subclavian artery during varying degrees of abduction of the arm. If the patient’s symptoms are related to TOS, one would expect to see velocity changes. First, as the artery becomes partially compressed, velocity in the artery increases. Further abduction will worsen compression to the point where flow is diminished, and one should see a resultant decrease in velocities. Finally, with hyperabduction the compression may be so severe that the vessel becomes occluded, with cessation of flow. Recent data have given support to this modality. In a small cohort of patients suspected of having TOS on the basis of symptoms and physical examination, all patients demonstrated the anticipated hemodynamic changes described. With 120 degrees of abduction, mean peak systolic velocities increased greater than 50%. At 180 degrees of abduction, velocities were reduced below baseline values, and hyperabduction revealed absent flow in all patients for whom data were available. As anticipated, venous duplex revealed changes suggestive of venous compression, namely loss of atrial and respiratory dynamics, increased velocities, and increased turbulence.33 Although this study was underpowered to definitively establish duplex ultrasonography as a proven diagnostic modality in TOS, it does offer promising data. Validating studies should be conducted to further our understanding of the role of ultrasound in TOS.
Diagnosis of venous thoracic outlet syndrome
In the TOS patient who presents with upper-extremity swelling, the diagnosis of axillosubclavian vein thrombosis is suggested by the history and physical examination described earlier. Assessment of the venous system is usually initiated with noninvasive duplex ultrasonography and dynamic phlebography (also see Chapter 12). Provocative positioning, such as external rotation and abduction, can increase the sensitivity of these tests. Other authors describe a two-position technique, with the arms fully adducted and then 90 degrees abducted. It is not clear at this time how useful magnetic resonance venography (MRV) is for axillosubclavian evaluation. It appears to have anatomical limitations similar to duplex ultrasonography, with poor quality of images in the retroclavicular space.
Many patients undergo a diagnostic venogram, which is the gold standard for thrombosis in this situation (Fig. 62-4). Occlusion of the axillosubclavian vein is readily identified with this diagnostic modality. Typically, patients will also have numerous venous collaterals not seen in normal individuals without thrombosis. Although this test confirms the diagnosis of venous thrombosis, the occasional patient needs further clarification as to its cause. Neurogenic symptoms are usually not present, and one must often rely on exclusion of causes of venous thrombosis other than TOS in this situation.
Figure 62-4 These two images clearly display compression of axillosubclavian vein when arm is placed in neutral position (A) and stressed abducted position (B).
Images must be obtained with and without stress positioning to confirm diagnosis of venous thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS).
Diagnosis of arterial thoracic outlet syndrome
As discussed earlier, a number of symptoms and signs are a consequence of arterial involvement in TOS. Thus the diagnostic algorithm is not straightforward. A careful physical examination may be extremely helpful in patients with suspected arterial TOS. Pulse changes with provocative positioning, subclavian bruits, and blood pressure differentials between the extremities may be seen. The stress positions described previously can be used. Depending on the degree of arterial involvement, patients may have absence of a brachial pulse and/or radial pulse. Patients may initially be evaluated with digital plethysmography or upper-extremity arterial duplex ultrasonography. Computed tomographic angiography (CTA) is also useful in detecting thromboembolic events in these patients. As experience has been gained with magnetic resonance angiography (MRA), this technique has also been applied with utility. Arteriography remains the gold standard and is almost always required in this setting. When arterial compression is suspected, attention should first be toward an arch study, which also includes the subclavian and axillary arteries more distally.
Frequently, arterial compression can be better visualized if the arm is abducted 90 degrees, and most studies are obtained with the arms in two positions (Fig. 62-5). When distal embolization is suggested, the angiography should encompass the target sites, often requiring studies of the hand on the affected side. Provocative positioning (abduction) can be used in conjunction with angiography to demonstrate arterial compression.
Figure 62-5 Angiogram demonstrating occlusion of subclavian artery when arm is abducted (A) and resumption of flow when arm is returned to neutral position (B).
Note presence of poststenotic dilation when arm is fully adducted.
Treatment of Thoracic Outlet Syndrome
In all likelihood, the vast majority of patients with neurogenic TOS go undiagnosed and thus receive no therapy. This reflects the range of severity inherent in the spectrum of symptoms associated with TOS. For those seeking medical intervention, it is clear that most have substantial improvement without operation. Although the numbers are controversial and dependent on the modalities used to make the diagnosis, more than 95% of patients avoid operation. Currently, considerable debate surrounds neurogenic TOS surgery, with several groups reporting no long-term benefit from operation versus physical therapy. Nonetheless, most surgeons with considerable experience with neurogenic TOS report good surgical results with properly selected patients.
For many TOS surgeons, referral patterns are such that patients have already undertaken unsuccessful conservative therapy before seeking further consultation. It is important for surgeons to be aware of this selection bias. It is also important to have an algorithm for conservative treatment so that the correct patients are selected for operation. A minimum of 6 weeks of physical therapy is required before its effects can be evaluated. It is also important that the correct program be used because it has been recognized that inappropriate physical therapy can worsen TOS symptoms. In general, these programs are designed to relax muscle groups that tighten the thoracic outlet while conditioning those that open it. Aligne and Barral described a program in which the trapezius, levator scapulae, and sternocleidomastoid muscles are strengthened and the middle scalene, subclavius, and pectoralis muscles relaxed.34
Other nonsurgical interventions are available. Following the concept of diagnostic scalene blocks, attempts have been made at therapeutic blockade of the scalene muscles. Although steroid injection has not been successful, temporary symptomatic relief with selective botulinum toxin injection can be employed successfully in those reluctant to pursue surgical intervention. Additionally, this technique may allow the patient to tolerate an extended period of physical therapy or other adjustments such as work-related ergonomic modifications.
When a symptomatic patient who has sought treatment fails to improve with physical therapy, surgical intervention is warranted. Resection of the first rib and anterior scalenectomy can be performed via either the transaxillary or supraclavicular approach. In our practice, we preferentially use the transaxillary approach owing to its excellent exposure of the first rib, minimal morbidity, and better cosmetic appearance. The patient is placed in the lateral decubitus position, with the head neutral. No paralytic agents are used beyond short-acting agents for induction. Various devices are available for elevation of the arm on the operative side, all of which should permit easy lowering of the extremity intermittently throughout the procedure to allow periods of increased arterial inflow and decreased tension on stretched nerves (Fig. 62-6). The incision is placed between the pectoralis major and the latissimus dorsi in the lower aspect of the axilla. Dissection is carried down to the chest wall, with care taken to identify intercostal brachial cutaneous nerves. These structures should be avoided and preserved when possible, but it is preferable to sacrifice them rather than leave them injured, thereby subjecting the patient to possible causalgic pain.
Figure 62-6 Proper positioning of patient for transaxillary first rib resection.
Although it is possible to perform procedures using an assistant to support ipsilateral upper extremity, customized retractor systems are the preferred method. There should be a mechanism for convenient intermittent lowering of arm to allow perfusion in a less stressed position during course of operation.
Deep dissection begins by bluntly exposing the external surface of the first rib. Using a periosteal elevator, intercostal muscle and soft-tissue attachments to the first rib are cleared (Fig. 62-7). The parietal pleura is then bluntly dissected away from the internal surface of the first rib. The anterior surface of the first rib is cleared of soft tissue and middle scalene fibers, again using the periosteal elevator. Care is taken to not cut the fibers of the middle scalene. The long thoracic nerve often traverses the muscle in this region, and injury to the long thoracic nerve will result in a winged scapula and is associated with significant long-term disability. Tissue is then cleared bluntly overlying the nerve, artery, and vein. The anterior scalene muscle is now carefully separated from the subclavian vessels, and its attachment to the first rib is divided (Fig. 62-8). The subclavius tendon is also divided.
Figure 62-7 Clearing of soft tissue and intercostal muscle from first rib.
Note anatomical arrangement of neurovascular structures within thoracic outlet, with vein, anterior scalene, artery, and nerve positioned from anterior to posterior.
Figure 62-8 Division of anterior scalene muscle.
Care is taken to develop the tissue plane on either side of anterior scalene muscle to avoid injury to subclavian artery and vein.
A rib shear is next positioned anteriorly over the rib, which is divided almost at the level of the costal cartilage. Care must be taken to avoid the subclavian vein in this location. Following clearing of residual muscle and any fibrous attachments remaining, the rib is divided posteriorly just anterior to the brachial plexus. The rib is now free and is removed from the patient. Considerable care must be taken following removal of the rib to smooth the posterior stump to prevent any subsequent T1 injury. At this point, any further encountered anomalies (fibromuscular bands, scalenus minimus muscles) should be resected. Cervical ribs are resected in a similar fashion to the first rib, requiring division of their attachments to the middle scalene and intercostal muscles.
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Vascular Medicine A Companion to Braunwalds Heart Disease
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Dying for a Cause—alone?
by Michael Biggs | January 9, 2008 | Winter 2008
After September 11, 2001, dying for a cause became indelibly associated with suicide attacks, at least in North America and Europe. Another kind of politically motivated suicide doesn’t intend to kill others or cause material damage—self-immolation.
Since 1963, several hundred, perhaps as many as 3,000, individuals have sacrificed their lives in this kind of protest. They include Vietnamese Buddhists, South Korean leftists, Indian students, Chinese adherents of Falun Gong, and Kurdish nationalists in Western Europe. Protest by self-immolation provides another perspective on suicide attacks. The comparison undermines some common explanations for suicide attacks, like organizational indoctrination or heavenly rewards.
Self-immolation is also important in its own right. It takes us to places sociologists in the West rarely consider, and it also poses the theoretical puzzle of why it makes sense to die without inflicting any tangible cost on the opponent.
further reading online
In 1965, Norman Morrison, a Quaker from Baltimore, set himself on fire outside Robert McNamara’s office to protest the Vietnam War. In North Vietnam, Morrison become a folk hero, immortalized in the famous poem, Emily, my child, by Vietnamese Poet Tố Hữu. A street in Hanoi was named after Morrison and a stamp bearing his image was released.
Last year, nearly 100 cases of self-immolation were recorded in Herat, Afghanistan. Most cases of self-immolation are women responding to family problems such as abusive husbands and poverty. International women’s rights group Medica Mondiale estimates that 85% of these women die because shame prevents them being taken to hospitals for prompt medical treatment.
Michael Biggs is lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Oxford. He has published on the dynamics of protest waves as well as on self-inflicted suffering as protest.
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Home / Aid & Development • Environment • News • Repression • Social Control / DFID in India VI: False promises
DFID in India VI: False promises
by admin / Aid & Development, Environment, News, Repression, Social Control / 24 Jun 2010
The final part of the Dodgy Development: DFID in India series by Eshwarappa M and Richard Whittell, published by Corporate Watch over the past few months, focuses on the British government’s Department for International Development’s funding of civil society organisations. This part comprises a film and two interviews. The film, False Promises, looks at the ‘Business Partners for Development’ project, funded by the DFID, which convinced people to allow a coal company to mine their lands with devastating results. In the two interviews that conclude the series, two people’s organisation activists discuss why groups like theirs should not take the DFID’s money and argue for the importance and necessity of international, people to people solidarity. Preceding parts of the series can be found here.
In this interview, Roma, a member of the Kaimur Kshetra Mahila Mazdoor Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, a land rights movement in Uttar Pradesh, talks about why it refuses to accept DFID funding and the compromises made by other groups that have accepted it.
Richard Whittell: The DFID lists ‘civil society’ among its partners in India and argues that by working with civil society groups it can give poor people a voice and help them in advocating their rights. As part of this approach, the department has given £25 million of British aid to the Poorest Areas Civil Society (PACS) Programme, which it says is partnering with civil society in India to improve the uptake of rights and entitlements by women and socially excluded communities. Do you want the DFID’s money?
Roma: No, we don’t need that funding. Why should we need it? Through the kind of struggle that we are in, women have taken possession of many acres of land, thousands of acres of land, and we didn’t have any funding. They [the women] are coming with their own conviction that the land is theirs and it cannot be traded, it is not a commodity, it cannot go to companies. So they are recapturing their lost political space and they are raising their own resources. They are saying if we have land we can raise everything for ourselves: food security will be there, we can look after our education, our health, our water, sanitation, everything. And for that we don’t need any funding.
So why they are coming and funding women’s groups I don’t understand. And groups should not take that kind of funding. It’s really a trap. If we get into that trap we lose our struggle and our political movement also.
It must be very tempting to take the money given by agencies such as the DFID?
Yes, we are always in crisis! But one has to see it in a very long term perspective. What do we want to achieve? If we have come out of our homes, and we have dedicated ourselves to work for a social cause then we have to leave something. And there are resources within the people;[…] we got our independence, there was no funding agency – there was no DFID! It was all people’s struggle. It was a mass upsurge. And this money that is coming in, [it] neutralises all these kinds of movements. […I]t’s a big trap.
Can you give us an example of how people’s movements are neutralised by this type of funding?
So, for example, there was a big land rights march to Delhi organised by groups funded by the DFID and with the DFID’s money. Land is, of course, a very big issue and people are fighting to reclaim their lost land, after displacement by feudalism, by capitalism. Even for building up our public sector units, people are being displaced. They are being reduced to wage labourers.
We were involved in the initial planning for this march but when we came to know of the participation of the DFID we were really not very interested because the land struggle in our country is of a very different nature and it has a lot of unsolved questions that we need to answer. For example, the agrarian reform question – the question of radical agrarian reform – which will not only concern land but also water and the forests. These areas were totally uncovered, and [yet] agrarian reform needs to be talked about.
We had a very uncomfortable feeling. Then when it started the organisers had a meeting with the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, who himself is a former World Bank guy. Normally movements don’t discuss with the government before starting an agitation because the question then comes: who gave you the mandate to talk to the government?
So, the march happened and was very impressive. People were coming because they really needed land. They were joining in struggles and were craving for land. But after the march it was announced there would be a land commission. We think it’s a big hogwash because having a land commission means you have centralised control and we already have many problems with this. At the same time as this land commission was started we had one quite radical act: the Scheduled Tribes Forest Dwellers Recognition of Rights Act, which was talking about community ownership of land. But the Prime Minister did not talk about that and did not talk about implementing that act so until now the lands are not being allotted [in accordance with] that act.
[T]his creates a lot of questions in our mind and these limits were why funding was coming, why a lot of money is coming. You are talking about a land commission but there is a corporate sector taking huge amounts of land and making them into tax-free Special Economic Zones, and then our act is there but not getting implemented. So there is all this complexity and you know we really doubt the intention of the government.
But most of all we will not need funds from the DFID to launch this struggle. The DFID, plays a devastating role which is anti-people, and anti-poor. We don’t need its money. For example, people came to a demonstration today. Some 400 people came without a ticket for the train. They had their badges, that was their ticket; and [it is] by [their] rights [that] they came. It is our right to travel because our demands are not met. In a democratic country our rights have not been given so that’s why we are travelling. Why would we need the DFID’s money?
But wouldn’t funding help your organisation do even more than it is doing now?
If money comes in we will lose our agenda. We will sit in air-conditioned rooms and talk big about poverty, hunger and food security. But people come to demonstrate in the scorching heat, they come with their own money, their own resources because they want to bring change [to] their lives and [to] the mindset of the ruling class.
They get political sensitisation, so they go back and start working. They go back with the knowledge that a lot of people are with them. Poverty is a global issue. If you come to talk to anybody you will come to know that they do not feel they are alone. Many people are with them fighting against poverty. So they go back and they fight for political issues and political rights, and whenever people come to Delhi they struggle for their land rights. The women especially, they form groups, they organise themselves and they identify which land is theirs and go and take possession.
We need money and all, but we know that funders like the DFID will not let us raise the right questions because it is not in their interest. They will put their conditions and all, and say do this, do that, otherwise they will take away the funding. They make us dependent on the funds so no-one launches any struggle. No-one is tempted to get funds and live in a very comfortable lifestyle.
People should not take funding. We feel very strongly that people’s movements should not go to these funding agencies like the DFID, USAID, and so on. There is a big list [of such funders]! We have to raise our own resources. Definitely in some places we need money, of course, but we will take money according to our conditions. But not from the DFID, otherwise we will end up in air-conditioned rooms talking about the struggles.
The money the DFID is giving is British aid, and is being given in the name of the British people, most of whom agree that Britain should be giving aid. What do you say to them?
We want to convey there is no fight between the people of India and the people of the UK.
Neither are they aware of the condition of India and nor are we aware of who is behind the DFID. If ordinary UK citizens are not aware what the DFID is doing then there needs to be a dialogue The whole of the media, the government are trying to suppress this dialogue. Dialogue from people to people doesn’t happen anywhere so there is confusion on both sides. We should have a direct dialogue, a people to people dialogue. Who is giving the money? Who is using the money? How are they using it and what is our reaction? What is our criticism about that and why don’t we want to take it? That needs to be communicated.
In this concluding interview, Madhuri Krishnaswammy of the Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan (JADS) talks about how they cannot be helped by the DFID and discusses the need for international solidarity that is not mediated by the DFID or NGOs.
Richard Whittell: The head of the DFID in India said its funding for civil society aimed “to help Indian civil society organisations assist people in the poorest and most backward districts of India to realise their rights more effectively and in a sustained manner”. What do you think about organisations like the DFID funding civil society organisations?
Madhuri Krishnaswammy: It’s a bad idea. “Poverty and backwardness” are consequences of 200 years of territorial imperialism, followed by 60 years of neo-imperialism and a “development” model that has allowed the west and local elites to continue to control and exploit our resources.
Agriculture controlled by the agribusiness corporations, the squeezing of rural resources to subsidise industry, massive displacement and pauperization by industrial/pro-rich infrastructural projects are the main reasons for “poverty and backwardness”. The DFID, along with other “aid” agencies actively promotes this model of “development”, which might be more accurately called a model of expropriation, or – more simply – theft. The DFID is part of the problem and it is outrageous hypocrisy for it to pretend to be part of the solution. They tie you up and burgle your house through the back door and then arrive at the front door with much fanfare to provide a few sops as “relief”!
It’s a mystery to us how the DFID helps people “realize their rights more effectively in a sustained manner”. Every time the people try to realize their rights and protect their livelihood there is a police crackdown. DFID projects like the Madhya Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Project don’t even scratch the surface of poverty. They don’t address any real need and don’t aim at any fundamental change. All they do is throw some money about, most of which is grabbed by project staff and local elites which further fuels a deeply entrenched nexus of corruption and violence. At the very best, they give a few individuals a little support and send everyone else in the community scrambling and quarrelling for the crumbs. Our members are in constant conflict with the project because there is no transparency or accountability in the implementation. Where there is no conflict, it is because the project is considered irrelevant to people’s lives.
Civil society organizations funded by the DFID or any such funding agency become complicit in the continuing exploitation of working people and the plunder of their resources. Imperial plunder is not possible without buying up the ruling class of colonized societies. So, such funds are in essence the price of silence.
Could you give us an idea of what the Jagrit Dalit Adivasi Sangathan is and how it works?
Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan (JADS) organizes tribal people (marginal farmers and wage workers) to struggle for their livelihood rights and their right to dignity and for social justice. It is something like a trade union and is a membership based organization, though unlike a trade union it does not focus specifically on “trade” or economic issues, but is a community organization that addresses a wide range of issues: wages, land and forest rights, health, education, community control over development programs, alcoholism, violence against adivasis, anti-women customs, reafforestation, non-industrial farming etc. In other words, issues arising from the community’s interface with the state as well as internal issues of the community.
JADS has primarily been a movement for the right to dignity. It has been very successful in curbing the earlier violence against adivasis by state agencies and local elites. Our people have recovered control over forests that they had lost under British rule and we have made some significant gains on the wage front. Mainly, what the organization has done is allow adivasis to recover their self confidence as a people, and to run their own lives. However, the question of poverty, of the invisible enemy which is a faceless system is still out there. As the organization matures, there is a growing realization that we need to reach out to other movements and organizations to try and build common struggles.
Members in a village elect a village committee. The village committees constitute area committees. The area committees send members to the district committee. The district committee leads the organization. Decisions are taken at weekly meetings of the village and area committees, and monthly meetings of the district committee. At present, one-third to half the committee members are women (hopefully more in the future).
Funding is through membership fees, though we do get occasional contributions from individuals. We do not have any institutional funding. We are able to manage very well with this.
How would you be affected if you decided to take funding from the DFID?
Not just from the DFID. I think it would be a disaster if we were funded by any funding agency (Oxfam, Action Aid, etc.). The organization would be destroyed. The strength of JADS is that it is controlled by the people themselves. It belongs to the community. Its members own it. The organization is as integral to their identity as their family or kin group. The confidence of its members stems from the knowledge that they need be dependent on nobody, that they can run their organization by themselves. We’ve seen what happens when funded NGOs try to “run” communities: the community is kept on a leash, it is drawn into all kinds of projects that are not of its own choosing and have nothing to do with its priorities. Projects are started and dropped according to funding exigencies and paid staff can hardly be expected to brave all sorts of state violence to struggle for a just society.
As I said, the DFID wants to give us hand outs while they call the shots, but our people want to control and direct their own lives and that of their community. They don’t want charity. They want resources they can claim as a right.
The DFID presents itself as a link between British people and Indian people, with themselves as the mediators of British people’s charity. Through this process it paints a picture of Britain as a developed country that has become developed through the liberalization and privatization policies that it is encouraging in India. It ignores the history of imperial plunder but also the long history of people’s struggle within Britain that has been central to any progressive developments in this country, such as the welfare state. They also ignore the continued existence of poverty and exploitation within Britain and the continued struggles against this. So I want to ask you your thoughts on this and the potential for people’s organisations in Britain and India to work together in mutual solidarity.
As you said, the prosperity of rich nations and the comparatively comfortable standards of living of the working class are based on imperial plunder. Not on industrial capitalism, which is inherently based on the expropriation and concentration of wealth. But our comprador elites try to sell us the “liberalization-privatization” package saying: ‘look how developed the West has become with this’. They conveniently forget that this prosperity is based on centuries of imperial plunder or that nowhere has capitalism created prosperity without imperialism. Also, industrial capitalism has proved to be ecologically unsustainable, and a cancer that is consuming the planet. Why should we have any more of it?
Our elites also want us to forget that as a result of long struggles of the working class in the industrialized countries, they have had fairly sturdy welfare states, with public systems of health, education, strong labour laws, etc. This too has been crucial to the relative prosperity of the working class in these countries. How are poor countries supposed to “develop” without these? The tax to GDP ratio in India (despite the rapidly escalating number of millionaires and very rich) is around 18% which is much lower than the Scandinavian countries at around 45-50% and even the USA at 25% (I don’t know how it stands for Britain). The tax subsidy to the corporate sector over the past two years has been almost 5 times the social sector spending.
The attack on the welfare state and escalating aggression and theft by big capital is of course a global phenomenon. In India, the DFID, World Bank, Asian Development Bank and their various ramifications are centrally behind the push to completely dismantle public systems of health, education, food security, water, electricity, and throw our people completely to the mercy of markets controlled by big capital. There is a drive to amend labour laws and make them more pro-capital, while 93% of the workforce is in the unorganized sector (that is, they are completely unprotected) and the casualisation of labour is growing. Also, a much trumpeted “Second Green Revolution” which aims to bring agriculture under the complete control of global agribusiness is already underway.
Meanwhile, people are losing their land, water sources and forests to industry. When they resist, they are beaten, raped, killed, their homes are razed and their land is forcibly occupied. Very large sections of the country are now in a state of war. Activists and intellectuals who protest this are being arrested for waging war against the state.
So since we are all being beaten by the same stick it not only makes sense for us to come together, but in fact this is an urgent necessity. There should be no question of our solidarity being mediated by the DFID or NGOs, since these are part of the system that we have to fight.
But there are possibly some obstacles. Your people seem to have accepted the premise of industrial capitalism, while many of ours are questioning these premises. This is a problem we face in building solidarity with urban Indian working class organizations as well. And then, there is the whole history of imperialism which is still alive and growing stronger. We need to forge links across the imperial divide and to forge links based on a common understanding of how imperialism works and what has been its history. It can and must be done, but requires a lot of sensitivity and hard work.
The other problem is that all of us have to break out of a long history of economism, of our own specific bread-and-butter struggles. Being mired in these hinders our understanding of the big picture, of the commonality of our struggles. We need to develop a much more complex and nuanced common understanding of a shared vision of a just society and how to work towards it, how to deal with conflicting immediate interests.
There is also the problem of lack of information and unfortunately the NGOs control information flows. We really know so little about each other and really need to find more effective ways of transcending cultural and language barriers.
Each part of this series has been sent to the DFID for a response. We have yet to receive a reply, save for a single email acknowledging receipt of one of our emails. See also:
Dodgy Development: Films and interviews challenging British aid in India
Dodgy Development V: Power to the people? May 05, 2010
Dodgy Development IV: ‘A DFID colony’ May 05, 2010
Dodgy Development III: A DFID Education April 09, 2010
Dodgy Development II: Smile for the camera February 25, 2010
Dodgy development: DfID in India January 28, 2010
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Tour Operator Thomas Cook to Open New Spanish Airline
Good news for Spain and traveling passengers
UK-based Thomas Cook – the creator of many package holidays (and memories thereof) for Brits – recently announced that they are to set up a brand new Spanish airline to cope with the expected increase in flights to the country in 2018.
During a time where a number of cheap airlines are going bust – such as Air Berlin and Monarch – or are struggling with staffing problems – such as Ryanair – Thomas Cook is looking to take advantage of the uncertainty of the industry by entering what could be the most competitive, and potentially lucrative, aspect of the aviation industry; serving the country of Spain.
Spanish airports are some of the busiest in Europe, bringing in holidaymakers from around the world across the year, mostly thanks to the perennial popularity of the country as being one of the very best tourist destinations in the world.
This is why Thomas Cook are to base their newest airline in Palma de Majorca, and are to begin flights to and from the Balearic Island from early 2018. The fleet will start out as three Airbus A320 planes, flying with a Spanish operating license, but Thomas Cook has said that they are likely to increase their fleet to meet the demand they expect to see.
Chief Ariline Officer of Thomas Cook Christopher Debus released a statement saying that the new base and airline will provide them with the platform to manage the seasonal demand for their business better, giving them better control over things at a lower cost as they continue expanding their destination choices for customers.
As large a company as Thomas Cook is, even they typically make losses during the winter. This is why operating seasonal staff directly from Spain allows the company to respond better to the demand and maintain profits between November and March, which is generally the quiet times for the company and Spanish tourism as a whole.
Operating out of Majorca allows the Thomas Cook Balearics Division to better loan planes to other group divisions, meaning that the firm should have a better looking balance sheet. Thomas Cook currently have 94 aircraft and deal with a total of 16.7 million passengers on an annual basis.
Labels: Airline, Cook, new, Open, Operator, Spanish, Thomas, Tour
Location: Málaga, Spain
Great Prices and Supply Make Spain a Major Real Estate Investment Destination
Costa del Sol has such appeal and continues to be in demand
It’s all too easy to focus on the incredible lifestyle attractions that entice people looking for a second home or an overseas property to Spain.
The incredible climate of the country, not to mention the stunning cities, superb beaches (and beach resorts), and varied terrain make imagining your new life in Spain about as easy as achieving it. With all the cheap flights and property choices, it’s no wonder that thousands of Europeans have turned their dream Spanish homes into a reality.
The wealth of variety and the value-for-money of Spanish property mean the market has become a hotbed for more serious investors; the kind of people that want to put their money in a safe place and get sensible returns.
The UK was the chosen destination for career investors interested in parking their wealth in property investments for quite some. The uncertainty of the Brexit has begun to unravel the reputation the country has for being a stable safe haven however, and the property markets in Spain and Germany are starting to draw attention.
According to a Knight Frank poll of 148 of the leading real estate investors controlling over £300 billion of real estate assets, 20% of the surveyed investors view Spain as their preferred market for investment in 2018, second to Germany. Only 12% of investors said that the UK would be their property investment destination of choice in 2017, down from the 27% for this year.
The investors were mostly concerned about the lack of available stock and the unrealistic prices in the UK.
By contrast, Spain has a rising demand for home, officespace, retail, and leisure facilities that make the residential and commercial markets particularly strong. The prices are also a fair reflection of the market value of properties. Because of the resurgent Spanish economy there is sure to be an increased demand for industrial and office space as time passes, according to the investors.
Labels: Destination, estate, Great, investment, Major, Prices, real, Spain, Supply
British Visitors Numbers for Spain up 7.8% So Far in 2017
British Visitors Numbers for Spain up 7.8% in 2017
Costa Del Sol continues to offer great value and
a wonderful holiday destination
Spain has an enduring appeal that continues because it offers all the simple things but it does it so much better than anywhere else in the world.
The beaches are kept clean, accessible and varied, as well as being served by plenty of restaurants, bars, hotels, and playgrounds; the Spanish climate is pleasant for most of the year; accommodations range from affordable to five-star expensive resorts; the flights to the country are cheap and fly regularly; the cities are historic and modern at once, not to mention beautiful; and the people are incredibly welcoming and friendly.
It’s hardly a surprise that Spain regularly ranks among the top three most-visited destinations each year. It seems that Spain may become THE most popular destination of 2017 however, at least according official tourism data from the Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE).
Spain welcomed 57 million tourists up to – and including – August of this year; marking an annual increase of 9.9% compared to last year. Around 10.4 million people – which is about a quarter of the population of Spain – visited the country during August. The figure was a 4% increase compared to August 2016, suggesting that the popularity of Spain continues to grow.
The story is the same for British visitors in particular. There have been some fears since the Brexit that British visitors would prefer to stay in the UK instead of travelling overseas where they wouldn’t get as much for their money. It seems that the 13.2 million Brits heading to Spain up to August would prove those fears wrong.
The amount of Brits visiting Spain has increased 7.8% in 2017 compared to 2016, and there have been noticeable increases in tourists coming in from other countries. Some 8.2 million Germans visited Spain, up 7.2% from last year, with 8.4 million French tourists flocking the country; an increase of 1.8%.
The region of Andalucía, which is where Costa del Sol islocated, saw the highest increase in foreign tourists, increasing 5% year last year. Andalucía saw 1.4 million overseas visitors in August alone.
Labels: 2017, 7.8%, British, Numbers, Spain, Visitors
Has This Been the Best Summer Ever for the Costa del Sol?
The whole year has been fantastic and full of tourists
What is it that makes a summer special? The weather? Howoften you get to go to the beach? A good football tournament? Getting to travel? Those sweet summer romances?
Summer has a lot of different meanings for a lot of different people, but for an area such as the Costa del Sol, summer generally means blue skies, packed beaches, busy restaurants, and healthy coffers in bars, hotels, cafes, and clubs.
While being busier may not always be better, for an area of the world that depends so heavily on tourism, the more people entering the Costa del Sol the better for its reputation, experience, and services.
With this said, it’s fair to say the Costa del Sol of Spain may have just had their best summer ever. Data taken from the region’s hotel association AHECOS and Turismo Costa del Sol reveal that visitor numbers between June and September were up 5.2% compared to the same time period last year.
This means over seven million people chose to visit theCosta del Sol during the summer, which is the highest amount of tourists ever. But if you are put off by the idea of beaches packed to the brim, then consider the businesses in the region – the boost in tourism improved employment by 8%, and generated over €7.15 billion for the Costa del Sol across summer.
Further statistical information from the tourist board shows that overnight stays during summer increased by 2.36% during summer, with new arrivals increasing by 1.6% over last year.
The positive data has led to speculation that 2017 may very well be the best summer ever for the Costa del Sol, with a large amount of the surge caused by holidaymakers from Britain, Germany, and Scandinavian countries. They can’t resist coming back to the country each year, bringing their full pockets with them. The number of British holidaymakers was up 7% over last year, according to AEHCOS.
Looking into the tradition slower winters, data from airportbookings in Malaga has suggested that arrivals will increase 12% between November and January compared to the same period from last year.
Labels: best, Costa, del, Ever, Sol, Summer
A Star is Born in Santa Barbara Heights!
A wonderful new development that oozes with class
The 9th of October proved to be a special day indeed for the Costa del Sol. It was the day that the CLC World’s new luxury development Santa Barbara Heights was presented to guests – including over 100 real estate agents – at the launch party held at the California Beach Resort of Mijas Costa. Santa Barbara Height is an exclusive development where over 40% of the homes were sold in a matter of months.
The event was organised at Santa Barbara Heights. It was hosted by CLC World and included a welcome video where the chairman of CLC World discussed the philosophy and track record of the company, as well as the future plans for the California Beach Resort. This was followed up with an introduction to Santa Barbara Heights from the Sales Operations Director of CLC World Group Paul Rosen.
The Virtual Reality Tour of Santa Barbara Heights – Where Seeing Becomes Believing
Other highlights of the event include guests being presented with the chance to experience an immersive virtual reality tour of the Santa Barbara Heights, along with visiting the plot the earthmoving process will begin at the start of 2018.
A Veritable Feast of Canapés
Guests got to make the most of the hospitality of their hosts thanks to some delectable canapés offered by the talent team of chefs at California Beach Resort, along with a specially crafted Santa Barbara Heights cocktail. The beautiful food and drink was accompanied by some smooth sounds from a live saxophonist.
Every single 2-bed apartment and 3-bed penthouse at Santa Barbara Heights is just 15 minutes (by foot) or 2 minutes (by car) away from the beach. They all have their own glass-fronted plunge pool on their private terraces, as well as uninterrupted sea views. This is just the start though.
Santa Barbara Heights Even Has Its Own Cocktail!
Some unique to Southern Spain, the homeowners of Santa Barbara Heights will be able to relax in the privacy and comfort of their luxury residence and state-of-the-art communal facilities with optional access to the services of a luxury hotel.
Each of the luxury homes comes with a private terrace offering a spectacular sea view and a private glass-fronted plunge pool. It offers the privileged Mediterranean lifestyle you promised to give yourself, only it’s much better in reality than it ever was in your dreams!
Labels: Barbara, Born, Heights!, Santa, Star
Location: 29640 Fuengirola, Málaga, Spain
Brits Spent €3.25m an Hour in Spain During August
Brits love affair with Spain continues as they send
a record amount in August
The value of British tourism to Spain has been clearly defined with the latest official data showing that holidaymakers from the UK spent an average of €3.25 million an hour during August.
Tourism, which accounts for 11% of Spanish GDP, is set to break records once again in 2017, with the visitor numbers from August showing 10.43 million people visited the country during the month – the highest monthly figure ever.
The National Statistics Institute (INE) data showed that holidaymakers spent €11,324 million in Spain during August; which works out at €15.25 million each and every hour.
British tourists alone threw €2,418 million in the Spanish economy during August, which is an increase of 6.3% over last year and accounts for over a fifth of all economic activity from foreign tourists.
French and German holidaymakers increased their spending as well; by 3.1% and 4.1% respectively. The highest increase was found with Scandinavian tourists, who spent a total of €558 million in Spain during august, a whopping 31% increase over last year.
Outside of the strongest markets, the rest of the world spent an average of 16.7 more in Spain; accounting for 45.5% of the total amount spent in the country.
When looked at as a year-to-date figure, the first eight months of the year saw €60,461 million spent in Spain by tourists, a 14.2% increase over last year and a great indication that 2017 will set new records. Brits are set to account for around 20.4% of overall foreign spending in Spain for 2017 (€12,316 million), an annual increase of 10.9%.
Labels: €3.25m, August, Brits, During, Hour, Spain, Spent
This €20 Note is Worth €9,000
Check your 20 Euros notes to see if it worth 9000
At the start of September El Hormiguero (The Anthill) host Pablo Motos introduced a special €20 note into circulation, offering a reward of €9,000 to anyone that found it.
The winning note 0 with the serial number EA2081272879 – was used in a publicity stunt to pay for a meal at a bar in Villavieja in Castellón. Of course there’s no telling where the note is by now. It’s likely still in Spain, but it could have left the country and be anywhere in the world.
What’s interesting is that no one has claimed the reward yet – at least we haven’t heard of anyone claiming it – and so the bounty on the note has increased to €9,000.
Even though I’ve desperately checked the serial number of each €20 I come into contact with, I still haven’t found it. If I don’t have it though that means there’s a chance you might.
So go ahead and check every €20 note you have on you before you spend it on Shopping. Turn out your wallet and purse, go through your pockets, and check behind the sofa. Think about what you could do with all that money. You could have a new kitchen installed, take the family out for an incredible vacation, or reserve your very own place in the sun.
I’ll go back to being serious now, and tell you just what to do if you’re the lucky owner of the €20 note. To claim the prize for yourself you need to send a photo and video of the note using Whatsapp to El Hormiguero using the number +34 674 012 847. Don’t forget you heard it here first!
Labels: €20, €9, 000, Note, Worth
Beyoncé’s Spanish Single Set to Dominate the World
Beyoncé dominates the world stage with her singles
It feels like global superstar Beyoncé certainly has the Midas touch. The American singing sensation has spent the better part of a decade releasing smash hits, but one market in particular proved to be resistant to her musical charm; the Spanish language market.
It looks like this could all change soon though as Beyoncé recently released her new single Mi Gente (My People); a remix to raise funds for the victims of the recent hurricane in Puerto Rico and people from the other affected areas in the Caribbean. The single will also support the victims of the Mexican earthquake.
This fact alone would be enough to send Beyoncé into the Spanish mainstream – not that she was ever considered an unknown – and it comes on the heels of the Spanish song Despacito becoming the most streamed song in history.
Music experts believe that Beyoncé singing in Spanish will inspire more Latino singers to go back to their native language rather than writing and releasing songs in English.
Forbes predicts that Mi Gente is set to become a smash hit around the world, helping to spread the vibrant Spanish language to a wide global audience.
Beyoncé is set to add a touch of her own magic to the party – ensuring that the Spanish language will cement itself squarely into the minds of many musical fans across the world and boosting the popularity of learning Spanish as a second language in the process.
Labels: Beyoncé’s, Dominate, Single, Spanish, World
Survey Shows Choosing the Right Supermarket in Spain saves Up to €3,000
The cost of living in Spain is still
considerably cheaper than Northern Europe
The price differences between the cheapest and most expensive supermarkets in Spain could be as much as €3,013 per year for some regions according to a new consumer group study.
If you’re shopping at Alcampo – the cheapest Spanish supermarket chain – in Madrid, then you could be spending an average of €2,850 a year to feed your family; much less than the €7,329 per year you would be spending with Sanchez Romero; the most expensive supermarket chain.
The survey was performed by the Organization for Consumers and Users (OCU) and it found that the average disparity between the cheapest and most expensive stores in Spain is €909 per year.
Madrid and Barcelona are where the most expensive Spanish supermarkets can be found, with the city of Granada in Andalucía is home to the cheapest; the Dani Supermarket of Melchor Almagro Street, which is beloved by students for the cheap prices. Alcampo in Vigo is the second-cheapest Spanish supermarket, followed by an additional three Dani chains in Granada.
The city of Granada has the distinction of being the cheapest city in Spain for grocery shopping. The average shopping bill is around €4,051 per year for the city. The figure could be lower if more people stuck with Dani, but the OCU analysis wished to paint a broad and realistic picture of Spanish grocery prices.
The data analysed over 164,000 prices across 1,137 stores across Spain, covering 233 different products in total including fresh food, hygiene commodities, and drugs. There’s less choice in the smaller cities, making Crudad Real and Segovia two of the most expensive Spanish cities.
The cheapest chains after Alcampo were Mercadona, Simply Market, Carrefour, Maxi Dia, Eroski, and Lidl. Mercadona was the cheapest option for around half of all the Spanish cities in the study.
El Corte Ingles, Carrefour Express, and Supercor were some of the more expensive chains.
The data from the OCU shows that the German supermarket chain Lidl increased their prices by 4.3% compared to last year – the highest such increase in Spain – while Lupa, BM Urban, and Mas y Mas dropped their prices by between 2 and 3% compared to last year.
Labels: €3, 000, Choosing, Right, saves, Shows, Spain, Supermarket, survey
Spanish Property Puts a Price on the Feel-Good Factor
Spain has been recovering from its worst crisis since Franco day
and continues to do well in all sectors.
The raw data and the statistics gleaned from it might be effective for showing the strength of particular trends, but less tangible emotions come into play with things as life-altering as purchasing Spanish property.
When analysing the most recent positive data for Spanish property from last month, the leading property consultant of Knight Frank mentioned that what they called the “feel-good factor” had quite the positive impact on both the prices and amount of sales of property in Spain.
But just what is the “feel-good factor”? Is it possible to measure it? Or could it be considered the general sense of excitement about the current state of the Spanish economy?
Think about the last time you took a great holiday. You might not remember how much you spent, when your flight was, or even which hotel you stayed at. What you will remember though is how warm the sun was and how that made you feel; how you were relaxed when you felt the sand between your toes, and the wonder of al fresco dining with a warm evening breeze.
The Spanish property sector is being washed with similar positive waves. There’s no doubt that rising house prices, increased sales volume, and interest in property from home and abroad underpins the overall positive vibe, but there’s a real sense that it’s Spain’s time to shine under all the hard data.
There are some problems in the country of course, but Spain is certainly beaming after spending about a decade as the poor man of Europe. The effects are starting to spread to the Spaniards themselves, who now have more job security and better pay than they’ve seen in over a decade. Even the average holidaymaker and homebuyer is benefiting, as they have a wealth of choice, affordability, and quality waiting for them in Spain.
The summer may have ended for much of Europe now, but the sun is still shining – both figuratively and literally – across Spain and it looks like it’s not about to set any time soon.
Labels: Factor, Feel-Good, Price, property, Spanish
Mortgage Approvals Increase 33% in Spain in Summer
The banks in Spain are slowly relaxing there rules and giving
mortgages again
The latest data from the Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE) shows that mortgage approvals during July increased 32.9% compared to the same month in 2016.
The data shows that some 24,863 home mortgages in total were granted across Spain in one single month. The average value of the mortgages also increased 3.8% year-over-year to €119, 613.
Overall Spanish banks loaned out a total of €2.97 billion in July, an 38% increase on the July of last year.
Things get interesting when comparing it to the month of June, as mortgage approvals dropped 15.8% in July compared to June. The likely cause for this is that July is the peak of the holiday season, when many potential buyers are focusing on spending time on the beach rather than spending their money on investments.
Andalucía in the Costa del Sol saw the most home mortgages granted, as 4,577 mortgages were approved in July. This was ahead of Madrid and Catalonia, which saw a respective 4,379 and 4,348 mortgages approved.
The popularity of Andalucía is kept high thanks to places such as Marbella, which has become one of the most popular choices for second homes in Spain. British, Irish, German, and Scandinavian buyers alike can’t get enough of the area.
It looks like the uncertainty of an independence “referendum” has done nothing to deter investors in Catalonia. The real estate consultancy firm Sotheby’s International Realty said that they have seen record sales in Catalonia as it appears investors are not nervous at all about the potential secession of the region.
Idealista collated data for house prices in Barcelona that showed the average property in the city has increased in value by 9.2% across 2017, which is another sign that politics is having little to no effect on investment.
One thing is clear, buying property in Spain continues to be very popular.
Labels: 33%, Approvals, increase, Mortgage, Spain, Summer
Data Shows Spanish Building Industry to Grow 4% Annually
Crain's have returned to the Costa de Sol which is all positive
Bloomberg describes the Madrid skyline as being a forest of cranes. While the capital of Spain is still nothing compared to the forest of cranes Dubai once was, there is definitely a noteworthy amount of building work happening around the city.
The Spanish construction industry is back and better than ever. The number of new builds in 2013 fell off a cliff, dropping 96% compared to the peak of 2006. Not many would have predicted that it would take just four years for the industry to be full of cash and confidence once more.
Data from the Ministry of Public Works shows that the building industry – which includes constructing new homes and offices – is set to grow 4% annually through 2020, with a 5% increase expected in just Madrid.
The benefits of the stable real estate industry are being felt outside of Madrid as well. Building sites are propping up all over Spain, with data from Bloomberg showing a small but steady increase in construction.
Building activity is beginning to reflect the Spanish economy, which itself is expected to rise by over 3% for the third year running. The data shows a positive trend where projects are quickly replacing one another and leading to constant activity. The building industry appears to be making up for lost time.
Additional data from the College of Property Registrars in Spain shows that property sales for new homes in Madrid and Catalonia has increased 10% for the first quarter of 2017, almost identical to the growth in resale properties. The fortunes of the two sectors are connected, even though new build activity typically follows the trends in resales – a trend that is particularly true for the Costa del Sol, where new build activity has picked up significantly in the past 18 months.
Felix Lores, an economist with BBVA Research, believes Spain has learned their lesson from the last property boom. This time the recovery is being anchored on sustainable models of consumption and exports rather than on the bubble of short-term credit.
This represents a significant difference from what happened in the past. It’s expected that the annual increase for new home constructions in 2017 and 2017 will be over 6%. Typically a surge in construction activity would lead to an increase in GDP, which relied on the property sector. This time things are the other way around.
Labels: 4%, Annually, building, Data, Grow, industry, Shows, Spanish
Passenger Numbers for Malaga Airport Take Off
Malaga Airport continues to break all passenger records
If you were to take facets of Spanish life and turn it into a graph, almost all of those lines would be sharply pointed upwards. Whether it’s the economy, house prices, jobs, or life expectancy – things are going well for Spain and her people. Now tourism can be thrown into this cocktail as this year is set to be the very best year for visitor numbers in Spain; spending, overnight stays, and the number of flights to and from the country are all up
The most popular tourist destinations are the ones leading the charge; the Balearics, the Canaries, the Costa Brava, and the Costa del Sol. While the passenger data from Malaga Airport in 2017 isn’t complete just yet, the stats for 2016 – recently published by the EU statistics agency Eurostat have proven to be encouraging.
The data shows that there has been a 15.7$ increase in passenger numbers to Malaga airport in 2016 over 2015, making the Costa del Sol hub the second-fastest growing airport across all of Europe; falling just behind London-Luton.
Around 16.6 million passengers in all passed through the Malaga airport across last year, a figure that is almost definitely going to be surpassed by the end of 2017.
The figures from the El Prat airport in Barcelona have been even more impressive, bring in in 43.7 million passengers last year for an annual increase of 11%. Some locals might not be too happy about this though given that there have been campaigns in the city to limit tourism.
All in all, Spanish airports proved to be the third-busiest in Europe in 2016, dealing with 194 million passengers. Germany proved to be second-busiest, with 201 million passengers (hardly surprising when you consider Germany has the biggest population in Europe), while the UK had the busiest airports welcoming 249 million passengers in 2016. This is a combination of Britain being such a strong tourist destination, as well as the collective desire of Brits to get away from the country and enjoy warmer climates elsewhere.
Labels: Airport, Malaga, Numbers, Off, passenger, Take
Spanish Property Sales up 16% in August
Property sales continue to rise
The 41,282 homes sold in August means that the Spanish property sector has once again enjoyed the benefits of the improved economic outlook across Europe in the summer. The sales figures for August come from official INE data and represent an increase of 16% compared to August of 2016. It’s the seventh year in a row that monthly home sales have increased for 2017.
The only anomaly in 2017 came when figures dipped slightly in April 2016 – a blip that is believed to be caused by April being the month of Easter this year.
August saw a nationwide increase in home sales across all 17 of the autonomous regions of Spain, with a 37.9% increase in Castilla-La Mancha and a 32.5% increase in Comunidad Valenciana, which saw 163 sales per 100,000 inhabitants.
When taken as a yearly figure through the end of August, Spanish home sales reached 315,795 so far in 2017; an increase of 14% compared to the same time period in 2016.
Looking even further, the 12 months between August of 2016 and 2017 shows 443,483 properties were sold. This represents an increase of 13.1% over the figure for the previous 12 months and showcases a massive increase of activity in the property market since 2014, when property sales were less than 300,000 annually.
Labels: 16%, August, property, sales, Spanish
Are Spaniards Really Living Longer Because of Siestas?
Could the Siesta be the reason the Spanish enjoy a longer life?
The siesta is one of the most admired aspects of Spanish daily life that leaves other Europeans somewhat bemused and envious.
Outside of the fact that there’s nothing stopping Brits, Germans, and Scandinavians from adopting the siesta culture themselves, most cultures have trouble wrapping their heads around the idea of napping for a few hours in the middle of the day. Could it be that the Spanish have been on to something for all these years though?
The truth is that Spaniards work for much longer than most other Europeans, and they’re also living longer than other Europeans; which begs the question of how much of that is because of siestas.
The latest World Happiness Report 2017 ranked nations on a range of metrics to determine happiness. One major one was longevity, which Spain came in second place for after Japan thanks to an 82.8 year life expectancy.
This is hardly new of course, but researchers have been – albeit correctly – putting this down to the Mediterranean diet. While the diet is partly the reason why, the report believes that the humble siesta could have something to do with it as well.
People have the idea that Spaniards are just sleeping when the shops close between 2 and 5PM, but the reality is that this is how they organise their working shifts. If you work continuously with just half an hour for your lunch then you’re bound to eat a quick takeaway or some fast food. If you’re allowed to stop working for a few hours then you are more likely to go home or to a restaurant where you can relax and enjoy several courses and have the time needed to let it digest. That’s much healthier than any takeaway.
It’s not necessarily getting to sleep, but getting to relax and socialise during the day that may be giving Spaniards better longevity. The report also argued that the higher density of Spanish towns and cities mean Spaniards spend longer on their feet and walk much more during their day than other nationalities.
Labels: Living, Longer, Really, Siestas?, Spaniards
Spain Welcomes Record Numbers of Tourists and Foreign Property Activity in First Half of 2017
Spain has had another record breaking summer
The Spanish property market and tourism industry is performing as well as ever, according to the latest data from Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) and the National Statistics Institute (INE). The data shows that several records were broken during the first half of 2017.
Foreign investment in Spanish properties was pushed up to €888 million during the first half of the year, much higher than the amount spent during the first half of 2016; a paltry (by comparison) €330 million.
JLL believe that overseas investors will snap up over €1 billion in Spanish property during 2017, which would make 2017 the eight year in a row where foreign investment in Spanish real estate has increased.
Spain has been moving at full speed as far as tourism goes for several years now, but the latest data from the INE shows some 36.3 million tourists visited Spain during the first half of the year – which is the time BEFORE the busy summer months of July and August.
This puts Spain in the position to smash through records set last year, and could mean over 80 million tourists visit the country in 2017, which would push Spain into the top spot for global tourism.
There was another trend evident in the data; the connection between foreign property ownership and tourism. Around 8.5% of the tourists staying in Spain in 2017 did so in their own holiday accommodations; properties that had been purchased to be holidayed in. This marks the highest this figure has ever been, and it’s only going to increase.
It’s been a decade since the real estate crisis happened but now the Spanish property market appears to be thriving. People see the benefits of owning a Spanish property such as being able to better enjoy holidays and to relocate entirely. There’s no doubt Spain is set to see another record breaking year for international investment.
Labels: 2017, Activity, First, Foreign, Half, Numbers, of Tourists, property, record, Spain, Welcomes
Property Sales up 11% in Malaga
Costa Del Sol is a fantastic place to by property
The latest data from the National Statistics Institute (INE) of Spain shows that at least 15,185 properties changed hands in the province of Malaga during the first six months of the year. This is a 10% increase over the same period in 2016, and pushes Malaga into fourth place nationally, behind Madrid, Barcelona, and Alicante.
On the regional level a third of properties sold in Andalucía – which encompasses Malaga, Almeria, Granada, Cordoba, Jaen, Sevilla, Huelva, and Cadiz, were in Malaga; the home of the perennial favourite Costa del Sol.
The Costa del Sol continues to lead the way with its wonderful climate, low cost of living and fantastic lifestyle, welcoming southern Spanish people so its no wonder more and more expats and northern Europeans flock to live and buy property in southern Spain.
Buying property can be a so confusing, so that's why its important to choose a reliable real-estate company who can guild you and give you all the right points for and against buying each property shown. Costa Del Sol Property Group has a wealth of experience so call or contact us today .
Labels: 11%, Malaga, property, sales
Data Shows Increase of 47% and 55% in Home Sales and Prices Respectively in Spain
Spain continues to recover and sales are on the up
A report collating data about Spanish home sales and value has discovered that – during the first six months of the year – property sales increased 47% over the previous year, while the value of homes in recorded sales increased 55%.
The data in the report comes from the global real estate firm Lucas Fox, which primarily operates in high-end markets. This is why the average property price in their portfolio during the past six months reached as high as €750,000, which is much higher than the Spanish average. Even so, it does say a lot about the health of the Spanish real estate sector.
Home values in all price brackets increased steadily across Spain 2017. Even so, this 55% increase for the top level of properties is much higher than the rises seen in other parts of the country. The amount of homes Lucas Fox sold also offers a positive look at the wider national trends of Spain, with the country registering an increase in transactions for over 15 months in a row.
The data also analysed where the property buyers came from. The number of British buyers dropped 10% over last year – likely do to the impact of Brexit on the pound against the Euro. On the other hand, buyers from the US and Canada made up 10% of the property purchases in Spain. 32% of the Spanish properties sold were purchased to be either a second home or an investment. 23% of the properties sold were sold as a primary residence.
Lucas Fox co-founder Alexander Vaughn says that the Spanish economy is one of the fastest growing ones in the Eurozone. This is bringing a lot of confidence to the property market. There’s been more interest from property investors who now feel that Spanish real estate has a lot of potential for capital gains and profitability from rentals. Lucas Fox expects the price recovery being observed now in cities will soon spread to the rest of the country.
Agents from Lucas Fox said that they saw a 150% increase in Marbella property sales, with 80% of the increase coming from Scandinavian buyers.
Labels: 47%, 55%, Data, home, increase, Prices, Respectively, sales, Shows, Spain
Spain Takes Third Place in Expat Quality of Life Survey
The weather, food and welcoming people of Spain,
help keep Spain as a top destination
The latest InterNations survey places Spain as the third best place in the world to live as an expat. The poll, which is conducted each year, surveyed 12,500 expats to rate 43 aspects of life in their new home on a scale of one to seven.
InterNations – the largest expat network in the world – take the data and calculate average scores for each country with it. They published their top 17 ranking last week, with Portugal taking top place. The country climbed up 13 places, scoring well in terms of climate and leisure. Second place went to Taiwan.
Spain reaching third place was an improvement on the fourth place it reached last year, with expats praising the Spanish climate, cultural attractions, leisure options, and ability to support high levels of personal happiness. The other countries in the top five were Singapore in fourth place and the Czech Republic in fifth. The other noticeable rankings were Germany in 10th place, Canada coming in 13th, and New Zealand coming in 15th.
Spain always performs well in surveys like this, as it always scores well when it comes to health, happiness, and leisure. The country would score poorly on economic and employment factors for a while though. As the economy of Spain continues to improve, the concerns about the job market and pay are much weaker than they used to be.
It goes without saying that the climate, cuisine, beaches, landscape, safety, security, and overall accessibility of Spain – the blend that makes it such a hot spot for tourism – forms the foundation for a number of successful and happy expats.
Labels: Expat, Place, Quality, Spain, survey, Takes, Third
Sky Launches Low-Cost Streaming Services in Spain
Sky tv finally comes to Spain legally
The new Sky streaming service sounds great - €10 per month for streaming on three connected devices – but will it be able to meet Netflix in terms of content? The pay TV service market of Spain has recently welcomed a new challenger following the announcement of Sky launching a new streaming service.
The broadcasting monolith owned by Rupert Murdoch launched their new service this month, with users able to stream content from 12 local pay-TV challens such as Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, TNT, SyFy, Fox, and National Geographic for €10 a month.
Some of the flagship titles of the launch are Grey’s Anatomy, The Big Bang Theory, Marvel’s Avengers Assemble, and the Walking Dead. The Spanish TV streaming market currently encompasses Netflix, HBO, Amazon, and Movistar+, giving Spaniards more choice than ever before after being left in the dark for so long.
The unique selling point for Sky is that viewers have the option to watch their content on up to three connected devices, including a Sky streaming box powered by Roku. It’s obvious that their goal is ensuring everyone in the family can watch what they want without having to argue about it and fight for who gets to control the remote.
The company has also said the plan on becoming the leading streaming service in Europe, offering much more in terms of live and on-demand streams for Spain than Netflix or Amazon.
Sky has over 22.5 million subscribers across the UK, Ireland, Germany, Italy, a
nd Austria. Many of these customers are those signed up to the traditional Sky packages that cost upwards of €29 a month. Launching a stripped-down streaming service for Spain priced at just €10 per month shows that Sky is leveraging their strong brand name and a contract-free streaming service with an audience that has proven themselves to be major television lvoers.
It looks Spain could soon become one of the leaders of European home entertainment following years of unremarkable domestic programming.
Labels: Launches, Low-Cost, Services, Sky, Spain, Streaming
Spanish Property Prices Increase 5.6% in Second Quarter
Property prices continue to rise and recover
from the 2009 crisis
It’s difficult to put together an accurate figure that tells all about the current state of Spanish property prices. Not only is there regional variation to contend with, but there are also a range of different metrics used, including average mortgage loans and recorded transaction prices.
Perhaps the most accurate metric would be the price per square metre of residential property. This data is monitored by the central statistics unit of the Spanish government, which last week revealed that the average cost of a square metre of Spanish property rose 5.6% in the second quarter of this year compared to the second quarter of last year.
There were higher price increases in some regions compared to others. An encouraging bit of news is that 16 of the 17 autonomous regions of Spain registered increases in property prices. Madrid and Catalonia topped the tables with respective increases of 10.9% and 9.3%.
At the bottom of the table came Castilla-La Mancha, Murcia, and Extremadura; recording respective gains of 0.8%, 0.3%, and 0.4%.
The national increase is right in the middle of the prediction of 4 – 7% annual increases made by Spanish banks just last week. It’s also a reflection of the general health of the Spanish property market, which is seeing a steady increase in the amount of sales.
Labels: 5.6%, increase, Prices, property, Quarter, second, Spanish
Priciest Spanish Property Neighbourhood Found in Costa del Sol
La Zagaleta in Benahavis is some one of the most
expensive areas in Spain
Variety is the name of the game when it comes to the Costa del Sol. Ibiza might have all the clubs, Majorca might have all the cycling, the Canaries might have stunning weather, and Costa Blanca might have the beaches, but the Costa del Sol puts it all together and even does some things better.
Costa del Sol property is no exception. Madrid has some of the most prestigious Spanish streets, and the inland pueblos of Andaluccan help you get the most for your money, the Costa del Sol offers a lot at both ends of the spectrum.
The latest data from nationwide estate agency Idealista analysed data about Spanish home prices and found that the most expensive neighbourhood of Spanish property is found in none other than the Costa del Sol.
The name of the area is La Zagaleta, an urbanisation nestled in the verdant hills off Benahavis. Property there costs an average of €5.6 million and it’s hardly surprising. The gated communities around here are where you can find the richest, most famous people in the world.
There are several reason that La Zagaleta draws in these elites, and the exclusivity of the area is reflected in the property prices. There is a superb climate here, along with some fantastic views of the Mediterranean, incredible accessibility to all the best clubs and restaurants of Puerto Banus, and – of course – seclusion. There are no prying eyes or flashing cameras, and some of the villas come equipped with a helipad allowing the people living there to be as secretive as possible when it comes to arriving and leaving.
Outside of the Costa del Sol, the La Moraleja neighbourhood of Madrid is the second-most expensive postcode in Spain with average property prices of €5.05 million. After this comes the Castillo de Aysa of Madrid with €5 million, and the Avenida del Tibidalo in Barcelona coming fourth with average property prices of €4.83 million.
Labels: Costa, del, Found, Neighbourhood, Priciest, property, Sol, Spanish
Data Shows 48% of Brits who Moved to Spain Last Year were Retired
Regardless of Brexit, Spain continues
to be the choice of retirees
The latest data from the Spanish Office of National Statistics (INE) showed around half of the 300,000 British citizens that moved to Spain in 2016 were retired. 48% of them were retired.
According to the data, three times as many Brits moved to Spain across 2016 than Spaniards moving to the UK. The demographics were also vastly different. Most of the Spaniards moving to the UK are aged 40 or under.
The amount of retirement-age Brits living in Spain has more than doubled across the past decade. Spain has become the destination of choice for British retirees because of the warm climate, affordable property, cheap flights, and EU membership, ensuring that pensions are index-linked to inflation and grow each year.
British pensioners also stand to receive free healthcare in Spain due to reciprocal agreements between Spain and the UK. The UK has become an attractive choice for young Spaniards seeking to advanced their careers and improve their English skills.
The data from the INE showed 22% of Brits registered in Spain were also employed in the country, with most of them working in hospitality or catering.
It seems that Brits like to live on the coast, with the Malaga Province – where the Costa del Sol can be found – is a perennial favourite; bringing in over 100,000 new UK immigrants across 2016.
The data also revealed Brits took an astonishing 13 million visits to Spain in 2016 (with a “visit” classed as any stay under 28 days), much higher than the 849,000 visits Spaniards made to the UK.
Labels: 48%, Brits, Data, Last, Moved, Retired, Shows, Spain, Year
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THE BEST FILMS IN ACTION, DRAMA, HORROR, AND MORE
EXPERTLY CURATED BY THE COS STAFF
Film Review: American Honey
Andrea Arnold's tale of wandering youth is striking and immediate
by Dominick Suzanne-Mayer
on September 28, 2016, 3:13pm
Shia LaBeouf, Sasha Lane, Riley Keough
There’s a moment in Inherent Vice that considers a heroin cartel’s vertically integrated system, musing on how there’d always be a steady customer base “as long as American life was something to be escaped from.” It’s a broadly applicable concept, especially in a cultural time where escape has become a goal in all permutations: from fear, from anxiety, from the realities of poverty, from the weight of living in the world. Escape means freedom, and freedom is still more or less one of the indomitable rights hard-wired into the DNA of this country. Freedom to roam. Freedom to leave a terrible life and start again. Freedom to make the choice to destroy your body if you see fit, because it feels good and pleasure’s the life you’ve chosen. In Andrea Arnold’s sublime film American Honey, freedom is relative, but every once in a while it can feel so damn good that the whole world disappears around it.
American Honey spends the dominant amount of its 163 minutes following Star (Sasha Lane in a remarkable debut performance), a young woman living in what could only be called abject poverty. By day she and her younger siblings attempt to hitchhike, each with a bag packed and waiting for somebody (anybody) to take them away from a mother who isn’t around and a father who, as one early drunken moment suggests, is miles beyond unfit to look after any of them. Robbie Ryan’s photography has a keen eye for subtle details, but it’s especially pronounced in these early scenes, when Star’s dire need for escape is painted in small, lingering glances, at a kitchen overrun with flies or a last gaze through a country-western bar or a hand sliding just a little too far down a spine.
The film is observant above all things, and Arnold finds resonance early and often in watching Lane’s expressive, wanting face as she wanders through life as a kind of voyeur, watching people more well-off as they move on with lives she can’t help but fantasize about. That is, until one day she happens across Jake (Shia LaBeouf), the charismatic centerpiece of a band of stray youths travelling across the country. Jake immediately takes notice of Star, and offers her a proposition: the chance to travel across the country in a packed conversion van, selling magazine subscriptions to naïve people (usually older) for money, and using that money to lead a life of indulgence and, as Star can’t help but see it, freedom. Sure, there’s her life at home to think about, but the moment she watches the rambunctious collective break out into a frantic dance around and atop a K-Mart checkout, to the tune of Rihanna’s “We Found Love,” Star is fated to climb into that van and live with the strays.
And so Star’s whisked away into a life of petty crime, con artistry, sexual freedom, casual and prolific substance use/abuse, and a world she never imagined. Arnold’s screenplay (no doubt appended by some ad-libs throughout, given the naturalism of so many of the film’s conversations) treats the van as its own closed ecosystem, with some lengthy passages of the film simply looking around the vehicle at everyone inside, as they sing or plan the next area to canvas or sometimes don’t talk at all. The van is far more than a transport to work, especially when the work isn’t particularly good. It’s a home, but it’s even more than that. It’s a communal space, a sexual hunting ground, a sounding box for ideas, a rolling barroom for loud conversations, a nightclub, a path to more. It’s all the things the kids want and had to find a way to build for themselves. At one point the group passes through Kansas City, and even in a modest metropolis like that one, they can’t help but marvel at the size of the buildings. It’s not just that the van takes them away from whatever bad situation they left; it introduces them to a world that they were never allowed to know exists.
But the van isn’t what interests Arnold most. It’s Star, and how she learns to exist in a world that’s both exhilarating and wildly unfamiliar to her. Lane does exceptional work in a film that demands she stand front and center in nearly every shot. Early on, her movements are guarded, reserved, and tentative. But as the film unfolds, Lane ably captures Star’s maturation into somebody who knows how to survive in the world, in every sense. Even as the film puts her into situations that will likely make audiences squirm with discomfort and dread, she’s not a victim or a woman in peril so much as one more person using what they have to get what they need. And as the charmer who shows her a world where she can (and should) do that, LaBeouf finally shakes off the boyish impressions generated by so many teen movies from ten or more years ago and delivers a confident, vulnerable, career-best turn as a man torn between his above-average knowledge of how to finesse people and the nagging feeling that maybe he’s good enough at this to want more.
To return to the point of the film’s stunning photography, Ryan and Arnold manage to make vivid use of the film’s 4:3 aspect ratio, which will likely frustrate some but adds multitudes to the film as Star passes from town to town to lover to mark. In one moment, the framing allows for Star and Jake’s stoned, reckless dashing through suburban front yards to whip by in a vivid tracking shot. A couple has impulsive sex in an open field, and they fill the frame to the point where nothing else could exist within it, or needs to. A burning flame from an oil field lights an expanse of total darkness. It’s a film of unforgettable images, but one that also finds purpose within them, a film that understands the value of sensation and texture and place no matter where it wanders.
To some, the film’s languid storytelling will seem to be at odds with its constant sonic assault. In a similar manner to Spring Breakers, a film with which this one shares some thematic interests, Arnold drowns Star’s world in a constant barrage of modern music. However, the pounding electronic music of that film is replaced here by a litany of recent pop favorites and trap music. Much of the debate around the film will likely touch on this in some way; in keeping with its characters, American Honey is a film in which a lot of young, primarily white kids flaunt their adoption of whatever one might parse out as “rap culture.” In one sense, it’s true to life, as anybody who’s ever lived near a predominantly white and rural area might likely have observed. In another, American Honey bears witness to a literal kind of ignorance at great length, and perhaps there’s an argument to be made some other time about whether a film can do so without incidental endorsement. Arnold offers no easy answers in this regard.
(Giveaway: Enter to Win Free Passes to See American Honey in Chicago)
Yet the film neither judges nor condones at any point, so much as it uses those cultural touchstones to investigate the cycles of exploitation at every level of society that put all those kids in that van to begin with. And, perhaps, that keep them in the van. American Honey’s most trenchant commentary isn’t just about the individual and the nature of freedom, but how those exist within a world that at times even fetishizes exploitation. (It’s a poignant thought when a presidential candidate just celebrated his willingness to stiff laborers during a debate less than 48 hours ago.) The chorus of Carnage and I LOVE MAKONNEN’s “I Like Tuh,” one of the many stops on the film’s lengthy soundtrack, ends up illustrating this point succinctly; the nihilism of “I like to/Make money/And get turnt” accompanies a rowdy celebration in a parking lot, but it’s also a manifesto for the lost souls travelling together. They have nothing, they have nobody except for each other, and so the twin axioms rule their daily lives: get money, and money will keep you fucked up.
Yet even as they’re offered paradise, American Honey finds the schisms. It’s in the way that the organization’s boss Krystal (Riley Keough) eyeballs Star, livid that Jake (her star salesman) and his attentions are starting to wander. It’s in the weekly fistfights mandated within the group, where the two lowest sellers are forced to come to blows under firelight. It’s in the rapid-fire explanations of percentages taken off sales and invisible fees that exist even at the level of a van-operated merchandising hustle. The America that Arnold finds during the film is one that seems to be born from endless fantasies about the liberation of the open, unconquered road, but it’s also one in which the realities of capitalism and financial hardship are always lurking just beneath the next bassline and the next bottle of booze.
After all, in this world, everything is currency. The money they make, the liquor and drugs they try to obtain, the sex they have or withhold. Even beauty and desire become their own means of extortion; one particularly eerie moment in a film that manages a good few comes when Krystal illustrates her dominance by forcing Jake to grease her with suntan lotion while commenting on Star’s struggling sales numbers with all the passive venom of a corporate division head. Somebody’s always getting, which means somebody’s always being had, the film posits. In the film’s rare moments of quiet, the idea is amplified, as the total openness of the highways starts to feel smaller when even those are just the path to the next town and the next hustle.
American Honey is one of the great movies of its year, a film at once seductive in its vision of completely uninhibited youth and ruefully sad in its unwillingness to smooth off the fatalism of its world. This is a place where the only goal is more money and more numbness, and it’s one where if you won’t help somebody else get theirs, there’ll always be another poor kid in another abandoned town who will. In so many words, it’s the America that’s so frequently forgotten about or smugly relegated to a punchline by so much of the country. But yet, even as Arnold’s portrait of vagabond destitution grows more powerful by the scene, this isn’t just a film about struggle and hardship. It’s also about escape, as a fantasy and as a hard-won reality. In its frequently trashy, overindulgent, and cacophonous way, it’s a reminder that freedom, however qualified, still exists. There are still a few corners of the world you can disappear into, if you get out there and really look.
I LOVE MAKONNEN
In 2012, The Cabin in the Woods Brought the Gods Back to Horror
Jack White and Cat Stevens perform together in Nashville — watch
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Free Books / Animals / Horses / The Horse: Health And Disease /
Carbolic Acid
This section is from the book "The Horse - Its Treatment In Health And Disease", by J. Wortley Axe. Also available from Amazon: The Horse. Its Treatment In Health And Disease.
This is a product of the distillation of coal-tar, and is chemically known under the several names of phenic acid, phenol, and phenylic alcohol. The colourless, needle-shaped crystals of pure carbolic acid are not convenient for surgical purposes unless broken down with glycerine or some other solvent. A comparatively impure acid is equally efficacious, and in general use more economical and convenient. The preparations of value to the veterinarian are glycerine of carbolic acid, carbolic lotion, carbolic ointment, and carbolic oil.
Carbolic acid is both a disinfectant and an antiseptic, and though only mixable with or soluble in water to a small extent, it can be made more so by the addition of glycerine, and is then employed in different proportions for a great variety of purposes. Strong solutions destroy living organisms, while dilute preparations merely prevent their growth. Besides being an antiseptic, carbolic acid is also a caustic when applied undiluted to the skin, leaving a white mark as evidence of the superficial layers being destroyed. Acute pain is felt at the moment of application, but the sensibility of the integument is subsequently diminished.
It is a valuable agent in the treatment of ulcers, cracked heels, and such diseases. Ringworm and other affections having their origin in low forms of life are successfully combated with strong carbolic applications, which are mostly made in the form of an ointment. Some forms of skin irritation arc allayed by weak lotions of carbolic acid, while the mange mite and other external parasites are either immediately killed by it or caused to quit the body of their host.
Applied internally, it is a safe and useful agent in the treatment of those ulcerative conditions which affect mucous membranes, more especially those of the nostrils, mouth, throat, and other parts accessible to the surgeon.
The foetor of the breath arising from dental troubles, and referred to at some length, is subdued by a suitable mouth-wash in which carbolic acid is the active ingredient.
It is occasionally employed as an inhalation in certain forms of catarrh in which malignant sore-throat is a prominent symptom.
Carbolic acid is prescribed internally in some instances where the production of gases from fermented ingesta is a direct cause of flatulent colic and other intestinal troubles.
Sulpho-earbolates of Soda and Zinc are products of the union of sulphuric and carbolic acids with bases of the metals sodium and zinc.
Sulpho-carbolate of soda, as an internal remedy, is particularly adapted to those fermentative conditions of the stomach and bowels referred to in the last paragraph. It appears to have all the antiseptic advantages of carbolic acid without its irritative effects. The sulpho-carbolate of zinc is chiefly used as a dressing for wounds. In addition to its antiseptic properties it has a beneficial action in the repression of too profuse granulations or " proud flesh ".
Resorcin, another product of fractional distillation of coal-tar, is in its action very similar to carbolic acid, but possessed of other properties not yet fully understood.
It has been used by veterinary surgeons only for a short time, but is highly spoken of by them in the treatment of wounds, and for the prevention of fermentation in the stomachs of animals which have gorged © © themselves with food.
It is thought to be an antipyretic, because it produces copious perspiration, followed by reduction of temperature.
Creasote is another, and one of the oldest, of coal-tar distillations used in medicine. Inhaled, it is quite as effectual as carbolic acid, and much safer.
As an ointment, it is destructive of parasitic life without unduly irritating the skin of the patient, and as an antiseptic dressing it is also a useful agent.
prev: Antiseptics
next: Boric Or Boracic Acid
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All posts by Dr. Andrew Rosen
Watch a presentation on the Phenomenon of Gaming and It’s Relationship to Anxiety and Depression presentation by Carolyn Rubenstein, Ph.D. and Gabrielle Avery-Peck, Ph.D. from the Center for Treatment of Anxiety and Mood Disorders at the ADAA Conference 2019.
Sleepaway Camp Secrets For Parents
Skillstreaming February 2019
Mental Health and a Slice of Pizza
I am sure you are wondering what pizza has to do with mental health. It is much more than enjoying a tasty slice or two. A slice of pizza represents a part of a whole and introduces us to the concept of systems theory. The systems concept helps us process a lot of information in a more orderly way, to be able to go back and forth between the whole and its parts, understanding the interaction between the forest and its trees. We can examine the individual trees while at the same time taking in the picture of the entire forest.
One’s mental health represents the forest. The goal of this paper is to better understand the trees, the critical systems that contribute to the whole of our emotional being. We are all aware of the nature versus nurture approach. To what degree can we explain a person’s psychological makeup on genes (nature) or upbringing and life experience (nurture)? I wish it was that simple, just a matter of measuring the degree to which nature and/or nurture matter so we can then direct treatment proportionally to each factor. How does one measure the effect of a problematic childhood or stressful life events? How to quantify the brain-based source of bipolar disorder or schizophrenia? Mental health professionals have some tools to provide these measurements but they are extraordinarily rudimentary. Our technology in not yet at the level to allow for definitive answers. A general systems approach helps us address the biological, psychological and social fields that ultimately contribute to our wellbeing or ill mental health.
The biological field consists of not just our brain but the body systems that ultimately influence brain function such as the cardiovascular, endocrine, pulmonary and gastrointestinal. As an example, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) can reduce the availability of oxygen to the brain and consequently alter brain function. A simple experiment decades ago demonstrated that the use of a portable oxygen generator can significantly increase the IQ of a person suffering from COPD. This same individual would subsequently experience less depression and emotional duress. Or the individual on a variety of sedating medications that erroneously creates a clinical picture of memory deficits masquerading as a dementia. Additionally, if one has a medical disorder that will be lifelong, how do we anticipate the psychological toll it will take on the person in the future? Addressing these concerns become an essential part of the treatment team.
The social systems are a bit more difficult to assess due to the subjective nature of data gathering. Family of origin influences are paramount. Negative influences can be mollified by the presence of healthy role models and support systems when young. Interpersonal relations represent an important influence on self concept development. Only recently have we begun to recognize the impact of childhood bullying on the psyche. The goal of a reasonably healthy childhood is to produce a person whose self regard and image is based on their own uniqueness, not necessarily on being good looking, a star athlete, rich of top of their class. This healthy self concept serves as the foundation for the acquisition of future skill, talents and attributes.
To further complicate the impact of social systems on mental health we have to add a time dimension to our study that includes the past, present and the future. A person who comes out of a pathological family of origin can then be exposed to corrective emotional experiences in the present (like good friends and role models) that help dilute the damage already done. Likewise, emerging from a healthy childhood only to be currently traumatized in battle can result in enduring psychological difficulties like post traumatic stress disorder. We must also pay attention to the individual’s expectations of the future. Do they look forward with a cup is half empty approach or with a cup is half full attitude? Are they on a life path that will help ensure future stability (like a career, education, marriage, etc.) or are they proceeding towards the future with limited or confused goals and plans? Or, have they been influenced to pursue a career by their family that they really had no say in and find themselves trapped and helpless? These are several examples of the data that must be gathered by mental health professionals.
Psychological systems are not as easily assessed because they represent concepts that must be deduced and not so easily observed or measured. They include attitudes, belief systems and coping styles. They are the product of one’s journey through childhood and later life representing an ongoing learning process, for good of for bad, a process that can be adaptive or maladaptive for healthy growth. When maladaptive traits are significantly pervasive and persistently interfere with function we raise the clinical possibility of a character or personality disorder. The veracity of this diagnosis is important because treatment of personality disorders can be quite difficult and protracted.
Once we gather systems data it is now necessary to develop a treatment plan. How to determine where to direct treatment? If someone presents with depression, is it adequate to prescribe an antidepressant alone and offer no other treatment recommendations? This is where the systems approach becomes essential. For example, treating the depression alone without attending to address the presence of significant marital discord in an individual with childhood trauma will not result in the desired outcome unless the other areas of dysfunction are addressed. Sometimes it is necessary to create a stepwise approach. Let us assume that the individual with depression is so depressed that full participation in psychotherapy would be unproductive until the depression begins to improve. In this case it would be important to improve the depression with medication before proceeding with psychotherapy.
As I have discussed in past articles it is a challenge to determine if a person’s current symptoms represent a brain-based biological disorder or a reaction to a life situation. We know that all behavior, thought processes and emotional expression emanates from our brains but the difference between a biological disorder and a life reactive state is that the former tends to be long-lasting and persistent while the latter tends to be time-limited. It is important to recognize that there is a middle ground between the biological and the situational states disorders is best described as a hybrid state. The hybrid state occurs when an individual with a biological (possibly genetic) predisposition to depression, anxiety or psychotic disorders interacts with a stressful life situation. The biological predisposition is then activated and resulting in a pathological disorder.
Our pizza pie model of mental healthcare would not be complete without a discussion about the importance of assembling a team of professionals to provide both evaluation and treatment. The ideal team is composed of multidisciplinary licensed mental health professionals with multimodality evaluation and treatment capabilities. The ability to provide a comprehensive psychological test battery, perform a focused psychological trauma assessment or obtain a medical neuropsychiatric evaluation makes it possible to identify which slices of our pizza pie need to be addressed in the treatment plan. Most importantly, the presence of this team under one roof allows for ongoing treatment meetings and consultations among the professionals. Being able to share clinical information in realtime is essential to the management of complex mental health problems. Teamwork also provides mutual support for the clinicians and promotes professional growth.
Free Screening of Angst
Skillstreaming
jBaby – An Educational Program Series from The Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County
Introducing jBaby, an educational program series from The Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County. This six part program series for parents focuses on important pre-natal topics presented by local topic experts. See below for the full schedule and be sure to RSVP to this program series here.
6-part program series for parents (pre-natal) – $118
For more information , please call Liana Konhauzer at 561.852.5015 or email lianak@bocafed .org .
Parent Presentation: How to Build Executive Function Skills: Your Guide to Raising Confident And Competent Kids
PEERS for Teens
Following the Netflix release of 13 Reasons Why in 2017, many mental health, suicide prevention, and education experts from around the world expressed a common concern about the series’ graphic content and portrayal of difficult issues facing youth. Resources and tools to address these concerns were quickly and widely disseminated in an effort to help parents, educators, clinical professionals and other adults engage in conversations with youth about the themes found in the show.
In advance of the release of season 2, SAVE (Suicide Awareness Voices of Education) brought together a group of 75 leading experts in mental health, suicide prevention and education as well as healthcare professionals (see full list below) to develop tools to help encourage positive responses to the series. In just a few short months, this group has developed a toolkit providing practical guidance and reliable resources for parents, educators, clinicians, youth and media related to the content of the series (suicide, school violence, sexual assault, bullying, substance abuse, etc.).
Using the toolkit and resources developed will help to encourage conversations, identify those at risk and prevent unexpected tragedies. Hopefully, it will also help those in need get the appropriate level of support and professional care to ensure that youth are protected, nurtured and our communities are stronger.
Dan Reidenberg
Executive Director – SAVE
SAVE especially thanks the following sub-group leaders in this effort:
Katherine C. Cowan
Christopher Drapeau
Frances Gonzalez
Sansea Jacobson
Matthew Wintersteen
The organizations listed below represent thousands of mental health and suicide prevention, education experts and healthcare professionals from around the world with decades of experience working with youth, parents, schools and communities.
SAVE thanks the following organizations for their participation in this effort:
American Association for Emergency Psychiatry
Befrienders Worldwide
Danish Research Institute for Suicide Prevention
International Association for Suicide Prevention
International Academy for Suicide Research
Medical University of Vienna, Center for Public Health, Dept of Social and Preventive Medicine
Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (USA)
National Suicide Research Foundation (Ireland)
Orygen, The National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health, Australia
Prevention Communities
Samaritans UK
Stanford Psychiatry’s Center for Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing
School of Public Health, University College Cork, Ireland
Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide
Suicidal Behaviour Research Laboratory, University of Glasgow, Scotland
Suicide Awareness Voices of Education
The Jed Foundation (JED)
The Lancet Psychiatry
University of Michigan Psychiatric Emergency Services
https://www.13reasonswhytoolkit.org/
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Eileen Hofer
Filmmakers that were selected at Visions du Réel in the past twenty editions celebrate the Festival's anniversary by each making a short movie in which they expose their view of the future.
Trace of the future according to Eileen Hofer
Eileen Hofer (Switzerland)
Eileen Hofer was born in 1976 in Zurich. She worked as a press officer for a film festival and then began her career as a journalist for a Swiss daily newspaper in 2005. She spent two years as chief editor of a Swiss magazine before starting off her career as a self-taught filmmaker.
Her first short film, "Roots" (2008) was screened in 70 festivals (Locarno, Clermont-Ferrand, Palm Springs) and received over 10 awards. Her second short, "The Mourning of the Marry Stork" (40 festivals such as Rotterdam) won the Suissimage/SSA New Generation Prize for Best Short Film. "He was a Giant With Brown Eyes" is her first self-produced, creative documentary. The world premiere of the movie took place in Rotterdam Film Festival in January 2012.
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Tag Archives: White House Africa Summit
Ebola Crisis Worsens, Gaza Talks Continue, Fighting Continues in Ukraine, Russia Retaliates Against Sanctions, Islamic State Pushes through Iraq and War Crime Charges for Former Cambodian Leaders
On Wednesday, President Barack Obama called on African leaders to attack the health crisis, security challenges and government corruption that has crippled the continents economic advancement as he concluded the White House African Summit, the Associated Press reported, Obama, African Leaders Confront Continent’s Crises. Also in attendance was former President George W. Bush who launched a $15 billion HIV/AIDS initiative while in office and made public health issues in Africa a priority since leaving office. Bush’s institute partnered with first lady Michelle Obama to host a daylong event for the African leaders’ spouses. Bush, who lives in Dallas, said: “There’s not many things that convince me to come back to Washington. The first lady’s summit, of course, is one.” While Bush has his African legacy in his initiative, Obama has been trying to build his own and the U.S. African summit is seen as a symbol of that start as he brought 50 countries together for three days of talks. Moving away from humanitarian aid, Obama announced $33 billion in new U.S. commitment to bolster investments in Africa fr0m the private sector. According to the Associated Press: “African nations are still struggling with the HIV epidemic, malaria, and the current outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus. Government corruption remains a persistent problem. And a surge in violent extremism, particularly in North Africa and the Sahel region, has sparked international concern.” Obama added: “Today we can focus on how we can continue to strengthen Africa’s capacity to meet transitional threats and in so doing make all of our nations more secure.” During the private security session, leaders were expected to talk about Boko Haram, the Violent Islamic group that kidnapped 300 schoolgirls in Nigeria earlier this year. Meanwhile, Mrs. Obama and Mrs. Bush, who hosted an event last summer in Tanzania, met with the African first ladies to talk about investments in education, health and economic development.
Meanwhile, back in Western Africa, on Tuesday global health experts stated that the Ebola outbreak is “out of control” and the international community has no organized plan to address it, Kathlenn Miles reports, Health Expert: ‘No Strategic Plan’ For Controlling Ebola Outbreak. Laurie Garrett, senior global health fellow for the Council on Foreign Relations, said Tuesday during a CFR conference call: “We’re now in a perfect storm. There is no strategic plan for how this epidemic will be brought under control. People believe that there’s a giant World Health Organization office in Geneva stocked full of specialized equipment and talented health care workers. Not only do we not have any such thing –- the WHO is essentially bankrupt.” Garrett added that the largest response group, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) who has 550 staff member on the ground, has issued plea after plea in recent days for assistance due to fatigue as more than 60 health workers have been infected with the virus. Garret said: “(health workers) in a state of seige — feeling that the population despises and loathes them. Rumors are rife that they are actually deliberately infecting people, cutting off people’s arms and selling them on some alleged international market, and even that there are health care workers who are cannibals.” The need now is for an agreed upon international leader to fight the epidemic and tale on the $1.2 billion deficit or face possible chaos, according to Garrett. WHO spokeswoman Christy Feig confirmed the deficit to HuffPost, while on Monday, the World Bank pledged $200 million to fight the epidemic leaving the WHO short $78 million. Garrett criticized the African Summit in Washington due to the act the 50 leaders at the summit should be discussing how to mobilize more health workers, and consider closing borders and canceling flights adding: “We should be taking advantage of this remarkable coincidental moment, but as far as I can tell, it’s not on the agenda.” The WHO will meet on Wednesday in Geneva at a special summit where experts will decide if the epidemic should be called an international public health emergency which, if designated, will force the international community to try to develop vaccines, implement border checks, give instructions to flight carriers and more. The Ebola virus, which is spread through bodily fluids, has killed 932 people since February in four West African countries and caused 1,711 cases making it the largest outbreak of the virus in history with no cure. The death rate is at 70 percent and its epicenter has shifted to Liberia and Sierra Leone from its outbreak in the forests of Guinea with two confirmed cases in Nigeria, according to Garrett. Additionally, Saudi Arabia officials said a man who tested for the Ebola virus died on Sunday after returning from Sierra Leone, where 286 people have died from Ebola, while hospitalized in Jiddah after showing signs of the viral hemorrhagic fever. While on Wednesday, Spain’s Defense Ministry said a medically equipped Airbus 310 is ready to fly to Liberia to recover a Spanish missionary priest who has the virus, but it is not known when the plane will leave, Bashir Adigun and Krista Larson report, WHO: Ebola death toll reaches 932; 1,700 cases. According to Dan Kedmey, Sierra Leone Dispatches Troops to Enforce Ebola Quarantine, Sierra Leone has dispatched 750 soldiers Wednesday to enforce new quarantine measures as the virus’ global death toll increase. Liberia’s president orders a 30 day state of emergency due to the Ebola outbreak late Wednesday, according to a radio broadcast. A Reuters reports in Monrovia reported that relatives of Ebola victims dumped infected bodies in the streets to avoid quarantines as forces are deployed to maintain order. While some of the numerous untested Ebola drugs will go into human trials to test safety and effectiveness this years, none will be available for widespread production for several years.
Switching to the ongoing Middle East crisis, talks in Cairo for an long term truce continued between Israel and the Palestinian side (Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Palestine Liberation Organization) as many Palestinians returned to devastation in Gaza but no fighting, according to CNN, Talks to extend Gaza truce under way in Cairo. From Jerusalem. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised his country’s troops for their performance, blamed Hamas for civilian casualties and hoped that the Cairo talks could allow for broader peace. On Wednesday, a Palestinian delegate, Qais Abdelkarim, told CNN that the delegations had yet to reach an agreement to extend the ceasefire. An Israeli government official, who asked to remain anonymous, told CNN Thursday regarding a ceasefire extension: “The current one is unconditional, and from our point of view, it can be extended unconditionally.” On Wednesday Obama weighed in on the matter: “I’m very glad that we have, at least temporarily, achieved a cease-fire. The question now is, how do we build on this temporary cessation of violence and move forward in a sustainable way? I have no sympathy for Hamas. I have great sympathy for ordinary people who are struggling within Gaza.” Nasser Judeh, the foreign ministers of Jordan, which borders Israel and the West Bank, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer: “The problem is that — regardless of the blame game that’s taking place right now and it usually does happen after every Gaza escalation — it’s the people of Gaza who are suffering from the siege, from a disastrous humanitarian situation, civilian deaths, destruction. I think we all have to collectively think about how we can rescue them from this.” The United Nations reports around 520,000 Gaza residents were displaced which is 29% of the territory’s 1.8 million inhabitants, more than 10,00 homes were destroyed or severely damaged and the Palestinian Health Ministry reports nearly 1,900 Palestinians were killed in Gaza during the conflict with the U.N. estimating that about 70% of the dead were civilians. The immediate challenge for residents is to secure water, food and shelter. The U.N. says water is scarce and there is only two to four hours of electricity a day. Pierre Krahenbuhl, UNRWA’s commissioner general, told CNN: “We will be very closely following not only the needs of people who stay at our schools (which house about 270,000), but also those who are returning to their home and may find themselves in very difficult situations in the days and weeks to come.” Nachman Shai, an opposition member of the Israeli parliament, said talking isn’t the only thing Israel needs to do referring to the idea of disarming Hamas: “I’m not sure that we accomplished the mission. I think we have to do much more. If you ask me, the next phase in this mission is to build new relations between us and the Palestinians.” Netanyahu did agree with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that realignment could present opportunities to use the Cairo talks fro broader discussions: “I think he’s right that there are opportunities now, perhaps opportunities that we’ve not seen before with the realignment of important parties in the Middle East, to be able to fashion a new reality, one more conducive to the end of violence, the establishment of calm, sustainable peace, or at least a sustainable quiet that can lead to other things.” Palestininan negotiator Saeb Erakat told CNN Wednesday that the conflict cannot be resolved through violence and Mohammed Shtayyeh, a senior negotiator for the PLO, states Israeli’s call to demilitarize Gaza is balckmail. Hamas leaders want to negotiate an end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza or find another body to control the borders. U.S. State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki told CNN’s Tapper: “We don’t negotiate with Hamas. We don’t talk to Hamas. But we certainly want to be there to support an effort to negotiate over these key issues that have been so troubling in the region for so many years.”
On Wednesday, as fighting continues not far from the Malaysian Flight 17 crash site in Eastern Ukraine, the Dutch prime minster has halted recovery efforts to find the remaining bodies as it is too dangerous. Donetsk City Council confirmed three people were killed and five wounded on overnight shelling in eastern Ukraine as government forces tighten their hold on the pro-Russian rebel stronghold, the Associated Press reported, 3 killed, 5 wounded in east Ukraine fighting. On the council’s website Thursday, a statement detailed that several residential buildings were damage 4 miles from the city’s center due to shelling. As rebels are pushed back by Kiev forces, many fear that Russian may intervene as Western Leader accuse Russia of massing troops at the border, a claim Russia denies. Meanwhile, Toby Sterling reports, Dutch premier halts search for Ukraine victims, Wednesday Mark Rutte, at a news conference, praised the efforts of the international recovery mission and promised victims’ families the search will resume when Ukraine is more stable. Rutte added that before the international team was able to reach the site due to fighting in the area the local authorities immediately after the crash conducted a thorough search of the area with 800 volunteers and found many bodies in the first days and have been identified in the Netherlands. As for the cause of the crash, Rutte said the investigation is continuing as the Dutch Safety Board spokesman on Wednesday states the preliminary findings due Aug. 17 won’t be ready for several weeks after that date. The reason, according to Wim van der Weegen via phone interview, is due to the difficulty investigators had reaching the site.
While Ukraine continues to struggles to end the fighting and the families of Flight 17 must wait longer to find their loved ones, Russia, who has been sanctions over its alleged action in Ukraine, has banned all Western Food imports in retaliation. Jim Heintz reports, Report: Russia to block US agricultural imports, the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti quoted an official of Russia’s sanitary oversight agency as saying all imports of agricultural product from the U.S. to Russia will be banned. President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered state authorities to make a list of agricultural products from countries who imposed the sanctions on Russia with a ban or limit for up to one year. On Thursday, Russia officially banned most food imports from the West in retaliation that will cost Western farmers billions of dollars and lead to empty shelves in Russian cities, the Associate Press reports, Russia bans Western food over Ukraine sanctions. The decisions by President Vladimir Putin shows he will no bow to international pressure over Ukraine and will strike back as Russia pursues its course in Ukraine. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in a televised Cabinet meeting that the ban covers all imports of meat, fish, milk and milk products and fruit and vegetables from the United States, the European Union, Australia, Canada and Norway. He said: “Until the last moment, we hoped that our foreign colleagues would understand that sanctions lead to a deadlock and no one needs them. But they didn’t and the situation now requires us to take retaliatory measures.” Large cities may be hit the hardest like Moscow where imported food fills 60 to 70 percent of the market. Medvedev said Russia may carry their ban further and prevent Western carriers from flying over Russia on flights from Asia which would significantly swell the costs and increase flight times. The move is retaliation against EU sanctions levied on the low cost Russian airline Dobrolet. Medvedev hopes the ban will make the West revise their policy and stop trying to pressure Russia with sanctions. Another import from the U.S. will not be banned , according to Heintz, Edward Snowden Gets Permission To Stay In Russia For 3 More Years: Lawyer, as NSA whistle blower Edward Snowden on Thursday was granted permission to stay in Russia for three more years. Analtoly Kucherena, his lawyer, quoted by the Russian news agency as saying Snowden was not granted political asylum but residency for three more years.
Back in the Middle East, the Islamic State made another push into Northern Iraq leaving many Iraq’s the only two options, to flee their towns and villages or face Sunni militants who are notorious for beheading. According to Ahmed Rasheed and Michael Georgy, Iraq’s Yazidis Face Extremist Militants Or Perilous Mountains, the Yazidis of Sinjar are especially concerned since the Islamic state, deemed excessive by al Qaeda, see the minority ethnic group as devil worshipers making them prime targets for the sword. Witnesses and the United Nations reports that tens of thousands fled the weekend assault on Sinjar and are now surrounded after Sunni militants inflicted a humiliating defeat on Kurdish forces who held the town for three years. Residents said 50 people were killed after the Sunni militants, who declared parts of Iraq and Syria a caliphate, arrived in Sinjar late Saturday and 20 were killed trying to defend the town. Many panicked Yazidis tried to find water and food for their children before leaving in a rush to the surrounding mountains, while some did not escape. Vian Dakheel, a member of the Yazidi community parliament, said tearfully: “The innocent people of Sinjar were slaughtered. Men were killed and women have been taken as slaves by Islamic State fighters.” Dakheel said some could not withstand the weekend offensive and 70 children between one month and four died of thirst and hunger. The U.N. children’s agency said families fleeing the area needed assistance including the 25,000 children stranded in the mountains. While the Islamist State sets its sights on new territory, no sign Iraq’s bickering politicians will be able to share power anytime soon leaving the government powerless in countering the insurgency. Fortunately, as Reuters reported, UN Rescues Some Refugees From Sinjar Mountain, some of the thousands trapped by Islamic State militants on Sinjar mountain in northern Iraq have been rescued in the last 24 hours leading up to Thursday announcement by a spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. David Swanson via phone from Iraq said: “We’re just receiving the information right now. We’ve just heard that people over the last 24 hours have been extracted and the U.N. is mobilizing resources to ensure that these people are assisted on arrival. This is a tragedy of immense proportions, impacting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Over the past couple of days, almost 200,000 people have made their way northwards to Iraq’s Kurdistan region, Dohuk governorate, or to disputed border areas inside Ninewah. We have also received reports that thousands more may have fled across the border into Syria, and are waiting to cross back into Iraq, but I have no concrete confirmation of that. Many of the displaced are in immediate need of essential life-saving humanitarian items, including water, food, shelter and medicine.” A spokesman for the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF in Geneva, Christopher Tidey, said: “We have received reports of dehydrated children and we know that at least 40 children have died.” Another group, Iraqi Christians, have long suffered more than any other group since the Islamic State took power as the region’s Christian population is around 5% and dropping, according to Yasmin Hafiz, ‘Vicar Of Baghdad’ Canon Andrew White Refuses To Leave Iraq, Despite Christian Persecution By ISIS. In Mosul, Iraq, Islamic State distributed flyers in July giving them three options: convert to Islam, pay a fine, or be killed. Many of their abandoned homes now say in black lettering, “Property of the Islamic State.” Canon Andrew White refuses to leave Baghdad, despite the danger, as St. George’s is Iraq’s last Anglican church. He estimates his numbers at 6,000 people, but in the last decade over 1,200 have been killed, CNN’s Arwa Damon reports.
On Thursday, a long over due ruling three and a half decades after the genocidal rule of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge ended has finally been handed down Thursday by a U.N. backed tribunal. Todd Pitman and Sopheng Cheang report, Cambodia tribunal convicts Khmer Rouge leaders, two top leaders of the former regime received life sentences for crimes against humanity during the country’s 1970s terror period that left 2 million people dead. The histroic verdicts were announced against Khieu Samphan, the regime’s 83-year-old former head of state, and Nuon Chea, its 88-year-old chief ideologue – the only two surviving leaders of the regime left to stand trial, Pitman and Cheang. The tribunal’s chief judge said both men were guilty of “extermination encompassing murder, political persecution, and other inhumane acts comprising forced transfer, enforced disappearances and attacks against human dignity.” The rulings can be appeals, however, Nil Nonn told the court that “given the gravity of the crimes” both would remain in detention. Nearly a quarter of the population died under the Khmer Rouge about 1.7 million people through a combination starvation, medical neglect, overwork and execution when the group held power in 1975-79. Tribunal spokesman Lars Olsen called it “a historic day for both the Cambodian people and the court. The victims have waited 35 years for legal accountability, and now that the tribunal has rendered a judgment, it is a clear milestone.” According to the article: “The current trial began in 2011 with four senior Khmer Rouge leaders; only two remain. Former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary died in 2013, while his wife, Social Affairs Minister Ieng Thirith, was deemed unfit to stand trial due to dementia in 2012. The group’s top leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998.” khieu Samphan acknowledged the mass killings, but testified in 2011 he was a figure head with no authority. Nuon Chea, bother no.2 for Pol Pot’s trusted deputy, denied responsibility claiming Vietnamese soldiers killed Cambodians en masse. Due to poor health and advanced age, the case was divided into two trials in an effort to render justice before they die. Both men will be tried in September or October for charges of genocide, according to Olsen, and could take a year to complete. Survivors of the regime had mixed reactions to the verdicts. 54 year old Chea Sophon, whose brother was killed during the Khmer Rouge era and spend years in a hard labor camp building dams and working in rice fields, said: “The crimes are huge, and just sentencing them to life in jail is not fair. But what can I do? I just accept the verdict. Even if they die many times over, it would not be enough.” While a 58 year old female survivor, Khuth Vouern, said she felt a sense of relief that justice was served: “I have been waiting for this day for many years. Now, for the first time, my mind feels at least some degree of peace.”
Posted in 2014, activism, al-Qaida, bombing, conflict, congress, controversial, crime, disaster relief, disease, drugs, economy, goverment, human rights, insurgency, international, Iran, Iraq War, Islamic State, law, militants, military, news, peace, people, politics, religion, terrorism, tragedy, transportation, travel, United Nations, United States, US, violence, war, water, wellness, white house, world, world health
Tagged Africa Summit, Africa Summit Ebola, Andrew White Vicar of Baghdad, AP, Barack Obama, Cambodian genocide, Cambodian tribunal, Canon Andrew White, Christian Persecution, Christianity, christians, Chuck Hagel, Chuck Hagel Russia, Chuck Hagel Ukraine, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Ebola, Ebola Africa, Ebola Aid, Ebola CFR, Ebola Death Toll, Ebola Drug Cfr, Ebola Expert, Ebola Health Workers, ebola outbreak, Ebola Outbreak 2014, Ebola Plan, Ebola Sierra Leone, Ebola Virus, Ebola West Africa, Edward Snowden, Edward Snowden Asylum, Edward Snowden Russia, Egypt Israel Hamas, Gaza Ceasefire, Gaza truce talks, George W Bush, Global Health, Hagel Russia Ukraine, humanitarian crisis Gaza, Iraq, Iraq Conflict, Iraq Islamic State, Iraq Sinjar Mountain, Iraq Violence, Iraq Yazidis, Iraqi Refugees, Iraqis Rescued Sinjar Mountain, Isis, Islam Iraq, Islamic Caliphate, Islamic State, Islamic State Yazidis, Israeli Palestinian Conflict, John Campbell Ebola, Khmer Rouge leaders, Khmer Rouge leaders Cambodia, Kiev Government, Laurie Garrett Ebola, Mosul, Nsa Prism, Nsa Scandal Snowden, Nsa Surveillance, Obama Africa Summit, pro-Russian rebels, Reuters, Russia, Russia Bans US Agricultural, Russia Bans US Foods, Russia retaliates against Sanction, Russia Sanction, Russia Sanctions, Sierra Leone Quaratine, Snowden Russia, tabacco derived Ebola cure, Ukraine, Ukraine News, Ukraine Russia, Ukrainian forces, United Nations, Vicar of Baghdad Andrew White, war crimes Cambodia, White House Africa Summit, Who Ebola, Who Ebola 2014, Yazidis
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Tulane to host screening, discussion of film on Little League’s role in civil rights
By Roger Dunaway
Category: Local Sports, Tulane
The Tulane Center for Sport will debut its new Sport and Social Justice Speaker Series with the film screening and discussion of Long Time Coming: A 1955 Baseball Story. (Image courtesy of Common Pictures)
Tulane University’s Center for Sport will host the inaugural event of its new Sport and Social Justice Speaker Series with a film screening and discussion of the movie, Long Time Coming: A 1955 Baseball Story, on Wednesday, February 13 from 6-8 p.m. in the Jill H. and Avram A. Glazer Family Club at Yulman Stadium. The event is free and open to the public, and light food and refreshments will be available. Free parking is available in the Claiborne Avenue Lot, which is accessible off Claiborne Ave, and in the Diboll Parking Garage off Ben Weiner Drive.
Following the screening, a group of panelists will discuss the film, and a question and answer session will follow the discussion. The panelists include Tulane head baseball coach Travis Jewett, Eddie Davis, a former professional baseball player and current director of the MLB Youth Academy NOLA, S. Derby Gisclair, New Orleans baseball writer and historian and Ro Brown, the former WDSU Sports Director and current assistant director of athletic communications at the University of New Orleans. The moderator for the discussion will be Dr. Charvi Greer, the Associate Athletics Director, Academic Services/Senior Woman Administrator for Tulane Athletics.
Directed by Jon Strong, Long Time Coming centers around the year 1955 when racial segregation defined the South and two teams of 12-year-old boys stepped onto a baseball field in a non-violent act of cultural defiance that would change the course of history.
Florida’s 1955 Little League State Championship between the all-black Pensacola Jaycees and the all-white Orlando Kiwanis moved beyond fears, threats and the unknown to break with tradition and show the world what was possible—breaking the color line in youth sports.
Sixty-years later, the players of the first racially integrated little league baseball game in the South reflect on this revolutionary event in the documentary, building a bridge to heal the social divide that still exists in our country today.
The film also features former Major League Baseball (MLB) players and Civil Rights icons Hank Aaron, Cal Ripken, Jr., Gary Sheffield, Davey Johnson and New Orleans native Andrew Young, the former United States Ambassador to the United Nations and member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
“Sports are increasingly at the forefront of our social and political conversations, and the influence and effectiveness in this arena continue to grow,” said Dr. Greg Stewart, the W. Kennon McWilliams Professor in Sports Medicine and director of the Professional Athlete Care Team. “The Sport and Social Justice Speaker Series serves as an opportunity to educate the Tulane Community and the public at large about productive ways to talk about social justice issues.”
“This film is an example of how, through sport, we can overcome social divisions. The film will spark a constructive conversation in the understanding of the personal side of civil rights movements. My hope is that the audience is open to the significance of gaining perspective on life from another person’s story. Through the film and panel discussion, the audience will be able to hear others’ experiences, reflect on the personal story they are creating, and decide if and how they are contributing to the efforts of racial healing,” said Stewart.
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Roger Dunaway
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Diverse Hispanic Workforce More Likely to Face Challenges, Report Finds
November 01, 2016 / CTByTheNumbers.info
There are about 24 million workers of Hispanic descent in the United States. While this group is frequently referred to as a single entity, the reality is that these workers come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, each with their own challenges in the labor market. A new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) provides an overview of the diverse backgrounds of the Hispanic workforce, and shows how each group experiences unique challenges in the labor market, specifically in terms of unemployment, wages, poverty, language barriers, and access to health and retirement benefits.
The report, “Hispanic Workers in the United States” also shows that union representation has helped to address some of these challenges. Some highlights from the report include:
Workers of Mexican descent are by far the largest subgroup of the Hispanic workforce (14.9 million);
Women make up only 43.3 percent of the overall Hispanic workforce, but they are a majority of several subgroups, including Panamanians (58.1 percent), Bolivians (53.2 percent), and Paraguayans (51.0 percent);
About two-thirds of Hispanic workers are U.S. citizens – Puerto Ricans (98.7 percent) and Spaniards (90.9 percent) are the groups most likely to be citizens;
Hispanic workers in general are more likely than workers of any other race/ethnicity to be in poverty. Among Hispanics, Guatemalans are most likely to be members of the working poor (19.1 percent);
About 30 percent of Hispanic workers do not have health insurance, but over half of Guatemalan and Honduran workers lack health insurance.
Connecticut’s population is 15 percent Hispanic, the 11th largest Hispanic statewide population share nationally, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. The Latino population increased by 50 percent in Connecticut from 2000 to 2010. The highest percentage of Hispanics in Connecticut municipalities are in Hartford, Willimantic, Bridgeport, New Britain, Waterbury, Meriden, New Haven, New London, Stamford and Danbury, according to Zip Atlas. In Connecticut, Mexicans are the second largest Hispanic community in the state behind Puerto Rican residents, CT Mirror has reported. Willimantic, New Haven and Norwalk have the three highest Mexican populations in Connecticut, with 5.24 percent, 2.8 percent and 2.28 percent, according to 2013 data.
The American Immigration Council reports that the Latino share of Connecticut’s population grew from 6.5% in 1990, to 9.4% in 2000, to 14.7% (or 527,163 people) in 2013. In 2009, 94.4% of children in Latino families in Connecticut were U.S. citizens.
Orlando Rodriguez, former legislative analyst at the now-defunct state Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission, told ctlatinonews.com last year that Connecticut’s future is largely dependent on how successful Latinos are in getting into the middle class, and how successful the state is in being able to create middle class jobs for them.
“Simply put,” he said, “The numbers are growing, and if Latinos don’t enter the middle class of Connecticut in large numbers, the state’s economy will feel it negatively…and if they do enter it in large numbers, the economy will grow.”
Cherrie Bucknor, author of the CEPR report explained, “Understanding the diversity and challenges faced by Hispanic workers is key to making better policy decisions.” The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) is an independent, nonpartisan think tank that was established to promote democratic debate on the most important economic and social issues that affect people's lives.
November 01, 2016 / CTByTheNumbers.info/
Community, Demographics, Economy
New London’s Hearing Youth Voices ...
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Marx at the Movies
Published in Films
To mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx this year, John Green gives a brief outline of some of the influences of Marxist thought on moviemakers.
What influence has Marx had on film and the cinema? A rather odd if not idiotic question the reader might think. After all, Marx died in 1883 and the first commercial, public screening of moving images, organised by the Lumière brothers in Paris only took place on 28 December 1895 – 12 years later. However, silly as it may at first appear, Marx and his ideas have had a profound influence on the development and evolution of film-making.
The Soviet film-makers, Sergei Eisenstein and Lev Kuleshov, founder of one of the world’s first film schools, should probably be credited with being the first to attempt to apply Marxist ideas directly to film-making. They immediately recognised the strong affinity between Marxist philosophy and the peculiar, unique essence of film and the creative possibilities it offered.
For Kuleshov, the essence of the cinema was editing, the juxtaposition of one shot with another. To illustrate this principle, he created what has come to be known as the Kuleshov Effect. In this now-famous editing exercise, shots of an actor’s face, looking at something were intercut successively with different images of objects (a casket, a bowl of soup, etc.), as if the actor were looking at them. Viewers apparently thought they could perceive subtly different expressions in the actor’s face corresponding to what he was supposedly looking at.
In actual fact, however, Kuleshov used exactly the same image of the actor, thus making the point that the mere fact of juxtaposing different images creates a third, imaginative image or perception in the heads of the viewer. Editing techniques can change or influence viewers' interpretations of images.
Another one of his famous inventions was creative geography, also known as artificial landscape. Those techniques were described in his book The Basics of Film Direction (1941) which was later translated into many languages.
But it was Eisenstein who was able to translate Marxist ideas most effectively through his films. Marxist dialectics, the recognition that change in the world comes about primarily through a conflict of opposites to create a new synthesis, and that human history unfolds as the result of class conflict are central to Eisenstein’s approach.
Eisenstein, Battleship Potemkin, 1925
While other Marxist film-makers chose more traditional ways of editing (montage) and story-telling, Eisenstein was convinced that the unique medium of film allowed – demanded even – a new approach. He became the father of what we today understand by the term film montage (creative, non-linear, editing). Following Kuleshov, he also recognised that by placing two very different images in conjunction, each would attain new meaning and lead to a new and deeper comprehension of reality.
By consciously framing and arranging elements within the frame of each image, in order to create a formal conflict, he also underlined this contradictory character. In his use of music too, he employed it not as mere accompaniment, to give emphasis to the emotional charge contained in the images, but as an aural commentary upon the visual, and as a counterpoint.
Eisenstein was also a master of choreography, to emphasise the role played by the masses in creating history and underlining the fact that it is not individuals who are paramount in bringing about change, but mass movements. In his films Potemkin or Alexander Nevsky, for instance, this aspect of his approach is demonstrated to awesome effect.
In order to break away from Hollywood’s ‘dream machine’ film-making culture, which used narrative structures that over-emphasised individual characters’ actions, Eisenstein shunned narrative structure by eliminating the individual protagonist. Instead, events were related in which the action is moved forward by the group and the narrative unfolds through a clash of one image against the next, whether in composition, motion, or idea. In this way, the audience is never lulled into a stupor of believing that they are watching real life, but something that has been worked upon, constructed.
While his films are immensely powerful historical statements, and his use of montage has influenced numbers of film-makers throughout the world, Eisenstein’s tendency to over-theorise could become something of a straitjacket on the narrative. Other film-makers, who would also have defined themselves as Marxists, while readily utilising some of his methodology and ideas, chose to follow more traditional narrative paths.
Although strongly influenced by those early Soviet innovators, few film-makers since have chosen to follow Eisenstein’s methodology strictly, but have chosen instead to incorporate Marxist ideas and a Marxist outlook more through their choice of subject matters. Although Bertolt Brecht, in his short foray into the film world, did use similar montage elements to Eisenstein and Kuleshov in his film Kühle Wampe, about working class life in Germany.
Kuhle Wampe, a 1932 film about unemployment, homelessness and left wing politics, conceived and written by Bertolt Brecht
Certainly many film-makers in a whole number of countries have at one time or other been members of their respective communist parties, and have espoused Marxism. Most of the Italian neo-realists were members of the CPI, including de Sica, Rosi, Pasolini, Bertolucci, Visconti. French filmmakers like Jean Renoir and later Jean-Luc Godard and the documentarist Chris Marker, as well as the Dutchman Joris Ivens, were all influenced in very different ways by Marxist ideas.
The Italian neo-realists sought to tackle the subject of capitalism, fascism and social injustice in their films, clearly indicating, if not overtly, that a socialist organisation of society would be a better alternative. But they did this more through the use of amateur actors, raw, outside settings, and using natural lighting rather than the artifice of studio set-ups.
The Indian Marxist and film director, Mrinal Sen, played a significant role in the development of Indian film. The films he made were overtly political, and earned him the reputation of being ‘a Marxist artist’. He was working during the time of large-scale political unrest in India (1955 onwards). Particularly in and around Calcutta, this period was marked particularly by the Naxalite insurgency. He went on to make a series of films that revealed a shift in focus, and instead of looking at enemies outside the country, he sought the enemy within his own middle class milieu. This was his most creative phase.
British filmmakers like Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reisz and the US-born Joseph Losey, as well as modern filmmakers like Ken Loach, have also been strongly influenced by Marxist ideas, expressed itself largely through their choices of subject matter and a class-based approach to story-telling.
Ken Loach, The Navigators, 2001
There has also been a large body of work devoted to Marxist film theory. This work, though, has largely taken place in academic circles and media studies departments, rather than in the film industry itself.
Since the French Nouvelle Vague movement of the 50s and 60s, there have been few identifiable groups of filmmakers one could be characterise as following certain guidelines or a unifying philosophy (and even the Nouvelle Vague was a somewhat amorphous group, born from the pages of the French cinema journal, Cahiers du Cinéma).
However, in 1995 a small group of Scandinavian filmmakers, called Dogme 95, did attempt to define a new approach film making in answer to the dominant, commercialised Anglo-Saxon model, and found inspiration in Soviet cinema and Marxism. Founding members were the Danish directors Lars van Trier and Thomas Vinterberg. In their manifesto they formulated ten rules, involving strict adherence to what they saw as a ‘natural way’ of filmmaking. They also wrote:
Sergei Eisenstein and many other Soviet filmmakers in the 1920s expressed ideas of Marxism through film. In fact, the Hegelian dialectic was considered best displayed in film editing through the Kuleshov Experiment and the development of montage.
While this structuralist approach to Marxism and filmmaking was used, the more vociferous complaint that the Russian filmmakers had was with the narrative structure of US cinema.
Eisenstein's solution was to shun narrative structure by eliminating the individual protagonist and tell stories where the action is moved by the group and the story is told through a clash of one image against the next (whether in composition, motion, or idea) so that the audience is never lulled into believing that they are watching something that has not been worked over.
French Marxist film makers, such as Jean-Luc Godard would employ radical editing and choice of subject matter, as well as subversive parody to heighten class consciousness and promote Marxist ideas.
Marxist film theory has developed from these precise and historical beginnings and is now sometimes viewed in a wider way to refer to any power relationships or structures within a moving image text.
So, again we have an example of modern filmmakers seeking inspiration in Marxist ideas when formulating their own cinematic philosophy or filmmaking theory vis-à-vis the hegemonic commercial cinema.
In the British magazine Screen, published in the early seventies, there was a discussion of Screen Theory which is based on a combination of Marxism and psychoanalysis. To discuss that in detail here would be perhaps somewhat outside the scope of this short resumé. But briefly, the theoreticians of the "screen theory" approach – Colin MacCabe, Stephen Heath and Laura Mulvey –describe the ‘cinematic apparatus’ as a version of Althusser’s ideological state apparatus.
According to screen theory, it is the spectacle that creates the spectator and not the other way round. The fact that the subject is created and subjected at the same time by the narrative on screen is masked by the apparent realism of the communicated content. Screen theory's origins can be traced to the essays ‘Mirror Stage’ by Lacan and Miller’s ‘Suture: Elements of the Logic of the Signifier’.
Another group of filmmakers, the so-called Situationists, also adopted an approach based on a critique of capitalist film industry. Situationist film maker Guy Debord, author of The Society of the Spectacle, began his film In ‘girum imus nocte et consumimur igni’ (Wandering around in the night we are consumed by fire) with a radical critique of the spectator who goes to the cinema to forget about his ‘dispossessed daily life’. This resonates with Marx’s ideas on alienation.
Situationist film makers produced a number of important films though, where the only contribution by the situationist film cooperative was the sound-track. In Can dialectics break bricks? (1973) a Chinese Kung Fu film was transformed by redubbing into an epistle on state capitalism and proletarian revolution. The intellectual technique of using capitalism's own structures against itself is known as détournement.
Marxist film theory has developed from precise and historical beginnings and is now sometimes viewed in a wider way to refer to any power relationships or structures within a moving image text.
A massively broad understanding of Marxist film theory could be viewed as an attempt to decentre the narrative of the film away from individuals as the central drivers of a film, and as an attempt to analyse or re-contextualise hierarchical relationships regarding gender, race, socioeconomic status etc. or as propaganda to raise class consciousness.
One of the latest incursions into Marxist film theory has been made by the flamboyant neo-Marxist philosopher, Slavoj Zizek. in A Perverts Guide to Ideology, made by him in collaboration with Sophie Fiennes. Specifically, A Perverts Guide attempts to examine the hidden ideology immanent in films, and attempts to understand the message this ideology is seeking to convey.
In his terms, ideologies aren't political doctrines codified into ‘isms,’ but rather the fantasies and beliefs that underlie the functioning of all societies. In showing how these are reflected in the stories of individuals conveyed to us through films.
He analyses a number of famous films, ranging from Jaws, Full Metal Jacket to Taxi Driver, using them to explore the deep-seated power of ideologies and how they surface in such seemingly unconnected elements as Nazi propaganda films, the London riots or Coke commercials from the 1980s.
He remarks, for example, on the similarities between The Searchers and Taxi Driver, and attempts to draw a parallel between such films and the US military experiences in Vietnam and Iraq – one of many instances where he teases out connections between imaginary constructs and political realities. He concludes that, ‘The depressing lesson of the last decades is that capitalism has been the true revolutionising force, even as it only serves itself.’
Books Please! The Russian Revolution, Arts and Culture
Mike Quille outlines some of the ways the Russian Revolution has influenced art and culture across the world in the last 100 years.
The Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917 was the world’s first attempt to create a socialist society. It was based on the active support of the majority of the population, workers and peasants alike, and apart from ending Russia’s disastrous involvement in the First World War, it liberated and enfranchised the Russian population politically, socially and economically. It was radically progressive in its social policies – for example towards women and children – and in particular in its truly comprehensive education policies, as outlined in an article by Megan Behrent in this new, commemorative section of Culture Matters.
What about its impact on culture? Unquestionably, the Revolution gave a massive boost to creativity and imagination and led to an explicit recognition, by artists and Bolsheviks alike, that art could serve the general population rather than elites, and thus advance the aims of the Revolution. The natural links between artistic creativity and emancipatory politics were made – not for the first time in human history, but in the strongest way to date.
This explosion of creativity occurred in the visual arts, film, poetry, ballet, children’s literature, music and many more popular cultural pursuits including sport and science, theatre and theology, fashion and clothing. Hardly an area of human cultural activity was unaffected by the Revolution - for an illuminating discussion of its effect on science, see Andy Byford's Revolution and Science under the Bolsheviks.
Children's literature from the 1920s
Complementing the energy and political focus of cultural workers like artists and poets - see John Ellison's article on Alexander Blok - came a qualitative and quantitative change in the reception and appreciation of culture. There was a massive improvement in the ability and willingness of the mass of working people to engage with and enjoy the arts and other cultural activities, thanks to the government’s progressive educational policies and bold, imaginative attempts to connect the masses to culture, for example in the agit-trains and agit-boats that carried the political art of Mayakovsky, Lissitzky and Malevich to hundreds of thousands of workers and peasants.
Agit-train; Agit-boat with theatre on board
These kind of bold, ambitious initiatives, developed in a relatively poor and backward country a century ago, make a telling contrast with our Arts Council’s timid attempts to encourage 'community engagement'. State policy towards the arts in this country is still dominated by the elitist mission of subsidising the interests of the richer segments of metropolitan populations.
What is often less discussed is the cultural impact of the Revolution across the world outside of Russia. It was a massive influence at the time, and has been for the last hundred years. Indeed, the purposes, meanings and effects of the Revolution on culture are still being played out today - a kind of 'cosmic background radiation', as Andrew Murray vividly describes it.
This brief survey will sketch out those influences, with a few examples where space allows. They are grouped into three kinds of influence.
The revolutionary impact on cultural workers
Firstly, there was the direct and worldwide influence of the Revolution on cultural activities such as art, literature, music and sport. The constructivist movement in the visual arts and in architecture, for example, was possibly the most influential global artistic movement in the twentieth century - see Jean Turner's article on avant-garde architecture.
Tatlin's Tower;socialist architecture
As Owen Hatherley and others have pointed out, abstraction, pop art, minimalism, abstract expressionism, the graphic style of punk and post-punk, and architectural brutalism, postmodernism, hi-tech and deconstructivism are all heavily indebted to the constructivism which sprang from the Russian Revolution. Constructivism combined a radical new approach to technology and engineering with an explicitly communist social purpose. Malevich, Tatlin, Rodchenko and Stepanova all represented different strands of the constructivist movement, and their influence can be seen in buildings across the world in the twentieth century.
Numerous examples could also be drawn from the literary arts. In poetry and literature generally, the ‘turn to the people’ that the Revolution represented, the replacement of an elite perspective with a focus on the lives and concerns of ordinary people, took a massive step forward, particularly in developing and increasingly anti-colonial countries.
Diego Rivera at work on The Uprising; Agrarian Leader Zapata
The kind of mutuality and affinities which the Revolution sparked in Indian literature and Asia can also be traced in African and South American art and culture, too, notably in the the work of Diego Rivera.
Up until the Revolution, the global dissemination of art and culture had always had an imperialistic dimension. It was inextricably entwined with the capitalist exploitative colonial project, a means of imposing metropolitan cultural values on other peoples. After 1917, just as the Revolution strengthened radical political opposition across the world, so it enabled indigenous cultural and artistic traditions to flower and make international connections, on a scale not seen before in human history.
Closer to home, an example of this international effect was the leftist poetry movement in 1930s Britain led by Auden, Macneice, Spender and others. They were inspired by the Revolution to create a more overtly political, even didactic literature. In both form and content they aimed to connect more closely with the mass of the population. And there’s no doubt of the huge influence of the Revolution on many other writers like George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells and Virginia Woolf.
George Bernard Shaw; W.H.Auden and Benjamin Britten
This literary movement itself influenced musicians and composers like Alan Bush and Auden’s friend Benjamin Britten, who was also independently attracted to communist and specifically Russian culture.
It spread also to documentary film-makers like the GPO Film Unit and its successors, who started a fine tradition of compassionate and sometimes overtly socialist documentaries on the living conditions of the British people, before, during and after the Second World War.
It is a tradition which was continued by the ‘kitchen-sink’ dramas of the fifties theatre, in TV dramas such as the Wednesday Play and Play for Today, and the exemplary work of Ken Loach right up to the present day.
The wider world was if anything even more influenced by the Revolution than Britain. In literature, art, and music the list is virtually endless. It is striking how left wing political perspectives are so common across all the arts in the twentieth century, and this is partly due to the influence of the Revolution on global culture.
Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin; Poster for Vertov's Kino-Glaz produced by Alexander Rodchenko
In cinema, the innovative techniques of Sergei Eisenstein, using ‘oppositional’ montage to create a new cinematic language, and Dziga Vertov, capturing ‘film truth’ in a radically new type of documentary, laid the foundations of world cinema - see John Green's comprehensive and authoritative survey of Soviet cinema. It is widely recognised that John Ford, Orson Welles, the Italian neo-realists, Carol Reed, Hitchcock, Coppola, Scorsese, and many others were heavily influenced by these Russian pioneers.
The revolutionary impact on appreciation and enjoyment
Secondly, there is another kind of influence, which is the impact of the Revolution not only on production but on consumption - on ways of accessing, experiencing and enjoying cultural activities.
Joan Littlewood; the People's Theatre, Newcastle
For example, there was the establishment of workers’ film societies in Britain, which brought quality cinema closer to working class people. The people’s theatre movement in Britain also grew very strongly in the 1920s, encouraged by G.B. Shaw, a strong sympathiser with the ideals of the Revolution. They were taken forward by Joan Littlewood and Ewan MacColl into both popular theatres and folk music clubs, before and after the Second World War. Joan Littlewood was heavily monitored by MI5: what better evidence can there be of Bolshevik influence?
Radical workers’ theatre in the rest of Europe and the United States was massively stimulated and energised by the democratising, anti-elitist influence of the revolution, and there was also a workers’ radio movement in Europe.
The revolutionary nature of art
The third kind of positive influence of the Revolution on art and culture was deeper and more general. It is an influence shared with every other progressive revolution in history.
Just as one of the main benefits of the Russian Revolution was to strengthen not only specifically radical political and economic alternatives to class-divided societies, but the very possibility of realising an alternative at all, so the Revolution did the same for artistic and cultural activities.
This is because as William Blake and others have recognised, artistic and cultural activities like poetry, art and music are fundamentally social and communal activities. That is why and how they evolved in human history: they are essentially acts of powerful, rousing and empathic communication which develop and deepen human sympathy and solidarity. Art – and other cultural activities such as sport and religion – can overcome and break down all kinds of barriers between humans. Cultural activity can overcome and dissolve, in reality as well as in our imaginations, the fundamental class divisions in human societies based on unequal shares of private property that have existed since ancient times.
The challenge to class-based society which the Revolution represented enabled and empowered artists, writers, musicians and their publics across the world to make, understand and enjoy art which was critical, challenging and oppositional to the status quo.
These countercultural, challenging strands can be traced in all the arts. This was something peculiar to the Russian Revolution, or totally new – evidence of artistic opposition to injustice, inequality and hierarchical oppression can be traced back through human history, as can the insistence of artists on the liberating power of creativity - see Doug Nicholl's article on Lugalbanda. But the Revolution strengthened that liberating, oppositional strand which is always, everywhere present in human cultural activities, the 'counter-hegemonic' forces identified by Antonio Gramsci.
Pablo Picasso, Guernica
Without the Revolution, there might well have been artistic protests against war and imperialist aggression, progressive religious movements, museums and art galleries, and cultural education for more people. But would there have been Guernica? Liberation theology? People’s museums? Comprehensive arts and sports education?
The Revolution enabled a more confident, collectivist and communal challenge to elite forms of art – not only its themes and content, but its mode of production, distribution, accessibility, reception and criticism.
Inspiring art and progressive politics have always been inextricably intertwined, which is one of the reasons why conservatives and liberals always want to keep them separate. The Russian Revolution firmly connected them, and all the debates about art and politics since then have been influenced by it. For example, the very idea of art and other cultural activities needing to respond to the needs of the mass of the population and not just serve ruling elites was given an enormous boost, which has influenced arts and culture policies across the world ever since. Those agit-trains agitated the world!
The revolutionary impact through resistance and reaction
All these positive influences of the Russian Revolution on art and culture have also been resisted, undermined and often beaten back, in ‘cultural wars’ which continue today.
This takes us to a fourth, very mixed legacy of the Revolution in world culture today, which is a consequence of the deep and long-lasting opposition of the capitalist powers to the Russian Revolution.
From the beginning there was diplomatic, economic and military opposition from the United States, Britain and other European powers to the anti-capitalist nature of the 1917 Revolution. This was temporarily replaced by an antifascist alliance in the Second World War, but thereafter quickly degenerated into various open and proxy conflicts across the globe during the Cold War.
This hostility and failure to support the fundamentally democratic advances made in Russia after the overthrow of autocracy caused tremendous suffering in 1920s and 1930s Soviet Union, directly and indirectly. Enforced isolation and the crushing of attempts to spread the radical impulse internationally were tragic, missed opportunities for what could have been an international flowering of human life, materially and culturally. Western elites, through acts of commission and omission, carry a huge responsibility for the sufferings of peoples across the world in the twentieth century.
In the Soviet Union, the defensive reaction to capitalist reaction and aggression led to the submersion and disappearance of some of the positive aspects of revolutionary culture. The pluralism of cultural policy under Lenin and Lunacharsky, and the bold ambition of the Proletkult - see article by Lynn Mally - was eroded into a much narrower approach to the arts and culture generally. Although the early Soviet state was always far more directly supportive of the arts and culture than capitalist democracies – particularly regarding literacy, cultural education and general access for the masses, for example – it also developed heavy-handed censorship arrangements, and intolerance of artistic and musical dissent and nonconformity.
The cultural influence of anti-communist hostility of the West was also expressed within capitalist countries. It took – and takes – many forms. Just to take one country, the United States, for example, there was the blatant, career-threatening persecution and blacklisting of left-leaning screenwriters, actors and directors in the film industry and other creative industries.
American postcard, 1930s
Another clear example is how the CIA covertly funded certain art forms such as abstract expressionism, and put pressure on various cultural institutions, in order to counter the left-leaning realist traditions in the visual arts (photography as well as painting) which were developing in Thirties America.
It is important to remember that this anti-communism is still current. The elites of Western powers have not forgotten or forgiven the power of artists to advance progressive and revolutionary political agendas. It is evident in the continuing prejudice of the American and British film industries against genres such as social realism and other cinematic attempts to tell the truth about capitalist exploitation and oppression. Individualistic, sexist themes which are congruent with capitalist culture, such as lone brave violent males supported by emotional caring females, dominate our screens. Because films generally are made for quick profit rather than for quality of insight and enlightenment, they rely overwhelmingly on superficial values including melodrama, sentiment, spectacle, glamour and celebrity, over real insight, intellectual depth and social relevance.
Poster, Go to the Stadiums!
Sport provides another instructive example. As Gareth Edwards relates in his piece, the Revolution opened up the possibility of more grassroots-driven, widely-practised and co-operative forms of sport which did not rely solely on the excitement generated by individual competition. The remarkably progressive approach to womens’ rights in the polity and economy was paralleled by advances in the access of women to sport and physical pursuits, for example in the growth of womens’ athletic organisations. This caused a hardening of elite attitudes in the West. It was at least partly responsible, for example, for the crushing of womens’ football by the FA in 1921 and other attempts to maintain the cultural dominance of white men.
The Cold War and the triumph of neoliberal capitalism, with its accompanying culture of competitiveness, elite celebrity and individual excellence, has also tended to corrupt sporting ideals. The Olympics, instead of being a celebration of human sporting ability, was turned into another proxy ideological and nationalistic battle between capitalism and socialism, and has still not fully recovered. Recent and ongoing drugs scandals across swathes of sporting activity bear witness to the insidious pressures of commercialism, individual achievement through winner/loser competitiveness, and celebrity culture.
Great art and poor curating at the RA: Alexander Deineka, In Defence of Petrograd; Malevich, Woman with a Rake
This anti-communism has also manifested itself this year, in various TV programmes and exhibitions. The exhibition of post-revolutionary Russian art at the Royal Academy, for example, was strikingly reactionary. Funded by the Blavatnik Foundation, a beneficiary of the sell-off of state-owned assets when the USSR collapsed in 1991, the exhibition abandoned the usual liberal approach of trying to provide a balanced historical account of the political background and art of the Revolution. Instead, it promoted an openly hostile perspective, which downplayed, denied and derided links between the progressive politics of the Revolution and the marvellously energetic and powerful art that it inspired. In general, mainstream media coverage of the centenary has been predictably hostile, uncomprehending, tepid, or plainly mistaken - exactly the same problems that characterise its coverage of Corbynism, and for exactly the same reasons.
The revolutionary influence today
In complex and deeply interwoven strands across all of human cultural activity in the last hundred years, the Revolution has had a massive effect. Its power and influence can still be detected in debates about the links between politics and economics on the one hand and art, sport and religion on the other. In all these debates, the example of Russia is inescapable.
It has left us with some tremendous and enduring examples of excellence in all forms of artistic and cultural activities, across all the world and across the hundred years since 1917. And because of the resistance of ruling elites, it has also led to a polarisation of debates and of practices.
Ever since 1917, there has been debate about the detailed legacy of the Revolution for art and culture. But one thing we can surely all agree about, at least on the Left, is the way it strengthened the capacity and confidence of art and artists to creatively imagine difference, improvement, and radical alternatives to what is.
This influence is extremely relevant today. We face increasing struggles against the incursions of capitalism into our human culture these days. There are all kinds of different barriers and pressures – financial, geographical, thematic – which tend to twist and corrupt human culture. Naturally healthy and developmental cultural activities such as art, sport, religion, eating and drinking, in all their myriad forms, are facing pressures to become corralled into expensive, inaccessible, privatised and patrolled enclaves for the rich and powerful.
In the current struggles that we face to democratise culture, to make it accessible and relevant and affordable to the mass of working-class people, the example of the Russian Revolution is like a beacon of inspiration. It shows us that things don’t have to be the way they are, that tomorrow may not be the same – and that we can achieve and enjoy a better life.
The team at Culture Matters hope that this piece, and the accompanying articles in this section of Culture Matters, give you some sense of the power and range of global cultural influences which sprang from the Russian Revolution. However, perhaps the most enduring influence of the Revolution lies not just in our appreciation and enjoyment of its tremendous cultural legacy, but in the way it still stimulates and motivates us to act now to fulfil its promise – by replacing the culture, politics and economics of capitalism with a socialist alternative.
Published in 1917 Centenary
'The most important of the arts': film after the Russian Revolution
John Green outlines the role of film in the Bolshevik Revolution, and the profound and lasting influence of Russian revolutionary film-makers on cinema not only in the Soviet Union but across the world.
According to the Bolshevik government’s first Commissar for Education, Anatoly Lunacharsky, Lenin remarked that, ‘Film for us is the most important of the arts’. What is particularly significant in this position is that Lenin not only clearly recognised film as an art at a time when many still considered it merely a form of cheap entertainment, but that he also recognised, even at this early stage in its development that it would have a huge and influential future.
The young Soviet Union was faced with a large population made up of many nations and ethnicities. Overwhelming numbers were illiterate and the means of communication in the country were undeveloped. The Bolshevik leaders were faced with the daunting task of explaining the revolution to the people and galvanising their latent energies, but they didn’t have the luxury of time or tranquil conditions in order to do so. The promise of the new medium of film – at that time still only a silent medium and used as a fairground entertainment only – was recognized immediately by those with imagination and vision.
The possibilities of cinema as a propaganda, agitational and educational tool intrigued the Soviet leaders. Their fascination with new technology in general as a means of transforming a backward society probably contributed as well. Lenin dictated this note to the Commissariat of Education, which was responsible for the cinema, with a request that it draw up a programme of action based on his directives. In an early conversation that Lunacharsky, the first Commissar for Education, had with Lenin, he recalls that Lenin uttered his oft quoted statement ‘that of all the arts the most important for us is the cinema.’
A declaration was issued by the People’s Commissariat for Education on the organisation of film showings. A definite proportion should be fixed for every film-showing programme. And while it recognised that film is very much a medium of entertainment, in programming it insisted that there must be a strong educational and propaganda component.
The Commissariat for Education also stressed that films ‘From the life of peoples of all countries,’ should be screened in order that film-makers should have an incentive for producing new pictures. ‘Special attention should be given to organising film showings in the villages and in the East, where they are novelties and where our propaganda, therefore, will be all the more effective.’ (First published in Kinonedelia No. 4, 1925).
The new young Turks like Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, Vsevolod, Pudovkin and Alexander Dovzhenko took up Lenin’s challenge with alacrity. The young film medium, based as it was on mechanical proficiency and industrial expertise, captured the interest of the new generation of communist artists who realised that the new society they wished to construct could only be built on the basis of rapid industrial development and technological innovation. These pioneers grasped this new ‘entertainment medium’ with both hands and transformed it into a powerful means of communication. These directors were inspired by Marxist theory and saw that they could apply Marxist ideas to the making of films, but each film-maker did so in their own individual way. Eisenstein was, though, the only one to elaborate an all-embracing Marxist theory of film-making. He put this into practice in his own film-making, in terms of selection of camera angle, juxtaposition of images during the editing process, movement within the frame and later in terms of sound and music also. For the first time the ideas of Marx and Marxist theory were applied to film-making.
Eisenstein was undoubtedly the most influential of the new young Soviet film-makers – a trained architect, he took to film like a duck to water. Seeing far beyond the idea of moving pictures, he developed a whole new science of film-making based on Marxist dialectics. Eisenstein was a pioneer in the use of montage, a specific technique for film editing. He, alongside his colleague and contemporary, Lev Kuleshov, were two of the earliest film theorists to argue that montage was the very essence of cinema, and, used effectively, could enable us to see and comprehend a deeper reality. Eisenstein’s essays and books – particularly Film Form and The Film Sense – explain his theories of montage in detail and provide a theoretical grounding for future film-makers.
By using a unique form of montage i.e. how the individual celluloid takes were spliced together, he demonstrated that meaning could be created by juxtaposing images rather than, as had been done up till then, splicing them in simple chronological sequence. By placing one image (in Marxist terminology, the thesis) immediately next to a very different or ‘opposing’ image (the antithesis), a new concept (the synthesis) is created.
He saw editing as the key to a film’s impact. Film was for him much more than just a useful tool in expounding a scene through a linkage of related images. He felt the ‘collision’ of shots could be used to influence the emotions and consciousness of an audience and that film could achieve a metaphorical dimension. While making films, he developed a comprehensive theory that he termed, ‘methods of montage’.
His iconic film Battleship Potemkin is probably the most famous example of this approach, but Strike (1924) was his first film. It depicts life at a factory complex in Tsarist Russia and the conditions under which the workers laboured. The plot is centred on the workers organising a strike which in response to repression escalates into a full-blown occupation. Such a blunt depiction of ruling class repression had never before been visualised in this way. But what makes this and Eisenstein’s other films so special is that the audience is not allowed for a minute to remain passive, but is drawn into the struggle and becomes almost part of it. It is difficult to imagine today when you look at old grainy prints of Battleship Potemkin, that audiences were so stirred by its imagery that they swarmed out of the cinema determined to make their own revolution. The ruling classes were so frightened of it that its public showing was banned for many years almost everywhere outside the Soviet Union.
After the success of Strike (1924), Eisenstein was commissioned by the Soviet government to make a film commemorating the unsuccessful revolution of 1905. He chose to focus on the crew of the battleship Potemkin. Fed up with the extreme cruelties of their officers and their maggot-ridden meat rations, the sailors mutiny. This, in turn, sparks an abortive citizens' revolt on the mainland against the Tsarist regime. The film's centrepiece is the classic massacre on the Odessa Steps, in which the Tsar's Cossacks methodically shoot down innocent citizens. The image of a dying mother who lets go of the pram she is pushing, leaving it to career down the steps with the baby still in it, has become one of the most iconic and moving shots in the history of cinema.
He was the first cinematographer to develop a proper film language, one appropriate to the challenges facing the new Soviet republic. His best known films, Strike, Battleship Potemkin, October, Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible all bear testament to his contribution and the power of his imagery.
Many of his plans were, sadly never brought to fruition. During his unsuccessful sojourn in the USA, he proposed making a film of Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man and of Sutter’s Gold by Jack London but the ideas failed to impress Hollywood producers at the time and were vehemently opposed by anti-communist elements in the Hollywood hierarchy. The same happened with his proposal to film Theodor Dreiser’s American Tragedy. While there, though, he developed cordial relations with Charlie Chaplin who introduced him to the socialist writer Upton Sinclair. Their subsequent attempt to jointly produce a film in Mexico was also, in the end, unsuccessful although the footage they were able to shoot was later, posthumously, edited into the film, Que Viva Mexico.
With all this wasted effort, Eisenstein was getting itchy feet to return home, as the Soviet Film industry was, in the meantime, already experimenting with soundtracks on film. Also, in the wake of an increasing Stalinisation of the arts, his techniques and theories were coming under attack for ostensibly ‘ideological’ reasons and he was being accused of ‘formalism’ and he wished to counter such criticisms.
Back in the Soviet Union he embarked on his epic Alexander Nevsky with a musical soundtrack composed by Sergei Prokoviev. Unfortunately he died at the age of 50 so was unable to realise his mature potential. It is a moot point whether his specific cinematic language could have been adapted to a post-revolutionary period, and in a different historical context. But there is no doubt that his work has influenced numerous film-makers down the ages and still does.
Soviet film-makers and their use of film inspired film-makers and cultural workers throughout the world. What characterised them, in contrast to their many colleagues in the West, was that they viewed film, in the first instance, as an educational medium. They were more interested in the use of film in its educational, propaganda and informative roles than as pure entertainment. and saw the medium primarily as a means of promoting human betterment and the promoting of socialist values.
The influence of Soviet cinema
The influence of Russian film-makers can be seen throughout the succeeding history of film. US classics like Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane, with its adventurous camera angles, framing and editing would have been unthinkable without Russian cinema. The Italian Neo-realist wave leant heavily on its Russian forerunners. Directors like de Sica, Rossellini, Visconti and Rosi had all studied the way in which Soviet film-makers had been able to capture life on screen in a totally new, gripping and realistic way that superseded its former theatrical straitjacket. The films of the Hollywood greats like Billy Wilder, Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, William Wyler, Howard Hawks and so on all reveal the seminal influence of these early Soviet film-makers.
Early Soviet cinema ‘led the world, and laid much of the groundwork for the practice and theory of film for the 20th century,’ according to Annette Michelson, Professor of Cinema Studies at New York University. At a lecture she gave in December 2003, she and Naum Kleiman, Director of the Moscow Cinema Museum, discussed the ways in which Soviet and Russian film have interacted with the American film industry.
Kleiman pointed out that Russian émigrés like choreographer George Balanchine and actor Michael Chekhov, in addition to their influential roles in the world of dance and theatre, were active in Hollywood. As Michelson pointed out, Eisenstein never made a film in the US, after Paramount Pictures invited him to Hollywood in 1935, but the then never took on any of his projects. Nevertheless, she argues that Eisenstein's use of montage influenced American film, and is visible, she says, in such well-known scenes as the shower sequence in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Hitchcock and other American directors re-interpreted montage usage.
According to Michelson, ‘In the hands of those Americans who admired Eisenstein's work, [montage] became a kind of tried-and-true conventional, visual, rhetorical device for indicating the passage of time, or the passage from one country to another.’
Kleiman underlined that many US filmmakers in the 1920s and 30s had seen and admired Eisenstein's films. He noted that in the 1970s, Francis Ford Coppola had told him that he had found artistic inspiration in October and Ivan the Terrible. Both Kleiman and Michelson felt that Eisenstein's influence was even more noticeable in movies made outside Hollywood. Michelson argued that montage was an important intellectual and artistic device in independent films produced after the Second World War, such as those by Maya Deren. Kleiman also noted the influence of other Russian artists, such as émigré actress and producer Alla Nazimova. In his opinion, Nazimova's film Salome clearly reflected traditions of Russian literature, theatre and set design. This movie, along with other movies featuring Russian actors and directors, was seen by American filmmakers and influenced their future work in many subtle ways.
Workers' Film Societies
Elsewhere in the West, in response to the dramatic transformation taking place in the young Soviet Union and the new films emerging from the country, progressives grasped the opportunity to use this new potent medium in their own way. Communists here in Britain became centrally involved early on in setting up workers' film societies from the twenties onwards, as a means of creating opportunities for working people to watch Soviet and other progressive films. Ralph Bond, a foundation member of the British Communist Party, published in the Sunday Worker – a forerunner of the Daily Worker – an appeal for interested parties to get in touch to facilitate the setting up of a London Workers’ Film Society, and the response to this appeal surpassed all expectations.
The Soviet director, Sergei Eisenstein’s film Battleship Potemkin had an unprecedented impact on audiences everywhere with its revolutionary montage techniques and searing imagery. This was followed by other, equally powerful and iconoclastic films from the Soviet Union. However, these films were banned for public showing in many countries, including the UK, as they were deemed too inflammatory and seen as dangerous communist propaganda.
The first workers’ film societies were set up to provide a means of showing such films (and they were also seen as a way of getting around the censor, as such films could be shown in private clubs without a licence). The first, founded in London in 1925, had as its object the ‘showing of films of artistic interest, which could not be seen in ordinary cinemas’. Such societies had already been active on the continent of Europe. However, before the new London film society even got off the ground it was already involved in skirmishes with the London County Council (LCC) over permission to show their selected films, even to members. (The LCC was London’s licensing authority for film screenings under the 1909 Cinematographic Act). In 1928, the LCC banned the showing of Battleship Potemkin, and then also banned a showing of Pudovkin’s The Mother. This led many progressive individuals, including J. M. Keynes, Julian Huxley, Sybil Thorndike, Bertrand Russell and George Bernard Shaw, to protest, but even they failed to have the ban rescinded.
When the London Workers’ Film Society’s tried to show two Soviet-made films at the Gaiety Cinema in Tottenham Court Road in November 1929, the cinema owner refused the booking at the last minute after pressure from the London County Council. Such run-ins between the LCC and the LWFS became regular occurrences. While the LCC adhered to its bans on the Soviet films mentioned above, it relented as far as permitting the LWFS to put on Sunday shows in the West End.
After the setting up of the London society, several others soon appeared around the country, and an attempt was made to create a national federation of film societies to facilitate easier access to films, better distribution and co-ordination. The Federation of Workers’ Film Societies (FOWFS) was founded in the autumn of 1929 and led to the creation of a network of local workers’ film societies all over Britain.
The Labour Party itself showed no interest in setting up workers’ film societies but with the success of the London Society, it became highly suspicious of the latter’s activities and denounced the society as being merely a communist propaganda vehicle.
The Communist Charles Cooper was a ‘movie enthusiast whose Contemporary Films opened new horizons for British cinema audiences. His early interest in film had led Charles to become, in 1933, secretary of the Kino group, an association of left-wing film enthusiasts who were determined to circumvent Britain's draconian film censorship, which was especially aimed at the new Soviet cinema. Kino organised 16mm screenings of Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin for trade union and Soviet friendship groups, as well as producing a ‘workers' newsreel’ and agitational films such as Bread, in which a starving, unemployed worker is harshly treated by police and magistrates.
Although Eisenstein is undoubtedly the greatest and most innovative of all Soviet film-makers, his contemporaries should in no way be ignored, as they also made innovative and influential contributions to the film medium. Below I take a cursory look at the most significant.
Dovzhenko
After returning to the USSR from a prisoner of war camp in Germany, Dovzhenko turned to film in 1926 after landing in Odessa . His second screenplay was Vasya the Reformer which he co-directed. He gained greater success with Zvenigora (1928) which established him as a major filmmaker. His following Ukraine Trilogy (Zvenigora, Arsenal and Earth) established his reputation worldwide. Its graphic realism was impressive and inspiring. After spending several years writing, co-writing and producing films at Mosfilm Studios in Moscow, he turned to writing novels. Over a 20-year career, Dovzhenko only directed 7 films.
Pudovkin
A student of engineering at Moscow University, Pudovkin, like Dovzhenko, saw active service during the First World War and was also captured by the Germans. During this time he studied foreign languages and did book illustrations. After the war, he joined the world of cinema, first as a screenwriter, actor and art director, and then as an assistant director to Lev Kuleshov.
Pudovkin adopted a very different approach to Eisenstein. While his films are just as revolutionary as the latter’s in terms of the content and their powerful impact, he took a more traditional approach to narrative. A student of engineering at Moscow University, Pudovkin, like Dovzhenko, saw active service during the First World War, also being captured by the Germans. During this time he studied foreign languages and did book illustrations. After the war, he abandoned his professional activity and joined the world of cinema, first as a screenwriter, actor and art director, and then as an assistant director to Lev Kuleshov .
His first notable work was a comedy short Chess Fever (1925) co-directed with Nikolai Shpikovski. In 1926 he directed what came to be considered one of the masterpieces of the silent era: Mother. In this he developed several montage theories, but in a different way to Eisenstein.
His first feature was followed by The End of St. Petersburg (1927) and Storm over Asia, about the impact of the Bolshevik revolution on what was then seen as a backward region. After an interruption caused by poor health, Pudovkin returned to film-making, with several historical epics: Victory (1938); Minin and Pozharsky (1939) and Suvorov (1941). The last two were often praised as some of the best films based on Russian history, along with the works of his colleague Eisenstein he was awarded a Stalin Prize for both of them in 1941.
In 1928, with the advent of sound film, Pudovkin, Eisenstein, and Grigori Alexandrov signed the ‘Sound Manifesto’, in which the possibilities of sound are analysed, but always understood as a complement to image.
Dzigha Vertov
Vertov attempted to do for the documentary what Eisenstein had been doing in the fictional field. He was born in 1896 and is considered one of the ‘greats’ of early Soviet film-making, a director who concentrated on documentaries. He began by making newsreels but also developed his own theories about film-making that differed markedly from those of the fictional film-makers mentioned above. His work and writing would be very influential on almost all future documentarists, particularly the British school around John Grierson, Basil Wright, Alberto Cavalcanti and Paul Rotha, but also later on the French Cinéma Verité movement.
After the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, at the age of 22, Vertov began editing for Kino-Nedelya (Кино-Неделя, the Moscow Cinema Committee's weekly film series, and the first Russian newsreel), which first came out in June 1918. While working for Kino-Nedelya he met his future wife, the film director and editor, Elizaveta Svilova , who at the time was working as an editor at Goskino She began collaborating with Vertov, and working as his editor but later his assistant and co-director on subsequent films, such as the iconic Man with a Camera (1929), and Three Songs About Lenin (1934).
Vertov worked on the Kino-Nedelya series for three years, helping establish and run a film-car on Mikhail Kalinin’s agit-train during the ongoing ongoing civil war between the Bolsheviks and the white Russian counter-revolutionaries. Some of the cars on the agit-trains were equipped with actors for live performances and printing presses: Vertov's had equipment to shoot, develop, edit, and project film. The trains were taken to battlefronts on agitation-propaganda missions aimed at bolstering the morale of the troops, and to engender revolutionary fervour and commitment. In 1919, he compiled newsreel footage for his documentary Anniversary of the Revolution, and in 1921 he compiled History of the Civil War.
Kino-Pravda
In 1922, the year that O’Flaherty’s seminal Nanook of the North was released, Vertov started his Kino Pravda series. It took its title from the Bolshevik government newspaper Pravda. Kino-Pravda (Film Truth) continued Vertov's agit-prop bent. The Kino-Pravda group began its work in a basement in the centre of Moscow. It was, as he himself described it, damp and dark. There was an earthen floor and holes one stumbled into at every turn. He said, ‘This dampness prevented our reels of lovingly edited film from sticking together properly, rusted our scissors and our splicers’. ‘Before dawn damp, cold, teeth chattering I wrap comrade Svilova in a third jacket’.
Vertov's driving vision, expounded in his frequent essays, was to capture ‘film truth’—that is, fragments of actuality which, when organised together, contain a deeper truth than can be seen with the naked eye. In the Kino-Pravda series, he focused on everyday experiences, rejecting ‘bourgeois concerns’ to film ordinary people, marketplaces, bars, and schools instead, sometimes with a hidden camera. The episodes of Kino-Pravda did not usually include re-enactments or stagings, although he did so on odd occasions. The cinematography is simple and functional. Vertov appeared to be uninterested in traditional ideas of aesthetic beauty or the perceived grandeur of fiction.
Vertov clearly intended an active relationship with his audience in his Kino Pravda series, but by the 14th episode the series had become so experimental that some critics dismissed his efforts as ‘insane’. Vertov responded to their criticisms with the assertion that the critics were hacks nipping revolutionary effort in the bud, and concludes his essay with a promise to ‘detonate art's Tower of Babel’. In Vertov's view, ‘art's tower of Babel’ was the subservience of cinematic technique to narrative.
With Lenin's admission of limited private enterprise through his New Economic Policy (NEP) of 1921, Russia began receiving fiction films from abroad, a situation that Vertov regarded with suspicion, calling drama a ‘corrupting influence’ on the proletarian sensibility. In this view, he was taking an extreme and, one has to say, very narrow viewpoint. By this time Vertov had been using his newsreel series as a pedestal to vilify dramatic fiction for several years; he continued his criticisms even after the warm reception of Eisenstein’s Potemkin in 1925.
By this point in his career, Vertov was clearly and emphatically dissatisfied with narrative tradition, and expressed his hostility towards dramatic fiction of any kind both openly and repeatedly; he regarded drama as another ‘opiate of the masses’ – a rather extreme position.
The Man with a Movie Camera
In his essay ‘The Man with a Movie Camera’ Vertov wrote that he was fighting ‘for a decisive cleaning up of film-language, for its complete separation from the language of theatre and literature’. By the later segments of Kino-Pravda, Vertov was experimenting heavily, looking to abandon what he considered film clichés (and receiving criticism for it); his experimentation was even more pronounced and dramatic by the time Man with a Camera was filmed in Ukraine.
Some have criticised the obvious stagings in this film as being at odds with Vertov's principle of ‘life as it is’ and ‘life caught unawares’, but its sense of realism is overwhelming. The film has become synonymous with the use of specifically cinematic technique, with the use of double exposure, fast and slow motion sequences, freeze-frames, jump cuts, split screens and tracking shots etc. He also uses footage played in reverse and the idea of self-reflexivity.
In the British Film Institute's 2012 Sight and Sound poll film critics voted Man with the Camera the 8th greatest film ever made and the work was later named the best documentary of all time in the same magazine. Although in the Soviet Union at the time it also had its staunch critics who called it ‘formalistic’ a criticism aimed at a number of Soviet film-makers and artists, including Eisenstein.
Like other Russian filmmakers, he attempted to connect his ideas and techniques to the advancement of the aims of the Soviet Union. Whereas Eisenstein viewed his ‘montage of attractions’ as a creative tool through which audiences would be better able to comprehend complex processes and thus the ideological content of the films, Vertov believed that Kino Eye would have an influence on the actual evolution of mankind, from being a flawed creature into a higher, more precise, form of being. ‘I am an eye. I am a mechanical eye. I, a machine, I am showing you a world, the likes of which only I can see’, he was quoted as saying.
There is no doubt that all these pioneering film-makers and theoreticians during the early years of the Soviet Union have had a lasting influence on film-makers worldwide. Despite the fact that many ‘movies’ made today for cinema and television today show all too clearly that their makers should perhaps return to school and learn from these masters, the better film-makers still reveal in their work the seminal influence of those early Soviet pioneers.
Displaying items by tag: Eisenstein
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Patent Internship Program – Melbourne
Patentability of plants and plant materials in Europe
IP Article
15th April 2015 Written by & Alex Tzanidis
The Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (the Board) handed down a decision on 25 March 2015 which clarifies the extent to which plants and plant materials may be excluded from patentability. The decision is good news for the agricultural industry, as it confirms that plants and plant material (other than plant varieties) are eligible for patent protection under current European law, irrespective of the manner in which they are, or could be, produced.
What is excluded from patentability in Europe?
The question of law that was referred to the Board relates to Article 53(b) EPC, which states that European patents shall not be granted for, inter alia:
(b) plant or animal varieties or essentially biological processes for the production of plants or animals;…
The Board was asked to consider whether this provision would exclude from patentability a product or product-by-process claim that is directed to a plant or plant material (other than a plant variety) that is, or could only have been, produced through an “essentially biological process” (e.g., plant breeding).
Noting that the exclusion to patentability under Article 53(b) EPC, insofar as it relates to an essentially biological process, is clearly directed to a process (not to a product), the Board held that it does not extend to plants or plant material (other than plant varieties), even if the plant or plant material could only have been produced by an essentially biological process:
The exclusion of essentially biological processes for the production of plants in Article 53(b) EPC does not have a negative effect on allowability of a product claim directed to plants or plant material such as plant parts.
The Board also considered an issue that was raised in various amici curiae briefs it received in this proceeding; that is, whether or not the grant of a patent to a plant or plant material that is produced by an essentially biological process (other than a plant variety) would render meaningless the exclusion to patentability of “essentially biological processes” under Article 53(b) EPC. This issue arose because protection conferred by a process claim extends to products that are directly obtained by the process.
Noting that there is a need to distinguish between aspects of patentability on the one hand and the protective effects of European patent law on the other, the Board concluded that:
…whether a product claim or a product-by-process claim is patentable is to be examined irrespective of the extent of protection that is conferred by it after grant.
How does this decision affect inventors or business owners?
This decision is significant in its interpretation of the exclusionary aspects of the Article 53(b) EPC and confirms that plants and plant material (other than plant varieties) are patentable in Europe, irrespective of the method by which they are, or could be, produced.
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Halfire Entertainment Hires Loretta Ramos As SVP Creative Affairs
Halfire Entertainment
Loretta Ramos has joined Noreen Halpern’s Halfire Entertainment (Alias Grace) as Senior Vice President of Creative Affairs, a newly created position in which she will oversee all development and production for the company. Halfire is behind Emmy-nominated Netflix limited series Alias Grace, which recently received a Gotham Award nomination as best breakthrough series (Long Form). The company is currently in production on Another Life for Netflix, starring Katee Sackhoff, Justin Chatwin and Selma Blair.
Ramos moves to Halfire from Bryan Fuller’s Living Dead Guy Productions, where she oversaw development and production, having served as a producer on Starz’s American Gods, NBC’s Hannibal and Mockingbird Lane and Syfy’s High Moon. She has also produced several short films and music videos, including the award-winning short Sacramento, which premiered at the AFI Film Festival.
“I could not be more excited to be working with Loretta”, said Halpern. “She’s a great producer, with superb taste, who nurtures and supports the creative process.”
Halfire Entertainment’s previous credits include ABC’s Rookie Blue, HBO’s Hung and AMC’s Hell on Wheels.
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Tag Archives: School of Social Policy: University of Birmingham
On the Influence of Primary Care Quality Upon Hospital Admissions by People with Dementia in England: Exploring the Limits of Intervention (CHE / PloS One / BMJ / JGCR / BMJ Open)
Summary A recent study by the Centre for Health Economics (CHE) found that GP practices which review their dementia patients as part of Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) tend to have relatively fewer emergency hospital admissions by persons with dementia. … Continue reading →
Posted in Acute Hospitals, Commissioning, Community Care, For Doctors (mostly), For Nurses and Therapists (mostly), For Researchers (mostly), For Social Workers (mostly), Integrated Care, Management of Condition, Models of Dementia Care, National, NHS, Non-Pharmacological Treatments, Patient Care Pathway, Person-Centred Care, Quick Insights, Standards, Statistics, UK | Tagged Alzheimer’s Society Research Network, Ambulance Patient Care Records (PCRs), Average Length of Stay (Hospitals), Avoidable Hospital Admissions, Birmingham Heartlands Hospital, Black Country Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, BMJ, BMJ Open, BMJ Publishing Group Ltd, Bristol, British Geriatrics Society, British Medical Journal (BMJ), Centre for Health Economics, Centre for Health Economics (CHE), Centre for Health Economics: University of York, Centre for Research in Primary and Community Care: University of Hertfordshire, Community-Based Care, Community-Based Care for People With Dementia, Community-Based Care for People With Frailty, Community-Based Interventions, Community-Based Services, Community-Based Support, Department of Social Policy and Social Work: University of Birmingham, East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust (EEAST), Emergency Readmissions, Faculty of Health and Applied Sciences: University of the West of England, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences: University of Auckland, Geriatric Medicine and General Internal Medicine: Birmingham Heartlands Hospital, Health Services Management Centre (HSMC): University of Birmingham, Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust, Higher Quality Dementia Care (CHE Analysis), HOMEWARD Project, HOMEWARD Project Protocol, Hospital Admissions, Hospital Readmission Risk Factors, HSMC: University of Birmingham, Impact of Dementia on Length of Stay, Impact of the Quality of Dementia Care on Interface Between Primary and Secondary Care, Influence of Primary Care Quality Upon Hospital Admissions by People with Dementia in England, Integrated and Community-Based Care, Interface Between Primary and Secondary Care, Journal of Geriatric Care and Research (JGCR), Length of Stay, Length of Stay (LoS), Limits of Intervention (Great Theory Stubborn Reality), New Zealand, NIHR Research for Patient Benefit Programme, PLoS One, Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF), Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) Payment, Quality of Dementia Care and the Interface Between Primary and Secondary Care, Quality Outcomes Framework (QOF), Quality Outcomes Framework (QOF): Recorded Dementia Diagnoses, Readmissions, Reducing Early Hospital Readmissions, Reducing Emergency Admissions Through Community-Based Interventions, Reducing Re-Admissions to NHS Hospitals, Research and Development Department: South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, Research Design Service South West: University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust, Research for Patient Benefit Programme (NIHR), Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, School of Social and Community Medicine: University of Bristol, School of Social Policy: University of Birmingham, South West Ambulance Service Foundation Trust (SWASFT), South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, South Western Ambulance Service NHS Trust (SWASFT) West Division, Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust, University of Auckland, University of Birmingham, University of Bristol, University of Hertfordshire, University of the West of England, University of York Centre for Health Economics (CHE), Unnecessary Hospital Admissions, Unplanned Hospital Admissions | 1 Comment
An Exploration of the Many Aspects of Safeguarding (CQC / RCN / BMA / LGA / ADASS / NHS Confederation / NIHR SDO)
Summary As the title suggests, this contribution is an exploratory “work in progress” towards better understanding of the issues, rather than a definitive review. Updates will be added here, or referenced and linked to elsewhere, as they appear in future. … Continue reading →
Posted in Acute Hospitals, Charitable Bodies, Commissioning, Community Care, CQC: Care Quality Commission, Department of Health, For Carers (mostly), For Doctors (mostly), For Nurses and Therapists (mostly), For Researchers (mostly), For Social Workers (mostly), Management of Condition, Mental Health, Models of Dementia Care, National, NHS, NHS Confederation, NHS England, Non-Pharmacological Treatments, Northern Ireland, Patient Care Pathway, Person-Centred Care, Personalisation, Quick Insights, RCN, SCIE, Scotland, Standards, UK, Universal Interest, Wales | Tagged 24/7 Advice From Mental Health Professionals, Abuse, Abuse of Vulnerable Adults, Access to Mental Health Services, ACPO: Association of Chief Police Officers, Acts of Omission, Acute Hospitals, Adult Prisons and Young Offender Institutions, Adult Safeguarding Improvement Tool, Adult Social Care, Adults at Risk of Harm, Adults Lacking Capacity, Ann Norman: RCN Professional Lead for Criminal Justice and Learning Disabilities, 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Race Religion and Belief Sex Sexual Orientation), Equality Act 2010, Equality and Human Rights, Factors Contributing to Vulnerability, Financial Abuse, Financial or Material Abuse, Fiona Smith: RCN Professional Lead for Children and Young People, Forced Labour, Fundamental Standard(s) on Safeguarding, Fundamental Standards of Safety and Quality (2015), GP Out-of-Hours Services, GPs and Safeguarding, Harassment, Health and Justice Team (CQC), Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Relating to CQC), Health Services and Delivery Research, Human Rights, Human Rights and Nursing, Human Rights Approach to Regulation (CQC), Human Rights Culture, Human Rights in Care Homes, Human Trafficking, Humiliation, Ian Hulatt: RCN Professional Lead for Mental Health, Immigration Removal Centres (IRCs), Inadequate Responses to Complex Needs, Inadequate Staffing, Inappropriate Medication, Independent Healthcare, Independent Mental Capacity Advocates (IMCAs), Information and Intelligence Sources on Safeguarding, Information Shared Between CQC and PPGs, Information Sharing, Information Sharing by Mental Health Services, Inspection of GP Out-of-Hours Services, Insufficient Knowledge Base Within Services, Intelligent Monitoring, Intimidation, Isolation, KLOEs: Key Lines of Enquiry, Knowledge Sharing in Safeguarding, Liaison Psychiatry Services, Local Authorities, Local Crisis Care Concordat Groups, Local Government Association: LGA, Local Partnerships, Local Safeguarding Adults Boards, Local Safeguarding Adults Boards (LSABs), Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs), Local Safeguarding Children’s Boards (LSCBs), Long Term Abuse (Patterns of Abuse and Harm), Mental Capacity Act (MCA), Mental Capacity Act 2005, Mental Capacity and Best Interests, Mental Health and the Criminal Justice System, Mental Health Awareness, Mental Health Care and Treatment, Mental Health Crisis, Mental Health Crisis Care Concordat, Modern Slavery, Multi-Agency Child Protection Inspections, Multi-Agency Collaboration, 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Poor Care Standards, Poor Professional Practice, Precautionary Principle, Prevent Strategy (2011), Preventing Radicalisation, Protected Characteristics (Age Disability Gender Reassignment Marriage and Civil Partnership Pregnancy and Maternity Race Religion and Belief Sex Sexual Orientation), Protecting Adults from Abuse or Neglect, Psychological Abuse, Raising Concerns, RCN Older People’s Forum, Reducing the Use of Police Cells, Responding to People With Mental Ill Health, Restraint, Restraint in Health and Adult Social Care, Rigid Routines, Royal College of Nursing (RCN), SAB: Safeguarding Adults Boards, Safeguarding Adult Review, Safeguarding Adults, Safeguarding Adults and Children, Safeguarding Adults at Risk, Safeguarding Adults Boards, Safeguarding Adults Boards (SABs), safeguarding Adults Reviews, Safeguarding Adults Reviews (SARs), Safeguarding Between Hospital Services and Children’s Social Care, Safeguarding Children and Young People, Safeguarding Committee (CQC), Safeguarding of Vulnerable Adults (SOVA), Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults, SBAR (Situation Background Assessment Recommendation), School of Medicine Pharmacy and Health: University of Durham, School of Social Policy: University of Birmingham, Seclusion (Supervised Confinement), Secure Training Centres (STCs), Self-Neglect, Sense-Making in Safeguarding, Serial Abuse (Patterns of Abuse and Harm), Serious Case Review, Serious Case Reviews, Serious Case Reviews (SCRs), Sexual Abuse, Situation Background Assessment and Recommendation, Situational Abuse (Patterns of Abuse and Harm), Special Reviews of Child Safeguarding, Specialist Mental Health Services, Supporting Vulnerable People, Systems and Processes, Threats of Harm or Abandonment, University of Birmingham, University of Durham, University of Nottingham, Unreasonable / Unjustified Withdrawal of Services, Unreasonable / Unjustified Withdrawal of Supportive Networks, Urgent and Emergency Services, Use of Police Custody as a Place of Safety for People with Mental Health Needs, Verbal Abuse, Vulnerable Adults, Whistleblowing, Whistleblowing Guidelines, Withholding of Necessities of Life (Medication Nutrition Hydration and and Heating), Working Together to Safeguard Children (2015), Young Offender Institutions (YOIs), Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) | Leave a comment
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Dental Holiday in Hungary
Some of the world-famous sights you must see
Come to Budapest, Hungary, for affordable dental treatment, and get a lifetime's experience in this beautiful city. Make the most of your stay with us! In 2002 the UNESCO pronounced the historic centre of Budapest part of the World Heritage Site.
The Castle District
The Castle District is one the most important monument groups in the country; it forms a close unit that includes the rows of houses on the banks of the Danube, the bridges, the Houses of Parliament, the Basilica, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the Gresham Palace and some other historic buildings.
1 picture in gallery. Click to zoom »
The Hungarian Parliament Building (Hungarian: Országház, literally "country house") is the seat of the National Assembly of Hungary, one of Europe's oldest legislative buildings, a notable landmark of Hungary and a popular tourist destination within Budapest. It lies in Lajos Kossuth Square, on the bank of the Danube, in Budapest. It is currently the largest building in Hungary.
Heroes Square, located in the heart of the city, at the end of Andrássy Avenue, is home to the Museum of Fine Arts and the Hall of Art. It is famous for the iconic statue complex, the Millenium Monument, containing the statue of the Seven Chieftains of the Hungarian. The square is one of the historically most significant places in Hungary, as it has been host to important political events.
The building itself was designed and constructed by Albert Schickedanz and Fülöp Herzog, and opened its gates in 1906. On the ground floor are the exhibitions of Classical Antiquities and of nineteenth-century paintings and sculptures, the Renaissance hall, where, in addition to Renaissance frescoes and fountains, items from the Sculpture Collection may be seen, the Prints and Drawings Gallery with temporary exhibitions, and the Marble and Baroque halls. Due to the continuous renovation work on the building, individual permanent exhibitions of the Old Masters’ Gallery may temporarily be moved.
The Chain Bridge (Hungarian: Lánchíd) is a suspension bridge that spans the River Danube between Buda and Pest, the western and eastern sides of Budapest. It was the first permanent bridge across the Danube in Budapest, and was opened in 1849.
It is anchored on the Pest side of the river to Széchenyi (formerly Roosevelt) Square, adjacent to the Gresham Palace and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and on the Buda side to Adam Clark Square, near the Zero Kilometre Stone and the lower end of the Castle Hill Funicular, leading to Buda Castle.
Andrássy avenue
Andrássy Avenue is an iconic boulevard in Budapest, dating back to 1872. It links Elizabeth Square with the City Park. Lined with spectacular Neo-Renaissance mansions and townhouses featuring fine facades and interiors, it was recognised as a World Heritage Site in 2002. It is also one of Budapest's main shopping streets, with fine cafes, restaurants, theatres, and luxury boutiques.
Széchenyi thermal spa
Budapest can rightly be called the city of spas, and the Szechenyi Bath and Spa was its first thermal bath on the Pest side. At the time, back in 1881, it was called the "Artesian Bath", and was only a temporary establishment. In 1913, it was converted into a permanent bath, and received its present name and most parts of its pretty yellow building complex. In 1927, beach sites, as well as public bathing departments for gentlemen and ladies, were added. In 1960, another expansion added a group thermal section (for use in bathing suites), and a daytime outpatient hospital. The year 1999 saw a complete reconstruction of the swimming pools.
Book an Appointment Now!
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Tombstone Tuesday: Iredel and Siotha Ping Wright
by Sharon Hall | Jan 13, 2015 | Tombstone Tuesday | 0 comments
Iredel Wright was born to parents Henry Monroe and Rebecca (Cordell) Wright in December of 1859, according to the 1860 Census, this despite the fact that his tombstone reads December 12, 1860. According to family historians, Henry who was born in 1826 had been adopted by a woman named Elizabeth Wright, so it’s unclear who his parents were, or if in fact their names were also Wright.
Henry and Rebecca married in Tennessee and later moved to Pulaski County sometime in the 1850’s and lived there the remainder of their lives. It appears that Henry registered in October of 1863 for service in the Union Army (the record was a bit hard to locate because he was listed as “Henry Right” – beware of bad spellers when you’re looking for long-lost relatives!). Whether he ever served is unclear since his name didn’t appear on an 1883 list of pensioners1, although there is a Henry Wright listed as a member of a Kentucky Union Regiment.2
Pulaski County, according to The Kentucky Encyclopedia (p. 748), had Confederate sympathizers, but the majority of the population were Unionists. Unlike last week’s subject, Simpson Socrates Nix (also a Kentucky resident), the Wrights (and Pings) were on the side of the North. Pulaski County sent twelve hundred men to the Union Army, and one of the worst Confederate defeats in the mountains occurred in the county on January 19, 1862.
Siotha Ping was born on February 12, 1868 in Pulaski County to parents William Green and Elizabeth Ping. Will was also a veteran of the Civil War, having enlisted sometime in the summer or early fall of 1863. Will’s father Lewis also served and later applied for and received a government pension for his service.
According to family historians, Lewis enlisted as a Private in Company B of the 12th Regiment of the Kentucky Volunteer Infantry for a three-year term on October 12, 1861, and was mustered in on January 30, 1862. Lewis served faithfully until falling ill at Corinth, Mississippi, scene of one of the most devastating defeats for the Confederates in terms of casualties and deaths.
After being transferred to a hospital in Louisville, Kentucky he was mustered out on February 24, 1863. Sometime during his service, Lewis had contracted measles, which along with other diseases like typhoid fever, caused more deaths than battle wounds. As a result, Lewis wasn’t able to perform manual labor for the rest of his life.
Iredel married Siotha Ping on December 28, 1882. Siotha was a couple of months shy of turning fifteen and Iredel had just turned twenty-three. Various family trees record that Matilda Elizabeth Wright was born on October 24, 1882. More children followed, as enumerated in the 1900, 1910 and 1920 censuses: Telia, William, Mary, Maggie, Smith, Millard Fillmore, Esau, and Marion Curry, Alva and Edward Harmon. The 1910 census indicates that Siotha was the mother of eleven children and ten were still living at that time.
On November 25, 1901, Iredel was appointed as U.S. Postmaster for Randall. Sometime between that date and the 1910 census, however, the Wright family moved to Oklahoma. In 1910 they were living in Carr, Tillman County, Oklahoma and in 1920 residing in Grayson, Jefferson County, Oklahoma. However, by 1930 Iredel and Siotha had returned home to Pulaski County and were living with Alva and his family.
On July 29, 1940 Siotha died at the age of seventy-two of kidney disease and hypertension. She and Iredel had been enumerated for the 1940 census in April and he was still farming at the age of eighty. Iredel lived four more years until his death on August 9, 1944 at the age of eighty-four. Iredel and Siotha are buried in the Goodwater Cemetery in Somerset.
I’ve been doing some research of late on my Pulaski County ancestors and had stumbled across some unique names (first and last) – that is, by the way, how I sometimes select subjects for these articles. In researching today’s article, I found a family tree which included Will Ping and interestingly the tree was named “Ping-Stout family tree” which immediately piqued my interest because I have Stout ancestors. In fact, I have recently discovered that I have three Stout cousins who are also members of our local genealogical society.
Sure enough, this person and I share ancestors, Richard and Penelope Stout of Middletown, New Jersey. Theirs is a fascinating (and in the case of Penelope, harrowing) story which I’ll have to write about sometime – stay tuned.
List of Pensioners on the Roll January 1, 1883, Volume V, 1883, p. 466-468
The Union Regiments of Kentucky, 1897, p. 602
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Home » Dick Thornburgh Papers » "Dick Thornburgh Papers, Series IV. Politics" (x) » "Allied Pix Photo" (x)
Dick Thornburgh Papers
Material documenting Thornburgh’s life and public service career, including his years as Governor of Pennsylvania, Attorney General of the United States, and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, among other notable positions. Also see the Dick Thornburgh Papers website (thornburgh.pitt.edu) for more information.
Thornburgh, Dick
What's online?
Selected portions of the papers are scanned and online, which include Executive Orders (1979-1987), News Releases (1968-1992), Op-Eds (1966-2004), Reports (1954-1993), Speeches and Testimony (1963-2004), Transcripts (1969-1992), photographs (1932-2004), audio clips (1979-1993), and video clips (1978-1991).
Material documenting Thornburgh’s life and public service career, including his years as Governor of Pennsylvania, Attorney General of the United States, and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, among other notable positions. For more information about Dick Thornbugh and the archival collection, please visit the Dick Thornburgh Papers website.
About Dick Thornburgh
Identified by Washingtonian magazine recently as one of “ten legendary Washington lawyers who will forever leave their mark on the District’s legal landscape,” Dick Thornburgh is currently counsel to the international law firm of K&L Gates LLP, resident in its Washington, D.C. office. He previously served as Governor of Pennsylvania, Attorney General of the United States under Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush and Under-Secretary General of the United Nations, during a public career which spanned over 25 years.
Elected Governor of Pennsylvania in 1978 and re-elected in 1982, Thornburgh was the first Republican ever to serve two successive terms in that office. He served as Chair of the Republican Governors Association and was named by his fellow governors as one of the nation's most effective big-state governors in a 1986 Newsweek poll.
During his service as Governor, Thornburgh balanced state budgets for eight consecutive years, reduced both personal and business tax rates, cut the state's record-high indebtedness and left a surplus of $350 million. Under his leadership, 15,000 unnecessary positions were eliminated from the swollen state bureaucracy that he inherited and widely recognized economic development, education and welfare reform programs were implemented. Pennsylvania's unemployment rate, among the ten highest in the nation when he was elected, was among the ten lowest when he left office as 50,000 new businesses and 500,000 new private sector jobs were created during his tenure.
Following the unprecedented Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979, Governor Thornburgh was described by observers as “one of the few authentic heroes of that episode as a calm voice against panic.”
After his unanimous confirmation by the United States Senate, Thornburgh served three years as Attorney General of the United States (1988-1991) in the cabinets of Presidents Reagan and Bush. He mounted a vigorous attack on white-collar crime as the Department of Justice obtained a record number of convictions of savings and loan and securities officials, defense contractors and corrupt public officials. Thornburgh established strong ties with law enforcement agencies around the world to help combat drug trafficking, money laundering, terrorism and international white-collar crime. During his tenure as Attorney General, he twice argued and won cases before the United States Supreme Court. The Legal Times noted that Thornburgh as Attorney General “built a reputation as one of the most effective champions that prosecutors have ever had.” An honorary Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he chaired a panel of the National Academy of Public Administration examining the FBI’s post-9/11 transformation process and was a member of the FBI Director’s Advisory Board.
As Attorney General, Thornburgh played a leading role in the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act. In 2002, he received the Wiley E. Branton Award of The Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs in recognition of his “commitment to the civil rights of people with disabilities.” He also took vigorous action against racial, religious and ethnic “hate crimes,” and his office mounted a renewed effort to enforce the nation's antitrust and environmental laws.
All told, Thornburgh served in the Justice Department under five Presidents, beginning as United States Attorney in Pittsburgh (1969-1975) and Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division (1975-1977), emphasizing efforts against major drug traffickers, organized crime and corrupt public officials. In August 2002, he was appointed Examiner in the WorldCom bankruptcy proceedings, then the largest ever filed, to report on wrongdoing and malfeasance that led to the company’s downfall. He was also chosen in 2004 by CBS to co-chair an independent investigation into the “60 Minutes Wednesday” segment on President Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard and has conducted numerous other internal investigations for leading enterprises.
During his service as Under-Secretary-General at the United Nations (1992-1993), Thornburgh was in charge of personnel, budget and finance matters. His report to the Secretary-General on reform, restructuring and streamlining efforts designed to make the United Nations peacekeeping, humanitarian and development programs more efficient and cost-effective was widely praised. He also has served as a consultant to the United Nations, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank on efforts to battle fraud and corruption
In 2006, Thornburgh received a “Lifetime Achievement Award” from The American Lawyer magazine for “important contributions to public life while building an outstanding private practice.” He has regularly been selected by his peers to be included in “The Best Lawyers in America” and the Pennsylvania Bar Association presented him with its Public Service in the Law Award in 1992. He currently chairs the Legal Advisory Board of the Washington Legal Foundation and served as a member of the American Bar Association’s Task Force on the Attorney-Client Privilege.
Throughout his career, he has traveled widely, visiting over 40 countries and meeting with leaders from Canada, Mexico, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Russia, Ukraine, Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, India, Cambodia, Australia, New Zealand and Central and South America. He served as an observer to the Russian Federation’s first legislative (1993) and presidential (1996) elections. A long-time supporter of self-determination, Thornburgh authored The Future of Puerto Rico: A Time to Decide, published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in 2007. He is a former member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
A native of Pittsburgh, Thornburgh was educated at Yale University, where he obtained an engineering degree, and at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law where he served as an editor of the Law Review. He has been awarded honorary degrees by 32 other colleges and universities. Thornburgh served as Director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government (1987-1988) and has lectured on over 125 other campuses, (including Moscow State University in 1989 and 2011), debated at the Oxford Union and has frequently appeared as a guest commentator on network news and talk shows.
Thornburgh is a Life Trustee of the Urban Institute and a Trustee Emeritus of the University of Pittsburgh, the Gettysburg Foundation and the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh. He currently serves as Chair of the Board of Visitors at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and is a member of the Advisory Board of the RAND Corporation Center for Corporate Ethics and Governance. He previously served as a member of the boards of Merrill Lynch Incorporated, Rite-Aid Corporation, ARCO Chemical Corporation, Élan Corporation, plc, the Urban League of Pittsburgh, The Stimson Center, the National Museum of Industrial History, and the National Academy of Public Administration. He was the founding Chairman of the State Science and Technology Institute and serves as Vice-Chairman of the World Committee on Disability.
He is a member of the American Law Institute and the American Bar Foundation. In 1992, he was honored by The American Legion with its highest award, the Distinguished Service Medal, for “outstanding service to the community, state and nation” at its annual meeting in Chicago. In 2001, he was selected as a lifetime National Associate of the National Academies of Science and Engineering in recognition of his pro bono service to their programs, including the chairing of studies on science and technology and economic development; youth, pornography and the internet; and electronic voting.
Thornburgh served as an elected Delegate to Pennsylvania's historic Constitutional Convention (1967-1968) where he spearheaded efforts at judicial and local government reform. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the United States House of Representatives (1966) and the United States Senate (1991).
Thornburgh, born July 16, 1932, is married to Ginny Judson Thornburgh, a former schoolteacher from New York, who holds degrees from Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She presently serves as Director of the Interfaith Initiative of the American Association of People with Disabilities, based in Washington, D.C., and has co-authored and edited That All May Worship, an award-winning handbook for religious congregations working to include people with all types of disabilities. She received the Hubert H. Humphrey Civil Rights Award from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights in April, 2005.
The Thornburghs have four sons, six grandchildren and a great granddaughter. As parents of a son with physical and intellectual disability, they have taken a special interest in the needs of persons with disabilities and, with their son, Peter, were named “Family of the Year." Both Ginny and Dick Thornburgh were featured speakers at the Vatican Conference on Disabilities held in Rome in November, 1992 and were co-recipients in 2003 of the Henry B. Betts Award, the proceeds from which were used to establish the Thornburgh Family Lecture Series on Disability Law and Policy at the University of Pittsburgh.
Dick Thornburgh’s autobiography, Where the Evidence Leads, has been published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in both hardback (2003) and paperback (2010) editions.
Thornburgh, Dick (3) + -
Pennsylvania Governor's Home (Harrisburg, Pa.) (2) + -
Pennsylvania. Governor (1979-1987 : Thornburgh) (2) + -
Thornburgh, Ginny (Judson) (2) + -
Eisenhower, Mamie Doud, 1896- (1) + -
Gettysburg National Military Park (Pa.) (1) + -
Pennsylvania. Governor's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped (1) + -
Ginny Thornburgh with members of the Governor's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped
Allied Pix Photo
Dick and Ginny Thornburgh moving out of the Governor's Home
Thornburgh speaking in front of large "Pennsylvania Agriculture / We're Growing Better" sign
Governor-Elect Thornburgh and Mrs. Dwight (Mamie) Eisenhower at Historic Gettysburg Ceremony
River view of Governor's Home
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Martin, A Oscar
Born in Dublin, Bucks County, A. Oscar Martin moved to Doylestown at a young age where he then attended high school.
He apprenticed as a carpenter under his father, Jonas Martin, and soon became interested in architectural drawing. In 1892, Martin enrolled at Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia, where he studied architecture and engineering.
After graduating, Marten spent a few years working at architectural firms in New York City, Buffalo, and Philadelphia before opening his own firm in Doylestown in 1896. Not long after this move, he married Minerva Fretz and built his own house on Shewell Avenue.
As a registered architect and engineer in Bucks County, Martin designed numerous buildings in the Doylestown area. While he is better known for his domestic designs, his catalogue also includes designs for schools, factories, churches, bridges, and garages.
Martin was heralded for his style and sensibility, particularly during a time where construction began using more modern materials. The various styles which Martin used range from Queen Anne to shingle to Tudor, from Colonial Revival to Craftsman bungalows. His projects ranged from original designs to commercial work to alterations and additions.
Despite the diversity of styles which Martin employed, most of his designs reflect a mixture of detailed design and strength (largely the result of his background in architecture and engineering). His buildings are almost always identified by their blocky, square shape and use of masonry. Martin’s attention to detail is evidenced by his buildings’ structural features, such as patterning in the wall material, shape of the roofline, and overall symmetry.
His most popular work includes the Mary Beckman Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church on Main Street in Doylestown and the addition to the Mercer Museum, which houses the Spruance Library of the Bucks County Historical Society.
When World War I began, Oscar Martin was appointed director of construction and materials of Bucks County. He stayed in the position of County Engineer for twenty-five years, during which time he was responsible for erecting over 100 bridges, some of which were the larges in the county. He was also involved in the construction and maintenance of school buildings within the county.
Martin’s son, Fred F. Martin, also pursued a career in architecture and took over his father’s firm after his death in 1942.
Posted in Architect, Interesting People.
← Atkinson, Daniel
Toomer, Jean →
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> Privacy > Authorities and Guidance
Privacy Act of 1974
42 U.S.C §2000ee–1
Executive Order 9397 (As Amended) [November 18, 2008]
Executive Order 9397 (Amendments) [November 20, 2008]
Executive Order 9397 [November 22, 1943]
Public Law 107-347 [December 17, 2002]
CFR Title 32 [July 1, 2016]
OMB Guidance
OMB M-18-02, "Fiscal Year 2017-2018 Guidance on Federal Information Security and Privacy Management Requirements", October 16, 2017 (New)
OMB Circular A-108, "Federal Agency Responsibilities for Review, Reporting, and Publication under the Privacy Act", December 23, 2016
OMB Circular A-130, "Managing Information as a Strategic Resource", July 28, 2016
OMB M-17-12, "Preparing for and Responding to a Breach of Personally Identifiable Information", January 3, 2017
This guidance replaces and modifies:
OMB M-07-16, "Safeguarding Against and Responding to the Breach of Personally Identifiable Information", May 22, 2007 (Rescinded)
OMB M-06-19, "Reporting Incidents Involving Personally Identifiable Information and Incorporating the Cost for Security in Agency Information Technology Investments", July 12, 2006 (Rescinded)
OMB M-06-15, "Safeguarding Personally Identifiable Information", May 22, 2006 (Rescinded)
OMB M-17-05, "Fiscal Year 2016-2017 Guidance on Federal Information Security and Privacy Management Requirements", November 4, 2016
OMB M-16-04, "Cybersecurity Strategy and Implementation Plan (CSIP) for the Federal Civilian Government", October 30, 2015
OMB M-16-03, "Fiscal Year 2015-2016 Guidance on Federal Information Security and Privacy Management Requirements", October 30, 2015
OMB M-10-23, "Guidance for Agency Use of Third-Party Websites and Applications", June 25, 2010
OMB M-10-22, "Guidance for Online Use of Web Measurement and Customization Technologies", June 25, 2010
OMB M-03-22, "Guidance for Implementing the Privacy Provisions of the E-Government Act of 2002", September 26, 2003
OMB M-00-13, "Privacy Policies and Data Collection on Federal Web Sites", June 22, 2000 (Rescinded)
OMB M-99-18, "Privacy Policies on Federal Web Sites", June 2, 1999 (Rescinded)
OMB M-99-05, "Instructions on Complying with President's Memorandum of May 14, 1998 'Privacy and Personal Information in Federal Records'", January 7, 1999 (Rescinded)
OMB M-01-05, "Guidance on Inter-Agency Sharing of Personal Data-Protecting Personal Privacy", December 20, 2000
Federal Register Notice Volume 56, Number 78, "Proposed Guidance on the Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Amendments of 1990", April 23, 1991
Federal Register Notice Volume 54, Number 116, "Final Guidance Interpreting the Provisions of Public Law 100-503, the Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Act of 1988", June 19, 1989
Federal Register Notice Volume 52, Number 75, "Guidance on Privacy Act Implications of 'Call Detail' Programs", April 20, 1987
OMB Memorandum, "Privacy Act Guidance - Update", May 24, 1985
Federal Register Notice Volume 48, Number 70, "Guidelines on the Relationship of the Debt Collection Act of 1982 to the Privacy Act of 1974", March 30, 1983
Federal Register Notice Volume 40, Number 234, "Supplementary Guidance", December 4, 1975
Federal Register Notice Volume 40, Number 132, "Guidance and Responsibilities", July 9, 1975
DoD Issuances
DoDI 5400.11, "DoD Privacy and Civil Liberties Programs", January 29, 2019
DoD 5400.11-R, "Department of Defense Privacy Program" May 14, 2007
DoDI 1000.30, "Reduction of Social Security Number (SSN) Use Within DoD" August 1, 2012
Policy Memos:
Deputy Secretary of Defense Memorandum, "Reporting of Breaches of Personally Identifiable Information in Accordance with the Department of Defense Breach Response Plan", November 30, 2018
DO&C Memorandum, "Designation of Senior Component Officials for Privacy and Establishment of Roles and Responsibilities", August 28, 2017
DPCLD Memorandum, "New FY 2015 Annual Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) Breach Response and Notification Reporting Requirement", February 20, 2015
DPCLD Memorandum, "Requirement to File Department of Defense Breaches in the Compliance and Reporting Tool (CART)", February 19, 2015
DA&M Memorandum, "Use of Best Judgement for Individual Personally Identifiable Information (PII) Breach Notification Determinations", August 2, 2012
DPCLO Memorandum, "Explanation of Memorandum, 'Social Security Numbers (SSN) Exposed on Public Facing and Open Government Websites'", November 30, 2010
DA&M Memorandum, "Social Security Numbers (SSN) Exposed on Public Facing and Open Government Websites", November 23, 2010
USD(P&R) Memorandum, "Updated Plan for the Removal of Social Security Numbers (SSNs) from DoD ID Cards", November 5, 2010
DA&M Memorandum, "Safeguarding Against and Responding to the Breach of Personally Identifiable Information", June 05, 2009
CIO Memorandum, "Protection of Controlled Unclassified Information on DoD Information System Connected to the Internet", September 22, 2008
DTM 07-015-USD(P&R), "DoD Social Security Number (SSN) Reduction Plan", August 1, 2012
DA&M Memorandum, "Appointment of a Senior Official for Privacy and Issuance of Revised Privacy Program Compliance Reporting Requirements", February 7, 2008
CIO Memorandum, "Encryption of Sensitive Unclassified Data at Rest on Mobile Computing Devices and Removable Storage Media", July 03, 2007
CIO Memorandum, "Department of Defense (DoD) Guidance on Protecting Personally Identifiable Information (PII)", August 18, 2006
Policy and Guidance:
Below is a listing of DoD policy and guidance and the corresponding OMB memoranda requirements to which it responds.
CIO Memorandum "Encryption of Sensitive Unclassified Data at Rest on Mobile Computing Devices and Removable Storage Media", Jul 3, 2007:
CIO Memorandum "DoD Guidance on Protecting Personally Identifiable Information", Aug 18, 2006:
DoD 5400.11-R "DoD Privacy Program" May 14, 2007:
DAM Memorandum "Safeguarding Against and Responding to the Breach of Personally Identifiable Information", Jun 5, 2009:
DTM 07-015 "DoD Social Security Number Reduction Plan", May 28, 2008:
DPCLTD Guidance
Defense Privacy Board Advisory Opinions
The advisory opinions are issued by the Defense Privacy Board regarding matters impacting on the Defense Privacy Program. The opinions, which are initially considered and formulated by the Defense Privacy Board Legal Committee, address issues of common or mutual Department-wide interest or concern and serve to promote uniform and consistent policies among the DoD Components in implementation of the Privacy Program. All opinions are subject to approval by the General Counsel, Department of Defense.
Defense Privacy Board Advisory Opinions, April 8, 1992
1. Providing Wage and Earning Statements (W-2 Forms) of Military Personnel to State and Local Taxing Authorities
A blanket routine use has been established for all Department of Defense (DoD) systems of records which permits disclosure of information contained in W 2 forms to state and local taxing authorities with which the Secretary of the Treasury has entered into agreements under 5 U.S.C. §§ 5516, 5517 and 5520. Accounting for disclosures made pursuant to this routine use is required by the Privacy Act. See 5 U.S.C. § 552a(c). Defense Privacy Board Advisory Opinion 12 contains guidance on accounting for mass disclosures.
2. Privacy Rights and Deceased Persons
The Privacy Act and its legislative history are silent as to whether a decedent is an individual and whether anyone else may exercise the decedent's rights concerning records pertaining to him or her maintained by agencies. The Privacy Act's failure to provide specifically for the exercise of rights on behalf of decedents, coupled with the personal judgment implicitly necessary to exercise such rights, indicates that the Act did not contemplate permitting relatives and other interested parties to exercise Privacy Act rights after the death of the record subject. See Office of Management and Budget Privacy Act Guidelines, 40 Fed. Reg. 28949, 28951 (July 9, 1975).
Whether access to records pertaining to a decedent should be permitted under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552, depends on the circumstances in each particular case. The FOIA would permit an agency to withhold if:
In the case of "personnel and medical and similar files, the disclosure would be a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy" under 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6); or;
In the case of law enforcement investigatory records, the disclosure would "constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy" under 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(C).
Demise of a record subject (ending Privacy Act protection which permits disclosure only when required by the FOIA) does not mean the privacy protective features of the FOIA no longer apply. Public interest in disclosure must be balanced against the degree of invasion of personal privacy. An agency need not automatically, in all cases, "disclose inherently private information as soon as the individual dies, especially when the public's interest in the information is minimal." Kiraly v. Federal Bureau of Investigation, 728 F.2d 273, 277 (6th Cir. 1984).
As a final point, a decedent's records may pertain as well to other living individuals, and to the extent that the records are retrieved by their personal identifiers, their Privacy Act rights remain in effect. As to any records of a decedent requested under the FOIA, the degree to which the personal privacy of the decedent's relatives, or anyone else to whom the records pertain would be invaded must be considered in the FOIA balancing test mentioned above. See DoD 5400.7 R, paragraph 3 200, no. 6.
In applying the FOIA balancing test to the records of those individuals who remain missing or unaccounted for as a result of the Vietnam conflict, the privacy sensibilities of their family members should be considered as a clear and present factor that weighs against the public release of information. The release of information regarding these records should be limited to basic information such as name, rank, date of loss, country of loss, current status, home of record (city and state), and any other privacy information that the primary next of kin has consented to releasing.
3. Disclosure of Records From a System of Records to the Next of Kin of Persons Missing in Action or Otherwise Unaccounted For
A legal guardian appointed by a court of competent jurisdiction for a member missing in action or otherwise unaccounted for would be in the position of the member and have the same rights as the member. 5 U.S.C. 552a(h). In such a case, records contained in a system of records and relating to the missing member may be disclosed to third persons upon the written consent of the guardian. If no guardian has been appointed or an appointed guardian does not give written consent, such records may be disclosed only if authorized by 5 U.S.C. 552a(b).
For example, information relating to persons missing in action or otherwise unaccounted for may be disclosed "pursuant to the order of a court of competent jurisdiction." 5 U.S.C. 552a(b)(11). [For a discussion of "order of a court of competent jurisdiction," see Defense Privacy Board Advisory Opinion 34.] In a case involving the families of military personnel missing in action, one court ordered, in part, that next of kin receiving governmental financial benefits which could be terminated by a status review be afforded "reasonable access to the information upon which the status review will be based." McDonald v. McLucas, 371 F. Supp. 831, 836 (S.D.N.Y. 1974). Since a status review is likely to require access to almost all significant information in a system of records pertaining to a member missing in action, this order constitutes sufficient authority under the Privacy Act for disclosure of almost any personal records of interest.
Information in a system of records also may be available to any person under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) if disclosure of the records concerned does not constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(6); 5 U.S.C. 552a(b)(2). In determining what information must be disclosed under this standard, a balancing test weighing the public interest in disclosure against the potential invasion of personal privacy should be conducted. See DoD 5400.7?R, paragraph 3?200, No. 6. See, e.g., Department of the Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 96 S. Ct. 1592, 48 L. Ed.2d 11 (1976); Church of Scientology v. Department of Defense, 611 F.2d 738 (9th Cir. 1979). Because facts and needs will differ in each case, the balancing test may require disclosure of information in one circumstance but not in another. See Getman v. National Labor Relations Board, 450 F.2d 670 (D.C. Cir. 1971); Robles v. Environmental Protection Agency, 484 F.2d 843 (4th Cir. 1973); Wine Hobby, USA, Inc. v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, 502 F.2d 133 (3rd Cir. 1974).
Due to the unusual circumstances involved when a service member is missing in action or otherwise unaccounted for, next of kin may have a more compelling case for disclosure of a requested record than would other third parties. However, each request must be evaluated on its own merits.
Should the record subject's status be changed to "deceased," see Defense Privacy Board Advisory Opinion 2 concerning application of the Privacy Act and FOIA to decedents' records.
4. Corrections of Military Records Under The Privacy Act
One main purpose of the Privacy Act is to ensure records pertaining to individuals are maintained accurately so informed decisions based on those records can be made. The Privacy Act amendment provision, 5 U.S.C. § 552a(d)(2), permits individuals to request factual amendments to records pertaining to them. It does not permit correction of judgmental decisions such as efficiency reports or selection and promotion board reports. These judgmental decisions may be challenged before the Boards for Correction of Military and Naval Records which by statute are authorized to make these determinations. 10 U.S.C. § 1552. If factual matter is corrected under Privacy Act procedures, subsequent judgmental decisions that may have been affected by the factual correction, if contested, should be considered by the Boards for Correction of Military and Naval Records.
5. Applicability of The Privacy Act to National Guard Records
As defined in the Privacy Act, "maintain" includes various record keeping functions to which the Act applies; i.e., maintaining, collecting, using, and disseminating. In turn, this connotes control over and responsibility and accountability for systems of records. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(a)(3); Office of Management and Budget Privacy Act Guidelines, 40 Fed. Reg. 28949, 28954 (July 9, 1975) (OMB Guidelines).
Reserve components of the Army and the Air Force include the Army and Air National Guards of the United States respectively, which are composed of federally recognized units and organizations of the Army or Air National Guard and members of the Army or Air National Guard who are also Reserves of the Army or Air Force. 10 U.S.C. §§ 3077 and 8077. 10 U.S.C. § 275 requires the Departments of the Army and the Air Force to maintain personnel records on all members of the federally recognized units and organizations of the Army and Air National Guards and on all members of the Army or Air National Guards who are also reserves of the Army and Air Force. Such records are "maintained" by the Army or Air Force for the purposes of the Privacy Act. These records are not all located at the National Guard Bureau. Some are in the physical possession of the state adjutant general. However, records need not be physically located in the agency for them to be maintained by the agency. See OMB Guidelines. Records located at the state level are under the direct control of the Army and Air Force in that they are maintained by the state under regulations (NGR 600 200 and AFR 35 44) implementing 10 U.S.C. § 275, and promulgated by authority of the Secretaries of the Army and the Air Force under 10 U.S.C. § 280. Therefore, the records are Army or Air Force records and subject to the provisions of the Privacy Act.
That the records are subject to the Privacy Act does not mean they cannot be used by the members of the state national guards. The state officials using and maintaining the records are members of the reserves (members of the Army or Air Force National Guard of the United States). Disclosure to them in performance of their duties is disclosure within the Department of Defense not requiring a published routine use or an accounting.
6. Assessing Fees to Members of Congress for Furnishing Records Which Are Subject to The Privacy Act
The Privacy Act authorizes an agency to "establish fees to be charged, if any, to any individual for making copies of his record . . . ." 5 U.S.C. § 552a(f)(5). Office of Management and Budget Privacy Act Guidelines, 40 Fed. Reg. 28949, 28968 (July 9, 1975) and DoD 5400.11 R each point out that a fee may be charged for only the direct cost of making the copy. This guidance also states that if copying is the only means whereby the record can be made available to the individual, reproduction fees will not be assessed.
Therefore, charging fees is discretionary. However, as a general policy, the Department of Defense should not charge Members of Congress for records furnished when requested under the Privacy Act, unless the charge would be substantial. In no event should a fee less than $30.00 be determined substantial. In the case of constituent inquiries involving a substantial fee, a suggestion may be made that the Member of Congress advise the constituent that the information may be obtained by writing the appropriate office and paying reproduction costs. Additionally, the record may be examined at no cost if the constituent wishes to visit the record custodian.
7. Disclosure of Home of Record to Members of Congress
The blanket routine use provisions for Department of Defense (DoD) systems of records, first published on October 9, 1975, at 40 Fed. Reg. 47748, are sufficiently broad to permit the disclosure of home of record information to a Member of Congress or Congressional staff member who is making an inquiry of a DoD component at the request of the subject service member, even if the subject member's request did not concern that particular portion of the service record.
However, the service record entry for home of record is intended to reflect the member's home at the time of entry into service or order to active duty. The Member of Congress or Congressional staff member may be more interested in the service member's legal residence for voting purposes or as entered on a W 4 form and as reflected by the member's pay record. Disclosure of home of record information to a Member of Congress or a Congressional staff member should include a caveat that it reflects only the home address at the time of entry into service or order to active duty.
8. Accounting for Disclosures of Records Through Military Legislative Liaison Channels
Procedures and divisions of responsibility should be established by military departments to ensure preparation of required accountings when information concerning individuals is disclosed to Members of Congress. Whether disclosure is made pursuant to an established routine use or prior written consent of the record subject, an accounting must be kept. See 5 U.S.C. § 552a(c). When a disclosure is made directly to a Member of Congress by the custodian of the record, that activity is responsible for keeping an appropriate accounting. However, a more difficult administrative problem arises when requested information is transmitted by the custodian to the legislative liaison activity for re transmittal and the latter either deletes from or adds to information originally provided. In such cases it might be impossible for the custodian to keep an accurate accounting of what actually was disclosed to the Congressional office unless the legislative liaison office provides feedback.
The problem should not be resolved on a DoD wide scale because the formulation of specific procedures for disclosure accounting will involve consideration of a number of factors which will vary among the military departments and other DoD components. The factors include internal organizational relationships, the components' prescribed methods and responsibilities for responding to Congressional inquiries, and possibly the characteristics of the particular records and record systems involved.
The liaison activity should prepare a disclosure accounting and forward it to the custodian. The accounting should contain the name and address of the person to whom the disclosure was made and the Member of Congress for whom he or she works, as well as the date, nature and purpose of the disclosure. The name, rank, title and duty address of the person making the disclosure also should be included. The accounting must be kept for five years or the life of the record, whichever is longer.
9. The Privacy Act and Minors
The Privacy Act applies to any "individual" which is defined as "a citizen of the United States or an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence." 5 U.S.C. § 552a(a)(2). With respect to any rights granted the individual, no restriction is imposed on the basis of age; therefore, minors have the same rights and protections under the Privacy Act as do adults.
The Privacy Act provides that "the parent of any minor . . . may act on behalf of the individual." 5 U.S.C. § 552a(h). This subsection ensures that minors have a means of exercising their rights under the Privacy Act. Office of Management and Budget Privacy Act Guidelines (OMB Guidelines), 40 Fed. Reg. 28949, 28970 (July 9, 1975). It does not preclude minors from exercising rights on their own behalf, independent of any parental exercise. Parental exercise of the minor's Privacy Act rights is discretionary. A Department of Defense (DoD) component may permit parental exercise of a minor's Privacy Act rights at its discretion, but the parent has no absolute right to exercise the minor's rights absent a court order or the minor's consent. See OMB Guidelines, 40 Fed. Reg. 56741, 56742 (December 4,1975). Further, the parent exercising a minor's rights under the Privacy Act must be doing so on behalf of the minor and not merely for the parent's benefit. DePlanche v. Califano, 549 F. Supp. 685 (W.D. Mich. 1982).
The age at which an individual is no longer a minor becomes crucial when an agency must determine whether a parent may exercise the individual's Privacy Act rights. With respect to records maintained by DoD components, the age of majority is 18 years unless a court order states otherwise or the individual, at an earlier age, marries, enlists in the military, or takes some other action that legally signifies attainment of majority status. Once an individual attains the age of majority, Privacy Act rights based solely on parenthood cease.
10. Disclosure of Identities of Confidential Sources from Investigative Records Exempted Under Subsection (k)(2)
If a system of records has been exempted under subsection (k)(2) of the Privacy Act, information that would identify a confidential source may be withheld from an individual requesting access to the record under the Privacy Act. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(k)(2). Only information that would not reveal the identity of a confidential source automatically becomes accessible under the Privacy Act when the record subject is denied a right, benefit or privilege.
The Office of Management and Budget Privacy Act Guidelines, 40 Fed. Reg. 28949, 28973 (July 9, 1975), contain language from the Congressional Record suggesting that the record subject can learn the "substance and source of confidential information" if that information is used to deny him some right, benefit or privilege. However, such language does not refer to Privacy Act compliance. It refers to the possibility that revealing the identity of the confidential source might be required by due process or discovery rules in the course of an administrative or judicial challenge to an adverse action based on information supplied by the source.
11. Application of The Privacy Act to Information in Hospital Committee Minutes
The Privacy Act grants access to records contained in systems of records. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(d)(1). To qualify as a "system of records," the information must be retrieved by an individual's name or other identifying particular. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(a)(5). Hospital committee minutes not filed or indexed under an individual's name or other identifying particular are not within a system of records subject to the Privacy Act. Hence, access to those minutes may be denied the individual requesting them under that statute.
12. Accounting for Mass Disclosures of Records to Other Agencies
It is inappropriate to enter into inter–agency support agreements negating the requirement to keep an accounting of disclosures made from systems of records. Except for disclosures made within the agency or pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, each agency must keep an accurate accounting of all disclosures made from systems of records under its control. 5 U.S.C.§ 552a(c).
Neither the Privacy Act nor the Office of Management and Budget Privacy Act Guidelines, however, specify a form for maintaining the accounting. See 40 Fed. Reg. 28949, 28956 (July 9, 1975). They require only that an accounting be maintained, that it be available to the individual to whom the record pertains, that it be used to advise previous recipients of corrections to records, and that it be maintained so a disclosure of records may be traced to the records disclosed. Individual records need not be marked to reflect disclosure unless necessary to satisfy this tracing requirement.
With respect to mass disclosures, if disclosures are of all records or all of a category of records, it is sufficient simply to identify the category of records disclosed, including the other information required under 5 U.S.C. § 552a(c), in a comprehensible form and make it available as required. Similarly, if disclosures occur at fixed intervals, a statement to that effect, as opposed to a statement at each occasion of disclosure, will satisfy the accounting requirement. If a mass disclosure is not of a complete category of records but, for example, of a random selection within a category, then the above information with a list of individuals whose records were disclosed could be maintained. Appropriate officials then could review this list to provide information to satisfy accounting provisions of the Act.
13. Disclosure of Records to State Agencies to Validate Unemployment Compensation Claims of Former Federal Employees and Military Members
Federal agencies, under specific circumstances, are required to disclose records to state agencies administering unemployment compensation claims for former federal civilian employees and military members. Such information includes period of military service, pay grade or amount of federal wages and allowances, reasons for termination of federal service or discharge from military service, and conditions under which a military discharge or resignation occurred. 5 U.S.C. § 8506 and § 8523; 20 C.F.R. § 614.
14. Disclosure of Records to Financial Institutions
Information concerning a military member's rank, date of rank, salary, present and past duty assignments, future assignments which have been finalized, office telephone number, office address, length of military service, and duty status may be disclosed to any person requesting such information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552, and subsection (b)(2) of the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a, if the information is not classified and disclosure is in conformity with Defense Privacy Board Advisory Opinions 14 and 15.
The Federal Personnel Manual (FPM) authorizes disclosure of information concerning a federal civilian employee's present and past position descriptions, grades, salaries, and duty stations (including office address) to any person under the FOIA if the information is not classified. The FPM further provides that credit firms may be provided more detailed information concerning tenure of employment, Civil Service status, length of service in the agency and the federal government, and certain information concerning separation of an employee.
When disclosure of particular information requested by a credit bureau would not be authorized under provisions described above, information about individuals may be disclosed from military or civilian personnel records by Department of Defense components with written consent of the subject employee or military member specifically authorizing the disclosure of the requested information. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b).
15. Disclosure of Photographs in the Custody of the Department of Defense
Photographs of members of the armed forces and Department of Defense employees taken for official purposes usually may be disclosed when requested under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552, and the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b)(2), unless the photograph depicts matters that, if disclosed to public view, would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6). Generally, award ceremony photographs, selection file photographs, chain of command photographs and similar photographs may be disclosed. Taking such photographs is not collection of information under 5 U.S.C. § 552a(e)(3), so a Privacy Act advisory statement is not required.
16. Disclosure of Records from Systems of Records to a Contractor Pursuant to a Contract
When an agency contracts for operation of a system of records to accomplish an agency function, the contract must cause the Privacy Act to apply to the system of records. Thus, the contractor and the contractor's employees will be considered to be employees of the agency and subject to the provisions of the Privacy Act. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(m).
The Office of Management and Budget Privacy Act Guidelines, 40 Fed. Reg. 28949, 28976 (July 9, 1975), state that the sole purpose of the contract might not be to operate a system of records, but the contract normally would provide that the contractor operate such a system as a specific requirement of the contract. If the contract can be performed only by operating a system of records, subsection (m) applies even though the contract does not provide expressly for operation of a system of records.
If the contract meets the requirements of subsection (m), the system of records operated by the contractor is deemed to be operated by the agency. Hence, disclosure of records to the contractor is authorized under 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b)(1) when the contract requires the contractor, explicitly or implicitly, to maintain a system of records to perform an agency function.
17. Definition of an "Agency or Instrumentality of Any Jurisdiction Within or Under the Control of The United States"
For purposes of non-consensual disclosures of records from systems of records under 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b)(7), "agency or instrumentality of any jurisdiction within or under the control of the United States" includes any federal agency or unit wherever located and any state or local government agency or unit within the United States legally authorized to enforce civil or criminal laws. The types of agencies or units that may receive records under subsection (b)(7) are as numerous as the entities legally authorized to enforce civil or criminal laws. Such agencies or units may include a city dogcatcher charged with enforcing animal control laws, a county tax collector charged with enforcing county tax laws, a state governor charged with enforcing all state laws, and the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation charged with enforcing federal laws.
18. Location of Privacy Act Advisory Statements
Placement of the Privacy Act advisory statement in a form should be in the following order of preference:
Below the title of the form and positioned so the individual will be advised of the requested information;
Within the body of the form with a notation of its location below the title of the form;
On the reverse of the form with a notation of its location below the title of the form;
Attached to the form as a tear–off sheet; or
Issued as a separate supplement to the form.
19. Privacy Act Advisory Statements for Inspector General Complaint Forms
Under 5 U.S.C. § 552a(e)(3), a Privacy Act advisory statement is required for Inspector General complaint forms. The agency does not initiate a request for information from an individual, but asks for certain information in order only to respond to a complaint which was initiated voluntarily by an individual. Taking action based on information volunteered by an individual does not eliminate the need for a Privacy Act advisory statement.
Implicit in providing a Privacy Act advisory statement is the notion of informed consent. An individual should be provided sufficient advice about a request for information to make an informed decision about whether or not to respond. See Office of Management and Budget Privacy Act Guidelines, 40 Fed. Reg. 28949, 28961 (July 9, 1975). The intent of the Privacy Act is to advise individuals requested to provide information about themselves for a system of records about the authority for collecting the information, the uses to be made of it, whether it is voluntary or mandatory to provide it, and the consequences of not providing it. Whenever an agency asks individuals for information about themselves for a system of records, a Privacy Act advisory statement must be provided. There is no difference between an Inspector General complaint which triggers a request for information and a medical form completed only after an individual voluntarily initiates a request for treatment. All agencies have determined that all medical forms require Privacy Act advisory statements.
20. Recruitment Advertisements in the Public Media
Published coupons and business return postcards are used as a means for an individual to request from the military service information concerning a particular recruiting program, and they usually contain blanks for the individual's name, address, telephone number, date and place of birth, level of education, degrees received, and the most recent previous educational agency or institution attended. If the coupon or postcard is used solely to fulfill the individual's request for information and then promptly is destroyed, the information is not entered into a system of records and a Privacy Act advisory statement is not required under 5 U.S.C. § 552a(e)(3)and DoD 5400.11–R
If any information about an individual is maintained in a system of records; i.e., kept and retrieved by an individual's personal identifier, then a Privacy Act advisory statement is required. The individual must be told the authority that permits the agency to collect the information, whether it is mandatory to provide the information, the purposes and routine uses of the information, and the effects, if any, on the individual for not providing the information. Also, if the Social Security number (SSN) is requested, the individual must be told the federal statute or executive order of the President that allows solicitation of the SSN, whether it is mandatory to provide it, and the uses to be made of it.
For both the SSN and the other information about the individual, it will be voluntary for the individual to provide them, and the effects of not providing either may result in a delay or inability in providing information to the individual. The SSN will be used to retrieve information about the individual and to verify the individual's identity. The remaining items of the Privacy Act advisory statement (authority, purposes, and routine uses) must be derived from the component's recruiting system of records notice as published in the Federal Register.
21. Information Requested in the Public Domain
DoD 5400.11–R requires giving a Privacy Act advisory statement whenever individuals are requested to supply information about themselves for a system of records; hence, the requirement is not avoided merely because the information is in the public domain or required to be disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). If information solicited from an individual is to be placed in a system of records, an advisory statement is necessary, regardless of whether the same information is in the public domain or would be disclosed under the FOIA.
22. Implications on Various Methods of Distributing Leave and Earning Statements
Three basic methods of distributing leave and earning statements (LES) in the Department of Defense are:
The LES is mailed to the individual's home address;
The LES is handed out by office clerical personnel, either with or without the pay check; or
The LES is handed out in an envelope by office clerical personnel either with or without the pay check.
The LES contains information about individuals that is protected by the Privacy Act. Distribution may be made in any manner so long as the information is not disclosed to persons other than those that have a requirement to process the statements in the course of their official duties. Hence, any of the methods indicated would be acceptable if the procedures preclude unauthorized disclosure to individuals outside the leave and earnings system.
23. The Appearance of the Social Security Number in the Window of an Envelope Containing Record Information Does Not Constitute a Disclosure
The appearance of the Social Security number (SSN) in a window envelope does not constitute a disclosure as contemplated by the Privacy Act. Prior to delivery to the recipient, the only likely disclosure is to personnel of the postal service who handle the letter in the performance of their official duties under agreement with the Department of Defense. However, when revising formats of the document or envelope, consideration should be given to preventing the appearance of the SSN through the window of the envelope.
24. What Constitutes a Privacy Act Request for Access or Amendment for Purposes of Compliance with Processing and Reporting Requirements
There is no requirement in the Privacy Act that a request specify or cite that law before it is to be processed or accounted for as a Privacy Act request. As a matter of policy, only requests which specify or clearly imply that they are being made under the Privacy Act receive the formal processing required by the law and implementing regulations and are reported as "Privacy Act requests." This avoids including routine record checks and requests to modify or update data elements in the annual Privacy Act report. This policy agrees with guidance issued by the Office of Management and Budget in Circular No. A–130, 50 Fed. Reg. 52730, 52739 (December 24,1985). However, this does not mean that requests not citing the Privacy Act should not be honored.
25. Information Pertaining to Third Parties May Not Be Protected By The Privacy Act
An individual's record is defined as "information about an individual that is maintained by an agency," and a system of records is "a group of any records from which information is retrieved by the name . . . or other identifying particular assigned to the individual." 5 U.S.C. § 552a(a)(4) and (5), respectively. Since 5 U.S.C. § 552a(e)(1) requires that agencies maintain "only such information about an individual as is relevant and necessary," all information in an individual's record must pertain to him or her. Therefore, when an individual seeks access to or a copy of records under 5 U.S.C. § 552a(d)(1), all records pertaining to him or her in systems of records must be disclosed, with certain exceptions not here germane.
A reference to subject A in a file retrieved only by subject B's identifier would not be available to subject A under the Privacy Act. However, if an indexing capability exists so that the same file also is retrieved by subject A's identifier, then subject A and B, both, would have access to the entire record. See Voelker v. Internal Revenue Service, 646 F.2d 332 (8th Cir. 1981); Office of Management and Budget Privacy Act Guidelines, 40 Fed. Reg. 28949, 28957 (July 9, 1975).
26. Disclosure of Security Clearance Level
If the information concerning an individual's security clearance is classified, it is protected from disclosure under the Privacy Act if the system of records has been exempted from access pursuant to 5 U.S.C. §552a(k)(1) and it may be protected from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) exemption for classified information, 5 U.S.C. §552(b)(1). If the information is unclassified, the individual concerned will have access under the Privacy Act, but the determination as to disclosure to a third party who has submitted a FOIA request must be made under the FOIA, 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6). The determination would have to be made using the balancing test, balancing the public's right to know against the individual's right of privacy. See Department of the Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 96 S. Ct. 1592, 48 L. Ed. 2d 11 (1976).
27. Privacy Act Applicability to Legal Memoranda Maintained in a System of Records
The Privacy Act specifically denies authority for individual access to any information compiled in reasonable anticipation of a civil action or proceeding. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(d)(5). Not only is an attorney's "work product" protected from access under the Act, but any information compiled in reasonable anticipation of a civil action or proceeding is protected. The term "civil proceeding" covers quasi–judicial and preliminary judicial steps which are the civil counterparts to criminal proceedings occurring before actual criminal litigation. Office of Management and Budget Privacy Act Guidelines, 40 Fed. Reg. 28949, 28960 (July 9, 1975). Once information is prepared in reasonable anticipation of a civil action or proceeding, subsection (d)(5) continues to protect the material regardless of whether litigation is initiated, dropped or completed.
A determination as to whether material is prepared in anticipation of a civil action or proceeding must be made on an ad hoc basis for each document in question. In making this determination, all circumstances must be considered, including intent of the author at the time a document was prepared and the presence or imminence of a civil action or proceeding. Note: This provision applies to access under the Privacy Act only and has no effect on access, if any, available under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552, or rules of civil procedure. Further, this determination does not apply to work product not maintained in a system of records retrieved by a personal identifier.
28. The Privacy Act Does Not Apply to Files Indexed by Non-Personal Identifiers and Retrieved by Memory
Labeling of files by non personal identifiers makes access requirements of the Privacy Act inapplicable unless such files actually are retrieved on the basis of an individual identifier through a cross reference system or some other method. The human memory alone does not constitute a cross reference system.
29. Depersonalizing Computer Cards and Printouts Before Disposal
A massive release of computer cards and printouts for disposal is not a disclosure of personal information precluded by the Privacy Act if volume of the records, coding of information in them, or some other factor renders it impossible to pinpoint any comprehensible information about a specific individual. Such computer products may be turned over to a Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office for authorized disposal by sale or recycling, without deleting names or other identifying data
30. No Supplemental Charges May Be Assessed for Unlisted Telephone Number Service on Installations Where No Commercial Service is Available
An individual should have the opportunity to elect not to have his or her home address and telephone number listed in a base telephone directory of class B subscribers if no commercial telephone service is available. Individuals should be excused from paying an additional cost involved in maintaining an unlisted number if they comply with regulations providing for unlisted numbers.
31. The Privacy Act General Exemption Does Not Follow the Record
A record created and maintained in a criminal law enforcement system of records and properly exempted under the general exemption of the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a(j)(2), may not retain that exemption when a copy of the record is permanently filed in a system of records maintained by a non–criminal law enforcement activity. Specifically, copies of records otherwise afforded a general exemption will lose their exempt character when permanently filed in nonexempt systems.
Invoking the general exemption should be limited to certain systems of records maintained by only Department of Defense (DoD) criminal law enforcement activities. Such activities include police efforts to prevent, control and reduce crime or to apprehend criminals and the activities of prosecutors, courts, correctional, probation, pardon or parole authorities. The general exemption is not for systems of records maintained by any other DoD activity that may have copies of reports of criminal investigations. Congress intended that only activities which perform criminal law enforcement functions are entitled to this general exemption for a record system. Merely filing a few criminal law enforcement records in one of its records systems will not entitle an activity not involved in criminal law enforcement to invoke a general exemption for the entire system.
Individuals seeking access under the Privacy Act to criminal law enforcement records in the temporary custody of a command or activity should be directed to the organization that created the records. However, any activity's files concerning adjudication or other personnel actions based on criminal law enforcement records are the records, without the general exemption, of the using activity which shall respond to all Privacy Act requests other than those seeking access to or amendment of the criminal law enforcement record.
32. The Privacy Act System Notice Requirement Applies to Court-Martial Files
Procedures and policies regarding courts–martial are governed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Manual for Courts–Martial. Congress recognized the unique nature of court–martial proceedings and exempted them from requirements of the Privacy Act by specifically excluding them from the definition of "agency." See 5 U.S.C. § 551(1)(F). Although courts–martial, themselves, are not "agencies" for purposes of the Privacy Act, records of trials by courts–martial are maintained by agencies long after the courts–martial involved have been dissolved. The Privacy Act requires each agency that maintains a system of records to "publish in the Federal Register upon establishment or revision a notice of the existence and character of the system of records . . ." 5 U.S.C. § 552a(e)(4). Hence, the requirement to publish a system notice applies to systems containing courts–martial records.
33. A Routine Use is Not Required for Disclosure of Department of Defense Records to the National Archives and Records Administration and to the General Services Administration
The Federal Records Act of 1950, as amended by the National Archives and Records Administration Act of 1984, Pub. L. 98–497, implemented by 36 C.F.R. Ch. XII and 41 C.F.R. Ch. 201, does not require a routine use notice for disclosure from Department of Defense (DoD) records systems. Such disclosures fall into three categories.
Records warranting permanent preservation for their historical or other value may be disclosed to the Archivist of the United States, or his representative, under the Privacy Act. See 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b)(6). Ownership of such records also may be transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
Records may be transferred to the various Federal Records Centers operated by NARA for temporary storage under the Privacy Act since such records continue to be maintained by the agency. See 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b)(1).
Records may be disclosed to the Archivist of the United States or the Administrator, General Services Administration, or their designees, to carry out records management inspections required by law. Such disclosures are authorized by the National Archives and Records Act of 1984. See 44 U.S.C. § 2904 and § 2906, as amended.
34. Definition of "Order of a Court of Competent Jurisdiction"
A subpoena signed by a clerk of a Federal or State court, without specific approval of the court itself, does not comprise an "order of a court of competent jurisdiction" for purposes of non-consensual disclosures under the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b)(11). The overall scheme of the Privacy Act's non-consensual disclosure provisions in subsection (b) is to balance the need for disclosure against the potential harm to the subject of the disclosure. Even though a subpoena signed by a clerk of the court is issued in the name of the court and carries with it the threat of contempt to those who ignore it, there is no guarantee that it is based upon a careful consideration of the competing interests of the litigant and the individual who is the subject of the record. It is common practice for a subpoena to be issued in blank by a court clerk to a party requesting it, who then fills in the blanks as he or she chooses.
To allow non-consensual disclosure pursuant to a subpoena--grand jury or otherwise-–would permit disclosure of protected records at the whim of any litigant, whether prosecutor, criminal defendant, or civil litigant. Therefore, disclosure of records under subsection (b)(11) requires that the court specifically order disclosure. If there is a threat of punishment for contempt for ignoring a subpoena not approved by the court, the subpoena should be challenged by a motion to quash or modify.
35. Records May Be Disclosed to Service-Oriented Social Welfare Organizations Pursuant to an Established Routine Use
Disclosure of personal information from records systems to service–oriented social welfare organizations, such as Army Emergency Relief, Navy Relief, Air Force Aid Society, American Red Cross, United Services Organization, etc., is permitted pursuant to properly established routine uses. See 5 U.S.C. § 552a(a)(7), (b)(3), and (e)(4)(D). However, only such information as is necessary for the welfare agency to perform its authorized functions should be provided. Information can be disclosed only if the agency which receives it adequately prevents its disclosure to persons other than their employees who need such information to perform their authorized duties.
36. Privacy Act Warning Labels
Using warning labels indicating that particular records are subject to the Privacy Act and require protection from unauthorized disclosure should be left to the discretion of each Department of Defense (DoD) component. In accordance with 5 U.S.C. § 552a(e)(10), agencies are required to establish appropriate safeguards for records and warning labels likely would be appropriate in many cases. However, no standard warning label produced within or outside the DoD appears to be entirely satisfactory for all DoD components in all cases. Therefore, each component in its discretion may adopt existing labels or design its own labels and prescribe their internal use.
37. Disclosure of Records Concerning Charitable Contributions or Participation in Savings Bond Programs
Disclosure of information contained in systems of records concerning employees' or service members' participation in charitable or savings bond campaigns may be necessary to those officers and employees of the Department of Defense components maintaining the systems of records who have a need for the information in the performance of their duties. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b)(1). Disclosure under subsection (b)(1) is based on a "need–to–know" concept; consequently, disclosure would be authorized to those personnel requiring the information to discharge their duties, such as payroll and allotment clerks, key persons, and campaign aides who assist directly in implementation of the campaign. Disclosure to supervisors is neither related directly to any campaign requirement nor consistent with disclosure provisions of the Privacy Act. Disclosure should be restricted to personnel with a direct functional relationship to a campaign and for campaign purposes only. Personnel authorized to receive this information should be briefed on their responsibilities under the Privacy Act and warned against unauthorized disclosure.
38. Personal Notes as Records Within a System of Records
Personal notes of unit leaders or office supervisors concerning subordinates ordinarily are not records within a system of records governed by the Privacy Act. The Act defines "system of records" as "a group of any records under the control of any agency . . . from which information is retrieved by the . . . [individual's] identifying particular . . ." 5 U.S.C. § 552a(a)(5). One reason for limiting the definition to records "under the control of any agency" was to distinguish agency records from personal notes maintained by employees and officials of the agency. Personal notes that are merely an extension of the author's memory, if maintained properly, will not come under the provisions of the Privacy Act or the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552.
To avoid being considered agency records, personal notes must meet certain requirements. Keeping or destroying the notes must be at the sole discretion of the author. Any requirement by superior authority, whether by oral or written directive, regulation or command policy, likely would cause the notes to become official agency records. Such notes must be restricted to the author's personal use as memory aids. Passing them to a successor or showing them to other agency personnel would cause them to become agency records. Chapman v. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 682 F.2d 526 (5th Cir. 1982).
Even if personal notes do become agency records, they will not be within a system of records and subject to the Privacy Act unless they are retrieved by the individual's name or other identifying particular. Thus if they are filed only under the matter in which the subordinate acted or in a chronological record of office activities, the Privacy Act would not apply to them. However, they likely would be subject to disclosure to a person requesting them under the FOIA. Individuals who maintain personal notes about agency personnel should ensure their notes do not become records within systems of records. Maintaining a system of records without complying with the Privacy Act system notice requirement could subject the individual to criminal charges and a $5,000 fine. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(i)(2).
39. Requirement for Privacy Act Advisory Statements for Administrative Proceedings
Individuals from whom information about them is solicited during administrative proceedings must be provided Privacy Act advisory statements if records of the proceedings will be retrieved by their personal identifiers. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(e)(3).
40. Access to Medical Records by Individuals Who Could Be Adversely Affected
An individual must be given access to his or her medical and psychological records unless a judgment is made that access to such records could have an adverse effect on the mental or physical health of the individual. That determination normally should be made in consultation with a medical doctor. When it is determined that disclosure of medical information could have an adverse effect upon the individual to whom it pertains, the information should be transmitted to a physician named by the individual and not directly to the individual. However, the physician should not be required to request the record on behalf of the individual. Information which may be harmful to the record subject should not be released to a designated individual unless the designee is qualified to make psychiatric or medical determinations. If the record subject refuses to provide a qualified designee, the request for the medical records should not be honored.
41. No Requirement to Provide Privacy Act Advisory Statements to Labor Organizations
A labor organization may furnish information obtained from its members to a Department of Defense (DoD) component to facilitate allotment of union dues, even though the employee–union member is not given a Privacy Act advisory statement before providing the information to the labor organization.
The Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a, does not apply to labor organizations; hence, they are not obligated to meet the subsection (e)(3) requirement to provide Privacy Act advice to federal employees before obtaining information for a voluntary allotment of union dues. Any use of the Privacy Act advisory statement by a labor organization is voluntary and may result from express agreement with a DoD component or as a spontaneous union practice. The Standard Form 1187 used to authorize allotments from pay is required by the employee's finance office and information provided on the form will become part of a system of records from which information is retrieved using personal identifiers. If the employee furnishes the completed form to the DoD component, a Privacy Act advisory statement must be provided to the employee by the component. If the labor organization furnishes the completed form to the DoD component, no Privacy Act advisory statement is required unless the component and the labor organization have agreed otherwise.
42. Information on Forms Attached to Security Containers or Facilities is Subject to The Privacy Act
Information consisting of names, home addresses and telephone numbers of persons designated as custodians of security storage containers or facilities, when contained in a system of records, is protected by the Privacy Act. Solicitation of such information is necessary to accomplish official Department of Defense (DoD) duties relating to protection of information stored in the containers or facilities, but it requires providing a Privacy Act advisory statement to individuals from whom and when the information is solicited. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(e)(3). This information, when appended to the exterior of a storage facility or container, is observable by any passer–by who may not be an officer or employee officially concerned with the activity. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b)(1). Therefore, it is a disclosure subject to disclosure accounting requirements of the Act. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(c)(1). Such an accounting, however, would be impossible because of the difficulty of identifying all viewers.
The General Services Administration (GSA) has recognized that this information is subject to the Privacy Act and has revised Optional Form 63 to include a Privacy Act advisory statement and to instruct that the form be attached to the interiors of safes. When such a tag is placed inside a safe, the disclosure is limited to those officers and employees who have a need–to–know and a disclosure accounting is not required. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b)(1)and (c)(1).
Alternatives to the disclosure accounting requirements when the information is to be displayed outside the security container or facility are:
Request the individual's prior written consent for a single particular transaction; i.e., consent to disclosure of name, home address and telephone number for a particular safe; or
Require notification of appropriate duty personnel with access to a control roster containing the custodians' information so they may be contacted in the case of a security problem.
43. Verifying the Accuracy of Personal Data in a Record is Subject to The Privacy Act
Requesting an individual to verify or certify the accuracy of information about him or her in a record or on a form constitutes collection of information about the individual and is subject to advice requirements of the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a(e)(3). Guidance on implementation of this subsection issued by the Office of Management and Budget supports this conclusion. Subsection (e)(3) is intended "to assure that individuals from whom information about themselves is collected are informed of the reasons for requesting the information, how it may be used, and what the consequences are, if any, of not providing the information." 40 Fed. Reg. 28961 (July 9, 1975).
Either of the following situations would invoke provisions of the Privacy Act:
Verifying a record requires the individual to examine and disclose whether the record is correct; thus, a request for verification is a request for the individual to republish as truthful the information about him or her; or
The individual is asked to identify any erroneous entries and furnish the correct data. When the request is soliciting corrections or additions to a record, it is soliciting information about the individual for a system of records.
44. One Department of Defense Component May Disclose Health Care Records to Another Without a Routine Use or Consent
A record may be disclosed, without the record subject's consent and without a disclosure accounting, to those officers and employees of an agency who need the records in the performance of their official duties. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b)(1). Since the Department of Defense (DoD) is considered a single agency within the meaning of subsection (b)(1), one component's health care records may be disclosed to another in connection with valid medical research programs under the authority of this subsection.
45. Disclosure of the Original, Pre-1968, Serial Number (Service Number) Assigned to Military Personnel
The original serial number, later called the service number, which military services assigned to military personnel until 1968 when it was replaced by the Social Security number (SSN), does not constitute information which cannot be disclosed to third parties. The old serial/service number did not have the same significance or importance as the SSN. The serial/service number, in and of itself, is no longer a personal identifier. Unlike the SSN, it cannot be used to facilitate linkage, consolidation, or exchange of information about an individual through multiple data banks, even within the Department of Defense (DoD). Therefore, disclosure may be made of orders and similar documents which comprise listings of names and serial/service numbers without expunging such numbers, with no invasion of personal privacy. The old serial/service number should not be confused with the SSN which can unlock innumerable data bases and provide access to much information about the individual, both inside and outside DoD.
46. The Social Security Number on Building and Installation Badges
A Social Security number (SSN) on a building or identification badge required to be prominently displayed or worn at all times by an individual constitutes information about the individual under the Privacy Act. The SSN, with an individual's name, is a record. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(a)(4). This information, when displayed on an exposed identification badge, is observable by any passer–by who may not be an officer or employee officially concerned with the intended use of the badge. It amounts to a constant verification by the individual that information about him or her being displayed is true. Therefore, unless the SSN on a building pass or identification badge is essential, it should not be included when such passes or badges are issued, reissued, or replaced.
47. Using Both General and Specific Privacy Act Exemptions for the Same System of Records
The general exemption, 5 U.S.C. § 552a(j)(2), and the specific exemption, 5 U.S.C. § 552a(k)(2), ordinarily cannot be used for the same system of records. For example, subsection (j)(2) applies to law enforcement records of criminal law enforcement activities, whereas subsection (k)(2) applies to law enforcement records other than those covered by subsection (j)(2). Nonetheless, a single system of records maintained by a law enforcement activity may contain both criminal law enforcement records exempted under (j)(2) and personnel security records exempted under (k)(5). If the two types of records are clearly segregable within the single system of records, both exemptions would apply. Also, a system of records may qualify for exemption under more than one specific exemption under subsection (k). For any system of records, only exemptions established in accordance with DoD 5400.11–R may be claimed.
48. Disclosure of Information in Blanket Orders
Prior to implementation of the Privacy Act on September 27, 1975, some components issued single blanket orders or other official documents concerning such personnel actions as promotions, discharges, temporary duty orders, permanent change of station orders, etc. Those documents contained limited amounts of information about each of the individuals named in them, such as Social Security numbers, homes of record, home addresses, etc. Nevertheless, disclosure of the documents to the individuals named in them is not prohibited by the Privacy Act as long as:
The documents are filed in their official personnel records;
The documents previously were furnished to the named individuals; and
The documents were created prior to September 27, 1975.
Nothing in this advisory opinion should be construed as limiting access by an individual to third party information required to be disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552. See 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b)(2).
Federal Acquisition Regulation
Privacy Program Reports
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30 September 2015 — City desk
What More Can NAMA Do to Ease the Housing Crisis?
by Damien Murphy
Photo by Caroline Brady
Last week, in a well-publicised event, Anti-Austerity Alliance TD Ruth Coppinger, along with a group of housing and homelessness activists, occupied a house in a NAMA-funded housing estate currently under construction in Castleknock, north Dublin.
Their reason for doing so: to highlight the fact that NAMA, a state-owned agency, was involved in building 120 homes to sell on the open market, while 117 families from the nearby Blanchardstown area were living in emergency accommodation.
Coppinger called for the estate to be turned over to social housing. It wasn’t. A couple of days later, an injunction was sought and granted, and the group vacated the property.
Coppinger is not unique in positing the theory that property and land in NAMA’s portfolio should be handed over to provide social housing.
Many housing and homelessness activists share this opinion. A substantial number of the general public share it, and so do a number of Coppinger’s colleagues in the Dail.
Speaking in the Dail in July on the Urban Regeneration and Housing Bill 2015, TD Richard Boyd Barrett called for either NAMA’s entire mandate to be changed, or all its available land that could be used for social housing to be transferred to local authorities.
But is the theory that NAMA’s residential properties and its land could be handed over for social housing a practical one?
“If only NAMA would . . . “
For Karl Deeter, a mortgage adviser and financial expert, it’s not as straightforward as that.
“There’s a bit of a myth at this stage which is as follows: ‘If only NAMA would’ (insert idea here) ‘then we would’ (insert brilliant outcome here),” he says. “That kind of simple equation is a bit too stylised, and about as far away from reality.”
“Resolving housing is going to take a lot of different things, and of course NAMA is part of that, but they’re not the silver bullet. Nor should they be, really,” he says.
Talk of solving the housing crisis solely in terms of what NAMA should be doing is like trying to understand chess by looking at one square on the board, he says.
“Everyone automatically looks to NAMA, but the state and the local authorities are sitting on huge land banks as well that are underutilised and unused, that have been sitting there idle for decades in many cases.”
NAMA’s job is to get the maximum return it can for the taxpayer, he says. If it starts giving away its property for social housing, this maximum return is likely to be jeopardised.
Lorcan Sirr, lecturer in housing at Dublin Institute of Technology, is inclined to agree. “There’s no denying that NAMA has housing and assets that are of use to the state, but you’ve got to look at what the function of NAMA is more than what it has,” he says.
“NAMA wasn’t set up to be in the housing game,” he says. “It’s set up to get rid of the bad debts in the bank and recover whatever money it can for the state.”
It should be allowed to fulfill its remit and wind up as quickly as possible without getting into this quagmire, which it is not equipped to do, he says.
“And it’s all very well to say we have the quantity of houses, but it’s also important to look at where those houses are,” he says. “A lot of properties that they have mightn’t necessarily be suitable.”
He has a point. At the end of June of this year, NAMA had identified more than 6,500 residential properties on its books as potentially suitable for social housing (1,565 of these were later either sold or let).
Suitability and demand for 2,500 of these properties was confirmed by local authorities and 1,386 of these have already been delivered.
But 2,467 were deemed unsuitable by local authorities.
In the area of Dublin City Council, 828 properties were identified by NAMA, but only 400 of these were deemed suitable.
Units were deemed unsuitable which failed to meet sustainable planning and housing policies or were in locations with no demand, according to the Housing Agency.
Sirr raises another concern in relation to the concentration of social housing in one area.
“To solve the housing crisis with NAMA, I suspect what would happen is that social housing would get first priority. You really don’t want that,” he says.
“You don’t want hundreds and hundreds of social houses all put in together; you want to get a mixture of public and private houses.”
More Please
On the other side of the argument is Rory Hearne, lecturer in the Geography department at Maynooth University.
He believes NAMA is not living up to the social element enshrined in its mandate: to “contribute to the social and economic development of the State.”
For Hearne, NAMA’s special-purpose vehicle, which was set up as part of the new housing strategy to sell or lease its residential properties for social housing, could be broadened by transferring the majority of its residential units and land to be used for social and affordable housing.
NAMA plans to deliver 4,500 units by 2016 in the Greater Dublin area and has said it can deliver 18,000 more in conjunction with property developers by 2020.
It is a move in the right direction, given that the Housing Agency has said that Dublin needs 35,000 housing units by 2018, at a minimum.
But of the 22,500 units NAMA says it can deliver by 2020, only 2,250 will be social housing units, according to Hearne.
For Hearne, this just isn’t good enough. And it’s hard to disagree with him.
As of July, there were more than 21,500 applicants on the housing waiting list in Dublin, according to Dublin City Council.
In expanding NAMA’s special-purpose vehicle, the agency could provide 15,000 social units and 7,000 affordable housing units managed by housing associations by 2020, Hearne said via email.
“If this means NAMA doesn’t make a profit, it is important to highlight that those most affected will be the private (mainly international) investors,” he said.
In pushing for maximum returns, Hearne believes NAMA is working against the interests of those looking for social and affordable housing. The practice, by its very nature, is worsening the housing crisis as it increases property prices as well as rents, he said.
He cites as an example NAMA’s sale of its “Orange” portfolio last year to Irish Residential Properties for €211 million, which included 716 apartments in Dublin.
NAMA had advertised that the portfolio would provide a rental income of €10.6 million, he said. “Selling to investors with this expected rate of return places huge upward pressure on rents.”
Residential rents have certainly been shooting up in recent years.
Average rent prices increased 7.1 per cent in the 12 months from the second quarter of 2014, according to recent figures from the Private Residential Tenancies Board (PRTB).
Dublin rental rates had the strongest growth, increasing by over 9 percent in the same period. Rents in the capital are now just 3.5 percent shy of peak rates in 2007.
A New Agency?
“NAMA are damned if they do and damned if they don’t,” says Lorcan Sirr. “If they sell, they’re accused of flooding the markets. If they don’t sell, they’re accused of missing the boat.”
If NAMA sells 500 apartments to an investment fund, they’re going to recommend high rental rates, he says. “That’s what they’re there to do. But at least they’re bringing it to market.”
The best way to tackle the housing crisis is to wrap NAMA up as quickly as possible, get it off the stage, and establish a housing-procurement agency that would take on, deliver, and manage both public and private housing, he says.
“We’ve a lot of experience in housing in the public sector; we don’t need to reinvent the wheel here,” he says.
The procurement agency could run in tandem with NAMA until it wraps up, and could even take over some housing assets from NAMA now, he says.
As of now, he says, the 500 or so housing agencies nationwide have about 5,000 units between them.
“There’s only about six of them that are big enough to start delivering hundreds of houses every year,” he says. “But we don’t need hundreds of houses, we need thousands if not tens of thousands.”
A housing-procurement agency would be able to deliver houses on this grander scale, he argues.
Karl Deeter has another suggestion.
“If social housing is social, why is it that only people who buy new homes tend to pay for it? Because that’s what Part V does,” he says.
He questions why we aren’t levying income to pay for social housing, and suggests earmarking a certain percent of the Universal Social Charge that would always go towards social housing.
“I’m not saying that would work, but if social housing is a social problem then everyone needs to contribute to it, and NAMA is not the solution on its own.”
Damien Murphy: Damien Murphy is Dublin Inquirer's Northside city reporter.
Reader responses
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at 30 September 2015 at 21:14
It would cost about 3 billion to build 30,000 housing units within the m50 @ 100k per unit. There about 12 golf courses within the m50, theres even some fields and wasteland if you dont want to upset the landed gentry too much.
3 Billion euro was the amount spent on overseas aid in the current government term. Hard decisions can be made, but our government doesn’t serve the working people. They serve a wide range of vested interests or rentseeking bodies. Plebs in flats arent part of the big picture.
This is simply a problem of governance. You have a central government and then a load of local government agencies who aren’t invested in this problem. If you look at Dublin City Councils development plan for instance, its mainly concerned with virtue signalling about things like bikelanes, the environments and fluffy insubstantial rubbish. It is no wonder the web summit pulled out.
The recent nonsense at announcing a metro that wont be built for decades is a great example of our “system”.
I think theres 2 options here, 1) overthrow the government and replace it with a monarch or benevolent dictator like what they ave in Dubai for example or 2) move the capital to a greenfield planned city near Moate in the midlands.
There is no hope of either so
.. sadly we are doomed.
at 24 February 2016 at 09:54
Our rent trebled by moving to Dublin in 2014, I love Dublin and would like to stay here but as a self employed designer my income has reduced and with 2 children and a partner who is working longer hours it seems futile. The part of Dublin we live in costs upwards of 400k for a house. The government have added to the housing crisis by entering the private rental system. It is chaos and the dishonest group of politicians we have need to hear our voice and not be re-elected. I am more horrified by the police state emerging, the amount of police on O’Connell street for a protest lately was insane, yet 4 armed men can shoot someone dead in the middle of the afternoon. Disillusioned! The men & women of 1016 must be rolling in their graves.
Also in the
30 September 2015 issue
Poolbeg: Is the Community Being Short-Changed by €5 million?
by Lois Kapila
At All Levels, Modular Housing Plans Pick Up Steam
Zoë's Dublin Diary: What to Do This Week
by Zoe Jellicoe
Is It Time for a Tenants' Union?
by Louisa McGrath
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About : Dean's Office
Richard Hogeda
Assistant Dean for Student Affairs
Richard Hogeda oversees the daily student support functions of the student division of the dean’s office and is responsible for academic advising programs, new student orientation, degree evaluation, study abroad programs and student organizations. Hogeda has worked in the College of Education since 1998 and at the University since 1993. Before coming to the College of Education, he worked as an admissions counselor in the Freshman Admissions Center at UT.
Hogeda has received the James Vick Texas Excellence Award for Academic Advising on two separate occasions and was awarded Sigma Lambda Gamma’s Amethyst Light Award for Outstanding Latino Faculty/Staff in 2011. He received his B.A. in Economics from The University of Texas at Austin in 1993 and his Master of Education in Higher Education Administration, Student Personnel Administration from The University of Texas at Austin in May 2002.
Dean Charles Martinez, Jr.
Sherry Field
Beth Maloch
Richard Reddick (he/him/his)
Alexandra Loukas
Stacey Oliver
C.J. Keudell
Sanchez Renovations
Texas Education Magazine
View Dean's Office Staff
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Auditor2[remove]
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You searched for: Office Auditor Remove constraint Office: Auditor Party Federalist Remove constraint Party: Federalist Party Quid Remove constraint Party: Quid Party Republican Remove constraint Party: Republican
1. Pennsylvania 1810 Auditor, Northampton County
2. Pennsylvania 1817 Auditor, Delaware County
The Federalist Party
The Federalist Party was dominated by a man who never actually ran for public office in the United States - Alexander Hamilton. "Alexander Hamilton was, writes Marcus Cunliffe, 'the executive head with the most urgent program to implement, with the sharpest ideas of what he meant to do and with the boldest desire to shape the national government accordingly.' In less than two years he presented three reports, defining a federal economic program which forced a major debate not only on the details of the program but on the purpose for which the union has been formed. Hamilton's own sense of purpose was clear; he would count the revolution for independence a success only if it were followed by the creation of a prosperous commerical nation, comparable, perhaps even competitive, in power and in energy, with its European counterparts." (fn: Marcus Cunliffe, The Nation Takes Shape, 1789-1837, (Chicago, 1959), 23.) (Linda K. Kerber, History of U.S. Political Parties Volume I: 1789-1860: From Factions to Parties. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., ed. New York, 1973, Chelsea House Publisher. p. 11)
"Federalists created their political program out of a political vision. They had shared in the revolutionaries' dream of a Republic of Virtue, and they emerged from a successful war against empire to search for guarantees that the republican experiment would not collapse." (Kerber, p. 3)
"The Federalist political demand was for a competent government, one responsible for the destiny of the nation and with the power to direct what that destiny would be. What was missing in postwar America, they repeatedly complained in a large variety of contexts, was order, predictability, stability. A competent government would guarantee the prosperity and external security of the nation; a government of countervailing balances was less likely to be threatened by temporary lapses in civic virtue, while remaining strictly accountable to the public will." (Kerber, p. 4)
"So long as Federalists controlled and staffed the agencies of the national government, the need to formulate alternate mechanisms for party decision making was veiled; with a Federalist in the White House, Federalists in the Cabinet, and Federalist majorities in Congress, the very institutional agencies of the government would themselves be the mechanism of party. Federal patronage could be used to bind party workers to the Federalist 'interest.' 'The reason of allowing Congress to appoint its own officers of the Customs, collectors of the taxes and military officers of every rank,' Hamilton said, 'is to create in the interior of each State, a mass of influence in favor of the Federal Government.' (fn: Alexander Hamilton, 1782, quoted in Lisle A. Rose, Prologue to Democracy: The Federalists in the South, 1789-1800, (Lexington, Kentucky, 1968), 3.) Federalists though of themselves as a government, not as a party; their history in the 1790's would be the history of alignments within the government, rather than of extrernal alignments which sought to influence the machinery of government." (Kerber, p. 10)
"Major national issues invigorated the process of party formation; as state groups came, slowly and hesitantly, to resemble each other. The issues on which pro-administration and anti-administration positions might be assumed increased in number and in obvious significance; the polarity of the parties became clearer." (Kerber, p. 11)
"As Adams' presidential decisions sequentially created a definition of the administration's goals as clear as Hamilton's funding program had once done, the range of political ideology which called itself Federalist simply became too broad to the party successfully to cast over it a unifying umbrella. Federalists were unified in their response to the XYZ Affair, and in their support of the Alien and Sedition Acts, which passed as party measures in the Fifth Congress, but in little else. The distance between Adams and Hamilton - in political philosophy, in willingness to contemplate war with France, in willingness to manipulate public opinion - was unbridgable; Hamilton's ill-tempered anti-Adams pamphlet of 1800 would be confirmation of a long-established distaste." (Kerber, p. 14)
"One result of the war was to add to Federalist strength and party cohesion. There were several varieties of Federalist congressional opinion on the war: most believed that the Republicans had fomented hard feeling with England so that their party could pose as defende of American honor; many believed that in the aftermath of what they were sure to be an unsuccessful war the Republicans would fall from power and Federalists would be returned to office . . . Regardless of the region from which they came, Federalists voted against the war with virtual unanimity." (Kerber, p. 24)
"As an anti-war party, Federalists retained their identity as an opposition well past wartime into a period that is usually known as the Era of Good Feelings and assumed to be the occasion of a one party system. In 1816, Federalists 'controlled the state governments of Maryland, Delaware, Connecticut and Massachusetts; they cast between forty percent and fifty percent of the popular votes in New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont...Such wide support did not simply vanish...' (fn: Shaw Livermore, Jr. The Twilight of Federalism: The Disintegration of the Federalist Party 1815-1830, (Princeton, 1962), 265.) Rather, that support remained available, and people continued to attempt to make careers as Federalists (though, probably fewer initiated new careers as Federalists). Because men like Rufus King and Harrison Gray Otis retained their partisan identity intact, when real issues surfaced, like the Missouri debates of 1820, a 'formed opposition' still remained to respond to a moral cause and to oppose what they still thought of as a 'Virginia system.' Each of the candidates, including Jackson in the disputed election of 1824 had Federalist supporters, and their presence made a difference; Shaw Livermore argues that the central 'corrupt bargain' was not Adams' with Clay, but Adams' promise of patronage to Federalists which caused Webster to deliver the crucial Federalist votes that swung the election. If the war had increased Federalist strength, it also, paradoxically, had operated to decrease it, for prominent Federalists rallied to a beleaguered government in the name of unity and patriotism. These wartime republicans included no less intense Federalists than Oliver Wolcott of Connecticut and William Plumer of New Hampshire, both of whom went on to become Republican governors of their respective states, and in their careers thus provide emblems for the beginning of a one party period, and the slow breakdown of the first party system." (Kerber, p. 24)
"The dreams of the Revolution had been liberty and order, freedom and power; in seeking to make these dreams permanent, to institutionalize some things means to lose others. The Federalists, the first to be challenged by power, would experience these contradictions most sharply; a party that could include John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and Noah Webster, would be its own oxymoron. In the end the party perished out of internal contradiction and external rival, but the individuals who staffed it continued on to staff its succesors." (Kerber, p, 25)
The Revolution of American Conservatism: The Federalist Party in the Era of Jeffersonian Democracy. David Hackett Fischer. New York, 1965, Harper and Row.
The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788-1800. Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick. New York, 1993, Oxford University Press.
The Federalists were referred to by many monikers over the years by newspapers.
American Party:
In 1809, The Concord Gazette refers to the Federalist Ticket as the American Ticket.
Beginning in 1810, the Newburyport Herald (MA), began referring to Federalists as the American Party (as opposed to the "French" Party, who were Republicans). This continued in the 1811 elections.
Anti-Republican:
The Aurora, based in Philadelphia, the most well-known Republican newspaper of the era (see American Aurora: A Democratic-Republican Returns by Richard N. Rosenfeld.) in the February 11, 1800 issue referred to Mr. Holmes, the losing candidate for the Special Election for the Philadelphia County seat in the House of Representatives as an "anti-republican".
Federal Republican:
The October 7, 1799 issue of the Maryland Herald (Easton) referred to the Federalist ticket of Talbot County as Federal Republicans. It would continue to be used intermittently throughout the next 20 years. Newspapers that used this term included the Gazette of the United States (Philadelphia) and Philadelphia Gazette in 1800, the Newport Mercury in 1808, the New Bedford Mercury in 1810, the True American (Philadelphia) in 1812, the Northumberland Republican (Sunbury) in 1815, the United States Gazette (Philadelphia) in 1816 and the Union (Philadelphia) in 1821 and 1822.
Friends of Peace / Peace / Peace Ticket:
Beginning in 1812 ("In laying before our readers the above Canvass of this county, a few remarks become necessary, to refute the Assertion of the war party, that the Friends of Peace are decreasing in this country." Northern Whig (Hudson). May 11, 1812.) and continuing through to 1815 a number of newspapers referred to the Federalists as the Peace Party (or Peacemaker Party, as the Merrimack Intelligencer (Haverhill) of March 19, 1814 used), as the Peace Ticket or as the Friends of Peace due to their opposition of the War of 1812 (many of these same newspapers referred to the Republicans as the War Party). This use occurred all through at least August of 1815, with the Raleigh Minerva of August 18, 1815 referring to the Federalist candidates as Peace candidates.
These newspapers include the Columbian Centinel (Boston), Merrimack Intelligencer (Haverhill), Providence Gazette, the New York Evening Post, the New York Spectator, the Commercial Advertiser (New York), Northern Whig (Hudson), the Broome County Patriot (Chenango Point), the Independent American (Ballston Spa), the Baltimore Patriot, the Alexandria Gazette, Poulson's, Middlesex Gazette (Middletown), the Political and Commercial Register (Philadelphia), Freeman's Journal (Philadelphia), the Carlisle Herald, Northampton Farmer, Intelligencer and Weekly Advertiser (Lancaster), National Intelligencer (Washington), The Federal Republican (New Bern), the Raleigh Minerva, The Star (Raleigh) and Charleston Courier.
The New Hampshire Gazette (Portsmouth) took the opposite side, listing the Federalists in the March 16, 1813 edition as "Advocates of Dishonorable Peace and Submission."
"The Tyranny of Printers": Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic. Jeffrey L. Pasley. Charlottesville, 2001, University Press of Virginia.
Quid
The Quids
In Pennsylvania, the Quids, known first as "Constitutionalists", arose out of a split among the Republicans in local Philadelphia politics.
The various Republican splinter movements in New York [Burrites, Lewisites and Clintonians] although most had underlying economic and reform issues, they often instead rallied around a central personality. As did most Republican splinter movements in Pennsylvania with exception of the Constitutional Republicans, a movement formed to prevent proposed judicial changes to the Pennsylvania Constitution. In addition to these, there were within Congress a group of individuals who were often classified as Quids. Among this group were congressmen from Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, New Jersey and North Carolina. Mainly elected in 1804 and 1806 as Republicans, they began to question some actions and direction of their party. When reaction to the Embargo revitalized the Federalist; New York and Pennsylvania dissident Republican movements moved back into the main party. On the Congressional level, a few remained in opposition, some declined to run for re-election, and others were not re-nominated.
"The first evidence of this appeared in reports of a dinner of the 'Democratic Constitutional Republicans' held at the White Horse Tavern in Philadelphia on March 4, 1805, to celebrate Jefferson's second inauguration. A few days later the Freeman's Journal printed a proposal, dated March 14, for forming 'The Society of Constitutional Republicans.' This document recognized the sovereignity of the people, the principle of majority rule, and the right of the people, to alter and abolish their government as they saw fit. However, it described the Pennsylvania Constitution, along with the Federal Constitution, as 'the noblest invention of human wisdom, for the self-government of man' and avowed that it should be changed only when the motives and causes were 'obvious, cogent, general and conclusive.' Great political blessings were enjoyed under the Constitution, and it required no alteration. The list of the society's principles closed with an assertion of loyalty to the existing State and Federal administrations." (The Keystone in the Democratic Arch: Pennsylvania Politics, 1800-1816. Sanford W. Higginbotham. 1952. p 82-83)
"Continuing the practice of the preceding year, the Aurora referred to the Constitutional Republicans as Quids. The latter professed to find the title an honorable one. A writer on the Freeman's Journal asserted that a 'tertium quid' was a substance used in pharmacy to transform a poison into a medicine and avowed that there was a great need for such an element in politics. A third party would determine whether there would be 'liberty of despotism.'" (Higginbotham, p 91)
"The incident [the Special election of State Senator for District 1 in December of 1805] highlighted one aspect of the dilemma which faced the Pennsylvania Quids so long as they existed - how to avoid becoming a tail to the Federalist kite when the Democratic leaders would not permit them to rejoin their old party." (Higginbotham, p 105)
"With McKean ineligible for another term in 1808 and with national issues making union with the Federalists less and less palatable, the great majority of Constitutional Republicans wished to return to the Republican ranks. However, they had no desire to submit to the leadership of Leib and Duane after the many indignities they had suffered at their hands. An alliance with the country Republicans, who were also seeking to rid the party of the domination of Leib and Duane, seemed a logical and natural arrangement." (Higginbotham, p 138)
"The election of 1808 was a significant demonstration of the depth and strength of Pennsylvania Republicanism. The Federalists had been favored by many circumstances - Republican disunity over presidential candidates; the Leib-Boileau quarrel among the Democrats; Quid cooperation with them in the three preceding elections; and, most important, the economic hardships of the embargo. Yet they had lost by an overwhelming majority. Republican unity reappeared under the stimulus of a revived Federalism campaigning on national issues. Internal divisions were suppressed, and the Republicans gave undivided support to Madison and Snyder. The stresses of the campaign destroyed the Constitutional Republicans as a third party, though there were vestiges in a few counties." (Higginbotham, p 176)
"The strength and nature of this factionalism varied, but it never entirely disappeared. The first stage lasted from 1800 to 1805. Personal and local differences appeared almost immediately as the Federalists virtually abandoned politics. The struggle between Governor McKean and the country Democrats in the legislature over judicial reform and the failure of the attack on the judiciary culminated in the movement for a constitutional convention. Duane and Leib, whose arbitrary control of the party in Philadelphia had produced a violent schism, took sides against the Governor. Aided by the Federalists, the Constitutional Republicans, generally called Quids, were able to defeat the project for a convention and to re-elect McKean." (Higginbotham, p 328)
"Adapted from tertium quid, a 'third something,' the name 'Quid' was first prominently used in a political sense in Pennsylvania in 1804, and it was soon affixed to a faction of the Republican party officially calling itself the Society of Constitutional Republicans. The Pennsylvania Quids attracted Federalist support and in 1805 re-elected Governor Thomas McKean, who had been the choice of a united Republican party in 1802 but was opposed by the majority wing of the party in 1805. (fn: Sanford W. Higginbotham. The Keystone in the Democratic Arch: Pennsylvania Politics, 1800-1816, p. 69, 346.)." ("Who Were the Quids?" Noble E. Cunningham, Jr. The Mississippi Valley Historical Review. Vol. 50, No. 2 (Sep. 1963), p. 254)
"The use of 'Quid' to refer to various third-party factions which plagued the Jeffersonian Republicans must not, however, be construed to mean that all Quids were part of the same third-party movement. When John Randolph referred to the third party, he was not being accurate. There was no such thing. The Quids in Pennsylvania and in New York - the only states where they represented organized factions - were neither in league with each other nor supporters of Randolph. In both states, the Republican divisions were the products of local controversies over men, offices, and state policies, and the Quid factions had not direct connection with the schism produced in national politics by Randolph's defection." (Cunningham, p 255)
"The opponents of the Philadelphia Democrats and their rural allies were called at various times the Rising Sun Party (after a tavern where they first met in 1802), the Third Party, the Tertium Quids (Third Whats), and more often simply the Quids. The Quids hoped to tame popular politics by discrediting the radicalism that they blamed on the Philadelphia Democrats. To do so, they emphasized the nation's future greatness and the prosperity each citizen would enjoy in a vibrant economy with a peaceful representative politics committed to promoting internal economic development. Accepting, even welcoming, democracy in Pennsylvania, the Quids attempted to redefine the term. Popular politics would remain the instrument the citizens used to create the conditions that produced material independence. But democracy would only provide such indepedence of circumstances when Pensylvanians realized that their power should not be used to disrupt or hindred private energies or the use of property." (Crucible of American Democracy: The Struggle to Fuse Egalitarianism and Capitalism in Jeffersonian Pennsylvania. Andrew Shankman. University Press of Kansas. 2004. p. 96)
The Keystone in the Democratic Arch: Pennsylvania Politics, 1800-1816. Sanford W. Higginbotham. 1952.
Crucible of American Democracy: The Struggle to Fuse Egalitarianism and Capitalism in Jeffersonian Pennsylvania. Andrew Shankman. University Press of Kansas. 2004.
Auditor: An official whose duty it is to receive and examine accounts of money in the hands of others, who verifies them by reference to vouchers, and has power to disallow improper charges.
1804-1824: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia
Office Scope: State / County
Role Scope: State / County
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On May 22, 2013, three years after his first summit, Elia Saikaly reached the top of Mt. Everest for the second time. Not only did he shoot a 12-part reality television series called On the Top, but he also shared the journey with ePals, the largest K-12 social network on Earth. Some 1,000 classrooms followed the interactive journey to the top of the world.
Elia on the summit of Mt. Everest on May 22, 2013.
Mohammed Al Thani became the first Qatari man to reach the top of Mt. Everest, alongside his comrades Raed Zidan, who became the first Palestinian man, and Raha Moharrak, who defied all odds and became the first Saudi woman to summit Mt. Everest. Together, they made up the reality series On the Top.
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Legal act : Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR) as amended
Topic : Supervisory reporting
Paragraph:
Subparagraph:
COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Regulation (EU) No 680/2014 - ITS on supervisory reporting of institutions (as amended)
Type of submitter: Competent authority
Subject matter : Reactivation of v0191_m as of v2.7.
Is the reactivation of v0191_m: {C 01.00, r370, c010} = {C 05.01, r170, c060} correct?
According to validation rule v0191_m, which has been reactivated for v2.7, the value in row 370 in template C 01.00 (“Deferred tax assets that rely on future profitability and do not arise from temporary differences net of associated tax liabilities”) should be equal to the value in row 170 in template C.05.01. We think this rule is only relevant if the amount reported in C 01.00 is subject to transitional provisions according to Article 469 (1) of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013. However, there could be cases where the transitional period were completed in December 2017 therefore, nothing should be reported in row 170 of C.05.01.
According to the instructions of row 170 of template C 05.01 as laid down in Annex II of Regulation (EU) No 680/2014 as amended (ITS on Supervisory Reporting), the value reported in cell {C 05.01, r170, c060} is the amount of deferred tax assets (DTAs) that have to be deducted from Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) according to Article 36(1)(c) of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 as amended (CRR) without taking into account the transitional provision of Article 469(1) of the CRR.
The validation rule v0191_m checks the identity between DTAs that rely on future profitability and do not arise from temporary differences net of associated tax liabilities being reported in cell{C 01.00, r370, c010} of template C 01.00 and in cell {C 05.01, r170, c060} of template C 05.01 of Annex I of ITS on Supervisory Reporting.
According to Art. 469 (1) of the CRR, the transitional provisions for the above-mentioned DTAs’ deduction from CET1 prescribing percentages applicable to these deductions lower than 100 % were originally into force until the 31st of December 2017.
According to Article 469(1)(a) of the CRR in conjunction with Article 478 (2) and (3) lit. (a) of the CRR the expiration of this transitional period can be extended until the 31st of December 2023 (10-year phase out) for above-mentioned DTAs that existed prior to 1st of January 2014 by discretion of the competent authority.
Therefore, for some institutions the transitional period ended in December 2017 resulting in the lack of a legal basis requiring institutions to report values for row 170 of template C 05.01, whereas some competent authorities have extended the transitional period, which resulted in the ongoing requirement for affected institutions to report values for this row if they own above-mentioned DTAs that existed prior to the 1st of January 2014.
In order to account for the different use of transitional provisions for deduction of above-mentioned DTAs from CET1 the validation rule v0191_m has to be adapted to those cases where an institution does not have to report values for row 170 of the template C 05.01 any longer.
Correspondingly, the validation rule v0191_m will be amended.
Also it is clarified that cell {C 05.01, r170, c060} includes negative values only.
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Deadline Near for 2016 Stockholm Water Prize Nominations
They are due by Sept. 25 for the prize, which has been bestowed by the Stockholm International Water Institute for the past 25 years for extraordinary water achievements.
New Rules for Hazardous Waste Management and Waterway Protection
Earlier this week, the EPA announced two new rule proposals for hazardous waste management that would help protect waterways without heavy restrictions on businesses.
Kentucky Water Commission Wins Spirit Award
McLean County's 9,500 residents are now served by five water systems, all of which nearing their functional life expectancy and struggling to meet the safe operating standards of federal regulations.
Drought-Stricken California Island to Increase Fresh Water Supply
Catalina Island will defer, and possibly avoid, 50 percent water rationing with the expansion of a new GE Desalination System to produce up to an added 150,000 Gallons of water per day by treating the concentrated seawater from the existing desalination reverse osmosis system.
WVDEP Sets Water Quality Standards Meeting
During the public meeting, DEP staffers will accept suggestions for criteria changes and additions as part of the upcoming triennial review for West Virginia's Water Quality Standards Rule, which the agency will propose in 2016 for consideration during the 2017 legislative session.
Honeywell Agrees to Acquire Elster
Honeywell has agreed to pay approximately $5.1 billion for the company, which has three divisions -- Elster Gas, Elster Electricity, and Elster Water -- and will post sales this year estimated to be $1.8 billion.
Let's Be Frank about Fracking: Is Unconventional Gas and Oil Drilling Really Worth It?
Linked to earthquakes, water contamination, and general pollution, fracking becomes more controversial by the day. Meanwhile, 13,000 new wells are being drilled every year. There have been over a thousand documented cases of water contamination next to areas of gas drilling—cases of sensory, respiratory, cardiovascular and neurological damage. From the water we drink to the ground beneath our feet, is it too late to ask, “What gives?”
By Julia Troute
Washington Department of Ecology Offering Drought Relief Grants
A total of $16 million is available thanks to an appropriation by the state Legislature.
WV DEP Reminds Big Water Users of Reporting Obligation
As of Jan. 1, 2015, the new reporting threshold is 300,000 gallons withdrawn from surface or groundwater sources in a 30-day period. The data collected is required to be reported to the department starting Jan. 1, 2016.
Several Agencies Announce Additional Resilient Lands and Waters Initiatives Sites
The Department of the Interior (DOI), Department of Agriculture (USDA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) recently recognized three new collaborative landscape partnerships across the country, which will help prepare natural resources combat climate change.
New Report Details Toxic Water Pollution from Power Plants
The study presents evidence that EPA has been underestimating the public health benefits of controlling metals including arsenic and hexavalent chromium (which can increase the risk of cancer), as well as lead and mercury (which can cause brain damage) released by power plants into rivers, streams, and lakes.
Addressing the 'Water-Energy Nexus' by Improving Manufacturing
We need to start examining the processes within Water-Energy Nexus the same way we are examining HVAC efficiencies: at the molecular level, using nanotechnology.
By Tim Tangredi
Value of Water Coalition Highlights Innovative Programs
The coalition's new briefing paper, "The New Wave of Water Innovation," touts the programs of five agencies around the country.
Agencies Celebrate National Drinking Water Week
From May 3-9, agencies such as the Department of Environmental Protection in Pennsylvania and the Ohio EPA are honoring National Drinking Water Week.
More than $200 Million in Water Conservation Funding Available from USDA
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced a $235 million investment for improving water quality, drought prevention, and habitat protection through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP).
Survey Shows Most Americans Concerned About Tap Water Quality
A new survey reveals that 55 percent of American men and women are concerned about the quality of their tap water.
New Study Predicts Murky Future for Global Water Quality
A global study underscores that rapidly deteriorating water quality – not just water quantity – is escalating a global water crisis. Innovative modeling of climate change, socio-economics and water quality trends indicates up to 1 in 3 people will be exposed to high risk of water pollution.
State of Emergency Declared in West Virginia Due to Derailed Oil Train
The train was carrying Bakken crude oil when it derailed, causing a fire as well as a spill into the Kanawha River, which threatened a municipal drinking water supply.
Two British Plastic Pipe Manufacturers Join TEPPFA
"We look forward to their participation in what has become a successful partnership between the producers of plastic pipe systems and the various national plastic pipe associations that make up our membership," said Tony Calton, general manager of Brussels-based TEPPFA.
New Chief Appointed for Arizona Department of Water Resources
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has appointed Thomas Buschatzke as director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources.
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Russian Military Talks Tough After 'Unsafe' Black Sea Flyby
Moscow is talking tough after being reprimanded by the United States over an "unsafe" incident in which a Russian military jet flew within 1.5 meters of a U.S. Navy surveillance plane over the Black Sea.
Islamic Scholar Ramadan Detained In France Over Rape Allegations
Prominent Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan has been taken into custody in France after being questioned by police in connection with "rape and assault allegations."
Chiefs Of Three Russian Intelligence Agencies Travel To Washington
The directors of Russia's three main intelligence and espionage agencies all traveled to the U.S. capital in recent days, in what observers said was a highly unusual occurrence coming at a time of heightened U.S.-Russian tensions.
Putin Calls Olympic Ban 'Outside Attack,' Expresses Support For Country's Athletes
President Vladimir Putin has urged Russian athletes to ignore doping scandals when they compete at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.
U.S. Senators Decry Decision To Hold Off On New Russia Sanctions
U.S. senators have criticized President Donald Trump for not imposing new sanctions on Russia after his administration released a list of 210 officials and billionaires from the country's ruling elite, exposing them to scrutiny and potential future punitive measures.
Israel, Lebanon Argue Over Disputed Offshore Energy Block
Afghan Spy Chief, Interior Minister In Pakistan To Discuss Cooperation
The Afghan intelligence chief and interior minister have traveled to Islamabad to discuss cooperation on security issues with Pakistani officials following a series of deadly attacks in Afghanistan.
Saudi Arabia Says It Has Seized Over $100 Billion In Corruption Purge
Saudi Arabia's government has arranged to seize more than $100 billion through financial settlements with businessmen and officials detained in its crackdown on corruption.
'Human Error' Blamed For Reclassification Of Afghan War Data
The U.S. military has said that "a human error in labeling" led to the accidental classification of previously available information about the war in Afghanistan.
CIA Chief Says Russia Will Try To Meddle In Mid-Term Elections
CIA Director Mike Pompeo has said Russia will target U.S. mid-term elections in November as part of the Kremlin's efforts to influence domestic politics across the West.
Trump: 'We Don't Want To Talk With The Taliban'
U.S. President Donald Trump has rejected the possibility of negotiations with the Taliban anytime soon following a series of deadly attacks in Afghanistan.
Sochi Conference On Syria Opens Despite Opposition Boycott
Delegates have gathered in the southern Russian city of Sochi for a two-day conference aimed at helping resolve the seven-year civil war in Syria, but the main groups opposing the Syrian government are boycotting the event.
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(Redirected from George bush)
George Bush most commonly refers to:
George H. W. Bush (1924–2018), 41st president of the United States and father of the 43rd president
Presidency of George H. W. Bush, his presidency
George W. Bush (born 1946), 43rd president of the United States and son of the 41st president
Presidency of George W. Bush, his presidency
George Bush may also refer to:
George Bush (biblical scholar) (1796–1859), American biblical scholar and preacher
George Bush (footballer) (1883–1936), English footballer who played as a winger
George Bush (racing driver) (1911–1967), American NASCAR driver
George P. Bush (born 1976), American attorney and politician; member of the Bush family
George Washington Bush (1779–1863), first African-American settler in what is now Washington State
All pages with titles containing George Bush
All pages with titles containing George H. W. Bush
All pages with titles containing George W. Bush
Bush family
Presidency of George Bush (disambiguation)
George Brush (disambiguation)
Bush (disambiguation)
Disambiguation page providing links to topics that could be referred to by the same search term
This disambiguation page lists articles about people with the same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Bush&oldid=876647243"
Human name disambiguation pages
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This page was last edited on 3 January 2019, at 16:12 (UTC).
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Johann Martin Schleyer
Find sources: "Johann Martin Schleyer" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (October 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in Volapük. (April 2013) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
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Martin Schleyer
Oberlauda, Grand Duchy of Baden
16 August 1912(1912-08-16) (aged 81)
Konstanz, German Empire
Catholic priest
Inventor of Volapük
Martin Schleyer (German: [joˈhan ˈmartiːn ˈʃlaɪ̯ər]; 18 July 1831 – 16 August 1912) was a German Catholic priest who invented the constructed language Volapük. His official name was "Martin Schleyer"; he added the name "Johann" (in honor of his godfather) unofficially.
Life and work[edit]
Schleyer was born in Oberlauda (Baden). According to his own report, the idea of an international language arose out of a conversation he had with one of his parishioners, a semi-literate German peasant whose son had emigrated to America and could no longer be reached by mail because the United States Postal Service could not read the father's handwriting.
He was ordained in 1856. From 1867 to 1875 he was pastor at Krumbach near Meßkirch. At the end of this time he was jailed for four months for preaching against socialism during the Kulturkampf.
From 1875 to 1885 he was pastor of Ss. Peter and Paul parish in Litzelstetten. He later wrote that the first seven years in Litzelstetten were among the happiest of his life.
At this time he was editor of the magazine Sionsharfe, devoted mainly to Catholic poetry. In May 1879 he published an article on Volapük in this magazine. This sketch was followed by a full-length book in 1880. The language spread widely and new clubs sprung all over Europe. After 1885 Schleyer had to retire from his pastoral duties due to ill health, though he was still involved in the Volapük movement until it fell apart a few years later.
In 1894 Pope Leo XIII made him a papal prelate.
Schleyer died in Konstanz in 1912.
A campaign to beatify him was started in June 2001, based in his home parish of Litzelstetten.[1] The high school Martin-Schleyer-Gymnasium Lauda-Königshofen in Lauda is named for him.
^ "Dio Benu 46-2/2002". www.ikue.org. Retrieved 30 September 2017.
Works by or about Johann Martin Schleyer at Internet Archive
Media related to Johann Martin Schleyer at Wikimedia Commons
Information on Schleyer and the campaign for his beatification
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Johann_Martin_Schleyer&oldid=868953018"
People from Lauda-Königshofen
German Roman Catholic priests
Constructed language creators
Speakers of international auxiliary languages
Volapükologists
19th-century Roman Catholic priests
German Servants of God
Articles needing additional references from October 2016
Articles to be expanded from April 2013
Featured articles needing translation from Volapük Wikipedia
This page was last edited on 15 November 2018, at 13:31 (UTC).
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1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bertillon, Louis Adolphe
< 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
←Berthoud, Ferdinand
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 3
Bertillon, Louis Adolphe
Bertin→
See also Louis Bertillon and Alphonse Bertillon on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
17319201911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 3 — Bertillon, Louis Adolphe
BERTILLON, LOUIS ADOLPHE (1821-1883), French statistician, was born in Paris on the 1st of April 1821. Entering the medical profession, he practised as a doctor for a number of years. After the revolution of 1870, he was appointed inspector-general of benevolent institutions. He was one of the founders of the school of anthropology of Paris, and was appointed a professor there in 1876. His Démographie figurée de la France (1874) is an able statistical study of the population of France. He died at Neuilly on the 28th of February 1883.
His son Alphonse Bertillon, the anthropometrist, was born in Paris in 1853. He published in 1883 a work Ethnographie moderne des races sauvages, but his chief claim to distinction lies in the system invented by him for the identification of criminals, which is described by him in his Photographie judiciaire, Paris, 1890 (see Anthropometry). He was officially appointed in 1894 to report on the handwriting of the bordereau in the Dreyfus case, and was a witness for the prosecution before the cour de cassation on the 18th of January 1899.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=1911_Encyclopædia_Britannica/Bertillon,_Louis_Adolphe&oldid=5202591"
EB1911:People:Individuals:Europe:France
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Members of Friends of Rutgers English (FoRE) include alumni of our undergraduate and graduate programs, faculty, current students, staff, and other supporters of the Department of English. Cheryl A. Wall established FoRE during her tenure as departmental chair. During his two terms as departmental chair, Richard E. Miller continued to work to fulfill the mission of the organization. FoRE raises public awareness about the value of studying literature and the literary arts, broadly construed. The organization also raises funds to support the scholarly and pedagogical endeavors of Rutgers English faculty and students.
The Department of English is the largest humanities department in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Our faculty strives to instill students with a deep and lasting understanding of literature and literary traditions. Each year, more than 11,000 undergraduates receive instruction in humanistic reading and writing through our writing program. Our comprehensive undergraduate program reaches more than 900 majors and enrolls more than 8,000 students annually. Our top-ranking graduate program prepares the next generation of literary scholars and teachers for professional success. The Department of English is proud to be home to the Plangere Writing Center, the Center for Cultural Analysis, and Writers House,which represent the department’s commitment to excellence in written expression, to the interdisciplinary study of culture, and to the promotion of creative writing and multimedia composition. In addition to its curricular programs, the department sponsors lectures, conferences, and readings for the university community and the general public.
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Washington Redskins wide receiver VInny Papale (1) runs a drill against cornerback Tyler Green (26) during an NFL football rookie camp, Saturday, May 11, 2019, in Ashburn, Va. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
Invincible II? Vinny Papale long shot to make an NFL roster
ASHBURN, Va. (AP) — Vinny Papale knows his father's story and has watched the Mark Wahlberg movie "Invincible" about 30 times.
Only when he got to college at Delaware did Vinny fully appreciate the inspirational tale of Vince Papale earning a spot with the Philadelphia Eagles at age 30 despite never playing football before. The younger Papale was amazed his dad made it to the NFL, and now he's trying to follow in those footsteps.
More than four decades after Vince Papale went from part-time bartender, nightclub doorman and substitute teacher to Eagles receiver, Vinny got rookie camp tryouts with the Oakland Raiders and Washington Redskins and is trying to make a name for himself in the league.
"I'm a little younger — he was 30," Papale said this weekend after a Redskins rookie minicamp practice. "But it's definitely cool just to have another opportunity to play at the next level."
Papale almost didn't get this opportunity. He broke his left leg his freshman season at Delaware and tore ligaments in his right knee the next year, so it was a battle just to get on the field.
As a senior, Papale had 36 catches for 618 yards and six touchdowns and was so good on third down that his father said the team had an expression, "Third and Vinny."
"Those setbacks, they just ruin people, but he came back stronger," Vince said in a phone interview on Monday. "I'm just so proud of how hard he works and the adversity he's battled through to get there."
Vince is proud that his son doesn't harbor any resentment toward him for living under the shadow of "Invincible" and having to answer the same questions over and over. But Vince sees parallels because Redskins President Bruce Allen's father, George, was a mentor of longtime coach Dick Vermeil, who gave him his shot off a tryout in 1976.
Vinny has received some fatherly advice from his dad about the game.
"He just said there's limited opportunities," Vinny said. "Every time I went on the field or was in a play, just make the most of that opportunity and make sure I was noticed on film. That's what he told me."
At Washington's rookie camp, Papale had his name written in magic marker on a piece of tape on his helmet but didn't get too much flak from other players because they didn't know much about him. Vinny said most people think the movie is about his grandfather, anyway, but the attention didn't bother him.
Papale wanted attention for his play on the field and Redskins coach Jay Gruden came away impressed.
"He's a tough guy," Gruden said after Saturday's workout. "He runs everything hard and plays with a lot of passion without a doubt. Very similar to the movie."
Even though Papale wasn't among the six players the Redskins signed out of rookie camp, that doesn't mean he won't catch on somewhere.
"Invincible II" could be a real-life sequel if either Jay or brother Jon — who coaches the Raiders — decides to sign this Papale. His father said the important thing is that "Vinny is his own man" who would get a job on his own merits.
"He's got talent, and I'm just hoping that somebody out there like Jay or like Jon sees what he's got and gives him a shot," Vince said.
Vinny Papale was invited to the Eagles' pre-draft pro day, but his father said it doesn't matter what color the uniform is as long as the NFL dream materializes. If that's Redskins burgundy and gold, Vince is on board with that, even though he'll always have a connection to the Eagles.
Vince said his son wants to go into special forces if the NFL doesn't happen. But with two tryouts down, his family is optimistic.
"I'm very confident that he's going to get that opportunity," Vince said. "God bless that person or team that gives him the shot because they won't be disappointed."
Professional football
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Television, the internet, newspapers and those who distribute the news
Emmys 2018 — “Game of Thrones,” “Mrs. Maisel” Win Big, But They’re Overshadowed by a Marriage Proposal
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Falconcity of Wonders concludes Cityscape Global participation on a high note
• H.H. Sheikh Mansoor; H.H. Sheikh Rashid among high-profile visitors to FCW stand
• Developer signs strategic agreement with Oakwood Worldwide to operate SAM Vega & SAM Polaris
• Opening of nursery, hypermarket & hospital at FCW announced during the event
Dubai-UAE: 04 Oct 2018; His Highness Sheikh Mansoor bin Mohammed al Maktoum and His Highness Sheikh Rashid Bin Humaid Al Nuaimi, Chairman of Ajman Municipality, visited the stand of Falconcity of Wonders LLC (FCW), the developer of the ongoing Falconcity of Wonders multipurpose mega project in Dubai, during the last day of its participation at Cityscape Global 2018 exhibition, running from October 2 to 4, at the Dubai World Trade Centre. His Highness Sheikh Mansoor commended FCW’s commitment to raising the profile of Dubai’s real estate landscape before global investors through its unique ‘World in a City’ project. Their Highnesses were briefed on latest updates, including Eastern Residences villa project, the cooperation with Oakwood Worldwide, and the opening of the nursery, hospital and the hypermarket within the Falconcity of Wonders mega development, during the visit.
The FCW Eastern Residences project, a meticulously-planned gated community that houses contemporary, elegant, 5 and 6 master-bedroom villas with exquisite high-end finishing that are ideal for families of any size, was under the spotlight during the developer’s participation at this year’s edition of Cityscape Global. Visitors to the FCW stand were seen taking advantage of the special offers, which include 0 DLD fees, 0 services charges for 5 years and a 4-year flexible payment plan. Scheduled for delivery in September 2021, the villas come with a guarantee of AED 150,000 that will be paid to buyers annually in case of delay (terms & conditions apply). The overwhelming response garnered by Eastern Residences project at the exhibition is indicative of its success.
Another major highlight of the developer’s participation at the 17th edition of Cityscape Global was the signing of an agreement between Falconcity Hotels and Resorts - the hospitality arm of Falconcity of Wonders LLC - and the leading global accommodation solutions provider Oakwood Worldwide, to operate the hotel and serviced apartments in the SAM Polaris and SAM Vega Pyramids. The project is Oakwood Worldwide’s first undertaking in the UAE, which reflects FCW’s potential to attract leading players in the global hospitality industry to the UAE.
Furthermore, the opening dates of the built hypermarket which plans to provide facilities for a market area of more than 2,330 sqm, a nursery that meets global standards and a hospital that aims to provide world-class treatments for the public by bringing the best medical services to the neighborhood, were announced by the developer on the sidelines of the exhibition, with opening set for November 2018, June 2019 and October 2019 respectively.
H.E. Salem Almoosa, Chairman and General Manager, Falconcity of Wonders LLC, said: “Our participation at this year’s Cityscape Global turned out to be an extremely fruitful and rewarding one. We received an overwhelming number of visitors, most of whom were investors who expressed a high level of interest in the Eastern Residences project. We also announced some major milestones on the sidelines of the event. The overwhelming response witnessed during the exhibition will motivate us to do even better, in terms of the design and planning of future projects we undertake, to further enhance Dubai’s reputation in the eyes of global investors as a thriving real estate hub.”
The ambitious Falconcity of Wonders, poised to become a major landmark in Dubai and the region as a whole, with its Western Residences project currently home to over 590 families from 48 nationalities, and represents an extraordinary investment opportunity for investors and buyers looking to own remarkable properties in one of the world’s most sought-after real estate destinations.
P.O. Box120660, Dubai, United Arab Emirates - Tel : +971 (4) 3355539 (12 lines) - Fax : +971 (4) 3356703
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Warren Bittner, CG
F. Warren Bittner, CGSM, is a genealogical researcher and lecturer, with thirty years of research experience. He holds a Master of Science degree in history from Utah State University, and a Bachelors of Science degree in Business from Brigham Young University. His master's thesis looked at the social factors affecting illegitimacy in nineteenth-century Bavaria. He is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, and in 1989-1990 he studied Chinese at a graduate level at the Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies in Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C.
He is the owner of Ancestors Lost and Found, a small genealogical research firm. For six years he was the German Collection Manager for the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, where he coordinated contracts to microfilm and index records at 102 archives in seven countries and where he planned the German book acquisitions and internet publications. Before that he worked for four years in the extraction unit of the Family History Library, where he was coordinator of third-party indexing projects and where he developed and trained volunteers in Spanish indexing projects. He has also worked as a Reference Consultant at the Family History Library on both the U.S. and International reference counters. He has done research in more than fifty German archives and in more than forty U.S. archives and record repositories.
In 2010 he was assistant director of the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy and he is a former member of the board of directors for Utah Genealogical Association. He made several appearances on the PBS television series, Ancestors 2. He is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, the National Genealogical Society, Mid-Atlantic Germanic Society, and the Palatines to America, Colorado Chapter, and the Sacrament German Society. He is married to Nancy Ruth Christensen and is the father of three children.
Proof Arguments - How to Write Them and Why They Matter
by Warren Bittner, CG
Complex Evidence - What is It? How Does it Work? And Why Does it Matter?
Ten Genealogical Lessons I Learned the Hard Way
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How Much Do Democrats Depend on the Union Vote?
Jul. 1, 2014 , at 2:03 PM
By Harry Enten
Filed under Political Influence
Microphones are set up in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.
Mark Wilson / Getty Images
The Supreme Court ruled Monday in Harris v. Quinn that Illinois home health-care workers cannot be forced to pay union dues if they don’t want to join a union. The court said these workers are not “full-fledged public employees.” Although the ruling was a blow to unions, justices did not strike down the laws that ensure public sector workers in certain states have to pay union fees even if they aren’t part of a union.
Liberals think this is the tip of the iceberg. What if the Supreme Court, in future decisions, makes it difficult for any sort of union to collect members and dues? Beyond the obvious financial repercussions, such a decision could have a large electoral impact that could hurt Democrats for years to come.
Unions have seen their influence on the American political scene decline over the past 60 years. Any court ruling that limits union membership would be the equivalent of hitting a man when he’s down.
According to the American National Election Study (ANES), voters who lived in union households made up about 28 percent of voters during the 1950s. That percentage slowly slid over the next two decades before dropping precipitously during the 1980s. In the 1990s, 20 percent of voters on average were in union households, and over the past three elections, only 17 percent of voters on average were in union households.
Still, it would be a big mistake to think that unions have no power left. In 2011, my colleague Nate Silver ran an analysis that demonstrated the influence of the union vote. Even when controlling for variables such as age, education, gender, income, race, region and religion, being a member of union or living in a household with a union member increased your odds of voting for then-Sen. Barack Obama over Sen. John McCain in the 2008 presidential election.
We can update Nate’s analysis. In the 2012 network exit polls, union households voted for Obama by an 18 percentage-point margin (58 percent to 40 percent), and Obama won the nonunion vote by only a 1-point margin (49 percent to 48 percent). If every person in a union household sat out the election, Obama still would have won, but his margin would have been cut by 75 percent.
This, of course, is a simple analysis. It’s quite possible that union members and those who lived with a member would continue to vote Democratic, even if they weren’t in a union. Union members, for instance, are more likely to be African-American than the population at large. Most African-Americans voted for Obama, even if they weren’t part of a union.
So, as Nate did, I ran a logistic regression analysis. This way, we isolate the effect of the union vote. I’ve included 19 variables to try and explain why a person voted for Obama or Mitt Romney. (Like Nate, I eliminated those who didn’t vote or voted for a third-party candidate.)
Unfortunately, the National Annenberg Election Survey that Nate used was not in the field in the 2012 election. Instead, I performed my analysis on the 2012 ANES. This survey was in the field just before and after the 2012 presidential election, and it has 3,922 respondents who answered all the demographic variables and voted in the election. The “type of community variable” (urban, suburban, and rural) Nate used was not available in the full ANES data set, though I did add a variable for whether people considered themselves gay, lesbian, bisexual or heterosexual.
Below is the relative effect of these variables. In the chart, red bars mean that controlling for everything else, a member of this group was more likely to vote for Romney versus the baseline. The blue bars mean a member of the group was more likely to vote for Obama. The longer bars show groups for which the effect was greater.
As in 2008, being African-American had the greatest effect on someone’s vote. Even if all other variables predicted a Republican voter, being African-American meant you were 78 percent likely to vote for Obama. Being nonheterosexual or Hispanic had the next greatest effect in favor of voting for Obama. A born-again Christian or a weekly churchgoer were more likely to vote Republican.
Toward the middle of the list is the effect of union membership and living with a union member. The effect is not as large as most demographic variables.
But it’s not nothing; being a member of a union or living with a union member did make a person more likely to vote Democratic. At least according to the 2012 ANES, the effects of the two different union variables were pretty much identical. And the impact was about the same as the 1.7 percentage points it was in 2008.
In the ANES data set, 58 percent of union members or those living with a union member voted for Obama. If every union member or member of a union household voted as if they were not one and every other characteristic was kept constant, 51.1 percent of them still would have voted Democratic.
Obama would have lost 1.4 percentage points off his vote share in 2012 without unions. Instead of his margin of victory over Romney being 3.9 percentage points, it would have been 1.1 points.
Obviously, this sort of analysis doesn’t take into account what would really happen without the union vote. The two parties would go about courting voters differently. And unions also play a big role in fundraising and organizing for Democratic candidates.
But the 2.8 percentage-point difference in the presidential vote margin is nothing to sneeze at either. It’s larger than the margin in two of the past four elections, and it’s about the same as it was in 2008. Even if unions make up a lower percentage of voters than at any point in the past 60 years, they are a player in presidential elections. And if a future Supreme Court decision suppresses union power further, it would not be good news for Democrats.
Harry Enten is a senior political writer and analyst for FiveThirtyEight. @forecasterenten
Supreme Court (182 posts) 2014 Midterms (167) 2012 Presidential Election (149) Democratic Party (53) 2008 Presidential Election (25) Unions (5) Political Influence (1)
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IMDb 0 2018
It Will be Chaos
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Naomi Scott, Will Smith, Mena Massoud, Billy Magnussen, Alan Tudyk, Nasim Pedrad, Marwan Kenzari, Numan Acar, Frank Welker, Navid Negahban, Nikkita Chadha
A live-action retelling of the 1992 Disney film of the same name.
Romance, Drama
Haley Lu Richardson, Cole Sprouse, Moises Arias, Kimberly Hebert Gregory, Parminder Nagra, Claire Forlani, Emily Baldoni, Gary Weeks, Cynthia Evans, Brett Austin Johnson, Ariana Guerra
Seventeen-year-old Stella spends most of her time in the hospital as a cystic fibrosis patient. Her life is full of routines, boundaries and self-control -- all of which get put to the test when she meets Will, an impossibly charming teen who has the same illness.
Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal, Ashton Sanders, Orson Bean, Bill Pullman, Melissa Leo, Jonathan Scarfe, Sakina Jaffrey, Kazy Tauginas, Garrett Golden, Adam Karst
Robert McCall returns to deliver his special brand of vigilante justice -- but how far will he go when it's someone he loves?
Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, Sebastian Stan, Tommy Lee Jones, Hugo Weaving, Dominic Cooper, Richard Armitage, Stanley Tucci, Samuel L. Jackson, Toby Jones, Neal McDonough
Predominantly set during World War II, Steve Rogers is a sickly man from Brooklyn who's transformed into super-soldier Captain America to aid in the war effort. Rogers must stop the Red Skull – Adolf Hitler's ruthless head of weaponry, and the leader of an organization that intends...
Mystery, Family, Crime, Fantasy, Comedy, Science Fiction
Ryan Reynolds, Justice Smith, Kathryn Newton, Bill Nighy, Ken Watanabe, Chris Geere, Suki Waterhouse, Josette Simon, Alejandro De Mesa, Rita Ora, Karan Soni
In a world where people collect pocket-size monsters (Pokémon) to do battle, a boy comes across an intelligent monster who seeks to be a detective.
Comedy, Sport
Kyrie Irving, Lil Rel Howery, Shaquille O'Neal, Chris Webber, Reggie Miller, Nate Robinson, Lisa Leslie, Erica Ash, Tiffany Haddish, Nick Kroll, Aaron Gordon
Comedy, Animation, Family
Channing Tatum, James Corden, Zendaya, Common, LeBron James, Danny DeVito, Gina Rodriguez, Yara Shahidi, Ely Henry, Jimmy Tatro, Patricia Heaton
A Yeti is convinced that the elusive creatures known as "humans" really do exist.
Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge
Adult, Comedy
Jesse Jane, Evan Stone, Belladonna, Sasha Grey, Celine Tran, Tommy Gunn, Shay Jordan, Steven St. Croix, Stoya, Gabriella Fox, Shyla Stylez
Pirate hunter Captain Edward Reynolds and his blond first mate, Jules Steel, return where they are recruited by a shady governor general to find a darkly sinister Chinese empress pirate, named Xifing, and her group of Arab cutthroats, whom are trying to resurrect the late Victor...
Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Clark Gregg, Cobie Smulders, Stellan Skarsgård, Samuel L. Jackson
When an unexpected enemy emerges and threatens global safety and security, Nick Fury, director of the international peacekeeping agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D., finds himself in need of a team to pull the world back from the brink of disaster. Spanning the globe, a daring recruitment...
Sci-Fi, Thriller
Bradley Whitford, Mandy Moore, Amandla Stenberg, Gwendoline Christie, Harris Dickinson, Mark O'Brien, Wallace Langham, Patrick Gibson, Wade Williams, Golden Brooks, Miya Cech
After a disease kills 98% of America's children, the surviving 2% develop superpowers and are placed in internment camps. A 16-year-old girl escapes her camp and joins a group of other teens on the run from the government.
Demián Bichir, Taissa Farmiga, Jonas Bloquet, Bonnie Aarons, Ingrid Bisu, Charlotte Hope, Sandra Teles, August Maturo, Jack Falk, Lynnette Gaza, Ani Sava
When a young nun at a cloistered abbey in Romania takes her own life, a priest with a haunted past and a novitiate on the threshold of her final vows are sent by the Vatican to investigate. Together they uncover the order’s unholy secret. Risking not only their lives but their faith...
Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall, Justice Smith, Daniella Pineda, James Cromwell, Toby Jones, Ted Levine, Jeff Goldblum, BD Wong, Geraldine Chaplin
Several years after the demise of Jurassic World, a volcanic eruption threatens the remaining dinosaurs on the island of Isla Nublar. Claire Dearing, the former park manager and founder of the Dinosaur Protection Group, recruits Owen Grady to help prevent the extinction of the...
Drama, Romance, Thriller
Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Eric Johnson, Eloise Mumford, Rita Ora, Luke Grimes, Victor Rasuk, Max Martini, Jennifer Ehle, Marcia Gay Harden, Bruce Altman
Believing they have left behind shadowy figures from their past, newlyweds Christian and Ana fully embrace an inextricable connection and shared life of luxury. But just as she steps into her role as Mrs. Grey and he relaxes into an unfamiliar stability, new threats could jeopardize...
Keanu Reeves, Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Willem Dafoe, Dean Winters, Adrianne Palicki, Omer Barnea, Toby Leonard Moore, Daniel Bernhardt, Bridget Moynahan, John Leguizamo
Ex-hitman John Wick comes out of retirement to track down the gangsters that took everything from him.
Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, James Jude Courtney, Nick Castle, Haluk Bilginer, Will Patton, Rhian Rees, Jefferson Hall, Toby Huss, Virginia Gardner
Jamie Lee Curtis returns to her iconic role as Laurie Strode, who comes to her final confrontation with Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted her since she narrowly escaped his killing spree on Halloween night four decades ago. This film, the 11th film in the "Halloween"...
Action, Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy
Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillan, Rhys Darby, Bobby Cannavale, Nick Jonas, Alex Wolff, Ser'Darius Blain, Madison Iseman, Morgan Turner
The tables are turned as four teenagers are sucked into Jumanji's world - pitted against rhinos, black mambas and an endless variety of jungle traps and puzzles. To survive, they'll play as characters from the game.
Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, James Spader, Samuel L. Jackson, Don Cheadle, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen
When Tony Stark tries to jumpstart a dormant peacekeeping program, things go awry and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes are put to the ultimate test as the fate of the planet hangs in the balance. As the villainous Ultron emerges, it is up to The Avengers to stop him from enacting his...
Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Sean Harris, Angela Bassett, Vanessa Kirby, Michelle Monaghan, Wes Bentley, Frederick Schmidt
When an IMF mission ends badly, the world is faced with dire consequences. As Ethan Hunt takes it upon himself to fulfil his original briefing, the CIA begin to question his loyalty and his motives. The IMF team find themselves in a race against time, hunted by assassins while trying...
Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Don Cheadle, Jeremy Renner, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Rudd
Following the events of Age of Ultron, the collective governments of the world pass an act designed to regulate all superhuman activity. This polarizes opinion amongst the Avengers, causing two factions to side with Iron Man or Captain America, which causes an epic battle between...
Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Jennifer Ehle, Eloise Mumford, Victor Rasuk, Luke Grimes, Marcia Gay Harden, Rita Ora, Max Martini, Callum Keith Rennie, Andrew Airlie
When college senior Anastasia Steele steps in for her sick roommate to interview prominent businessman Christian Grey for their campus paper, little does she realize the path her life will take. Christian, as enigmatic as he is rich and powerful, finds himself strangely drawn to Ana,...
Tag 2018
Ed Helms, Lil Rel Howery, Jon Hamm, Annabelle Wallis, Jake Johnson, Isla Fisher, Hannibal Buress, Nora Dunn, Steve Berg, Jeremy Renner, Leslie Bibb
For one month every year, five highly competitive friends hit the ground running in a no-holds-barred game of tag they’ve been playing since the first grade. This year, the game coincides with the wedding of their only undefeated player, which should finally make him an easy target....
Mark Wahlberg, Lauren Cohan, Iko Uwais, John Malkovich, Ronda Rousey, Carlo Alban, Natasha Goubskaya, Chae-rin Lee, Sam Medina, Keith Arthur Bolden, Jenique Hendrix
A CIA field officer and an Indonesian police officer are forced to work together in confronting political corruption. An informant must be moved twenty-two miles to safety.
Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Eric Johnson, Eloise Mumford, Bella Heathcote, Rita Ora, Luke Grimes, Victor Rasuk, Max Martini, Bruce Altman, Kim Basinger
When a wounded Christian Grey tries to entice a cautious Ana Steele back into his life, she demands a new arrangement before she will give him another chance. As the two begin to build trust and find stability, shadowy figures from Christian’s past start to circle the couple,...
Will Smith, Jaime FitzSimons, Ike Barinholtz, Margot Robbie, Christopher Dyson, Bambadjan Bamba, Viola Davis, Ted Whittall, David Harbour, Robin Atkin Downes, Robert B. Kennedy
From DC Comics comes the Suicide Squad, an antihero team of incarcerated supervillains who act as deniable assets for the United States government, undertaking high-risk black ops missions in exchange for commuted prison sentences.
Science Fiction, Thriller, Action
Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown, Ken Watanabe, Ziyi Zhang, Bradley Whitford, Sally Hawkins, Charles Dance, Thomas Middleditch, Aisha Hinds, O'Shea Jackson Jr.
The new story follows the heroic efforts of the crypto-zoological agency Monarch as its members face off against a battery of god-sized monsters, including the mighty Godzilla, who collides with Mothra, Rodan, and his ultimate nemesis, the three-headed King Ghidorah. When these...
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Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, Jude Law, Johnny Depp, Zoë Kravitz, Carmen Ejogo, Claudia Kim, Callum Turner
Gellert Grindelwald has escaped imprisonment and has begun gathering followers to his cause—elevating wizards above all non-magical beings. The only one capable of putting a stop to him is the wizard he once called his closest friend, Albus Dumbledore. However, Dumbledore will need...
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Debbie Ocean, a criminal mastermind, gathers a crew of seven other female thieves to pull off the heist of the century at New York's annual Met Gala.
Sicario, Day Of The Soldado
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French lux...
French luxury group SMCP prepares for IPO
Vivian Hendriksz
Tuesday, March 08 2016
SMCP, the parent company behind fashion luxury retailers Sandro, Maje and Claudie Pierlot has taken the first steps for a potential initial public offering (IPO).
The company has filed a registration document with the French stock market regulator, the AMF, beginning the process for a possible IPO. "We are happy to register today our document de base with the AMF, which represents the first preliminary step toward a potential IPO," said Daniel Lalonde, SMCP president and chief executive officer, said in a statement on Tuesday.
SMCP takes first steps for potential IPO
A IPO could see SMCP valued at over 1 billion euros, reported sources close to the matter, as the fashion company aims to continue expanding internationally, focusing on the countries they have experienced "significant success": the UK, the US, Spain, Italy and China. SMCP operated 1,118 stores across countries as of December 31, 2015. "We are confident that we will continue pursuing profitable growth, via both organic growth and the expansion of our network across our key markets, with the ambition to become a global leader in accessible luxury," added Lalonde.
The announcement comes as SMCP revealed a 33 percent increase in net sales to 675 million euros in 2015. Sales grew 11 percent in comparable terms and EBITDA was up 44 percent to 107 million euros, as the company has averaged a 26 percent increase in sales per year since 2012. Private equity firm, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), which acquired a 65 percent stake in SMCP in 2013, previously revealed that it was evaluating "strategic options" for the fashion company, focusing on aiding the "future growth and development of the company."
The New-York based firm previously considered a sale of SMCP, with Chinese textile producer, Shandong Ruyi Group, being named as the preferred bidder for the luxury fashion group last month, after other firms, such as Lion Capital dropped out of the bidding.
ipo kkr smcp sandro Maje Claudie Pierlot
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The Case For Overhauling STC
Commentary, Steve Lafleur, Transportation January 4, 2012
During the holidays, many Saskatchewanians have made travel arrangements to visit family around the province. For some, that's meant taking a bus ride with the Saskatchewan Transportation Co. (STC). It is often the only option for non-drivers.
While STC's prices aren't astronomical, they're higher than they need to be. Given that non-drivers are disproportionately people with low incomes, high rates can be burdensome.
But rather than increasing subsidies, the provincial government needs a new model for intercity bus transit. It should balance the needs of riders on unprofitable rural routes with those on profitable intercity routes. And to do so, the government needs to become a purchaser, rather than a provider, of intercity bus services.
STC has a monopoly on intercommunity bus transit in Saskatchewan. Others – namely Greyhound – can only provide service between Saskatchewan and destinations outside of the province.
The only STC routes not operating at a loss are those between Prince Albert, Saskatoon and Regina. STC received an operating grant of $9 million from the provincial government in 2010.
Intercity buses in most of Canada operate without subsidies, though they are mandated to service unprofitable routes. An exception is Manitoba, where Greyhound received $3.9 million in 2010.
Like STC, Greyhound uses urban routes to subsidize rural routes. However, urban routes still manage to be considerably cheaper in the rest of the country.
A survey of 36 urban routes by the Frontier Centre found that Saskatchewan routes are the 10th, 14th, 17th, and 19th most expensive in the country when booking seven days ahead.
But because they offer no discounts for booking ahead, they are the four most expensive in the country when purchased 21 days in advance.
Interestingly, all routes originating in Regina or Saskatoon, but heading out of the province, are among the cheapest. These routes are operated by Greyhound.
The intercity bus industry has faced challenges outside of Saskatchewan. Greyhound threatened to withdraw services to Manitoba and northern Ontario if it didn't receive subsidies to make up for a $15-million loss. Manitoba capitulated.
Alberta has deregulated bus services, and Greyhound has eliminated some routes in the province. It is uncertain whether other companies will take up the slack. There have been encouraging signs thusfar.
Despite challenges, the industry in North America has quietly exploded over the past few years, propelled by the expansion of low-cost intercity buses traveling from downtown to downtown. It is often more convenient than taking conventional buses, trains or even flying. Not to mention much cheaper. It is not difficult to find tickets between New York and Washington, D.C., for less than $10.
But the expansion hasn't just happened in the northeast United States. Discount carriers have expanded into Ontario, as well as the U.S. Midwest.
The finance director of First Group (owners of Greyhound, Mega Bus and Bolt Bus) recently stated he believes this business model will work across the entire United States. Logically, there is no reason why it couldn't work in Saskatchewan.
Given that ridership of STC has declined during a period where ridership has increased by 22 per cent in the United States, there is no reason to believe intercity bus service cannot be expanded here under a better model.
The challenge is serving rural areas. Roughly 62 percent of vehicle kilometres provided by intercity buses in Canada operate unprofitably. Many only exist because Greyhound is forced to provide them in order to gain access to lucrative urban markets.
Rural routes are subsidized by urban riders, effectively making the urban poor subsidize the rural poor. This is the wrong approach.
If there is a compelling need to subsidize rural routes – and there is a strong argument for subsidies – it should be done through tax revenue.
But simply handing out subsidies to a monopoly won't ensure low prices. Competition is essential to ensuring competitive prices. In order to introduce competition, the government should put rural routes out to tender.
Under this system, it would have competitors bid on how little of a subsidy they would require in order to operate a given route. The bid with the lowest subsidy would win. In some cases, it would be zero.
Subsidies wouldn't be necessary for urban-to-urban routes or many suburban-to-urban routes.
The crux of the shift is that the government would change the meaning of the "C" in STC. Instead, it would become the "Saskatchewan Transportation Commission" and would be a purchaser, rather than a provider.
Given that Greyhound is able to operate in Manitoba with a $3.9-million subsidy, there is good reason to believe that Saskatchewan could reduce its subsidies to that level.
More importantly, Saskatchewanians would have access to cheaper, more convenient transportation.
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Home › Feminism › What is the Cause of Violence? A Response to Karen Armstong by Carol P. Christ
What is the Cause of Violence? A Response to Karen Armstong by Carol P. Christ
By Carol P. Christ on January 12, 2015 • ( 65 )
“So, when we in the West talk about religion as the cause of this violence, how much are we letting ourselves off the hook, and using religion as a way to ignore our role in the roots of this violence?” Karen Armstrong, author of Fields of Blood
This statement was made by scholar of religions Karen Armstrong in an interview in Salon magazine in response to characterizations of Islam as a violent religion by Bill Maher and others. Speaking in the context of the rise of anti-Islamist prejudice in Europe, Armstrong said that Maher’s demonization of “the other” was the kind of talk that could lead us back to the concentration camps.
Bill Maher makes blanket statements against religion in general and Islam in particular. Maher clearly does not have a nuanced view of any religion. He is fueling anti-Islamic sentiment when he singles out Islam as a violent religion. If religions are going to be criticized as violent, then we must not limit ourselves to criticizing Islam, but must begin closer to home, by discussing the relation of religion and violence in the Bible, in Christianity, and in Judaism. My rule of thumb is always to begin with Christianity because it is the hegemonic religion of western cultures.
I agree with Armstrong that Maher is ignoring the role of the allegedly secular states in the violence that plagues the Middle East today and that has spread from there into Europe and America. Armstrong is referring to the division of the former Ottoman Empire into nation states made by the the Great Powers after the first World War. Clearly the imposition of the concept of the nation state and the boundaries that were drawn have not led to the intended outcome of lasting peace and democracy in the Middle East.
Summarizing her recent book, Armstrong writes:
[R]eligion before the modern period [was not] considered a separate activity but infus[ed] and coher[ed] with all other activities, including state-building, politics and warfare. Religion was part of state-building, and a lot of the violence of our world is the violence of the state.
Armstong argues that rather than blaming religion for violence, we should blame the state. I would argue that we should be examining the violence of the state, but that this is no reason to let religion off the hook.
Armstrong continues:
Without this violence we wouldn’t have civilization. Agrarian civilization depended upon a massive structural violence. In every single culture or pre-modern state, a small aristocracy expropriated the serfs and peasants and kept them at subsistence level.
This massive, iniquitous system is responsible for our finest achievements, and historians tell us that without this iniquitous system we probably wouldn’t have progressed beyond subsistence level.
Here Armstrong is simply repeating well-worn apologies for the violence of patriarchal societies. Armstrong says that without inequality enforced through violence we would not have “civilization,” “culture,”or “our finest achievements.” Apologists for the grand Old South in the United States must have sounded much the same.
One question Armstrong does not address is whether or not a culture based upon great inequality enforced through violence is worthy of the name civilization. Even though I enjoy listening to Bach and Mozart, I would settle for singing and dancing to folk music (which in fact creates even greater joy in my body than classical music) if that meant that no one had to be enslaved or oppressed by a small aristocracy. I would also agree to live at a subsistence level in exchange for no violence and no war.
Armstrong has obviously not seriously considered Marija Gimbutas’s work The Civilization of the Goddess. In it, Gimbutas challenges the “indolent assumption” that all societies have been pretty much like our own: in other words, violent, hierarchical, patriarchal, warlike, and unjust. She argues that the societies of Old Europe 6500-3500 BCE which were practicing the early stages of agriculture were peaceful, egalitarian, highly artistic, and not only worthy of the being called civilized, but perhaps even more worthy of the name than our own.
Armstrong (who begins her survey of history at about 3000 BCE) wrongly equates all of agriculture with the feudal system of Europe; this allows her to make the false statement that culture and civilization are inextricably linked to violence. Even leaving the question of the Neolithic cultures of Old Europe aside, Armstrong seems to be equating civilization with the nation state, and in so doing, to be categorizing all cultures that preceded nation states as uncultured and uncivilized, or to use words she would probably consider politically incorrect but which cohere with her viewpoint, as primitive and barbarian.
The popularity of Armstong’s work may in fact be inextricably linked to her implicit and explicit acceptance of the superiority of the nation state to all other forms of civilization and the superiority of the so-called higher (read patriarchal) forms of religion to all other forms of religion.
Armstrong makes the cynical (she would say realistic) statement that “Violence is at the heart of our lives, in some form or another.” While violence is at the heart of our lives today, this has not always been the case.
What is missing in Armstrong’s analysis is a serious critique of patriarchy, its cultures, its politics, its religions. However, if her work included such a critique, we can be quite certain that it would not be as popular as it is.
If Armstrong had offered a critique of patriarchy, she would have been forced to ask if “our” way of doing things is the only or the best way.
She would have understood violence, hierarchy, war, and injustice are not required for civilization and life itself to flourish.
As I have stated:
Patriarchy is a system of male dominance, rooted in the ethos of war which legitimates violence, sanctified by religious symbols, in which men dominate women through the control of female sexuality, with the intent of passing property to male heirs, and in which men who are heroes of war are told to kill men, and are permitted to rape women, to seize land and treasures, to exploit resources, and to own or otherwise dominate conquered people.
If we understand that patriarchy, war, domination arose together, and were justified by religions, we can also understand that what Armstrong calls “our” culture is not inevitable.
With this tool, we would not be forced to choose between Maher’s rejection of all religions as violent and Armstrong’s assertion that we should not view (some aspects of patriarchal) religions as one of the causes of violence.
Thanks to Ann Harrison for suggesting the topic for this post.
Also see Survey Reveals Americans’ Double Standard When Evaluating Religious Violence.
Carol leads the life-transforming Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete (facebook and twitter) spring and fall–early bird discount available now on the 2015 tours. Carol can be heard in interviews on Voices of the Sacred Feminine, Goddess Alive Radio, and Voices of Women. Her books include She Who Changes and Rebirth of the Goddess and with Judith Plaskow, the widely-used anthologies Womanspirit Rising and Weaving the Visions and the forthcoming Turning to the World: Goddess and God in Our Time. Photo of Carol by Michael Bakas.
‹ Operating out of the Good: Interpersonal Interactions and Oppression by Ivy Helman
Islamic Feminism, Body Autonomy and Spiritual Liberation by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente ›
Categories: Feminism, Feminism and Religion, General, Goddess, Patriarchy
Tags: Bill Maher, Carol P. Christ, Civilization of the Goddess, feminism and religion, Fields of Blood, Karen Armstrong, Marija Gimbutas, Religion and Violence
January 12, 2015 • 12:43 am
Excellent response. The equation of achievement with violence (or with capitalism) is all too facile, and the question has to be asked what (whose) purpose does it serve. I see a rampant denialism that humans can and have lived any other way than by coercion. This depends on a denial of the achievements of many Indigenous polities, who are not even considered in these evaluations of “civilization.” (Long history of that.) By achievements i include what can only be described as more advanced social systems, because egalitarian and centered on communal wellbeing. Domination hierarchies are not ‘advanced.’
The upshot is a conclusion that “every society in human history” behaves in these ways, and therefore that there is no alternative. Every time i post something about colonial violence on the Suppressed Histories FB page, a certain slice of people rush to make these assertions. Last week it was in response to documentation of medical experimentation on the bodies of enslaved women by the “father of gynecology.” Someone claimed that men in all societies had done this; but it’s simply not true. This is where that old racialist miseducation into ideas of “barbarism” is still swaying people’s thinking. And the tragedy of it is that it leads to a pessimism that blocks the ability to build alliances against the culture/s of domination. Many people are caught in an inability to imagine social relations, or religions, that are not based on domination, and call that realism. Their premises are mistaken.
Thanks Max. For us who have a different paradigm, it is indeed distressing that so many rush to defend violence as necessary to the “advance” of :”civilization.” And that some of those who do so get public attention.
Jeri Studebaker
A very important response, Carol. Thank you. Will share it. Among many works Armstrong needs to read is *A Peaceful Realm* by archaeologist Jane McIntosh, about the ancient Indus Valley Civilization. No sign of warfare or other internal violence for hundreds of years. Technologically sophisticated. Cities of up to 100,000. No poverty, few signs of rulers, no signs of any police force. This was a large civilization covering a land area the equivalent of a good part of eastern Europe.
Michael & Elizabeth Cecil
Certainly, a series of precisely accurate observations about some of the major manifestations of violence.
Thanks so much, Carol.
But, if you want to understand the very origin of these manifestations of violence, there must be a detailed understanding of the whole issue of the (important word) consciousness that underlies violence in the first place—that is, the dualistic consciousness of the “self” and the ‘thinker’ (rather than the non-dualistic consciousness)—with regards to which the Eastern perspective, attributing conflict and violence to the duality itself (see the writings of J. Krishnamurti) is absolutely crucial; but, typically, disregarded altogether. And this requires an expansion of the definition of “religion” to include all ideologies based upon thought (which is, yes, a characteristically masculine expression of consciousness)—for example, political, economic and secular-philosophical ideologies as well.
It is through all of these ideologies based upon thought that the projection of evil upon the “other” becomes ‘weaponized’ into the violence that we see manifested in the world on a daily basis:
http://unsealing-the-seven-seals.blogspot.com/2014/11/they-so-evil.html
Thus, the issue is to have a much more intensely nuanced view of religion—something that, certainly, Mr. Maher is utterly incapable of—acknowledging both its positive aspects; while, at the same time, clearly observing that the witless perpetuations of its dualities may very well ultimately annihilate human civilization itself.
Thanks Michael. I do agree with you that dualistic thinking as it has manifested in the west is one of the tools and habits that can promote violence. I discuss transforming the classical dualisms frequently on FAR and in my other writing. However, I do not think dualistic thinking is the origin of violence, though it is one of the manifestations of it. My metaphysics are relational and possibly not the same as yours. However, there may be a plurality of metaphysical positions that are preferable to the dualistic thinking we have known in the west.
Thanks for the reply, Carol.
Certainly a complicated issue; but let me clarify something.
Dualistic thought is the ‘weaponization’ of the duality that originates in the ‘fallen’ consciousness of the “self”. Or, as stated in Chapter 13, verse 12 of the Revelation of John: “the second beast [the “beast of the earth” consciousness of the ‘thinker’; also referred to in Sura 27:82 of the Quran] is servant to the first beast [the “beast of the sea” consciousness of the “self”]” in the perpetuation of duality and violence; both of these dimensions of consciousness being directly ‘observed’ by the non-dualistic consciousness by which Revealed Knowledge is conveyed. (And, if you read the opening passages of the Second Meditation of Descartes, you can actually observe the consciousness of the “self” emerging: “it feels as though, all of a sudden, I have fallen into deep water”–Jungian archetypes being relevant here.)
In any case, from the frame of reference of the non-dualistic consciousness; all “metaphysical positions” are fundamentally dualistic; they are not something that can really be “transformed”. They must be observed, set aside, transcended, or stepped away from. Nuance and more nuance.
I would say that nondualism is a metaphysical position, but since you are arguing from texts, and I am not, there is probably not more to be said. Anyway, I hope we agree about violence.
J. Krishnamurti suggests that the mechanisms of thought can be directly observed from a ‘frame of reference’ prior to and outside of thought; perhaps similar to the way in which a psychoanalyst can directly observe the psychological mechanisms of the patient. So, no, I am not “arguing from texts”. I am describing an actual experience of observing these dimensions of consciousness from a different ‘frame of reference’ which is not thought. That is, even if the texts did not exist, these observations would still exist. I am not saying that this is easy; but it sometime comes only after years of practice in different contexts.
This is all a very strange or bizarre assertion to the Western perspective, for which thought is the end all and be all of reality and theological/philosophical truth; but, after studying the Eastern perspective for some 40 years now, it has become increasingly clear to me that such a perspective (esoteric Buddhism certainly conveys this perspective) is the ONLY way of genuinely resolving the conflicts in Western civilization which threaten the very future of humanity.
So, yes, we are in fundamental agreement about violence. But it appears to me that the categorical refusal of Western civilization to acknowledge the value of the (non-dualistic) Eastern perspective is what is going to doom us all to an ‘Armageddon’ caused by the dualities of the monotheistic theologies.
“We must begin closer to home, by discussing the relation of religion and violence in the Bible, in Christianity, and in Judaism.”
I took this to heart, Carol, thanks!! except my favorite religious paths are Taoism and Buddhism, which seem so peaceful. But you know what, they got into religious wars in their history, too, trying to seize power over the populace, confiscate land for their temples, collect money from wealthy donors, etc.
The spiritual path that is closest to home for me is really the love of Nature. Nature so far has not waged war with anybody, or tried to get rich and powerful by soliciting worshippers. And to worship Nature, I don’t need to profess a creed of any kind — I can just take a walk in the woods.
According to a haiku poet named Chigestsu-ni (1634-1718), a Zen nun and good friend of Basho, even nature, though, could become a problem, she says:
Today’s moon —
but if there were two
a fight would ensue.
Just to correct a typo, the poet’s name should be Chigetsu-ni, her poetry comes up in Google. The haiku is included in “The Country of Eight Islands,” trans. and ed. by Hiroaki Sato and Burton Watson.
If only Buddhism and Taoism were “peaceful.” Both are among the most sexist and violent ideologies of the world (a quick google search will provide you with the historical facts). Ideologies that are constructed by people as Esther rightly, to my mind, points out. No one gets off. Nature is also profoundly violent (Earthquakes? Even backyard squirrels?)
The question is whether or not it is possible to exist without violence. I guess it requires redefining violence so that eating vegetation or destructive fires that make it possible for forests to renew themselves are not perceived as a kind of violence. Certainly nature cannot exist without violence otherwise all animals who eat anything other than greens would die. Then we would all die.
But of course, we are talking about grander violence than natural violence or the petty violence we do to each other every day. I don’t know the resolution to that other than profound self-examination and the cultivation of compassion and love such that the love overwhelms and is that through which our other traits express themselves (methods of doing so are found in most religious and many secular traditions).
If we had matriarchal societies other than the one Chinese example, would we find there is no violence? I agree that patriarchy is not violence resistant (to say the least!), but I don’t know that matriarchal societies would provide a world without it. I agree with those who have argued that our understanding of women as more collaborative, etc., than men comes about because of patriarchy limiting our possibilities. We are more collaborative (or destructive via gossip, etc.) because we’ve had to be. What would the world be like if we were never forced to be that way? I don’t know.
All to say, this is an excellent blog, Carol, and offers a lot of (non-violent) food for thought! Thank you.
There is an Indonesian Muslim example, among others, see Peggy Reeves Sanday, Women at the Center.
Karen Armstrong herself speaks of societies in which “a small aristocracy expropriated the serfs and peasants and kept them at subsistence level.” This is structural violence and does not occur in small scale subsistence level (sustainable) societies.
Thanks Laury, for your thoughts. I understand your sensitivity, truly, and your heart is in the right place for sure.
Carol, your blogs always get me thinking in ways profoundly challenging, though I’m not very skilled in writing it all out. Thank you for this post and your leadership, and I missed reading your comments last week.
Laury, I believe your stance that violence may be endemic — to both men and women — is pessimistic and actually uninformed. If you read Heide Göttner-Abendrot’s anthology “Societies of Peace: Matriarchies Past, Present, and Future,” I think you will become much more optimistic about our abilities as a species to be non-violent.
Thank you, Carol, for this outstanding essay.
At the risk of oversimplifying, I contend that religion expresses itself in violent ways because human beings think and behave violently. Our institutions (including religious ones) reflect that violence.
See my response to Laury above.
I don’t agree! Humans are capable of violence and evil, but those are amped and multiplied a thousand-fold when religion incorporates codes of dominion and oppression, in other words patriarchy, slavery, racism, class oppression. All those are *systemic* violence, as opposed to individual evil-doing, and religion has been used to excuse, prop them up, and paint them as the divine will. But not every religion, and not every society, incorporates codes of domination. And that is why it is important to look at the Mosuo (SW China), the Minangkabau (Sumatra), the Pueblo societies, the Vanatinai (South Pacific) and the many other mother-right societies, as well as other Indigenous societies that are non-militarized, classless, respectful of individuals. No human society is ideal, but the differences between these much more egalitarian Indigenous cultures (so at risk in the global dog-eat-dog world now) and the imperial ones are significant, and they matter very much.
Brava! Very thoughtful and thought-provoking (as we can tell by the preceding comments) post.
Here’s what I’ve been wondering all week since the attack on Charlie Hebdo: Practically the whole west has been in panic mode because of these terrorist attacks by fundamentalist Muslim extremists. How have ghettoized Jews felt for nearly 2,000 years when they were not only locked in their ghettos at night (in some areas) but were regularly attacked by Christian mobs often led by the Christian nobility determined to eradicate them? (I am not talking about Nazis, but about earlier history.)
I recently read.From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia by Pankaj Mishra. This book is about men who fought against the European empires (British, French, Dutch, German, Belgian,etc.) and their colonies in the Middle East and China and Japan. I learned a lot and recommend it to FAR readers..
Acknowledged.
But do you see any problem at all when some 20 people in France die as a result of terrorism; in response to which the International media is awash with ‘condemnations’ and ‘expressions of outrage’ from all around the world, and millions march in ‘solidarity’; but Boko Haram slaughters some 2,000 people in Nigeria and the International media scarcely breathes ONE word about it?
And–it should be needless to say, but it isn’t– it is tens and hundreds of thousands of Christians and Muslims (rather than Jews) who are being slaughtered at this moment across the Middle East. But who is ‘marching in solidarity’ with them against this common evil?
All of these people died as a result of the same Satanic theology; but ‘some’ people’s murders are simply more ‘worthy’ of being publicized and ‘condemned’ with ‘outrage’ than others.
Mary E Hunt
It is consistently the case that the generic religion/violence discussions get all the play and anything nuanced with feminist insights seems to be left aside. No surprising, but it is important to observe as you did. That makes this blog and others like it, books and articles from authors/readers here all the more important. Thanks, Carol.
I presume the march in France brought together defenders of free speech and haters of Islam, feminists and anti-feminists, left and right. This is why I was glad I did not have to decide whether to go to it or not.
Mary Healey
AS one of the latest commercials put it””I want IT ALL, and i want it NOW”. In other words: GREED!!
With some humor, I offer the text of the following internet meme to support your argument: “It is only when a mosquito lands on your testicles that you realize there is always a way to solve problems without using violence.”
Thank you for an excellent article! I look forward to sharing it! I think that it is innate in humans to wonder, adore, and wonder some more: this is religion: and not “primitive” religion, at that. As with everything (or so it seems), this innate or natural religion, came to be used, abused, and utterly screwed up (mostly by men). The desire to dominate for privilege and power is perhaps the primary characteristic of patriarchy: this desire required and justified the oppression of women, the exploitation of natural resources for personal profit, and the use of force and violence to manipulate, control, or eliminate opposition. Men are the ones who benefit from the dominator paradigm (on a real yet still superficial level). As a result of all of our justifications of violence: women hurt, children hurt, the Planet hurts, and, of course, men also hurt. All of our “working assumptions” of what civilization and religion and violence as a means to an end need to be completely transformed through a steady “build-up” of an alternative paradigm. I believe that your article points the way to such a transformation. Thank you again.
profdanshaw
Several responses to this good post and its respondents:
1. Yes, all religions have supported acts of violence at various times in their history, but none but Islam makes it obligatory in their fundamental scriptures. In fact, Jihad at one time was considered the sixth “pillar” of Islam. In addition, Islam contains in it’s foundational scripture an explicit call for manifest destiny. When Christ, at the end of Matthew, encourages his disciples to go out and make disciples of all nations he was likely speaking of conversions, not conquests. The Qur’an and Hadith require that all lands on earth be under Islamic law. That means political control.
2. Karen Armstrong is among the many apologists of Islam who rarely look at its darker side. This is the politically correct way to sell books.
3. I fail to understand the argument that Boko Haram’s atrocities have been ignored by the media.
4. What continues to be ignored by the media is what our military has done and continues to do in the Middle East, in terms of violence. Few sources ever mentioned, for example, that at the beginning of the first gulf war Saddam had put peasants and malcontents in the front-line ditches defending the border. According to the accounts of returning soldiers in order to save bullets and lives our generals simply used bulldozers to bury 10,000 + “Iraqi troops” in the process of a couple of hours. The media was much better covering the light show of the carpet bombing of Iraq at the beginning of the second gulf war, but not at showing the immense collateral (read: civilian) damage it caused. But, that was not Christian violence. It was secular. Though the generals profess their Christianity.
5. Agree completely that eastern religions have had their fair share of violence and wars. No off the hooks there.
Thanks for a great discussion.
Dan Shaw — Professor of Religious Studies
No, “all religions” have not supported violence. Only if you discount the many ethnic religious traditions and concentrate only on the dominant religions can you make such a statement. Even when these peoples made war (say American Indians or Central African societies) they did not instrumentalize religion as a justification for them.
I’d like a cite for the Quranic injunction that all lands be under Muslim law. Since you include ahadith, some of which are recorded in later centuries, then you’d have to also include church doctrine which does in fact authorize such conquest. Cuius baptisatio, eius regio, and so on. Christian conquest patterns in the middle ages were very analogous to Muslim ones, including capturing and slave-trading “infidels.”
Also, if you look into fundamentalist enforcement in the US military (google Mikey Weinstein) you’ll find that it is not all that secular, and even in political context, with Bush II initially calling for a “crusade,” it has a long history of Christian invasions of Muslim countries behind it.
I am not sure what fundamental in its foundational scriptures means–but the Hebrew Bible has been read by Jews, Roman Catholics, Protestants in America, and others as decreeing that conquest and forced conversion were the will of God.
Let me suggest the fundamental or foundational Revelations rather than scriptures; of which there are two:1) the “Tree of Life” (Genesis 3:24); also referred to as the Vision of the “Son of man”, and the “Night Journey” & the “sidrah tree” in the Quran; and, 2) the Revelation of “the resurrection”, which includes the Revelation of the Memory of Creation and the revelation of the memories of previous lives; the purpose of the monotheistic theologies being to deny and contradict those Revelations by the dualistic “doctrines of men”, which, today, are the foundation of conflict and violence between Judaism, Christianity & Islam.
Briefly.
profdanshaw,
Do you really think it makes any difference at all to the person killed whether he or she is killed by “Christian violence” or by merely “secular violence perpetrated by a Christian”? If a Christian commits an act of violence, ultimately, it is Christian teaching that ‘justifies’ that act. The Teaching of Jesus, on the other hand, suggests something entirely different.
saharasia
“Yes, all religions have supported acts of violence at various times in their history….”
Wrong, Dan.
The religion of the Inuit of northern North America has never supported acts of violence. The religion of the !Kung of the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa has never supported acts of violence. The religion of the Mbuti of central Africa has never supported acts of violence. The religion of the Semai of southeast Asia has never supported acts of violence. I could go on (and on and on).
Do you think the Inuit, !Kung, Mbuti, Semai and all the other nonviolent people in the world aren’t really people? Aren’t really human? That their religions “don’t count”? Let me tell you that they bleed just like you do, their blood is the same red color, they eat, sleep and make love, they laugh, they cry — they are as human as you are. And their religions are just as real and viable as any other.
I would suggest that we are using differing definitions of the word “religions.” I wonder if the Inuit or Mbuti even have a word for “religion”? My study of such non-textual communities suggests that all of their actions are considered sacred. So if you are telling me that the Inuit and Mbuti are never violent towards others this is indeed a beautiful thing.
February 3, 2015 • 6:32 am
Are you defining “religion” in a way that excludes all but textual religions, then? In your mind, does “religion” include only religions that separate the sacred from the profane? I hope I don’t sound too harsh when I suggest you’re being a bit self-centered? A bit ethnocentric?
February 3, 2015 • 11:43 am
Thank you Jeri. There is no question about the great differences between the dominant mass religions and Indigenous ones, but while making that point we can’t speak as if Indigenous people don’t / didn’t have religions, and especially exclude their spiritual traditions in global discussions such as this one, in saying “all religions.” That negation and erasure is all too common, and it distorts the breadth and depth of human heritages. In fact, the understandings that Aboriginal spiritual philosophies put forward are of great value in overturning the oppressive mentality of the imperial religions.
Max, we’re totally on the same page.
Religion can be defined as the human relationship to the supernatural world. Every known culture has (or has had) such a relationship. It’s ludicrous to say you’re examining the relationship between violence and religion if you’re looking at only a handful of the world’s religions – the violent state religions.
But that’s exactly what the state religions want us to do, because it helps them hide their iniquities. Lining the state religions up next to the peaceful indigenous ones makes the state religions look like the Big Bad Wolves they really are.
Bhikshuni Trinlae
Interesting comments but the one meme that keeps surfacing in the western feminist theology is the proposition that goddess social culture would somehow prevent discrimination and misogyny.
A cursory look across the history of the dharma traditions show that no end of feminine-positive theology prevents social and political. subjugation and domination of women or patriarchal family/clan/social organizational structures.
Therefore, Christ’s criticism here is true, that a more nuanced view must be investigated, including with respect to any wishful thinking that a goddess-friendly culture will put an end to misogyny. It may be a necessary condition, but evidently it is by no means sufficient!
However, that doesn’t negate the value of what Armstrong is saying. When the US Supreme Court overturns the Doctrine of Discovery legal justification of domination and subjugation of non-Christians for example, and Western society admits to its own endless thirst for blood and violence, it may be in a position to enter into a credible discourse with other cultures and societies on the topic.
In the meantime, the repressed neuroses continue to act out and react everywhere socially and politically!
The “dharma traditions” you speak of are all patriarchal. They may have goddesses, but those goddesses have been incorporated into patriarchal religions. As just one example, the Sanskrit goddess Durga kills the buffalo demon in order to save the gods, who supposedly created her. In matrifocal cultures you don’t find goddesses who serve male gods, nor goddesses who wage war. Patriarchy is the problem. I agree with Carol.
I’m not aware of anyone who is saying a Goddess culture will of itself end patriarchy and domination, even though revalorization of the female is obviously needed. It’s clear that political action, social change in very concrete ways, is necessary. Still, the cultural dimenions are not negligeable. The themes of male dominance encoded in patriarchal religious scriptures are like Manifest Destiny and the Discovery Doctrine, in that they are poisons that keep on reinfecting society, century to century.
Great post, Carol. Brava!
And what a great conversation! Wow!
It seems to me that most of the matriarchal cultures were (and are) smaller groups that lead mostly subsistence, agriculture-based lives. I wonder whether part of the problem with our violent cultures of today is that they are just too big. Groups function differently as they get bigger. Maybe breaking up into smaller, family-connected groups might work better. At least, it seems to work for the Mosuo culture and others like it. I’ve even noticed this in churches. Smaller churches sometimes work more like families – everyone knows each other. Larger churches become more like corporations, with hierarchies and “power structures.” Has anyone else noticed this?
Kate Brunner
I’ve often thought this, Katharine. Scale seems to be a very important piece of the puzzle. I notice it a great deal in the pursuit of sustainable energy solutions & earth-honoring agricultural/permaculture reform. Smaller economies are making greater, faster, more successful changes to energy diversification, waste disposal, & food supply sustainability schemes. Larger economies do not seem to be capable of the same as of yet.
Sister Lea
Reblogged this on CATHOLIC, Non-Roman Western Style and commented:
We MUST ask ourselves if our way is the BEST way!
emmx2013
There is a lot to think about in this article and the responses to it.
It does seem to me that individually we must deal with our own anger, hurts, disappointments, and find some way to be at peace with ourselves and others.
Here’s to Your Health!
evelynmmaxwell.com
Paige Cousineau
I would like to recommend the contribution that the work of Felicitas Goodman can make to this discussion. In her book, “Ecstasy, Ritual, and Alternate Reality: Religion in a Pluralistic World”, anthropologist Felicitas D. Goodman links the norms of a society and its religion (including it’s values around violence and sexism) to the nature of the economic “technology” in which it developed- i. e. on whether they are hunter- gather, agrarian or urban. All of the traditional religions discussed above arise out of agrarian civilizations where where war sexism, dualism, fear of nature, and growth of hierarchy have all occurred.
As both Katherine Bressler and Kate Brunner have observed, the matriarchal societies tend to have evolved from hunter-gatherer economies.
Actually Paige, Bressler and Brunner said that small scale economies seem to be egalitarian and not violent. The earliest agricultural (or horticultural) societies of the Neolithic seem to fit this model. Patriarchy evolved when societies were agricultural as opposed to industrial, but agricultural societies were peaceful and egalitarian for millenia before the rise of patriarchy.
Page, Felicitas Goodman and I studied under the same anthropologist, Erika Bourguignon, and I admire her work greatly (have you read Where the Spirits Ride the Wind? Fascinating).
But Felicitas studied anthro only, whereas I hopped around between anthro and archaeology. I definitely think this thorny issue of where patriarchy/violence came from requires a deep understanding of archaeology as well as anthro, because institutionalized violence arose before we began keeping written records. And what I discovered after doing tons of research for my book Switching to Goddess is that there really wasn’t any institutionalized violence on the globe before around 4000 BC.
And what happened ca 4000 BC? Climate change. Big climate change. A good part of the earth’s land surface turned to desert (what we now call the Sahara, the Gobi, and the chain of deserts stretching across Asia almost to the Pacific — they all seem to have formed at this time). And as a result a good portion of the world’s first farming populations starved to death, or spent generations slowing starving.
It seems obvious to me that this is the beginning of violence and patriarchy. This is when the first city states rose in the “Cradle of Civilization” between the Tigris and Euphrates. But the “rise of civilization” was not glorious as we used to think. Archaeologists like Brian Fagan are now pointing out that these first civilizations were violent, bloody, and full of social hierarchy. Masses of people were crowded into dirty, disease-ridden cities surrounded by thick walls. Most people were dirt poor, and there were a few elites at the top who ruled them with violence or the threat of it.
In Switching to Goddess I call this “starvation culture” because I think it arose directly from learned, shared and patterned behavior shaped by long-term starvation conditions, and then passed on from one generation to the next.
Peggy Reeves Sanday notes that the positive connection between women and nature as mothers can be turned inside out to blame women and nature for the sorry state of affairs following negative climate events or war. But there is always a choice. Human history is not determined by climate alone.
No, human history is not determined by climate alone, I agree with that, Carol. But something turned formerly peaceful, non-violent, egalitarian female-principled people into “crazy” people — violent, male-principled, hierarchical — around 4000 BC, in Mesopotamia first, and then Egypt at the Nile a little later. And then even later in China at the Yellow River. The first “civilizations” (which were really a descent into hell) all rose at large rivers — exactly where people would go when smaller rivers, lakes and water in general was disappearing everywhere.
The anthropologist Colin Turnbull studied a group of starving people in central Africa in the 1960s, the Ik, or Teuso. They’d been starving for a few generations. And they were truly a psychotic people, with very little humanity left — parents would kill their own children for food, the elderly were too weak to walk and had to crawl everywhere, only the strongest (i.e., young men) got to eat, and the the most admired person was the one who could steal the most and get away with it. People got great pleasure out of only two things: eating, and watching someone else suffer.
I think from this generations-long starving ca 4000 BC a few groups lost their original matriarchal (healthy) culture and developed, like the Ik, what you could call a culture of psychosis: only young strong males ate (ruled), but if you bowed and scraped in front of them they might throw you a few scraps. Women became hated for two reasons: (1) they were aligned with Mother Earth, who had obviously abandoned Her children, and (2), long-starving women become exceedingly cruel to their children, and since fathers in these groups almost always abandon their families, mothers are the only parents left (among the Ik children are locked out of their mothers’ homes at age three and from then on must fend for themselves).
Culture is such an important construct. Once a culture forms, it’s extremely difficult to change it. It’s learned, shared, patterned, and passed on ad infinitum from one generation to the next. And a new, violent culture — in which the ideal man is the one who can take the most from others — is likely eventually to rule the earth.
I don’t agree with the Saharasia thesis of James de Meo. The world’s biggest desert, the Sahara, was not a region out of which patriarchy erupte or spread. The river valleys were, because these lands were desirable. The more difficult terrains and ecosystems in fact are more likely to be redoubts of mother-right culture. Competition over resources is one factor, but it is not determinative all by itself, as Peggy Sanday theorized decades ago. Read my critique here: http://www.suppressedhistories.net/saharasia.html
Also Carol is right: most egalitarian matrilineages arose in small farming societies, which are very different from large scale plow agricultural ones.
February 1, 2015 • 12:28 pm
Hi, Max,
In my experience very few people know of or about DeMeo and his Saharasia theory. It’s nice to meet someone who does.
If you look at a few good maps of the world’s deserts, you can see that they stretch over the “Fertile Crescent,” in Iraq, where the first so-called civilization arose, as well as over the Nile River, where the second so-called civilization arose. These deserts also stretch up around two sides of the Black Sea, i.e., aren’t that far from Old Europe.
Both the deserts and the “civlizations” appeared abruptly ca 4000 BC. The “civilizations” were actually hellish places – like the patriarchy on sterioids. Archaeologists are beginning to admit this now.
If you believe as I do that before the patriarchy reared its ugly head people were primarily peaceful and matriarchal, what kind of tremendous force would cause some of these idyllic people to morph into their exact opposites? Into people who could almost be described as psychotic? Do you agree that it almost had to have been a fairly powerful force?
Jeri, we can’t cherry-pick the deserts for patriarchy. What about Arizona / New Mexico, a redoubt of mother-right cultures including the famous Pueblo societies, or the Guajira desert in Venezuela where the Wayúu matrilineages live? Please read the article i posted.
I do agree with you about the alphabet hypothesis. I think all mono-causation theories are taking the wrong approach. These are complex historical processes that created systems of domination. Literacy did become a male monopoly, but so much else was going on, and patriarchy emerged in societies that never had contact with writing, such as New Guinea, Brazil, South Africa, and we could go on and on.
Max, I read your paper.
4000BC: (1) a good portion of the earth’s land surface fries and turns to desert. Most farmers die; some make it to the river valleys. But a few starve for generations, in the desert, ISOLATED at oases, and become psychotic (for lack of a better word). These small psychotic groups attack and take over the large, peaceful peoples who made it to the river valleys (Tigris, Euphrates, Nile, Yellow).
4000 BC: (2) is also when the first “civilization/cities” arose at the Tigris/Euphrates. These cities were barbaric places full of disease, poverty, and a small violent, ruling elite:
“…disease-ridden places , with high death rates…. Dense population, class systems, and a strong centralized government created internal stress. The slaves and the poor saw that the wealthy had all the things that they themselves. locked…. The poor did not have enough space in which to live with comfort and dignity…. Evidence of warfare is common…. (Havilland 1997: 305-06, Human Evolution and Prehistory).
The first patriarchals developed on the desert, but we can’t “see” them until they move to the river valleys and enslave the peaceful matriarchals there.
Perhaps someone has already mentioned this, but Leonard Schlain wrote an interesting book back in 1999 entitled, “The Alphabet Versus the Goddess.” Here’s the Amazon blurb about it: “This groundbreaking book proposes that the rise of alphabetic literacy reconfigured the human brain and brought about profound changes in history, religion, and gender relations. Making remarkable connections across brain function, myth, and anthropology, Dr. Shlain shows why pre-literate cultures were principally informed by holistic, right-brain modes that venerated the Goddess, images, and feminine values. Writing drove cultures toward linear left-brain thinking and this shift upset the balance between men and women, initiating the decline of the feminine and ushering in patriarchal rule. Examining the cultures of the Israelites, Greeks, Christians, and Muslims, Shlain reinterprets ancient myths and parables in light of his theory.”
I don’t really see how “alphabetic literacy” could or would have given rise to that special blend of institutionalized warfare, institutionalized violence, social hierarchy, poverty (brand new at the time), discrimination against anyone not young, healthy and male, slavery, etc. — that reared its ugly head around 4000 BC first in Mesopotamia, and later elsewhere. “Linear left-brain thinking” is not psychotic thinking, and the set of new traits that arose ca 4000 BC ushered in a deeply troubling, anti-human, psychologically damaged way of life.
The peaceful matriarchal Minoans were literate, as was the peaceful matriarchal Indus-Valley civilization — we can’t translate these languages *only* because they’re completely unrelated to the patriarchal languages we speak today. The Minoans and Indusites weren’t alphabetically literate — but I can’t see that an alphabetic language would be that much more powerful than a syllabic one in terms of rearranging the human brain.
I agree with Jeri. The alphabet hypothesis seems to simplistic. I mean does that mean that we have to give up writing altogether to get rid of patriarchy? And this blog too? I think the book is working off Jungian ideas that equate the conscious with the masculine with patriarchy.
When I originally read Shlain many years ago, I also felt he oversimplified. But while reading David Abram’s book _The Spell of the Sensuous_, I felt that HIS alphabetic thesis was much more nuanced. He differentiates between pictographic scripts and strictly abstract alphabetic scripts, demonstrating how the latter alienates us in many ways from the animate world. Of course, Abram is not talking about patriarchy, but about how (especially) Western cultures evolved away from nature and in the process our sensory perceptions of the world. But I believe this evolution is part of the process by which patriarchy could take hold (or that patriarchy was part of the process of evolving away from nature and our sensory perceptions). What do others here think of this thesis? Ideas about Abram?
I do agree with you Nancy that there’s a connection between patriarchy and an evolution away from nature. Of course there’s the chicken or egg question: Did alphabetic scripts cause a new, barbaric, anti-nature culture to arise? Or is it more likely that the new, barbaric, anti-nature culture created an (anti-nature) alphabetic script?
Exactly, Jeri. It’s chicken-and-egg time and I’m not a time traveler.
I think attempts to explain the origin of violence through other factors like written language beg the question of why some people decided they had the right to dominate others through violence and the threat of violence. For me climate distress is better “reason” than discovering how to write, but as Max points out it is not sufficient. And as Max points out blaming climate distress deflects the blame from those who made the decisions to dominate others (for whatever reason and in response to whatever stress) and those who (again for whatever reason) continued to dominate others because they had been taught it was their birthright.
In this discussion we also need to recognize that the decision to dominate through violence was not a decision made by “humanity.” It may have been made by the 1% and over time imposed on the others. In the case of the 50% (men as a group), the right to dominate women may have been the or one of the carrots that induced them to become warriors in the service of the 1%.
https://feminismandreligion.com/2013/02/18/patriarchy-as-an-integral-system-of-male-dominance-created-at-the-intersection-of-the-control-of-women-private-property-and-war-part-1-by-carol-p-christ/
This is my discussion of the origins of patriarchy, war, and private property as an integral system legitimated by religion,
I agree with everything in your article, Carol. In a patriarchy men, war and violence dominate. But why? Where did this insanity come from? It’s so diametrically opposed to the behavior of the Mosuo and so many other world societies not yet beaten down by patriarchy.
Other aspects of patriarchy: All physically weaker people are abused (elderly, children, sick, poor, disabled). Sharing behavior is weak or missing. Sexuality is often violent and impersonal; empathy is weak or lacking.
Again – why? Where and when did this sick behavior originate?
An important clue, I think, is this: the behaviors present in patriarchy are the behaviors present in long-starving groups.
In starving groups, the strongest steal food from all others (including children, siblings, elderly, sick etc.) – violently if need be. The strongest are always the young males. Males and violence, then, come to dominate. Violence and maleness become the “ideal,” what everyone praises, idolizes (this has been documented in modern groups).
In starving groups no one is interested in anything but eating. Sex becomes a chore, impersonal (again – this is documented).
War and rape are just stealing on a larger scale. Eating disorders today are rampant: anorexia, bulemia, obesity. Many of us have hoarding disorders.
Other traits shared by us and long-term starters: weakened social ties (our friendships are often transient), families disintegrate (we have deadbeat dads, child and parental abuse, spouse abuse).
I should add that, under conditions of starvation, in groups continuing to share and share alike, no one survives.
» What is the Cause of Violence? A Response to Karen Armstong by Carol P. Christ
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Cuban Classical Ballet of Miami / Season Preview
Start Date: 04/18/2019 End Date: 04/18/2019
The Cuban Classical Ballet of Miami (CCBM), Artistic Director, Eriberto Jimenez, is gearing up for an exciting 2019 Season presenting a preview of upcoming works in their Miami Beach annual Performance at the Fillmore Miami Beach Jackie Gleason Theater Black Box Room, on Thursday, April 18 at 8:00 pm. CCBM will present new original choreographies by artistic director Eriberto Jimenez; “Yerma” based on the play by renowned Spaniard writer Federico Garcia Lorca, that tells the story of a childless woman living in rural Spain, her desperate desire for motherhood becomes an obsession that eventually drives her to commit a horrific crime, performed to life music by Guitarists Alberto Puerto and Ivet Riscart. “Bolero Suite” remembering the golden age of this musical genre, known for its lyrical allusions of life, love, tragedy and passion. The program will also include “Lecuona Suite”, and other works
Miami, FL 33130 Get Map!
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Bernie Sanders Goes Big on Student Debt Forgiveness
Yuval Rosenberg
The Fiscal Times June 24, 2019
Bernie Sanders is taking the idea of student debt cancelation to a new level. The Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate unveiled a plan on Monday that would have the U.S. government pay to entirely eliminate the $1.6 trillion in student debt held by 45 million Americans.The Sanders plan is broader than debt-forgiveness proposals from other Democratic presidential contenders, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Julián Castro of Texas. Warren has proposed $640 billion in student loan cancellation, including up to $50,000 in debt for people earning under $100,000. But Warren’s plan offers no relief to those who earn more than $250,000.Sanders’ proposal, which would also make tuition free at public universities, community colleges and trade schools, would be paid for by a new Wall Street tax that the Sanders campaign says will raise some $2.4 trillion over 10 years. Sanders would place a 0.5% tax on stock trades, a 0.1% tax on bond trades and a 0.005% fee on derivative trades.“Wall Street speculators nearly destroyed the economy a decade ago, and the American people bailed them out,” Sanders said Monday. “Now it's time for Wall Street to come to the aid of the middle class of this country.”Other experts put the total cost of Sanders’ plan at $3 trillion, and some suggest that his Wall Street tax would raise less than his camp projects. Critics of student debt forgiveness proposals, including both conservatives and some Democrats, argue that they would disproportionately benefit higher-educated Americans, who tend to have higher incomes — and thus would amount to a giant welfare program for the upper-middle class.“The cost will march toward $3 trillion and benefit a lot of wealthy families and future high-earners,” Brian Riedl, an analyst at the Manhattan Institute, a libertarian-leaning think tank, told The Washington Post, which first reported the Sanders plan. “Of all problems requiring a $3 trillion federal expenditure, the college costs of middle- and upper-class college graduates seem lower-priority.”But proponents say that paying for student debt relief by taxing the affluent will reduce inequality, stimulate the economy and help lower-income Americans advance financially by freeing up those with heavy debt burdens to do things like buy homes.Slate’s Jordan Weissmann suggests that, as generous as it is, the Sanders plan doesn’t go far enough:“The problem with Sanders’ approach is that while it would forgive a lot of graduate school debt sitting on the books today, it does little to address the problem of graduate school debt going forward. His bill would cap interest rates on all student loans at 1.88 percent which, sure, would be helpful. But it wouldn’t lessen the amount students need to borrow in the first place, and that’s the more serious issue.”Like what you're reading? Sign up for our free newsletter.
Bernie Sanders is taking the idea of student debt cancelation to a new level. The Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate unveiled a plan on Monday that would have the U.S. government pay to entirely eliminate the $1.6 trillion in student debt held by 45 million Americans.
The Sanders plan is broader than debt-forgiveness proposals from other Democratic presidential contenders, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Julián Castro of Texas. Warren has proposed $640 billion in student loan cancellation, including up to $50,000 in debt for people earning under $100,000. But Warren’s plan offers no relief to those who earn more than $250,000.
Sanders’ proposal, which would also make tuition free at public universities, community colleges and trade schools, would be paid for by a new Wall Street tax that the Sanders campaign says will raise some $2.4 trillion over 10 years. Sanders would place a 0.5% tax on stock trades, a 0.1% tax on bond trades and a 0.005% fee on derivative trades.
“Wall Street speculators nearly destroyed the economy a decade ago, and the American people bailed them out,” Sanders said Monday. “Now it's time for Wall Street to come to the aid of the middle class of this country.”
Other experts put the total cost of Sanders’ plan at $3 trillion, and some suggest that his Wall Street tax would raise less than his camp projects. Critics of student debt forgiveness proposals, including both conservatives and some Democrats, argue that they would disproportionately benefit higher-educated Americans, who tend to have higher incomes — and thus would amount to a giant welfare program for the upper-middle class.
“The cost will march toward $3 trillion and benefit a lot of wealthy families and future high-earners,” Brian Riedl, an analyst at the Manhattan Institute, a libertarian-leaning think tank, told The Washington Post, which first reported the Sanders plan. “Of all problems requiring a $3 trillion federal expenditure, the college costs of middle- and upper-class college graduates seem lower-priority.”
But proponents say that paying for student debt relief by taxing the affluent will reduce inequality, stimulate the economy and help lower-income Americans advance financially by freeing up those with heavy debt burdens to do things like buy homes.
Slate’s Jordan Weissmann suggests that, as generous as it is, the Sanders plan doesn’t go far enough:
“The problem with Sanders’ approach is that while it would forgive a lot of graduate school debt sitting on the books today, it does little to address the problem of graduate school debt going forward. His bill would cap interest rates on all student loans at 1.88 percent which, sure, would be helpful. But it wouldn’t lessen the amount students need to borrow in the first place, and that’s the more serious issue.”
Like what you're reading? Sign up for our free newsletter.
3 Things I Wish I Had Known About Student Loans Before I Went to College
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Textbook giant doubles down on digital, promises lower prices for students
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David Einhorn Goes Mano a Mano With Elon Musk
Nir Kaissar
Bloomberg April 17, 2019
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Hedge fund wunderkind David Einhorn and futurist Elon Musk are locked in a zero-sum contest. Einhorn is betting big, in reputational capital if not actual dollars, that Musk’s Tesla Inc. is doomed to fail.
“We believe that right here, right now, the company appears to again be on the brink,” Einhorn declared on Friday in a letter to investors in his fund, Greenlight Capital, citing lack of demand, price cuts, layoffs, service center closings and cuts to capital expenditures as signs that Tesla is in trouble. This isn’t the first time, Einhorn added, contending that “Musk never admits the crisis in real time.”
If Einhorn is right, it won’t just be Musk who gets hurt, of course. Roughly 40,000 employees and more than 300,000 car owners are counting on Musk. And don’t forget the investors who paid a fortune for the company’s stock, hoping it will become a titan of the car industry. Tesla’s price-to-book ratio is 9.5, and its enterprise value-to-earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization is 37.4. That compares with 3.4 and 13.4, respectively, for the S&P 500 Index, which is no bargain to begin with.
If Einhorn is wrong, however, it could be devastating for him and have broader reverberations. Greenlight has been betting against — or shorting in trader speak — Tesla’s stock for at least three years. While the size of the wager isn’t clear, Einhorn has spent considerable energy promoting his bet against Tesla, and most of his recent letter is devoted to the subject. If it fails, it could deliver another significant blow to long-short investing, for which Einhorn has long been a proponent.
He is no stranger to high-profile wagers, of course. He shorted the stock of Lehman Brothers in July 2007, telling the Value Investing Congress in November 2007 he thought that Lehman had a huge exposure to illiquid real estate investments and that it was improperly accounting for them. Lehman collapsed less than a year later, sparking the global financial crisis in September 2008.
The stakes are higher this time. When Einhorn wagered against Lehman in 2007, his reputation as a stock-picking prodigy was unquestioned. Greenlight returned an astonishing 26 percent a year from its founding in 1996 to 2006 — a period that began when Einhorn was in his late 20s — outpacing the HFRI Equity Hedge Total Index by 12 percentage points a year and beating the S&P 500 Index by 17 percentage points, including dividends.
But the years since haven’t been as kind. Even after accounting for Einhorn’s prescient Lehman bet, Greenlight has returned just 1.1 percent a year from 2007 to 2018, lagging the HFRI index by 1.8 percentage points a year and the S&P 500 by 6 percentage points. The fund was also down 34 percent in 2018, its worst year on record.
Ever the incurable performance chasers, investors are fleeing the fund. Greenlight’s assets dipped below $3 billion this year, down from $12 billion five years ago. Suffice it to say, now would be a bad time to lose a high-profile battle with Musk.
And like Musk, Einhorn is playing for more than just himself — and perhaps more than Greenlight’s employees and investors. Given his outsized success in the 1990s and 2000s, Einhorn has long been a standard-bearer for long-short investing. It’s a heavy burden; shorting is notoriously difficult. Not only do investors have to be right that a stock is poised to decline, which is hard enough, they have to be right fairly quickly because shorting is expensive. As the Wall Street adage warns, “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.”
For Einhorn, this market has been irrational for an unbearably long time. Tesla shares rose 46 percent in 2017 and 6.9 percent in 2018 before declining 18 percent this year through Tuesday. And it’s not just Tesla. The most expensive and least profitable companies — traditional fodder for short-sellers — have been the best performers in recent years.
The pain is evident far beyond Greenlight. The HFRI index returned just 2.9 percent a year from 2007 to 2018, down from 17 percent a year from 1990 to 2006. But just as Einhorn’s fame helped popularize long-short investing during its golden age, it’s likely to invite skepticism about the investing style if his recent stumbles continue. More than cars are riding on the feud between Einhorn and Musk.
To contact the author of this story: Nir Kaissar at nkaissar1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Daniel Niemi at dniemi1@bloomberg.net
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Nir Kaissar is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering the markets. He is the founder of Unison Advisors, an asset management firm. He has worked as a lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell and a consultant at Ernst & Young.
For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion
Tesla Stock Jumps After Elon Musk Slams the Auto Industry
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Companies to Watch: Amazon under investigation, Bank of NY Mellon tops earnings, CSX falls short in Q2
Tesla is raising the price of its 'full self-driving' package by $1,000
Elon Musk Wants To Wire Your Brain
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Edited Transcript of ENDP earnings conference call or presentation 28-Feb-19 12:30pm GMT
Thomson Reuters StreetEvents• March 1, 2019
Q4 2018 Endo International PLC Earnings Call
DUBLIN Mar 1, 2019 (Thomson StreetEvents) -- Edited Transcript of Endo International PLC earnings conference call or presentation Thursday, February 28, 2019 at 12:30:00pm GMT
* Blaise Coleman
Endo International plc - Executive VP & CFO
* Laure E. Park
Endo International plc - SVP of IR & Corporate Affairs
* Patrick A. Barry
Endo International plc - Executive VP & Chief Commercial Officer
* Paul V. Campanelli
Endo International plc - President, CEO & Director
* Ami Fadia
SVB Leerink LLC, Research Division - MD of Biopharma & Generics and Senior Analyst
* Christopher Thomas Schott
JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division - Senior Analyst
* Dana Carver Flanders
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division - Research Analyst
* David A. Amsellem
Piper Jaffray Companies, Research Division - MD and Senior Research Analyst
* David Reed Risinger
Morgan Stanley, Research Division - MD in Equity Research and United States Pharmaceuticals Analyst
* Gary Jay Nachman
BMO Capital Markets Equity Research - Analyst
* Gregg Gilbert
* Irina Rivkind Koffler
Mizuho Securities USA LLC, Research Division - MD of Americas Research & Senior Analyst
* Liav Abraham
Citigroup Inc, Research Division - Director
* Louise Alesandra Chen
Cantor Fitzgerald & Co., Research Division - Senior Research Analyst & MD
* Randall S. Stanicky
RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Research Division - MD of Global Equity Research and Lead Analyst
Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Fourth Quarter 2018 Endo International plc Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.
I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Laure Park, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs. Please begin.
Laure E. Park, Endo International plc - SVP of IR & Corporate Affairs [2]
Thank you, and good morning. Thank you for joining us today to discuss our fourth quarter 2018 financial results. Joining me on today's call are Paul Campanelli, President and CEO of Endo; Blaise Coleman, Executive Vice President and CFO; and Pat Berry, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer of our Branded business. We have prepared a slide presentation to accompany today's webcast, and that presentation as well as other materials are posted online in the Investors section at endo.com.
I would like to remind you that any forward-looking statements made by management are covered under the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and the applicable Canadian securities laws, and are subject to the changes, risks and uncertainties described in today's press release and in our U.S. and Canadian securities filings.
In addition, during the course of this call, we may refer to non-GAAP financial measures that are not prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States and that may be different from the non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies. Investors are encouraged to review Endo's current report on Form 8-K furnished with the SEC today for Endo's reasons for including those non-GAAP financial measures in today's earnings announcement. The reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is contained in our earnings press release issued prior to today's call, unless otherwise noted therein.
I would now like to turn the call over to Paul.
Paul V. Campanelli, Endo International plc - President, CEO & Director [3]
Thank you, Laure. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for today's call. I hope you've had a chance to review the company's earnings release issued earlier this morning.
Let's turn our attention to the fourth quarter 2018 earnings presentation. Now beginning on Slide 2, here's a brief agenda for today's call.
Moving Slide 3. Approximately 2 years ago, we outlined a strategic vision for Endo and laid out our key strategic priorities. We articulated a clear vision in which we aspire to be a highly focused generics and specialty branded company, delivering quality medicines to patients in need through excellence and development, manufacturing and commercialization. We also told you that this represented a multiyear turnaround plan. I am proud of the significant progress that we've made towards our goal. To recap, we simplified our company through centralization and unification, and these actions have also served to drive productivity improvements. We've created a new Endo culture that is customer focused and performance driven, with a relentless commitment of flawless operational execution. We transformed our legacy U.S. Branded Pharmaceutical business focused on pain and to a highly focused U.S. Branded Specialty Pharmaceutical business with best-in-class commercial capabilities. We divested noncore assets and businesses, and we repositioned our U.S. generics business by executing a comprehensive product portfolio and manufacturing footprint rationalization initiative.
Through these actions, we've been able to drive margin improvement, make targeted investments to further enhance our capabilities in the development high barrier, technically challenging generic products and reallocate resources to our core growth areas, U.S. Sterile Injectables, our Specialty Products portfolio of our U.S. Branded Specialty & Established Pharmaceuticals segment and the development of CCH and cellulite, including the recent successful completion of our CCH cellulite Phase III trials.
Recognizing the progress that we've made today, we believe we have now established the right foundation to transition to the next phase of our plan. As we make this transition, our 3 core strategic priorities are unchanged as is our commitment to operational execution, expanding our portfolio and capabilities to drive growth and our goal of expanding adjusted EBITDA and delevering to the 3 to 4x over -- range over time. What has evolved are the next set of specific steps that will move us forward in our journey to becoming the company we aspire to be over the long term. In this context, we have taken and we'll continue to take a long-term approach in terms of how we manage the business with a laser focus on methodically executing against our strategic priorities.
I am pleased with what we've accomplished today, and I'm excited for 2019 as it represents a critical transition year into the next phase of our plan. I remain fully confident in our team and our strategic focus as we move forward together.
Now moving to Slide 4. From a total enterprise perspective, we are pleased to report year-over-year quarterly revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth. The 2% revenue growth versus the same period last year was primarily attributable to continued strong growth in both our U.S. Branded Sterile Injectables segment and in the Specialty Products portfolio of our U.S. Branded Specialty & Established Pharmaceuticals segment. Our fourth quarter performance also reflects a 5% growth in adjusted EBITDA when compared to the fourth quarter of 2017.
We saw continued progress in our pipeline and investments. This was highlighted by positive top line and secondary results from 2 Phase III CCH clinical trials for the treatment of cellulite. We are continuing with our regulatory and precommercialization activities, and we expect to submit a BLA in the second half of 2019 and if approved, launch commercially in the second half of 2020. Blaise will walk you through our full year 2019 financial guidance later in our presentation.
Moving to Slide 5, you will see a snapshot of our segment revenues for the fourth quarter. We experience continued strong growth in both our U.S. Branded Sterile Injectables segment and the Specialty Products portfolio of our U.S. Branded Specialty & Established Pharmaceuticals segment in the fourth quarter, which was partially offset by competitive pressures in the U.S. Generic Pharmaceuticals segment and the divestiture of Somar, our former Mexican business. In addition to the continued strong underlying performance of our core areas of growth, the fourth quarter increase in these areas reflect a benefit from timing of shipments compared to the prior year. On a sequential basis, total company revenues increased by 5% to $786 million from $745 million in the third quarter of 2018, which represents our third consecutive quarter of sequential revenue growth.
In the fourth quarter of 2018, we also reported adjusted EBITDA of $344 million compared to $327 million in the fourth quarter of 2017. The increase was due to lower adjusted operating expenses.
Now moving to Slide 6. Our Specialty Products portfolio of our U.S. Branded Specialty & Established Pharmaceuticals segment continued to advance in the fourth quarter with year-over-year growth of 15%. This was largely driven by the significant growth of our XIAFLEX franchise, which grew 30% in the fourth quarter compared to the fourth quarter of 2017. This year-on-year growth reflects continued strong underlying demand and a benefit from timing of shipments compared to the prior year. Additionally, NASCOBAL grew 12% in the fourth quarter versus the fourth quarter of 2017 and AVEED grew 36% in the fourth quarter compared to the prior year. Needless to say, I'm extremely proud of our specialty branded commercial teams accomplishments.
In 2018, XIAFLEX full year revenue growth of 24% doubled the rate of XIAFLEX in 2017 revenue growth. This accelerated XIAFLEX growth rate has been driven by focused execution and continued investment in our integrated commercial strategy. This includes expanded consumer awareness and activation for both our Peyronie's and Dupuytren's contracture indications.
Based on the continued strong underlying fourth quarter XIAFLEX revenue growth, we expect full year 2019 XIAFLEX revenues to grow in the mid- to high teens percentage range and full year 2019 Specialty Products portfolio revenue growth in the low double-digit percentage range. The Established Products portfolio of our U.S. Branded Specialty & Established Pharmaceuticals segment performance reflects ongoing generic competition.
Moving to our CCH development program for assessing the treatment of cellulite, we are extremely pleased with the positive results from the Phase III trials. We are preparing for success on this front through the enhancement of our commercial capabilities, which leverage new talent with medical aesthetics experience and by building on our existing branded specialty capabilities. Looking forward, we will continue with our regulatory and precommercialization activities and are targeting a market launch in the second half of 2020.
Following our efforts in 2018, we plan to build upon our market presence, attending another 25 to 30 conferences and medical meetings in 2019. We expect data readout throughout the year, and in fact, we are excited that this Saturday, one of our study investigators, Dr. Joely Kaufman, will be presenting Phase III data at the American Academy of Dermatology conference in Washington, D.C.
Now turning to Slide 7. Our U.S. Branded Sterile Injectables segment continues to deliver with sales growth of 32% in the fourth quarter of 2018 versus the fourth quarter of 2017. This performance was driven by growth of ertapenem for injection, the Authorized Generic of INVANZ, with sales of $32 million. Also contributing to the revenue growth were ADRENALIN, with sales of $42 million in the quarter, a 60% increase versus the same period in 2017; and VASOSTRICT with year-over-year sales growth of 22% in the quarter.
Our Sterile Injectables fourth quarter growth also reflects a benefit from favorable year-on-year channel inventory changes, reflecting the significant level of channel inventory destocking experienced in the fourth quarter of 2017. Looking forward, we expect 2019 U.S. Branded Sterile Injectable revenues to grow in the high single to low double-digit percentage range with VASOSTRICT revenues expected to grow by a low double-digit percentage.
Turning to our U.S. Generic Pharmaceuticals on Slide 8. The performance for this segment during the fourth quarter versus the same period in the prior year primarily reflects the impact of competitive market pressures. This performance was partially offset by strong performance of colchicine tablets, the Authorized Generic of COLCRYS, which was a result of a first-to-file Paragraph IV settlement agreement. As we noted at JPMorgan conference in January, we expect 2019 to be a transitional year for our U.S. generic portfolio. We started seeing competition materialized on a number of our larger margin contributors, and we expect key Par generic launches to be in late 2019. In this context, we expect our full year 2019 U.S. generics revenue to decline in the mid- to high teens percentage range.
Moving to Slide 9. As expected, our international performance reflects the divestiture of Somar in the fourth quarter of 2017. For the full year 2019, we expect International Pharmaceuticals to decline approximately 20% compared to full year 2018, mainly due to the impact of generic competition on our business in Canada.
Now turning to Slide 10. We should focus to our diverse pipeline. The positive results from Phase III CCH for cellulite clinical trials positions us to pursue an exciting untapped market in injectable treatment for cellulite. We have additional real world CCH studies in development focused on dosing, injection technique and responses in target patient populations. Additionally, we continue to have optionality with CCH to develop new indications.
In the fourth quarter, we launched 3 new products, bringing the total number of Generics and Sterile Injectable new product launches to 10 for 2018. We plan to launch approximately 15 new products in 2019 across our U.S. Branded Sterile Injectables and U.S. Generic Pharmaceuticals segment. Our Branded Sterile Injectable pipeline is supplemented by strategic relationships with third parties such as Nevakar, which will potentially provide 5 differentiated 505(b)(2) hospital and critical care-based products.
Now yesterday, we announced that we made the decision to terminate our agreements to acquire Somerset and Wintac. While we work diligently to complete the transaction, certain regulatory approvals in India have taken longer than anticipated, and we do not have clarity on when those approvals could be received. There are no penalties or other payments associated with terminating the agreements. Notwithstanding the termination of Somerset Wintac acquisition, we will continue to be opportunistic in pursuing promising external opportunities that are aligned with our stated corporate goals.
The table on the bottom of Slide 10 shows some of our key disclosed future first-to-file or first-to-market opportunities.
Now let me turn the call over to Blaise to further discuss the company's fourth quarter financial performance and 2019 financial guidance. Blaise?
Blaise Coleman, Endo International plc - Executive VP & CFO [4]
Thank you, Paul, and good morning, everyone. First, on Slide 11, you will see a snapshot of the fourth quarter GAAP and non-GAAP financial results.
Paul covered company and segment revenues earlier, so I will not review that again. On a GAAP basis, we had diluted loss per share of $1.18 from continuing operations in the quarter versus a loss of $1.22 per share in the fourth quarter of 2017. GAAP operating loss in fourth quarter 2018 was $150 million compared to GAAP operating loss of $304 million during the same period in 2017. The reduction in loss was driven by an overall reduction in operating expenses, including the impact of lower litigation-related charges and R&D expenses, partially offset by higher asset impairment charges.
On an adjusted basis, the fourth quarter adjusted net income of $175 million and the adjusted diluted earnings per share from continuing operations of $0.75 exceeds the upper end of our implied fourth quarter financial guidance range provided in November. The better-than-expected fourth quarter performance was driven by higher net sales across each of our segments, lower adjusted operating expenses reflective of lower G&A spend and a faster ramp-down in R&D spend post the completion of the CCH for cellulite Phase III clinical trials in early November. In addition, our fourth quarter adjusted effective tax rate was lower than expected primarily due to favorable adjusted pretax jurisdictional earnings mix. Partially offsetting the better-than-expected fourth quarter performance was a lower-than-expected adjusted gross margin due to unfavorable sales mix, reflective of the strong top line performance of our largest Authorized Generic products in the quarter.
Slide 12 provides a summary of Endo's 2019 full year financial guidance. We expect 2019 total revenues in the range of $2.76 billion to $2.96 billion. The midpoint of our revenue guidance range implies a low single-digit decline versus 2018 revenue. This implied decline primarily reflects the expected decline in our U.S. generics segment, driven by the annualization of 2018 competitive events, anticipated 2019 competitive events for several of our key U.S. generic products and the expected timing of our new product launches that are skewed towards the latter part of 2019. This expected decline on U.S. generics segment is significantly offset by the expected continued strong growth in our U.S. Branded Sterile Injectables segment and U.S. Branded Specialty Products portfolio.
We expect adjusted EBITDA to be between $1.24 billion and $1.34 billion and adjusted earnings per share to be between $2 and $2.25. Please note that the company's guidance is based on the following assumptions: full year 2019 adjusted gross margin of 65% to 66%. Our adjusted gross margin assumption midpoint versus 2018 adjusted gross margin primarily reflects the shift in sales mix driven by the full year impact of the Authorized Generics relaunch in the third quarter of 2018 and the impact of competitive events to a number of our higher U.S. generic segment margin contributors.
We expect adjusted operating expenses to be between 24.5% and 25% of revenues. This assumption reflects continued investments in our core growth drivers, including an expected increase in our selling and marketing investments versus prior year in support of our successful XIAFLEX integrated commercial strategy and execution of our CCH for cellulite premarketing activities. These anticipated increases in investment are expected to be more than offset by reductions in G&A expense versus prior year driven by the benefits of ongoing cost-reduction initiatives and lower expected spend for certain corporate matters.
In addition, we expect R&D cost to be lower versus prior year, primarily as a result of the 2018 completion of our CCH for cellulite Phase III trials. We expect adjusted interest expense of approximately $550 million to $560 million.
In terms of our adjusted effective tax rate, we've previously communicated in early 2018 that we expected to maintain a low teens adjusted effective tax rate in the midterm based on the newly passed U.S. tax reform and assuming a static jurisdictional mix of adjusted pretax earnings. We also communicated at that time our expectations in maintaining modest level of cash tax over the midterm based on the expected utilization of certain tax attributes. During the latter part of 2018, we took additional actions to further reduce our expected cash tax over the midterm. As a result of these actions, our jurisdictional mix of adjusted pretax earnings changed from what we've previously projected, and we expect our 2019 adjusted effective tax rate to be in the 17.5 to 18.5 percentage range. However, based on our cash tax-focused strategy, we expect a low level of cash taxes in 2019 and over the midterm period.
In terms of our 2019 share count, we assume full year adjusted diluted shares outstanding to be approximately [234] million (corrected by Company after the call). Although we do not provide specific quarterly guidance, we expect the split of total enterprise revenue, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted earnings per share to be more heavily weighted through the second half of 2019 due to our expected revenue, adjusted operating expense and adjusted effective tax rate cadence. The higher anticipated second half 2019 revenue reflects the expected timing of 2019 new product launches as well as the expected drag on our first quarter 2019 revenue as the fourth quarter 2018 stocking benefit noted earlier unwinds. We expect the drag on first quarter 2019 total revenue to be approximately $15 million to $20 million.
In terms of our operating expenses, we anticipate the first quarter to be our highest quarter of spend in 2019 mainly due to the timing of certain corporate-related expenses. We expect the first quarter 2019 adjusted effective tax rate to be the highest quarterly rate, well above our fully estimated adjusted effective tax rate range, due to jurisdictional mix within the quarter.
Moving to Slide 13. This is a summary of the segment and product specific guidance previously discussed.
Advancing to Slide 14 and wrapping up the financial discussion. For full year 2018, we had $197 million in cash flow prior to debt payment, which is higher than we guided to in November. This favorability resulted primarily from higher cash provided from changes in working capital, higher adjusted EBITDA, significantly lower mesh settlement payments into the qualified settlement fund due to timing and the unplanned proceeds from the sale of our Huntsville facility received late in the fourth quarter. We ended 2018 with approximately $1.1 billion of unrestricted cash and a net debt to adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio of approximately 5.2x.
As we look forward to 2019, we expect the use of cash prior to debt payment in the range of approximately $75 million to $175 million. This assumes approximately $460 million in payments into the mesh Qualified Settlement Funds and from mesh legal expenses; $120 million in nonmesh settlement payments, primarily related to our previously announced LIDODERM manage trust and TRT product liability settlements; and $545 million in interest payments.
Now let me turn it back over to Paul. Paul?
Thank you, Blaise. We are proud of the many achievements to date and the steadfast focus of our teams to execute on all levels. We've taken and we'll continue to take the actions needed to become the company we aspire to be. We believe that our focus on enhancing our capabilities in the Sterile Injectables and our U.S. Branded Specialty Products portfolio, including medical aesthetics, positions us well for the future. Just as Endo looks different than it did 2 years ago, Endo will undoubtedly look very different several years from now as we continue to execute on the strategic priorities. I am grateful to all of our Endo colleagues for their commitment and hard work.
Let me now turn the call back over to Laure to manage our question-and-answer period. Laure?
Thank you, Paul. (Operator Instructions) Operator, may we have the first question?
(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Chris Schott of JPMorgan.
Christopher Thomas Schott, JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division - Senior Analyst [2]
The first one I had was talking about biz dev priorities beyond the Somerset announcement from last night, should we think of more assets of that scale that could make sense for the company? Or is that more of a one-off opportunity? And just a quick second one. We're just wanting a little bit more color on OpEx as a percent of sales. Obviously, you're stepping down in 2019. If I think up to 2020 and beyond, should we think about that trend starting to move back up as we think about the infrastructure for the cellulite indication, et cetera, starting to come onboard? Just trying to get a better sense of where that ultimately is going to shake out longer term for the company.
Sure, Chris. Thanks. I'll take maybe the business development, and I'll hand it over to Blaise. I think in terms of the business development opportunity, when I look at the Somerset deal that we were in, it was probably at the upper end of where we're probably focused in terms of acquisition price. I would tell you, though, when we go out from a business development standpoint, we are very agnostic in terms of where we can generate potential value. So if we were to find something, whether it was on the specialty side or the sterile side, that really wouldn't make too much of a difference to me. If they're small bolt-on deals, which would fit well with our core strategy, we continue in that regard. The generics side, I would tell you, we have a lot of resources from a development standpoint. So that would probably be less of a likelihood. But at this point in time, I would keep it open to both the specialty side and the injectables side. And I'll pass it over to Blaise.
Sure. So Chris, just in terms of the OpEx profile, in our guidance for 2019 as a percent of sales, you do see the midpoint of our assumption range to be lower than what we saw for full year '18. And when we spoke a minute ago about what the drivers of those are is we continue to fully invest on the selling and marketing side that we are seeing [fewer] efficiencies on the G&A side, and we're seeing the step-down in R&D spend primarily related to the wrap-up of the Phase III trial for cellulite. We're not -- Chris, we're not going to guide in terms of what we think the profile is going to be going forward. Clearly, as we've talked about, we are going to continue to fully invest in what we need to, to be successful with the launch of the cellulite indication, and we'll continue to invest against our priorities from an R&D perspective. We obviously also will continue to drive continuous improvements and look for cost efficiencies. So more to come on that, but those will be our priorities moving forward as to how we invest.
Our next question comes from Randall Stanicky of RBC Capital Markets.
Randall S. Stanicky, RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Research Division - MD of Global Equity Research and Lead Analyst [6]
Paul, can you maybe comment on the generic environment? Is it getting better, staying the same? And specifically, when you look at your generic gross margin guidance, last year, you're looking at mid-40%; this year, low to mid-30%. Can you talk about the pushes and pulls in there? Is there Authorized Generic impact? Ultimately, I'm trying to get a sense of where do those gross margins on the generics side normalize that going forward?
Yes. Thanks, Randall. I mean, I think you hit the nail right on the head. At the starting point, we have the colchicine Authorized Generic. That was part of a Paragraph IV. So -- I mean, at the end of the day, that was a product that was developed by Par. So I put that a little bit into the side, but needless to say, it does pull down our gross margin percentages. On the ertapenem side, that will be a traditional marketing agreement with Merck where they -- where we're looking for a distribution partner. So clearly, that really has to drag on the GM percentage. But we will continue to take those deals and pursue them as we have historically. So that's going to ebb and flow. That's the bottom line. In terms of the pricing environment, well, we get that question quite a bit. Was pricing getting better on the generic industry? Pricing is not getting better. But what's happening is that clearly, we are stable, right, from what I like to refer to the pre-2015 time frame where while you're getting the rolfers and you're getting request for price reductions, it's more a stabilized environment. So from that standpoint, we're able to manage. We're able to be able to predict those types of -- those type of requests. And we're better positioned, actually, to defend against the rolfers. So from a normalization standpoint, it's a harder question to answer because it also deals with we're successful with future Paragraph IVs. So again, we're probably at this point at the right percentage given that our generic launches are towards the latter half or late into 2014. But as we -- sorry, late fourth quarter 2018 -- '19, rather, late fourth quarter 2019. But as we have more successes in Paragraph IVs, then I would anticipate gross margins in the generics to increase once again.
Should we think about that mid-30% level being roughly -- on the generics side, being roughly stable or consistent throughout the year? Or is there a back end versus front end weighting?
Yes. As we launch those new products, Randall, we would expect to see that weighting increase in the second half of the year.
Our next question comes from Liav Abraham of Citi.
Liav Abraham, Citigroup Inc, Research Division - Director [11]
Paul, I understand you're not providing guidance beyond 2019. However, based on the pushes and pulls that you're seeing over the longer term, can you kind of contextualize the 2019 EBITDA? Is this, in your view, a trough year from what we can potentially see growth going forward? And then on the tax rate, is the -- on the reported tax rate, is this 17.5% to 18.5% range, is this the new run rate going forward?
Paul V. Campanelli, Endo International plc - President, CEO & Director [12]
Yes, Liav. In terms of being it a trough year, it's really difficult to predict right now. I think for today, we're going to have to just stick to our position for 2019. There's so many uncertainties that we are dealing with on a daily basis, on a go-forward basis. We are preparing for success with cellulite, which we're hoping that we will be expecting to launch in the back half of 2020. So that's certainly going to help us as we look out into the future. We have our fair share of generic launches that we placed on the slides that we're incredibly excited about. But it's just hard to predict when our competitors come to the market. It's hard to predict FDA timing, specifically with the shutdown that we're dealing with. So I think for today, we're going to just have to comment on 2020. I'll pass it over to Blaise on the second question.
Blaise Coleman, Endo International plc - Executive VP & CFO [13]
Sure. So on the effective tax rate, we do expect, over the midterm, our adjusted effective tax rate to be in the mid- to high teens. But what's very important is that from a cash tax perspective, and our focus here is on driving cash generation, we expect that to be lower than what we previously projected to be going forward. So very important that we understand we're focused on cash taxes. We believe that'll be lower than we anticipated going forward. However, there was a trade-off on the adjusted effective tax rate. We're going to see that in sort of the mid- to high teens.
Our next question comes from Dana Flanders of Goldman Sachs.
Dana Carver Flanders, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division - Research Analyst [15]
My first one is just on core XIAFLEX growth. We've obviously seen that really accelerate this year. Can you just remind us where we are on penetration in D.C. and Peyronie's? And just how you think about the levers you still have to continue to drive that level of growth going forward? And then just my quick follow-up, just appreciate the detail of the presentation on cash flows. Can you remind us when you expect the mesh and just the nonmesh legal settlement payments to end? Is 2020 a normalized cash flow year? Or will some of that still trickle over to 2020?
Sure, Dana. Thank you. So I'm -- we're going to pass the XIAFLEX question over to Pat, and then Blaise can certainly talk about the financial question regarding mesh. But I'll just start by saying, on XIAFLEX, we are incredibly proud of what Pat's team has done with respect to both of Peyronie's and the Dupuytren's indications, keeping in mind that Dupuytren's really launched in 2019 and Peyronie's indication launched in 3 years later. So I'm going to pass it over to Pat to give a little bit more color on how we think we can growth this.
Yes. Definitely. Thanks, Paul. Let me address your question on market penetration, starting with Peyronie's. When that decision to treat is made, the XIAFLEX is garnering almost 60% market penetration at this point. So we're doing very well from a market penetration perspective. But what we're excited about on the com is the fact that the diagnosis rate is still sitting around 2% or 3%, and the overall treatment rate is only 14%. So that's why we've been focusing on consumer activation and disease state awareness because we feel like there is plenty of opportunity for a sustainable growth. And based on similar pattern on Dupuytren's contracture, when that treatment decision is made, we're getting about 1 out of every 4 patients. So there's room to grow there, which we're optimistic about. But again, we've got treatment rate -- diagnosis rate of about 3% and treatment rate of about 30%. So at the top of the funnel, we've got opportunities to generate potential growth, and that's why we've been focused on a branded consumer activation and also unbranded disease state awareness.
Dana, on your question regarding mesh and nonmesh settlements and the cash fall, we -- in our guidance, the mesh cash call assumes the full payout of the remaining liability in 2019. So at this point, we would not expect any additional payments beyond that for mesh. On the nonmesh settlements, the vast majority of the cash call on those settlements are also assumed in our 2019 guidance. It will be a small carryover related to those into 2020.
Our next question comes from David Risinger of Morgan Stanley.
David Reed Risinger, Morgan Stanley, Research Division - MD in Equity Research and United States Pharmaceuticals Analyst [20]
So I have a couple of questions. First, with respect to VASOSTRICT, could you talk about the product's revenue prospects? And then just update us on the news flow to watch with respect to the FDA and potential competitive developments. And second, I think, Paul, you had mentioned a while back that the company is planning to enter the topical generic market and is currently building a facility. Could you just update us on that, including the timing of the facility will be able to shift products and when we will be able to see a meaningful revenue contribution from topicals? The final question, and I'm sorry for one more, but you had mentioned a stabilized environment. Could you just put some sort of framework around what that means? A lot of generalists think that means flat sales or prices year-over-year, and I constantly have to answer questions about what companies mean by stable and stabilized. But I'm pretty sure that you mean that those are -- that, that represents single digit declines in pricing year-over-year. But I'm not sure. I don't know if it means low single-digit year-over-year price declines or high single-digit year-over-year price declines. So if you could just put some parameters around stabilized, I would appreciate it.
Sure. David, there -- so let me see if I can tackle a few of these for you, and Blaise can certainly jump in. I think starting with the VASOSTRICT question, with respect to revenue prospect, I think what we're simply seeing, and we've put in our prepared remarks, at this point in time, we are seeing very small single-digit growth with respect to utilization, and that we take an appropriate annual price increase. And I think that's the way you really should be looking at VASOSTRICT on an ongoing basis. But I think it's also important just to remind everybody that the demand is actually going up in low single digits. The question on the topical facility, there must be a disconnect there. That's not something that's tied back to Endo or Par. We don't have any construction on topicals. We do have some small topical capabilities already in our Chestnut Ridge facility, but not -- we're not focused on building out. What we do have is an expansion in India in solid oral dosage, and we are also considering injectable expansion in India that would help us in the future with respect to our sterile and generic capabilities, but nothing on the topical front. With respect to generic stabilization, and I want to be careful. I'll start, and then maybe I'll just pass it over to Blaise. We want to be careful because if -- we're not going to go down the road of looking at our case business erosion, I don't think that's exactly your question, but we're not going to go down that path in terms of how we look at it because we do put ourselves at a competitive disadvantage when we start communicating these types of things. But maybe I'll just pass it over to Blaise to add a little color.
Yes. So David, when we're asked general generic environment questions, we give general generic environment answers. And when we're asked specific company questions, we give company-specific answers. So in this context, our commentary is that we've seen the underlying trends in U.S. generic stabilizing is simply us saying that the consortium-driven pricing pressures we faced in the last 12 to 18 months have moderated to a certain degree. Now that -- what has not moderated but has actually intensified for us specifically is the product-specific competition for certain of our key product that we've talked about. And these competitive pressures are less driven by the consortiums and more driven by normal generic market dynamics. We just happen to have a number of products with limited competition that are now in markets that are becoming more competitive. So as we look at our U.S. generic portfolio, has also seen a significant number product discontinuations and is also seeing a temporary low point in terms of new product revenue due to the timing of our pipeline opportunities. So in summary, we can see stabilizing overall pricing in U.S. generic environment, but we do have some idiosyncratic factors specific to our portfolio at this certain point in time. So again, we have a very healthy generics portfolio and pipeline going forward. As Paul mentioned earlier, it's a transition year for us, and we see more significant opportunities for us late in 2019 and beyond that will help us move that business forward.
And David, I want to make sure I understood one of your questions, were you specifically asking about the Paragraph IV update with VASOSTRICT? Was that your question?
Patrick A. Barry, Endo International plc - Executive VP & Chief Commercial Officer [24]
If you can update us on that as well, that would be helpful.
Yes. Sure. So I guess, at this stage of the game, I think everybody is aware that the first-to-file notification was received back almost a year ago, in April of 2018. That was on the 1 ml presentation. I think pretty much everybody was aware that we also received a notice on the 10 ml, which was back in June of 2018. And I think -- well, maybe the last component that's probably most important is that there is a scheduling order for both the [A&D] applicants, and that bench trial is scheduled now for May of 2020. So that's the time line associated with the VASOSTRICT.
And our next question comes from Irina Koffler of Mizuho.
Irina Rivkind Koffler, Mizuho Securities USA LLC, Research Division - MD of Americas Research & Senior Analyst [27]
So just going back to the generic pricing, one of your competitors mentioned that in the U.S., the stable headwind is about mid-single-digit pricing headwind. So outside of the idiosyncratic factors from this year, should we expect this to be the more normal range for your just regular oral generic business? And then a follow-up question is on the international. I didn't catch why we're looking at a 20% decline in 2019, and maybe you can comment on that going forward as well.
So I'll take the international question. I think it's just very simple. We're -- our Paladin business in Canada is predominantly a Branded business. And there was a couple of key products that received generic competition. So I think that's the reason of the decline in Canada. And then Blaise?
Yes. Again, we're not commenting on any expectations around what pricing erosion looks like for us in the industry, and Paul has commented on why we don't want to make comments around that. So we're just going to have to let it flip, let that topic stand there.
Our next question comes from Ami Fadia of SVB Leerink.
Ami Fadia, SVB Leerink LLC, Research Division - MD of Biopharma & Generics and Senior Analyst [31]
Paul, as you think about the generics and the Sterile Injectables pipeline that you've got and some of your commentary around a stabilization in the pricing environment, how do you see the lineup of your pipeline impacting the growth trajectory of the business in the next couple of years? Do you think that you have visibility into the business, especially the generics pharmacy business being flat to growing in either 2020, 2021? And then with regards to your 2019 guidance, can you elaborate on the percent of the portfolio in the generics side, or give it more color on a product basis as to where you see competition coming in, in the back half of the year?
So I'll take the first question. When you look at the generic business, there's no surprises here, right? Generic retail business remains a choppy business, and it always has, and it always will continue to be. And that's -- I mean, that's -- there's an exciting component to that, and there's a challenging component to that as well, right? So as you pick your products and you select your products, there's always going to be challenges of being able to pinpoint entry dates. We are a Paragraph IV company. There's always going to be a component of we're going to win cases, we're going to lose cases, we're going to settle cases, so that it's always going to be difficult to pinpoint with accuracy beyond where we are right today. So what we get excited about is when we placed products up on the slide here like lubiprostone, dexlansoprazole, the everolimus, these are products that we can talk about, that we're excited about, that are -- that have dates certain. And that's always going to be a major component to our business. However, the growth driver moving forward where we can really look and point to is going to be on Pat's specialty portion of Endo as well as Pat's counterpart, Tony Pera is running our injectable business. That's an area that we're going to continue to invest in. That's an area that we've been able to truly expand and have many successes beyond just VASOSTRICT and ADRENALIN. And we're excited about Paragraph IV settlement on teduglutide that we -- that we're able now to talk a little bit about. That's where you're going to see us focus a little bit more on a go-forward basis. And Blaise?
Yes. Sure. So on the competitive landscape question, our guidance takes into account 2 things: one, the competitive events that happened in 2018, and the analyzation of that into 2019. It also, as we stated, takes into account potential competitive events that we continue in 2019. We're not going to get into product-specific assumptions around that, but our guidance takes both of those into account.
Our next question comes from Gary Nachman of BMO Capital Markets.
Gary Jay Nachman, BMO Capital Markets Equity Research - Analyst [35]
First, on CCH for cellulite. What sort of prelaunch activities do you plan on doing this year? Have you been talking to potential partners, whether in the U.S. or outside the U.S.? And are you looking to bring other derm products in to try and maybe build some infrastructure ahead of the CCH launch? And then just quickly on NASCOBAL. Based on IQVIA, it accelerated significantly in 4Q, continued in January. You called that out, Paul. So what drove that? And is that sustainable going forward?
Yes. Sure, Gary. Maybe I'll take maybe the first part of that question, and I'll hand it over to Pat. In terms of -- well, Pat will talk about the prelaunch activities. In terms of partnerships, I think we've been pretty clear that we -- that we're always listening, we're always out there in the case of optionality. If there's somebody that wants to partner with us in the U.S., we certainly will always listen if that's the way that we can maximize the asset. I've got that fiduciary responsibility to do so. But absent of that, we are planning for success. And in a second, Pat can tell you a little bit about what we're doing in 2019 and as we lead towards the expected launch and success in 2020. That said, we do have international rights. We've talked about that in the future that when appropriate, we would look to partner. We've had initial discussions with certain companies that could maximize it from an ex-U. S. standpoint. But clearly, the focus is preparing for the regulatory success in the U.S., and then we would parlay that into the potential territories in Latin America and hopefully, Europe as well. And with that, I'll pass it over to Pat to talk a little bit about the commercial activities.
Yes. Now great. Thanks, Paul. As Paul mentioned, I mean, it's exciting time in 2019 as it relates to the CCH and cellulite. The R&D team is working very hard to ready ourselves towards the submission of a BLA in the second half of 2019, so that's a major milestone for us. As far as commercially and what we're doing both commercially and scientifically, we're continuing to expand our introduction of Endo aesthetics. We'll be attending probably approximately 25 major meetings similar -- in similar fashion to the AAD coming up this weekend. We feel like, given the disruptive innovation at CCH and cellulite represents, that will garner a lot of podium time. And so we're excited about Joely Kaufman releasing the Phase III results this weekend. So we've got an aggressive publication strategy in 2019 where we can begin to disseminate data. We'll also be continuing to work with our key opinion leaders to generate real-world data, and that's generating a lot of excitement. We've made the right strategic hires with medical aesthetics experience that you would anticipate from company that you would recognize. So we've got our commercial head onboard. We've got our head of marketing with strong consumer background onboard, which will be important to CCH, and we've made a couple of other strategic hires. So we're really building out the commercial infrastructure from a sales and marketing perspective. That also -- we benefit from the fact that we also have an internal structure to draw on from our existing branded specialty organizations. So we're excited about having this other channel that we can build off of. As far as key activities, obviously, beyond building out the commercial plan from a marketing perspective, we've done a lot of segmentation work. We're sizing the market. Obviously, a pricing decision will be a big one for us, and we'll begin to zone in on the right price point. We'll be finalizing our branding and packaging work. The brand naming we're excited about is right on track to complement our regulatory submission. And then we will be building out our framework around both our branded positioning and our unbranded positioning in the marketplace and really putting ourselves in the position to really accelerate that build-out in 2020.
And then, Gary, maybe just to add a little color. We get asked the question on NASCOBAL. When you look at what past commercial team has done just with XIAFLEX with the Dupuytren's indication launching in really 9 years ago and the Peyronie's launching 6 years ago, NASCOBAL launched 10 years ago, in 20 -- in 2009. So it's just an amazing position that we can continue to grow these older assets. But maybe we'll talk a little about the zero copay?
Yes. No, I apologize I missed that one. Yes, so we've seen strong growth of NASCOBAL, as Paul said. We've got a focus in the bariatric segment, and we put a zero copay offering for our commercial payer patients, and that's been really well received to remove any patient out-of-pocket barriers. And our (inaudible) sales team has done a terrific job of executing really strong messaging around NASCOBAL, and what we're really proud of the fact that we grew that product at 14% year-over-year.
Our next question comes from Gregg Gilbert of SunTrust.
Gregg Gilbert, [41]
First, for Blaise, I was hoping you could quantify the effects of the shipment timing that you called out on VASOSTRICT -- I'm sorry, on XIAFLEX and whether that affected other products. And then, Paul, a strategic question. When you first announced the Somerset deal, you pointed to a filed application for injectables as well as a sterile injectables facility in India. So I'm wondering if those are still key strategic priorities for you, and do you see opportunities out there to address those externally? Or have you just turned those efforts inward? Or will it be a mix of both?
Yes. Sure, Gregg. I'll take the latter question. So sure. I mean, while we're disappointed with Somerset, we remain incredibly excited with the Nevakar deal, and there's always potential to expand that existing relationship. In terms of small injectable deals, there are -- there certainly are a series of other companies and products that we could potentially acquire. So that strategy is going to remain intact. We're excited about that. And then the comment about injectables, we are -- we have a robust and an aggressive injectables program that we want to continue to invest in. As I said, it's a core part of our growth. So I don't see any change in that regard. So maybe a bump in the road with Somerset, but we remain pretty excited with Nevakar and other potential acquisitions that we -- that we're evaluating currently. And I'll pass it over to Blaise.
Sure. So Gregg, in terms of the stocking question, we had noted on the call, during the script, that we expect to see about a $15 million to $20 million drag in Q1 related to that item. And of that, about $5 million we expect to be related to XIAFLEX.
Our next question comes from David Amsellem of Piper Jaffray.
David A. Amsellem, Piper Jaffray Companies, Research Division - MD and Senior Research Analyst [45]
Just a couple. So I wanted to drill down on business developments, and you talked about focusing on specialty and injectables. But within specialty, can you elaborate on what areas you're looking at? And I apologize if I missed this before, but what areas are you looking at? What you're prioritizing? And then also, what your wherewithal is given the capital structure? And then secondly, with injectables, I know you've talked about toggling more to -- towards 505(b)(2) as a more complex product. Can you talk about your capabilities now and kind of aspirationally what you're thinking about in terms of what you want to add in terms of the capabilities within Sterile Injectables going forward?
Sure. So Dave, maybe the first question, with respect to business development and focus, I mean, think I started the question by indicating that we are agnostic. And when I say agnostic, we also have to be a bit true to ourselves in terms of our strengths and where we are today. So clearly, on the specialty side, having indications for men's health would be a -- clearly a focus that would make sense. We have, obviously, other indications that we can pursue with XIAFLEX. That's an R&D question. So it's a balance between men's urology from in-licensing. We also have to think about potential R&D that we can do with XIAFLEX for the future. I also get a lot of questions about, would we aggressively go after another -- a medical aesthetics product for the portfolio? And I think the way Pat and I really look at it is at an appropriate time, we will or consider it. I think we've got a lot to execute on the current CCH path. We'd like to prove success, right? We have the expectation of filing. We have the expectation of launching. We have to get that behind our back, under our belt, that would clearly be a [on the com] area of focus. A couple of other points. In terms of your question on the cap structure, I'll leave that to Blaise in a second, maybe I'll just move over to the 505(b)(2) capabilities. I think when you look at our company, we have unified and centralized our R&D groups. We have a lot of talented individuals that have shown success, both on our specialty and our injectables side. Long history, when you look at the portfolio, Megace ES, NASCOBAL, ADRENALIN, VASOSTRICT, these are all 505(b)(2)s. The Nevakar is all 505(b)(2)s, right? So when you look at the internal capabilities -- and again, we have the same team that's helping us develop BLA. So I think we have a lot of in-house capabilities to bring the right type of products forward. So if there's a 505(b)(2) that we want to file, whether it's on a solid oral dosage side, the injectable side or the BLA side, we're going to be agnostic. But we have the talent to be able to develop and file those with our own in-house talent. And with that, I'll pass it to Blaise with the cap structure.
Yes. So David, just in terms of your question around our wherewithal, I would just first say, our ultimate path to success lies in our ability to grow EBITDA, and that's really building the portfolio we need for the future. And our capital allocation priorities are aligned to that goal. Now just in terms of funding our capital needs and our ability to achieve that goal, we ended the year with about $1.1 billion, $1.2 billion of unrestricted cash. Based on our cash flow guidance, we expect to see use of cash somewhere between $75 million to $175 million in '19, and that's fully funding the remaining cash call on our mesh liability. So based on this outlook, we would expect to exit 2019 with somewhere around $1 billion of unrestricted cash. We'll be in a position to generate meaningful positive cash flow as we enter 2020, and we also have available secured capacity. So we feel good about our current level of operational flexibility. We're always assessing to see if there are other ways to increase that flexibility, but we feel good about where we are and the things we're targeting.
Our last question comes from Louise Chen of Cantor.
Louise Alesandra Chen, Cantor Fitzgerald & Co., Research Division - Senior Research Analyst & MD [49]
One question I have is we got a lot of thoughts on people on this opioid litigation trial that's coming up. I don't know if the date has been changed, but last we checked, it was September 3. So just curious, what are your expectations here? And how can you help us think about the potential liability to you? And then second question on CCH and your data presentation this weekend, maybe if you could give us a little bit more color on what you plan to present. And then one of the pushbacks that we've gotten is that it looks like the data were not as strong as some people had expected. And just curious if that will be enough of a data to drive uptake and also for people to come back for their additional treatments.
Sure, Louise. So this is Paul. I'll take the opioid question, and I can then maybe pass it over to Pat. So clearly, the -- so what had previously been communicated was that there were -- there was a bellwether case that was scheduled for September. The judge, in fact, did push that out to, I believe, October 21. So that is a change. That is track 1. I think it's important to note that in track 1, the defendants are not yet known actually who is going to be specifically in track 1. So to answer your question, bellwether case got pushed from September to October. We still do not know whether Endo or who any of the defendants are going to be in track 1. And that's pretty much the -- we're not going to be able to quantify. We're -- that's something that we're not going to do. We always like to say that we've had discussions. And if there's a way to settle, that's always something that we would consider. But at this point in time, we need to be prepared to go to trial if we are a part of track 1. With that, I'll pass it over to Pat to talk about CCH.
Yes. Sure. Thanks, Paul. We're very excited about the AAD, and we'll be -- we anticipate a lot of play at subsequent meetings throughout the year. So again, it will be a comprehensive review of the Phase III data, making sure people understand the differences between Phase III and Phase II, which you mentioned, so I want to definitely address that and some of the subanalysis that we've seen. Maybe taking on the question of the data, in fact, the data has been remarkable. I mean, again, it's important to understand that it's a largest cellulite trial ever, a very stringent endpoint, and despite that, it didn't meet that endpoint. So the main differences between the Phase III and the Phase II, on the Phase III, there were no restrictions on BMI or no restrictions on cellulite severity. So it's an all -- really, an [all comer] trial with a very difficult patient population. Yet it still met its primary endpoint in 15 of 16 as a -- 15 of the 16 secondary is truly remarkable. When you look at patients within the normal BMI range, which is the stratified data that we'll be able to disseminate going forward, in fact, those patients did much, much better and actually did slightly better than the Phase II results. So the Phase III results and those normal targeted BMI patients, the result was actually slightly better than the Phase II. So that's the type of nuances that you'll see going forward as we disseminate data. In relation to your KOL question, based on the discussions today with our investigators on our KOLs, they're very excited about the data, especially when they look at the 1-grade and 2-grade improvements as characterized by the before and afters. And we've consistently heard that it's a -- they believe it to be an impressive result. And they feel like there's a lot of patients that would line up quickly for it, probably likely the aesthetically experienced women within a normal BMI active lifestyle who have cellulite and spotted by cellulite, happens to be a lot of patients, by the way, they feel like those would be first in line for us. So we feel like there's a big market potential for CCH and cellulite once approved.
Laure E. Park, Endo International plc - SVP of IR & Corporate Affairs [52]
Thank you. I guess that's our last question.
At this time, I'd like to turn the call back over to Mr. Paul Campanelli for closing remarks.
Thank you. Simply said that we truly appreciate your continued interest and support of the company. And we look forward to providing you with updates as we move forward. Thank you for joining us this morning, and goodbye.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation in today's conference. You may disconnect. Everyone, have a wonderful day.
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PlayStation Vita Release Dates Released
Good news: You still have time to save up for one. It could be the future of gaming, but where's my Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble II? The PlayStation Vita will be released in North America, Latin Americ
Contributed by Matt Jonas on October 19th, 2011 in Categories News PostsWith content involving Tags Matt Jonas, PlayStation Vita, Pricing, Release Dates, Sony
Good news: You still have time to save up for one.
It could be the future of gaming, but where’s my Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble II?
The PlayStation Vita will be released in North America, Latin America, Australia and Europe on February 22 next year. This is a significant amount of time after the Japanese launch, which is due for December 17. You could always import one if you’d like, seeing as they’re region free, but I’m guessing that it probably won’t be worth it in the long run.
The Wi-Fi model of the PlayStation Vita will retail for £229.99 in the UK, while the 3G/Wi-Fi model will cost an extra fifty British pounds. Europe will be looking at €249.99 for the Wi-Fi model and €299.99 for the 3G/Wi-Fi model.
As of writing, €299.99 is roughly equal to £263.49, meaning that Europe is getting a slightly better deal. Japan is getting an even better deal, as their price works out to around £250, and–
Maybe I’m thinking about this too much.
Australia will be happy to know that they’re not alone in being last this time, and they can snap up the PlayStation Vita for $349.95 Wi-Fi and $449.95 3G/Wi-Fi. Australia is, however, getting the worst deal, as the 3G/Wi-Fi unit works out as £15 more expensive than the UK release price.
The price window for the North American and Latin American releases haven’t been revealed yet, but I would hazard a guess that the unit will likely be significantly cheaper than in the European countries (upwards of £50 cheaper than the UK prices); however, this is entirely speculative based on the price of previous console launches.
But who wants a PlayStation Vita anyway?
(You need to be a registered member to rate this post.)
Matt Jonas 224
Email: mjonas@gamecola.net
Website: http://www.youtube.com/escaperoutebritish
They asked me to share a little biographical information about myself. My name is Matt. Good night, everybody.
Are You Game?: Nintendo DS
We’re not going to waste any time on this; we’re just going to hit the ground running.
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About Lacoste People
“What’s important is to keep Fair Play!”
We are making René Lacoste’s sports slogan into a rule of conduct for our business and behavior. At LACOSTE, we are very attached to the ethic and to our values.
ONE CROCODILE, SEVERAL CROCODILES
LACOSTE is rich in the diversity of its employees (more than 40 nationalities). We are 10,000 in the world create, manufacture and sell elegance to freedom of movement and the French!
Distribution of men and women in the workforce in 2018
Distribution of men and women in the workforce.
Group head office
Distribution of the workforce by trade
EMEA (France excluded)
The geographical distribution in 2018.*
Lacoste academy
LACOSTE MANUFACTURING ACADEMY
In January 2017, LACOSTE has opened a school within its site of Troyes: the LACOSTE Manufacturing Academy, in order to train some 100 new people (recruitment over 3 years) and of course to continue to develop the skills of our teams. This approach contributes to make Troyes a center of excellence within the Group. Two groups have been already trained at the end of 2017 and a third one began its training in January 2018.
THE RETAIL ACADEMY IN THE SERVICE OF THE EXCELLENCE IN STORE
Launched in 2014, the Retail Academy has already trained more than 5000 sellers. They are the ambassadors of the brand, they make live the LACOSTE experience to the customers all around the world thanks to programs developed in e-learning and livened up by a world network of more than 50 trainers LACOSTE.
High requirements quality, social & environmental
LACOSTE has several production sites around the world to develop collections to recognized quality. Today, 15% of ready-to-wear collections are still made in the production of the brand sites. Lacoste clothing are all made in factories who, regardless of their location in the world, have been selected for their ability to meet requirements of quality, social and environmental high.
Lacoste joined the United Nations Global Compact
Since 2012, LACOSTE joined the Global Compact - United Nations, thus committing to respect and promote, within its sphere of influence, 10 universally recognized principles on the the human rights, labor standards, the environment and the fight against corruption.
Discover the pact to the United Nations
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S05. E17. The Common Defense
By thewhiteowl, March 24 in Madam Secretary
With Elizabeth away, the staff works to get an agreement for citizens displaced by global warming. Also, Daisy's daughter is endangered by a measles outbreak.
Watching this now.
OMG the little girl cast as Daisy's daughter Joanna—that lovable face.
Will, OTOH, with his Homeless Couture stylin' has no chance in hell of finding a second date.
I think I’m done with this show. Its gone from the interesting political show to hour long “ripped from the headlines” or PSAs. When the nurse was explaining to Daisy how the vaccine works, I rolled my eyes. Like Daisy doesn’t know how things work.
I knew Lyric was going to be unvaccinated though. Because this show has become that predictable.
NUguy514 5.8k
Obvious dialogue obviouses very obviously.
And since they referred to the factually bullshit events from last week, I will go on correcting their inaccuracies: the "typhoon season" doesn't affect the Solomon Islands any more than it affects Nauru because those storms are called "cyclones" in the southwestern Pacific Ocean where, like Nauru, the Solomon Islands are. Moreover, the "typhoon season" and the "cyclone season" don't occur at the same time since the seasons of the year are on opposite ends of the calendar in the southern hemisphere from those in the northern hemisphere; typhoons can occur throughout the year but are most common in the Northern summer and fall, while cyclones typically occur in the Southern summer and very early fall. Also, Solomon Islanders are Melanesian; the refugees in this episode didn't look very Melanesian.
And again, I don't care about Bess's sad sack brother! His dating life & problems with his wife are irrelevant to the plot line...what is the point to his character?!
1 hour ago, BuckeyeLou said:
I'm still dreading a suicide by Will the Brother.
buckboard 1.2k
12 hours ago, deaja said:
I think I’m done with this show. Its gone from the interesting political show to hour long “ripped from the headlines” or PSAs.
That's what dramas do. They are fictionalized accounts of real life. The West Wing did this all the time. Law & Order practically invented ripped from the headlines. They provide alternate realities of how certain situations could be handled, starting from the true life situation. Of course, IRL, situations aren't wrapped up in 60 minutes. You have to maintain the old willing suspension of disbelief.
On a number of occasions, Madam Secretary's story lines, in fact, have come before actual events hit the headlines. Off the top of my head, I can recall the story about tundra in the Arctic region and China claiming islands in the South China Seas. A few weeks after the plot appeared on my TV, I read about these events in the news. (Although they weren't handled IRL the same as on the show.)
Pop Tart 6.1k
I got why they had Bess off in seclusion so that it gave Jay a chance to do the work and the writers a chance to develop his and other characters in new ways. All for that. But I knew as soon as Bess left her phone on the bed with Dr. Ethical Super Hero Henry staying behind that it'd turn out he was in on meetings and stuff no matter the topic. And sure enough, there's Henry in the meeting with the people from the WHO and CDC in a discussion about a measles epidemic. Because of course he has to be called into all high level meetings in the oval office, many times more than Bess is at this point. Arghhhhh.
Other than that I was happy to see some of the other characters have a bit more space to do stuff.
Just not Henry. Never Henry!
36 minutes ago, Pop Tart said:
For me, Henry has become like the flower wallpaper in my previous apartment where I lived for 10 years; I don't even notice anymore.
Athena5217 834
Why did the White House need Henry in that meeting? I think a 10th grader could understand the ethical issues of mandatory vaccinations.
Also, Henry missed the perfect chence to get rid of Will—send him all over the country to give vaccines.
Perkie 8.0k
23 hours ago, BuckeyeLou said:
what is the point to his character?!
Eric Stoltz is a producer on the show.
Nunya 2
I think I am done with this show. It was once my absolute go-to show. The writers were absolutely amazing and cutting edge. They told a great story.
Lately, the shows seems to be more focused on presenting a political "message". While their "message" topics are worthy (global warming, vaccination), the current writers are taking extreme artistic liberties. While their dire warnings may become realistic some day, their brow beating their audience is condescending. We get enough of this in the news, we do not need it in our shows we watch for entertainment.
p.s. the brother seems like a "pity part" written in for the actor.
Edited March 27 by Nunya
On 3/25/2019 at 1:34 PM, Pop Tart said:
And sure enough, there's Henry in the meeting with the people from the WHO and CDC in a discussion about a measles epidemic.
It actually made me laugh. I mean, why do you need an ethics advisor when you discuss measures with regards to a measles vaccine? Come on! Was he supposed to take notes for Bess, or what? His commentary really wasn't needed.
And where was the Sec of HHS? Or, at least, a representitive of the department?
On 3/27/2019 at 4:50 PM, Nunya said:
I think they still do and I think this episode highlighted how great the actors are. I thought the episode was really static at times, especially the scenes in the Oval Office and the discussion was very dry and I felt like I was watching a live coverage from the Oval on C-Span or something. Still, I can't say I was bored and I stayed invested in the overall story. Not as much as with some other episodes, but still.
I missed Bess, and, as I mentioned above, Henry in the Oval was ridiculous, but the episode still had a lot of things that I liked and enjoyed.
But first things first (well, sort of): wherever they found Daisy's sweater, I think they need to bring it right back.
In any case, I agree with shapeshifter, that the little girl who they cast was absolutely adorable. But why do characters in situations like Daisy was in almost always come across as condescening? Isn't there a different way to tell someone that you're familiar with procedure and so on? I don't even think Daisy was supposed to be condescending but I still thought she came across as such.
No fair teasing us with what I thought was a really cute Bess and Henry scene and then giving us only one other short one. Sure, it was kind of obvious that it would be like that, but I still wanted more Bess and Henry cuteness after that.
Wasn't that a conference that the Sec of State should attend though? I get why she would let her CoS fill in for her - if she didn't know she wouldn't be there, she wouldn't have involved her #2 in the State Department, so Jay would have been more familiar with the details. But it seemed like the kind of conference you'd work into your schedule, so you can attend. It also seemed like it would generate huge media attention if the Sec of State didn't attend. I guess, they could have told the media that she won't but I think that would have led to endless speculation why, so one way or another, I'm assuming that the timing of Bess' retreat would have raised suspicions.
The "disappearance" of state department officials at the conference was amusing. However, as a foreign President, I probably would have wondered how serious the US is taking it all since the Sec of State wasn't there and then Jay disappeared as well.
The actor who portrays the Philippinean President has the uncanny ability to make me want to punch him in the face each time he's on the show. I'm sure the actor's nice but he really portrays the smug idiot that the President is very well.
Jay crashing the lunch - awesome! Arcelus really nailed it. I could watch that scene on a loop!
Interesting that the deal more or less fell apart throughout the episode. I was expecting the staff to catch a break and/or Bess to come back early because she'd heard something or because she couldn't stand being off the grid any longer or that one of them would try to get a hold of her.
I liked how Blake came up with the idea of a travel warning, that he was more or less just rambling/ranting and that then formed into an idea. I really want to see more of it.
Loved Nina's "plot twist" comment/the line delivery.
I also kind of liked the Australian President. I wouldn't mind seeing more of him.
I think I enjoy Stevie and Ardelle together. Stevie's always more confident around her than she is around Russell. I also liked the dating app story. I thought the awkwardness came across really well, from both Stevie and Henry and I liked the scene between Stevie and Will. I appreciate that Will didn't go on a rant about how his personal life is no one else's business, as I think many other shows would have done. I feel that this is where the show still is different from others and puts a little bit of extra effort into doing things a little differently.
I did not see Will going for the boring stuff coming. Rather, I thought he'd say Sophie was right and maybe decide to go back into his old job. And as much as I like it when they have family stories, I prefer if they are used to shed some light on the character's past. I'm glad he's moved out again and not only because I'm rooting for him and Sophie.
I know why they did it but I think having two children fall so severely ill with the measles was a bit too much. Couldn't Daisy's daughter have been really sick without having to be intubated?
I liked that the Lyric's mother saw the error of her ways but I'm not sure if I had been as forgiving or understanding as Daisy. Sure, it wouldn't have helped to put blame on the mother, still, I probably wouldn't have been so rational in that situation. Certainly not if my baby girl is clinging to her life.
I always assumed that Daisy's family wasn't close by and that she wasn't particularly close with them. I don't know why. It just sounded like it when she revealed she was pregnant to Bess back in S3. So, I was surprised to see her mother but I like her. I also liked how Matt responded to her, in a sort of accepting way that she wasn't his biggest fan. (Although, I'm not entirely sure why since Matt hasn't done anything as far as I know).
And while I liked a staff-centered episode, I did miss Bess. (Although, the episode made me wonder how we had a lot of staff and Bess and a B-story in earlier episodes. It seems like they aren't able to fit as much staff into the episodes anymore? Is that because there's more staff? Or is that because there's more of Henry? But he did have his own stories in earlier episodes. Weird).
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Documents filtered by: Author="Washington, George" AND Period="Revolutionary War"
[Diary entry: 3 May 1775]
3. Mr. Fairfax went away. Majr. Gates stayd all day. In the Afternoon Colo. Richd. H. Lee & Brothr. Thoms. as also Colo. Chas. Carter came here.
Richard Henry Lee (1732–1794) married Anne Aylett (1738–1768), whose half sister, also named Anne Aylett, had married GW’s half brother Augustine Washington, of Pope’s Creek, Westmoreland County. Lee built his home, Chantilly, just a few miles down the Potomac River from Pope’s Creek and Stratford Hall and across Nomini Bay from Bushfield, home of GW’s brother John Augustine Washington.
Lee and GW entered the House of Burgesses the same year (1758), and Lee represented Westmoreland County as a burgess until the Revolution, distinguishing himself for an accomplished command of the English language. He had been one of the leading Virginia delegates to the First Continental Congress in 1774 and was now on his way to the second Congress, where in June 1776 he moved a resolution that resulted in the Declaration of Independence.
Colonel Carter is probably Charles Carter, Jr. (1733–1796), eldest son of Charles Carter of Cleve (1707–1764). He was variously referred to as Colonel Carter, Charles Carter, Jr., and Carter of Ludlow and Nanzatico. Carter served as burgess from King George County 1756–71. During part of his service two other Charles Carters also served in the House of Burgesses—his father, Charles Carter of Cleve, also representing King George County, and a cousin, Charles Carter of Corotoman and Shirley, representing Lancaster County. Charles Carter, Jr., was at this time living on his Stafford County property, Ludlow, and representing that county in the House of Burgesses. Carter had been in serious financial difficulties even before his father’s death and acted for a time as manager of one of his uncle Landon Carter’s farms (CARTER [3] description begins Jack P. Greene, ed. The Diary of Colonel Landon Carter of Sabine Hall, 1752–1778. 2 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1965. description ends , 2:817, 856). In later years Carter borrowed money from GW for the education and establishment of his sons (GW to Carter, 10 June 1797, Carter to GW, 3 Mar. 1795, GW to Carter, 10 Mar. 1795, DLC:GW).
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/01-03-02-0005-0010-0003
Ancestor groups
Year: A Call to Service
Month: [May 1775]
“[Diary entry: 3 May 1775],” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed April 11, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/01-03-02-0005-0010-0003. [Original source: The Diaries of George Washington, vol. 3, 1 January 1771–5 November 1781, ed. Donald Jackson. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1978, pp. 325–327.]
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Browse: Home / Blog / World Recognition for Japan
World Recognition for Japan
Posted by Mark on 6/28/13 • Categorized as Blog
On this past Saturday, June 22, the World Heritage Committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) held a meeting in Cambodia where it declared Mount Fuji in Japan to be a World Heritage Site. All Japanese are delighted for this international recognition of one of the most beloved symbols of the culture of Japan. It shows that there is something of a global consensus that the preservation of the mountain is important.
Mount Fuji is visited by crowds of tourists every year, approximately 300,000 of whom make the climb up the mountain. There are rest stations along the way up on a well-tread hiking path. People making the pilgrimage can stop to eat or sleep. The goal of many is to make it up to the summit in the early morning hours in order to see the sunrise from the highest point in Japan.
It reminds me of my childhood in New York. The Statue of Liberty was a renowned landmark that millions have visited. An elevator takes tourists much of the way to the top, but my friends and I wanted to climb the steps all the way up as a challenge. I look back on those days with nostalgia, although now it seems pretty senseless to do so much climbing with not much of a payoff. The same with climbing Mount Fuji. Those who have done it can brag to others about it, but few are inclined to make the trek again.
This morning, June 26, there was another item in the news that gave Japan a higher worldwide profile. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that Tōkyō has been designated as a finalist for the city that will be hosting the 2020 Summer Olympics. It has been quite a while since Japan has held a Summer Olympics. That was way back in 1964, when the Japanese were eager to show the world how it had recovered from the devastation of World War II and had modernized the country. Of course, Japan played host to the Winter Olympics in Sapporo in 1972 and Nagano in 1998, but those events were much less prestigious, and those two locations are off the beaten path, even in Japan.
On the other hand, the Japanese were delighted to hear that that IOC had included Tōkyō as a candidate city for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games. Mayor Inose Naoki of Tōkyō appeared on camera in newscasts to express his satisfaction. There is just one more hurdle to overcome before winning the Olympic bid. That is, there are two other cities that are also finalists, Istanbul, Turkey and Madrid, Spain in the running.
Istanbul might seem to be unlikely to be awarded the Games since the intense fighting in nearby Syria would be a tremendous distraction. The situation would probably be settled by 2020, but the IOC will be making its decision over this long, hot summer, when the bloodshed will be at its height. Members of the committee cannot help but be affected by it. After all, even today there are terrible memories of the terrorist actions at the Summer Olympics in Munich in 1972. It will be hard to block that out of one’s mind while there is so much turmoil in the Middle East.
Madrid is a different story. It is a modern European city with a rich heritage that many visitors would find attractive. And Spain’s economy could use a boost. Of course, the situation will surely change by 2020, but psychologically the country could use some good news right now. The IOC might award the Games to Madrid simply out of sympathy for its current condition.
The decision of the IOC will be announced on September 7.
One other thing should be mentioned. Japan in itself is quite attractive as a tourist destination. Just this past May it welcomed 875,200 visitors to the country. Altogether, more than ten million foreigners will travel to Japan over the course of this year. Even though there is a recessionary worldwide economy, and there have been widespread cancellations by Chinese tour groups due to political tensions as well. Tourist travel in Japan by Chinese nationals is down by more than 30% this year. It makes no difference. The fact is that there are many people who are attracted to the Japanese culture.
No doubt hundreds of those foreigners will hear about the UNESCO designation and travel to Mount Fuji as a result. Surely many of those visitors will be Americans. Back in 1984 the US withdrew from the organization due to disagreements over policy, but in 2003 it rejoined. However, it is doubtful that the US played any role in UNESCO’s declaring Mount Fuji to be a World Heritage Site.
Those who wish to comment on the opinions expressed here may send their thoughts to info@GoWizardry.com. The most interesting responses will be addressed in future postings.
Robert J. Terry
Tagged as: Robert J. Terry
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Heart for Hobby: Executive Director’s HPD Experience Guides Strategy on Crime
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The safety and well-being of a community is integral to its growth and success, and no one knows that better than our Executive Director, Jerry Lowry, whose work in the public and private sector includes many years in law enforcement and security. Prior to joining the Hobby Area District’s staff, Jerry worked for 15 years…
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Meet our new director of communications, public affairs and support services
Retirement Reception for Perry Miller, Dec. 8
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African American actress and singer Halle Bailey cast as Ariel in Disney's new "Little Mermaid"
Just Announced: Halle Bailey has been cast in the upcoming live-action reimagining of The Little Mermaid. https://t.co/YnLAdbZSmN pic.twitter.com/Y4B0ZKfuIr
— Disney (@Disney) July 3, 2019
African American actress/singer Halle Bailey has been cast as Ariel in Disney's up and coming live action retelling of its classic Little Mermaid.
The announcement was made with director Rob Marshall (Mary Poppins, Mary Poppins Returns) stating, "After an extensive search, it was abundantly clear that Halle possesses that rare combination of spirit, heart, youth, innocence, and substance—plus a glorious singing voice—all intrinsic qualities necessary to play this iconic role". 19 year old Bailey, as part of the singing duo Chloe x Halle, is known for her singing and had also been nominated for a Grammy this year, along with her sister Chloe Bailey. After stumbling upon their cover of one of her songs, Beyonce has also taken the duo on tour with her where they opened for her during the European leg of her Formation World Tour in 2016.
She is also part of the main cast of Grown-ish, a spin-off series of Kenya Barris's ABC sitcom Black-ish, which is available on Freeform. This is also not the first time that Bailey will be working with Disney. The duo's track Warrior from their debut album The Kids Are Alright has been featured in A Wrinkle Through Time (and on Grown-ish) and Bailey has also appeared on the Disney Channel series Austin and Ally. In response to the announcement, Bailey tweeted out, "Dream come true...", using the official Chloe x Halle Twitter account, and has since been responding to well wishers that include her namesake Halle Berry.
In case you needed a reminder... Halles get it DONE. Congratulations @chloexhalle on this amazing opportunity, we can’t wait to see what you do! #TheLittleMermaid #HalleBailey pic.twitter.com/z0Rik2nxRe
— Halle Berry (@halleberry) July 3, 2019
Along with being directed by Marshall, the movie will be produced by him, John DeLuca, Marc Platt, and Lin-Manuel Miranda. The new iteration will include some songs from the original animated film that were written by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman. The 1989 Disney classic won the Best Original Song and Score Oscars for its soundtrack. New songs that will be included have been co-created by Miranda, who has perviously done so for Disney's Moana, and Menken. David Magee has been credited with writing the script with Jane Goldman having written a previous draft.
With the announcement being made yesterday, while a lot of people have shown support for the actress, there are still some who are criticising Disney's decision to have an African American woman play the fictional character that has been animated as a Caucasian woman. The negative response has also resulted in a hashtag, #notmyariel, which is being used not just by critics, but also by people who support the decision, to discuss how the race of a fictional mermaid may not really be a very important topic in identity politics. Caucasian American actress Jodi Benson has typically been the voice behind the three movies and one tv show that star the Atlantean princess.
There is really a whole #notmyariel hashtag because the character is being played by a black woman in the live action movie. People. I could go on about the number of white actors previously cast as black/ethnic characters but please consider this; she is a FISH. pic.twitter.com/Ew4oMRo7cR
— Noor (@noorperacha) July 4, 2019
According to the Hollywood Diversity Report 2019 by UCLA, only two in ten lead actors in movies are people of colour, with only nine percent of actors cast in Hollywood are African American. For minority actresses, the numbers are even lower, with a ratio of three to one for African American men and women.
The decision to have Bailey play Ariel has also reminded people of when Disney had also previously cast African American actress Brandy Norwood in a 1997 live action re-telling of Cinderella. In recent years, media companies have begun casting people of colour for iconic, typically depicted as Caucasian, characters. Nick Fury from the Marvel movie franchise is a Caucasian man in the original comic book series and is portrayed by African American actor Samuel L Jackson. Senegalese-American actress Anna Diop also plays the DC fictional Tamaranean alien princess Starfire in Titans. Noma Dumezweni was the older Hermione Granger in J K Rowling's play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Some of these decisions, such as the case of Diop and Dumezweni, have been received in a less than favourably way by some consumers of the franchise. However, their reactions have died down over time.
Disney had perviously been criticised for apparently lightening the skin tone of Princess Tiana in Wreck It Ralph 2 which ended in them re-animating parts of the movie. And with fans now pushing to have Prince Eric also being portrayed by a minority actor and Awkwafina already in talks for voicing Scuttle, perhaps Disney's new Little Mermaid will be more diverse.
Production is expected to being sometime in early 2020, with additional announcements about the cast being made in the coming weeks. Along with Awkwafina, Room's actor Jacob Trembley and actress Melissa McCarthy are also reportedly in talks for Flounder and Ursula.
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Kim Kardashian to rename "Kimono" Shapewear after backlash
History repeats itself: The second greatest party that never happened
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Home Research > Members > 1660-1690 > HYDE, Hon. Edward (1645-65)
HYDE, Hon. Edward (1645-65), of the Middle Temple, London.
16 May 1664 - 10 Jan. 1665
bap. 1 Apr. 1645, 3rd s. of Sir Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, and bro. of Henry Hyde and Laurence Hyde. educ. Christ Church, Oxf. 1660; M. Temple 1661, called 1664. unm.1
Freeman, Salisbury 1662; student of Christ Church by 1665; commr. for oyer and terminer, Western circuit 1665.2
Hyde’s father became high steward of Salisbury in 1662, and seems to have nominated his son as the only candidate in whose favour he could decline, without offence, to support (Sir) Thomas Clarges. Hyde thus entered Parliament, presumably unopposed, shortly after his 19th birthday. In spite of his youth he was not inactive, serving on at least four committees in his only session. His was the first name on the committee for the bill to make the Avon navigable from Christchurch to Salisbury. He died on 10 Jan. 1665 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.3
Author: John. P. Ferris
1. Westminster Abbey Reg. (Harl. Soc. x), 161; North, Lives, i. 59; Cal. Cl. SP, v. 393.
2. Hoare, Wilts. Salisbury, 449.
3. North, Lives, i. 59; Cal. Cl. SP, v. 393.
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Home Research > Members > 1790-1820 > CHETWODE, Sir John (1764-1845)
CHETWODE, Sir John, 4th Bt. (1764-1845), of Oakley, Staffs.
Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1790-1820, ed. R. Thorne, 1986
22 July 1815 - 1818
b. 11 May 1764, o. surv. s. of Sir John Chetwode, 3rd Bt., of Chetwode, Bucks. by Dorothy, da. and coh. of Tobias Bretland of Thorncliffe, Cheshire. educ. at Exeter; St. John’s Camb. 1782-5. m. (1) 26 Oct. 1785, Lady Henrietta Grey (d. 12 July 1826), da. of George Harry Grey†, 5th Earl of Stamford, 8s. 7da.; (2) 16 May 1827, Elizabeth, da. of John Bristow of Lincs., 2da. suc. fa. as 4th Bt. 25 May 1779.
Sheriff, Cheshire 1789-90.
Capt. Staffs. yeomanry 1794.
The scion of an ancient Buckinghamshire family, Chetwode was at a loss for a seat in Parliament. He was an admirer of Pitt and in 1790 sent him proposals for improving the tontine; in 1817 he was listed a Pitt Club member. He seems to have been in the running as a candidate for Denbigh in 1807, doubtless on the strength of his Cheshire connexions, but nothing came of it.1 His best chance was in Staffordshire where there was some support for his candidature in the by-election of 1812; and on 4 Aug. 1814 he asked the end Marquess of Stafford for his interest at Newcastle-under-Lyme if Lord Gower vacated to sit for the county, promising that he would not attempt to create an interest of his own there. Next day, hearing that Lord Gower was not going to offer for the county, he wrote again, aspiring to that honour. Stafford concurred, provided that John William Ward* did not offer. In the next two weeks Chetwode sounded his prospects and found them uncertain; so he announced that he would proceed no further without more assurances of support. He was displeased to hear that Lord Gower was likely to offer after all and threatened to persevere, but on 26 Oct. 1814 announced (to the marquess) that he abandoned his pretensions to either seat at present, but looked to the county in future.2
Within a year, Chetwode was Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, under other auspices. His son-in-law Sir John Fenton Boughey was a Member for the borough, and when Lord Gower transferred to the county in 1815 Chetwode was induced by Boughey to offer on the independent interest there. His narrow victory in the ensuing contest deprived Lord Stafford of any say in the borough and provoked his revenge at the general election of 1818, when Chetwode stood down and his son-in-law was defeated by Stafford’s nominees.3
In Parliament Chetwode is not known to have spoken. On 18 Mar. 1816 he was in the majority against the property tax. On 22 Mar. he took two weeks’ leave. He was in the government majorities on the civil list, 6 and 24 May 1816. He voted against Catholic relief that month and a year later. After leave of absence from 22 May, he joined opposition on the public revenue bill, 14, 17, 20 June 1816. In the session of 1817 he voted with government on the finance committee and Admiralty salaries, 7 and 17 Feb., against them for the reduction of the Admiralty Board, 25 Feb., and in favour of the suspension of habeas corpus, 23 May. He further voted with ministers on the conduct of the Scottish law officers, 10 Feb. 1818. He appeared in a government dining list that session, but his duties as a magistrate seem to have limited his attendance. On 29 May he dined with the Pitt Club. He was in the House on 1 June and next day requested his son’s future brother-in-law Edward John Littleton* to lobby Lord Liverpool and Charles Arbuthnot on his behalf for a seat in the next Parliament.4 Nothing came of it and he did not return to Westminster until 1841, then making his second bid at Buckingham. Chetwode died 17 Dec. 1845.
Author: R. G. Thorne
1. S. Tucker, Chetwode of Chetwode (1884); PRO 30/8/122, f. 219; Add. 40265, f. 269; Gent. Mag. (1818), i. 559; Kenyon mss, Sturges Bourne to Kenyon, 3 May 1807.
2. Staffs. RO, Sutherland mss D868/11/69, 70, 72-78.
3. See NEWCASTLE-UNDER-LYME.
4. Staffs. RO, Hatherton diary, 1, 2 June 1818.
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Archive | Archives
Frontier Fiesta: “The Greatest College Show on Earth”
By Houston History Magazine on October 7, 2013 in Archives, Arts & Culture, Education, Houstonians, University of Houston
A University of Houston tradition, Frontier Fiesta began seventy-three years ago as an amalgamation of musical and theatrical performances, cook-offs, carnival booths, and concessions. Each spring, Fiesta volunteers transform a piece of vacant land or a parking lot on campus into a western frontier-style town called Fiesta City to accommodate the festival, which has had […]
From the Archives – Gorilla Girls
By Houston History Magazine on March 17, 2013 in Archives, Arts & Culture, University of Houston, Women
“With Love and Bananas”: Houston Gorilla Girls Seek Equality for Female Artists By Vince Lee At a time when female artists continued to lack the full recognition they deserved, four Houston women banded together as the Houston Gorilla Girls in protest against the status quo. The group organized in May of 1987 as the local […]
Remembering Foley’s
By Houston History Magazine on April 18, 2011 in Archives, Energy and Environment, Houstonians, Preservation, University of Houston
Houston History Archives emerged as a relatively new enterprise in realms of archiving when Joe Pratt relocated The Houston Review: History and Culture of the Gulf Coast journal to the University of Houston (UH) from the Houston Public Library.
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Special projects run by the Museum provide unique opportunities for targeted audiences to participate in the Museum. They are often linked with the special exhibition programme and may focus on developing particular skills.
Maths Through History
Maths through History is a project that aims to share the excitement of mathematics in everyday life with children and young people through the use of the Museum’s extraordinary collection of mathematical instruments which reach back through 1,000 years of history.
Tomorrow's Oxford Heads
At the front of the History of Science Museum and the Sheldonian Theatre on Broad Street sit 17 stone heads depicting bearded men, generally known as the Emperors' Heads. A team of scientists from the School of Geography and the Environment have been learning about the history of the heads – exploring the Bodleian Libraries' archival records, hunting for missing heads from the past, and testing the old stone to inform conservation efforts. But what does the future hold for these Oxford icons?
Multaka-Oxford
Multaka-Oxford is a project to create volunteer opportunities for forced migrants and to use museums and collections as a ‘meeting point’ for bringing people together.
March 2018 - September 2019
ملتقى أكسفورد
.هو مشروع لخلق فرص التطوع للمهاجرين قسريًا واستخدام المتاحف والمجموعات “كنقطة التقاء” لجمع الأشخاص معً
Curate is a public engagement project that aims to establish a platform for public consultation and co-curation of the Museum’s collection of scientific instruments from the Islamic world. It builds on the work of the Museum’s team of Young Producers.
Board Games and Medieval Medicine
Board Games and Medieval Medicine is a public engagement project linked to an academic research project on the literary history of medicine funded by the Wellcome Trust. The project has created a series of board games for engaging with the early history of medicine which have been piloted with schools and family audiences at the Museum alongside activities linked to the Museum’s collection of scientific instruments from the Islamic World.
Curious Curators
Curious Curators was a joint project between the four Oxford University museums (History of Science, Ashmolean, Natural History and Pitt Rivers). It was led by the primary education officers from each Museum.
HSM shop design project
Design students from the Royal College of Art and Banbury College worked with the Museum, focusing on the shop as a ‘real world’ design context for developing a range of bespoke retail products.
Animate It
The Animate It project resulted in a series of short films that bring to life a selection of working scientific instruments from the Museum’s collection. All are on permanent display, but for conservation reasons would not normally be handled or demonstrated in public. The films include demonstration, explanation, and some historical background.
Arts Award Discover with SS Mary and John CE Primary School
The Museum was involved in an inspiring art and science collaboration with the Key Stage 2 Art Club from SS Mary and John CE Primary School, East Oxford, gaining a Discover Arts Award.
Story Makers
Story Makers was a Fusion Arts project led by Arts Psychotherapist Helen Edwards, funded by Children in Need. The project was designed to scaffold the development of speech and language, working with 7- to 11 -year-old children in primary schools in Oxford and a group of older adults ‘Echoes’ run by Artscape. This year, the project was run in partnership with the History of Science Museum.
Objects of Invention
A project involving students of engineering in events for schools and the general public that focused on engineering, design and innovation. This project was funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering under its Ingenious Programme for public engagement, and provided training and experience in public engagement for engineering students.
The Renaissance Globe Project
A project celebrating the Renaissance craft of globe making, and the 500th anniversary of the cosmographer and map-maker Gerard Mercator, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The Amazing Things People Did for Medicine and Other Stuff
An exhibition created by the Year 2 children at St Philip and St James School.
Stop-frame Animation
A project with sixth-form students discovering themes from the Museum’s collection using stop-frame animation on iPads.
East Oxford Primary School Storytelling Project
With the help of funding from the D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust, children from Years 5 and 6 used visits to the Museum to inspire writing to make objects from the collection 'come alive' using storytelling techniques.
Want to find out more about learning at the Museum, including our sessions for primary and secondary schools?
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Failing by Design
Rita Gunther McGrath
From the April 2011 Issue
Reprint: R1104E
It’s hardly news that business leaders work in increasingly uncertain environments, where failures are bound to be more common than successes. Yet if you ask executives how well, on a scale of one to 10, their organizations learn from failure, you’ll often get a sheepish “Two—or maybe three” in response. Such organizations are missing a big opportunity: Failure may be inevitable but, if managed well, can be very useful. A certain amount of failure can help you keep your options open, find out what doesn’t work, create the conditions to attract resources and attention, make room for new leaders, and develop intuition and skill.
The key to reaping these benefits is to foster “intelligent failure” throughout your organization. McGrath describes several principles that can help you put intelligent failure to work. You should decide what success and failure would look like before you start a project. Document your initial assumptions, test and revise them as you go, and convert them into knowledge. Fail fast—the longer something takes, the less you’ll learn—and fail cheaply, to contain your downside risk. Limit the number of uncertainties in new projects, and build a culture that tolerates, and sometimes even celebrates, failure. Finally, codify and share what you learn.
These principles won’t give you a means of avoiding all failures down the road—that’s simply not realistic. They will help you use small losses to attain bigger wins over time.
The Idea in Brief
If you’re launching a new business, creating a new product, or developing a new technology, the principles of intelligent failure provide both logic and a safety net.
Decide what you’re trying to do and what success would look like.
Be explicit about the assumptions you’re making and have a plan for testing them throughout the project.
Design the initiative in small chunks so that you learn fast, without spending too much money. Don’t try to learn more than one significant thing at a time.
Create a culture that shares, forgives, and sometimes even celebrates failure.
It’s hardly news that business leaders work in increasingly uncertain environments. Nor will it surprise anyone that under uncertain conditions, failures are more common than successes. And yet, strangely, we don’t design organizations to manage, mitigate, and learn from failures. When I ask executives how effective their organizations are at learning from failure, on a scale of one to 10, I often get a sheepish “Two—or maybe three” in response. As this suggests, most organizations are profoundly biased against failure and make no systematic effort to study it. Executives hide mistakes or pretend they were always part of the master plan. Failures become undiscussable, and people grow so afraid of hurting their career prospects that they eventually stop taking risks.
I’m not going to argue that failure per se is a good thing. Far from it: It can waste money, destroy morale, infuriate customers, damage reputations, harm careers, and sometimes lead to tragedy. But failure is inevitable in uncertain environments, and, if managed well, it can be a very useful thing. Indeed, organizations can’t possibly undertake the risks necessary for innovation and growth if they’re not comfortable with the idea of failing.
What Are Your No-Fail Zones?
Leaders need to be clear about where failure will be tolerated—and where it won’t.
Mike Eskew, the former CEO of UPS, put the customer experience out of bounds: “We fail in such a way that it never touches the customer,” he said. In practice this meant that UPS didn’t experiment with moving, paying for, or otherwise interacting with a package. In all other respects it permitted—even encouraged—entrepreneurial experiments that stretched the century-old company.
An alternative to ignoring failure is to foster “intelligent failure,” a phrase coined by Duke University’s Sim Sitkin in a terrific 1992 Research in Organizational Behavior article titled “Learning Through Failure: The Strategy of Small Losses.” If your organization can adopt the concept of intelligent failure, it will become more agile, better at risk taking, and more adept at organizational learning.
How Failure Can Be Useful
Some of the failures I’m about to describe were the results of intentional experiments. Others were completely unplanned and unexpected. But all of them provide valuable takeaways. A certain amount of failure can help you:
Keep your options open.
As the range of possible outcomes for a course of action expands, the chances of that action’s succeeding diminish. You’ll improve your odds if you make more tries. This is the logic driving businesses that operate in highly uncertain environments, such as venture capital firms (whose success rates range from about 10% to about 20%), pharmaceutical companies (which typically create hundreds of new molecular entities before coming up with one marketable drug), and the movie business (where, according to one study, 1.3% of all films earn 80% of the box office).
Learn what doesn’t work.
Many successful ventures are built on failed projects. Apple’s Macintosh computers emerged in part from the ashes of a now-forgotten product called Lisa, which introduced a number of the graphical user interfaces and mouse operations in today’s computers.
In truly uncertain situations, conventional market research is of little use. If you had asked people in 1990 what they would be willing to pay for an internet search, no one would have known what you were talking about. A massive amount of experimentation was needed before workable search engines emerged. Early entrants sought to be paid for doing the searches themselves. Later, companies explored business models based on advertising. Later still, Google developed a system to maximize the profitability of the ad-based model. Without all that trial and error, it’s highly unlikely that Google could have built the algorithm-based juggernaut so familiar today.
Create the conditions to attract resources and attention.
Organizations tend to move on to new projects rather than fix systemic problems with existing ones. Let something big go wrong, though, and it’s all hands on deck!
I was personally introduced to how failure can be used strategically years ago, when I worked for the City of New York. I ran an IT group charged with installing an automated procurement system. I was blissfully unaware of how challenging it would be to gain political support and financial resources for the project. Luckily, my boss was a political genius. One afternoon, while I was running some analytics, I learned that the data in the old system had become corrupted. I leaped into action, determined to save the day. But after I ran my plan past my boss, he quietly said, “Don’t do any of that. Sometimes things have to fall apart before anybody musters the will to fix them.” He was absolutely right. The failure of the old system created a compelling argument for the new one and was a turning point in gaining support.
Make room for new leaders.
Sad but true: Even today many leadership positions are held by people very much like those who selected them. Entire industries have suffered the consequences of “lifers” who don’t challenge unspoken assumptions and taken-for-granted rules. Only when those assumptions and rules are proven ineffective—often, unfortunately, in the course of great trauma—do boards recruit fresh leaders. The change can be surprisingly beneficial. The U.S. auto industry provides a case in point. Who would have thought that Alan Mulally, a former senior executive at Boeing, would be an inspirational turnaround CEO for Ford?
Develop intuition and skill.
Researchers say that what people think of as intuition is, at its heart, highly developed pattern recognition. Those who have never faced a negative outcome have a critical gap in the body of experience that intuition is based on. Many venture capitalists won’t invest in a new enterprise if the founder has never undergone failure.
Many venture capitalists won’t invest in a new enterprise if the founder has never undergone failure.
Microsoft’s successful entrant in the game business, the Xbox 360, was developed by a team that had worked on 3DO’s failed game console, the unsuccessful WebTV, Apple’s problematic video card business, and Microsoft’s own short-lived UltimateTV. Having been through so many disappointments, the team members were able to spot warning signs and make smart course corrections. For example, the earlier Xbox had used expensive chips from outside manufacturers, and it reportedly lost about $4 billion from 2001 to 2005. The Xbox 360 team chose different manufacturers, worked in close partnership with them to develop the chips, and retained intellectual property rights to the chips, allowing the system to generate profits very early on.
Putting Intelligent Failure to Work
Obviously, not all failures are useful, and even some that we could learn from should be avoided at all costs. But if you accept that failures will sometimes occur in uncertain environments, it makes sense to plan for, manage, and learn from them—and in many cases to consider them experiments rather than failures. Here are seven principles that can help your organization leverage learning from failure.
Principle 1: Decide what success and failure would look likebefore you launch an initiative.
It never ceases to amaze me how often people working on the same project have entirely different views of what would constitute success. In one case I studied, an organization that made environmental remediation equipment was hoping to introduce a new product line. The marketing group thought the equipment’s selling point was that it met a tough new regulatory standard. The engineering group thought the point was cost-effectiveness—and to keep costs down, it was designing out the very features the marketing group wanted to sell. This gap in understanding could easily have led to a failure of the unintelligent variety. But the company found out about it in time to get everyone on the same page and prevent what could have been a marketplace disaster.
Principle 2: Convert assumptions into knowledge.
When you’re tackling a fundamentally uncertain task, your initial assumptions are almost certain to be incorrect. Often the only way to arrive at better ones is to try things out. But you shouldn’t start experimenting until you’ve made your assumptions explicit. Write them down and share them with your team. Then make sure that you and your team are open to revising them as new information comes in. The risk is that we all have a tendency to gravitate toward information that confirms what we already believe—it’s called confirmation bias. A practical way to address this bias is to empower one of your team members to seek out information that suggests your course of action is flawed. You want to find disconfirming information early, before you’ve made extensive commitments and become resistant to changing your mind.
Organizations that don’t record their assumptions tend to run into two big problems. First, assumptions become converted into facts in people’s minds. During a meeting, a manager might venture a guess that a given market could generate $5 million in sales—and before the meeting ends, the $5 million is baked into next year’s budget! This sort of leap causes all kinds of dysfunctional behavior when the guess, almost inevitably, turns out to be wrong. Second, such organizations don’t learn as much as they could. They may right their course as they proceed, learning as they go, but if they’re not rigorous about comparing results with expectations, the lessons won’t be explicit and shared, and future projects won’t benefit from them.
Having spelled out and revised your assumptions, you should then design the organizational equivalent of an experiment to test them. As with a scientific experiment, the idea is that whether or not the outcome is what you’d hoped for, at least you will have learned something.
Principle 3: Be quick about it—fail fast.
Quick, decisive failures have a number of important benefits. First, they can save you from throwing additional resources at a losing proposition. Second, it’s much easier to establish cause and effect when actions and outcomes are close together in time. Third, the sooner you can rule out a given course of action, the faster you will move toward your goal. And finally, an early failure lessens the pressure to continue with the project regardless, because your investment in it is not large.
A practical way to help ensure that any failure happens quickly is to test elements of your project early on. This is the main reason that “agile software development” often produces better results than the more conventional sequential process of systems design. In an agile environment, small chunks of code are written and shared in a quick, iterative fashion with other programmers and users before the team moves on. This is in sharp contrast to the approach in which analysts spend months documenting user requirements before submitting those requirements to programmers, who only then begin coding. By the time a problem is discovered, a project could have been heading in the wrong direction for years.
Speed may require changing how you allocate resources. Instead of going for maximum NPV over a project’s lifetime, for example, you may want to break the financial evaluation into smaller chunks in terms of both money and time. You may also want to invest in more-flexible assets and people until you have learned enough to confidently build a significant operation.
And the human benefits of failing fast should not be overlooked. If people feel that a project’s failure will doom them to months of waiting for another project, or to losing their jobs, then failure is demoralizing. But if lots is going on and the conclusion of one effort means that they’ll immediately get put on another (possibly more interesting) project, then endings can be positive. At the technical consultancy Sagentia, for example, employees are quick to move from project to project. The finance director, Neil Elton, told me, “They’ll proactively send around e-mails with a mini CV, saying, ‘I was going to be busy, now I’m not. Can you use my skills?’” This attitude is symptomatic of an organization that knows how to experiment intelligently.
Principle 4: Contain the downside risk—fail cheaply.
This is an important corollary to failing fast. Initiatives should be designed to make the consequences of failure modest. Sometimes it’s valuable to test a small-scale prototype before making a significant investment. When the Japanese cosmetics firm Kao was considering going into the manufacture of floppy disks, a big question was whether or not customers would buy Kao-branded disks. So the company went to another manufacturer and bought disks that met its quality standards, put the Kao label on them, and offered them to customers. The response was positive, so the plan moved forward. Had the response been negative, Kao could have stopped the project without incurring substantial costs.
This approach may require breaking ingrained habits. The chief innovation officer of a highly technical company I worked with observed that the company would typically get “some guy in a white lab coat” to do a technical feasibility study before deciding whether to enter a new product area. Such studies are not only expensive—upward of $200,000—but also relatively unindicative of business feasibility. So the innovation officer started making mock-ups of potential new products and showing them to prospective customers. In many instances the company learned that nontechnical issues, such as form factor, usability, and fit with existing systems, would have prevented customers from adopting a product. The difference in cost between the approaches was an order of magnitude: A typical mock-up cost around $20,000. The difference in speed was also considerable: a few weeks rather than nine to 12 months.
3M’s reputation for being failure tolerant took a beating under former CEO Jim McNerney, a GE-trained leader who sought to utilize Six Sigma quality practices throughout the company, even in its research labs. Although these worked wonders in 3M’s factories, the emphasis on generating predictable results hampered employees’ willingness to take risks on unproven ideas. When George Buckley took the reins as CEO, in 2005, part of his challenge was to restore the culture of risk taking. He discontinued the use of Six Sigma in the labs and spurred scientists and researchers to pursue new ideas—provided that the downside was small. During the recession, 3M’s historical philosophy of “make a little, sell a little” when introducing a new product was successfully coupled with Buckley’s emphasis on bottom-of-the-pyramid innovations—inexpensive items that could appeal to very broad markets.
Principle 5: Limit the uncertainty.
There isn’t much point to encouraging failure in an arena your organization is already familiar with. But experiencing it in an arena completely divorced from your current capabilities won’t do you much good either: You probably won’t be able to use what you find out, because you won’t understand the context and you won’t know how to connect what you’ve learned to your existing knowledge base.
Google, which is ordinarily very good at experimentation, went too far afield when it tried to launch a non-internet radio venture. The company wanted to automate the pricing of radio ads, as it had with internet ads. Radio stations would give Google a portion (ideally all) of their ad inventory, and Google would pit advertisers against one another to bid for the spots. Problems emerged, however, because stations were reluctant to give over control. Worse, the Google ads went for less than those sold directly by the stations, and although Google argued that increased demand would eventually drive up the auction prices, stations were unwilling to take the chance. Media buyers, for their part, were reluctant to engage with Google, which refused to continue the conventional practices of negotiating prices ahead of time and bundling ads together. After shuttering the business, in 2009, CEO Eric Schmidt attributed its failure to the company’s inability to measure an ad’s performance on the radio—something it could do on the web by tracking views and clicks. The venture cost the company well over $100 million. That’s not a lot of money in Google’s world; the more important point is that relatively little useful learning seems to have occurred. The chasm between Google’s core business and the radio business proved just too great.
It’s wise to minimize the number of uncertainties that need to be resolved at any particular decision point. One way to do this is through what Chris Zook, of Bain, calls adjacencies. For example, you can introduce an existing product in a new market: IKEA sells essentially the same furniture in many different countries. You can offer your customers a new but related product: Wells Fargo has had a lot of success cross-selling. Or you can build a new business on the foundation of an existing capability: Air Products and Chemicals has done this with its plant management capabilities. The point is to learn from failure (and leverage success) in areas that are fairly close to your established activities. Zook says that the number of major uncertainties should be exactly one. That’s a little extreme. I suggest limiting major uncertainties to those that relate either to the market (pricing, acceptance, form factor, and so forth) or to technology and capability issues (standards, scalability, availability of talent, and so forth)—not taking on uncertainties in both dimensions at once.
Another way to experiment without going too far afield is to break a long-term project up into smaller pieces. Consider the commercialization of nanotechnology: Eventually we’ll be able to construct objects at the level of individual molecules, which will be a truly revolutionary change. But that future is likely to be a long time coming. So for the time being, how are we using nanotechnology? Think wrinkle-free Dockers pants. Think cell phone displays that don’t show fingerprints. Those more modest projects make a lot of sense: They apply brand-new technology to familiar products, which fosters learning.
Principle 6: Build a culture that celebrates intelligent failure.
People often fear that their career prospects will be in trouble if something goes wrong on their watch. (And, of course, they’re often right!) Senior managers need to create a climate that encourages intelligent risk taking and doesn’t punish any failures that result. Some companies have found it useful to codify this principle. (See the sidebar “We Won’t Punish Failure.”)
We Won’t Punish Failure
Here are one UK-based global retailer’s formalized rules for when failure is acceptable.
The effort involves genuine uncertainty.
The outcome will be decisive, because we planned carefully.
It’s riskier to do nothing—or to conduct further analysis—than to act and fail.
The cost is small.
The major underlying assumptions are documented in writing.
There is a plan to test the assumptions.
The risks of failing are understood and, to the extent possible, mitigated.
The cost is contained.
Commitments are scaled according to our increasing understanding.
We’ve defined what success would look like—and the opportunity is significant.
This is an area where CEOs can show strong leadership. A.G. Lafley made fearlessness in the face of failure a core tenet of his time at Procter & Gamble. He said repeatedly that a very high success rate is a sign of incremental innovation, and that he was looking for breakthroughs instead. In his book The Game-Changer, published while he was still CEO, he lists and even celebrates his 11 most expensive product failures, focusing on what the company learned from each. The reasons he gives for the failures range from “required significant consumer habit change” (an at-home dry-cleaning kit) to “small idea” (several new laundry detergents).
During performance reviews one division leader would say, “Show me your scrap heap.” All high achievers try some things that don’t work out.
That kind of culture building should happen at all levels of the organization. One senior division head I worked with would say to his team members during their performance reviews, “Show me your scrap heap.” The request perfectly conveys the idea that high achievers will, of necessity, try some things that don’t work out.
Principle 7: Codify and share what you learn.
An intelligent failure whose lessons are not shared is worth far less than one that teaches something to the group or, ideally, the whole organization. There are many ways to capture and transfer learning. Among the most popular are mini postmortems as a project proceeds, checkpoint reviews as key thresholds are reached, and after-action review meetings at the project’s conclusion. In each case the point is to identify what the assumptions were going in, what happened, what that implies for those assumptions, and what should be done next. It is critical to avoid finger-pointing—restraint that is easier to exercise when the underlying ideas are labeled “assumptions” rather than “projections” or “data.”
I recently facilitated a postmortem for a large organization struggling with an IT implementation that had gone dreadfully wrong. Before we convened, I interviewed key decision makers and developed a time line showing when critical decisions had been made. We kicked off the meeting with some general observations about why IT systems often go awry; the message was “You are not alone.” Next we discussed the core assumptions that had been in place when the project was authorized, some four years earlier; these came as a surprise to the newer members of the team. We then walked through five decisions that had made a big impact on the project’s evolution, discussing the assumptions that were held at the time, what we would have done differently, and what had been learned. The day ended with two breakout sessions: one to determine what to do about the current situation, and one to crystallize lessons that could be valuable in other projects and help avoid similar problems in the future. To make sure the learning was transferred, we charged specific individuals with documenting and communicating those lessons.
Let’s come back to the point I made at the outset: In an uncertain and volatile world, avoiding failure is not an option. If you accept this premise, the choice before you is simple: Continue to use practices that limit what you can gain from failures—or embrace the concept of intelligent failure, in which learning can create substantial value.
How to Walk Away from a Project Intelligently
Even companies with a highly disciplined process for beginning new projects seldom have a good one for getting out. A solid disengagement process includes these steps:
1. Decide in advance on periodic checkpoints for determining whether to continue.
2. Evaluate the project’s upside against the current estimated cost of continuing. If it no longer appears that the project will deliver the returns anticipated at the outset, it may be time to stop.
3. Compare the project with other candidate projects that need resources. If this one looks less attractive than they do, it may be time to stop.
4. Assess whether the project team may be falling prey to escalation pressures.
5. Involve an objective, informed outsider in the decision about whether to continue, instead of leaving it up to project team members.
6. If the decision is made to stop, spell out the reasons clearly.
7. Think through how capabilities and assets developed during the course of the project might be recouped.
8. Identify all who will be affected by the project’s termination; draw up a plan to address disappointment or damage they might suffer.
9. Use a symbolic event—a wake, a play, a memorial—to give people closure.
10. Make sure that the people involved get a new, equally interesting opportunity.
The example set by senior management is crucial. Leaders must be willing to talk about failures and what was learned from them. I’ve seen organizations use symbolic rituals to celebrate a failure that taught important lessons; this can create an environment in which failures are discussable. Making the ground rules for risk taking explicit, whether in a contract or by other means, can be useful as well. Telling stories about failures past can make people more comfortable talking about failures in progress. And having graceful ways to shut down initiatives and move on makes the inevitable failures much more palatable. Fumbling toward success by learning from failure will differentiate firms that can thrive during uncertainty from those that cannot.
A version of this article appeared in the April 2011 issue of Harvard Business Review.
Rita Gunther McGrath, a Professor at Columbia Business School, is a globally recognized expert on strategy in uncertain and volatile environments. She is the author of the book The End of Competitive Advantage (Harvard Business Review Press).
This article is about LEADERSHIP
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Shobha Ram
laparoscopic liver resection
Girish Tyagi
Dr Goro Honda
Delhi Medical Counci
Botched operation: AIIMS panel's report quashed
The Delhi Medical Council has rejected AIIMS committee's report that gave a clean chit to its doctors on an incident involving the death of a patient during a live surgery led by a Japanese expert.September 02, 2015, 08:46 IST
NEW DELHI: The Delhi Medical Council has rejected AIIMS committee's report that gave a clean chit to its doctors on an incident involving the death of a patient during a live surgery led by a Japanese expert.
Girish Tyagi, the registrar of DMC, told TOI on Tuesday that the council has asked the institute to provide all the details, CD of the procedure and proof of permission sought by the foreign faculty.
"We cannot depend on the report of a committee constituted by AIIMS itself. The institute authorities have been asked to provide all the relevant details which will be looked into by our committee to reach a conclusion on whether there were any procedural lapses or negligence in the case," said Tyagi.
On July 31, Dr Goro Honda from Japan's Tokyo Metropolitan Cancer and Infectious Diseases Center, performed a laparoscopic liver resection at a workshop, hosted jointly by AIIMS and the Army Research & Referral Hospital, New Delhi, at AIIMS. Over a hundred surgeons watched him perform the surgery, which involved the removal of the liver or a portion of it through three or four keyhole-sized incisions in the stomach.
Honda's patient, 62-year-old Shobha Ram, suffered massive bleeding during the procedure. It has been alleged that despite suggestions that the team resort to an open surgery, doctors continued with the laparoscopic technique, relenting only after seven hours of surgery. The live video feed to the audience was terminated and the patient shifted to the ICU, where he died 90 minutes later.
Later, AIIMS clarified bleeding is a known complication of the procedure. "The patient had a detailed preoperative assessment for feasibility of removing the tumour surgically. During the course of the surgery there was bleeding, which is a known complication of the procedure.
The procedure was converted to an open one and all measures were taken to control the bleeding. Unfortunately, because of the underlying liver disease he did not do well and died," the institute said.
Dr Amit Gupta, the hospital spokesperson, said there was no procedural lapse.
"We have nothing to hide. The matter has been examined by a committee that had external experts from PGI, Chandigarh, and SGPGI, Lucknow. If the DMC wants, we will provide the details to them for perusal too," he said.
Tags : Hospitals, Shobha Ram, laparoscopic liver resection, Girish Tyagi, Dr Goro Honda, Delhi Medical Counci, AIIMS
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Delhi govt hikes health budget; plans 'mohalla clinics', 10K new beds at hospitals
Delhi government today said it will add 10,000 new beds at the hospitals run by it and also open 1,000 'mohalla clinics' as it earmarked Rs 5,259 crore.PTI | March 29, 2016, 06:00 IST
NEW DELHI: Delhi government today said it will add 10,000 new beds at the hospitals run by it and also open 1,000 'mohalla clinics' as it earmarked Rs 5,259 crore for the health sector in its 2016-17 budget, a hike of close to 10 per cent over the allocation last fiscal.
Presenting the budget in the Assembly, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said the public health sector will continue to be the focus of developmental work undertaken by the AAP government in the coming financial year.
He said there is a jump of 9.86 per cent in the 2016-17 health budget over last year's allocation of Rs 4,787 crore.
Talking about its "three-tier public health roadmap", he said the government is processing tenders for setting up 1,000 'mohalla clinics' by the end of this year which will form the first tier of its public health system.
The second tier comprises polyclinics and Delhi government said it proposes to establish 150 of these out of which 20 are already operational.
The third tier will be hospitals and these are being re-modelled even as new institutions are to be set up. These reforms would provide an additional 10,000 hospital beds in Delhi over the next two years, said Sisodia.
"Today, on the one hand, one has to stand in long queues at hospitals for minor health issues like cough and cold while specialist doctors and facilities remain held up as they handle these minor cases.
"The aim of the government is to make the first two tiers (mohalla clinics and polyclinics) handle the minor cases so that the burden on hospitals is reduced and resources are properly channelised," said Sisodia.
Such a move would decongest hospitals and also improve the efficiency of doctors, nurses and paramedical staff, he added.
The deputy chief minister said the government has finalised the contours of a sector-wide, comprehensive Health Information Management System (HIMS), including a unique health card for citizens, which would supply patient information online and ensure seamless flow of data.
Tags : Hospitals, Tenders, setting, sector, public, Processing, Nurses, health
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Protection of human rights
Explore Story
Tags for The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
By Armando Perla, Researcher-Curator
Tags for The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
A Universal commitment
Tags for A Universal commitment
Find out more about the world-famous declaration that turns 70 in 2018.
The cornerstone of human rights protection in Canada is the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Charter forms part of Canada’s Constitution and came into being on April 17, 1982.
Discover the people of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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Kenneth Rainin Foundation Grants $2 Million to IBD Research Projects Worldwide
The Kenneth Rainin Foundation, a family organization dedicated to the promotion of arts and child literacy, as well as to support research to find a cure for chronic diseases, recently granted $2.2 million to fund scientific projects working on Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD). The foundation is focused on funding research projects that are not typically eligible for support from traditional sources for being ground-breaking or pioneer in their fields. The scientists awarded were chosen from a series of applicants, as they revealed capacity to provide breakthrough findings on the causes and cures for IBD.
The Synergy Awards, the most recent program supported by the foundation, will grant two teams of researchers $400,000. Herbert W. “Skip” Virgin, from Washington University at St. Louis, and Miles Parkes, from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, were awarded for their work on the novel function of viruses, which infect the bacteria present in the intestinal microbiome and IBD. "This is very exciting for us," said Skip Virgin. "It allows us to pursue an 'out-of-the-box' hypothesis of how viruses might be related to Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis."
The other team awarded, comprised of Samuel Miller, from the <
Tagged Breakthrough Awards, Innovator Awards, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Rainin Foundation's Health program, Synergy Awards.
Previous: New Research on Post-Colectomy Ulcerative Colitis Patients’ Quality of Life, Treatment Satisfaction
Next:New Ulcerative Colitis Drug Study Results To Be Presented By Avaxia Biologics
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Jay Bernhardt
Dean, Moody College of Communication at UT Austin
Twitter: @jaybernhardt
Dr. Jay Bernhardt is the 6th Dean of the Moody College of Communication at The University of Texas at Austin, one of the largest and highest ranked colleges of communication in the country. Dr. Bernhardt also serves as the Founding Director of the Center for Health Communication and holds the Walter Cronkite Regents Chair and the DeWitt Carter Reddick Regents Chair in Communication. He also is Adjunct Professor at The University of Texas School of Public Health. Before UT, Dr. Bernhardt served as Chair, Professor, and Center Director at the University of Florida in Gainesville, and previously served on the faculty of Emory University in Atlanta and the University of Georgia in Athens. From 2005 to 2010, Dr. Bernhardt led communication and marketing at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, managing a staff of more than 500 and a budget of more than $100 million. He received his PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. He serves on numerous national boards, is a member of six honor societies and four editorial boards, and has received numerous awards for his work and leadership.
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Ekaterina Ostrovskaya 1
1 National Research University Higher School of Economics, 20 Myasnitskaya Str., Moscow, 101000, Russian Federation
The European Commission in the power relations of the European Union after the 2004–07 enlargement
Applying a comparative perspective, this article argues that the current crisis of European Union integration cannot be resolved by member states either transferring additional competences to the EU level or strengthening the intergovernmental dimension of integration. The systemic character of the ongoing process is weakening the institutional structure, which affects both the institutions and their power relations. The European Commission (EC), once a highly independent supranational actor on the eve of the integration process in the 1950s, now faces growing competition from intergovernmental elements in the institutional balance. The theoretical approach of historical neo-institutionalism offers new, useful insights into this research area. The articles uses this theory to analyze the EC’s evolution since the time of its creation in the form of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community, focusing on the links between the gradual changes in its internal structure and its institutional position.
Although the phenomenon of “path dependence” was initially present in the EC’s internal systems, the later development of its competences in the institutional balance provoked member states to limit the commission’s activities in the second half of the 1960s. First attempts were made mainly by appointing weak presidents, but the later reform of the EC’s internal structure, undertaken by Neil Kinnock in the beginning of the 21st centry, directed its further structural development as a more technocratic institution. Consequently, the EC was not able to pursue its aims effectively in preparing for its enlargement to include Central and Eastern Europe. The increased heterogeneity of the member states after the 2004–07 enlargement also weakened the EC’s position in the institutional balance, diminishing its traditional function as the “engine of integration.”
Citation: Ostrovskaya E. (2014) The European Commission in the power relations of the European Union after the 2004–07 enlargement. International Organisations Research Journal, vol. 9, no 3, pp. 83-95 (in Russian and English).
Keywords: European Union; European Commission; historical neo-institutionalism; EU enlargement process
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Category Archives: IRGC
Russia, Turkey and Others Agree on Syria Truce Monitoring: Moscow Asks US to Join Its Efforts, But How It Will Respond Is Unclear
Posted on February 2, 2017 by greatcharlie
War-torn Damascus (above). Following Russian Federation-led peace talks between representatives of Syrian Arab Republic and the Syrian Opposition Movement on January 24, 2017 in Astana, Kazakhstan, Moscow’s envoy, Alexander Lavrentyev, welcomed the US to take a more active role in efforts to resolve the conflict. The administration of US President Donald Trump will act regarding Syria when it chooses, in an appropriate, measured way. Moscow appears eager to know Trump’s plans for Syria. It seems to be engaging in a bit of guessing on it.
According to a January 24, 2017 Wall Street Journal article entitled, “Russia, Turkey and Iran Agree on Syria Truce Monitoring,” officials from the Russian Federation, Turkey, and Iran met in Astana, Kazakhstan for two days with representatives of Syrian Arab Republic and the Syrian Opposition Movement. On the second day, January 24, 2017, the officials agreed to jointly monitor a fragile ceasefire between the warring parties established on December 30, 2016. The latest deal was called a possible step toward a political solution to end the six-year war. The UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura was also present at the January talks. At a news conference in Astana, de Mistura said, “When we came here to Astana, our immediate priority was to ensure the consolidation of the ceasefire.” He went on to say that in the past that previous cease-fires broke down because of a lack of monitoring and agreement on how to implement them. Under the new agreement, the monitors are to ensure full compliance with the truce and prevent provocations, according to a joint statement issued by three sponsors. The arrangements for monitoring the cease-fire and enforcing it would be decided at later meetings. The Assad regime and Syrian opposition both said they supported the plan. However, significantly different views were expressed by the Assad regime and opposition rebels over what those systems to monitor and enforce should be. The parties planned to reconvene a month later in Geneva for UN-sponsored talks.
Russia, which supports the Assad regime, and Turkey, which supports some rebel groups, explained last week they hoped the talks would begin to map the outlines of a political settlement to end the conflict. As the talks progressed, however, both sides tempered expectations, saying the aim in Astana was to buttress the fragile truce as a foundation for more political talks later. The administration of former US President Barack Obama was a primary supporter of Syrian Opposition Movement and the effort by its armed rebels to shape events on the ground to force Assad regime to talks to discuss the transition to a new government. That effort has largely been unsuccessful. The new administration of US President Donald Trump did not push for a role in what were albeit at the Russian-led talks. Instead, the Trump administration chose not to send a delegation, and the US was represented by the US ambassador to Kazakhstan. Moscow’s envoy to the talks, Alexander Lavrentyev, told reporters that Russia would welcome the US taking a more active role in attempts to resolve the conflict. This was ostensibly an invitation for the Trump administration to fully participate in what Russia hopes will be on-going talks. Russia’s invitation “to take a more active role” on Syria appears to reveal a change of heart in the Kremlin on the US with the advent of the Trump administration. Perhaps it may even serve as evidence that at least on some foreign policy issues, Putin is not locked into a single intent, immutable. By the end of the Obama administration, the US-Russia relationship stood in ruins. So enervated was former US Secretary of State John Kerry, and other officials, with the search for common ground with Russia on Syria that the effort was essentially suspended.
While the invitation from Lavrentyev is laudable and was likely appreciated by the Trump administration, there is far more involved in repairing the broken relationship between the US and Russia than opening the door with an invitation to participate in Russian-led Syria talks. There is also far more to Syria than the talks. US administrations do not formulate their policies and action based on invitations or exchanges of short public statements but through the work of federal employees engaged in the daily task of analyzing situations, the development of policies and policy approaches, and the formal implementation of those policies through diplomacy, and when appropriate, the utilization of other tools of national power. That process has been somewhat disrupted by the resignation of the entire senior level of management officials at the US Department of State during the last week of January 2017. Reportedly, it was part of a spate of retirements by senior Foreign Service officers. There was boldness going forward with Syria peace talks without the US and working with Turkey and others instead to secure a sustainable peace. However, it seems Russia has found that the dynamics of bringing the warring parties in Syria together for anything is daunting. What Russia may really be doing is inviting the Trump administration to further tie the US to the morass in Syria beyond the anti-ISIS fight. That would be a step of significant consequence, requiring considerable review. There has been some mumbling in the US news media and in social networks about an unverified draft executive order that indicates Trump plans to use the US military, in tandem with the State Department, to establish and protect refugee camps in Syria and neighboring countries. Syria was genuinely broached in a telephone conversation on January 28, 2017 between Trump and Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin. According to the Kremlin, the most tangible outcome of the phone call was an understanding that jointly fighting international terrorism was a priority and that the two countries should cooperate in Syria. While admitting that Syria was discussed, the White House characterized the call more casually as “a congratulatory call” initiated by Putin. The Trump administration will act regarding Syria, but it will do so when it chooses, in an appropriate, measured way. A policy with varied approaches to the many aspects of the Syria issue will eventually be articulated. However, most intriguing has been Russia’s interest in connecting with Trump on Syria rather than any other faced by both countries. That is the focus of the discussion here.
Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin (above). It should have behooved Putin to consider how significant cooperation between the US and Russia in the fight against Islamic militant groups during the administration of US President Barack Obama then might set the stage for close and effective cooperation between the two countries in the next administration, especially regarding the peace talks and postwar reconstruction in Syria. Now cooperation is somewhat uncertain.
On September 15, 2015, at a meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization in Dushanbe Tajikistan, Putin explained Russia’s military support and intervention in Syria. He stated, “We support the government of Syria in its opposition to terrorist aggression. We have provided and will provide necessary military and technical support and call on other nations to join us.” Putin explained the exodus of refugees toward Europe and the crisis in Syria was a result of the support foreign powers provided the Syrian Opposition rebels. He said, “I would like to note that people are fleeing Syria because of the military actions that were largely imposed externally by deliveries of weapons and other special equipment. People are fleeing to escape the atrocities committed by terrorists.” Putin went on to state, “[The refugees] are fleeing from radicals, above all. And if Russia had not supported Syria, the situation in this country would have been worse than in Libya, and the stream of refugees would have been even greater.” Encouraged by advisers, Putin sensed not only a chance for Russia to shore up one of its remaining allies in the Middle East, but the chance to reassert Russia’s role as a global power. He was able to demonstrate that Russia could succeed where the Obama administration had floundered.
Since September 2015, Russia, along with its allies, have destroyed ISIS units, material, command, control, communication and intelligence and training facilities and has returned a considerable amount of Syrian territory back into the hands of Syrian Arab Republic President Bashar al-Assad. True, there are many foreign military forces operating in Syria, but the effort of Russia and its allies is a very visible, full-scale, multidimensional military operation. Russia has managed to shape events on the ground in Syria in order to “stabilize the legitimate authority” of Assad. Russia also seeks to defeat ISIS by annihilating its military formations in the field, eliminating its leadership, and eviscerating its so-called Islamic Caliphate to the extent that the organization will never be able to resurrect itself. In the process, the fighting has claimed some of the Russian Federation Armed Forces’ most capable soldiers. Most recently, Russian Federation Army Colonel Ruslan Galitsky was killed in Aleppo, Syria. Putin personally announced that Galitsky had suffered fatal wounds when a Russian military field hospital in Aleppo’s al-Furqan neighborhood was struck by artillery fire on December 2, 2016. According to the Russian state-owned RIA Novosti news agency, Galitsky was acting as a military adviser to the Syrian Arab Army during its rapid three-week advance through about 75 percent of East Aleppo. It was reported that Galitsky was due to be promoted to the rank of major-general on December 12, 2016.
Since September 2015, Russia, along with its allies, have destroyed ISIS units, materiél, command, control, communication and intelligence and training facilities and has returned a considerable amount territory back into the hands of Syrian Arab Republic President Bashar al-Assad. In the process, the fighting has claimed some of the Russian Federation Armed Forces’ most capable soldiers. Counted among those lost is Russian Federation Army Colonel Ruslan Galitsky (above).
A Russian Invitation for Cooperation on Syria: A Lot to Consider
Praeterita mutare non possumus, sed futura providere debemos. (We cannot change the past, but we anticipate the future.) Certainly, Moscow would be very pleased if its interactions with the Trump administration could begin at a point where it had any positive, constructive interactions the administration of former US President Barack Obama. That would require ignoring the overall tenor of the relationship it has had with Washington on Syria and many other urgent and important issues. The Obama administration was unsupportive of Russia’s intervention from the get-go. On September 30, 2015, then US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter forecasted about Moscow’s military involvement in Syria, “The Russian approach here is doomed to fail.” Obama stated on October 2, 2015: “An attempt by Russia and Iran to prop up Assad and try to pacify the population is just going to get them stuck in a quagmire and it won’t work.” Almost immediately after Russia began military operations in Syria in September 2015, Obama administration officials were already regularly reproaching Russia over its repeated airstrikes upon “moderate” anti-Assad groups while ostensibly seeking to attack ISIS. Obama’s disappointment could be discerned in his statements. Concerning Syria, on August 6, 2016, Obama went as far as to say about Putin and Russia: “I’m not confident that we can trust the Russians or Vladimir Putin.” He continued: “Whenever you are trying to broker any kind of deal with an individual like that or a country like that, you have got to go in there with some skepticism.”
In diplomacy, words and behavior matter absolutely, and there must be a certain amiability and gentleness in communications and interactions in order to create the environment for the development of mutual respect and understanding. It seems very uncharacteristic of Moscow in the midst of what Russian officials touted as a foreign policy success to invite the Trump administration to become more engaged with it on Syria. Still, even knowing it would mean sharing the limelight with the US, Russia appeared to have the desire to include the US in the process. To make perfunctory or platitudinous gesture for the US to become more engaged in Syria without any real desire for such cooperation could have potentially created a negative situation. The Russia could have convince the US to work with it, only to discover that the approaches of the two countries were not compatible. Far worse than both of those possibility would be the discovery that the invitation was a hoax. Certainly, Moscow had to expect that although Lavrentyev spoke with such comfortable words, it could not be acted upon immediately. Trump administration undoubtedly has it own thoughts and plans for Syria, but at the same time, it would very likely want to discern the full meaning of Russia’s “suggestion.” The decision was based on some rationale.
There is the possibility that Moscow’s invitation for the US join the Syria talks was a trial balloon floated off with the hope that if the Trump Administration might be interested in investing itself in Syria as part of its policy planning on the Middle East, counter terrorism, and possibly its Russia policy. Moscow seems very open to engagement. On counterterrorism, specifically, perhaps it would like to secure a pledge from the Trump administration that it would work directly with Russia to destroy Islamic militant groups in Syria. Russia has been able to put significant pressure on ISIS, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, and other Islamic militant groups using its special operations forces–Spetsnaz–and airpower.
A Russian Federation Tupolev Tu-22M3 bomber (above). Moscow appears very open to engagement with the Trump administration on counter terrorism. It seems Moscow would like to secure a pledge from the Trump administration that it would work directly with Russia to destroy Islamic militant groups in Syria. The Russian Federation Armed Forces have already been able to put significant pressure on ISIS, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, and other Islamic militant groups using its special operations forces and airpower.
Leap of Faith?: No Firm Basis for Moscow’s Hopes on Trump and Syria
On one occasion, Putin has mentioned the 1973 comedy, science-fiction film from the Soviet Union, “Ivan Vasilyevich Changes Profession.” Putin would quote one of the film’s characters as saying to another: “How am I supposed to understand what you’re saying if you don’t say anything?” This really is the case with Moscow and Trump administration. To an extent, the January 28, 2017 telephone conversation between Trump and Putin confirmed essence of Lavrentyev’s statement in Astana. Yet, there were no details discussed that would indicate cooperation on Russia’s terms. More specifically, the statement generated by the White House after the conversation noted that “The positive call was a significant start to improving the relationship between the United States and Russia that is in need of repair.” It stated further simply, “Both President Trump and President Putin are hopeful after today’s call the two sides can move quickly to tackle terrorism and other important issues of mutual concern.”
There has been no formal articulation of a Syria policy and immediate approaches for its implementation by the Trump White House or State Department. That makes it difficult to see what could have impelled Russia to suggest greater US involvement in Syria. Lacking any formal statements from the Trump administration on Syria to analyze, it could very well be that some in the Kremlin have turned to US news media interpretations of political events and decisions of the Trump Administration. For example, on January 26, 2017, the Guardian reported: “Trump had earlier also appeared to fall into line with Russia’s approach towards Syria, which had been to bomb the anti-Assad opposition into submission, before turning its attention towards a mutual foe, ISIS.” As for taking an unconventional, high profile approach to diplomacy, it may have been an effort to match the idea popularly promoted in the US media that it is the Trump administration’s preferred foreign policy tack. When one is less certain about the objective truth, the possibility that one might be drawn elsewhere for answers increases.
In addition to the fact that no formal policy documents exist that could have caused Moscow to believe the Trump administration’s policy on Syria, once articulated, would be compatible with its own. No publicized contact has taken place between Trump administration and the Kremlin, particularly one that would even approximate a complex conversation on bilateral relations. As mentioned, there was the late-January 28, 2017 Trump-Putin telephone call. However, no other conversations during the campaign or in the period before Trump’s inauguration could have reasonably caused Moscow to be certain of what his administration’s policy approaches would be on Syria. Additionally, decisions that might be made by the Trump administration on Syria at this point would be made with every fact, every judgment, the US government has available. Eventually, a formal policy on Syria will be presented. Verba volant, scripta manent. (Spoken words fly away, written words remain.)
Diplomacy via Public Statements: Russia’s Effort to Bypass the US Policymaking Process
It is unclear how Moscow thought Lavrentyev’s invitation would be processed within the US foreign policy apparatus. Most recently, there have been significant changes in the US Department of State. According to the Washington Post, on January 25, 2017, Patrick Kennedy, Undersecretary for Management, Assistant Secretary of State for Administration Joyce Anne Barr, Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Michele Bond, and the Director of the Office of Foreign Missions, Ambassador Gentry Smith resigned from their posts. In addition, Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security Gregory Starr retired January 20, 2017, and the director of the Bureau of Overseas Building Operations, Lydia Muniz, departed the same day. While the Trump might have eventually replaced these officials, career Foreign Service officers as them are crucial to the State Department’s many functions, particularly the implementation of an administration’s agenda.
Officials in the Kremlin or the Russian Federation Ministry of Foreign Affairs should not hope to impact US foreign policy by just making statements and expecting a reaction. Foreign policy is still formulated at the White House and US Department of State as a result of a thorough examination of facts by policy analysts.In the current environment, the analytical process on Russia must be akin to a crucible in which social media rumors, falsehoods, and fake news must be burned off. Those facts are analyzed, with the concepts and intent of senior department officials and those of national leaders firmly in mind. Then others, enlightened with truths, based on real facts presented by the analysts, formulate policy options. US Department of State uses diplomacy to implement policies. Employees in other departments whose work concerns US external relations engage in a similar processes utilizing their particular tools of national power. For example, in the US Department of Defense, employees formulate policies entailing the possible use of the military power. It is a daily enterprise in which thousands of federal employees are engaged. In verbis etiam tenuis cautusque serendis dixeris egregie, notum si callida verbum reddiderit iunctura novum. (When putting words together it is good to do it with nicety and caution, your elegance and talent will be evident if by putting ordinary words together you create a new voice.)
When Trump stated “America First” during his inaugural address, he was not presenting a policy plan for any region. Rather, he presented “America First” as a concept, a guiding principle, indicating that his administration would consider the interest of the US over anything else. An explanation of the concept was posted on the White House website on January 20, 2017 as the “America First Foreign Policy.”
A US-Russia Relationship on Syria:Thinking It Through in Moscow
Faced with the predicament of having no formal articulation of a Syria policy and immediate approaches for its implementation by the Trump White House or State Department from which it could work, Moscow’s decision to authorize Lavrentyev’s invitation may have been based on assessments developed from the abstract by Russian foreign policy analysts of the Trump administration’s most likely Syria policy or greater Middle East policy. If anything, from what Trump has stated, analysts admittedly might have gleaned and constructed his likely key foreign and national security policy concepts on which his decisions might be based. True, when Trump stated “America First” during his inaugural address, he was not presenting a policy plan for any region. Rather, he presented, “America First” as a concept, a guiding principle indicating that his administration would consider the interest of the US over anything else. An explanation of the concept was posted on the White House website on January 20, 2017 as the “America First Foreign Policy.” It reads in part: “Peace through strength will be at the center of that foreign policy. This principle will make possible a stable, more peaceful world with less conflict and more common ground.” It further states: “Defeating ISIS and other radical Islamic terror groups will be our highest priority. To defeat and destroy these groups, we will pursue aggressive joint and coalition military operations when necessary. In addition, the Trump Administration will work with international partners to cut off funding for terrorist groups, to expand intelligence sharing, and to engage in cyberwarfare to disrupt and disable propaganda and recruiting.”
It could very well be that policy analysts in Moscow, as much as policy analysts in other national capitals, may have used their analysis of the “America First Foreign Policy” to base conclusions on prospective Trump administration policies. Judgments made would need to have been deemed satisfactory enough to take action on. Given the statement’s mention of counterterrorism and the determination to pursue the issue vigorously, it would naturally follow that the judgments on which Russian analysts would have been most confident would concern counterterrorism and how it might relate to Syria. Absent this possibility, what impelled Russia to suggest greater US involvement in Syria truly becomes a mystery.
Ut desint vires tamen est laudanda voluntas. (Even if it is beyond one’s power, the will [to try] is still worthy of praise.) Surely, Moscow would prefer that Western foreign policy analysts saved their ministrations for officials of their own countries. Nevertheless, how Moscow may have perceived relations with the Trump administration on Syria before authorizing Lavrentyev’s invitation, what it perceived the US footprint in Syria would be following a renewed investment there, and how the US role might impact Russia, as well as its current partners on Syria is worth considering. If Russia’s decision on cooperating with the US on Syria was based on conclusions reached by Russian analyst as postulated here, it would be interesting to consider gaps that likely existed in their understanding of Trump’s concepts and prospective decisions on US foreign policy. The list of issues which Russian analysts would need to consider and for which they would need the right answers would be lengthy. Some of the important considerations for Moscow would likely have been: 1) bridging the diplomacy gap on Syria; 2) connecting on counterterrorism and safe zone; 3) establishing an understanding on Assad; 4) handling the Syrian rebels; 5) managing the peace talks; 6) getting the US to accept Iran’s role in Syria; 7) discerning US-Turkey cooperation; and, 8) postwar peace-enforcement and reconstruction.
1) Bridging the diplomacy gap on Syria
One could postulate that Russia’s interest in including the US in its Syria peace talks now is a display of newly found respect for the US Presidency, a very congenial welcome to the new administration with hope it would be perceived a sign of Moscow’s desire for improved relations, or an attempted appeal to the pride and ego of new US officials. While on the outside, Trump may appear to some as audacious, unpredictable, aggressive, on the inside Trump is thoughtful, disciplined, under control, and tough. The Kremlin might keep in mind is that much as Putin, Trump will hardly interested in diffusing tension by amiability, a hug or a slap on the back, an affected joviality to initiate dialogue. Trying to diffuse tension with Trump in this way is to play the minstrel. It will signal insecurity.
Russia has not provided a useful articulation of its hopes for relations with the Trump administration which would be helpful to the White House on some policy planning. It would also be helpful if Moscow articulated a reasonable cause for Russia’s decision to break contact with the Obama administration on Syria, or exclude the US in its talks in Astana. Anger is not an acceptable rationale but very often the basis for poor decisions. Moscow should realize that the Trump administration indeed represents a new beginning. It will seek better ties with other countries and better deals on anything negotiated by the Obama administration. Still, that does not necessarily mean everything that was Obama’s must be deracinated. Trump is very patriotic, and while he may not have agreed with Obama’s policies and approaches, he would certainly want other governments to display respect for a sitting US president. The reality is Russian behavior toward Obama Presidency at some level may factor into his perceptions of Russia.
It is unclear whether there are any other steps other than Lavrentyev’s invitation, planned to help bridge diplomatic gap between the US and Russia on Syria. Having taken the uncongenial and provocative step of excluding the US from its peace talks in Astana, and terminating discussions on Syria with the US, Russia’s attempt to revive what has been broken is being attempted with almost no diplomatic foundation to build upon. Former US Secretary of State John Kerry very likely explained to his counterpart Russian Federation Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Putin, himself, that reaching an agreement during the Obama administration on Syria and coordinating effectively under that agreement and others that might have been reached, would increase the possibility that US-Russian coordination at that level would be preserved by the next US administration. It would have been a simple statement of truth as much as an effort at fence mending. It should have behooved Putin to consider how significant cooperation between the US and Russia in the fight against Islamic militant groups then might set the stage for close and effective cooperation between the two countries in the next administration, especially on a postwar reconstruction and peace-enforcement mission in Syria.
A feasible point on which Russia might build new diplomatic relations on Syria would be US-Russian military coordination cooperation on Syria to ensure that the two countries’ air forces operate safely and that the risk of accidental confrontation or collision is minimized. Those talks were set up as a result of a proposal proffered by US Secretary of State John Kerry to share intelligence with Russia and coordinate airstrikes against ISIS and other Islamic militant groups. Russia might want to provide a positive assessment of the status of US-Russia air coordination on Syria.
A US B-52H bomber (above) Even without a formal articulation of its foreign and national security policies, the Trump administration’s intentions regarding counterterrorism have been explicit. Trump is ready to respond to terrorists groups with varied means to include stealthy, covert special operations raid executed with surgical precision to airstrikes of unimaginable destructive power.
2) Connecting on counterrorism and safe zones
Given that diplomatic efforts between the US and Russia on Syria near the Obama administration’s terminus were discontinuous, it is difficult to see how Moscow would have any confidence that the Trump administration would be interested in diplomatic efforts on Syria that would bridge the gap. Prospective diplomatic efforts might include talks on the US role in the Russian-led Syria peace talks, a new US-Russia partnership in Middle East, or counterterrorism. The draft executive order circulating on social media in January 2017 was first obtained and published by the Huffington Post, Trump envisioned establishing “safe zones” both inside Syria and in neighboring countries that will be used to “protect vulnerable Syrian populations” while they “await firm settlement” either elsewhere in Syria or in other countries. The document alludes to Trump’s controversial calls to prevent people fleeing the war-torn country from entering the US. It further explained that according to a draft executive order along with other steps with the goal of preventing future terrorist attacks in the US. Trump indicates he wants to see a plan by late April. The draft executive order was unverified. Some believe Trump will likely withdraw the matter due to tough logistical and political challenges associated with it.
Even without a formal articulation of its foreign and national security policies, the Trump administration’s intentions with regard to counterterrorism may have been explicit enough. He appears ready to respond to terrorists groups with varied means to include stealthy, covert special operations raid executed with surgical precision to airstrikes of unimaginable destructive power. As the capital of ISIS’ now dwindling Islamic Caliphate is located in Syria, it could be postulated that the country should hold some relevance regarding the administration’s foreign policy. It could seen as prospective rationale for Trump administration to invest time and effort on the political situation in Syria. Still, it would be difficult to discern solely from that angle what the administration’s interest and approaches to other aspects of the Syria issue might be.
It is uncertain whether Russia could establish a purely anti-ISIS linkage with the US on Syria or whether such a tie would be desirable. While the Trump-Putin telephone call albeit occurred after Lavrentyev made his statement,Moscow’s desire to make counterterrorism the foundation for establishing US-Russian relationship focus was reflected by the conversation. The aspect of the call that the Kremlin primarily focused on was counterterrorism. The Kremlin noted, “The presidents spoke in favor of setting up genuine coordination between Russian and American actions with the aim of destroying Islamic State and other terrorist groups in Syria.”
3) Handling the Syrian Opposition Rebels
It is uncertain how the Trump administration will respond to Syrian Opposition Movement rebels on the ground. The Obama administration in 2012 to provide the Syrian Opposition Movement with its support in the hope that Assad could be pressured to the negotiating table by Free Syrian Army advances and eventually agree to step down under a settlement. However, the US effort in Syria was designed and recognized by many as work on the margins. For nearly five years, the rebels were, for the most part, a disappointment as a military force. Indeed, after the Obama administration took on what proved to be the thankless task of supporting the Syrian Opposition rebels on the ground, complaints were frequently heard from senior commanders of the Supreme Military Council, the opposition’s military wing and commanders of their forces in the field, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), as well. Their grievances belie the fact that the Syrian opposition military leaders, after four years of war, have failed to unify the many groups in the Free Syrian Army into a cohesive fighting force and have been unable, without foreign assistance, to enhance their fighters capabilities. Only with US direction were FSA units and People’s Protection Units (YPG) of the Kurdish Democratic Unity Party in the northeast Syria able to unite as the Syrian Democratic Forces. The rebels’ leaders had been remiss in devising their own plans for the effective use of their forces against ISIS and the Syrian Arab Armed Forces. From the beginning of their movement, Syrian opposition leaders should have been mature enough, and worldly wise enough, to understand that neither US nor any other country owed them anything. The Syrian Opposition’s Supreme Military Council, and senior FSA commanders should have expected more from themselves before demanding so much of others. The chance that Syrian Opposition Movement rebels on the ground in Syria and its political leaders would gain and retain the support of the Trump administration will be slim if their predilection toward being demanding and difficult to coordinate politically persists.
There are presently 500 US Special Operations troops in Syria training, equipping, and assisting Syrian Opposition rebels. Their help has allowed the rebels achieve some big things. The rebels march toward Raqqa is an example of that. Through the assistance of US Special Operations advisers, the rebels have been able to coordinate their movements with planners of the US-led anti-ISIS coalition air campaign. However, there is still no evidence that the rebels possess any capability to shape the overall struggle in a way now that would put real pressure on Assad. For many rebels scattered around Syria, everyday is fight for survival as they hope for a miracle.
ISIS and other Islamic militant groups linked to Al-Qaeda, such as the former Jabhat al-Nusra and its reported offshoot Khorasan, have managed find advantage in the Syrian opposition’s failings throughout the war. By attacking mainstream FSA units that were trying to defeat Assad’s troops and allies, the Islamic militants have succeeded in making the Syrian opposition’s situation far worse. On top of the damage caused by their attacks on the FSA, Islamic militant groups continue to commit countless atrocities against the Syrian people. The Islamic militant groups were never oriented toward Syria’s transition to a democratic form of government. ISIS has included territory they hold in Syria as part of a massive Islamic State, an Islamic Caliphate, crossing into Iraq that is solely under their control, ruled under Sharia law. A syncretistic merger of mainstream opposition and Islamic militant ideas on governance was never going to occur. Meanwhile, ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra, and other Islamic militant groups became stronger almost daily. Their strength has long since passed the point at which mainstream Syrian Opposition forces could independently contend with them.
US Special Operations troops in Syria (above). With the help of 500 US Special Operations troops who were sent into Syria to train, equip, and assist them, the Syrian Opposition rebels have managed to achieve some things. Their march toward Raqqa is an example of that. However, there is still no evidence of a capability to shape the conflict in a way now that would put real pressure on Assad. For many Syrian Opposition rebels, everyday is fight for survival as they hope for a miracle.
An authentic Russian assessment of the Syrian opposition rebels at this point could only be that they will not be able to shape the military situation on ground in a way to force Assad to talks for arranging his removal from office and setting up a transitional government. The rebels have lost many fighters, and a significant portion of their territorial gain. They clearly have not influenced Assad’s thinking or decision-making. From a Russian military perspective, there is not too much for the Trump administration to go into Syria to support. Russia has been effective at halting rebels efforts on the ground. In reality, the US has been the only obstacle to ensuring the rebels’ destruction by Russian Federation and Syrian Arab air power. Some analysts believe the Battle of Aleppo truly signaled the end for rebels. Russia apparently plans to remain in Syria at relatively high levels and continue to provide military assistance to Assad’s forces. Without any US assistance, there is no chance whatsoever that the rebels could keep fighting at all. Given that, the Moscow may find it difficult to believe that Trump administration would pump more time, blood, and money into the rebel effort.
4) Managing the Peace Talks
As there is no path for the Syrian Opposition Movement to secure a role in the Damascus government, Moscow may doubt that the Trump administration would be willing to negotiate for them at the Syrian peace talks. Pressing for the demand of the Obama administration that a transition government be created in Damascus and that Assad commit to stepping down would be unreasonable. Likewise, it might be considered unnecessary for the Trump administration to seek a settlement on territory. The Syrian Opposition Movement was a political movement not territorial one, in which an autonomous state is sought. The movement of the Kurdish Democratic Unity Party, however, is a struggle for autonomy. To that extent, it may be an issue which the Trump administration could get behind.
On the other hand, despite glowing reports on what had been achieved in Astana, Moscow discovered in December 2016 and January 2017 that managing peace talks with the warring parties was not easy. There was difficulty getting the Syrian Opposition to agree to anyrhing. This was repeatedly the case when the Obama administration was involved. Moreover, during previous talks, foreign diplomats were required to devote a significant amount of time acting as mediators to hold the Syrian Opposition’s diverse groups together. While the opposition delegation was formed mostly of rebel commanders rather than political leaders, it was still quick to reject proposal for direct talks with the Assad regime because of its continued bombardment of opposition-held areas. Russia drummed up political support for the talks in Astana, which appeared aimed at leveraging its rejuvenated ties with Turkey and to simply give Moscow a greater voice in efforts to broker a settlement. However, Russian officials have lowered expectations that a major breakthrough would result from its efforts. Making things worse, during the talks, fierce infighting between rebel groups erupted in Syria, pitting at least one faction that supported the talks against another that was excluded. The rebels went into the talks at their weakest point so far in the war and this new eruption of violence threatened to fracture the opposition even further. Moscow may very well sense that it needs the assistance of the US to manage the talks.
5) Establishing an Understanding on Assad
Before its next contact with the Trump administration, Moscow will undoubtedly consider what cooperative role the US could play that would allow for the full exploitation of its capabilities in the anti-ISIS effort. However, if Moscow wants to cooperate with the administration on Syria, it must create an environment that will facilitate such cooperation. There is the likelihood that Trump administration will not accept Assad. For the moment, the transition of Assad regime to new politically inclusive government is the standing US policy. If the Trump administration by chance decided to cooperate with Russia on Syria at the moment, it would signal its acceptance of Assad’s presidency as it is Russia’s policy to fully support it. To believe that might happen is to deny reality. Russia must decide how it will negotiate on Assad before it discusses anything about Syria with the Trump administration.
If the Trump administration has no interest in working with Assad, it could hardly be expected that the administration would provide US financial assistance for Syria’s reconstruction, helping to rebuild his regime. Russia needs to assess whether there any strong motivation might exist for the Trump administration to be involved. At best, the administration would only give reconstruction consideration if it was presented with some opportunity, a role of clear benefit to the US. Alternatively, Moscow could make itself completely open to responding to the Trump administration’s wishes on Syria. Absent either, there would hardly be any point to pursuing the matter. Russian analysts should have assessed that Assad’s future would need to be an important factor in the Kremlin’s calculus on reconstruction.
Despite glowing reports on what had been achieved in Astana, Moscow actually found that managing the peace talks was not easy. It faced particular difficulty keeping the Syrian Opposition together. It has repeatedly been the case during Syrian peace talks that foreign diplomats were required to devote much time acting as mediators to hold the Syrian Opposition’s diverse groups together. Moscow may very well sense that it needs the assistance of the US to manage the talks.
6) Getting the US to Accept Iran’s Role in Syria
Russian analysts should have assessed that the Trump administration may not want to work in conjunction with Iran on Syria. The Trump administration has explicitly indicated that it is an avid supporter of Israel, whose leaders have referred to Iran as an existential threat. Further, during the 2016 Presidential Campaign, Trump expressed the desire to alter or scrap the Iran nuclear deal. His administration’s thinking and approach to the nuclear deal may impact its desire to participate in the Syria peace talks while Iran was present. Russia would also need to establish what Iran’s reaction would be to possible US involvement in the talks. Reportedly, Iran has made huge sacrifices in blood and money in Syria, and is still doing so. Its leaders will most likely feel that their country deserves standing greater, but certainly no less than the US on any issues concerning Syria. It is unclear whether the Russians would want to do anything to negatively affect the strong ties it has developed with Iran in order to establish cooperation with the US.
There are other matters that might greatly concern the Trump administration. At a UN meeting in Vienna on November 14, 2015, Kerry is said to have proposed allowing all Syrians, “including members of the diaspora” participate in the vote. He was betting that if Syrians around the world can participate in the vote, Assad will not be able to win, his regime likely has a limited degree of influence within Syria and the Syrian diaspora worldwide, including among refugees in massive camps in Jordan and Turkey or on their own elsewhere. As December 30, 2015 greatcharlie post explained, Russia and Iran would hardly allow the situation to slip from their hands so easily. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), IRGC-Quds Force, the Iranian Army, and the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security would do much to influence the outcome on the battlefield but also will likely do much to help the Assad regime influence the result of elections despite UN monitors, by helping to “create support” for Assad and “coping” with regime opponents. Reportedly, the Assad regime and the Iranians have engaged in a bit of ethnic cleansing. For example, Sunnis in West Damascus were forced to resettle in Kefraya and Fua. Iraqi and Lebanese Shias among those who replace them. Shia residents in Kefraya and Fua have been moved to formerly Sunni areas near Damascus. The Trump administration will likely point to this matter and will unlikely approve of Iran’s actions. Moscow will need to develop responses to Trump administration questions about that.
7) Discerning US-Turkey Cooperation
Russia analysts would likely assess for Moscow that if the US enters the fray on Syria, Turkey would be forced to establish a balance between the relations with Russia and the US. While Turkey has a new linkage with Russia on Syria, it has a strong linkage with the US, its long-time NATO ally, on Syria as a result of an agreement with the Obama administration to take on the role of supporting US-backed Syrian Opposition rebels. Moreover, how Turkey intended to proceed regarding its support of those US-backed rebels’ campaign is unknown. This issue will take on even greater importance if the Trump administration decided to reduce or halt financial support to Ankara that may have assisted Turkish military forces and intelligence services working with Syrian Opposition rebels.
Safe zones have been a core demand of the Syrian opposition and were central to Turkey’s Syria policy for much of the past five years. However, Ankara is apparently lukewarm about idea of new safe zones, believing that under its auspices, a sufficient safe zone has already created. Indeed, Turkey has set up its own zone of influence, a de facto safe zone, between the Kurdish enclaves of Jarablus and Irfin, which is aimed primarily at keeping Syrian Kurds from forming a presence along the entire length of its border with Syria, but is also being used as a refuge by some fleeing civilians. Russian analysts may have already assessed that if the US receives significant push back from Turkey on creating new safe zones in Syria, it may temper the Trump administration’s interest in investing the US further in the Syria situation. Countries as Turkey and Jordan would be critical to any plan to create safe zones in country because they would need a steady line of support in order to be sustained.
Aleppo (above). US cooperation on reconstruction would be most desirable after any conflict.There would hardly be any motivation for the Trump administration to provide US financial assistance for reconstruction of Syria for Assad. At best, Trump would only give reconstruction consideration if there was a clear benefit to the US. Unless Russia would be open to responding to US wishes on Syria, it is hard see what would draw the US to the enterprise.
8) Postwar Peace-Enforcement and Reconstruction
Russian analysts may have assessed that convincing US to cooperate on the Syria peace talks could create a possible path for for US participation at an important level in the country’s postwar peace-enforcement mission and possibly reconstruction. It is a monumental task that lies ahead. Leaving Syria without at least initiating some complex comprehensive plan for reconstruction and peace-enforcement would be a mistake. That would create ideal conditions for the rejuvenation of ISIS, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, or the establishment of another Islamic militant group to fill the vacuum of power around the country. That was what occurred in Iraq after US forces departed, the problem in Libya with the removal of the regime of Muammar El-Ghaddafi, and it is a growing problem in Afghanistan.
US cooperation on reconstruction would be most desirable after any conflict. Surely, Russian Federation EMERCOM, developed and led by the current Russian Federation Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu for many years, would have an significant impact on that effort. However, without the financial wherewithal and expertise of the US, Russia’s investment in Syria might amount to nothing in the end. In the international reconstruction effort launched in Bosnia in 1995 under the Dayton Peace Agreement and the creation of the multinational peace-enforcement force in support of the agreement’s implementation, I-FOR (Implementation Force). The US and Russia cooperated as members of that force and the follow-on force, S-FOR (Stabilization Force). US participation in the peace-enforcement and reconstruction effort may also do much to encourage participation from those Arab countries and Western countries as well. Russia, itself, has sought stronger ties with Arab countries, bolstering economic ties with Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Kuwait and diplomatic overtures with Algeria, Iraq, and Egypt. Russia’s hope was that courting those countries would make them more receptive to its’ calls to assist in finding a political solution for Syria. It was also hoped those countries would eventually be responsive to a campaign by Russia to gain financial support for Syria’s reconstruction. Still, there is sense of stability that may come from US participation in the Syria effort. Knowing the US and Russia were cooperating on the ground might create a sense of security among the other countries.
The Trump administration, in its nascent days, has set out to accomplish many things, but approaches matters in a way a bit different from previous administrations. Its intent is not to reject or break the US policymaking process, but the change still worries many. Government professionals will soon be put to work implementing numerous administration policies. Once cabinet members and senior executives of the various departments are seated, policy statements on Syria and other issues will be produced.
In William Shakespeare’s play The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Polonius is a Danish Lord and chief counselor to the king. In Act I Scene iii, his son Laertes is leaving home for France. While sending his son off, Polonius offers him advice on how to behave with integrity and practicality overseas. At the end of a long list of guidelines, Polonius tells Laertes: “This above all: to thine ownself be true. And it must follow, as the night the day. Thou canst not then be false to any man.” Taking an unconventional approach can be called creative, but when it leads to successful outcomes, it must be considered effective. The Trump administration, in its nascent days, has set out to accomplish many things and it is doing them in a way different from that of previous administrations. Change can be disturbing. On foreign policy, it is not the intent of the Trump administration to reject or break the policymaking process. Inevitably, professionals serving in government departments will be put to work implementing numerous administration policies. Trump is aware of the very large foreign affairs and national security apparatus made available to a US president, and knows it is very capable. As its cabinet members and senior executives of the various departments are seated, the Trump administration will begin to produce policy statements not only on Syria, but many other issues as well. Moscow’s invitation for the Trump administration to join the Syria effort seems to indicate that Russia would prefer, and if possible encourage, the White House to circumvent the normal policymaking process. Taking approach will put Moscow on nothing but a bad road. Indeed, accomplishing anything that way will be impossible. Despite what may become a persistent voice from overseas, the administration will formulate its policies and advance them at its own pace.
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Under Pressure Over Aleppo Siege, Russia Hints at Seeking Deal with US: Can Either Country Compromise?
Posted on August 20, 2016 by greatcharlie
US Secretary of State John Kerry (right) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (left) are the central points of diplomatic interaction between the US and Russia. They have worked together on a variety of urgent and important issues concerning their countries. They are now slogging away trying to find a way for the US and Russia to jointly end the Syria War and establish peace. Kerry has proposed US-Russian military coordination with preconditions. However, to secure an agreement on it, Kerry must convince Putin, not Lavrov, to change Russia’s positions.
According to an August 15, 2016 New York Times article entitled, “Under Pressure over Aleppo Siege, Russia Hints at Seeking Deal with US,” Russia suggested that it was close to an agreement on a military collaboration with the US to attack ISIS fighters in Aleppo, Syria as part of a solution to the unfolding humanitarian disaster there. US officials had no immediate comment on that claim. That joint effort would represent a new level of cooperation between the two countries which seek an end to the five-year-old Syria War. They support opposing sides. The New York Times reported foreign policy analysts believe Russia was negotiating in an attempt to avoid the appearance of blocking humanitarian aid to civilians in war-torn Aleppo by its airstrikes in Syria, Russian Federation Foreign Minister noted however, “It is of utmost importance that terrorists would not be getting reinforced with militants, guns, and munition [sic] supplies under the humanitarian aid disguise.” Russian Federation Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu was the official who made the statement on the possible agreement. He explained in a measured way: “We are moving step by step closer to a plan—and I’m only talking about Aleppo here—that would really allow us to start fighting together to bring peace so that people can return to their homes in this troubled land.”
Russia and its Syrian, Iranian, and Iranian-led allies have faced significant setbacks on the battlefield as a result of their opponents’ abilities to capitalize on their inadequacies and mistakes. Russia will need to decide whether its actions will remain in the gap between contributing significantly to the efforts of allies fighting in support of the regime of Syrian Arab Republic President Bashar al-Assad and working with the US to act more effectively and more decisively against mutual Islamic militant opponents. The prospective agreement, to which Shoigu referred, would stem from military talks underway in Geneva. Those talks were set up as a result of a proposal proffered by US Secretary of State John Kerry to share intelligence with Russia and coordinate airstrikes against ISIS and other Islamic militant groups. However, Putin and senior Russian officials seem to view the proposal less from how it will help end the war than how it may present the chance to get compromise from the US on Syria and promote Russia’s immediate objectives there. Kerry’s proposal has been put forward as the administration of US President Barack Obama comes to a close. Still, after eight years of contacts, a inordinate amount of obloquy has recently been hurled back and forth from officials in Washington to Moscow. Failure to get an agreement on coordination will undoubtedly make it more difficult for Russia to get an agreement from the US on reconstruction and peace-enforcement which would be important for Russia to have. Reconstruction in Syria will be a decades-long, very expensive effort. Russia will need to gather partners to help with its costs and its execution. A peace-enforcement mission, perhaps under UN auspices, will likely be needed to ensure that peace would be given a chance to take hold. Russia should keep in mind that the US has proven to be an invaluable partner in such complex reconstruction efforts and peace-enforcement missions worldwide in past years.
The Obama administration may not be enthused about working with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Syria, but it seems to recognize that Russia, with its considerable military investment in Syria, can play an important role in ending the war. Putin must recognize that much could be accomplished with US know-how and resources in both efforts. If he cannot recognize the good that cooperation would bring at first glance or simply refuses to make mutual compromises with the US to gain its assistance, what is left for the US is to get him to understand via diplomacy. US Secretary of State John Kerry has slogged away seeking the right approach to make that possible. A few recommendations are offered here. The Syria War appears to be getting worse. Experience may make US and Russian officials averse to finding compromise on military coordination on Syria. Pride and ego can also harden attitudes. If such influences cannot be set aside, the two sides may remain locked into their relative positions for a long while. Praeterita mutare non possumus, sed futuraprovidere debemos. (We cannot change the past, but we can anticipate the future.)
Often poker faced in talks, US Secretary of State John Kerry, a statesman, speaks in a manner that is easy, comfortable, assuring, and logical. He is an agile thinker who seeks creative solutions to problems, often requiring him to be discreet. He worked well with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the removal of chemical weapons from Syria in 2013. They worked on the same side during the Iran Nuclear Talks during two years of negotiations from 2013 to 2015. He may achieve similar success with Lavrov on Syria.
US Inaction Leads to Russian Action
Obama made it clear from the start that he was skeptical of using US military force in Syria. In a notable August 18, 2011 speech, Obama made the direct statement, “the time has come for President Assad to step aside.” There were many additional declarations, insisting that Assad step down. Yet, having taken that maximalist position, there was an unwillingness to act. Within the Obama administration, it was truly believed that Assad would simply fall away, but that did not occur. That led the Obama administration in 2012 to provide the Syrian Opposition Movement with its support in the hope that Assad could be pressured to the negotiating table by Free Syrian Army advances and eventually agree to step down under a settlement. However, the US effort in Syria was designed and recognized by many as work on the margins. Obama would begrudgingly authorize the creation of a US-led coalition to airstrikes against the ISIS juggernaut that ran through Iraq in 2014. Those operations against ISIS were expanded to include ISIS targets in Syria. Obama sent US special operations forces to Iraq to advise and train Iraqi Security Forces and Iraqi Kurd military formations. Still, there would be no US combat units sent to fight ISIS in Syria.
Putin, however, did what Obama said he never wanted to do in Syria. In September 2015, Putin took the option of solving the conflict in Syria on his terms using a strong military hand. He explained that Russian Federation forces were sent into Syria both to “stabilize the legitimate authority” of Assad and to fight ISIS. He put a limited number of troops on the ground to protect Russia Federation military sites, and to serve as advisers and instructors for Syrian Arab Army units and volunteer units loyal to the regime. He would join Syrian, Iranian, and Iranian-led ground forces in battle against opponents using Russian Federation air power. Putin’s actions were mulled over, well-plotted, and implemented as to apply a calibrated amount of pressure on opponents of the Assad regime using measured amounts of military resources and controlling expenses. He was willing to accept a certain amount of risk in operations and was prepared to contend with some loss of personnel. Russia’s succor has benefitted Syrian, Iranian, and Iranian-led forces fighting on the ground not only in terms of military resources but also through guidance in the use of them.
Russia’s intervention did not mean an end to US-Russia diplomacy on Syria. Russia has supported talks between the Syrian Opposition and the Assad regime. Even before Russia went into Syria, Lavrov engaged in talks with the US to episodically establish a variety of cease-fires, nationwide and in specific provinces and negotiate humanitarian corridors. When Russian Federation military operations began, Moscow initially sought cooperation with Washington on Syria, but it was sought, however, solely on Russia’s terms. Those terms, in line with Putin’s concept for intervening in Syria, included providing diplomatic and military shelter to Assad and attacking, not only ISIS, but Western-backed rebel groups of the Free Syrian Army that oppose the Assad regime. Obama and other Western leaders sought to bring Putin into a US-led coalition. However, that would occur with the understanding that the goal of the coalition was the removal of Assad from power. Given the disparity between their positions, on November 27, 2015, Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, played down the idea of cooperation at a Kremlin press conference. That announcement was surprisingly slow in coming given that the Obama administration was unsupportive of Russia’s intervention from the get-go. On September 30, 2015, US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter forecasted about Moscow’s military involvement in Syria, “The Russian approach here is doomed to fail.” Obama stated on October 2, 2015: “An attempt by Russia and Iran to prop up Assad and try to pacify the population is just going to get them stuck in a quagmire and it won’t work.” Interestingly, Kerry was still authorized and ordered by Obama to negotiate some arrangement in which the US and Russia would coordinate in the ISIS fight.
Russian Federation Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has prying eyes that rarely turn away. He has masterfully used diplomacy to turn policy into action in accord with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s concepts and intent. At this point, the Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry are well-versed on each other’s idiosyncrasies. They are able to gain insight from every inflexion, tone, and or change in voice.
Kerry-Lavrov Diplomacy
Diplomacy requires finding some middle ground, typically through some compromise, upon which an agreement can be reached and better relations can hopefully be built. Despite a divergence in interests, the US and Russia achieved early diplomatic success on Syria when an agreement was reached on a list of rules to ensure military aircraft from the US and Russia would not mistakenly run into or fire on one another as they conducted airstrikes. However, Kerry and Lavrov are the central points of diplomatic interaction between the US and Russia. Diplomatic success on Syria would eventually be achieved by them. They have worked together on a variety of urgent and important issues concerning their countries. They worked well together on the removal of chemical weapons from Syria in 2013. They worked on the same side during the Iran Nuclear Talks as the P5+1, the UN Security Council’s Permanent Five Members (the US, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China) plus Germany managed to construct an agreement on the Iranian nuclear program after nearly two years of negotiations from 2013 to 2015. Often poker faced in talks, Kerry, a statesman, speaks in a manner that is easy, comfortable, assuring, and logical. He is an agile thinker who seeks creative solutions to problems, often requiring him to be discreet. Lavrov has prying eyes that rarely turn away. He has masterfully used diplomacy to turn policy into action in accord with Putin’s concepts and intent. At this point, the two diplomats are well-versed on each other’s idiosyncrasies. They are able to develop insight from every inflexion, tone, and or change in voice. In oculis animus habitat. (In the eyes their character lives.)
A product of efforts by Kerry and Lavrov to find common interests among the warring parties in order to stop the violence in Syria was the December 18, 2015 UN Security Council vote on Resolution 2254 on Syria. It called for a ceasefire and a peace process that held the prospect of ending the Syria War. The resolution was agreed upon unanimously, 15-0, but sharp differences remained between the US and Russian positions. Russia’s key demand was that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad be allowed to remain in power. It is a position also supported by China and Iran. Removing Assad from power in Damascus remained a US requirement. Yet, the resolution made no mention of whether Assad would be able to remain in power or run in any future elections. UN Security Council Resolution on Syria 2254 essentially called for the following: a ceasefire had to be established and formal talks on a political transition had to start in early January 2016; groups seen as “terrorists,” including ISIS and the erstwhile Jabhat al-Nusra were excluded; “offensive and defensive actions” against such groups, referring to US-led and Russia airstrikes, could continue; UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was asked to report by January 18, 2016 on how to monitor the ceasefire; “credible, inclusive, and non-sectarian governance “ should be established within 6 months; free and fair elections” under UN supervision to be held within 18 months; and, the political transition should be Syrian led.
What followed Resolution 2254 was UN Security Council Resolution 2268, unanimously adopted on February 26, 2016. The new resolution, brokered by Kerry and Lavrov, called for an immediate “cessation of hostilities” in Syria upon which the Assad regime and the Syrian Opposition agreed. Countries with influence on the parties agreed to press them to adhere to their commitments.. Then, on March 14, 2016, the Geneva Talks resumed. They were the first talks in two years and came at a time when a marked reduction in fighting was perceived. Still, what created real hope that the war might soon end was the surprise announcement by Putin on the same day as the resumption of the peace talks in Geneva that he was “ordering the withdrawal of the main part of our [Russia’s] military contingent” from Syria. Putin explained: “The effective work of our military created the conditions for the start of the peace process.” He continued, “I believe that the task put before the defense ministry and the Russian armed forces has, on the whole, been fulfilled.” Only the day before the announcement, Putin and Obama spoke by telephone, after which the Kremlin said the two leaders “called for an intensification of the process for a political settlement” to the conflict, but Assad’s future was not discussed. Putin’s decision pull his fprces put of Syria seemed to fall in line with that pledge. In addition to the withdrawal announcement, Russian Federation UN Permanent Representative Vitaly Churkin explained “Our diplomacy has received marching orders to intensify our efforts to achieve a political settlement in Syria.” Regarding what lied ahead in Syria for Russian Federation forces, Churkin noted, “Our military presence will continue to be there, it will be directed mostly at making sure that the ceasefire, the cessation of hostilities, is maintained.”
If a feigned retreat by Putin was synchronized with the “cessation of hostilities” and used to manipulate opponents of Russia and its’ allies, the move was effective. Islamic militant groups that were not included in the ceasefire agreement engaged in firefights and fired artillery across battle lines prematurely seeking to better position themselves to exploit expected advantages resulting from Russia’s departure. Ire over the shaky ceasefire and the Assad regime’s violations of it reportedly drove some moderate Opposition fighters over to ISIS and other Islamic militant groups.
Putin’s “Feigned Retreat?”
Russia Federation forces withdrew from Syria, but estimates are that only 10 to 25 percent actually left. Moreover, Russian activity in Syria increased. Reuters reported the “Syrian Express,” the nickname given to the ships that have kept Russian forces supplied via the Black Sea Russian port of Novorossiysk to the Russian naval base at Tartus, Syria. It shipped more supplies, equipment, and munitions into Syria in the two weeks following Putin’s withdrawal announcement than it had two weeks prior. Russian Federation Air Force and the Syrian Arab Air Force continued to destroy the opponent’s units, material, and command, control, communication and intelligence, training facilities, and other targets. The ground forces of Russia’s allies remained active and returned a good portion of Syrian territory back to the Assad regime. Kerry and Lavrov carried on with their diplomatic efforts, but the ceasefire did not hold.
The Obama administration seemed to view Putin’s withdrawal announcement as a type of feigned retreat. The feigned retreat is a military tactic said to have been introduced to the West in the 8th century by the Frankish Duke and Prince Charles Martel. Under it, an army would pretend to withdraw or behave as if it has been routed in order to lure an opponent into a position of vulnerability. It was a difficult tactic to execute, requiring the use of well-trained soldiers. Once the opponent presses into the withdrawing army, undisciplined troops would panic and lose coherence, and the rout would become genuine. Charles Martel used the feigned retreat to defeat the army of Chilperic II and Ragenfrid of Neustria at Ambleve in 716. He attacked their army as they rested midday, he then feigned retreat to draw them from their wooded defensive positions into open ground where the situation was reversed. Charles Martel used the tactic again to draw an invading Islamic army into attacking at Poitiers in 732 by leaving his defenses relatively open. He did not construct pits and other obstacles and positioned his horsemen in a way to convince the Islamic army that it would not be enveloped if it charged in. The feigned retreat reportedly was used with moderate success by William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
One might postulate that Putin’s feigned retreat included synchronizing his withdrawal announcement with the resumption of the Geneva talks, and while the “cessation of hostilities” was in effect. In that environment, opponents of Russia and its allies were perhaps considered more apt to be manipulated. The maneuver, if actually executed, appears to have worked. Mainstream opponents of Assad were unable to control the actions of some Islamic militants some of which they were tenuously aligned. Islamic militant groups, not included in the internationally sponsored ceasefire, engaged in firefights and fired artillery across battle lines, apparently seeking to immediately exploit Russia’s departure. Accusations of ceasefire violations were heard from all sides around Syria. Ire over the shaky ceasefire and the Assad regime’s violations of it reportedly drove some moderate Opposition fighters over to ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra, and other Islamic militant groups. A coalition of Free Syrian Army units, Islamic militant groups already existed in the form of Jaysh al Fateh. The ceasefire became untenable once Russian Federation Air Force and Syrian Arab Air Force jets provided air support for Syrian Arab Army units and pro-Assad regime allies in those exchanges. Putin’s feigned retreat also ostensibly allowed Syrian, Iranian, and Iranian-led units to rearm and resupply for offensive action toward Palmyra.
The Russian Federation armed forces and intelligence services use their own intelligence tactics, technique, procedures, and methods to meet the needs of Russian Federation commanders and planners. Russian Federation commanders and planners certainly would like believe that by intensifying their own intelligence gathering activities, they can achieve success, particularly by using air power, without US assistance. However, their concern over recent successes of their opponents and their failure to effectively respond to them indicates they are not so certain of their capabilities
Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds?
The perception of a feigned retreat of Russia from Syria did not make US-Russia diplomacy easier. US officials were already regularly reproaching Russia over its repeated airstrikes upon “moderate” anti-Assad groups while ostensibly seeking to attack ISIS. Obama’s disappointment could be discerned in his statements. On August 6, 2016, Obama admonished Putin over Russia’s actions in Syria by stating: “I’m not confident that we can trust the Russians or Vladimir Putin.” He continued: “Whenever you are trying to broker any kind of deal with an individual like that or a country like that, you have got to go in there with some skepticism.” Timeo danaos atque dana ferentes. (I fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts.)
Obama’s uncongenial words could be characterized as a shot across Russia’s bow and perhaps signaled fatigue over the diplomatic process with Russia had set in. However, in diplomacy, words and behavior matter absolutely. Kerry knows that diplomacy must be handled with a certain amiability and gentleness in order to create the environment for the development of mutual respect and understanding. In talks on Syria, he would hardly omit what some anonymous US officials have called “inconvenient facts” about Russian actions. He surely broaches such matters, but in way that avoids closing any doors and avoids igniting a negative exchange with Putin, Lavrov, or any official of the Russian Federation government. Regardless of any personal feelings he might have over an issue, he must maintain his balance in spite of them.
Russia will not be able to use its military wherewithal alone, at least in a limited way, to secure victory on its terms in Syria and “get out of Dodge.” Enough support exits for Islamic militancy in the world that a struggle over US and Russian interests in Syria is being overshadowed by the continuous rise of Islamic militant groups there. This was evident at Aleppo where Russia’s allies could not maintain their siege. Commanders of Islamic militant groups seem capable of constantly making adjustments and replenishing with fighters (as above) by the hundreds, creating a more vexing situation on the ground.
Kerry remains authorized and ordered to establish cooperation. Obama did indeed say with opprobrium, “The US remains prepared to work with Russia to try to reduce the violence and strengthen our efforts against ISIL [ISIS] and Al-Qaeda in Syria, but so far Russia has failed to take the necessary steps.” Kerry and Lavrov continued their diplomatic efforts, sponsoring the International Syria Support Group, a multinational effort seeking to create the conditions for peace talks. Moreover, remaining on the table was Kerry’s proposal offering to share US intelligence with Russia and coordinate airstrikes against ISIS and other Islamic militant groups, with the precondition that the Syrian Arab Air Force halt its airstrikes against mainstream Opposition military units. As mentioned earlier, senior US and Russian Federation military officials have been negotiating in Geneva over how they would coordinate under Kerry’s proposal as well as restore an overall ceasefire. The Russian Federation armed forces and intelligence services proudly use their own intelligence tactics, technique, procedures, and methods to meet the needs of commanders and planners. Russian Federation commanders and planners would certainly like to believe that by intensifying their own intelligence gathering activities, they can achieve success without US assistance. However, they have unquestionably been unsettled by the recent successes of their opponents and their failure to respond effectively to them. Beyond human intelligence collection—spies, the US gathers continuous signals and geospatial intelligence over Syria. Multiple streams could assist the Russian Federation commanders and planners in pinpointing ISIS and other Islamic militant groups on the ground even if they are dispersed. Air assets of the Russian Federation and its allies could destroy them, disrupt their attacks, and support ground maneuver to defeat them. In support of the proposal, Kerry and Lavrov have already agreed that a map could be drawn up indicating where Islamic militant groups are positioned. They also have agreed that US and Russian military personnel working in the same tactical room would jointly analyze the intelligence and select targets for airstrikes. Est modus in rebus. (There is a middle ground in things.)
Nevertheless, at this juncture, Kerry is not oriented primarily on drawing out compromise from Lavrov, Shoigu, or senior Russian military officials in Geneva. Indeed, Kerry knows he must convince Putin, himself, that it would be in Russia’s interest for him to change his position. Putin hardly believes that US assistance would have significant value to Russia. Regarding Syrian Arab Air Force airstrikes, Putin has said he has no control over what Assad does with his forces and has explained the Syrian leader does not trust the US. Much as Obama has negative impressions of Putin’s actions and intentions, Putin holds certain negative impressions of Obama. Putin may also feel uncertain about making any deals on Syria with one US leader now, only to face another in a few short months. Certainly, at the State Department, Defense Department, and other elements of the US foreign and defense policy establishment, legions of diplomats and officials are working on what was called in Ancient Rome a maremagnum, a complicated issue requiring the efforts of many to solve. As no approach has wangled compromise from Putin so far, new approaches are needed. Some alternative approaches are offered here.
The value of US assistance might be increased in Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin’s mind through a demonstration of US capabilities. The US could also demonstrate how US assistance would have value by using the intelligence resources it proposes to share with Russia in order to target and destroy a number battle positions of ISIS and other Islamic militant groups in Syria, and disrupt and destroy developing attacks and counterattacks against Russia’s allies. Russian Federation officials could also be given a US battle damage assessment.
To help Putin countenance Kerry’s proposal, Kerry could explain that cooperation on intelligence and an airstrikes against Syria will speed the end of the conflict. Russia may not be able to use its military wherewithal alone, at least in a limited way, to secure victory on its terms in Syria and “get out of Dodge.” Enough support exits for Islamic militancy in the world that the struggle by the US and Russian over their respective interests in Syria is practically being overshadowed by the continuous rise of Islamic militant groups there. Commanders of Islamic militant groups seem capable of constantly making adjustments and replenishing with fighters by the hundreds, creating a more vexing situation on the ground. That was evident at Aleppo where Russia’s allies could not maintain their siege. Indeed, Putin could be reminded that on July 28, 2016, after a month of negotiations and immense pressure from Qatari and Turkish representatives, Jabhat al-Nusra announced that it broke with Al-Qaeda and had officially changed its name to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham. Almost immediately, reinforcements for Jabhat Fateh al-Sham began to flow into Syria from the border with Turkey. At least 100 new fighters arrived in Aleppo each day, together with numerous convoys carrying arms, ammunition, and supplies. During the effort to break the siege, Opposition forces and Islamic militant groups were observed fighting side by side under the banner of Jaysh al Fateh. Even after the siege was broken, it was explained in a briefing at the Russian Federation Ministry of Defense, Russian Federation Lieutenant General Sergei Rudskoi that about 7,000 Jabhat Fateh al-Sham fighters were massing south-west of Aleppo for over a week and still being joined by new fighters. Rudskoi said the fighters had tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, artillery and vehicles with weapons mounted on them. Kerry could explain that the problem will grow exponentially over time as commanders of Islamic militant groups make further adjustments and reinforce by the hundreds, creating a new, more vexing situation on the ground. Kerry could point out that so far, Russian Federation Air Force has barely isolated the battlefield and has failed to deny their opponents reinforcements and supplies needed to win engagements. At best, its efforts could be measured by its contribution to the destruction in Syria to include civilian deaths and the obliteration of nonmilitary structures. As it was discovered after the destruction of the Abbey of Monte Cassino in Italy during World War II, Germans troops were afforded better concealment from Allied airstrikes and ground attacks in the structure’s debris. One might assume senior US military officers are discussing these matters with their Russian Federation counterparts in Geneva. However, these disconcerting facts about Russia’s Syria campaign may not have reached Putin.
To further encourage a change in Putin’s perspective on Kerry’s proposal, the US could increase the value of its assistance through an actual demonstration of US capabilities. That might be accomplished by providing Putin with a complete US military analysis of the setbacks Russia and its allies have faced in Syria, and the relative strengths and weakness versus their Islamic militant opponents. It might be demonstrated exactly how US intelligence resources it proposes to share with Russia and US military resources would have value to Russia by targeting and destroying a number battle positions of ISIS and other Islamic militant groups in Syria, and disrupt and destroy developing attacks and counterattacks against Russia’s allies. Putin could be shown via video how the unique capabilities of US weapons systems could enhance the quality of air strikes. He could also be provided with US military assessments of those attacks.
Kerry might also seek to connect with Putin by reminding him that leaving Syria without at least initiating some complex comprehensive plan for reconstruction and peace-enforcement would be a mistake. That would create ideal conditions for the resurrection of ISIS, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, or the establishment of another Islamic militant group to fill the vacuum of power around the country. That was what occurred in Iraq after US forces departed, the problem in Libya with the removal of the regime of Muammar El-Ghaddafi, and it is a growing problem in Afghanistan. Putin must consider that cooperation between the US and Russia in the fight against Islamic militant groups would set the stage for close and effective cooperation between the two countries on a postwar reconstruction and peace-enforcement mission in Syria. Without it, Russia’s investment in Syria might amount to nothing in the end. In discussing postwar Syria, Kerry could give assurances on how the US will respond with regard to certain hot issues. For example, at a UN meeting in Vienna on November 14, 2015, Kerry proposed allowing all Syrians, “including members of the diaspora,” participate in national elections, betting that if Syrians around the world participated in it, Assad would lose. Putin was never going to standby for that and has used force, in addition to the fight against ISIS and other Islamic militant groups, to best shape the situation in Syria to secure Russia’s interests. Mending that fence may require a very hard decision concerning Assad by the Obama administration. Further, Kerry could point to the international reconstruction effort launched in Bosnia in 1995 under the Dayton Peace Agreement and the creation of the multinational peace-enforcement force in support of the agreement’s implementation, I-FOR (Implementation Force). The US and Russia cooperated as members of that force and the follow-on force, S-FOR (Stabilization Force.).
By reaching an agreement now on Syria and conducting effective airstrikes against ISIS, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, and other Islamic militant group, there would be a greater chance that US-Russian coordination would be preserved by the next US administration. Further, that military cooperation might influence a US decision to assist at some important level in reconstruction and possible peace-enforcement mission in Syria. US participation in those efforts could encourage participation from other countries.
Regarding Russian concerns over the future of US leadership, Kerry could explain that Russia should act quickly now with the assurance that the US will be working directly to destroy ISIS and other Islamic militant groups. An agreement will at least allow for a US-Russian working relationship for few months, putting tremendous pressure on ISIS, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, and other Islamic militant groups from the air. Kerry could emphasize the reality that reaching an agreement now on Syria and coordinating effectively under that agreement would increase the possibility that US-Russian coordination at that level would be preserved by the next US administration. Further, that cooperation could greatly influence a US decision to assist at an important level in postwar reconstruction and a possible peace-enforcement mission in Syria. Russia has recently sought stronger ties with Arab countries, bolstering economic ties with Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Kuwait and diplomatic overtures with Algeria, Iraq, and Egypt. Russia’s hope is by courting those countries they would become more receptive to its’ calls for a political solution in Syria. It is also hoped those countries would become responsive to an eventual campaign by Russia to gain financial support for Syria’s reconstruction. However, US participation in those efforts may do much to encourage participation from those Arab countries and Western countries as well.
Kerry’s words alone may no longer have any impact on Putin. To provide a new perspective on the proposal, Kerry could try to bring third parties that have some standing with Putin into the negotiation process. There are no national leaders who could serve as independent third party to address Kerry’s proposal with Putin. However, Kerry could perhaps seek assistance from Pope Francis of the Roman Catholic Church or Kirill Patriarch of Moscow and Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church to speak to Putin. They could discuss the need to forgo placing primacy on national interests and focus on the global threat posed by ISIS and other Islamic militant groups, and the tragedy that has befallen the Syrian people. They cannot support war, but they can support collaboration between the US and Russia to halt the evil of Islamic militancy in Syria.
These approaches should not be presented as guesswork on the potential success US assistance may bring. Rather, they should be presented as hard facts to get Putin to see what is possible and change his perspective on cooperation. Finding success from the approaches presented here may be a long-shot. Kerry knows that you miss 100 percent of the shots you do not take.
Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin (above) and senior Russian officials are apprehensive over US actions and intentions on Syria. However, many US officials have been expressing concerns about coordination with the Russians. They doubt Putin will compromise. They believe that Putin cannot be trusted. On Syria, it may be best for the US and Russia to work as partners. Choice itself is not good. It is the right use of choice that counts. Nothing could be worse than thinking of what might have been if things had been done thusly. Hopefully, that will not be the case for the US or Russia on Syria.
Tot capita, tot sententiae. (So many heads, so many opinions.) Putin and other Russian officials are quite apprehensive of US actions and intentions on Syria. However, many US officials have been expressing concerns about coordination with the Russians. They doubt Putin will compromise. Moreover, they believe Putin cannot be trusted. Trusting Putin may be difficult for them, but trust us not so relevant in this case. Senior US and Russian military officials would be working together on targeting and sending down missions to unit commanders in a joint operations room. If some shift in Russian behavior, no matter how slight, is discerned by the watchful eyes of senior US military officials, the entire operation could be halted immediately. Under Obama’s concept, what seems most important to him is that a good faith effort at coordination be made. Besides, doing the job of targeting ISIS and groups such as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham will be difficult enough as they are now intermingled with many mainstream Opposition units. Many US officials have expressed concern that sharing intelligence with Russia could result in revealing US intelligence sources, methods, and capabilities. Yet, deciding what to share and reveal is a puzzle that can be resolved. Putin seems attached to the Assad regime. However, given what has been reported on Kerry’s proposal, it does not include a precondition on Assad’s presidency.
The problem of Islamic militancy in Syria emerged during the struggle between Assad and the Opposition and given the international threat it poses, it is an urgent problem. US President Franklin Roosevelt did not easily accept Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union as an ally, but given the threat of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany, the choice was clear. On Syria, it might be best for the US and Russia vraft an agreement to coordinate their efforts. Choice itself is not good. It is the right use of choice that counts. Nothing could be worse than thinking of what might have been if things had been done thusly. Hopefully, that will not be the case for the US or Russia on Syria.
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Military Leaders Discuss Plans to Counter ISIS Beyond the Battlefield: While the West Plans, Russia Conquers ISIS in Syria
Posted on July 28, 2016 by greatcharlie
A Russian-built BM-30 Smerch multiple rocket launcher (above) fires on ISIS’ positions in Syria. Despite airstrikes from a US-led anti-ISIS coalition, the impact of Western countries on the ISIS fight has been limited. Since September 2015, Russia, Iran, and Syria have been driving the true ISIS fight on the ground. Given their progress, many capitals have sought to get in on the planning for the creation of political, social, and economic conditions in Syria that will allow for its rebuilding. Yet, before broaching those matters, ISIS still must be defeated militarily.
According to a July 20, 2016 New York Times article entitled “Military Leaders Discuss Plans to Counter ISIS Beyond the Battlefield,” officials from the US and its’ coalition allies in the ISIS fight hammered out details in how to stabilize and govern the cities of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, strongholds of ISIS, in the event that Iraqi and Syrian fighters retake the cities in the coming months. The French Defense Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, who was present at the meeting at Joint Base Andrews in the US state of Maryland, noted the many setbacks ISIS had suffered, pointing to its losses in Iraq as well as its loss of Qaiyara and Manbij in Syria. US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter stated, “We need to destroy the fact and the idea that there can be a state,” adding that battlefield success in Iraq as well as Syria was “necessary.” After those statements, US General Joseph Votel, the commander of the US Central Command, explained that discussion at the meeting mostly centered on how to stabilize Mosul in Iraq, assuming Iraqi forces can take it back from ISIS. Focusing on Iraq at the Joint Base Andrews meeting was reasonable given the efforts of the US and its allies there. The need to resolve struggles for power among Sunni, Shi’a, and Kurdish groups is pressing. However, focusing on what might be done in Syria is somewhat surprising given that the US and its allies, despite US-led coalition airstrikes, are not playing the main role in the ISIS fight there. The fight in Syria is being driven by a Russian-led coalition.
Since September 2015, Russia, along with its Iranian and Syrian allies, have destroyed ISIS units, material, and command, control, communication and intelligence and training facilities and has return Syrian territory back to the hands of Syrian Arab Republic President Bashar al-Assad. True, there are many foreign military forces operating in Syria, but the effort of Russia and its allies is a very visible, full-scale, multidimensional military operation. As its main objective, Russia seeks to shape events on the ground in Syria in order to “stabilize the legitimate authority” of Assad. Russia also seeks to defeat ISIS by annihilating its military formations in the field, eliminating its leaderhip, and eviscerating its so-called Islamic Caliphate to the extent that the organization will never be able to resurrect itself. Western complaints and commentary on Russia’s combat operations in Syria have been nonstop since its’ first sorties in country. The US and United Kingdom have constantly accused Russia of attacking mainly “moderate” anti-Assad groups, rather than ISIS. The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, called Russia’s role a “game changer” and said “It has some very worrying elements.” Putin has ignored such insistent voices from the West. He would likely prefer Western governments saved their ministrations for their own operations on the margins in Syria.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has engaged in multiple talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry on Syria. They have discussed the possibility of acting jointly against ISIS. However, on the ground in Syria, Putin has decided to get on with the matter rather than allow it to languish in the halls of inaction. Russia has been on the move, propelling Iranian, Iranian-led, and Syrian forces forward rapidly. Yet, most recently, Russian Federation commanders and planners have noticed that their allies have faced difficulties in responding to new challenges from ISIS on the ground. Russia must resolve that problem. Much as officials at Joint Base Andrews acknowledged, the end of the war in Syria has begun to take on defined features. Questions exist over what type of peace will take shape in Syria. Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin said that he fully grasps the challenges that lie ahead regarding the rebuilding of Syria. Putin explained, “We must act carefully, step by step, aiming to establish trust between all sides to the conflict.” He also explained that a new and effective government could be formed in Syria once such trust is finally built. Putin said that a political process is the only way to reach peace, and he claimed Assad “also agrees to such a process.” However, the war has not been won yet. Before fully broaching those matters, ISIS still must be defeated via the military operation and peace must be secured. Only then can the focus become creating political, social, and economic conditions that will allow for Syria’s rebuilding. Festinare nocet, nocet et cunctatio saepe; tempore quaeque suo qui facit, ille sapit. (It is bad to hurry and delay is often as bad; the wise person is the one who does everything in its proper time.)
Disconcerting Breakdowns Among the Allies
Following the Battle of Palmyra, Russian, Iranian, Iranian-led and Syrian Arab Army units, were at a point of high morale on the battlefield. The scent of victory was in the air. However, in that positive atmosphere, there was the danger for troops among the allies to feel too strong, lose their heads, become undisciplined, and fail to perform in a military fashion. ISIS seemed to have found an advantage in this situation. Indeed, ISIS units have displayed a surprising new capability to organize effective counterattacks. Iranian, Iranian-led and Syrian Arab Army units were often unable to protect their forces.
Following the Battle of Palmyra, Russian, Iranian, Iranian-led and Syrian Arab Army units were at a point of high morale on the battlefield. The scent of victory was in the air. However, in that positive atmosphere, there was the danger that troops among the allies would begin to feel too strong, become undisciplined, and fail to perform in a military fashion in combat. ISIS seemed to find an advantage in this situation. ISIS began to display the capability to organize effective counterattacks which the allies were unable to beat them back.
In tranquillo esse quisque gubernator potest. (Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.) The situation stood in great contrast to that in the days immediately after Russian, Iranian, Iranian-led, and Syrian forces captured Palmyra. The allies appeared to have coalesced as a team and it seemed possible that they would soon rush into Raqqa and Deir Ezzor. ISIS engagements units of the allies repeatedly developed into routs. ISIS showed no signs of having contingency plans for the loss of cities, towns, and villages in its so-called Islamic Caliphate. The allies did observe ISIS laying mines and setting booby traps on avenues of approach to their battle positions. However, counterattacks, which would be expected from a professional fighting force to regain territory or cover its’ withdrawal, were not seen. Since that time though, ISIS has learned how to retreat, and has repeatedly generated difficult situations for the allies.
Many of the top commanders and planners in ISIS are former officers of Saddam Hussein’s military or security services. In 2014, those Iraqis were behind the impressive capability of ISIS to move its units with a professional acumen. Their skills were seemingly brought to bear again when ISIS units came out of their battle positions all around Syria to push the allies back. There were even clashes with ISIS units around the main Jazal Field near Palmyra. Intense Russian Federation airstrikes were required to push ISIS back. Unexpected difficulties, friction, should be expected in any military operation. Yet, the problems that beset the allies to a large extent resulted from bad decisions and inadequate military moves. Syrian Arab Army commanders have been unable to avail themselves of Russian Federation air support and artillery. Iranian, and Iranian-led forces, specifically, continued to take a one-dimensional approach to ground maneuver in Syria much as it has in Iraq. Both forces had the ability to request support from Russian surveillance technologies, air power, and artillery, but those resources were not utilized to pound attacking ISIS units.
ISIS fighters (above) organize for an attack. As Russian, Iranian, Iranian-led, and Syrian forces began to take territory from ISIS, it seemed at first that the terrorist group had no contingency plans for losing territory in its so-called Islamic Caliphate. However, ISIS appears to have learned how to retreat. Many commanders and planners behind the movement of its’ forces across Iraq and Syria in 2014 were former officers of Saddam Hussein’s military or security services. Their acumen was brought to bear again when ISIS units came out of their defenses around Syria and pushed the allies back.
Shoigu Investigates
Experto credite. (Trust in one who has experience.) Russian Federation Defense Minister, General of the Army Sergei Shoigu arrived in Syria on June 18, 2016 to meet Assad and surely to examine the problem of increased ISIS infiltration and counterattacks. The added significance of Shoigu’s arrival was the fact that he is known as Putin’s “Do It” man. His ability to achieve success in almost any undertaking is the basis for what greatcharlie.com calls the “Shoigu factor.” Once Shoigu allayed Assad’s concerns over ISIS’ new moves and Russia’s military cooperation with Syria, Shoigu likely discussed the problem in granular detail with the commander of the Russian Federation’s Military Expeditionary Group in Syria, Russian Federation Army Colonel General Aleksandr Dvornikov, and his air and ground commanders. Shoigu was concerned. He was well-aware that the allies would not be able to limp into Raqqa and Deir Ezzor while ISIS clawed their units to pieces with counterattacks.
Volo, non valeo. (I am willing but unable.) At first look, Shoigu likely recognized how difficult it was for the three main allies perform with assorted forces under their control, each possessing varied degrees of size, strength, military capabilities, experience, and leadership. Regarding leadership, Shoigu likely discovered how much the acumen of militatry commanders among Russia’s allies differed. Those rdisparities and others should have been underscored and factored into planning, and when possible, compensated for. Instead, perhaps to promote goodwill and unity among the allies, they seemed to have been played down. Indeed, there was probably plenty of head nodding in agreement in meetings between Russian, Iranian, and Syrian military officials when there was discussion on topics as how to win the war, the need to maximize advantages resulting from the inoperability of Russian-built weapons systems all of the allies used, the integration of ground and air capabilities, and the coordination of action against ISIS.
When Russian Federation military advisers and instructors began trainnig Syrian Arab Army troops in September 2015, they discovered that regular army units needed to be retrained from the squad, platoon, company, and battalion level. Shortages of competent officers and noncommissioned existed throughout the Syrian forces. Advisers and instructors did their best. However, deficiencies that were present before the Russians arrived, managed to resurface as ISIS began to put pressure on the allies via counterattacks.
Shoigu, himself, was likely part of a number of meetings of that type. As recently as June 9, 2016, Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General (Sartip-e Yekom) Hossein Dehghan welcomed Shoigu, and Syrian Arab Republic Defense Minister and Chief of the General Staff of the Army and the Armed Forces Colonel General Fahd Jassem al-Freij for a meeting in Tehran. Shoigu stated prior to the meeting that topics discussed would include “priority measures in reinforcing the cooperation between the defense ministries of the three countries in the fight with the Islamic State” and Jabhat Al-Nusra. Yet, when ISIS applied pressure, infiltrating into areas retaken by the allies and by launching counterattacks, it was revealed that what was being proffered in theory at senior military meetings was not being translated into practice. Iranian, Iranian-led and Syrian Arab Army units could not act fully in a unified, coordinated way with Russian Federation forces in response to unexpected and creative maneuvers by ISIS. Effectively working alongside very sophisticated Russian Federation forces required an agility and flexibility in thinking that Syrian Arab Army commanders and paramilitary unit commanders did not possess. Unable to respond otherwise, they held fast to their own ideas for the command and control of their forces and their own plans and timetables for moving their forces against ISIS.
Interestingly when Russian Federation military advisers and instructors set out to train Syrian Arab Army troops in September 2015, they immediately discovered that regular army units, despite having a good amount of discipline and combat experience, needed to be retrained from the squad, platoon, company, and battalion level. Shortages of competent officers and noncommissioned officers existed throughout the Syrian Arab Army due to battle casualties and a large number of defections to both the Syrian Opposition forces and Islamic militant groups such as ISIS and Jabhat Al-Nusra. Platoons that supposedly held 20 to 30 troops held around 5 to 10 troops, the commander included. Even before the war, signalmen, gunners, engineers, and other military specialist for the most part were only assigned on paper. Russian Federation military advisers and instructors also discovered that there was the need to instruct Syrian Arab Army commanders on better coordinating actions at the brigade and division levels and among higher military authorities. Before Russian military advisers and instructors arrived, “maneuver” in Syrian Arab Army amounted to chaotic movements of companies, battalions, and paramilitary units. No single commander’s concept or operational plan guided them. Artillery and air units acted independently, ignorant of the positions or movements of friendly ground troops.
Troops of the pro-Assad paramilitary group, the Desert Falcons (above), are being addressed by their commanders. Military advisers and instructors not only trained Syria forces, but also distributed new field uniforms, flak vests, and protective helmets from their inventories. Before Russian military advisers and instructors arrived, “maneuver” in Syrian Arab Army amounted to chaotic movements of companies, battalions, and paramilitary units. Artillery and air units acted independently, ignorant of the positions or movements of friendly ground troops.
Regarding paramilitary units (shahibas) loyal to the Assad regime, it was observed that all of them needed to be retrained. That was a difficult task. Despite the fact that many troops in the paramilitary units had seen several years of war, few were aware of how to properly shoot and move on the battlefield. Few had any worthwhile physical training. Volunteer commanders were typically appointed by paramilitary unit members despite the fact that they had no training or experience in leading troops in battle, properly making appropriate decisions in complex military situations, as well as making decisions in everyday situations on the frontline. The discipline of paramilitary troops was a problem that reared its head when the paramilitary units manned checkpoints. A further problem was the unwillingness of paramilitary units to defend areas other than their hometowns. Paramilitary unit volunteers had to be provided basic training then instruction on fighting as part of part of a squad, platoon, company, and then the battalion. Iran, itself, had already deployed Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)-Quds Force (special forces) officers and advisers to Syria. They have mobilized pro-Assad paramilitary units into the 70,000 strong National Defense Forces to fight alongside the Syrian Arab Army, brought in Shi’a volunteer brigades from Iraq and Afghanistan, and Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon. Only Republican Guard and Special Forces units and a few mechanized brigades possessed satisfactory levels of readiness. Republican Guard units were well-equipped and staffed with professional soldiers and stood practically self-sufficient with organic artillery, airborne, and special purpose forces. Still, its units were only 70 percent manned at best.
Russian Federation military advisers and instructors, as well as those of the IRGC, and IRGC-Quds Force, were unlikely delinquent in their duty. They likely did their best to prepare Syrian Arab Army units for the fight to eject ISIS from their country given the troops and time available. Their solicitude extended to the distribution of new field uniforms, flak vests, and protective helmets from Russian inventories among the newly trained Syrian Arab Army units. Those units were also provided with new Russian vehicles to enhance their mobility. However, deficiencies that were present before the Russians arrived, resurfaced despite those efforts
Russian Federation Air Force Tu-22M3 bombers (above) strike ISIS targets in Syria. Russian Federation air power can hit ISIS hard, destroy its units, and delay and disrupt their movement. Iranian and Syrian forces must be able to fully avail themselves of that Russian military resource if the allies hope to defeat ISIS. When air power is synchronized with, compliments, and reinforces friendly ground movement, it can help drive friendly units forward.
Effects of the failure of Russia’s allies to avail themselves of Russian military resources included a decrease in the tempo of the allies’ offensive action and near loss of the initiative. It resulted in a need for more sorties during air support missions and increased firefights with ISIS, creating the potential for greater friendly casualties. Robust Russian Federation air power should have been used liberally all around Syria to delay and disrupt movement by ISIS units and when possible destroy them. Russian Federation air power should have been synchronized with, complimented, and reinforced movement by friendly ground forces.
Russian Federation commanders and planners are aware that in the fights for Aleppo, Idlib, and other urban centers, the ground forces of allies could do more than simply chisel away at enemy lines. Numerical advantages are rare on the frontlines in Syria, yet an attacker can economize in less active areas in order to develop local superiority at the point of his main effort. The attacker, after concentrating quickly, can strike hard at an unexpected place and time to throw the defender off balance. Once the attack is underway, the attackers’ chance of success can be improved if he moves fast, aggressively pressing every advantage, and if he capitalizes on opportunities to destroy the enemy’s forces and the overall coherence of his defense.
Russian Federation commanders and planners also know air power can greatly impact enemy moves in urban centers. If forced to move quickly in the face of Russian air power, an enemy commander would be allowed less time to ensure his unit’s concealment. It could cause him to move when conditions would not impede aircrews’ search of his unit. Rapid movement could also decrease the effectiveness of his air defense systems, allowing aircrews greater freedom to search for his unit, increasing the chance for it to be spotted. So far in Syria over 95 percent of Russian Federation Air Force sorties are flown at 15,000 to 20,000 feet primarily to evade enemy air defenses. When aircews cannot identify targets, airstrikes are made in areas where air intelligence reports the enemy is located. In attacking urban centers, that can result in collateral damage in the form of civilian deaths and injuring and the destruction of nonmilitary structures.
Russian Federation Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu (above) arrived in Syria on June 18, 2016 to address the problems of increased ISIS infiltration and damaging counterattacks. In meetings with Russian Federation military commanders and planners, Shoigu surely explained that it was not feasible to wait for their Iranian and Syrian counterparts to communicate with them when they are on the attack or facing counterattacks. He undoubtedly directed them to better coordinate with their allies.
Shoigu’s Diagnosis
In his meetings with Russian Federation military commanders, Shoigu surely emphasized that it was not enough to simply stay in communication with Iranian and Syrian Arab Army commanders while they are on the attack or when they are facing counterattacks. Shoigu likely stressed that they had to maintain situational awareness, and authentically coordinate their actions with their allies and help them exploit opportunities created. There was also a shake up in the Russian Federation’s military command structure in Syria. Russian Federation Lieutenant General Aleksandr Zhuravlev replaced Dvornikov. Zhuravlev is known best for helping to plan the Palmyra offensive.
Chief of the Armed Forces General Staff of the Russian Federation, General of the Army Valery Gerasimov on March 28, 2016 stated Palmyra was “liberated thanks to the support of Russia’s air force and special operations forces.” It seems Russian Federation air power and spetsnaz will also be relied on to underpin the allies’ ultimate victory in Syria. Responding to the problem with resources available, Shoigu ordered increased air strikes and the increased deployment of Russian spetsnaz advisers among Syrian Arab Army units. The goal would be to improve the direction of artillery fires against ISIS counterattacks along the Syrian Arab Army’s axis of advance toward Raqqa and Deir Ezzor and in support of battle positions of allies all around Syria. Russia had already supplied Russian-built heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems to its allies, to include: 152-milimeter MTSA-B guns, BM-27 Uragan and BM-30 Smerch rocket launchers, and TOS-1A Solnitsa rocket launchers. Spetsnaz units could assist Syrian Arab Army units in coordinating ground assaults with air support and artillery fire, in building hasty defenses, and in improving unit security. By degrading enemy forces with fire in support of assaults, the goal is not to create attrition battles but to enable the successful, rapid maneuver of friendly forces.
Soon after Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made improvements in Syria, desired results seemed visible on the frontlines. The 60th Brigade of the Syrian Arab Army’s 11th Tank Division (above) supported by the 67th Brigade of the 18th Tank Division and the National Defense Forces were liberating points along the International Highway en route to the besieged city of Deir Ezzor. As they push forward, commanders of these Syrian units will be better able to coordinate with their Russian Federation counterparts and to avail themselves of Russian military resources.
Soon after Shoigu’s visit to Syria, improvements seemed visible on the frontlines. The 60th Brigade of the Syrian Arab Army’s 11th Tank Division supported by the 67th Brigade of the 18th Tank Division and the National Defense Forces were liberating towns and villages along the International Highway en route to the besieged city of Deir Ezzor. In Deir Ezzor’s Industrial District, the Syria Arab Army’s Special Task Force “Al Qassem Group” undertook the task of clearing the remaining ISIS fighters from the district’s streets. They joined the Republican Guard’s 104th Airborne Brigade and 137th Artillery Brigade of the 17th Reserve Division in the fight for Deir Ezzor. The Syrian Arab Army High Command also ordered a change in command of the 17th Reserve Division from Syrian Arab Army Major General Mohammed Khaddour to Syrian Arab Army Major General Hassan Mohammed.
Regarding fights in urban centers, it was reported from southern Aleppo that a mix of Iranian-led units, primarily Iraqi Shi’a militias such as Harakat An Nujba, Katayb Hezbollah, and Assaib Ahl Al Haqq — two of which are operating Russian-made T-90 main battle tanks acquired by the IRGC in early 2016 —launched repeated counterattacks against the Jaysh Al-Fateh coalition, and Free Syrian Army units. Allies loyal to the Assad regime to include private military companies such as Liwa Suqour As Sahra and Liwa Dir As Sahel, Shi’a militias such as Liwa Nussr Az Zawba’a and Quwwat Al Galilee as well as a Lebanese Hezbollah unit, have launched attacks in southern Aleppo. Meanwhile, the Russian Federation Air Force is engaged in a campaign in western Aleppo and targeting the towns of Hayyan, Anadan, Hreitan, Kfar Hamra and Ma’arat Al Artiq positioned along avenues of approach into northern and eastern parts of Aleppo city. Most recently, Russian Federation Air Force airstrikes have targeted Castello Road, the last route out of the Syrian opposition-held eastern part of the city. As for the Syrian Arab Air Force, it continues to hit targets in Idlib city, Ma’arat An Nauman and eastern Aleppo.
Russian Federation Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu led to questions about the progress of the Russian Federation Military Expeditionary Group in Syria. After his visit with Russian Federation commanders and planners, the decision was made to replace Russian Federation Colonel General Aleksandr Dvornikov with Russian Federation Lieutenant General Aleksandr Zhuravlev. Zhuravlev will oversee the allies’ capture of Raqqa and Deir Ezzor and the final destrustion of ISIS in Syria.
Retaining the Initiative to the End
In the April 6, 2016 greatcharlie.com post entitled, “How Russian Special Forces Are Shaping the Fight in Syria: Can the US Policy Failure on Syria Be Gauged by Their Success?,” it was stated that ISIS could potentially establish a redoubt east of Deir Ezzor along the Khabur and Euphrates Rivers, and Syria’s border with Iraq. The goal of that theoretical defensive line would be to forestall the ultimate collapse of the Islamic Caliphate in Syria and to inflict as many casualties among attacking forces as possible with a suicide defense. However, well-planned offensive action by Russia and its allies might serve to obviate that possibility. The military principle of offense prescribes that maintaining the initiative is the most effective and decisive way to dominate the battlefield. On the offensive, there must be an emphasis on the commander’s skilled combination of the elements of maneuver, firepower, protection, and intelligent leadership in a sound operational plan. The initiative must be retained. Moving forward, firepower, the allies’ greatest strength, must be used to its’ maximum advantage. Firepower can serve maneuver by creating openings in enemy defenses, but also destroy an enemy’s vital cohesion, his ability to fight, and effectively act. Indeed, one of the most important targets is the enemy’s mind. The allies should engage in actions that will sway moves by ISIS to enhance the opportunities to destroy it.
The drive against Raqqa and Deir Ezzor in a way resembles the circumstances in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. The Israelis, after defeating the Syrians, pushed up to the Golan Heights at its northern border, and then executed an economy of force operation. Israel kept a portion of its forces on its border with Jordan, even though hostilities did not break-out between the two countries. Israeli forces in the Golan Heights conducted artillery attacks on Damascus with long range guns to give the impression that they were going to seize that city while sizeable Israeli forces were concentrated south against Egyptian forces in the Sinai Peninsula to their southwest. After concentrating against Egyptian forces in the Sinai, Israeli forces threw their strength at Egyptian weakness, the gap between the Egyptian Second and Third Armies. The Israelis subsequently encircled the Third Army eliminating it as a threat to Israeli territory,
Before the final push against them begins, Russian military spetsnaz units could be positioned in the gap between Raqqa and Deir Ezzor to perform the task of detecting and thwarting efforts by ISIS to establish lines of communication between the two cities. They could also be positioned to block ISIS infiltration into Syria from Iraq and territory now controlled by the Assad regime. Spetsnaz units could conduct raids, set up ambushes, and establish kill zones. They could operate vigorously at night when ISIS units might try to conceal their movement.
Much as with the Egyptian Second and Third Armies in the Sinai in 1973, ISIS units in Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, albeit in a limited way, could move units into territory controlled by the Assad regime. They could also become hubs for the reestablishment of lines of communication between ISIS in Iraq and Syria. By hunkering down in Raqqa and Deir Ezzor in the face of an onslaught from Russia and its allies, ISIS can claim that it held on to the capital of its Islamic Caliphate. Raqqa, in particular, would likely become a symbol of resistance and power for ISIS to a greater extent than it is now and its narrative on the city’s defense would become an invaluable recruiting tool for the organization. For Assad to claim that he has retaken control of Syria, he must control urban centers and the surrounding areas of Raqqa, Deir Ezzor and other cities such as Aleppo, Idlib, Latakia, Homs, Palmyra, Darra and certainly Damascus. For Putin to claim that it stabilizes the legitimate authority of Assad. Putin must destroy ISIS in Syria or, at a minimum, leave it scattered and tattered, reduced to a size and strength incapable of forcing Assad from power and unable to resurrect itself. If Raqqa and Deir Ezzor cannot be taken rapidly, Russia and its allies must encircle the cities. After assembling overwhelming force to direct against ISIS units, both cities could be attacked. Before that fight would get underway, spetsnaz units could be positioned in the gap between Raqqa and Deir Ezzor to perform the task of detecting and thwarting efforts by ISIS to establish lines of communication between the two cities. Spetnaz could also be positioned on known and suspected ISIS infiltration lanes into Syria from Iraq and lanes into territory now controlled by the Assad regime. They could block those lanes coconducting raids, setting up ambushes, and establishing kill zones for air strikes and artillery fire. Spetsnaz could operate vigorously at night when ISIS units might try to conceal their movement.
The loss rate of ISIS could be increased by having aerial platforms capable of stand-off attacks continuously engage ISIS defenses, and by stationing fighter jets and bombers in orbit 24-hours a day above ISIS locations identified by spetsnaz to engage in continuous strikes. They could also hit targets of opportunity identified by aircrews whenever they might be authorized to fly at lower altitudes.
According to the Alexandrian Life of Aeschylus, as they walked on stage during the first performance of Eumenides, the chorus of furies was so hideous and frightening in appearance that “they caused young children to faint, patriarchs to urinate, and pregnant women to go into labor.” ISIS, during its grand entry on the world stage, in Syria and Iraq, put on full display its very bloody, murderous side. ISIS mercilessly murdered hundreds of military prisoners, foreign hostages, and innocent civilians. ISIS left no doubt that it is not only a terrorist organization, but a pagan death cult. While concerned about the rise of ISIS, Putin was never impressed with the group. In a speech on his deployment of Russian Federation forces to Syria, Putin remarked on ISIS’ behavior in a disdainful tone, saying, “We know how they do such things; how they kill people; how they destroy cultural monuments. . . .” In that same speech, Putin explained that in the ISIS fight, Russia would provide Assad and other allies “the necessary military and technical support.” Russia has done that and ISIS may soon be defeated in Syria.
Omne initium difficile est. (Every beginning is difficult.) Once Russia and its allies squeeze the life out of ISIS in Syria, they must not allow ISIS to resurrect itself. A capable military presence must be set up in Syria to keep ISIS out or at least under control. The success of the joint military efforts of Russia and its allies may provide the foundation for a peace enforcement mission in Syria and an eventual reconstruction effort. With reconstruction costs in mind, the possibility exists that Russia and its allies would cooperate with the US over what remains of the ISIS fight in Syria and the US-led fight against ISIS in Iraq. Among other possibilities, Iranian and Iranian-led forces, in support of the Assad regime and their Syrian Arab Army allies, could coordinate actions with units of their comrades in Iraq. Both forces fall under the command of Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps-Quds Force Commander General (Sarlashkar) Qassem Suleimani. Locking down the border will collaterally support the ISIS fight in Iraq. It was hypothesized in 2015 by the Middle East Institute that Syrian Kurds’People’s Protection Units (YPG) might be co-opted to help establish a security zone incorporating their own territory and some more along the border with Iraq to help keep ISIS out of the area and help maintain a sustainable peace. How Putin will proceed is uncertain, but right now, Russia is playing a central in Syria and he is free to decide as he pleases.
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How Russian Special Forces Are Shaping the Fight in Syria: Can the US Policy on Syria Be Gauged by Their Success?
Posted on April 6, 2016 by greatcharlie
During the fight for Palmyra, Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) took a photo (above) from the cellphone of a Russian spetsnaz officer reportedly killed in combat and posted it on the internet, apparently attempt to shame Russian forces fighting in Syria or claim some type victory. Instead, by posting the photo, they gave the whole world a glimpse of a few of the courageous Russians who have been gallantly fighting the scourge of ISIS. At Palmyra, Russia was seen fulfilling its promise to defeat ISIS and support Assad.
According to a March 29, 2016 Washington Post article entitled, “How Russian Special Forces Are Shaping the Fight In Syria,” Russian special forces (spetsnaz) operating on the front have remained mostly out of the public eye, but with the seizure of Palmyra in the Eastern Homs Province that is no longer the case. The article asserts Russian spetsnaz have come to the forefront of Russia’s Syria narrative because the battle for Palmyra plays into the rhetoric that Russia intervened to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS). Chris Kozak, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War was quoted in the article as saying involvement of spetsnaz in Palmyra “looks great.” He further stated, “. . . their involvement against opposition groups in Aleppo or Latakia doesn’t fit the narrative.” The Washington Post reports it is unclear when Russian spetsnaz began operations in Syria, though prior to Russia’s intervention there, Russian troops had long helped advise and train Syrian forces. Michael Kofman, an analyst focused on Russian military operations at the Washington think tank, the Center Naval Analyses (CNA), told the Washington Post that Russia operates several spetsnaz units in Syria, to include Zaslon, KSO, and detachments of reconnaissance teams. Zaslon is a special purpose group of the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki (Foreign Intelligence Service) or SVR made up from former spetsnaz troops. For some time, Zaslon has been in Syria providing support for Russian military and diplomatic personnel and standing ready to extract people, documents, or technologies Russia would not want to lose if Syrian Arab Republic President Bashar al-Assad’s regime began to collapse. KSO or Special Operations Forces Command is the Russian Federation’s equivalent to the US Joint Special Operations Command.
As it was explained in November 30, 2015 greatcharlie.com post entitled “Russia Plays Down Idea of Coalition with West to Strike ISIS in Syria; An Agreement IS Needed on Assad,” use of special purpose forces, spetsnaz, would likely be critical to the Russian effort. Spetsnaz can advise Russian allies, locate and designate targets for air strikes, and engage in direct action against ISIS to include locating and killing specific Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) leaders and conducting raids and ambushes against ISIS units. Kofman says, “Russian special forces are doing a lot of the targeting for Russian airstrikes and a lot of advising for the Syrians.” He said they also provide most of the intelligence on the ground for Russian airpower and help run Syrian operations. Spetsnaz appear to be participating in combat alongside Syrian troops at the tactical level. Kofman told the Washington Post that spetsnaz and advisers on the front line have helped Syrian troops and Assad’s allies consolidate gains and take ground, despite the hype surrounding the detachment of Russian aircraft in the country. He called them the glue that is helping the Syrians fight as a much more capable army.
Dum tempus habemus, operemur bonum. (While we have the time, let us do good.) The massive presence of ISIS in Syria created a predicament for both the Assad regime and the Syrian Opposition. ISIS was eventually recognized internationally as a bloody, murderous terrorist organization, murdering military prisoners, foreign hostages, and innocent civilians. Although the Assad regime supported by Russia and the Syrian Opposition was supported by US, and work was being done on the margins, neither superpower appeared willing or able to do what is necessary to support their Syrian beneficiaries. That all changed in September 2015, when Russia, following Iran, intervened militarily support to Assad. Many worldwide discovered for the first-time that Russia, just as the US, has very capable airpower assets and special forces. US President Barack Obama stated on October 2, 2015: “An attempt by Russia and Iran to prop up Assad and try to pacify the population is just going to get them stuck in a quagmire and it won’t work.” Yet, absent a robust US effort with the Syrian Opposition to counter Putin’s move, Russia and its allies found themselves with room for some real open field running in Syria. Indeed, Russia has been on the move, propelling Iranian, Iranian-led, and Syrian forces forward rapidly. The success of spetsnaz units and other Russian forces in Syria has pressed the US to try to mitigate the damage of the prospective “loss” of Syria and failed policy of containing Assad until he could be removed at the negotiation table. The success of spetsnaz provides an interesting measure to gauge the collapse of that policy on the ground.
The Russian state media highly publicized the return of Russian Federation Air Force jets from Syria after Putin’s surprise withdrawal order on March 14, 2016. A percentage of Russian Federation forces were withdrawn. However, Putin had no intentions of abandoning Assad. What occurred at Palmyra should have served to dispel such rumors. The “Syrian Express”, the nickname given to the ships that have kept Russian Federation forces supplied in Syria, shipped more equipment and supplies to the Russian naval base at Tartus in the two weeks following Putin’s withdrawal announcement than it had two weeks prior.
Russia Goes In
Russian Federation forces entered Syria under the leadership of Russian Federation Army Colonel General Aleksandr Dvornikov in September 2015. Dvornikov formerly held the post of First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Central Military District. Supposedly few in Moscow knew Dvornikov had been assigned to Syria and details of combat operations developed and executed under his command remain classified. In an official interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta in March 23, 2016, Dvornikov explained the situation facing his Russian Military Group in Syria upon arrival in-country as follows: “The terrorists who numbered more than 60,000 occupied around 70 percent of territory of Syria. Gangs had seized control of the major cities of Idlib. Palmyra, and Raqqa. The terrorists controlled a large part of the suburbs of Homs and Damascus, conducted large scale offensives in the province of Latakia and were preparing to surround and capture Aleppo. And the key Damascus-Aleppo highway, joining the south and north of the country, was under constant threat of blockade by the militants. On top of that, the government troops were exhausted after 4 years of hostilities and were holding off the terrorist offensives with great difficulty. The population was leaving the country en masse.” In addition to gloomy Russian assessments, alarms were sounded by Russia’s ally Iran. Allegedly from July 24, 2015 to July 26, 2015, Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)-Quds Force (special forces) Commander, General (Sarlashkar) Qassem Suleimani held numerous meetings in Moscow. More importantly, Suleimani met with Putin and Russian Federation Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. According to accounts of the meeting in Reuters, Suleimani outlined the Assad regime’s crumbling situation in Syria. He explained that Syrian Opposition forces were advancing toward the coast, threatening the heartland of Assad’s Alawite sect and endangering Tartus, where Russia maintains its only Mediterranean naval base. This reportedly alarmed the Russians who already understood matters were in steep decline militarily for the Assad regime. Suleimani then placed a map of Syria on the table and explained why there was still time to reverse the situation. Ratio et consilium propriae ducis arte. (Reason and deliberation are the proper skills of a general.)
After Russian Federation forces began operations in Syria, there was a change compared with things antecedent on the ground. In his Rossiyskaya Gazeta interview, Dvornikov outlined advances made by Russian, Iranian and Syrian forces: “Taking control of key regions of the northeast of the province of Aleppo seriously affected the militants’ supply lines and the transfer of reinforcements from Turkey through the corridor between Jarabulus and Azaz. This created the conditions for the crushing defeat of ISIS to the north of Aleppo. What do we have now? We have the liberation of the Kuweires airbase as well as a number of settlements that had been under terrorist control for more than three years. The militants have been completely driven out of the province of Latakia. Coastal areas, in which a significant part of the population of Syria is concentrated, have been cleansed of the terrorists.” With regard to the Hama, Homs, and Damascus provinces, Dvornikov told Rossiyskaya Gazeta: “These provinces are located in the central part of the country. And, for the most part they have been cleared of illegal armed groups. Now a most active process of reconciliation is going on there. From a military point of view, it is very important that the major roads in Syria are under the control of government forces. Generally speaking, during the military operation, Syrian troops—with air support—liberated 400 populated areas. The potential of terrorist groups was halved, they lost the initiative and the territory controlled by them was reduced by 10,000 square kilometers.” Per ardua, ad astra. (Through adversity to the stars.)
Russian Federation forces entered Syria under the leadership of Russian Federation Army Colonel General Aleksandr Dvornikov (above) in September 2015. Dvornikov formerly held the post of First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Central Military District. Supposedly, few in Moscow knew Dvornikov had been assigned to Syria. Dvornikov revealed in an interview that Palmyra’s capture would open up the road to Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, create conditions for reaching and controlling the border with Iraq, and re-establish control over three large oil and gas fields which had previously served as a source of income for ISIS.
The Palmyra Battle
The total number of troops involved in the fight for Palmyra from the Russian, Iranian, Iranian-led, and Syrian coalition of forces was over 5000. Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, General of the Army Valery Gerasimov has been diligent in the deployment of forces to Syria, maintaining a sizeable, capable reserve for operations elsewhere. Russian Federation forces have been deployed economically, to avoid being bogged down in support of its allies, but also to ensure ISIS could be destroyed and prevented from relocating and resurrecting itself. Russia deployed significant numbers of ground forces to work in coordination with air assets. Russian units operating TOS-1 and BM-30 Smerch heavy multiple rocket launcher systems as well as Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunships were utilized in support of operations to retake Palmyra.
The Russian state media highly publicized the return of planes from Syria after Putin’s surprise withdrawal order on March 14, 2016. It was not a hoax. Russian Federation forces were withdrawn however, as analysts informed AFP, the withdrawal was very limited, with estimates ranging between 10 and 25 percent of its forces in Syria. However, Russian activity seemed to have increased. Reuters reports the “Syrian Express,” the nickname given to the ships that have kept Russian forces supplied via the Black Sea Russian port of Novorossiysk to the Russian naval base at Tartus, has shipped more equipment and supplies to Syria in the two weeks following Putin’s withdrawal announcement than it had two weeks prior. Just before the assault on Palmyra, Russia publicly admitted, for the first time since it launched operations in Syria in September 2015 that spetsnaz were on the ground as part of the offensive.
Spetsnaz units have locating and designating ISIS targets for airstrikes in advance of contact with them by Russian, Iranian, Iranian-led, and Syrian ground forces. Russian attack helicopters, as well as spetsnaz serving as sharpshooters, serve as over watch for forces Russian allies, ensuring that even small, unorganized bands of fighters of ISIS would not be able to engage in independent actions to disrupt the ground operations. Dvornikov explained: “. . . Two thousand terrorists, originally coming from the Russian Federation—were destroyed on Syrian territory. Of these, 17 were field commanders.” By targeting Russian members of Islamic militant groups in Syria, Russian forces contributed immensely to the safety and security of their country and its citizens and the international effort against those Islamic militant groups as well. Chief of the Armed Forces General Staff of the Russian Federation, Valery Gerasimov on March 28, 2016 said Palmyra was “liberated thanks to the support of Russia’s air force and special operations forces.”
Offering an example of the type of fighting in which Russian forces have been engaged, a Russian spetsnaz officer, Aleksandr Prokhorenko, was killed while directing airstrikes upon himself when surrounded by ISIS fighters near Palmyra according to the Russian military on March 24, 3016. (He reportedly had been working in Syria for just a week.) ISIS took a photo allegedly from his cellphone and posted it on the internet in an apparent attempt to shame Russian forces fighting in Syria or claim some type victory. (The causality is really unknown. The thinking behind ISIS decisions is hard to decipher.) Instead, by posting the photo, the world was given a glimpse of a few of the courageous Russians who have been fighting gallantly against the scourge of ISIS in Syria. Certainly, most people in the world are united in thinking ISIS must be destroyed. Quem metuit quisque perisse cupit. (Everyone wishes that the man whom he fears would perish.)
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointed Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General (Sartip-e Yekom) Mohammad Jafar Assadi (above) as the IRGC commander in Syria. Russian-Iranian military cooperation on Syria was established in July 2015. Iran has deployed several thousand (IRGC)-Quds Force (special forces) officers and advisers to Syria, mobilized pro-Assad shabihas (militias) into the National Defense Forces to fight alongside the Syrian Armed Forces, and brought in Shi’a volunteer brigades from Iraq and Afghanistan, and Hezbollah units from Lebanon.
Concerning Syrian forces, many of them, to include nearly 1000 Syrian Marines and National Defense Forces militiamen, were brought up to Palmyra from Latakia, Aleppo, Qunetta Provinces. This movement of troops was enabled by the “cessation of hostilities” that began on February 27, 2016 that stemmed from the Geneva III Peace Talks on Syria. Those forces linked-up with hundreds of fighters from Lebanese Hezbollah, Iraqi Shi’a militias, and even Afghan Shi’a Liwa al-Fatimiyoun. Iran deployed the IRGC to support coalition forces in the operation. Russian-Iranian military cooperation on Syria came into effect via an agreement in July 2015. Both countries agreed to inject support into the Syrian Armed Forces to counter Assad’s accelerating losses. Joint operations rooms have been set up to bring the allies together, along with the Iraqi Government, which is supportive of Iran’s actions in Syria. (One joint operations room is in Damascus and another is in Baghdad.) Iran, itself, had already deployed several thousand Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-Quds Force (special forces) officers and advisers to Syria. They have mobilized pro-Assad shabihas (militias) into the 70,000 strong National Defense Forces, to fight alongside the Syrian Armed Forces, brought in Shia volunteer brigades from Iraq and Afghanistan, and Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon. Many IRGC officers and advisers have been killed fighting alongside their allies in Syria. After a meeting in Tehran between Putin and Iran’s Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on November 23, 2015, the decision was made to step up coordination between the two countries on Syria. A senior Iranian official told Reuters, “What was agreed was Iran and Russia would pursue one policy which will benefit Tehran, Moscow, and Damascus.” Reportedly, Khamenei appointed IRGC Brigadier General (Sartip-e Yekom) Mohammad Jafar Assadi as the IRGC commander in Syria. He is known as Abu Ahmad in Syria.
Large deliveries of Russian heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems also had an impact on the frontlines of the Syrian Army, Hezbollah, and the Shia militias. That equipment included: 152-milimeter MTSA-B guns, BM-27 Uragan and BM-30 Smerch rocket launchers, and TOS-1A Solnitsa rocket launchers.
The offensive proceeded as a three pronged frontal assault similar to previous regime directed operations against Palmyra in the Eastern Homs Province, displaying little to none of the sophisticated operational design that characterized the recent campaign in Aleppo Province. Dvornikov explained in his Rossiyskaya Gazeta interview that the capture of Palmyra would “open up the road to (IS strongholds) Raqqa and Deir Ezzor and create conditions for reaching and taking control of the border with Iraq.” Syria’s military on Sunday also confirmed that the battle for Raqqa—the de facto capital of the jihadists—is the plan. Dvornikov also noted that “control was re-established over three large oil and gas fields, which had previously served as a source of income for the terrorists.” As important, a barrier has been created for several critical regime-held oil and natural gas fields that provide electricity to Western Syria. Further, ISIS’ ability to project force into Western Syria from the Euphrates River Valley was reduced.
Russian, Iranian, Iranian-led, and Syrian forces have not been holding on anywhere. After Palmyra, they pushed onward toward Deir Ezzor province, an Islamic state bastion. They also pushed toward the so-called capital of the Islamic Caliphate, Raqqa, and other ISIS-held towns along the way.
Possibilities: Battle of Annihilation?
Despite laying mines and setting booby traps for advancing Russian-led forces, it seems learning how to retreat has been a difficult experience for ISIS. One might have expected counterattacks to cover its withdrawal. Assad regime troops have not been holding on anywhere and after Palmyra, they pushed onward toward Deir Ezzor province, an Islamic State bastion. They also pushed toward the so-called capital of the Islamic Caliphate, Raqqa, and other ISIS-held towns along the way. The day following Palmyra’s capture, a Syrian military source said “The army was concentrated around Al-Qurayatayn.”
Russian, Iranian, and Syrian military planners and commanders, of what is essentially a Russian-led coalition, must recognize that beyond Palmyra, fights with ISIS could become more intense as ISIS fighters observe their so-called Islamic Caliphate being reduced. This may be especially true for the battles of Deir Ezzor and Raqqa. ISIS fighters will be desperate to hold on to their Caliphate and demonstrate their will to resist and the capabilities of their group knowing the world would watching. The effects of such intensified efforts must be mitigated.
Russian air assets, along with air assets of its allies, should engage in a feeding-frenzy against ISIS. ISIS fighting positions in front of the Russian allies must continue to be degraded with close air support as well as unrelenting artillery onslaughts. ISIS fighters must face certain death if they hold their positions or be killed or captured once driven out of their positions. In tandem with the hot pursuit of ISIS by Russian and allied forces on the ground, airstrikes could support efforts to divert fighters of destroyed or displaced ISIS units away from their lines to locations where “kill zones” could be established. The attrition rate of ISIS should be increased by having aerial platforms that allow for stand-off attacks with anti-personnel weapons remain in near 24-hour use on targeted defenses and targets of opportunity such as isolated ISIS units in the desert.
The tempo and volume of Russian air strikes targeting ISIS leaders—and other rogue Islamic militant groups when identified—should be increased exponentially. Command centers and any gathering places of ISIS leaders, must not be allowed to exist. If possible, they should be struck simultaneously to throw the groups into chaos and confusion and make it very difficult for them to regenerate. Locations hit by airstrikes where ISIS might attempt to recover anything equipment or gear must be hit again to halt those recovery efforts. The communications of ISIS should be either destroyed or disrupted by other technical means permanently destroying any surviving leaders’ abilities to control over their units. Known and suspected assembly areas and rally points for ISIS units must be attacked from the air. In units left rudderless, acting without coordination, hopefully unit cohesion will begin to suffer, and they will lose their effectiveness completely. Small unit leaders should be left with the choice to allow their fighters to die in place or make a dash for the Euphrates, where along with other units, they should be consumed through a coordinated plan by Russian, Iranian, Iranian-led, and Syrian forces for annihilating any last ditch defense. Life should be made unlivable for ISIS in Syria.
Russian air assets could support raids and ambushes by spetsnaz units. Spetsnaz units should be issued portable GShG-7.62 rotary machine guns to give them the capability to kill ISIS fighters at a high rate in kill zones, raids, and ambushes as well as destroy any ISIS counterattacks. Spetsnaz units will likely need to operate vigorously at night when ISIS fighters might try to conceal movement. As directed by Moscow, individual spetsnaz units, in a special reconnaissance role, could continue to go into ISIS controlled areas, locate, and kill specific ISIS fighters from Russia, or when directed, take prisoners. Some spetsnaz must be dedicated to fighting other Islamic militant groups in Syria such as the Al-Qaeda affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra.
Russian, Iranian, and Syrian military planners and commanders likely recognize that beyond Palmyra, fights with ISIS could become more intense, as ISIS fighters observe their so-called Islamic Caliphate being reduced. This may be especially true for the battles of Deir Ezzor and Raqqa. ISIS fighters will be desperate to hold on to their Caliphate and demonstrate the capabilities and will of their terrorist group. The effects of such intensified efforts must be mitigated.
Caliphate Redoubt in Syria?
Six months after US and United Kingdom forces landed in Normandy in June 1944 during World War II, it was thought by senior German military commanders and hypothesized by Allied military planners that the Nazi government would be moved to a mountainous area of southern Germany and Austria. From there, a determined force could hold out for some time, complicating the situation for any occupying force in Germany. Allied planners referred to that area hypothetical defensive zone as the National Redoubt. It was discussed among German military planners as the Alpenfestung. While the idea of the Alpenfestung was investigated, it was never created. Instead, rumors were deliberately spread by a special unit set up by the German Minister for Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels to keep a redoubt idea alive. Yet, not being complacent, Allied military commanders ordered bombing raids to reduce locations that would be critical to operating the redoubt. It is difficult to say what ISIS leaders would do if Raqqa and Deir Ezzor fell. While there are no mountain ranges on the line of march of Russia and its allies to set up an Islamic Caliphate redoubt in Syria as imposing as the one conjured up by both sides in Germany, luck might have it that Iraqi military commanders in ISIS might try to set up a “line of death” east of Deir Ezzor along the Khabur and Euphrates Rivers, and Syria’s border with Iraq. The goal of that theoretical defensive line would be to forestall the ultimate collapse of the Islamic Caliphate in Syria and to inflict as many casualties among Russian-led forces as possible with a suicide defense. Real luck would come if reinforcements were rushed in where available in Iraq. (Though, US-led, and Iranian-led, forces have caused ISIS inside Iraq considerable problems, making any effort to move units from there to reinforce a redoubt in Syria dubious.) If Russian-led forces observe a redoubt being formed, it would present them with the opportunity to deal a tremendous blow against ISIS from which it would never recover. With overwhelming firepower, using every means of combat support and reconnaissance and surveillance for targeting available, the entire ISIS force could be annihilated. All ISIS commanders, planners and fighters in the defense would need to be destroyed much as near entire Japanese forces were destroyed following island battles in the Pacific during World War II. Acribus initiis, incurioso fine. (Zealous at the commencement, careless toward the conclusion.)
Russian air assets, along with those of Russia’s allies, should engage in a feeding-frenzy against ISIS. ISIS fighting positions in front of the Russian allies must continue to be degraded with close air support as well as unrelenting artillery onslaughts. Airstrikes could be directed at diverting ISIS fighters of destroyed or displaced groups away from the frontlines to locations where “kill zones” could be established. Targets of opportunity in the desert should be destroyed. Russian air assets could support raids and ambushes by spetsnaz units.
When Putin went into Syria in September 2015, he did so not only to fight ISIS, but to “stabilize the legitimate authority” of Assad. To that extent, he wanted to defeat ISIS or, at a minimum, reduce its presence in Syria to a size and strength incapable of forcing Assad from power, nor subsidize efforts of the Syrian Opposition Movement to maneuver with US and EU assistance to undercut Assad. So far in Syria, Putin has effectively left no doubt with the Russian people, but also the world, that he is a leader who is able to respond effectively to security issues and that Russia is a global power. The ejection of ISIS from Palmyra was a major achievement on top of all of its success in Syria. Russia was seen fulfilling its promise of defeating ISIS and supporting Assad. News of the event has garnered unenthused recognition from the Washington and European capitals.
Ad mores natura damnatos fixa et mutari nescia. (Human nature ever reverts to its depraved courses, fixed and immutable.) Some might speculate that Putin may choose to forestall backing the attacks on Raqqa and Deir Ezzor as the UN Talks in Geneva may reach a result that would keep Assad in power and serve Russia’s interest. However, Putin’s decision making manifests a sense of pessimism regarding human nature. Interactions with the West have been a struggle, Russia is still being sanctioned over Ukraine. Putin most likely expects to encounter some machinations from Western capitals that would cause Russia’s interests to be subordinated by their own. He very likely felt he had encountered something of that nature during UN Talks on Syria in Vienna on November 14, 2015 when Kerry is said to have proposed allowing all Syrians, “including members of the diaspora,” participate in the national elections. Kerry seemed to be betting that if Syrians around the world participated in the vote, Assad would never be able to remain in office. In part to counter such moves, Putin has sought to significantly shape the situation on the ground by supporting the combat operations of Syrian Armed Forces along with forces Iran has brought to, or organized in, Syria. Once all of Russia’s goals on the ground are achieved, Putin would seek to finalize some political arrangement for Syria. What may be shaping up is a race by the US-led and Russian-led anti-ISIS camps to take Raqqa and to establish their will in Syria.
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In the State of the Union Address, Obama Confronts Americans’ Fears; On Foreign Policy They Want to See Real Success
Posted on January 31, 2016 by greatcharlie
In his State of the Union Address, US President Barack Obama painted a picture of the US with a better standing in the world after seven years of his leadership. In 2016, Obama will make many speeches about his accomplishments to audiences at organized events. Yet, triumphalism does not equate to triumph. There is a continuous threat from terrorist groups. Countries such as Russia, Iran, and China remain in fierce competition with the US. They may seek to establish a new dynamic in which the power and interests of their countries are enhanced and the power and interests of the US are weakened.
In a January 12, 2016 New York Times article entitled, “Obama Confronts Americans’ Fears in State of the Union Speech,” it was reported US President Barack Obama painted a hopeful portrait of the nation after seven years of his leadership with a better standing in the world. Concerning foreign policy and national security, Obama defended his approach to taking on the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) describing it as a dangerous threat to the US that must be dealt with but not an existential one, and not a force that warrants a commitment of US ground forces in Iraq and Syria. Obama highlighted his work in forging a nuclear deal with Iran, opening a new era of relations with Cuba, pressing for a global accord reached in Paris to combat climate change and efforts to stop the spread of Ebola. He also explained the US is uniquely positioned to rally other countries to solve global problems.
In 2016, Obama will make many speeches about his accomplishments to audiences at organized events. Loyal Obama supporters and fans and other Democrats will be at every venue, a flutter at every word he utters about his presidency. Doyens of the political realm in the US will make glowing public orations, descants and publish paeans in honor of the president, celebrating his administration’s accomplishments. Having twice vanquished all opposition to Obama in national elections, and after completing nearly eight years of work, some measure of triumphalism is expected to be heard from him, his senior officials, and his staff. It would be expected even more of an administration marked particularly by its obsession over the president’s legacy. The final year of his last term is the ideal time to set the record straight and control the narrative. Iucunda memoria est praeteritorum malorum. (Pleasant is the memory of past troubles.)
Still, triumphalism, highlighting the administration’s perceived achievements on foreign policy, does not equate to triumph. Real success cannot be determined by levels of applause from fans. Doubts have been expressed even among Democrats over many of the administration’s foreign policy efforts. The forces of tyranny and darkness still hold a prominent place on the international stage. Whether signature efforts by the administration have created real change or will be sustainable remains uncertain. The renowned wit and retired late night US television talk show host, David Letterman, once joked, “every military operation has to have a name so people can get behind it and they now have a name for the war against ISIS: Operation Hillary’s Problem.” Whether Letterman engaged in a successful dalliance as a visionary regarding former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s election as the next US president remains to be seen. Still, his main point was clear. The Obama administration has not successfully acted against ISIS and was seemingly passing on that problem, and other important ones, to the next US administration. However, sitting on issues in order to hand them over to a new administration is not a wise choice. In addition to the continuous threat of terrorism from ISIS, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and other groups worldwide, countries such as Russia, Iran, and China while interacting with the US still remain in fierce competition with it strategically, ideologically. They may now hope to exploit perceived advantages and establish a new dynamic in which the power and interests of their countries are enhanced and the power and interests of the US are weakened. Approaches exist to prevent that from occurring or at least minimize any negative results. They may not allow the administration to declare triumph, but may allow it to honestly claim it left a satisfactory foreign policy legacy.
Creating a Foreign Policy Legacy
During Obama’s campaign for the 2008 Presidential Election, he was recognized as a man of vision, a seeker, filled with smart words, no less than the breath of life. His speeches were indeed balanced, teeming with inspiration. In photos, videos and in his writings and speeches during that first presidential campaign and during the initial stages of his first term, it was clear that Obama was very passionate, a man seemingly haunted by his vision of an even brighter future for the US. Yet, having is not the same as wanting. As time passed, there were some successes, but there were also failures. Mistakes were also made, particularly in the area of foreign policy. They came to office believing the policy issues have been misunderstood and solutions are only temporarily hidden. In decision making, spirit and vision would be given primacy over vested interests, realism. That was the case of the US response toward countries in the Middle East during the Arab Spring and to the opposition movements in Ukraine. The administration’s foreign policy seemed driven by a self-neglectful virtue that would allegedly melt all physical and ideological boundaries with a charity that the US believes gives hope to those it perceives as helpless. The administration wished to become no less than an anathema to tyrants, pointing always to the hallmark of their oppressive regimes which is a lack of respect for the dignity of others. The administration would contest how those regimes would typically act upon citizens: not with constitutional authority, but with raw power. Yet, the Obama administration also in no way wanted to be associated with the policies of the previous administration of US President George W. Bush which was perceived as willing to lash out without delay at its adversaries. Instead of projecting authentic US strength globally, the administration proffered the idea that the US could rely upon multilateral solutions. That would allow it to minimize US intervention on the ground, but require joint action from allies and partners who were undertaking dramatic military cuts and were facing economic difficulties. Those countries were also very aware that warfare lately has been asymmetric, not set piece engagements to win quickly. No Western European country with real military capabilities would commit requisite or robust forces to take on risks globally, especially if its political leaders felt that the issue at hand did not fall within their interests. Countries possessing far less capabilities than the US in regions where there were urgent and important crises brewing, were also hesitant to act unless matters fell directly in their interests. Obama repeatedly presented his notion of multilateralism to a US public confused about the contrast between the certitude with which Obama spoke, and regular breakdowns in the administration’s foreign policy initiatives that were being implemented. When the administration thought efforts under this multilateral concept coalesced as an outcome of initial success in Libya, things soured resulting in multiple failures from the controversial loss of US diplomatic and military personnel to the development of struggle between competing factions and Islamic militants aligned with ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
The Obama administration did not invent the US Government. The government that the administration took control of has always been viewed as stable, solid, reassuring. It has been the source of so much hope not only of foreign capitals but individuals worldwide. Now, the image has grown of the US in retreat, perhaps wounded by its ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is no longer seen by all as a champion of right but as a cold calculator. Its leaders know the price of everything but not the value of relationships the US once held close. Seeing the failed results of its approach, exasperated European leaders have not responded with mockery, sarcasm, or insolence; at least not publicly. Leaders of Germany and the United Kingdom have tried to give courage, to fortify the administration. Viciousness has done much harm in history. Still, the worst crimes, the worst disasters in history have been the work of the timid, the mediocre. For years, many will feel the Obama administration stood passively in the face of evil.
As an authentic military superpower, the US has a clear upper hand over all of its likely opponents. Any assessment otherwise would not be genuine. The administration has been reluctant to use US military power. Adversaries, upon recognizing this, seemingly downplayed concerns over US capabilities to impose its will and simply considered how to impose their own will, regionally and globally. Soon their narrative exposed a defective perspective that the US lacked the ability to deliver a knockout blow. Subtly, opponents worked tirelessly on the US, enjoying the freedom to act in the world, knowing that beyond the diplomatic table, using economic weapons such as sanctions, and revoking membership in collective economic groups, little else would occur. Possible limitations on what could be done would only be set by the Obama administration’s time in office. It is already clear that the dynamic between the US and many countries has changed. It remains to be seen whether US opponents will attempt to administer some type of coup de grace in the administration’s final months, ensuring that it will not have a positive foreign policy legacy. The following are some possibilities, “stripped to the bone”.
Above is a photo of a deep underground military base in Iran. The Obama administration hopes to be known for attempting to create better relations with long time foes such as Iran and Cuba. However, results of its efforts may very well prove that the administration was acting on a charming fantasy. It approached those countries unlike previous administrations. In Tehran, the Obama administration has no friend. Tehran would not hesitate to exploit the administration or betray it.
Certainly, the Obama administration will be known for attempting to create union with long time foes such as Iran and Cuba. Its approach to those countries was unlike that of previous administrations. In past cases, the US projected that strength, and US diplomacy was supported in many cases by the credible threat of force. Indeed, the previous US administration emphasized to Iran that the US had the intention and capability to impose its will on them and it had no ability to impose its will on the US. Leaders in Tehran rejected that approach. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani stated in his 2013 inaugural address, “To have interactions with Iran, there should be talks based on an equal position, building mutual trust and respect, and reducing enmity.” Iranian negotiators managed to acquire that “requisite” degree of equality. To facilitate the establishment of talks with the P5+1 (the US, United Kingdom, France, China, Russia, and Germany), the Obama administration did not impose its will on Iran using strength, rather it negotiated with Iran under the fiction that all parties to the talks were equals. US strength was negated. Having managed to arrange the environment to maximize their ability to achieve success, Iranian negotiators came to the talks confident in their positions. The Iranians flatly denied they wanted to develop a nuclear weapons capability, insisting Iran’s program is limited to the peaceful generation of electricity and medical research. Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohamad Javad Zarif, and the Iranian negotiating team were under extraordinary pressure from Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and other hardline elements in Iran, to secure an agreement that recognized Iran’s right to have a nuclear program, including the right to enrich uranium and held the line on that issue. As Zarif told the ISNA news agency in November 2014, “Not only do we consider that Iran’s right to enrich is unnegotiable, but we see no need for that to be recognized as ‘a right’, because this right is inalienable and all countries must respect that.”
Close contact with US negotiators for months allowed the Iranians a real chance to look into their thinking of US negotiators. The Iranians discerned they were witnessing the impact of the Obama administration’s “legacy quest.” White House officials and US political pundits spoke and wrote about US President Barack Obama’s desire to establish his legacy. US negotiators were pushing for a deal in order to claim an historic foreign policy success. So strong was the sense that the US might be willing to make risky concessions, that Zarif stated in the Iranian media, “There are indicators that John Kerry is inclined [to advance the nuclear matter in Iran’s interests].” The Iranians became more tenacious than ever in the talks. There was also a discernible change in Obama’s discussion of taking military action against Iran as the talks progressed. Threats vanished. The administration went as far as to say there was nothing effectively could be done militarily to halt Iran’s program. The narrative of the US changed.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was signed on July 14, 2015. With safeguards, the administration believes the framework agreement will cut down Iran’s breakout time capacity to the point that it would take at least 12 months to amass enough uranium enriched to weapons grade for one bomb. Enhanced international inspections and monitoring would be set up to help discourage Iran from violating the agreement. The hope is noncompliance by Iran at declared or potential undeclared sites would be detected through enhanced monitoring by the international community and promptly disrupted. The consequence of noncompliance would likely be limited to economic sanctions which may not be enough to restrain hardliners driven to build a weapon. The results of the administration’s efforts may prove that it was acting on a charming fantasy.
Reportedly, Tehran took part of its nuclear program outside of Iran long before signing the Iran deal. One possibility, found in news reports unearthed by Christian Thiels of ARD German TV, is that Iran is working with North Korea to develop a weapon. Alleged evidence was their joint operation of nuclear complexes located at Deir al-Zor and Kibar in Syria. It is possible that the January 6, 2016 North Korean nuclear test may have been a cooperative test of Iranian warheads or a test of warheads made by North Korea for Iran.
There have been reports that Tehran took part of its nuclear program outside of Iran long before signing the JCPOA. One possibility, found in news reports unearthed by Christian Thiels of ARD German TV, is that Iran is working with North Korea in other countries to develop a weapon. (During the Cold War, the US encouraged joint work by its allies such as France, the United Kingdom, Israel, and South Africa, on the development of nuclear capabiltites.) The first evidence was their joint operation of nuclear complexes located at Deir al-Zor and Kibar in Syria. On September 5, 2007, Israeli aircraft and special operations forces attacked and destroyed them. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that Kibar was a nuclear weapons development site. There is the possibility that other facilities exist in Syria. According to Der Spiegel, one may be underground, west of Qusayr, about 2 km from the Lebanese border. It is possible that the January 6, 2016 North Korean nuclear test may have been a cooperative test of Iranian warheads or a test of warheads made by North Korea for Iran. The Obama administration has no friend in the regime in Tehran. Tehran would not hesitate to exploit it or betray it. Equo ne credite! (Do not trust the horse! [Referring to the Trojan Horse.])
European governments and large European firms now seek to renew economic ties and develop business with Iran. As those linkages are established, the chance that the US could pull allies away from potential profits due to a “potential threat” a nuclear Iran might pose is lessened. The argument would be made that economic ties would serve to lessen hostilities between Iran and their countries. Threats to use force against Iran would have little meaning at that point as too many statements on why US military power should be withheld have already been made. At best, the Obama administration could increase sanctions on North Korea over nuclear weapons tests showing Pyongyang that it would be impractical to support any possible Iranian covert Iranian overseas nuclear program. It could also make it publicly known that the US is still developing greater capabilities to destroy deep underground military bases as those in Iran. If Iran is trying to cross the line or has crossed the line, at least the next administration would be better able to back diplomacy with force.
ISIS on parade in Mosul. When the ISIS blitzkrieg in Iraq began in June 2014, the Obama administration’s response included pushing then Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to establish a representative government, to include Sunnis and Kurds. As the Iraqi Security Forces were being routed by ISIS, Obama refused to give the Iraqis military aid unless they tried to bridge their divisions. Maliki stepped down. Haider al-Abadi took over with a mandate to create a government reflecting Iraq’s ethno-religious diversity and gain the trust of disaffected Sunnis so they would fight ISIS rather than support it.
When the ISIS blitzkrieg in Iraq began on June 9, 2014, the response of the administration of the US President Barack Obama included pushing then Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to establish a representative government, to include Sunnis and Kurds. It was designed as an effort to heal the rifts being exploited by the insurgents. ISIS was able to capture large parts of the country’s western and northern provinces during their offensive because Sunni residents threw their support to it after the Maliki government stopped paying the Sunni tribal fighters who had previously helped fight ISIS’s precursor, Al-Qaeda in Iraq. As the Iraqi Security Forces were being routed by ISIS, Obama insisted that no US military help would be provided unless Iraqis tried to bridge their divisions. US Secretary of State John Kerry tried to make headway with Maliki. After a protracted political crisis, the Iraqi Parliament voted to have Maliki step down. Haider al-Abadi took over with a mandate to create a government more representative of Iraq’s ethno-religious groups and gain the trust of Iraq’s disaffected Sunnis so they would fight ISIS rather than support it. His early performance encouraged US and Iraqi officials.
In support of Abadi’s government, the US deployed 3,500 US troops to Iraq with the mission to help train and reorganize the highly fractured Iraqi Army. It had dwindled to nearly half its size from the 50 brigades it had when the US forces left in 2011. US military troops prepared the Iraqi Army for its fight to retake Ramadi. A fight to retake Mosul was being planned for 2016. Iran would hardly tolerate any loss of control or surrender its interests in Iraq due to the Obama administration’s actions. Knowing the representative government that the US sought for Iraq could not be easily created, Iran’s leaders likely assumed the US would not succeed. Tehran went ahead and expressed reserved support for Abadi. Yet, by late 2014, Abadi began to lean toward Iran and challenge the US regarding its level of support. Causality for his change in perspective was likely a combination of weariness from political infighting in Baghdad, the struggle to balance his ties to sectarian groups, pressure from his own Shi’a community, and Iran’s battlefield efforts. Abadi may have also questioned the Obama administration’s will to engage in long-term fight with ISIS. His rebellious attitude was evinced in a December 1, 2014 interview with the Lebanese-based Al-Mayadeen Television. Abadi reportedly stated, “While the United States was hesitant to help Iraqi armed forces amid security threats to Baghdad, Iran was swift to provide assistance to its crisis-torn Arab neighbor.” Iran has heavily committed itself to Iraq. With greater control over the Shi’a community and increased influence with the Kurds through its military efforts, Iran has placed itself in a better position to shape Iraq politically and economically. How Iran would ameliorate Iraq’s sectarian struggle is uncertain.
To support Abadi’s government, the US deployed 3,500 US troops to Iraq to help train and reorganize the highly fractured Iraqi Army. Yet, by late 2014, Abadi began to lean toward Iran and challenge the US regarding its level of support. While the US was hesitant to help Iraqi Security Forces as ISIS marched toward Baghdad, Abadi observed that Iran was swift to provide assistance. Having established greater control over the Shi’a community and increased its influence with the Kurds through its military efforts, Iran is now in a better position to shape Iraq politically, economically, and perhaps socially, with effort.
The road Iran is creating for Abadi may be either a path toward a stable, secure and unified Iraq, with a representative government or a blind alley which will lead to greater sectarian violence. If Iran’s efforts concern it, the Obama administration should consider how it can create a straight path for Abadi to travel. That does not mean pushing him from behind with demands. It means leading the way with concrete steps and working closely with Abadi, as a partner, to accomplish things. Baghdad should have positive ties with its neighbor, Iran. Yet, the US can improve its relationship with Iraq. Surely, it could further enable Iraq’s fight against ISIS, and help stem the flow of foreign fighters into the country. Even more, it could further advance Iraq’s position on the world stage by helping it generate significant business and economic ties worldwide, beyond the oil and gas industry, even while Baghdad copes with ISIS and sectarian issues. Clarior e tenebris! ([I shine] out of the darkness more brightly!)
The Obama administration decided to provide the Syrian Opposition Movement its support in 2012 with the hope that Assad could be pressured to the negotiating table by Free Syrian Army advances and eventually agree to step down under a settlement. So far, Assad’s hold on the reins of power remains unaffected. Moreover, Syrian Opposition leaders discovered that taking on the Syrian Armed Forces and their allies is an enormous task. Now with Russia in the mix, they are well out of their depth. The Obama administration has implemented a failed policy against Assad’s regime.
The Obama administration decided to provide the Syrian Opposition Movement its support in 2012 with the hope that Assad could be pressured to the negotiating table by Free Syrian Army advances and eventually agree to step down under a settlement. So far, Assad’s hold on the reins of power remains unaffected. Moreover, Syrian Opposition leaders discovered that taking on the Syrian Armed Forces and their allies is an enormous task. Rebel fighters found themselves in trouble early on and now with Russia in the mix, they recognize that they are well out of their depth. Just keeping the Opposition together politically has been difficult. Foreign diplomats must regularly act as mediators to hold the Opposition’s diverse groups together. Opposition military leaders have not shown any greater ability to unify their forces. The Obama administration has implemented a failed policy of battling Assad’s regime to force him to step down via negotiations. Obama expressed that view on CBS NEWS “60 Minutes”, saying: “. . . I’ve been skeptical from the get go about the notion that we were going to effectively create this proxy army inside of Syria. My goal has been to test the proposition, can we be able to train and equip a moderate Opposition that’s willing to fight ISIL [ISIS]? And what we’ve learned is that as long as Assad remains in power, it is very difficult to get those folks to focus their attention on ISIL [ISIS]? He went on to state: “. . . There is no doubt it did not work.” A new government in Syria favorable to the West could not have been created by the Opposition at the civil war’s start and cannot be created by it now. The Opposition could fight on against the Assad regime minus support, but it would lose, especially with ISIS present. Cuiusvis hominis est errare, nullius nisi insipientis in errore perseverare. (Anyone can err, but only a fool persists in his fault.)
ISIS and Al-Qaeda linked Islamic militant groups in Syria have reached a considerable size and strength. The goals of ISIS and similar groups were never compatible with those of the Opposition. While mainstream Opposition forces were directed at creating the basis for a transition to a democratic style government in Damascus for all Syrians, ISIS and Al-Qaeda affiliated groups sought to create an Islamic State on Syrian territory. At one point, the Obama administration seemed willing to let the entire Syrian episode pass, while continuing a small, questionable assistance effort, projecting toughness through legal maneuvers, and allowing Assad to remain in power. Certainly, Assad is not immortal. It could have been surmised that the Assad regime, under great strain and facing endless warfare, would not survive in the long-run. It seems the Obama administration assumed Assad’s benefactors in Moscow and Tehran would grow fatigued with high-expenditures and losses without advancing their cause. US military action in Syria has been limited to airstrikes by a US-led anti-ISIS coalition. That tack left the door open for others to operate freely in Syria to impose their will. Since 2013, Iran’s IRGC-Quds Force has trained and equipped the National Defense Forces (organized shabiha or paramilitary units), and has fought alongside Hezbollah and Iraqi Shi’a militiamen. Moreover, Iran has since moved up the “ladder of escalation.” Syrian, Iranian, and Iranian sponsored troops have managed to coordinate and cooperate well on the battlefield. Some 2000 fighters from Hezbollah, sponsored by Iran, were also part of the main attack on Qusayr and took on the mop-up operations there. Syrian and Iranian troops took on rebels in Homs and other points in Homs province. Russia more recently intervened militarily in Syria, it has targeted leaders of ISIS—and other Islamic militant groups such as Al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra—when identified. Since October 2015, command, control, and communications centers of ISIS have been struck, limiting ISIS’ ability to direct its fighters. Training centers have been destroyed. Fighting positions of ISIS in front of Russian allies have been degraded with close air support and heavy strikes by Russia. Presumably they will provide close air support for an offensive by their allies.
US military action in Syria has primarily been airstrikes by a US-led anti-ISIS coalition. That has left the door open for other countries to impose their will on the ground. Since 2013, Iran’s IRGC-Quds Force has trained and equipped the National Defense Forces, and fight alongside Hezbollah and Iraqi Shi’a militiamen. Iran has since moved up the “ladder of escalation.” In Syria, Russia has targeted ISIS’ command, control, and communications centers. If Russia gets a handle on the situation there, the US might need to tolerate an Assad regime strongly influenced by Russia and Iran.
New talks have been set up under UN Security Council Resolution 2254. However, long before factions of the Syrian Opposition might get their act together for the UN Talks, and before the first vote is cast in UN monitored elections, Russia and its allies may take steps to keep Assad in power. If Russia gets a handle on the situation there, despite UN Talks, the US may be given little choice but to tolerate an Assad regime strongly influenced by Russia and Iran. For the Syrian people, some trapped in the clutches of ISIS and knocked around in the middle of the war zone, others situated in giant refugee camps in neighboring states, or relocated as ex-patriots in Western and Arab states, a sustainable, secure peace in their country would be the best outcome.
Putin may want to maintain an environment of confrontation for the US and EU leaders. He supports countries behind many of the foreign policy problems that the Obama administration faces. Enough speeches and statements heard from the Obama administration on why US military power should be withheld have been made to create doubt that the US would respond to Russian actions outside its borders.
Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin wants to change the narrative which has Russia coming in a distant second to the US. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Putin has been the authentic face of the Russian government. Putin and his closest advisers share a view that the greatest danger to Russia comes from the West. They believe Western governments are driven to weaken Russia, create disorder, and make their country dependent of Western technologies. Dimitry Medvedev was Russian Federation President when Obama came to office. So comfortable was Obama with Medvedev that he went as far as to declare a new era between the two former Cold War adversaries existed. Little was done to build a relationship with Putin who was serving as Russia’s Prime Minister and was the real power in Moscow. Putin began his third term as Russia’s president on May 7, 2012. Based on positive signals from Medvedev on nuclear arms reductions, administration officials got the idea that Putin would also consider proposals on it. When Putin expressed disinterest, administration officials insisted that he agree to reductions in both nations’ nuclear arsenals. Putin then out rightly rejected their proposals. Obama administration officials reacted poorly. Putin’s decision was viewed within the Obama administration as ending the president’s signature effort to transform Russian-American relations and potentially dooming his aspirations for further nuclear arms cuts before leaving office. Apparently retaliating against Putin over his decision on its nuclear proposals, on August 7, 2013, the White House cancelled a September summit meeting in Moscow for Obama and Putin. Relations were so bad in 2013 that Andrei Piontovsky, executive director of the Strategic Studies Center in Moscow was quoted in an August 7, 2013, New York Times article as saying, “Putin sensed weakness in Mr. Obama that could lead to more dangerous confrontations.” He further stated, “Putin openly despises your president, forgive my bluntness.”
There was no easy way to repair the relationship. In our media conscious culture, timidity easily takes the form of affected joviality, hoping to diffuse tension by amiability, a hug or a slap on the back and then the dialogue can begin. Any political leader who thinks the way to diffuse the tension with Putin is to play the minstrel is only signaling insecurity. This was the case at a news conference between Obama and Putin in Northern Ireland in June 2013. When Obama tried a little levity stating, “We compared notes on President Putin’s expertise in judo and my declining skills in basketball and we both agreed that as you get older it takes more time to recover.” Instead of playing along, Putin retorted, “The president wants to relax me with his statement of age.” By 2014, Putin’s anger toward the US and EU worsened. Soon, there were regular incursions of Russian bombers and fighters in NATO airspace, Russian warships in NATO waters, and Russian claims made on the Arctic. Putin had already shown a willingness to intervene in the former Soviet republics. Examples include his actions in Georgia and Ukraine and his proposal for a “Eurasian Union”, an economic alliance that would include former Soviet Republics such as Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Moldova, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. By taking action in Syria, Putin showed he is also ready to secure Russia’s interests abroad.
The leaders of Germany (despite some controversial energy sector matters) and the United Kingdom are not fans of Putin and have encouraged Obama to stand firm in his dealings with him. Yet, some other European allies fear facing greater problems from Putin. Coping with his abrasive side can be tough. Still, Putin has also shown considerable restraint in tough situations as the Turkish shoot-down of a Russian Federation fighter jet. What Obama could try to do is create a dialogue with Putin about opportunities missed, opportunities still on the table, and the need to establish better relations for the US and Russia, not just for Putin and Obama.
Putin may want to maintain an environment of confrontation for the US and EU leaders. He supports countries behind many of the foreign policy problems that the Obama administration faces. Enough speeches and statements have been made by the Obama administration, on why US military power should be withheld, to create doubt that the US would respond to Russian actions outside its borders. Keeping all European allies unified and resolute could become more difficult as some may fear facing greater problems from him. The administration will have diplomatic contact and telephone communications with Putin, but keeping a brave face on while coping with his aggressive side will be tough. Still, Putin has also shown considerable restraint in tough situations such as the Turkish shoot-down of a Russian Federation fighter jet. What Obama could do is create a dialogue with Putin about opportunities missed, opportunities still on the table, and the need to establish better relations for the US and Russia, not just for Putin and Obama. The more meetings the two can have in 2016, the better. That would be to the benefit of the people of both countries long-term. Gutta cavat lapidem [non vi sed saepe cadendo]. A water drop hollows a stone [not by force, but by falling often].
Graviore manent. (Heavier things remain.) Panegyrics for Obama and his administration have already begun to make their way into the media. Still, the specter remains of unresolved policy issues with the potential to worsen and become far more intractable. Arguments can be made that an environment in which such problems could grow was allowed to exist due to the delinquency of the administration. The result of such perceived inadequacies and failures could possibly be passed on to the next administration. A decision to simply sit on problems or contain them would be wrong and likely viewed as a pitfall of fear and resignation. There are approaches the Obama administration could take to defeat or defuse problems it may face from its adversaries. A few were presented here more boiled to the marrow than stripped to the bone as originally promised.
Candidates for the presidency have expressed concern over the same issues in campaign speeches and during debates. Perhaps those who can do better will take office and actually do better during their time in office. It is impossible for deeds to be undone. The Obama administration has done what it wanted to do on foreign policy. When God gives his grace to us, he gives us what we do not deserve. When God gives his mercy to us, he does not give us what we deserve. The Obama administration may very well be able to ride out its final year reflecting publicly on things that are pleasing to remember. However, it is always best to act than react. Setting an agenda for action would be the best action to take.
Posted in 2016 Presidential Election, Abadi, Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Andrei Piontovsky, Baghdad, CBS News, China, Cold War, Deir al-Zor, Der Spiegel, Dmitry Medvedev, EU, Former Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, France, Free Syrian Army, FSA, George W. Bush, Germany, God, Hassan Rouhani, Hezbollah, Hillary Clinton, Iran, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, Iranian Students News Agency, Iraq, Iraqi Parliament, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Iraqi Shi'a militia, IRGC, IRNA, ISIL, ISIS, Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria, ISNA, Javad Zarif, JCPOA, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Kerry, Kibar, Kremlin, Maliki, Mark Edmond Clark, Moscow, Mosul, National Defense Forces, Obama, P5+1, Putin, Quds Force, Qusayr, Rowhani, Russia, Russia vs. ISIL, Russia vs. ISIS, Russian Federation President Dimitry Medvedev, Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, Russian President Dimitry Medvedev, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Shi'a, Syria, Syrian Armed Forces, Syrian Army, Tehran, Ukraine, UN, UN Security Council, UN Security Council Resolution 2254, United Kingdom, United Nations, United States, US, US President Barack Obama, US President George W. Bush, US Secretary of State John Kerry | Leave a reply
After Five Years of War in Syria, UN Passes Resolution on Talks: Can Russia Shape Those Talks on the Ground?
Posted on December 30, 2015 by greatcharlie
Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin remains confident about Russia’s intervention in Syria. He has outlined Russia’s objectives there and is providing the Russian Federation Armed Forces what they need to achieve them. UN Security Council Resolution on Syria 2254 calls for talks, but leaves the matter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s presidency open and allows for continued action against ISIS and other Islamic militants. That leaves Putin able to use the forces of Russia and its allies in Syria to help Assad remain in power.
According to a December 18, 2015 New York Times article entitled “After Five Years of War in Syria, UN Passes Resolution on Talks,” the UN Security Council, by a vote of 15-0, adopted a resolution calling for a cease-fire and a peace process that holds the distant prospect of ending the Syrian civil war. It was reportedly the result of a long term effort of the US and Russia to find common interests to stop the violence in the war-torn country. However, although a plan was agreed upon unanimously on December 18th, sharp differences remain between the US and Russian positions. Russia’s key demand is that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad be allowed to remain in power. It is a position also supported by China and Iran. For the US, removing Assad from power in Damascus is a requirement. The resolution makes no mention of whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would be able to remain in power or run in any future elections. In truth, what the plan will mean on the ground is uncertain. As US Secretary of State John Kerry stated with humility on December 18th at the UN Security Council, “No one is sitting here today suggesting to anybody that the road ahead is a gilded path. It is complicated. It will remain complicated. But this at least demands that the parties come to the table.”
UN Security Council Resolution on Syria 2254 essentially calls for the following: a ceasefire must be established and formal talks on a political transition must start in early January 2016; groups seen as “terrorists,” including the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) and the Jabhat al-Nusra, are excluded; “offensive and defensive actions” against such groups, referring to US-led and Russia airstrikes, can continue; UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon should report by January 18, 2016 on how to monitor the ceasefire; “credible, inclusive, and non-sectarian governance “ should be established within 6 months; free and fair elections” under US supervision to be held within 18 months; and, the political transition should be Syrian led. As a Member of the Permanent Five Members of the UN Security Council, Russia’s role as a party to November 18th Syria meeting was essential, but hardly prosaic given its ties to Syria. As a matter of fact, Russia has a congenial relationship with the Assad regime unlike other Permanent Five Members. Russia has been working closely with Iran to provide the Syrian Government with military support. Indeed, Putin went into Syria both to “stabilize the legitimate authority” of Assad and to fight ISIS. While the administration of US President Barack Obama has been engaged in a desultory effort to remove Assad since 2012, Putin recognized the US would keep working against Assad regime until it fell or ISIS, too strong for the Syrian Opposition to contend with, took control in Syria. Putin has not forgotten the results of the Obama administration’s support of rebels in opposition to Libyan President Muammar el-Gaddafi, a friend of Moscow. Multinational forces under NATO command, mandated to impose a no-fly zone under UN Security Council Resolution 1973, exceeded their mission, destroying pro-Gaddafi forces as part of Operation Unified Protector. Gaddafi’s regime fell; he was killed. To Putin, it was a cunning deceit and dark tragedy. He does not want anything similar to occur in Syria.
Long before factions of the Syrian Opposition might establish among themselves common facts, presuppositions, and policies for the UN Talks, and before the first vote is cast in UN monitored elections, Russia and its allies may take steps to lengthen Assad’s tenure as president. Russia, is a very capable military superpower. Indeed, Russia could shape the situation on the ground by supporting the Syrian Armed Forces along with forces Iran has brought to, or organized in, Syria. Deliberate progress is being made toward that goal. A large military offensive, purportedly being organized, may allow Syrian, Iranian, and Iranian-led forces to regain control of a large portion of Syrian territory. The Syrian Government might work to “ensure” the political perspectives of local political leaders, administrators, and the civilian population, in reclaimed territory were supportive of Assad. Diplomatic efforts at the UN Talks by Russia and Iran would be conducted in conjunction with the military activity. Perhaps UN Security Council vote, rather than create an agreement for Assad’s removal and transition to a government favorable to the US, EU and some Arab States, may have instead convinced Russia and Iran that shaping events on the ground militarily in Syria is the best way to secure their interests. Principiis obsta (et respice finem). Resist the beginnings (and consider the end). Putin’s decision to go into Syria was not made overnight. Since 2012, he has watched the international community fumble and Syria crumble. He has long considered Russia’s military capabilities and the possibility for their successful use in Syria. He knows what he wants to do and how to do it. He will not become subsumed by Syria. If Russia were to act with more force and increase the pace of its operations in Syria, the Russian Federation Armed Forces would become a decisive factor in Syria and, correlatively, in the UN Talks.
Russia on the Ground in Syria
Gaius Seutonius Tranquillus, a Roman historian who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire, wrote in De Vita Caesarum that Rome’s first emperor, Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus (Augustus Caesar) abhorred haste and rashness in a military commander. He preferred that actions be taken with an appropriate balance of urgency and diligence. Rushing through to execute tasks often led to mistakes and sustained results are not achieved. Accordingly, one of his favorite sayings was festina lente (hasten slowly). Many in the West complained from the start of operations by the Russian Federation Armed Forces in Syria that they were ill-fated, immediately bogged down, or inappropriately conducted. On September 30, 2015, US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter stated about Moscow’s military involvement in Syria, “The Russian approach here is doomed to fail.” Obama stated on October 2, 2015: “An attempt by Russia and Iran to prop up Assad and try to pacify the population is just going to get them stuck in a quagmire and it won’t work.” At a December 18, 2015 news conference, Kerry stated in an effusion of sentiment that 80 percent of Russian airstrikes were hitting Syrian Opposition groups fighting Assad’s forces and not hitting ISIS forces. Putin’s decision to go into Syria was not made overnight. Since 2012, he has watched international community fumble and Syria crumble. He has long considered Russia’s military capabilities and possibilities for their successful use in Syria. He knows what he wants to do and how to do it. Putin in no way wants support Syrian Opposition forces in their effort against Assad so it would make sense for Putin to pace Russia’s actions against ISIS, to learn the landscape and ensure the Syrian Opposition gained no advantages. To that extent, it should have been expected that he would not hesitate to disrupt the Syrian Opposition’s activities where he could. Regarding costs for the Syria operation, so far, Putin has well-managed them. Vasily Kashin, an analyst at the Center for Analyses of Strategies and Technologies in Moscow, explained: “All available data show us that the current level of military effort is completely insignificant for the Russian economy and Russian budget.” Senior administration and intelligence officials in the US, in anonymity, agree with that assessment.
Once in Syria, Russia began using many of its latest weapons systems. New systems used have included: the sea-based Kalibr 3M-14 cruise missile, launched from surface ships and submarines from as far as 900 miles away from their targets; the air launched KH-101 cruise missile; and, the Sukhoi Su-34 strike fighter. On December 19, 2015, Reuters quoted Putin as saying: “We see how efficiently our pilots and intelligence agents coordinate their efforts with various kinds of forces—the army, navy, and aviation; how they use the most modern weapons.” However, Putin continued, “I want to stress that these are by far not all of our capabilities,” adding, “We have more military means. And, we will use them—if need be.” Putin seemed to imply that Russia may ramp up the size and speed of its operations in Syria. By acting more robustly and increasing the tempo of its operations, the Russian Federation Armed Forces would certainly be the decisive factor on the ground in Syria and, correlatively, in the UN Talks. Both the ISIS and the Syrian Opposition would find it difficult to hold territory in the face of a superpower-sized onslaught organized by Russia and its allies. Seizing the maximum amount of land possible may very well enable the Syrian Government to influence the political landscape thus furthering Putin’s goal of keeping Assad in power. Heartened by the Syrian Armed Forces ability to fight back, some Syrians living in towns and cities reclaimed by their government might find cause to support Assad, lessening the possibility of his removal a bit more. Protectio trahit subjectionem, et subjectio protectionem. (Protection draws allegiance, and allegiance draws protection.) A Russian Federation Air Force Tupolev Tu-95 Bear H Bomber (above) fires a KH-101 air launched cruise missile at a target in Ildib, Syria. By supporting the Syrian Armed Forces along with forces Iran has brought to, or organized in, Syria, Russia might shape the situation on the ground there. If a massive offensive is eventually conducted by Syrian, Iranian, and Iranian-led forces, in territory taken, the Assad regime may try to “ensure” local political leaders and administrators, and local residents were supportive of Assad.
The Importance of Russian-Iranian Cooperation
Per sequar! (Do your part, I will do mine!) Concerning its diplomacy on Syria, Iran has decided to step up its coordination with Russia. The decision was made after a meeting in Tehran between Putin and Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on November 23, 2015. A senior Iranian official told Reuters, “What was agreed was Iran and Russia would pursue one policy which will benefit Tehran, Moscow, and Damascus.” Russian-Iranian military cooperation was decided upon much earlier. An agreement for a joint Russian-Iranian military effort in Syria came into effect in July 2015. Both countries agreed to inject support into the Syrian Armed Forces to counter Assad’s accelerating losses. Joint operations rooms have been set up to bring the allies together, along with the Iraqi Government, which is supportive of Iran’s actions in Syria. (One joint operations room is in Damascus and another is in Baghdad.) Iran, itself, had already deployed several thousand Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-Quds Force (special forces) officers and advisers to Syria. They have mobilized pro-Assad shabihas (militias) into the 70,000 strong National Defense Forces, to fight alongside the Syrian Armed Forces, brought in Shia volunteer brigades from Iraq and Afghanistan, and, of course, Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon. Many IRGC officers and advisers have been killed fighting alongside their allies in Syria to include: IRGC-Quds Force Brigadier General (Sartip-e Yekom) Hossein Hamadani; IRGC-Quds Force Brigadier General (Sartip-e Yekom) Hadi Kajbaf; IRGC-Quds Force Brigadier General (Sartip-e Dovom) Reza Khavari; IRGC-Quds Force Brigadier General (Sartip-e Dovom) Mohammad Ali Allahdadi; Brigadier General (Sartip-e Dovom) Hamid Mokhtarband; and, IRGC-Quds Force Colonel (Sarhang-e Yekom) Farshad Hasounizadeh.
On February 13, 2013, the initial IRGC commander in Syria, IRGC-Quds Force Brigadier General (Sartip-e Yekom) Hassan Shateri, was assassinated. Renowned IRGC-Quds Force Commander, General (Sarlashkar) Qassem Suleimani then took control of the Syria operation, flying often into Damascus. Once the decision on the joint Russian-Iranian effort was made, Suleimani visited Putin and Shoigu in Moscow in July 2015. He outlined the deteriorating situation in Syria for Assad’s forces, but also explained time remained to reclaim the initiative. Putin decided that it was time to act. Suleimani took on a central role in the coordination of Russian, Iranian, and Syrian activities on the ground. Reportedly, Suleimani was injured by a TOW missile fired by Syrian Opposition rebels on November 12, 2015. In diplomacy on Syria, Iran has decided to step up its coordination with Russia. The decision was made after a meeting in Tehran between Putin and Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on November 23, 2015 pictured above. Russia and Iran will pursue a singular policy designed to benefit Moscow, Tehran, and Damascus.
Military Action
According to Russian defense and military officials, Russia’s airstrikes have targeted leaders of ISIS—and other Islamic militant groups such as Al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra—when identified. Command, control, and communications centers of ISIS have been struck throwing the process of directing ISIS units into confusion. Training centers have been destroyed. Fighting positions of ISIS positions in front of the Russian allies have been degraded with close air support as well as very heavy strikes by Russian ordinance. Presumably they will provide close air support for an eventual ground offensive by Russia and its allies. (Ground forces utilized would primarily be Syrian and Iranian though.) Since air operations began, Russian fighter jets have conducted almost as many strikes daily as the US-led, anti-ISIS coalition has been carrying out each month in 2015. Russia has also conducted night strikes with damage assessment by drones.
Reportedly, commanders of the Russian Federation Armed Forces believe the military objective of any ground operations in Syria should first be to create a regime stronghold in what is referred to as “Useful Syria” (Suriya al-Mufida) from Damascus up to Aleppo through Homs. That would require Russia and its allies to sweep up the Western part of Syria. It would take pressure off Latakia, a pro-Assad, Allawite heartland and locale of an important airfield and take pressure off Tartus, a long-time Soviet then Russian Federation Navy port that is important to naval operations in support of Syria. After reaching Latakia, Russia and its allies might turn toward Idlib. Part of the force could push farther north to gain control of the Syrian-Turkish border west of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party’s (PYD) territory, blocking the US coalition and ISIS from access to it. In an additional phase of their offensive, Russia and its allies may press eastward. A key objective would be to take Palmyra from ISIS and the oil and gas resources around it. Another key objective would be to push beyond Aleppo to retake the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa, which is the official capital of the so-called Islamic State in Syria. Moving that far out, some believe Russia may seek to co-opt the Syrian Kurds’People’s Protection Units (YPG) to help assist in the offensive. Russia has begun to increase the intensity of its attacks in all of the locations mentioned. Su-34 and Su-24 fighter-bombers have primarily been used on command posts, stores of weapons, oil products, and workshops where weapons for suicide bombers are made that are situated along prospective axes of advance of Russia and its allies. Bunker busting BETAB-500 bombs have been dropped from Su-34s near Raqqa with the goal of eliminating command posts along with underground storage facilities for explosives and munitions. Large numbers of ISIS fighters have been eliminated due to such strikes. The above map from the renowned Institute for the Study of War reveals the general pattern of Russian airstrikes and cruise missile strikes in Syria. Both ISIS and the Syrian Opposition would find it difficult to hold territory in the face of a superpower-sized onslaught by Russia and its allies. Putin likely wants pro-Assad forces to take the maximum amount of land possible west and north in “Useful Syria” and eastward in Raqqa and Palmyra, to broaden the Assad regime’s area of control and political influence.
To enhance mobility and firepower for offensive action, Russia has transferred dozens of powerful, well-armored, T-90 tanks to the Syrian Army, particularly those fighting in Aleppo and near Damascus. The T-90s will also be used to enhance the combat power of the combined Syrian, Iranian, and Hezbollah forces poised to take Palmyra from ISIS. The T-90s were first delivered to the Syrian Republican Guards 4th Armored Division, commanded by Assad’s younger brother, General Ali Maher Assad. The T-90s will replace a large portion of the Syrian Army’s 500 tanks which are mostly Russian T-72s which are vulnerable to TOW missile systems provided by the US to Syrian Opposition fighters. The pace of the deliveries will be determined by the time needed for Russian instructors to train Syrian tank crews on the T-90. Large deliveries of Russian heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems have also had an impact on the frontlines of the Syrian Army, Hezbollah, and the Shia militias. That equipment includes: 152-milimeter MTSA-B guns, BM-27 Uragan and BM-30 Smerch rocket launchers, and TOS-1A Solnitsa rocket launchers. Russia and its allies have placed a steady onslaught of fire from those systems and from tanks on their opponents’ positions daily. If a major ground offensive gets underway, artillery attacks will surely intensify. Quae non prosunt singular multa iuvant. (What alone is not useful helps when accumulated.) To enhance mobility and firepower for offensive action, Russia has transferred dozens of powerful, well-armored, T-90 tanks to the Syrian Army, particularly those fighting in Aleppo and near Damascus. The T-90s will also be used to enhance the combat power of the combined Syrian, Iranian, and Hezbollah forces poised to take Palmyra from ISIS. The T-90s will replace a large portion of the Syrian Army’s 500 tanks which are vulnerable to TOW missile systems provided by the US to Syrian Opposition fighters.
A Future Syrian-Iranian Fretwork
With the intermeshing of Iranian forces with the Syrian Armed Forces and the National Defense Front, a picture emerges of what Syrian Armed Forces and what Syrian communities along the axis of the Iranian-Syrian ground attack might look like in a year. One might recall what occurred in Bosnia and Herzegovina once the war ended in 1995. Particularly after 1994, members of the IRGC, IRGC-Quds Force, Iranian Army and Ministry of Intelligence and Security, referred to as “volunteers,” were folded into the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Indeed, a few thousand Iranians became part of the 3rd Corps of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which greatly enhanced the force’s capabilities and the army’s overall combat power. The Iranian troops settled in many towns and cities in the Muslim-Croat Federation. The extraction of foreign fighters from the postwar Bosnian Federation Armija, and the Federation in general, was mandated by the national government in Sarajevo about a decade after the war due to international pressure. In Syria, the IRGC, IRGC-Quds Force, the Iranian Army, and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security will do much to influence the outcome on the battlefield but also will likely do much to help the Assad regime influence the result of elections despite UN monitors, by helping to “create support” for Assad and “coping” with regime opponents.
The Assad regime likely has a limited degree of influence within the Syrian diaspora worldwide, including among refugees in massive camps in Jordan and Turkey or on their own elsewhere. Kerry is said to have proposed allowing all Syrians, “including members of the diaspora” participate in the vote at a UN meeting in Vienna on November 14, 2015, betting that if Syrians around the world can participate in the vote, Assad will not be able to win. Russia and Iran would hardly allow the situation to slip from their hands so easily. They likely believe that they can cope with that issue in the coming UN Talks. If Assad’s presidency is not viewed as legitimate by the international community following an election, due to any administrative difficulties that may arise or due to actions by the Assad regime or its allies on the ground, the impact on Assad would be minimal. By now, Assad has become inured to the hardship caused by UN sanctions and isolation stemming from the international community’s scorn. Moreover, Assad is, albeit, the “ward” of Russia and Iran. If problems arise, they will cover him. If Russia and its allies can gain control of a good portion of Syria, future threats of an externally orchestrated regime change by force will be precluded. Amicus certus in re incerta. (A sure friend in an unsure matter.) Expectations for talks established under UN Security Council Resolution 2254 may not be based in reality. The picture painted at the UN Security Council was of a factionalized, difficult Syrian Opposition that has suddenly become homogenized. Putin anticipates nothing satisfying from the UN Talks. He sees there is a danger that Russia’s interests will not be served. Rather than wait to be disappointed, Putin will likely seize the opportunity to shape the situation Syria to meet Russia’s interests and those of Tehran and Damascus.
Fantasies of a future that is desired can become a substitute for reality. Somehow, those on the UN Security Council have anesthetized their consciences to the realities, difficulties, of working with the Syrian Opposition Movement. Indeed, things antecedent have been forgotten. The Obama administration decided to provide the Syrian opposition its support with the hope that Assad could be pressured to the negotiating table by Free Syrian Army advances and eventually agree to step down under a settlement. However, very rapidly, Syrian Opposition leaders discovered the entire taking on the Syrian Armed Forces and their allies was enormous and they found themselves well out of their depth. Simply keeping the opposition together politically has proven very difficult. Foreign diplomats must regularly act as mediators to hold the Opposition’s diverse groups together. Opposition military leaders have not shown any greater ability to unify their forces. Now, new talks have been set up under UN Security Council Resolution 2254. The UN Security Council now paints a picture of a Syrian Opposition that has become homogenized and is ready for talks. One should anticipate a future that is reality based. Perhaps what the UN Security Council is waiting for regarding the talks will not be worth waiting for. Sero venientibus ossa! (Those who are late get the bones!)
The art that moves Putin’s mind is not easily deciphered. His intuition likely tells him there will be plenty of debate and confusion at the UN Talks. Yet, he is likely more concerned that the process will not serve Russia’s interests. Putin will not standby for that and will try in advance of UN monitored elections to shape the situation in Syria to secure Russia’s interests and those of Iran and the Assad regime. Under UN Security Council Resolution 2254, offensive and defensive actions by the US-led, anti-ISIS coalition and Russia can continue. For Putin, that means Russia and its allies will be able to act “unimpeded” on the ground. Russia’s moves in Syria will not bar it from working on the talks alongside the other Permanent Five Members of the UN Security Council. Rather, Russia will be involved fully. With matters such as Libya in mind, its’ diplomats will narrowly focus on what best suits Russia and its allies. If Putin gets his way, there will be little left in Syria for the US to be satisfied with. The drama of the Obama administration’s failed interaction with Putin is nearly played out as the end of its second term nears. Kremlin observers allege Putin feels the administration has been marked by weakness. He will try to take advantage of the situation while it lasts.
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Russia Plays Down Idea of Coalition with West to Strike ISIS; An Agreement Is Needed on Assad
Posted on November 30, 2015 by greatcharlie
The Russians are coming! Stabilizing the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was a main reason for Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin’s decision to send the Russian Federation Armed Forces into Syria, but defeating ISIS is also a priority. So far, that effort has been manifested in the use of air power and sea based missile strikes. However, use of special purpose forces, spetsnaz (as above), will likely be critical to the Russian effort. Spetsnaz can advise Russian allies, locate and designate targets for air strikes, and engage in direct action against ISIS to include locating and killing specific ISIS leaders and conducting raids and ambushes against ISIS units.
According to a November 27, 2015 Washington Post article entitled, “Russia Plays Down Idea of Coalition with West to Strike ISIS in Syria,” Russia, after initially offering hope that Russia would cooperate with the US-led coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) in Syria, has played down that possibility. That position was made clear by Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, during a November 27th press conference at the Kremlin. For their part, US President Barack Obama and other Western leaders have tried to bring Putin into a US-led coalition instead with an understanding that the goal of the coalition was the removal of Assad from power. French President François Hollande has traveled to both Washington and Moscow following a spate of horrific terrorist attacks tied to the militant group. As part of the effort to find middle ground between the US and Russia, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius floated the idea of using Assad’s forces against ISIS but only in the context of a political transition that would remove Assad from power.
Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin has sought cooperation with Western countries, but solely on Russia’s terms. Those terms include providing diplomatic and military shelter to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and attacking, not only ISIS, but Western-backed rebel groups of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) that oppose the Assad regime. Ties between Russia and the West were further strained when Turkey, a NATO member, shot down a Russian Su-24 fighter that allegedly crossed into its airspace and ignored warnings. One Russian pilot was killed. Russian and Syrian forces rescued the navigator. A Russian Marine was killed during the rescue.
On January 28, 2015, Russian Federation Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged members of the Syrian Opposition Movement and representatives from the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at peace talks in Moscow to join forces to combat the threat of terrorism. Lavrov said at the time, “We believe that the understanding by politicians and leading representatives of civil society of the necessity to join forces to combat this common threat (of terrorism) should become the key for the resurrection of the unity of the Syrian nation.” Now required to come to terms with the West on Syria to create a unified front against ISIS, Lavrov finds himself in a similar impasse with his Western counterparts. For many senior officials in Russia, the stalemate with the US was expected not only due to a disagreement over Assad but due to a perceived unyielding US hostility toward Russia. This perspective has been manifested in Putin’s speeches and interviews. Variance can occasionally be discerned whenever Russia seeks to cultivates ties with the US for their usefulness. For example, as the Ukraine crisis began to escalate, an April 18, 2015 Reuters article reported Putin told Obama by telephone, “We have disagreements on several issues on the international agenda. But at the same time there is something that unites us, that forces us to work together.” Yet, only two days before on an annual TV phone-in show, Putin accused the US of trying to dominate world affairs and saying what it wanted was “not allies, but vassals.” This is the perspective that Putin’s paracletes in the Kremlin also espouse. In an interview with the official government newspaper, Rossiskaya Gazeta, the Secretary of the Russian Federation Security Council, one of Putin’s most important advisers and most senior intelligence official, Nikolai Patrushev, proffered that there is an unwavering US hostility toward Russia. He claims that hostility is due to Russia’s resistance to US efforts to achieve world hegemony and to control Russia’s immense natural resources in order to seal that hegemony. The idea that a US animus exists toward Russia and US policy is perfectly designed to promote it may be called an exaggeration. It may be viewed as typical of an intelligence official to find external causality for domestic events. Still, what is important is that Patrushev and others in Putin’s circle believe it.
Diplomacy requires finding some middle ground, typically through some compromise, upon which an agreement can be reached and better relations can hopefully be built. That was the case with the Iran Talks which ended in an agreement after nearly two years of negotiations. All sides are working very hard to understand the entire matter regarding Syria. If some middle ground can be found, it will concern the disposition of Assad. The solution is only temporarily hidden. Conditions can change, and possibilities will exist. However, regardless of his position on Assad, Putin says Russia is committed to the battle against ISIS in Syria. With or without cooperation from the US-led coalition, which Putin has called illegal, Russia must succeed.
By intervening in Syria with the Russian Federation Armed Forces, Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin seeks to prevent Syria from becoming a starting point for the movement of ISIS fighters into Russia. However, he also seeks to protect Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Putin has no intention of allowing an ISIS presence in Syria of a size and strength capable of forcing Assad from power. Some complain that Russia has done little against ISIS. Yet, the manner and pace of Putin’s actions are likely influenced by concerns he would defeat ISIS only to allow the Syrian Opposition Movement to undercut Assad.
Putin’s Purpose For Intervening in Syria
Putin explained Russia’s military support and intervention in Syria in a speech at a meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization in Dushanbe Tajikistan, on September 15, 2015. In response to Western criticism of Russia’s actions, Putin stated, “We support the government of Syria in its opposition to terrorist aggression. We have provided and will provide necessary military and technical support and call on other nations to join us.” Putin explained the exodus of refugees toward Europe and the crisis in Syria was a result of the support foreign powers provided the Syria opposition rebels. He said, “I would like to note that people are fleeing Syria because of the military actions that were largely imposed externally by deliveries of weapons and other special equipment. People are fleeing to escape the atrocities committed by terrorists.” Putin went on to state, “[The refugees] are fleeing from radicals, above all. And if Russia had not supported Syria, the situation in this country would have been worse than in Libya, and the stream of refugees would have been even greater.”
Speaking to Western and Arab capitals, Putin stated, “We must sideline geopolitical ambitions, refrain from so-called double standards, from the policy of direct use of separate terrorist groups to achieve opportunistic goals, including the change of governments and regime that may be disagreeable to whomever.” Concerning Assad, Putin relayed that he might be willing to enter a power-sharing agreement with opposition but that the fight against terrorism was the priority. To that extent, Putin explained, “The Islamic State is providing ideological indoctrination and training to fighters from different countries including, unfortunately European countries and the Russian Federation, and many former Soviet republics. And of course, we are worried with the possibility of them returning to our territories.” However, despite what has been publicly outlined by Putin, some in the West believe his intervention in Syria was a way to end the isolation its has faced since the collapse of the pro-Russian Government in Kiev, Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and Russia’s support of pro-Russian separatist in The Donbass. The conversation ostensibly would shift away from it and creating circumstances for the easing of sanctions which have had an impact. Such perspectives reinforce Putin’s determination to avoid doing anything that could create the perception Russia was wilting before what he views as Washington’s effort to establish total dominance. Encouraged by advisers, Putin sensed not only a chance for Russia to shore up one of its remaining allies in the Middle East, but the chance to reassert Russia’s role as a global power. He would demonstrate that Russia could succeed where the US had so far failed. That would be the real prize for Putin and his confidants. Exitus acta probat! (The result validates the deeds!)
Above are Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, Russian Federation Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, and Secretary of the Russian Federation Security Council, Nikolai Patruchev. Reportedly, the military plan for providing increased support to Syria was pushed by the head of the Presidential Administration, Sergei Ivanov, a former KGB colleague of Putin’s as well as Shoigu and Patrushev. Russia’s investigation into the possibility taking such action included engaging in high-level contacts with Iran on Syria. The result was a political agreement for a joint Iranian-Russian military effort in Syria.
On October 2, 2015, Bloomberg Business reported that the military plan for providing increased support to Syria was pushed by the head of the Presidential Administration, Sergei Ivanov, a former KGB colleague of Putin, the Russian Federation Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, and the head of the State Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev. Russia’s investigation into the possibility taking such action included engaging in high-level contacts with Iran on Syria. The result was a political agreement for a joint Iranian-Russian military effort in Syria. New support would be injected to counter Assad’s accelerating losses. Joint operations rooms would be set up to bring the allies together, along with the Iraqi Government, which is intriguingly allied with both Iran and the US. One operations room is in Damascus and another is in Baghdad. Iran, itself, had already deployed Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-Quds Force (special forces) officers and advisers to Syria. They have mobilized pro-Assad shabihas (militias) into the 70,000 strong National Defense Forces, to fight alongside the Syrian Armed Forces, brought in Shia volunteer brigades from Iraq and Afghanistan, and Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon. Many IRGC officers and advisers have been killed fighting alongside their allies in Syria. On February 13, 2013, the initial IRGC commander in Syria, IRGC-Quds Force Brigadier General (Sartip-e Yekom) Hassan Shateri, was assassinated. Afterward, renowned IRGC-Quds Force Commander, General (Sarlashkar) Qassem Suleimani took control of operations in Syria, frequently flying into Damascus.
Once the decision for the joint Iranian-Russian effort was made, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reportedly directed Suleimani to visit Moscow to make necessary arrangements despite a UN travel ban on the IRGC set by the UN Security Council in 2007. Allegedly from July 24, 2015 to July 27, 2015, Suleimani held numerous meetings in Moscow covering regional and bilateral issues and the delivery of Russian S-300 surface-to-air missiles and other weapons. More importantly, Suleimani met with Putin and Shoigu. According to accounts of the meeting in Reuters, Suleimani outlined the deteriorating situation in Syria for Assad’s forces. He indicated that Syrian opposition was advancing toward the coast and posing a danger to the heartland of Assad’s Alawite sect and threatening Tartus, where Russia maintains its only Mediterranean naval base. This alarmed the Russians, who could see that matters were in steep decline and there were real dangers to the regime. Suleimani then placed a map of Syria on the table and explained that there was still time to reclaim the initiative. Putin acted. Amicus certus in re incerta cernitur! (A friend in need is a friend indeed!)
Once the decision for the joint Iranian-Russian effort in Syria was made, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, reportedly directed renowned Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force Commander, General (Sarlashkar) Qassem Suleimani (above) to visit Moscow to make necessary arrangements. Suleimani met with Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin and Russian Federation Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. He outlined the deteriorating situation for the Syrian Armed Forces, but explained, using a map, that there was still time to reclaim the initiative.
How Worried Are the Russians About ISIS?
Russia is the latest state actor to overtly intervene against ISIS in Syria, Russia’s fight with Islamic extremism did not begin in Syria. Russia has been combating Islamic extremist separatist groups for more than a decade since it broke the separatists’ control of Chechnya province in the North Caucasus Federal District during Putin’s first term. Insurgents from the group Imarat Kavkaz (Caucasus Emirate) say they are fighting to carve an Islamic state out known as the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria from a swath of southern Russia. A number of terrorist attacks have been enumerated by the Russian law enforcement officials in both the North Caucasus Federal District and the Southern Federal District. Hundreds of foreign fighters were drawn to Syria soon after ISIS intervened in Syria’s civil war. In June 2013, at a conference in St. Petersburg, Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly stated 600 Russians and Europeans were within the Free Syrian Army’s ranks. While the US and European intelligence services expressed concern over the viability of vetting FSA fighters to discover who among them were Islamic militants, the Russian law enforcement and intelligence service apparently possessed files on the identities of a considerable number of those militants. Even in his September 11, 2013 New York Times Op-Ed, Putin discussed the danger posed to international peace and security by Islamic militant groups in Syria. Putin explained, “Mercenaries from Arab countries fighting there, and hundreds of militants from Western countries and even Russia, are an issue of our deep concern. Might they not return to our countries with experience acquired in Syria?” Clearly, Putin has been concerned for a while that Syria will become a starting point for the movement of ISIS fighters into Russia. Yet, some allege the Russian Government actually created the circumstances for that to occur.
Via rectum ad astra! (The path to success is through bad places!) Law enforcement and intelligence organizations globally use a variety of convoluted methods against subjects of investigations to include: buy and bust operations, using an informant to engage in clandestine conversations with subjects or act as an agent provocateur, sting operations, and plausibly deniable covert operations. The Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta reports the Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsi (Russian Federation Federal Security Service) or FSB, using an odd gambit known as provokatsiya, penetrating and co-opting terrorist groups, has actually influenced the hijrah or Islamic militant migration into Syria as a means to facilitate the pacification of the insurgency in North Caucasus. Using local intermediaries, FSB would allegedly arrange the departure of Islamic militants to Turkey where they would find their way into Iraq or Syria. The arrangements would be made under the condition that the Islamic militants would deal only with the FSB and none of they would not inform any of their Islamic militant confederates of their FSB sponsorship. It has been estimated that since this operation was undertaken, between 2000 and 3000 Russian Islamic militants have joined ISIS in the Middle East. (During an October 19, 2015 meetng with leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)–twelve former Soviet Republics, Putin, himself, said there were approximately 5,000 to 7,000 fighters from Russia and other CIS republics in ISIS.) The operation has supposedly allowed Russian countrrterrorism officials to take credit for the halving of terrorist violence in the North Caucasus since the Syrian civil war began. If Islamic extremists returned and began attacks, Russia, in theory, could claim ISIS was the cause for terrorism in the region.
The Novaya Gazeta article quotes sources in North Caucasus with ties to Islamic militants to support its claim. In investigating the Russian newspaper’s report, The Daily Beast learned from well-known Putin detractor, former KGB General Oleg Kalugin who said Russian intelligence had a long ignominious history of “pushing forward the more extremist elements and use their facilities to do the most damage to a local population.” The Daily Beast article also discussed parallels of the alleged operation and the reported strategy the Russian Government during the First and Second Chechen Wars. Islamic extremist warlords such as Shamil Basayev were co-opted by Glavnoje Razvedyvatel’noje Upravlenije (Russian Federation Main Intelligence Directorate) or GRU, in order to destroy the secular, democratic Chechen movement. Basayev proved to be a less of useful tool for the Kremlin when it was discerned that he wanted to create an emirate in the Caucasus. He was assassinated, but his efforts “cast a pall” on the secular separatist struggle and offered a cause for a scorched-earth Russian counterinsurgency campaign that resulted in Grozny’s destruction. History without fact is at best theory and at worst myth. If some provokatsiya operation helped create the threat ISIS now poses to Russia, its use was foolhardy. However, Russia’s focus now is defeating ISIS in Syria. Est modus in rebus, sunt certi denique fines, quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum. (There is an optimal condition in all things. There are therefore precise boundaries beyond which one cannot find the right thing.)
Russia is the latest state actor to intervene in Syria, but Russia’s fight with Islamic extremist did not begin with Syria. Russia has been combatting Islamic extremist separatist groups for more than a decade since it broke the separatists’ control of Chechnya province in the North Caucasus Federal District during Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin’s first term. Islamic exfremist terrorist attacks have occurred since in both the North Caucasus Federal District and the Southern Federal District. After ISIS injected itself into the Syrian Civil War, it drew hundreds of foreign fighters into its ranks. Putin is concerned Syria will become the starting point for the movement of ISIS into Russia
In the Crimea, Russian Federation forces engaged in a stealth operation, referred to as hybrid warfare—the blend of unidentified troop, propaganda, and economic pressure the West says Russia used there. In The Donbass, the presence of a rather considerable number of Russian Federation forces has been denied by the Kremlin. However, in Syria, the actions of the Russian Federation Armed Forces are very visible and made very public. Indeed, the operation in Syria has become a testing ground for new weapons systems. Systems being utilized include the Sukhoi Su-34 strike fighter and the sea-based Kalibr cruise missile, of which several were launched from the Caspian Sea, more than 900 miles from their targets in Syria. Since air operations began, Russian fighter jets are conducting almost as many strikes daily as the US-led, anti-ISIS coalition has been carrying out each month in 2015. They have attacked targets in support of Syrian ground forces and presumably will provide close air support for an Iranian-led offensive.
In response to chatter from Western defense analysts about the new weapons that were revealed, Putin explained on state television, “It is one thing for the experts to be aware that Russia supposedly has these weapons, and another thing for them to see for the first time that they do really exist, that our defense industry is making them, that they are of high quality and that we have well-trained people who can put them to effective use.” Still, the Russian Federation Armed Forces in Syria may face challenges beyond those presented by ISIS and Western backed FSA fighters. Claims have been made that the Russian Federation Armed Forces are still trying to eliminate problems lingering from the “Wild West” environment of post-Soviet era. The problem was exacerbated by a lack of efficiency in the military investigations department. Officers have been accused of trading in travel warrant, stealing soldiers’ meals, and the extortion of pay from officers by commanders. Accusations of extortion in the distribution of supplementary pay in Army units have been investigated in every district and fleet. Murders, bribery, and drug trafficking have also been considerable problems. Efforts have been made to improve conditions and raise morale in the ranks. These problems could potentially manifest themselves in the poor performance of some units in Syria.
In response to chatter from Western analysts about new weapons used in Syria, Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin explained on state television “It is one thing for the experts to be aware that Russia supposedly has these weapons, and another thing for them to see for the first time that they do really exist, that our defense industry is making them, that they are of high quality and that we have well-trained people who can put them to effective use.” Still, the Russian Federation Armed Forces in Syria could face challenges caused by problems lingering from the “Wild West” environment of the post-Soviet era unless units deployed there are selected based on their capability to perform with a high level of proficency.
Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, General of the Army Valery Gerasimov will surely be diligent in the deployment of forces to Syria, maintaining a sizeable, capable reserve for operations elsewhere. Russian Federation forces must not become bogged down in support of its allies, but ensure that the ISIS force in Syria is cut off and destroyed. If not, it may relocate and resurrect itself.
Russian air strikes could further target leaders of ISIS—and other rogue Islamic militant groups when identified. Command centers and other turmas, gathering places, of ISIS leaders, must be struck simultaneously to throw the groups into chaos and confusion and make it very difficult for them to regenerate. The communications of ISIS should be either destroyed by drone strikes or disrupted by other technical means leaving surviving leaders with no control over their units. Once rudderless, the groups’ units would be unable to coordinate actions, unit cohesion would suffer, and they would become far less effective. Training centers must be destroyed. Fighting positions in front of the Russian allies could also be degraded with close air support as well as very heavy strikes by Russian ordinance. ISIS fighters must face certain death if they hold their positions. When ISIS units are driven out of their positions, Russian allies must ensure any escape routes are blocked and kill or capture as many ISIS fighters as possible. Operating as independent units or as svodnye spetsialnye gruppy (combined special groups) or SSGs, Russian special purpose forces, spetsnaz, could go into ISIS controlled areas, locate, and kill specific ISIS fighters from Russia, or when directed, collect prisoners. Individual spetsnaz units and/or SSGs, in a special reconnaissance role, could locate and designate targets for air strikes in advance of contact by any ground forces by Russian allies. Russian attack helicopters, as well as spetsnaz serving as sharpshooters, could serve as over watch for Russian allies, ensuring that even small, unorganized bands of fighters of ISIS would not be able to engage in independent actions to disrupt the ground operations. When possible, strikes could be directed at diverting ISIS fighters of destroyed or displaced units away from the frontlines to locations where “kill zones” could be established. Russian air assets could support raids and ambushes by spetsnaz units. Spetsnaz units could be issued GShG-7.62 rotary machine guns for the Syria mission to give them the capability to kill ISIS fighters at a high rate in kill zones, raids, and ambushes as well as destroy ISIS attacks. Spetsnaz units will likely need to operate at night when ISIS units might try to conceal their movement.
Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, General of the Army Valery Gerasimov (above) will surely be diligent in the deployment of his forces to Syria, maintaining a sizeable, capable reserve for operations elsewhere. Russian Federation forces must not become bogged down in support of its allies, but also must ensure that the ISIS force in Syria is cut off and destroyed. If not, it may relocate and resurrect itself. Neither the Syrian Opposition nor the Syrian Armed Forces can defeat ISIS alone. The world wants Russia to act. Indeed, the civilized world is united in agreement that ISIS must be destroyed.
Russia’s intervention in Syria has not received much support from Western capitals. To some degree, they have discouraged it. The US and United Kingdom have accused Russia of attacking mainly “moderate” anti-Assad groups, rather than ISIS. On October 12, 2015, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, called Russia’s role a “game changer” and said “It has some very worrying elements.” She was especially worried about recent violations of Turkish airspace by Russian jets. Turkey’s decision to shoot-down a Russian Su-24 fighter jet was undoubtedly the strongest manifestation of disapproval of Russian’s intervention given all accounts of what actually occurred and the excessive level of the response. Putin equated the action to being “stabbed in the back” given Russia’s commitment to defeating ISIS.
Putin went into Syria not only to fight ISIS, but to “stabilize the legitimate authority” of Assad. To that extent, he will neither allow an ISIS presence in Syria of a size and strength capable of forcing Assad from power, nor subsidize the efforts of the Syrian Opposition to maneuver with US and EU assistance to undercut Assad. There is a deadlock now with the West concerning Syria, but Putin has hope. Red-lines and deadlines have been set over and over by the Obama administration, but they have been overcome by opponents. Iran, once told it had to surrender its nuclear program, managed to retain a good amount of it after talks. Even Assad managed to quash the issue of airstrikes against his regime in September 2013 by unloading his chemical weapons arsenal. If the US and EU want a resolution on Syria, there is need for compromise. Surely, Putin expects that compromise to come from them. Neither the Syrian Opposition’s FSA nor the Syrian Armed Forces can defeat ISIS alone. If Russia, a military superpower, is truly committed to the destruction of ISIS in Syria, and not just doing things on the margins or posturing to influence a political outcome for Assad, the world wants Russia to act. Indeed, the civilized world is united in agreement that ISIS must be destroyed. To that extent, Russian Federation Armed Forces are a strong bargaining chip in negotiations concerning Syria. Putin will proceed carefully until others come to that realization or perhaps until his support for allies in Syria results in a favorable outcome for Assad. Festinare nocet, nocet cunctatio saepe; tempore quaeque suo qui facit, ille sapit. (It is bad to hurry, and delay is often as bad; the wise person is the one who does everything in its proper time.)
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John ColebyAuthor
John Coleby
John began working at the Evangelical Alliance in 2016, focusing on issues of debate in parliament that are relevant to evangelical Christians in the UK. Before this he worked as a research assistant for the Church of England Bishop of Coventry, supporting his work in the House of Lords and his focus on freedom of religion or belief and global reconciliation. He holds a BA in Theology and an MPhil in Judaism and Christianity in the Graeco-Roman world, and he remains very interested in biblical studies and inter-religious dialogue. He also teaches English to speakers of other languages at a class run by his church.
Posts from John Coleby
Apologetics for strugglers
Why honesty about our struggles should play a healthy part in our apologetic debates
By John Coleby
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Grinning Bandit Books
Welcome to the Grinning Bandit Books website.
We have a great selection of entertaining eBooks from a number of independent authors. All books are released on Kindle and then in paperback.
Prime: The Summons by Maeve Sleibhin
Despised by her own kind and exiled on a space base, Xai must somehow return home to fulfil her destiny.
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Mrs Maginnes is Dead by Maeve Sleibhin
A murdered old lady, her strange will, and a troublesome Welsh goat. What is going on?
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Life before Frank: from Cradle to Kibbutz by Frank Kusy
Born into poverty from immigrant parents, Frank Kusy learns to live on his wits – first as a pocket-sized wheeler dealer in 1960's London, then as an unsuspecting money collector for local gangsters, then as the bane of his Jesuit teachers.
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Born into poverty from immigrant parents, Frank Kusy learns to live on his wits – first as a pocket-sized wheeler dealer in 1960's London, then as an unsuspecting money collector for local gangsters, then as the bane of his Jesuit teachers. With his antics driving his Hungarian mother to despair, he vows that one day he will make her proud of him.
It is a vow it will be difficult for him to keep.
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Mother - and other short science fiction stories by Maeve Sleibhin
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A collection of science fiction short stories, told largely from a female point of view, and ranging from irony to horror.
These stories are often funny, often exciting and always thought-provoking.
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B076DPR55J
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The Reckless Years: A Marriage made in Chemical Heaven by Frank Kusy
The true story of two people who tried and failed to destroy each other. And fell in love. Again.
When Frank’s mother dies on his wedding day, his life spirals into a hopeless existence of drink.
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XBQX4CB
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Short Tails of Cats and other Curious Creatures by Frank Kusy
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UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01MQWIEII
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The Ultimate Inferior Beings by Mark Roman
The End of the Universe is nigh ...
As a result of a computer error, landscape architect jixX finds himself in charge of a dangerous space mission. With a useless crew, and a ship’s computer that thinks it's a comedian, jixX cannot see how things can get worse. Until he encounters aliens and learns of a daft prophecy about the end of the Universe.
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01J9225S4
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Too Young to be Old by Frank Kusy
When Frank starts working with old people, he rediscovers a young dream. And sets about making it come true.
As Frank Kusy turns 27 he is unexpectedly put in charge of an old people’s home in Clapham. Driven to distraction by a crazy cast of characters he seeks solace in Buddhism, only to find himself up to his ears in plasticine pigs and marathon chanting sessions
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B013PZCPT0
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Flashman and the Sea Wolf by Robert Brightwell
This first book in the Thomas Flashman series covers his adventures with Thomas Cochrane, one of the most extraordinary naval commanders of all time.
From the brothels and gambling dens of London, through political intrigues and espionage, the action moves to the Mediterranean and the real life character of Thomas Cochrane.
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0075VKKKM
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Flashman and the Cobra by Robert Brightwell
This book takes Thomas to territory familiar to readers of his nephew’s adventures, India, during the second Mahratta war. It also includes an illuminating visit to Paris during the Peace of Amiens in 1802.
As you might expect Flashman is embroiled in treachery and scandal from the outset.
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00A969V1O
US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A969V1O
Flashman in the Peninsula by Robert Brightwell
While many people have written books and novels on the Peninsular War, Flashman’s memoirs offer a unique perspective. They include new accounts of famous battles, but also incredible incidents and characters almost forgotten by history.
Flashman is revealed as the catalyst to one of the greatest royal scandals of the nineteenth century which disgraced a prince and ultimately produced one of our greatest novelists.
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00IKFN9UK
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Flashman's Escape by Robert Brightwell
This book covers the second half of Thomas Flashman's experiences in the Peninsular War and follows on from Flashman in the Peninsula. Having lost his role as a staff officer, Flashman finds himself commanding a company in an infantry battalion.
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00NHPMFPS
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Percy the High Flying Pig by Gerry Gregory
When Percy the pig decides life on the farm is too boring, he escapes with Sam the sheep dog. Before you could shake two trotters together, they are up in the air on a high flying adventure! Too late, Percy discovers his fear of heights and crash lands in France. Chased through the countryside, he finds new friends and new strengths...but will Percy ever see his home again?
For ages 4-9
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The Walls of Troy by Cherry Gregory
It is seven years into the siege at Troy, and Neomene finds herself defending the Greek camp against fever and Trojan attack. Soon she is embroiled in the destiny of Achilles and the fate of Troy itself.
In this sequel to The Girl from Ithaca, Neomene, Odysseus's little sister, befriends the women who are forced to survive alongside warriors such as Achilles, Ajax and Agamemnon.
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The Girl from Ithaca by Cherry Gregory
Neomene of Ithaca, younger sister of Odysseus, reveals what Homer never knew: a woman's view of the Trojan War.
A Spartan war ship sails into Ithaca and two men arrive to demand the fulfilment of an oath. When Odysseus joins the Greek alliance against Troy, his young sister, fourteen-year-old Neomene, is thrust into a world she knows little about.
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00T6UW7I8
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Warwick the Wanderer by Terry Murphy
Rock n’ roll: it’s the future!
Bold Sir Warwick is almost out of a job. The best adventures have been done and even the Holy Grail has turned up. Worse, it’s not his turn to be King. Career advice from the Wise Wizard is no help and chivalry is so middle ages.
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00OWXKEC0
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Off the Beaten Track by Frank Kusy
What did Frank do to escape the crazy Polish biker chick? He went off the beaten track…
In 1989, Frank Kusy found himself the unwilling love slave of a booted and bodiced Boadicea on a Harley low rider. Then he fell in love with someone else, and it got a lot worse. Trapped in a small bedsit in London, with strange foreign curses coming through the door, he jumped at the chance to write a travel book on South East Asia. There followed the craziest year of his life.
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00NG439WI
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The Albion by Derryl Flynn
Fast approaching forty, life's experiences haven't mellowed Terry Gallagher any; angry and disillusioned; sickened by the mindless violence all around him and trying to come to terms with his own thuggish past, a legacy of life on the Broughton estates, he decides to make good. Here is a story of one man and his unwilling buddy who form a football team and strive to bring colour and self-esteem into the lives of a rag bag bunch of thirteen year old scallies. On a forgotten piece of waste ground the lads shape their adopted home.
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He Ain't Heavy He's My Buddha by Frank Kusy
Joe discovers he is fat quite by accident...and embarks on a disastrous course of Buddhist self-improvement. Starting with FatBusters.
Ever felt trapped by your own body, your own mind, your own prejudices, by the prejudices of others? Well, here's twenty or so characters who feel just that and fight for freedom - Joe, trapped in a fat body, a cream jumper, a flotation tank. Betsy and Nelson, prisoners of their scrambled minds; 'Hey You' and Beryl, stuck with an unfortunate name and an even more unfortunate nose; and Sergei the polish plumber, consigned to a cardboard box with a smelly cat his only companion.
A Marriage made in Chemical Heaven by Frank and Madge
The long-awaited sequel to Rupee Millionaires
When Frank tragically loses his mother, he plunges himself and new bride Madge into a dark, deluded world of drug-taking. Will they ever survive?The first pill was magical—Frank loved the whole universe and got engaged to Madge—and the second one was hilarious (they romped around butt-naked and sent the photographs to Snappy Snaps), but after that it was all downhill. They spent five years chasing those first incredible highs.
Scrapyard Blues by Derryl Flynn
Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. How did one crazy night of excess end up with 25 years behind bars?
Convicted for the brutal murder of an ex girlfriend, JD Smith is back on the streets a bitter and broken man. Now in his fifties, the once good looking, carefree, former musician in a post punk R & B band is left to reflect on the bizarre events that led to his long incarceration without right to appeal, where, despite maintaining his innocence, all the evidence continues to point to his guilt.
AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK:
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Kevin and I in India by Frank Kusy
Two barmy British backpackers take on India in this true story of adventure and misadventure. All Kevin wants is a cheese sandwich...
The year is 1985. Indira Gandhi has just been assassinated, and McDonalds are just planning their first branch in India, to sell non-cow 'Lamburgers'.
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00GUUI4TI
US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GUUI4TI
Rupee Millionaires by Frank Kusy
Want to make a million? Be careful what you wish for ...
At 35, I was a struggling travel writer with five guides in print but not enough money to pay the rent. Then, working as a Buddhist trader in London’s St Martin’s-in-the-Fields market, I met Spud. His thuggish ability to scare people, notably the Petrovs, two encroaching Russian gangsters, made him seem the ideal business partner.
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00FQ7A5WK
US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FQ7A5WK
Ginger the Gangster Cat by Frank Kusy
Ginger returns from the dead - to carry out the most cunning cat crime of the century. In Barcelona.
Ginger is not a happy cat.
He's fat, he's ugly, and he's getting old.
He also lives in Surrey.
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00AFZ2X1Y
US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AFZ2X1Y
Ginger the Buddha Cat by Frank Kusy
Ginger is facing a tough decision. Sausages or enlightenment?
Ginger is about to relive the first of his nine lifetimes upon this earth - as a fat greedy god-cat in ancient India.
The sequel to the ever-popular Ginger the Gangster Cat.
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00BK7TZ94
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Weekend in Weighton by Terry Murphy
First-time private investigator Eddie Greene is having a bad weekend. It's about to get worse.
When he finds the slab-cold body of his first client, he knows something's up - he only spoke to her fifteen minutes earlier.
Free-wheeling, swash-buckling, trash-talking Eddie is not just out of place in a humdrum northern town. He's out of his depth on his first case, out of funds from a now deceased client and out of favour with Weighton's big society.
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/095758511X
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UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0072Z5EHA
US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0072Z5EHA
"Weekend in Weighton is one of the funniest (and cleverest) books I've ever read." - Wussyboy.
"Hilarious one-liners, witty dialogue and intricate plot." - J. D. Gray.
"Read this excellent book whilst enjoying a couple of lazy days and a few bottles of beer." - Mickster.
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in Biographical Films, Films & Movies, News, People, Rich Talk, Videos
Rich Talk: Miles Davis Incorrectly Reffered To As “Iconic Singer” By Biopic Distributors
by Richardine Bartee 29th August 2015, 2:43 PM 3.9k Views
There seems to be quite a stir surrounding the first Miles Davis biopic, Miles Ahead, which recently sought its debut at the trumpeted 53rd New York Film Festival. According to an article published on Consequence of Sound, a press release was mailed to many media outlets from its distributor Sony Picture Classics, and it referred to the musical genius as an “iconic singer,” simply and incorrectly. The Chicago-based online publication reported on this mishap with the following opening paragraph:
“Sony Pictures Classic has acquired Miles Ahead, the Don Cheadle-starring biopic about “iconic singer” Miles Davis. No, the forthcoming film is not about another famous Miles Davis, nor does it imagine the musician in some alternative universe where he traded in his trumpet for the ability to sing. Nope, the truth is, Sony just has no idea who Miles Davis actually was.”
Since, the error has been corrected and it now reads “iconic musician” but many are still wondering how Sony (or its subsidiary) could make such a planetary mistake. In verity, the independent art-house did get this right:
“What Don Cheadle has done here with the spirit of Miles Davis is truly astounding. We are not only witnessing for the first time this part of Miles Davis’ story as it deserves to be told but also the birth of a major film director who happens to portray the iconic singer in a jaw-dropping performance, states the original press release.”
Yes, Miles Davis was a multi-instrumentalist who played the piano, organ, synthesizer, flugelhorn, which is a beautiful brass instrument that can be counted as the first cousin of the trumpet, having similar characteristics but a wider interior chamber, and of course, the trumpet. The trumpet is the instrument the fearless revolutionary musician is best known for. He was also known as a bandleader and composer. Aside from the many instruments he played, the Alton, Illinois-born musical maven was an influential figure in the 20th century, popularizing and efficaciously creating the infectious sounds we’ve all admired and used as a source of entertainment for several decades. Those genres include but are not limited to many styles and subgenres of Jazz (Bebop or Bop, Cool Jazz, Hard Bop, Modal Jazz and Jazz Fusion) and Hip-Hop. Yes, Hip-Hop.
“Miles Ahead” is a Don Cheadle feature film directorial debut detailing the wondrous life and times of the late, great “social music” that highlights his musical career, including temporary retirement and return to the industry in 1979. Reportedly, “Miles Ahead” will close out the evening at the New York Film Festival at the New York Film Festival on October 11, 2015. Cheadle is also credited as a writer and producer of the film.
Cheadle on the Film Society’s honor:
“I am happy that the selection committee saw fit to invite us to the dance. It’s very gratifying that all the hard work that went into the making of this film, from every person on the team, has brought us here. Miles’ music is all-encompassing, forward-leaning, and expansive. He changed the game time after time, and New York is really where it all took off for him. Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center… feels very ‘right place, right time.’ Very exciting.”
The New York Film Festival will start on the September 25 and carry on until the October 11. Cheadle’s film also stars Emayatzy Corinealdi, an actress of Panamanian and Italian descent best known for her role in Ava DuVernay’s 2012 independent feature film, “Middle of Nowhere” and Ewan McGregor, a Scottish actor best known for his role in “Trainspotting,” a 1996 British dark comedy drama. Corinealdi will portray Mr. Davis’ former wife, Frances Taylor, and McGregor will portray a Rolling Stones writer whom he conspires with to steal back his music. “Miles Ahead” is expected to receive its premiere during the 53rd annual New York Film Festival in October.
Near and dear to his heart, in the short documentary below, Cheadle shares that Herbie Hancock and Robert Glasper have been involved and that its soundtrack will possibly feature the likes of JAY Z, Skrillex, Kendrick Lamar and Nas. “The possibilities are endless,” he states. Watch the short promotional documentary to learn about how the biopic came to be and its importance:
Don CheadleMiles AheadMiles DavisRich Talk
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