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Girl on school bus injured in Stockton DUI crash
KCRA Staff
A man was arrested Friday in connection with drunken driving and crashing with a school bus in Stockton, the California Highway Patrol said.The crash happened around 1:50 p.m. at Hammer Lane and El Dorado Street. Three vehicles were involved, including a school bus with students on board.CHP said a girl on the bus suffered moderate injuries.During the investigation, CHP found that one of the drivers involved in the crash was driving under the influence of alcohol. The driver was arrested on charges related to felony DUI, CHP said.
A man was arrested Friday in connection with drunken driving and crashing with a school bus in Stockton, the California Highway Patrol said.
The crash happened around 1:50 p.m. at Hammer Lane and El Dorado Street. Three vehicles were involved, including a school bus with students on board.
CHP said a girl on the bus suffered moderate injuries.
California Highway Patrol
During the investigation, CHP found that one of the drivers involved in the crash was driving under the influence of alcohol.
The driver was arrested on charges related to felony DUI, CHP said.
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At least 1 person dead in Vienna apartment building blast
Firefighters search through the rubble of a exploded building in Vienna, Austria, Wednesday, June 26, 2019. A suspected gas explosion blew a gaping hole in a building in central Vienna on Wednesday, injuring at least 12 people, two of them seriously, according to police and images from the scene. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak)
BERLIN (AP) — Austrian firefighters say they have found a body at a residential building in Vienna following a suspected gas explosion.
Vienna fire service spokesman Christian Feiler said Thursday that the female body was found overnight inside the house, according to the Austria Press Agency.
Feiler said rescuers using cameras to inspect the rubble also located what appeared to be a second person who showed no signs of life, and they were working to recover that person.
Fourteen people were injured, two of them seriously, in the blast Wednesday afternoon that blew a hole in the building.
Forty-two people were registered as living in the building’s 22 apartments.
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In the Habs' Room: Late-period goals still plague Montreal
Search the Kincardine News
Canadiens gave up goals in the final minute of the first and second periods — that's happened 11 times so far this season.
Pat Hickey, Montreal Gazette
More from Pat Hickey, Montreal Gazette
Published on: November 17, 2019 | Last Updated: November 17, 2019 6:53 PM EST
New Jersey Devils goalie Mackenzie Blackwood stops Canadiens' Phillip Danault with the help of teammate P.K. Subban (76) at the Bell Centre in Montreal on Saturday, Nov. 16, 2019. Eric Bolte / USA TODAY Sports
The Canadiens’ 4-3 overtime loss to the New Jersey Devils had goaltender Keith Kinkaid shaking his head.
“It was a tough one and it stinks that I couldn’t get the two points,” said Kinkaid, who has a 1-1-2 record in his four starts as Carey Price’s backup. “We should have beat them. But that seems to be the way it happens.
“The two games I thought I’ve played the best we’ve gotten one point and the game I didn’t feel the sharpest I get two points, but these things work out over the season. It’s still early and the most important thing is we’re getting points.”
New Jersey Devils goalie Mackenzie Blackwood stops Canadiens’ Phillip Danault with the help of teammate P.K. Subban (76) at the Bell Centre in Montreal on Saturday, Nov. 16, 2019. Eric Bolte / USA TODAY Sports
Kinkaid said he had extra motivation because he was playing the Devils. He was drafted by New Jersey and played his first five NHL seasons in Newark before he was traded to Columbus at the deadline last season.
“Obviously, I had motivation to beat them,” said Kinkaid, who turned aside 39 shots before Kyle Palmieri scored 1:30 into overtime.
This game might not have gone into overtime if a video review hadn’t wiped out a go-ahead goal by Phil Danault in the final minute of regulation time. According to the officials reviewing the play in Toronto, the goal was disallowed because Danault “directed the puck into the New Jersey net with his leg.”
“The referees stole the game,” said Danault, who had two problems with the ruling on the final goal.
He noted the forward motion that resulted in his landing in the crease was the result of a push from behind. And then there was the matter of Nico Hischier closing his hand over the puck in the crease, an action that should have resulted in a penalty shot.
Kinkaid said the officials got the call wrong.
“We work on hip thrusts for a reason, it’s not really a kick,” he said.
There were some bright spots for the Canadiens as rookies Nick Suzuki and Cale Fleury scored. It was Fleury’s first NHL goal and it was one to remember because it featured a strong move to the net, followed by a backhander that beat Mackenzie Blackwood.
“You don’t care what it looks like as long as it goes in, but it was nice that it came on a play like that,” Fleury said. “It’s too bad it didn’t come in a win, but it’s pretty exciting for me.”
Suzuki played centre on the second line and Max Domi moved to the wing as coach Claude Julien dealt with the absence of Jonathan Drouin and Paul Byron. It’s the latest confirmation the Canadiens feel the rookie is best suited to playing in the middle, but the game showed he still has work to do in the faceoff circle. On a night when the Canadiens won 54 per cent of the faceoffs, Suzuki won only seven of his 20 draws.
The Canadiens made life difficult for themselves as they gave up goals in the final minute of the first and second periods. This was a problem earlier in the season and Montreal has been scored on 11 times in the final minute. That represents 17.7 per cent of the goals they have allowed this season.
And the Devils won the battle of special teams. While Suzuki scored on the power play to give the Canadiens one goal on five opportunities, the Devils went 2-for-6 and the goals they scored were key goals. Wayne Simmonds scored a power-play goal to tie the game late in the third period and Palmieri’s overtime winner came on a 4-on-3 advantage.
Charles Hudon, who was called up to fill in for the injured players, was returned to Laval after the game.
phickey@postmedia.com
twitter.com/zababes1
© 2020 Kincardine News. All rights reserved.
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The Trouble with Goats and Sheep: A Novel (Paperback)
By Joanna Cannon
On hand as of Jan 19 3:30am
(FICTION PAPERBACK)
Out of the mouths of babes is the best way to describe this story. It’s 1976 and the neighbors on the cul-de-sac come and go each day and do a great deal of minding each other’s business. When one of them, Mrs. Creasy, disappears, it sets in motion a flurry of suspicion and gossip. Viewed through the eyes of ten-year-old Grace and her little friend Tilly, it becomes clear that they need to find the missing woman by knocking on each household’s door, finding their way inside, and in the course of “investigating” manage to uncover secrets that have lain dormant for a decade. At once funny and tender-hearted, this is also a look at the ways in which human beings can bring out the absolute best and worst in each other.
— From Anne Holman
July 2016 Indie Next List
“Best friends Grace and Tilly spend England's sweltering summer of 1976 sleuthing for clues to uncover the reason for their neighbor's disappearance. They go from house to house, neighbor to neighbor, investigating as only guileless little girls can do. While they're at it, they also look for god in the most unusual places. As the mystery of the neighborhood is slowly revealed, so are the many secrets behind every door on the avenue. If you loved A Man Called Ove, you will love The Trouble With Goats and Sheep. Funny, quirky and profound!”
— Cathy Langer (M), Tattered Cover Book Store, Denver, CO
“I loved this book. It's one of those books that you just want to give to everybody.” —Nancy Pearl on NPR’s Morning Edition
“An astute, engaging debut” (Publishers Weekly), The Trouble with Goats and Sheep is a quirky and utterly charming tale of a community in need of reconciliation and two girls learning what it means to belong.
England, 1976. Mrs. Creasy is missing and the Avenue is alive with whispers. The neighbors blame her sudden disappearance on the heat wave, but ten-year-olds Grace and Tilly aren’t convinced, and decide to take matters into their own hands.
Spunky, spirited Grace and quiet, thoughtful Tilly go door to door in search of clues. The cul-de-sac starts to give up its secrets, and the amateur detectives uncover more than they ever imagined. A complicated history of deception begins to emerge—everyone on the Avenue has something to hide.
During that sweltering summer, the lives of all the neighbors begin to unravel. The girls come to realize that the lies told to conceal what happened one fateful day about a decade ago are the same ones Mrs. Creasy was starting to peel back just before she disappeared...
“A thoughtful tale of loyalty and friendship, family dynamics and human nature” (Kirkus Reviews), this glorious debut is part coming-of-age story, part mystery. The Trouble with Goats and Sheep radiates an unmistakable warmth and intelligence and is “rife with tiny extraordinaries” (The New York Times Book Review). “Joanna Cannon is an author to watch” (Booklist, starred review).
Joanna Cannon is a psychiatrist with a degree from Leicester Medical School. She lives in England’s Peak District with her family and her dog. She is the author of Three Things About Elsie and The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, a top ten bestseller in the UK.
“Cannon’s intense specificity captures a world in amber, permitting intimate access to the pantries, gardens, and garages of Britain’s past… a microcosm rife with tiny extraordinaries… Cannon is a mapmaker; her stories create an atlas... As in George Perec’s Life: A User’s Manual, the secrets of each household come to light.”
— Samantha Hunt
"This cautionary tale of a suburban power struggle is charming and truthful, at once ambitious and intimate, with playful prose that reveals an intriguing mind at work."
— James Hannah, author of The A to Z of You and Me
"A masterfully constructed plot... This understated, somewhat quirky debut novel is remarkable for its structure, characterizations, pitch-perfect prose, touches of humor, and humanity. Cannon is an author to watch."
— Michele Leber
"Reminiscent of Scout Finch with shades of Flavia de Luce, 10-year-olds Grace and Tilly spend the sweltering summer of 1976 investigating two mysteries... Quirky characters, playful language and humor offset the tension. The child detectives may have gotten themselves into more than they bargained for, but their adventure leads their street toward closer community and the novel to an upbeat conclusion."
— Cheryl Krocker McKeon
"A fabulous first novel... laced with wonderful, wonderful touches of humor, including an absolutely priceless scene where Tilly and Grace make one of their regular trips to the library and are looking for something good to read. I loved this book. It's one of those books that you just want to give to everybody." --Nancy Pearl on NPR's Morning Edition
Kobo eBook (July 11th, 2016): $12.99
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Culture of Iran
Traditional Sports and New Sports in Iran, between Breaks and Continuities
Presenting a precise history of sport in ancient Iran proves to be a challenge, given the disappearance of many sources over the centuries, especially during the desired or accidental destruction of many libraries and valuable works.
Presenting a precise history of sport in ancient Iran proves to be a challenge, given the disappearance of many sources over the centuries, especially during the desired or accidental destruction of many libraries and valuable works. However, we have some sources such as the Avesta, various tablets and bas-reliefs old, as well as some literary works or testimony of Greek authors like Xenophon. These sources tell us that more than two millennia ago, the Iranians practiced running, wrestling, javelin throwing, horse riding, but also archery or navigation. They also mention that Iran has very early placed great importance on sport and physical education in general education, particularly in order to strengthen the potential of its armed forces. Herodotus thus evokes this aspect of Iranian culture, writing: "From five to twenty years, Iranians learn three things: 1. Riding, 2. Archery, 3. Honesty." Several centuries later, Strabon in the 1st century BC. AD or Athenaeus in the second century also evoke the central place of sport in the culture of Persia.
With the arrival of the Parthians in power, sport and the exaltation of the virtues of the body becomes inseparable from the concept of "pahlavan" or "qahreman" (champion, hero), gradually transforming the ancient sport (varzesh-e bastani) in true "heroic sport" (varzesh-e pahlavani). Sport will now be an integral part of the princely education and important figures of the court, while aiming to inculcate very early the chivalrous values of heroism and courage. Physical education is also closely linked to military training, and it sometimes seems anachronistic to speak of "sport" which was not generally considered an activity independent of the army and the training of soldiers, although some Racing activities and competitions were organized at a very early stage.
One of the ancient and precise sources at our disposal is a work written by Ctesias, Greek physician of the court of the Achaemenid king Artaxerxes II, who wrote a book called Persica on his return to Greece in the fourth century BC. J.-C in which it evokes in particular the history of ancient Persia and the importance given to physical education. In his Education of Cyrus, Xenophon discusses the different physical education programs of the people of the court: middle-aged children and men had to do physical exercises in the morning, the elderly who could on particular days, while the young men were constantly invited to develop their physical faculties: they began their exercises at dawn with running and throwing stones or javelins, then they had to walk very long distances. strong heat or cross rivers without wetting their weapons. The acquisition of a high level in disciplines such as horse riding or shooting was part of the general education of children of the court of the time. During the Median and Achaemenid dynasties, the physical education of young men as well as the training of the use of weapons through disciplines such as archery, chowgan or even javelin throwing occupied a central place.
Thus, archery was very early considered a central discipline with a strong both military and symbolic importance. As such, the most famous archer of ancient Iran is undoubtedly the legendary character of Arash. The legend of "Arash-e Kamangir" is particularly evoked in the Avesta as well as in the Shahnameh several times, according to which his famous shooting determined the borders of Iran and Touran.
The historical records of the Achaemenid era reporting the conquests of Cyrus evoke the presence of many archers among the troops of the time, especially in the wars against the Medes. In his description of Cyrus's cavalry, Xenophon also mentions the presence of camels each riding two archers. The existence of coins on which was represented an archer ready to shoot also underlines the importance of this discipline. We can also observe archers on the frescoes of Persepolis, while on one of the bas reliefs of Naghsh-e Rostam, it is mentioned that Darius was a good horseman and archer shooting with great dexterity both on foot and horse. Before the Achaemenids, in the 7th century BC BC, the Median king Cyaxare, military genius of his time, after a first defeat against the Assyrian Empire, remains known to have reorganized the army of the time having then allowed to defeat Assyria - with the help of the Babylonians - and extend his empire to the west considerably. He insisted that his troops should receive excellent training in the field of archery, handling of the sword and the javelin. Archery kept its importance under the following dynasties, the official symbol of the Parthian Empire being an arrow. In Sassanid times, archery was still considered one of the most important weapons and a means of hunting.
Horse and horse riding have also taken center stage in Iran very early. From the fourth century BC J .- C, Greek authors like Xenophon praised the address and the equestrian feats of the Persians. The chowgan or polo is one of the examples of the use of horses not only for military maneuvers, but also in the context of a sports competition. The use of tanks to move and the organization of races were also common during the reign of the Achaemenids. In Anabase, Xenophon thus evokes the presence of chariot races in the time of Cyrus, after which he was handed over to the winners a fat cow that they sacrificed and with whom they organized a grand banquet. One of the Achaemenid seals also shows Darius I driving a chariot pulled by two horses who trample on a lion just killed, highlighting the power of the ruler. Under the Parthian Empire, tanks were primarily used to transport sovereigns and women of the court and was therefore more of a luxury item than a tool of war and combat. Conversely, the Sassanids used it largely as a military tool. The tanks seem to have almost disappeared from the armies after the Arab invasion.
The appearance of varzesh-e pahlavani
In the 3rd century BC AD, the arrival of the Parthians in power marks the appearance of the figure of "pahlavan" and the concept of "varzesh-e pahlavani", that is to say sport athletes or literally "hero" ". Physical education becomes inseparable from the acquisition of certain ethical and spiritual values and is inspired by Mithraic rituals. At this time, the development of disciplines such as athletics and wrestling took place in parallel with the establishment of a "chivalrous spirit", associated with a whole set of concepts and heroic figures such as that of the "Pahlavan" (sometimes translated as "heroes" or "priests") or "qahreman" ("hero", "champion"), associated with the notions of "brave" and "valiant" (gow, gord, mard, delavar ), or "intrepid" (delir), "noble and generous" (javanmard), "magnanimous" (rad, radmard ...), "man of noble and free character" (azadeh, azadmard), "audacious" or "lion's heart" (shirdel, shirguir), etc. These notions are rooted in a whole set of legends and myths of the hero as presented in particular in the Shahnameh; Rostam constituting one of these ideals-types of "brave" fighting against the forces of evil.
The historical context and the Iranian resistance opposed to many invaders were thus accompanied by the constitution of the figure of the hero combining skill and physical strength with a morality, an ethics, and a particular worldview. The very constitution of sports infrastructures and their evolution have remained intimately linked to the evolution of Iran's history: during attacks and invasions, the Iranians began to build sports halls hidden in basements in which they were buried. were driving and nourishing the ideals of revenge, courage and national independence. These secret rooms will later become the famous "zurkhaneh" or "houses of force".
In the following centuries, the notion of "heroic sport" and the chivalrous hero ready to do anything to defend his homeland will gradually lose its meaning and will be reduced to its only dimension of physical training. It will however know a certain revival under the Safavid empire: Shiism having become religion of State, the notion of "pahlavan" will be enriched of the spiritual ethics of the Shiism and reconnect with certain figures of the past and the old mythology, while being reinterpreted by many Sufi brotherhoods. Heroic sport is a fascinating melting pot of many ancient and more recent Iranian traditions, reinterpreted and revalued over the centuries. This sport underwent a revival during the Qadjar dynasty, especially during the second half of the nineteenth century during the reign of Nassereddin Shah. The figure of the ancient hero was then updated according to the requirements of the society of the time, and many zurkhaneh opened their doors in Tehran and in many cities of the country. Wrestling competitions were regularly organized between different zurkhaneh and the ruler was closely associated with these activities. He was in charge of awarding the famous "bracelet" (bandez band) to the winner of the competition, who became a kind of national hero until the following year.
Traditional sports underwent a certain decline under the Pahlavi dynasty, especially under the influence of the modernizing push driven by Reza Shah and the parallel introduction of new Western sports in Iran, which provoked a certain disaffection of the new generations for these traditional sports, even if they were far from leading to their total disappearance. Reza Shah had a marked lack of interest in these sports, which he saw not only as a legacy of the Qajjar dynasty, but also as a reflection of a past to be overcome. This vision was not shared by his son Mohammad Reza, himself a sportsman, who tried to restore and encourage some traditional sports such as wrestling. He thus returned to the Qadjair tradition according to which the king handed the famous bandzou band to the official champion (pahlavan) of the country. This effort was inseparable from a political desire to both exalt Iranian nationalism and certain traditions in parallel with a deepening of the process of modernization and openness to the West.
The introduction of Western sport in Iran
Few detailed studies have been conducted on the gradual introduction of Western sports in Iran. As early as the nineteenth century, increased exchanges between Iran and the various European countries in the field of education called for a reconsideration of the place of physical education in Iranian society. With the founding of the modern Iranian Dar-ol-Fonoun school in 1851, foreign instructors to train the new Iranian elite insisted in particular on the importance of physical exercise. The new foreign schools founded in Iran, mainly English, American and French, also included several sports disciplines such as football and volleyball in the pupils' timetable; revolutionary change in the face of traditional schools or maktab based essentially on theoretical education where all sport was absent. Iranians who studied abroad participated extensively in the dissemination of new sports in Iran. One of the men who has contributed most to this movement is no doubt Mir-Mehdi Varzandeh, who studied physical education in Belgium at the beginning of the 20th century, a discipline that was little valued at the time in a context where Iranian students were leaving. abroad to study medicine, engineering or military sciences. Upon his return, he taught physical education in several French schools in Tehran and was then employed by the Ministry of Education, which entrusted him with the organization of the physical education program in the Iranian public schools. Acquired by Western programs, he only promoted these "new sports" in schools, making no reference or promotion of traditional Iranian sports. After the First World War, the official Swedish gymnastics program set up by Per Henrik Ling was officially adopted by Iranian schools. In general, during the first half of the twentieth century, all the physical education curricula adopted in schools in Iran were largely inspired by German, Swedish or Russian methods. This massive spread of physical education in schools did not go without the opposition of the clergy, who considered certain exercises as degrading or effeminate. The introduction of compulsory physical education in girls' schools also gave rise to important debates.
Wrestlers of a zurkhaneh at the time Qadjar
The influence of the foreign presence in Iran, the increase in the number of Iranians studying abroad and the spread of foreign schools of missionaries thus favored an unprecedented diffusion of the practice of new sports such as football, especially in through the British presence. In the oil-rich cities of southern Iran, employees of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company practiced the sport regularly and were soon imitated by the local population who gradually built their own teams. The foreign military present on site also contributed to the dissemination of these new sports. Football gradually became the symbol of a dream modernization. As early as 1919, two English residents of Tehran founded the first local football association, which shortly thereafter came under Iranian control and later became the Iranian Football Federation. After "traditional" Western sports, a new type of sport was introduced in Iran in the 1970s: the martial arts. The impetus was mainly given by one of Shah's nephews, Shahriar Shafiq, who gradually introduced these disciplines into the armed forces.
After the Islamic Revolution of 1979, many debates about the status of sport in society took place, with some religious considering football games and other sports competitions as a relic of the Shah's regime of creating the maximum of distractions to divert the attention of the real problems of society. Showing women, but also men in athlete uniforms in competitions broadcast on television was also the subject of controversy. Imam Khomeini finally decided on this subject in 1988 by authorizing the broadcast of sports programs on television, even if the official position varied according to the type of sports disciplines: thus, just after the Revolution, sports such as boxing or kung fu were prohibited as they could result in bodily harm, thus contradicting some Islamic principles. On the other hand, disciplines such as karate and taekwondo were widely encouraged. Sports such as horse racing were also the subject of debate: in a sense, it was the object of much disrepute as a symbol of the way of life of the Westernized bourgeois classes, hated by the revolutionaries, but also part of sports subject to particular consideration of Islamic jurisprudence. Because of its popularity among large segments of the population, including the Turkmen in the north-east of the country, it was finally allowed. In general, sports infrastructures were largely disrupted in Iran during the war against Iraq, which reduced the resources allocated by the state to various sports disciplines to a par. At the time, all the private football clubs were nationalized and the national football league dissolved. These difficult conditions favored the emergence of organized matches spontaneously in the various districts of the cities of Iran called "gol-e koutchak" or "small goal".
While Western sports practiced by Westernized elites were generally viewed with an unfavorable eye, although often tolerated, the issue of traditional Iranian sports proved much more complex to manage. One of the most significant examples is probably the zurkhaneh. For many supporters of the new regime, the zurkhaneh had a relatively negative image because of the propaganda retrieval that had been made by the Pahlavi, and more particularly by Mohammad Reza Shah. In spite of this, zurkhaneh also represented a thousand-year-old tradition with its heroic and religious values, and enjoyed an important support in the traditional classes of society, the very ones that formed the basis of the new regime. The zurhaneh were thus finally accepted and legalized, with an insistence on the need to highlight its Islamic dimension with the exaltation of values of heroism and courage reminiscent of those of Imam Ali, to the detriment of its national dimension. "highlighted in the time of the Shah. Free wrestling was also encouraged by the new regime, notably through the recovery of certain great figures of this discipline at the time of the Shah as Gholamreza Takhti, wrestling champion in the 1950s and 1960s and known for his opposition to the regime of the He was considered one of the precursors and defenders of the Islamic Republic. After the gold medal won in 1989 by Ali-Reza Soleimani during the world championships in Martigny, the sport enjoyed a new impetus and was further supported by the state. It also saw the inauguration of a huge complex called "The House of Wrestling" (khaneh-ye koshti) in 1998, the same year Iran first hosted the World Wrestling Championships for the first time. the revolution. Iran also remains one of the top ranked countries in the field of wrestling, including free wrestling. However, we can only note a certain continuity in the evolution of sport in Iran, manifested by the growing presence of Western sports in Iran and especially football, which remains the most popular sport in Iran; the desire for a return to more traditional disciplines after 1978 has failed to stem this underlying trend.
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CQC Ratings Ipswich
Author: Joe Revell
Ben's London Marathon 2020
Head of Support and Care (Registered Manager), L'Arche London
Full time, permanent role, £36,050
Assistants Coordinator (Human Resources Coordinator), L'Arche Kent
Salary: £25,094pa
Pádraig Ó Tuama: Community as practice, pain and promise
L'Arche live-in assistants live and work in our Communities with and alongside people with learning disabilities. They provide them care and support. Apply here.
Spend a year as an assistant and we will give you an experience of difference that will change your life.
There are eleven L’Arche Communities based across the UK, where persons with and without learning disabilities live together. Volunteers and care workers are providing support. They try to promote Jean Vanier philosophy. All faiths are welcomed.
In a world that values winning, L’Arche Communities are places where people with and without learning disabilities can discover who they are and not just what they can do.
Statement from L'Arche, following the verdict at the inquest into the death of Joe Ulleri
Speaking outside the Coroner’s Court in Manchester, Kevin Coogan, Community Leader of L’Arche Manchester, read out the following statement on behalf of L’Arche.
Jean Vanier: Biography
Jean Vanier founded L'Arche in 1964, after becoming aware of the plight of thousands of people with learning disabilities who were institutionalised in France. He was an inspiring teacher whose life was testament to a radically different way of living and being in the world. He created a Community where people with and without learning disabilities were living together.
Summer in the Forest is a full-length feature film about our founder Jean Vanier and the L’Arche communities in Trosly, France and Bethlehem. It tells how two L’Arche communities, though quite different from those in the UK, share our common values, and shows how people with learning disabilities and assistants / care workers that support them are living together.
L’Arche statement following the recent BBC Panorama documentary and the release of the CQC report into the detainment of people with learning disabilities
The Panorama programme aired by the BBC on Wednesday 22nd May showing the abuse of people with learning disabilities, and the recently published CQC report revealing the detainment of people with learning disabilities and autism in ATUs (Assessment and Treatment Units), once again reveals the appalling mistreatment and abuse experienced by some of society’s most vulnerable people.
Jean Vanier interview: belonging in a time of loneliness.
We interviewed Jean Vanier, the founder of L'Arche, at his home in the L'Arche Trosly Community in France. Listen to Jean as he reflects on ageing and fragility, loss and loneliness, and the mystery that compels people to L'Arche.
While some individuals wish to live in a home with other people, others prefer to be supported to live independently. At L’Arche we help people to choose a way of life that feels right for them, and for their families.
- Strengthening the infrastructure of L’Arche in India
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Huffington Post: In Latin America, Illegal Wildlife Trade Explodes
With its spectacularly diverse ecosystems, rare and endemic species, remote terrain, often loophole-riddled laws and sketchy enforcement, Latin America is a haven for a booming illegal wildlife trade.
South and Central America's diversity is a magnet for wildlife traffickers dealing in the rare and unusual. Brazil alone holds 15-20 percent of the planet's biological diversity and reportedly supplies 5-15 percent of the global illegal wildlife trade.
What is most notable about this unlawful trade is the range of species involved. Birds -- particularly parrots, macaws and songbirds -- are among the most trafficked. Reptiles, including iguanas and snakes, are popular in the pet trade. Turtles are harvested for their eggs, meat and shells; caimans for their skins.
Also striking is the immense volume and high prices obtained for illegally taken seafood delicacies -- ranging from shark fins, totoaba swim bladders, sea cucumbers and queen conch meat. A remarkable variety of other animals are also trafficked, including jaguars, armadillos, monkeys, frogs, scorpions and spiders.
The breadth and complexity of the black market trade in wildlife complicates analysis of both its scale and scope. Assessments that exist tend to focus on a single country of origin, destination, class of animal or some combination thereof.
Despite this lack of comprehensive data, a survey of media reports on cases in South and Central America and the Caribbean provides insights into, and some measure of, the trade's alarming dimensions.
A thriving domestic and international bird market
Birds are among the most numerous animals found on Latin America's black market. Top targets are parrots, macaws and songbirds.
There is a long tradition in many Latin American countries, such as Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Mexico, of citizens keeping birds as pets. This high domestic demand fuels a large portion of Latin America's illegal pet trade today. In Brazil, about 80 percent of trafficked animals are birds.
Yet foreign markets are significant too, with Europe and the United States top destinations.
Songbirds, such as finches, are also illegally traded in both the domestic and international markets. They are especially valued for singing competitions where participants make money by picking winners -- the birds singing the most songs -- and "owners" earn cash from the sale of winning birds.
The impact of the illegal bird trade on Latin American avian populations and ecosystems is devastating, and senseless, especially because up to 90 percent die in transit.
Marine species on the ropes
Latin America's aquatic species -- including sharks, sea cucumbers, and totoaba -- are also targets of the illegal wildlife trade.
Despite national restrictions in many countries, shark finning remains an industrial scale problem. In mid-October 2015, Mexican authorities seized 3.5 tons of dried shark fin, and in May 2015, Ecuadorian police seized 200,000 shark fins in the port city of Manta.
Illegal trade in sea cucumbers is also a massive business. In June 2015, Ecuadorian authorities seized 10,852 sea cucumbers (262.8 kilograms or 578 pounds) at the San Cristóbal airport. That same month, Mexican federal police seized an illegal shipment of 17 tons of sea cucumbers at the Cancún International Airport, and in July 2013, they confiscated five tons in southern Mexico.
Sea cucumber numbers have plummeted across Latin America, with the fisheries depleted on Ecuador's mainland coast and in the Galapagos Islands, and highly impacted in Mexico.
Also threatened by the illegal trade is Mexico's totoaba, an endangered fish endemic to the Gulf of California, which lies between the Baja Peninsula and Mexico's mainland. Totoaba is valued for its swim bladders, used to make a specialty soup, and individual fish can be sold for $10,000 to $20,000 apiece in the Asian market.
In July 2015, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Puerto Rico seized 1,328 pounds (602 kilograms) of totoaba fish bladders inside 9 courier parcels delivered from Venezuela, destined for Hong Kong.
The illegal trade in totoaba also does collateral damage: it harms the critically endangered vaquita, a small porpoise species of which less than 200 individuals remain, also endemic to the Gulf of California. Vaquita are not targeted by totoaba smugglers, but are bycatch; they drown in totoaba fishing nets.
A wildlife trafficking epidemic
While the true scope and scale of the South and Central American wildlife trade is unknown, evidence suggests it is large, and getting bigger.
Brazilian NGO RENCTAS, the Brazilian Network to Fight the Trafficking of Wild Animals, estimated animal trafficking takes some 38 million specimens from nature each year in Brazil alone. In Peru, 400 different species of fauna and flora are illegally traded. In Colombia, 58,000 trafficked animals are seized annually, and thousands of animals have been rescued in Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay, among other nations.
What becomes crystal clear as one surveys the burgeoning illegal trade is that environmental crime needs to be taken more seriously by Latin American countries of origin, and destination countries such as China. Legal loopholes that benefit traffickers must be closed, and enforcement needs to be better funded. It is also clear that far more work is needed to assess the scope and scale of the illegal trade in order to focus attention and resources squarely on meeting the challenge.
Note: This is an excerpt of an article that originally appeared on Mongabay.com. You can find the entire article here.
Follow Laurel Neme on Twitter @LaurelNeme or Facebook.
Follow Laurel Neme on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LaurelNeme
View this article on Huffington Post.
Latin America Illegal Wildlife Trade Shark Finning Totoaba South America Central America Ecuador Mexico Costa Rica Birds Parrots
Posted in Huffington Post, Latin America, Wildlife Trade
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No Community Board Approval for a Jerry Orbach Corner
Publié par Patrick McGeehan dans The New York Times le 09/03/07.
In a twist worthy of a “Law & Order” script, the decision on whether to name a Midtown street corner for the late actor Jerry Orbach effectively ended in a hung jury last night. Not even a cameo appearance by his longtime colleague Sam Waterston could change the outcome.
The members of Community Board 5 were evenly divided, and admittedly conflicted, about whether to relax their standard objections and approve the naming of the 53rd Street and Eighth Avenue intersection the Jerry Orbach Corner.
A few hours after a committee voted 3-2 for the renaming, the full board voted 18-17 for it, with one abstention. But that slim margin was not enough to qualify as an approval because the votes in favor were not a majority of the votes cast. The decision — or lack of one — is merely advisory; the City Council ultimately decides on street renamings.
“Technically, we are on the record as not taking a position,” David Diamond, the chairman, explained to his confused fellow board members. Looking toward Mr. Orbach’s widow, Elaine, Mr. Diamond added, “And now, on to Community Board 4.” He was alluding to the board that has jurisdiction over the other side of the intersection. Mrs. Orbach’s lawyer, James B. Fishman, has already sought approval from Community Board 4, which oversees the area west of Eighth Avenue.
Mr. Orbach, who died in December 2004, was a familiar face in the neighborhood for decades. A leading man in Broadway musicals long before he played the prototypical New York detective, Lennie Briscoe, on “Law & Order,” he lived with his family in a rented apartment on 53rd Street for more than 25 years, his wife said.
His regular-guy appearance and lifestyle made him a sentimental favorite among the board members, who have routinely rejected applications for street renamings in the last few years. They turned down Guy Lombardo, Hal Holbrook and even St. Francis of Assisi. But many found it hard to say no to Jerry Orbach, consummate New Yorker, especially in the face of his widow, his son Tony and a living, breathing star, Mr. Waterston, who plays the prosecutor Jack McCoy on “Law & Order.” He read passages from a letter from the Detectives Endowment Association and from Mr. Orbach’s obituary in The New York Times.
It wasn’t Mr. Waterston’s presence that flustered Vikki Barbero, a board member who voted against the renaming. It was the face of Tony Orbach, 45, who bears a strong resemblance to his father.
“It’s like he’s here,” Ms. Barbero said, referring to Mr. Orbach.
“That’s why I’m here,” Tony Orbach responded.
But in the end, the Orbachs went away unsatisfied. Mrs. Orbach left with a “go figure” shrug and said afterward, “As Jerry would say, onwards and sideways.”
Article issu de The New York Times et
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Jan Term
Come to LaGrange and see the world
The Interim, or 'Jan Term,' is the middle of LaGrange College's academic calendar, between fall and spring semesters. Interim courses are designed to encourage you to explore topics outside of your major through personal, hands-on experience.
Jan Term classes include on-campus projects, independent research, internships and study-travel experiences. Travel opportunities also are available during "May Away."
Capture a glimpse of the fun and challenge of Jan Term and "May Away" by taking a look at recent classes:
INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL PROJECTS
Tanzania: An African Adventure
This course focuses on the politics, economics, culture and environment of Africa through the exotic country of Tanzania. Students will fly in past the legendary Kilimanjaro to spend time in Arusha, a city where the Rwanda massacres were prosecuted. We’ll view that location, visit the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights which continues to wage the fight for justice in countries today, and see the East African Community HQ, where economic development is the mission. We’ll also go out to Shenga Shenga market, where beads, glass, pottery, and other goods are made by handicapped adults and children. Then we’ll travel to the desert outpost in Isoitok, engage in a wild Tarangire game drive, and drive through the amazing Ngorongoro Crater, where elephants, lions, hippos, rhinos, ostriches, zebras, cape buffalo and other animals dwell in their natural habitat, ending the trip at the Karatu Country Lodge. Majors from all disciplines will benefit from this game-changing ten day trip.
Service and Sustainability in the Philippines
This travel course provides an opportunity to experience service learning in the metro area of Manila, Philippines and tropical ecology in a remote area of the Philippines. The Philippines includes 7000 islands and 80 local languages. The Philippines ecology also is diverse and beautiful, including volcanoes, rain forests, beaches, and some of the world’s most diverse coral reefs. Since English is the language of instruction in schools, communication with locals is easy. Filipino culture has an Asian foundation, but has been modified by 3 centuries of Spanish and American colonial rule. Students will find Filipinos to be exceptionally warm and hospitable people and have the opportunity to form lasting friendships.
Cultural Explorations of Thailand
The objective of this travel away course is to gain an understanding of Thai culture through excursions in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and the surrounding mountain regions of northern Thailand. Students will have an opportunity to experience the culture of Thailand through a program provided by Chiang Mai University and local expert guides. Experiences include working with hill tribe ethnic groups and other populations. Through visits to selected venues students will learn about the economic, religious and social practices of Thailand.
The Mayan Riviera: Archaeology, Animals, and Adventure in the Yucatan
The Yucatan peninsula is a safe, welcoming, Mexican province where the Mayan people historically built great cities and continue to live today in an environment filled with stunning archaeology, an impressive diversity of birds and wildlife, and a friendly, traditional culture. This course will explore the people, culture, food, flora, and fauna of the Yucatan, focusing on the tropical coastline known as the Mayan Riviera.
Costa Rica and Georgia: Children and Communities from the Capital to the Coast
This course will take a comparative look at schools and communities from the Capital to the Coast of Costa Rica and Georgia. Students will spend the first week of the course investigating, visiting, and participating with schools and community outreach programs for children and families in Atlanta and coastal areas in Georgia. After exploring local issues and needs, students will spend 10 days in Costa Rica visiting schools and participating in community outreach programs in the capital city of San Jose and the coastal town of Manuel Antonio. Discover how schools and communities interact in local and international locations. Other activities will include visiting the city market in Quepos, exploring the sights around San Jose such as the Poas Volcano, Doka Coffee Estate and La Paz Waterfall, touring the beautiful Manuel Antonio National Park, cruising on a catamaran around the National Park, and spending afternoons and evenings interacting with locals in a variety of contexts.
A Journey through Music History
Take a journey through some of the most important centers of western music history including Prague, Vienna, Venice, and Milan. In Prague, visit the Estates Theater where the premiers of some of Mozart’s most famous operas and symphonies took place. In Vienna, see where Mozart and Haydn lived and worked including the famous Esterhazy Palace in Eisenstadt. In Venice, see the famous St. Mark’s Basilica where many famous composers worked and where polychoral music was invented. Visits to the La Pieta Church (Vivaldi) and the famous opera house “La Fenice” are also included. The trip culminates in Milan with visits to La Scala opera house and to see da Vinci’s The Last Supper.
The Art and Architecture of Italy: Naples, Rome and Florence
This course includes visits to three of Italy’s most significant cities: Naples, Rome and Florence. In Naples, students will visit the Archeological Museum, with many artefacts from the excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum, as well as the Museum at Capodimonte. They will also tour underground Naples, together with Pompeii and Paestum, the site of several Greek temples. In Rome, students will visit the Pantheon, the forum, the Colosseum, Saint Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican Museums, the Sistine Chapel, and several recently opened archeological sites, such as the Crypta Balbi. In Florence, they will visit the new museum of the Duomo, the Uffizi, the Accademia, which houses Michelangelo’s David, the Baptistery, and Santa Maria del Fiore, where they will climb up to the cupola of Brunelleschi’s celebrated dome. Some free time will allow for private explorations.
The Best of Paris & Barcelona
Students will travel to Europe and discover the cultures of two major cities: Paris, France (the romantic city of lights with the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs-Elysees, and internationally renowned foods: wine, cheese, chocolate and much more) and Barcelona, Spain (a lively and vibrant city with superb restaurants, sidewalk cafes, art and music). Students will be instructed and enlightened by a team of expert professors who will accompany the group every step of the way.
In this course, students will learn about the culture of France and Spain and visit many popular tourist attractions such as the Eiffel Tower. To prepare for traveling, students will be instructed in both survival French and survival Spanish. In addition, because these two countries are famous for their cuisines, students will be introduced to the basic chemistry behind the development of internationally famous wines, cheeses, and other popular dishes. We will of course sample many of these delicacies during our travels, and after a cooking class in which we will assist in the preparation of a meal. Students will also learn about the multi-million dollar perfume industry and how to make their own signature aromas.
Enterprise and Service in Ecuador
Students will be working in poor communities located on the outskirts of Quito. Teams will work with local pastors and churches on projects to benefit children and the elderly in these communities. Construction will be a major component of the team. Students will help build facilities for housing and feeding the elderly poor and/or for after school programs for Compassion International children. Each construction team will also have Vacation Bible School component branching out into marginalized areas of Quito teaching very poor children about the love of Jesus. Students will also work with youth providing education, mentoring, and sports play. The cocoa/chocolate and cut flower industries will be studied and students will visit a rose plantation, cocoa producer, indigenous markets, and historic and natural sites. The course also includes the activities of zip-lining the cloud forest and riding a cable car to the top of the highest mountain in Quito.
DOMESTIC TRAVEL PROJECTS
Ecology and Culture of Hawaii
The geographic isolation of the Hawaiian Islands contributes to its unique ecology, culture and social issues. This course will examine the diverse habitats and unique geologic features found on Oahu and the Big Island as well as the social and economic factors affecting native Hawaiians. Several snorkeling events, day hikes, and an optional experience in a shark cage will provide the opportunity to explore marine ecosystems, extinct volcanoes, and rain and cloud forests. Students will experience the history and culture of the Hawaiian Islands with trips to the last palace of the monarchy and a luau. Finally, our participation in two service projects including rainforest restoration and the serving the homeless population provide the opportunity to witness and effect economic and social issues in Hawaii.
MAY AWAY
Health Service and Field Experience: Uganda
This is a service-learning course that provides students the opportunity to be fully immersed in the Ugandan culture. Students will be introduced to public health issues from a global perspective, although the focus will be on Uganda. Working alongside the Ugandan people, students will have the opportunity to participate in medical clinics where they will provide education about health promotion and disease prevention.
Education, Sport and Society of Ancient Greece
Walk in the footsteps of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in Athens to learn how their ideas on education are still relevant today. Then travel to Peloponnese to learn about the first Olympic Games and grasp the complexities of ancient Greek societies through excursions to historical archaeological sites. Before traveling to Greece, students are required to complete online assignments that include viewing video lectures and writing responses to posted readings.
Course goals are evaluated with structured written responses to selected readings and pre-recorded audio and video lectures.
Michele Raphoon
Office of Global Engagement
mraphoon@lagrange.edu
Office of General Education and Global Engagement
Smith Hall, 2nd floor
LaGrange College
Study-Away Commitment
Global Engagement Website
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A NIGHT TO REMEMBER: OUR 20TH ANNIVERSARY GALA
Dr. Jerry Ramsey receives Cyrus Happy III Historian of the Year Award.
Keynote Speaker Denny Heck addresses the crowd.
And, in addition to all that food for thought...
On Tuesday, October 23, the Lakewood Historical Society (LHS) celebrated 20 years of preserving, protecting and promoting our region’s heritage with a memorable gathering in the Rotunda on the campus of Clover Park Technical College (CPTC).
The guests who attended might have been a bit puzzled when their invitations first arrived—what did its depiction of an antique race car driven by some cigar-chomping old dude in goggles have to do with Lakewood or its history?
Plenty, as it turns out—one hundred years ago the site echoed with the roar of cars plying the second-most important track on the auto racing circuit (surpassed in attendance and prize money only by Indianapolis). It was a 2-mile oval, paved with wooden boards, and known as the Tacoma Speedway—and not until the US Open in 2015 did any sporting event in Pierce County attract more national attention than the races held there. As for the "cigar-chomping old dude in goggles", he's none other than Barney Oldfield, greatest racer of his day—and a competitor at the Speedway.
The guests began arriving around 5:00 pm, local luminaries included Congressman Denny Heck, our keynote speaker; Doug Richardson, Chair of the Pierce County Council and Master of Ceremonies; Lakewood city officials: Deputy Mayor Jason Whalen, Councilman Mike Brandstetter, City Manager John Caulfield; other dignitaries: CPTC President Dr. Joyce Loveday; Andrew Neiditz, Executive Director of South Sound 911; and community activist Andie Gernon, a “Lakewood Founding Mother” thanks to her untiring efforts on behalf of the City's incorporation in 1996.
After the guests were seated, LHS Past President Becky Huber extended the Society’s welcome then invited them to help themselves to the delicious array of hors d’oeuvres and desserts provided by Just Call Susan catering.
After everyone helped themselves to the bounteous buffet that included salmon bites, roasted vegetables, BBQ chicken sliders and salted caramel brownies, the Gala kicked into high gear. Becky did so by introducing emcee Doug Richardson, who in turn introduced the Honorable Denny Heck, representative of Washington’s 10th Congressional District, the evening’s keynote speaker.
Addressing his topic, “Passing On Our Stories to Our Youth”, Congressman Heck began “In my six decades on this Earth, I’ve witnessed my share of history. I remember the feeling of those moments and the feeling is often what is most hard to convey. It is something historical societies and museums can help bring to life.”
Expressing appreciation to those working to find ways to channel and focus history’s power, he said: “The writing, to make it understandable for many different learning levels… determining and discovering the right content in the first place… that is probably the hardest battle, especially in this digital age.”
Heck concluded by sharing the insights he gained from his friendship with Billy Frank, Jr., a Nisqually Tribal leader and a civil rights leader. He was known for telling his story, and for telling others to tell their story. Because…that is how we come to understand one another, and the world around us.
“So I...introduced the Billy Frank Jr. “Tell Your Story” Act in Congress. It was signed into law about three years ago."
Next up to the podium was Steve Dunkelberger, long-time Lakewood journalist, news writer and on-line editor of the Tacoma Weekly, and co-author of two well-received books in the popular “Images of America” and “Local Legends” series, one on Lakewood, the other on its most prominent and/or notorious citizens.
As Steve tells it, one evening in 1998 he was sitting around a backyard picnic table with two history-minded friends—Richard Densley and the late Cy Happy—and happened to mention he had gathered a few photos and artifacts from Lakes District residents over the years through his work at the Lakewood Journal. Further discussion convinced them there was a need for a more formal way to collect bits and pieces of their new city’s history.
Dunkelberger, Densley and Happy took it upon themselves to create a historical society. After endless drafts of bylaws culminated in their first “official” organizational meeting, held at Fort Steilacoom. Talking through all of the requirements, the late Judge John Feutz, served as the Society’s legal counsel, filing the paperwork necessary to gain nonprofit status and licenses.
Thus, the Lakewood Historical Society was born!
Endless hours of dedicated effort were devoted to the cause—collecting, cataloging, storing—but eight years passed before the founders could find a permanent home for the treasures they’d accumulated.
2006 saw the Lakewood History Museum open its doors for the first time, and in an appropriately historic location, the Lakewood Colonial Center.
The spirit of the founding fathers lives on, made evident at the Gala’s conclusion by Becky Huber’s presentation of the Lakewood Historical Society’s Cyrus Happy III Historian of the Year Award to Dr. Jerry Ramsey, PhD. Educator, public speaker, history re-enactor and radio host, and author “Stealing Puget Sound, 1832-1869", Dr. Ramsey was recognized for his continued efforts in keeping local history alive.
Finally, two lucky winners of raffle prizes from Stina’s Cellars and H & L Produce were presented by President, Sue Scott.
Everyone left with wonderful memories of the first 20 years of the Historical Society and visions of where the Society and Museum will go in the next 20 years.
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Brexit or not, London is dearest Europe rental location for expats
Rent in London is the most expensive in Europe for expats, new research shows.
The UK capital’s rent averages US$7,189 - that’s £5,187 - per month for a three-bed home according to global mobility company ECA International
It says that despite widespread economic uncertainty around Brexit, demand for rental accommodation in London remains steady as young professionals are increasingly unable to buy within the M25.
Although rental costs decreased in central London zone one over the past year, rent in outer London remained stable, and the UK capital maintains its position in the top five most expensive for rental accommodation in the world.
ECA’s annual rental accommodation report analyses the prices for an unfurnished, mid-market, three-bedroom home in areas commonly inhabited by expatriates.
According to this year’s ECA housing report, the average rent in outer London is on the rise at US$5,543 (£4,000) per month, whereas the average rent in central London has fallen to US$9,701 (£7,000) for a three-bedroom apartment.
“A polarisation of rent changes was observed between properties in central and outer London since the previous year. Rents fell in prime neighbourhoods in London travel zone one, with salaries for top jobs largely stagnant and demand waning. Rents in outer London were more stable but are anticipated to increase with London property purchases growing ever more out of the reach of many Londoners” explains Alec Smith, accommodation services manager at ECA International.
It says the jobs market is relatively buoyant in the UK which has caused a general increase in demand for rental accommodation in some of the UK’s major cities.
Manchester continues to have the most expensive rental accommodation in the UK outside of London and has re-entered the top 120 most expensive in the world this year. Ranking 30th in Europe and 119th in the world, average rent in Manchester for a three-bedroom home is now US$2,555 (£1,844) per month, £54 more expensive than last year.
Birmingham has seen the largest rental cost increase in the UK - £110 per month - and is the 36th most expensive city in Europe to rent in.
Smith continues: “Central Manchester has seen a large population growth in recent years and is now widely considered the second most important city in the UK economically. Numerous companies have relocated to the city, fuelling demand for rented accommodation, particularly in central areas.”
Other than Central London, the company says Aberdeen is the only UK city to see a decline in rental costs, dropping by £190 per month.
Glasgow remains the cheapest major city in the UK to rent a three-bedroom home, costing on average US$1,455 (£1,050) per month, £794 less than in Manchester.
Rent in Edinburgh on the other hand has re-entered the top 50 most expensive in Europe, costing US$2,119 (£1,529) on average per month and up £101 on last year.
“The ongoing decline in the oil and gas industry has reduced the number of overseas renters in Aberdeen. With remaining workers having their housing budgets cut, average rent levels have followed. Changes in Scottish legislation in the past couple of years have affected the supply of rental accommodation in Edinburgh while demand remains strong. Tax increases on the purchase of second homes have increased landlords' costs, while the phasing out of shorthold assured tenancies means many landlords have increased rents to cover the perceived greater risks in renting out their properties” says Smith.
Robert Mecaj
I'm not sure where the ECA is getting its figures from but I don't know many three bedroom properties anywhere past zone 3 that achieve a figure over £3,000pcm. This is why the whole UK economy is warped because of statistical companies making up their figures and just throwing them in our face - then panic strikes. Talk to Zoopla, Rightmove and OnTheMarket as they will be the best to provide such figures.
UK rents rising - but should buy to let investors consider Ireland? ...
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More estate agency innovation at Propteq Europe this week ...
An event that has been billed as Europe’s most senior networking...
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» Latest Celebrity News & Gossip
» Caitlyn Jenner Covers Sports Illustrated Wearing Olympic Gold Medal
29/06/2016 9:37:00 AM 9670
Caitlyn Jenner Covers Sports Illustrated Wearing Olympic Gold Medal
1 minute read· 29 Jun 2016
Caitlyn Jenner Halloween Costume Sparks Outrage
Former athlete, Caitlyn Jenner, is on the cover of this month’s Sports Illustrated magazine wearing her Olympic gold medal, 40 years after winning the decathlon at the Montreal Games.
Dressed in a sequined jumpsuit (and not nude as previously rumoured), Caitlyn appears relaxed and comfortable on the cover. In the exclusive Sports Illustrated interview, Caitlyn confessed that she keeps her medal safely in her nail drawer and opened up about why she wore the medal on the cover.
“It’s a picture that brings attention to this issue. That’s the important thing. That’s why I wore the medal.”
So excited to relive my gold medal journey with @SINow! Can’t believe it’s been 40 years! https://t.co/6PfAhDh4pl
— Caitlyn Jenner (@Caitlyn_Jenner) June 28, 2016
In an accompanying 22-minute documentary titled Jenner: 40 Years After Gold, Caitlyn reflects on her athletic past and her tumultuous, yet triumphant journey from celebrated Olympic medallist to Glamour magazine’s Woman of the Year.
“I loved Bruce,” She told Sports Illustrated. “I still love him today. I like what he did and the way he set an example for hard work and dedication. I’m proud of that part of my life. But this woman was living inside me, all my life, and it reached the point where I had to let her live and put Bruce inside. And I am happier, these last 12 months, than I’ve ever been in my life.”
Watch the trailer below.
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In The Maid Narratives: Black Domestics and White Families in the Jim Crow South (Louisiana State University Press), the real “Help” talk to authors Jan van Wormer, David W. Jackson III, Charletta Sudduth about what it was like to work for white families during that same era in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Of the 17 women interviewed, the oldest was born in 1906; the youngest in 1953. None of them hold back. Backdoor entrances, separate eating quarters, outside bathrooms, sexual overtures from their male employers—it’s all here, as well as memories of the murder of Emmett Till, visits from the Ku Klux Klan, and the dawn of the civil rights movement. They talk of walking miles to school, of sharecropping and cooking and cleaning from the age of seven. Read this fair-minded study for the reasons the maid themselves give: “…kids need to hear it. They need to know the struggles that black people have gone through to get to the point where we are today because our children are a lost generation. They don’t know the history of the struggle and they need a better appreciation of what they have so they don’t take it for granted.” The book also includes narratives from 15 white women whose contributions, the authors say, “inform in both what they say and in what they do not.”
Gina Webb - Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Long before The Help became a popular book-turned-movie, researchers in Iowa were already hard at work on the real-life version. LSU Press recently published The Maid Narratives, which chronicles the lives of black maids and white employers in Civil Rights-era Louisiana and Mississippi. [The book] contains the stories of black maids and their white employers in the Civil Rights-era South. "We wanted to preserve this history before it died off. Black people say they see the love and healing in the book, but I was struck by some of the negative things," said Katherine Van Wormer, professor of social work at the University of Northern Iowa and one of the book's three authors. "I was very interested in the close bonds that I remember ... between the maids, cooks and the children—very close bonds across racial lines."
Chelsea Brasted - New Orleans Times Picayune
Long before last year’s popular film The Help, scholars in Cedar Falls began interviewing black domestic workers in Iowa...who had their own remarkable stories to tell. The authors of The Maid Narratives...were surprised at what they found. “The white people were just horrible in the movie, and silly,” said [co-author] van Wormer, a white woman who grew up in New Orleans. “The stories were more positive than we thought they would be. All of the interviewees were very forgiving. They weren’t consumed by bitterness, as you expect they might be.” Van Wormer’s own mother grew up with a black maid, although they were so poor during the Depression that the maid had to bring over her own pans to cook. Having a maid was the custom. So was racism, discrimination and cruelty that were also found in the stories of black maids from the 1920s to the 1960s. The domestics were often paid as little as $3 a day, were yelled at or abused, couldn’t use the front door or the bathroom, and were made to feel inferior to whites. Yet a close bond grew between some white and black women that lasted a lifetime.
Mike Kilen - Moines Register
“I wish I was like you—easily amused.”—Kurt Cobain This line from “All Apologies” by Nirvana could easily be used to describe anyone who thought The Help was an accurate depiction of what it was like to be an African-American “domestic” during the late ’50s and early ’60s. For the most part, the film was pure fiction. If you want the real story, you’ll need to pick up a copy of The Maid Narratives: Black Domestics and White Families in the Jim Crow South by Katherine van Wormer, David W. Jackson III and Charletta Sudduth. “Aligning themselves with whites of the professional class, black women often earned the respect of members of the white community and formed alliances that could render them and their families a certain degree of protection,” the authors note. “Black domestic workers moved freely between the white and black communities. Dressed in a maid’s uniform, they had a mobility denied to others of their race. Domestic workers often fell into the role of go-betweens, as interpreters of black life to white people and of white life to black people.”
Bowling Green Daily News
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Resources for Professionals who support Asylum Seekers and Refugees
Advancing the Rights and Well-Being of Asylum Seekers and Refugees
Background and Health Concerns
Health resources in other languages
Explore this sectionResources for Professionals who support Asylum Seekers and RefugeesIntroduction Background and Health Concerns Resources Research and Publications Seminars and training Events and conferences Health resources in other languages Policy context Get in touch Meet the team
Why focus on asylum seekers and refugees' health?
A significant number of vulnerable asylum seekers currently live in the UK including the North West (NW) of England. According to the Refugee Council, UK (2017) the number of asylum seekers in the UK in receipt of section 95 asylum support at the end of Quarter 1 of 2017 stands at 39,365 with the North West hosting the largest number - 9,524 - in dispersal accommodation. The asylum seekers and refugees’ experiences have diverse impacts on their health as individuals and as families. While health issues affecting individual asylum seekers and refugees clearly may vary depending on problems related to pre-migration, the nature and duration of their journeys, and post-migration, there are common health concerns across all age groups. These concerns are usually complex problems and are extensively documented within the resource section of this hub.
It is widely known that the majority of health care professionals have limited knowledge of the health concerns faced by asylum seekers and refugees. In addition, there is a lack of coordination of available resources and services that provide information and support related to the health needs of refugees and asylum seekers.
This online resource hub has therefore been developed to provide a readily accessible and understandable information source to provide up-to-date, easily accessible information on the asylum-seeking process and role of professionals.
The development of the online resource hub has been underpinned by empirical research based on a participatory research approach. The respondents were professionals with extensive experience in working with asylum seekers and refugees; some of them were former refugees themselves. They explored and identified the key challenges and solutions related to the complex needs of asylum seekers and refugees and suggested the resources required to support and advance their rights and well-being. The concepts identified were categorised into themes, which were used as the basis for organising the contents of the hub.
It is very important for professionals to familiarise themselves with the key terms and definitions relating to asylum seekers and refugees in the UK. Some common definitions and terms are used below
A Refugee
"A person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it."
The 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
In the UK, a person is officially a refugee when they have their claim for asylum accepted by the government under the Geneva Convention. They are granted 5 years' leave to remain and are eligible for family reunion (one spouse and any child of that marriage under the age of 18).
An Asylum Seeker
A person who has left their country of origin and formally applied for asylum in another country but whose application has not yet been concluded. In the UK, this person has submitted an application for protection under the Geneva Convention and is waiting for the claim to be decided by the Home Office.
An Economic migrant
Someone who has moved to another country to work. Refugees are not economic migrants.
Unaccompanied minors (asylum-seeking children)
A young person judged to be under 18 years of age, without an adult to care for them, is entitled to the same rights as other looked-after children and young people; this includes support for accommodation, finance, education, statutory health assessments and reviews.
Exceptional Leave to Enter or Remain (ELE or ELR)
The Home Office accepts there are strong reasons why the person should not return to the country of origin. ELR grants the right to stay in the UK for 4 years. (S)he is expected to return if the home country situation improves and (s)he is therefore ineligible for family reunion.
The person’s application for refugee status is rejected but (s)he has a right of appeal, within strict time limits.
Spouse and children under the age of 18 of a person who is given refugee status. They are given Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) - permanent residence in the UK.
See the resources available for asylum seekers and refugees.
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Poles attract
Growth markets provide a wealth of entrepreneurial stories. Few can match Przemek Gacek and Grupa Pracuj.
Przemek Gacek
Every parent teaches their children that they shouldn’t be afraid to ask a question. Polish entrepreneur Przemek Gacek was clearly listening intently when he received this standard parental advice. His willingness to take a chance and ask was the starting point of his fast-growing business.
In 1999 Gacek was in London working for PricewaterhouseCoopers after graduating in economics from Warsaw University. In his six months with the firm, he quickly discovered that working for a large organisation was not what he wanted to do with his life. So, he cast around for bright business ideas that he could put to work when he returned to his home in Warsaw. “The one thing that was quite clear for me was that I wanted to go back and I wanted to start something on my own, so the only question was what it should be,” says Gacek.
As he scanned the entrepreneurial horizons, Gacek came across a publication called Hotcourses. He thought this listing of courses and colleges could possibly work in Poland which, with a population of some 37 million, is one of Europe’s biggest national markets. He called the contact number and got through to the company’s founder, Jeremy Hunt, who was happy to meet to talk about the potential for the brand in Poland.
“We agreed that I would do some market research in Poland, which I did. I designed a questionnaire and sent it to friends and some universities. Basically what I found out was that people needed this kind of information. So I went back to Jeremy and basically asked him for some money. He said, “no, but we can train you.” so we made a deal that they would be a small shareholder in the company and I spent some time going with him to his clients and talking to him about business. He was my first business teacher. This is how we started, basically.”
For Gacek this was the beginning of his entrepreneurial journey. (It was also part of Hunt’s career journey: Hotcourses now employs over 200 people and has become the UK’s largest publisher of guides and websites to help people find the right course or college. Its founder is now Secretary of State for Health in the UK government.)
In Poland, the result of these initial discussions was the creation of Grupa Pracuj in 2000. Today, Grupa Pracuj is an expert in online recruitment, as well as a provider of software as a service (SaaS) supporting recruitment and other organisational Hr functions. It employs more than 400 people and generated 26 million euros in revenue last year. Its sites in Poland and Ukraine are visited by more than four million users every month and by over 20,000 firms every year seeking to attract and recruit the right candidates. In Poland it has over 90 per cent brand recognition among its core group.
Getting to plan D
All of this is remarkable for a company that began with a phone call and $1,000 of savings. The money was invested in the company’s first computer, which was installed at Gacek’s apartment where he lived with his mother and worked for the first months of the business’s life.
“I wouldn’t say it was difficult. I was brought up in Communist times in a 500- square-foot apartment, nothing fancy, like everyone else in Poland at that time,” Gacek reflects. “The important thing is that for the first three or four years I never once thought of closing the business. We said we’d give ourselves 18 months and either make this business work or go to work for a corporation.”
Later, in 2000, one of Gacek’s business partners invested €10,000. With this further investment, Gacek and his growing team began to contemplate what exactly their business model was. London Business School’s John Mullins points out that many successful start-ups don’t go with their initial idea or even its back up. Plan D or Plan E is as likely to reap dividends as the long nurtured plan A. A willingness to move on when the initial business model doesn’t work is often the mark of a true entrepreneur. “At first we focused on giving students and graduates information. Then we offered them jobs so they would stay with us,” Gacek explains. Grupa Pracuj was reinvented.
As an online recruitment service, the business began to take off. “We were able to learn very fast because we travelled a lot. We went to all the countries in Europe: to Totaljobs in the UK, Irishjobs in Ireland, StepStone in Belgium, many different places,” Gacek recalls. “The biggest differentiator between us and our competitors was that we were learning from them but they were not learning from us. Tis surprised us, but it was more a question of attitude. We really learned best practices and began trying to put all those things together here. Then we started growing.”
From 2000 until 2007, Grupa Pracuj grew frenetically at rates of 80 and 90 per cent every year. The website had to be rewritten every two years to keep up with demand as numbers visiting and using the site increased at similarly spectacular rates.
In 2006 the New York-based private equity firm Tiger Global invested in the company. Ownership of Grupa Pracuj remains with Przemek Gacek and the firm. In the same year Grupa Pracuj bought the Ukrainian website rabota.ua to develop its online recruitment business. It then expanded into Russia. The Ukrainian business has developed but the Russian experience proved salutary. Grupa Pracuj spent two years investing heavily in its business there before having to shut it down.
As the company grew, Gacek and his team developed their skills. “When we started, obviously we did everything, like going to the post, sending the invoices. I was selling. I was doing 70 or 80 per cent of everything for the first three or four years,” he recalls. “But I think then you go through the changes. First of all, you cannot do everything on your own. I had to learn how to delegate and how to work with a very diverse group of people. For me, the sign of a good growing company is when I go for vacation for two weeks and no one calls me. I didn’t want the company to depend on me so much.
“When the company was six of us, I tried to think about what would happen when we had 20 people. When we were 20 I was thinking about 50 people, what we would do organisationally, what the key responsibilities would be. Then about 100 and about 200. After 200 it’s so complicated! Now, I’m not really thinking what will happen when we have 1,000 people or more, I just try to make sure that lots of very small detailed things are working properly.”
The global recession slowed down the company’s headlong growth and provided new challenges. In 2008 Grupa Pracuj grew by 70 per cent; in 2009 the business shrank by 25 per cent. In a single year its thinking moved from growth to retrenchment. Some people left the company and the Russian adventure was cut short. At one point on a cold January day in Warsaw, the company was down to its final €100.
Concerned, but undeterred, Gacek and his team set about cutting costs and professionalising how the company was managed. He joined the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) and began attending its programmes around the world to acquire new management skills. For Gacek and his management team it was eye-opening. “For the first seven years, we were not a very professional organisation,” he admits. “In 2008, the management team was in the US and the topic was market segmentation. We were asked to segment our markets. We just sat there and thought, ‘We don’t have any segmentation’.” That was the moment when the second phase started, when we began learning and started putting lots of professional systems – segmentation, pricing, all these kind of things – into the organisation to tune its performance.” It is no coincidence that since 2010 Grupa Pracuj has been growing at annual rates of between 20 and 40 per cent.
Grupa Pracuj is soon to launch a new product called emplo, which will offer HR management software on a global basis. It marks another stage in the company’s evolution. In September 2013, managerial responsibility for the main business was handed over to a new team. This gives Gacek the opportunity to travel extensively seeing feedback and input into the new brand. “I’m trying to enjoy being CEO of a business with a bigger infrastructure without being operationally involved and being more entrepreneurial with the new venture. I want to avoid the trap of disengagement,” he says. “So I’m still there for the people from the main business. We talk, have meetings and look at KPIs, but I’m not really controlling them so much operationally. I am putting my heart and ideas into this more entrepreneurial venture.” For Przemek Gacek, the balance is the thing.
Przemek Gacek is founder and CEO of Grupa Pracuj, online recruitment expert and a leading provider of technological solutions for HR departments.
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Where does knowledge come from?
Some major moments in world history and the objects that express a particular place and time - from ordinary tools of daily life to extraordinary monuments of skill and design.
Please click on image for full resolution and description.
Telegraph by Constantino Brumidi
At the center of the fresco appears a nymph, who is handing the telegraph wire to the allegorical figure for Europe on the left. With a grateful countenance, Europa looks up to a strong America surrounded by images that suggest the nation's natural abundance and its military might.
July 28: Liberty Leading the People
Delacroix began his allegorical interpretation of the Parisian epic in September 1830.
The allegory of Liberty is personified by a young woman of the people wearing the Phrygian cap, her curls escaping onto her neck. Vibrant, fiery, rebellious, and victorious, she evokes the Revolution of 1789, the sans-culotte, and popular sovereignty. In her raised right hand is the red, white, and blue flag, a symbol of struggle that unfurls toward the light like a flame.
Visit at the MET
Learning from Old Masters, looking at the past to construct the future.
Cylinder seal
The Invention of Writing and the First Cities
Cylinder seals were invented around 3500 BC in southern Mesopotamia (now Iraq) or south-western Iran, and were used as an administrative tool, as jewellery and as magical amulets until around 300 BC. Cylinder seals were linked to the invention of cuneiform writing on clay, and when this spread to other areas of the Near East, the use of cylinder seals spread too.
Pectoral of Sithathoryunet
Pectoral and Necklace of Sithathoryunet with the Name of Senwosret II.
Jewelry worn by royal women during the Middle Kingdom was not simply for adornment or an indication of status but was also symbolic of concepts and myths surrounding Egyptian royalty. Jewelry imbued a royal woman with superhuman powers and thus enabled her to support the king in his role as guarantor of divine order on earth.
Seated Statue of Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut, the most successful of several female rulers of ancient Egypt, declared herself king sometime between years 2 and 7 of the reign of her stepson and nephew, Thutmose III. This life-size statue shows Hatshepsut in the ceremonial attire of an Egyptian pharaoh, traditionally a man's role. In spite of the masculine dress, the statue has a distinctly feminine air, unlike most other representations of Hatshepsut as ruler.
Lamassu
Human-headed winged bull and winged lion
From the ninth to the seventh century B.C., the kings of Assyria ruled over a vast empire centered in northern Iraq. The great Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883–859 B.C.) undertook a vast building program at Nimrud, ancient Kalhu.
Marble statue of a kouros (youth)
This kouros is one of the earliest marble statues of a human figure carved in Attica. The rigid stance, with the left leg forward and arms at the side, was derived from Egyptian art. The pose provided a clear, simple formula that was used by Greek sculptors throughout the sixth century B.C. In this early figure, geometric, almost abstract forms predominate, and anatomical details are rendered in beautiful analogous patterns. The statue marked the grave of a young Athenian aristocrat.
Bronze chariot inlaid with ivory
Scenes from the life of the Greek hero Achilles.
The Monteleone chariot belongs to a group of parade chariots, so called because they were used by significant individuals on special occasions. They have two wheels and were drawn by two horses standing about forty-nine inches (122 centimeters) apart at the point where the yoke rests on their necks. The car would have accommodated the driver and the distinguished passenger.
The Temple of Dendur
Egyptian temples were not simply houses for a cult image but also represented, in their design and decoration, a variety of religious and mythological concepts. One important symbolic aspect was based on the understanding of the temple as an image of the natural world as the Egyptians knew it.
Marble statue of the Diadoumenos
Copy of a Greek bronze statue of ca. 430 B.C. by Polykleitos
The statue of the Diadoumenos by Polykleitos was extremely popular during the Roman period. Its beauty and fame are mentioned three times in ancient literature and over twenty-five full-size model copies are known. This copy was owned by the Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani of Rome who, during the first third of the seventeenth century, formed one of the earliest European collections of ancient art.
Torso of a Bodhisattva
Cult images of bodhisattvas became an important dimension of Mahayana (the Great Wheel sect of North Indian Buddhism) Buddhist worship in the fourth to the fifth century. The monasteries of the Gandharan region commissioned large-scale bodhisattvas in recognition of the growing popularity of these interventionist deities, which embody Buddhist compassion. The cult of Avalokiteshvara represents the highest expression of this sentiment. Probably from the Sahri-BaI'm a description.
Buddha, Probably Amitabha
Devotion to the celestial Buddha Amitabha (Amituo fo) stresses the impossibility of achieving enlightenment during a life lived under less-than-ideal circumstances and promotes the desire for rebirth in Sukhavati, a pure land or way station in which conditions are conducive to the quest for advanced understanding. Identified by the position of the arms, which suggests that the missing hands were in a gesture of meditation, this image of Amitabha was made using the complicated dry-lacquer techni
This nearly complete chess set is one of the earliest extant examples in the world. The pieces are abstract forms: the shah (king) is represented as a throne; the vizier (the equivalent of the queen) is a smaller throne; the elephant (bishop) has two tusklike protrusions; the horse (knight) has a triangular knob representing its head; the chariot (rook) is rectangular with a wedge at the top; and the pawns are faceted hemispheres with knobs.
Planispheric astrolabe
Science and the Art of the Islamic World
Dated a.h. 1065 / a.d. 1654–55
Maker: Muhammad Zaman al-Munajjim al-Asturlabi (active 1643–89)
Iran, Mashhad
The astrolabe is a very ancient astronomical computer for solving problems relating to time and the position of the Sun and stars in the sky.
Date: ca. 950–1050
Culture: Northern European or Anglo-Scandinavian
Medium: Iron, silver, copper
Dimensions: H. 7 in. (17.8 cm); W. 4 1/6 in. (10.3 cm); Wt. 8 oz. (228 g)
Classification: Equestrian Equipment-Stirrups
Tomb Effigy of Jean d'Alluye
This image of the knight Jean d’Alluye comes from the abbey at La Clarté-Dieu, which he founded in 1239, before setting out on Crusade to the Holy Land in 1241. He returned safely to France by 1244, carrying with him a relic of the True Cross, presented to him
by the bishop of Hiera Petra, on Crete. It seems he somehow also acquired his sword during his travels, as its trefoil pommel conforms to contemporary examples from China.
The effigy is supported by a modern base.
Armor (Yoroi)
This is a rare example of a medieval yoroi. The yoroi is characterized by a cuirass that wraps around the body and is closed by a separate panel (waidate) on the right side and by a deep four-sided skirt. In use from around the tenth to the fourteenth century, yoroi were generally worn by warriors on horseback.
Double-Barreled Wheellock Pistol
Made for Emperor Charles V (reigned 1519–56) - Gunsmith: Peter Peck
One of the earliest pistols, this firearm was designed and produced by Peter Peck, a maker of watches and guns. The two locks combined in one mechanism provided the barrels with separate ignition. Made for Emperor Charles V (reigned 1519–56), the pistol is decorated with his dynastic and personal emblems: the double-headed eagle and the pillars of Hercules with the Latin motto PLUS ULTRA (More beyond).
The Cloisters Cross
A masterpiece of Romanesque art, this altar cross with some ninety-two figures and ninety-eight inscriptions is the vehicle for a unique iconographical program. The front displays typological scenes alluding to the Cross as the Tree of Life. The central medallions with Moses and the Brazen Serpent prefigure the Crucifixion. The terminals depict, the Deposition and Lamentation on the right, the Women at the Sepulcher and the Resurrection on the left, and the Ascension at the top.
Cloister from Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa
The cloister was the heart of a monastery. By definition, it consists of a covered walkway surrounding a large open courtyard, with access to all other monastic buildings. Usually attached to the southern flank of the church, a cloister was at the same time passageway and processional walkway, a place for meditation and for reading aloud. At once serene and bustling, the cloister was also the site where the monks washed their clothes and themselves.
The Astor Chinese Garden Court
Mihrab (prayer niche)
This prayer niche, or mihrab, was originally set into the qibla wall of a theological school in Isfahan, now known as the Madrasa Imami, built just after the collapse of the Ilkhanid dynasty. The mihrab was created by joining a myriad of cut glazed tiles to produce its intricate arabesque and calligraphic designs. The result is one of the earliest and finest examples of mosaic tilework. A splendid work of religious architectural decoration, this mihrab is one of the most significant works.
Portion of Synagoge Wall
Isfanhan 16th
The Triumph of Fame
This commemorative birth tray (desco da parto) celebrates the birth of Lorenzo de' Medici (1449–1492), the most celebrated ruler of his day as well as an important poet and a major patron of the arts. Knights extend their hands in allegiance to an allegorical figure of Fame, who holds a sword and winged cupid (symbolizing celebrity through arms and love). Winged trumpets sound Fame's triumph. Captives are bound to the elaborate support.
The Unicorn in Captivity
In this instance, the unicorn probably represents the beloved tamed. He is tethered to a tree and constrained by a fence, but the chain is not secure and the fence is low enough to leap over: The unicorn could escape if he wished. Clearly, however, his confinement is a happy one, to which the ripe, seed-laden pomegranates in the tree—a medieval symbol of fertility and marriage—testify.
Studiolo from Ducal Palace in Gubbio
This detail is from a study, (or studiolo), intended for meditation and study. Its walls are carried out in a wood-inlay technique known as intarsia. The latticework doors of the cabinets, shown open or partly closed, indicate the contemporary interest in linear perspective. The cabinets display objects reflecting Duke Federico's wide-ranging artistic and scientific interests, and the depictions of books recall his extensive library. Emblems of the Montefeltro are also represented.
Madonna and Child Enthroned Saints
Raphael painted this altarpiece around 1504/5 for the small Franciscan convent of Sant' Antonio in Perugia. It hung in a part of the church reserved for the nuns, who are thought to have insisted on some of its conservative features, such as the elaborately clothed Christ Child. By contrast, the grave male saints are among the earliest evidence of Raphael’s study of the work of Leonardo da Vinci and Fra Bartolomeo in Florence. The Museum also owns a scene from the base (predella).
Celestial globe with clockwork
This globe houses a movement made by Gerhard Emmoser, imperial clockmaker from 1566 until his death in 1584, who signed and dated the meridian ring. The movement, which has been extensively rebuilt, rotated in the celestial sphere and drove a small image of the sun along the path of the ecliptic. The hour was indicated on a dial mounted at the top of the globe's axis and the day of the year appeared on a calendar rotating in the instrument's horizon ring.
Aristotle with a Bust of Homer
Aristotle rests his hand reflectively on a bust of Homer, the blind epic poet of the Iliad and the Odyssey. A medallion representing Alexander the Great, whom Aristotle tutored, hangs from the heavy gold chain. The philosopher contemplates material rewards as opposed to spiritual values, with the play of light and shadow on his features suggesting the motions of his mind. The picture also refers to Aristotle's comparison of touch and sight as a means of acquiring knowledge.
Chocolate Jar
Chocolate pot
Maker: François Thomas Germain
(French, Paris 1726–1791 Paris, master 1748)
Cabinet on stand
Box-like cabinets on open stands became fashionable towards the end of the seventeenth century. Rather than on the overall shape, the attention of the cabinetmaker was lavished on exquisite marquetry decoration, especially blomwerk (floral work). The most striking floral marquetry has been attributed to Jan van Meekeren. More than two hundred flowers embellish this cabinet, several of which occur more than once, sometimes in reverse.
Plaque: Warrior and Attendants
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a remarkable series of cast brass plaques were created to adorn the exterior of the royal palace in Benin City. A seventeenth-century Dutch visitor to the court of Benin, Olfert Dapper, described the sprawling palace complex—with its many large courtyards and galleries—as containing wooden pillars covered from top to bottom with rectangular cast brass plaques. These plaques are understood to have autonomous meaning and to tell complex narratives.
Queen Mother Pendant Mask: Iyoba
This ivory pendant mask is one of a pair of nearly identical works; its counterpart is in the British Museum in London. Although images of women are rare in Benin's courtly tradition, these two works have come to symbolize the legacy of a dynasty that continues to the present day. The pendant mask is believed to have been produced in the early sixteenth century for the King or "Oba" Esigie, the king of Benin, to honor his mother, Idia.
Power Figure (Nkisi N'Kondi: Mangaak
Central African power figures are among the ubiquitous genres identified with African art. Conceived to house specific mystical forces, they were collaborative creations
of Kongo sculptors and ritual specialists. This example belongs
to the most ambitious class of that tradition, attributed to the atelier of a master active along the coast of Congo and Angola at the end of the nineteenth century and identified with Mangaaka, the preeminent force of jurisprudence.
Prestige Stool: Female Caryatid
Stools with caryatid figures are among the most significant possessions of a Luba chief and are an integral part of the investiture ceremony that establishes his right to rule. Luba royal insignia often depict women whose high status is indicated by their elaborate coiffures and ornamental scarification marks. In the past, women, particularly the female relatives of kings, were instrumental in expanding and unifying the Luba kingdom.
Young Woman with a Water Pitcher
The essential subject of this serene picture is an ideal woman in an ideal home. Her head and elegant costume are covered by linen scarves, which with the silver-gilt basin and pitcher and the open window suggest ablutions at the beginning of the day. A string of pearls emerges from the jewelry box. Balanced shapes and colors (mainly the primaries) enhance the harmonious mood. Works by Vermeer were newly known and coveted by American collectors of the Gilded Age.
Damascus Room
The Damascus Room is a residential winter reception chamber (qa'a) typical of the late Ottoman period in Damascus, Syria. Among the earliest extant, nearly complete interiors of its kind, the room’s large scale and refined decoration suggest that it was part of the house of an important, affluent family. Poetry inscribed on its walls indicates that the patron was Muslim and possibly a member of the religious elite who were believed to have descended from the Prophet Muhammad.
Bedroom from the Sagredo Palace
In design and workmanship, this bedroom, consisting of an antechamber with a bed alcove, is one of the finest of its period. The decoration is in stucco and carved wood. In the antechamber, fluted Corinthian pilasters support an entablature out of which fly amorini bearing garlands of flowers. Other amorini bear the gilded frame of a painting by Gasparo Diziani, depicting dawn triumphant over night. Above the entry to the alcove seven amorini frolic, holding a shield with the monogram of Sagredo
Coaching and Tutoring Services
STUDENT FORM
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Building a bridge between cultures ~ Construire un pont entre les cultures
© 2018 by Nahema Conesa Alcolea
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What is appendix cancer?
Medically reviewed by Stacy Sampson, D.O. on December 11, 2018 — Written by Jennifer Berry
Survival rates
Appendix cancer is a rare type of cancer that grows in the appendix. There are several different types of appendix cancer, and a person often experiences no symptoms in the early stages.
The appendix is a tubular, finger-like sac around 4 inches in length that connects to the first part of the colon. Scientists do not fully understand the exact purpose of this organ. People can live normal and healthy lives without their appendix.
Appendix cancer, also known as appendiceal cancer, is extremely rare. Experts estimate that this type of cancer affects around 2 to 9 people per 1 million. Some studies suggest that appendix cancer may be on the rise, however.
A recent retrospective study estimated that it increased from around 6 people per 1 million in 2000 to as many as 10 people per 1 million in 2009.
In this article, we discuss the types, symptoms, causes, and risk factors of appendix cancer. We also cover diagnosis, treatment, and survival rates for this disease.
Appendicitis may be the first sign of appendix cancer.
Appendix cancer includes several types of tumor cells that may affect various parts of the appendix.
Some appendix tumors are benign, meaning they do not invade and spread. Other tumors are malignant, and thus cancerous, which means they invade and can spread to or from other organs.
An appendix tumor may be one of the following types:
Neuroendocrine tumor. Also known as a carcinoid tumor, this type usually starts in the tip of the appendix and accounts for more than half of appendiceal malignancies.
Mucinous cystadenoma. This is a benign tumor that starts in the mucoceles, which are mucus-filled areas of edema or sacs in the appendix wall. A mucinous cystadenoma is benign and does not spread to other organs when it is in an intact appendix. It is also known as a low-grade mucinous neoplasm.
Mucinous cystadenocarcinoma. This type of tumor also starts in the mucoceles, but it is malignant and can spread elsewhere. It accounts for about 20 percent of all cases of appendix cancer.
Colonic-type adenocarcinoma. About 10 percent of all appendix tumors are adenocarcinomas, and they usually start at the base of the appendix when originating in this organ. They can spread to other organs and areas of the body.
Goblet cell carcinoma. Also known as an adenoneuroendocrine tumor, this type of tumor has similar characteristics to both a neuroendocrine tumor and an adenocarcinoma. A goblet cell carcinoma may spread to other organs and tends to be more aggressive than a neuroendocrine tumor.
Signet-ring cell adenocarcinoma. A rare and difficult-to-treat malignant tumor, a signet-ring cell adenocarcinoma is faster growing and more difficult to remove than other adenocarcinomas.
Paraganglioma. This type of tumor is usually benign. However, medical literature has reported one rare case of a malignant paraganglioma in the appendix.
Appendix cancer often causes no symptoms in the early stages. Doctors often only first diagnose people with this condition in the later stages when it begins to cause symptoms or spreads to other organs. Doctors may also find it when evaluating or treating a patient for a different condition.
The signs and symptoms of appendix cancer often depend on the effects of the tumor:
Pseudomyxoma peritonei
Some types of appendix tumors can cause pseudomyxoma peritonei or PMP, which occurs when the appendix ruptures and the tumor cells leak into the abdominal cavity. The tumor cells secrete a protein gel called mucin that can build up in the abdominal cavity and continue to spread.
PMP may involve cancer cells that leak into the abdominal cavity. Without treatment, its buildup can lead to problems with the digestive system and intestinal blockages. Mucinous cystadenomas and mucinous cystadenocarcinomas of the appendix may cause PMP.
PMP symptoms include:
abdominal pain that may come and go
swollen or enlarged abdomen
feeling full after eating only small amounts of food
constipation or diarrhea
inguinal hernia, containing mucus and more common in males
Appendicitis, which is inflammation of the appendix, may be the first sign of appendix cancer. This is mostly because some appendix tumors can block the appendix, leading to the bacteria that are normally in the intestines becoming trapped and overgrowing inside the appendix.
The most common treatment for appendicitis is emergency surgery to remove the appendix. Once the surgeon removes the appendix, a biopsy of the tissue may reveal that the person has appendix cancer.
Appendicitis symptoms typically include severe pain in the abdomen that:
occurs between the bellybutton and lower right abdomen
gets worse with movement or deep breaths
comes on suddenly and gets worse quickly
Appendicitis may also cause:
abdominal swelling
Not all types of appendix cancer will cause appendicitis. For instance, the majority of neuroendocrine tumors form in the appendix tip, so they are unlikely to cause a blockage that could lead to appendicitis.
It is also important to note that many people who get appendicitis do not have appendix cancer. Other factors, such as trauma to the abdomen and inflammatory bowel disease can cause appendicitis. Many cases of appendicitis have no known cause.
Other signs of appendix cancer
In some cases, people with appendix cancer may discover a hard mass in the abdomen or pelvic area. They may also have abdominal pain or swelling. In females, a mass from appendix cancer may be mistaken for ovarian cancer.
If the appendix cancer is malignant, the cancer cells may grow on the surface of other abdominal organs and the lining of the abdominal cavity. This progression is known as peritoneal carcinomatosis. If left untreated, a person may lose function of their intestines or have an intestinal blockage.
Malignant appendix cancer most commonly grows on the surface of the:
lining of the abdominal cavity or peritoneum
Usually, cancers of the appendix do not spread to organs outside of the abdominal cavity with the exception of signet-ring cell adenocarcinomas.
Experts do not yet know exactly what causes appendix cancer. They have not discovered any links between appendix cancer and genetic or environmental causes.
Doctors mostly believe that appendix cancer affects males and females equally. Because it is rare in children, being an adult is the only known risk factor. Most people are between 40 and 59 years of age when a doctor diagnoses them with appendix cancer.
Doctors diagnose many appendix cancers after a person has had appendicitis surgery or when the tumor spreads to other organs, causing symptoms.
It is difficult for doctors to specifically identify appendix cancer on imaging tests such as ultrasound, MRI, or CT scans. Likewise, blood tests are not a reliable indicator of appendix cancer.
Often, a doctor can diagnose a person with appendix cancer after obtaining a biopsy of the tumor.
Treating appendix cancer may include surgery and chemotherapy.
A person's healthcare team will determine the best treatment for appendix cancer based on several factors, including:
the type of tumor
if and where cancer has spread
any other health issues affecting the person
If cancer has not spread beyond the appendix, a person may only need surgery. If it has spread to other organs, the surgeon may be able to remove the affected organs to eliminate all cancer. This may include part of the intestines, ovaries, or peritoneum.
The American Association of Endocrine Surgeons state that most people benefit from surgery that removes the appendix and the right half of the colon, especially if the tumor is larger than 2 centimeters (cm). This procedure is known as a right hemicolectomy.
Some people may also undergo chemotherapy after surgery to help eliminate the cancer.
A procedure known as heated intraperitoneal chemotherapy, also called HIPEC, may be effective against appendix cancer that has spread into the abdominal cavity.
With HIPEC, the surgeon fills the abdomen with a heated chemotherapy solution and allows it to work for around 1.5 hours. This technique may eliminate cancer cells that the doctors cannot see. The surgeon will perform HIPEC after removing the appendix and any visible tumor cells.
HIPEC is new and may have a long recovery time, ranging from 8 weeks to several months. The Appendix Cancer and Pseudomyxoma Peritonei Research Foundation say people with appendix cancer and PMP should find surgeons with experience in appendix cancer surgery and HIPEC for the best outcome.
The survival rate for appendix cancer varies depending on the type of tumor, whether it has spread, and where it is.
Doctors use 5-year survival rates to provide a predictive indication of how many people will live for at least 5 years after diagnosis of their cancer. However, it is vital to note these figures are only estimates and everyone's outlook will be different.
According to the American Society for Clinical Oncology, the 5-year survival rate for neuroendocrine tumors of the appendix is:
Nearly 100 percent if the tumor is smaller than 3 cm and has not spread.
Around 78 percent if the tumor is smaller than 3 cm and has spread to regional lymph nodes.
Around 78 percent if the tumor is larger than 3 cm, regardless of whether it has spread to other parts of the body.
Approximately 32 percent if the cancer has spread to other parts of the body.
The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences states that for goblet cell carcinoma, generally, 76 percent of people will live for 5 years or longer following diagnosis.
Specific statistics are not available for other types of appendix cancer.
Appendix cancer is extremely rare, and it causes no symptoms in many people in the early stages. Doctors often only diagnose appendix cancer in the later stages when it starts spreading to other organs. Otherwise, it may be diagnosed incidentally while treating appendicitis or evaluating a different abdominal condition.
Because appendix cancer is so rare, many facts about it remain a mystery. People who have this type of cancer may benefit from online support groups where they can connect with others who are going through some of the same challenges and treatments.
Appendix cancer is treatable, and many people have good outcomes with the help of professional cancer care. A doctor can advise a person about their treatment options and health outlook.
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Kevin Frisch: There's more to the 26th Congressional District win than Medicare
Kevin Frisch
I know, I know. The professional pundits, national party leaders, even the candidate — everyone says it was Medicare that propelled the election of a Democrat last week in New York’s fire engine-red 26th Congressional District.
Conventional wisdom holds that the race was a referendum on Republican Rep. Paul Ryan’s proposal to cut billions of dollars over the next decade from Medicare and turn it into a voucher-like program.
Steve Israel, Democratic congressional campaign committee chairman, repeated the assertion to anyone with a pen or a microphone on election night: “The three reasons a Democrat was elected to Congress in the (26th) district were Medicare, Medicare and …” — any guesses? That’s right! — “… Medicare.”
Maybe that’s true. But I’m not so sure. For one thing, Democrat Kathy Hochul ran a pretty good race. She was energetic, on-message and up on the issues — many of them. Not just Medicare, though she was certainly wise enough to exploit her opponent’s support of the controversial Ryan proposal.
And as Erie County Clerk, Hochul could point to run-ins with past Democratic governors as proof of her political independence: Eliot Spitzer and his ill-fated plan to provide driver’s licenses to illegal aliens in New York; David Paterson and his ill-fated plan to force us all New Yorkers to buy new license plates.
For another thing, the Republican candidate, New York Assemblywoman Jane Corwin, did not run a strong campaign. It’s true her embrace of the Ryan plan while even GOP stalwarts like Newt Gingrich were backing away from it didn’t help. But neither did a bizarre videotape her campaign staff released, which they said showed a third candidate attacking one of Corwin’s volunteers.
Her assertion that she was elected to the Assembly in 2008 with 36 years professional business experience didn’t help, either. She was 44 at the time. She grew up working for her family business, the Talking Phone Book.
Also, there was that third candidate: Jack Davis, who ran with tea party support. Davis was a lifelong Republican who became miffed with his party and ran for Congress as a Democrat in 2004, 2006 and 2008. He rejoined the GOP in 2010 and backed former Republican Rep. Chris Lee. Davis ended up with about 9 percent of the vote. It’s a safe assumption he polled more Republicans in the heavily Republican district.
For a final thing, there was the Lee residue. The married congressman abruptly resigned in February when a shirtless photo he allegedly sent to a would-be date on the website Craigslist became public. It made for an unseemly public departure — and that’s a far cry from allowing Corwin to run with the backing of her district’s (and party’s) esteemed predecessor, as former Rep. Tom Reynolds did when he succeeded Bill Paxon, or as Paxon did as the district’s heir-apparent to Jack Kemp.
So it wasn’t just Medicare. In fact, the key observation about the race comes not from political watchers or paid pundits but from a semi-retired project manager interviewed by the Associated Press the day after the election.
“I would expect to make sacrifices in Medicare — I don’t think the fact that I’m so close to 65 should exclude me,” 63-year-old Michele Weaver said at a restaurant in Monroe County. “But the most important thing is fairness. Part of what we’re all feeling is it keeps coming down and coming down on the middle class.”
That’s the key: The race may not have been a referendum on the GOP Medicare plan, but the GOP Medicare plan can be seen as a referendum on fairness.
That’s the lesson both parties should take away from last week’s special election.
Kevin Frisch’s column, Funny Thing ..., appears each Sunday in the Canandaigua Daily Messenger in New York. Contact him at (585) 394-0770, ext. 257, or via e-mail at kfrisch@messengerpostmedia.com.
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Another former Joint Chiefs Chairman blasts generals' involvement in politics
Former Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen this week added his voice to a growing chorus of retired Pentagon leaders concerned about military involvement in this year's presidential election.
In a statement provided to the Washington Post, Mullen said that former military leaders taking prominent roles in political campaigns "is a violation of the ethos and professionalism of apolitical military service." He said the move calls into question the independence and reliability of the military chain of command.
"This is not about the right to speak out, it is about the disappointing lack of judgment in doing so for crass partisan purposes," he told the newspaper. "This is made worse by using hyperbolic language all the while leveraging the respected title of 'general.'"
Earlier this month, in a letter to the Post, retired Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, who also served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, argued that retired Marine Gen. John Allen and retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn crossed the line by speaking at the Democratic and Republican conventions, respectively.
"As generals, they have an obligation to uphold our apolitical traditions," Dempsey wrote. "They have just made the task of their successors — who continue to serve in uniform and are accountable for our security — more complicated. It was a mistake for them to participate as they did. It was a mistake for our presidential candidates to ask them to do so."
Dempsey also criticized the candidates for using retired military leaders as "a political prize" on the campaign trail.
A number of other military leaders have also voiced unease with the involvement of retired defense leaders in the campaign, but that hasn't stopped numerous veterans from stepping forward in recent weeks, particularly in support of Clinton and opposed to Trump.
Both Allen and Flynn have publicly defended their decisions to speak on behalf of their preferred candidates, framing their remarks as a defense of national security.
None of their retired colleagues have suggested the men violated the law by speaking out, only that they ignored the expected norms for senior military officials. Defense Department rules prohibit politicking while in the active-duty force.
Follow @LeoShane
Leo Shane III covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He can be reached at lshane@militarytimes.com.
About Leo Shane III
Leo covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He has covered Washington, D.C. since 2004, focusing on military personnel and veterans policies. His work has earned numerous honors, including a 2009 Polk award, a 2010 National Headliner Award, the IAVA Leadership in Journalism award and the VFW News Media award.
Marine Corps to shell out $10M for lightweight polymer .50 caliber ammunition
Philip Athey
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The story of Lizard Rock is similar to that of Tittalik. Yet the Lizard’s appetite was for food rather than water.
The Lizard ate everything he could see. He ate animals and people. He kept on eating and eating and growing bigger and bigger.
Then one day the Lizard ate a Kangaroo. The Kangaroo was not very happy about this and started to jump up and down inside the Lizard’s stomach. The Lizard soon began to feel ill, just like when someone has had too much to eat.
The Kangaroo kept on jumping and jumping, until he jumped right through the Lizard’s stomach. It was big enough for everyone and everything to jump out.
The Lizard suffered a similar fate to the Frog, and was turned into stone. He also remains in Wollombi to remind all of the fate of greed.
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Anger at church's din-dong
A couple are calling for church bells to be silenced at night because they are too noisy.
Mirror.co.uk
Updated 02:10, 3 FEB 2012
Angry Claire Robinson, 48, and husband Peter, 55, say the chimes - which have rung out for 150 years - break health and safety laws.
The couple, who moved to the town only a year ago, have sent a petition to the council.
Claire, an author, from Crediton, Devon said: "The clock chimes every fifteen minutes, 24 hours a day. It's enough to drive you barmy at night.
"This is a health and safety issue. Christianity advocates consideration for one's neighbour."
But not everyone agrees. The Rector of the Church of the Holy Cross, the Rev Nigel Guthrie said: "I live close and the chimes don't seem loud."
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Michael Scott Home
Nature Writer 1
Nature Photographer
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Cruise Bookings
SUE SCOTT Marine Biologist
14 June 2019More for 2021
Regent Seven Seas Cruises has booked me for three more cruises to interesting waters in the second half of 2021, but, as these have not yet been advertised, I have been asked to keep details confidential. Briefly, in June 2021, I will be returning to Canada and Greenland on a cruise ending in Iceland. In November 2021, I will be exploring the Indian Ocean and the coast of South Africa once more, followed in November/December by a cruise revisiting my favourite ports in South Africa and Namibia. Check back for full details as soon as details of these cruises are released.
I have kept time free for other possible cruise options, perhaps including a leg of another company's World Cruise which might take me back to an island that I am extremely keen to revisit...
11 April 2019Return to Svalbard
It is getting much more difficult to visit the Svalbard Archipelago, north of Norway, because cruise ships carrying heavy fuel oil are only allowed into the capital of Longyearbyen and the surrounding fjord of Isfjorden. For most ships that effectively means just one port of call, but Saga Cruises have come up with the clever idea for 2020 of visiting the 'ghost town' of Pyramiden and the former Soviet mining base of Barentsburg, which also lie beside Isfjorden, as well as the capital. That was too good an opportunity for us to miss, and we look forward to working with Saga again, after too long a break, on their new ship Spirit of Discovery.
The cruise, appropriately called ARCTIC EXPEDITION, sails from Dover on July 7th 2020, with stops in Stavanger and a welcome overnight to enjoy the 'Midnight Sun' in Tromsø, before the three Svalbard visits. We then return, via Mo i Rana and Bergen, to Dover on July 23rd. There's more information on my Cruise Bookings page.
More for 2021Return to SvalbardCruises 2020-21More 2019 and 2020 cruises
Thank you for ordering from the adverts below, which helps to support the cost of running this website.
Michael's Newest Titles
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2017 Honda Civic Type R Dons Championship White Paint for New York
Hottest Civic arrives Stateside in the Big Apple
After its official world debut at the 2017 Geneva auto show, the 2017 Honda Civic Type R has started making its auto show rounds in North America with an appearance at the 2017 New York auto show. Available exclusively as a hatchback, the 2017 Civic Type R will round out the Civic family this year. It will be the first Honda Type R model ever sold in the U.S.
The car that made its debut in Geneva was finished in an eye-catching shade of pull-me-over red, which gave it an aggressive look. Although it's difficult to tell in the harsh auto show lighting, Honda confirmed to us that this Type R is painted in the brand's storied Championship White color. That paint code has appeared on such celebrated high-performance Japanese-market Honda models as the EK9 Civic Type R and NSX Type R, but we haven't seen it on these shores since the Acura Integra Type R left production in 2001.
Powering the 2017 Civic Type R is a 2.0-liter turbo-four with 306 hp and 295 lb-ft of torque. If this sounds familiar, that's because it's the same unit used in the outgoing ninth-generation model that was exclusive to the European market. A six-speed manual with an automatic rev-matching feature that can be turned off is the only transmission available. Adjustable suspension with a Dual Axis front setup, aluminum lower arms, and steering knuckles comes standard with three-chamber dampers. It also has 20-inch alloy wheels shod in Continental ContiSportContact 6 performance tires. The Type R comes standard with an adaptive steering system, Brembo brakes, a helical limited-slip differential, and a full aero kit complete with a gigantic rear wing.
Honda expects the 2017 Civic Type R to start in the mid-$30,000 range with the same level of equipment as the range-topping Touring trim featured in run-of-the-mill Civics. Standard features include a 7.0-inch touchscreen with navigation, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto integration, a 540-watt premium audio system, sport seats with more aggressive bolsters, and a leather-wrapped steering wheel and shift gate. The Civic Type R will slot above the recently revealed Civic Si in the performance hierarchy.
Honda Limited 2017 Civic Si Power to Increase Engine Longevity
Alex Nishimoto| Jun 5, 2017
2017 Honda Civic Si Goes on Sale, Priced from $24,775
Kelly Lin| May 12, 2017
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Home / TALK OF THE TOWN / “Train to Busan” Actor Don Lee Returns to PH Cinemas in Sports Comedy Movie “Champion”
“Train to Busan” Actor Don Lee Returns to PH Cinemas in Sports Comedy Movie “Champion”
Unknown 11:48:00 AM TALK OF THE TOWN
You’ve seen him as the brawny dad-to-be in Philippines’ highest grossing foreign film “Train to Busan.” Now, Ma Dong-Seok, also known as Don Lee returns to Philippine cinemas in the sports comedy “Champion.”
The film tells the story of Mark (Ma Dong-Seok), a disgraced arm-wrestling champion who was adopted by an American family when he was a boy. He’s working as a bouncer at a club when he meets Jin-ki, a Korean student who has a knack for schemes to make money from any situation he’s in. Jin-ki convinced Mark to return to Korea after 30 years to join an arm-wrestling tournament. Upon arriving, Jin-ki gives him his biological mother’s address. Hesitant at first, he visits the address and gets united with a sister he didn’t know existed. Max, while embracing the new family he has, prepares to make a mark in the arm wrestling tournament.
The film also stars Kwon Yul, Han Ye-ri, Choi Seung-hoon-I, Ok Ye-rin, Yang Hyun-min, Nam Yeon-woo, Kang Shin-hyo and Lee Kyu-ho. Written and directed by Kim Yong-won (Quick).
“Champion” opens in Philippine cinemas May 30, 2018 from Warner Bros. Korea, distributed by Rafaella Films International.
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Alice Cooper, Los Angeles, CA, 1975
© Barry Schultz, 1975
Alice Cooper at home in Los Angeles, CA with his two Rolls-Royce cars.
Alice Cooper, Los Angeles, CA, 1975 by Barry Schultz
Color: Color Type: Archival Digital Print Edition: 11x14 (open), 16x20 (50), 20x24 (35), 30x40 (25) Signed: Signed
Alice Cooper, 1974
Alice Cooper, Los Angeles, 1975
Alice Cooper, Amsterdam, 1974
Alice Cooper, Lake Tahoe, NV, 1975
Vincent Price and Alice Cooper, Lake Tahoe, NV, 1975
Alice Cooper, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1974
Check out Morrison Hotel Gallery's Alice Cooper photo gallery. The son of a minister, at age 17, Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier) formed a rock...
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Enquiry Hotline: +65 6100 4668
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Exclusive Living In Singapore
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Freehold Condo
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Land Supply for Private Homes Remains Unchanged in H2 of 2018
My Exclusive Condo Buyer & Seller Must Know June 29, 2018
The government has decided to launch 6 land parcels for sale in Singapore. These also happen to includea hotel site; a first in a few years. Apart from that, the parcels also feature land for 4 private residential sites and 1 white site in Pasir Ris Central.
Besides this Confirmed List of sites, there is a Reserve List as well. This contains nine sites and will be available for sale if the developers indicate a minimum price in their applications or the market shows enough interest. This list is under the Government’s Land Sale (GLS) programme for H2 2018.
Collective Sales of Selegie and Peace Centres
The economy of Singapore is booming because of the rise of property rates. This thing is clearly visible if we have a look at Singapore as sellers of two amazing developments are putting them up for an En Bloc deal.
GOVERNMENT LAND SALE IN SENGKANG
Seven bids marked the successful completion of tender offer for Central Government land in Sengkang (GLS) on June 21. Like tender offer for Hillview Rise GLS and Holland Road GLS site in May, this Sengkang tender is also for household and commercial cum industrial site launched under standard tender conditions.
Six bids out of seven were from joint venture parties. Far East Organization submitted two bids overall with two different underlying concepts. It submitted three bids with three different concepts for Holland Road residential-and-commercial site in May.
Record Breaking Price For A Property In Orchard Sold Via Collective Sale
Yesterday, marketing agent CBRE revealed that the popular Orchard property Park House received the record-breaking sale price of $2910 per square foot per slot ratio (psf ppr). On the other side, freehold District 10 development was sold for 375.5 million dollars at 21 Orchard Boulevard. It clearly indicates the provision of maximum allowable gross floor area around 129,035 square feet for $2,910 psf ppr while excluding around 10% bonus for the balconies. Read more
Price of completed private developments slip 0.3%
According to a recent study, the private apartment prices are slipping. They had a 0.3% dip between March and April. This came after prices rose a tiny bit for the past month. Analysts believe that this is a small issue and nothing too much.
Despite the minor problem, the job market and economy in Singapore are still very healthy, and that’s a very important thing to keep in mind. The en bloc sale market is active, and the real estate market is very active. So that’s the thing that matters the most, as it delivers some great opportunities to the entire market.
The price drop was also driven by the fall in prices for the apartments in the central region. However, the small units did not see any price change in March. That’s a very important thing to keep in mind, but in the end that’s what matters, how the market grows and expands in ways you would not imagine.
Singapore could be the ideal site for Asian LNG trading hub
Singapore is a leader when it comes to liquefied natural gas. And the interesting thing about it is that it does have all the necessary benefits and features required for a very important hub. Of course, it’s not the primary leader now, but it can become until 2023, which is still a huge lead. According to the Deloitte oil and gas regional leader, Singapore has all the criteria needed to become a hub right now.
House of Tan Yeok Nee released for sale
The Tan Yeok Nee House is widely known for being a national monument. And while it did have an owner for a while, right now it’s back on sale. According to PropNex Realty, it seems that the indicative price is around $93 million. You have to realize that the establishment has 2 stories, and it’s the last traditional Chinese courtyard house that you can find in Singapore, so it’s an extremely special property.
Great news for low-wage workers: they will receive higher salaries this year
According to the latest statements coming from the National Wages Council, more workers that are currently earning low wager will begin to enjoy bigger salaries starting with 2018. The council strongly recommended companies to start sharing their growths in the productivity and economic sectors with their workers. Besides this, the NWC also increased the minimum wage threshold from $1200 to $1300, recommending built-in increments with values from $50 to $70, at least. In comparison with 2017, 24,000 additional workers will be included in this scheme and will enjoy bigger paychecks soon. Overall, a total number of 150,000 workers will have bigger salaries starting with this year.
Francis Tan, an economist at United Overseas Bank, backs up the initiative of NWC, saying that an additional $50 increase to a worker that earns $1000, for example, is a good initiative. This means a 5% increase in his salary, which means that the increase will exceed inflation’s percentage, expected to be anywhere between 0.5 and 1% in 2018. According to Mr. Tan, the proposed raise is just right, as it is not too high to affect the profit margin of companies and not too low, risking to fall below last year’s raise.
En Bloc Sale in Jurong
Here is one more addition to the list of collective sales with a price of two hundreds of forty millions; The Lakeside Apartments. This is a total area of 134,176 square feet. The tender for this property was released recently on Tuesday when around 80% owners of this site agreed for sale. It means that each owner of this development of 120 unit can earn around 2 million dollars.
This site is located within the Jurong district along Yuan Ching Road and is zoned as a residential property with a plot ratio of 2.1. It has two residential blocks of 15 levelsand out of 99 years lease of this property, 58 years are left ahead. Developers also need to deal with the premium of slightly less than fifty-six million dollars for both the land use intensification as well as to top-up the lease to 99-years.
The Rise of Job Vacancies in Singapore
According to the statistics by Ministry of Manpower (MOM) conducted on 13th of June, 2,320 workers were fired in the first six months of the year. The number of unemployment (4000) has decreased from the same quarter of the last year. The initial estimation made by MOM was of 2,100 and it is higher than this.
The situation was not the same in previous years. Earlier in March 2013, the retrenchment figure was 2,120. From 2015-2017, it has been 5,000. This year in March, the rate of long-term unemployment was 0.7 percent. It has come down from last year (0.8%). This figure includes the share of those residents who are not employed for minimum 25 weeks. Read more
The economic growth of the country might slow down this year
As specialists compared the numbers, it appears that Singapore’s economic expansion will continue this year as well, but at a slower pace this time. A report that was recently released by Oxford Economics, and backed up by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, predicts an economic growth of 3% for 2018, in comparison with the 3.6% growth that was recorded last year. This slight decrease happens due to the fact that the level of trade has decreased a little as well, together with the manufacturing demand. It is worth mentioning that this is not something that is specific to Singapore alone, as the entire south-east region of Asia is targeted by such changes. Thus, as exports slow down, the economic growth of the countries in this area will be supported by the demand generated by local markets.
Steps Taken To Calm Down The Residential Housing Market In The Asia-Pacific Region
My Exclusive Condo Buyer & Seller Must Know June 14, 2018 June 12, 2018
Due to skyrocketing inflation in the Asia-Pacific area, actions have been taken to calm the market down. A study showed that while mortgages had increased across the region, it has slowed down significantly from 6 months ago. This has allowed for lower interest rates which have improved the mortgage financing sector.
Foreigners grab homes in New Zealand while they still can
New Zealand is already facing a crisis concerning the affordability of houses on the island, so the government is determined to do something about it by adopting a set of measures. These measures will also keep foreigners from getting their hands on residential properties on the island, which will keep speculations at bay. This triggered an interesting phenomenon on the island, as investors coming from foreign countries are rushing to grab their desired homes while they still can. Soon, the new rules will become active and oversea home purchases will be severely limited.
Dollar Bond Issuance In Asia Has Hit An All-Time High Over 40% Since 2016
According to the Monetary Authority of Singapore, expansions and the high-demand for development in the region will ramp up financing and capital in Singapore. They have also pointed out that while more companies start more expansions, both globally and regionally, capital raising will increase the diversity of Asian assets.
Sers is going to redevelop three of the MacPherson blocks
My Exclusive Condo Buyer & Seller Must Know June 9, 2018
It is already known that the Selective En bloc Redevelopment Scheme or SERS is active and started changing the face of Singapore by revamping old residential units. Recently, it was announced that blocks with numbers starting with 81 and up to 83, inclusively, located on the MacPherson Lane, will enjoy the Sers transformation.
For the residents of these three blocks, the news is more than welcome, as it means that they will soon have the chance to move into brand new flats. Edward Chong, for example, who is a 48-years-old machine operator and just moved in a 3-room apartment in block 81 six months ago, is excited by this opportunity. He said that the flat, obtained with the support of the Housing Board, was rather old at the moment of purchase, so he and his family are happy to know that they will receive a newly renovated apartment in a modern building. With 49 years still left on the apartment’s lease, the compensation provided by Sers came at the right time, giving Mr. Chong the chance to fully renovate the unit without getting a dime out of his pocket.
It is worth mentioning that this Sers project is the first one since 2016, a year when the month of August brought it the last initiative of this kind. But Sers is far from being over, the blocks on MacPherson Lane earning their position within the project due to their considerable ages. Thus, there will be 313 apartments included in the renovation plan, all of them having approximately 50-years-old. Besides this, the two eateries and 27 shops that are part of these blocks will go through the same transformation. The last time Sers unrolled, 8 whole blocks were revamped and made to fit in the latest standards, which were located on the West Coast Road.
Hong Kong Household Hunt
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Panasonic to exit semiconductor business
By The Japan News/Asia News Network
Osaka, Japan - Panasonic Corp plans to withdraw from the semiconductor business, it was learned on Thursday.
The company will sell its semiconductor development and manufacturing subsidiary Panasonic Semiconductor Solutions Co in Nagaokakyo, Kyoto Prefecture, to Taiwan’s Nuvoton Technology Corp.
Panasonic’s chip business has suffered a persistent deficit and the company has judged it difficult to restore the business, according to sources.
Panasonic also intends to sell TowerJazz Panasonic Semiconductor Co, a joint venture with Israeli chipmaking company TowerJazz. Panasonic holds a 49 per cent stake in the venture based in Uozu, Toyama Prefecture.
In 1952, Panasonic forerunner Matsushita Electric Industrial Co established a joint venture with Royal Philips of the Netherlands to enter the semiconductor business. Since the 1990s, the venture has grown to become Panasonic’s major business in the manufacture of semiconductors for home appliances such as televisions.
In recent years, however, Panasonic’s profitability has been eroded by the rise of South Korean and Taiwanese companies, which have become more competitive through large-scale investment. The decline in demand due to US-China trade friction is an additional factor in its lessening profitability.
Panasonic Semiconductor Solutions posted a net loss of ¥18 billion (Bt5 billion) on sales of ¥92.2 billion for the business year that ended in March. Panasonic decided to sell the subsidiary due to uncertainties over whether the business will turn positive for the business year ending March 2020.
On November 22, Panasonic chief executive officer Kazuhiro Tsuga said at a press conference, “We will eliminate our unprofitable businesses by fiscal 2021,” expressing its policy of accelerating structural reform such as by withdrawing from or selling off deficit-ridden or unprofitable businesses. On November 21, Panasonic also announced its withdrawal from the liquid crystal panel business.
There was a time when Japanese companies dominated the global semiconductor market. According to US research company Gartner Inc, six of the top 10 companies in terms of global market share in 1990 were Japanese firms such as NEC Corp, Toshiba Corp and Matsushita (now Panasonic), but they have been replaced by US and South Korean companies.
Panasonic Japan
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Home » Quebec's BAPE Given Extension for Shale Review
Shale Daily / NGI All News Access
Quebec's BAPE Given Extension for Shale Review
PennEast Asks FERC for Two-Year Extension, Cites Regulatory Delays
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Quebec's environmental bureau has been granted a brief extension to complete a report on the impact that increased Utica Shale development would have on the province.
The Bureau des audiences publiques sur l'environnement (BAPE) conducted public hearings about two months ago in areas of the province where gas producers have requested to drill (see Shale Daily, Oct. 6; and Daily GPI, Sept. 1).
In addition to conducting the public hearings, which ended in November, the BAPE also received more than 200 briefs for and against exploration. The review was to be completed by Feb. 4, but BAPE President Pierre Renaud requested an extension and was given until Feb. 28.
"We clearly indicated that if the BAPE needed more time to complete its report, we would give it to them and that's what we've done," Environment Minister Pierre Arcand stated. "We have always been willing to take the time to do things to ensure respect for the environment and the safety of citizens, and therefore the delay requested was granted without hesitation."
In addition to hearing from the public and Quebec's energy industry, the BAPE panel members have been evaluating the impact of shale gas development in British Columbia, as well as in Texas, Pennsylvania and New York.
The additional 24 days are considered inadequate by some groups.
Steven Guilbeault, a spokesman for Canadian environmental group Equiterre, noted that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, "one of the biggest environmental agencies in the world, will take two years to go around the issue" of shale development and hydraulic fracturing. "So it's nice to have extended 24 more days to BAPE, but it is unclear how it could be completed in just a few months."
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8.573330 - KOSTER, L.: Suite dramatique / Ouverture légère / Waltz Suites (Estro Armonico Luxembourg Chamber Orchestra, Kaell)
Lou Koster (1889–1973)
Suite dramatique • Ouverture légère • Waltz Suites
Lou Koster was born on 7 May 1889 in Luxembourg. Since there was no school of music or conservatory in her home country when she was a child, her grandfather Franz Ferdinand Bernhard Hoebich (1813–1900), who had by then retired as Kapellmeister of Luxembourg’s military band, taught her music theory, violin and piano. It was not until 1906 that she was able to complete her studies in these disciplines, plus singing and harmony, at the newly founded Luxembourg Conservatoire. She herself said that she felt called to become a composer when she was still a child. In this capacity she was largely self-taught. Although there was a composition class at the Luxembourg Conservatoire, it seems only to have existed on paper—not until the summer of 1943 did the first student take final exams in composition. Koster’s early works comprise songs and piano pieces, but soon she essayed larger compositions, such as the operetta An der Schwemm to a libretto by Batty Weber, which was first performed in 1922 to great acclaim. (A German version entitled Amor im Bade was given its première in 1927.) An excerpt from the operetta was released on shellac disc by Homocord in Berlin.
During the inter-war period, Koster found publishers for her piano works and songs in Luxembourg, Belgium and Germany (Schott Frères, Maison Musicale Moderne and F. Lauweryns in Brussels; Aurora in Weinböhla near Dresden; B. Schellenberg in Trier and Luxembourg; Kieffer-Binsfeld and Lëtzeburger Vollekslidder-Verl in Luxembourg). As well as composing, she worked as a pianist, violinist and orchestral musician, played palm court music in cafés, accompanied silent films, and sometimes appeared as an orchestral conductor. She also taught piano at the Luxembourg Conservatoire for 46 years. In the 1960s she founded the vocal ensemble “Onst Lidd”, performing her own compositions in innumerable concerts with them. On 9 July 1972 her largest work, Der Geiger von Echternach, a ballad for soloists, chorus and orchestra to a text by Nikolaus Welter, received its première. Lou Koster died on 17 November 1973 in Luxembourg.
During the inter-war period Lou Koster began writing for orchestra, composing the first of her total of thirty orchestral songs to texts by Paul Verlaine, Alfred de Musset, Theodor Storm, Eduard Mörike, Gottfried Keller, Hermann Allmers, Willy Goergen, Marcel Noppeney, Nik Welter, Agie Conrath and Nicolas Schaack, as well as the operetta An der Schwemm.
Composing good-quality light orchestral music—waltzes, marches, overtures, etc.—was no less important to Koster during this period. At first, it was the galas of the Swimming Club Luxembourg that gave the composer (who was also an enthusiastic competitive swimmer) the opportunity to prove her ability: in the intervals between the races, a salon orchestra—positioned above the shower cubicles and conducted by the young Koster—provided entertainment. Thus, Swimming March [an earlier version of Keep smiling], which was dedicated to the club, was first performed at the swimming gala of 25 June 1922.
Some of Koster’s total of 21 orchestral compositions survive in multiple autograph scores together with their associated individual parts, some only exist as fragments or have been lost altogether. The autographs carry no annotation regarding their date of composition, but notices advertising their performance can offer a terminus ante quem for their completion. That Unter blühenden Linden was composed during the early 1920s at the latest, is clear from a newspaper advertisement announcing a performance of the orchestral waltz suite to take place on 24 May 1922 at the entertainment venue the Majestic in Luxembourg.
There are historic recordings dating from the 1950s of a few of the works that have since been lost. One orchestral piece was also published: there are extant printed parts for Lore-Lore. Though the set of parts carries neither a date nor the publishing house’s name, there is much to indicate that they were published before the First World War by the German publishing house Aurora in Weinböhla, near Dresden. In addition, various autograph scores, such as Unter blühenden Linden, contain notes by the composer to a publisher.
The conductor Jonathan Kaell says of Lou Koster’s orchestral music:
“A significant proportion of her symphonic oeuvre is comprised of waltz suites, whose form, musical language and phrase structure suggest that they were influenced by the great works of Viennese masters such as Johann Strauss. Despite this, Koster’s works have an individual touch and an unmistakable charm that immediately tells the discerning musician that they are not slavish imitations of the Viennese waltz “à la Strauss”, but represent a form that departs from its prototype in some respects—one that is the result of an intensive study of its exemplar and that develops it further. Lou Koster’s works come over as being musically authentic and unspoilt: they bubble over with the joy of making music and testify to the composer’s keen grasp of musical structure, elegant phrasing and harmonic balance.”
No less than eleven of Koster’s 26 works for piano also exist in versions for orchestra. It seems as though she began by composing piano originals for her own use as a pianist in cafés and accompanying silent films and only orchestrated them later. Evidence for performances of Lore-Lore appear to support this hypothesis: in 1914 Koster played the piano version to accompany a silent film, whilst the earliest record of a performance of the orchestral version is dated 11 October 1933. This waltz suite, which is dedicated to her sister Lore, is the only composition in her entire output to have been given an opus number (Op.13).
Koster produced several orchestral works in two versions at the same time, for salon orchestra (probably earlier versions dating from the 1920s) and for full symphony orchestra (probably the versions for the orchestra of Radio Luxembourg—the Grand Orchestre symphonique de RTL). Sometimes she gave a new version a new title: there is thus a second version of Heideland entitled Rêve bleu. Koster reworked the overture to her operetta An der Schwemm (1922) for full orchestra, as the first movement—Le soir qui chante—of her Suite dramatique; the third movement of the Suite—Danse au clair de la lune—also exists in a version for an even larger orchestra under the title Buschgeistertanz.
When, on 15 March 1933, Radio Luxembourg began Europe-wide broadcasting, Koster soon became one of the composers whose works were frequently broadcast live on air. In the six years from the time the station began broadcasting to when it suspended service on 21 September 1939 after the outbreak of the war, 43 of her compositions were aired at least 111 times—among them the waltz suites Lore-Lore and Moselträume included on this recording. The orchestra of Radio Luxembourg alone went into the studio to broadcast pieces by Koster 47 times under its conductor Henri Pensis (1900–1958). It was not so much the case that Pensis introduced the full range of Koster’s orchestral work, as that individual pieces like Keep smiling and Lore-Lore became hits and were played again and again, whereas her Suite dramatique, for example, was never given, and her orchestral songs were only rarely heard. As was then customary, transcriptions were also often made for radio. Between the summer of 1935 and the autumn of 1936, the piano and wind quintet Quintett Radio Luxemburg alone played thirteen different (and now lost) transcriptions of works by Koster a total of 44 times.
With her subtle, sensuous-sounding light music, whose many emotional nuances put it beyond superficiality and whose bold, unexpected turns are a constant surprise, Koster struck just the note that producers needed to build a loyal, broad-based European audience for the radio station. During the 1930s, radios became increasingly affordable. More and more people who were not regular concert-goers developed an enthusiasm for the new medium, which soon came to be celebrated as an ideal means of making culture and music available to all. Koster felt at home in this role of the composer-cum-purveyor of music, for throughout her life she strove to write music for a wider audience.
Lou Koster’s orchestral pieces were still being played by the radio orchestra in the 1950s and early 1960s, but they were then gradually forgotten, as many good-quality light orchestral pieces are. After Koster’s death, people thought her orchestral music had been lost, and no one could remember the pieces which had formerly been so popular. In 1996 I found the scores in someone’s attic. The Orchestre Estro Armonico and Cid-Fraen an Gender are now working together to bring this music back to life through concerts, CD releases and publishing projects.
When Lou Koster died, her complete works passed into private hands. Not until thirty years after her death were her compositions made accessible to the public through the newly established Lou Koster Archive at Cid-Fraen an Gender (for more information, see: www.cidfemmes.lu). Even though nearly a quarter of her output is still lost or only survives in fragmentary form, the archive today holds around 250 complete works (songs, piano, chamber and choral music, works for orchestra and orchestral songs, pieces for soloists, chorus and orchestra, an opera, stage works).
Danielle Roster
English translation: Sue Baxter
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Construction Legend Can’t Build His Own Home
C.C. Myers' unfinished dream home hits the market
By Sajid Farooq • Published at 2:05 pm on September 11, 2009
Mommymagpie on Fickr
Construction mogul C.C. Myers is being forced to sell his unfinished luxury country club home but not because he wants to.
The founder of C.C. Meyers construction company, which most recently completed the Labor Day Bay Bridge construction project, was forced to declare personal bankruptcy after a personal business deal went south. His company is famous for working on highways and bridges across the state.
Now his unfinished 8,000-square-foot Placer County home is for sale.
"It's something a 22-year-old pro athlete would come up with," listing agent Matthew Baughman of Keller Williams Realty told the Sacramento Bee. "It's that whole house-on-steroids thing."
The contractor spent 20 years building his 1,200 acre dream home, according to the Bee. Myers' unfinished project was suppose to be the unofficial centerpiece of the Winchester Country Club before it was foreclosed on.
Baughman told the paper that Myers put at least $2 million into the home and it probably needs up to another $2 million to complete.
“It may not be worth that; it may be worth more," he told the Biz Journals. "There is more than that (amount) in the property.”
Myers was already trying to sell his current home in Sacramento for $4.5 million and he is losing his 45 percent share of his construction company as part of a bankruptcy agreement.
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Blackhawks’ Khabibulin Out 4-5 Months After Rotator Cuff Surgery
The goaltender was placed on IR in November with a lower body injury
Published at 12:30 pm on January 7, 2014
The Chicago Blackhawks had to scramble a bit back in November when goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin suffered a lower body injury in a game against the Nashville Predators. Shortly after the injury, Khabibulin was placed on the injured reserve list, and Antti Raanta was called upon to take his place on the roster.
On Tuesday, the team announced that Khabibulin had undergone successful surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff.
"Nikolai underwent surgery today on the right shoulder," said team physician Dr. Michael Terry. "He had a rotator cuff injury which was becoming increasingly symptomatic that we repaired. The procedure went very well and I anticipate a full recovery. He should be able to return to hockey in four to five months."
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The decision to operate on Khabibulin's shoulder likely means that his time with the Blackhawks is at an end. The four to five month timetable would place his return some time during the playoffs, and it's unlikely that he will be put back on the active roster in that kind of situation.
Also, the timing of this surgery also suggests that the lower body ailment that Khabibulin was suffering from isn't healing quickly at all, thus confirming suspicions that it was a long-term injury.
At any rate, Raanta will likely continue on as Crawford's back-up for the remainder of the season, although if he isn't seeing enough ice time the Blackhawks could conceivably want him to start more games in the AHL and swap him out for Jason LaBarbera, who was sent down to the Rockford IceHogs last week.
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3-D Printing Recreates Ancient Sculpture Destroyed by ISIS
The replica will be on display at London's Imperial War Museum and can also be viewed online
By Jill Lawless • Published at 1:50 pm on July 3, 2019
Natasha Livingstone/AP
A figure of a roaring lion, about the size of a loaf of bread, is the latest step in the fight to preserve culture from conflict.
The sculpture is a replica of a colossal 3,000-year-old statue from the Temple of Ishtar in Nimrud, in what's now Iraq. The stone statue was one of many artifacts from the Mosul Museum destroyed by the Islamic State group after it overran the city in 2014.
The replica Lion of Mosul, which can be viewed online, was modeled from crowd-sourced photos taken by Mosul Museum visitors in happier times and 3-D printed as part of Google's digital arts and culture project.
It's going on display at London's Imperial War Museum in an exhibition that looks at how war devastates societies' cultural fabric — and at the ingenious and often heroic steps taken to preserve it.
Chance Coughenour, digital archaeologist at Google Arts and Culture, said the exhibition "highlights the potential of technology — both in terms of digitally preserving culture and telling these amazing stories in engaging new ways."
It also illustrates a grim truth: culture has long been a casualty of conflict. Museums, monuments and even music are often deliberately targeted by combatants.
"The destruction of culture is sort of an accepted sideline to war," Imperial War Museum curator Paris Agar said Wednesday. "One of the main reasons for destroying culture is to send a message: We have victory over you. We have power over you. It's because culture means so much to us; if we didn't care it wouldn't be a tool."
The horror that rippled around the world in April at the sight of Paris's Notre Dame cathedral in flames is proof of the powerful attachment we have to buildings and artworks.
The most shocking parts of the exhibition are the records made by the destroyers: meticulous Nazi lists of artworks they'd stolen; video of the Taliban blowing up Afghanistan's 1,000-year-old Bamiyan Buddhas; footage of IS militants methodically sledgehammering statues in the Mosul museum.
The show covers a century of destruction, from the German army's World War I destruction of the university and library of Louvain, Belgium to the shelling of the National and University Library in Sarajevo during the Bosnian war in 1992.
The 1940 devastation of England's Coventry Cathedral by Germany's Luftwaffe is shown alongside the destruction of the Frauenkirche in Dresden by Allied bombing in 1945.
Both were later rebuilt, in very different ways: Coventry with a modern cathedral beside the ruins of the old, Dresden brick by brick from the original plans.
Images of destruction sit alongside stories of resistance and rescue. The show features the work of the World War II Monuments Men, who saved Nazi-looted artworks, and tells the story of Khaled al-Asaad, a scholar who devoted his life to studying Syria's ancient site of Palmyra and was murdered by IS in 2015.
Some militaries have made efforts to prevent looting and destruction. The British Army recently set up a Cultural Property Protection Unit — modern-day monuments men and women — and the exhibition includes a pack of "archaeology awareness playing cards" distributed to U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Internationally backed projects to train craftspeople and archaeologists in Syria and Iraq may help those countries recreate what has been lost. And the law has made small steps toward bringing cultural vandals to justice. In 2016, Islamic extremist Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi was convicted of destroying World Heritage cultural sites in Timbuktu, Mali — the first war-crimes conviction by the International Criminal Court for cultural destruction.
"It has always been part of warfare," Agar said. "All that has changed in recent years is the awareness and attempt to stop it."
The display is one of three linked exhibitions at the museum under the heading Culture Under Attack. The second looks at how British museums evacuated their treasures from London to keep them safe during World War II — and what they left behind. The third, Rebel Sounds, explores music as resistance, focusing on clandestine jazz fans in Nazi Germany, punks fighting for the right to party during Northern Ireland's violent "Troubles," a Belgrade radio station that championed free speech and Serbian techno in the war-torn 1990s, and musicians from Mali who defied an Islamist ban on music.
Culture Under Attack opens Friday and runs to January 5. Admission is free.
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Pope Strives to Fight Clergy Sex Abuse With Vatican Summit
"Listen to the cry of the young, who want justice," Pope Francis said
By Nicole Winfield • Published at 6:24 am on February 21, 2019
The day began with an African woman telling an extraordinary gathering of Catholic leaders that her priestly rapist forced her to have three abortions over a dozen years after he started violating her at age 15. It ended with a Colombian cardinal warning them they could all face prison if they let such crimes go unpunished.
In between, Pope Francis began charting a new course for the Catholic Church to confront clergy sexual abuse and cover-up, a scandal that has consumed his papacy and threatens the credibility of the Catholic hierarchy at large.
Opening a first-ever Vatican summit on preventing abuse, Francis warned 190 bishops and religious superiors on Thursday that their flocks were demanding concrete action, not just words, to punish predator priests and keep children safe. He offered them 21 proposals to consider going forward, some of them obvious and easy to adopt, others requiring new laws.
But his main point in summoning the Catholic hierarchy to the Vatican for a four-day tutorial was to impress upon them that clergy sex abuse is not confined to the United States or Ireland, but is a global scourge that requires a concerted, global response.
"Listen to the cry of the young, who want justice," Francis told the gathering. "The holy people of God are watching and expect not just simple and obvious condemnations, but efficient and concrete measures to be established."
More than 30 years after the scandal first erupted in Ireland and Australia, and 20 years after it hit the U.S., bishops and Catholic officials in many parts of Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia still either deny that clergy sex abuse exists in their regions or play down the problem.
Francis, the first Latin American pope, called the summit after he himself botched a well-known sex abuse cover-up case in Chile last year and the scandal reignited in the U.S.
The tone for the high stakes summit was set at the start, with victims from five continents — Europe, Africa, Asia, South America and North America — telling the bishops of the trauma of their abuse and the additional pain the church's indifference caused them.
"You are the physicians of the soul and yet, with rare exceptions, you have been transformed — in some cases — into murderers of the soul, into murderers of the faith," Chilean survivor Juan Carlos Cruz told the bishops in his videotaped testimony.
Other survivors were not identified, including the woman from Africa who said she was so young and trusting when her priest started raping her that she didn't even know she was being abused.
"He gave me everything I wanted when I accepted to have sex; otherwise he would beat me," she told the bishops. "I got pregnant three times and he made me have an abortion three times, quite simply because he did not want to use condoms or contraceptives."
Manila Cardinal Luis Tagle choked up as he responded to their testimony.
In a moving meditation that followed the video testimony, Tagle told his brother bishops that the wounds they had inflicted on the faithful through their negligence and indifference to the sufferings of their flock recalled the wounds of Christ on the cross.
He demanded bishops and superiors no longer turn a blind eye to the harm caused by clergy who rape and molest the young.
"Our lack of response to the suffering of victims, yes even to the point of rejecting them and covering up the scandal to protect perpetrators and the institution, has injured our people," Tagle said. The result, he said, had left a "deep wound in our relationship with those we are sent to serve."
After he offered the bishops a vision of what a bishop should be, the Vatican's onetime sex crimes prosecutor told them what a bishop should do. Archbishop Charles Scicluna delivered a step-by-step lesson Thursday on how to conduct an abuse investigation under the church's canon law, repeatedly citing the example of Pope Benedict XVI, who turned the Vatican around on the issue two decades ago.
Calling for a conversion from a culture of silence to a "culture of disclosure," Scicluna told bishops they should cooperate with civil law enforcement investigations and announce decisions about predators to their communities once cases have been decided.
He said victims had the right to seek damages from the church and that bishops should consider using lay experts to help guide them during abuse investigations.
The people of God "should come to know us as friends of their safety and that of their children and youth," he said. "We will protect them at all cost. We will lay down our lives for the flocks entrusted to us."
Finally, Scicluna warned them that it was a "grave sin" to withhold information from the Vatican about candidates for bishops — a reference to the recent scandal of the now-defrocked former American cardinal, Theodore McCarrick. It was apparently an open secret in some church circles that McCarrick slept with young seminarians. He was defrocked last week by Francis after a Vatican trial found credible reports that he abused minors as well as adults.
Francis, for his part, offered a path of reform going forward, handing out the 21 proposals for the church to consider.
He called for specific protocols to handle accusations against bishops, in yet another reference to the McCarrick scandal. He suggested protocols to govern the transfers of seminarians or priests to prevent predators from moving freely to unsuspecting communities.
One idea called for bolstering child protection laws in some countries by raising the minimum age for marriage to 16; another suggested a basic handbook showing bishops how to investigate cases.
In the final speech of the day, Colombian Cardinal Rubén Salazar Gómez warned his brother bishops that they could face not only canonical sanctions but also imprisonment for a cover-up if they failed to properly deal with allegations.
Abuse and cover-up, he said, "is the distortion of the meaning of ministry, which converts it into a means to impose force, to violate the conscience and the bodies of the weakest.
Abuse survivors have turned out in droves in Rome to demand accountability and transparency from church leaders and assert that the time of sex abuse cover-ups is over.
"The question is this: Why should the church be allowed to handle the pedophile question? The question of pedophilia is not a question of religion, it is (a question of) crime," Francesco Zanardi, head of the main victims advocacy group in Italy Rete L'Abuso, or Abuse Network, told a news conference in the Italian parliament.
Hours before the Vatican summit opened, activists in Poland pulled down a statue of a priest accused of sexually abusing minors. They said the stunt was to protest the failure of the Polish Catholic Church in resolving the problem of clergy sex abuse.
Video showed three men attaching a rope around the statue of the late Monsignor Henryk Jankowski in the northern city of Gdansk and pulling it to the ground in the dark. They then placed children's underwear in one of the statue's hands and a white lace church vestment worn by altar boys on the statue's body. Jankowski is accused of molesting boys.
The private broadcaster TVN24 reported the three men were arrested.
Jankowski, who died in 2010, rose to prominence in the 1980s through his support for the pro-democracy Solidarity movement against Poland's communist regime. World leaders including President George H.W. Bush and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher visited his church to recognize his anti-communist activity.
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PSY Still On to Perform at ‘Christmas in Washington’ Show
Korean rapper apologized for anti-American performances Friday
Published at 8:38 am on December 8, 2012
Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
South Korean rapper PSY is still scheduled to perform at Sunday's "Christmas in Washington" concert at the National Building Museum after he apologized Friday for performing songs with anti-American lyrics at a concert protesting the U.S. military presence in South Korea during the early stages of the Iraq war in 2004.
The 34-year-old PSY, born Park Jae-Sang, said he was "deeply sorry" for performing the song "Dear American," a song written by the South Korean metal band N.E.X.T. In reference to American soldiers, the song includes the lyrics "Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law, and fathers/Kill them all slowly and painfully." At another concert, PSY smashed a model of a U.S. tank on stage.
"While I'm grateful for the freedom to express one's self, I've learned there are limits to what language is appropriate and I'm deeply sorry for how these lyrics could be interpreted," PSY's statement read, in part. "I will forever be sorry for any pain I have caused by those words."
News from around the country and around the globe
As a young man, PSY attended college in America, studying first at both Boston University and then Berklee College of Music, but he later returned to South Korea without earning a degree.
PSY recently shot to unexpected stardom after the music video for his song "Gangnam Style" went viral and became YouTube's most-accessed video ever. The song itself, which is performed almost entirely in Korean, has also earned heavy radio play in the United States.
The "Christmas in Washington" concert, which the First Family is expected to attend, will be filmed Sunday for broadcast December 21 by TNT. Representatives for the network, which has final say over the selection of performers, told NBC News that PSY would perform as scheduled.
The program is hosted by Conan O'Brien. Other scheduled performers are Diana Ross, Demi Lovato, Megan Hilty, Scott McCreery, and Chris Mann.
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MAKING OF AN ASTRONAUT
Walls Won't Save Our Cities From Rising Seas. Here's What Will
'Green' approaches may be the best way to protect coastal communities from flooding associated with climate change.
Highway 80 in Georgia regularly floods during high tides. This flooding occurred after a storm in October 2015.Dronemedia.com
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July 27, 2017, 2:43 PM UTC / Updated Sept. 19, 2017, 4:30 PM UTC
To some people, climate change seems like a problem only for future generations. But for residents of many coastal cities, the future is already here — in the form of rising sea levels and frequent, destructive floods. And the problem is only going to get worse. The latest research suggests that by 2100, up to 60 percent of oceanfront communities on the East and Gulf Coasts of the U.S. may experience chronic flooding from climate change.
The fix for inundation might seem pretty simple: just erect tall seawalls and other barriers to keep the ocean at bay. But barriers can fail. Even when they don’t, they can have the unintended consequence of harming delicate coastal habitats and the animals that live in them.
"Fundamentally, there is an issue with the concept of building walls to stop flooding," says Rachel Gittman, an environmental scientist and ecologist at East Carolina University. "We should not be thinking that we can stop every flood."
Surfers walk the sand in Solana Beach, Calif., in 2013, below a seawall which holds back the ocean and supports the hill side where homes sit precariously perched atop cliffs.Lenny Ignelzi / AP file
The good news? Walls aren’t the only option. Environmental scientists and engineers have devised a range of clever ways to prevent coastal flooding by sopping up water and limiting erosion and wave energy. And then there’s permeable pavement, which allows floodwaters to seep into the ground below rather than pool on the surface.
Many experts, Gittman included, are convinced that these and other “green” alternatives will hold the key to saving our coastal communities.
"Hard" vs. "Soft" Defenses
Seawalls, along with bulkheads (vertical walls that retain soil but provide little protection from waves) and revetments (sloping structures on banks and cliffs) have long been the go-to defenses against coastal flooding. Fourteen percent of all continental U.S. shoreline has been armored with these “hard” structures — and that number is rising. At the current rate, it’s estimated that nearly one-third of U.S. coastline will be armored by 2100.
But there are big problems with these bulwarks.
For one thing, instead of damping wave energy, these structures simply deflect it to adjacent areas. So if waves batter a seawall along one coastal property, their energy will be redirected to neighboring properties. That means these properties will experience wave energies even greater than would be experienced in the absence of seawalls.
And even carefully constructed barriers are prone to failure. This can happen, for example, when wave action erodes soil or sand at the base of a wall and causes it to collapse.
Then there is the environmental toll of armored shorelines. These barriers compromise delicate coastal habitats and reduce biodiversity.
"You end up losing the structural complexity that organisms like to use," Gittman says. "The wall is just a wall and it's not providing any habitat."
A better approach, Gittman says, is to create so-called “living shorelines.” The term encompasses various “soft” shore-protecting techniques and technologies involving mostly natural materials.
The components of a living shoreline are site-specific. For shores with relatively calm waters, the best bet is often a water-absorbing salt marsh, possibly fortified with sill-like ledges made of rocks, oyster shell bags, or “logs” made of coconut fiber. Alternatively, a shoreline may benefit from the planting of mangroves, which develop hardy root systems firmly anchored in mud.
A bulkhead constructed directly adjacent to a natural marsh shoreline in Frisco, NCNortheastern University
"Building a living shoreline starts with a good understanding of what the natural condition along that shoreline once was," says Steven Scyphers, a coastal scientist at Northeastern University. He adds that the process of creating a living shoreline might be as straightforward as restoring what once existed at the site — whether it’s oyster reefs, coral reefs, or other living breakwaters that dissipate wave energy.
The newly protected shorelines become more stable over time as plants, roots, and reefs grow. This brings a number of benefits.
Salt marshes and mangroves trap sediment and organic matter, allowing them to grow in elevation. That affords rising protection against inundation. Similarly, the growth in height of oyster reefs can outpace sea level rise, allowing them to continue protecting shorelines well into the future. And according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, just 15 horizontal feet of marshy terrain can absorb 50 percent of incoming wave energy.
Direct comparisons between hard and soft defenses are hard to come by. But Gittman's research suggests that marshes are significantly better than bulkheads at protecting shorelines. In a survey of three coastal regions of North Carolina, Hurricane Irene damaged 76 percent of bulkheads. Shorelines protected by marshes sustained no damage.
Living shorelines aren't suitable for all situations, Gittman says, adding that protecting New York City from a powerful storm like Hurricane Sandy would have required establishing miles of natural habitat, like oyster reefs, to dissipate the big waves. But a mix of natural and artificial protections could work quite well in similar situations.
If a shoreline is already armored, Scyphers says, the structure could be augmented with natural components. The Alabama Nature Conservancy is doing just that along walled coastline areas, strengthening bulkheads with square wire cages. Over time, marsh plants will grow through the cages, creating a slope of plant matter that lessens wave impact against the wall.
If living shorelines can help keep coastal communities safe from water that from the sea, what about water that falls from the sky?
Aside from raising sea levels, warmer global temperatures are expected to increase the intensity and frequency of heavy downpours. That means more localized flooding (when rainfall overwhelms urban drainage systems) and riverine flooding (when river channels overflow their banks).
"If we had developed urban patterns differently, we wouldn't have these issues," says landscape architect and urban ecologist Alexander Felson, an assistant professor at the Yale University School of Forestry. "What we've done is we've put in a lot of impervious surfaces and blockage to the natural hydrology of the landscape."
Felson says green infrastructure can help mitigate the flooding that can arise when much of the ground in an area is covered by asphalt and other impervious surfaces. Like living shorelines, green infrastructure encompasses many systems, but all are basically natural designs that absorb rainwater and storm water, thus channeling it into the ground.
One simple type of green infrastructure is the rain garden — essentially a “bowl” of dirt measuring about 100 to 300 square feet in diameter — that’s been filled with soil (typically clay and sand), plants, and mulch. These small-scale designs collect storm water runoff from houses or small buildings so that it can evaporate or be absorbed by plants and returned to the atmosphere as water vapor (via a natural process known as evapotranspiration).
In some communities, it makes sense to create larger versions of rain gardens known as bio-retention gardens. Felson recently spearheaded a project to do just that in flood-prone parts of Bridgeport, Connecticut, on Long Island Sound.
"In our case, the site was a former wetland area that we filled, and we punched a hole through the clay layer to increase infiltration," he says. Periodically, the garden fills with rain and floodwater, turning into a full wetland that serves as habitat for wildlife. And that makes economic as well as ecological sense. As Felson says, "The cheapest thing you can do is restore natural drainage and create urban spaces that can flood."
To further boost a city's ability to handle large volumes of water, rain gardens, bio-retention gardens, and bioswales (sloped landscape features that channel water into vegetation-filled ditches) can be supplemented with other green infrastructure.
A living shoreline (granite rock sill with salt marsh, both natural and planted) in front of a house on Bogue Banks in NCNortheastern University
Green roofs and green walls blanketed with vegetation can reduce the volume of storm water runoff from buildings. On the ground, concrete and other impervious surfaces can be replaced with a hard but porous surface. A new concrete product called Topmix Permeable can absorb water at a rate of about 880 gallons per minute. That means instead of pooling in parking lots and road surfaces, water infiltrates into the ground.
And, says Felson, “simply increasing the numbers of trees and canopies in a city increases evapotranspiration.”
The Real Problem
Though they can be very effective at coping with excess water, living shorelines and green infrastructure enhancements don't address the root causes of coastal flooding — a problem that is especially severe in communities in Louisiana and Maryland.
"They are at the lowest and flattest parts of the coastal United States and also where the land is sinking," says Shana Udvardy, a Washington D.C.-based climate specialist with the Union of Concerned Scientists and co-author of a recent study on coastal flooding.
Climate change will only worsen the plight of these communities and similar ones in other parts of the country.
If global sea levels were to rise just one foot within the next 20 years (an "intermediate" scenario), the study showed, the number of chronically inundated communities would rise from 90 today to 170. More than 100 of these communities would see up to 25 percent of their livable land flooded.
By 2100, 490 communities would be chronically flooded under the intermediate scenario. Under the “high” scenario, where the sea level rises 6.5 feet, 670 communities would be chronically flooded. That includes Boston, Newark, Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles, and all but one of the New York City’s five boroughs.
"The high scenario is increasingly plausible as the melting of ice sheets accelerates," Udvardy says, adding that communities will have to choose either to defend against flooding with walls, living shorelines, or green infrastructure; accommodate flooding by elevating houses and buildings; or retreat altogether from flood-prone areas.
But another option exists for protecting our cities from flooding: change our collective behavior to slow the rate of climate change.
If the world steeply cuts carbon emissions and warming is limited to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, about 380 U.S. communities could be saved from chronic flooding in this century, Udvardy says. As she puts it, "When it comes right down to it, the best way to help coastal communities is to implement the Paris climate agreement and keep global warming down."
*This story was originally published on July 26, 2017 on NBC News MACH.
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How to Garden in the Arctic
Joseph Bennington-Castro
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United Natural Foods, Inc. announces executive team transition plan
Michael Zechmeister, a long-time General Mills executive, has been named a senior vice president at United Natural Foods, Inc., and will take over as chief financial officer in October.
United Natural Foods, Inc. | Sep 15, 2015
United Natural Foods, Inc. has announced an executive team transition plan, bringing in a former General Mills executive to become chief financial officer next month.
Michael Zechmeister has been appointed senior vice president, effective Sept. 15, and he will succeed Mark Shamber as senior vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer, effective mid-October. Shamber will assist with the executive team transition and continue to assist the company with business strategy and development through Dec. 31.
“Mark has played an integral role in our growth and development over the last nine years and, on behalf of our board and management team, I want to thank him for his contributions,” Steve Spinner, the company’s president and chief executive officer, said in a prepared statement. “Over the next several weeks Mark will work closely with Mike [Zechmeister ] through this transition. We are excited to have Mike on board as a seasoned leader in finance with significant experience successfully managing and growing multi-billion-dollar businesses as we further adapt to meet the ever-changing needs of customers in an expanding and evolving marketplace.”
Zechmeister has more than 25 years of corporate finance, audit, treasury, operations, and merger and acquisition experience. During his tenure with General Mills, Inc., he served in a variety of senior finance roles, including most recently as vice president, finance, Yoplait USA.
“I have enjoyed working with Steve and the entire UNFI team over the last 12-plus years,” Shamber said. “I believe UNFI has a tremendously talented organization with a strong foundation for future growth.”
TAGS: Manufacturer and Brand Food and Beverage News
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U.S. Troops Drank all the Beer in Reykjavík During a NATO Military Exercise
By Janice Williams On 10/28/18 at 1:18 PM EDT
A man pours beer from an icelandic handmade brewery into a glass during the festival 'Mondial de la Biere' on June 30, 2017, in Paris. U.S. Troops deployed in Iceland depleted Reykjavík beer supply. Geoffory Van Der Hasselt/AFP/Getty Images
U.S. Cold War 2018
More than 6,000 U.S. soldiers stationed in Iceland nearly wiped out the capital city's beer supply.
Military personnel are headed to Sweden and Finland for the Trident Juncture 18—considered to be NATO's biggest military exercise since the Cold War. U.S. troops made a pit stop in Reykjavík over the weekend and drank up all the beer at various bars and restaurants across the city, according to Icelandic news site Vísir. Local breweries were reportedly forced to send emergency barrels to bars depleted of their beer supplies while tending to American soldiers.
Some bar and restaurant owners told local news media on Sunday U.S. troops were particularly interested in drinking the local lager as opposed to imported beer. Gull, created by the Iceland brewery Ölgerð Egils Skallagrímssonar, was especially popular with visiting military members. The brewery was one of many that had to send an emergency supply of beers to bars in Reykjavík.
Around 50,000 soldiers across all of NATO's 29 members, including alliance partners Sweden and Finland, are expected to participate in the Trident Juncture. Drills will include roughly 65 naval ships, 10,000 vehicles and 250 aircraft.
Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the "ambitious and demanding" exercise was intended to send "a clear message" to residents within NATO nations as well as opposing countries. "NATO does not seek confrontation, but we stand ready to defend all allies against any threat," Stoltenberg told Radio Free Europe on Wednesday.
The secretary-general also noted the two-week event would represent a "strong display of our capabilities and our resolve to work together."
The exercise comes following President Donald Trump's intention to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), which was originally signed by President Ronald Regan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev of the former Soviet Union in 1987. Trump recently said Russia "violated the agreement."
"They have been violating it for many years," Trump said at his Nevada rally on October 20. "And we're not going to let them violate a nuclear agreement and go out and do weapons and we're not allowed to."
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect the number of NATO soldiers taking part in the drills.
U.S. Troops Drank all the Beer in Reykjavík During a NATO Military Exercise | U.S.
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Staal enjoying road to 1,000 points for Wild
Center faces Blackhawks one away from becoming 89th NHL player to reach milestone
by Jessi Pierce / NHL.com Independent Correspondent
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Eric Staal remembers his first NHL point. He, like most, never anticipated 998 more to follow.
"My first point was a goal [Oct. 23, 2003]," Staal said. "It was against [the Boston Bruins], 2-on-1. It was a great pass by Jeff O'Neill and we pretty much had the goalie down and out. I was able to just fire it on net, pretty much an empty net. It's a great memory to have, and something that I'll never forget."
The center is one point from becoming the 89th player to get 1,000 in the NHL, something he could achieve when the Minnesota Wild visit the Chicago Blackhawks at United Center on Sunday (7 p.m. ET; NHLN, NBCSCH, FS-N, FS-WI, NHL.TV).
"The years go quickly, time goes by, but I've enjoyed every minute I've played and every point that I've contributed to my teams," said Staal, who has skated in 1,207 games, fifth-most among active NHL players. "At the end of the day, I'm just trying to help my teams win."
Since signing a three-year contract with the Wild as a free agent July 1, 2016, the 35-year-old has 218 points (103 goals, 115 assists) in 278 games, including 42 goals and 76 points in 2017-18. He has 25 points (11 goals, 14 assists) in 33 games this season and six points (three goals, three assists) in his past five games.
Video: PHI@MIN: Staal scores his second goal on power play
"He's awesome," Wild forward Jason Zucker said. "He's a guy who's been a lot of fun to play with the past couple of years. Being on a line with him, you learn a lot playing with a guy like that. When you think of what 1,000 points is, that's pretty insane. It's awesome for him. It's a lot of fun to be a part of it right now. We're excited for it. It's just fun to play with the guy. He's an awesome guy in the locker room, he's had an unbelievable career and it's just another milestone."
Chosen by the Carolina Hurricanes with the No. 2 pick in the 2003 NHL Draft, Staal has scored 428 goals, fourth in the NHL since 2003-04 with his 3,799 shots on goal second behind Washington Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin (5,390) during that span. He had 775 points (322 goals, 453 assists) in 909 games for the Hurricanes, including NHL career-highs of 45 goals, 55 assists and 100 points in 2005-06 to help them win the Stanley Cup. He was captain for six seasons before he was traded to the New York Rangers on Feb. 28, 2016 for forward Aleksi Saarela and second-round draft picks in 2016 and 2017.
Staal is fifth among active NHL players with 999 points (428 goals, 571 assists) and has no plans of slowing down after reaching the 1,000-point milestone.
"You don't ever think of it," Staal said. "You go day by day. You always strive to be the best you can be every day and every game that you play. It's pretty surreal to play as many games as I have and been around as long as I have. I'm grateful every day I get to play and be here with these guys and enjoy it because it goes quickly, and hopefully I have a little time left."
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Bayonne, Jersey Journal back in court over yearlong police brutality settlement case
By Terrence T. McDonald | The Jersey Journal
Bayonne and The Jersey Journal are back in court.
After the yearlong fight over access to a settlement agreement in a police brutality lawsuit, the newspaper is asking that $112,000 in legal fees be awarded and that a civil penalty be imposed because of the city's "intentional violation'' of the state Open Public Records Act.
"It is well settled that a municipality's settlement agreement is absolutely subject to disclosure under OPRA and that municipalities cannot – as a matter of law – keep such records secret through non-disclosure agreements,'' Justin Quinn, a partner in the Robinson Miller firm and counsel for The Jersey Journal, wrote in papers submitted to Superior Court Judge Daniel D'Alessandro.
"As a result, this case should not have been litigated in every state and federal court in New Jersey. But it was. And not because of The Jersey Journal, but because Bayonne continued to raise meritless appeals and other litigation roadblocks to stymie The Jersey Journal's efforts for prompt access.''
The Open Public Records Act says prevailing parties in OPRA disputes shall be entitled to reasonable attorney fees, but Bayonne argued in court on Friday that there is no prevailing party here. Yes, The Jersey Journal ultimately received a copy of the settlement agreement it sought through OPRA but because the document contained limited redactions, no one can be considered the prevailing party, Bayonne's attorney, Daniel M. Santarsiero, argued.
"The request was for the entire settlement agreement," Santarsiero said. "The Jersey Journal did not obtain exactly what they asked for."
Judge D'Alessandro summarized the numerous state and federal court actions that took place before Bayonne finally released the settlement agreement on March 16 and noted that The Jersey Journal is the party that asserted the public's right to know under OPRA.
"But for The Jersey Journal, the settlement would not have been released," the judge told Santarsiero. "If they weren't the prevailing party, who was?"
"It's a stalemate," Santarsiero said, prompting the judge to look up the definition of "stalemate,'' which, he said, means "a draw.''
"It doesn't sound like a draw,'' D'Alessandro said.
The $1.5 million-plus settlement agreement ended a federal lawsuit between Bayonne and members of the Walsh family, who said that when police arrested Brandon Walsh at their home in 2013 they beat him with a flashlight and pepper-sprayed members of the family.
The Jersey Journal filed an OPRA request for the document in March 2017, a request Bayonne denied. For the next year, both sides appeared in state and federal courtrooms as Bayonne and attorneys for the city's insurer, the New Jersey Intergovernmental Insurance Fund, argued that the document was exempt from the state's public-records law. Bayonne finally released the settlement agreement on March 16.
Quinn noted to D'Alessandro that Bayonne lost at every court level, including when the New Jersey Supreme Court decided not to hear the city's appeal.
"I do not understand how we could not be a prevailing party," Quinn said. "In addition to receiving precisely what we requested in both our pre-litigation letter and verified complaint, we succeeded in having each of Bayonne's numerous appeals denied."
Asked by the judge to provide case law bolstering his argument, Santarsiero was unable to do so.
Santarsiero also argued that the legal fees submitted by the newspaper are not reasonable. The Jersey Journal said it worked 298 hours on the case. About 13 of those, Santarsiero argued, represent either duplicative work or work done by multiple legal partners that could have been handled by one, but he was unable to find in his notes exactly how many hours he wanted to dispute.
D'Alessandro asked Santarsiero to submit a letter by Wednesday listing all the hours Bayonne believes are unreasonable. The Jersey Journal will then have until Monday to respond and D'Alessandro indicated he would rule shortly after that.
Walter Luers, an attorney who has filed hundreds of lawsuits regarding OPRA matters, told The Jersey Journal it's a "common tactic" for public agencies to attempt to withhold payment of legal fees by arguing there is no prevailing party.
Luers has examined all of the court records in the case of the Walsh settlement and critiqued Santarsiero's argument.
"That's not a draw. That's not a stalemate," he said. "The Jersey Journal won. ... I don't even think it's a close case."
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Watch Sharon Van Etten reflect on her early days in trailer for ‘Departure’ short film
The film will focus on the musician's last day living in New York City
Sharon Van Etten has shared the trailer for a new short film about her called Departure.
The movie, which arrives later this week, will focus on a recording session held on the musician’s last day living in New York City.
Read more: Sharon Van Etten interview: “I don’t think I’d be a good wrestler, but I really love Glow“
“I moved to New York about 15 years ago,” Van Etten says in the trailer. “That’s longer than I’ve lived anywhere and I’m trying not it let to get to me too much because I am sentimental.”
The clip also sees her reflect on moving to the city and the people she met when she arrived there.
I'm so happy to be able to share my story with all of you in this way. 'Departure' will be out this Thursday via @AmazonMusic. pic.twitter.com/9AlSxqbkAw
— Sharon Van Etten (@sharonvanetten) September 23, 2019
Departure will be available to watch on Amazon Music from Thursday (September 26). It was directed by Josh Goleman and will include a performance of her ‘Remind Me Tomorrow’ track ‘Seventeen’, featuring Norah Jones.
“I’m so happy to be able to share my story with all of you in this way,” Van Etten tweeted along with the trailer. Watch it above now.
Earlier this month, the musician featured on Jeff Goldblum’s cover of the Irving Berlin classic ‘Let’s Face The Music And Dance’. She previously collaborated with the actor and musician on ‘The Capitol Studio Sessions’ in 2018.
Van Etten released her latest album (and first in five years) ‘Remind Me Tomorrow’ in January. In a four-star review, NME said: “‘Remind Me Tomorrow’, then, serves not so much as a nudge, but a forceful and playful shove to remind listeners just how special Van Etten’s talent is on both a lyrical and musical level. Don’t call it a comeback, but it may well be her most intoxicating and impressive work to date.”
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Mike Lee’s Obamacare Bombshell
About Ramesh Ponnuru
Follow Ramesh Ponnuru on Twitter
Last night Phil Klein had a report that is much more significant than I think a lot of people have realized:
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said on Wednesday that the Senate parliamentarian has told him that it may be possible for Republicans to push harder on repealing Obamacare’s regulations than the current House bill, which contradicts the assertion by House leadership that the legislation goes after Obamacare as aggressively as possible under Senate rules. . . .
Lee also said that the parliamentarian told him it wasn’t until very recently, after the unveiling of the House bill, that any Republican even asked her about the possibility of repealing regulations with a simple majority.
Lee’s statement was followed by, and probably contributed to, last-minute efforts by the House leadership to tweak its health-care bill to win a vote scheduled for today. But if Lee is right, then what’s called for is stopping this process and starting over.
The central defect of the bill is that it leaves too many Obamacare regulations in place. That’s why conservatives rightly say that it falls short of repealing and replacing Obamacare. It’s why it doesn’t do much to lower premiums. If it did more to reduce those premiums, it would make coverage more attractive to people and more people would get covered. Even the Congressional Budget Office, as dubious as some of its assumptions are, acknowledges this point.
House Republican leaders have asserted repeatedly that the bill is carefully designed to go as far as it can to tackle regulations while staying within Senate rules that shield it from a filibuster. The Senate parliamentarian, they said, would allow most regulatory provisions to be filibustered; if the bill had too many such provisions, Democrats could use a filibuster to keep the bill from even being taken up in the Senate. But, they added, many of the regulatory features of Obamacare that Republicans want to change could be addressed by Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price and by further legislation that would win enough Democratic support to overcome filibusters.
If Lee is right, though, none of this is true. Republicans can change or eliminate more of Obamacare’s regulations with a simple-majority vote. They don’t have to wait for a second and third stage of policy change to make needed reforms. They can write a bill that would do more to lower premiums, get a better CBO score on coverage, and do more to repeal Obamacare than their current one.
But they can’t do it on the fly. They will have to figure out just how much freedom the Senate majority has to change regulations and then what regulatory changes both make sense and can win over a majority of both chambers. They ought to take the time to do that.
Ramesh Ponnuru is a senior editor for National Review, a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute. @rameshponnuru
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Finally, a Space Force — Now Comes the Hard Part
By Taylor Dinerman
About Taylor Dinerman
Tropical Storm Bill in the Gulf of Mexico in a picture from the International Space Station by NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, June 15, 2015. (NASA/Handout via Reuters)
So now, barring a last minute hold up, we have the Space Force President Trump wanted, a new military service dedicated as one proposed concept puts it “The mission of the US Space Force will be to deter conflict in space, enable commerce, ensure the rule of law, and should deterrence fail, secure American and allied diplomatic, information, military and economic interests in space while supporting terrestrial forces seeking the earliest possible war termination on favorable terms.” The organization’s success will be judged by its ability accomplish these tasks. Unfortunately, the Space Force starts life at a disadvantage.
Congressman Mike Rogers (R., Ala.), who has been a driving force behind this effort, is quoted saying that “We have allowed China and Russia to become our peers, not our near peers and that is unacceptable.” Indeed, when it comes to space weaponry, one knowledgeable source explained that if the Defense Department followed its usual procedures it would take us as long as ten years to catch up with Beijing and Moscow. Fortunately for us, the Space Force will be able to focus on repairing the vulnerabilities of America’s space systems without being distracted by other institutional priorities.
General David Goldfein, the outgoing Air Force Chief of Staff, has publicly confirmed that China has a full set of anti-satellite weapons, including co-orbital ones that can creep up on their targets and destroy them. They also now have high powered jammers that may be able to degrade or eliminate the U.S. GPS system and even take out our array of communication satellites that link with our intelligence gathering spacecraft.
The creation of Space Force is more important than ever, but the greatest challenge for President Trump will be to find the right military and civilian personnel to lead the new service. What the Space Force desperately needs are leaders who combine real expertise with vision, and above all: have the moral courage to go against those individuals in the military space establishment and the arms control advocates who’ve allowed the U.S. to lose the military space supremacy it once had.
This means that the men and women who’re going to lead the United States Space Force are going to have to go to Secretary Esper and to the White House and make the case for an urgent program that will quickly develop systems to defend our national space assets and to hold at risk those of our potential adversaries. And most important of all, they will have to convince a divided Congress to fund this effort.
The old procurement rules and their associated bureaucracies cannot be allowed to slow down these programs. The Space Force procurement organizations, including the new Space Development Agency must be allowed to experiment as well as the freedom to fail. The new service must also be allowed to deploy systems before they are fully certified and tested. Getting these systems into operation, even if they are less than perfect, is now more important than following rules that were laid down in the 1980s and before, which were intended to satisfy politicians who feared being accused of spending money on weapons that ‘wouldn’t work’.
As they begin to build a new organization and a new institutional culture, the men and women of the Space Force deserve to be encouraged and allowed a high level of forbearance. Their job is not going to be easy, but the reward, a future of Pax Americana in space, are worth it. The alternative may be devastating.
Taylor Dinerman is the author of Subway Lists and Other Writings from the iPhone Era.
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Expert Blog › Theo Spencer
Coal is Cheaper Than Dirt -- It's a Joke, But It's On Taxpayers
June 28, 2012 Theo Spencer
At a lease sale today in Wyoming of taxpayer-owned coal, the single and winning bid was about $1.10 a ton. That’s dirt-cheap. Or actually, I should say it’s cheaper than dirt. According to costhelper.com, and ask.com, a ton of dirt costs between $8-$30 a cubic yard, and a cubic yard weighs between 2,000 and 2,700 pounds.
Yet the largest privately-held coal company in the world, St. Louis-based Peabody Energy, was able to pick up 721 million tons of coal for about $1.10 a ton today under a scandalous lease program operated by the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM), at cost of $1.2 billion in lost taxpayer revenue (see below). This is supposedly ‘fair market value,’ according to the BLM. However, these taxpayer-owned assets now sell on the open market in the United States for between $8-$14 a ton, and between $80-$122 a ton overseas.
That’s a scam, a giveaway to Big Coal by the federal government at taxpayer expense in a time of very tight economic belts.
It’s also particularly disturbing coming only four days after The Washington Post ran an exclusive story highlighting how this government program has cost state and federal taxpayers nearly $30 billion dollars over the last 30 years. The story is based on a report issued by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).
You can read my blog about it here. The BLM says its program is fair, yet the Department of Interior’s (BLM is part of Interior) office of the Inspector General just opened an investigation into the program, and the Government Accountability Office has two going.
According to a press release from IEEFA issued today about Thursday's lease sale:
Competitive" Bid Process With Only One Company Underscores Deep Flaws in BLM "Giveaway" Process; Approved Price for U.S.-Owned Coal Well Under Half of Fair Market Value.
U.S. taxpayers will lose an estimated $1.2 billion now that the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has reportedly accepted Thursday's bid from Peabody for 721 tons of federally owned Powder River Basin (PRB) coal, according to preliminary calculations announced today by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).
The BLM lease came just days after IEEFA released a major new report "The Great Giveaway: An Analysis of The United States' Long-Term Trend of Selling Federally Owned Coal for Less Than Fair Market Value" available online at http://www.ieefa.org.
coalfiredpowerplants
Theo Spencer
Senior Advocate, Dirty Energy, Lands Division, Nature Program
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The right way to use subjective criteria in layoffs
Reductions-in-force present a unique issue for an employer defending its decision in a subsequent discrimination case. The employer already has its legitimate, non-discriminatory reason baked into the termination—the economics of a layoff, which often causes qualified employees to lose their jobs. For this reason, reduction-in-force cases are often singularly focused on the issue of pretext.
In Beck v. Buckeye Pipeline Services Co. (6th Cir. 9/28/12) [pdf], the plaintiff claimed that the employer’s use of subjective criteria to select her for inclusion in the layoff created an inference that the employer singled her out because of her age or gender.
While agreeing the subjective decision-making can prove problematic in some cases, the court disagreed that its use is per se discriminatory.
Subjective criteria, it is true, sometimes make it difficult to distinguish between lawful and unlawful employment actions, and they deserve careful scrutiny…. When all is said and done, the use of subjective evaluation criteria does not by itself show discrimination, particularly in a reduction in force case.
What factors did the court rely upon to conclude that this employer’s use of subjective criteria in this layoff did not create an inference of discrimination?
There was no evidence that a disproportionately high rate of women or older workers were included in the layoff.
There was no evidence that the employer’s use of subjective evaluation procedures was a deviation from its normal decision-making process.
There was no evidence of dishonesty in the subjective decision-making process.
What lessons does this case teach hold for employers considering the use of subjective criteria in determining which employees to include in a workforce reduction?
What do your workforce demographics look like before and after the RIF, company-wide, department by department, and job function by job function? If it looks like your RIF affected women, minorities, or older workers more than their comparators, it will become harder to justify the legitimacy of the subjective criteria.
Do you always use subjective criteria as part of your decision-making? If not, it will look like you added a subjective component to this RIF for a reason (to single out someone or some group). If nothing else, you will have to explain why you deviated from the norm, an explanation that may be enough for the employee to survive summary judgment and get his or her case to a jury.
Was everyone honest in their subjective evaluations? The quickest way to buy yourself a jury trial is for the plaintiff to uncover dishonesty or other shenanigans in the decision-making process. If you are going to have a subjective component to any RIF, make sure the evaluations pass muster. How do they compare to past performance reviews? Have the employees ever been counseled, disciplined, or put on a performance plan? Are their objective criteria (sales numbers, for example) that could contradict a subjective evaluation?
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EEF Adventure Learning Trial
Schools taking part in EEF research
In Autumn 2019, 2,328 Year 9 students from 97 secondary schools (24 pupils per group) across England are taking part in a ground-breaking trial to assess the impact of an adventure learning experience on character development and attainment.
The research programme will be led by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) and independently evaluated by a team of researchers from Sheffield Hallam University (SHU).
The Outward Bound Trust and Commando Joe's have been specially selected as the delivery partners for this research trial.
WHAT IS BEING TESTED?
This research trial will determine the impact of an adventure learning programme on:
Students’ engagement in school
Student behaviour in school
How will the trial work?
97 schools have been randomised into three groups and will take part in either:
an Outward Bound adventure: the participants take part in a five-day residential course.
a Commando Joe's adventure: the participants take part in a five-day in-school adventure learning course.
the control group: the participants do not take part in an adventure course and instead receive £1,500 for development of pupils.
Trial timeline
Research trial registration opened.
Schools recruited to take part in the trial.
Baseline measures are taken for pupil self-regulation, pupil school engagement and behaviour. Schools randomly selected into three groups and informed of which group they are in.
Pre-intervention work with schools (pre-course preparation and planning).
Outward Bound and Commando Joe’s courses take place.
TWO WEEKS OF INTERVENTION
Measures are taken for self-regulation and school engagement.
Measures are taken for self-regulation, school engagement, behaviour and attainment. Telephone interviews and/or school case studies
Students sit their GCSEs.
The project team
Education Endowment Foundation
The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) was founded in 2011 by The Sutton Trust, as lead charity in partnership with Impetus-PEF, with a £125m grant from the Department for Education.
The EEF is an independent charity which aims to raise the attainment of 3-18 year-olds, particularly those facing disadvantage; develop their essential life skills; and prepare young people for the world of work and further study.
It does this by generating evidence of what works to improve teaching and learning, funding robust trials of high-potential programmes and approaches which have yet to be tested. The EEF then supports schools, nurseries and colleges across the country in using evidence so that it has the maximum possible benefit for young people.
The Outward Bound Trust
The Outward Bound Trust is an educational charity with a mission to stop self-doubt, remove limitations - whether real or perceived, and end the fear of failure in young people. We help teach young people the most important lesson they could ever learn: to believe in themselves. It’s the super power that transforms their behaviour throughout school, higher education, work, and beyond.
Commando Joes
Commando Joe’s is one of the UK’s leading educational providers, utilising the expertise of former services personnel to improve the educational outcomes for pupils through using the core values associated with military ethos such as self-discipline, confidence and teamwork. Our school programmes are well established and allow young people to develop life skills, character traits, attributes and behaviours, which have a positive impact on their educational attainment, engagement, employability and well-being.
Independent Evaluator: Sheffield Hallam University
The independent researchers at Sheffield Hallam University have a strong combination of research and practical experience that is relevant to this evaluation, including experience in large scale mixed-methods evaluations as well as secondary school teaching and youth work.
Fill in the form below to receive email updates on the EEF Adventure Learning Trial and other relevant news from Outward Bound.
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Our work gets results.
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Why it keeps kicking off everywhere: ‘Order’ versus social justice from the Balkans, to the Middle East, to the Andes
This is a cold war fought by “leaders” willing to maintain their privilege at all costs, to the detriment of a fatigued, divided, and traumatised population.
Igor Štiks
Protestors confronted by barbed wire in downtown Beirut. October, 2019.
Marwan Naamani/PA. All rights reserved.
Haiti, Ecuador, Chile, Lebanon, Catalonia, Hong Kong, Iraq, Algeria… almost weekly, a new protest front opens, and dispatches from streets and squares across the globe make it seem as though, in the words of Paul Mason, it's kicking off everywhere.
I am reminded of the now half-forgotten Bosnian protests that took place in 2014, during which I wrote a comment in The Guardian arguing that events in Bosnia-Herzegovina represented a terrifying image of our potential common future, but also a possible way out. The country is a patchwork of territories, divided among ethnonationalist chiefs and their gangs (commonly known as political parties), with a weak central government, kleptocracy at every level, and enormous social inequalities. It is the result of a successful peace treaty between these warlords, brokered by the US, which ended the war by cementing its core injustice.
Now, no one is happy, but no one wants a return to violence, and this is the ideal scenario for ethnonationalist rulers who seek to retain power forever by occasionally agitating inter-ethnic strife.
This is a cold war fought by “leaders” willing to maintain their privilege at all costs, to the detriment of a fatigued, divided, and traumatised population. Much of the same is true in other post-war societies such as Lebanon and Iraq, but also, with some differences, of course, in post-Pinochet Chile, post-Franco Spain or post-apartheid South Africa.
In all of these places, the social peace constructed after a war or dictatorship meant that victims and the citizenry at large, including new generations, has had to accept that many crimes remain wholly unpunished. Furthermore, unbridled capitalism was and still is the unquestioned rule of the new order in these societies. After all, neoliberalism was supposed to bring prosperity that would ease societal trauma, heal the wounds of violence or authoritarianism, and even trickle down to the most wretched of the earth.
It should come as no surprise that we see protests and riots erupting in these societies. Often, they are leaderless, emerging without planning from the outcries of citizens making a timeless demand: social justice in the face of a corrupt and cruel order. There is a spark in every case, though no one knows what it will be or when it will ignite the fire and chaos. But then, there is always confusion among media, concern from international organisations, the reports of disoriented observers, and, for a flickering moment, fear on the part of politicians – who quickly regroup and start plotting their next move. There are also inspirational chants and banners, infused with warmth, humour, and creativity, which often seduce us in to thinking that this time, something uniquely magical is happening.
There are also inspirational chants and banners, infused with warmth, humour, and creativity, which often seduce us in to thinking that this time, something uniquely magical is happening.
In 2014, the spark that ignited Bosnia came from students and ordinary citizens joining workers to resist the police and confront the regional government in Tuzla. Protests then spread like wildfire across the country, and regional and municipal authorities fell like dominos, resigning one after another. After protesters conquered the streets, they diverted their energy towards citizens' assemblies.
Some Bosnian activists still think it was a mistake to turn to horizontal democracy, contending that if you don't hold the streets and the fire (meaning, if you don't literally burn something, be it buildings, tires, or yourself), no one really notices. They may be correct; but nevertheless, for several weeks, the so-called Bosnian plenums quenched a worldwide thirst for radical participatory democracy. This global audience particularly enjoyed the spectacle of unity among citizens transgressing ethnic lines.
But it took little time for a joint effort by established political elites, international organisations (worried about their lucrative role in maintaining peace and "order"), Western embassies and the EU (desperate to talk to "leaders") to bring this democratic experiment to an end, with the promise of a “reform agenda” aimed at tackling the problem of social justice. The reform agenda did not reform a thing, however. In fact, it “cured” neoliberal ills by introducing even more neoliberal policies, such as further weakening the rights of workers while increasing privileges and tax breaks for foreign investors.
It “cured” neoliberal ills by introducing even more neoliberal policies, such as further weakening the rights of workers while increasing privileges and tax breaks for foreign investors.
On the political level, the protest movement in Bosnia was finished off by calls, especially by Western actors concerned that democracy was getting too radical, to focus on challenging ruling elites at the ballot box. Unsurprisingly, there was little space for civic alternatives in a post-war political order that is dependent on ethnic division and is dominated by ethnonationalist blocs and their business and media networks. And so, over the last five years, even modest estimates indicate that in excess of 170,000 people have left Bosnia, most of whom are young, skilled, and seeking a more dignified future elsewhere (especially in Germany).
This may sound all too familiar to protesters on the streets of Beirut or Santiago, who have been given the same false promises of “reform” and who, in the midst of protest, hear the same calls for a return to “normalcy” as police and politicians make veiled threats and escalate tensions through various means. This recipe will be used again, and this process will play out again. The question is whether it will continue to be effective, and for how long.
Negative peace
In his 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote that he had come to "the regrettable conclusion" that it is not the white supremacist that has represented "the Negro's great stumbling block toward freedom" but rather "the white moderate who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice." Today, the most radical tension in any society arises from a growing demand for truly democratic participation, political and civic freedoms, and social equality in a world marked by the unprecedented wealth and power of political and economic oligarchies.
Indeed, increasingly, these demands are subverting false tensions that have been presented as “natural” in the post-Cold War era, such as those linked to religion, ethnicity or culture. Current and recent protests erupting across the globe are thus exposing the notion of a “clash of civilizations” as absurd and nebulous.
The absence of tension that denotes a negative peace has become more and more unbearable; and it turns out that many people feel the presence of social justice – a positive peace – is worth fighting for. It will keep “kicking off everywhere,” and with growing fury.
Expose the ‘dark money’ bankrolling our politics
US Christian ‘fundamentalists’, some linked to Donald Trump and Steve Bannon, have poured at least $50m of ‘dark money’ into Europe over the past decade – boosting the far right.
That's just the tip of the iceberg: we've got many more leads to chase down. Find out more and support our work here.
‘We are all in this together’: a civic awakening in Bosnia-Herzegovina
Written by: Igor Štiks All articles by: Igor Štiks
Variations on citizenship in a wider Europe: a round-table discussion
Written by: Rainer Bauböck All articles by: Rainer Bauböck
Written by: Vjeran Pavlaković All articles by: Vjeran Pavlaković
Written by: Peter Vermeersch All articles by: Peter Vermeersch
Written by: Erika Harris All articles by: Erika Harris
Written by: Michael Keating All articles by: Michael Keating
The new Balkan revolts: from protests to plenums, and beyond
Written by: Srećko Horvat All articles by: Srećko Horvat
View all by Igor Štiks
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That Don’t Get Him Back Again
By John Jeremiah Sullivan | April 5, 2010
The Legacy of Big Star’s "Other Genius"
About the only thing you do not find much of in It Came from Memphis, Robert Gordon’s history of the profoundly twisted cultural scene that obtained in that city from roughly 1950-1975, is tragedy. (I mean within the scene itself, of course; outside of it, the entire period was pretty tragic.) There is plenty of awfulness: people rushing headlong into bad ends, talent going unrecognized, that sort of thing. But overall, the sense you get from Gordon of the time and the place is one of antic, if at times frustrated, exuberance. The freaks were out, day and night, and they found one another. It was "gross weird," as Terry Southern would have said.
The story of Christopher Bell, which Gordon includes, is tragic. It is also, in other ways, quintessential: He was a white boy, a "rich kid" from an affluent Memphis neighborhood, whose well-greased path through conventional society was ambushed by rock & roll. In high school, he formed the requisite cover bands (the atrociously named Christmas Future was one), playing not roots music per se, but the "new" stuff: Hendrix, the Yardbirds, British Invasion. Eventually he angled his way into Ardent Studios, where he became an apprentice engineer, taking actual morning lessons (8:00 a.m. sharp, drunk or sober) from the studio's founder, John Fry. At Ardent he met, or was reintroduced to, Alex Chilton. They had known each other in high school, but in the interim Chilton had become marginally famous as the lead singer of the Box Tops ("Give me a ticket for an aer-o-plane...."), gotten fed up with fame, knocked around as a desultory folkie in Greenwich Village, and finally come back home for a while, not really knowing what to do with himself. He and Bell tried out their tunes on each other, and Chilton was impressed enough that he tried to drag Bell back to Manhattan with him. The idea was to play as a duo, but Bell didn't want to leave Memphis. So Chilton stayed.
The result, with Andy Hummel on bass and Jody Stephens on drums, was Big Star. And the less said about Big Star here the better, since Chris Bell's near-anonymity has much to do with his status as the "other genius" in that much written about, much emulated band. Suffice it to say that Big Star invented power pop, loosely defined as unapologetically pretty and sophisticated melodies, with prominent harmony, played loudly and at times with an edge that approaches punk. (Didn't the Beatles do this? you ask. Yes. But pop fans live by razor-thin and barely defensible categories, and this is one.) Big Star made three records, each of which has multiple all-but-perfect pop songs on it. The third album, which is most often called simply Third, is a masterpiece. It's a huge dark haunted house of a record, every song a room, and stylistically no one song seems to have anything to do with any other. But Chris Bell had nothing to do with Third. It is an Alex Chilton project in all but name.
Bell’s presence fades from Big Star neatly, album by album. On the first, #1 Record, he was the dominant songwriter, sang half the lead vocals, and co-engineered. On the second, Radio City, he contributed only to the songwriting. That's saying quite a lot, in this case, since we have it on Andy Hummel's authority that he was the principal writer on "Back of a Car," a song that Rob Gieringer, in Judith Beeman's excellent, short-lived Big Star fanzine (also named Back of a Car), calls without exaggeration "one of the best pop songs ever written." By the time the final album came to be recorded, he was no longer a member of the band, and seems even to have become estranged from the band’s circle.
What happened was, in its particulars, a rock & roll cliché. Bell simply couldn’t understand why Big Star wasn’t famous. They had made a first-rate record, he believed (correctly, as the last thirty years have shown). What could possibly be the problem? The critics liked it, sure, but Bell wanted the girls and the jet. Chilton had seen all that already and knew what it was worth—or knew, at least, that it shouldn't be counted on. But the disappointment and audience indifference were more than Bell's fragile psyche could bear. Making things worse was the tendency of the media to focus on Chilton when they chose to pay attention to Big Star at all. This was natural, even good for the band, given that people knew who Chilton was. But mercenary logic like that tends not to work on tormented artists.
It’s possible that Bell was headed for a breakdown regardless. He was certainly prone to mental illness. Robert Gordon reports that even before Radio Citycame out, Bell "was actually seeing things." And heroin found him, as it routinely finds those who have least business messing with it. Something else that is rarely mentioned in writing about Bell but appears to have been widely recognized by those who knew him is his homosexuality. In Memphis, five years ago, there was even a rumor moving through the record stores that Bell was in love with Chilton, and that Chilton’s lack of reciprocation may have hastened the breakup of Big Star. It’s probably borderline libel even to mention this stuff, and for all I know Gordon may have purposefully left it out of It Came from Memphis because he doubted its veracity. Most of the published interviews with the other people involved in Big Star sooner or later come to a statement along the lines of, "Chris was having personal problems, and I won’t say any more about that." If he was gay, well, Memphis in the ’70s may have been full of freaks, but it was still in Tennessee. Randall Lyon, a highly influential Memphis scenester and open homosexual who also knew Bell, remarked to Gordon, "I was always out front about my shit, and their problem was they didn’t know what to do with a hip queer. It says a lot about the whole period."
Whatever the specifics of Bell’s sexuality, it was tortured; everything about him was tortured. His voice, on the recordings, is too sensitive. That’s meant not as an aesthetic judgment. It wasn’t too sensitive for the material, in other words. It was too sensitive for life. You listen to him sing, closely, and if you don’t know another thing about what happened to him, you know that the guy with that voice is not going to last.
This is true not so much of Bell’s work with Big Star but of his later solo material, collected long after the fact on a Rykodisc release titled I Am the Cosmos. It’s not really an album, just a bunch of tracks recorded from 1974–78 in Memphis and a boutique studio in provincial France. Bell’s brother, David, took him to Europe to help him quit smack and generally get himself together, and David Bell's liner notes to I Am the Cosmos are a loving, wrenching tribute to a brother whose demons his family could neither fathom nor help fight.
We can’t know how much of I Am the Cosmos Bell wanted released, and the quality of the fifteen tracks is wildly inconsistent. (For that matter, the first two Big Star albums are less consistent than most of their evangelists are willing to confess—rescuers from obscurity understandably feel that their job demands extreme enthusiasm.) Certain of Bell’s songs feel generic, others are knock-offs of songs that Big Star did better, one attempt at barrelhouse—"Fight at the Table"—is sort of embarrassing. But the four (by my count) stand-out songs are so ridiculously good that you just shake your head: at the idea that, with the exception of a rare and now quite valuable 45, these songs went unheard for fourteen years; and at the idea that the person who made this music never got to create a bona fide album of his own, never got to make his own Third.
I Am the Cosmos begins breezily, with one of the greatest, saddest goodbyes to the dreams of the late-’60s, early-’70s counter-culture ever put onto tape. Joni Mitchell had already sung that we had to get ourselves back to the garden. But Chris Bell knew that the garden had been mowed. If it was still there, it was no use: He had the spider inside of him.
Every night I tell myself
I am the cosmos, I am the wind
But that don’t get you back again
It would be funny, that verse, if it weren’t so freaking sad. It’s still a bit funny, which is just another sign of the maturity he was growing into, taking himself less seriously. The contemporary power-pop band the Posies, two of whose members round out the current Big Star reunion line-up, do a superb cover of "I Am the Cosmos," their note-for-note fidelity a tribute to how well constructed a pop song it is. In the middle is one of the coolest yeah, yeah, yeahs in pop, a descending, ethereal three-note thing that waterfalls down while the guitar rips back and forth between an A and an Em7.
The second track, "Better Save Yourself," opens jarringly with organ and a huge, minor-key guitar-god riff.
I know you’re right
He treats you nice
It’s suicide
I know, I tried it twice
We have it from David Bell that his brother had, in fact, tried suicide. In the throes of whatever drove him to it, he found Jesus and became a devout Christian, further complicating the psychological picture of his post-Big Star years. In "Better Save Yourself," he goes on to sing "You shoulda gave your love to Jesus/Couldn’t do you no harm." The past tense there is creepy. The righteous blues were about exhorting the listener (maybe the singer too) to get right with God, but it's too late for whomever Bell's talking to. "Shoulda Saved Yourself" would have been a more accurate title.
"You and Your Sister" is maybe the sweetest of Chris Bell's songs, three minutes and eleven seconds of flawless pop craftsmanship, the goofy cleverness of the verses ("Your sister says that I’m no good/I’d reassure her if I could") expertly balanced with the real beauty of Bell’s falsetto on the chorus:
All I want to do
Is to spend some time with you
So I can hold you, hold you
Chilton said to Robert Gordon, "Most of the Big Star stuff was searching for how to get through two verses without saying anything really stupid...." Add "playing" to "saying," and you have as apt a description of the task involved in writing good pop songs as has ever been articulated. Great songwriters learn as much from listening to bad music as they do from listening to what they love. They memorize pitfalls, dead-ends; the how, as opposed to the what, of poor taste and cliché. It's a strange, hair-splitting science, since, let’s face it, when you’re thinking in Shostakovich terms, the distance between a Brian Wilson objet d’art and a breakfast-cereal jingle is about three atoms wide. For a pop songwriter, each new composition presents countless temptations and traps, moments when the song wants to become "stupid," wants to go to the obvious chord or rhyme, wants to sound too close, as opposed to just close enough, to what we've heard before. The game is to thread your way through these traps without sounding as if you're trying to be unpredictable—melodically, lyrically, in whatever way. And success comes when you've taken all the crap the genre gives you to work with—limited instrumentation, limited melodic possibilities, limited time—and made beauty of it, then disguised the beauty as more of the good ol’ crap we like to hear when we turn on the radio. Isn't that precisely what makes those classics, like "Baby, It's You," so moving, so overwhelming, what makes you have to pull your car to the side of the road when they come on? The beauty in them is subversive. It doesn’t belong. It's been smuggled in under the radar of suburban teenage taste and purchasing power. That’s why pop music is the art for our time: It’s an art of crap. And not in a self-conscious sense, not like a sculpture made of garbage and shown at the Whitney, which is only a way of saying that "low" materials can be made to serve the demands of "high" art. No, pop music really is crap. It’s about transcending through crap. It’s about standing there with your stupid guitar, and your stupid words, and your stupid band, and not being stupid.
An example of what this sounds like, when pulled off, is Bell’s "Though I Know She Lies." It's primarily an acoustic song, not quite like anything else he did during or after Big Star. There's nothing revolutionary about it, except that it's gorgeous, and full of space, and that it's the hardest kind of song to write, insofar as in the wrong hands it would be treacle. The guitars on "Though I Know She Lies" are badly recorded—the electric cracks up at the high end—which has probably kept it off a lot of compilations. But the vocal performance is chilling as chilling can be while remaining tender.
When I look through your eyes
I tend to get bitter
Maybe I'm best advised
To look to myself
It doesn’t really even sound like Chris Bell; he’d never sung that well before, which makes it even harder to take, since it was the last, or one of the last things he did. So confident, and at the same time, somehow, so vulnerable. The song needs to be heard on headphones, because it's clear that he means to be singing straight into your head. Most striking of all is that at the end of the song, he doesn't sound like the same person. The song itself, the experience of singing it, seems to have done something to him, worn him out. Three and a half minutes have gone by, but he sounds ten years older. The chorus is simple:
I fall every time
though I know she lies
I can't stay away
But it's how he holds the words in his mouth, sings "staaay aaawaaay" from the back of his throat, like he’s physically trying to hold himself down in the bed, knowing he shouldn't go over there, shouldn’t call. There is only one line of harmony in the song. It comes out of nowhere, on the bridge, a quiet falsetto, maybe Bell's own. You can miss it so easily—you have to squeeze the headphones to the sides of your head. The line is "Keeping me in the dark."
That’s all I know about Christopher Bell. The Chairs, a power-pop band from Sweden, wrote a song about him in the mid-Nineties. It’s pretty bad. I have to lean again on Robert Gordon for the end of the story, which is that a couple of days after Christmas, in 1978, Bell crashed his car into a telephone pole on Poplar Avenue in Memphis, and was killed. As with most fatal single-car accidents involving chronically depressed people, suicide has always been suspected.
He was coming home from rehearsal, so music was still a part of his life. And thanks to the people at Rykodisc, who heard what dozens of A&R men had failed to hear, his music is still a part of ours.
Photo by David Bell.
music criticism
John Jeremiah Sullivan was born in Louisville, Kentucky. He is a Contributing Writer to the New York Times Magazine and the author of Pulphead and Blood Horses: Notes of a Sportswriter’s Son. He last wrote for the magazine about the percussion instrument la quijada, the jawbone.
More from John Jeremiah Sullivan
Death Rattle
Baby Boy Born Birthplace Blues
Three Encounters
That Chop on the Upbeat
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June 4, 2019, 10:43 AM ET
Weird Crimes
Hours After Getting Arrested For Alleged DUI, Kentucky Woman Is Arrested Again ... For Alleged DUI
Tiffany Henderson is also accused of getting into a physical altercation with her mother and nearly hitting two kids on bicycles during her second incident.
Tiffany Henderson Photo: Warren County Regional Jail
A Kentucky woman's day ended like it began: getting booked for allegedly driving drunk.
Tiffany Henderson, 29, of Bowling Green, Kentucky was arrested in the early morning hours Sunday for allegedly driving under the influence. Later that same day, Henderson was arrested again on similar charges. Henderson had spent a total of six hours in jail in between her two arrests.
The first arrest occurred at around 5:45 a.m after police received calls at around 3:30 a.m. about a reckless driver who had been spotted skidding off the road. Henderson was found in a field and had allegedly been in the driver's seat of her vehicle, according to an arrest citation obtained by The Lexington Herald Leader. She could not perform a sobriety test at the time, police said.
She was held at the Warren County Detention Center until around noon, according to WBKO of Bowling Green, Kentucky. Sheriff Brett Hightower said that the second arrest occurred at 9:18 p.m. after several people once again called in to complain about a reckless driver in the area, prompting an investigation.
As she was arrested the second time, Henderson told police she had just been in a physical altercation with her mother and had needed “to get away," according to the arrest citation. Craig Runner, a witness to the dispute, says Henderson smacked him in the face as she fled the scene. Henderson allegedly returned, got into a second physical altercation with both her mother and Runner, and fled again. She almost hit two unnamed juvenile witnesses who were riding bikes as she was “flying down the road," according to the arrest citation.
Henderson's first arrest landed her a DUI charge. But upon the second arrest, Henderson was charged with DUI, public intoxication, domestic assault, and wanton endangerment.
The status of Henderson's legal representation remains unclear.
Henderson allegedly has admitted to using prescription drugs and methamphetamine. She has not been previously convicted for a DUI.
California Teen Arrested For Live-Streaming DUI Car Crash
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Does Tony Get Into a Car Accident in the New Season of 13 Reasons Why?
Does Tony Get Into a Car Accident in 13 Reasons Why Season 2
May 3, 2018 by Shonitria Anthony
The 13 Reasons Why season two trailer shows Tony standing next to his iconic Ford Mustang . . . which is now all banged up. His car isn't the only thing in less-than-pristine shape — Tony has some bruises, too. We're freaking out a little for this fan favorite. Should we all be worried?
The most obvious theory is that Tony is going to be in a car accident. We don't know if he's the driver, he's in the car alone, or Ryan (in the passenger seat in the trailer) is involved. Perhaps he gets beat up and his car vandalized as a result of being the tape messenger?
Then again, maybe the Polaroid of Tony is indicative of a past event he endures before Hannah's suicide. Tony isn't really given much of a storyline in season one to explore who he is, what makes him tick, and what he's been through — he is just the messenger of the tapes. Our guess is that the Polaroids represent a flashback to an event that occurred before anything in season one and that we'll unravel it this season.
The show's creator, Brian Yorkey, told The Hollywood Reporter that season two will "explore how these characters deal with the aftermath of what happened to Hannah." While the first season focuses on events leading up the suicide of the main character, Hannah, the second season will focus on a trial. Hannah's parents will pursue legal action against the high school for not intervening soon enough to help Hannah, and it's in the midst of these court appearances that the story will unfold.
"The kids are called in to testify, we get to hear their side of the story; secrets are revealed, and we learn things we didn't know before," Yorkey told The Hollywood Reporter. "There's a mystery that Clay, with the help of Tony and some of the other friends, will unfold over the course of the season that ends up being very instrumental in the trial."
We'll find out more when the season premieres on May 18!
Image Source: Netflix
13 Reasons WhyTV
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Register to Receive Plaza Blog Posts
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PLAZA’S 10TH ANNIVERSARY
On Monday, April 4, 2011 Plaza Jewish Community Chapel celebrated 10 years of serving the metropolitan New York Jewish Community. Having served 6000 families Plaza acknowledged the tireless effort of Board Chair Al Engelberg who stepped down after serving as Chairman for ten years. Harold Handler was voted in unanimously by the Board of Directors […].... READ STORY
Google Certifies Plaza Jewish Community Chapel as a Google for Nonprofits Organization
The only community owned Jewish Funeral Chapel in the greater New York metropolitan area begins benefiting from the ‘Google for Non Profit’ program with a Google AdWords™ grant for up to $10,000 per month in Free advertising, and Free Live and On-demand Streaming of Funeral Services on YouTube™ NYC, Sept. 19, 2012 — Plaza Jewish Community […].... READ STORY
Dawn Of The Mourning Business
Economic recovery may still be elusive in most sectors, but one field appears to be enjoying a new life, so to speak: the Jewish mourning business. In the past year, no fewer than five funeral- and shiva-related endeavors have been launched, and a few are actually profit-making ventures. There’s ShivaConnect.com, a registry that offers easy […].... READ STORY
Reprinted with permission from The New York Times.
In some people’s minds, there is not much difference between funeral home directors and used-car salesmen. “Funeral services have always gotten a bad rap,” Charles S. Salomon, the funeral director at Riverside Memorial Chapel in Manhattan, said with a sigh. “Nobody wants to be involved in funerals. No one wants to talk about them. People […].... READ STORY
Plaza Jewish Community Chapel Invests in Community Education as it Retires Debt
Plaza Jewish Community Chapel, the first and only nonprofit funeral chapel in New York that is owned and operated by the Jewish Community, will be stepping up its efforts to serve as a valuable community resource on issues of mourning and burial now that it is retiring its debt. This month at its Board of […].... READ STORY
Plaza Jewish @ Work!
Check out our latest newsletter. Find out what makes Plaza different than other funeral homes, what we are doing in the community, and more: Click here..... READ STORY
Highlights from Plaza’s 14th Bereavement Conference: “The Cross Section of Medicine and Spirituality”
Plaza Jewish Community Chapel recently presented their 14th Bereavement Conference, “The Cross Section of Medicine and Spiritual Needs” with Dr. Linda Emanuel as keynote speaker. The conference was attended by 150 and was geared to Clergy and Chaplains..... READ STORY
Novel Palliative Care Initiative for Chronically Ill Patients
(Republished from May 28th Edition of The Jewish Voice, Page 9). Mt Sinai School of Medicine and Plaza Jewish Community Chapel Join in Breakthrough Venture Mount Sinai School of Medicine’s Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine announced a partnership with Plaza Jewish Community Chapel, Inc, to provide palliative care counseling to two groups of patients […].... READ STORY
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Lower levels of lymphocyte blood cells may be fatal
Jan 15, 20202568 views
Lower levels of lymphocyte blood cells - a condition called lymphopenia - could be an early warning for future illness, as low counts were associated with a 60 per cent increase in death from any cause, a new study suggests.
Lymphopenia is often detected during routine blood tests, and patients are not usually referred for further investigation because the value of lymphopenia as a predictor of future health was not known.
"Our study showed that participants with lymphopenia were at high risk of dying from any cause, regardless of any other risk factor for all-cause mortality, including age," said study researcher Stig Bojesen from Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark , with coauthors.
For the findings, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ), researchers included 108,135 people of Danish descent aged 20-100 years who were enrolled in the Copenhagen General Population Study between 2003 and 2015.
An incidental finding of a low lymphocyte count was associated with a 1.6-fold increase in the risk of death from any cause and a 1.5- to 2.8-fold increased risk of death from cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, infections and other causes.
During the study period, a total of 10,372 people died. Older age was associated with decreasing lymphocyte counts, the researchers said.
The link between lymphopenia and death may be because of reduced immune capacity to survive potentially lethal diseases.
Lymphopenia could also indicate frailty which could lead to illness and death, the study said.
The researchers hope their findings may help doctors identify at-risk people.
"Using the absolute 2-year risks of all-cause mortality, physicians can identify high-risk individuals with lymphopenia (e.g., smokers older than 80 years) who might benefit from additional surveillance," they said.
Source: https://www.aninews.in/news/health/study-reveals-lower-levels-of-lymphocyte-blood-cells-may-indicate-increased-death-risk20200113131052/
© Plexus Professional Network Private Limited 2020
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Sen. Gary Peters is eager to determine the frequency of military overnights at the golf resort. | Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo
Senator seeks independent probe of military’s use of Trump resort
By BRYAN BENDER and NATASHA BERTRAND
The top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs has formally requested an independent investigation into the Air Force’s increased use of a commercial airport in Scotland and overnight stays at the Trump Turnberry resort.
“I am disturbed by the growing number of those in government willing to engage in questionable taxpayer funded travel to and lodging at properties owned by the president — properties from which President Trump can draw income at any time,” Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, who is also a member of the Armed Services Committee, wrote in a letter on Tuesday to Glenn Fine, who is fulfilling the duties of the Pentagon inspector general.
“The American people deserve an independent inquiry into the Air Force’s increasingly frequent visits to Prestwick Airport, as well as answers to how many of those visits involved stays at Trump Turnberry by military personnel,” Peters added in the letter, first obtained by POLITICO.
The Air Force is already conducting a review of its refueling and lodging practices following the revelations that Air Force personnel have been using the struggling Glasgow Prestwick Airport more frequently over the last several years to refuel and at least in several instances stayed at Trump’s seaside resort more than 30 miles away.
POLITICO, which was first to report the practice, also revealed that the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has been investigating the stopovers since April. Earlier Tuesday, the panel threatened to subpoena Pentagon officials if they failed to respond to a June 21 letter seeking documents on the use of the airport, including $11 million spent on fuel since 2017.
Accusations that Trump’s properties are unfairly profiting off of his administration have dogged the president since entering office. Ethics officials and lawmakers have raised concerns about foreign officials staying at Trump hotels, and noted that Trump supporters and industry groups regularly throw bashes at Trump-owned locations. Trump is also considering hosting next year’s Group of Seven gathering of world leaders at his Doral resort in Florida, a potential financial boon for the property, and has previously stayed at the Turnberry property.
The Air Force has said the stops are within Pentagon guidelines and noted that the Turnberry bookings, in some instances orchestrated by a local travel service, fall within acceptable rates for military travel. But the Air Force also conceded that the appearance of staying at the president’s property might create a negative perception.
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Peters says he is particularly interested in learning how many times crews have been staying at the Trump property, when it is clear from the service’s own figures that Prestwick stops and overnights in the area have steadily gone up substantially since 2015.
That is something the Air Force says it is trying to determine.
“While our databases aren’t designed to provide a comprehensive snapshot of which hotels our Airmen stayed at, a scoped sampling indicates Air Force personnel have typically lodged at approximately 10 hotels near Prestwick Airport, including the Turnberry,” Col. Damien Pickart, the chief spokesperson for the Air Mobility Command, told POLITICO in a statement.
Another Air Force official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said the task requires reviewing travel vouchers individually and estimated that it would require “hundreds of man-hours.”
Peters is eager to determine the frequency of military overnights at the golf resort, not just the total number of airport stops and overnights.
“I am troubled that this information was not provided until news reports revealed the Air Force’s approvals of stays at Turnberry,” the senator added in his letter to the Pentagon inspector general. “ … I find it hard to believe the Air Force was capable of reporting the exact number of trips to Prestwick, but, according to the Deputy head of Air Mobility Command, the Air Force ‘could not report how many of these overnights may have been at Trump Turnberry.’”
Peters also insisted that the answers were important in order to put to rest any doubts that the Air Force is inappropriately enriching the president’s businesses.
“The armed forces are charged with the critical duty of defending our nation,” he wrote. “They protect our most important values and are charged with representing them as well. Potentially unnecessary spending by the military at a for-profit business owned by the President raises serious concerns about conflicts of interest and threatens the trust that the American people have placed in our military.”
The Pentagon IG did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The House and Senate are also considering a proposal passed by the House in July that would make it illegal for the Pentagon to spend taxpayer dollars at Trump-owned properties.
CORRECTION: An earlier headline on this report misstated Sen. Gary Peters’ title. He is the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. An earlier version of this story misstated Glenn Fine’s name.
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Orbán government withdraws support for extreme-right festival
Hungarian administration was listed as sponsor of event in Slovakia.
By Lili Bayer
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government has withdrawn financial support from the Felvidéki Hungarian Island festival | Laszlo Balogh/Getty Images
The Hungarian government withdrew financial backing for a festival known for links to extreme-right groups after its support for the event came under scrutiny.
The music festival, which takes place in Slovakia each year, is organized by the Sixty-Four Counties Youth Movement (HVIM), an irredentist far-right Hungarian group. Last year, two members of the movement were handed jail sentences by a top Romanian court for planning to detonate an improvised explosive device in 2015.
The annual Felvidéki Hungarian Island festival attracts members of Hungary's extreme-right scene, and one band planning on taking the stage this year is known for a song celebrating skinheads. Last month, Facebook removed a page advertising this year's event.
As first reported by Hungarian-language Slovak newspaper Új Szó, Hungary's State Secretariat for National Policy, a subdivision of the prime minister's office, was listed as a formal sponsor of the event on the festival's website.
Among speakers at the festival this week will be László Toroczkai, founder of the Sixty-Four Counties Youth Movement and head of far-right Hungarian party Our Homeland Movement. Toroczkai, the mayor of a small Hungarian border village, became known for running a local squad for catching asylum seekers, as well attempting to ban Muslims and gay people from his village. He has also recently founded an anti-Roma uniformed militia that sparked fears of renewed racially motivated violence in the country.
Laszlo Toroczkai, leader of Our Homeland, delivers a speech on May 21, 2019 in Torokszentmiklos, Hungary | Attila Kisbenedek/AFP via Getty Images
Another speaker scheduled to appear at the festival is Ernő Raffay, a prolific anti-Semite and conspiracy theorist who is set to give a talk to festival-goers on the role of Freemasons in Hungary.
Following questions from POLITICO, the prime minister's office said on Thursday it had issued an order to withdraw all financial support for the event.
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In a statement, the prime minister's office said that it had instructed the government-funded Gábor Bethlen Foundation, which had awarded small-scale support to the festival, to withdraw its funding decision. As a result the foundation had not supported, and is not supporting, the festival "with a single cent," the statement said.
Toroczkai and Our Homeland “can represent a radical right, critical but loyal to Fidesz,” said one senior Fidesz official.
The government's support for the event had been condemned by experts on extremism.
“The Sixty-Four Counties Youth Movement (HVIM) is a far-right organization, whose main profile is revisionism, the return to pre-Trianon [World War I] peace treaty borders,” Bulcsú Hunyadi, senior analyst at the Budapest-based Political Capital Institute think tank, told POLITICO in a note. The group also participates in gatherings of “international neo-Nazi organizations, such as the Day of Honor demonstration,” he added, referring to Nazi German and Hungarian soldiers' attempt to break out of Soviet encirclement in Budapest in 1945, an event commemorated by extremists each year.
'Radical right'
Supporting Toroczkai and other extreme-right figures could allow Orbán's Fidesz party to weaken its rival, Jobbik, which has attempted — with difficulty — to transition from the far right to the center of the political stage. Toroczkai is a former member of Jobbik, who quit the party as it split between those members wanting to become more moderate and those wishing to retain an extreme-nationalist identity.
Toroczkai and Our Homeland “can represent a radical right, critical but loyal to Fidesz,” said one senior Fidesz official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Hungarian government is also not treating Our Homeland like other opponents.
Despite the party polling in the low single digits over the past months, Fidesz-linked television stations have broadcast dozens of interviews with leaders of Our Homeland since the party was founded a year ago. During that time, other opposition parties — who poll at much higher numbers — got very little airtime on the party's stations.
People participate in a rally organized by the Our Homeland Movement in Budapest on March 15, 2019 | Peter Kohalmi/AFP via Getty Images
“The left-liberal opposition has come together with Jobbik,” Dániel Faragó, the young leader of Our Homeland’s chapter in the southern Bács-Kiskun county, told POLITICO earlier this year.
“We need to show again how to be in opposition without becoming adversaries of our own home. We stand in opposition to the Orbán government, naturally, but our opposition is a different type of opposition,” he said.
And Our Homeland is supporting some Orbán initiatives. Four ex-Jobbik members of the Hungarian parliament — who now belong to Our Homeland — voted last October in favor of the ruling party’s resolution condemning the European Parliament’s critical report on the state of the rule of law in Hungary.
While criticizing the government, particularly on economic issues like mortgage loans and wages, Our Homeland has encouraged Hungarians not to participate in the opposition’s joint anti-Orbán demonstrations.
Asked about suggestions that Fidesz is informally supporting Our Homeland, the ruling party's director of communication, Balázs Hidvéghi, told POLITICO earlier this year that "there is no reason why Fidesz would be supporting — formally or informally — any opposition party."
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The prime minister’s Fidesz party was suspended from the center-right group last year.
Sebastian Kurz to return as Austrian chancellor after conservatives, Greens strike deal
Coalition pact reportedly includes plan to lift Austria’s headscarf ban to age 14 from 10.
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Swindon mechanic named Suzuki's Motor Technician of the Year
Mechanic extraordinaire Mark Illsley has been crowned Motor Technician of the Year by Suzuki - adding another award to an already-bulging trophy cabinet.
In an eight-year career, the 27-year-old has been named Apprentice of the Year no fewer than three times, and was the fastest in the Suzuki dealership network's history to rise to the ranks of Master Technician.
Mark works at Swindon Suzuki and Hyundai dealer Pebley Beach - which was last month named Apprenticeship Employer of the Year at the Wiltshire Business Awards - where MD Dominic Threlfall took him on as a 19-year-old apprentice.
He was trained by Pebley master technician Martin Owen - himself a four-times winner of the Technician of the Year title - who went on to represent Great Britain at Suzuki's Worldwide Technical Skills Contest in Japan.
"Mark's knowledge of motor cars is almost encyclopaedic," said Dom. "Give him any make and model of car and he'll be able to tell you when various components were introduced. He's a walking Haynes Manual."
There was little surprise when Mark flew through the regional heats to reach the final in Slovenia.
"Mark had to sit four exams, and finished the last one early, so we submitted his entry before the deadline," said Dom.
"Suzuki came back to us and said that Mark had achieved an unbeatable score. No matter how well anyone else did, he was guaranteed a place in the finals."
During those finals, Mark went head-to-head with four of the UK's best Suzuki technicians.
"They presented us with four cars, each of which had a specific problem - a warning light on the dashboard, poor running going up a hill, that kind of thing," said Mark.
"We had thirty minutes to work on each problem. The final one was insolvable in the time, so I gave my diagnosis and recommendations - they just wanted to see your thought process."
Mark now has his sights set on representing the UK at Suzuki's Worldwide Technical Skills Contest.
And he hopes to repeat his success with Hyundai, after becoming the first technician ever to score 100 percent in the manufacturer's Expert Assessment.
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Flight Craft 8: Mikoyan MiG-31 (ePub)
Defender of the Homeland
Aviation Modelling
By Yefim Gordon
Imprint: Pen & Sword Aviation
Series: Flight Craft
File Size: 183.9 MB (.epub)
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The MiG-31 started life as an advanced derivative of the famous MiG-25P interceptor, becoming the first Soviet fourth-generation combat aircraft. First flown in 1975, it differed from its progenitor primarily in having a crew of two (pilot and weapons systems operator), a highly capable passive phased-array radar – a world first – and new R-33 long-range missiles as its primary armament. The maximum speed was an impressive Mach 2.82, the cruising speed being Mach 2.35. The type entered service in 1981; more than 500 copies were built between 1981 and 1994. The powerful radar and other avionics allowed the MiG-31 to operate as a 'mini-AWACS' scanning the airspace and guiding other interceptors to their targets; a flight of three such aircraft in line abreast formation could cover a strip 800 km (500 miles) wide. To this day the MiG-31 remains one of the key air defence assets of the Russian Air Force.
The book describes the MiG-31's developmental history, including upgrade programmes, and features a full and comprehensive survey of the various MiG-31 model-making kits currently available on the market.
The model makers are well provided for by the authors, but this is also a book that provides solid information on the aircraft and a selection of images that provide even more information at a very affordable price.
The MiG-31 marked a major increase in Russian fighter capability. The authors have captured the history and significance of the aircraft – recommended.
Read the full review here!
Firetrench
Number 8 in the Flightcraft series of soft cover books from Pen and Sword, and another interesting subject from authors Yefim Gordon and Dmitriy Komissarov. The Mig-31 remains an important element in Russian aviation, an aircraft developed from the earlier Mig-25. The 96 pages make up into an excellent reference on the type, and having grown up during the Cold War, when information and photos of Soviet aircraft was limited, this is such a welcome contrast to see the level of information and the number and quality of photographs that are now available to modellers and aviation enthusiasts as evidenced by this new book.
It is split into 10 elements. The first 7, which take up the first 70 pages of the book, give an Introduction and background to the evolution of the Mig-31 design then 'From 'Bats' to 'Dogs' as it takes shape; The Kennel (Foxhound variants): Upgrades and Special Versions: The New Generation of Foxhounds: The Mig-31 in Action: and the Mig-31 in Detail. As well as informative and detailed text, all these are well illustrated with a large number of good quality photos, which in turn are well captioned. Then at page 70 we get to the Modellers Corner where they list and assess the various kits of the Foxhound that are on the market in various scales, and show a number of them built up. This is followed by a series of Line Drawings and finally 7 pages of good colour profiles.
The Flightcraft series is developing very nicely, good for both aircraft enthusiasts and modellers in equal measure. I find myself sitting in both those camps and this also helps for adding to my own knowledge of these machines that were once part of the Warsaw Pact 'bogeyman', which used to be largely hidden behind that Iron Curtain. Now the curtains have been opened, we can see this extra aspect of these aircrafts.
Military Modelling - Robin Buckland
About Yefim Gordon
Yefim Gordon was born in 1950 in Vilnius, Lithuania. He has been researching Soviet and Russian aviation history for more than 40 years and has one of the world's largest photograph and document archives on the subject. A professional aviation journalist and photographer since 1989, Yefim Gordon has published hundreds of features and photographs in Soviet, Russian and foreign aviation magazines. He has also authored and co-authored well over 100 books on Soviet and Russian aviation which are published in seven countries. He is a co-owner of the Moscow-based aviation publishing house Polygon Press Ltd.
More titles by Yefim Gordon
Other titles in Pen & Sword Aviation...
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Peninsula Panthers
Sidney / North + Central Saanich Visitor’s Guide
Sidney Days
Women on the Peninsula
Canada team captain Ghislaine Landry carries the ball during action at the last Sydney Womens Sevens tournament in Australia. (Photo by Ian Muir/Rugby Canada)
Women’s Sevens Series returns to Langford
Canada looks to improve on last year’s silver medal performance
Rick Stiebel/News Gazette staff
The opportunity to pick up tickets for the hugely popular 2018 HSBC Women’s Sevens Series rugby games is just around the corner.
The HSBC Canada Rugby Women’s Sevens will be the fourth stop in a world tour that features 12 of the best teams in the world. In 2016, Canada finished third in the series. This year’s series got underway in Dubai on Nov. 30, and will conclude June 10 in Paris.
This will mark the fourth year in a row that Canada hosts one of the five stops on the tour in Langford. “We are truly excited to once again return to Westhills Stadium and the Canadian Rugby Centre of Excellence in May,” Team Canada captain Ghislaine Landry said in a statement. “Based on the exciting atmosphere, world-class facility and support from the community of [Greater] Victoria and Langford, Canada sevens continues to be one of the favourite stops in the series for all 12 teams. I encourage all sports and rugby fans to get your tickets early and support us as we look to win gold on home soil.”
Rugby Canada CEO Allen Vansen said the tremendous support the team has received in the past puts it in good shape for the upcoming series. “As we begin to prepare for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, we have a dynamic and talented squad that is setting its sights on the series title this year,” he said. “Our players will be looking forward to playing in front of an enthusiastic and supportive home crowd in order to try and improve one more place over last year’s silver medal performance in Langford.”
For more information and full details of ticket prices and categories, go to canadasevens.com.
Tickets go on sale for registered early-bird customers at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 5 for 48 hours, with ticket sales for the general public available at 10 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 7. Prices range from $42 for two-day general admission group tournament passes to $89 for two days of premium reserved seating. Prices for single-day tickets for the series, which takes place May 12 and 13, will be released in March.
editor@goldstreamgazette.com
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Are References still Important?
by Anthony Demarco
References have always been the final and deciding factor in the recruitment process and will have a big impact on whether a candidate does or doesn’t get a job. It allows the potential new employer an opportunity to confirm that the candidate being considered has the correct skillset for the position, is a suitable culture fit for the firm and identifies any ‘red flags’ before making an offer.
But are they really necessary? Let’s break down the pros and cons of obtaining references in the recruitment process.
A reference confirms dates of employment, job specifics, skillset, punctuality and if the candidate, based on past experience, can do the job they are being considered for.
The referee’s insights can highlight whether the candidate embellished their resume or comments in an interview.
The referee can share their thoughts about how easy, or difficult, it is to work with the individual.
The referee can highlight any achievements, areas of strength or a need for improvement or future training.
Many elements of a reference are a personal opinion about the employee. If an employer is upset that their superstar staff member has left, a reference can be given based on emotion and not necessarily on the facts, perhaps painting an inaccurate or unfair picture of the employee.
In markets where there is a ‘war for talent’, conducting a professional reference can open up the door for a counteroffer from the current employer or a new offer from a firm the candidate previously worked for.
Referees are not always direct line managers and therefore can’t give an accurate assessment of the candidate’s day-to-day responsibilities and performance.
Many organisations, fearing lawsuits, will only confirm that someone has been employed, the dates of employment and their job title.
There is definitely an advantage to getting references before making a decision on a candidate. In most instances, it will strengthen the application of a candidate. Candidates generally give names and contact details of referees that they believe will say positive things about them. And most do, however, an experienced reference taker listens to more than just the words that are spoken. The referee’s tone of voice, or the way they answer questions, can prompt more questions enabling a deeper probe into the candidate’s suitability for the role. And the most telling question of all can be asked, “would you rehire this person?”
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Home News from round the world From Spain: A story of a pharmacist and acromegaly
From Spain: A story of a pharmacist and acromegaly
From the desk of J D Faccinetti – cofounder. We often scan the world for compelling stories that broaden the awareness of pituitary disease and do it well. This one comes from Raquel Ciriza, the president of the Spanish Association of People Affected by Acromegaly (Asociación Española de Afectados por Acromegalia). Raquel is a friend and contributor to PWN and a successful pharmacist. She practices in the beautiful town of Huesca in north-eastern Spain.
A recent article from the Spanish magazine “Vidas Insuperables” – roughly translated “Unsurpassed Lives” – caught our attention. The article traces Raquel’s professional journey as a pharmacist with her family’s pharmacy, and her experiences with acromegaly. This is a loose translation of the original article, which is written in Spanish by Lorena Gonzalez. You can read the original article in Spanish here.
“I was always attracted to dermatology and skincare” – said Raquel in the article – “so when I finished my pharmacy degree, I got a master’s degree specializing in dermatology and skin conditions.” Raquel explains she wanted the store to communicate her interest in skincare, so she designed a store with a very open feel and service-oriented space.
Being a healthcare professional also helped Raquel with her acromegaly diagnosis. In the article from “Vidas Insuperables”she mentions her struggles with health issues, symptoms, and not knowing what was wrong until a doctor, whom she consulted on an unrelated matter, suspected the disease.
Raquel skillfully describes the symptoms and physical characteristics of acromegaly to a general market magazine audience. “A typical symptom is a ring that now doesn’t fit because your fingers are bigger or a shoe that’s too tight,” says Raquel. “And there are also noticeable changes in the nose, forehead, and jaw, which can progressively enlarge.”
“But excess growth hormone can also affect many organs, and bring related cardiovascular problems such as hypertension, diabetes, excessive sweating, headaches, and much more. The symptoms are typically treated by physicians that do not recognize the underlying problems”, she continues.
Spain has a very advanced healthcare system with a broad range of therapies available to successfully treat acromegaly. There are experienced endocrinologists, pituitary surgeons, and wide range of available medications.
Raquel mentions that Pharmacists can play a significant role since, in addition to dispensing medications, they can easily recognize the features and symptoms of the disease. “The people who have acromegaly, the endocrinologist familiar with it, and the people around us, when we know the disease and know the features, can recognize a case very quickly, just by observing it.”, she adds.
As she became more knowledgeable about how to manage her condition, and after meeting many specialists in the field, she realized that many people needed help to deal with the diagnosis and the disease. “We started by creating the Spanish Association of People Affected by Acromegaly,” she says in the article, “when there was not too much information about rare diseases in Spain. Our goal was to give support and information to patients.”
Raquel recalls the first meeting of patients, and the invaluable help she received from the College of Pharmacists of Madrid. “They generously made their facilities available and put everything at our disposal,” she said and added “I will always be grateful for that first meeting which allowed us to keep going. This year we will have our seventh gathering.”
The Association of People Affected by Acromegaly in Spain has many initiatives and a lot of enthusiasm and energy. Raquel and her team have produced some of the best work I’ve seen by patient advocacy groups. But don’t just take my word for it. Here is a link to one of these awareness campaigns published in PWN in November 2018. Read more about the awareness campaigns here. She says it’s worth every single minute you dedicate to it, and we couldn’t agree more. Because of the work and dedication of people like Raquel Ciriza, more people aware of acromegaly, more people are getting treatment for it, and more useful information is available to make their lives easier.
Spanish Association of People Affected by Acromegalia
College of Pharmacists of Madrid
© 2019, Pituitary World News. All rights reserved.
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World Alliance of Pituitary Organizations: December 2019 Newsletter
Raising GP’s Awareness in Diagnosing Cushing’s
Medicine and technology: It’s like making sausage
World Alliance of Pituitary Organizations: April 2018 Newsletter
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SMA Launches Insurance Research Series
Strategy Meets Action announced the launch of its Insurance Ecosystem Research Series and the availability of two reports, "The Insurance Ecosystem: A Guide to the Marketplace," and "Riding the Wave: Insurer Technology Spending, Drivers, and Approaches."
By staff Writer | October 28, 2009 at 08:00 PM
Strategy Meets Action (SMA), an insurance analyst firm, has announced the launch of its Insurance Ecosystem Research Series and the availability of the first two reports in the series, “The Insurance Ecosystem: A Guide to the Marketplace,” and “Riding the Wave: Insurer Technology Spending, Drivers, and Approaches.”
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Oregon Residents Challenge the State "Right-to-Farm" Law
Submitted by Rebekah Wilce on September 8, 2014 - 7:36am
A group of residents of the Cedar Valley area near Gold Beach in Curry County, Oregon say their properties were doused with pesticides by a helicopter aiming for privately-owned timberlands last October.
In what has been called a "severe sanction," the pesticide applicator and the aerial spray company he owns have been fined $10,000 each by the state and had their pesticide licenses suspended for a year for providing false information that misled investigators.
But at least one of those affected says this basically amounts to a big traffic ticket, when instead he believes the incident should be considered an act of "criminal trespass" linked to 45 illness reports.
The problem is that a law passed by the state in the 1990s prevents the residents from successfully suing the pesticide applicator and timberland owners for damages. So 17 of the residents are challenging the constitutionality of that law, the "Farm and Forest Practices Act," often called the "Right to Farm and Forest Law."
Such so-called "right-to-farm" laws insulate agricultural operations -- including large industrial livestock confinement operations and, in Oregon, private timber companies -- against lawsuits as long as they're following what is (or, in some cases, may become) a "generally accepted" farming or forest practice.
These can include heavy aerial pesticide applications, and in fact Oregon's law specifically states that pesticide use is a protected practice as long as it complies with applicable laws and "is done in a reasonable and prudent manner." There is no exception to this protection carved out for pesticides that end up on adjacent properties.
Pesticides Falling from the Sky
John Burns, assistant chief of the local volunteer fire department, was outside doing yard work one morning last October. So were several of his neighbors, he said -- it was a nice day. "I noticed a helicopter kept going over the top of me, with kind of a horrible smell to it, but I didn't realize it was dropping product on me," Burns told CMD. He later found out the helicopter had made seven passes over the valley. He didn't notice an immediate effect from the exposure, although as the day wore on he says he says he felt progressively worse.
Burns' neighbor, James Welsh, who was out in his backyard talking on his cell phone, was hit with chemicals and immediately felt sick, had difficulty breathing, and felt nauseous. His son, Jim Welsh, was left to tell the story because his father passed away in April. He had a preexisting heart condition, but Jim said his father was healthy enough overall until that day last October. When his condition "deteriorated rapidly... he couldn't be treated because he couldn't tell what he was sprayed with," Jim said.
Welsh and his neighbors didn't find out until April 8, 2014 that what had fallen on them was a mix of 2,4-D and triclopyr combined with an adjuvant, and that the applicator had "applied one product at a rate above the maximum allowed by the label instructions." Burns called the combination that had fallen on them "extreme poison." James Welsh died of a heart infection later that month. His family wanted an autopsy, and offered to pay for it, but were told there was no one in Oregon that could perform the procedure.
James Welsh's 90-year old mother, for whom he was the sole caregiver, is one of the plaintiffs in the case challenging Oregon's "right-to-farm" law. Her grandson Jim and his family now care for her.
Burns said that 45 people in Cedar Valley were affected by the weedkillers falling from the sky. Thirteen of them were children.
ALEC's Role in Spreading the Controversial Legislation
All 50 states have right-to-farm laws, but their provisions vary. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) supports a particularly controversial version, and lists it in a June 2014 pamphlet obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy/Progressive Inc. (CMD) as one of five "key model" policies in the area of energy, the environment, and agriculture.
Like the ALEC bill, Oregon's law contains a provision ordering the plaintiffs -- those who say they've been harmed by an agricultural practice like aerial pesticide application -- to pay the legal fees of the defendant if they lose the case.
Missouri, which already had right-to-farm laws on the books, recently voted on a ballot initiative to add the policy to to the state constitution. Preliminary results from the August 5 election show the initiative passed by 2,490 votes. Election officials are conducting a recount.
When CMD exposed ALEC in 2011, PRWatch published a quick history of "right-to-farm" laws:
In defense of family farming, Massachusetts passed the first "Right to Farm" law in 1979, to protect these farmers against their new suburban neighbors filing illegitimate nuisance lawsuits against them when, in fact, the farms were there first. Since then, every state has passed some kind of protection for family farms, which are pillars of our communities and the backbone of a sensible system of sustainable agriculture.
However, in the past few decades, intensive corporatization of farming has threatened both the future of family farming and the ability of neighbors to regulate the development of industrial agricultural operations that have transmogrified many farms into factories. Small-scale farms that resembled Old MacDonald's farm (with an oink oink here and a moo moo there) have increasingly disappeared or been turned into enormous livestock confinements with literal lagoons of liquified manure and urine, super-concentrated smells that could make a skunk faint, or vast fields of monoculture crops grown with a myriad of chemicals and pesticides and sometimes even sewage sludge....
Capitalizing on the sentiment of protecting traditional farming, giant agribusiness interests have convinced some states to revise their Right to Farm laws to stealthily protect the most egregious of industrial farming practices from legitimate nuisance suits.
Oregon's law was first adopted in 1993 and jumped straight to the expanded version, extending protection from liability even to agricultural operations that don't predate homeowners. Oregonians for Food and Shelter (OFS), an industry lobby group founded to "do battle with activists seeking an initiative to ban the aerial application of forest herbicides" (according to an earlier iteration of its website), supported the bill. John DiLorenzo, who has lobbied for the group, testified in 2013 that OFS chief lobbyist "Paulette Pyle and I were among the proponents of that legislation during the 1993 legislative session."
DiLorenzo is also credited with writing the 2013 law overriding the ability of Oregon's citizens to regulate their own food systems locally, as The Progressive has reported.
OFS Executive Director Scott Dahlman has told the Associated Press, "If [right-to-farm] were overturned, I think there would be very devastating consequences." OFS staff did not return CMD's call for comment.
"Insufficient" Regulation Sinks Oregon "Below Ethical Minimum"
Lisa Arkin, Executive Director of Beyond Toxics, a grassroots environmental health non-profit organization working to help communities respond to incidents like the one in Cedar Valley, calls Oregon the "lowest common denominator in the west on forestry policy." She says that regulation of the timber industry in Washington, Idaho, and California helps to protect citizens in those states from practices that endanger human health, the environment, groundwater, and wildlife.
But "Oregon's Industrial Forests and Herbicide Use: A Case Study of Risk to People, Drinking Water and Salmon," an in-depth report published by Beyond Toxics in December 2013, called Oregon's forestry laws "loose and antiquated" and its pesticide spray regulations "insufficient" compared to surrounding states. It used geographic information system (GIS) mapping and measurements from Lane County, Oregon, where citizen complaints about aerial pesticide spray have garnered national media attention and a higher-than-usual amount of data from timber companies and scientists.
Arkin says that some of the same timber companies active in Oregon comply with Washington's stricter requirements of pesticide use posting, restrictions, and buffer zones, for example, without trouble, but argue that the same level of accountability in Oregon would put them out of business.
The pesticide spray over Cedar Valley is certainly not the first residential exposure due to aeral pesticide application. Residents of the Triangle Lake area in Lane County say they have been exposed to aerial pesticide drift multiple times in recent years, especially in 2011, as CMD has reported. Urine tests performed by scientists at Emory University in spring 2011 confirmed 2,4-D in 100 percent of their urine samples and the weedkiller atrazine in most.
But a preliminary report on pesticide drift and its effects on the area performed by the Environmental Health Assessment Program and the Oregon Health Authority in cooperation with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) reached vague conclusions such as that residents had been exposed and had higher than average levels of 2,4-D in their urine, but couldn't determine how they'd been exposed.
Lane County residents also tried to challenge the state's "right-to-farm" law, but the Oregon Court of Appeals dismissed the case on a technicality.
State Agency Failures and Lax Laws Leave Residents in the Lurch, Critics Say
Beyond Toxics' Arkin sees many gaps in the state's investigation into the pesticide incident in Curry County. The state concluded that the problem was due to the failure of a pesticide applicator and his company, she said, but when Beyond Toxics filed a public records request (denied, and later enforced by the Department of Justice), Arkin was surprised to find that the contracted manager for the timber company that had hired the applicator was overseeing the pesticide application on site that day and was reported to have personally witnessed the spray set-up and helicopter departures.
But neither the contract manager nor his timberland management company were fined or cited.
The Department of Agriculture's investigation notes also show that the agency receieved a fax from the applicator on November 26, 2013 stating that a 2,4-D product and a triclopyr product had been sprayed on a property near the residents on the day in question, but residents weren't notified of the makeup of the spray until April 2014.
Jim Welsh, whose father and grandmother said they were exposed to the pesticides in October, said, "The state really dropped the ball on this whole deal.... My dad went to the doctor and had these symptoms, and all the doctors could do was ask what were you sprayed with so they'd know how to treat it. It was mind-blowing. I’ve been in law enforcement for 28 years. The government's first priority should be public safety, making sure that people are safe."
Oregon Public Broadcasting has been the primary local media reporting on the incident since October. In April 2014, in an article titled "Southern Oregon Pesticide Case Highlights Gaps In State Oversight," OPB noted a former federal investigator's scathing criticism of the state's investigation.
Richard Kauffman, a former regional director of the CDC's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry who worked on both the Cedar Valley and Triangle Lake cases before he retired, said of the state's Pesticide Analytical Response Center or PARC (a coalition of state agencies responding to pesticide complaints):
"'To be open about these applications and then to respond quickly to complaints seems to be something they’re not able to do whether it’s a matter of motivation, a matter of funding or a combination of the two,' Kauffman said....
"In Cedar Valley, the state took seven leaf samples from residents' properties a week after the spray. That's a sample too small, too narrow and too late after the fact to be useful for understanding exposure, toxicologists and investigators said.
"'That’s completely inadequate,' Kauffman said of the Cedar Valley sampling plan. He said environmental sampling should be done within 48 hours and should include at least soil and water in addition to foliage. Residents also should have had their blood or urine tested, he said....
"'I would say given our history in this state with these particular communities, and the problems with aerial applications, we should be taking at least urine samples immediately when people begin feeling exposure symptoms,' Kauffman... said."
The combination of these regulatory failures and lax laws means that "Oregon has sunk below the ethical minimum by which a state should observe human rights and human health protections," Arkin says.
Challenging "Right-to-Farm"
So Cedar Valley residents are challenging the state's "right-to-farm" law, which effectively prevents them from suing for damages when they allege they and their loved ones were harmed. The public interest environmental law firm Crag Law Center has taken the case.
Crag attorney Chris Winter said he was interested in the case because he became "concerned that people weren't able to defend their property rights against toxic chemicals." The lawsuit challenges "right-to-farm" under the under the clause of the state constitution that guarantees that every individual will have a legal remedy for the violation of any fundamental legal right. It seeks a declaratory judgment.
Winter said, "Because toxic chemicals and aerial application are so risky, courts have said there's a higher standard of care, more than just being reasonably prudent, but being careful that nothing gets on neighbors' property." But because of the "right-to-farm" law, citizens still can't sue. That means courts have "tipped in favor of chemical companies and applicators."
Winter says that the plaintiffs hope to change the "Right to Farm and Forest Law," but that additional changes are needed to address structural problems in the state's regulatory system, like "basic standards and guidelines for how pesticides are applied."
John Burns, who is one of the plaintiffs, told CMD, "We feel our rights have been violated. Until the laws and the way they spray pesticides are changed, this will continue to happen to people in the state."
Atrazine Exposed
Contamination of Natural Kaua'i: Rare Plants and Wildlife at Risk
Spinning the Science on Atrazine
Syngenta Hired Guns Attack New Documentary
Syngenta Celebrates Earth Day by Ladling on the Pesticides
Atrazine and the Roots of ALEC's State Data Quality Act
Health Secrecy International Iraq Ethics Economy Climate Change Media Activism Wisconsin Right Wing Lobbying Corporations Human Rights Democracy Marketing Propaganda Politics U.S. Congress Public Relations Journalism Environment War / Peace U.S. Government ALEC Exposed
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A Look Back at the Beginning of Modern-Era Formula One
This past weekend was the 1000th Grand Prix of the modern era of Formula 1, held at Shanghai in China. Today let’s take a look back at some photographs from the first Grand Prix of this era. It was the British Grand Prix which also had the title of Grand Prix d’Europe and took place at Silverstone on May 13, 1950. In 1950 Alfa Romeo was the leading team with their 158 which was an update of a prewar design. Car number 1 in front of the lineup in the rudimentary Silverstone pits of the four Alfettas will be driven by Juan Manuel Fangio. Other Alfa drivers will be Giuseppe “Nino” Farina, Luigi Fagioli and British garagiste Reg Parnell.
Before the race started, King George VI (in the grey suit) greeted the drivers. Here he is speaking with Louis Chiron as Toulo de Graffenried awaits his turn and Prince Bira leans in patiently at the right. The Royal Family would watch the race from a small private elevated stand.
The Silverstone paddock was directly behind the pits and was pretty informal being simply a mown field inside the runways of the old RAF wartime airfield. Here again, is the Alfa Romeo team with car number 4 to be driven by Reg Parnell.
Here is another view of the Alfettas in the paddock with the pits in the background and the Alfa Romeo transporters at the right. Car number 3 will be driven by Fagioli and number 2 by Farina.
And here is Farina with his imperious driving position on the approach to Stowe Corner at the far end of the circuit. He swapped the lead at various times during the race with Fangio and Fagioli. Parnell was driving somewhat cautiously being a guest driver for the great Italian team.
The Talbot Lago 26C was really an open-wheeled sports car design of which there were five examples entered, two by Antonio Lago’s Automobiles Talbot-Darracq and three by private teams. This example was a Talbot team entry piloted by the French prewar driver Eugène Martin. He did not finish.
Monégasque Louis Chiron was a famous prewar driver who eventually became the oldest driver to start a Grand Prix when he drove a Maserati 250F at Monaco in 1958. At Silverstone, he was already 50 and drove a factory-entered Maserati 4CLT/48 but failed to finish.
In another Maserati 4CLT/48 was English amateur driver David Hampshire whose car was entered by Scuderia Ambrosiana. This Italian private team, created by Giovanni “Johnny” Lurani, allowed English drivers to maintain racing cars outside of England and thereby avoid both Purchase Tax and, by swapping expenses, the then limitation on taking Sterling funds outside of England.
This is Fagioli seen braking for Stowe Corner with his Alfetta. He would finish second to Farina after Fangio hit a straw bale and then suffered engine failure.
Before the start of the Grand Prix, Raymond Mays drove a slow demonstration lap in the B.R.M. 15 which was not yet ready to race after numerous disappointments. Here he is coming out of Abbey Corner and past the pits which at this time were located between Abbey and Woodcote.
The race is over and the Alfa Romeo mechanics surround Reg Parnell’s third-place car as he heads to the prize-giving. The smashed grille in its nose resulted from a fatal argument with a hare during the race. There was no other damage caused by the collision.
Nino Farina receives his laurels as the winner of the first Grand Prix counting for the World Championship which he will go on to win in 1950.
The winner and World Champion to be, Nino Farina
Photos by Alan R. Smith & Louis Klemantaski ©The Klemantaski Collection – http://www.klemcoll.com
Martin Raffauf
GREAT old photos!
Karl Ludvigsen
Nice pictures of a great occasion. I don’t think the BRM’s laps were THAT slow..
David Frey
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Czech football becomes involved with international aid project for first time
When the Czech Republic's international football team reached the semi-finals of the European Championships in Portugal last year they won admirers around the globe. Indeed, the country now stands at second in the world rankings. Reflecting the Czech Republic's status as a "world power", the Czech Football Association is about to become involved in an international aid project for the first time - linking up with a Kenyan NGO. A couple of representatives of the organization are currently in Prague setting up the project. I spoke to one of them, George Wachira.
"We have a project in Kenya called MYSA, meaning Mathari Youth Sports Association. Basically we bring youth from the slum and use football as a tool to mobilise them together, and give them an opportunity to seek jobs, to get jobs and empower them with knowledge on how they can go about it.
"And we hope in the very near future we're going to get a sort of development co-operation between the Czech football federation and...some project somehow."
Will this project help football in Kenya or will it help in other areas?
"It's definitely going to play a big part in football in Kenya, because what we've learnt here we're going to take back home."
I know football is hugely popular in Africa - how well known are Czech footballers, and how well known is Czech football in Africa?
"You'd be amazed. Kenyans, even 10-year-olds, will tell you something about [Pavel] Nedved, they'll tell you something about [Milan] Baros because they watch the English Premier League. They'll tell you something about Jan Koller, about [Tomas] Rosicky, about [Vladimir] Smicer. These are very famous players in Kenya."
I know you have met some of the Czech national team - I see photos here of you with Petr Cech and Milan Baros. What was that experience like?
"Oh it was amazing, it's just one of those experiences you would never imagine - it's a dream come true. It is a dream come true."
Tell us more about your stay in the Czech Republic, how long are you here for, what have you been doing?
"We've been here since the 1st of June and we're staying to the 26th. Most of what we've been doing is conducting football clinics in schools, and actually going to schools and speaking about Africa; presenting Kenya as a country, which is very important, because many people here don't know much about Kenya."
How have Czech school-kids reacted to you guys?
"It was amazing. The first week we went to a little town around six and a half hours from Prague. And these kids...we were talking to them and it was on a Friday and we just kept talking about MYSA and about Kenya and about Africa. And these kids wanted to volunteer and come on a Saturday, so they were really interested in learning more about somebody from another part of the world."
Robin Ujfalusi: magic, politics and football in Africa
Robin Ujfalusi is a humanitarian aid worker, football-lover, and now author. I met him in a cafe the other day to ask him about his…
Magic of African football comes to Prague's Old Town
Prague's Old Town was the unusual venue for a football tournament on Saturday afternoon, but then it was an unusual tournament - organised…
Czech football aid to Africa continues
The Czech football star Tomas Ujfalusi is a tough defender who takes no prisoners on the pitch. But - inspired by his aid-worker cousin…
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>Alejandro U. Becerra-Ornelas
Alejandro U. Becerra-Ornelas
Santa Monica Office
BA in policy analysis, Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE)
One Page Bio
Alejandro Becerra is an assistant policy researcher at RAND and a Ph.D. candidate at the Pardee RAND Graduate School.
At RAND, he is collaborating in different multidisciplinary projects, including an analysis of the effects of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill; a robust decision-making analysis of water management strategies in Mendoza, Argentina, in coordination with the InterAmerican Development Bank; an international drug price comparison; an analysis of the European monetary system crisis; and a systematic review of 9/11 and its effect on NYC populations.
Prior to joining RAND, Becerra was the deputy director of fiscal policy at the Mexican Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, where he assessed the fiscal, energy and telecommunications reforms implemented in Mexico and their effects on growth, inflation, trade and consumption. He was also a research and teaching assistant at CIDE for the Faculty of Economics, where he worked in different projects including topics such as technical efficiency, regional development, commuting, environmental economics and operations research. Currently, he is working as an external consultant for the Mexican Ministry of Energy in a project that analyses the optimal location for biogas biorefineries in the country.
Becerra has a B.A. in public policy from the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE) in Mexico.
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>RR-998
360-Degree Assessments
Are They the Right Tool for the U.S. Military?
by Chaitra M. Hardison, Mikhail Zaydman, Tobi A. Oluwatola, Anna Rosefsky Saavedra, Thomas Bush, Heather Peterson, Susan G. Straus
Military Personnel,
Organizational Leadership Development,
Download eBook for Free
Purchase Print Copy
Add to Cart Paperback88 pages $21.50 $17.20 20% Web Discount
What is known about 360-degree assessments?
Are the military services already using 360s? If so, how are they using them?
Would it be advisable to implement 360s for development or evaluation purposes for all officers in the military? Why or why not?
What implementation challenges should the services be aware of to ensure success?
In response to the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2014, which directed the Secretary of Defense to assess "the feasibility of including a 360-degree assessment [360] approach... as part of performance evaluation reports," the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (OUSD/P&R) asked the RAND Corporation to provide an outside assessment of the advisability of using 360s for evaluation purposes in the military. In addition, OUSD/P&R also requested information on the role of 360s more broadly. Thus, this report explores the pros and cons of using 360s for evaluation and development purposes in the military.
The research was based on information gleaned from a number of sources: existing research literature and expert guidance on 360 best practices; policy documents and other sources summarizing current performance and promotion practices in the military services, including the use of 360s; and interviews with a sample of stakeholders and subject-matter experts in the Department of Defense. The results suggest that using 360 feedback as part of the military performance evaluation system is not advisable at this time, though the services could benefit from using 360s as a tool for leader development and to gain an aggregate view of leadership across the force.
Each of the military services and the Joint Staff uses some version of 360-degree assessments. In all cases, the purpose is entirely for individual development, not for evaluation
The Army has the most widespread implementation. In the other services, the use of 360s is more targeted — generally directed at senior leadership or toward high-potential officers as part of the military education system.
Based on our research both within and outside the military setting, we advise against incorporating 360s in the officer evaluation system at this time
The use of 360s for evaluation purposes could ruin their use for developmental applications; implementing two systems could create confusion to raters, increase the survey burden on the force, and create distrust in the process.
Even more important is the potential for negative impact on selection boards and the promotion process. Information from raters is anonymous, can be inaccurate, could be slanted in an attempt to influence high-stakes decisions, and often requires an understanding of context that may not be available to the board.
We do advise the use of 360s for development purposes for people at higher grades or in leadership positions, which is essentially how the tool is being used today
The tool could be made available as a service to individuals hoping to improve, along with coaching to help service members evaluate the results and incorporate them into self-improvement goals.
360s could also be used to provide an aggregate view of leadership performance across the force — something that current tools are not necessarily well positioned to provide. Leaders could use aggregate 360 results to identify force-wide strengths and weaknesses.
Overall, our interviews showed that the spirit of 360 clearly resonates with the services
The services value good leadership behaviors and tools that can help develop good leaders; 360s are one such tool.
Rather than mandate the use of 360s force-wide, it is more advisable to allow the services to continue on their current paths, expanding the use of 360s in a way that is tailored to individual service needs and goals.
The U.S. military should not incorporate 360-degree assessments into the officer performance evaluation system at this time.
The U.S. military should continue to utilize 360-degree assessments for development purposes within the higher grades and for people in leadership positions.
The services should be allowed to continue on their current paths, expanding the use of 360s in a way that is tailored to individual service needs and goals.
What Are 360-Degree Assessments, and How Are They Different from Other Assessments?
Performance Evaluation and Promotion Processes in the Military Services
360-Feedback Systems Currently in Use in the Military
Using 360 Feedback: Evaluation Versus Development
Using 360 Feedback: Other Implementation Issues
Implications for the Military Services
This research was sponsored by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and conducted within the Forces and Resources Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community.
This report is part of the RAND Corporation research report series. RAND reports present research findings and objective analysis that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors. All RAND reports undergo rigorous peer review to ensure high standards for research quality and objectivity.
Print Format: Paperback
Paperback Pages: 88
Paperback Price: $17.20
Paperback ISBN/EAN: 9780833089052
Document Number: RR-998-OSD
Series: Research Reports
Organizational Leadership Development
Hardison, Chaitra M., Mikhail Zaydman, Tobi A. Oluwatola, Anna Rosefsky Saavedra, Thomas Bush, Heather Peterson, and Susan G. Straus, 360-Degree Assessments: Are They the Right Tool for the U.S. Military?. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2015. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR998.html. Also available in print form.
Hardison, Chaitra M., Mikhail Zaydman, Tobi A. Oluwatola, Anna Rosefsky Saavedra, Thomas Bush, Heather Peterson, and Susan G. Straus, 360-Degree Assessments: Are They the Right Tool for the U.S. Military?, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, RR-998-OSD, 2015. As of January 14, 2020: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR998.html
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EXERCISE THERAPISTS
Shelby graduated from Eastern Washington University with a Bachelor’s degree in Exercise Science with a minor in coaching. While in school, Shelby was Vice President of the EagleFit Club, where she created high-intensity workouts for the on-campus fitness club members. She has obtained certifications from the National Strength and Conditioning Association, the American Red Cross, and is a nationally Certified Inclusive Fitness Trainer. Shelby aspires to positively influence people to lead an active and healthy lifestyle to help improve quality of life.
Shelby Peerboom, NSCA/CPT, ACSM/NCHPAD CIFT
Lead Exercise Therapist
Kristen graduated from Salem State University in Massachusetts with a Bachelor’s Degree in Sport and Movement Science, with a focus on fitness and wellness and a minor in Psychology. She has over 7 years of personal training experience, is an NSCA Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, and is a Certified Inclusive Fitness Trainer. Kristen’s experience as a personal trainer has helped her develop a passion for helping others with their health and fitness goals so that they can live their happiest and healthiest lives possible.
Kristen Knight, NSCA-CSCS, ACSM/NCHPAD CIFT
Exercise Therapist
Kevin graduated from the University of Mary with a Bachelor’s degree in Exercise Science, focusing on Clinical Exercise Physiology. Kevin is a Certified Exercise Physiologist through the American College of Sports Medicine and is also a Certified Inclusive Fitness Trainer. While in school, Kevin was a two-time academic All-American for the Marauder’s cross-country team. When he wasn’t tearing up the roads during the school year, he spent his time in the University of Mary’s free health clinic that the students operated for the surrounding community. Kevin spends his spare time searching for new places he hasn’t been before, reading, and playing the drums.
Kevin Carpenter, ACSM/EP, ACSM/NCHPAD CIFT
Sumi graduated from the University of British Columbia with a Bachelor of Human Kinetics, majoring in Kinesiology. She worked as a Kinesiologist, personal trainer and Rehab Assistant for 6 years in Vancouver before moving to Seattle. Her clientele ranged from the clinical population to elite athletes. Sumi is a 9x Karate National Champion and has competed internationally as a member of the Canadian national team for 15 years. Her love of sports and fitness has led to her passion of using exercise as a means to achieve benefits in health and wellness. Sumi strongly believes in the power of exercise and is excited to join the PB team!
Sumi Uchiage, BHK, BCAK, ACSM/NCHPAD CIFT
Hannah originally received her B.S. in Biology from Arizona State University with an intent to become a Veterinarian, instead began working in Alaska on commercial fishing vessels. All the while, Hannah remained engaged in living an active lifestyle including hiking, running, yoga, and cycling. She has always had a strong connection to the field of health and wellness and decided to switch careers to better align with her passions. Hannah graduated from Bates Technical College with a degree in the occupational therapy assistant program and recently transitioned from working in the field of geriatric rehabilitation to join the team at Pushing Boundaries.
Hannah Grout, ASCM/CPT, ACSM/NCHPAD CIFT
Teri Mayo, LMT has owned rehabilitative practices for twenty five years as a massage therapist including a medical massage clinic that employed over 18 therapists and staff at its peak. After a recent several year foray into health care administration with Swedish Medical Group and Seattle Children’s Hospital, Teri is happy to be back in the world of rehabilitative services.
Teri brings a background in business management, team management, and professional mentoring and she is excited to bring her strategic vision, business expertise, and non-profit board/fundraising experience to Pushing Boundaries. She is eager to get going and looks forward to working with an amazing board, staff, team of volunteers, and clients to help Pushing Boundaries evolve into 2020 and beyond.
Teri has an open door policy. So please, if she is in, stop by and introduce yourself.
Teri Mayo, LMT
Michael’s philosophy of service-based professionalism is well aligned with the Pushing Boundaries Mission. Combining 25 years of project management, 13 years of board development, 10 years of healthcare advocacy, and 8 years of teaching, he looks forward to contributing to the organization’s ongoing growth and success As a healthcare provider himself, he understands both the challenges and successes experienced by the Pushing Boundaries clients and their families.
In his spare time, Michael is passionate about travel, gardening, British television, and any and all cookies.
Michael LaTour
Barry is a man of many hats. One half of his professional life is a real estate broker with Marketplace Sotheby’s International Realty specializing in accessible real estate. His other realm is being an international speaker & trainer with his company Talk & Roll Enterprises.
In 1991, Barry sustained a spinal cord injury from a motorcycle accident and has been an advocate for people with disabilities since that time! He served on the Governor’s Committee on Disabilities & Employment, has been a peer mentor for others with disabilities and worked as a consultant for many organizations over the years. He loves being part of Pushing Boundaries and has known and supported Sharon & Al since they first started the organization!
Barry Long
Board President
With 40+ years of Office Management/Bookkeeping experience, Sharon has been a vital an integral part of Pushing Boundaries since its inception. Sharon holds a B.A. from Nebraska Wesleyan.
Sharon and her late husband Allan founded Pushing Boundaries after Allan sustained a spinal cord injury. Sharon was instrumental since our inception in applying the knowledge, passion and real-life experience to make Pushing Boundaries what it is today. She is also a member of Bellevue LifeSpring, a non-profit organization.
You will often see Sharon helping out around the office, supporting clients and their caregivers, and surprising staff with lunch.
Sharon Northrup
Board Treasurer; Founder
Wendell is the President of Premium Healthcare Products. He has over 30 years of experience serving people with disabilities, including owing his own medical equipment company, serving in senior management positions of regional/national companies, and in the development of several innovative products. Wendell is a member of the Washington Medical Case Management Association, serves on the board of United Spinal and The Here and Now Project. He has served on numerous boards, most recently on the Northwest Chapter of The American Parkinson’s Disease Association.
Wendell Matas
Annie LaCroix is a long-time business strategist, educator, and public speaker. She is the owner and founder of Columbia River Institute of Massage Therapy and has a podcast and consulting business called Brainy Boss that focuses on organizational efficiency for small businesses. Annie has served on the board of the American Massage Therapy Association Washington Chapter in many capacities, most recently as its President until 2017. She also currently serves on the advisory board of Healwell, a non-profit organization dedicated to integrating massage therapy into hospital settings. Annie has a Master of Science in Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine from Western States University.
Annie LaCroix, MS, LMT
Born over 50 years ago with Spina Bifida, Meg has been an Advocate for her community all her adult life. She works to improve access through ADA compliancy efforts both locally and nationally. Service to her community is a priority and a driving need of Meg’s and she is thrilled to bring her experience and background to any program so that it may meet its potential in serving the community as well.
Meg was Ms. Wheelchair WA 2008 and served as State Coordinator from 2010-2015.
Meg currently works with Validus Consulting & Services as their Resource, Outreach and Support Specialist and supports their mission of empowering individuals with disabilities to live to full potential.
Meg Paulsen
Tom has been a Realtor® with a passion for barrier-free housing for over 15 years. In 2004 in response to the needs of a good friend with MS, he established ABLE environments, a full-service company founded to address the serious need for real estate expertise on issues of accessible living, housing decisions for our aging population, and the promotion of Universal Design in the mainstream housing industry. Most recently, Tom has partnered with Barry Long to create and implement searchable, accessible criteria in the Northwest Multiple Listing Service. Tom is serving his second term on the Seattle-King County Aging and Disabilities Advisory Council and is a Charter Member of the Northwest Universal Design Council.
Tom Minty
Building I
info@pushing-boundaries.org
(c) 2020 Pushing Boundaries
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December 30, 2019 / 12:42 PM / 20 days ago
Turkey fast-tracks bill to deploy troops to Libya
ANKARA (Reuters) - The Turkish government is sending to parliament on Monday a bill mandating the deployment of troops to Libya, said Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, accelerating a high-stakes plan that Ankara outlined last week.
Last week, President Tayyip Erdogan said his government would seek parliamentary consent to deploy troops to Libya after Fayez al-Serraj’s Government of National Accord (GNA) requested support. The GNA is fending off an offensive by Khalifa Haftar’s forces in the east of the North African country.
Erdogan had said on Thursday the bill would pass around Jan. 8-9.
But Cavusoglu, after meeting with Turkish opposition leaders to seek support for the legislation, told reporters the bill would be submitted to parliament later on Monday.
“As the Foreign Ministry, we presented the mandate to the Presidency for it to be sent to the parliament. And as of today, we have learned from the President’s office that the mandate will be sent to parliament with the signature of the Honourable President within the day,” Cavusoglu said.
Earlier on Monday, Turkey’s main opposition party said after talks with Cavusoglu that it opposes the bill, arguing that such a move would exacerbate the country’s conflict and cause it to spread across the region. [L8N2941HH]
Cavusoglu later met with the opposition Iyi Party, which he said would evaluate the bill.
Ankara has already sent military supplies to the GNA despite a United Nations embargo, according to a U.N. report seen by Reuters last month, and has said it will continue to support the GNA. Haftar’s forces have received support from Russia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.
Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Jonathan Spicer
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Alice Ettie Branton Musto[1]
Name Alice Ettie Branton Musto [2, 3]
Born Jan 1898 Islington, London, England [2, 3]
Residence 1901 Islington, London, England [2]
Age: 2Relation to Head of House: Daughter
Residence 2 Apr 1911 Islington, London, England [3]
Age: 11Relation to Head of House: Daughter
Person ID P3779
Father Frederick Arthur Musto, b. Jan 1868, Mile End, Middlesex, England , d. Sep 1930, Guildford, Surrey, England (Age ~ 62 years)
Relationship natural
Mother Alice Esther Branton, b. Bef Sep 1870, Northfleet, Kent. , d. Oct 1958, Romford, Essex, England (Age ~ 88 years)
Married 2 Jul 1898 St John at Hackney, London [3, 4, 5, 6, 7]
Ancestry Family Tree.
http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=60445168&pid=5878
[S1350281794] 1901 England Census, Ancestry.com, (Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005.Original data - Census Returns of England and Wales, 1901. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives, 1901. Data imaged from the National Archives, London, England. The National Archi), Class: RG13; Piece: 200; Folio: 103; Page: 23.
[S1350281792] 1911 England Census, Ancestry.com, (Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.Original data - Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA), 1911. Data imaged from the National Archives, London, England.), Class: RG14; Piece: 1001.
[S1350281800] London, England, Marriages and Banns, 1754-1921, Ancestry.com, (Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.Original data - Church of England Parish Registers, 1754-1921. London Metropolitan Archives, London.Images produced by permission of the City of London Corporation Libraries, Archives), London Metropolitan Archives, Saint John At Hackney, Hackney, Register of marriages, P79/JN1, Item 097.
[S1350281797] England & Wales, FreeBMD Marriage Index, 1837-1915, FreeBMD, (Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006.Original data - General Register Office. England and Wales Civil Registration Indexes. London, England: General Register Office. © Crown copyright. Published by permission of the Contro).
[S1351152336] 1911 England Census, Ancestry.com, (Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.), Class: RG14; Piece: 1001.
[S1351152333] London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1921, Ancestry.com, (Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.), London Metropolitan Archives, Saint John At Hackney, Hackney, Register of marriages, P79/JN1, Item 097.
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GSP readying for big home battle
MONTREAL — Georges St-Pierre may be fighting at home this weekend but he’s not sleeping in his own bed.
The UFC welterweight champion has moved into a hotel, leaving the comforts of home ahead of Saturday night’s UFC 154 main event with interim title-holder Carlos (Natural Born Killer) Condit at the Bell Centre.
He wants no part of the hometown feeling, other than to have friends and family in the stands.
“I want to feel like it’s another fight, like normal,” he said.
The move has cut into his privacy. Fans in the lobby have pretty much restricted his ability to leave his hotel room. But that plays into another priority ahead of the fight.
“At this time I try to isolate myself, not get sick — not catch any cold or stuff like that. Stay very focused on the main goal,” St-Pierre told reporters.
The fight is the first for St-Pierre (22-2) since April 2011 when he beat Jake Shields. He underwent reconstructive surgery after injuring his knee in training last fall.
Condit (28-5) defeated Nick Diaz in February to claim the interim title during St-Pierre’s injury layoff.
After Friday’s weigh-in, when he has to make 170 pounds, St-Pierre’s immediate plan is to “eat and drink.” An ice cream is high on his priority list.
Both main event fighters attended a public workout at a local nightclub Thursday, although St-Pierre did little other than sign autographs and give fans some training gear.
He says his training is done for the fight so it makes no sense having a session just for show.
Using golf as a metaphor, he says he has already hit the ball. It’s in the air and he can’t influence it any more.
“Even if I were to do 100 push-ups, I’m not going to get any stronger,” he said. “So it’s all in the mind. My training is done.
“There is nothing I can do to be stronger, sharper, better than I am. The only thing I can change is my mind, so I try to stay positive and enjoy every second of it. Even though there is a lot of stress.”
While looking relaxed in bantering with a horseshoe-shaped wall of reporters enveloping him, St-Pierre said he always feels nerves going into a fight. He just tries to control them.
He quoted the so-called James-Lange Theory, which argues that emotions occur as a result of physiological reactions. Knowing that, you can also control your emotions, St-Pierre reasons.
“That means I’m scared, I’m nervous, I’m ’Oh my God, I can’t wait,’ but I act likes it’s all good and I’m all good.”
Hope is many things — creates a positive expectation of future
Wranglers get win over Thrashers
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Frank Sinatra gets with the Basie Program – 3 albums/3reviews
Pop Culture Released - Nov 25, 2019
When Frank Sinatra formed his own record label, he planned to continue his fruitful association with Nelson Riddle; there was one insurmountable problem, however: Riddle was under exclusive contract to Capitol Records. Sinatra went looking for an arranger with Riddle's versatility and found journeyman Neal Hefti, known for his swing arrangements for the Count Basie Orchestra. No problem as Sinatra planned to record several swing albums, one or two with the esteemed Basie.
(1) SINATRA & SWINGIN' BRASS (released July 1962)
This exuberant song collection is a warmup for what was to come–two collaborative albums with the Count Basie Orchestra. On this recording Sinatra pays tribute to the music of the big-band era, with tunes associated with Benny Goodman (“Goody, Goody”), Duke Ellington (“I’m Beginning to See the Light”), Jimmy Dorsey (“Tangerine”) and Glenn Miller (“Serenade in Blue”). The recording sessions were originally scheduled for three nights, but Sinatra was in such fine voice that he cancelled the third session, and recorded all twelve songs in two revved-up evenings. Standout cuts are by three of Sinatra's favorite songwriters: Cole Porter (“At Long Last Love,” “I Get A Kick out of You,” and “I Love You”), George Gershwin (“They Can’t Take That Away From Me”) and Jerome Kern (“Pick Yourself Up”). In an era when albums were getting shorter and shorter (30 minutes at best), Sinatra and Hefti cut loose for 40 minutes. As Sinatra was wont to say at the time, Ring-a-ding, ding!
(2) SINATRA -BASIE (December 1962)
“I’ve waited 20 years for this moment,” Sinatra said of making a record with Count Basie. It would be the first of three team-ups with jazz’s preeminent swing orchestra that finds the singer getting with the Basie program in a big way. Indeed, working with Sinatra took Basie's drummer Sonny Payne to a higher level: “Sinatra is the only singer who makes me want to swing,” he said afterward. Most of the tunes were remakes of songs Sinatra had previously recorded for Capitol Records. No matter—with the Count's inspired players at maximum tilt, the songs sounded fresh and new all over again. Neal Hefti, who did the charts for “Sinatra & Swingin’ Brass,” wrote the uptempo arrangements. The downside was the album's relatively short length, having only ten cuts at a time when 12 songs was the industry norm. Those wanting more Sinatra-Basie would have to wait another two years for the next Sinatra-Basie installment, “It Might As Well Be Swing.” The third and final Sinatra-Basie meeting would be captured live in Vegas, in 1966, entitled “Sinatra at the Sands.”
(3) SINATRA-BASIE: IT MIGHTS AS WELL BE SWING (August 1964)
A lot had happened since the first Sinatra-Basie meeting, made evident on this album, which is comprised of covers of other singers’ recent hits, and with the addition of strings on four cuts, to give a more commercial feel to the album. Making records is an art but first and foremost it is a business. The record label must make money, and the profit-loss statement at Sinatra’s record label was bleeding red ink. If Reprise Records was going to stay in business it needed to worry less about art and more about sounding commercial. Thus, when Frank Sinatra and arranger Quincey Jones sat down to create a playlist, the song selection boiled down to 10 songs that were top-ten hits by other artists: among them, “Wives and Lovers” (Jack Jones), “More” (Steve Lawrence), “Hello, Dolly” (Louis Armstrong), “Fly Me to the Moon” (Joe Harnell), “I Wish You Love” (Keely Smith), “I Can’t Stop Loving You” (Ray Charles), and three that were hits for Tony Bennett (“I Wanna Be Around,” “The Good Life” and “The Best is yet to Come”).
Like so many other arrangers employed by Sinatra, Jones was under the gun to come up with the charts in a big hurry and needed help; he recruited Billy Byers who’d helped him a year earlier with “This Time By Basie.” Who composed what isn’t entirely clear, but the results suited the Sinatra-Basie II project perfectly. The first of the three sessions—the only one without strings—was the strongest and resulted in the most satisfying cuts, notably “Fly Me to the Moon,” “The Best is yet to Come,” “Wives and Lovers," "I Believe in You," and "I Wanna Be Around." (The tasty trumpet flourishes that are so much a part of this and other Sinatra swing albums are by sly, artful Harry "Sweets" Edison). The rest of the LP is more commercial sounding but no less hard swinging. “It Might As Well Be Swing” was the first Sinatra album comprised entirely of hits by other recording artists, and a sign of things to come, with Sinatra turning more and more to new, youth-oriented songs to sell records. That said, this swingin' set of covers is the only one to rate as a Sinatra classic.
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7100 SW Hampton St, #202, Tigard OR 97223 I
Phone: 503-997-2007 I
info@rubiconglobalgroup.com
©2018 RUBICON GLOBAL GROUP
MOHAMMAD SAEED RAHMAN
Mohammad Saeed Rahman is a leader in the global humanitarian space, a philanthropist, volunteer, and entrepreneur with a deep involvement in networking, the community and the world at large. He has a passion for sharing his expertise in managing money and creating wealth for long term security. He has 35 years experience in the financial industry as Senior Vice President and Portfolio Manager at Wachovia and Vice President for Private Clients at Merrill Lynch. He is the founder of several business ventures and a few non-profit organizations. His ventures include Rubicon Global Asset Management, Rubicon Global Holdings, Rubicon Global Research, Always On Network, Maui-Rubicon Broadband and Z-Motors US.
Mr. Rahman received his Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Portland State University, and Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) degree at Reed College. Mr. Rahman received his Investment Management Analyst Certification from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Rahman served as an adjunct professor at the School of Marketing & Finance at Portland State University for eighteen years and has served as a Board Member for the Portland State Endowment Foundation. As of September 2016, he joined the Board of Trustees at Antioch College, and was soon selected as the Board’s Chairman of the Investment Committee. Antioch College is a 167 year old United States liberal arts college in the heart of Ohio. Previously, he served for 10 years on the board of the Counsel of Spiritual and Ethical Education (CSEE). He also founded One Ummah Foundation (OUF), a non-profit organization dedicated to breaking the cycle of illiteracy and poverty in underdeveloped countries.
Mr. Rahman previously served on the board of the Institute of Halal Investing. He has a very avid interest in demystifying halal investing and bringing it within the mainstream of the investment industry on a global scale. He was a member of the Reuters panel on Islamic finance in Singapore and presented his paper on Micro Equity Venture at the Harvard Islamic Finance Forum.
His resourcefulness and love of networking lead him to various investment projects from companion animal pharmaceuticals, to wireless telecommunications, to biotech engineering. He also has a heart for working on humanitarian projects through One Ummah Foundation, bringing education and health services to children in underdeveloped communities in a dozen countries world-wide, and to his own local community.
As a global visionary, philanthropist and entrepreneur, he is a leader on ethical business practices and philosophies. He is a firm believer in driving fear out of the workplace and replacing it with joy. His personal business philosophy centers on marrying your passion with your compassion. Mr. Rahman has been quoted by BBC, NPR, the Oregonian, and Deal Maker: Middle East, about his views on halal investing. He has been interviewed by Foreign Policy Magazine and other world media organizations.
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The Sea In Between
Home The Waking The Sea In Between
by Guest Blogger May 22, 2013
Review by Aubrey Allison of The Sea In Between, a film by Mason Jar Music featuring Josh Garrels (2013)
It's graduation season. My friends here at art school are graduating around me, and while I still have a couple classes left to take, the future is approaching fast, and it's intimidating. When my impending transition into "the real world" looms, and that world seems like a place where I might not measure up, I reach for a certain DVD, a film that effectively says, Take heart, and take part in creation: The Sea in Between.
When it comes to categories, The Sea In Between is its own breed. The filmmakers, Mason Jar Music, call it "our own vision for a possible future of distributed media: a full audio-visual album. In essence, an LP of sights and sounds." It's a documentary of a week of music-making. Josh Garrels performs his songs in beautiful settings around Mayne Island, off the coast of British Columbia, Canada, accompanied by several very talented young musicians.
But the film is also its own "behind the scenes" — we see Garrels at home with his wife and kids, and he shares his stories from why he decided to give one of his albums away for free to how he came into his faith. We meet the Johnson family, who discovered Garrels' music and decided to host the week-long retreat. We meet Gordon "Punch" Robson, a ninety-one-year-old Mayne Island local who owns some land the musicians play and film on. We see the concert they give as a way to thank the community for their hospitality. But what gives The Sea In Between its character, what makes each intimate performance that much more stirring, is that we get to hear the stories behind Josh Garrels' music, and how the whole experience affected everyone involved.
One of the most striking moments of the film is one that seemed like failure: in the middle of a forest at night where they are recording "Fire By Night," the generator runs out of gas. Woven through this is Garrels sharing the story of how he met his wife, how he let her down and they broke up. The musicians start playing quietly in the tiny light of a few flashlights. Garrels tells how she got engaged to someone else, and yet he felt a certainty that the two of them would be back together, without him manipulating her, but he didn't know how. In the forest, the lights suddenly come on, and the musicians begin to play. Garrels walks into the circle of musicians and starts to sing.
As an art student, what resonated most with me were the stories from the accompanying musicians. They agree to go to a tiny island off the coast of Canada and play, unpaid, with a musician most of them have never met. As they board the tiny plane and fly over lakes and trees, there is a sense of adventure. But there is also a sense of searching, a hope that this retreat will bring clarity.
Why do they create music? What validation do they need as artists? How can they recover that joy of playing music they had when they were thirteen? Sitting on hay bales in a barn lit by strings of hanging lights, they play the gentle "Bread and Wine." We hear the voice of violinist Russell Durham share:
"My Juilliard conditioning kind of came back and I was like, this isn’t good enough. I’m not cutting it. But in reality, the experience had very little to do with me and everything to do with the song. And that’s when the best music is made: when people are out of their heads, and just sharing that moment.”
There is the silent moment that comes after every song, when the players look up from their instruments and look at each other. Almost imperceptibly, Durham leans back into the hay behind him and smiles. But the film isn't heavy with the weight of its own significance. Most of the time it's just plain fun.
That's one of the heartening things about it: the music fills people with a joy that grows throughout the week. Heading home, one of the musicians sees a piano in a waiting area at the airport. He sits down and begins to play, joined by a percussionist and Durham on violin, all with relaxed smiles. While the strangers and fellow travelers enjoy the impromptu performance, we hear Durham say:
"Before this trip, I felt like I needed to carve out a career for myself, know what I was going to do and prepare for it. This trip made me enjoy being in the process more, being a musician. ...Ever since then, I haven't actually given so much thought to the future. And amazingly... things still work out. And at the same time, I'm enjoying where I am a lot more."
With my own career search beginning, this is exactly what I need to hear. And I suspect that anyone can find something they need to hear in The Sea In Between. Back at his home, after the retreat, Garrels says, "When someone can take their craft, their profession, their area of genius, and present it in way that is inviting people into their joy — that's when the most beautiful things are formed." The Sea In Between is one of those most beautiful things.
Aubrey Allison is a Texas transplant in Seattle, working for ImageJournal and the SPU MFA in Creative Writing. She graduated from SCAD in 2013 with a BFA in writing. Her favorite things include the smell of old books and shoes that are silent when she walks. See more of her work at aubreyallison.com.
Also in The Waking
Navratri: Nine Nights of Goddess
by Guest Contributor January 14, 2020
A shiver moves down my spine, and I wrap my sweatshirt tighter. Sometimes, despite the incantations, I really just need one of your many arms to hold me. To hold all of us. I want to shout out—Bhoodevi, the earth, is at the bottom of the ocean.
A Year (And Counting) of Mercy
Mercy has become an exercise in noticing: the unexpected coffee bought for me by a friend, a kind email from a colleague, a whole chocolate cake left on my desk by a volunteer at a nonprofit I work for. If this past year has been one of sorrows, it has also been one where I step from mercy to mercy.
Finding Peace in a Greenhouse
Greenhouses toe the line between the natural world and the built environment. They protect crops by controlling natural forces such as heavy rain, cold, and strong winds. Though they contain aspects of the natural world like water, soil, plants, and microbiota, they are still highly cultivated and thus disconnected from the wilderness.
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Home Ruminate News and Events Our 2014 Pushcart Prize Nominees
Our 2014 Pushcart Prize Nominees
Lindsey DeLoach Jones is nominated for her essay "Fall in Love, Lourdemie", published in Issue 28, Not Forgotten, and runner up in the 2013 VanderMey Nonfiction Prize. She lives with her husband and baby girl in Greenville, South Carolina, where she edits Emrys Journal. She earned her MFA in creative nonfiction from Seattle Pacific University and her MA in English from the College of Charleston, and she’s currently trying to figure out a way to go to school forever. Lindsey is a novice vegetable gardener, foodie wannabe, and former Wheel of Fortune contestant who can often be found drinking hot chocolate in coffee shops. In college, she thought she invented the creative nonfiction genre—but as it turns out, it was already a thing.
David Brendan Hopes is nominated for his short story "On Saturdays He Drove The Ford Pickup", which appeared in Issue 27, Glimpses. David teaches, writes, and gardens, in Asheville, North Carolina, where he and his students have recently opened a scruffy downtown performance space called Apothecary. His play, "The Loves of Mr Lincoln", opened in New York in May, 2013.
Jay Kidd's poem '"Runaway Dorothy" Was the Name of the Band' was selected as the winning piece of the 2013 Janet B. McCabe poetry prize, appeared in Issue 29, In Search of Song, and is now nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Jay lives in New York City with his husband Ken, and they have had the very deep satisfaction of living on the same street in Greenwich Village for nearly twenty-five years. Jay’s work has appeared in the Bellevue Literary Reviewand the Burningword Literary Journal, and he has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He studies the craft of poetry at the Writers Studio. After many years of being a psychotherapist, Jay now works as a certified life coach helping people navigate the human experience. He is a graduate of Earlham College and Union Theological Seminary. Jay is a practitioner of Bikram yoga because he likes the heat, and some of his best poetry ideas have often occurred to him in the middle of an asana. Also, Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem “God’s Grandeur” hovers always at the back of his mind.
Melissa Reeser Poulin is nominated for her poem "The Seeker", which appeared in Issue 29, In Search of Song. Her poems have appeared in Water~Stone Review, Catamaran Literary Journal, and Sugar House Review. A longtime gardener and aspiring beekeeper, she is currently compiling an anthology of new writing on bees. More at melissareeserpoulin.com.
Craig Reinbold is nominated for his essay "The Girl in the Photograph," which won Ruminate's 2013 VanderMey Nonfiction Prize and was published in Issue 28, Not Forgotten. His work appears in recent or forthcoming issues of the Iowa Review, New England Review, Guernica, Gulf Coast, Hotel Amerika, High Country News,and a number of other more or less literary places. He and his wife currently reside in Tucson with their son and dog Olive, though they’ll soon migrate back to the Midwest where the four of them will swim all summer, hike into the fall, hibernate through winter, and reemerge come spring rejuvenated and raring for warmth and sunlight—at which point they’ll probably make omelets for breakfast.
Latoya Watkins has been nominated for her story 'The Mother,' which was published in Issue 29 of Ruminate, In Search of Song. In her own words: “I’m a doctoral candidate and rhetoric instructor at the University of Texas at Dallas. Admittedly, I’m not a true academic. However, I am a writer and I am blessed and reflective and inwardly loud. I am thankful for the smallest things and humbled by life on earth. I mother three children, three dogs, and love one very supportive husband. My stories have appeared in Specter, Lunch Ticket, and Kweli Journal. I live, teach, learn in Texas and everywhere.”
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Lifestyle Book News Page 2
This is page 2 of the lifestyle book news archives.
Victoria Beckham Inks Deal With HarperCollins (2007-08-16): Victoria Beckham has finalized a deal with HarperCollins to bring her U.
Little, Brown Buys Piatkus Books (2007-07-25): The Bookseller reports that Little, Brown has purchased British independent publisher Piatkus Books.
Paris Hilton's Reading Binge Continues (2007-05-28): Since a judge ruled that she must do time for violating her probation by driving with a suspended driver's license, Paris Hilton has been hitting the bookstore hard.
Windows Vista Books Hit Bookshelves (2007-01-30): Windows Vista, the new operating system from Windows, was released today and for the publishing industry that means it is time to sell lots of new computer books about how to best use Windows Vista.
The New Diet Books are Here (2007-01-06): As is typical for the start of the year new diet books are in bookstores to help people kick off those New Year's resolutions.
Suzanne Somers' New Book Ignites Controversy (2006-10-13): Suzanne Somers' new book has alredy ignited a controversy.
Paul Coelho Talks The Alchemist (2006-10-06): Internationally bestselling Brazilian author Paul Coelho has launched a blog.
Victoria Beckham to Write Fashion Book (2006-07-31): Sky News reports that Victoria Beckham, better known in the U.
Don't Call Her a Foodie (2005-10-21): The Associated Press has the storytalkstalks to amateur cook-turned-author Julie Powell, who landed a book deal after blogging her experiences as she attempted to cook her way through Child's landmark 1961 cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1.
Advice For the Lovelorn (2005-10-03): Greg Behrendt gave some straight from the shoulder advice with his first book, He's Just Not That Into You.
The Da Vinci Diet (2005-09-27): The influence on popular culture of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code should not be underestimated.
Getting Things Done Book Fosters Online Craze (2005-07-27): Wired reports that the book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen has fostered a cult-like productivity craze online.
Martha Stewart to Publish Business How-to Book (2005-07-14): Martha Stewart, the creator and founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO), will author Martha's Rules, a business handbook which will provide advice about how to find one's own entrepreneurial voice and turn one's skills and passions into a successful business venture.
Cookbooks Your Husband Might Like (2005-06-19): Slate has an interesting article by Sara Dickerman who put several cookbooks through the "Husband Test" to see which cookbooks were most likely to be reused by a husband who was learning to cook.
The Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries (2005-06-02): Thank goodness.
Association of American University Presses Furious at Google (2005-05-23): Google's plans to digitize all the books in the libraries of Harvard, Stanford and the University of Michigan and make them available on the Web (while they sell ads next to the content) has caused quite a bit of consternation with the publishers and authors who hold the copyrights to those works.
Woman Hits the Jackpot at the Library (2005-04-27): Reading can be profitable.
Writers Beg Oprah to Bag the Classics (2005-04-22): A group of writers is imploring Oprah Winfrey to ditch the classics and go back to picking new authors for her Oprah's Book Club.
New Pope Topples Harry Potter From German Bestseller Lists (2005-04-21): Reuters reports that Germans are rushing to the bookstores to read the new Pope's writings.
No Ghostwriter For Jane Fonda (2005-04-16): Kate Medina, Random House executive editor and editor of the bestelling autobiography of Jane Fonda, My Life So Far swears that Ms.
Lifestyle Book News Home | Next Page
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Films and Songs
This section is a selective list of films and songs. It includes works where football is the main subject, as in a documentary film, or club song. It also includes a more random selection of works where football is more peripheral to the main theme of a work. For example some songs refer to football in passing, or in oblique ways. The same applies for some dramatic feature films where a football player, or football club may feature as a character or scene in an important way without being the main focus of the story. References to football in theses forms don’t present themselves in ready made lists or catalogues. Discovery of them is often random and fortuitous. Therefore any list of this type of material will be fairly selective. Suggestions for additions to this section will be warmly received.
The 2005 edition of Reading the Game included an extensive list of player biographies, club histories and club and season highlights compilations in video format. These have now become so numerous, and so readily available that they have now been omitted from this section. Apart from DVD suppliers the thousands of highlights and clips of general footy material easily accessible on Youtube and other social media make it much less important to list them all here. Accordingly I have concentrated on documentaries, feature films, historical material held in film archives, and songs.
Films and songs are listed in separate lists by title in alphabetical order. Credits for performers, writers, directors and composers are listed if known.
Song list in preparation stage
Films, VideoRecordings and DVDs
This section is a selection of the many films, videorecordings and DVDs which have been produced about football. It includes general documentaries about the historical, social or economic aspects of football, substantive club histories, and early archival footage of matches. It also includes feature films in genres such as drama and comedy where football is an important part of the plot, theme or setting. A selection of coaching and training guides have been included in the Coaching and Playing section.
The first edition of Reading the Game in 2005 included a wide and comprehensive selection of films and videos. This selection is more narrowly based. Since the first edition of Reading the Game their has been a great proliferation of player biographies and club highlights packages produced in DVD format. Because of the great number of these and the ease of finding details about them online it has been decided not to include most of these in this selection.
Entries are listed alphabetically by title and usually contain producer or distributor details gathered from the video or DVD issue of the work. No attempt has been made to record original production details and credits. When known the original release date has been recorded. Readers wanting more detail on release dates and production credits should check sources such as Trove the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia and the Internet Movie Database.
Annotations note
Annotations in this section are mostly sourced from summaries provided in catalogue records, from the blurbs on the video or DVD containers, or from broadcasters program websites.
Aboriginal Rules, (videorecording) Walpiri Media; ABC, Sydney, NSW, 2007.
The Yuendumu Magpies are a dominant force in Central Australian Football and Aboriginal Rules is a two part documentary that follows the mighty Magpies across the course of a year as they play their exciting brand of grass roots footy Warlpiri Style. With insights into Warlpiri culture and great archival vision from early Yuendumu Sports Weekends we are offered a compelling portrait of a remote community through its champion football team this is a new version of an age old ceremony its football dreaming.
Annotation from ABC website.
Access All Areas Shane Crawford Exposed, (videorecording) Hush Productions Australia, South Yarra [dist.], 2004.
AFL Memorable Moments, (videorecording) AFL, [Melbourne], 2006.
Contains 45 memorable moments in AFL history as nominated by the Hall of Fame Committee.
Alive & Kicking, (videorecording), 2009.
The communities of King Island, Queenstown, Woodsdale and Beaconsfield and Beauty Point in the Tamar Valley, share a belief in the importance of fielding a football team and committing their all to making it a winning season. The challenges of keeping the club alive and kicking are many and varied but the efforts of the players, coach, trainers, committee and die hard supporters are rewarded when the town stops to watch the game.
Apy Thunder Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara vs Maralinga Tjarutja: Rio Tinto Indigenous Lands Challenge Cup 2006, (videorecording) VEA, [Bendigo, Vic.], 2006.
From the desert sands of the APY Lands (Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara) to the green pitch of AAMI stadium, this program is the story of a group of men whose passion and drive wins them an opportunity to play football for their country and their people at the 2006 Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Maralinga Tharuta Lands Challenge Cup. The documentary follows the story of the APY Thunder team from their homeland pitch and back again and demonstrates some of the positive initiatives within Aboriginal communities aimed to empower young people.
Publisher's blurb.
Aussie Rules Ok!, (videorecording) S.B.S., [Milson's Point, NSW], 1987.
Covers the history of Australian Rules football from the early days to the present. Includes historical photographs, old programs, early jumper designs and archival film footage including excerpts from a Carlton vs. South Melbourne game in 1909 and the 1970 Carlton vs. Collingwood grand final.
Australian Rules, (videorecording) Palace Entertainment, 2002.
Based on the award winning novel 'Deadly, Unna?' by Phillip Gwynne, 'Australian Rules' speculates on the deep rooted racism of the small rural fishing community of Prospect Bay, South Australia, where winning the football premiership is the most exciting thing to happen since the community won a tidy town competition. The film is viewed from the perspective of Blacky/Gary, a quiet, sensitive, and questioning youth who is best friends with football team mate Dumby Red, a brilliant Aboriginal footballer and idealist, apparently unaffected by the animosity of older cousin Perry towards the whites. The status quo changes after a farcical grand final presentation in which one of the goonyas (whites) is selected over arguably Best on Ground Dumby. The football field proves the town's racial arena whereby gunyas (blacks) are tolerated for their superior football prowess - off field, the small minded community is a pressure cooker of racism and hostilities which explode after a tragic event. Blacky's relationship to Dumby's sister Clarence also proves a point of contention with his abusive belligerent and racist father. A thoughtful and passionate film, 'Australian Rules' is as much about friendship, intolerance, and life in an isolated community as it is about racism.
Birds of Prey the History of the Hawthorn Football Club, (videorecording) Visual Entertainment Group Pty. [distributor], South Yarra, Vic., 2002.
Black Magic (VH), (videorecording), 1988.
Although about top Aboriginal sportsmen, Black Magic is more than a film about sport. It is an account of the creative use of sport (running, boxing and football) made by the Noongar people of Western Australia's south-west to advance their people's standing. The background music and artwork in the film have been produced from within the community, creating a rich, cohesive picture of Noongar life and culture.
Bombers the History of the Essendon Football Club, (videorecording) Visual Entertainment Group, South Yarra, Vic., 2002.
Bombers is the story of premierships, of champions, of great players and memorable games. It is the story of the Essendon Football Club over the last sixty years.
Buffalo Legends, (videorecording) Australian Film Finance Corporation, [Australia], 1997.
Descendants of Darwin's original Buffalo Football Club tell the story of a group of men who overcame racism on the sporting field.
Cats: 50 Years of the Geelong Football Club, (videorecording) Visual Entertainment Group, South Yarra, Vic., 2001.
The Club (DVD), (videorecording) Southern Star International, 1980.
Jack Thompson stars as the coach of a struggling Aussie Rules Club - in Collingwood colours - who is at odds with the lanky new star recruit (John Howard). Made in 1980, based on David Williamson's play and directed by Bruce Beresford, it straddles the two eras of the amateur and fully professional game, and looks at the transformation of the old style Club President into the more businesslike approach of the modern Chief Executive. As insightful as it is, The Club is still a very entertaining and funny film, and features a great cast of Aussie actors whose faces would be recognizable to all, including Graham Kennedy as the besieged Club President, Frank Wilson as his rival, Harold Hopkins as the aging club veteran, and Allen Cassell as the scheming Administrator. Add to that real life footy personalities like Lou Richards and Scotty Palmer, and stars of the 1979 Collingwood football club.
Down at Kardinia Park Geelong Cats, (videorecording) Visual Entertainment Group, Richmond South, Vic., 2009.
In 2009 the Geelong Cats celebrate 150 years of football excellence. It's the chance to pay tribute to the men and the moments that have shaped the Cats. The premierships and the Brownlow Medallists, the captains and the coaches, the high flyers and the sharpshooters.--Container.
The Electrifying '80s All the Highlights from Footy's Action Packed Eighties, (videorecording) Visual Entertainment [distributor], [South Yarra, Vic.], 2001.
The Essence of the Game, (videorecording) Visual Entertainment Group (distributor), [Australia], 2009.
Channel Seven and former AFL player and football filmmaker Rob Dickson present an amazing all access look into our unique Australian Game. Hosted and narrated by Nathan Buckley, the Essence of the Game were allowed into the dressing rooms during the entire 2008 season to take a behind-the-scenes look at what makes football clubs tick, building to Hawthorn and Geelong on Grand Final day. The documentary also celebrates the breadth of the game to everything from kids to international teams and what footy means to them. -- website..
Essendon Wall to Wall, (videorecording) Visual Entertainment [distributor], South Yarra, Vic., 2003.
Features the best moments in the history of Essendon Football Club.
Fighting Fury the Story of the Richmond Football Club from Dyer until Today, (videorecording) Visual Entertainment Group [distributor], South Yarra, Vic., 2003.
Royce Hart, Ian Stewart, and Roy Wright. The names conjure up visions of perfection. Do they come tougher than "Captain Blood" Jack Dyer, Max Oppy or Kevin Sheedy? Or more Tigerish than Kevin Bartlett, Billy Barrot and Roger Dean? This is the video story of Richmond, one of football's proudest and oldest clubs. A team with working class roots that rallied to the chant of "eat 'em alive" in the 20's and 30's and were reborn as a new band of tigers under Tommy Hafey in the mid-sixties. The players, coaches and administrators tell the story.
The Fitzroy Stars, (videorecording) Video Education Australasia [distributor], Bendigo, Vic., 2009.
They were called the Fitzroy Stars - besides being a great team (winning five premierships in 15 years), they were a hub in the Melbourne Koori community. Some came to play in order to develop their cultural identity, like the boys from government homes and adopted families. Some came to play as a way of staying on the straight and narrow. Some were great, many were brilliant. This is their story, told through their eyes with heart and integrity.
Annotation from Message Stick website.
Flying Boomerangs, (videorecording).
A group of young Aboriginal Aussie Rules players travel to South Africa - we follow their journey and find out what happens to them on their South African Odyssey.
Annotation from ABC-TV website.
Football Stories from Country Victoria on the One Hand, It's Just a Game. On the Other, It's Life or Death, (videorecording) Malcolm McKinnon and the State Library of Victoria, [Victoria], 2007.
The films in this collection mine a wealth of living memory, gathering impressions of how the game has changed and how it continues to evolve, inextricably linked with the broader life of country communities. These short films include stories of legendary events and long-time campaigners, of rivalries and reluctant marriages and of things lost and lamented. Collected from all corners of Victoria, these stories characterise both the history and the contemporary significance of country football.
Football Time, (videorecording) Film Australia, Lindfield, NSW, 1971.
Describes the four codes of football played in Australia - soccer, rugby Union, rugby League, and Australian rules.
Footy Chicks, (videorecording) Ronin Films, Canberra, 2006.
Footy Chicks takes the viewer into a world that is not only fun and colourful but also dark and ugly and where the rules are never clear. The possibility of sex with a football player is a fantasy for many women and a reality for some. Footy Chicks explores the scene off the footy field - a colourful world of players and the the women who pursue them. For players the availability of sex is a constant temptation ... But amidst the fun and games, sometimes the line gets crossed. Place into the mix male bonding, peer pressure, negative attitudes to women and vast amounts of alcohol, and this alluring world can quickly turn dark. Interviewees include: Katie Haines from Footy Fans Against Sexual Assault ; Dr Clifton Evers, Lecturer in Gender Studies ; Dr Catherine Lumby, Associate Professor in Media Studies ; Karen Willis from the new South Wales Rape Crisis centre.
Footy's Wild Men, (videorecording) Visual Entertainment Group [distributor], South Yarra, Vic., 2006.
The great game of Aussie rules has produced legendary wild men. This video is a tribute to some of the wildest of them all with classic footage and interviews from the men themselves including Lockett, Dyer, Whitten, Merrett, Worsefold, Andrews and many, many more.
Game Girls Heathens, (videorecording) Siren Entertainment, [Australia], 1998.
Game girls looks at the role of women in Australian Rules Football, and the fight for more involvement other than the traditional roles of cheersquads and fundraising. Interviews include supporters, volunteers, a sports presenter and the first female board member of an AFL club. Heathens, shot over several seasons, follows a core group of six male supporters and their reactions to on field events.
Glory Days, (videorecording) Australian Football Video: Visual Entertainment Group, [Melbourne], 2008.
This fantastic triple DVD pack covers the last 30 years of the very best AFL action. It features the three programmes: Sensational Seventies, Electrifying Eighties and 90's. The Decade That Delivered. All three programmes in a wonderfully presented triple pack for the great value.
Good Old Collingwood Forever Collingwood Football Club, (videorecording) Visual Entertainment [distributor], South Yarra, Vic., 2002.
This is the story of the last fifty years of Collingwood Football Club, from the premiership of Lou Richards in 1953 through to the days of Nathan Buckley and his men. We relive the triumphs of the fifties through Richards, Rose and Weideman. The Grand Final nightmares of the sixties and the early seventies through Tuddenham and Thompson, Gabelich, Waters and McKenna. We follow the epic struggles of Tom Hafey and his men as they took the Magpies to the top of the ladder only to have that ultimate prize cruelly snatched from their grasp.
Great Characters of Footy, (videorecording) Australian Football Video: Distributed by Visual Entertainment Group, Australia, 2009.
They are the biggest names in football... the good guys, the bad guys and those who weren't quite sure. Join Sam Newman as he talks to the characters of the game, past and present.
The Great McCarthy, (videorecording) Stoney Creek Film Productions, Australia, 1989.
Film adaptation of the novel by Barry Oakley. TH.
Greatest Moments of AFL Grand Finals, (videorecording) Visual Entertainment Group, Richmond, Vic., 2007.
A compilation of the most extraordinary Grand Final moments from the past right up to today. Contains rare archive footage and the best of today’s Finals.
Heart of the Game 45 Years of Football on Television, (videorecording) Seven Sport; Visual Entertainment [distributor], [Australia], South Yarra, Vic., 2002.
When channel Seven broadcast the last quarter of an Essendon versus Collingwood game on Easter Sunday in 1957, a new era in television and sport was born. A ride which for 45 years has seen magical moments, controversies, heroes and characters all pass by on our TV screens, and Seven was there for every one of them.
In a League of Their Own, (videorecording) Loto Films, [Australia], 2009.
On the Tiwi Islands, just north of Darwin, Aussie rules is a religion. From the time they can walk, all young boys want to do is kick a ball. Fast, intuitive and exciting, football has become a Tiwi trademark with star players like the Riolis and Michael Long shining under the national football spotlight. In A League Of Their Own is a three-part series that celebrates the passion and the brand of the Tiwi Bombers as they join the Northern Territory competition. With the aid of their assistant coach, the legendary Richmond player Maurice Rioli, the Bombers won most of their matches. But at the end of the season their fans were left asking 'Just how good are they?' Episode one, The Tiwi Brand, celebrates the passion of the Tiwi Island players and fans and their struggle over 30 years to have their own team in the Darwin competition. The Bombers are on a winning streak in the lead up to the finals, but can they actually win?
In episodes two and three, the players, riding high after a run of wins that has put them at the top of the ladder, lose discipline and stop coming to training, breaking their commitment to manage their alcohol use and abstain from drugs. Could these be warning signs of what is to come as we near the end of the season? The last few games of the season - as the Bombers try to claw their way back and reach the Grand Final - has their families and Tiwi Island fans on the edge of their seats. Born with natural skill as AFL players, but having lost focus on the ultimate prize, can the Bombers overcome their demons and win the competition at the eleventh hour?
Annotation sourced from ABC website.
The Magic of Football, (videorecording) Action Films for the National Football League of Australia, [Vic.].
This video is not intended as instructional as most of the National Football League's generally are, but more recreational, while showing some of the action of Australian football. Included are highlights of matches from every state which underscore the skills o the game.
Marn Grook an Aboriginal Perspective of Australian Rules Football, (videorecording) Caama Productions; Ronin Films (distributor), Alice Springs, N.T.Canberra, 1996.
Explores the history, achievements and struggles of Aboriginal sportsmen involved in our national game, 'Aussie Rules'. Through perseverance, natural ability and a love for the game, Aboriginal players have been able to overcome the many barriers placed before them to gain recognition and respect for their prowess on the football field.
Marngrook Footy Show, (videorecording), 2009.
Features interviews, weekly tips, and AFL Gripes. Features also include local stories from around the country featuring Indigenous footballers talking about their backgrounds, origin clubs and towns, heritage and current affairs.
Annotation from program website.
Moving History, (videorecording), 2007.
Early in the morning of December 25 the Northern Territory's capital city - Darwin - was destroyed by Cyclone Tracy. The city became the site of possibly the greatest natural disaster in the nation's history. Cyclone Tracey is a film of realism and of genuine human drama, shot through with the courage and optimism with which Australians face adversity, and for which since the days of the ANZACs they have become known throughout the world. 'Leisure' is a fast-paced, humorous and thought-provoking film using animation by Australian newspaper cartoonist Bruce Petty. This Oscar-winning film emphasises the use of leisure time as an important aspect of life in our society today. In 'Saturday' a shearer, his wife and six children leave their farmhouse at daybreak for the week's big event - a Saturday visit to the nearest town, Lake Cargelligo. There's a trip to the barber, icecream for the kids, the weekly football match and a beer at the pub. Come nightfall, it's either a movie or the local dance. This beautifully shot film by Academy Award-winner Dean Semler captures all the atmosphere of a weekly ritual repeated in country towns right across Australia. In War Without Weapons we take a behind-the-scenes look at the Victorian Football League team, North Melbourne, and the preparation and physical build-up that goes into getting a team ready for the top Australian Rules football competition. Ron Barrassi, from North Melbourne, is shown in his role as a top VFL coach and we follow the team through its early training sessions to the opening match of the season. The film highlights some of the spectacular action from the North Melbourne Carlton challenge of 1979.
The 90's, the Decade That Delivered, (videorecording) Australian Football Video, [South Yarra, Vic.], 2001.
Presents the football highs and lows of the 1990's. The Nineties was a period which saw football become truly national with three new teams being added and other teams amalgamating. It was also a decade of great football champions.
100 Years of Australian Football, (videorecording) Visual Entertainment, South Yarra, Victoria, 1996.
100 years of football incorporated in stunning images, breathtaking footage and some of the most intriguing and historic film and video documentation you will ever see. This video captures the essence and personality of some of the game's most important and magnetic characters.
100 Years of Tiger Treasures Richmond Football Club Centenary VFL/AFL 2008, (videorecording) Visual Entertainment Group, Richmond South, Vic., 2008.
Throughout 100 years in the big league, Richmond has assembled a mighty history. In 2008 the club has produced its 100 Tiger Treasures. These are the moments, players and people that have helped make Richmond one of the game's truly great clubs.
One Week at a Time, (videorecording), 2000.
Having failed to win one game in their last three years of competition, the once great Albion Football Club is facing removal from the Melbourne District Football League. The one remaining chance for the Western suburbs team to avoid this fate is to win their last game of the season against top Eastern suburbs team Malvern--an impossible feat. When ex-Albion player Bunner--who was banned from playing football fifteen years earlier because of his violent behaviour--hears of the club's plight, he decides to take extreme action. A parochial comedy about class differences in district footy and the joys of winning against all odds.
The Passion to Play the Players' Story: Out Takes, (videorecording) Visual Entertainment [distributor], [South Yarra, Vic.], 2003.
A documentary on the highs and lows of playing league football.
Play the Game, (videorecording) National Football League in conjunction with the Commonwealth Bank, [Victoria], 1980.
Demonstrates how difficult an umpire's decision-making can be. The film interprets the rules of the game, particularly the more controversial ones, and the viewer sees their application in match sequences.
Red & Blue the History of the Melbourne Football Club, 1939-2005, (videorecording) Australian Football Video: Distributed by Visual Entertainment Group, South Yarra, Vic., 2005.
Australia's oldest and most prestigious football club is celebrated in 'Red & Blue', specially produced and brought right up to date, featuring match footage and interviews with Demon greats.
Rewind Moments Aussie Rules, (videorecording) Australian Broadcasting Corporation, [Sydney], 2005.
In 1857, Tom Wills, one of the founders of Australian Football, returned to Australia after schooling in England where he was football captain of Rugby School and a brilliant cricketer. Initially, he advocated the winter game of football as a way of keeping cricketers fit during off-season. The new game was devised by Wills, his cousin H.C.A. Harrison, W.J. Hammersley and J.B. Thompson. This program questions the origin of the game of Australian rules. The original rules, archived at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, were written by Tom Wills. Were they influenced by English rugby, or by a game he witnessed played by Aboriginal Australians?
Sensational Seventies, (videorecording) Visual Entertainment [distributor], [South Yarra, Vic.], 2001.
South Australian Football League 1949 North Adelaide vs West Torrens, (videorecording) National Film and Sound Archive, [Canberra], 1992.
Australian Rules football Grand Final between North Adelaide and West Torrens. North Adelaide were premiers in 1949.
The Spirit of Australian Sport Australian Football, (videorecording), 2008.
Gives an insight into the mystique of Australian football rules, a game that engenders a depth of passion amongst the Australian masses. The program is a celebration of Australia's national football code through the eyes of those who have contributed and emotionally invested in its success. It examines the roots of the game and its growth from a suburban past-time to a national colossus, exploring what it means to Australians and the impact it has on our society.
St. Kilda Wall to Wall, (videorecording) Australian Football Video: Visual Entertainment [distributor], [South Yarra, Vic.], 2004.
Strauchanie Pure B.S, (videorecording) Roving Enterprises, Australia, 2006.
Strauchanie as he has become affectionately known, is embroiled in a constant battle with not only the Collingwood selectors, but also, a less than desirable diet, an over inflated ego and the cultural barriers associated with his Asian heritage on his mother's side.
Tackling Peace, (videorecording) Screen Australia, Sydney, NSW, 2009.
Narrated by Hugo Weaving, Tackling Peace is the inspirational story of a group of Israelis and Palestinians attempting to set aside their differences and play on the same side in an International Australian Football competition in the name of peace. It all began as a crazy dream, a mission adopted by Tanya Oziel, a footy mad Australian housewife, passionate for Middle East peace. But with open hostilities raging around them, will these old enemies sideline decades of conflict to unite into a single Peace Team? Tackling Peace goes behind the scenes as young men from different sides of a bloody political war set aside a lifetime of prejudice and hostility to compete as a team in the Australian Football League's International Cup. Few of the aspirant players had ever heard of the game and none imagined befriending teammates from across the political divide. Narrated by Hugo Weaving and featuring legendary footballers Kevin Sheehan, Ron Barrassi and Robert “Dipper” DiPierdomenico, Tackling Peace follows intimately the incredible journey of this rag-tag bunch of Israeli and Palestinian sportsmen and the dynamic woman who unites them, in their remarkable quest to show the world a different picture to the bloody images pervading the evening news as they cooperate in their quest to make it to Australia and play together against the world.
30 Years of the Very Best Footy, (videorecording) Visual Entertainment, South Yarra, Vic., 2001.
A comprehensive coverage of Australian football from the 1970's to the 1990's with highlights from many of the more notable games.
The Tribe the Story of the North Hobart Football Club, (videorecording) OzVox Media, [New Town, Tas.], 2006.
VFL on Film. Vol. 1. 1909-1945 Marking Time, (videorecording) National Film & Sound Archive, Canberra, 1996.
Fascinating documentary and newsreel material of the premier Australian Rules Competition. Highlights include: the earliest surviving film of a VFL match -the 1909 Grand Final; Action sequences featuring some of the early legends; rare footage of supporters.
VFL on Film. Vol. 2, 1946-1982 Marking Time, (videorecording) National Film & Sound Archive, Canberra, 1997.
Fascinating documentary and newsreel material of the Australian Rules Competition. Highlights include : rare footage available for the first time on video; every VFL club represented; covers the period from the end of World War 2 to the start of the AFL national competition; the impact of television on the game with comments by Alf Potter and more!
War without Weapons, (videorecording) Curtis Levy Productions for Film Australia, Victoria, 1979.
We Are the Navy Blues the History of the Carlton Football Club, (videorecording) Visual Entertainment Group, Richmond South, Vic., 2009.
Jesaulenko, Nicholls, Kernahan, Silvagni, Bradley and Doull... Just some of the champions who have worn the 'Good Old Navy Blue' of Carlton with pride and distinction. Men who have helped take this foundation member of the VFL to premiership glory and cemented the club's place at the very pinnacle of sporting greatness--Container.
We Don't Want Nothing from You a Film Asking Adults to Let Children Play Football, (videorecording) Salisbury CAE., Salisbury, SA, 1975.
Examines parental expectations of children's sport particularly football.
Where the Seagulls Nest a Brief History of the Williamstown Seagulls and Their Home Ground, Told through Stories from Five of the Club's Closest Followers, (DVD) Jesse Maskell, Williamstown, 2009.
Retells the history of Burbank Oval and its most famous occupant, the Williamstown Seagulls.
Year of the Dogs, (videorecording) Bondi Films, Australia, 2005.
It's been a dog of a year for the Footscray Bulldogs. The club is on the bottom of the ladder and the AFL are pushing for a merger to foster the national competition. From boardroom to change room we follow the Doggies as they teeter on the brink of extinction.
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Hyam pens pro deal
Centre back signs contract
Academy defender Dominic Hyam has become the latest Royals youngster to sign his first professional contract with the club.
The 17-year-old, who was a key part of the resolute back line that took our under 18s to the Premier League final last year - signed a three year contract on Monday evening that will keep him at Madejski Stadium until the summer of 2016.
Hyam is a cultured centre-back who joined the club in 2008 and made his first start for the under-18s in the last match of 2011/12 against Birmingham. He has always shown an eye for goal, scoring seven goals in 26(+2) appearances for our Academy last season - and has begun to make the step up to under 21 level in the current campaign.
"I'm very delighted, I've been here since I was 12 and this is what all the hard work is for - it's come down to this," said Hyam. "I look at the likes of Jordan Obita, who is flying now in the first team - I just have to follow in the footsteps of the them and see where it takes me."
Dominic has given an exclusive interview to our online TV station Reading FC Player - watch it here.
The defender has already got on the scoresheet twice for the Academy this season - including a dramatic late equaliser to set up a wonderful 2-1 win away to Arsenal, which you can see on our YouTube channel below.
Hyam is in the squad for Tuesday evening's U21 Premier League Cup match against QPR at Madejski Stadium (kick off 7pm). Entry is free - click here for more.
Who will be our next graduate? Check out our Academy profiles here.
Watch Dom's goal above and part of his Reading FC Player interview.
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Ruselectronics Launches Cooperation with Manufacturers of Electrical Equipment from Italy and Australia
The Ruselectronics holding company of the State Corporation Rostec has signed cooperation agreements with the Australian company NOJA Power and the Italian company Tesmec, which develop and manufacture electrotechnical equipment. The parties will engage in joint implementation of projects for the automation of electrical networks in order to increase the reliability of the power grid complex in Russia.
Under the agreements, the parties will cooperate in developing and production of equipment for electric power facilities at production sites of the enterprises within the holding.
“We are actively building up the technical and technological competencies of Ruselectronics enterprises for the implementation of digitalization projects for the electric grid complex of Russia. An important area of work is the localization of the entire industry nomenclature of high-tech products at our production sites,” said Alexei Reutov, Advisor to the Director General of Ruselectronics.
“We see a great opportunity in localizing the products in Russia through cooperation with Ruselectronics,” said Neil O’Sullivan, the CEO of NOJA Power.
“We plan to put together competencies with our Russian partners for joint production of competitive products for the automation of electrical networks,” said Tesmec Rus CEO Christiana Solari.
The signings took place within the scope of Power Grids Forum, which takes place on December 3–6 in VDNH.
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How writers turn history into story, and story into history
All That History
Our Borders: A True Story
About Roxana Arama
Our Borders: Lost at Sea (1983), Part 3
Posted on October 10, 2013 by Roxana Arama
Bulker at sunset
Photo by Mikhail Chizhevsky (2005) – Wikipedia
Radu Codrescu, his wife, Florina, and their friend Iulian were safe for the moment on board Sunshine, a Kuwaiti-owned handysize coal bulker operated by a Bulgarian crew. But if Captain Nicolai reached his cabin and called the Romanian border authorities in Mangalia, things were going to change for the three fugitives.
It was after midnight, on Monday, August 22, 1983. They walked behind the captain until he reached his cabin’s door, and, there, Radu asked him if he really had to send their names to Mangalia. They were soaked, barefooted, and exhausted. Captain Nicolai told them to close the door and asked them what was going on.
There was no point in lying. Radu told the captain that they had been trying to get to Turkey. Captain Nicolai shook his head. It was too bad that the crew had seen them. He could’ve hidden them inside his load of coal and dropped them off in Turkey on his next trip there. But he had a son in the Naval Academy and couldn’t risk helping them. Not openly, in any case.
Captain Nicolai sent for food and dry clothes, and the four of them spent the next few hours talking and planning every detail of the story they were going to tell the Bulgarian and the Romanian authorities. They went out fishing and got lost. The wind started, the waves were high, they almost drowned. Sunshine came and saved them. They asked to be taken to Mangalia, back to Romania, but Captain Nicolai refused because he had to be in Varna. So he took them with him for a few days.
Around 3 a.m., the captain told them to go get some sleep. An aide took them to the captain’s quarters, where they laid their wet clothes on the warm radiator. Iulian slept on a couch, and Radu and Florina in the captain’s own bed. Sunshine was supposed to arrive in Varna at about 6 a.m. and the Bulgarian coastguard was going to make an appearance soon after.
When Captain Nicolai woke them up, Radu took a while to remember where he was. His head was heavy. It was 1 p.m. and the coastguard was arriving in half an hour. Sunshine hadn’t reached Varna at dawn because Captain Nicolai had called the port and said that his ship had an engine malfunction. For a few hours, the bulker had stopped in the open waters outside of Varna so that the Romanians could get enough rest to make it through the first round of interrogations.
Half an hour later, Captain Nicolai, his First Mate and the coastguard officers went into a conference room on the ship. Then the Romanians were brought in for questioning. Captain Nicolai kept interrupting and helping with the details. He figured that Radu, Florina and Iulian might attempt to flee from Bulgaria, so he offered to buy their orange inflatable boat for a good price—as a way of providing them with some money. But the coastguard officers didn’t allow it. The orange boat was evidence in an open investigation.
Radu, Florina and Iulian said goodbye to Captain Nicolai and boarded the coastguard vessel. At the militia station in Varna, they wrote their statements in a mix of Romanian and English. The Bulgarian militia had no reason to arrest, hold, or fine them since they hadn’t cross illegally into their country; Sunshine had brought them there. In fact, the Bulgarian authorities didn’t know what to do with them. The first night, they sent the Romanians to a detention center in Varna.
“I remember how tired I was and when I saw that bed, I was so excited.” Radu Codrescu said. “I remember that it was a clean, white bed and I just threw myself on it. But the bed was nothing but a wooden plank covered with a sheet. It took me a while to fall asleep after that blow.”
The Bulgarians alerted Mangalia about the three missing fishermen. Nothing happened. Gasoline was in short supply in both countries and neither side wanted to waste fuel driving between Varna and Mangalia. The second night, the Varna militia refused to shelter the Romanians again. They had their own bad guys to deal with.
“They took us on a ship again. They had normal beds there, but I made sure to feel the bed first.”
They had to stay in touch with an immigration officer in Varna, but otherwise were free to do as they pleased. Radu, Florina and Iulian began to hatch a new plan. It was possible to reach Turkey from Bulgaria, on dry land, a distance of over two hundred kilometers. But they were exhausted, had no money, no food, and didn’t know the language. If the Bulgarians were to keep them there for a few more days, they could rest and gather some provisions. They still had their boat, a box of cigarettes and two bottles of whiskey, which they could sell in Varna.
“Fleeing again was a dangerous business. Had the Bulgarians caught us, they would’ve figured it all out, from the beginning, and we would’ve involved Captain Nicolai and his First Mate too. We were tired, and we just couldn’t do it then. We just couldn’t do it. We were tired.”
On the third day, the Romanian and the Bulgarian authorities reached a compromise: they were going to meet at the border, in Vama Veche, and make the exchange. A major and a lieutenant from the Romanian border patrol forces in Mangalia were waiting for them.
“When we arrived in Vama Veche and saw the soldiers, we immediately started smiling, showing them how happy we were to be back home, in our beloved country. We served them with cigarettes and whisky; we were very friendly. The major took some, but the lieutenant, perhaps focused on growing in ranks, refused to touch anything.”
They were handcuffed, thrown into a van, and taken to Mangalia. There, they were put in separate rooms and asked to give their statements again. Their offense list was long (crossing the border illegally, not owning valid passports, etc.) and could land them in jail for years. Radu, Florina and Iulian had been through the story quite a few times and had no problem writing it all over again.
The officers didn’t believe a word of it, even though they had read Captain Nicolai’s statement, his First Mate’s, and the report from the Bulgarian authorities. Still, nobody laid a hand on them because there was a slight chance that they were telling the truth. Then again, many fugitives had been captured on that part of the Black Sea, and the coastguard was suspicious of anybody who ended up in those waters. But most fugitives had a different strategy: they rowed forty kilometers eastward and got on the ship route. In international waters, they could choose to board a ship or not, so they waited for a friendly crew to take them onboard. The Romanian coastguard couldn’t reach them there, and it didn’t have enough fuel to go hunting for fugitives even if it wanted to.
“As I was writing away with poetic flair about winds and waves, an officer entered the room and told me that there was no need for my statement anymore because my friend, [Iulian], ratted on us to get away with trying to flee the country. That was a tough moment. Though we had already decided to stick to our story, there was always the question: ‘What if the others don’t do it and I’m the one taking the fall?’ The officer took the pages I had written, gave me new ones, and told me to give my statement again. The truth this time. And I took the paper and I sharpened my pencil and I started again, with the winds and the waves, the same poetic flair, the same to the comma and the period. The officer took my statement, looked at it again, shook his head and asked me: ‘Are you making fun of me?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m not able to make fun of anything or anybody right now, in this condition.’ ‘We’ll talk about this when I come back,’ he said, and left. He never came back.”
The same thing happened to Iulian and to Florina. But they both kept to their story about their going out fishing and getting lost in the storm. While Radu was in the interrogation room, a few soldiers stuck in their heads and told him to keep to his story, because there was nothing the officers could do to them if they all did.
The prisoners spent the night in the soldiers’ barracks and were left in the care of a guard the next day. In the evening, the major arrived after a whole day of shooting practice, and he was angry. He ordered his stubborn lieutenant to send Radu, Florina and Iulian home because there was no proof that they had done anything wrong.
Radu couldn’t believe his ears. They were going home. But the lieutenant was not ready to fold yet. It wasn’t fair, he argued, after all they did—planning to flee the country, getting away from under the coastguard’s watch, fooling everybody with their make-believe stories—to just get away with it.
The major listened to the lieutenant’s complaints. Then he turned to Radu.
“Come on now,” Radu remembered the major saying. “Come on, guys, now tell me how you did it. How did you get away from under our noses?”
Radu thought for a while. At every turn thus far they had had people’s good intentions (and, sometimes, incompetence) on their side. If they kept on the deceit, was the major going to agree with the lieutenant and turn against them?
“Well,” Radu said, “we left from Olimp, not Mangalia…”
“How come you left from Olimp and nobody saw you or called on you?” the major said.
“Maybe they did call on us to stop,” Radu said, “…but we didn’t hear them…”
“Then say that they did call you with megaphones, but you didn’t hear them,” the major said, looking relieved. “Then I’ll fine you for going out at sea and for not answering our soldiers’ calls to stop rowing. And see what happened if you didn’t listen? You got carried away by winds and waves and ended up in a storm. Next time you should listen.”
It was a win-win for everybody, except for the lieutenant: Radu, Florina and Iulian didn’t end up in prison, and the major and his peer in Olimp didn’t look like they had a loose control over the border. The major was even nice enough to show them in the frontier guard’s handbook what fines they were going to get: fishing without permit, not answering a soldier’s call to stop, plus the price of gasoline from Vama Veche to Mangalia. Both ways. Two thousand lei each (more than a month’s average salary), but if they paid within forty-eight hours, the fines would be only 400 lei each. They didn’t pay a dime, not in forty-eight hours, not ever—and with no repercussions.
Radu, Florina and Iulian were back in Romania. They left the militia station barefooted, with their orange boat on their backs. They walked in silence under a cloudy summer sky. Things had changed for them after those hours in the storm, when they had thought that they were going to die. Yet they felt lucky. Nobody had been hurt, nobody had been arrested or implicated in their plan to flee the country.
On his next attempt though, Radu wasn’t going to be so lucky.
Next: Nineteen Eighty-Four
Previous: Lost at Sea (1983 CE), Part 2
Note: I met Radu Codrescu (name changed for privacy reasons) in 2001 in Redmond, Washington. In 2002, we sat down for a series of interviews about his past, and we continued our conversations in 2006 and in 2013. The series Our Borders is based on those interviews and on my own experience of growing up in Romania during the ’80s and the ’90s.
[Updated on 2/6/2014: changed the protagonist’s name.]
This entry was posted in Modern History, Our Borders and tagged Black Sea, communist Romania, escape attempt, illegal border crossing by Roxana Arama. Bookmark the permalink.
6 thoughts on “Our Borders: Lost at Sea (1983), Part 3”
Scott Driscoll on November 1, 2013 at 11:51 am said:
A riveting story of averted escape. Great. I just want to know more about the three escapees, how they individually resisted the interrogation, what fears were prompted, what faults exposed, etc.
Roxana Arama on November 2, 2013 at 12:34 pm said:
I only know what [Radu] saw, thought, and felt, and I only know what he has chosen to tell me. I don’t have access to the other players in the story, and this is what makes me see the stark contrast between historical fiction and nonfiction. It’s much trickier to write nonfiction because I cannot fill in any gaps – it’s either research or silence.
Jack Remick on October 11, 2013 at 5:53 pm said:
This is turning into a first class study in courage and determination. Thanks Roxana and many many kudos to [Radu], [Florina], and [Iulian].
Roxana Arama on October 16, 2013 at 4:37 pm said:
Thanks for following their story, Jack.
Beth on October 10, 2013 at 10:54 am said:
I’m glad it worked. Thanks, Beth!
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Mechoulam: The Father of Modern Cannabis Medicine
Raphael Mechoulam is known as the father of cannabis medicine for good reason. His early work helped identify the two best known cannabinoids. His later work led to discovery of the endocannabinoid system. Today he leads the world on understanding holistic impacts of the drug, starting with children.
Cannabis was used as medicine over thousands of years. Despite that, it entered a period of stigmatisation in the 20th century. What happened in an elevator pitch? The herb, which has been documented in Chinese medical texts as a cure-all ran into modern science. It also ran into politics. And naturally, also had religious enemies. If there were not enough drama, two world wars also entered the mix.
There have been few more deliberately targeted substances in the history of humanity in other words. With the exceptions of the Spanish Inquisition and the Nazi Holocaust, legalisation has been a war with few other parallels. The suffering caused by it is just beginning to be faced. A current discussion about the same is just raising its head in Canada. On a federal level. The government refuses to wipe clean the records of “criminals” arrested for a drug the country no longer finds illegal.
In other words, it was not just the use, possession, or cultivation of cannabis that was dangerous for the last 100 years. Internationally, it was any association with it. That included all those who wished to study it. Including for medical purposes.
It is not as if the witch hunt, however, was able to thrive everywhere. And into this maelstrom stepped Raphael Mechoulam. Today he is known as many things. That includes “Discoverer of THC.” It also includes the moniker “Father of the Endocannabinoid System.”
In the modern sense, such titles are absolutely earned. Almost singlehandedly, this unprepossessing Israeli immigrant scientist kept cannabis on the map. His was not an entirely solitary journey. And reform documented by Mechoulam and others has been promulgated into political change. This, in turn, has helped Mechoulam. However, along the way he faced down challenges that stumped others. All in the name of science. It’s also a story has grown from daily challenge to fable. And the associations with the Holocaust are not casual.
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE JOURNEY
Mechoulam survived the Holocaust as a child. Like many families, his immigrated to Israel from Europe after WWII. Along the way, as the son of a medical doctor, he picked up academic credentials in biochemistry in several countries. He began studying the pharmacology of cannabinoids at a time when he had to go to the police for his raw materials. In 1963, as a young researcher, he isolated CBD. In 1964, he and his team of researchers succeeded in isolating THC.
From that point on, Mechoulam has literally defied political attacks with results. It was not always easy, but results continued to flow in. The discovery of the endocannabinoid system itself followed twenty years later. At the beginning of the new century, in other words, Mechoulam’s work was setting a new stage for the conversation.
How he managed this coup is another story. He almost single-handedly (with some exceptions in Canada) became the sole recipient of research funds from the United States for cannabinoid research. Armed with funds plus a place in the research establishment, Mechoulam, was best placed to lead the charge. And he focussed on the core science.
His work, in other words, allowed the progression through a wilderness. And his team delivered right at a time when the climate was finally good for a new conversation. As news of Mechoulam’s work on the ECS began to spread, global politics were turning. In the United States, Western States challenged federal law. In Europe, the less intensely fought war on drugs began to fade.
The Dutch coffee shop scene played an important role in all of this too. As a result of the grey laws around the drug itself, the seed culture in the Netherlands provided a semi-commercial seed lab unlike any in the world. Mechoulam’s research had by this time attracted the interest of the Israeli army. In at first small batches and then increasingly large numbers, Israeli soldiers were exposed to cannabis. Most of the earliest work was on brain injury and PTSD. All of these were derived from Mechoulam’s research. And all that cannabis was coming into the country via Holland.
By 2008, the Israeli government was beginning to integrate cannabis into mainstream military medicine. This meant exposure to the general population too. The system they implemented became the first part of current reform. The specialised canna-doctors were all, at core, getting their marching orders from Mechoulam’s map.
TIES TO THE PAST, FOCUS ON THE FUTURE
Sourcing Dutch cannabis for Israeli research began to have an impact in Europe too. This started in academia. As a result, Mechoulam’s work infiltrated the continent well before the turn of the century.
Mechoulam’s influence began to show up in the UK in 1998. GW Pharmaceuticals was given additional licenses by the British government that year to focus on cannabinoid-based medications. The German government also began to move in this direction. This is because of the many links encouraged between Israel and Germany for historic reasons. Mechoulam’s influence in Germany, in fact, is so great that the government has essentially agreed with the scientific findings of this former refugee. Even before the legalisation of medical use earlier this year, German research funds were finding their way into cannabinoid research. And some pretty esoteric corners of that world.
It has been a long time since the German government supported the idea of cannabis as having no medical efficacy. And this is Germany, home of the “scientific study” that cannabis “causes” schizophrenia.
The sea of change here is so great, if unheralded, because of Mechoulam’s work. More interestingly, that has been the case for a long time. One example? The University of Dortmund has just successfully replicated cannabinoids from yeast. This Ruhr area University is in the middle of nowhere. Yet it is also the recipient of research funds from the government to produce cannabinoids.
And that all came, ultimately, from the direction and work of one man.
Mechoulam is still on the cutting edge discussions of cannabinoid application. His work is increasingly being used as a reference internationally. This starts with the impact of cannabinoids on children. The direct application of his work is changing national laws globally, particularly across Europe and the so-called “West.”
What will be more interesting is when this information begins to be integrated, again, with Eastern medicine if not technology to deliver it.
Much of the irony here, of course, is that Mechoulam’s work, while valuable, has “only” elevated Western understanding with Chinese medicine. Fascinating ground still lies ahead when these two are finally combined.
In fact, Chinese five-point acupuncture also stimulates areas of the body which can impact the function of the endocannabinoid system. Add to that medical cannabis which does the same from the other direction as it were, and the results are profound. So much so, that they were recorded, in Chinese, thousands of years ago.
What is about to happen, as a result in fact of Mechoulam’s work, is east is about to meet west. With new kinds of databases and analysis, including Big Data, many of the questions that still remain about cannabinoids are about to explored.
This includes databases where the native language is just “science.”
THE MASTER SWITCHING SYSTEM?
There is a great deal of evidence that the Endocannabinoid System is the master regulator switch of the human body. All of this is based on Mechoulam's work. And all of it is fundamental knowledge about human health. Depending on where and how applied, for example, cannabinoids appear to switch hunger on and off. They also switch pain, depression and spasticity impulses off. They help the body combat infection and inflammation.
They also do not turn “off” breathing impulses – like opioids. If the scientific understanding of the same is mapped into databases that transcend human language, who knows what will emerge. Chinese symbols to English or Hebrew will melt in the face of modelled, numbers-based data.
In the words of the Israelis, what Mechoulam’s work is capable of doing is revolutionary. This is changing the course of not just modern medicine, but governments. Starting with the Israeli policies themselves. Further afield, of course, the impact of Mechoulam’s professional life’s focus, is changing the course of global history.
Is Secondhand Cannabis Smoke Bad For Your Pets?
How To Make Traditional Or Vegan Cannabis-Infused Tiramisu
Cannabis Can Cause Eye Reddening: Do Something About it?
Liver Diseases And Cannabis
The Statistics Are In - Legalization Of Cannabis Reduces Crime
Royal Queen Seeds Are Looking For A Swedish Translator!
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Founded in 1788 as The Society for Relief of Widows and Orphans of Medical Men
The Society for Assistance of Medical Families
About SAMF
A short history and our current structure
About SAMF Kev 2019-02-27T05:09:53+00:00
Originally titled The Society for Relief of Widows and Orphans of Medical Men was founded in 1788 in the Gray’s Inn Coffee House. At that time there were no state benefits and really only the poor-house awaited those who had been left destitute. It was then only for medical men men (there being no medical women at the time!) living in London and its immediate vicinity. It wasn’t until 1964 that the by-law was altered so as to permit doctors resident within 60 miles of Charing Cross to become members.
The original fund was started in 1788 by the seven founder members contributing three guineas each and they appear to have had four treasurers at that time to look after these funds! They certainly did a good job as by 1805 the membership had grown to 300 and the fund to £13,300.
The funds subscribed over the last two centuries have been carefully invested by the trustees to ensure a good annual income that can be deployed to assist beneficiaries. In the early part of the twentieth century it seems that the widows of one in five or one in six members were applying for assistance. Many doctors looked upon membership of the Society as the provision they made for their families after their demise. Nowadays we would like to think that doctors also join the Society in order to assist their less fortunate colleagues.
The Society has therefore been in existence for well over two hundred years, for the bulk of that time making grants only to the widows and families of its members. However with the advent of state benefits, and the members making better provision privately for their families, the call on the Society’s funds by the members reduced. At the end of the 1980’s changes were made which enabled the Society to assist the wider profession.
Nowadays membership is open to all doctors living in any part of the British Isles.
After many years of operation, the decision was made to change the name of the Society to reflect the role we now play in our sector. Our aim is to broaden both the recruitment of new members as well as announcing our presence to a wider audience to those in need of our help.
Present Structure of the Society
President: Dr David Buckle FRCGP
President Emeritus: Dr Roy N Palmer LLB MB BS FFFLM
Treasurer: Prof Geoff Rose
Vice Presidents:-
Dr Celia Palmer
Dr John Barker
Mr Patrick England
Prof Simon Payne
Directors:-
Dr Stewart Kilpatrick
Mr Tony Richards
Dr Rohit Malliwal BSc. (HONS), MBBS, FRCR
Dr Stephanie Bown
Dr David North-Coombes
Dr David Stewart
Executive Director: Dr Priya Singh LLB(hons) MB ChB MRCGP FFFLM
David worked as a GP in Woodley Berkshire for 30 years. In 1995 he was awarded Fellowship of the Royal College of General Practitioners. He later became senior partner and was a GP trainer for many years. In 2000 he joined the local PCT Board and that decision started a long career of clinical leadership and then medical management.
Having been a medical director for a PCT, CSU and a CCG, David recently choose to retire from his clinical and executive roles to concentrate on his Non-executive and trustee interests. Primary and Community care are his areas of clinical interest and he continues this work as a non-executive for Berkshire Healthcare Foundation Trust.
David has been a member of SAMF for nearly 30 years and last year he became a director of the court. He was delighted to become president in May 2018.
Roy Palmer qualified at the London Hospital Medical College, where he met and married Celia. After junior hospital appointments he entered general practice. With no interest in or aptitude for sport, he instead read law as a hobby. Having acquired a law degree and later the bar examinations he joined the staff of the Medical Protection Society (MPS), which he served for 27 years. There he met the Secretary of SAMF’s predecessor, Dr Jack Leahy Taylor and was encouraged to join “the Widows and Orphans”.
Roy succeeded Jack as Secretary of the charity for several years and later as President, in which role he served for 17 years before finding a brilliant successor! He was honoured to be made President Emeritus in recognition of his long service to SAMF. He remains a member of the Court of Assistants.
After his MPS years Roy became a coroner in London, serving as Senior Coroner in South London from 2001 to 2014 when he stepped down so as to enjoy his year as the Master Apothecary in 2015-2016. He remains an Assistant Coroner in the City of London, a role he has held since 2002.
Hobbies include classical music and opera, theatre and travel – and grandfather to 2 boy
Dr Celia Palmer (née Mountford) qualified from the London Hospital Medical College, where she met and married Roy. After junior hospital appointments, including a spell as an anaesthetist, she became an Assistant County Medical Officer of Health in Essex, during which time she produced 2 daughters. With a long interest in occupational and industrial disease she entered the specialty as Medical Officer to Harlow Industrial Health Service, acquiring the AFOM. Her career in occupational medicine continued for the rest of her long career with a succession of appointments in both the public and the private sectors.
She retired in 2014 and enjoyed her year as the Mistress Apothecary. She and one other lady were the first women to be admitted to membership of “The Widows and Orphans”, SAMF’s predecessor and Celia was the first woman to be elected to serve on the Court, a role that she still continues to enjoy. She shares with Roy the enjoyment of 2 grandsons and regular attendances at classical music events and opera.
John is approaching his final years with sanguinity. An East London child of the Thirties he recalls the blitz if a little hazily. Luckily avoiding the bombs, he remembers running to his primary school and cycling to his grammar school and thereby acquiring in due course a general certificate of education. Surviving the war, he started work in an Insurance office as a “Junior” and he was then called up for National Service in the Royal Air Force. An attempt to teach him to fly failed but the Tiger Moth is a robust aeroplane and they were easily repaired. The RAF however did teach him to sail.
Guys Hospital Medical School saw something in him that others missed and it spent five years ensuring he qualified to practice medicine less dangerously than most.
An interest in the law provoked Her Majesty’s Coroner for London’s Eastern District to appoint him as his Assistant Deputy. Later that interest led to his joining the Medical Protection Society firstly as a member of its Council and then as a member of its professional Secretariat. It was in the early eighties, that John become a member of the Society for the Relief of Widows and Orphans of Medical Men and later a member of its Court of Directors and a Vice President. After a good number of years and after overseeing one or two quite successful cases he stepped down as deputy Medical Director at MPS only to soldier on as a Consultant. He finally was put out to grass and now lives quietly in Walthamstow neither raising chickens nor keeping bees. He enjoys the pub next door and London’s theatre and music. His favourite colour is purple and his lucky number is forty two.
Partrick is a retired as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon, following a career treating elite sportspeople first in Tottenham where he was the Spurs surgeon, then at the Hammersmith and Charing Cross in the same position. Following his time at Spurs, Patrick was orthopaedic surgeon to the RFU for about twelve years. He also served in the RAMC as a Major commanding a para field surgical unit.
Ro is a Consultant Gastrointestinal and Interventional Radiologist at Barts Health NHS Trust and trained at Barts and The London and King’s College hospitals. His interests are in mentoring, student welfare and financial structures and investments. He has been a Director of the Court with the Society for Assistance of Medical Families since 2010.
Dr Stephanie D Bown
Stephanie Bown practiced as a doctor in the NHS for eleven years before completing a law degree and joining the Medical Protection Society (MPS) working in the field of professional indemnity and risk management for twenty years. She has extensive experience of the legal and professional issues that arise in healthcare gained through supporting doctors as a medico-legal advisor and through working with governments and healthcare organisations on policy issues. Her experience spans case investiga-tion, advocacy, healthcare policy, stakeholder engagement and communication.
Stephanie has been a member of SAMF since joining MPS and became a member of the Court shortly afterwards.
As Director of the National Clinical Assessment Service within the NHS Litigation Au-thority, Stephanie initiated a programme of restructure and modernisation to meet the changing needs of the NHS.
Since May 2015 Stephanie has provided independent consultancy. She has under-taken a wide range of investigations into serious incidents, governance and service reviews in the NHS and private health sectors. She has investigated performance concerns in individual doctors and dysfunctional team dynamics.
She provides independent adjudication to third stage complaints in the independent healthcare sector for ISCAS.
Stephanie is a CEDR accredited mediator and is on the CEDR panel of mediators. She regularly acts as conciliator for the Funeral Arbitration Service and mediates clin-ical negligence claims for NHS Resolution 9formerly NHS Litigation Authority).
As a lay member of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, Stephanie adjudicates upon alleged breaches of the rules and regulations applicable to solicitors and their firms.
After 34 years in full-time General Practice in Chertsey , Surrey David retired in mid 2016 and then became a court director after many years a member of SAMF.
David graduated from St Bartholomew’s Medical College in 1976. After completing GP training he was recruited in 1981 as Regimental Medical Officer to The Household Cavalry and commissioned in The Life Guards. He served in both Germany (BAOR) and the UK based in Windsor.
Completing a short service commission in 1986 David returned to the NHS as a GP Principal in practice in Esher, Surrey. After three years he returned to work for the MOD as a Civilian Medical Practitioner, working in Germany (BAOR) for a further 10 years.
In 1999 David joined the Army Medical Directorate at Camberley in the Medicolegal Department as a Medial Officer and then joined Medical Protection in 2002 as a Medicolegal Adviser. He leaves Medical Protection in April 2019 having taken voluntary redundancy.
David readily accepted the invitation of the Chairman of the Court to joint SAMF in 2017 and is looking forward to getting involved in such a worthy charity.
He is married to a doctor and has three children.
The Court meets four times a year – February, May, August and November, to conduct its business.
Any new applications for membership are considered at these meetings and application for membership needs to be proposed and seconded and must state that he or she is in good health. Any doctor who has a GMC recognised qualification and has lived in the UK for ten years or more is eligible for membership. Membership currently stands at about 200. Any new requests for assistance are considered at these quarterly meetings.
Currently the Society has a particular interest in helping medical students who are themselves the sons or daughters of doctors. Naturally it is hoped that they may themselves become members in due course and ensure the future of the Society.
WHO IS ELIGIBLE
The order for eligibility for assistance is as follows:-
Dependants of deceased members
Members themselves
Their dependants
Medical practitioners, who haven’t been members of the Society and their dependants. The overriding consideration is whether any applicant is necessitous.
As any available funds should be used in that order, there is a distinct advantage to being a member, in that a member and his or her dependants will always have first call on the funds. It is for this reason that the Society is unable to commit to any long-term help for those not in membership. At present there is an excess of income over expenditure but this position has not always been so.
It should be noted that all awards are discretionary.
Wherever possible either the Secretary or a Member of the Court of Directors will visit or meet the applicants.
First Floor, The Houses, 16-18 Blackfriars Lane, London EC4V 6EB
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Sergeant Majid holds a rocket propelled grenade as his Humvee approaches the neighbourhood of Tahrir and Zahara, formerly named after Saddam Hussein, on the north eastern edge of Mosul, on November 4th, 2016, in Mosul Iraq. Iraqi forces made further gains on the east of the city as the offensive to retake Mosul from ISIS reached its 19th day.
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Iraqi Special forces react as they clear a building in the neighbourhood of Tahrir and Zahara, formerly named after Saddam Hussein, on the north eastern edge of Mosul, on November 4th, 2016, in Mosul Iraq. Iraqi forces made further gains on the east of the city as the offensive to retake Mosul from ISIS reached its 19th day.
Nour Younes reacts to the death of her two-year-old son, Yassine at a medical clinic on the eastern edge of Mosul, on November 22, 2016. Four of her children were injured when what neighbours described as an ISIS mortar landed on their house in the Al Zahraa neighbourhood of Mosul. Many civilians are electing to remain in their homes, complicating Iraqi forces' efforts to retake the city from ISIS.
An American solider gestures as an Iraqi helicopter flies over Qayyarah Airfield West, or "Q West", a major base for international forces assisting the Iraqi assault on Islamic State-held Mosul, some 40 miles south of Mosul, Iraq, on November 23, 2016.
Iraqi Special Forces soldiers help civilians fleeing from the Zahara neighbourhood on the north eastern edge of Mosul as fighting continues nearby, on November 6th, 2016, in Mosul Iraq. Fighting continued in Mosul as Iraqi forces pressed their gains on the east of the city as the offensive to retake the city from ISIS reached its 21st day.
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Civilians react after a mortar lands nearby while they wait to be put on lorries as they flee from the Zahara neighbourhood on the north eastern edge of Mosul as fighting continues nearby, on November 6th, 2016, in Mosul Iraq. Fighting continued in Mosul as Iraqi forces pressed their gains on the east of the city as the offensive to retake the city from ISIS reached its 21st day.
A girl cries for her mother as Iraqi Special Forces distribute food to Mosul citizens on the eastern edge of the city, on November 22, 2016. Many civilians are electing to remain in their homes, complicating Iraqi forces' efforts to retake the city from ISIS.
People queue for food, clothing and nappies being distributed by volunteers who were themselves displaced from Mosul, at a camp for people displaced by the conflict against ISIS, mostly from Mosul, in Hassan Sham, Iraqi Kurdistan, on November 26, 2016.
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Relatives of two-year-old Yassine Younes react after his death at a medical clinic on the eastern edge of Mosul, on November 22, 2016. He and three of his siblings were injured when what neighbours described as an ISIS mortar landed on their house in the Al Zahraa neighbourhood of Mosul. Many civilians are electing to remain in their homes, complicating Iraqi forces' efforts to retake the city from ISIS.
Civilians are loaded onto lorries as they flee from the Zahara neighbourhood on the north eastern edge of Mosul as fighting continues nearby, on November 6th, 2016, in Mosul, Iraq. Fighting continued in Mosul as Iraqi forces pressed their gains on the east of the city as the offensive to retake the city from ISIS reached its 21st day.
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|Planning & Development Services
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Planning Commission - Board of Supervisors
November & December 2009
In November and December of 2009, Initiated hearings on the General Plan Update Draft Text, Land Use Maps. Road Network, Community Plans, Implementation Plan and Conservation Subdivision Program. The Hearings were on November 6, 19 & 20 and December 4th, 2009
February 19, and March 12, 2010
The Hearings on the General Plan Update were continued on February 19th and March 12, and issues were discussed through a series of Fact Sheets included in the staff report.
At the conclusion of the Planning Commission Hearing on April 16, 2010 the Planning Commission Recommended approval of the General Plan Update to the Board of Supervisors, with the direction for staff to prepare a Transfer of Development Rights Program and bring it back to the Planning Commission prior to the Board of Supervisors. Summaries of Each of the Planning Commission Hearings up from November 6, 2009 to April 16, 2010.
July 9 & August 20, 2010
Presented the Zoning Ordinance Consistency Review changes to individual properties, as well as revisions to the Zoning Ordinance, Subdivision Ordinance, and Resource Protection Ordinance to ensure consistency with the General Plan Update. Also presented at this hearing was the draft Transfer of Development Rights Program Working Concept, directed to be developed by the Planning Commission on April 16, 2010. This page also contains the materials that were presented to the Planning Commission on August 20, 2010.
Staff provided a project update to the Board of Supervisors on July 23, 2008. The update includes a report on the progress to date and highlights key issues that staff has identified relating to the completion of the project. At the update hearing, the Board of Supervisors directed staff to remove a Specific Plan from the Valley Center Referral Map. This action resulted in a one month delay on some near term project deadlines, however the project remains on the overall schedule for completion in Fall 2010.
Staff provided a project update to the Board of Supervisors on May 13, 2009. The update included a report on the progress to date and highlights key issues that staff has identified relating to the completion of the project.
October 20, November 10, December 8, 2010
The General Plan Update initiated hearings at the Board of Supervisors on October 20, which was continued to November 10 and December 8, 2010. After following nine hearings that were held by the San Diego County Planning Commission from Nov. 6, 2009 through August 20, 2010. The Commission made its final recommendations for approval of the General Plan Update Aug. 20. In total, the Board heard approximately 19 organized presentations and from 172 individuals. Following public testimony, the Board discussed the project and directed staff to review issues raised during the hearings, including property-specific requests, and return to the continued hearing Feb. 9, 2011, with additional information and research. Video of each of the hearings is available from the Clerk of the Board.
During the previous public hearings on October 20, November 10, and December 8 regarding the proposed General Plan Update, staff was asked by the Board of Supervisors to return with additional information regarding specific identified issues including staff analysis for the 230 property-specific requests that were submitted via verbal or written testimony or referred to staff by the Board of Supervisors.
This staff report contains responses to questions raised by the Board on February 9, 2011 and refinements to the previous February 9, 2011 staff report based on public and staff review.
This staff report contains staff’s review of the property owner requests classified as a “moderate” and “major” in the March 16th 2011 staff report, to determine if there are any staff recommendation land use alternatives that would reduce them to “minor” changes.
Based on direction from the Board on April 13, the August 3 documents contain a number of changes to the General Plan Update that were considered “minor” because they were consistent with the General Plan Update guiding principles and did not require recirculation of the Environmental Impact Report. As directed by the Board, the August 3 report also contains all final documents necessary to make a decision on the General Plan Update.
On Aug. 3, the Board of Supervisors adopted the General Plan Update. Following adoption of the plan, the Board voted to schedule a workshop to review the Property Specific Requests that were submitted during the General Plan Update hearings but not included in the adopted plan. These requests were submitted during public testimony on the General Plan Update and evaluated in the March 16 staff report. Approximately 137 specific requests were analyzed by staff for the workshop and the analysis is now available to the public.
June 20, June 27, July 25, and September 12, 2012
During a workshop held January 9 through January 11, 2012, the Board of Supervisors considered over 137 private property owner requests to modify the County of San Diego’s General Plan land use designations. 56 requests were referred back to staff by the Board for further evaluation. Actions directed by the Board varied between requests but included steps such as determining if a modified request was available that could be consistent with the General Plan Guiding Principles, obtaining community planning group input, determining what larger study areas (if any) required consideration in making changes to the plan, notifying potentially affected property owners, and developing workplan options for amending the General Plan. These reports respond to Board direction related to the private property owner requests.
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Movies Filmed in South Carolina – Something to Talk About
South Carolina Movies Filmed in South Carolina Something to Talk About
Spill Your Scoop!
If you have a story about the filming of Something to Talk About in South Carolina, let us know.
Something to Talk About: Overview
Director – Lasse Hallström
Cast – Julia Roberts, Dennis Quaid, Robert Duvall, Gena Rowlands
Genre – Comedy, Drama, Romance
Plot – Grace Bichon, who manages her father's riding stables, discovers that her husband has been cheating on her. This gives her the opportunity to see her life in a new light.
Something to Talk About: SC Locations
The states of Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia were all being considered as backdrops for this film. The filmmakers began their search in SC, making the first of a dozen scheduled stops throughout the Lowcountry at Davant Plantation. Within an hour of touring the plantation, the director, Lasse Hallström, made the decision to shoot his film at Davant. The rest of the scouting was called off and official preparations began. Source: SC Film Commission
The "King Farm" scenes were filmed at Davant Plantation in Gillionsville, which is located ten miles north of Ridgeland at the intersection of US 278 and SC 462.
The facade of the USC Beaufort Performing Arts Center was used as the backdrop of Grace Bichon's college campus.
A large portion of the filming was done at Michael Rainey Antiques, which was located at 702 Craven Street in downtown Beaufort.
Gadsby's Restaurant in Beaufort, which is now Ollie's Downtown Seafood Restaurant (822 Bay Street), was used for the filming of a restaurant scene. Many local people were extras in that scene.
Something to Talk About: Fun Facts
The Beaufort County Public Library, on 311 Scott Street, was used extensively during the production of Something to Talk About. The actors' mobile dressing rooms were parked in the Library parking lot, while the meeting room was used as a "green room," where actors get ready between takes. However, the Beaufort Library stayed open during the shooting.
During the filming of Something to Talk About, reporters were constantly buzzing around the Craven Street and Scott Street intersection, trying to interview or photograph Julia Roberts. At the end of each scene, she would travel through the library to her trailer to escape the press.
A nationwide search for a young girl to play Caroline 'Doodlebug' Bichon, the daughter of Julia Roberts and Dennis Quaid, ended when Haley Aull was cast. Turns out that Ms. Aull lived only two hours away from where the filming took place, in Orangeburg. She was able to keep the horse that her character "owned" in the film after production was completed. Source: SC Film Commission
The essential production crew stayed at the Beaufort Inn on Port Republic Street as well as the apartment of Nancy and Bill Rhett next to Plums restaurant.
Dennis Stevens shares, "One evening I went to dinner with my wife at our favorite Beaufort restaurant but when we started in the door an employee told us the restaurant was closed for a private party. He proudly told me that it was the actors and crew from the movie and Julia Roberts was in there too. I told him to tell Julia that Dennis was outside and she would gladly tell them to let me in...but it didn't work."
More Resources For Something to Talk About
Something to Talk About information - Beaufort County Library
Something to Talk About: Purchase The Movie
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Giants’ Posey caps remarkable comeback with NL MVP honor
Getty Images File PhotoBuster Posey was name the NL MVP on Thursday.
Buster Posey can add one more award to his trophy case as the Giants’ catcher ran away with National League MVP honors Thursday, securing 27 of 32 first-place votes.
Posey surged into the race for the award with a scorching run in the second half of the season by hitting .371 from July 1 through the end of the season. That propelled the third-year pro to win the NL batting title with a .336 average to go with a .408 on-base percentage, 24 home runs and 103 RBIs.
That second-half show was just what the Giants needed to carry them to the NL West crown after losing Melky Cabrera to a 50-game suspension on Aug. 15 after the outfielder had led the NL in hitting for the first 4½ months of the season.
“I think as a player, you try to maximize the highs as much as you can,” Posey told MLB Network on Thursday. “And when you’re feeling good, keep that feeling and try to remember what you’re doing so that you can make the necessary adjustments to stay on track.”
The 25-year-old, who was the NL Rookie of the Year in 2010, also won NL Comeback Player of the Year after missing most of the 2011 season with a broken leg and torn ankle ligaments following a collision at home plate.
Similar injuries have altered the careers of players in the past, leaving them shells of their former selves, though Posey rebounded quickly and confidently.
“I think there’s always that doubt in the back of your mind after an injury like that,” Posey said. “But you try your best to take things slow, take it one day at a time, and for me I was excited to be back on the field. I wasn’t looking toward the end of the season. I was just looking at spring training, I was looking at Game 1 and took it slow and I had a blast.”
To do what he did at the plate was impressive enough, but what pushed him ahead of last year’s NL MVP, Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers — who finished second in this year’s vote — may have been his work behind the plate at the most physically demanding everyday position.
“He’s so valuable with the way he catches, handles the staff and hits cleanup while handling all that’s thrown at him,” manager Bruce Bochy said in a statement released by the Giants. “He not only has a huge impact on our lineup, but a bigger impact with the way that he leads by example and we are extremely lucky that he’s a part of our organization.”
The award has now gone to a San Francisco player for the 10th time, five of which went to Barry Bonds. In franchise history, seven Giants players have won the award, dating back to Larry Doyle, who won the second-ever NL MVP in 1912.
Posey’s reaction was caught on live television as the announcement was made on MLB Network. The young star was with his wife, Kristen, and their 15-month-old twins, standing in front of a crowd of friends and family.
Affeldt happy to have stability with Giants
With Cal’s season over, Tedford’s future in question
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https://www.sfgate.com/books/article/A-100-day-counternarrative-through-art-10850778.php
A 100-day counternarrative through art
By Evan Karp
Updated 3:01 pm PST, Thursday, January 12, 2017
“Lies, Lies, Lies”: Stephanie Syjuco, fabric banner, made in conjunction with 100 Days Action.
Photo: Stephanie Syjuco
Ingrid Rojas Contreras and Jeremiah Barber were sitting on their couch, horrified by Donald Trump’s 100-day plan.
“It occurred to us that he’s such a performative person, and that he was speaking our language in some way,” Contreras, a writer, said. “We wanted to see what it would be like if we were to do 100 days of artistic response.”
They posted a call on social media and were soon sitting in a cafe with 20 other people — some of whom they knew, all of whom gathered to explore this nascent idea to form a counternarrative.
Barber, an artist and teacher, pointed out that in that same week “there were probably a half dozen other gatherings, exact same idea — maybe not artistic necessarily, but just brainstorming, political; what are we going to do; how are we going to react.”
“I think we all felt like we were under siege,” Contreras said, “and we were just trying to figure out how our work could be a voice together.”
They’re sitting at a conference table at SOMArts Cultural Center, with three other core members of what they’ve come to call 100 Days Action. The group has formed organically, with each person contributing skills toward the project and helping to define its vision.
“The main thing was we wanted to do a calendar,” Contreras said. “That was the central idea: We want to make a calendar that is point by point a response to misogyny and xenophobia and the (proposed) Muslim ban, and all these terrible things — if we could do the exact opposite.
“Whereas the Trump plan is written to be vague and to just electrify people and flatten out meaning, art is already something that does that: It gets across nuance in a very concentrated way. So it seemed like a natural jumping point,” she said. “If we’re in a post-truth place, our only argument is an argument that is artistic.”
The core began to meet weekly; among its 15 members are an activist, an elementary school teacher, a neuroscientist and a software designer. They’ve put out a call for performances and gestures of all kinds, which they’ll feature on the website. As the 100-day plan is meant traditionally to set the stage for a president’s four-year term, the goal of 100 Days Action is to provide a means for people to find their place within a more sustained resistance.
“Trump is a storyteller, even with his tweets; he’s constantly trying to lay down plot points, I think, for future arguments,” Contreras said. “I think we have an opportunity with 100 Days to tell a different story.”
Readers can learn more about the project, and how to submit their own ideas, at 100daysaction.net. The first deadline is Sunday, Jan. 15.
An open meeting is scheduled for noon Saturday, Jan. 14, at Royal Nonesuch Gallery, where the project is in residence through Feb. 15. The gallery will also host the 100 Days Action Inaugural Ball on Jan. 20; anyone can take the oath of office over the book of their choice.
Evan Karp is the creator of Quiet Lightning and Litseen.com. Twitter: @quiet_lightning
100 Days Action meeting: Noon Saturday, Jan. 14. Free. Royal Nonesuch Gallery, 4231 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. (510) 761-7824. http://100daysaction.net.
Other book events
Why There Are Words celebrates its seventh anniversary with readings by Tamim Ansary (“Road Trips”), Rebecca Foust (“Paradise Drive”), Joan Frank (“All the News I Need”), Kate Milliken (“If I’d Known You Were Coming”), Joshua Mohr (“Sirens”), Naomi J. Wiliams (“Landfalls”) and Olga Zilberbourg, author of several books of fiction in Russian, and music by Turk & Divis (7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 12, Studio 333, 333 Caledonia St. Sausalito, $10). Full disclosure: I am part of Turk & Divis. www.whytherearewords.com.
Diesel, A Bookstore presents its Fresh and Best Poetry series, with Tongo Eisen-Martin (“Someone’s Dead Already”) and Wendy Trevino (“Brazilian Is Not a Race”) (7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 13, 5433 College Ave., Oakland, free).
Writers With Drinks features Sara Benincasa (“Real Artists Have Day Jobs”), Jeff Chang (“We Gon’ Be Alright”), Antonio Garcia Martinez (“Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley”), Wendy C. Ortiz (“dreamoir”), Aya de Leon (“Uptown Thief”) and comedian Jennifer Dronsky, with guest host Baruch Porras Hernandez (7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 14, Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St., $5-$20). www.writerswithdrinks.com.
Bay Area Writers Resist, in concert with an international movement and co-presented by nearly a dozen local organizations, presents an evening of readings with a lineup that includes Jane Hirshfield, Bich Minh Nguyen, D.A. Powell, Ishmael Reed, Kevin Simmonds and many others, a benefit for International Institute of the Bay Area, Southern Poverty Law Center and Transgender Law Center (7 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 15, Starline Social Club, 2236 MLK Jr. Way, Oakland, free).
Manteca school bus driver put on leave after frightening ride
26 TV shows debuting 2020
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Home > News > Content & Channels > New US drama 9-1-1 coming exclusively to Sky Living and NOW TV
New US drama 9-1-1 coming exclusively to Sky Living and NOW TV
Sky’s latest acquisition from Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution
Tuesday 13th of March 2018
20th Century Fox, Acquisition, Sky Living
Created and executive-produced by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Tim Minear, 9-1-1 stars Angela Bassett, Peter Krause and Connie Britton.
9-1-1, the provocative new procedural drama from Twentieth Century Fox Television will launch in the UK & Ireland on Sky Living and TV streaming service NOW TV later this year. Already an established hit across the pond with over 15m viewers tuning in for its season premiere, 9-1-1 explores the high-pressure experiences of police, paramedics and firefighters who are thrust into the most frightening, shocking and heart-stopping situations. These emergency responders must try to balance saving those who are at their most vulnerable with solving problems in their own lives.
Creators Ryan Murphy (American Horror Story franchise, Nip/Tuck), Brad Falchuk (American Horror Story franchise, Nip/Tuck) and Tim Minear (Feud, American Horror Story franchise) reimagine the procedural drama with 9-1-1. The series stars Academy Award® and Emmy® Award nominee and Golden Globe® winner Angela Bassett (American Horror Story, What’s Love Got to Do with It), Emmy® Award and Golden Globe® nominee Peter Krause (The Catch, Six Feet Under) and Emmy® Award nominee Connie Britton (Nashville, Friday Night Lights). Oliver Stark (Into the Badlands), Aisha Hinds (Shots Fired, Underground), Kenneth Choi (The People v. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story) and Rockmond Dunbar (Prison Break, The Path) also star.
Adam MacDonald, director of Sky Living, said: “I’m delighted to bring the heart-stoppingly dramatic 9-1-1 to Sky Living where it will thrill viewers alongside fellow best-loved US dramas. Its nail-biting blend of breathtaking danger and raw emotion will have UK viewers – including me! – completely hooked.”
In a multi-season commitment, 9-1-1 is the latest Sky acquisition from Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution (TCFTVD). 9-1-1 is produced by 20th Century Fox Television in association with Ryan Murphy Television and Brad Falchuk Teley-Vision. Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Tim Minear are creators, executive producers and writers on the series. Bradley Buecker (American Horror Story) is an executive producer and directed the series premiere. Alexis Martin Woodall (American Horror Story, American Crime Story) and Angela Bassett (The Rosa Parks Story) serve as executive producers.
9-1-1 was acquired for Sky from Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution in a deal brokered by Lucy Criddle, Sky’s Head of Acquisitions Series and David Smyth, Senior Vice President and Managing Director of TCFTVD U.K. 9-1-1 adds to the line-up of much-loved US dramas on Sky Living, which already includes The Good Doctor, Scandal, Blindspot, Chicago Fire, Criminal Minds, Grey’s Anatomy and Nashville.
NOW TV unveils new Kids Pass
Sky Academy opportunities
Sky Sports becomes the home of the Ladbrokes Premiership
The Big TV Festival is getting bigger
Martin Freeman and Daisy Haggard to star in Breeders
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Breaking Through the Cascade of Information With Atrium Health
By Chuck Gose
In Comms Heroes, Podcast
Breaking Through the Cascade of Information With Atrium Health2019-10-082019-10-08/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sc_logo_white_154x60.pngSocialChorushttps://www.socialchorus.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/chrisberger.jpg200px200px
Healthcare is going through massive transformation right now. So, I am pleased to welcome Chris Berger, AVP of corporate communications at Atrium Health, which operates hospitals, urgent care centers, emergency departments, and medical practices in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
We’ll discuss:
what Chris learned from his time at Wal-Mart,
his omni-channel approach to internal communications to reach and engage “deskless” employees,
how they launched their workforce communications platform (powered by SocialChorus), and
his favorite cocktail.
“It’s one of the things that you think about what do you leave at an organization, what impact do you have? This was certainly one of those ones where, you know, no matter what happens in my career, I’ll be very proud of putting this tool in place here to make sure that we are truly communicating better with our internal teammates.”
—Chris Berger
We feature communications leaders every second and fourth Tuesday of the month. Don’t miss an episode of Culture, Comms, & Cocktails, brought to you by SocialChorus. Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts (Apple, Google Play, Stitcher, etc.)
Culture, Comms, & Cocktails Episode #18 Transcript
Chris Berger: Hey, it’s great to be here today. You know, this was the pinnacle of my career being on the podcast with you.
Chuck Gose: That means it’s all downhill from now, Chris? So just enjoy it. Be along for the ride. So grab a seat here at the Culture, Comms, & Cocktails lounge and let’s get started.
Before we get into your work at Atrium. I have a little bit of a more personal question for you, Chris. Since we first connected on LinkedIn and it was before you joined Atrium Health, you’re one of their more active corporate communications (corp comms) leaders on LinkedIn, at least from what I see in my network. You might be even the most active corp comm leader there. It frustrates me because, so often corporate communications leaders want their employees to be advocates and share news, but they themselves aren’t actively sharing. So, is this intentional? What’s your motivation behind this?
Chris Berger: It’s very intentional. I have always thought LinkedIn is probably one of the best things for sharing professionally. I think all the recent surveys out there, it really backs this information up. So as I’ve gone through my career, I’ve noticed a lot of professional sharing happens on LinkedIn, and I just took it on to say, okay, wherever I work, I want to make sure that I’m an advocate as much as I want my team to be just like you said. We’re always trying to build brand advocates at whatever organization we work at. If I can be the chief advocate, that’s what I see my role as. As you know, leading communications is enabling that and helping others share the good news.
I’ve always been a fairly passionate individual wherever I work. I have to really buy into the mission and vision and all that. And then once that happens, I love to share the good news that’s happening and certainly have no end to the good news where I currently work at Atrium Health.
Chuck Gose: Oh, I applaud you on it. You’ve certainly set the tone and the example of how to be a good advocate on LinkedIn. Something else I’m curious about your background. On a previous episode of the podcast, I interviewed Kyla Turner from Love’s [Travel Stops] and she talked about some of the culture she brought to Love’s from her experience at Southwest Airlines, which is well known for their culture. And you used to work at Walmart prior to coming to Atrium Health. So what have you carried with you from your Walmart days into Atrium?
Chris Berger: I’m drawn to mission-driven organizations and at Walmart they have a very simple but clear vision and mission. It was “save people money so that they can live better.” Everybody sees it on the store, so save money, live better. That was actually from back when Sam Walton was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and I think it was ’92, and everything that they do flowed from that mission.
Last week, you probably saw it on LinkedIn, I visited the home office, and took a group from Atrium Health to go do some benchmarking and knowledge sharing with their EOC group. What was neat there was to kind of showcase exactly what I’ve been talking about.
When you go to the home office, you’re not seeing anything extravagant… There’s not many windows actually on the buildings at the home office. They’re very simple and plain… They’re working to do some things to help with recruiting and retention. But one of the things I admired was they really live that save money, live better. So anything they could do to pass the savings onto the customer, they were doing.
One of the things that shocked me in my first day I walked into this building of 6,000 technologists [was] even things like taking out your own trash. They don’t have some consortium that comes around and takes your trash. You do that yourself, you vacuum your pod.
It was those types of things that really helped me really grasp hold of the mission. There’s some really cool things they have in place there. They have a thing called the 10 foot rule. I’ve tried to bring that here, because if you’re within 10 foot of someone, you should say hi to them. Too many times when you’re walking around an organization that is getting bigger or even small, you just ignore people. You’re on your duty. You have something to do, and you just walk past people and you never acknowledge that they’re there.
The other thing that they had was called a sundown rule. Sundown rule basically said, “Look, if you get an email or you get something that you can finish by the end of the day, you should.”
I thought, wow, that’s a great concept because how many things do we have that sit in our email box or we’ve sent out that we’re waiting on someone to respond to, and not everything will you be able to actually do that day. But you could respond with an email that says, “Hey, I’m on top of this. Here’s what I think. I’ll be able to do it and get it back to you.” That’s something I’ve been trying to share more and more with my team and just making sure from a customer standpoint, they know what’s happening with work that’s sitting in their email or whatever.
Those two things really resonated with me. But yeah, there were so many great things about the culture there that really they’re just common sense things but they had an ability and an opportunity. What they did is they made these common sense business practices every day and what’s expected. That was one of the things I loved about when I was there at Walmart.
Chuck Gose: Well, I think it’s one thing that’s great any time you learn from another business and get your employees out, but I think sometimes what can happen that seems like it happens a lot in healthcare is they always just want to benchmark against other healthcare, and it gets to be a little bit of an echo chamber where you just see everybody acting the same. So I liked that you guys went to a retail environment or retail customer to see what they’re doing. No different than a manufacturer would learn a lot by coming into a healthcare company.
Chris Berger: Absolutely. When I joined Atrium Health almost three years ago, one of the things that I recognized was what healthcare is going through right now is becoming more and more customer-centric. Maybe they haven’t had to do that in the past, but what I would say retail went through like 10 years ago plus when you’re thinking about omni-channel, people want to… You know, their news or they want to interact, they want to buy things when they want it, how they want it, where they are.
Healthcare is the same way. That’s what’s happening right now. Unfortunately, healthcare is a little bit, I feel like, behind the game. But I love working at a forward-thinking company like Atrium Health where we’re trying to push the boundaries. You know, we’re looking at Amazons, we’re looking at the Walmarts, we’re looking at many different organizations out there that how are they reaching customers in a way that customers actually want to be interacted with right now. So, we’re kind of reframing how people think about healthcare, and that’s what we’re doing with our virtual care visits and lots of different things across the organization.
Chuck Gose: Now, we’ve mentioned Atrium Health many times so far, and some people may not be familiar with the organization. So talk about the size of the company, the mission, your team, so people get a feel for the organization.
Chris Berger: Our mission is I think a fantastic mission. I joined the organization right after they had rolled a new mission out. They went through a very purposeful process involving board members, involving others in the community, to come up with a new mission statement that everybody could grasp hold of and understand. It’s pretty simple. It’s to improve health, elevate hope, and advance healing for all.
That is one of the biggest driving points of what we talk about, and is a huge sense of pride for Atrium Health. Just from a size and scope perspective, it is mind-boggling a little bit when I think about it. We have about 70,000 teammates, 50 hospitals, 44 urgent care locations, 900-plus facilities where we’re helping people throughout the system, about 3,700 physicians, 17,000 nurses.
But I think the things that blow my mind is the one-day stats, and as I talk about what happens in one day at Atrium Health, we have about 38,000 patient interactions. That’s about one every two seconds. We have about 25,000 patient visits, almost 4,000 emergency room visits, and the list goes on.
We have 91 babies that are delivered every single day at Atrium Health, and then about 635 life saving surgeries happen. That’s the really cool part. One of the most amazing stats to me is every single day, we provide $5.6 million in free and uncompensated care. That adds up to about 2.03 billion with a B, yes, in free and uncompensated care. And that goes back again to our mission of for all. If you don’t have the ability to pay, we help people out. It doesn’t matter if you live under a bridge or you’re the president or CEO of a major large company. If you need life-saving care, we’re going to provide that.
Chuck Gose: Now, you talked about all those babies being delivered there every day, 91 babies a day. This year you’re going to launch your own baby, your own comms baby, a new internal comms platform called Teal Insider. What was the drive behind this? You talked about interacting with customers and learning from how customers are or what’s retail or other environments or treating customers. Is this about how employees are experiencing life at Atrium Health?
Chris Berger: It is. Really the emphasis behind this again is going back to that concept that I talked about, the omnichannel, is I think in communications, generally email is still king unfortunately. Then maybe the intranet and then some other forms of maybe collaboration like Yammer, like SharePoint, like all of these other things that are out there. And it gets messy in there. Really what we were looking for was a way to modernize how we were doing communications across our enterprise.
One of the things that we have been expanding our care across our geographic footprint last February, we actually changed our name from Carolinas Healthcare System to Atrium Health. That was a big deal. The reason we did that is because actually, the day after we announced that we announced that an organization, Navicent Health in Macon, Georgia, would be joining us. That happened at the beginning of this year.
So we knew that organizations outside of the Carolinas probably wouldn’t be so apt to want to join what was happening here at Atrium Health. So we changed from the Carolinas Healthcare System name to Atrium Health. With that, we also knew, as you heard, 50 hospitals. How do you reach that many teammates that are spread across a huge geographic area? How do you reach nurses when we know 40ish-percent of our workforce is not sitting behind a desk? They’re the “undesk worker.” How do you continue to communicate to them in a way that isn’t through email, isn’t through an internet, and why not communicate with them the way that they already interact?
I mean, we’re addicted to these devices, right? We’re addicted to the alert that comes across to let us know there’s a breaking news story or something. That’s how I was thinking about internal comms. I’m a firm believer in what’s external is internal and what’s internal is external. However, there are specific channels and ways to communicate to internal teammates that you want and you absolutely want to make sure that they are able to get those news possibly.
My goal was we would want, if we had a breaking news event, we want our teammates to know about that before the news media is able to push out their push notifications. I can’t tell you how many times we heard the newspaper broke this story, and I heard about it from the newspaper before I heard it from my own organization. Well, we sent out the email, you know, the typical hour or 30 minutes before. But guess what? They’re not connected to those things.
So we knew we had to break through that and actually reach teammates where they are, and this new app, that SocialChorus has been great about helping us through has been one of those fantastic tools that we just launched in August, and we’re already seeing fantastic results from.
Chuck Gose: Speaking of some of those results, what have some of the responses from employees? Either something anecdotal that you’ve heard from people and maybe even leaders. What are they thinking about? You mentioned all the other channels that have been out there for a while. What has been the response from having Teal Insider now available?
Chris Berger: Yeah. I think we’re just at the beginning, but what we have heard already is how excited people are to actually break through the cascade of information that typically happens. I think that has been one of the biggest challenges. You know, as communicators we’re always talking about the cascade and the change management that needs to happen with any big announcement.
The app provides that ability to go directly to the teammates because we know that the traditional “cascade” is broken. That doesn’t happen. We’re waiting. Even if we want it to perfectly happen, there’s always a gap somewhere in there that happens where a manager doesn’t share it with their group or their team or a supervisor forgets to bring it up in the meeting. Now, we can go directly to the teammate with that type of information or we could start at a certain level and give them exclusive content and then cascade it out during a certain time and do a push notification to let them know.
So the initial feedback has been fantastic because people are feeling more connected. They’re understanding the mission and vision. Just like you were talking about LinkedIn, posting things on LinkedIn, one of the big drivers of why we’re so invested into sharing both externally and internally is we have a huge sense of pride about the work that we’re doing. We’re saving lives all the time, and maybe teammates lose sight of that sometimes.
We have something that’s pretty cool at the beginning of most meetings here. We have something that’s called a connect to purpose. What happens during those connect to purpose? There’s something that’s shared. It can be a great patient story. It can be something that we’re doing, but most of the time it’s a very heartwarming understanding of why we do what we do at Atrium Health, and it usually revolves around the patient. Because that’s why we’re here to care for patients, save lives, and, again, go back to our mission statement of improving health, elevating hope, and advancing healing for all.
If we can connect people at the beginning of a meeting, even if it’s a meeting about finance or budgets or whatever, it actually re-centers us a little bit and helps us to really get back to why we exist. What’s happening is people are seeing those stories on Teal Insider and they’re able to share those readily at the beginning of meetings. Before they were kind of searching around trying to figure out. It doesn’t matter if you’re working here in Charlotte, North Carolina or if you’re happened to be at one of our locations around this area or down in Macon, Georgia. They can now look at these stories and share them, and there’s a huge sense of pride that comes from that.
Chuck Gose: Yeah, you bring up a great point and something that I’ve talked to a lot of communicators about. Not that all cascades are bad. Sometimes cascade is for a reason. You want to tell one group before another group, before another group. The problem is by the time that group starts getting toward the bottom, there’s almost too much content to share. They naturally filter out content. Either they understand or they are comfortable sharing and not other things.
We’re reducing the burden on those supervisors and managers by going straight to the employees and letting them communicate the important things that are relevant to the team. Not everything goes to the team. So I think that’s a thing for those managers.
Chris Berger: That’s right. We’ve set up specific channels, which was on the benefits of Teal Insider that we share things just for leaders that says, Hey, this week, when you’re in your huddles share this. It’s a channel called Leaders Know This and basically, it’s share this information with your team, and then there’s three things. We try not to populate it with more than three things. That way it’s simple. It’s very clear. It’s a couple of bullet points that talk about what we’re asking them to share.
It could be around benefits, it could be around some breaking news that we have, but it is important information that we want the leaders to share. But then that same week, we’ll release that same information to teammates. So if we want to make sure everybody has this information so they’re hearing it from multiple sources, because we all know it takes several times for someone to remember whatever information we’re trying to disseminate. The more that we can do that, the better.
Chuck Gose: I know you’re still relatively new until the launch, but have you heard from employees who are seeing the content that they really liked to see? But I’m also curious too, has there been any content bubble up that you guys have discovered that you wouldn’t have known about without Teal Insider of employee sharing things in?
Chris Berger: Yeah, there has been. There’s been a couple opportunities where people have suggested content. I think what’s really exciting is as we do the roadshow, as we share more information with leaders, we have the ability now to get their input and to see how it gets their mind, going up like, “Oh, you mean that I could send out a video each week to my team?” As like a hospital president who has thousands of employees at that location, what better way to keep his whole team motivated?
We know there’s no way a hospital president is going to be able to meet one-on-one with every single teammate. But if he’s able to post a video that talks to very authentically, it’s not like some highly scripted you have to go into production and all this kind of stuff. Just film it on your iPhone and load it. It’s a very authentic way of communicating, and all of a sudden the leader is getting a natural connection with that individual teammate down at the front line that he would never have before.
That’s the type of stuff we’re hearing more and more requests all the time. Can you send me up a special channel that I can communicate out to my team? Can you create some specific, exclusive content channel that we can communicate to this specific group? That’s the beauty I think of the targeting and on the back end of it, the metrics.
I mean I’m a very metric-driven person. So when I’m looking at the metrics and I want to see, okay, who am I reaching? How is this going? Who’s opening it up? How many people signed up? All those types of things. I can give them that report once we have that group signed.
Chuck Gose: What I love hearing is the platform. A lot of companies all over the world use it. But there’s always sometimes these little unique cases or use cases that customers come up with ways to, whether it’s content treatment or whether it’s getting people to sign up or like you said, the exclusive stuff. Are there any kind of unique use cases that you guys are using with Teal Insider?
Chris Berger: Yeah, I think so. Recently, we actually, we had a leadership certificate program that we are offering to our vice presidents and above. The leadership team, as we all know, so goes that group, so goes the organization. We really wanted to get them all together and talk about where are we going as an organization, make sure that everybody hears from our president, CEO, Gene Woods.
He has done a fantastic job. He was the one that led the new mission and vision and really heard straight from him kind of where we’re going as an organization. Where is healthcare going and then how do we fit into that picture? A lot of people talk about the consolidation of healthcare that is happening. More and more organizations, you know, the healthcare is getting bigger.
It’s not for size sake, it’s to be able to deliver care better throughout a larger geography, and high quality care done well is very attractive. So one of the things that we were doing was gathering this group together to help explain, to make sure that they understood the why. You know, there’s the book Start With Why, really huge believer in that.
It’s like, why don’t we get the groups together and put them through what we call the leadership certificate program? Let them know where we’re headed as an organization. That way, they feel comfortable leading us through the change. Healthcare is just going through massive, massive transformation right now and we’re not any different than that. So we announced that we’re hopeful that Wake Forest Baptist will be opening up its second school of medicine here in Charlotte. We’re the largest city that doesn’t have it.
How does that fit into our larger picture? You know, that could create some angst with leaders of: where do I fit into that? So basically gathering this group together, we were able to preload exclusive content of things that we wanted them to do as pre-work before showing up. So while we sent an email out to make sure that they all knew what was happening, everything was directed information wise to the app.
It was go download the app and you will find exclusive content that’s posted here. You will need to do this to have to be part of this conversation. One, it drove adoption of the tool, which I love as you know, we’re rolling out a new tool. But two, what it did is it made them engage with the tool truly so they could see the capabilities.
During the actual event… So let me back up. When they were doing the exclusive content, there were several videos that we used. One was a TED Talk that we wanted them to view about change. Another one was just things that they would need to know before showing up and had a couple of questions that we wanted them to be thinking about.
It also had a message from our chief strategy officer as well as our chief learning officers. So there was lots of information that they could only get. We didn’t embed it into the email. It was exclusive and they had to do that. But then during the actual event, we had them all pull out their phone and answer a couple of questions during the event that we then took and embed the rest of the program into. So now, we have all that information as well.
So it’s great. It’s not just like this anecdotal here’s what we heard at the meeting. We actually have everything captured where here’s while they were answering that question. You could see throughout the day the questions that we are asking where, where it seemed a little bit more pessimistic and maybe… I don’t want to say negative, but unsure.
Throughout the day, the more questions we asked, you could see the excitement start to build and then we you could see the hopefulness and felt like people were marching in the same direction. So that was really cool to see along the continuum of that day of how the app actually was helping with the change management and helping get leaders over maybe something that that was sticking in their mind.
Chuck Gose: Well, what’s great, what I took away from that was you made it a need to have tool pretty quick just for them.
Chris Berger: Hundred percent.
Chuck Gose: You kind of forced them in there and like you said, they were now familiar with what Teal Insider was. They could speak to it if an employee asks questions about it or employees saw them participating in there. I always make recommendations to communicators that… Yeah, it’s one thing to have your CEO or other leaders publish in there. But imagine if I’m an employee that I’ve shared a photo and I see my CEO liked it, or I see my CEO or my VP comment in there, what that kind of does to an employees morale is amazing. But you can only get that by them participating in it.
Chris Berger: That’s exactly right. It’s really been exciting to watch the continued evolution of how we communicate and leaders are now starting to catch the vision and come to us and say, I want this, I want this. That was our biggest fear. Like we invest a decent amount of money into a tool that nobody used, and we’re seeing the opposite happen.
I think we’re seeing the desire actually more than we can fulfill right now. So we’re prioritizing, okay, this group needs this immediately, you know? How does that work? So it has been really exciting to see. It’s one of the things that you think about what do you leave at an organization, what impact do you have? This was certainly one of those ones where, you know, no matter what happens in my career, I’ll be very proud of putting this tool in place here to make sure that we are truly communicating better with our internal teammates.
Chuck Gose: You and your team should be very proud of what you’ve created. We’ve talked about some of the culture that you brought from Walmart and what the culture is like there at Atrium. We talked about the communication activities there, and the podcast is called Culture, Comms, & Cocktails. So Chris, what is your favorite cocktail?
Chris Berger: Wow, there’s so many. I joke about my brother. He used to live in England and he got me hooked on single malt scotch. But having said that, I have… Because of one of my teammates that was on my team has really gotten me going on old-fashioned. So I am a big fan right now of old-fashioned, and there’s a local shop that does some handcrafted bitters that are just unbelievable. So I’m definitely on the old-fashion bandwagon.
Chuck Gose: Well, Sonia Fiorenza who was also on the podcast and myself are also big fans of old-fashioned, so I agree with you on that one, and really good-old fashioned is tough to beat. Chris, I want to thank you for being on the podcast. You do not have permission to take your foot off the gas on your LinkedIn publishing now.
I’ve set the expectation that I want to keep seeing content. I hope that other people are like, “What is Chris sharing on LinkedIn? Maybe I should go check and see,” that then they will start sharing more, because you’re right, it is about pride and that’s in this conversation, Chris. I see that and I’ve heard that in your voice of how proud you are of the organization, your team and what you guys have done.
Chris Berger: Yeah. I’d be remiss if I went without saying that I have an amazing team backing all of this up. The brand journalism that goes behind those posts, that is something that we’ve built here and allows me to be able to share the easy story. So without them doing that work, I wouldn’t have anything to share. So amazing team that I love, love, love working with each and every day.
Chuck Gose: Well, Chris, thanks for your time and thanks for sharing the stories.
Chris Berger: Thank you.
Chuck Gose: If you enjoyed what you heard from this episode and want to check out others, find Culture, Comms, & Cocktails on Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or wherever you like to listen. And when you do, hit that subscribe button so you don’t miss any future episodes. This has been Culture, Comms, & Cocktails, internal comms served straight up. Thanks for listening.
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Chuck Gose
I am a self-proclaimed Skyline Chili connoisseur and Duran Duran fan with nearly 20 years of experience in marketing, corporate communications, and internal communications. My passion and enthusiasm for the communications profession began early in my career at General Motors and Rolls-Royce, Since then, I have focused on weaving internal communications and technology in creative ways. I’m also the co-creator of The Periodic Table of Internal Communications and The Very Hungry Communicator. But most importantly, I got to fly in a blimp once.
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10 Great Writers Who Battled Alcohol Addiction
Christian Amondson Addictions October 19, 2013 August 16, 2019
Excessive alcohol consumption is one of the leading preventable causes of death in the United States; according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2012, 80,000 people lose their lives to it each year. Apart from the health problems alcohol addiction can create, it can also greatly affect the families of alcoholics, whose children may be neglected or develop poor self-image as a result. The disorder affects people from all walks of life, including the ten writers below, all of whom battled alcoholism during their careers and who sometimes had a family history of addiction. Yet they were often able to produce some classic works of literature, poetry and journalism despite their affliction.
10. William Faulkner
William Faulkner is arguably one of American literature's greatest writers and was crowned with both the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (twice). However, the novelist and short story writer, who was born in New Albany, Mississippi in 1897, had one very specific tool that he used when creating classics such as The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying: alcohol. Faulkner once baffled his French translator with a sentence he may well have composed while under the influence, admitting to him, "I have absolutely no idea of what I meant. You see, I usually write at night. I always keep my whiskey within reach." That said, his heaviest drinking binges usually took place in between novels and could go on for up to weeks at a time. Yet even so, the writer remained productive until his death of a heart attack in 1962 at the age of 64.
9. John Cheever
Born in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1912, John Cheever saw the effects of alcohol abuse firsthand from an early age, as his father Frederick fell into heavy drinking after losing most of the family's money. The writer himself had a 20-year addiction to alcohol – possibly intensified by struggles over his bisexuality – and tackled the subject in his 1962 short story Reunion, about a boy who meets with his estranged, alcoholic father in New York City. The so-called "Chekhov of the suburbs" continued to drink even after a near-fatal pulmonary edema attributable to his alcoholism. However, in 1975, after he found himself being picked up by the police for vagrancy while sharing liquor with some homeless people, Cheever was checked into New York's Smithers Alcoholism Treatment and Training Center. He remained sober until his death of cancer seven years later at the age of 70.
8. Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker is arguably as much famed for her biting, often self-deprecating witticisms as she is for her writing and criticism. However, the Algonquin Roundtable founder – born Dorothy Rothschild in Long Branch, New Jersey in 1893 – battled with both severe depression and alcohol addiction during her career. It is reported that at one New York speakeasy she frequented, a bartender asked her, "What are you having?" – to which Parker replied, "Not much fun." Upon commitment to a sanatorium, the writer apparently even said to one doctor that the room was fine but that she would need to leave around every hour to have a drink. Her marriages were also blighted by alcoholic tendencies in both parties. Parker continued to write for a number of outlets, though, including for radio, until her death from a heart attack in 1967. She was 73.
7. Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe is renowned for work that blends the macabre and the mysterious and has been widely credited as the pioneer of the fictional detective genre. However, his own life, which began in January 1809 in Boston, saw him turn to alcohol in reputedly large quantities, most notably after the tragic death of his wife Virginia from tuberculosis. He went on to find a new love, the poet Sarah Helen Whitman, who said that she would only take his hand in marriage if he abandoned his drinking; Poe did not, however, and the engagement was broken. One psychologist has since proposed that he was a dipsomaniac. Poe's death at the early age of 40 in 1849 remains clouded in mystery: it has been said that alcohol may have been the cause, but potentially also cholera, heart disease or tuberculosis, amongst other factors.
6. Truman Capote
Born Truman Streckfus Persons in New Orleans in 1924, Truman Capote overcame a difficult childhood blighted by the divorce of his parents, a lengthy separation from his mother and various upheavals to produce literary landmarks such as Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood. Capote's drinking in later life is said to have had a precedent in his own mother's struggle with alcohol. He apparently repeatedly attempted to quit drinking – and was sometimes successful for a few months – before again falling off the wagon. Capote also battled an addiction to tranquilizers, to which he initially resorted after the release of In Cold Blood in order to calm his nerves. In 1984 Capote succumbed to liver cancer at the age of 59; "phlebitis and multiple drug intoxication" were also cited as contributing factors.
5. James Joyce
Like John Cheever, James Joyce – who was born in suburban Dublin, Ireland in 1882 and was one of the pioneering modernist writers of the 20th century – had a father who was prone to drinking. As we now know that those with family members who have abused alcohol are more at risk of becoming alcoholics themselves, this might go some way to explaining Joyce's own predilection for drink, as well as his son's eventual alcoholism. It is suggested that his landmark 1922 novel Ulysses was written under the influence and that Joyce himself believed that he could not write as effectively without alcohol. He is also alleged to have used booze as a crutch to deal with misfortune. Yet despite all this, as an apparent "functional alcoholic," Joyce continued to produce work that has been acclaimed as some of the best of the 20th century, until his death from peritonitis in 1941. He was 58.
4. Hunter S. Thompson
To say that author and "Gonzo journalism" practitioner Hunter S. Thompson – born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1937 – liked a drink would be an understatement. At a young age, he stunned his New York publishers upon their first meeting by downing 20 double Wild Turkeys in about three hours, then leaving apparently unaffected. Whiskey was a mainstay throughout his life, but other spirits, cocktails and beer were on the menu too. During the presidential election trails he covered, he'd alarm his fellow journalists by getting stuck into a Heineken six-pack and a bottle of gin at the beginning of the day. However, Thompson was unapologetic about his penchant for drinking, as well as his other vices, famously stating, "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." His journalism and commentary continued to be published until his suicide in 2005 at the age of 67.
3. Carson McCullers
Carson McCullers wrote her acclaimed, bestselling novel The Heart is a Lonely Hunter when she was just 23, and she went on to forge a career portraying the lives of the lost and the downtrodden in the American South. However, McCullers Рborn in Columbus, Georgia in 1917 as Lula Carson Smith Рis said to have worked consistently with alcohol by her side: a morning beer, followed by a steady stream of sherry; she then poured herself a martini before dinner and continued to imbibe throughout the night at parties. McCullers also explored alcoholism and its effects in her short story "A Domestic Dilemma," published in her 1951 collection The Ballad of the Sad Caf̩, which told the tale of a family afflicted by drinking issues. The writer herself was plagued by health problems throughout her life, and she died in 1967 from a brain hemorrhage at the age of 50.
2. Charles Bukowski
Charles Bukowski – born Heinrich Karl Bukowski in Andernach, Germany in 1920 – liked alcohol so much that he once called it "one of the greatest things to arrive upon the earth," along with himself. Being introduced to booze in his early teens began for Bukowski a lifelong love affair with the substance, chronicled in his novels and poetry. It also proved the inspiration for the 1987 biopic Barfly, which Bukowski wrote himself and which saw Mickey Rourke play the writer's soused alter-ego Henry Chinaski. A several-year hiatus in his writing career was not due to a lack of inspiration but – as depicted in the movie – simply a result of the fact that he was drunk during that period. However, it has been claimed that Bukowski's prodigious drinking helped with his natural tendency towards shyness and introversion, with the writer himself suggesting that it gave him a reason to live. Bukowski died in 1994 from leukemia. He was 73.
1. Ernest Hemingway
Nobel Prize in Literature winner Ernest Hemingway had a unique take on tourism: he once said, "If you want to know about a culture, spend a night in its bars." Hemingway himself was no stranger to a tavern or two and was a famed patron of Key West, Florida joint Sloppy Joe's. The writer, who was born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1899, admitted to drinking since he was 15 years of age. During the final two decades his life, the author of modern classics like The Old Man and the Sea and A Farewell to Arms was reputedly putting away a quart of whiskey a day – although he claimed he abstained from drinking while working. Perhaps surprisingly, he often seemed relatively sober after his feats of boozing, although the alcohol reportedly took a toll on his health. In 1961, at the age of 61, Hemingway committed suicide, after suffering a period of depression.
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Most Extreme Human Spaceflight Records
By Mike Wall 2012-02-17T10:09:00Z
World Records for Humans in Space
STS-133 Shuttle Crew, NASA
Longest, fastest, biggest: We've got the space records right here. Above: The International Space Station owns some of the records.
Oldest Person in Space
John Glenn flew on space shuttle Discovery's STS-95 mission in October 1998, aged 77! Having been the first American to orbit the Earth back in February 1962, that second flight gave him another record, the longest time between trips to space--36 years.
Youngest Person in Space
Fictional Wesley Crusher does not qualify as the youngest person in space; rather the title goes to cosmonaut Gherman Titov (at right), a month shy of 26 years old when he launched aboard the Soviet spacecraft Vostok 2 in August 1961.
Most Consecutive Days in Space
Russian cosmonaut Valery Polyakov spent nearly 438 consecutive days aboard the Mir space station, from January 1994 to March 1995.
Shortest Spaceflight Mission
Alan Shepard's May 5, 1961, spaceflight was the first for an American. Also, Shepard achieved a less-celebrated record on that day: briefest human spaceflight mission, of only 15-minutes' duration.
Farthest Trip from Earth
NASA/Andrew Chaikin.
In April 1970, NASA's ill-fated Apollo 13 capsule swung around the far side of the moon at an altitude of 158 miles (254 km), putting the astronauts 248,655 miles (400,171 km) away from Earth. It's the farthest our species has ever been from our home planet.
Most Total Time Spent in Space
NASA/Roscosmos/Element 21.
Soviet cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev holds this record, with a little more than 803 days accrued over six spaceflights. That's more than two years and two months spent zipping around the Earth.
Longest Continuously Inhabited Spacecraft
NASA.
This record belongs to the International Space Station, and it grows every day. The $100 billion (see the Most Expensive Spaceship) orbiting lab has held occupants since Nov. 2, 2000.
Longest Space Shuttle Mission
The STS-80 mission of space shuttle Columbia began on Nov. 19, 1996, and owing to delays lasted nearly 17 days and 16 hours in space, the record for a shuttle mission.
Most Time on the Moon
In December 1972, Harrison Schmidt and Eugene Cernan of NASA's Apollo 17 mission spent just under 75 hours, more than three days, on the surface of the moon. Apollo 17 also marked the last time people traveled to the moon, or even went past low-Earth orbit.
Fastest Human Spaceflight
The crew of NASA's Apollo 10 moon mission reached a top speed of 24,791 mph (39,897 kph) relative to Earth as they rocketed back to our planet on May 26, 1969. That's the fastest any human beings have traveled.
The top space stories of the week!
Space photos: The most amazing images this week!
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Cory Sparkuhl
The heart and soul of Sparkle Films is Cory Sparkuhl. His passion for filming started at the young age of eleven, that was the first time he picked up a HI8 camera that he got for his birthday. Two years later at 13, he stepped it up by implementing “Linear Editing”, on camera manual editing. At 17, technology advanced and Cory yet again stepped his game up to Final Cut Pro, the newest editing software available during that time. Cory turned 21 and got accepted to Video Symphony in Burbank, California where he worked on a plethora of software programs such as AVID, Adobe After Effects, 3D animation, and much more. After graduating at 23 and moving back his home town of Laguna Beach , Cory wanted to step things up again and that is when Sparkle Films was born. Currently directing TV Shows, Commercials, Promos, and Events, we are a self made local media group that strives to make every client special and unique. Cory Sparkuhl is extremely dedicated and 100% hands on for all editing and filming.
Cyrus Polk
Cyrus Polk is very important asset to Sparkle Films.. Having formed a relationship with Cory in 2000, they have produced many projects together. Cyrus attended School at The Art Institute and received his Bachelors of Fine Arts in Digital Film and Video Production. Cyrus has been in the film for 17 years and keeps doing what he does with passion. Within all the madness of traveling and living in the cold he was also an assistant editor on the new international series Absolute X. After doing freelance shooting of professional snowboarding in Salt Lake City, Utah for the past 5 years and editing Bozwreck 2 with the help of Nate Bozung and Matty Ryan, Cyrus currently resides in Laguna Beach and works as an editor and cinematographer for Sparkle Films..
Trev Howard
Trevelyan “Trev” Howard, has been professionally writing screenplays and producing Television shows and promotional videos since 2003. Credits include: Tech Toys 360 (Discovery’s Velocity Channel), Absolute X (Ion T.V., international distribution), Agents of Wine series (Two time On-line Video contest semi-finalist), Trevelyan’s The Gourmet Vegetarian (Television Pilot and episodic series). Trev Howard is currently working on original full length motion picture scripts and other entertainment projects. He lives in Laguna Beach and Santa Monica, California.
Lynn Taylor
A valuable resource for Sparkle Films, Lynn has been a strategic marketing executive and spokesperson for multibillion dollar companies in Silicon Valley - and an entrepreneur for more than 15 years. She knows how critical proper messaging is to your brand via video, content marketing and social media - in reaching customers, employees and other audiences. Lynn believes strongly that while creativity is a core foundation in video production, the best videos support specific business objectives.
Nicholas Walker
Nicholas was born and raised in San Francisco. His passion for the arts started at an early age. He is no stranger to being in front of, or behind the camera, landing his first agent at 9 years old. In 2003, Nicholas moved to Laguna Beach in Southern California. Most recently, Nicholas has been involved with Network Television, commercial work, photography, and short films. Having worked with Sparkle Films on a number of projects including music videos and promos, he remains a great asset to the company.
Alexey Bever
With a close attention of detail to composition, and great skills in Post Production, Alexey is a tremendous asset to Sparkle Films. Alexey is a photographer & cinematographer from Mission Viejo, CA. His first began capturing his passion for waves in Laguna Beach, and now he's going just about anywhere. In his imagery, Alexey tries to set images to be different from the many other photographers. Alexey was quickly hired by Sparkle and quickly put his multiple skill sets to use as a major contributor to the business.
Our services include: Aerial Cinematography | Real Estate Video Production | Commercial Video Production | Event Video Production | 2D & 3D Animation | Wedding Video Production
We serve clients across Dana Point, Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, Irvine, Lake Forest, Mission Viejo, San Clemente, and Orange County, CA.
For Video Production Services, Contact Sparkle Films LLC in Orange County, CA
Sign up if you would like to receive our newsletter
23721 Mariner Drive, Suite 20,
cory@sparklefilms.net
Copyright © 2020 - Sparkle Films LLC Powered By Webware.io
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© 2019 by SPAZIO ROSSO, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
THE ICON // UNION STATION, WASHINGTON, D.C.
SPAZIO ROSSO
Washington, D.C.'s newly renovated Union Station
When it comes to having a sense of hometown pride, we consider ourselves to be realists. We love Boston, but we don't let that cloud our judgement. We know when another city has got it better than us. In the category of buildings of mass transit, for instance, we cannot deny that Washington D.C. has us beat fair and square.
In Boston, we count South Station as our main hub for subways and commuter trains and the Acela Express. It's a pretty building, at least from the outside, and it has a lot of history, but it's also small, crowded, and a little worn in.
The inside of South Station in Boston. Image via Wikipedia
Down in D.C., on the other hand, they've got the newly renovated Union Station. It's always been a notable building, designed in 1907 by famous architect Daniel Turnham (who was also behind structures like the Flatiron Building in New York, and many of the skyscrapers in Chicago). But in 2011 when an earthquake struck the Capitol region, causing damage to the structure, the city took the change to restore the Beaux-Arts building to its original beauty.
After four years of remodeling work, the shiny new station was revealed in May of this year. Let's take a look, then start a petition to the city of Boston to give ol' South Station a facelift, shall we?
To say the renovation was meticulous is a bit of an understatement. That's not just any gold paint up on the coffered ceiling. More that 120,000 sheets of real gold leaf were used during the restoration process.
And all 120,000 of them were hand-applied by specialists from The Gilder's Studio, based in Olney, Maryland.
A separate firm, Hayles and Howe, was hired to restore the moldings themselves.
The restoration was, obviously, more than just hand-applied gold leaf and some plaster. The station was restored to its original architectural plan, which required the removal of a number of additions and changes to the space made since the 1940s.
Oh, and the entire space was reinforced to precent future earthquake damage.
Who's going to sign our petition?
All images by Colin Winterbottom, via Architectural Digest
boston interior design
modern interior designers
contemporary interior designer boston
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Stormers to go international?
Eddie Jones (File)
Fickou signs new Toulouse deal
Home nation foreign invasion complete
Exciting times for Blitzboks - Horne
Lloyd Burnard - Sport24
Cape Town - From being on top of the world with possibly the most sought-after coach in world rugby on their books, the Stormers have come crashing back down to earth since Eddie Jones' sudden departure to England.
And, naturally, the search is now on for a new coach ahead of Super Rugby 2016.
Director of rugby Gert Smal says that the Stormers have had numerous coaches declaring an interest in the post.
"We already had at least four approaches, if not six," Smal said, adding that he had been impressed by the caliber of the applicants.
"So there is a lot of interest. I have to make the right decision to bring in the correct person that understands our culture, the way we want to play and understands the dynamics of South Africa."
Smal says that the minimum criteria he is looking for in a coach is "six or seven years" of Super Rugby experience while it would not hurt to have international experience as well.
And, when asked whether or not an international coach was the priority after Jones' departure, Smal's answer suggested that the new man in charge at Newlands would come from outside South African borders.
"Absolutely. I think it stimulates the system," Smal said on the prospect of getting in an international coach.
"With foreigners coming in it does give a nice stimulation to coaches and to players."
In the meantime, Smal will be stepping in and taking charge of pre-season while he will be aided by Robbie Fleck.
"Fleckie has been kind of appointed as coach co-ordinator and I’m actually glad that I gave him the opportunity to coach the U-21s because I thought he did a fantastic job there and he’s most probably the most experienced coach in Super Rugby in South Africa at the moment," said Smal.
"So I’m going to give him some responsibilities and then he’s going to start riding the team more aggressively as well together with the other assistant coaches."
Smal hinted that he does not see himself taking the reigns this season.
"There’s a lot of things I would still like to get right at Western Province … a lot of structures that I want us to get in place properly … a lot of work behind the scenes," he said.
"If you tie yourself up with a team then the system suffers, so at the moment I’m just going to step in and take charge of pre-season."
Read more on: stormers | super rugby | eddie jones | gert smal | rugby
Oumaqie
appeltjie775
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Home » The world-experience-tree-climber, part 5
The Long Island seeker
When I first arrived in India, a bald-headed man came up to me near the Air India office in our hotel and said, “Sri Chinmoy? Sri Chinmoy?”
He said, “I can’t believe it!” His eyes were swimming with tears. So soulfully he was shedding tears and embracing me. His soul knew who I am. He created a real scene in the hotel. So many people were watching!
He told me that he used to come to our meetings three years ago and then he stopped. He knows Adhiratha and he was telling me how Adhiratha stands next to my chair when he is guarding on stage on Wednesday nights. He also knows Sumantra and Ayoddhri.
He said he had come to India to visit some spiritual places, so I gave him the names of a few places to see. He said that he wants to start coming to our meetings in New York when he returns. He is a construction worker from Long island.
— 27 February 1986
Sri Chinmoy, The world-experience-tree-climber, part 5, Agni Press, 1994
‹ The dog Tina In search of a Guru ›
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Translations of this page: Russian
This page can be cited using cite-key we 173
Sri Chinmoy, The world-experience-tree-climber, part 5.First published by Agni Press in 1994.
This is the 963rd book that Sri Chinmoy has written since he came to the West, in 1964.
From the book The world-experience-tree-climber, part 5, made available to share under a Creative Commons license
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https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/basketball/article/D-Aquila-was-Trinity-s-man-for-all-seasons-571873.php
D'Aquila was Trinity's man for all seasons
Published 9:57 pm EDT, Friday, July 9, 2010
STAMFORD -- It was several years ago that I showed up at Trinity Catholic High School to cover a boys soccer game. As the teams warmed up, a familiar face came down the hill to the field. I was not surprised, until I saw he was armed with a small box that contained a clock and horn, and set himself up at the timer's table.
It was the school's principal, Bob D'Aquila.
That was the first memory that came to mind last Saturday afternoon, when I received the phone call with the tragic news that Trinity's beloved leader had passed away.
The scene of the top administrator sitting in a worn metal folding chair, waving players in and out of the game, at any other school would have been as fitting as wearing fleece in the desert. But this act was completely typical of D'Aquila.
Because there was no task he considered too small. And he would do anything to help Trinity.
"He was supportive of the entire school, especially the sports program," said Tracy Nichols, the Crusaders' athletic director. "If there was a game, a show by the drama club, he was always there."
D'Aquila's death is a shocking blow to a Trinity community still reeling from the loss of its assistant principal for academic affairs, Kevin Sutton, just four weeks earlier.
So what is a reflection on D'Aquila doing in the sports pages? This has been a great era for the connection between the athletic departments at Stamford's high schools and their principals, who have recognized that what happens on the playing fields is an extension of what happens in the classroom. They have been boosters of their teams, and not just for token appearances at championship contests.
No one realized this more than Bob D'Aquila.
"He was always supportive of athletes, and student-athletes and the way they conducted themselves on the floor and how they performed academically," said Tom Kriz, an English teacher as well as Trinity's girls basketball and softball coach. "And it wasn't just games. I'd be running a practice and he would pop in and watch for a little while. He would come into the gym during our summer camp."
D'Aquila was the farthest thing from a frontrunner. He was just as likely to be seen at a softball game on a raw spring day as in the bleachers watching the boys basketball team add to the trophy case. He took equal delight in a win by any of Trinity's teams. He took pride in the way his players and coaches represented the school.
"He's been supportive of everything at Trinity," said Mike Walsh, the boys basketball coach. "Sports, the drama club, the debate club, whatever the school had going on, Bob supported it. He knew all the students at the school and how they were doing. He was just a great leader."
D'Aquila was a highly regarded math teacher when he joined the school in 1976. He became the principal in 2003 and served on the board of the CIAC girls basketball committee.
D'Aquila was a true gentleman, a word that has become out of vogue in contemporary society. He preferred to listen rather than be heard, but when he spoke people paid attention. He was respected equally by students and his staff, no small feat in this day.
Trite as it is to say, D'Aquila bled green and gold. "I saw Bob unload trucks when books arrived and I saw him take out the trash," Kriz said. "Bob would do anything and everything. It was his school."
D'Aquila's calm personality set the perfect tone for a school that has always operated like a large extended family. He let teachers teach and coaches coach, resistant to intercede unless necessary.
"You knew you were going to get support," Nichols said. "If you made the right decision he was going to support it, and he wasn't scared to tell someone if he didn't agree. He was very supportive of coaches. If a parent called to complain, he would always ask if they had spoken to the coach or the athletic director. He would tell them you have to go to the coach first."
Maybe that is because D'Aquila, as Kriz recalled, often went to the coach first.
"I can remember many championship games, and in games we won, or even those we didn't, always one of the first people to congratulate you or console you was Bob," Kriz said.
These are uneasy times for the people at Trinity, but as Nichols said, they don't have to be.
"If we follow the path Bob formulated for the school," Nichols said, "everything will be just fine."
Dave Ruden can be reached at dave.ruden@scni.com. Read is blog at http://blog.ctnews.com/overtime/ or follow him on Twitter at DaveRuden.
Argument leads Stamford police to illegal assault rifle, bedroom bunker
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Contact@sttelemediagdc.in
Data Centre Locations
Say Hello to STT Bengaluru DC3
Viren Wadhwa
Bengaluru, the heartland of India’s IT Economy, contributes about $110 Billion to India’s GDP – that’s 4% of the country’s GDP right there. Moreover, it alone makes up for one-third of India’s total IT Exports and is the start-up hub of the country. Looking at these numbers, it makes perfect sense that Bengaluru is dubbed as the Silicon Valley of India.
The city has earned a cachet for its intelligent, secure and scalable IT infrastructure, which supports start-ups and MNCs alike, across industries such as ITeS, E-Commerce, BioTech & FinTech, to name a few.
If we pair the flourishing Digital Economy of Bengaluru with the growing Data Market in India, we see a unique opportunity for us, at STT GDC India, to harness as well as support this growth. With this belief in mind, we are inaugurating the largest data centre in Whitefield, Bengaluru.
Indian Data Centre Market
India’s Data Centre Industry is poised to clinch the top spot on the Asia Pacific market leaderboard, by 2020 – a growth trajectory which reflects India’s growing prowess on the world stage. A multitude of factors such as, government initiatives, influx of foreign investment; a perpetually fuelled digital economy; an explosion of mobile devices and thereby, data; and a fast-growing start-up ecosystem have altogether led to a growing need for state-of-the-art and futuristic Data Centre services in the country. In addition to catering to the need of the hour, such infrastructure will also keep India at the helm of Digital Transformation.
STT GDC India’s market leadership as the largest data centre operator in the country, is further enhanced with the addition of a purpose-built hyper scale facility spread over 4 Lakh sq. ft. adding 18MW of IT load to its total existing capacity.
All of this being delivered to you with minimal environmental impact, since this Data Centre is designed such that it is an IGBC Green Building.
Bengaluru: India's IT Heartland
Bengaluru has emerged as the cornerstone of IT innovation, focused data investment and expansion, thanks to its concentration of businesses and tech-savvy economy. The city’s digital development, growing data demand and a conducive climate have made it one of the most preferred destinations for Data Centre services. Moreover, the thrust of E-commerce, Internet of Things, Cloud and Big Data have accelerated the need for data storage to unprecedented levels. Furthermore, Bengaluru demonstrates significant cost savings on energy and cooling spends, and is a low-probability seismic zone, presenting a negligible risk of earthquakes. All these factors, in totality, have boosted Bengaluru's stature on the Data Centre map, as a city conducive for high fault-tolerant Data Centres.
STT GDC India's Multi-Megawatt Expansion Plan
STT Bengaluru DC 3 marks the beginning of STT GDC India’s multi-megawatt expansion plan in India, to span across major cities over the next 16 to 20 months. The move will herald STT GDC India’s fifteenth Data Centre in the country, and signify an expanded portfolio of over 90 MW of IT power across eight cities. This Data Centre will also bolster STT GDC India’s position as India's leading Data Centre Services provider, continuing to be the first choice when it comes to powering mission-critical infrastructure.
Advent of STT Bengaluru DC 3
STT Bengaluru DC 3, designed to be highly resilient, is India’s Safest and Largest Data Centre. It offers dynamic hosting capabilities to cater to growing market needs and will serve as a backbone for Data Storage and Management for enterprises through a state-of-the-art, purpose-built facility in the heart of Bengaluru, at Whitefield.
The facility will be STT GDC India’s third Data Centre in Bengaluru, completing a golden trifecta crafted for superior performance - armed with direct fibre paths, scalability, next-gen design, time-served construction and engineering expertise, operational excellence, structural and technical redundancy, modular capacity building and high data payload processing - to provide tighter control and lower risks. Additionally, the facility will offer an array of connectivity options as a carrier-neutral data centre, including full cabinets, shared rack space, cage space colocation - tailored to various needs, companies and industries, across wholesale and retail.
Family Day Celebrations, 2019
STT GDC India’s extended family came together on a weekend this month to celebrate our annual “family day”. Hosted in regional offices and hotels around the country, the event drew roughly 400 employees, family and friends
STT GDC India Expands Its Operations By Developing A New Data Centre In Bengaluru
New, state of the art data centre in India will boost STT GDC India’s ability to capture strong demand in the fast-growing Indian market.
STT GDC India leads the data centre and colocation services market in India. We have extensive expertise with 15 state-of-the-art data centre facilities with India's largest floor area at more than 2.15 MN Sq. Ft. spread across 8 different cities.
Colocation Service
Connectivity Service
STT Global Data Centres India Private Limited
C/o Tata Communications Ltd., Tower B, 5th Floor, Plot No. C 21 & C36, G Block, Bandra Kurla Complex, Vidyanagari Post, Bandra East, Mumbai - 400098
C/o Tata Communications Ltd., Opposite Savitri Cinema, Outer Ring Road, Greater Kailash - 1, New Delhi - 110048
No: 226, Red Hills Road, Kallikuppam, Ambattur, Chennai - 600053
Smart ICT Services Pvt. Limited, Bldg No 48, Data Center Building, Gyan Marg, GIFT City, Gandhinagar, Gujarat - 382355
Email: contact@sttelemediagdc.in
CIN: U74999MH2007PTC176737
Copyright © 2020 STT Global Data Centres India Private Limited | Privacy Policy
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GBBOs Nadiya Hussain lands an “emotional” new TV show
Amy Swales
So beloved was the 2015 winner of The Great British Bake Off that even Mary Berry broke ranks to declare Nadiya Hussain her favourite contestant.
Now an author, columnist and TV star, Hussain has another exciting project lined up – one described by the BBC as “an intensely personal and emotional journey”.
The two-part series will follow Hussain, 32, as she undertakes the Hajj, one of the world’s biggest annual pilgrimages.
GBBO judge Mary Berry with Hussain in 2016
Millions of Muslims make the deeply spiritual journey to the holy city of Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, each year, and Hussain completed it herself for the first time in 2013 with her husband. This time round she’ll be filmed preparing for the trip, meeting fellow pilgrims, and visiting sites of religious significance afterwards.
Hussain said of the programme: “The Hajj is one of the most intense and emotional experiences you can undertake and I’m delighted to be sharing my journey with BBC One viewers.
“I’m really looking forward to showing first-hand exactly what it is like to be there and meeting some of the other pilgrims and hearing their stories, as well as finding out more about the cultural and historical significance of this incredible event.”
Read more: The Great British Bake Off could have looked VERY different
Meanwhile, Tom McDonald, head of commissioning, natural history and specialist factual, said: “I'm delighted that Nadiya has agreed to be BBC One's guide to this amazing spectacle. She'll be right in the heart of the Hajj in what promises to be an emotional and uplifting journey.”
Hussain has another BBC show in the works, a baking programme set to air this autumn – around the time The Great British Bake Off would usually air (GBBO having, of course, moved to Channel 4).
Pilgrims circle the Kaaba at the end of the Hajj in 2016
The Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, and every adult Muslim who is physically able and has the means to is expected to complete it once in their lifetime.
Numbers have swelled in recent years – around three million people made the journey in 2012 – and the BBC says Hussain will “witness all that comes with the Hajj – the heat, the crush, the food, the need for constant water, the humour that comes from mass discomfort, the uplifting joy of those taking part as well as meeting some of the British pilgrims, many of whom have deeply personal reasons for travelling.”
The show is set to air later this year.
Images: BBC / Rex
The Great British Bake Off
Amy Swales is a freelance writer who likes to eat, drink and talk about her dog. She will continue to plunder her own life and the lives of her loved ones for material in the name of comedy, catharsis and getting pictures of her dog on the internet.
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Sue Pighini
Blogging with Sue
Upcoming Events and Sue Speaks
Book Reviews & Readers' Experiences
fun blogs
How to Literally Anti-Age
How to Literally Anti-Age and Become Whoever You Want to Be
by Benjamin Hardy
In 1978, Ellen Langer, a Harvard psychologist performed an important study. She gave houseplants to two groups of nursing-home residents. One group was told they were responsible for keeping the plant alive and that they had autonomy in their daily schedule. The other group was told the staff would care for the plant and they were not given choices in their daily schedule.
After 18 months, twice as many people in the group given responsibility for their plant and schedule were alive than the other group. Langer took this as evidence that the present bio-medical model which views the mind and body as separate is wrong.
In response, she conducted a study to further examine the mind’s impact on the body.
In 1981, Langer and a group of graduate students designed the interior of a building to reflect 1959. There was a black-and-white TV, old furniture, and magazines and books from the 1950’s scattered about.
This would be the home to a group of eight men, all over 70 years old, for the next five days. When these men arrived at the building, they were told they should not merely discuss this past era, but to act is if they actually were their prior selves, 22 years ago. “We have good reason to believe if you are successful at this you will feel as you did in 1959,” Langer told them.
From that moment on, the study subjects were treated as if they were in their 50’s rather than their 70’s. Despite several being stooped-over and having to use canes for walking, they were not aided in taking their belongings up the stairs. “Take them up one shirt at a time if you have to,” they were told.
Their days were spent listening to radio shows, watching movies, and discussing sports and other “current events” from the period. They could not bring up any events that happened after 1959 and referred to themselves, their families, and their careers as they were in 1959.
The goal of this study was not for these men to live in the past. But rather, to mentally trigger the body to exhibit the energy and biological responses of a much younger person.
By the end of the five days, these men demonstrated noticeable improvement in their hearing, eyesight, memory, dexterity and appetite. Those who had arrived using canes, and dependent on the help of their children, left the building under their power and were carrying their own suitcases.
By expecting these men to function independently and by engaging with them as individuals rather than “old people,” Langer and her students gave these men “an opportunity to see themselves differently,” which impacted them biologically.
Sue Pighini is a an author and Transformation Life Coach who guides her readers and clients through a desire for greater reinvention of their lives. How do you live an extraordinary life? Sue accompanies you on your journey of change and creation in her blogs and books.
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Posted on January 8, 2019 by Sunbury News
Gadget show in Vegas
Staff & Wire Reports
Two different sizes of the HiMirror uses its skin analysis technology, to assess your skin for wrinkles, fine lines, dark circles, dark spots, red spots, roughness, and pores, shown here at the CES Unveiled at CES International, Sunday, Jan. 6, 2019, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
A woman demonstrates the Artemis smart mirror at the CareOS booth during CES Unveiled at CES International, Sunday, Jan. 6, 2019, in Las Vegas. The interactive mirror has video capture, virtual try-ons, facial and object recognition, and can give the user video instruction on specific makeup products, among other things. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Whirlpool Corporation and Yummly team up to create smart cooking appliances through a series of over the air updates to both product software and the Whirlpool and Yummly Guided Cooking brand apps, at the CES Unveiled at CES International Sunday, Jan. 6, 2019, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
Home items are getting smarter and creepier, like it or not
By ANICK JESDANUN
AP Technology Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — One day, finding an oven that just cooks food may be as tough as buying a TV that merely lets you change channels.
Internet-connected “smarts” are creeping into cars, refrigerators, thermostats, toys and just about everything else in your home. CES 2019, the gadget show opening Tuesday in Las Vegas, will showcase many of these products, including an oven that coordinates your recipes and a toilet that flushes with a voice command.
With every additional smart device in your home, companies are able to gather more details about your daily life. Some of that can be used to help advertisers target you — more precisely than they could with just the smartphone you carry.
“It’s decentralized surveillance,” said Jeff Chester, executive director for the Center for Digital Democracy, a Washington-based digital privacy advocate. “We’re living in a world where we’re tethered to some online service stealthily gathering our information.”
Yet consumers so far seem to be welcoming these devices. The research firm IDC projects that 1.3 billion smart devices will ship worldwide in 2022, twice as many as 2018.
Companies say they are building these products not for snooping but for convenience, although Amazon, Google and other partners enabling the intelligence can use the details they collect to customize their services and ads.
Whirlpool, for instance, is testing an oven whose window doubles as a display. You’ll still be able to see what’s roasting inside, but the glass can now display animation pointing to where to place the turkey for optimal cooking.
The oven can sync with your digital calendar and recommend recipes based on how much time you have. It can help coordinate multiple recipes, so that you’re not undercooking the side dishes in focusing too much on the entree. A camera inside lets you zoom in to see if the cheese on the lasagna has browned enough, without opening the oven door.
As for that smart toilet, Kohler’s Numi will respond to voice commands to raise or lower the lid — or to flush. You can do it from an app, too. The company says it’s all about offering hands-free options in a setting that’s very personal for people. The toilet is also heated and can play music and the news through its speakers.
Kohler also has a tub that adjusts water temperature to your liking and a kitchen faucet that dispenses just the right amount of water for a recipe.
For the most part, consumers aren’t asking for these specific features. After all, before cars were invented, people might have known only to ask for faster horses. “We try to be innovative in ways that customers don’t realize they need,” Samsung spokesman Louis Masses said.
Whirlpool said insights can come from something as simple as watching consumers open the oven door several times to check on the meal, losing heat in the process.
“They do not say to us, ‘Please tell me where to put (food) on the rack, or do algorithm-based cooking,’” said Doug Searles, general manager for Whirlpool’s research arm, WLabs. “They tell us the results that are most important to them.”
Samsung has several voice-enabled products, including a fridge that comes with an app that lets you check on its contents while you’re grocery shopping. New this year: Samsung’s washing machines can send alerts to its TVs — smart TVs, of course — so you know your laundry is ready while watching Netflix.
Other connected items at CES include:
— a fishing rod that tracks your location to build an online map of where you’ve made the most catches.
— a toothbrush that recommends where to brush more.
— a fragrance diffuser that lets you control how your home smells from a smartphone app.
These are poised to join internet-connected security cameras, door locks and thermostats that are already on the market. The latter can work with sensors to turn the heat down automatically when you leave home.
Chester said consumers feel the need to keep up with their neighbors when they buy appliances with the smartest smarts. He said all the conveniences can be “a powerful drug to help people forget the fact that they are also being spied on.”
Gadgets with voice controls typically aren’t transmitting any data back to company servers until you activate them with a trigger word, such as “Alexa” or “OK Google.” But devices have sometimes misheard innocuous words as legitimate commands to record and send private conversations.
Even when devices work properly, commands are usually stored indefinitely. Companies can use the data to personalize experiences — including ads. Beyond that, background conversations may be stored with the voice recordings and can resurface with hacking or as part of lawsuits or investigations.
Knowing what you cook or stock in your fridge might seem innocuous. But if insurers get hold of the data, they might charge you more for unhealthy diets, warned Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy at the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in San Diego. He also said it might be possible to infer ethnicity based on food consumed.
Manufacturers are instead emphasizing the benefits: Data collection from the smart faucet, for instance, allows Kohler’s app to display how much water is dispensed. (Water bills typically show water use for the whole home, not individual taps.)
The market for smart devices is still small, but growing. Kohler estimates that in a few years, smart appliances will make up 10 percent of its revenue. Though the features are initially limited to premium models — such as the $7,000 toilet — they should eventually appear in entry-level products, too, as costs come down.
Consider the TV. “Dumb” TVs are rare these days, as the vast majority of TVs ship with internet connections and apps, like it or not.
“It becomes a check-box item for the TV manufacturer,” said Paul Gagnon, an analyst with IHS Markit. For a dumb one, he said, you have to search for an off-brand, entry-level model with smaller screens — or go to places in the world where streaming services aren’t common.
“Dumb” cars are also headed to the scrapyard. The research firm BI Intelligence estimates that by 2020, three out of every four cars sold worldwide will be models with connectivity. No serious incidents have occurred in the United States, Europe and Japan, but a red flag has already been raised in China, where automakers have been sharing location details of connected cars with the government.
As for TVs, Consumer Reports says many TV makers collect and share users’ viewing habits. Vizio agreed to $2.5 million in penalties in 2017 to settle cases with the Federal Trade Commission and New Jersey officials.
Consumers can decide not to enable these connections. They can also vote with their wallets, Stephens said.
“I’m a firm believer that simple is better. If you don’t need to have these so-called enhancements, don’t buy them,” he said. “Does one really need a refrigerator that keeps track of everything in it and tells you you are running out of milk?”
AP writers Joseph Pisani and Matt O’Brien in Las Vegas and Frank Bajak in Boston contributed to this story.
What are the effects of total isolation? An expert explains
Author: Sarita Robinson, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of Central Lancashire. Disclosure statement: Sarita Robinson owns shares in Nick Robinson Computing Limited. She is affiliated with the University of Central Lancashire. Partners: University of Central Lancashire provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.
Imagine being confined to a small, dark room, with no social interaction whatsoever for 30 days. Not many people would jump at this opportunity. But, in November 2018, a professional US poker player Rich Alati bet US $100,000 that he could survive 30 days alone and in total darkness. He was kept in a small, completely dark room with nothing but a bed, fridge and bathroom. Even with all the resources he needed to survive, Alati couldn’t last the month. After 20 days he negotiated his release, taking a payout of US $62,400.
There are countless negative effects that social isolation and extreme isolation can have on our minds and bodies. Alati was no exception, reporting that he experienced a range of side effects, including changes to his sleep cycle, and hallucinations. But why is isolation so difficult for humans to withstand?
One of the reasons that living in isolation is difficult is because humans are social creatures. Many people that have lived in isolated environments – such as researchers stationed in Antarctica – report that loneliness can be the most difficult part of the job. Yossi Ghinsberg, an Israeli adventurer and author who survived weeks alone in the Amazon, said that loneliness was what he suffered from most and that he had created imaginary friends to keep himself company.
Loneliness can be damaging to both our mental and physical health. Socially isolated people are less able to deal with stressful situations. They’re also more likely to feel depressed and may have problems processing information. This in turn can lead to difficulties with decision-making and memory storage and recall.
People who are lonely are also more susceptible to illness. Researchers found that a lonely person’s immune system responds differently to fighting viruses, making them more likely to develop an illness.
The impacts of social isolation become worse when people are placed in physically isolating environments. For example, solitary confinement can have negative psychological effects on prisoners – including significant increases in anxiety and panic attacks, increased levels of paranoia, and being less able to think clearly. Many prisoners also report long-term mental health problems after being held in isolation.
Natascha Kampusch – an Australian woman who was kidnapped at the age of ten and held captive in a cellar for eight years – noted in her biography that the lack of light and human contact mentally weakened her. She also reported that endless hours and days spent completely isolated made her susceptible to her captor’s orders and manipulations.
The effects of isolation can become even more pronounced if you experience it in total darkness, causing both physical and psychological consequences. One impact of being in complete darkness is that it can wreck your sleep cycle. Two of the key mechanisms for sleep cycle regulation, the hormone melatonin and the brain’s suprachiasmatic nucleus, both rely on light to function.
Daylight reduces our levels of melatonin, helping us feel awake. Daylight also helps the suprachiastmatic nucleus to reset our waking time if our sleep cycles start to drift. Without daylight, our 24-hour circadian rhythm can change. This explains why people exploring cave systems, for example, may find that their sleep-wake cycle becomes disrupted. This means that the time they feel like going to sleep doesn’t stay in a regular pattern and can shift each day.
Disruptions to our circadian rhythm can also make us feel depressed and fatigued. This has also been linked to increased cancer risk, insulin resistance and heart disease, as well as other physical problems such as obesity and premature ageing.
People placed in isolation may also experience hallucinations. The lack of stimuli causes people to misattribute internal thoughts and feelings as occurring in the outer environment. Essentially, hallucinations happen because of a lack of brain stimulation.
In fact, Alati revealed he began experiencing hallucinations by his third day in isolation, ranging from seeing the room fill up with bubbles, to imagining that the ceiling had opened up to show him a starry sky. People in total isolation may also feel that there is a ghostly presence or someone watching them.
While the impact of total isolation can be severe, the good news is that these effects are reversible. Exposure to daylight can normally correct sleep-wake patterns – though this might take weeks, or even months in some cases, before it’s fully adjusted. Reconnecting with other humans can reduce loneliness and help restore us to good mental and physical health. However, some people who have been held in social isolation against their will may develop long-term mental health conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
But some people who have faced the challenge of being alone for an extended period of time may show personal growth – including emotional growth, feeling closer to family and friends, and having a better perspective on life – as a result of their experience. After 20 days willingly spent in total isolation, even Alati said he’s changed – reporting that the experience gave him a greater appreciation for people and life, better attention and focus, and overall feeling happier than before.
https://www.sunburynews.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/48/2019/01/web1_122091107-7c0d6ff45c2d4cb7acb295cd5a30f0da.jpgTwo different sizes of the HiMirror uses its skin analysis technology, to assess your skin for wrinkles, fine lines, dark circles, dark spots, red spots, roughness, and pores, shown here at the CES Unveiled at CES International, Sunday, Jan. 6, 2019, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
https://www.sunburynews.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/48/2019/01/web1_122091107-2efdcd0624a14c94bd3b0cb3f0598550.jpgA woman demonstrates the Artemis smart mirror at the CareOS booth during CES Unveiled at CES International, Sunday, Jan. 6, 2019, in Las Vegas. The interactive mirror has video capture, virtual try-ons, facial and object recognition, and can give the user video instruction on specific makeup products, among other things. (AP Photo/John Locher)
https://www.sunburynews.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/48/2019/01/web1_122091107-61691895eb6e472e9922301338f3ad8d.jpgWhirlpool Corporation and Yummly team up to create smart cooking appliances through a series of over the air updates to both product software and the Whirlpool and Yummly Guided Cooking brand apps, at the CES Unveiled at CES International Sunday, Jan. 6, 2019, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
Hi! A visitor to our site felt the following article might be of interest to you: Gadget show in Vegas. Here is a link to that story: https://www.sunburynews.com/features/23990/gadget-show-in-vegas
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John Woman (Hardcover)
A convention-defying novel by bestselling writer Walter Mosley, John Woman recounts the transformation of an unassuming boy named Cornelius Jones into John Woman, an unconventional history professor--while the legacy of a hideous crime lurks in the shadows.
At twelve years old, Cornelius, the son of an Italian-American woman and an older black man from Mississippi named Herman, secretly takes over his father's job at a silent film theater in New York's East Village. Five years later, as Herman lives out his last days, he shares his wisdom with his son, explaining that the person who controls the narrative of history controls their own fate. After his father dies and his mother disappears, Cornelius sets about reinventing himself--as Professor John Woman, a man who will spread Herman's teachings into the classrooms of his unorthodox southwestern university and beyond. But there are other individuals who are attempting to influence the narrative of John Woman, and who might know something about the facts of his hidden past.
Engaging with some of the most provocative ideas of recent intellectual history, John Woman is a compulsively readable, deliciously unexpected novel about the way we tell stories, and whether the stories we tell have the power to change the world.
Walter Mosley is the author of more than fifty critically-acclaimed books, including the major bestselling mystery series featuring Easy Rawlins. His work has been translated into twenty-five languages and includes literary fiction, science fiction, political monographs, and a young adult novel. In 2013, he was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame, and he is the winner of numerous awards, including an O. Henry Award, the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master Award, a Grammy, PEN America's Lifetime Achievement Award, and an Edgar Award. He lives in New York City.
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Paperback (July 16th, 2019): $16.00
Pre-Recorded Audio Player (September 4th, 2018): $69.99
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The Position of Women in Islam
A Progressive View
Mohammad Ali Syed - Author
Argues that Islamic law does not accord a lesser status to women and elaborates Muslim women's rights in a variety of areas.
Challenging the conservative framers of Islamic law who accorded a lesser status to women, Mohammad Ali Syed argues that the Quran and the Hadith—the two primary sources of Islamic law—actually place Muslim women on the same level as Muslim men. Syed provides an overview of both sources and explores their respective roles in Islamic law, emphasizing the Quran's role as the supreme authority and questioning the authenticity of some of the alleged sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). From these texts, he elaborates women's rights in a variety of areas, including treatment by God; marriage, divorce, financial provisions, and custody of children; coming out of seclusion (purdah), and taking part in social, economic, legal, and political activities. Rather than presenting what is practiced today, the book covers the theoretical position of Muslim women as sanctioned by the Quran and the authentic Hadith and offers a glimpse of the exalted position of honor and dignity enjoyed by Muslim women in the early days of Islam.
This well-researched book is made more distinctive by the author's personal experience. Raised in Bengal, India, Syed was inspired by his family, who valued men and women equally. As he grew up, Syed realized that most Muslim women lived very differently than the women of his family. According to the author, his family was egalitarian because his father and male relatives were not only devout Muslims but also very knowledgeable about Islam. This book is a culmination of his lifelong concern for women's rights under Islam.
"The topic is certainly important for Muslims, and for anyone interested in comprehending the issues that are debated among contemporary Muslims. Mohammad Ali Syed handles these complex issues with clarity." — Sheila McDonough, coeditor of The Muslim Veil in North America: Issues and Debates
A recognized expert on Islamic law, Mohammad Ali Syed has been a practicing Barrister in the English Bar since 1975. He is a member of the Bangladesh Bar and the former Head of the Department of Islamic History and Culture at Dhaka Government College. In 2003 he was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (M.B.E.) by the Queen of England.
1. Roles of the Quran and the Hadith in Islamic Law
2. Reward and Punishment of the Sexes by God as Prescribed by the Quran
3. Origin of Men and Women According to the Quran
4. Assessment of Some Alleged Sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)
5. Rules of Marriage in Islamic Law
6. The Position of Husband and Wife in Islamic Law
7. Rules of Dissolution of Marriage in Islamic Law
8. Rights of Custody and Access to Children in Islamic Law
9. Financial and Economic Provisions for Women in Islamic Law
10. Rules Regarding Women as Witnesses in Islamic Law
11. Rules Regarding the Seclusion of Women (Purdah)
12. Women in Politics and as the Head of a State
Women in Religion
42423/42424(NE/MH/AV)
Religious Vegetarianism
Human Being in Depth
A Heart of Wisdom
Jivanmukti in Transformation
Philosophical Theology Set (Volumes 1, 2 and 3)
Sacred Play
The Legacy of Anne Conway (1631-1679)
Edgar Cayce in Context
Ghazali's Theory of Virtue
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