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__label__cc	0.595021	0.404979	OJGas Vol.8 No.3 , March 2018 Review of Autoimmune Hepatitis: Diagnosis and Treatment Author(s) Minkoulou Danielle, Yongfeng Yang Liver Disease Department, The Second Hospital of Nanjing, South East University, Nanjing, China. Background: Autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) is a hepatocyte injury characterized by a dis-regulated immune system, inflammation of the liver with interface hepatitis, serum antibodies and elevated gamma-globulins. Currently, it exists 2 mainly types on autoimmune hepatitis, based on the presentation of their autoantibodies: type 1 and 2. Type 1 is the one of interest in this review. Autoimmune hepatitis type 1 is an indolent inflammatory disease mediated by abnormal autoimmune reaction, commonly seeing in women (4:1), with no preference of age, however typically present in 4th and 6th decade’s individuals, and a good response to immunosuppressive therapy. Autoimmune hepatitis is known to present not specific symptoms which can go from inexistent to fulminant or exacerbate presentation. The incidence of autoimmune hepatitis in western country is 1/5000 - 1/10,000. Although the detection rate of AIH increasing, especially in China, autoimmune hepatitis diagnosis and treatment remain challenging. Most AIH case do not present pathognomonic biomarkers, however the diagnostic has to considerate other features, which had been codified into validated diagnosis scoring systems. Regarding the treatment, based on prior literature autoimmune hepatitis is mostly sensitive to prednisone or azathioprine, however the use of other immunosuppressive agent or event their combination had offer distinct advantages. Autoimmune hepatitis presents a great life threatening disorder especially because of the delay in the early stage on the disease, the not specific presentations, and the large overlap syndrome associate with it. A deep knowledge in its identification, specific diagnostic criteria, and its therapeutic strategy is much needed. Conclusion: Autoimmune hepatitis is a systemic disease that is difficult to recognize because of its variable clinical presentation and histological features that are not strictly specific. Several new autoantibodies as well as recently simplified diagnostic criteria may allow the primary care physician to progress in the diagnostic process. This is all the more important as undiagnosed and therefore untreated autoimmune hepatitis has a poor prognosis and immunosuppressive treatment leads to remission in a large majority of cases. Autoimmune Hepatitis, Diagnosis, Immunosoppressive Therapy Autoimmune hepatitis firstly described by Waldenström and Kunkel in the 1950s, inherited a variety of nomenclature, including chronic active hepatitis, cirrhosis of young women and plasma cell hepatitis [1] . In 1959, Mc Kay again used the term of lupoid hepatitis to characterize this disease, which shares clinical and biological similarities with systemic lupus erythematosus, but with an initial and predominant liver injury. Autoimmune hepatitis is a chronic inflammatory disease that can occur at any age, in both sexes of all ethnic origins, but which more readily affects women (F:M ratio of 3.6:1). Its prevalence is estimated at 10 - 17/100,000 in Europe [2] . Along with primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) and primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), AIH is an autoimmune liver disease. It is essential to know how to differentiate AIH from other chronic hepatitis because a treatment immunosuppressant is often effective. In the absence of treatment, it has a relatively poor prognosis with a survival that hardly exceeds 10% at ten years [3] [4] [5] . The pathogenesis of AIH is not completely elucidated, but the hypothesis implies a genetic predisposition including in particular the genes of the major histocompatibility complex (HLA). For example, in North America and Europe, the HLA-DR3 and HLA-DR4 alleles would be a susceptibility factor. At the environmental level, an immune response to an external pathogen, drug or toxin trigger could erroneously target structurally similar internal components (mimicry, molecular). This breakdown of immune tolerance would then lead to an innate and acquired immune response that would self-sustain. In case of dysfunction of regulatory T cells, which inter alia prevent autoimmunity, the mechanism of destruction of hepatocytes may persist. The latter is mediated in AIH by cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CD8 + T), cytokines secreted by Th1 lymphocytes, monocytes, macrophages, NK lymphocytes and complement activation [6] [7] . The autoantibodies sought for AIH diagnosis does not seem to have a pathogenic role. Autoimmune hepatitis is characterized by three elements: 1) a particular lesion, the interface hepatitis; 2) the absence of other causes of this lesion (viral hepatitis, drug hepatitis, Wilson’s disease or alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency and 3) signs of autoimmunity (autoantibodies or other autoimmune disorders). A complex international score was established by the International Autoimmune Hepatitis Group (IAHG) for a mainly academic purpose [8] . Recently a new approach, of simplified criteria, commonly use in clinical practice [9] [10] . The study presented the new simplified scoring methods in Table 1. The excellent specificity of these simplified criteria has been confirmed in an even more recent study; however, this method is wildly used in clinical practice, its sensitivity still remain lower, so it should always make use of the original IAIHG scoring method [11] . 2. Diagnosis 2.1. Symptoms Concerning the clinical presentation nearly one-third of AIH patients are asymptomatic, which may contribute to late recognition of the disease [12] . The onset is often insidious, with symptoms and signs nonspecific or related to liver damage (abdominal pain, jaundice, hepatomegaly, splenomegaly). Frequently it’s an elevation chronic (>3 to 6 months) transaminases (AST, ALT) that holds the doctor’s attention. However more rarely, AIH can manifest as fulminant hepatitis (jaundice, transaminases >1000 IU/l) [13] . 2.2. Atypical Form of AIH AIH is considered as a disorder with atypical clinical and histological features, based on the literature Caucasian woman has no exclusivity for autoimmune hepatitis, although she has long been considered the typical terrain. In addition, histological finding is characterized by a lesion in which interface hepatitis is not always present, or not the most being changes in the hepatocytes age had always been associated to AIH, specially over 40th and wish correspond to the peak if incidence. Table 1. AIH simplified criteria. Definite Autoimmune hepatitis: ≥7; probable autoimmune hepatitis ≥6 [21] . AIH is said to also be influenced by race as black subjects present generally more serious manifestations, and this especially male. Cirrhosis is more common at the time of diagnosis; fibrosis progression is more rapid, and the terminal stage of cirrhosis is more frequently reached [14] [15] , Asian AIH patients, on the other hand, demonstrated a higher rate of mortality and thus displayed the worst survival curve [16] . Men are clearly less exposed to autoimmune hepatitis but they are not spared [17] [18] [19] . It has been individualized a form where the initial lesions sit in the centrolobular region (necrosis with mononucleated inflammatory infiltrate, without steatohepatitis), while the interface hepatitis is absent or minimal. Lesions around the periportal region appear secondarily. This form responds well to immunosuppressive therapy [20] . Differential diagnosis of this form with an acute immune allergic hepatitis is difficult. 2.3. Overall Syndrome Autoimmune hepatitis has multiple overlap syndromes differential diagnosis of autoimmune hepatitis, differential diagnoses of autoimmune hepatitis: diagnosis Clinical or laboratory elements suggestive of diagnosis Primary sclerosing cholangitis, Primary biliary cirrhosis, Acute viral hepatitis (History of exposure, origin of patients A, B, C, D, E, CMV, Serology, possibly EBV viremia, HSV, Hepatitis) Drug history or toxic drug, suspected intoxication Potential re-exposure Alcoholic hepatitis Anamnesis of alcohol abuse, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH): Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, Hemochromatosis, Alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency, phenotypic variant Wilson’s disease. 2.4. Laboratory Examinations Laboratory tests often show a significant increase in transaminases (AST, ALT). Bilirubin and alkaline phosphatase are usually normal or slightly increased.14 Otherwise, an overlap syndrome with PBC or PSC should be sought. An elevation of gamma globulins was found in 90% of cases, with IgG at 1.5 - 3 times the norm in 85% of patients with HAI. Gamma-globulin elevation is found in all chronic liver diseases, but most often at lower rates only in the AIH. The mechanism involves a reduction in clearance by Kupffer cells of antigens delivered by the portal venous system, resulting in increased exposure in the systemic circulation and antibody production sites. As a result, the increase in IgG is rather a consequence of liver disease rather than the reverse. 2.5. Immunological Markers The immunological markers make it possible both to specify the diagnosis and to evaluate the prognosis to a certain extent. Moreover, in 10% to 25% of cases, patients with AIH have low or undetectable levels of autoantibodies. AIH Type 1 (classical form) accounts for about 75% of HAI cases. The antinuclear factor, found in more than 90% of cases, is not very specific. The presence of smooth anti-muscle antibodies can sometimes differentiate AIH from systemic lupus erythematosus. Anti-actin antibodies are more specific and more sensitive than smooth anti-muscles. Their presence is associated with an unfavorable prognosis. Anti-SLA or anti-SLA/LP is the most specific marker of the disease. It is found in 10% to 30% of adults with AIH type 1. p-ANCA (perinuclear anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies) can also be detected, but their research is of limited value for diagnosis, as is the search for anti-mitochondria (usually found in PBC, but also in 5% to 20% of AIH type 1). Native anti-DNA, a relatively specific marker of systemic lupus erythematosus, can also be seen in AIH type 1. 2.6. Diagnostic Score A diagnostic score was published by IAIHG (International Autoimmune Hepatitis Group) in 1993 [22] [23] and revised in 1999 [8] . A new promising score from retrospective studies is currently available [9] [10] . Although it still needs to be validated prospectively, it has advantage, thanks to its simplicity, to be more adapted to the screening performed by the practitioner (Table 1). Its sensitivity would be greater than 85% and its specificity of 95%, which makes it especially a good tool of exclusion. In clinical practice, in some uncertain cases, the response to a short-term corticosteroids may be helpful in the development of the diagnosis [2] . 2.7. Liver Biopsy The histological aspect of AIH is that of chronic hepatitis with some characteristic signs that can help the diagnosis, but are not completely specific. It is most often the combination of portal and periportal inflammation (typically predominantly plasma cell) associated interface hepatitis, rosette formation, emperipolesis. There is usually no damage to the bile ducts. The latter would rather suggest a syndrome of overlap with the PBC or the PSC. Compound of portal and periportal infiltrates lymphocytes, macrophages and plasma cells associated with an interface hepatitis, typical of autoimmune hepatitis. The prognosis of untreated AIH is relatively poor. In contrast, immunosuppressive therapy is effective in 65% to 80% of cases [7] . If the indication of the treatment of all children as well as patients with AIH with moderate or severe inflammation (AST > 5x standard, gamma-globulins > 2x standard, liver biopsy showing confluent necrosis) is clear, whether to treat asymptomatic adults or not, with only mild sign of hepatitis as an interface, is less obvious and should be discussed case by case. Patients with cirrhosis inactive do not need to be treated. An untreated patient should receive follow-up every three to six months and a new histological evaluation within two years [2] . 4. Corticosteroide and Immunosoppressive The recommended treatment is to combine average doses of corticosteroids (prednisone or prednisolone 30 mg/day) with azathioprine (1 mg/kg/day). These doses can be doubled in case of resistance to treatment. Corticosteroids can then be steadily stopped over approximately two months, depending on the course. Autoantibody levels should not be used to evaluate the response to treatment. In non-cirrhotic patients and with significant corticosteroid-related adverse events, budesonide 9 mg/day Be an alternative [24] [25] . Indeed, when administered orally, budesonide has an important first-pass effect (90%) and has fewer systemic adverse effects than standard systemic corticosteroids. If AIH is still a problem or azathioprine is not tolerated, other immunosuppressive may be offered. However, no randomized study exists regarding these alternatives. Mycophenolate mofetil 2 g/day is an interesting option, as is cyclosporine A, tacrolimus or cyclophosphamide. TNF antagonists are controversial. Finally, some patients have been successfully treated with methotrexate or rituximab. Ursodeoxycholic acid does not benefit, contrary to what is observed in the PBC [2] . 5. Follow-Up and Duration of Treatment The monitoring, conducted jointly by immunologists and hepatologists, is based on the clinical and biological response using transaminases and IgG. A biological and histological remission is rarely reached before twelve months. Therefore, the duration of treatment is at least two years, clinician recommend liver biopsy before thinking of stopping the treatment, however liver biopsy can still present interface hepatitis, even after the normalization of transaminases and IgG, which requires further treatment. Knowing that the Most patients re-offend in the months following a therapeutic interruption, cases should be evaluated in case the potential risks/benefits to continue low-dose treatment, which is often enough to control the disease. In pediatric cases, it is reasonable to continue long-term therapy [2] . 6. Associated Treatments Vaccination against hepatitis A and B is recommended before initiating immunosuppressive therapy. Because of corticosteroids, ophthalmologic monitoring is indicated, as well as prophylaxis of corticosteroid-induced osteoporosis with calcium, vitamin D and possibly bisphosphonates [3] . 7. Transplantation Patients presenting with fulminant hepatitis, threatening survival, should be referred to a specialized center for potential liver transplantation, which may be indicated according to the same criteria as for other hepatopathies. Surprisingly, a recurrence rate of AIH is observed in 10% to 35% of transplant recipients, despite the immunosuppressive treatment. AIH in transplant patients have also been described. 5, 6 However, AIH remains an excellent indication for transplantation with survival rates of 90% at five years and 75% at ten years of age [26] . 8. Relative Indications: Need Not Be Treated? In the 2014 Beijing liver disease, infectious disease conference, University professor Wang Guiqiang director of diseases and liver disease center. Professor Wang Guiqiang introduced the status of diagnosis and treatment of autoimmune hepatitis in China and shared the experience of improving patient compliance. In the past 15 years, there has been little change in the international guidelines for the treatment of autoimmune hepatitis. But we have done some experiments with China’s national conditions and our clinical experience, and here we share it with you. First, the indications in the foreign guidelines include absolute and relative indications. Absolute indication is that transaminase is more than 10 times higher than normal, or transaminase is more than 5 times normal, immunoglobulin is more than two times, or pathology has obvious lobular necrosis, bridging necrosis and other significant lesions. All of them need immediate treatment. Other cases are relative indications. 9. Treatment and Prognosis 9.1. Definition of the Response Criteria Although the reference remains the disappearance of lobular and portal necrotic and inflammatory lesions, a consensus seems to be acquired around a purely biochemical definition. Although a certain degree of heterogeneity persists, an increasingly broad consensus is emerging around the following definitions: - Complete (Biochemical) Remission: Transaminases Within Persistent Normal Values. - Partial remission: Transaminases <2 times the upper limit of normal values (x ULN). - Relapse: Increase in transaminases has a value greater than the normal values after their normalization. - Failure of treatment: Stability or rise of transaminases. These definitions are based on the very good relationship between lesions of lobular and periportal necrosis or inflammation and transaminases on the one hand, [22] [23] , the overall evolution of the disease, on the other hand [24] [25] [26] . These definitions therefore tend to replace the histological criteria of response, but also the biochemical criteria used in the Mayo Clinic studies. (AST <2x ULN for remission and AST >3x ULN for relapse). 9.2. Complications Like portal hypertension and cellular insufficiency, hepatocellular carcinoma is a potential complication of HAI in the cirrhosis stage. Therefore, a liver ultrasound screening is recommended every six months [2] . Autoimmune hepatitis is a rare disease; the etiopathogenesis is not yet elucidated. Although treatment has changed little in recent years, recent diagnostic advances make it easier to screen for this disease. Future randomized studies with new immunosuppressive and biologic therapies should provide better management of patients, especially in cases of resistance, contraindication or intolerance to corticosteroids or azathioprine. It is therefore recommended to refer these patients to a center specialized for joint management by immunologists and hepatologists. 11. Practical Implications Autoimmune hepatitis is more prevalent among young women, but can affect all ethnicities, all ages, and both sexes The signs and symptoms are not very specific and a third of the patients are asymptomatic. Unfortunately, this contributes to a late discovery of the disease, sometimes at the stage of cirrhosis • There are new simplified diagnostic scores that may be useful to the primary care physician • Autoimmune hepatitis may be associated with other systemic diseases that should also be investigated, such as colitis ulcerative, autoimmune thyroiditis, celiac disease and rheumatoid arthritis • Immunosuppressive therapies are often effective and frequently prevent progression to cirrhosis - AIH: Autoimmune hepatitis - AIHG: International auto-immune hepatitis group - IgG: Immunoglobulin G - ALT: Alanine aminotransferase - AST: Aspartate aminotransferase - ANA: Antinuclear antibodies - SMA: Smooth muscle autoantibodies - SLA/LP: Antibodies against soluble liver antigen/liver-pancreas - LKM: Anti-liver/kidney microsomal antibody - HAV: Hepatitis A virus - HBV: Hepatitis B virus - HCV: Hepatitis C virus - CMV: Cytomegalovirus - EBV: Epstein-Barr virus - HSV: Herpes simplex virus - ULN: Upper limit of normal - PBC: Primary biliary cholangitis - PSC: Primary sclerosing cholangitis Danielle, M. and Yang, Y. (2018) Review of Autoimmune Hepatitis: Diagnosis and Treatment. Open Journal of Gastroenterology, 8, 57-66. doi: 10.4236/ojgas.2018.83006. [1] Reuben, A. (2003) A Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing. Hepatology, 38, 1596-1601. https://doi.org/10.1002/hep.510380643 [2] Gleeson, D. and Heneghan, M.A. (2011) British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG) Guidelines for Management of Autoimmune Hepatitis. Gut, 60, 1611-1629. https://doi.org/10.1136/gut.2010.235259 [3] Manns, M.P., et al. (2010) Diagnosis and Management of Autoimmune Hepatitis. Hepatology, 51, 2193-2213. [4] Chinese Society of Hepatology, C.M.A., C.M.A. Chinese Society of Gastroenterology, and C.M.A. Chinese Society of Infectious Diseases (2016) Chinese Consensus on the Diagnosis and Management of Autoimmune Hepatitis (2015). Zhonghua Gan Zang Bing Za Zhi, 24, 23-35. [5] Czaja, A.J. (2016) Diagnosis and Management of Autoimmune Hepatitis: Current Status and Future Directions. Gut Liver, 10, 177-203. https://doi.org/10.5009/gnl15352 [6] Vergani, D. and Mieli-Vergani, G. (2008) Aetiopathogenesis of Autoimmune Hepatitis. World Journal of Gastroenterology, 14, 3306-3312. https://doi.org/10.3748/wjg.14.3306 [7] Longhi, M.S., et al. (2010) Aetiopathogenesis of Autoimmune Hepatitis. Journal of Autoimmunity, 34, 7-14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaut.2009.08.010 [8] Alvarez, F., et al. (1999) International Autoimmune Hepatitis Group Report: Review of Criteria for Diagnosis of Autoimmune Hepatitis. Journal of Hepatology, 31, 929-938. [9] Hennes, E.M., et al. (2008) Simplified Criteria for the Diagnosis of Autoimmune Hepatitis. Hepatology, 48, 169-176. [10] Candia, R., et al. (2017) Validation of the Simplified Criteria for the Diagnosis of Autoimmune Hepatitis in Chilean-Hispanic Patients. Annals of Hepatology, 16, 772-779. https://doi.org/10.5604/01.3001.0010.2787 [11] Czaja, A.J. (2008) Performance Parameters of the Diagnostic Scoring Systems for Autoimmune Hepatitis. Hepatology, 48, 1540-1548. [12] Kogan, J., et al. (2002) Prognosis of Symptomatic versus Asymptomatic Autoimmune Hepatitis: A Study of 68 Patients. Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology, 35, 75-81. [13] Krawitt, E.L. (2006) Autoimmune Hepatitis. The New England Journal of Medicine, 354, 54-66. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMra050408 [14] Lim, K.N., et al. (2001) Autoimmune Hepatitis in African Americans: Presenting Features and Response to Therapy. The American Journal of Gastroenterology, 96, 3390-3394. [15] Verma, S., Torbenson, M. and Thuluvath, P.J. (2007) The Impact of Ethnicity on the Natural History of Autoimmune Hepatitis. Hepatology, 46, 1828-1835. [16] Liberal, R. and Vergani, D. (2012) Effect of Ethnicity on the Clinical Presentation and Outcome of Autoimmune Hepatitis. Expert Review of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, 6, 267-269. https://doi.org/10.1586/egh.12.17 [17] Heneghan, M.A. (2002) Autoimmune Hepatitis in Men: Examining the Gender Gap. The American Journal of Gastroenterology, 97, 1870-1872. [18] Al-Chalabi, T., et al. (2008) Impact of Gender on the Long-Term Outcome and Survival of Patients with Autoimmune Hepatitis. Journal of Hepatology, 48, 140-147. [19] Bittencourt, P.L., et al. (2008) Frequency of Concurrent Autoimmune Disorders in Patients with Autoimmune Hepatitis: Effect of Age, Gender, and Genetic Background. Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology, 42, 300-305. https://doi.org/10.1097/MCG.0b013e31802dbdfc [20] Abe, M., et al. (2001) Clinical Characteristics of Autoimmune Hepatitis with Histological Features of Acute Hepatitis. Hepatology Research, 21, 213-219. [21] EASL (2015) Clinical Practice Guidelines: Autoimmune Hepatitis. Journal of Hepatology, 63, 971-1004. [22] Johnson, P.J. and McFarlane, I.G. (1993) Meeting Report: International Autoimmune Hepatitis Group. Hepatology, 18, 998-1005. https://doi.org/10.1002/hep.1840180435 [23] Yan, H.P., Zhang, H.P. and Chen, X.X. (2017) Meeting Report: International Autoimmune Hepatitis Group. Chinese Journal of Hepatology, 25, 63-64. [24] Csepregi, A., et al. (2006) Budesonide Induces Complete Remission in Autoimmune Hepatitis. World Journal of Gastroenterology, 12, 1362-1366. https://doi.org/10.3748/wjg.v12.i9.1362 [25] Manns, M.P., et al. (2010) Budesonide Induces Remission More Effectively than Prednisone in a Controlled Trial of Patients with Autoimmune Hepatitis. Gastroenterology, 139, 1198-1206. https://doi.org/10.1053/j.gastro.2010.06.046 [26] Czaja, A.J. (2012) Diagnosis, Pathogenesis, and Treatment of Autoimmune Hepatitis after Liver Transplantation. Digestive Diseases and Sciences, 57, 2248-2266.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line881
__label__wiki	0.500695	0.500695	MAD is open Monday, January 20 for Martin Luther King Jr Day. calendar email sign up buy tickets online Today: 10 am to 6 pm hours and info today @ MAD ongoing installations youth & school groups title I: arts access arts reach artslife recess internship MAD Ball LOOT MAD About Jewelry reports & bulletins catalogs + books Talks \| Panel Discussion: Voulkos, Then and Now Moderated by Glenn Adamson, with Nicole Cherubini, James Melchert, Andrew Perchuk, and Arlene Shechet. Thursday, October 20, 2016 - 7:00 pm The Theater at MAD Between the early 1950s and 1968, Peter Voulkos reshaped expectations around the ceramic medium, and created a varied body of work both in abstract and pottery forms. Today, this work seems more relevant than ever, as artists increasingly turn to ceramics for its expressive possibilities. This panel, composed of the leading specialists on Voulkos and contemporary artists, will consider the nature of his achievement and its ongoing resonance. Also under discussion will be the cultural associations that Voulkos has inspired. The panel will consider his work not only in aesthetic terms, but also in relation to issues of gender and American identity. Glenn Adamson, moderator and co-curator of Voulkos: The Breakthrough Years. Nicole Cherubini, artist working primarily in ceramic sculpture and mixed media. Cherubini's solo exhibitions include the Perez Art Museum Miami (Miami, FL), the Santa Monica Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA) and the Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia, PA), among many others. James Melchert, former student of Voulkos in the 1950s; Artist; Professor of Art, Emeritus, U.C. Berkeley, 1964 –1994, and former Director of the Visual Arts Program at the National Endowment for the Arts. Andrew Perchuk, Deputy Director of the Getty Museum and co-curator of Voulkos: The Breakthrough Years. Arlene Shechet, artist. Solo exhibitions include the RISD Museum (Providence, RI); the Weatherspoon Art Museum (Greensboro, NC); the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art (Overland Park, KS) The Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery (Sarasota Springs NY); the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (Denver CO); and a twenty-year survey of her work at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (Boston, MA) in June 2015, among many others. This program is organized in conjunction with the exhibition Voulkos: The Breakthrough Years. Hapi Phace Paints a Scarf Friday, January 24, 2020 - 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm The groundbreaking performance artist, New York nightlife legend, and Vera lover gives an after-hours gallery performance and tour of Vera Paints a Scarf: The Art and Design of Vera Neumann. Monday, January 27, 2020 - 9:00 am to 3:00 pm A full-day professional development workshop for K–12 educators focusing on craft, history, and memory. MAD Luminaries Artists Salon The Museum's under-45 group, MAD Luminaries, invites young arts advocates to its first ever Artists Salon to learn more about what it means to be a part of this exciting new patrons program for the Museum to meet and mingle with 12 next-gen artists currently working in residence at the Museum. the museum of arts and design Jerome and Simona Chazen Building / 2 Columbus Circle / New York, NY 10019 Online Signup MAD Signup	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line883
__label__cc	0.747165	0.252835	Maryland ranks No. 1 for women and minority-owned businesses (April 20, 2018—CAPITOL HEIGHTS, Md.) When it comes to the highest rate of minority and women-owned businesses per capita, Maryland tops the list, according to the Baltimore Sun. This week, the Baltimore Sun reported on a survey by Paychex, which reflected the state’s minority and women-owned businesses per capita excelled compared to nearby states. The study provided statistics which indicated Maryland has 42 minority-owned businesses for every 100,000 residents and 17.5 businesses owned by women per 100,000 residents. “Small business opportunities in Maryland are often boosted by the state’s proximity to Washington, D.C., and the availability of government contracts,” the report said. Read the full article in the Baltimore Sun.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line885
__label__wiki	0.502355	0.502355	21k scientists sign ‘letter to humanity’ Nearly 21,000 scientists around the world have now signed a letter which calls for global changes to behaviour, including reducing our meat consumption, making it one of the most discussed scientific works ever. The letter was first printed in November 2018 – and was an update to an original warning about the future of the planet written by the Union of Concerned States some 25 years ago. Then, it only had 1,700 names to it, but the “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: Second Notice” is gaining traction as it warns that the world has changed dramatically in the past quarter of a decade. “It is time to re-examine and change our individual behaviours… and drastically diminish our per capita consumption of fossil fuels, meat and other resources,” lead author William Ripple warned. The letter states that if the global community does not act soon and start to practice a “more environmentally sustainable alternative to business”, then there will be “catastrophic biodiversity loss”. It is a warning which The Meatless Farm are fully behind, and our founder Morten Toft Bech says that people need to “examine our beliefs and habits and think carefully about the future of the planet”. “The problems we face are serious and inequality in the world between developed and developing countries gives the notion of a right to pollute but we need to begin to share and reuse resources in a totally new way and we need to do it now! For the sake of the planet and all it’s inhabitants in the future. ” Transforming the food systems that are used around the world is undoubtedly only a small part of the total picture, but it’s nevertheless an important factor. “It’s about providing change and then acting on it – big or small,” Toft Bech adds. Could plant-based alternatives help the ‘meat aisle’ become the ‘protein aisle’?	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line886
__label__cc	0.6816	0.3184	The Thirteenth Floor (place) by gnarl Wed Jun 07 2000 at 5:09:40 Many 20th century high-rise buildings do not have a thirteenth floor. The simple reason is the superstition that the number thirteen brings bad luck. As there are people who will not rent or stay in a room on a thirteenth floor, that floor is 'skipped'. The knowledge of buildings not having a thirteenth floor helps to perpetuate the superstition, providing an excellent example of recursion. "A fear of the number 13 costs America over a billion dollars a year in absenteeism, train and plane cancellations, and reduced commerce on the 13th of the month." --Superstitions, by Suzanne Lord I like it! 1 C! (place) by ponder Fri Jul 26 2002 at 11:33:55 While it is a convention that buildings over 12 storeys high do not have an elevator button 13, I am always curious as to whether there is a hidden floor, not accessible from the elevator. For six months, I was working for a bank, which had a 20 storey building (though I was working in an 8 storey annexe), and I still do not know to this day whether there is a hidden floor 13. One way to find out is to use the stairs. This option was not available to me, as all the emergency exit doors were alarmed, and there was no fire drill to provide the opportunity. Another way is to count the floors of the building from the outside. If the skyscraper is very tall, this can be very difficult. Also, the following complicate the issue: British lifts start at floor 0 (or G), the ground floor, whereas American elevators have floor 1 as the ground floor. I have used this comparison when teaching about arrays to CS students. Sometimes, your entrance to the building is not on the ground floor, e.g. if the building is on a hillside. Sometimes, there are mezzanine floors between floors. Sometimes a parapet obscures the top floor(s). Often the elevator does not go all the way to the top of the building. This is so that the winch machinery can be housed inside the building without any ugly projections. Have any noders encountered real hidden 13th floors? I would be interested to hear stories. (idea) by NothingLasts4ever Fri Jul 26 2002 at 12:37:12 The 13th floor convention only holds true in Anglo countries with the numeric fear of the number thirteen. In other countries, for example Italy, there is always a 13th floor. However since they are paranoid of the number 17 and take it to be of ill omen many Italian skyscrapers have no seventeenth floor. (thing) by quinch Tue Dec 31 2002 at 7:24:08 Film released in 1999, directed by Josef Rusnak, starring Craig Bierko and Gretchen Mol. Running time is 1hr 45 mins. MPAA Classification: R Synopsis: scientists create a lifelike computer-simulated world where avatars believe they are truly human, oblivious to any real existence outside of their realm... The film opens in 1937 Los Angeles with a distinguished looking man named Hammond Fuller (Armin Mueller-Stahl) finishing off an evening at an exclusive hotel. He pays a hooker, leaves a sealed letter with a bartender, then goes home to his wife. Once in bed, he returns to the real world of 1999, departing from the computer simulation he has been visiting. Fuller has discovered something startling during his travels in the virtual world, but, before he can convey the information to his friend and co-worker, Douglas Hall (Craig Bierko), he is murdered. Hall, who is Fuller's primary beneficiary, is the chief suspect in the killing, and things become more complicated when Fuller's daughter, Jane (Gretchen Mol), arrives from Paris to visit her father. Meanwhile, Douglas is certain that the information to clear him of wrongdoing can be found in the simulation, so, armed only with his wits, he pays a visit to 1937 Los Angeles even as Detective Larry McBain (Dennis Haysbert) builds a case against him. Visually, The Thirteenth Floor is striking, although it's not nearly as impressive as The Matrix. 1937 Los Angeles is presented as a monument to nostalgia, based as it is on the memories of a man (Fuller) instead of the historical reality. The director muted the color schemes of both eras (an approach that foreshadows the film's final twist. 1937 is tinted by muddy browns that offer an almost black-and-white flavor. 1999 is slanted towards grays and blues. Rarely is there even a splash of a brighter colour. This aspect of the movies connects each era in a manner which is entirely appropriate on far more than the just the visual level. In terms of originality, the Thirteenth Floor comes in first. The story is based on Simulacron-3, a story by Daniel Galouye, which came out years ago. The special effects are so-so, but again, this is not a special effects movie. The Thirteenth Floor is more of a stylish movie. Many of the sets used for the present day are somewhat lacking, but the sets used for 1930s Los Angeles are quite simply sumptuous, oozing panache. The power of this movie is best expressed when as Hall looks around in wonder at what is around him, the viewer is compelled to wonder also. Dark City Drivers who think they are Neo thirteenth floor elevators Why the Pentagon has twice the number of bathrooms it needs The Matrix is going down for a reboot in 5 minutes: all users, please save your data and log out The Lawnmower Man eXistenZ seven and a halfth floor universe simulator brainstorm Nightmare on the 13th Floor recursive Vincent D'Onofrio Superstition triskaidekaphobia Wax, or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees God is a teen-age hacker parapet Cogito ergo sum September 17, 1999 Floor numbering systems Sid Fleischman Tekwar Tower of Terror The principles of nuclear weapon safety and meeting girls are remarkably similar	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line889
__label__wiki	0.855913	0.855913	875 F. 2d 699 - Watkins v. United States Army 875 F2d 699 Watkins v. United States Army 49 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1763, 50 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 38,967, 57 USLW 2662 Sergeant Perry WATKINS, Plaintiff-Appellant, UNITED STATES ARMY, et al., Defendants-Appellees. Ninth Circuit. Argued En Banc and Submitted Oct. 12, 1988. Decided May 3, 1989. James E. Lobsenz, Wolfe, Lobsenz & Cullen, American Civil Liberties Union-Washington State, Seattle, Wash., for plaintiff-appellant. E. Roy Hawkens, Asst. Atty. Gen., Civil Div., U.S. Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., for defendants-appellees. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington. Before GOODWIN, Chief Judge, SCHROEDER, PREGERSON, ALARCON, NELSON, CANBY, NORRIS, BEEZER, HALL, O'SCANNLAIN, and TROTT, Circuit Judges. PREGERSON, Circuit Judge: The United States Army denied Sgt. Perry J. Watkins reenlistment solely because he is a homosexual. The Army refused to reenlist Watkins, a 14-year veteran, even though he had been completely candid about his homosexuality from the start of his Army career, even though he is in all respects an outstanding soldier, and even though the Army, with full knowledge of his homosexuality, had repeatedly permitted him to reenlist in the past. The Army did so despite its longstanding policy that homosexuality was a nonwaivable disqualification for reenlistment. The issue before the en banc court is whether the Army may deny reenlistment to Watkins solely because of his acknowledged homosexuality. I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND1 In August 1967, at the age of 19, Perry Watkins was drafted into the United States Army. In filling out the Army's preinduction medical form, he marked "yes" in response to a question asking whether he had homosexual tendencies. The Army nonetheless found Watkins "qualified for admission" and inducted him into its ranks. During Watkins' initial three-year tour of military duty, he served in the United States and Korea as a chaplain's assistant, personnel specialist, and company clerk. A year after his induction, in 1968, Watkins signed an affidavit stating that he had been a homosexual from the age of 13 and that, since his enlistment, he had engaged in sodomy with two other servicemen, a crime under military law. The Army, which received this affidavit as part of a criminal investigation into Watkins' sexual conduct, dropped the investigation because of insufficient evidence. When his first enlistment period expired in 1970, Watkins received an honorable discharge, but his reenlistment eligibility code was listed as "unknown." In 1971, Watkins requested correction of the reenlistment designation and the Army corrected the code to category 1, "eligible for reentry on active duty." Shortly thereafter, he reenlisted for a second three-year term. In 1972, Watkins was denied a security clearance because of his homosexuality, and the Army again investigated him for allegedly committing sodomy and again terminated the investigation for insufficient evidence. Following another honorable discharge in 1974, the Army accepted Watkins' application for a six-year reenlistment. In 1975, the Army convened a board of officers to determine whether Watkins should be discharged because of his homosexual tendencies. On this occasion his commanding officer, Captain Bast, testified that Watkins was "the best clerk I have known," that he did "a fantastic job--excellent," and that Watkins' homosexuality did not affect the company. A sergeant testified that Watkins' homosexuality was well-known but caused no problems and generated no complaints from other soldiers. The four officers on the board unanimously found that "Watkins is suitable for retention in the military service" and stated, "In view of the findings, the Board recommends that SP5 Perry J. Watkins be retained in the military service because there is no evidence suggesting that his behavior has had either a degrading effect upon unit performance, morale or discipline, or upon his own job performance. SP5 Watkins is suited for duty in administrative positions and progression through Specialist rating." The board's recommendation became the final decision of the Secretary of the Army. In November 1977, the United States Army Artillery Group (the USAAG) granted Watkins a security clearance for information classified as "Secret." His application for a position in the Nuclear Surety Personnel Reliability Program (the PRP), however, was initially rejected because his records--specifically, his own admissions--showed that he had homosexual tendencies. After this initial rejection, Watkins' commanding officer in the USAAG, Captain Pastain, requested that Watkins be requalified for the position. Captain Pastain stated, "From daily personal contacts I can attest to the outstanding professional attitude, integrity, and suitability for assignment within the PRP, of SP5 Watkins. In the 6 months he has been assigned to this unit SP5 Watkins has had no problems what-so-ever in dealing with other assigned members. He has, in fact, become one of our most respected and trusted soldiers, both by his superiors and his subordinates." An examining Army physician concluded that Watkins' homosexuality appeared to cause no problem in his work, and the decision to deny Watkins a position in the Nuclear Surety Personnel Reliability Program was reversed. Watkins worked under a security clearance without incident until he again stated, in an interview on March 15, 1979, that he was homosexual. This prompted yet another Army investigation which, in July 1980, culminated in the revocation of Watkins' security clearance. As the notification of revocation makes clear, the Army based this revocation on Watkins' 1979 admission of homosexuality, on medical records containing Watkins' 1968 affidavit stating that he had engaged in homosexual conduct, and on his history of performing (with the permission of his commanding officer) as a female impersonator in various revues. The Army did not rely on any evidence of homosexual conduct other than Watkins' 1968 affidavit. In October 1979, the Army accepted Watkins' application for another three-year reenlistment. In 1981 the Army promulgated Army Regulation (AR) 635-200, chpt. 15, which mandated the discharge of all homosexuals regardless of merit. Pursuant to this new discharge regulation, another Army board convened to consider discharging Watkins. Although this board explicitly rejected the evidence before it that Watkins had engaged in homosexual conduct after 1968, the board recommended that Watkins be separated from the service "because he has stated that he is a homosexual." Major General Elton, the discharge authority overseeing the board, approved this finding and recommendation and directed that Watkins be discharged.2 In May 1982, after the Army board voted in favor of Watkins' discharge, but before the discharge actually issued, District Judge Rothstein enjoined the Army from discharging Watkins on the basis of his statements admitting his homosexuality. 541 F.Supp. at 259.3 The district court reasoned that the discharge proceedings were barred by the Army's regulation against double jeopardy, AR 635-200, p 1-19(b), because they essentially repeated the discharge proceedings of 1975. Id. at 258-59.4 During oral argument before the district court, counsel for the Army declared that if the Army were enjoined from discharging Watkins, it would deny Watkins reenlistment, pursuant to AR 601-280, p 2-21(c),5 when his current tour of duty expired in October 1982.6 This reenlistment regulation, which was promulgated in 1981 along with the discharge regulation AR 635-200, chpt. 15, is simply a clarification of the earlier regulation which had always made homosexuality a nonwaivable disqualification for reenlistment. The district court nonetheless enjoined Watkins' discharge, and the Army fulfilled its promise by rejecting Watkins' reenlistment application "[b]ecause of self admitted homosexuality as well as homosexual acts." On October 5, 1982, the district court enjoined the Army from refusing to reenlist Watkins because of his admitted homosexuality, holding that the Army was equitably estopped from relying on the nonwaivable disqualification provisions of AR 601-280, p 2-21(c). Watkins v. United States Army, 551 F.Supp. 212, 223 (W.D.Wash.1982).7 The Army reenlisted Watkins for a six-year term on November 1, 1982, with the proviso that the reenlistment would be voided if the district court's injunction were not upheld on appeal. While the Army's appeal of the district court injunction was pending, the Army rated Watkins' performance and professionalism. He received 85 out of 85 possible points. His ratings included perfect scores for "Earns respect," "Integrity," "Loyalty," "Moral Courage," "Self-discipline," "Military Appearance," "Demonstrates Initiative," "Performs under pressure," "Attains results," "Displays sound judgment," "Communicates effectively," "Develops subordinates," "Demonstrates technical skills," and "Physical fitness." His military evaluators unanimously recommended that he be promoted ahead of his peers. The Army's written evaluation of Watkins' performance and potential stated: SSG Watkins is without exception, one of the finest Personnel Action Center Supervisors I have encountered. Through his diligent efforts, the Battalion Personnel Action Center achieved a near perfect processing rate for SIPDERS transactions. During this training period, SSG Watkins has been totally reliable and a wealth of knowledge. He requires no supervision, and with his "can do" attitude, always exceeds the requirements and demands placed upon him. I would gladly welcome another opportunity to serve with him, and firmly believe that he will be an asset to any unit to which he is assigned. SSG Watkins should be selected to attend ANCOC and placed in a Platoon Sergeant position. [Rater's Evaluation of Watkins' performance and potential.] SSG Watkins' duty performance has been outstanding in every regard. His section continues to set the standard within the Brigade for submission of accurate, timely personnel and financial transactions. Keeping abreast of everchanging personnel regulations and directives, SSG Watkins has provided sound advice to the commander as well as to the soldiers within the command. His suggestion to separate S-1 and Personnel Action Center functions and to colocate the Personnel Action Center with the Company Orderly Rooms was adopted and immediately resulted in improved service by both offices. SSG Watkins' positive influence has been felt throughout the Battalion and will be sorely missed. SSG Watkins' potential is unlimited. He has consistently demonstrated the capacity to manage numerous complex responsibilities concurrently. He is qualified for promotion now and should be selected for attendance at ANCOES at the earliest opportunity. [Indorser's Evaluation of Watkins' performance and potential.] On appeal, a panel of this court reversed the district court's injunction. Watkins v. United States Army, 721 F.2d 687, 691 (9th Cir.1983) [hereinafter Watkins I ]. The panel reasoned that the equity powers of the federal courts could not be exercised to order military officials to violate their own regulations absent a determination that the regulations were repugnant to the Constitution or to the military's statutory authority. Id. On remand, the district court held that the Army's regulations were not repugnant to the Constitution or to statutory authority and accordingly denied Watkins' motion for summary judgment and granted summary judgment in favor of the Army. Watkins again appealed and a divided panel of this court reversed the district court's ruling. The panel held that the Army's reenlistment regulations violate the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the laws because they discriminate against persons of homosexual orientation and because the regulations are not necessary to promote a legitimate compelling governmental interest. Watkins v. United States Army, 847 F.2d 1329, 1352-53 (9th Cir.1988) [hereinafter Watkins II ]. The full court granted review to address the issues raised in Watkins I8 and Watkins II. We hold that the Army is estopped from barring Watkins' reenlistment on the basis of his homosexuality. Accordingly, Watkins I no longer states the law of this circuit. Moreover, it is unnecessary to reach the constitutional issues raised in Watkins II. II. EXHAUSTION OF REMEDIES Before considering Watkins' estoppel claim, we must determine the preliminary question whether Watkins has exhausted available intraservice remedies. Watkins submitted a timely application for reenlistment to his commanding officer, Captain Scott, on July 26, 1982. Following an interview with Watkins, Captain Scott denied his reenlistment request on July 28, 1982 because of Watkins' admitted homosexuality.9 The Army's position is that Watkins is ineligible for reenlistment due to a nonwaivable disqualification. Any further pursuit of intraservice remedies would therefore be fruitless. See Watkins, 551 F.Supp. at 217. As the district court stated, "This court will not require plaintiff to exhaust futile remedies." Id. at 218. See Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, Inc. v. Watson, 697 F.2d 1305, 1309 (9th Cir.1983) ("Exhaustion of administrative remedies is not required where administrative remedies are inadequate or not efficacious, [or] where pursuit of administrative remedies would be a futile gesture...."). Because we find that Watkins has exhausted all effective intraservice remedies, we now proceed to review the merits of his estoppel claim. III. EQUITABLE ESTOPPEL A. Reviewability This circuit and others have noted that not all actions by the military are reviewable in the courts. See Note, "Judicial Review of Constitutional Claims Against the Military," 84 Colum.L.Rev. 387, 397-403 (1984). In Mindes v. Seaman, 453 F.2d 197, 201 (5th Cir.1971), the Fifth Circuit articulated a test for ascertaining whether a particular internal military decision should be reviewed. Mindes cautioned that a court should not review internal military affairs in the absence of (a) an allegation of the deprivation of a constitutional right, or an allegation that the military has acted in violation of applicable statutes or its own regulations and (b) exhaustion of available intraservice corrective measures. Id. If the plaintiff meets both prerequisites, the court must weigh several factors to determine whether to grant review. These factors are (1) the nature and strength of the plaintiff's claim; (2) the potential injury to the plaintiff if review is refused; (3) the extent of interference with military functions; and (4) the extent to which military discretion or expertise is involved. Id. We have adopted in part the Mindes test for judicial reviewability of internal military affairs. See Wallace v. Chappell, 661 F.2d 729, 733 n. 4 (9th Cir.1981), rev'd on other grounds, 462 U.S. 296, 103 S.Ct. 2362, 76 L.Ed.2d 586 (1983). In Wallace, we applied the Mindes factors to constitutional claims, but declined to hold that the Mindes factors should be weighed in considering nonconstitutional claims. We stated that "[w]e express no view as to whether the Mindes test should govern federal nonconstitutional claims." Id. at 733 n. 5.10 Because in this case the district court found in favor of Watkins on the nonconstitutional ground of equitable estoppel, we are now faced with the question whether the Mindes test is applicable to equitable estoppel. In Watkins I, a panel of this court applied the Mindes doctrine to hold, in effect, that the only issues that can be reviewed in a suit against the military are claims that the Constitution, a statute, or a regulation has been violated. See Watkins v. United States Army (Watkins I), 721 F.2d 687, 690 (9th Cir.1983). Watkins I, which no longer states the law of this circuit, held that our district courts may not use equitable estoppel principles to decide a case on its particular facts when the application of a statute or regulation is challenged as to one individual. Such an extension of the Mindes reviewability doctrine to bar equitable relief would improperly require cases against the military to be decided on the broadest possible grounds rather than on the narrowest. In this case, the panel's decision in Watkins I caused the district court and the three-judge panel to reach constitutional issues when the case could have been decided narrowly under the doctrine of equitable estoppel. Accordingly, we conclude that the Mindes doctrine should not be extended to bar equitable estoppel against the military. The special factors that must be found before equitable estoppel can be applied against the government protect the same interests that the Mindes test was designed to protect. See Helm v. State of California, 722 F.2d 507, 509-10 (9th Cir.1983) (applying the Mindes test to a constitutional claim against the military but not applying it to an assertion of equitable estoppel). The Mindes test was created to shield the military from unnecessary disruption. The estoppel doctrine, like the Mindes test, addresses the concerns of comity, prudence, and deference. To estop an agency of the government a court must find affirmative misconduct by the government and must also find that the government's conduct will cause a serious injustice and that estoppel will not cause undue harm to the public interest. Wagner v. Director, Federal Emergency Management Agency, 847 F.2d 515, 519 (9th Cir.1988) (quoting Morgan v. Heckler, 779 F.2d 544, 545 (9th Cir.1985)). The stringent requirements that must be satisfied before the government will be estopped safeguard the military from unjustified interference by the courts. Thus where estoppel obtains, there is simply no need to apply the reviewability factors of the Mindes test. The facts of the instant case support this conclusion. To estop the Army from denying Sgt. Watkins reenlistment on the basis of his homosexuality would not disrupt any important military policies or adversely affect internal military affairs. It would simply require the Army to continue to do what it has repeatedly done for fourteen years with only positive results: reenlist a single soldier with an exceptionally outstanding military record. B. Equitable Estoppel Against the Government The Supreme Court has expressly left open the issue whether estoppel may run against the government, refusing to hold "that there are no cases in which the public interest in ensuring that the Government can enforce the law free from estoppel might be outweighed by the countervailing interest of citizens in some minimum standard of decency, honor, and reliability in their dealings with their Government." Heckler v. Community Health Services of Crawford County, Inc., 467 U.S. 51, 60-61, 104 S.Ct. 2218, 2224, 81 L.Ed.2d 42 (1984). It is well settled, however, that the government may not be estopped on the same terms as a private litigant. Id. at 60, 104 S.Ct. at 2224. Our court has held that " 'where justice and fair play require it,' estoppel will be applied against the government...." Johnson v. Williford, 682 F.2d 868, 871 (9th Cir.1982) (quoting United States v. Lazy FC Ranch, 481 F.2d 985, 988-89 (9th Cir.1973)).11 Our cases indicate that the principles allowing estoppel against the government also apply to the military when justified by the facts. See, e.g., Helm v. State of California, 722 F.2d 507 (9th Cir.1983); Jablon v. United States, 657 F.2d 1064 (9th Cir.1981); Lavin v. Marsh, 644 F.2d 1378 (9th Cir.1981). Before the government will be estopped, however, two additional elements must be satisfied beyond those required for traditional estoppel.12 First, "[a] party seeking to raise estoppel against the government must establish 'affirmative misconduct going beyond mere negligence'; even then, 'estoppel will only apply where the government's wrongful act will cause a serious injustice, and the public's interest will not suffer undue damage by imposition of the liability.' " Wagner v. Director, Federal Emergency Management Agency, 847 F.2d 515, 519 (9th Cir.1988) (quotingMorgan v. Heckler, 779 F.2d 544, 545 (9th Cir.1985)).13 In the instant case, we must first determine whether the two threshold requirements for estopping the government are satisfied before deciding whether the traditional elements of estoppel are present. 1. Affirmative Misconduct There is no single test for detecting the presence of affirmative misconduct; each case must be decided on its own particular facts and circumstances. Lavin v. Marsh, 644 F.2d at 1382-83 n. 6. Affirmative misconduct does require an affirmative misrepresentation or affirmative concealment of a material fact by the government, United States v. Ruby Co., 588 F.2d 697, 703-04 (9th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 442 U.S. 917, 99 S.Ct. 2838, 61 L.Ed.2d 284 (1979), although it does not require that the government intend to mislead a party. Jablon v. United States, 657 F.2d at 1067 n. 5. Finally, it is well settled that the government is not bound by the unauthorized acts of its agents. Saulque v. United States, 663 F.2d at 976 (citing Utah Power & Light Co. v. United States, 243 U.S. 389, 409, 37 S.Ct. 387, 391, 61 L.Ed. 791 (1917)); see also Federal Crop Insurance Co. v. Merrill, 332 U.S. 380, 384, 68 S.Ct. 1, 3, 92 L.Ed. 10 (1947). Here, the Army affirmatively misrepresented in its official records throughout Watkins' fourteen-year military career that he was qualified for reenlistment. On the one occasion when the record was unclear, Watkins sought clarification and his classification was immediately changed from "unknown" to "eligible for reentry on active duty." During this entire fourteen-year period, the Army's policy was that homosexuality constituted a nonwaivable disqualification for reenlistment. The Army has acknowledged, both in its brief in Watkins II and at oral argument before the en banc panel, that "[t]he 1981 regulations now in effect [AR 601-280, p 2-21], which expressly bar enlistment or reenlistment of homosexuals, are regarded as a clarification, and not a change, of Army policy." Army's Brief in Watkins I at 6.14 Thus, the Army affirmatively acted in violation of its own regulations when it repeatedly represented that Watkins was eligible to reenlist, as well as when it reenlisted him time after time. This case is readily distinguishable from Lavin v. Marsh, 644 F.2d 1378 (9th Cir.1981), where we refused to estop the Army from denying an Army Reserve officer's entitlement to pension benefits. In Lavin, the court found that while the Army had failed to determine Lavin's pension eligibility status or to counteract any misunderstanding resulting from recruiters' representations that benefits would be available to Lavin, this conduct did not amount to a "pervasive pattern of false promises" for which the government could be estopped. Id. at 1383. The court reasoned that although the Army's conduct was perhaps negligent, the "mere failure to inform or assist does not justify application of equitable estoppel." Id. at 1384 (citing INS v. Hibi, 414 U.S. 5, 8-9, 94 S.Ct. 19, 21-22, 38 L.Ed.2d 7 (1973)). In addition, we stated that persons dealing with the government assume the risk that government agents may exceed their authority and provide misinformation, and observed that "Lavin chose trust over caution and he never attempted to confirm his eligibility." Id. at 1383. In the present case, the Army's conduct went far beyond a mere failure to inform or assist. As the district court noted, the Army did not stand aside while Watkins reenlisted or accepted a promotion; it plainly acted affirmatively in admitting, reclassifying, reenlisting, retaining, and promoting Watkins. 551 F.Supp. at 221. Furthermore, this case does not merely involve misinformation provided by government agents. Rather, it involves ongoing active misrepresentations by Army officials acting well within their scope of authority. "Without Army approval [Watkins] would not have been able to enter, remain or progress in the Army. The defendants point out that reenlistment is exclusively the Secretary's function, Here he exercised his authority three times.... To satisfy the element of affirmative misconduct the court need look no further." Id.15 2. Weighing the Injustice to Watkins against the Possibility of Damage to the Public Interest Even when affirmative misconduct has been shown, the government cannot be estopped unless its acts also threaten to work a serious injustice and the public's interest will not be unduly damaged by the imposition of estoppel. Johnson, 682 F.2d at 871. This requirement involves a balancing of interests in individual cases. See Note, Equitable Estoppel of the Government, 79 Colum.L.Rev. 551, 551 (1979); see also, e.g., Johnson, 682 F.2d at 871-72 (where a prisoner was erroneously paroled, his subsequent successful reintegration into the community showed that his continuation on parole release did not seriously threaten the public interest. Furthermore, the frustration of the prisoner's expectation to continue, during good behavior, on parole release would be a serious injustice); Gestuvo v. District Director of INS, 337 F.Supp. 1093, 1102 (C.D.Cal.1971) (estopping INS from refusing to revalidate approval of an immigrant's third preference classification partly because "[a]ny disruption of the nation's immigration policies that might result from the admission of this single individual into the country would, in short, be miniscule in comparison to the hardship to which he would be subjected by a failure to estop the Service"). The record in the instant case shows that Sgt. Watkins has greatly benefitted the Army, and therefore the country, by his military service. Even the Army's most recent written evaluation of Watkins, completed during the course of this legal action, contains nothing but the highest praise, describing Watkins' duty performance as "outstanding in every regard" and his potential as "unlimited." In addition, Watkin's homosexuality clearly has not hurt the Army in any way. In the words of an Army review board, "there is no evidence suggesting that [Watkins'] behavior has had either a degrading effect upon unit performance, morale or discipline, or upon his own job performance." As the district court aptly concluded: The injury to plaintiff from having relied on the Army's approval of his military career--and being denied it now--is the loss of his career. The harm to the public interest if reenlistment is not prevented is nonexistent. Plaintiff has demonstrated that he is an excellent soldier. His contribution to this Nation's security is of obvious benefit to the public. Furthermore, when the government deals "carefully, honestly and fairly with its citizens," the public interest is likewise benefited. 551 F.Supp. at 223 (citation omitted). C. Traditional Elements of Estoppel Having concluded that this is a case in which estoppel may be asserted against the government, we must now decide whether the traditional elements of estoppel are present. Traditional estoppel requires the following: (1) The party to be estopped must know the facts; (2) he must intend that his conduct shall be acted on or must so act that the party asserting the estoppel has a right to believe it is so intended; (3) the latter must be ignorant of the true facts; and (4) he must rely on the former's conduct to his injury. United States v. Wharton, 514 F.2d 406, 412 (9th Cir.1975) (quoting United States v. Georgia-Pacific Corp., 421 F.2d 92, 96 (9th Cir.1970)). We adopt district judge Rothstein's thorough analysis of this question as follows. 1. Did the Army know the facts? The district court recited the following as evidence that the Army knew about Watkins' homosexuality throughout his entire military career. At his preinduction physical examination in August 1967 plaintiff checked the box on his medical history chart indicating that he had homosexual tendencies. The examining psychiatrist apparently did not believe plaintiff and designated plaintiff as qualified for admission. In November 1968 plaintiff admitted his homosexuality to an Army Criminal Investigation Division agent. Plaintiff was honorably discharged in May 1970 and his reenlistment code was listed as "unknown." Plaintiff requested correction of that code. The Army reclassified plaintiff as eligible for reentry on active duty, and in June 1971 plaintiff reenlisted for three years. In January 1972 plaintiff was denied a security clearance based on his 1968 admission of homosexuality. After another honorable discharge, in March 1974 plaintiff reenlisted for a six year term. In 1975 plaintiff's commander initiated discharge proceedings against plaintiff for unsuitability due to homosexuality. A four member board composed of a Major, two Captains and a First Lieutenant heard testimony establishing that plaintiff was homosexual. Plaintiff's commander, Captain Albert J. Bast III testified that plaintiff, who had told Bast he was homosexual, was "the best clerk I have known." First Sergeant Owen Johnson testified that everyone in the company knew plaintiff was homosexual and that plaintiff's homosexuality had not caused any problems. As noted earlier, the board recommended retention. In November 1977 plaintiff was granted a security clearance for information classified as "Secret." Plaintiff then applied for a position in the Nuclear Surety Personnel Reliability Program. Plaintiff was initially rejected because his medical records reflected his homosexuality. Plaintiff appealed. His commanding officer, Captain Dale E. [Pastain], wrote in support of plaintiff's appeal, requesting that plaintiff be requalified notwithstanding plaintiff's record. An examining physician concluded that plaintiff's homosexuality caused no problems in his work. The Army requalified plaintiff for admission into the Program in July 1978. In October 1979 plaintiff reenlisted for three years. 551 F.Supp. at 220. Based on these undisputed facts, the district court stated that the Army's position that Army personnel responsible for Watkins' enlistment and reenlistments did not know that he was homosexual was "patently absurd." Id. "For the Army to acknowledge that it is aware of plaintiff's homosexuality when it comes to conducting criminal investigations, holding discharge proceedings, and revoking security clearances, but maintain that it is ignorant when four enlistments are at issue, suggests bad faith." Id. The district court concluded that the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, who is primarily responsible for Army reenlistment, cannot be deemed to be unaware of the contents of Watkins' personnel file. Id. 2. Did the Army Intend that Watkins Act in Reliance on its Conduct, or Did the Army Act so that Watkins Had a Right to Believe the Army so Intended? The district court found that this element of estoppel was satisfied because, regardless of what the Army actually intended, Watkins had a right to believe the Army intended him to rely on its acts. 551 F.Supp. at 221-22. The district court rejected the Army's contention that Watkins had assumed the risk that his Army career would be discontinued at any time because of his homosexuality. Id. at 222. In light of Watkins' candor from the beginning about his homosexuality and the Army's ongoing acts in violation of its regulations,16 the district court found that "[t]aken together, over a career spanning more than 14 years, those acts amounted almost to a policy of ignoring this servicemember's homosexuality. As a matter of law, the court concludes that the second element of plaintiff's estoppel claim has been satisfied." Id.17 See also Johnson, 682 F.2d at 872 (prisoner had right to believe, after his parole computation erroneously had passed successfully through eight administrative reviews, culminating in his ultimate release on parole for fifteen months, that he would remain on parole during good behavior). 3. Was Watkins Ignorant of the True Facts? The district court stated that the "true fact" here is that homosexuality is a nonwaivable disqualification for reenlistment to which the Army cannot grant exceptions. 551 F.Supp. at 222. The Army's repeated waiver of this disqualification makes it impossible for us to charge Watkins with the knowledge that the disqualification was in fact nonwaivable. Id. See Johnson, 682 F.2d at 872 (government's active misadvice to prisoner regarding his eligibility for parole prevented court from charging prisoner with even constructive knowledge of proper meaning of statute in question). 4. Did Watkins Rely to his Injury on the Army's Conduct Concerning his Homosexuality? Regarding this fourth element, the district court stated: Tied up in litigation, less than six years from retirement, having invested a total of more than 14 years in the Army, it is not difficult to see that plaintiff has relied to his injury on the many "green lights" he received from Army representatives. Plaintiff developed skills necessary for military employment and refrained from developing skills suitable for civilian jobs. He worked more than 14 years toward a retirement benefit that he could have sought elsewhere. Had the Army refused plaintiff reenlistment in the past, plaintiff would not have lost the opportunity for civilian employment that would have brought him to a point of equivalent achievement. 551 F.Supp. at 223. We agree with District Judge Rothstein that the four elements of traditional estoppel are present in this case. This is a case where equity cries out and demands that the Army be estopped from refusing to reenlist Watkins on the basis of his homosexuality. We therefore reinstate the district court's October 5, 1982 Order estopping the Army from relying on its reenlistment regulation, AR 601-280 p 2-24(c), as a bar to Sgt. Watkins' reenlistment. See 551 F.Supp. at 223.18 Our opinions in Watkins I and Watkins II are withdrawn. The district court Order of June 17, 1985 is vacated and the district court Order of October 5, 1982 is AFFIRMED. NORRIS, Circuit Judge, concurring in the judgment: * I concur in the judgment requiring the Army to reconsider Sgt. Watkins' reenlistment application without regard to his homosexuality. I cannot join the majority's opinion, however, because I agree with the dissent that the judgment cannot rest on the doctrine of equitable estoppel. The Supreme Court has declined to approve the invocation of equitable estoppel against the government even in cases where the facts are no less sympathetic than the facts in Sgt. Watkins' case. See, e.g., INS v. Miranda, 459 U.S. 14, 17-19, 103 S.Ct. 281, 282-84, 74 L.Ed.2d 12 (1982) (per curiam) (reversing Ninth Circuit decision equitably estopping INS from denying resident status to alien spouse of citizen when petitioner became ineligible during INS delay in processing application); INS v. Hibi, 414 U.S. 5, 94 S.Ct. 19, 38 L.Ed.2d 7 (1973) (per curiam) (reversing Ninth Circuit decision equitably estopping INS from denying citizenship to Filipino war veteran); Montana v. Kennedy, 366 U.S. 308, 314-15, 81 S.Ct. 1336, 1340-41, 6 L.Ed.2d 313 (1961) (government not estopped to deny citizenship to child of U.S. citizen born while his mother was living abroad, even though government official advised her that she could not return to the U.S. to have her baby). Indeed, the Supreme Court has expressed uncertainty as to whether equitable estoppel can ever be invoked against the government. See Heckler v. Community Health Servs., 467 U.S. 51, 60-61, 104 S.Ct. 2218, 2224, 81 L.Ed.2d 42 (1984). In any event, I see no justification for invoking the doctrine on the facts of this case. In my view, Watkins is entitled to relief because the Army denied him the equal protection of the laws by discharging and refusing to reenlist him solely on the basis of his homosexuality. Before addressing Watkins' claim that the Army's regulations on homosexuality violate equal protection, however, I must address Watkins' non-constitutional claim--that the Army's discharge and reenlistment regulations are arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. Sec. 706(2)(A).1 I reject this claim because Watkins does not argue that the Army's regulations on homosexuality themselves violate the Administrative Procedure Act; rather he argues only that the regulations are arbitrary as applied to the facts of his case. Because he does not argue that the regulations on their face are arbitrary or capricious, Watkins' APA claim must fail. See Watkins I, 721 F.2d at 690-91. I now turn to Watkins' claim that the Army's regulations deny him equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fifth Amendment.2 Watkins argues that the Army's regulations constitute an invidious discrimination based on sexual orientation.3 To evaluate this claim I must engage in a three-stage inquiry. First, I must decide whether the regulations in fact discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Second, I must decide which level of judicial scrutiny applies by asking whether discrimination based on sexual orientation burdens a suspect or quasi-suspect class,4 which would make it subject, respectively, to strict or intermediate scrutiny. See City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, 473 U.S. 432, 439-41, 105 S.Ct. 3249, 3253-55, 87 L.Ed.2d 313 (1985). If the discrimination burdens no such class, it is subject to ordinary rationality review. Id. Finally, I must decide whether the challenged regulations survive the applicable level of scrutiny by deciding whether, under strict scrutiny, the legal classification is necessary to serve a compelling governmental interest; whether, under intermediate scrutiny, the classification is substantially related to an important governmental interest; or whether, under rationality review, the classification is rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest. See id. I turn first to the threshold question raised by Watkins' equal protection claim: Do the Army's regulations discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation? The portion of the Army's reenlistment regulation that bars homosexuals from reenlisting states in full: Applicants to whom the disqualifications below apply are ineligible for RA [Regular Army] reenlistment at any time and requests for waiver or exception to policy will not be submitted.... c. Persons of questionable moral character and a history of antisocial behavior, sexual perversion or homosexuality. A person who has committed homosexual acts or is an admitted homosexual but as to whom there is no evidence that they have engaged in homosexual acts either before or during military services is included. (See note 1).... k. Persons being discharged under AR 635-200 for homosexuality.... Note: Homosexual acts consist of bodily contact between persons of the same sex, actively undertaken or passively permitted, with the intent of obtaining or giving sexual satisfaction, or any proposal, solicitation, or attempt to perform such an act. Persons who have been involved in homosexual acts in an apparently isolated episode, stemming solely from immaturity, curiousity [sic], or intoxication, and in the absence of other evidence that the person is a homosexual, normally will not be excluded from reenlistment. A homosexual is a person, regardless of sex, who desires bodily contact between persons of the same sex, actively undertaken or passively permitted, with the intent to obtain or give sexual gratification. Any official, private, or public profession of homosexuality, may be considered in determining whether a person is an admitted homosexual. AR 601-280, p 2-21. Although worded in somewhat greater detail, the Army's regulation mandating the separation of homosexual soldiers from service (discharge), AR 635-200, is essentially the same in substance.5 On their face, these regulations discriminate against homosexuals on the basis of their sexual orientation. Under the regulations any homosexual act or statement of homosexuality gives rise to a presumption of homosexual orientation, and anyone who fails to rebut that presumption is conclusively barred from Army service. In other words, the regulations target homosexual orientation itself. The homosexual acts and statements are merely relevant, and rebuttable, indicators of that orientation. In spite of these facial appearances, the Army argues that its regulations target homosexual conduct rather than orientation. I cannot agree. A close reading of the complex regulations leaves no room for doubt that the regulations target orientation rather than conduct. Under the Army's regulations, "homosexuality," not sexual conduct, is clearly the operative trait for disqualification. AR 601-280, p 2-21(c); see also AR 635-200, p 15-1(a) (articulating the same goal). For example, the regulations ban homosexuals who have done nothing more than acknowledge their homosexual orientation even in the absence of evidence that the persons ever engaged in any form of sexual conduct. The reenlistment regulation disqualifies any "admitted homosexual"--a status that can be proved by "[a]ny official, private, or public profession of homosexuality" even if "there is no evidence that they have engaged in homosexual acts either before or during military service." AR 601-280, p 2-21(c) & note; see also AR 635-200, p 15-3(b). Since the regulations define a "homosexual" as "a person, regardless of sex, who desires bodily contact between persons of the same sex, actively undertaken or passively permitted, with the intent to obtain or give sexual gratification," a person can be deemed homosexual under the regulations without ever engaging in a homosexual act. 601-280, p 2-21(c) & note (emphasis added); see also A.R. 635-200, 15-2(a) (same desire sufficient to make one homosexual). Thus, no matter what statements a person has made, and what conduct he or she has engaged in, the ultimate evidentiary issue is whether he or she has a homosexual orientation. Under the reenlistment regulation, persons are disqualified from reenlisting only if, based on any "profession of homosexuality" they have made, they are found to have a homosexual orientation. AR 601-280, p 2-21(c) & note. Similarly, under the discharge regulation a soldier must be discharged if "[t]he soldier has stated that he or she is a homosexual or bisexual, unless there is a further finding that the soldier is not a homosexual or bisexual." AR 635-200, p 15-3(b) (emphasis added). In short, the regulations do not penalize all statements of sexual desire, or even only statements of homosexual desire; they penalize only homosexuals who declare their homosexual orientation. True, a "person who has committed homosexual acts" is also presumptively "included" under the reenlistment regulation as a person excludable for "homosexuality." AR 601-280, p 2-21(c); see also AR 635-200, p 15-3(a). But it is clear that this provision is merely designed to round out the possible evidentiary grounds for inferring a homosexual orientation. The regulations define "homosexual acts" to encompass any "bodily contact between persons of the same sex, actively undertaken or passively permitted, with the intent of obtaining or giving sexual satisfaction, or any proposal, solicitation, or attempt to perform such an act." AR 601-280, p 2-21(c) & note; see also AR 635-200, paragraphs 15-2(c) & 15-3(a) (stating the same in slightly different order). Thus, the regulations barring homosexuals from the Army cover any form of bodily contact between persons of the same sex that gives sexual satisfaction--from oral and anal intercourse to holding hands, kissing, caressing and any number of other sexual acts. Indeed, in this case the Army tried to prove at Watkins' discharge proceedings that he had committed a homosexual act described as squeezing the knee of a male soldier, but failed to prove it was Watkins who did the alleged knee-squeezing. Moreover, even non-sexual conduct can trigger a presumption of homosexuality: The regulations provide for the discharge of soldiers who have "married or attempted to marry a person known to be of the same sex ... unless there are further findings that the soldier is not a homosexual or bisexual." AR 635-200, p 15-3(c) (emphasis added). With all the acts and statements that can serve as presumptive evidence of homosexuality under the regulations, it is hard to think of any grounds for inferring homosexual orientation that are not included.6 The fact remains, however, that homosexual orientation, not homosexual conduct, is plainly the object of the Army's regulations. Moreover, under the regulations a person is not automatically disqualified from Army service just because he or she committed a homosexual act. Persons may still qualify for the Army despite their homosexual conduct if they prove to the satisfaction of Army officials that their orientation is heterosexual rather than homosexual. To illustrate, the discharge regulation provides that a soldier who engages in homosexual acts can escape discharge if he can show that the conduct was "a departure from the soldier's usual and customary behavior" that "is unlikely to recur because it is shown, for example, that the act occurred because of immaturity, intoxication, coercion, or a desire to avoid military service" and that the "soldier does not desire to engage in or intend to engage in homosexual acts." AR 635-200, p 15-3(a). The regulation expressly states, "The intent of this policy is to permit retention only of nonhomosexual soldiers who, because of extenuating circumstances engaged in, attempted to engage in, or solicited a homosexual act." Id. at note (emphasis in original). Similarly, the Army's ban on reenlisting persons who have committed homosexual acts does not apply to "[p]ersons who have been involved in homosexual acts in an apparently isolated episode, stemming solely from immaturity, curiousity [sic], or intoxication, and in the absence of other evidence that the person is a homosexual." AR 601-280, p 2-21 note. If a straight soldier and a gay soldier of the same sex engage in homosexual acts because they are drunk, immature or curious, the straight soldier may remain in the Army while the gay soldier is automatically terminated. In short, the regulations do not penalize soldiers for engaging in homosexual acts; they penalize soldiers who have engaged in homosexual acts only when the Army decides that those soldiers are actually gay.7 In sum, the discrimination against homosexual orientation under these regulations is about as complete as one could imagine. The regulations make any act or statement that might conceivably indicate a homosexual orientation evidence of homosexuality; that evidence is in turn weighed against any evidence of a heterosexual orientation. It is thus clear in answer to my threshold equal protection inquiry that the regulations directly burden the class consisting of persons of homosexual orientation. * Before reaching the question of the level of scrutiny applicable to discrimination based on sexual orientation and the question whether the Army's regulations survive the applicable level of scrutiny, I first address the Army's argument that Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186, 106 S.Ct. 2841, 92 L.Ed.2d 140 (1986), forecloses Watkins' equal protection claim. In Hardwick, the Court rejected a claim by a homosexual that a Georgia statute criminalizing sodomy deprived him of his liberty without due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. More specifically, the Court held that the constitutionally protected right to privacy--recognized in cases such as Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965), and Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438, 92 S.Ct. 1029, 31 L.Ed.2d 349 (1972)--does not extend to acts of consensual homosexual sodomy.8 See id. 478 U.S. at 190-96, 106 S.Ct. at 2843-46. The Court's holding was limited to this due process question. The parties did not argue and the Court explicitly did not decide the question whether the Georgia sodomy statute might violate the equal protection clause. See id. at 196, n. 8,9 106 S.Ct. at 2846 n. 8. The Army nonetheless argues that it would be "incongruous" to hold that its regulations deprive gays of equal protection of the laws when Hardwick holds that there is no constitutionally protected privacy right to engage in homosexual sodomy. Army's Second Supp. Brief at 19. I could not disagree more. First, while Hardwick does indeed hold that the due process clause provides no substantive privacy protection for acts of private homosexual sodomy, nothing in Hardwick suggests that the state may penalize gays merely for their sexual orientation. Cf. Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660, 82 S.Ct. 1417, 8 L.Ed.2d 758 (1962) (holding that state violated due process by criminalizing the status of narcotics addiction, even though the state could criminalize the use of the narcotics--conduct in which narcotics addicts by definition are prone to engage). In other words, the class of persons involved in Hardwick--those who engage in homosexual sodomy--is not congruous with the class of persons targeted by the Army's regulations--those with a homosexual orientation. Hardwick was a "conduct" case; Watkins' is an "orientation" case.10 Second, and more importantly, Hardwick does not foreclose Watkins' claim because Hardwick was a due process, not an equal protection case.11 Although the Army acknowledges, as it must, that Hardwick does not discuss equal protection explicitly, the Army nonetheless argues that Hardwick's discussion of due process has equal protection implications. Specifically, the Army argues that the Hardwick Court, in holding that the criminalization of homosexual sodomy does not violate due process, decided sub silentio that the criminalization of heterosexual sodomy would violate due process. The Army concludes from this that Hardwick is controlling precedent that the government may discriminate against homosexuals without violating equal protection. Both the premise and the conclusion of the Army's argument are mistaken. In the first place, Hardwick did not decide sub silentio that heterosexual sodomy is constitutionally protected. Indeed, the Court expressly refused to take a position on whether heterosexual sodomy was protected by the due process clause.12 Second, even if we accept, arguendo, the Army's premise that the Hardwick Court drew a distinction between homosexual sodomy and heterosexual sodomy for due process purposes, such a distinction under the due process clause would have no bearing on whether the equal protection clause nonetheless prohibits official discrimination against homosexuals. I discuss these points in turn. Implicit in the Army's position is the proposition that the Court in Hardwick somehow did decide that the due process clause prohibits a state from criminalizing heterosexual sodomy. That is, the Army reads Justice White's opinion in Hardwick as extending the zone of privacy first recognized in Griswold to heterosexual sodomy, thus drawing a due process line between heterosexual and homosexual sodomy. That reading of Hardwick flies directly in the face of footnote 2, which expressly reserves the question of the constitutionality of the Georgia statute as applied to heterosexual sodomy. See 478 U.S. at 188 n. 2, 106 S.Ct. at 2842 n. 2.13 Even apart from the Court's express reservation of this question, the Army's reading of Hardwick is untenable. I see no basis for reading Hardwick as holding sub silentio that a right to engage in heterosexual sodomy is "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition" or "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty"--which would be necessary for heterosexual sodomy to qualify for due process protection under Hardwick 's analysis.14 Note that when the Court found the suggestion that homosexual sodomy qualified for due process protection to be "at best, facetious," 478 U.S. at 194, 106 S.Ct. at 2846, it relied upon the historical fact that sodomy was a criminal offense at common law, under the laws of all 13 colonies, and, until 1961, under the laws of all 50 states. 478 U.S. at 192-94, 106 S.Ct. at 2844-46. Note further that the Court did not find it significant that these laws, as Justice Stevens pointed out in his dissent, drew no distinction between homosexual and heterosexual sodomy. See 478 U.S. at 214-15, 106 S.Ct. at 2856-57.15 They outlawed all acts of sodomy, both homosexual and heterosexual. In light of the historical record relied upon by the Court, there is no way to read Hardwick as establishing that heterosexual sodomy is "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition" while homosexual sodomy is not. I find it untenable, then, to interpret Hardwick as extending due process protection to heterosexual conduct while denying such protection to homosexual conduct. It is hard to imagine that the Court in Hardwick intended to suggest that acts of heterosexual sodomy implicate higher constitutional values than acts of homosexual sodomy. Even if, as the Army implicitly argues, Hardwick did in fact extend constitutional protection to heterosexual sodomy while denying it to homosexual sodomy, such a differentiation between heterosexual and homosexual sodomy for due process purposes would have no bearing--none--on the entirely separate question whether official discrimination against homosexuals violates the equal protection clause. The relevant inquiry in equal protection jurisprudence is fundamentally different from the relevant due process inquiry. The due process clause, as the Court recognized in Hardwick, protects practices which are "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition." The equal protection clause, in contrast, protects minorities from discriminatory treatment at the hands of the majority. Its purpose is not to protect traditional values and practices, but to call into question such values and practices when they operate to burden disadvantaged minorities. As Professor Sunstein puts it: From its inception, the Due Process Clause has been interpreted largely (though not exclusively) to protect traditional practices against short-run departures. The clause has therefore been associated with a particular conception of judicial review, one that sees the courts as safeguards against novel developments brought about by temporary majorities who are insufficiently sensitive to the claims of history. The Equal Protection Clause, by contrast, has been understood as an attempt to protect disadvantaged groups from discriminatory practices, however deeply engrained and longstanding. The Due Process Clause often looks backward; it is highly relevant to the Due Process issue whether an existing or time-honored convention, described at the appropriate level of generality, is violated by the practice under attack. By contrast, the Equal Protection Clause looks forward, serving to invalidate practices that were widespread at the time of its ratification and that were expected to endure. The two clauses therefore operate along different tracks. Sunstein, supra note 10, at 1163. The Supreme Court did not decide in Hardwick--and indeed has never decided in any case--whether discrimination against homosexuals violates equal protection. All Hardwick decided is that homosexual sodomy is not a practice so "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition" that it falls within the zone of personal privacy protected by the due process clause. It is perfectly consistent to say that homosexual sodomy is not a practice so deeply rooted in our traditions as to merit due process protection, and at the same time to say, for example, that because homosexuals have historically been subject to invidious discrimination, laws which burden homosexuals as a class should be subjected to heightened scrutiny under the equal protection clause. Indeed, the two propositions may be complementary: In all probability, homosexuality is not considered a deeply-rooted part of our traditions precisely because homosexuals have historically been subjected to invidious discrimination. In any case, homosexuals do not become "fair game" for discrimination simply because their sexual practices are not considered part of our mainstream traditions. A hypothetical may help make the point. Suppose a city passed a "single family occupancy" housing ordinance allowing only members of the immediate, nuclear family to live in the same house.16 Suppose further that a disproportionate number of black families in the community lived together in extended families that included, for example, cousins and grandparents.17 Finally, suppose the ordinance was motivated by a racially discriminatory purpose.18 A black family challenging the ordinance could raise a due process claim, arguing that the ordinance impermissibly intruded on "deeply rooted" family traditions. In real life, the Court found such a due process claim persuasive.19 But suppose the Court had rejected the due process claim. Suppose the Court had instead agreed with the city of East Cleveland that the privacy interests protected by the Constitution do not include extended family relationships--that the due process clause does not "give grandmothers any fundamental rights with respect to grandsons."20 In that event, the black family could still challenge the ordinance on equal protection grounds, arguing that the ordinance discriminated against blacks. Could anyone seriously maintain that the Court's hypothetical refusal to give due process protection to "extended family" living would have any bearing on the black family's equal protection claim? Of course not. And the black family's equal protection claim would be no less viable even if the Court in the hypothetical had ruled that due process does protect the nuclear family (in the hypothetical, the form disproportionately favored by the whites in the community) but does not protect the extended family (disproportionately favored by blacks). The relationship between Hardwick and Watkins' case is exactly the same as the relationship between the due process and equal protection claims in this hypothetical. Whether homosexual conduct is protected by the due process clause is an entirely separate question from whether the equal protection clause prohibits discrimination against homosexuals. And in answering this latter question, it makes no difference whether the Hardwick Court intended to extend due process protection to heterosexual conduct, but not homosexual conduct. In sum, the equal protection question presented by Sgt. Watkins simply is not answered--not in the slightest--by Hardwick. The Army also argues that Hardwick 's concern "about the limits of the Court's role in carrying out its constitutional mandate," 478 U.S. at 190, 106 S.Ct. at 2843, should prevent courts from holding that equal protection doctrine protects homosexuals from discrimination. To be sure, the Court in Hardwick justified its decision to cabin the right to privacy largely by pointing to the problems allegedly created when judges recognize constitutional "rights not readily identifiable in the Constitution's text" and "having little or no cognizable roots in the language or design of the Constitution." 478 U.S. at 191, 194, 106 S.Ct. at 2844, 2846. The Court stressed its concern that such rights might be perceived as involving "the imposition of the Justices' own choice of values on the States and the Federal Government" and that this antidemocratic perception might undermine the legitimacy of the Court. Id. Finally, the Court expressed the more specific concern about potential difficulties in defining the contours of the right to privacy. See id. at 195-96, 106 S.Ct. at 2846-47. Whatever one might think about the Hardwick Court's concerns about substantive due process in general and the right of privacy in particular, these concerns have little if any relevance to equal protection doctrine.21 The right to equal protection of the laws has a clear basis in the text of the Constitution. This principle of equal treatment, when imposed against majoritarian rule, arises from the Constitution itself, not from judicial fiat. Moreover, equal protection doctrine does not prevent the majority from enacting laws based on its substantive value choices. Equal protection simply requires that the majority apply its values evenhandedly. Indeed, equal protection doctrine plays an important role in perfecting, rather than frustrating, the democratic process. The constitutional requirement of evenhandedness advances the political legitimacy of majority rule by safeguarding minorities from majoritarian oppression. The requirement of evenhandedness also facilitates a representation of minorities in government that advances the operation of representative democracy.22 Finally, the practical difficulties of defining the requirements imposed by equal protection, while not insignificant, do not involve the judiciary in the same degree of value-based line-drawing that the Supreme Court in Hardwick found so troublesome in defining the contours of substantive due process. In sum, the driving force behind Hardwick is the Court's ongoing concern with the expansion of rights under substantive due process, not an unbounded antipathy toward a disfavored group. The Army also relies upon Beller v. Middendorf, 632 F.2d 788 (9th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 452 U.S. 905, 101 S.Ct. 3030, 69 L.Ed.2d 405 (1981), Hatheway v. Secretary of the Army, 641 F.2d 1376 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 864, 102 S.Ct. 324, 70 L.Ed.2d 164 (1981), and DeSantis v. Pacific Tel. & Tel. Co., 608 F.2d 327 (9th Cir.1979), to argue that the Ninth Circuit has already rejected the kind of equal protection attack Watkins makes. In my view, the equal protection question Watkins raises--whether the Army's regulations should be subjected to strict scrutiny because homosexuals constitute a suspect class--was not addressed in any of these Ninth Circuit cases. The Army's reliance on Beller is misplaced because Beller, like Hardwick, is a substantive due process case, not an equal protection case. In rejecting a substantive due process challenge to Navy regulations providing for the discharge of personnel who engaged in homosexual acts, our court held in Beller that substantive due process required only that courts balance the governmental and individual interests at stake in a fashion similar to intermediate scrutiny. Beller, 632 F.2d at 805-12. As now-Justice Kennedy's carefully tailored opinion makes clear, Beller's appeal did "not require us to address the question whether consensual private homosexual conduct is a fundamental right as that term is used in equal protection ... [and was] not presented to us as implicating a suspect or quasi-suspect classification.... Substantive due process, not equal protection, was the basis of the constitutional claim, and we address the case in those terms." Id. at 807. Thus, Beller, like Hardwick, has no relevance to Watkins' claim that the challenged governmental regulations discriminate against a suspect class in violation of equal protection doctrine. See Sethy v. Alameda County Water Dist., 545 F.2d 1157, 1159-60 (9th Cir.1976) (en banc) (a prior decision is not precedent on issues that were neither raised by counsel nor discussed in the opinion of the court); Sakamoto v. Duty Free Shoppers, 764 F.2d 1285, 1288 (9th Cir.1985) (same). The Army's reliance on Hatheway v. Secretary of the Army, 641 F.2d 1376 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 864, 102 S.Ct. 324, 70 L.Ed.2d 164 (1981), is also misplaced. In Beller, our court reserved two distinct equal protection questions: first, whether the challenged regulations penalizing homosexual conduct burdened the exercise of a fundamental or important substantive right to engage in certain conduct; second, whether the challenged regulations discriminated against a suspect or quasi-suspect class. As explained below, in Hatheway we clearly answered the first of these discrete equal protection questions. The Army argues, however, that Hatheway also decided the second question reserved in Beller--the question raised in Watkins' claim--whether homosexuals constitute a suspect or quasi-suspect class.23 Hatheway, a soldier convicted of committing sodomy in violation of 10 U.S.C. Sec. 925, claimed that the Army was prosecuting cases involving homosexual sodomy while refusing to prosecute cases involving heterosexual sodomy. Our court "understood Hatheway's claim (that the commission of a homosexual act is an impermissible basis for prosecution) to be an equal protection argument," Hatheway, 641 F.2d at 1382, which we treated as resting on the branch of equal protection doctrine concerned with whether a governmental classification burdens a fundamental or important substantive right to engage in certain conduct. Thus, we explicitly characterized Hatheway's claim "that the commission of a homosexual act is an impermissible basis for prosecution" to be the sort of equal protection claim that "implicate[d] the 'right to be free ... from unwarranted intrusions into one's privacy.' " 641 F.2d at 1382 (quoting Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557, 564, 89 S.Ct. 1243, 1247-48, 22 L.Ed.2d 542 (1969)). We then reasoned that the interest at stake in Hatheway was similar to the substantive interest at stake in Beller. 641 F.2d at 1382. Because in Beller we decided that under the due process clause the right to engage in homosexual conduct merited "heightened solicitude," but not strict scrutiny, in Hatheway we adopted this assessment for the purposes of our fundamental rights equal protection analysis. Accordingly, we applied intermediate scrutiny to the Army's actions and held that "the selection of cases involving homosexual acts for Article 125 prosecutions" was permissible because such prosecutions bore "a substantial relationship to an important government interest." Id. Thus, we rejected Hatheway's claim based on an analysis of the fundamental rights branch of equal protection doctrine, the branch of equal protection doctrine upon which Watkins does not rely. The Army argues that Hatheway should nonetheless be read as having decided the suspect class question. In support of this argument, the Army relies upon a single sentence in a footnote--the opinion's only reference to suspect class analysis. In footnote 6 we wrote: "Though '[t]he courts have not designated homosexuals a "suspect" or "quasi-suspect" classification so as to require more exacting scrutiny,' DeSantis v. Pacific Tel. & Tel. Co., 608 F.2d 327, 333 (9th Cir.1979), heightened scrutiny is independently required where a classification penalizes the exercise of a fundamental right. See Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 634, 89 S.Ct. 1322, 1331, 22 L.Ed.2d 600 (1969)." 641 F.2d at 1382 n. 6. Although I recognize that the intended purpose of this footnote is not entirely clear, I cannot fairly read this passing reference as an adjudication of the important and unresolved constitutional question whether homosexuals constitute a suspect or quasi-suspect class for the purpose of equal protection analysis. Rather, I read footnote 6 as simply clarifying the distinction between the suspect class and fundamental rights branches of equal protection doctrine while acknowledging that at the time of the Hatheway decision courts had not yet decided whether homosexuals constitute a suspect or quasi-suspect class. That the critical language in footnote 6 is taken directly from our opinion in DeSantis, 608 F.2d at 327, informs our reading. In DeSantis, we acknowledged that our court had not yet designated homosexuals as a suspect or quasi-suspect class, but we did not decide that homosexuals should not be so designated. See infra at 722-23. Similarly, in footnote 6 of Hatheway, we remarked on the existing state of the law with respect to homosexuals without deciding the open question whether homosexuals constitute a suspect or quasi-suspect class. In other words, I read Hatheway as interpreting the equal protection claim presented as resting solely on the fundamental rights branch of equal protection analysis. Hatheway is also distinguishable from this case because, like both Hardwick and Beller, Hatheway involved a classification based on homosexual conduct, not homosexual orientation. As I note throughout my opinion, this distinction is relevant to an analysis of Watkins' particular equal protection claim. Because I read Hatheway as not deciding the suspect class issue, and because the suspect class and fundamental rights branches of equal protection doctrine involve very separate inquiries, see e.g., San Antonio School Indep. District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 18-39, 93 S.Ct. 1278, 1288-1300, 36 L.Ed.2d 16 (1973); Perry, Modern Equal Protection, 79 Colum.L.Rev. 1023, 1074-83 (1979); Developments in the Law--Equal Protection, 82 Harv.L.Rev. 1065, 1087-1131 (1969), Hatheway does not stand in the way of Watkins' equal protection claim.24 Finally, I must reject the Army's contention that in DeSantis v. Pacific Tel. & Tel. Co., 608 F.2d 327 (9th Cir.1979), our court held that homosexuals do not constitute a suspect or quasi-suspect class. In DeSantis, we considered whether homosexuals were a protected class within the meaning of 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1985(3), which secures a right of action against private parties who conspire to deprive "any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws." We held that section 1985(3) protects only those groups that have been previously determined by Congress or the courts to need special Federal assistance in protecting their civil rights. 608 F.2d at 333.25 Applying this standard, we concluded that homosexuals could not receive the protection of section 1985(3), in part because "[t]he courts have not designated homosexuals a 'suspect' or 'quasi-suspect' classification," 608 F.2d at 333 (emphasis added). We did not, and did not need to, consider whether homosexuals should be considered a suspect class. Thus, our decision that section 1985(3) did not protect homosexuals turned simply on the point that courts had not yet designated homosexuals a suspect class. Although DeSantis does not articulate the reasons that section 1985(3) requires a prior governmental determination, it seems likely--since section 1985(3) authorizes suits against private individuals and requires no state action--that our court's interpretation of the statute was animated by concerns about providing potential defendants with sufficient notice of the statute's scope. Cf. Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188, 192, 97 S.Ct. 990, 993, 51 L.Ed.2d 260 (1977) (judicial enlargement of the scope of criminal statute without fair notice violates due process). While neither the Supreme Court nor the Ninth Circuit has decided the question presented in Watkins' appeal--whether persons of homosexual orientation constitute a suspect class under equal protection doctrine--several other circuits have considered the different but related question whether laws burdening the class of individuals engaging in homosexual conduct trigger heightened scrutiny under the equal protection clause. Only one circuit, however, has given the issue more than cursory treatment.26 In Padula v. Webster, 822 F.2d 97 (D.C.Cir.1987), the District of Columbia Circuit rejected an equal protection challenge to the FBI's policy of discriminating against "practicing homosexuals" in its hiring decisions. The D.C. Circuit did not analyze whether the class of persons engaging in homosexual conduct satisfies the traditional indicia of suspectness, see infra at 723-728, but rather concluded summarily (as the Army urges us to do here) that "[i]t would be quite anomalous, on its face, to declare status defined by conduct that states may constitutionally criminalize as deserving of strict scrutiny under the equal protection clause." Id. at 103. The D.C. Circuit reasoned that "[i]f the [Supreme] Court [in Hardwick ] was unwilling to object to state laws that criminalize the behavior that defines the class, it is hardly open to a lower court to conclude that state sponsored discrimination against the class is invidious. After all, there can hardly be more palpable discrimination against a class than making the conduct that defines the class criminal." Id. Padula 's reasoning rests on the false premise that Hardwick issues a blanket approval for discrimination against homosexuals. To repeat what I said above, Hardwick held only that the constitutionally protected right to privacy does not extend to homosexual sodomy. The case had nothing to do with equal protection. I see no principled way to transmogrify the Court's holding that the due process clause permits states to criminalize specific sexual conduct commonly engaged in by homosexuals into a holding that the equal protection clause gives states a license to pass "homosexual laws"--laws imposing special restrictions on gays because they are gay. Thus, I find Padula unpersuasive. Moreover, as I have reiterated thoughout this opinion, the regulations at issue here target orientation, not conduct--the trait at issue in Padula. In sum, no federal appellate court27 has decided the critical issue raised by Watkins' claim: whether persons of homosexual orientation constitute a suspect class under equal protection doctrine. To be sure, Hardwick forecloses Watkins from making a due process claim that the Army's regulations impinge on an asserted fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy. But Watkins makes no such claim. Rather, he claims only that the Army's regulations discriminate against him because of his membership in a disfavored group--homosexuals. This claim is not barred by precedent. I now address the merits of Watkins' argument that the Army's regulations must be subjected to strict scrutiny because homosexuals constitute a suspect class under equal protection jurisprudence. The Supreme Court has identified several factors that guide our suspect class inquiry. I now turn to each of these factors. The first factor the Supreme Court generally considers is whether the group at issue has suffered a history of purposeful discrimination. See, e.g., Cleburne, 473 U.S. at 441, 105 S.Ct. at 3254-55; Massachusetts Bd. of Retirement v. Murgia, 427 U.S. 307, 313, 96 S.Ct. 2562, 2566-67, 49 L.Ed.2d 520 (1976); Rodriguez, 411 U.S. at 28, 93 S.Ct. at 1293-94; Frontiero, 411 U.S. at 684-85, 93 S.Ct. at 1769-70 (plurality). As the Army concedes,28 it is indisputable that "homosexuals have historically been the object of pernicious and sustained hostility." Rowland v. Mad River Local School Dist., 470 U.S. 1009, 1014, 105 S.Ct. 1373, 1376-77, 84 L.Ed.2d 392 (1985) (Brennan, J., dissenting from denial of cert.). Recently courts have echoed the same harsh truth: "Lesbians and gays have been the object of some of the deepest prejudice and hatred in American society." High Tech Gays v. Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office, 668 F.Supp 1361, 1369 (1987) (invalidating Defense Department practice of subjecting gay security clearance applicants to more exacting scrutiny than heterosexual applicants); see also BenShalom v. Secretary of the Army, 703 F.Supp. 1372 (1989) (homosexuals historically subject to discrimination). Discrimination against homosexuals has been pervasive in both the public and private sectors. Legislative bodies have excluded homosexuals from certain jobs and schools, and have prevented homosexuals marriage. In the private sphere, homosexuals continue to face discrimination in jobs, housing and churches. See generally Note, An Argument for the Application of Equal Protection Heightened Scrutiny to Classifications Based on Homosexuality, 57 S.Cal.L.Rev. 797, 824-25 (1984) (documenting the history of discrimination). Moreover, reports of violence against homosexuals have become commonplace in our society. In sum, the discrimination faced by homosexuals is plainly no less pernicious or intense than the discrimination faced by other groups already treated as suspect classes, such as aliens or people of a particular national origin. See, e.g., Cleburne, 473 U.S. at 440, 105 S.Ct. at 3254 (identifying suspect groups). The second factor that the Supreme Court considers in suspect class analysis is difficult to capsulize and may in fact represent a cluster of factors grouped around a central idea--whether the discrimination embodies a gross unfairness that is sufficiently inconsistent with the ideals of equal protection to term it "invidious." Consideration of this additional factor makes sense. After all, discrimination exists against some groups because the animus is warranted--no one could seriously argue that burglars form a suspect class. See Tribe, The Puzzling Persistence of Process-Based Constitutional Theories, 89 Yale L.J. 1063, 1075 (1980); Note, supra, at 814-815 & nn. 115-116. In giving content to this concept of gross unfairness, the Court has considered (1) whether the disadvantaged class is defined by a trait that "frequently bears no relation to ability to perform or contribute to society," Frontiero, 411 U.S. at 686, 93 S.Ct. at 1770 (plurality); (2) whether the class has been saddled with unique disabilities because of prejudice or inaccurate stereotypes; and (3) whether the trait defining the class is immutable. See Cleburne, 473 U.S. at 440-44, 105 S.Ct. at 3254-57; Plyler, 457 U.S. at 216 n. 14, 219 n. 19, 220, 223, 102 S.Ct. at 2394 n. 14, 2395-96 n. 19, 2396, 2397-98; Murgia, 427 U.S. at 313, 96 S.Ct. at 2566-67; Frontiero, 411 U.S. at 685-87, 93 S.Ct. at 1769-71 (plurality). I consider these questions in turn. Sexual orientation plainly has no relevance to a person's "ability to perform or contribute to society." Sergeant Watkins' exemplary record of military service stands as a testament to quite the opposite. Moreover, as the Army itself concluded, there is not a scintilla of evidence that Watkins' avowed homosexuality "had either a degrading effect upon unit performance, morale or discipline, or upon his own job performance." ER at 26c. This irrelevance of sexual orientation to the quality of a person's contribution to society also suggests that classifications based on sexual orientation reflect prejudice and inaccurate stereotypes--the second indicium of a classification's gross unfairness. See Cleburne, 473 U.S. at 440-441, 105 S.Ct. at 3254-55. I agree with Justice Brennan that "discrimination against homosexuals is 'likely ... to reflect deep-seated prejudice rather than ... rationality.' " Rowland, 470 U.S. at 1014, 105 S.Ct. at 1376-77 (Brennan, J., dissenting from denial of cert.) (quoting Plyler, 457 U.S. at 216 n. 14, 102 S.Ct. at 2394 n. 14). The Army suggests that the opprobrium directed towards gays does not constitute prejudice in the pejorative sense of the word, but rather is simply appropriate public disapproval of persons who engage in immoral behavior. The Army equates homosexuals with sodomists and justifies its regulations as simply reflecting a rational bias against a class of persons who engage in criminal acts of sodomy. In essence, the Army argues that homosexuals, like burglars, cannot form a suspect class because they are criminals. The Army's argument rests on two false premises. First, as I have noted throughout this opinion, the class burdened by the regulations at issue in this case is defined by the sexual orientation of its members, not by their sexual conduct. See supra at 712-716. To my knowledge, homosexual orientation itself has never been criminalized in this country. Moreover, any attempt to criminalize the status of an individual's sexual orientation would present grave constitutional problems. See generally Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660, 82 S.Ct. 1417, 8 L.Ed.2d 758 (1962). Second, little of the homosexual conduct covered by the regulations is criminal. The regulations reach many forms of homosexual conduct other than sodomy such as kissing, hand-holding, caressing, and hand-genital contact. Yet, sodomy is the only consensual adult sexual conduct that Congress has criminalized, 10 U.S.C. Sec. 925. Indeed, the Army points to no law, federal or state, which criminalizes any form of private consensual homosexual behavior other than sodomy. The Army's argument that its regulations merely ban a class of criminals might be relevant, although not necessarily persuasive, if the class at issue were limited to sodomists. But the class banned from Army service is not comprised of sodomists, or even of homosexual sodomists; the class is comprised of persons of homosexual orientation whether or not they have engaged in sodomy. Finally, I turn to immutability as an indicator of gross unfairness. The Supreme Court has never held that only classes with immutable traits can be deemed suspect. Cf., e.g., Cleburne, 473 U.S. at 442 n. 10, 105 S.Ct. at 3255-56 n. 10 (casting doubt on immutability theory); id. at 440-441 (stating the defining characteristics of suspect classes without mentioning immutability); Murgia, 427 U.S. at 313, 96 S.Ct. at 256667 (same); Rodriguez, 411 U.S. at 28, 93 S.Ct. at 1293-94 (same). I nonetheless consider immutability because the Supreme Court has often focused on immutability, see, e.g., Plyler, 457 U.S. at 220, 102 S.Ct. at 2396; Frontiero, 411 U.S. at 686, 93 S.Ct. at 1770 (plurality), and has sometimes described the recognized suspect classes as having immutable traits, see, e.g., Parham v. Hughes, 441 U.S. 347, 351, 99 S.Ct. 1742, 1745, 60 L.Ed.2d 269 (1979) (plurality opinion) (describing race, national origin, alienage, illegitimacy, and gender as immutable). It is clear that by "immutability" the Court has never meant strict immutability in the sense that members of the class must be physically unable to change or mask the trait defining their class. People can have operations to change their sex. Aliens can ordinarily become naturalized citizens. The status of illegitimate children can be changed. People can frequently hide their national origin by changing their customs, their names, or their associations. Lighter skinned blacks can sometimes "pass" for white, as can Latinos for Anglos, and some people can even change their racial appearance with pigment injections. See J. Griffin, Black Like Me (1977). At a minimum, then, the Supreme Court is willing to treat a trait as effectively immutable if changing it would involve great difficulty, such as requiring a major physical change or a traumatic change of identity. Reading the case law in a more capacious manner, "immutability" may describe those traits that are so central to a person's identity that it would be abhorrent for government to penalize a person for refusing to change them, regardless of how easy that change might be physically. Racial discrimination, for example, would not suddenly become constitutional if medical science developed an easy, cheap, and painless method of changing one's skin pigment. See Tribe, supra, at 1073-74 n. 52. See generally Note, The Constitutional Status of Sexual Orientation: Homosexuality as a Suspect Classification, 98 Harv.L.Rev. 1285, 1303 (arguing that the ability to change a trait is not as important as whether the trait is a "determinative feature of personality"). With these principles in mind, I have no trouble concluding that sexual orientation is immutable for the purposes of equal protection doctrine. Although the causes of homosexuality are not fully understood, scientific research indicates that we have little control over our sexual orientation and that, once acquired, our sexual orientation is largely impervious to change. See Note, supra, 57 S.Cal.L.Rev. at 817-821 (collecting sources); see also L. Tribe, supra note 23, at 945 n. 17. Scientific proof aside, it seems appropriate to ask whether heterosexuals feel capable of changing their sexual orientation. Would heterosexuals living in a city that passed an ordinance burdening those who engaged in or desired to engage in sex with persons of the opposite sex find it easy not only to abstain from heterosexual activity but also to shift the object of their sexual desires to persons of the same sex? It may be that some heterosexuals and homosexuals can change their sexual orientation through extensive therapy, neurosurgery or shock treatment. See L. Tribe, supra note 23, at 945 n. 17. But see Note, supra, 57 S.Cal.L.Rev. at 820-21 & nn. 147-149. But the possibility of such a difficult and traumatic change does not make sexual orientation "mutable" for equal protection purposes. To express the same idea under the alternative formulation, I conclude that allowing the government to penalize the failure to change such a central aspect of individual and group identity would be abhorrent to the values animating the constitutional ideal of equal protection of the laws. The final factor the Supreme Court considers in suspect class analysis is whether the group burdened by official discrimination lacks the political power necessary to obtain redress from the political branches of government. See, e.g., Cleburne, 473 U.S. at 441, 105 S.Ct. at 3255; Plyler, 457 U.S. at 216 n. 14, 102 S.Ct. at 2394 n. 14; Rodriguez, 411 U.S. at 28, 93 S.Ct. at 1293-94. Courts are understandably reluctant to extend heightened protection under equal protection doctrine to groups fully capable of securing their rights through the political process. It cannot be seriously disputed, however, that homosexuals as a group cannot protect their right to be free from invidious discrimination by appealing to the political branches. The very fact that homosexuals have historically been underrepresented in and victimized by political bodies is itself strong evidence that they lack the political power necessary to ensure fair treatment at the hands of government. In addition, homosexuals as a group are handicapped by structural barriers that operate to make effective political participation unlikely if not impossible. First, the social, economic, and political pressures to conceal one's homosexuality operate to discourage gays from openly protesting anti-homosexual governmental action. Ironically, by "coming out of the closet" to protest against discriminatory legislation and practices, homosexuals expose themselves to the very discrimination they seek to eliminate. As a result, the voices of many homosexuals are not even heard, let alone counted. Cf. J. Ely, supra note 21, at 163-64. "Because of the immediate and severe opprobrium often manifested against homosexuals once so identified publicly, members of this group are particularly powerless to pursue their rights openly in the political arena." Rowland, 470 U.S. at 1014, 105 S.Ct. at 1376-77 (Brennan, J., dissenting from denial of cert.). Even when gays do come out of the closet to participate openly in politics, the general animus towards homosexuality may render this participation ineffective. Many heterosexuals, including elected officials, find it difficult to empathize with and take seriously the arguments advanced by homosexuals, in large part because of the lack of meaningful interaction between the heterosexual majority and the homosexual minority. Most people have little exposure to gays, both because they rarely encounter gays29 and because--as I noted above--homosexuals are often pressured into concealing their sexual identity. Thus, elected officials sensitive to public prejudice and ignorance, and insensitive to the needs of the homosexual constituency, may refuse to even consider legislation that even appears to be pro-homosexual. See Note, supra, 98 Harv.L.Rev. at 1304 n. 96. Indeed, the Army itself argues that its regulations are justified by the need to "maintain the public acceptability of military service," AR 635-200, p 15-2(a), because "toleration of homosexual conduct ... might be understood as tacit approval" and "the existence of homosexual units might well be a source of ridicule and notoriety." Army's Opening Brief at 17, 19 n. 9, 30-31 n. 18. These barriers to the exercise of political power both reinforce and are reinforced by the underrepresentation of avowed homosexuals in the decisionmaking bodies of government and the inability of homosexuals to prevent legislation hostile to their group interests.30 See Frontiero, 411 U.S. at 686 & n. 17, 93 S.Ct. at 1770 & n. 17 (plurality) (underrepresentation of women in government caused in part by history of discrimination); Cleburne, 473 U.S. at 445, 105 S.Ct. at 3257 (reasoning that the existence of legislation responsive to the needs of the mentally disabled belied the claim that they were politically powerless). In sum, all of the relevant factors drive me to the conclusion that homosexuals constitute a suspect class for equal protection purposes. Moreover, the principles that animate equal protection doctrine--the principles that gave rise to these factors in the first place--reinforce that conclusion. See also J. Ely, supra note 21, at 162-64 (classifications based on homosexuality merit heightened scrutiny); L. Tribe, supra note 23, at 944-45 n. 17 (same). Having concluded that homosexuals constitute a suspect class, I now must subject the Army's regulations facially discriminating against homosexuals to strict scrutiny. Consequently, I may uphold the regulations only if they are " 'necessary to promote a compelling governmental interest.' " Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 342, 92 S.Ct. 995, 1003, 31 L.Ed.2d 274 (1972) (quoting Shapiro, 394 U.S. at 634, 89 S.Ct. at 1331); see also University of Calif. Regents v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 357, 98 S.Ct. 2733, 2782, 57 L.Ed.2d 750 (1978) (Opinion of Brennan, White, Marshall & Blackmun, JJ.). The requirement of necessity means that no less restrictive alternative is available to promote the compelling governmental interest. See Dunn, 405 U.S. at 343, 92 S.Ct. at 1003; Bakke, 438 U.S. at 357, 98 S.Ct. at 2782 (Opinion of four justices). I recognize that even under strict scrutiny, my review of military regulations must be more deferential than comparable review of laws governing civilians. See Goldman v. Weinberger, 475 U.S. 503, 106 S.Ct. 1310, 1313, 89 L.Ed.2d 478 (1986). While the Supreme Court does not "purport to apply a different equal protection test because of the military context, [it does] stress the deference due congressional choices among alternatives in exercising the congressional authority to raise and support armies and make rules for their governance." Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U.S. 57, 71, 101 S.Ct. 2646, 2655, 69 L.Ed.2d 478 (1981) (citing Schlesinger v. Ballard, 419 U.S. 498, 95 S.Ct. 572, 42 L.Ed.2d 610 (1975)). I question whether this special deference is appropriate in Watkins' case given that Congress has chosen not to regulate homosexuality or any form of sexual conduct engaged in by military personnel save for one exception--Congress has chosen to criminalize sodomy by military personnel whether committed "with another person of the same or opposite sex." 10 U.S.C. Sec. 925 (emphasis added). Hence, if anything, section 925 reflects an absence of congressional intent to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. In any case, even granting special deference to the policy choices of the military, I must reject many of the Army's asserted justifications because they illegitimately cater to private biases. For example, the Army argues that it has a valid interest in maintaining morale and discipline by avoiding hostilities and " 'tensions between known homosexuals and other members [of the armed services] who despise/detest homosexuality.' " Army's Opening Brief at 17 (quoting and incorporating into their argument Beller, 632 F.2d at 811); see also id. at 17-18, 19 n. 9, 30, 30-31 n. 18; Army's Second Supp.Brief at 30-31 & n. 17; AR 635-200, p 15-1(a).31 The Army also expresses its " 'doubts concerning a homosexual officer's ability to command the respect and trust of the personnel he or she commands' " because many lower-ranked heterosexual soldiers despise and detest homosexuality. See Army's Second Supp.Brief at 30-31 (quoting and incorporating Beller, 632 F.2d at 811); see also id. at 31 n. 17; Army's Opening Brief at 17-18, 19 n. 9, 30; AR 635-200, p 15-1(a). Finally, the Army argues that the presence of gays in its ranks "might well be a source of ridicule and notoriety, harmful to the Army's recruitment efforts" and to its public image. Army's Opening Brief at 31 n. 18; see also id. at 15, 17, 19 n. 9, 30; AR 635-200, p 15-1(a). These concerns strike an all-too-familiar chord. For much of our history, the military's fear of racial tension kept black soldiers separated from whites. As recently as World War II both the Army chief of staff and the Secretary of the Navy justified racial segregation in the ranks as necessary to maintain efficiency, discipline, and morale. See G. Ware, William Hastie: Grace Under Pressure 99, 134 (1984).32 Today, it is unthinkable that the judiciary would defer to the Army's prior "professional" judgment that black and white soldiers had to be segregated to avoid interracial tensions. Indeed, the Supreme Court has decisively rejected the notion that private prejudice against minorities can ever justify official discrimination, even when those private prejudices create real and legitimate problems. See Palmore v. Sidoti, 466 U.S. 429, 104 S.Ct. 1879, 80 L.Ed.2d 421 (1984). In Palmore, a state granted custody of a child to her father because her white mother had remarried a black man. The state rested its decision on the best interests of the child, reasoning that, despite improvements in race relations, the social reality was that the child would likely suffer social stigmatization if she had parents of different races. A unanimous Court, in an opinion by Chief Justice Burger, conceded the importance of the state's interest in the welfare of the child, but nonetheless reversed with the following reasoning: It would ignore reality to suggest that racial and ethnic prejudices do not exist or that all manifestations of those prejudices have been eliminated.... The question, however, is whether the reality of private biases and the possible injury they might inflict are permissible considerations for removal of an infant child from the custody of its natural mother. We have little difficulty concluding that they are not. The Constitution cannot control such prejudices but neither can it tolerate them. Private biases may be outside the reach of the law, but the law cannot, directly or indirectly, give them effect. Id. at 433, 104 S.Ct. at 1882. Thus, Palmore forecloses the Army from justifying its ban on homosexuals on the ground that private prejudice against homosexuals would somehow undermine the strength of our armed forces if homosexuals were permitted to serve. See also Cleburne, 473 U.S. at 448, 105 S.Ct. at 3258-60 (even under rationality review of discrimination against group that is neither suspect nor quasi-suspect, catering to private prejudice is not a cognizable state interest). The Army's defense of its regulations, however, goes beyond its professed fear of prejudice in the ranks. Apparently, the Army believes that its regulations rooting out persons with certain sexual tendencies are not merely a response to prejudice, but are also grounded in legitimate moral norms. In other words, the Army believes that its ban against homosexuals simply codifies society's moral consensus that homosexuality is evil. Yet, even accepting arguendo this proposition that anti-homosexual animus is grounded in morality (as opposed to prejudice masking as morality), and assuming further that the Army is an appropriate governmental body to articulate moral norms, equal protection doctrine does not permit notions of majoritarian morality to serve as compelling justification for laws that discriminate against suspect classes. A similar principle animates Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1817, 18 L.Ed.2d 1010 (1967), in which the Supreme Court struck down a Virginia statute outlawing marriages between whites and blacks. Although the Virginia legislature may have adopted this law in the sincere belief that miscegenation--the mixing of racial blood lines--was evil,33 this moral judgment could not justify the statute's discrimination on the basis of race. Like the Army's regulations proscribing sexual acts only when committed by homosexual couples, the Virginia statute proscribed marriage only when undertaken by mixed-race couples. In both cases, the government did not prohibit certain conduct, it prohibited certain conduct selectively--only when engaged in by certain classes of people. Although courts may sometimes have to accept society's moral condemnation as a justification even when the morally condemned activity causes no harm to interests outside notions of morality, see Hardwick, 478 U.S. at 196, 106 S.Ct. at 2847 (accepting moral condemnation as justification under rationality review), our deference to majoritarian notions of morality must be tempered by the equal protection principles which require that those notions be applied evenhandedly. Laws that limit the acceptable focus of one's sexual desires to members of the opposite sex, like laws that limit one's choice of spouse (or sexual partner) to members of the same race, cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny absent a compelling governmental justification. This requirement would be reduced to a nullity if the government's assertion of moral objections only to interracial couples or only to homosexual couples could itself serve as a tautological basis for the challenged classification. The Army's remaining justifications for discriminating against homosexuals may not be illegitimate, but they bear little relation to the regulations at issue. For example, the Army argues that military discipline might be undermined if emotional relationships developed between homosexuals of different military rank. Army's Opening Brief at 17-18, 19 n. 9, 30; AR 635-200, p 15-1(a). Although this concern might be a compelling and legitimate military interest, the Army's regulations are poorly tailored to advance that interest. No one would suggest that heterosexuals are any less likely to develop emotional attachments within military ranks than homosexuals. Yet the Army's regulations do not address the problem of emotional attachments between male and female personnel, which presumably subjects military dicipline to similar stress. Surely, the Army's interest in preventing emotional relationships that could erode military discipline would be advanced much more directly by a ban on all sexual contact between members of the same unit, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex. Cf. Cleburne, 473 U.S. at 449-50, 105 S.Ct. at 3259-60 (rejecting certain asserted justifications under rationality review where the justification would extend to other groups but the challenged classification did not). Here the Army's regulations disqualify all homosexuals whether or not they have developed any emotional or sexual relationships with other soldiers. Also bearing little relation to the regulations is the Army's professed concern with breaches of security. AR 635-200, p 15-1(a). Certainly the Army has a compelling interest in excluding persons who may be susceptible to blackmail. It is evident, however, that homosexuality poses a special risk of blackmail only if a homosexual is secretive about his or her sexual orientation. The Army's regulations do nothing to lessen this problem. Quite the opposite, the regulations ban homosexuals only after they have declared their homosexuality or have engaged in known homosexual acts. The Army's concern about security risks among gays could be addressed in a more sensible and less restrictive manner by adopting a regulation banning only those gays who had lied about or failed to admit their sexual orientation.34 In that way, the Army would encourage, rather than discourage, declarations of homosexuality, thereby reducing the number of closet homosexuals who might indeed pose a security risk. Moreover, even if banning homosexuals could lessen security risks, there appears to be no reason for treating homosexuality as a nonwaivable disqualification from military service while treating other more serious potential sources of blackmail as waivable disqualifications. See AR 635-200, p 14-12(c) & (d) (making drug abuse and the commission of other serious military offenses waivable disqualifications). The Army's regulations violate the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the laws because they discriminate against persons of homosexual orientation, a suspect class, and because the regulations are not necessary to promote a legitimate compelling governmental interest. I would thus reverse the district court's rulings denying Watkins' motion for summary judgment and granting summary judgment in favor of the Army, and remand with instructions to enter a declaratory judgment that the Army Regulations A.R. 635-200, Chapter 15, and 601-280, p 2-21(c), are constitutionally void on their face, and to enter an injunction requiring the Army to consider Watkins' reenlistment application without regard to his sexual orientation. CANBY, Circuit Judge, concurring: I concur wholeheartedly in Judge Pregerson's majority opinion. My concurrence indicates no retreat, however, from my conviction that the Army's discrimination against Watkins because of his homosexual orientation denies him equal protection of the laws. I joined Judge Norris' eloquent opinion so holding in Watkins II, and I agree with everything Judge Norris says today on the equal protection point. Because we are en banc, and the constitutional issue is a recurring one, I think I may appropriately reach it even though equitable estoppel may dispose of the case. CYNTHIA HOLCOMB HALL, Circuit Judge, dissenting. Sergeant Perry Watkins has proven himself to be a loyal, talented, and honest soldier. The majority is rightly impressed by Watkins' uniformly outstanding performance evaluations and the persistent efforts of his immediate superiors to insure his continued advancement in the United States Army. I share the majority's admiration of Watkins' fine service to his country. Watkins' record has but one blemish under Army regulations: his homosexuality. Watkins brought this lawsuit seeking to enjoin the Army from considering his homosexuality in passing upon the merits of his reenlistment application. During Watkins' tenure, Army regulations have always precluded the enlistment of homosexuals. The gravamen of Watkins' claim is that such discrimination against homosexuals constitutes a violation of his right to equal protection under the fifth amendment. The en banc majority shies away from this issue, however, and grants Watkins the relief he seeks on an alternative rationale.1 The majority holds that the Army is equitably estopped from refusing to reenlist him due to the Army's long-standing knowledge of his homosexuality. I dissent from this holding as an unwarranted application of common law principles to matters within the military's expertise. * The original panel in this case held that courts should not review internal military affairs absent "an allegation of the deprivation of a constitutional right or an allegation that the military has acted in violation of applicable statutes or its own regulations." Watkins v. United States Army, 721 F.2d 687, 690 (9th Cir.1983) ("Watkins I "). The Watkins I court took this prerequisite to judicial review of internal military decisions verbatim from the test set forth in Mindes v. Seaman, 453 F.2d 197 (5th Cir.1971), for determining the justiciability2 of claims concerning internal military affairs. The first prong of the Mindes test requires "(a) an allegation of the deprivation of a constitutional right, or an allegation that the military has acted in violation of applicable statutes or its own regulations, and (b) exhaustion of available intraservice corrective measures." Mindes, 453 F.2d at 201. If these prerequisites are met, a court proceeds to the second prong, which requires weighing four factors.3 Most circuits have adopted the Fifth Circuit's Mindes test.4 Furthermore, Mindes is well-established in the Ninth Circuit.5 In a straightforward application of Mindes' first prong, the Watkins I panel found a claim of equitable estoppel to be nonjusticiable because this type of common law claim is not premised on the deprivation of constitutional rights or the violation of applicable statutes or regulations. These prerequisites to judicial scrutiny of military affairs serve to advance a widely recognized goal: minimizing "judicial inquiry into, and hence intrusion upon, military matters." United States v. Stanley, 483 U.S. 669, 107 S.Ct. 3054, 3063, 97 L.Ed.2d 550 (1987). While the majority acknowledges that our cases have accepted the limited nature of judicial regulation of military affairs, it fails to explore how the Mindes prerequisites further this objective. Indeed, the majority does not argue that limiting judicial review to federal constitutional, statutory, and regulatory claims is a bad idea. The majority simply concludes--in ad hoc fashion--that the Mindes prerequisites should be ignored in this case.6 The Supreme Court held in Feres v. United States, 340 U.S. 135, 71 S.Ct. 153, 95 L.Ed. 152 (1950), that the government has no Federal Tort Claims Act liability for injuries to military service members arising out of or in the course of activity incident to military service. The Court's holding in Feres teaches that these are the "type[s] of claims that, if generally permitted, would involve the judiciary in sensitive military affairs at the expense of military discipline and effectiveness." United States v. Shearer, 473 U.S. 52, 59, 105 S.Ct. 3039, 3043-44, 87 L.Ed.2d 38 (1985). "Feres seems to be best explained by the 'peculiar and special relationship of the soldier to his superiors, [and] the effects of the maintenance of such suits on discipline....' " United States v. Muniz, 374 U.S. 150, 162, 83 S.Ct. 1850, 1857-58, 10 L.Ed.2d 805 (1963) (quoting United States v. Brown, 348 U.S. 110, 112, 75 S.Ct. 141, 143, 99 L.Ed. 139 (1954)). The Court recently has held that the military discipline rationale of the Feres doctrine precludes a tort action by a military service member even when a civilian government employee is alleged to be the tortfeasor. United States v. Johnson, 481 U.S. 681, 107 S.Ct. 2063, 95 L.Ed.2d 648 (1987). The Court emphasized that "military discipline involves not only obedience to orders, but more generally duty and loyalty to one's service and to one's country." Id. 107 S.Ct. at 2069. The Court concluded that the mere pendency of a suit against the government by a service member "could undermine the commitment essential to effective service and thus have the potential to disrupt military discipline in the broadest sense of the word." Id. While the suit before the Court involved service-related injuries, the Court's reasoning underscores that all suits by active military personnel against the government they serve have the potential to undermine discipline. The Supreme Court's decision in Chappell v. Wallace, 462 U.S. 296, 103 S.Ct. 2362, 76 L.Ed.2d 586 (1983), relied upon Feres' military discipline rationale to conclude that enlisted military personnel cannot maintain a Bivens7 suit to recover damages from a superior officer for alleged constitutional violations. In Chappell, five Navy enlisted men alleged that certain officers discriminated against them on the basis of race in making duty assignments and performance evaluations. Id. at 297, 103 S.Ct. at 2364. But the Court opined that "[c]ivilian courts must, at the very least, hesitate long before entertaining a suit which asks the court to tamper with the established relationship between enlisted military personnel and their superior officers; that relationship is at the very heart of the necessarily unique structure of the Military Establishment." Id. at 300, 103 S.Ct. at 2365-66. While the Court in Chappell identified the officer-subordinate relationship as especially important, the Court also noted that "[i]t is clear that the Constitution contemplated that the Legislative Branch have plenary control over rights, duties, and responsibilities in the framework of the Military Establishment, including regulations, procedures, and remedies related to military discipline...." Id. at 301, 103 S.Ct. at 2366. This presumption against "congressionally uninvited intrusion into military affairs by the judiciary" explains why the Court has recently expanded upon Chappell to hold that a damages remedy is unavailable even though the defendants were not plaintiff's superior officers and may well have been civilian personnel. Stanley, 107 S.Ct. at 3061, 3063. The Court recognizes that military discipline is adversely affected whenever a service member brings suit in connection with injuries incident to military service. * The Court's decision in Chappell reversed the Ninth Circuit's ruling that the Navy men had alleged a sufficient claim for damages. Finding Mindes ' first prong satisfied, the Ninth Circuit had remanded the case to the district court for consideration of the second prong of Mindes: the weighing of four factors to determine the case's appropriateness for judicial resolution. Chappell, 661 F.2d at 734. While this circuit expressed some initial uncertainty over the continued efficacy of the Mindes test in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Chappell, courts subsequently have applied the Mindes jurisdictional test to claims not directly precluded by the Supreme Court's Chappell decision.8 Broadly speaking, Mindes applies to two types of claims which Chappell does not expressly foreclose: (1) claims strictly seeking injunctive or declaratory relief,9 and (2) damages claims based upon an explicit statute, such as 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 or Sec. 1985(3).10 As Watkins' suit solely seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, it does not run afoul of Chappell 's express holding. The Court's rejection of a damages remedy against military officials in Chappell, and its implied acceptance of claims seeking only declaratory or injunctive relief, highlight the Court's appreciation of the differing nature of these two types of claims. The Court has held that federal executive officials are entitled to qualified immunity against damages claims because damages threaten to undermine "the vigorous exercise of official authority." Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S. 478, 506, 98 S.Ct. 2894, 2910-11, 57 L.Ed.2d 895 (1978); see also Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982).11 But an absolute immunity from suits seeking damages "would seriously erode the protection provided by basic constitutional guarantees." Butz, 438 U.S. at 505, 98 S.Ct. at 2910. Similarly, the availability of certain types of injunctive suits against the military assures "that all individuals, whatever their position in government, are subject to federal law...." Butz, 438 U.S. at 506, 98 S.Ct. at 2910-11 (emphasis added). While suits seeking injunctive relief against military officers are a critical means of assuring the rule of law, claims for injunctive relief do require the courts to second-guess the "considered professional judgment" of military authorities. Goldman v. Weinberger, 475 U.S. 503, 508, 106 S.Ct. 1310, 1313-14, 89 L.Ed.2d 478 (1986) (rejecting first amendment suit seeking to enjoin the Air Force from enforcing a regulation which prohibited plaintiff from wearing yarmulke). Indeed the Mindes decision itself arose solely in the context of a claim for injunctive and declaratory relief in connection with plaintiff's forced separation from active duty. Mindes, 453 F.2d at 198. As suits for injunctive relief interfere with the military mission, albeit to a lesser extent than suits seeking damages, Chappell cannot be read as holding that all injunctive suits are equally well-taken. Accordingly, Mindes appropriately limits the types of claims which may be asserted to those raising federal constitutional, statutory or regulatory matters. "However broad a federal court's discretion concerning equitable remedies, it is absolutely clear ... that in a nondiversity suit a federal court's power to grant even equitable relief depends on the presence of a substantive right derived from federal law." Bivens, 403 U.S. at 400, 91 S.Ct. at 2006-007 (Harlan, J., concurring) (emphasis added). For similar reasons, the Supreme Court has declined to erect the eleventh amendment as a complete bar to federal court jurisdiction of claims alleging unconstitutional conduct by a state actor. See Ex Parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908). "[T]he Young doctrine rests on the need to promote the vindication of federal rights." Pennhurst State School & Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 105, 104 S.Ct. 900, 910, 79 L.Ed.2d 67 (1984). "Young 's applicability has been tailored to conform as precisely as possible to those specific situations in which it is 'necessary to permit the federal courts to vindicate federal rights and hold state officials responsible to 'the supreme authority of the United States.' " Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 277, 106 S.Ct. 2932, 2939-40, 92 L.Ed.2d 209 (1986) (quoting Pennhurst, 465 U.S. at 105, 104 S.Ct. at 910). The eleventh amendment analogy is apt because it also requires balancing the need to vindicate federal rights with the obligation not to intrude excessively upon an area presumptively off-limits to the federal courts. A state's "constitutional immunity" can be likened to the military's "specialized society separate from civilian society." Compare Pennhurst, 465 U.S. at 105, 104 S.Ct. at 910, with Parker v. Levy, 417 U.S. 733, 743, 94 S.Ct. 2547, 2555, 41 L.Ed.2d 439 (1974). But in the eleventh amendment area, a state's immunity stands impenetrable where a plaintiff fails to allege that state officials have violated federal law. "A federal court's grant of relief against state officials on the basis of state law ... does not vindicate the supreme authority of federal law." Pennhurst, 465 U.S. at 106, 104 S.Ct. at 911. In a like manner, the Mindes test insures that judicial intrusions into military matters are limited to the vindication of federal interests. There is no doubt that the majority's intrusion into military affairs, unjustified by important federal interests, will have a disruptive effect upon military discipline. The Watkins I panel stated that "[i]t is clear that a court using its equitable powers to compel superior officers to disobey regulations at the instance of a subordinate is a serious threat to military discipline." Watkins I, 721 F.2d at 690. The majority attempts to downplay its disruption of military discipline by emphasizing the "stringent requirements that must be satisfied before the government will be estopped." Opinion at 706. But the majority fundamentally fails to understand the nature of military discipine as articulated by the Supreme Court. As noted above, the Court's decisions in Stanley and Johnson reveal that the mere pendency of a lawsuit by a service member against the government he serves has an adverse impact on military discipline in the "broadest sense of the word." Johnson, 107 S.Ct. at 2069. Stanley cautioned against the dangers of "compelled depositions and trial testimony by military officers concerning the details of their military commands." Stanley, 107 S.Ct. at 3063; see also Khalsa, 779 F.2d at 1395 n. 1 (litigation "could interfere with military discipline and efficient operations by requiring superior officers to submit to examinations"). Litigation is inherently disruptive, and entails the risk of "erroneous judicial conclusions (which would becloud military decision-making)." Stanley, 107 S.Ct. at 3063. Litigation has certain "social costs[, which] include the expenses of litigation, [and] the diversion of official energy from pressing public issues...." Harlow, 457 U.S. at 814, 102 S.Ct. at 2736. Thus, the majority's prediction that the United States military generally will be successful in estoppel suits does not carry the day. The majority fails to marshal any case law in support of its holding that a common law estoppel claim is justiciable against the military. In fact, the majority distorts our prior case law to make it appear as if its holding is uncontroversial. The majority's steadfast desire to avoid constitutional adjudication does not support its destruction of a valuable justiciability doctrine. * The majority begrudgingly acknowledges that this court has adopted the Mindes test "in part," citing our decision in Chappell in support of this characterization. Opinion at 705-706. The court in Chappell did state in a footnote that "[w]e express no view as to whether the Mindes test should govern federal nonconstitutional claims," 661 F.2d at 733 n. 5, but this hardly supports minimizing this court's faithfulness to Mindes' first prong. First, the majority itself concedes that "[s]ome of our cases following Wallace v. Chappell have used language indicating that an internal military decision is reviewable only when the plaintiff alleges a constitutional, statutory, or regulatory violation." Opinion at 705 n. 10. In fact, all our cases following Chappell have insisted that plaintiff's claims allege a federal constitutional, statutory, or regulatory violation. Second, the majority takes Chappell 's footnote completely out of context. In context, Chappell 's caveat strongly supports the dissent's position. The Ninth Circuit in Chappell was greatly concerned that unnecessary judicial review of military matters would adversely affect discipline. Consequently, the court did indeed limit its adoption of Mindes ' first prong, permitting a narrower group of claims raising only "recognized" constitutional rights. 661 F.2d at 734. In explaining why it limited itself to recognized constitutional claims, the court stated: "We mean only that the allegations must amount to more than a traditional state law claim." Id. (emphasis added). This complete presentation of our decision in Chappell demonstrates that that court's adoption "in part" of Mindes is of no solace to the majority.12 The majority states that it eschews the Mindes test in this case because "[s]uch an extension of the Mindes reviewability doctrine to bar equitable relief would improperly require cases against the military to be decided on the broadest possible grounds rather than on the narrowest." Opinion at 706. But the majority's desire to avoid the difficult equal protection question presented in this case is no reason to dispense with well-established case law. This type of policy concern does not override the established limitations of the federal courts. Plaintiffs in the Pennhurst case similarly argued that the Court's eventual disposition would conflict with "the policy of avoiding unnecessary constitutional decisions...." Pennhurst, 465 U.S. at 121, 104 S.Ct. at 919. In that area of the law, the Court held that "such considerations of policy cannot override the constitutional limitation on the authority of the federal judiciary...." Id. at 123, 104 S.Ct. at 920. Likewise, this policy consideration cannot override the established policy against judicial regulation of military matters absent pressing federal interests. The majority's holding on the merits of Watkins' equitable estoppel claim is also entirely unpersuasive. While the Supreme Court has declined to accept a government invitation to adopt a rule that equitable estoppel may never be invoked against the government, Heckler v. Community Health Services, 467 U.S. 51, 60-61, 104 S.Ct. 2218, 2224, 81 L.Ed.2d 42 (1984), the Court has yet to uphold even one such claim. Notably, the Court has reversed this court's invocation of equitable estoppel many times, on facts no less sympathetic than Watkins'. See, e.g., INS v. Miranda, 459 U.S. 14, 17-19, 103 S.Ct. 281, 282-84, 74 L.Ed.2d 12 (1982) (per curiam) (reversing Ninth Circuit decision equitably estopping INS from denying resident status to alien spouse of citizen when petitioner became ineligible during INS delay in processing application); INS v. Hibi, 414 U.S. 5, 94 S.Ct. 19, 38 L.Ed.2d 7 (1973) (per curiam) (reversing Ninth Circuit decision equitably estopping INS from denying citizenship to Filipino war veteran); see also Montana v. Kennedy, 366 U.S. 308, 314-15, 81 S.Ct. 1336, 1340-41, 6 L.Ed.2d 313 (1961) (government not estopped to deny citizenship to child of U.S. citizen born while his mother was living abroad, even though government official advised her that she could not return to the U.S. to have her baby). The majority's assessment that the Army's treatment of Watkins amounts to "affirmative misconduct" is especially unconvincing and demands refutation. The Supreme Court stated in Heckler that "[w]hen the Government is unable to enforce the law because the conduct of its agents has given rise to an estoppel, the interest of the citizenry as a whole in obedience to the rule of law is undermined." 467 U.S. at 60, 104 S.Ct. at 2224. For this reason, "the Government may not be estopped on the same terms as any other litigant." Id. Accordingly, the courts require that "[a] party seeking to raise estoppel against the government must establish 'affirmative misconduct going beyond mere negligence'...." Wagner v. Director, Federal Emergency Mgmt. Agency, 847 F.2d 515, 519 (9th Cir.1988) (quoting Morgan v. Heckler, 779 F.2d 544, 545 (9th Cir.1985)). The affirmative misconduct prerequisite to governmental estoppel insures that the citizenry's justifiable expectation that the government will enforce the laws uniformly will not be lightly disrupted. The majority fails to appreciate that its failure to give genuine substance to the affirmative misconduct element disrupts this expectation. The majority concludes that "the Army affirmatively misrepresented in its official records throughout Watkins' fourteen-year military career that he was qualified for reenlistment." maj. op. at 707. The misconduct the majority identifies is the Army's failure to enforce its long-standing policy against the enlistment of homosexuals. The Army's prior practice of excusing Watkins' homosexuality, despite regulations precluding his reenlistment, simply was not affirmative misconduct. Equitable estoppel is triggered by "a definite misrepresentation of fact to another person...." Heckler, 467 U.S. at 59, 104 S.Ct. at 2223 (quoting the Restatement (Second) of Torts Sec. 894(1) (1979)). In the context of governmental estoppel, therefore, the key issue is whether the government's definite misrepresentation of fact constitutes affirmative misconduct. The term affirmative suggests a distinction between misfeasance and nonfeasance, though these are "slippery terms." Santiago v. Immigration & Naturalization Service, 526 F.2d 488, 493 (9th Cir.1975) (en banc), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 971, 96 S.Ct. 2167, 48 L.Ed.2d 794 (1976). The Army's prior leniency and understanding in permitting Watkins to reenlist was not a promise or active representation by the Army that its regulation prohibiting homosexuals was a nullity. At most, the Army's conduct in reenlisting Watkins in the past created, by inference, a representation that the Army would overlook its regulation as to a particular enlistment period. Such apparent acquiescence or ambivalence does not meet the threshhold level of misfeasance needed to trigger equitable estoppel against the military. Although the majority strives mightily to distance itself from the facts of Lavin v. Marsh, 644 F.2d 1378 (9th Cir.1981), that effort is ultimately unsuccessful. In Lavin, Army Reserve recruiters induced the plaintiff to enlist by emphasizing pension benefits, and the Reserve subsequently "led Lavin to believe he was working toward pension benefits." Id. at 1382. Nevertheless, the court held that the Army was not equitably estopped from enforcing a years-of-service regulation which required Lavin's removal from the service before he was eligible for pension benefits. In this case, Watkins does not argue that the Army affirmatively informed him that he was not subject to its regulation against the enlistment of homosexuals. As Lavin demonstrates, however, even such a direct misrepresentation can fail to constitute affirmative misconduct. If the word "affirmative" is to have any meaning, the Army must do more than choose not to enforce strictly a regulation on its books. The majority's confusion over the meaning of "affirmative misconduct" is evident. For example, the majority states that the Army "plainly acted affirmatively in admitting, reclassifying, reenlisting, retaining, and promoting Watkins." Opinion at 708. Does the majority really mean to suggest that the Army's reenlistment of Watkins was an act of misconduct? Surely not. Finally, the majority fails to assure that Watkins relied to his detriment on all cited acts of affirmative misconduct.13 The Lavin decision is also especially instructive as to the reasonableness of Watkins' reliance upon his inferential understanding that his homosexuality would not impede his career in the Army. "Persons dealing with the government are charged with knowing government statutes and regulations, and they assume the risk that government agents may exceed their authority and provide misinformation." Lavin, 644 F.2d at 1383. Watkins simply was not justified in assuming that the Army's decision to accept a particular application for reenlistment would insure such acceptance for all time. New administrations must be allowed to pursue new policies so long as these policies do not run afoul of statutory or constitutional provisions. The majority greatly undermines the prerogative of executive officials to implement new programs and policies. Finally, the majority concedes that the government may be estopped only where "the public's interest will not suffer undue damage by imposition of the liability." Opinion at 706-707 (quoting Wagner, 847 F.2d at 519). The majority attempts to finesse this issue by stating that the "harm to the public interest if reenlistment is not prevented is nonexistent.... [because] [p]laintiff has demonstrated that he is an excellent soldier." Opinion at 709. In other words, reenlisting Watkins will not harm the public interest because the majority thinks that the Army is better off with Watkins, even though he is a homosexual, than it would be without him. The majority does not justify the ability of judges to substitute their assessment of a homosexual's impact on military preparedness for the Army's absent substantial federal interests. Courts are not particularly well-suited to determine whether individual homosexual servicemen bring more to the Army than they take from it. In any event, the majority fails even to undertake this task, relying solely upon the undisputed fact that Watkins is an excellent soldier. The Army has concluded that having homosexual soldiers in the Army, even good soldiers like Watkins, interferes with the Army's mission. The majority does not challenge this assessment. Furthermore, the majority fails to acknowledge the ramifications of its holding. We simply have no idea how many "known" homosexuals the Army has reenlisted in years past. By ignoring the ability of other homosexuals to invoke the equitable estoppel rationale advanced by the majority, it greatly minimizes the probable damage to the public interest, as judged by the Army. This dissent has explored the well-established case law which counsels against unnecessary judicial oversight of and intrusion into military matters. In so doing, I have explained how the Mindes doctrine serves as a necessary and logical way to avoid inappropriate inquiry into matters properly within the military's judgment. In my view, Mindes absolutely forecloses Watkins' claim that the Army is equitably estopped from refusing to reenlist him. The majority's disposition of Watkins' equitable estoppel claim is essentially unprecedented. The majority's shallow treatment of precedent presents a misleading account of governing law. Finally, an examination of the merits of Watkins' estoppel claim proves that the majority has failed to heed the Supreme Court's admonition that the government is to be estopped only upon a showing of affirmative misconduct. Based upon the foregoing, I dissent. TROTT, J., concurs in the dissent; BEEZER, J., concurs in parts I, II, III, and the first paragraph of part V; GOODWIN, C.J., concurs in parts I and III. These facts are taken largely from this court's opinion in Watkins v. United States Army, 847 F.2d 1329, 1330-34 (9th Cir.1988), as well as from other prior opinions in this case. See 721 F.2d 687 (9th Cir.1983); 551 F.Supp. 212 (W.D.Wash.1982); 541 F.Supp. 249 (W.D.Wash.1982) Major General Elton, on his own initiative, made an additional finding that Watkins had engaged in homosexual acts with other soldiers. The district court ruled both that Major General Elton lacked the regulatory authority to make supplemental findings, Watkins v. United States Army, 541 F.Supp. 249, 259 (W.D.Wash.1982), and that the evidence presented at the discharge hearing could not support a specific finding that Watkins had engaged in any homosexual conduct after 1968. Id. at 257. The Army has not contested either of these rulings, and, on appeal, cites only Watkins' 1968 affidavit as evidence of homosexual conduct Watkins had originally brought suit in August 1981 to have his security clearance reinstated, alleging various constitutional violations. After receiving notice that discharge proceedings would be convened, he amended his complaint in October to seek an injunction against his discharge. The district court declined to reach the issue whether the Army could revoke Watkins' security clearance, reasoning that the issue was not yet ripe because Watkins had an administrative appeal pending. See 541 F.Supp. at 259; see also Watkins v. United States Army, 551 F.Supp. at 223. Watkins' security clearance dispute is thus not before us on appeal The district court held that the evidence could not support a finding that Watkins engaged in homosexual conduct subsequent to the 1975 discharge proceedings and that the Army's double jeopardy provision barred the Army from basing Watkins' discharge on statements that merely reiterated what Watkins had stated in the 1975 discharge proceedings--that he was homosexual. See 541 F.Supp. at 257-59 This reenlistment regulation, unlike the new discharge regulation, is simply a clarification of the pre-1981 reenlistment regulation. Throughout Watkins' 14 years in the Army, homosexuality was always a nonwaivable disqualification for reenlistment At that time, the regulation appeared at p 2-24(c). However, for convenience, this opinion will refer to all Army regulations by the paragraph numbers used in the Army's September 15, 1986 update, unless a different date is explicitly noted This case does not involve a claim that courts can exercise general review of the Army's reenlistment decisions. Watkins does not seek a judicial determination of the merits of his reenlistment application. He merely seeks a judicial determination that the Army must consider his reenlistment application on its merits without regard to his homosexuality. See 551 F.Supp. at 218 The law of the case doctrine does not, as the Army suggests, prevent us from reconsidering the issues raised in Watkins I. See, e.g., Shimman v. International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 18, 744 F.2d 1226, 1229 n. 3 (6th Cir.1984) (en banc) ("The law of the case doctrine ... does not impair the power of an en banc court to overrule any panel decision."), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1215, 105 S.Ct. 1191, 84 L.Ed.2d 337 (1985); Van Gemert v. Boeing Co., 590 F.2d 433, 436-37 n. 9 (2d Cir.1978) (en banc) (law of the case doctrine cannot immunize panel decisions from review by the court en banc), aff'd, 444 U.S. 472, 100 S.Ct. 745, 62 L.Ed.2d 676 (1980); cf. United States v. Mills, 810 F.2d 907, 909 (9th Cir.1987) (stating that law of the case is a discretionary doctrine and declining to apply the doctrine), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 107, 98 L.Ed.2d 67 (1987) Captain Scott also denied the reenlistment request because of Watkins' alleged refusal to answer questions concerning his homosexuality or homosexual acts. The district court found that this ground for the denial of Watkins' reenlistment request was totally unsupported by the evidence and therefore only reviewed Watkins' admitted homosexuality as a ground for denial of reenlistment. 551 F.Supp. at 217 Some of our cases following Wallace v. Chappell have used language indicating that an internal military decision is reviewable only when the plaintiff alleges a constitutional, statutory, or regulatory violation. See Christoffersen v. Washington State Air National Guard, 855 F.2d 1437, 1442 (9th Cir.1988); Sandidge v. State of Washington, 813 F.2d 1025, 1026 (9th Cir.1987); Sebra v. Neville, 801 F.2d 1135, 1141 (9th Cir.1986); Khalsa v. Weinberger, 779 F.2d 1393, 1398 (9th Cir.1985), reaff'd, 787 F.2d 1288 (9th Cir.1986). Because we hold that the Mindes doctrine does not apply to equitable estoppel against the military, see infra, its limitations on reviewability are not relevant here " '[N]o fewer than eight circuits ... have stated that there are some circumstances in which the Government will be estopped....' " Johnson, 682 F.2d at 871 (citations omitted) See infra section III(C) (discussing traditional estoppel) In Johnson, 682 F.2d at 871, we stated that estoppel may run against the government even when the government acts in its sovereign, as opposed to its proprietary, capacity if the effects of estoppel do not unduly damage the public interest. In Johnson, we further noted that in Saulque v. United States, 663 F.2d 968, 976 (9th Cir.1981), we made the flat statement in dicta that the government may not be estopped when acting in its sovereign capacity. Id. at 871 n. 1. We explained in Johnson that the facts of Saulque had not required an examination of the applicability of the exception spelled out in Lazy FC Ranch. Id. Thus Saulque does not preclude application of estoppel against the government when it is acting in its sovereign capacity The earlier opinions in this case discuss the 1981 reenlistment regulations as a policy change. See, e.g., Watkins I, 721 F.2d at 689-90. The change, however, went to discharge policy and not to enlistment policy. After 1981, Army boards reviewing discharge cases could no longer make exceptions to the policy against retention of homosexuals. The policy against enlistment or reenlistment of homosexuals never provided for any exceptions In the district court, Watkins presented unrebutted evidence that a forged entry had been made on his Reenlistment Data Card. The entry was falsified so that it appeared to have been made on July 29, 1981 at a reenlistment interview with Captain Rodger L. Scott, Watkins' immediate commanding officer. The forged entry indicated that Watkins was not eligible for reenlistment due to his homosexuality. The entry stated that Watkins was "pending discharge." Watkins provided unrebutted testimony that this alleged interview never occurred and that an earlier entry, in the handwriting of Captain Scott, had been erased. The erased entry was still legible and showed that the Army had earlier found Watkins to be eligible for reenlistment. Watkins' testimony was corroborated by an unrebutted affidavit from a Sgt. Michael Austin. The original entry provides additional evidence of the Army's affirmative misconduct in continuing to find Watkins eligible for reenlistment despite the Army's awareness of his homosexuality. The erasure and the forged entry provide circumstantial evidence of a consciousness of misconduct on the part of the Army and an attempt to conceal that misconduct from exposure As the district court noted, the decisions to enlist, to reenlist, to retain, and to promote a soldier are serious and well-considered decisions by the military. Id We emphasize that Watkins' claim is not based on any alleged right, contractual or otherwise, to reenlist in the Army. There is no such right. Rather, he argues that the Army's misconduct requires that the Army be estopped from denying his eligibility for reenlistment on the basis of his homosexuality Our holding does not mean and should not be read to imply that Watkins has a right to commit acts that Congress has declared illegal. See Watkins, 551 F.Supp. at 225. We do nevertheless reiterate the point made in the district court's October 28, 1982 Order "that the Army cannot, consistent with the [district] court's October 5 Order, use plaintiff's homosexuality as an open door through which to probe for possible misconduct, when it has no grounds to believe such misconduct exists." 551 F.Supp. at 225 In addition, we note that the district court found that the Army's attempt to discharge Watkins in 1982 was barred by the Army's regulation against double jeopardy, AR 635-200, p 1-19(b)(2), because the 1982 discharge proceedings essentially repeated the 1975 discharge proceedings against Watkins. 541 F.Supp. at 257-58. The Army did not appeal from that judgment. Therefore, the Army may not attempt to discharge Watkins for any alleged homosexual acts that were the subject of past discharge proceedings or for any past or future statements by Watkins acknowledging his homosexuality. Because I would grant Watkins the relief he seeks on the basis of his equal protection claim, I need not address in this concurring opinion Watkins' other constitutional claims involving the free speech clause, the petition clause, and the due process entrapment doctrine The equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment imposes precisely the same constitutional requirements on the federal government as the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment imposes on state governments. See, e.g., Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, 420 U.S. 636, 638 n. 2, 95 S.Ct. 1225, 1228 n. 2, 43 L.Ed.2d 514 (1975) In this opinion I use the term "sexual orientation" to refer to the orientation of an individual's sexual preference, not to his actual sexual conduct. Individuals whose sexual orientation creates in them a desire for sexual relationships with persons of the opposite sex have a heterosexual orientation. Individuals whose sexual orientation creates in them a desire for sexual relationships with persons of the same sex have a homosexual orientation In contrast, I use the terms "homosexual conduct" and "homosexual acts" to refer to sexual activity between two members of the same sex whether their orientations are homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual, and we use the terms "heterosexual conduct" and "heterosexual acts" to refer to sexual activity between two members of the opposite sex whether their orientations are homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual. Throughout this opinion, the terms "gay" and "homosexual" will be used synonymously to denote persons of homosexual orientation. Discriminations that burden some despised or politically powerless groups are so likely to reflect antipathy against those groups that the classifications are inherently suspect and must be strictly scrutinized. See, e.g., Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 216 n. 14, 102 S.Ct. 2382, 2394 n. 14, 72 L.Ed.2d 786 (1982). Such groups are generally termed "suspect classes." The Supreme Court has identified other groups whose history of past discrimination entitles them to intermediate scrutiny protection under equal protection doctrine. Such groups are termed "quasi-suspect" classes. See generally, Nowak, Rotunda & Young, Constitutional Law, Ch. 16, Sec. 1, at 593 (2d ed. 1983) AR 635-200 provides: 15-2 Definitions ... a. Homosexual means a person, regardless of sex, who engages in, desires to engage in, or intends to engage in homosexual acts. b. Bisexual means a person who engages in, desires to engage in, or intends to engage in homosexual and heterosexual acts. c. A homosexual act means bodily contact, actively undertaken or passively permitted, between soldiers of the same sex for sexual satisfaction. 15-3 Criteria The basis for separation may include preservice, prior service, or current service conduct or statements. A soldier will be separated per this chapter if one or more of the following approved findings is made: a. The soldier has engaged in, attempted to engage in, or solicited another to engage in a homosexual act unless there are further approved findings that-- (1) Such conduct is a departure from the soldier's usual and customary behavior; and (2) Such conduct is unlikely to recur because it is shown, for example, that the act occurred because of immaturity, intoxication, coercion, or a desire to avoid military service; and (3) Such conduct was not accomplished by use of force, coercion, or intimidation by the soldier during a period of military service; and (4) Under the particular circumstances of the case, the soldier's continued presence in the Army is consistent with the interest of the Army in proper discipline, good order, and morale; and (5) The soldier does not desire to engage in or intend to engage in homosexual acts. Note: To warrant retention of a soldier after finding that he or she engaged in, attempted to engage in, or solicited another to engage in a homosexual act, the board's findings must specifically include all five findings listed in a(1) through (5) above. In making these additional findings, boards should reasonably consider the evidence presented. For example, engagement in homosexual acts over a long period of time could hardly be considered "a departure from the soldier's usual and customary behavior." The intent of this policy is to permit retention only of nonhomosexual soldiers who, because of extenuating circumstances (as demonstrated by findings required by para 15-3a(1) through (5)) engaged in, attempted to engage in, or solicited a homosexual act. b. The soldier has stated that he or she is a homosexual or bisexual, unless there is a further finding that the soldier is not a homosexual or bisexual. c. The soldier has married or attempted to marry a person known to be of the same biological sex (as evidenced by the external anatomy of the person involved) unless there are further findings that the soldier is not a homosexual or bisexual (such as, where the purpose of the marriage or attempt to marry was the avoidance or termination of military service). AR 635-200, paragraphs 15-2 & 15-3 (emphasis in original). Although it is the Army's refusal to reenlist Watkins because of his homosexuality that is directly at issue, Watkins' challenge to the Army's regulation on discharge is relevant to this appeal for two reasons: (1) persons being validly discharged for homosexuality at the time of reenlistment, as Watkins was, cannot reenlist under 601-280 p 2-21(k); (2) enjoining the Army to consider Watkins' reenlistment application without regard to his homosexuality will provide no effective relief if he would be subject to mandatory discharge because of homosexuality as soon as he was reenlisted. I thus consider Watkins' challenge to the constitutionality of the Army's discharge regulation as well as its reenlistment regulation. In stark contrast to the breadth and focus of the regulations, the only statute Congress has enacted regulating the private consensual sexual activity of military personnel covers only sodomy, not other forms of sexual conduct, and covers sodomy whether engaged in by homosexuals or heterosexuals. 10 U.S.C. Sec. 925 (1982) provides: (a) Any person subject to this chapter who engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy. Penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete the offense. (b) Any person found guilty of sodomy shall be punished as a court-martial may direct. Although the statute does not define "sodomy" or "unnatural carnal copulation," the statute does require proof of "penetration," which apparently limits sodomy to oral and anal copulation. See United States v. Harris, 8 M.J. 52, 53-59 (C.M.A.1979). The Army has never made a finding that Watkins ever engaged in an act of sodomy in violation of section 925. Indeed, the Army twice investigated Watkins for allegedly committing sodomy in violation of section 925 and had to drop both investigations because of "insufficient evidence." This reading of the regulations is supported by the Army's treatment of Watkins himself. The only evidence that Watkins ever engaged in homosexual conduct is a statement he made during a 1968 investigation that he committed homosexual acts with two other servicemen. When these two servicemen denied engaging in homosexual acts with Watkins, the Army discontinued the investigation without making a finding that Watkins had committed homosexual acts. The Army did not decide to discharge Watkins (and deny him reenlistment) until 1981. In the meantime, Watkins openly and repeatedly acknowledged his homosexual orientation without admitting to any homosexual acts. It strains credulity to think that the Army decided to discharge Watkins and deny him reenlistment solely on the basis of his contradicted statement in 1968 that he had committed homosexual acts. Plainly it is Watkins' homosexual orientation--rather than evidence of any conduct--that explains the Army's decision to end Watkins' Army career Under the Court's analysis, because the Constitution's protection of the right to privacy does not extend to homosexual sodomy, a judgment by the state that sodomy is immoral provides a sufficiently rational basis for sodomy laws to satisfy the requirements of substantive due process. See Hardwick at 196, 106 S.Ct. at 2846 See also Hardwick, 478 U.S. at 201, 106 S.Ct. at 2849 (Blackmun, J., dissenting) (Court "refused to consider" equal protection clause); Doe v. Casey, 796 F.2d 1508, 1522 (D.C.Cir.1986), aff'd in part, rev'd in part sub. nom, Webster v. Doe, --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 2047, 100 L.Ed.2d 632 (1988) ("Although ... the Supreme Court's recent decision in Bowers v. Hardwick [held] that homosexual conduct is not constitutionally protected, the Court did not reach the different issue of whether an agency of the federal government can discriminate against individuals merely because of sexual orientation." (Footnotes omitted and emphasis in the original.)); Swift v. United States, 649 F.Supp. 596, 42 FEP Cases (BNA) 787, 790 (D.D.C.1987) ("this Circuit has declined to read [Hardwick ] as barring claims of discrimination based on sexual preference"); but cf. Padula v. Webster, 822 F.2d 97 (D.C.Cir.1987) ("reasoning in Hardwick forecloses ... suspect class status for practicing homosexuals") One commentator and one district court have already agreed with Watkins II that the conduct-orientation dichotomy is a valid way of distinguishing Watkins' case from Hardwick. As Professor Sunstein has written, "this feature [the conduct/orientation distinction] serves to distinguish [Watkins from] Hardwick in a persuasive way...." Sunstein, Sexual Orientation and the Constitution: A Note on the Relationship Between Due Process and Equal Protection, 55 U.Chi.L.Rev. 1161, 1162 n. 9 (1988) In BenShalom v. Secretary of Army, 703 F.Supp. 1372 (1989), the District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin prevented the Army from denying reenlistment to Sergeant BenShalom under the same regulations Watkins challenges. The district court based this decision on both the First Amendment and the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment. In analyzing BenShalom's equal protection claim, the district court tracked the equal protection analysis of Watkins II, relying heavily on the conduct/orientation distinction. Thus, whether the Army's regulations are "conduct-based" or "orientation-based," Hardwick cannot be read to foreclose Watkins' equal protection claim. Professor Sunstein agrees, noting that "Hardwick ... was interpreted correctly in the majority opinion in Watkins [II], and misread in ... Judge Reinhardt's opinion in Watkins [II] .... [Because Hardwick involved due process rather than equal protection], Watkins can be distinguished from Hardwick even if the former decision were to be applied to a class of people including some, many or all who engage in the conduct at issue in Hardwick." Sunstein, supra note 10, at 1162 & n. 9 See Hardwick, 478 U.S. at 188 n. 2, 106 S.Ct. at 2842 n. 2 "The only claim properly before the Court ... is Hardwick's challenge to the Georgia statute as applied to consensual homosexual sodomy. We express no opinion on the constitutionality of the Georgia statute as applied to other acts of sodomy." Hardwick, 478 U.S. at 188 n. 2, 106 S.Ct. at 2842 n. 2. (emphasis added) See Hardwick, 478 U.S. at 191-92, 106 S.Ct. at 2844 (quoting Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 325, 58 S.Ct. 149, 152, 82 L.Ed. 288 (1937) and Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 503, 97 S.Ct. 1932, 1937, 52 L.Ed.2d 531 (1977) (Opinion of Powell, J.)) See also Anne Goldstein, History, Homosexuality, and Political Values: Searching for the Hidden Determinants of Bowers v. Hardwick 97 Yale L.J. 1073, 1084-85 (1988) (state laws relied upon by majority outlawed all sodomy, whether homosexual or heterosexual). Moreover, Congress has not distinguished between heterosexual and homosexual sodomy in proscribing acts of sodomy by members of the armed forces. See supra note 6 This example is loosely drawn from Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 97 S.Ct. 1932, 52 L.Ed.2d 531 (1977) See Moore, 431 U.S. at 509, 97 S.Ct. at 1940 (Brennan, J., concurring) (indicating this was the case in East Cleveland) I should make clear that this was not shown to be the case in Moore. See 431 U.S. at 510, 97 S.Ct. at 1941 (Brennan, J., concurring) See Moore, 431 U.S. at 505-06, 97 S.Ct. at 1938-39 (plurality opinion) See 431 U.S. at 500, 97 S.Ct. at 1936 (plurality opinion) (quoting city's argument) Professor John Hart Ely, for example, has severely criticized the Supreme Court's substantive due process analysis in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973), while at the same time expressing the view that governmental classifications burdening homosexuals merit heightened scrutiny under the equal protection clause. Compare J. Ely, Democracy and Distrust 248 n. 52 (1980), with id. at 162-64 See generally J. Ely, supra note 21, at 101-02 ("unlike an approach geared to the judicial imposition of 'fundamental values,' the representation-reinforcing [approach] ... is not inconsistent with, but to the contrary is entirely supportive of, the American system of representative democracy. It recognizes the unacceptability of the claim that appointed and life-tenured judges are better reflectors of conventional values than elected representatives, devoting itself instead to policing the mechanisms by which the system seeks to ensure that our elected representatives will actually represent.") Under equal protection doctrine, heightened scrutiny not only applies to legal classifications that burden suspect or quasi-suspect classes but also applies to classifications that burden the exercise of fundamental or important substantive rights to engage in certain conduct. See, e.g., Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 216-17 & nn. 14-15, 102 S.Ct. 2382, 2394-95 & nn. 14-15, 72 L.Ed.2d 786 (1982); Maher v. Roe, 432 U.S. 464, 470-78, 97 S.Ct. 2376, 2380-85, 53 L.Ed.2d 484 (1977); L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law Sec. 16-7, at 1002-03, Sec. 16-31, at 1089-90 & n. 1 (1978) If Hatheway had decided that homosexuals do not constitute a suspect class, I would vote to have this en banc panel overrule it Along with subsequent cases, DeSantis has established that there are only two ways of making this showing under Sec. 1985(3): (1) proving that Congress has enacted statutes offering special protection to the class; or (2) proving that courts have offered special protection to the class by designating it a suspect or quasi-suspect class. Id., see also Schultz v. Sundberg, 759 F.2d 714, 718 (9th Cir.1985) The Fifth and Tenth circuits have also considered this question. Baker v. Wade, 769 F.2d 289, 292 (5th Cir.1985) (en banc), (stressing that statute at issue was "directed at certain conduct, not at a class of people"), cert. denied, 478 U.S. 1022, 106 S.Ct. 3337, 92 L.Ed.2d 742 (1986); National Gay Task Force v. Board of Educ., 729 F.2d 1270, 1273 (10th Cir.1984) (statute at issue proscribes "public homosexual activity" by teachers), aff'd without opinion by an equally divided Court, 470 U.S. 903, 105 S.Ct. 1858, 84 L.Ed.2d 776 (1985). Both of these circuits held that discrimination based on homosexual conduct does not merit heightened scrutiny under the equal protection clause, but neither circuit attempted any serious analysis of the issue. See Baker v. Wade, 769 F.2d at 292 (noting merely that the plaintiff "has not cited any cases holding, and we refuse to hold, that homosexuals constitute a suspect or quasi-suspect classification"); National Gay Task Force, 729 F.2d at 1273 (stating summarily that classification based on choice of sexual partners could not be suspect because Supreme Court has not held gender to be a suspect classification); see also Rich v. Secretary of the Army, 735 F.2d 1220, 1229 (10th Cir.1984) (citing without explanation National Gay Task Force, Hatheway, and DeSantis for the proposition that a "classification based on one's choice of sexual partners is not suspect") One district court has decided the question. See supra n. 10 See Army's Second Supplemental Brief at 10 Because homosexuals are a minority and are frequently excluded from jobs, schools, churches, and heterosexual social circles, see supra, heterosexuals generally have relatively few opportunities to meet homosexuals and overcome their stereotypical thinking about homosexuality The Army claims that homosexuals cannot be politically powerless because two states, Wisconsin and California, have passed statutes prohibiting discrimination against homosexuals. Two state statutes do not overcome the long and extensive history of laws discriminating against homosexuals in all fifty states. See, e.g., Note, supra, 57 S.Cal.L.Rev. at 803-07. Moreover, at the national level--the relevant political level for seeking protection from military discrimination--homosexuals have been wholly unsuccessful in getting legislation passed that protects them from discrimination The Army also argues that the repeal of sodomy statutes by many states proves that homosexuals are not politically powerless. However, sodomy statutes restrict the sexual freedom of heterosexuals as well as homosexuals. The repeal of sodomy statutes may thus reflect the liberalization of attitudes about heterosexual behavior more than it reflects the political power of homosexuals. A somewhat different rationale conceivably could also underlie certain cryptic statements the Army makes about its concerns regarding "close conditions affording minimal privacy," " 'potential for difficulties arising out of possible close confinement,' " and "the intimacy of barrack's life." AR 635-200, p 15-1(a); Army's Opening Brief at 15 (quoting Beller, 632 F.2d at 812); Army's Second Supp. Brief at 19 n. 9, 30. Conceivably, the Army could be concerned in part that the presence of gays in the ranks will create sexual tensions--as distinguished from tensions arising from prejudice--because of the practical necessity of housing gays with personnel of the same sex. The Army, however, never articulates this concern. Thus it gives no indication that it regards this concern as compelling or that it believes that weeding all homosexuals out of the military--even soldiers as exemplary as Sergeant Watkins--is necessary to advance a compelling military interest in reducing sexual tensions. Indeed, at points in its argument the Army implies that it is concerned about the close confinement of soldiers only insofar as such confinement might exacerbate hostilities and tensions assertedly created by the prejudice some heterosexuals have against homosexuals. See Army's Opening Brief at 17, 31 n. 18. Even if the Army had raised the argument that excluding homosexuals from barracks reduces sexual tension and had shown that reducing sexual tension serves a compelling interest, nothing in the record even suggests that a per se rule banning all homosexuals from the Army would be the least restrictive method of advancing this interest It took an Executive Order in 1945 by President Truman, issued against the advice of almost every admiral and general, to integrate our armed forces. M. Miller, Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman 79 (1983). It is also interesting to note that during World War II the Army deliberately minimized any publicity about the existence of black soldiers because it feared that such publicity would tarnish the Army's public image. See G. Ware, supra, at 100 Indeed, the trial judge in Loving admonished Mildred and Richard Loving that interracial marriage was a violation of the Christian ethic of racial purity: "Almighty God created the races, white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix. Loving, 388 U.S. at 3, 87 S.Ct. at 1819 Watkins has forthrightly reported his homosexuality since his induction in 1967, and his homosexuality was always a matter of common knowledge. There is no suggestion in the record before us that Watkins ever feared public disclosure of his homosexualty A majority of the active judges on this court voted to consider en banc whether equal protection doctrine prohibits the Army's discrimination against homosexuals. While I do not dispute the court's en banc power to address the equitable estoppel claim, I do not interpret the court's decision to do so as meaning that the Watkins I decision conflicts with prior decisions of this court. Watkins argues that Watkins I conflicts with three Ninth Circuit decisions. His contention is frivolous. In Lavin v. Marsh, 644 F.2d 1378 (9th Cir.1981), the court rejected on the merits an Army reservist's argument that the Army Reserve was equitably estopped from enforcing an age-based years-of-service limitation. As the justiciability issue was neither raised nor addressed, Lavin is of no precedential value on this point. Neither is Watkins I in conflict with Jablon v. United States, 657 F.2d 1064 (9th Cir.1981). Jablon held that the government had not waived its sovereign immunity with regard to a promissory estoppel claim by a service member. How this case advances Watkins' argument is incomprehensible. Finally, Watkins is wrong in arguing that Watkins I conflicts with Cortese v. United States, 782 F.2d 845 (9th Cir.1986). As the Army notes, the plaintiff in that case was a private contractor, so it did not raise the military discipline concerns at the heart of the justiciability doctrine. The Mindes doctrine does not present an obstacle to civilian claims against the military. Bledsoe v. Webb, 839 F.2d 1357, 1359 (9th Cir.1988) The Mindes doctrine is analogous to the political question doctrine in limiting the types of disputes which courts are competent to resolve. See Khalsa v. Weinberger, 779 F.2d 1393, 1395 n. 1 (9th Cir.), prior judgment reaff'd, 787 F.2d 1288 (9th Cir.1985). Consequently, the doctrine refers "to 'reviewability' rather than to 'subject matter jurisdiction.' " Id. at 1396 n. 2. This dissent will use the term "justiciability" synonomously with "reviewability." The factors weighed in the second prong include: the nature and strength of plaintiff's claim; the potential injury to plaintiff; the type and degree of anticipated interference with the military function; and the level of military expertise and discretion. As Watkins' equitable estoppel claim fails to satisfy the first prong of the Mindes test, the dissent does not analyze these four factors. In addition, this case does not require us to decide whether the cases rejecting constitutional claims under Mindes' second prong do so on the merits or on a justiciability basis. Compare Khalsa, 779 F.2d at 1400 (rejecting suit bringing first amendment challenge to Army appearance regulations under Mindes' second prong), with Goldman v. Weinberger, 475 U.S. 503, 508, 106 S.Ct. 1310, 1313-14, 89 L.Ed.2d 478 (1986) (rejecting suit bringing first amendment challenge to Air Force's appearance regulations on the merits) See, e.g., Costner v. Oklahoma Army Nat'l Guard, 833 F.2d 905, 907 (10th Cir.1987) (per curiam); Stinson v. Hornsby, 821 F.2d 1537, 1540 (11th Cir.1987), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 402, 102 L.Ed.2d 390 (1988); Williams v. Wilson, 762 F.2d 357, 359 (4th Cir.1985); Ogden v. United States, 758 F.2d 1168, 1179 n. 7 (7th Cir.1985); Penagaricano v. Llenza, 747 F.2d 55, 60-61 (1st Cir.1984); Nieszner v. Mark, 684 F.2d 562, 564 (8th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1022, 103 S.Ct. 1273, 75 L.Ed.2d 494 (1983); cf. Bois v. Marsh, 801 F.2d 462, 468 (D.C.Cir.1986); Schultz v. Wellman, 717 F.2d 301, 306-07 (6th Cir.1983); Crawford v. Cushman, 531 F.2d 1114, 1120 (2d Cir.1976). But see Dillard v. Brown, 652 F.2d 316, 323 (3d Cir.1981) Christoffersen v. Washington State Air Nat'l Guard, 855 F.2d 1437, 1440-45 (9th Cir.1988); Sandidge v. State of Wash., 813 F.2d 1025, 1026 (9th Cir.1987); Sebra v. Neville, 801 F.2d 1135, 1141 (9th Cir.1986); Khalsa, 779 F.2d at 1398; Gonzalez v. Department of Army, 718 F.2d 926, 929 (9th Cir.1983); Wallace v. Chappell, 661 F.2d 729, 732-33 (9th Cir.1981), rev'd on other grounds, 462 U.S. 296, 103 S.Ct. 2362, 76 L.Ed.2d 586 (1983); Schlanger v. United States, 586 F.2d 667, 671 (9th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 441 U.S. 943, 99 S.Ct. 2161, 60 L.Ed.2d 1045 (1979) It is ironic that the majority concludes that it "must determine the preliminary question whether Watkins has exhausted available intraservice remedies." Opinion at 705. Exhaustion of intraservice remedies is, of course, the other half of Mindes' first prong. As with the limitation to federal claims, exhaustion serves to limit judicial interference with military matters Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971) In Mollnow v. Carlton, 716 F.2d 627 (9th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1100, 104 S.Ct. 1595, 80 L.Ed.2d 126 (1984), the court found that the "precise holding" of Chappell did not dictate rejection of plaintiff's claim that defendants had violated 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1985(1). Plaintiff, a former pilot and officer in the Air Force Reserve, sued commanding officers and attending medical personnel. The court noted that Chappell had merely rejected an implied damages remedy, but that section 1985(1) expressly authorized a damages award. Id. Nonetheless, the court held that plaintiff's section 1985(1) claim was properly dismissed because such liability would conflict with Chappell 's underlying rationales. Given this disposition, the court did not address whether Mindes "survived" Chappell. Mollnow, 716 F.2d at 630 n. 5 Chappell noted that service members are not precluded from obtaining any relief whatsoever for constitutional violations, citing to three cases which involved injunctive or declaratory relief. Chappell, 462 U.S. at 304, 103 S.Ct. at 2367-68. The Ninth Circuit in Mollnow noted that none of the cited cases was a "suit for damages." Mollnow, 716 F.2d at 629 n. 4. The Supreme Court has subsequently acknowledged that these citations "referred to redress designed to halt or prevent the constitutional violation rather than the award of money damages." Stanley, 107 S.Ct. at 3063. See Ogden, 758 F.2d at 1175 ("We hold that Chappell does not preclude an equitable remedy") [T]he [Chappell ] Court's rationale has left the field open for Congress to enact legislation authorizing servicemen's constitutional [damages] claims against their superiors." Christoffersen, 855 F.2d at 1441. As suits against a state's National Guard involve state action, section 1983 provides a potential basis for a statutory damages claim. The Christoffersen court declined to decide "whether Chappell bars any or all section 1983 claims for alleged civil rights violations by military personnel." Id. This circuit has also left open the question of whether Chappell is inconsistent with a damages suit pursuant to section 1985(3). See Miller v. Newbauer, 862 F.2d 771, 775 (9th Cir.1988) Other circuits have concluded that Chappell 's reasoning is inconsistent with a damages action under section 1983 against state National Guard officials. See Holdiness v. Stroud, 808 F.2d 417, 423 (5th Cir.1987); Jorden v. National Guard Bureau, 799 F.2d 99, 108 (3d Cir.1986), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 66, 98 L.Ed.2d 30 (1987); Brown v. United States, 739 F.2d 362, 366-67 (8th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 473 U.S. 904, 105 S.Ct. 3524, 87 L.Ed.2d 650 (1985); Martelon v. Temple, 747 F.2d 1348, 1350-51 (10th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1135, 105 S.Ct. 2675, 86 L.Ed.2d 694 (1985). As Watkins' suit does not seek damages pursuant to section 1983, this case does not raise the question of whether obtaining such damages against state National Guard officers is inconsistent with the Chappell decision's underlying rationales. Cf. Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 94 S.Ct. 1347, 39 L.Ed.2d 662 (1974) (interpreting the eleventh amendment as precluding the retroactive award of monetary benefits, while allowing prospective injunctive relief) The majority's citation to our decision in Helm v. State of Cal., 722 F.2d 507, 509-10 (9th Cir.1983), is entirely unpersuasive. The majority cites Helm as having applied the Mindes test to a constitutional claim against the military but not to an equitable estoppel claim, the inference apparently being that Helm supports the proposition that Mindes is no bar to an equitable estoppel claim. Helm provides scant support for this proposition. The Helm court noted that the estoppel claim was not properly before it because plaintiff first raised that claim on appeal. Id. at 510. The court did state that "[e]ven had the issue been presented below, it is effectively precluded by Lavin v. Marsh, 644 F.2d 1378 (9th Cir.1981)." Id. As noted, supra, note 1, the parties did not raise the Mindes issue in Lavin, and the court did not address it The majority quite rightly expresses its indignation and outrage at the Army's forged entry on Watkins' 1982 Reenlistment Data Card. The card indicated that the Army had informed Watkins of his ineligibility for reenlistment at an interview on July 29, 1981. The interview never occurred. The Army's conduct is inexcusable, but its misconduct in this regard has no causal connection to Watkins' equitable estoppel claim. His claim actually centers on the Army's benign "misconduct" in certifying him qualified for reenlistment throughout his career	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line891
__label__wiki	0.68648	0.68648	Analytics & Outcomes Defense Digest Seismic Shift in Pennsylvania Medical Malpractice Informed Consent Cases Kathleen M. Kramer, Daniel H. Tran Defense Digest, Vol. 23, No. 4, December 2017 By Kathleen Kramer, Esq. & Daniel H. Tran, Esq.* Pennsylvania Supreme Court mandated that the physician involved in the procedure at issue obtain informed consent. The duty to obtain informed consent may no longer be delegated to others. On June 20, 2017, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court appears to have changed the landscape of Pennsylvania medical malpractice actions based upon a lack of informed consent. In its opinion in Shinal v. Steven A. Toms, M.D., the court specifically held: [A] physician may not delegate to others his or her obligation to provide sufficient information in order to obtain a patient’s informed consent. Informed consent requires direct communication between physician and patient, and contemplates a back-and-forth, face-to-face exchange, which might include questions that the patient feels the physician must answer personally before the patient feels informed and becomes willing to consent. The duty to obtain the patient’s informed consent belongs solely to the physician. 162 A.3d 429, 455 (Pa. 2017). This article will set forth an overview of how Shinal changes the manner in which informed consent may be obtained in Pennsylvania. In addition, it will discuss the manner in which medical malpractice cases premised on a lack of informed consent will now be litigated within the state. How Must Informed Consent Be Obtained in Pennsylvania in Light of Shinal? Given the court’s holding in Shinal, proper informed consent now requires that the physician involved in the procedure at issue (i.e., the operating physician) have a direct face-to-face exchange with the patient regarding the material risks/complications of the procedure. Prior to Shinal, it was understood that proper informed consent could be obtained not only from the operating physician, but also from other qualified staff, such as a nurse, a resident physician, another physician and other knowledgeable persons who would provide the patient with the information regarding whether to proceed with, or defer, a procedure based on its risks/complications. In short, the proper focus on an informed consent claim was the information conveyed, not necessarily on the person(s) who conveyed it to the patient. Shinal changed that. Megan Shinal claimed that the defendant, neurosurgeon Steven A. Toms, M.D., failed to obtain her informed consent. Ms. Shinal alleged that Dr. Toms did not give her all of the information necessary for her to make an informed decision about the surgery she was having. She went forward with the surgery and suffered a known complication. She claimed that, had Dr. Toms given her all of the information necessary, she would have never undergone the operation. She filed a lawsuit, claiming that Dr. Toms failed to obtain informed consent from her. Dr. Toms had initial discussions with Ms. Shinal to obtain her informed consent. However, Ms. Shinal later called the physician’s office and spoke to Dr. Toms’s physician’s assistant about other risks and benefits of the surgery she was to undergo. At issue in the case, and on appeal, was whether the jury could find that Dr. Toms properly obtained Ms. Shinal’s informed consent, even though some of those discussions occurred between Ms. Shinal and his physician’s assistant. The jury found in favor of the defendant, acknowledging that Dr. Toms and his physician’s assistant had properly advised Ms. Shinal of the risks/complications of the procedure. In her appeal, Ms. Shinal argued that the jury should not have been allowed to consider what the physician’s assistant told her about the surgery. She contended that only what Dr. Toms told her was pertinent to the case. The Superior Court disagreed with Ms. Shinal and affirmed the jury’s verdict. Ms. Shinal then appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and made the same argument. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed with Ms. Shinal, holding that a new trial was warranted because the jury should not have been permitted to consider what the physician’s assistant told her. In so holding, the court appears to have mandated that the actual operating physician (not his or her nurses, physician’s assistants or physician colleagues) must directly discuss with the patient the risks/complications and intended benefits of the surgery in order to properly obtain informed consent. In other words, the surgeon cannot delegate any of those discussions or responsibilities to other physicians, nurses, residents, physician’s assistants or anyone else. How Will Cases Premised on Lack of Informed Consent Be Brought to Court Post-Shinal? Post-Shinal, a plaintiff filing a medical malpractice case based on a lack of informed consent will have to obtain a Certificate of Merit showing that an appropriate physician has reviewed the medical records and believes that the operating physician did not obtain proper informed consent, which, in turn, caused the patient to suffer injuries. Much, if not all, emphasis will be placed on what the operating physician conveyed to the patient regarding the procedure. A jury will still serve its fact-finding function to determine whether the information provided to the patient by the operating physician was sufficient to obtain informed consent. While the informed consent forms are certainly relevant to show the discussions and information conveyed between the patient and operating physician, the operating physician will also be able to testify to the jury regarding what discussions occurred based on the physician’s recollections, customs and practices. Again, the focus in a medical malpractice case based on a lack of informed consent will be on the discussions and information conveyed by and between the patient and the operating physician. Because Shinal is a new pronouncement on informed consent, it is inevitable that the courts of this Commonwealth will provide interpretations of that holding based on the multitude of scenarios that may be litigated regarding informed consent. However, medical professionals and medical malpractice lawyers should be guided by the Shinal court’s holding, which limits the inquiry regarding whether informed consent has been adequately obtained to solely the discussions and interactions that have occurred between the patient and operating physician. *Kate, a shareholder in our Philadelphia, Pennsylvania office, can be reached at 215.575.2618 or kmkramer@mdwcg.com. Dan is an associate in our Philadelphia office who can be reached at 215.575.2592 or dhtran@mdwcg.com. Defense Digest, Vol. 23, No. 4, December 2017. Defense Digest is prepared by Marshall Dennehey Warner Coleman & Goggin to provide information on recent legal developments of interest to our readers. This publication is not intended to provide legal advice for a specific situation or to create an attorney-client relationship. ATTORNEY ADVERTISING pursuant to New York RPC 7.1. © 2017 Marshall Dennehey Warner Coleman & Goggin. All Rights Reserved. This article may not be reprinted without the express written permission of our firm. For reprints, contact tamontemuro@mdwcg.com. Insurance Law Global ATTORNEY ADVERTISING pursuant to New York RPC 7.1 © 2020 Marshall Dennehey Warner Coleman & Goggin, P.C.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line895
__label__cc	0.569902	0.430098	You are here: Home / Life / Family / Raising a Digital Nomad Raising a Digital Nomad August 29, 2017 By Suzanne Fluhr, Travel Editor When you’re a digital nomad, this can happen. People who have more than one child often remark how different their offspring are from each other. We appear to have raised one traditional person — and a digital nomad. I kind of saw both our sons emerge from my body, three and a half years apart. Nevertheless, sometimes I wonder if they had a fool proof baby identification system during the 1980’s in the nursery of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Our older son is married, has what one would call a “real” job, and is pursuing a Masters degree in Organizational Dynamics. Our younger son, the one who climbed out of his crib at 11 months old, just bought a condo in Mexico City. This year, he also spent extended periods of time in Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore, not to mention a few trips to the United States. In fact, as I write this, I believe he is in Las Vegas, or near Las Vegas, or somewhere. If you inquire as to his occupation, he’ll tell you he’s a digital nomad. Our son’s college major was exercise physiology, so I’m not sure I could have predicted the “digital” part of his job description. However, there were signs foreshadowing the “nomad” part. When our son was a high school student, he rejected my advice that it was very helpful to learn a foreign language, especially Spanish. He did the least amount possible to earn Bs in Spanish classes and made no effort to approximate the accent of any Spanish-speaking country. Consequently, he was pretty much a mono-linguist when we delivered him to his climate-based college choice – the University of Miami. I soon started receiving calls from him inquiring about the family dog, and by the way, “What’s the pluperfect subjunctive of the verb estar?” This helped me not be stunned when he chose to spend a sophomore semester studying in Barcelona, Spain. When he subsequently floated the idea of spending a summer taking an intensive Spanish course in Argentina, he met my incredulous look with body language that said, “Whaaat?” and the pronouncement, “I’m a citizen of the world.” Still, I admit to some surprise when he chose to spend his junior year spring break in 2009 traveling with me in Spain, rather than joining his friends in Cancun. Traveling with a Future Digital Nomad Arriving separately at the sprawling Madrid airport, we managed to find each other and rent a car. I was relieved when he agreed to be the designated driver, even when I learned that the only thing he dislikes more than driving is the thought of me driving. We set out on our best behaviors, with a GPS unit, a detailed road atlas, and Google Earth. With memories of our son’s not-so-long-ago contrarian teenage phase, I was silently pleased to realize that, in addition to my passion for Spanish, he also inherited my wanderlust and fascination with history. We marveled at the Roman aqueduct in Segovia and walked the preserved medieval city walls of Avila. We were enchanted by the glow of sunset on the cathedral in Salamanca, and the view of Toledo from across the Tagus River, still so similar to the one captured on canvas by El Greco in 1597. Sunset Glow on the Cathedral of Salamanca, Spain In Toledo, we were drawn to the Sephardic Museum, dedicated to the history of the Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 by the Inquisition of Ferdinand and Isabella. Yes, there was a dark side to the “enlightened” monarchs who sponsored the voyages of Christopher Columbus. Our son’s last name, Albelda, is of Sephardic origin. His Bulgaria-born great-grandmother, who lived to be 97, spoke Ladino, the Spanish of 1492, nurtured through the Diaspora and the centuries by the Sephardim (Spanish Jews). The Sephardic Museum in Toledo adjoins the Sinagoga del Transito, the exquisite restored synagogue built by Moorish (Islamic) craftsmen in the 14th century. We explored the synagogue together, but by mutual agreement and in the interest of familial harmony, we toured the museum’s exhibits separately. I found my son waiting for me in the museum’s bookstore, perusing a book about Sephardic surnames. I felt a shiver when the book informed us that the name inherited by my self-proclaimed citizen of the world, means citizen. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised he grew up to be a digital nomad. My “Citizen of the World” and future digital nomad at the Tagus River Gorge, Toledo, Spain Have you traveled with older teen or young adult offspring or other close relatives? If so, how’d it go? Suzanne Fluhr, Travel Editor Suzanne Fluhr, Midlife Boulevard's travel editor, is a recovering Philadelphia lawyer, empty nester, wanderer, dog person and Zentangle® enthusiast. She also writes about Baby Boomer travels for the body and mind on her personal blog, Boomeresque. Instagram: Boomeresque2 Filed Under: Family, Travel Tagged With: digital nomad, Spain « Are You Using a Vibrator the Right Way? 11 Delightful Gifts Of Being An Older Mom » Charlotte Carpentier says What a great way to be. Wanderlust is good thing to have. Curiosity about others, and other cultures is what we need more of these days. Suzanne Fluhr says I agree, but we even have to be sure to get to know our neighbors. Doreen Pendgracs says Very interesting post, Suzanne. I find it fascinating how some kids seem to have the travel bug from such a young age, and others couldn’t care less about exploring the world and immersing themselves in foreign cultures. My parents were not travellers (mostly due to lack of funds I presume) but they did both hold a very strong love and respect for nature, and it is no wonder that I left city life back in 1982 and have lived in the country ever since. It’s true. Our younger son was off and running all over the world as soon as he could be. We forced our older son to do a semester in Australia. I don’t think he was sorry he did it, but he doesn’t have the travel bug like I and our younger son do. How much do you think your lust for travel influenced your son? My parents took my brother and I on trips during my dad’s week-long summer vacations. We mostly explored the United States. My interest in the Spanish language and culture took me on trips outside the U.S. I also loved archeology so I spent a summer on an expedition outside of Beer Sheva, Israel in the dessert. I still have a desire to travel. I think that seed was planted by my parents. When my dad retired, they went everywhere. I also get inspired by listening to and reading about my friends’ experiences and articles through your blog. Always so interesting. Rachel Heller says Like you, it looks like I’ve ended up with one of each. We traveled with them both in the school holidays as they grew up, but my daughter always enjoyed travel more than my son. My daughter, now 24, went off to the UK for her Bachelor’s and is now in the US doing her Master’s. She is a wonderful travel companion. My son, now 19, claims that he likes travel “but not like you do it.” He means he likes natural scenery more than cities and historical sites. But he’s actually turned down opportunities to travel! Having said that, he’s chosen to go to university in Scotland, so we’ll see how that move works out! Carolina Colborn says Such a sweet mother-son story. You have both been handed down and earned the name citizen “of the world.” But how about the digital part? Where did you, and he, get that part? Madaline Resendes says It just goes to show you that no matter how different our children may be from us, there are definitely Venn diagram style overlaps demonstrating that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree – it at least lands in the same orchard! As I recall, your father was a complete extrovert and loved to travel. You are more of an introvert, but love to travel. But the “travel” thing is significant. I think the urge to travel shows an interest outside of oneself, although one must ironically be pretty selfish in terms of leaving everyone/everything behind to take off and “do your own thing”. But being interested in and curious about the world outside of ones own neighborhood, county, state, nation, planet (note the recent unifying “Totality” craze!) is a healthy impulse. Learning that your nation and your nation’s ways are not the only show in town is good for helping one develop empathy and discover the myriad of ways we are more alike than different. Marcelle says I always figured that it’s very important for my kids to travel. All four spend a year abroad after their high school, three of them in third world countries. It was and is a rock which built to their foundation of being confident adults. Traveling together with them when they were adolescent wasn’t much joy … Karen Warren says Like you, I have one wanderluster and one stay-at-home (for now). I’ve had many happy trips visiting my daughter, first in the Middle East and now in New Zealand. Who knows where it’ll be in the future! alison abbott says We always placed an emphasis on travel when the kids were growing up, and they certainly took advantage of many travel opportunities. Now as they settle into adult life, they realize the value of learning from other cultures, but as different as the might be, neither will ever be digital nomads. WE do love to travel together as a family and hope that never changes. I’m sure once both have started families, things will be different, but for now we are still the traveling Griswalds. Kristin Henning says I love traveling with my adult kids. They are both well-traveled in their own right, but I just get a kick out of taking a back seat to see how they navigate the world. This sort of observation is much more vivid when on the road! Sue Reddel says It always amazes me how different sibling can turn out. My sister and I could not be more different. Some things are just inherently more prominent in certain individuals. Sounds like your son is living the life that is perfect for him. It’s wonderful that you share the joy of travel. Are You Using a Vibrator the Right Way? How to Have an Orgasm with a Vibrator Vibrators were designed to help women have orgasms. Back in Freud’s day...	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line903
__label__wiki	0.535937	0.535937	With a new album on the way, John Prine is coming to Austin John Prine has a new album coming out in April and will play Austin’s Bass Concert Hall on June 30. Contributed/John Kurc Good news, John Prine fans: Not only does the legendary songwriter have a new album coming in April, he’s also hitting the road for a tour that will stop at Austin’s Bass Concert Hall on June 30. Tickets, $35-$65, go on sale next Friday, February 16, at 10 a.m. via the venue’s website. “The Tree of Forgiveness,” due out April 13 on Prine’s label Oh Boy Records, is his first new studio album of original material since 2005’s “Fair & Square.” Its 10 tracks include songs he co-wrote with longtime cohort Pat McLaughlin, the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach and legendary producer Phil Spector, among others. The album, produced by Nashville ace Dave Cobb, includes cameo appearances by the husband-wife team of Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires as well as Seattle singer Brandi Carlile. Here’s the album track “Summer’s End”: Prine will play Dallas the night before but has no dates listed for two weeks after the Bass show. Could a taping of “Austin City Limits” be in the works? Prine has appeared on the show seven times, but the last one was 13 years ago. MORE UPCOMING CONCERTS: Check out who else is coming to town soon Author Peter BlackstockPosted on February 8, 2018 Categories concert announcements, music newsTags things to do Previous Previous post: Austin360 On The Record: Wild Child, Curtis Roush, Wade Bowen, more Next Next post: Exclusive preview: Shinyribs in the magic cape on ‘Austin City Limits’	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line906
__label__wiki	0.615515	0.615515	School of Music > Faculty & Staff > Faculty A-Z > Nicholas Hutchinson Nicholas Hutchinson nhutchin@depaul.edu Performance; Voice and Opera Nicholas Hutchinson has performed throughout the United States as both collaborator and soloist. Concert appearances this year will take Dr. Hutchinson to Michigan, Ohio, Texas, California and Washington. He has been a prizewinner in the Kosciuzko Foundation National Chopin Competition and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, and was a finalist in the Oberlin International Piano Competition. Dr. Hutchinson is a founding partner of Collaborative Works, a vocal coaching studio and collaborative arts institute in Chicago. He is also co-director of Friends Music Camp, a Quaker-based music camp for middle and high school students. A passionate teacher, Dr. Hutchinson has maintained a private studio for the past decade and has taught at a number of educational institutions in Michigan, including the Steppingstone School for the Potentially Gifted and the Chelsea Center for the Arts. His former teachers include Martin Katz, Louis Nagel, and Arthur Greene at the University of Michigan and Yong Hi Moon at Michigan State University. Besides his musical interests, Dr. Hutchinson has a degree in computer science and his study of the Japanese language resulted in his being awarded an Outstanding Student of Japanese Language Study Tour at the Kansai Cultural Center in Osaka, Japan. Learn more on the Voice and Opera Studio Page	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line907
__label__wiki	0.84255	0.84255	Rogério Nunes, MMUS Interim Director of Orchestral and Instrumental Studies Brazilian violinist and violist Rogerio Nunes, is currently finishing his DMA in violin performance, with a minor in viola performance, at the University of Georgia under professor Levon Ambartsumian, being awarded with a graduate assistantship. Before moving to UGA, he worked in his DMA in viola performance at the University of North Texas, where he was awarded the MDF (Master and Doctoral Fellowship) from the Toulouse Graduate School, under the instruction of Dr. Susan Dubois. Mr. Nunes holds a Bachelor Degree in violin performance from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil, under professor Marcello Guerchfeld, and a Master Degree in violin and viola performance, from the University of New Mexico, where he studied with Dr. Carmelo de los Santos and professor Kimberly Fredenburg. At UNM he was awarded a graduate assistantship to play in the Abe Franck graduate string quartet, and was a winner of the Concerto Competition, playing as soloist with the UNM Symphony Orchestra. In Brazil, Rogerio has been the concertmaster and soloist of the Theatro Sao Pedro Chamber Orchestra, Unisinos Orchestra, Blumenau Chamber Orchestra, OSPA and Fundarte Chamber Orchestra, having recorded as soloist of the Astor Piazzola's Las Cuatro Estaciones Portenas with the latter. In the United States, he has collaborated with South Bend Symphony, Kalamazoo Symphony, Southwest Michigan Symphony and Elkhart Symphony Orchestras. Mr. Nunes has taught masterclasses at the Federal University of Sao Joao del Rey, International Music Festival of Belem, International Music Festival of Londrina and the Federal University of Santa Maria. In 2016, he was awarded the March Moody Scholarship in Violin at UGA. With ARCO, Rogerio was a soloist in its Brazilian Tour in May/June 2017, and was invited to be a soloist again with the orchestra this coming October at UGA. Mr. Nunes was also invited by the Federal University of Santa Maria, to premiere the work by Brazilian composer Brenno Blauth, Introduction and Allegro for Viola and String Orchestra last May.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line908
__label__wiki	0.584905	0.584905	You are here: Home Live Review: Blue Rodeo @ Casino New Brunswick, Thursday February 6, 2014 Live Review: Blue Rodeo @ Casino New Brunswick, Thursday February 6, 2014 Posted on February 7, 2014 by Ken Kelley \| Photo: Clayton Morrissey for www.show-stoppers.ca © 2014 All Rights Reserved Oh Moncton. You’re one of a kind. To get this admittedly “I’m getting old / turning into a curmudgeon” thought off my shoulders right off the bat, you would have thought Blue Rodeo’s show at Casino New Brunswick marked the end of the prohibition of alcohol for some. This was a Thursday night and a lot of people were just wasted. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry sometimes. (I chose the former for the most part, for those wondering…) Of course, the majority of people at the show at Casino New Brunswick on Thursday night were there for the music and as such, were generously rewarded with some of the best music to ever come from within Canada’s borders. A little over a year since they last graced Casino New Brunswick’s stage as a part of their 25th Anniversary Tour, Blue Rodeo returned to Moncton with their excellent new record In Our Nature in tow. The group dedicated the first portion of the show entirely to their new record. The group launched into In Our Nature’s opening track New Morning Sun as a gorgeous sunrise adorned the several screens behind the group on stage. Vocalist-guitarist Jim Cuddy was in remarkable form both vocally and musically (seriously, I’ve never seen the guy have a bad night). His vocals are as rich as ever as evidenced on Made Your Mind Up. Like a fine wine, the man just gets better with age. Greg Keelor was especially chatty which was great to see, telling the nearly capacity crowd of the story behind his writing of the song Mattawa as well as the Moncton connection behind the tracks Wondering and Tara’s Blues. All in all, the almost one hour that the group dedicated to the first portion of their show resulted in some absolutely stellar performances which, paired with a cover of The Rolling Stones The Last Time set the tone for what would follow in the second half of the show. After a brief intermission, Blue Rodeo returned to the stage, touching on virtually all points of their career starting with a scorching version of their 1989 song Diamond Mine. The energy in the air was palpable as drummer Glenn Milchem and keyboardist Mike Boguski happily navigated their way through the song’s improvisational mid-section. From there, the hits kept coming: Following a particularly rousing version of Til I Am Myself Again, Keelor took to his microphone to reassure security that the group was fine with people dancing if they chose to do so. With that, a large contingent of the audience migrated to the floor in front of the stage to take in a contemporized makeover of Tremolo’s Disappear, Five Days In July’s Head Over Heels and the song that made me a Blue Rodeo fan – After The Rain. The group played practically note-perfect versions of Rose Coloured Glasses, Bad Timing and Five Days In May before a stellar version of Casino’s You’re Everywhere. And after 80 minutes, the group closed their second set with Hasn’t Hit Me Yet before re-emerging for an encore of Try, Lost Together and What Am I Doing Here, performed only by Jim and Greg. It would be incredibly hard to imagine anyone walking away from last night’s show disappointed. If anything, Blue Rodeo showed why they are one of the country’s best bands. Opening the proceedings last night was The Devin Cuddy Band. Their rollicking blues-soaked set easily won the crowd over in the all-too short 30 minutes they were on stage. Proving the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, Devin exuded much of the same charm that his father has for the last quarter century. Backed by a stellar band, expect big things from the Devin Cuddy Band in the future. Filed in: MusicNerd Features, MusicNerd Reviews Tags: Blue Rodeo, Casino New Brunswick, February 6 2014, Live review, Moncton	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line909
__label__wiki	0.94656	0.94656	You are here: Home Matthew Good Releases New Single; Album Coming In Fall Matthew Good Releases New Single; Album Coming In Fall Posted on May 27, 2013 by Ken Kelley \| Canadian rocker Matthew Good released his latest single, “Had It Coming” today. It’s the first single from Arrows of Desire, an album that will be released on Sept. 24. Clocking in at only 2 minutes, 40 seconds, “Had It Coming” is a short, punchy and fun rocker, a big change from his last record Lights of Endangered Species which was a sweeping record that relied less on guitars and included horns, strings, woodwinds and piano. “It’s a rock n’ roll record, that’s for sure,” Good said in an interview Sunday night about the new album. “For the most part, it’s a rather up-tempo record. Mid-tempo, up-tempo. It’s night and day from Lights of Endangered Species.” When Good wrapped up his tour for Lights, he wasn’t sure what to do next. He’s an artist that likes to change things up on each record, and he was looking for inspiration. The musician – a mainstay on Canadian charts since the ‘90s — wound up diving back into his youth, listening to bands that inspired him in the late-‘80s and early-‘90s like Husker Du, The Replacements, The Pixies and Afghan Whigs. “I came home from touring the last record and it was obviously an intricate thing and an intricate thing to perform, and to be honest with you, I kind of had an idea of something I wanted to do a little bit, but I wasn’t totally sure,” he said. “It wasn’t really until I started delving back into that music that it just got me all fired up.” Good released two versions of the single online and to radio Monday. “Had It Coming” is available on its own and an extended version couples it with another new song, “We’re Long Gone.” Good mentions that FM radio used to play Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” back-to-back with “Living Loving Maid,” and the idea is they can do the same with his new tracks. Whether radio will bite and play the two-song single is hard to say. “I have no clue,” Good said. “Maybe some stations will, maybe some stations they’ll play it at night. That kind of thing. You never know. “But given the option, I don’t really give a damn,” he added with a laugh. Both versions of the song are available for streaming. “Had It Coming” will be available for purchase Tuesday on iTunes and the extended single will be available for purchase on June 4. The 10-track Arrows of Desire is Good’s sixth solo album in a decade, and his first for FrostByte Media Inc., distributed by his old home at Universal Music Canada. The label change is a positive move, he said. When Universal decided not to pick up the option to renew his contract after Lights of Endangered Species didn’t sell as well as his previous efforts – Good knew it wasn’t a “commercially viable” album, but he feels it’s one of his strongest artistically — FrostByte was quick to snatch him up. They’ve since sent him to Europe to perform and have been supportive of his artistic decisions to date. Good points out that the label didn’t hear a note from his new album until they dropped by the recording studio well into the making of it. He has some summer tour dates lined up, while a full-scale coast-to-coast tour, including U.S. dates, will be announced in June and will commence in the fall. Good is looking forward to hitting the road and playing the new tunes. “It’s a weird thing, man, being 19 years into this and still get to do it,” he said. Good said he would love to mark 20 years in the business with a documentary about his career, but he’s not sure if it’s feasible. Asked if fatherhood has changed his songwriting at all, Good says it hasn’t. However, he pointed out with a laugh that in the demos of songs from the new record, some of his kids’ favourite television shows can be heard in the background. Confirmed summer dates include: July 6 – Bala, ON – The Kee July 9 – Windsor, ON – The Loop July 11 – St Catharines, ON – Barracuda Pretty July 12 – Ottawa, ON – Bluesfest July 13 – Victoria, BC – Rock The Shores Arrows of Desire track list: Via Dolorosa Had It Coming We’re Long Gone Garden Of Knives Mutineering Hey Hell Heaven Guns Of Carolina Letters In Wartime Eric Lewis is a news reporter in Moncton, New Brunswick who contributes features to MusicNerd. His wife may or may not have felt being a Matt Good fan was a prerequisite for their relationship, but it’s worked out just fine. [soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/94070490″ params=”auto_play=false&show_artwork=true&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /] Filed in: MusicNerd Features	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line910
__label__wiki	0.75532	0.75532	May Pakistani Politicians also consider this news item. Moeed Pirzada \| FB Blog \| Title: EXCLUSIVE: Jeb Bush resigns all board memberships with eye on 2016 Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, moving closer to a possible presidential run, has stepped down as a paid adviser to a for-profit education company that sells online courses to public university students in exchange for a share of their tuition payments. Late on Dec. 31, a Bush aide told The Washington Post that the former governor had stepped down from all of his business and nonprofit board memberships, including the chairmanship of his education foundation, “effective today.” Aides said he wants to devote his time to exploring a return to politics rather than pursuing his business commitments, but separating himself from those interests now could preempt some political problems as he prepares for the added scrutiny of a hotly contested campaign for the Republican nomination. Bush’s affiliation with Academic Partnerships — which has contracts with Florida, Texas and a half-dozen other states and which reports annual sales of $100 million — could complicate his effort to promote his record as an education reformer.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line914
__label__wiki	0.683719	0.683719	Saros Series of Solar Eclipses Solar Eclipses in Saros Series 157 This page lists all the solar eclipses in saros series 157 which are in our database. Note that the end of this series is not included in our database, so the list below only covers the earlier part of the series. This series is partnered with lunar Saros series 150. max: 00:17 UT With only 13% of the Sun covered at maximum eclipse, this will be a very marginal eclipse at best, and rather uninteresting. A small partial eclipse will barely darken the Sun. With just 27% of the Sun covered for viewers closest to the center, this will be of limited interest. A moderate partial eclipse, with 57% of the Sun covered for viewers closest to the center, will create an interesting spectacle. This will be a deep partial eclipse, with 86% of the Sun covered for viewers closest to the center. This will provide a significant spectacle for those who will see it. Annular Solar Eclipse This marginal annular eclipse will last 3 minutes exactly, with the annular path covering a small area in the north polar regions. The Sun will be 96% covered in a moderate annular eclipse, lasting 3 minutes and 12 seconds and covering a very broad path, 393 km wide at maximum. The Sun will be 96% covered in a moderate annular eclipse, lasting 3 minutes and 36 seconds and covering a broad path up to 232 km wide. The Sun will be 96% covered in a moderate annular eclipse, lasting 4 minutes and 8 seconds and covering a broad path up to 179 km wide. 2 Dec, 2328 AD The Sun will be 97% covered in a moderate annular eclipse, lasting 4 minutes and 13 seconds and covering a path up to 157 km wide. The Sun will be 97% covered in a moderate annular eclipse, lasting 4 minutes and 4 seconds and covering a path up to 149 km wide. A large annular eclipse will cover 97% of the Sun, creating a dramatic spectacle for observers in a path up to 128 km wide; it will last 3 minutes and 26 seconds at the point of maximum eclipse. A large annular eclipse will cover 97% of the Sun, creating a dramatic spectacle for observers in a path up to 114 km wide; it will last 3 minutes exactly at the point of maximum eclipse. A large annular eclipse will cover 98% of the Sun, creating a dramatic spectacle for observers in a path up to 98 km wide; it will last 2 minutes and 30 seconds at the point of maximum eclipse. A large annular eclipse will cover 98% of the Sun, creating a dramatic spectacle for observers in a narrow path at most 79 km wide; it will last 1 minute and 58 seconds at the point of maximum eclipse. A large annular eclipse will cover over 99% of the Sun, creating a dramatic spectacle for observers in a narrow path at most 37 km wide; it will last 53 seconds at the point of maximum eclipse. A large annular eclipse will cover over 99% of the Sun, creating a dramatic spectacle for observers in a narrow path at most 14 km wide; it will last just 20 seconds at the point of maximum eclipse. Hybrid Solar Eclipse A fleeting hybrid eclipse will cover only a tiny path, just 9 km wide and last for a brief 12 seconds at the point of maximum eclipse. The Sun will be darkened for 45 seconds by a dramatic hybrid eclipse covering a narrow path at most 33 km wide. This will be a sight worth seeing. The Sun will be darkened for 1 minute and 17 seconds by a dramatic hybrid eclipse covering a narrow path at most 55 km wide. This will be a sight worth seeing. Total Solar Eclipse The Sun will be darkened for 1 minute and 49 seconds by a dramatic total eclipse covering a narrow path at most 77 km wide. This will be a sight worth seeing. A dramatic total eclipse will plunge the Sun into darkness for 2 minutes and 22 seconds at maximum, creating an amazing spectacle for observers in a path up to 98 km wide. A dramatic total eclipse will plunge the Sun into darkness for 2 minutes and 56 seconds at maximum, creating an amazing spectacle for observers in a path up to 117 km wide. A dramatic total eclipse will plunge the Sun into darkness for 4 minutes and 4 seconds at maximum, creating an amazing spectacle for observers in a path up to 150 km wide. A dramatic total eclipse will plunge the Sun into darkness for 4 minutes and 37 seconds at maximum, creating an amazing spectacle for observers in a broad path up to 164 km wide. A dramatic total eclipse will plunge the Sun into darkness for 5 minutes and 7 seconds at maximum, creating an amazing spectacle for observers in a broad path up to 177 km wide. A dramatic total eclipse will plunge the Sun into darkness for 4 minutes and 48 seconds at maximum, creating an amazing spectacle for observers in a very broad path, 240 km wide at maximum. A dramatic total eclipse will plunge the Sun into darkness for 4 minutes exactly at maximum, creating an amazing spectacle for observers in a very broad path, 248 km wide at maximum. A dramatic total eclipse will plunge the Sun into darkness for 3 minutes and 1 second at maximum, creating an amazing spectacle for observers in a very broad path, 252 km wide at maximum. 550 visits since 2019-08-18. Last modified: 2019-10-01 20:35:20 UTC. 2020-01-19 16:05:42 UTC; proc: 172.20ms hits 1 misses 0	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line917
__label__cc	0.502536	0.497464	NAEYC Member Spotlight: Kevin McGowan Home / Resources / Publications / Young Children / September 2018 / NAEYC Member Spotlight: Kevin McGowan Kevin McGowan Assistant Professor of Early Education and Care, Bridgewater State University As a former Head Start teacher in Washington, DC, Kevin McGowan enjoyed children’s natural curiosity. He also found that he could build on their tendency to ask questions about any and all subjects and engage in one of his top priorities as a teacher in a diverse, urban community: anti-bias education: “It’s crucial, because more and more teachers will find themselves working with children who may not necessarily look like them or come from the same social backgrounds.” He recalls one group of children that was very curious about body types. A child once approached a peer who was slightly larger than the other children and said, “My mommy said that you are fat.” Kevin made sure he and the children had a discussion about how language can make others feel, using puppets to demonstrate emotions. Kevin also had a conversation with the mother of the child who had made the comment, asking her to be aware of how she talks about people’s differences in front of her daughter. “If we ignore [children’s comments] and just say to them, ‘Oh that’s just not what we say or what we do,’ we kind of leave them to their own devices, coming up with solutions themselves without guidance and facilitation.” Kevin believes that if these conversations start early, children are more likely to grow up valuing diversity. To address narrow concepts of gender, Kevin has also talked with fathers who were not happy that their sons were playing in the dramatic play area while wearing dresses or aprons—conversations that were not always successful. As someone rewriting gender norms himself (as a male early childhood educator), Kevin knows that there is a lot of work left to do to end gender biases. “We learn from the very beginning that we put little girls in pink and we put little boys in blue. I think we have to consciously disrupt these strong notions around such rigid gender roles.” To intentionally teach about gender, Kevin carefully selected professionals to visit his class on Community Helpers day. He invited women working in jobs traditionally considered to be for men and men working in jobs traditionally considered to be for women—for instance, a female police officer and a male nurse—to show children that in their current activities and future career choices, they can follow their interests. Currently a college professor preparing future early childhood educators, Kevin thinks it’s imperative to discuss anti-bias education with his students because they will soon become important figures in the lives of young children. At the heart of his approach is a simple message from Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves: “We’re all the same and we’re all different.” Kevin finds this powerful because, as he says, “It disrupts the notion that we’re all colorblind.” When he isn’t teaching, Kevin enjoys taking walks with his partner of more than 25 years and their dogs. He also loves connecting with his 90-year-old father and 86-year-old mother in Houston. He attempts to balance his personal and professional lives, making sure to take care of himself physically, spiritually, and mentally. Asked why he wanted to become a teacher, Kevin says that, when he was in college, he actually talked himself out of it, choosing instead to enter the premedical track. He believes he bought into some of the gender bias surrounding early childhood education, thinking, “A man doesn’t really do this; I need to pick another profession more geared toward what men do.” After some intense self-reflection, though, Kevin changed his major and started his career as an early childhood educator. As an educator, Kevin has worn many hats—teacher, instructional coach, education manager, and assistant professor—but he still sees being a preschool teacher as his most important role. Visit NAEYC.org/get-involved/membership/spotlight for more information on how to: Share your Story Answer a few questions to tell us about your work with young children and what NAEYC membership means to you. Nominate a Member Share why an NAEYC member you know should be recognized for his or her work with young children. Topics: YC Tate and the Pink Coat: Exploring Gender and Enacting Anti-Bias Principles Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves, Second Edition Building a Gender-Balanced Workforce: Supporting Male Teachers	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line921
__label__cc	0.742718	0.257282	Nathan Cornelius Leave a comment Composition Implied Chaos (2016) for harp and double bass Implied Chaos is a musical depiction of a fractal, a mathematical pattern where each part is a miniature image of the whole. This fractal, known as the logistic map, is itself a graphical display of the logistic growth function, an equation which governs the rate of growth of a population bounded by some upper limit,such as an ecosystem with limited resources. Depending on the parameter of how fast the population reproduces relative to the maximum capacity of the environment (represented by the horizontal axis of the image), the actual level of the population (on the vertical axis) may reach a stable equilibrium, oscillate between high and low levels, or explode and crash wildly. In particular, very small differences in the parameter may mean the difference between a regular cycle of “boom” and “bust” years or a chaotic series of levels with no apparent rhyme or reason. In 1975, mathematician James Yorke proved that any logistical system that displays such regular cycles with odd periods (repeating every 3, 5, or 7 years) is also susceptible to chaotic behavior, a stunning discovery which essentially launched the mathematical field now known as chaos theory. The title of Yorke’s paper was simply Period Three Implies Chaos. In this piece, the musical gestures undergo gradual transformation from order to chaos in all aspects, including pitch, timbre, and texture. At first, the sounds are so pure they can barely be heard. Gradually, they coalesce into a low C which immediately begins rising in pitch. As its rise slows, it splits into two voices, then into four, and so on until reaching chaos, all the while becoming noisier and noisier. Yet, in the middle of the most chaotic regions, like the eye of a hurricane, appear the “windows of order” described by Yorke, in which a regular ostinato gives the illusion of stability and calm, but the triple or quintuple meter ominously hints at the music’s chaotic destiny. Musicians interested in learning about the history and theory of mathematical chaos should consult James Gleick’s fascinating book, entitled simply Chaos. Gilbert Biberian, Monogram Mark Delpriora, Variations on a Theme by Sor	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line922
__label__wiki	0.507244	0.507244	NC NATIVE ENVIRONMENT Special Session: AGU FM 2019 NCSU Special Topics Course About NC Native Environment Analysis, Commentary, & Reflection Environmental Justice and Tribal Consultation at the North Carolina Indian Unity Conference Earlier this week, I gave the following address at the opening General Assembly of the 2017 North Carolina Indian Unity Conference. The conference has been held annually since 1976 to bring together leaders and other members of North Carolina's eight recognized tribes. Following the opening ceremony, NC Secretary of Administration and Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts addressed attendees. I arrived early for the opening of the 2017 NC Indian Unity Conference. (March 9, 2017) American Indians have made great strides in promoting wellness, education, and economic development for our people here in North Carolina. For me, the Unity Conference is a place to celebrate our successes in these areas, and it is also a place to build strategies for future success in other areas. Today, I’d like to speak about one area where I see opportunities for tribes to step forward and lead in ways that benefit not only Indian people, but also all North Carolinians. In particular, I want to discuss the landscapes that make up our tribal territories, sacred lands, and waters. These landscapes are critical parts of our cultures and tribal identities. Think, for example, about the ways in which we identify our tribes. My tribe, the Lumbee, draws its name from the river. We are sometimes known as “people of the dark water.” The Meherrin call themselves “people of the water,” in reference to the expansive rivers, wetlands, and sounds. The Eastern Band of Cherokee are known as “people of Kituwa,” a sacred, mother town. From the “people of the falling star” (referring to the Waccamaw Siouan creation story of their lake) to the “people of the Coharie River,” (Coharie Tribe), North Carolina tribes identify themselves by the landscapes where they live or once lived. We are our sacred places. To be sure, we are more than these places alone, but we are not the same without them. Envisioning Sacred Space Close your eyes for a moment and envision the place that you come from. It may not be the place where you currently reside, and it might be a place that you have not visited for a long, long time. Reach back into your mind and call up that place. Maybe you see forests, rolling hills, and farmland. Perhaps you see dense swamps where river birches form an arching canopy over an intimate stream, or perhaps you see a powerful river with stately cypress trees guarding its banks. Do you see craggy mountain peaks fading into intimate hollows of laurel and rhododendron, or do you see the endless rows of your grandparents’ tobacco field or their vegetable garden? Immerse yourself in the environment as you think of the sights, the sounds, and the smells of these places. With your eyes still shut, think about the surroundings, close by and far away. No stream exists without its valley, no river without its headwaters. No homestead exists apart from surrounding fields, forests, paths, or driveways. Whatever you envision, all of the elements - land, water, homes, sky - make up a landscape. Those landscapes help define who we are as individuals and who we are, collectively, as members of tribes. Over countless generations, we came to know the lands and waters as we know our family. We named the places, plants, and creatures, and they became our relatives. We became part of them, and we learned from them. Our ancestors’ bones mingled with soil and water, and the places became sacred. Sacred places – sacred landscapes – are what I hope you envisioned in your mind’s eye, and I also hope that you recognized the things that make them sacred. Those of us who live away from home do not joke when we tell others that we are visiting the “Holy Land.” Please open your eyes. Federal Agencies and Sacred Space Government agencies like to categorize things, and it turns out they even have categories and labels for sacred places. The US Department of Interior calls these places “cultural landscapes” and defines them as areas made up of natural and cultural features, including wildlife, geological formations, and a host of natural and human elements. The Department also notes that these landscapes have historic, cultural, aesthetic, religious, or ceremonial value. The federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation takes this idea further, stating for indigenous peoples, sacred, cultural landscapes contain the memory of generations of people interacting with the environment. The Advisory Council informs agencies that cultural landscapes include sights and sounds as well, noting that impeded views or loud noises can interrupt the ceremonial nature of a cultural landscape. I point out the federal government’s attention to cultural landscapes for a couple of reasons. First, I find it encouraging that our government recognizes sacred places as more than a single grave, tree, rock, or structure; a sacred, cultural landscape is an entire area in which these things are embedded. In other words, a sacred space is more than the sum of individual components; a place can be sacred to indigenous peoples because of the larger environment in which it exists, and because of the cultural history that has become ingrained in that environment. Disrupting this environment, even indirectly through the sounds of traffic noise or through disrupting a scenic view, can desecrate a cultural landscape. Second, I want to point out some very real implications that flow from the government’s attention to cultural landscapes. Whenever the federal government is involved in funding or permitting activities on public or private lands, federal laws require government agencies to consider impacts on cultural landscapes – including sacred landscapes of indigenous peoples. I want to point out two federal laws that support this requirement. The first law is the National Historic Preservation Act, which placed the federal government in a position of responsibility and leadership to protect and steward places of historical significance within the United States. The National Register of Historic Places is the best-known list of sites protected by the act. The second law is the National Environmental Policy Act, which gave the federal government responsibility for protecting and enhancing the environment nationwide. This law also laid the groundwork for ensuring that no community bears a disproportionate share of pollution or other environmental burdens. Both of these laws require that federal agencies consider how new highways, dams, pipelines, and other jurisdictional projects impact the surrounding environment, and this includes impacts to sacred, indigenous landscapes. This raises an important question – How does the federal government identify cultural landscapes? Do they only consider sites on the National Register of Historic Places? Simply put, no. The National Register is one source of information for federal agencies, but not the only one. Agencies also rely on state historic preservation offices to report on historic places, including cultural landscapes. When a jurisdictional project like a highway or a pipeline is proposed, state historic preservation offices can inform the federal government about sites that could be impacted. Reports from this office help federal agencies decide whether or not to permit those activities. Corporations and other permittees can hire their own consultants to conduct surveys and collect data for supplemental reports on cultural resources. These kinds of reports are often the only resources that let federal agencies know if a project places any sacred, cultural landscapes at risk. With that in mind, I have a follow up question– How many people in this room have a good working relationship with the state historic preservation office? Do your tribal officials have relationships with this office? Do you have a tribal historic preservation office? If not, are you comfortable with the state reporting on landscapes and spaces considered sacred by your tribe? Can this state office adequately convey the sacred nature of the landscapes that you envisioned when I asked you to close your eyes earlier? We are our sacred places. Think about that for a moment. For projects involving federal oversight, agencies have other obligations besides evaluating impacts on cultural landscapes. The federal government is charged with ensuring that all people are protected equally from environmental hazards, including health hazards. Federal agencies are also responsible for ensuring that everyone has equal access to environmental decision-making. Together, equal protection from environmental hazards and equal access to environmental decision-making are known as “environmental justice.” The modern concept of environmental justice was actually born here in North Carolina, under unfortunate circumstances that involve a grave injustice to our Haliwa-Saponi brothers and sisters. In the 1970s, a Raleigh-based corporation deliberately dumped thousands of gallons of chemicals called PCBs along roadside ditches in eastern North Carolina, including roads surrounding the Haliwa-Saponi community of Hollister. PCBs are highly toxic and can cause cancer, neurological issues, respiratory ailments, and other health problems. After the crime was revealed and the extent of the pollution documented, the state excavated contaminated soil from roadsides and disposed of it in a new landfill located in Warren County. The site of the landfill was a nearby African American community. The original crime and the subsequent decision about siting the landfill revealed deep racism in environmental decision-making, because poor and minority communities bore all of the environmental risk, yet they were excluded from the decision-making process. Today’s environmental justice movement rose in response to the Warren County tragedy and similar events elsewhere. Environmental justice is now encoded into federal policy. Whenever federal funding or permits are involved in projects that have environmental impacts, agencies are required to consider whether the project places disproportionate risks on vulnerable communities, including poor and minority communities. Federal agencies must also ensure that the voices of these communities are incorporated into the decision-making process. Environmental justice measures take on a range of formats across federal agencies and can include listening sessions, public meetings, and the like. For indigenous peoples, the National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee has set a higher bar for environmental justice. The Committee’s guidance to federal agencies reminds government officials that all of the United States once belonged to sovereign indigenous nations; over time, tribal sovereignty and land ownership eroded, but the government still has an obligation to consult with tribes on activities that impact their modern or ancestral lands. The Committee points out that tribal needs and priorities are distinctly different from those of stakeholders or the general public. Federal agencies are required to consult with federally recognized tribes before approving activities that may impact tribal lands, but the committee also recommends consultation with non-federal tribes on these activities. In particular, the Committee’s guidance on consultation and collaboration with non-federal tribes states: “Although such groups lack recognition as sovereigns, they may have environmental and public health concerns that are different from other groups or from the general public. These differences may exist due to a subsistence lifestyle and/or unique cultural practices. Agencies should seek to identify such groups and to include them in the decision-making processes.” – National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee The take-home message here is that federal policy acknowledges that tribes, regardless of recognition status, are not typical stakeholders. The environmental concerns of tribes demand special attention, and that attention comes in the form of tribal consultation. The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation also recognizes the special concerns of all tribes when it comes to cultural landscapes, and it has issued similar guidance for consulting federal as well as non-federal tribes. This raises one last set of questions: What is consultation? Who consults with whom? Is it an email from the federal agency? Is it a form letter from the company pursuing the project? Formally, consultation is a process that takes place between the federal government and a tribal government. A key activity of consultation is relationship building between these governments. (The radio show Native America Calling recently hosted an excellent discussion of consultation, and it is well worth the listen.) The goal of the tribe is to protect its interests, and the goal of the federal government is to understand and respect tribal interests. These can be sacred or religious interests, environmental or economic interests. Remember that federally recognized tribes are already acknowledged as sovereign governments in this process, but state-recognized tribal governments may also receive consulting status for projects that have implications for their cultural and environmental resources. (The Commonwealth of Virginia has put together an FAQ that discusses consultation with their state recognized tribes.) Unfortunately, there is a long history of failed consultation between the federal government and tribes. The events at Standing Rock surrounding the Dakota Access Pipeline stem largely from failed consultations. The recent court battle hinges partly on what the tribe views as the Corps of Engineer’s failure to hold high level, government-to-government discussions at an early stage in the planning process. In 2011, several years before the events at Standing Rock, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation recommended that agencies consult with Indian tribes in a timely fashion to identify sacred sites and landscapes and avoid project delays. The Council advised that doing so would minimize the chances of desecrating cultural landscapes, and it would also avoid unnecessary delays to the permitted project. It seems that the federal government may not have taken its own advice in this case, and we have seen indigenous people suffer as a result. Without consultation, the federal government cannot know the needs and interests of tribes. Your tribe may oppose or support a particular project, but consultation is an act of sovereignty that tribes should take seriously. Tribes can use their consultation status to ensure environmental justice for their communities – in other words, to ensure that our people do not receive a disproportionate share of pollution or other environmental burdens. Consultation status also places tribes at the table should the project disturb cultural artifacts or the graves of our ancestors. Tribal citizens can and should provide input as individuals, but consultation status is reserved for the interests of a tribe as a whole. History has taught us that if we don’t speak up for consultation status, and if we don’t guard it vigilantly, we cannot expect to be heard, and we cannot expect a seat at the table when it comes to environmental decision-making. I want to wrap up by taking a moment to talk about a representative of the United Nations who spent the past several months visiting tribal communities in the United States. During her visit, Special Rapporteur Victoria Tauli-Corpuz documented breakdowns in consultation between tribes and the federal government on a range of projects with environmental impacts. In her initial statement, she noted that: “The goal of tribal consultation is not simply to check a box, or to merely give tribes a chance to be heard. Rather, the core objective is to provide federal decision makers with context, information, and perspectives needed to support informed decisions that actually protect tribal interests.” – United Nations Special Rapporteur Victoria Tauli-Corpuz I leave you today with this message – tribal leaders, protect the interests of your people by seeking consultation status on projects that impact your sacred landscapes. Collect and weigh the scientific and cultural evidence of potential impacts, and take a position on issues of importance to your tribe. Tribal members, submit your own comments as public citizens, but also encourage and support your leaders in efforts to engage in consultation. Commission of Indian Affairs, consider your ability to shape state policy on consultation for projects with implications for the indigenous people of North Carolina. Today, the issue for some tribes is the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, especially given its proposed path through eastern North Carolina. There is still time for tribes to receive consultation status on this project and for tribal members to submit comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on the draft Environmental Impact Statement. Other projects will emerge, and they will inevitably have impacts on our sacred places, and they will have implications for our citizens. We have the ability to speak on behalf of our sacred landscapes, ensuring environmental justice for our tribal communities, and becoming good ancestors for those who come after us. Cultural Landscapes US Department of Interior Definition of Cultural Landscapes Advisory Council on Historic Preservation Information on Cultural Landscapes EPA Office of Environmental Justice (Archive.org)* National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee Guidance for Tribes (Archive.org)* Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation Guidance on Tribal Consultation (Archive.org)* Native America Calling Radio Episode on Tribal Consultation Commonwealth of Virginia FAQ on Tribal Consultation United Nations Special Rapporteur Statement on Consultation & Rights of Indigenous Peoples *Archive.org links intended to preserve existing content from these sites. Ryan Emanuel is a scientist and enrolled member of the Lumbee Tribe. Ryan leads the Ecohydrology and Watershed Science Lab at North Carolina State University and tweets @WaterPotential. NC Native Environment is a public outreach arm of his research program. On the Dakota Access Pipeline As the Dakota Access Pipeline nears completion, I thought I would post some thoughts here that I have previously shared on FaceBook and other social media sites over the past several months. Back in December 2016, I wrote a FaceBook post about a great infographic created by the New York Times. I updated the post a few weeks later with this text, which has been slightly modified here: The Times' infographic shows the route of the Dakota Access Pipeline, including it's long swath through disputed tribal territory northwest of the Missouri River crossing. Here, "disputed tribal territory" means lands set apart for the exclusive use of the Great Sioux Nation by treaty with the United States that were later seized by the US when gold was discovered in the Black Hills. A federal claims court, which eventually adjudicated the case noted, "A more ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealings will never, in all probability, be found in our history." One hundred years after the seizure, the Supreme Court ruled that the US had violated the constitution, and the federal government offered the tribes of the Sioux Nation monetary compensation for their land. However, given that the Black Hills are an especially sacred part of the 7.3 million acres illegally taken from the tribes, their response could be paraphrased by this swashbuckling cinematic exchange. The tribes have not relinquished their claims on the land, and the federal government continues to hold compensatory funds in an account that now exceeds $1 billion. In light of concerns over the pipeline route through what they consider illegally seized territory, and because of concerns about environmental impacts on their territorial waters, the Standing Rock Sioux called for a full environmental impact study of the pipeline route under the terms of the National Historic Preservation Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act. Federal guidance related to both of these laws recommends environmental studies and tribal consultations any time a tribe stands to be affected by activity requiring a federal permit. The guidance applies whether or not a tribe technically "owns" the land where the activity takes place. In December 2016, the Department of Interior declared in a memorandum that the Army Corps of Engineers failed to consider tribes' statutory and treaty rights when it allowed the developer to re-route the pipeline from its original path near Bismarck, ND. The DOI memo emphasized that the same motivation for re-routing the pipeline away from Bismarck - potential harm to the city's water supply should the pipeline leak - was dismissed for the alternate route near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, because technology would be used to prevent or minimize leaks. DOI solicitor, Hilary Tompkins put it this way: "A pipeline spill would thus pose the same risk to tribal water ... that the Corps found to be impermissible for Bismarck water, and yet the threat to tribal water was considered mitigated by the same pipeline technology that the Corps found would not protect Bismarck residents." In other words, what the Corps and the pipeline developers deemed too risky for Bismarck's residents was viewed as acceptable for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. This example of unfair dealing runs counter to a core tenet of environmental justice: that everyone deserves equal protection from environmental hazards. Around the same time that the DOI memo was released, President Obama and the Corps sided with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and agreed to conduct an impact study in consultation with the tribe. As the next President took office in January 2017, one of his first actions was to scrap the planned study, instructing the Corps to "review and approve in an expedited manner" remaining easements for the Dakota Access Pipeline. A piece in The Atlantic covers the new President's directive to the Corps. The President's directive ignores the DOI solicitor's conclusions; in fact, the DOI memo was recently revoked and no longer serves as policy guidance in the new administration. My presentation at a September 2016 Congressional briefing on water included a statement about the Dakota Access Pipeline and other issues of concern to indigenous communities. (Screenshot courtesy of UCAR) The pipeline developer argued that the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe already had its chance to weigh in, suggesting that large protests and tribal opposition arrived too late to influence the pipeline route. In a Wall Street Journal interview, the CEO of Energy Transfer Partners claimed "We could have changed the route. It could have been done, but it’s too late." In response, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe released an audio recording of a 2014 meeting in which the Tribal Council told representatives from Energy Transfer Partners that they would never approve of a pipeline through their treaty lands. The meeting took place more than two years before the CEO's statement. In addition to raising issues surrounding environmental justice, the Dakota Access Pipeline highlights the importance of tribal consultation or, in this case, lack of tribal consultation. The United Nations' Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples recently visited the US to document issues surrounding energy development, tribes, and consultation. The initial report highlights deficiencies in federal policy surrounding tribal consultation and suggests that the Dakota Access Pipeline dispute is only one example of a larger structural problem related to federal policy. In particular, Rapporteur Victoria Tauli-Corpuz notes: "The goal of tribal consultation is not simply to check a box, or to merely give tribes a chance to be heard. Rather, the core objective is to provide federal decision makers with context, information, and perspectives needed to support informed decisions that actually protect tribal interests. Treaty rights, the federal trust responsibility to tribes, environmental justice, and the principles enshrined in the Declaration all must be given life and meaning in federal decisions that impact tribes." The UN report and guidance from the US government emphasize that tribal consultation is fundamentally different from gathering public input, engaging stakeholders, or receiving comments. Tribes and tribal citizens are free to pursue these channels, but the unique situation of indigenous peoples - among other things they are the original owners of the present-day territory of the US - obliges the federal government to pursue meaningful consultation as well. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples pushes this idea further and states that nations shall obtain indigenous peoples' "free, prior, and informed consent" before undertaking activities that affect them. The Rapporteur noted a large gap between this ideal and the current practice of tribal consultation in the US. Given the number and scope of projects across the United States and their associated environmental impacts, I hope that tribes will hold federal agencies to high standards for consultation. Our present-day and ancestral lands are at stake, as well as our histories and cultures. As Rapporteur Tauli-Corpuz observed, box-checking is unacceptable when it comes to environmental justice and tribal consultation. -Ryan Emanuel Coharie Haliwa-Saponi Jocelyn Painter Lumbee Watershed Modeling	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line924
__label__wiki	0.807252	0.807252	The story of the National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI) is the story of how an idea evolved into a vision of how diving instruction should be. It is a vision that is shared by thousands of people for whom scuba diving is not just a recreational pastime, but a passion. Imparting safe diving skills and working in unison to preserve the world’s aquatic environments are the noble purpose shared by those pioneers who first formed NAUI. Pursuing this task has not always been easy, but it has been richly rewarding. This history chronicles the dedication, hard work and perseverance, the conflict and resolution, and ultimately, the triumph of the philosophy “Dive Safety Through Education.” The modern diving era in North America traces its beginnings to 1948 when Jacques-Yves Cousteau convinced Rene Bussoz (of Rene’s Sporting Goods in Westwood, California) to import self-contained underwater breathing units he called Aqua-Lungs. Previously, aquatic adventurers were limited to breath-hold dives, although they too called themselves skin divers. It wasn’t until the late 1960s that the term “scuba diver” became the accepted name for Aqua-Lung users. Breath-hold divers were drawn to the oceans primarily to hunt game fish and collect lobster and, on the US west coast, abalone. Spear fishing tournaments were fairly common, rewarding participants for the most and largest fish taken. In the years since, spear fishing has been in and out of favor as its environmental impact debated, but it is again growing in popularity and practiced responsibly both on scuba (where not restricted) and by skin (breath-hold) divers. Some of the early records still stand t o d a y. Some will stand without challenge, as taking certain fish has since been outlawed, and recordkeeping organizations like the International Underwater Spear Fishing Association (IUSA) will not accept or publish record claims for endangered species. Given the equipment available and the body of knowledge that existed for the early adventurers, some of these are truly remarkable conquests. The Aqua-Lung would, for the first time, allow divers to stay under water much longer than they could on a single breath. Rene Bussoz imported only ten S.C.U.B.A. units, and once they were sold he believed he had saturated the market. However, several sporting goods stores across the country discovered a market for the Aqua-Lungs. The divers who bought them soon realized they didn’t need a breath-hold diver’s stamina, and they in turn convinced others to try this new, wonderful, extended, weightless experience. The number of scuba divers steadily increased and U.S. Divers Company was formed out of Rene’s Sporting Goods. During those beginning years, there were no certification requirements, and anyone who could afford it could purchase scuba equipment. That equipment pales in comparison to today’s designs. The double-hose regulators were hard breathing, and some required specialized techniques to clear water from the hoses if they flooded during the dive. Still, the only training offered by the sellers was the warning not to hold one’s breath. Training was being conducted by the military (Underwater Demolition Teams, the forerunner of the well known SEAL teams in the U.S. Navy) and by the oceanographic institutes at Scripps in Southern California and Woods Hole in New England. Dive clubs were the only resource for training available to civilian recreational divers throughout the 1950s. As the population of divers grew, the need to codify the training was also growing. Jim Auxie Jr and Chuck Blakeslee started a magazine called The Skin Diver (later renamed Skin Diver Magazine) in 1951. They asked Neal Hess to write and edit a column about teaching scuba called “The Instructors Corner.” It wasn’t long before Neal was reviewing course outlines submitted by others and certifying them as instructors. He started a new column called the “National Diving Patrol,” wherein he would publish the names of these new skin and scuba diving “instructors.” Al Tillman, (soon to become NAUI Instructor #1) was the director of sports for Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation during this period and established a training program sponsored by L.A. County to certify skin and scuba divers. The impetus was the growing number of divers appearing at Los Angeles area beaches and concern for their safety. As Tillman said in a 1952 letter to Parks and Recreation director Paul Gruendyke, “A new sport—skin diving—is becoming popular in the area. Recently while diving in Palos Verdes, I ran into several divers in the water with me who didn’t know what they were doing. One had one of the new underwater breathing units that allows divers to stay under for long periods of time... I propose that my department get involved in this sport and provide training classes. I believe that diving will grow in the future and we have an obligation to make the sport as safe as possible.” Bev Morgan, a Los Angeles County lifeguard at the time, (he would later be well known among commercial and recreational divers alike for his equipment designs, including the Kirby-Morgan band mask) and Al Tillman studied with Conrad Limbaugh at Scripps Institute of Oceanography in 1953. In April 1955 they held the first Underwater Instructor Certification Course, (1UICC) and created the world’s first civilian diver training agency. The L.A. County program soon began granting Provisional Certification to instructors across the country to respond to a growing number of requests. The decade of the 1950s was a period of growing interest and participation in recreational scuba diving. “Sea Hunt” aired from 1958 to 1961 and starred Lloyd Bridges (NAUI’s first honorary instructor member) and Zale Parry, NAUI #A-12. “Sea Hunt” generated much of the early excitement and interest in scuba as a recreational activity. There were also early movies and books by Cousteau and Hans Hass, but neither did as much as “Mike Nelson” to focus the attention of the general public on scuba diving. Zale Parry and Al Tillman have likened the program to “an underwater Western movie” in their book Scuba America: The Human History of Sport Diving. Remarkably there was even a Long Play record released that purportedly taught listeners to dive. The jacket of the album carried the following explanation, and the lesson content is eerily familiar. CARLTON “HEAR HOW” SERIES / CHH 17--HEAR HOW TO SKIN DIVE LLOYD BRIDGES, world-famous television star and water-sports expert teaches you to become a better skindiver. Whether you’ve only dreamed about exploring underwater or have spent many hours in that sub-surface wonderland, you’ll profit by what Lloyd Bridges has to say on this record. For here the great actor-skin diver tells you – in what amounts to a private lesson – all he knows of the art and science of getting along in the world of the fish. It’s all sensible, all practical, all learned by years of fun and practice under water. Bridges is the well-known aquatic star on national TV and has found a perfect way of combining his hobby and his work. He’s been an actor for many years, on Broadway first, then in movies and television. At the same time, he’s been an enthusiastic skin and scuba diver. So he jumped at the chance to star in a series which would let him act, skin dive and make money at the same time. He once was quoted as saying he would almost have paid them to let him be in the show – undoubtedly an exaggeration, but it shows you how much he loves the water. And he knows and respects it, too. On this record, he imparts his love, his knowledge and his respect. You’ll learn about equipment. You’ll learn about safety. You’ll learn to separate fact from fiction about underwater menaces – sharks, octopuses, rays, moray eels and other creatures. You’ll learn how to have more fun underwater, and live to tell about it. This is all good sensible advice. And it’s designed to help the beginner and the more advanced skin diver, alike. So right shoulder snorkels, head for the beach and let Lloyd Bridges tell you all about underwater sports. Recorded text by Lloyd Bridges, written by William Barada (In 1962 Bill Barada NAUI #A-1 became NAUI’s first “Affiliate” member whose number carried the “A” designation.) Los Angeles County was followed by other public certifying agencies including the Broward County, Florida, Red Cross program developed by John C. Jones, Jr. and later, in 1959, the YMCA’s national program. In 1959 the National Diving Patrol was renamed the National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI) and Hess, Blakeslee, and Auxier planned to conduct a major instructor certification course the following year. In August 1960, a meeting of the Underwater Society of America was scheduled to be held in Houston, Texas. Neal Hess asked Al Tillman to organize the instructor course. They in turn contacted John C. Jones to work on the project. NAUI’s first Instructor Certification Course was held at the Houston’s Shamrock Hilton Hotel that August with 72 candidates. After six days of what was described as a “Hell Week,” 53 graduated and, along with their staff instructors, became the very first instructor members of the National Association of Underwater Instructors. A little over a year later, in October 1961, NAUI was incorporated in the State of California as a non-profit educational organization. Al Tillman was the first President and Neal Hess, the Executive Secretary. When asked recently as to why they chose a non-profit status, Garry Howland, NAUI #13 said, “That’s what we knew. I was a member of the Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. and Al was familiar with the YMCA.” NAUI’s first elected Board of Directors included Al Tillman (NAUI #1), John C. Jones, Jr. (NAUI #2), Neal Hess (NAUI #3), Garry Howland (NAUI #13), Jim Auxier, (NAUI #A4), and James Cahill, (NAUI #85). A Board of Advisors was appointed and included Captain Albert Behnke, Jr., Commander George Bond, Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau, and Dr. Andy Rechnitzer. NAUI grew throughout the 1960s by way of large Instructor Certification Courses (ICC’s) conducted in central locations throughout North America. The organization relied primarily on volunteers and regional leaders like Garry Howland and John C. Jones and in Canada, Ben Davis, NAUI #101. Al Tillman administered the Association’s business out of his home until Jim Auxier and Chuck Blakeslee, NAUI #A34, with Skin Diver provided office space and a salary. Skin Diver Magazine published the “NAUI Page” as a regular feature helping NAUI to continue to grow. Al Tillman left the NAUI Board and administration in 1967 to operate his resort the Underwater Explorers Society (UNEXSO) that he had opened in 1965 in the Bahamas. He was elected to a newly created position of NAUI Resort Branch Manager. Otherwise, NAUI continued to use regional Branches (managers) and local Chapters (leaders) as a way to organize its member populations. In 1968 Art Ullrich, NAUI #601, was hired as the new Executive Director and moved NAUI’s headquarters into his home in Grand Terrace, California, and later to offices in Colton, California. The first International Conference on Underwater Education (with the acronym ICUE and later shortened to IQ) was held in 1969 at Santa Ana College. For many years IQ served both as a venue where NAUI members from all over could meet and exchange ideas and as a forum in which papers were presented on diving skills and safety, teaching, diving physiology, physics, and other diving and marine sciences. In the 1970s NAUI membership also began to expand internationally. A NAUI Instructor Certification Course was held in Japan in 1970. NAUI Canada was organized as a separate corporation in 1972. The first ICC in Houston had included three Canadians, and the second ever NAUI ICC was held in Toronto in 1961, largely under the direction of Ben Davis, NAUI #101 (numbers 1-100 being reserved at this time for U.S. instructors). NAUI had certified over 5,000 instructors by 1979 and had increasing member populations in many countries around the world. Jon Hardy, NAUI #1002, became the first NAUI General Manger when he replaced Art Ulrich in 1975. Jon left in 1978, and was replaced by Ken Brock, NAUI #1593, from the YMCA, who left in 1980 and was replaced by Marshall McNott in 1981. Marshall was the first non-diver to be hired as an executive director of a scuba diver training organization. In 1981, NAUI relocated to new larger headquarters facilities in Montclair, California, where it would remain until 1997. In 1986 Marshall McNott left NAUI and was replaced by Sam Jackson, NAUI #2972. Sam had served on the NAUI Canada Board of Directors and emigrated from Canada to the United States to lead NAUI as its Executive Director through the rest of 1980s and into the 1990s. In 1987 Nancy Guarascio, NAUI #5008, became the first woman to be elected president of the NAUI Board of Directors. By 1989 NAUI had certified over 12,000 instructors. The 1990s were a time of challenge for NAUI. In 1995, Sam Jackson left NAUI to head up the Diving Equipment and Marketing Association that had formed out of the Diving Equipment Manufacturers Association (retaining the acronym DEMA) the previous year. In June of 1995, NAUI hired Jim Bram and changed the title of the NAUI Chief Executive to President. Jim initiated a turn around of NAUI, and reset NAUI to do business as NAUI Worldwide. This global outlook was a major factor as NAUI implemented a strategy to provide business support to members everywhere via licensed service centers and secure our most precious asset – the NAUI brand.By 1998 NAUI Worldwide had established a network of twenty service centers supporting a growing membership population around the world. Along with this strategic shift in services delivery, the independent NAUI associations that had formed in the 1970s were retired and their members welcomed back into NAUI Worldwide, forming a single membership association teaching to one world-wide standard of training. NAUI sanctioned Nitrox training in 1992 - the first recreational training agency to do so - continuing to innovate in support of its members and in the interest of diving safety. In early 1997, in keeping with NAUI’s founding principles, the Association published standards for teaching technical diving, a practice that had been growing among NAUI members for several years. Thereby, NAUI instructors and leaders were provided support for any of their teaching endeavors and consistent with NAUI’s position as the global leader in quality diver education. All of this produced unprecedented growth rates as divers worldwide saw that the NAUI ideal of “DIVE SAFETY THROUGH EDUCATION” was important in a community becoming increasingly crowded with training organizations, each claiming to be the fastest growing or having the most convenient method for learning to dive. The NAUI slogan “The Quality Difference” continues to distinctively separate NAUI members from the rest, whose only apparent qualifications often seem to be little more than an acronym, a toll-free number, and a web site. In 1997, NAUI Worldwide headquarters was moved to Tampa, Florida. In the same year, the Board of Directors included members from Europe and Asia for the first time. In 2000 and 2001 the recovery and revitalization of the Association was complete as NAUI released award-winning, state-of-the-art, fully integrated educational systems for diver education and training, and posted record revenues in its 41st year since that first instructor course in Houston, Texas. NAUI is not only history; it is also the future. NAUI is its members. Our Association will continue to grow as we promote “Dive Safety Through Education”. NAUI members are known and respected all across the industry for the quality of their teaching, concern for the individual student, and safety awareness. Even as we grow, we remain a real association of members who share common values and a trust in one another’s commitment to our motto. There has never been a better time to become a NAUI leader or instructor. As scuba diving continues to grow in popularity and in the number of participants, your decision to earn the right to join NAUI will be one for which you can always be proud. shope naui divers © 2017 NAUI Kuwait All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use Design & Developed By ENS Consultants	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line925
__label__wiki	0.63999	0.63999	← Clever but lacking profundity She ran from abusive step dad, wound up with a pimp until a Christian family adopted her → Bachelor endured ridicule but waited till marriage for sex Sean Lowe had some serious misgivings about appearing on the Bachelor reality T.V. show. As a Christian, he worried his testimony might be tainted by the ambiance of contestants drinking and fornicating. When he said he would wait until marriage to have sex after appearing on the show, he cleared up doubt among Christians — and he unleashed a maelstrom of criticism in the secular media. He was roundly ridiculed as the “virgin bachelor.” “Never in a million years did I think I’d do a cheesy reality TV show about love,” he said later on the “I am Second” video series. His sister set him up for it. Sean, who floundered with an investment business, got a call from the LA area code one day out of the blue. They wanted him to audition for “Bachelorette,” the “reality” show in which through weeks of dating on some remote tropical site a single woman filters through dozens of aspirants to finally get engaged to one. “I had no idea what (the lady on the phone) was talking about,” he remembers. “I didn’t know if it was a joke.” When he tracked down the source of the call to his sister, he confronted her. “Listen, I have no desire to be on a reality TV show, and I certainly don’t want to subject myself to all the public criticism. “Guys go on there and get drunk,” he says. “And there’s the fantasy suite and sex and nudity, and it just didn’t seem like something that represented me.” After waffling, he opted in because he was persuaded by the opportunity to travel and see more of the world on the expenses-paid show. He had bankrupted a financial services firm and was miserable in the family’s insurance company. “I just wanted a free vacation,” he said. He started at a mansion with the other guys in North Carolina, then traveled to Bermuda, London and Croatia. Since he only went in for the travel, he was blindsided by the feelings of romance that bubbled up in his heart during the times he “dated” the bachelorette. “After six weeks of being on the show, I knew I loved her,” he recalls. But, in front of 7 million viewers, the girl chose Sean’s competitor. He was broken-hearted. “I couldn’t understand why God opened the door for me to be on this reality show, to fall in love only for it to end like this,” he says. “I could not understand why He led me to heartbreak.” Sean returned downcast to Dallas. Six weeks later, the executive producer called and offered him the chance to appear as the bachelor in the next series. This counterpart version of the “Bachelorette” show is the same, only this time 25 girls vied for his affections. He starred in the 17th season of the show in 2013. If he had misgivings about being on Bachelorette, he had real apprehension about being the lead of Bachelor. “Dating 25 girls at one time felt wrong,” he says. “What if I’m harming my testimony? What if people look and me and they say, ‘This is what is wrong with Christianity. He’s professing one thing and he goes on TV and he’s doing the opposite.’” Read the rest about Sean Lowe the virgin bachelor. This entry was posted in bachelor show, Christian, Christian family, Christian love, Christian marriage, Christian testimony, Christianity, Jesus, Marriage, sex and tagged bachelorette show, sean lowe. Bookmark the permalink. 4 responses to “Bachelor endured ridicule but waited till marriage for sex” cricketmuse \| December 1, 2018 at 1:37 pm \| Reply Refreshing testimony. The joy radiates in their eyes. HisStory News \| February 8, 2019 at 6:39 pm \| Reply This is the beauty of lovingly waiting. I hope more people read this and decide that they can WAIT. re-posting on HisStoryNews.blog Reblogged this on His Story News and commented: Dubbed “the Virgin Bachelor” SEAN LOWE, an actor and reality show star showed all of us you can date and maintain your purity. And he did it on two reality shows — God’s way. He and his wife are enjoying spiritual dividends as a result of their decision, a healthy happy marriage.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line927
__label__cc	0.605087	0.394913	Mr. Roger Edward Tamraz and First Arabian Corporation had diamond concessions in Central African Republic and were shareholders of Sunshine Mining Company (at that time one of the six largest single-lode producers of silver in the United States) which was developing Sunshine Mine in northern Idaho, historically one of the largest producers of silver in the world. It is said to have produced 360 million ounces of silver since it was found in 1884. Then, there was a downturn in the world metals production market which led to severe layoffs in the 1980s, and production was limited thereafter. A report by Behre Dolbear & Company in 2007 estimated that the mine still contains “total reserves of 23.48 million ounces of silver (including a 15 percent mine recovery loss deduction) within a larger resource base containing 231.5 million ounces of silver.” Mr. Roger Edward Tamraz and First Arabian Corporation invested in Kaiser Steel Company which was opened by the industrialist Henry Kaiser in 1942 on thirteen hundred acres. Kaiser, the first integrated mill west of the Rockies, provided steel plate for the West Coast shipbuilding industry. Manufacturers of everything from steel file cabinets to steel buckets to chain-link fences grew up around Fontana, and so did large machine shops that serviced steelmaking equipment. Kaiser Steel Company suffered from cheap steel flowed into California from Japan.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line930
__label__wiki	0.84978	0.84978	Newcastle KZN is a rich history from the 18th century to date. Join us on a wonderful journey in time of one of South Africa’s best and fastest growing city. THE BUSHMAN ERA Africa is as old as the Dinosaurs but one certain historical fact about Northern KwaZulu-Natal’s ancient past is that during the 18th century, the only inhabitants were the bushmen, the amaZizi and the amaHlubi. The bushmen were skilled hunters who also lived off roots and plants. The amaZizi and amaHlubi were pastoralists: they knew how to cultivate millet and melons and also understood the art of iron smelting. The little yellow men in their rocky caves and black men neighbours in their beehive huts on the plains below, led a tranquil existence for some hundred years. THE SHAKA ERA During the 16th and 17th Centuries the warlike Nguni people migrated south. From one of these groups came the amaZulu, descendants of a young man ironically called Zulu (heaven) by his mother. By 1818, several clans had established themselves in the area and led by Dingiswayo and Shaka a series of savage civil wars broke ending only when Shaka had established himself as leader of all the Zulu. But this still did not bring peace as the Zulu nation extending their power and raiding all the neighbouring tribes bringing about a period known as the Mafakeng or turmoil, creating chaos and devestation across the Midlands and Northern KwaZulu-Natal into Lesotho and the land now known as the Free State. ARRIVAL OF THE EUROPEANS During the 1500 and 1600 the Dutch settlers arrived in the Cape while the Portuguese pushed into Africa from their settlements on the East and West coasts. By the early 1800s large numbers of European settlers, tired of the Napoleonic wars and the religious upheavals in Europe, were arriving in Southern Africa. Britain took control of the Dutch holdings in the Cape creating much dissatisfaction amongst the primarily Dutch settlers who started to migrate Northwards to get beyond British control and establish Republics of their own. One such group led by Piet Retief had heard of the beautiful lands of Natal from hunters and traders operating out of the small trading post of Port Natal. These Voortrekkers crossed over the Drakensberg mountains and sought to settle in Natal with tragic consequences. Retief and some 80 of his men who went to the Zulu King Dingaan to seek permission to settle were brutally murdered and their families set upon by the Zulu. Matters finally came to a head on the 16th December 1838 when the Zulu army attacked a Voortrekker Commando on the banks of the Ncome River with disastrous results. The Zulu Army was decimated and the water in the river ran red with their blood Dingaan was forced to flee and his half brother Mpande was enthroned by the Trekkers. Peace for a short time came to Natal but only until the British decided to extend their sovereignty over the new territory bringing about clashes between themselves and the Trekkers many of whom moved back over the Drakensberg. ESTABLISHMENT OF NEWCASTLE During the years 1849-1851 some 5000 odd British settlers arrived in the colony settling the Buffalo Border region and up into Northern Natal. The Colony was suddenly transformed. Permanent structures were built, land was fenced off and wagon roads were carved out. With roads came the Post Chaise and regular stops sprang up to service the travellers. One such stop was Post Halt II on the banks of the Ncandu River. In 1854 a Dr Sutherland, who was to become the Surveyor General of the Colony, found himself and his new wife, trapped by the swollen river. So for the next two weeks he spent his time setting out the township that he was later to register as Newcastle after the then Secretary for the Colonies. Strategically situated where the main road split to lead up into the Orange Free State and the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (Transvaal), the town was to grow rapidly. FORT AMIEL In 1876 with the threat of trouble from the new Zulu Kingdom of Cetshwayo and the pending annexation of the Transvaal by the British the colonial authorities decided to establish a fort at Newcastle. Major Amiel and some 200 men of the 80th Staffordshire Regiment arrived in Newcastle and built the Fort now known as Fort Amiel on the high ground overlooking the drift. The fort has been rebuilt and serves as a museum. It was from Fort Amiel that Shepstone accompanied by 14 men of the Natal Mounted police set out for Pretoria and the annexation of the Transvaal in early 1877 and the fort became an important commissariat for the troops operating in the Transvaal. By 1878 Cetshwayo had recreated the amaButho system of Shaka and could raise an army of 50 000 men. Many of whom who had never had an opportunity to “wash their spears in the blood of their enemies” and claim wives. The potential threat to the colony was great and the colonial authorities felt the only answer was to get Cetshwayo to disband his army or be disarmed. On the 12th January three British columns crossed into Zululand. The Central Column led by General Lord Chelmsford crossed at Rorke’s Drift. With him were the men of the Newcastle Mounted Rifles. Then came Isandlwana. Wednesday 22nd January the Zulu Army defending their country, wiped out the British camp at Isandlwana slaughtering some 1400 Imperial troops and native levies. In that fatal hour and half “half the women of Newcastle became widows”. Chelmsford was forced to retreat to Natal. Panic spread through the colony and towns were rapidly fortified. In Newcastle the present armoury became the central laager of the townsfolk. The British were able to regroup and with reinforcements from the UK soon overcame the Zulu Army. Then in 1880 the Burghers of the Transvaal, dissatisfied with British occupation of their country and the lack of response by the British to their appeals for the return of their country, finally took matters into their own hands. A British column moving from Lydenburg to Pretoria was stopped in its tracks at Bronkhorst Spruit and the British garrisons in the Transvaal were invested. General Sir George Pomeroy Colley Governor of Natal and commander of British Forces in South Africa scrambled a scratch force of some 2500 men and marched to Newcastle then on to the Transvaal but on 28th January 188,at Laing’s Nek, he was confronted by a force of Burghers under Commandant General Piet Joubert. Colley’s force was repulsed with heavy losses. He was to suffer another rebuff at Schuinshoogte on the 8th of February and finally on Sunday 27th February 1881at Majuba, his force was to be driven off their “impregnable” position on top of the mountain suffering some 256 casualties to the Burghers Newcastle was the military and hospital base for the British; and after hostilities had ceased, the Peace Convention was signed at O’Neill’s Cottage at the foot of Amajuba on 23rd March 1881 by Boer and British leaders including Paul Kruger, Piet Joubert, and Sir Evelyn Wood. Later the Retrocession of the Transvaal was negotiated and signed in June 1881 at Hilldrop Farm on the outskirts of Newcastle, home of the famous author Rider Haagard. IMPACT OF THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD AND COAL The discovery of gold at Barbeton in the eastern Transvaal and later on the Reef along with coal in Northern Natal brought large amounts of goods and travellers through the town and it soon became an important rest and repair centre. Wagon builders, wheelwrights and other artificers prospered and were soon followed by millers and weavers. A tailor, haberdasher and a jeweller opened shop. The hotels flourished and the first churches were built, the Dutch Reformed in 1869 and the Anglican in 1881. The increase in traffic and demand for improved transport soon brought the railway, and on 15th May 1890 the first passenger train arrived in Newcastle to be followed some 2 months latter by goods trains. By 7th April 1891 the railway had been extended through Laing’s Nek to Charlestown. The construction of the 640m long tunnel being considered a something of an engineering feat in its time. PROCLAMATION OF A BOROUGH In 1891 the Town was declared a Borough. The discovery of coal had brought a new era of prosperity and several ambitious building projects were planned including the construction of the Town Hall, which was completed in July 1899 just in time to be occupied by the Boer Forces at the start of the Anglo Boer War in October 1899. THE ANGLO BOER WAR The advent of the War brought all development to a halt. On 14th October 1899 the first Boer Forces led by General Ben Viljoen entered the town. Renaming the town Viljoensdorp. It was to remain in Boer hands for the next 8 months before the British under General Buller were able to re-occupy it. During their occupation the Russian-Boer Ambulance Unit set up a military hospital in the Convent Buildings. The Boers ransacked the town and piled up their takings in the Town Hall but when their retreat came it was too quick for them to collect their loot and the towns residents returned to a shambles. Because of its strategic position and the possibility of its attack by roving Boer Commandos the British were forced to place the town under martial law for the duration of the war. However the presence of military forces also helped to increase the social life of the town with musical concerts, balls and performances by military bands. When peace was declared, the soldiers gradually departed and the Club Institution Buildings were purchased were purchased by Council for civic use. the first record of any educational work in Newcastle dates back to 1874 when a small school committee was formed ans a school opened in the Dutch Reformed Church building in Lennoxton but the school only lasted until 1878. In 1881 renewed efforts were made to establish a permanent Government School. The site chosen was that where the Junior Primary School stands today. the scholl opened in October 1882 with 47 boys and 30 girls. In 1904 it was decided to build a new Boys’ School and a new site was chosen “far out of town” and the new buildings were opened on 4th February 1907. The building that now houses the main offices of the Newcastle High School was erected in 1907 and served as an all boys school until 1911 when the Headmaster, TD Wilson made a determined effort to introduce education levels higher than standard six. Although this was met with some opposition from parents, the boys’ and girls’ Schools were integrated and divided into junior and high schools, both being co-educational. During this same period a Convent was opened in Sutherland Street and in 1909 The Order of St Dominic bought the beautiful property of Sir Charles Gubbins and opened the St Dominics Academy. By 1910, many problems with regard to public amenities had been sorted out. A dam had been constructed on the Ncandu River, a waterworks established and electricity was being made available. Bridges were built across the Jordan Spruit and the tree planting programme begun in 1898 completed. Newcastle’s potential as an industrial centre was seriously considered but the onset of the Second World War put a damper on things and it was not until 1918 that Mr JK Eaton decided to build a Steel Works. Within a few years Newcastle Iron and Steel works Ltd was established. Between 1920 and 1926 the first blast furnace to be erected in South Africa had been completed, the project was acquired by Union Steel Corporation (SA). By 1937 African Metals had purchased the Newcastle Works and by 1945, a second blast furnace was operating. Some 150 000 tons per annum of various grades of pig iron were being produced. With the depression came hardship and one of the government projects to eleviate the lack of of work was the re-routing of the railway line from Newcastle to Charlestown in order to do away with the “reverses” at Ingogo that caused such much delay and limited the traffic load. This new line involved the construction of a number of long tunnels, work that was largely carried out by manual labour and a little town of corrugated iron buildings sprung up near the present Ingogo village. Fondly known to its residents as “Blikkies Dorp” its school is alleged to have had as many as 450 children. As a result of the increased steel production a period of expansion came to the town. This expansion was of great financial benefit. Durban Falkirk Iron Co. Ltd. was in production by 1948 and was employing some 200 people. Throughout the ‘50s and ‘60s the growth was steady but slow. In May 1969 the government announced that the third Iscor Works would be established in Newcastle and as a direct result of Iscor, Newcastle developed rapidly as an industrial town and prominent growth point in Northern Natal. Later Karbochem established a plant in Newcastle and a vigorous marketing campaign by the municipality attracted a wealth of investment from the far East. Today, in addition to the Zulu, Afrikaner, and English speaking communities, Newcastle has a large Chinese population that includes people from Taiwan (Republic of China), and Hong Kong.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line932
__label__wiki	0.582706	0.582706	Mercer University professor of Christian ethics to deliver Thulin Lecture in Religion Mar 5, 2019 10:00 am by news@illinois.eduAnnouncements David P. Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics and the director of the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University, Macon, Georgia, will deliver the annual Marjorie Hall Thulin Lecture in Religion on Wednesday, March 6, at 7:30 p.m., in Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum of World Cultures, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana. David P. Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics and the director of the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University, Macon, Georgia. The lecture, sponsored by the department of religion at Illinois and titled “From Wilberforce to Malala: Assessing the Religious and Ethical Journeys of Transformative Leaders,” is free and open to the public. One of the world’s leading Christian ethicists, Gushee is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of 24 books. His latest book, “Moral Leadership for a Divided Age: Fourteen People Who Dared to Change Our World,” was published in October. His other notable books include “Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust,” “Kingdom Ethics,” “The Sacredness of Human Life,” “Evangelical Ethics,” “Letter to My Anxious Christian Friends” and “Still Christian.” In his lecture, Gushee will introduce the life stories of 14 transformational leaders in world history, including such notables as William Wilberforce, Harriet Tubman, Mahatma Gandhi, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King Jr. The lecture describes the reasons for Gushee’s interest in researching these leaders, the role that the study of moral exemplars has in the teaching of ethics and the personal impact of these leaders in Gushee’s work. The lecture closes by exploring how moral leaders sustained their work despite intense criticism and threats. Gushee earned a bachelor’s degree from the College of William & Mary; a Master of Divinity from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; and a Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy from the Union Theological Seminary in New York. Marjorie Hall Thulin (1910-2009), for whom the annual lecture is named, was a 1931 graduate of the University of Illinois. She enjoyed a successful career in advertising and published poetry and children’s literature, in addition to editing a book on the history of Glencoe, Illinois. Each year, her endowment brings an internationally known scholar of religion and contemporary culture to the Champaign-Urbana campus for several days. A reception in Spurlock Museum will follow the lecture.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line935
__label__wiki	0.723062	0.723062	Call of Duty: Modern Warfare No. 2 at UK retail in Dec. BUSINESS • PC • PLAYSTATION 4 • XBOX ONE GfK Chart-Track this week said Activision Blizzard Inc. this week released Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 for Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 4, Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox One, and the PC ranked as the top-selling software title in the latest retail data from the UK. For the week ending Dec. 7, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare ranked as the No. 2 software title in the All Formats Chart. It ranked at No. 2 the week prior. In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare the user takes the role of a Tier One operator. The title includes a single-player campaign with close-quarter combat, stealth operations and long-range combat, in addition to online multiplayer and the 4-player Spec Ops co-op mode. A new graphics engine supports 4K HDR, photogrammetry, volumetric lighting, and DirectX Raytracing for PC. The final release includes cross-play support for console and PC, and free post-release maps and DLC. FIFA 20 No. 1 at UK retail in Dec. Fortnite: Darkfire Bundle Nintendo Switch No. 24 in Japan PSN holds PS4 Games Under $20 Sale	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line937
__label__wiki	0.855577	0.855577	Algeria Angola Benin Botswana British Indian Ocean Territory Burkina Faso Burundi Cameroon Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Comoros Congo Congo, DRC Cote d'Ivoire Djibouti Egypt Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Ethiopia Gabon Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau Kenya Lesotho Liberia Libya Madagascar Malawi Mali Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Morocco Mozambique Namibia Niger Nigeria Rwanda Sao Tome & Principe Senegal Seychelles Sierra Leone Somalia South Africa X St. Helena Sudan Swaziland Togo Tunisia X Uganda Zambia Zimbabwe Europe (NONE of 48) Albania Andorra Austria Belarus Belgium Bosnia & Herzegovina Bulgaria Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Faroe Is. 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Timor-Leste Tokelau Tonga Vanuatu Wallis & Futuna Anguilla US Consular Information Sheet COUNTRY DESCRIPTION: Anguilla is a British overseas territory in the Caribbean, part of the British West Indies. It is a small but rapidly developing island with particularly well-developed Read More Show Less ourist facilities. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 requires all travelers to and from the Caribbean, Bermuda, Panama, Mexico and Canada to have a valid passport to enter or re-enter the United States. U.S. citizens must have a valid U.S. passport if traveling by air, including to and from Mexico. If traveling by sea, U.S. citizens can use a passport or passport card. We strongly encourage all American citizen travelers to apply for a U.S. passport or passport card well in advance of anticipated travel. In addition to a valid passport, U.S. citizens need onward or return tickets, and sufficient funds for their stay. A departure tax is charged at the airport or ferry dock when leaving. For further information, travelers may contact the British Embassy, 19 Observatory Circle NW, Washington, DC 20008; telephone (202) 588-7800; or the nearest consulate of the United Kingdom in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, Denver, Houston, Miami, Orlando, Seattle, or San Francisco. Visit the British Embassy web site for the most current visa information. While Anguilla's crime rate is relatively low, both petty and violent crimes do occur. Travelers should take common-sense precautions to ensure their personal security, such as avoiding carrying large amounts of cash or displaying expensive jewelry. Travelers should not leave valuables unattended in hotel rooms or on the beach. They should use hotel safety deposit facilities to safeguard valuables and travel documents. Similarly, they should keep their lodgings locked at all times, whether they are present or away, and should not leave valuables in their vehicles, even when locked. The Embassy staff can, for example, assist you to find appropriate medical care, contact family members or friends and explain how funds could be transferred. The local emergency line in Anguilla is 911. There is only one hospital, Princess Alexandra Hospital (telephone: 264-497-2551), and a handful of clinics on Anguilla, so medical facilities are limited. Serious problems requiring extensive care or major surgery may require evacuation to the United States, often at considerable expense. There are no formal, documented HIV/AIDS entry restrictions for visitors to and foreign residents of Anguilla, but there have been anecdotal reports of exclusion. Please verify this information with the British Embassy before you travel. Information on vaccinations and other health precautions, such as safe food and water precautions and insect bite protection, may be obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s hotline for international travelers at 1-877-FYI-TRIP (1-877-394-8747) or via the CDC’s web site. Further health information for travelers is available from the WHO. The information below concerning Anguilla is provided for general reference only, and may not be totally accurate in a particular location or circumstance. Unlike the U.S., traffic in Anguilla moves on the left. The few roads on the island are generally poorly paved and narrow. While traffic generally moves at a slow pace, with the increasing number of young drivers in Anguilla, there are occasional severe accidents caused by excessive speed. Although emergency services, including tow truck service, are limited and inconsistent, local residents are often willing to provide roadside assistance. For police, fire, or ambulance service dial 911. Visit the Government of Anguilla web site for further road safety information. Civil aviation operations in Anguilla fall under the jurisdiction of British authorities. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has assessed the Government of the United Kingdom’s Civil Aviation Authority as being in compliance with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) aviation safety standards for oversight of Anguilla’s air carrier operations. For more information, travelers may visit the FAA web site. Persons violating Anguilla laws, even unknowingly, may be expelled, arrested or imprisoned. Penalties for possession, use, or trafficking in illegal drugs in Anguilla are severe, and convicted offenders can expect long jail sentences and heavy fines. Americans living or traveling in Anguilla are encouraged to register with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate through the State Department's travel registration web site and to obtain updated information on travel and security within Anguilla. Americans without Internet access may register directly with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. By registering, American citizens make it easier for the Embassy or Consulate to contact them in case of emergency. The U.S. Embassy with consular responsibility over Anguilla is located in Bridgetown, Barbados in the Wildey Business Park in suburban Wildey, southeast of downtown Bridgetown. Visit the U.S. Embassy Bridgetown online for more information. Hours of operation are 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, except Barbadian and U.S. holidays. This replaces the Country Specific Information for Anguilla dated April 2, 2008, to update sections on Country Description, Entry/Exit Requirements, Information for Victims of Crime, and Medical Facilities and Health Information. French weather agency declares top alert for St Martin, St Barts Natural Disaster Anguilla - 2 years ago Paris, Sept 9, 2017 (AFP) - France's meteorological agency on Saturday issued its highest warning for the Caribbean islands of St Martin and St Barts as Hurricane Jose bore down, three days after they were hit by Hurricane Irma. The alert warned of a "dangerous event of exceptional intensity," with winds that could reach 120 kilometres (75 miles) per hour, and strong rains and high waves. St Barts is a French overseas territory, as is the French part of St Martin, which is divided between France and the Netherlands. Twelve people were killed on the two islands by Hurricane Irma, thousands of buildings were flattened and the authorities are struggling to control looting. The French state-owned reinsurer CCR on Saturday estimated the damage at 1.2 billion euros ($1.4 billion). Irma is now heading for Florida, where a total of 6.3 million people have been ordered to evacuate, according to state authorities. 52 new cases of Chikungunya confirmed among residents in St Martins Disease Chikungunya Virus Anguilla - 6 years ago Date: Tue 29 Apr 2014 Source: National Institute for Public Health and the Environment [edited] <http://www.rivm.nl/dsresource?type=pdf&disposition=inline&objectid=rivmp:239786&versionid=&subobjectname> 1 Oct 2013-29 Apr 2014 (week 18) St Maarten - Since the last report (week 15 [17?]) 52 new cases have been confirmed among St Maarten residents. Up to 29 Apr 2014, now a total of 343 confirmed cases have been reported. One of these confirmed cases was hospitalized. The median age of the confirmed patients was 44 years, range 4-92 years. Of those cases for which gender was available, 201 were female and 130 were male. - On 6 Dec 2013, the 1st indigenous chikungunya [virus infection] case of St Maarten was reported. Retrospectively, the 1st patient with suspected complaints was reported in mid-October 2013 in St Martin. Roland Hubner Superior Health Council roland.hubner@sante.belgique.be [The report also has graphs showing case numbers over time. Maps of St Martin/St Maarten can be accessed at <http://goo.gl/maps/TN1DJ> and <http://healthmap.org/promed/p/36560>. - ProMed Mod.TY] Update on number of Chikungunya cases reported from French Antilles Date: 5-11 May 2014 Source: Institut de Veille Sanitaire (French Institute for Public Health Surveillance, InVS) [edited] <http://www.invs.sante.fr/fr/content/download/88309/323936/version/65/file/pe_chikungunya_antilles_160514.pdf> Cases since the beginning of the outbreak in December 2013: - St Martin: (susp) 3240 cases; deaths 3; stable. - St Barthelemy: (susp) 500 cases; stable. - Martinique: (susp) 24 180; deaths 3; increasing. - Guadeloupe: (susp) 13 600 cases; deaths 1; increasing. - French Guiana: (susp) not available; (probable or confirmed) 122 cases with 83 locally acquired; increasing, with a new cluster in Kourou and 2 near Cayenne. [The 16 May 2014 report from Guyaweb (<http://www.guyaweb.com/actualites/news/sciences-et-environnement/le-chik-revient-kourou-setend-cayenne-desormais-saint-laurent/>) states that there are 2 new cases in Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, overlooking the Suriname River, of which one is certainly autochthonous, and a new focal point occurred in Kourou with 4 cases. Maps of the area can be seen at <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/98/Caribbean_general_map.png/550px-Caribbean_general_map.png> and <http://healthmap.org/promed/p/35574>. - ProMed Mod.TY] 3 deaths in St Martin linked to chikungunya since start of outbreak Date: 7-13 Apr 2014 Source: INVS Point Sanitaire No. 14 [in French, trans. ProMed Mod.TY, edited] <http://www.invs.sante.fr/content/download/87064/319536/version/61/file/pe_chikungunya_antilles_170414.pdf> Cases since the beginning of the outbreak in December, 2013: - St. Martin: (susp.) 2980 cases, (probable and conf.) 793 cases; Deaths 3; Decreasing. - Saint Barthelemy: (susp.) 460 cases, (probable or confirmed) 135 cases; Decreasing. - Martinique: (susp.) 16 000, (probable or confirmed) 1473 cases; Deaths 2; Increasing. - Guadeloupe: (susp.) 4710 cases, (probable or confirmed) 1261 cases; Deaths 1; In epidemic status. - French Guiana: (susp.) 7 cases with 4 locally acquired, (probable or confirmed) 39 cases with 26 locally acquired) 30 cases; (imported) 16 cases; Moderate to increasing; Half of probable and confirmed cases are located in Kourou; however indigenous cases have also been recorded from the Cayenne Matoury, Remire and Macouria communities. [Maps showing case distributions on each island can be accessed at the above URL. - ProMed Mod.TY] 224 confirmed cases of Chikungunya in St Martin but numbers climbing Date: Thu 27 Mar 2014 Source: The Daily Herald [edited] <http://www.thedailyherald.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=46803:224-chikungunya-cases-182-dengue-&catid=1:islands-news&Itemid=54> As St. Maarten continues to take measures to combat the spread of the chikungunya virus, the number of cases continues to climb. Health Minister Cornelius de Weever announced on Wednesday [26 Mar 2014], that the total number of confirmed chikungunya cases thus far stood at 224. De Weever also announced that government will be signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with French St. Martin as a means of collectively responding to the mosquito threat that puts the population at risk. He said both sides have been working closely together to address the dengue and chikungunya threats. The MOU will cover, amongst other things, a regular exchange of epidemiological information on vector-borne diseases and collectively publishing and representing data collected under the agreement. The need for collective information campaigns and enhancement of the mosquito vector-control programme will also be included in the MOU. The MOU also describes the need for planning execution and evaluation of collective responses to the chikungunya threat. [The increase in the number of chikungunya virus infections over the past week in St. Maarten is of concern, rising from 123 cases to 224 cases. This number is confirmed in another report that also indicates that there are an additional 325 suspected cases (<http://www.rivm.nl/dsresource?type=pdf&disposition=inline&objectid=rivmp:239786>). - ProMed Mod.TY] <http://healthmap.org/promed/p/35574>.] Tunisia is situated in Northern Africa and is a common tourist destination for Irish travellers. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the south east and the Medite Read More Show Less ranean Sea to the east and north. It has a Mediterranean climate with mild rainy winters and hot dry summers. Costal temperatures are less extreme than the inland regions ranging from an average daily low in January of 70C to an average daily high in August of 320C. Rainfall throughout the country varies considerably from about 40" in the northwest down to only 4" in the southwest. Most tourists will not have any significant difficulties in this regard but criminals have targeted tourists and business travellers for thefts, pickpocketing, and scams. Care should be taken with wallets and other valuables kept in handbags or backpacks that can be easily opened from behind in crowded streets or marketplaces. Harassment of unaccompanied females occurs rarely in hotels, but more frequently elsewhere. The level of health care facilities in Tunisia will usually be found to be below that normally accepted at home in Ireland. In general the larger hotels will have English speaking doctors in attendance. Unfortunately the hospital/clinic backup for these practitioners is usually very limited. Food & Water Facilities The World Health Organisation statistics suggest that close to 35% of all travellers to these regions will develop significant diarrhoea during their stay. In almost all cases this can be traced back to unwise eating and drinking habits by tourists not taking sufficient care. Most significantly, travellers should stay away from cold foods (especially lettuce) and also all undercooked shell fish (mainly prawns, oysters, mussels and shrimps). Hotel tap water will frequently not be potable and should not be used for drinking or brushing teeth. Sealed mineral water should be used at all times. Fruit juice drinks sold by street traders should always be avoided as frequently the drink will have been supplemented with straight tap water. Malaria in Tunisia It is fortunate that this disease is not endemic in Tunisia and so travellers do not require to take prophylactic tablets. Nevertheless there are plenty of mosquitoes and sandflys during the hotter summer months and travellers will need to use insect repellents to protect against these uncomfortable bites. (see Protection against Insect Bites - Tropical Medical Bureau ) Jiggers & Chiggers These are uncomfortable parasitic diseases which usually occur on the feet and often present looking like an ingrown toenail. Travellers returning home with unexplained skin rashes should always attend for medical assessment. This viral disease occurs throughout Africa and is evident in Tunisia. The disease can be transmitted by the bite (or lick or scratch) of any infected warm-blooded animal. Dogs will be the main risk animal but cats and monkeys can also transmit the disease. Any contact must be treated seriously and washed out immediately. An antiseptic should then be applied and further medical attention must always be sought. This is a parasitic disease transmitted by the bite of an infected sandfly. The disease occurs in Tunisia mainly during the summer and autumn months. Sandflys are much smaller than mosquitoes and are mainly found hovering around your ankles usually first thing in the morning or during the cooler evening hours. In most cases the bites cause little harm but occasionally deep infection can occur with more serious consequences. Again, travellers should wear sensible clothing and use adequate insect repellent. A bite which is slow to heal needs to be medically checked. One of the common health complaints associated with Tunisia relates to travellers becoming sun burnt while there on holidays. This is particularly the case with smaller children and toddlers. It is essential that travellers use high factor protection creams to lessen the risk of burning and to remember that skin cancer is commonly associated with burnt skin. Anthrax from Leather Goods This bacterial disease has been reported in Tunisia and travellers need to be aware that the disease can be transmitted through unprepared leather goods usually bought in the local market places. Even though this will be rare, any unusual sore should be medically checked after you return home. Vaccinations for Tunisia There are no essential vaccinations for Tunisia but travellers from Ireland are strongly recommended to have vaccination cover against Poliomyelitis (childhood booster) Typhoid (food & water borne disease) Tetanus (childhood booster) Hepatitis A (food & water borne disease) Those spending longer periods in the country, or trekking, may need to consider vaccination cover Hepatitis B. Be careful of the intense sun during the summer months. Care with food and water consumption will also be essential at all times. If you require any further information on staying healthy while overseas please contact either of the help lines at the numbers below. Tunisian bus plunges off cliff killing at least 24 Accident Tunisia - 2 months ago Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2019 17:56:57 +0100 (MET) Ain Snoussi, Tunisia, Dec 1, 2019 (AFP) - At least 24 Tunisians were killed and 18 more injured Sunday when a bus plunged off a cliff into a ravine in the country's north, officials said. The bus had set off from Tunis to the picturesque mountain town of Ain Draham, a popular autumn destination for Tunisians near the Algerian border, the tourism ministry said. Twenty-four people were killed and 18 injured, the victims aged between 20 and 30, said the health ministry, releasing updated information on the tragedy. Pictures and video footage shared online and posted on the websites of private radio stations showed the mangled remains of the bus with its seats scattered in the bed of a river. Bodies, some in sports clothes and trainers, and personal belongings were strewn across the ground. The bus with 43 people on board was travelling through the Ain Snoussi region when it plunged over the cliff, the interior ministry said. The vehicle had "fallen into a ravine after crashing through an iron barrier," it said on its Facebook page. The injured were transferred to nearby hospitals, the interior ministry said. Forensic experts were deployed to investigate the crash, said AFP correspondents at the scene. It was not immediately clear what caused the accident but Tunisian roads are known to be notoriously dangerous and run-down. Tourism Minister Rene Trabelsi told a private radio station Mosaique FM that the "unfortunate accident took place in a difficult area" and just after the bus had taken a "sharp bend". An civil defence official, speaking on state television, said there had previously been deadly accidents at the same spot. Social network users bemoaned the tragedy, as Tunisian President Kaid Saied and Prime Minister Youssef Chahed arrived at the site of the accident. "What a heavy toll," one of them said. Another denounced the "roads of death" in Tunisia and wrote: "24 dead and no one from the government has declared a national catastrophe". The World Health Organization in 2015 said Tunisia had the second worst traffic death rate per capita in North Africa, behind only war-torn Libya. Experts blamed run-down roads, reckless driving and poor vehicle maintenance for a rise in accidents the following year. The authorities recognise the scale of the problem but have said the country's security challenges, including jihadist attacks, have kept them from giving it more attention. Turtles and tourists share the same beach on a Tunisian island Tourism Tunisia - 2 months ago Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2019 20:35:51 +0100 (MET) By Akim Rezgui iles Kuriat, Tunisie, Nov 27, 2019 (AFP) - Between plastic chairs on a crowded Tunisian tourist beach, a sign indicates where another species shares the sand: a nest is buried below. On this paradisaical island off the coast of Monastir -- a resort town south of the capital Tunis -- tourists co-exist with loggerhead turtles thanks to a novel initiative. Since 2017, the Tunisian government and a local NGO have jointly run a turtle conservation programme under the noses of bathing-suited beach-goers, who are offered an environmental education along with their holiday. The Kuriat islands are the westernmost permanent loggerhead turtle breeding site on the Mediterranean's south coast, and are in the process of being listed as a protected nature reserve. But while the islands are an important turtle sanctuary, the white sand beaches and crystal waters of little Kuriat are irresistible to holidaymakers. During turtle hatching season from July to October, day-trippers arrive daily in their hundreds, transported on pirate-themed boats for barbecues and swimming. "I thought that this was just an island where I'd go to swim, eat and return," said holidaymaker Souad Khachnaoui. "I'd never imagined that this site was so important for turtles, birds and other species." Rather than ban visitors, the authorities work with local volunteers to brief arriving tourists on the local fauna, including the jellyfish-eating turtles, which can live for a century. "Many people are stunned on arrival, they didn't think that we had these kinds of animals in our country," said Manel Ben Ismail, co-founder of the environmental NGO Notre Grand Bleu, which means "Our great blue (ocean)". And if they are lucky, tourists can watch as volunteers help defenceless hatchling turtles -- measuring just five centimetres (two inches) across -- on their journey from the nest to the sea. Loggerheads are classified as vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. They do not become fertile until about 20 years old and breed only every two to three years. Female loggerheads return to the same beach where they were born to lay their clutch of about 100 eggs. But it is a perilous life cycle and only one in a thousand juveniles lives to reproductive age. The Kuriat islands -- the largest of which is a military zone and the smaller is not permanently settled -- offer young turtles slightly better survival odds. Both are far from the light pollution of the mainland, which can disorientate hatchlings. This year 42 nests were recorded on the islands. Layings have increased since monitoring started in 1997. If managed correctly, tourism can be a boon for the islands as visitors learn about conservation, the government believes. "We try to strike a balance between ecological activities and the economic activities of people on this site," said Ahmed Ben Hamida, head of the Kuriat Marine Protected Area for the government agency for coastal protection. Double suicide blasts rock Tunisia capital Disturbances Tunisia - 7 months ago Tunis, June 27, 2019 (AFP) - Two suicide bombers attacked security forces in the Tunisian capital on Thursday, killing a police officer and wounding at least eight people including several civilians, the interior ministry said. One attack on the main street of Tunis wounded three civilians and two police personnel, the interior ministry initially said. "Five (are) wounded -- three civilians and two police officers", Interior Ministry spokesman Sofiene Zaag told AFP, before later saying that a police officer had died of his wounds. Body parts were strewn in the road around a police car on Habib Bourguiba avenue near the old city, according to an AFP correspondent. "It was a suicide attack, which took place at 10:50 (0950 GMT)," Zaag said. The second attack targeted a base of the national guard in the capital and wounded four security personnel, the ministry said. "At 11:00 am (1000 GMT) an individual blew himself up outside the back door" of the base, wounding four security personnel, Zaag said. Civil protection units and police rapidly deployed to Habib Bourguiba avenue, where the interior ministry is located. People initially fled in panic, before some crowded around the scene of the attack, expressing anger against the authorities. Shops and offices were closed by police. Tunisia, the cradle of the Arab Spring uprisings, has been hit by repeated Islamist attacks since the 2011 overthrow of longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. On October 29, 2018 an unemployed graduate blew herself up near police cars on Habib Bourguiba, killing herself and wounding 26 people, mostly police officers, according to the interior ministry. The Tunisian authorities said the suicide bomber had sworn allegiance to IS. The attack was the first to rock the Tunisian capital for over three and a half years. In March 2015, jihadist gunmen killed 21 tourists and a policeman at the National Bardo Museum in Tunis. And in June that year, 30 Britons were among 38 foreign holidaymakers killed in a gun and grenade attack on a beach resort near the Tunisian city of Sousse. Authorities in Tunisia broaden tourism horizons as industry rebounds Date: Thu, 9 May 2019 17:43:55 +0200 By Caroline Nelly Perrot Tunis, May 9, 2019 (AFP) - As holidaymakers flock to Tunisia once more following a series of attacks, the country's tourism minister has his sights set on diversifying the industry and taking visitors beyond the beach. "Practically all the big tour operators here have returned," said Rene Trabelsi, six months into his ministerial post. He credits "huge efforts" for making the country safe for visitors again, after attacks in 2015 targeting tourists. Gunmen killed 21 foreign visitors and a Tunisian security guard at the capital's Bardo National Museum, followed by a shooting rampage at a Sousse beach resort which left 38 people dead -- mostly British tourists. Britain, France and other countries have recently eased their travel warnings, deeming most of Tunisia now safe. Two million holidaymakers have visited Tunisia so far this year, according to government figures touted by the tourism minister. That marks a 24 percent jump on the same period last year, and a 7 percent increase compared to the 2010 industry reference point. But despite tourists returning, revenue has so far failed to reach that of nearly a decade ago. The indebted industry is heavily reliant upon cheap "all-inclusive" holidays and the government is trying to diversify the tourism sector, which accounts for around 7 percent of GDP. "During the high season, Tunisia will be packed, but we're interested in the low season, from September to March," said Trabelsi, sitting behind his large desk in the capital Tunis. The minister wants to attract tourists over the winter months who are also interested in activities away from the beach. "We're negotiating with the tour operators" to offer charter flights after the summer, said Trabelsi who hopes visitors will sign up for golf, spa treatments and cultural activities. "This year already, a lot of hotels which closed during winter after the crisis, want to stay open," he said. An electronic music festival in southern Tunisia is due to take place in September, while a jazz festival is planned in Tabarka near the Algerian border. - No 'right to fail' - Whereas half the holidaymakers in 2010 were European, they now make up less than a third of visitors amid an increasing number of tourists from other North African countries and further afield. The government aims to welcome nine million visitors this year, but Trabelsi said Tunisians still need to tackle "environmental terrorism" to avoid scaring tourists away. "I'm using that word to shock and alert," said the minister, warning that poor environmental standards can put tourists off "like when there's an attack". Following Tunisia's 2011 revolution, authorities failed to keep atop of waste management. Municipal councils were elected for the first time a year ago but the clean-up is far from complete. "We also have a cultural problem," said Trabelsi. "If each person swept outside their front door, that would already be huge." Trabelsi has for years been co-organiser of an annual Jewish pilgrimage to Djerba, where his father is president of the island's synagogue, and in the 1990s he set up his own travel agency. But months into his first political post, he said he has no intention of staying in government long-term. "I want to make a mark, and Tunisians expect a lot from me. I come from the private sector, I have a different religion, so I don't have the right to fail," Trabelsi said. "But once my mission is accomplished, I'll return to my own affairs." Significant number of cases of Leishmaniasis reported in Tunisia Disease Leishmaniasis Tunisia - 11 months ago Date: Sun 16 Feb 2019 Source: Realites Online [in French, trans. ProMED Corr.SB, edited] <https://www.realites.com.tn/2019/02/tunisie-1318-cas-de-leishmaniose-enregistres-a-gafsa> As of Sat 15 Feb 209, the Metlaoui Regional Hospital in Gafsa governorate has hosted 1318 patients with leishmaniasis, following the proliferation of mosquitoes [actually leishmania is transmitted by sandflies] near the lakes and wastewater. According to Shems Fm, citing its correspondent in the region, the number of leishmaniasis cases has tripled compared to the year 2017. [We presume these cases are cutaneous leishmaniasis. Cutaneous leishmaniasis, CL, caused by _Leishmania major_ is a major public health problem in Tunisia. It occurs mainly in central and southwestern Tunisia (semi-arid and arid areas), with thousands of cases. There are foci with a permanent active transmission, so, from time to time, outbreaks occur, related to new agricultural projects or large population movements (introduction to a non-immune population). In some villages, up to 60 percent of the population is infected. For a detailed discussion of _Leishmania_ in Tunisia please see Alvar J, Valez ID, Bern C, et al. Leishmaniasis worldwide and global estimates of its incidence. PLoS One. 2012; 7(5): e35671; <https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0035671> - ProMED Mod.EP] [HealthMap/ProMED-mail map of Gafsa, Tunisia: General Introduction: The Republic of South Africa lies at the Southern tip of the African continent, flanked between the Indian and Atlantic oceans. Although it lies close to the tropic of Capricorn, the inland areas are tempered by the relatively high a Read More Show Less titudes. Summers and winters are opposite to that found in Ireland. In South Africa the summer extents from October to March. Although South Africa is basically a developed country, much of its population, particularly in rural parts, live in poverty. However facilities for tourists in urban areas and game parks are generally excellent. Despite all the well documented reports overall violence against tourists is usually low but obviously care should always be taken. Travelling late at night is usually unwise and take particular care if visiting nightclubs etc. Climate: There is generally a moderate climate with sunny days and cool nights. The Cape Town region has a mean yearly temperature of 170C while Johannesburg has an annual mean temperature of 160C. This is mainly because Johannesburg is at 5,700 feet altitude. Throughout South Africa, summer extends between October and March and winter is between June and September. In Johannesburg the winter months tend to be dry and cool while the rainy season tends to occur during the warmer summer months. Health Facilities: In the larger cities of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban & Pretoria and many others there will be no difficulty in receiving excellent medical attention. However when travelling throughout the more isolated rural regions the same situation does not occur. Travellers should always ensure that they are up-to-date in their routine travel vaccinations. World Travel Medicine Consultants (WTMC) in South Africa offer excellent medical facilities in many of the main centres. Contact by email their head office at for further information. Jet Lag: Even though the hour changes from Ireland are not great after flying for approximately 13 hours you will arrive tired. On the plane journey take some exercise by walking around and occasionally stretching your calf muscles to lessen any risk of blood clots. If you are on the contraceptive pill (women only!) this will increase your risk on a long haul flight and you should talk this through with the doctor looking after your health care advice and vaccines. On arrival, try and rest for the first 24 hours to allow your body to catch up with itself. If lying by the pool remember not to fall asleep and wake some hours later with significant sunburn! Mosquito-Borne Disease: Mosquitoes are most often associated with Malaria, however it is not the only disease which the insect may carry. Insect repellents which contain more than 30% DEET are effective for keeping mosquitoes away but remember to cover your arms and legs when they are biting. This is mainly in the hours between dusk and dawn. The risk of malaria can be reduced by taking malarial prophylaxis on a regular basis if you are planning to visit the risk areas. Anti malaria tablets are advised for those visiting low altitude areas especially areas around the Kruger National Park, north, east and western Transvaal, and the costal lowlands of Natal. Large towns and cities and high altitudes are more likely to be free of mosquitoes. Effects of Heat: Extreme climate conditions can also lead to gastrointestinal difficulties but don't forget that when you perspire you will loose both water and salt. Replacing the lost water is easy but many travellers forget to replace the salt in their diet. This can lead to muscular cramps, tiredness and lethargy, a dull headache and generally feeling cross and out of sorts. Replacing depleted salt is most easily achieved by sprinkling it on your meals. Salt tablets can be dangerous and are best avoided except in expert hands. If you have any blood pressure difficulties then it will be important to talk this whole issue through with your doctor before leaving Ireland. Waterborne diseases: Water sources in well developed urban areas of South Africa are generally safe. Outside the main cities caution must always be exercised with regard to drinking water. Safe water should be well chlorinated and so will have a distinct chlorine odour. Sealed bottled water is more preferable especially in less developed areas. Avoid ice in your drinks as its source may be unknown and don't brush your teeth in water you wouldn't want to drink. If unsure be careful and use sealed bottled water from one of the hotels. Food-Borne Disease: Again, in the larger cities and tourist resorts, the food and its preparation is generally of an excellent standard and you should experience no problems. It is advised however to avoid eating shellfish and cold/rare meats. In particular, Capetown is famous for its various shellfish meals. Personally I would strongly encourage travellers to avoid them even in the best hotels and restaurants. It is just not worth the risk. As in any hot climate it is also wise to choose only the type of fruit you can peel yourself. Above all avoid buying or consuming food from roadside stalls or street vendors. Rabies in South Africa: Travellers need to be aware that this potentially fatal viral condition occurs throughout Africa. The risk to any tourist or business traveller is very small but common sense needs to be maintained at all times. The disease is mainly transmitted through the bite of an infected warm blooded animal. Usually dogs and cats are involved but also be very careful of monkeys. If bitten by any potentially at risk animal wash out the wound immediately, apply a strong antiseptic and seek medical attention urgently Yellow Fever: A yellow fever vaccination certificate is only required for travellers coming from endemic zones in Africa and the Americas. Travellers on scheduled airlines whose flights have originated outside the areas regarded as infected (or who are only in transit through these areas) are NOT required to possess a certificate. If the flight originated from within a Yellow fever endemic area a certificate is then required. Vaccination Schedule: Apart from Yellow Fever vaccine in certain circumstances, as mentioned above, there are no other vaccinations required for entry into South Africa from Ireland. Nevertheless there are a number of recommended vaccines for most travellers which need to be discussed. For trekking holidays or extended visits Rabies and Hepatitis B may need to be considered. Most travellers should start their vaccines at least 4 to 6 weeks before departure. Further Information: South Africa is a beautiful destination with much to offer. Further general health information on staying healthy while travelling abroad may be obtained from the Tropical Medical Bureau. www.tmb.ie Poisoning suspected in critical incident in Cape Town suburb Poisoning South Africa - 5 days ago Source: Times Live [edited] <https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2020-01-13-six-people-collapse-after-ingesting-unknown-substance-in-cape-town/> Six people collapsed and were taken to hospital -- 5 of them in a critical condition -- after apparently ingesting an unknown substance in the Cape Town suburb of Wetton on Monday [13 Jan 2020]. ER24 spokesperson Russell Meiring said the ambulance service was initially alerted to several people in desperate need of help. "It is believed to have been some sort of poisoning incident. All those affected had ingested some sort of substance which is not yet known," he told TimesLIVE. It is not known whether the victims were related or knew one another. Cape Town law enforcement spokesperson Wayne Dyason said: "City law enforcement officers on patrol in Wetton were alerted to an incident in which 3 males and a female had collapsed at a bus stop." He said the victims received medical attention. As the paramedics were treating them, another person was reported lying on the pavement in nearby Walnut Road, and a 6th had collapsed on the corner of St Joseph's Road and Wetton Road. "The patients were treated for their injuries and provided with several advanced life support interventions before they were transported to nearby hospitals for further care," said Meiring. [Byline: Tanya Farber] Source: Arrive Alive [edited] <https://www.arrivealive.co.za/news.aspx?s=1&i=46582&page=Six-transported-to-hospital-in-a-critical-condition-in-Wetton> Six people were transported to the hospital this afternoon [13 Jan 2020], 5 in a critical condition, after they collapsed on Wetton Road in Wetton, Western Cape. ER24 paramedics, Life Healthcare and the Western Cape Metor Services, arrived on the scene to find 6 people had collapsed along Wetton Road. Medics assessed the patients and found 5 people were in a critical condition, while the 6th patient was found in a serious condition. It was understood that the men had ingested an unknown substance, causing them to collapse. Local authorities were on the scene for further investigations. [Neither of these articles give us much information regarding what the substance was or how quickly these individuals collapsed, or whether there were other specifics. We are not told whether the substance was inhaled or ingested. If they were given life-saving procedures, then perhaps their heartbeat was irregular or had stopped, or breathing had stopped, or perhaps the unknown substance resulted in the patients being unable to breath, or perhaps they were blue and gasping for breath. We could speculate some more, but there are few clues here. We wish these individuals a speedy recovery. - ProMED Mod.TG] [We would appreciate any additional information on these cases including the cause of poisoning if/when it is determined. - ProMED Mod.JH] South Africa: <http://healthmap.org/promed/p/179>] South Africa's Eastern Cape battles brutal drought Climate Changes South Africa - 1 month ago Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2019 04:27:07 +0100 (MET) By Béatrice DEBUT Adelaide, Afrique du Sud, Dec 14, 2019 (AFP) - South African farmer Steve Bothma heaved a sigh of relief when the weatherman finally predicted rain. His excitement was short-lived. Just a few days later, the forecast changed. It was back to cloudless sunshine. In South Africa's Eastern Cape province, no one can remember the last proper downpour. Some say it was five years ago, others six. "This is a disaster," said Bothma, 51, who in his three decades working the land has never seen such dry weather. "Older people who are 70 or 80 years old would tell you exactly the same thing," he added. Southern Africa is grappling with one of the worst droughts in decades -- the outcome of years of absent or erratic rainfall, and temperatures that have reached record highs. Millions are facing hunger due to poor harvests and dwindling livestock. "It is usually beautifully green at this time of the year," said Bothma, as a hot gust of wind swept through his sheep pen. "But now even the pine trees are dying." South Africa is one of the world's driest countries at the best of times. Rapid urbanisation and growing water consumption have placed a strain on water reserves and caused the coastal city of Cape Town to almost run dry in 2018. But the ongoing drought has compounded the situation. Dam levels dropped dangerously low in October, prompting President Cyril Ramaphosa to call for "drastic measures". South Africa is in "a dire situation", said Ramaphosa in October, highlighting that five out of nine provinces were badly hit. - To the slaughterhouse - Bothma has had to cull around 60 percent of his merino sheep, including lambs. Because of the drought, he could only afford to keep 2,000 as "breeding stock". "Usually I keep them until they are five or six years old," Bothma explained, as his staff selected animals for the next trip to the slaughterhouse. The price he gets for his merino wool has plunged by around 40 percent over the past year due to the drought and a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in the north of the country. "The wool is full of dust and not very strong," said Bothma. Years of dry weather have left scars in the landscape. Arid fields flanked the windy gravel road leading to the nearest town of Adelaide, tucked at the bottom of a mountain range. Cows chewed pieces of wood and sheep ambled in search of food. In town, livestock roamed the streets and nibbled at scorched grass on the golf course. The nearest dam dried up at the start of the year. - 'Can't wash' - Some of Adelaide's 15,000 inhabitants had been without running water for seven months. A South African aid group, Gift of the Givers, has been helping by delivering water to the area since April. On a recent water mission, hundreds of people In the township of Bezuidenhoutville rushed up with an array of empty bottles, buckets, iceboxes and even paint cans. "We are keeping it for food and drink," said Rodney Douglas, 59, pushing a wheelbarrow piled high with plastic jerrycans. Assanda Sais, 38, complained that she could only spare enough water to bathe once a week and that her house was "smelling". "We keep dirty water to flush," she explained. Bezuidenhoutville's local middle school has had to shorten its week by half a day due to the lack of water. Many children were missing class altogether. "Kids have to help parents to carry water," said teacher Zeenat Gangat, sweltering as the sun beat down on the container walls of a classroom. "They can't wash," she added. "They complain about stomach issues." - Poor infrastructure - Local authorities have tried to ease the situation by connecting sections of the town to a reservoir fed by Fish River, around 50 kilometres (30 miles) away. The water is allocated on a rotational basis, but even then the pipeline to the river is way too narrow. Adelaide deputy mayor Bornboy Ndyebi said the town's pipelines were in poor shape, and Thandekile Mnyimba, who heads the regional district of Amathole, told AFP that water trucks supplied by the government had broken down. South Africa's main opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA), has accused the ruling party of acting too late. "It is only when the dam reached a very low level - around four percent -- that they woke up," said DA councillor Ernie Lombard. Ramaphosa has sought to pin the blame on years of poor governance under former president Jacob Zuma, whom he succeeded in 2018. "Corruption in the water sector has in no small part contributed to the situation we currently face," he declared. - 'Can't sleep at night' - Water insecurity could become "the biggest developmental and economic challenge facing this country," Ramaphosa added. Adelaide is already suffering from South Africa's ailing economy, marked by low growth and chronic unemployment. Close to 70 percent of the small town's inhabitants are out of work. When houses go up for sale, they stay on the market. The manager of Adelaide's only hotel said she was worried if too many rooms were booked at the same time, as "it takes two weeks to do the washing". On nearby farms, high-yielding avocado trees now barely produce 10, low-grade fruit instead of 50. Helpless farmers watch their animals succumb to thirst and hunger. Alton Snaer has lost nine of his 15 cows. "I can't sleep at night," said the retired farmer. Bothma feared that more months without rain would force him "to close the books". "Farmers are taking their life," he said, eyes reddened by the dust. South African Airways begins last-ditch rescue plan to prevent 'collapse' Transport South Africa - 1 month ago Date: Thu, 5 Dec 2019 12:19:45 +0100 (MET) By Sofia CHRISTENSEN Johannesburg, Dec 5, 2019 (AFP) - South African Airways was placed under a state-approved rescue plan on Thursday to avoid the embattled airline's collapse following a costly week-long strike last month. Thousands of South African Airways (SAA) staff walked out on November 15 after the flag carrier failed to meet a string of demands, including higher wages and job in-sourcing. The strike was called off the following week after SAA management and unions eventually clinched a deal. But the walkout dealt a severe blow to the debt-ridden airline, which has failed to make a profit since 2011 and survives on government bailouts. "The Board of SAA has adopted a resolution to place the company into business rescue," said a statement by South Africa's Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan, adding that the decision was also supported by the government. "It must be clear that this is not a bailout," said Gordhan. "This is the provision of financial assistance in order to facilitate a radical restructure of the airline." The business rescue process will be directed by an independent practitioner. It is meant to prevent a "disorderly collapse of the airline", he added. Gordhan said the government would provide 2 billion rand ($136 million) to SAA in "a fiscally neutral manner". Existing lenders will also provide a 2 billion rand loan guaranteed by the government. - 'Financial challenges' - South Africa is struggling to get state-owned companies back on track after nine years of corruption and mismanagement under former president Jacob Zuma. Its national airline -- which employs more than 5,000 workers and is Africa's second largest airline after Ethiopian Airlines -- had been losing 52 million rand ($3.5 million) a day during the strike. SAA's board said the business rescue, scheduled to start immediately, was decided after consultations with shareholders and the public enterprises department "to find a solution to our company's well-documented financial challenges". "The considered and unanimous conclusion has been to place the company into business rescue in order to create a better return for the company's creditors and shareholders," said the SAA board of directors in a statement. The rescue plan will include a "new provisional timetable" and ensure "selected activities... continue operating successfully". With a fleet of more than 50 aircraft, SAA flies to over 35 domestic and international destinations. "SAA understand that this decision presents many challenges and uncertainties for its staff," said the board. "The company will engage in targeted communication and support for all its employee groups at this difficult time. - 'Lesser evil' - Unions told AFP they would comment later on Thursday. They have agreed to a 5.9-percent wage increase backdated to April, but which would only start to be paid out next March depending on funding. SAA had initially refused any pay rise. The cash-strapped airline needs two billion rand ($136 million) to fund operations through the end of March. But it was unable to cover all of its staff salaries last month. "Business rescue allows for the airline to continue to operate while it is being restructured, as opposed to liquidation," analyst Daniel Silke told AFP. He said the rescue was a "lesser evil for SAA" and would save more jobs than a "shutdown". But Silke still expected jobs to be cut as SAA attempted to reduce costs. "Various divisions that make of SAA could be privatised," he said. "There will be a review of SAA aircraft and routes covered by SAA." Unions had already demanded a three-year guarantee of job security following an announcement last month that almost 1,000 SAA employees could lose their jobs as part of another restructuring plan. SAA pledged to defer that process to the end of January as part of the deal that ended the strike. South African Airways secures state-led rescue Transport South Africa - 2 months ago Johannesburg, Dec 5, 2019 (AFP) - South African Airways was placed under a state-led rescue plan on Thursday as part of a massive restructuring following a costly week-long strike last month. Thousands of South African Airways (SAA) staff walked out on November 15 after the cash-strapped airline failed to meet a string of demands, including higher wages and job in-sourcing. The strike was called off the following week after SAA management and unions eventually clinched a deal. But the walkout dealt a severe blow to the debt-ridden airline, which has failed to make a profit since 2011 and survives on government bailouts. "The Board of SAA has adopted a resolution to place the company into business rescue," said a statement by South Africa's Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan, adding that the decision was also supported by the government. "It must be clear that this is not a bailout," said Gordhan. "This is the provision of financial assistance in order to facilitate a radical restructure of the airline." South Africa is struggling to get state-owned companies back on track after nine years of corruption and mismanagement under former president Jacob Zuma. - Costly strike - Its national airline -- which employs more than 5,000 workers and is Africa's second largest airline after Ethiopian Airlines -- had been losing 52 million rand ($3.5 million) a day during the strike. SAA's board said the business rescue, scheduled to start immediately, was decided after consultations with shareholders and the public enterprises department "to find a solution to our company's well-documented financial challenges". "The considered and unanimous conclusion has been to place the company into business rescue in order to create a better return for the company's creditors and shareholders," said the SAA board of directors in a statement. Business practitioners were set to be appointed "in the near future" to oversee the process, they added. Unions did not immediately respond to AFP's requests for comment. They have agreed to a 5.9-percent wage increase backdated to April, but which would only start to be paid out next March depending on funding. SAA had initially refused any pay rise. The cash-strapped airline needs two billion rand ($136 million) to fund operations through the end of March. "SAA understand that this decision presents many challenges and uncertainties for its staff," said the board. "The company will engage in targeted communication and support for all its employee groups at this difficult time." Authorities in South Africa to launch advanced new HIV drug Disease AIDS South Africa - 2 months ago Johannesburg, Nov 27, 2019 (AFP) - South Africa on Wednesday said it was introducing an affordable, cutting-edge drug to fight HIV in the country with the largest number of people living with the AIDS-causing virus. Hailing the new anti-retroviral drug as "the fastest way to reduce HIV viral load", the health department said it will start rolling out the advanced pill known as TLD on December 1, international World Aids day. Health Minister Zweli Mkhize unveiled the pioneering drug at a ceremony in southwestern KwaZulu-Natal, the province with the country's highest prevalence rates, where more than a quarter of the population is infected. The new three-in-one pill, developed with the financial backing of global health development organisation Unitaid, bands together the drugs tenofovir disoproxil fumarate, lamivudine and dolutegravir. Dolutegravir is the preferred first-line and second-line treatment recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO), and is already the drug of choice in high-income countries. Unitaid's director of operations Robert Matiru said the new TLD drug "is highly effective and has much more rapid viral suppression" than the current treatment regime. "It has fewer side effects in general and is much more resilient... and also is even cheaper," he told AFP. The fixed dose, one pill combination is hoped to make it easier and more affordable for those suffering with the virus to begin -- and stay on -- treatment. Unitaid said the price would start at $75 per person per year and could drop lower, creating savings that could allow up to five million more people to receive treatment. South Africa accounts for more than 10 percent of all HIV-related deaths and 15 percent of new infections, according to Unitaid. The country has the world's largest HIV treatment programme, delivering anti-retroviral treatment to some 4.8 million people. But at least 7.7 million South Africans are living with HIV, with the highest prevalence among adults aged 15 to 49 years.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line938
__label__wiki	0.81306	0.81306	Exclusive: U.S. may scale back Huawei trade restrictions to help existing customers Reuters May 18, 2019 FILE PHOTO: A woman looks at her phone as she walks past a Huawei shop in Beijing, China May 16, 2019. REUTERS/Thomas Peter/File Photo (Corrects title in 17th paragraph of this May 17 story to say "Chief Financial Officer" Meng Wanzhou, not "Chief Executive Officer".) By Karen Freifeld (Reuters) - The U.S. Commerce Department said on Friday it may soon scale back restrictions on Huawei Technologies after this week's blacklisting would have made it nearly impossible for the Chinese company to service its existing customers. The Commerce Department, which had effectively halted Huawei's ability to buy American-made parts and components, is considering issuing a temporary general license to "prevent the interruption of existing network operations and equipment," a spokeswoman said. Potential beneficiaries of the license could, for example, include internet access and mobile phone service providers in thinly populated places such as Wyoming and eastern Oregon that purchased network equipment from Huawei in recent years. In effect, the Commerce Department would allow Huawei to purchase U.S. goods so it can help existing customers maintain the reliability of networks and equipment, but the Chinese firm still would not be allowed to buy American parts and components to manufacture new products. The potential rule roll back suggests changes to Huawei's supply chain may have immediate, far-reaching and unintended consequences. The blacklisting, officially known as placing Huawei on the Commerce Department's entity list, was one or two efforts by the Trump administration this week allegedly made in an attempt to thwart national security risks. In an executive order, President Donald Trump also effectively barred the use of its equipment in U.S. telecom networks. The United States believes Huawei's smartphones and network equipment could be used by China to spy on Americans, allegations the company has repeatedly denied. The latest Commerce move comes as China has struck a more aggressive tone in its trade war with the United States, suggesting talks between the world's two largest economies would be meaningless unless Washington changed course. A spokesman for Huawei, the world's largest telecommunications equipment maker, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Out of $70 billion Huawei spent buying components in 2018, some $11 billion went to U.S. firms including Qualcomm, Intel Corp and Micron Technology Inc. If the Commerce Department issues the license, U.S. suppliers would still need separate licenses to conduct new business with Huawei, which would be extremely difficult to obtain, the spokeswoman said. The temporary general license would last for 90 days, she said, and would be posted in the Federal Register, just as the rule adding Huawei to the entity list will be published in the government publication on Tuesday. "The goal is to prevent collateral harm on non-Huawei entities that use their equipment," said Washington lawyer Kevin Wolf, a former Commerce Department official. The entity listing bans Huawei and 68 affiliates in 26 countries from buying American-made goods and technology without licenses that would likely be denied. The entities list identifies companies believed to be involved in activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States. In a final rule posted on Thursday, the government tied Huawei's entity listing to a criminal case pending against the company in Brooklyn, New York. U.S. prosecutors unsealed the indictment in January accusing the company of engaging in bank fraud to obtain embargoed U.S. goods and services in Iran and to move money out of the country via the international banking system. Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, daughter of the company's founder, was arrested in Canada in December in connection with the indictment, a move that has led to a three-way diplomatic crisis involving the U.S., China and Canada. Meng, who was released on bail, remains in Vancouver, and is fighting extradition. She has maintained her innocence, and Huawei has entered a plea of not guilty in New York. Trump injected other considerations into the criminal case after Meng's arrest when he told Reuters he would intervene if it helped close a trade deal. (Reporting by Karen Freifeld; Editing by Leslie Adler, Grant McCool, Chris Sanders and Diane Craft) Doug Logan Joins Pinnacle Holding Company, LLC	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line939
__label__wiki	0.921384	0.921384	NEWSWEST News Nouvelles OPINIONS AIR CRUISES HOTELS TOUR OPERATOR BUZZ PEOPLE PAXORAMA QUICK PRESSE PAX MAGAZINE PAX magazine English PAX magazine French Events/rsvp PAXORAMA National Gay Pilots Association promotes diversity in the skies Michael Pihach From left: Dean Sela, board director, NGPA; Vera Teschow, Canadian Aviation Pride board member; Kit Warfield, NGPA co-chair; Johnathan Sawicki, NGPA member Michael Pihach is an award-winning journalist with a keen interest in digital storytelling. In addition to PAX, Michael has also written for CBC Life, Ryerson University Magazine, IN Magazine, and DailyXtra.ca. Michael joins PAX after years of working at popular Canadian television shows, such as Steven and Chris, The Goods and The Marilyn Denis Show. Dean Sela remembers falling in love with aviation when he was just a wee one. As a child, he used to fly back and forth between Israel (where he was born) and Canada (where he grew up), and loved every aspect of the journey. “I’d hang out in the flight deck, sit by the wing, meet the pilot...I’ve loved air travel for as long as I can remember,” says Sela, 34. By the time he was teenager, Sela knew he wanted to work in aviation. He took his passion and made it happen – one of his first jobs was working as a part-time dispatcher for a small flight school outside of Toronto. When he was 16, Sela learned how to actually fly a plane. Then, at 17, he earned his private pilot licence. All this before learning how to drive a car. But Sela had a secret Sela’s career was quickly taking flight, so to speak, but there was something more to his life in the skies that no pilot’s school, flight simulator or written exam could ever prepare him for. Sela’s co-workers and schoolmates didn’t know he was gay – a secret young Sela kept to himself. After all, in those early days, it wasn’t uncommon for Sela to hear derogatory comments about gender and sexual orientation at his work and in his aviation program at school. Reconciling who he was, and what he wanted to do for a living, was a struggle. “On one hand, I felt I belonged in the skies. On the other hand, I didn't feel that I could belong at all,” Sela once wrote in a blog post recounting those formidable years. But nothing – seriously, nothing – was going to get in the way of Sela’s ambitions. By the time he was 29, 13 years after he first enrolled in flight school, he landed his dream job as a pilot for Air Canada. By then he was openly gay and proud – something he came to terms with early on in his career thanks to the help of a fellow openly-gay pilot who became his friend and mentor. You could say aviation culture, and its attitude towards gender and sexual orientation, had grown up a little too. “When I first started interviewing for aviation jobs, I felt like I didn’t have to hide anything. I wasn’t scared, I wasn’t worried,” Sela tells PAX. Uniting the LGBT aviation community Today, Sela is a First Officer who steers Air Canada’s long-range Boeing 787 Dreamliners to the most worldly destinations, from Munich to Seoul to Copenhagen to Tokyo. It’s a big position that comes with big responsibilities. But nothing is more important to Sela these days than sharing his story and being an advocate for LGBT and gender inclusiveness in the aviation industry. After all, passing flight school is stressful enough. “Nobody should have to grapple with whether they'll be accepted for who they are,” Sela says. It’s a message Sela preaches loudly and proudly as a director for the National Gay Pilots Association (NGPA), an international organization dedicated to building, supporting, and uniting the LGBT aviation community worldwide. Founded in 1990 by a small group of gay pilots who discreetly gathered in Provincetown, Massachusetts, the organization aims to promote aviation safety, provide a social and professional network for the LGBT community, foster equal treatment of the LGBT aviation community through advocacy and outreach and encourage LGBT people to pursue careers in aviation. Today, the NGPA boasts more than 4,000 members (consisting of both LGBT and non-LGBT allies), with localized chapters in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and even Australia. In addition to hosting mega industry expos, signature events and outreach initiatives throughout the year, the organization also offers scholarship opportunities for aspiring LGBT professionals in the aviation field. (The NGPA is awarding more than $150,000 in scholarships this year alone). “It warms my heart to see young people inspired to join the industry because the NGPA has given them the avenue and courage to be their authentic selves,” says Sela, who is also the co-founder of a non-profit organization called Canadian Aviation Pride, which supports people within LGBT communities who share a passion for flying. Beyond the old boys club In this day and age, one would assume the aviation industry would have caught up with embracing sexual and gender diversity in the workplace. Really, you can’t go to a Pride festival these days without seeing a major airline sponsor a rainbow-clad event or participate in a parade. Diversity and inclusion committees, too, are a common corporate practice at many airlines. While Sela agrees the aviation industry has indeed come a long way in its support for LGBT employees, he says the fight for inclusion and acceptance isn’t over. “It’s still an old boys club out there,” Sela tells PAX. “There’s still a lot of work to be done.” Just because an airline waves the rainbow flag at a Pride festival doesn’t always mean there’s a rainbow at the end of everyone’s day-to-day flight operations, he says. “An airline might be pro-LGBT; maybe they go to Pride events and put money into the parade. It seems like they’re doing everything right to be diverse, but when you translate it to the flight deck, it can be a different story,” Sela says, noting that issues of homophobia can extend to flight schools as well. “That directly links to a safety problem and we’re really trying to crack down on that." Case in point: Sela recounts a phone call he once received from a girl who was concerned for a male friend who was attending a flight school in New Brunswick, and who had recently come out to his instructor. “The instructor told him: ‘If you’re gay, you can’t be a pilot,’” Sela says. “That was shocking to me. I was like, ‘Really? This is happening? And in Canada?’” After connecting with that student, and using resources available from within the NGPA, Sela and his peers were able to get that aspiring pilot a new instructor. “There’s an element of advocacy in helping the community at large,” Sela says of the NGPA's mission. “And helping our own members, too, by connecting them so they can get ahead.” Community & comradery There’s a sense of comradery shared between NGPA members, which includes people from all parts of the spectrum, from gay men to lesbians to trans individuals to straight-identified allies. The NGPA’s events, such as their annual Pride event that took place in Toronto this weekend, brings together a community of aviation lovers (and not to mention major partners) from the industry at large. “The NGPA has become my aviation family,” Sela says. “When I first joined and went to my first event many years ago, I only knew one person. Now I have so many incredible friends that I’ve met through NGPA.” To say Sela has come a long way from his days as an uncomfortable young dispatcher at small flight school would be an understatement. Thanks to the work of the NGPA, the future is looking bright for LGBT aviation lovers like himself. “I didn’t know a single gay pilot when I was 16 and learning how to fly,” says Sela. “That has now changed for so many young people.” The NGPA hosts a variety of events throughout the year: Palm Springs Winter Warm-Up: Set to the stunning backdrop of the San Jacinto mountains, this networking expo has grown to be the organization’s largest yearly gathering. Featuring various receptions, keynote speakers and exhibitors, the jam-packed weekend gives more than 1,000 attendees the opportunity to learn more about the industry and expand their network. “Almost all of the U.S. carriers come to this thing,” Sela says. Registration includes admission to the NGPA Industry Expo presented by United Airlines, which is the second-largest pilot recruiting and aviation networking event in the U.S. Here, one can find hundreds of ATP-qualified active airline pilots seeking employment, aviation products and services, and educational seminars. “It often leads to jobs for people,” Sela says. The next warm-up is Feb. 6-9th, 2020. Cape Cod Classic: An annual fall gathering in in Provincetown, Mass. that honours the legacy of those brave gay pilots who planned the NGPA’s inaugural event in 1990. Back then, it was a handful of gay pioneers, and because it was taboo to be out at that time, communication was done by telephone (members were identified by having an airplane on their shirt). As the story is told on the NGPA’s website: “Members risked losing their job or being discharged from the military if they were outed as gay.” This year’s event is Sept. 12-15th, 2019. Aviation Inclusion Summit: Held this November in Scottsdale, AZ, this event is designed to bring awareness of diversity & inclusion issues across all aviation organizations. Presentations cover a variety of topics, such as inclusion and safety, transgender issues, harassment, the “ism’s” (racism, sexism, religious discrimination...etc), social media, and more. Nov. 17-20th. For more information on the NGPA and events, click here. "The beginning of a new chapter:" Air Canada welcomes its new A220-300 A first look at Air Canada's new A220-300 aircraft Air Transat brings its Vacation Intervention to Canadian travellers WestJet grounds MAX through April 4 Air Transat launches its Vancouver-Costa Rica service PAX Checks In with Oceania's Cathy Denroche Now Natura Riviera Cancun opening delayed until March Thanks for your interest in our media kit and advertising solutions available on PAX.travel. Please fill the following form to download our media kit. All rights reserved © PAXGlobalmedia 2020 Subject : National Gay Pilots Association promotes diversity in the skies URL : https://newswest.paxeditions.com/news/pnw-airline/national-gay-pilots-association-promotes-diversity-skies Indicator...	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line941
__label__cc	0.748932	0.251068	Credit Repair Coaching Credit Repair Tips Home Buying Trends and Tips Call us toll free (401) 270-2800 About Ed St. Onge ED ST. ONGE CREDIT REPAIR EXPERT Ed St. Onge was a photojournalist, editor and news writer for television stations WTEV 6 and WJAR 10 in Providence R.I. before attending law school and passing the bar prior to graduation. A winning litigation lawyer for 37 years, Ed St. Onge has distilled his experience in home buying and credit repair to create this valuable resource for those who are getting ready to buy a home. His time is now primarily devoted to helping consumers with their biggest financial decision. Cases of note litigated by Mr. St. Onge include: Sister Mary Reilly et al., Plaintiffs v. Philip Noel, Governor State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Defendant, 384 Supp 741. Mentioned in the best seller “A Civil Action” this case was described as a “ringing decision” favoring a liberal First Amendment interpretation of the rights of singing protesters in the R.I. State House. Mr. St. Onge’s legal assistant for this case was Jan Schlichtman played by John Travolta in the 1996 hit movie “A Civil Action”. Gilbert Charland, shareholder, Country View Golf Club, Inc. v. Country View Golf Club, Inc., 588 A 2nd 609. Nationally cited case defining rights of minority shareholders in forced buyouts of closely held corporations. Rebecca Church v. John McBurney, 513 A 2nd 22. Defines statute of limitations for legal malpractice claims. United States of America v. Sandro Martinez, United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit, No. 97-2350. This case was instrumental in defining the standard of proof the Government must meet to label cocaine as “crack” cocaine. Crack and powder cocaine are chemically indistinguishable. During the 1988 Olympics in Seoul Ed worked as a TV cameraman for the international feed of the Olympic diving championships. Because his dramatic footage captured Greg Louganis‘ head striking the diving board with such clarity he won an award for his special contribution signed by Juan Antonio Samaranch, President of the International Olympic Committee and Chung Koo-Ho, president of the Korean Broadcasting System. ~ Edward F. St. Onge, Sr. J.D. OUR MISSION IS TO EMPOWER OUR CLIENTS. TO TRANSFORM YOUR LOW SCORE TO REALITY. GET FREE CREDIT ASSESSMENT Edward F. St. Onge Sr. J.D. Here at Credit Repair Coach, we understand how damaging a low credit score can be. If your credit score is unsatisfactory, you won’t be able to apply for excellent loans and other financial options. Many people suffer from a poor credit score – you don’t have to join their ranks! By utilizing a methodical resolution process, we can help you improve your credit score. Our expert advice has helped many people all over the country, thus leading to the improvement of their lives. One of the advantages of our business is constant development. Every single day, new viewpoints are presented in the financial world. As part of our dedication to our clients, we strive hard to research about new helpful information. Our credit consultation approach is also highly personalized. You are free to tell us the scope of your credit problems. In turn, we will provide the answers that you need. Edward F. St. Onge Credit Repair Coach 15 Vineyard St. Apt #404 Providence, RI onhomebuyingandcreditrepair.com Mon – Thur: 8:30a-5:00p Fri: 8:30a-12:00p © 2018 · On Home Buying and Credit Repair.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line945
__label__wiki	0.560734	0.560734	On Something On Something - Life After Legalization About On Something A podcast exploring the political, legal and cultural effects of marijuana legalization. From Colorado Public Radio and PRX, these are stories about life after legalization, hosted by journalist Ann Marie Awad. Keep in touch with us! Sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page! Have a question, comment or story idea? Email us at humans at onsomething.org or call us at (720) 420-6587. On Something (https://appserver-5d47bc91/2019/09/24/episode-8-cbd-the-hype-and-the-reality/) Episode 8: CBD: The Hype and the Reality Iris Gottlieb CBD is everywhere these days, but a decade ago it was largely unknown. Martin Lee, one of the founders of the California nonprofit Project CBD, helps us unpack how the CBD craze got started, what makes CBD promising and whether the hype is justified. We want to hear from you! Email us at humans@OnSomething.org or call us at 720-420-6587 to let us know what you think of the show or to send us a question or story idea. Can CBD Really Do All That? Why is CBD Everywhere? CBD: Weed Wonder Drug? Ann Marie Awad: From Colorado Public Radio and PRX, this is On Something. Speaker 2: I’m a big fan of CBD. I use CBD frequently, especially when I’m trying to get some deep sleep. Speaker 3: There are people who I’ve known in my life, like my piano teacher, who are now rallying in Texas for this usage because of the medicinal use. Ann Marie Awad: By now, I’m sure we’re not breaking the news that CBD is everywhere. It’s the new kale. It’s the new superfood. It’s whatever you want to call it. Here in Denver, between talks at a TEDx event we were attending, we asked a bunch of folks to share their thoughts on CBD with us. And, perhaps not surprisingly, nearly everyone we asked had something to say. Speaker 4: I mean, I know that it has healing properties, but I’m not all up on all the data. Speaker 5: Oh yeah. I saw it in Walgreens next to the cough syrup I was going to get for my kids. So my kids were sick, and it was just right next to them, and I was like, “CBD? I thought this was a dispensary thing,” but I guess it’s everywhere. Ann Marie Awad: So what is this stuff? And how did it start showing up everywhere? How did something that is made from cannabis, which is still illegal in many states, become part of a never-ending national wellness industry spin cycle? How can something that has such promising research behind it as a medicine be the same stuff that Gwyneth Paltrow is trying to sell in her Goop newsletter, along with yoni eggs and moon juice? Ann Marie Awad: This is On Something, stories about life after legalization. I’m Ann Marie Awad. On this podcast, we talk about people’s relationships with weed. And now that your mom, your sister, and all your in-laws are into CBD, lots more folks in America have a relationship with weed. CBD is one of those examples of the way that pot just captures our imagination. I think the second that we came up with the idea for a podcast about legalization, people started telling us immediately that we needed to be talking about CBD. And so we got to talking with Martin Lee, one of the founders of Project CBD in California. It’s a non-profit that aims to promote the scientific research around CBD. Ann Marie Awad: Martin is a journalist. He’s been writing about CBD for almost 10 years now, long before you or I caught wind of all of the CBD hype. He’s followed every step in CBD’s recent rise, and he’s actually got something of an expertise in reporting on drugs. He wrote a book called Acid Dreams, it’s all about the history of LSD in America. And another book of his, called Smoke Signals, tells a social history of marijuana in America. He’s got bylines in the Washington Post, The LA Times, and Rolling Stone. And to be clear, somewhere along the way, Martin also became a believer in CBD. Actually, as I’ve gone down the CBD rabbit hole this year, I’ve found that people who can speak authoritatively on CBD have, for the most part, drunk the Kool-aid, so to speak. But Martin maintains that there is no Kool-aid sipping here. Martin Lee: We’re not cheerleaders for CBD. We’re certainly a pro cannabis therapeutics. We feel there’s a lot of value there and we feel that CBD, in and of itself, adds immensely to that. But we feel it’s also important to ground what we know in science and actual experience. It’s pretty obvious that CBD is an impressive molecule. We don’t have to exaggerate what it does. Ann Marie Awad: It was 2006 when Martin remembers first hearing a scientist talk about CBD at a conference in Switzerland. This conference was actually focused on psychedelics, and Martin was riveted by probably the least psychedelic substance being talked about, because you know, CBD doesn’t get you high. Ann Marie Awad: It wasn’t until fairly recently that we had an understanding of how CBD works and what it can do, but scientists have known about CBD for quite some time, as far back as the 1940s. And human beings have been using cannabis for centuries, long before anyone had come up with the name cannabidiol. That’s what CBD stands for, by the way. But we’re not going to dive into all that history right now. No. This episode is about the modern history of CBD, the Kim Kardashianization of CBD, if you will. Kim Kardashian: I was like, “I can’t do another baby shower. I can’t do another baby game … Ann Marie Awad: This is Kim herself, I know we can never get enough of Kim Kardashian, talking with E News earlier this year. Kim Kardashian: I just want a zen, CBD-themed baby shower. That is the theme. Speaker 8: Really? Oh, girl, I could help you with that. I got a few phone calls I- Ann Marie Awad: CBD did not yet have that celebrity cachet when Martin Lee was at that conference in 2006. A few years later though, marijuana growers in Northern California who were supplying California’s medical marijuana market, were tweaking their plants. They were trying to breed plants that had higher levels of THC. That’s the stuff that gets you stoned. But some of these growers made some mistakes, weed strains that wouldn’t get anybody high because instead of THC, these plants were potent in CBD. Ann Marie Awad: Okay. Before we go on, we need to have a little vocabulary round, because with all of this technical jargon, we might just get lost in the weeds. So CBD, we’ve already established, stands for cannabidiol. It doesn’t get you stoned, but it’s the part of cannabis that’s responsible for relaxation. It’s been approved by the FDA to treat some rare forms of epilepsy. It has anti-inflammatory effects, etc. THC is another compound we’ve mentioned here. That stands for tetrahydrocannabinol. That’s the stuff that gets you stoned, gives you the munchies, might make you paranoid. And THC and CBD sort of work together like two interlocking pieces. Martin Lee: One of the problems with THC, people can get too high and it can be uncomfortable. It can be, rather than relaxing, it can be anxiety-producing. CBD, if anything, is just the opposite. CBD has an anxiety reducing effect. And that’s I think one of the most common uses for CBD is as an anxiolytic, or anxiety-lessening agent. Ann Marie Awad: A cannabinoid is a chemical that naturally occurs in the cannabis plant. So CBD and THC are a couple of examples of cannabinoids, but more than 100 cannabinoids have been isolated from the cannabis plants. There are also other plants that produce cannabinoids, but not in the quantities that marijuana does. So calm down. Cannabinoids affect our bodies by talking to our endocannabinoid system. That’s because dun, dun, dun, our body naturally produces its own cannabinoids. Cannabinoids made by the body are like little messengers that sends signals to the brain, or the gut, or whatever part, to regulate basic bodily functions. The cannabinoids that you smoke, or vape, or eat, those can imitate these little messengers. Martin Lee: It was only discovered, it actually started in the late 1980s. Let’s say in high school, and you studied biology of all the different systems, the skeletal system, the circulatory system, reproductive system, nervous system, etc, etc- Ann Marie Awad: Yeah, I don’t remember the endocannabinoid system in there anywhere. Martin Lee: No, it would not have been there. And it’s, again, one of the reasons why cannabis is very versatile therapeutically, because cannabis very directly affects the endocannabinoid system, and therefore can affect all these other physiological systems as well. Ann Marie Awad: The endocannabinoid system is still a pretty recent discovery, and it’s not totally understood. There’s a lot of emerging research though, that suggests it has a major role in regulating our memories, our appetite, our metabolism, how we respond to stress, sleeping, reproduction, pain response, all kinds of things. Ann Marie Awad: All right, so now that we all know our terms, let’s move on. So in the early 2000s, you had these pot growers in Northern California that started accidentally producing this high CBD weed. And Martin says that this moment was like a rediscovery of CBD. Before then, it had been all about THC, but the high CBD strains of weed coming out of California got Martin’s attention. And this was the impetus behind Project CBD. Martin Lee: Well, when CBD was first rediscovered in Northern California, it was during the first year of the Obama presidency. When we look back on it, we might not remember, but Obama wasn’t a great friend of medical marijuana in the very beginning. There was a lot of federal pressure. There was raids. There was letters to landlords telling them to shut down dispensaries, and so forth and so on. So there was a lot of pressure on the community. Ann Marie Awad: In the eyes of the world, the medical marijuana movement was, at its core, still about people getting high. That’s because up until then, THC was the name of the game. But Martin thought the new research on CBD would force people to re-evaluate everything they thought about marijuana. This was the stuff that could be medicine. This was the stuff that could challenge marijuana’s status as a Schedule One drug. In other words, CBD could change everything. Martin Lee: One of the criticisms of the medical marijuana phenomenon is, “Oh, this is just a front for stoners. This is not really real. Okay, maybe a few people, it helps. But by and large, this is just an excuse for people getting high.” Well, once CBD is part of the mix, you can’t use that criticism anymore. It doesn’t apply. Why would a person then go to a dispensary specifically to buy a product that’s not going to get them high or not get them very high? So that criticism, which was a frontline criticism of the medical marijuana world, no longer had that traction. Martin Lee: And we thought this would have far-reaching implications, because not only would it be very difficult for the drug war establishment to respond to CBD, to justify keeping it illegal, but at the same time, we thought it would be a huge impetus that would open the door for many people in the United States, and the world, for that matter, who would want to access the benefits of marijuana but who didn’t want to get high. We did think it was going to be a big deal, but I don’t think anyone realized it would be as big a deal as it has turned out to be. Ann Marie Awad: After a short break, we’ll try to pinpoint the exact moment that CBD became the next big thing. And we’ll try to get to the bottom of whether or not all this hype is warranted. Ann Marie Awad: Can you remember a turning point when, all of a sudden, CBD was just everywhere? Martin Lee: I think there were a couple of key tipping points. One was in the summer of 2013 when CNN did the special with Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay Gupta: People are lighting up all over the country. They call it the “green rush.” Ann Marie Awad: The show, simply called Weed, was an hour-long special in which Dr. Sanjay Gupta put medical marijuana under a microscope. And yes, while this special featured the predictable B-roll of lots of pot plants and people puffing away on glass pipes and stuff like that, Gupta actually spent most of his time focused on the family of Charlotte Figi in Colorado Springs. Sanjay Gupta: What would you do if this were your child? Charlotte Figi had an extreme form of epilepsy. Her body was so frail that any seizure could kill her. With no traditional treatment left to try and the clock ticking away, her parents decided to try marijuana. Charlotte was just five years old. Ann Marie Awad: The show featured footage of the little girl having a seizure. Sanjay Gupta: And this might be hard for some of you to watch. Paige Figi: It’s okay, baby. Ann Marie Awad: She had hundreds of seizures weekly as a result of a rare type of epilepsy called Dravet Syndrome. Charlotte’s epilepsy was so severe that all of the normal treatments didn’t help. Her mom took her to see a Harvard trained physician in Denver who wrote her a prescription for cannabis high in CBD. And at the time, CBD was still relatively under the radar. And this doctor was an outlier for his willingness, not only to prescribe it, but to prescribe it to a child. After jumping through lots of hoops, Charlotte’s mom obtained a liquid solution of CBD with little to no THC in it. Paige Figi: I measured it with a syringe and squirted it under her tongue. It was exciting and very nerve-wracking. Sanjay Gupta: Holding Charlotte in her arms, Paige waited. An hour ticked by, and then another, and then another. Paige Figi: She didn’t have a seizure that day, and then she didn’t have a seizure that night. Sanjay Gupta: Did you sit there and … Martin Lee: To see that kind of transformation is very, very powerful, a real tearjerker. But I think when people saw that on national television, international television, there’s two things that came through really powerfully. You remember, we had grown up learning that marijuana was the assassin of youth. And here we have a situation where we’re seeing a certain kind of marijuana, the CBD-rich marijuana, was saving the lives of children. And not only that, it was doing it in a way that they weren’t getting intoxicated, the kids weren’t getting high. And that was just mind-blowing to people in the United States. It was really an eye opener. Ann Marie Awad: Charlotte’s family, with a big assist from CNN, had kicked the door open. They had gotten help from the Stanley Brothers, a cannabis company that started making the liquid solution of CBD that Charlotte needed. And after the CNN special, the Stanley Brothers saw a huge spike in demand. Their CBD was made from a weed strain that used to be called Hippies Disappointment, but after they met Charlotte, they renamed it Charlotte’s Web. Ann Marie Awad: After the documentary aired, you started to hear a lot more about self-described medical marijuana refugees. These were families that moved to Colorado to get their own Charlotte’s Web. They, too, had children with epilepsy or other severe, difficult-to-treat conditions. And then came the backlash. Gupta received criticism for painting CBD as this miracle cure when it didn’t actually work for every child. If you take nothing else away from this episode, take this. The link between CBD and epilepsy is the only concrete proof that we have of CBD’s effectiveness as a treatment for any medical condition. All of those other kids who came to Colorado in search of a CBD miracle cure, they got mixed results. But by then, other cannabis companies had seen an opportunity. So CBD products started showing up in dispensaries all over, and not just in Colorado either. Ann Marie Awad: Now, here’s another big watershed moment in 2018. News Anchor: Well, the latest Farm Bill legalized industrial hemp as a crop plant, sparking interest for a number of producers looking to capitalize on the new commodity. Ann Marie Awad: That explosion of CBD that you’ve noticed recently, you can thank the 2018 Farm Bill. Hemp is a type of cannabis with very low THC levels and much higher CBD levels. It’s a plant that can be used to make everything from paper, to fabric, to insulation, to fuel, to food. And it was illegal in America for as long as marijuana has been illegal. But last year, it was legalized, which meant that certain types of CBD extract, which had very low levels of THC, are now legal too. That meant that anyone could get in on this thing, not just cannabis companies in the legal states. CBD was now fair game for vitamin manufacturers, cosmetics companies, and wellness brands. Martin Lee: I think that there’s a lot of value in being open-minded with respect to CBD-rich cannabis, but that doesn’t mean one should be sort of taken in by all the marketing hoopla. I think we’re at kind of a transition phase here where we’re just now, as a culture, welcoming back CBD-rich cannabis, this traditional herb, into the pharmacopeia, into the pantheon of medicinal herbs. Ann Marie Awad: And to Kim Kardashian’s baby shower. Martin Lee: Which I was not invited to, and I feel personally insulted, because- Ann Marie Awad: How unfair. Martin Lee: … we’ve done so much for CBD that at least they could have invited us. But anyway, we’ll give them a pass this one time. Ann Marie Awad: All right, ha ha at the Kim Kardashians jokes, but she has major cultural clout. If she’s talking about it, there are already lots of companies out there trying to make money off of it. Culturally speaking, CBD’s seemingly magical healing powers have been fully co-opted by the wellness industry. It’s started to occupy this friendly millennial pink corner of our lives as a healing balm for everything from aches and pains to anxiety. And Martin says the CBD explosion is about filling a certain void. Martin Lee: We’re in a situation in the United States where there’s a lot of dissatisfaction with the healthcare system. People feel it’s broken, it’s too expensive. The medical insurance is almost like a joke in the United States compared to other countries. So there’s a deep dissatisfaction with the way things are in terms of conventional medicine in the United States. And it’s out of that dissatisfaction, I think, comes a longing for non-pharmaceutical approaches to healing, approaches that are gentle, that don’t come with a lot of harsh side effects as pharmaceuticals tend to bring. So you might say that the moment was very, very ripe for something like the CBD phenomenon. Ann Marie Awad: But if you think we’ve reached peak CBD already, you’d be wrong, according to Martin. He says we haven’t even begun to realize its potential. Now, as we mentioned, Martin is a journalist, he’s not a doctor or a scientist. But based on the studies that he’s seen, he thinks that one day CBD may change the way that doctors treat cancer. Martin Lee: There’s very compelling research that shows that CBD interacts with chemotherapy agents for cancer. And you have the similar kind of situation where if CBD, or THC, for that matter, potentiates a chemotherapy drug, that means- Ann Marie Awad: You got to help me out here a little bit, “potentiates” is a bit too jargony. I’m not sure what that means. Martin Lee: Potentiates means magnifies the effect, makes it stronger- Ann Marie Awad: I see. Okay. Martin Lee: … so that if you take a CBD and it makes a chemotherapy agent stronger in its effect, that means one could take less of the chemotherapy agent, which tends to have a very damaging effect on the body. Ann Marie Awad: Oh, yeah. Martin Lee: It not only kills the cancer cells, it kills everything else. And it really, it can ravage one’s health and have longterm damage in one’s health. So anything you could do to lower the amount of the chemotherapy agent, and yet still maintain its effectiveness as a chemotherapy agent, is almost like a godsend. Well, I would predict, in the future, we will see combinations of CBD and other cannabinoids with chemotherapy drugs and other kind of drugs in such a way as to maximize the potential of conventional pharmaceuticals so that they will have less … they will be just as effective with less harmful side effects. Ann Marie Awad: Okay. If it sounds like we are creeping very close to “CBD cures cancer” territory, I’m just going to throw some cold water on this idea. Martin is making a prediction based on a finding that CBD can affect the way that the body metabolizes certain kinds of drugs. By interacting with a certain enzyme in the liver, CBD can cause the body to absorb more of a medication. In one instance, a patient taking CBD and blood thinners absorbed about 30% more of the blood thinner than normal. So it’s not out of the realm of possibility. But to be clear, Martin is making a prediction. There is no research we were able to find about CBD being used this way during chemo. And again, we are talking about the same stuff that the barista will put in my latte for an extra $4, CBD. Ann Marie Awad: In our utopian version of the world where people are listening to this episode before they try CBD themselves, do you have advice for people who are considering giving it a shot for something that ails them? Martin Lee: Yeah, there’s this phrase, “Start low and go slow.” I think it does apply to CBD-rich cannabis. Sometimes it’s a bullseye for someone. Other times, it requires a lot of trial and error, and experimentation. But know that there is a real basis for why these things can be effective. There’s a real scientific basis that’s understood. Ann Marie Awad: So remember when we talked about how CBD can affect the way that the body metabolizes drugs? We have to offer an important caveat here. If you’re taking any kind of regular medication, it might be riskier for you to experiment with CBD. So that’s a conversation that you should have with a doctor. Ann Marie Awad: CBD comes from cannabis, which creates big roadblocks when it comes to research. Even in legal states, the federal government restricts cannabis research because cannabis is still a Schedule One drug. So when it comes to CBD, a substance with lots of interest, surrounded by lots of questions, it’s easy to feel like all you’ve got to go on is anecdotal evidence. Martin Lee: When people are saying time and again, “Oh my God, it’s really helped the nausea I was experiencing after chemotherapy like nothing else did,” and you hear this time and time again, you hear it from patients, from doctors, that’s meaningful. One shouldn’t poo-poo anecdotal evidence just because it’s anecdotal. One should understand that that has a certain kind of value that’s not the same as the randomized double-blind gold standard experimentation. Ann Marie Awad: The Food and Drug Administration has only recently waded into the CBD waters. Earlier this year, the agency held the first public hearings on CBD, and has been exploring possible ways to regulate CBD products that are already on the market. Because right now, they’re largely unregulated. There’s little to no check on what companies can print on the labels of CBD products. Even the potency advertised on these products might be far from accurate. Ann Marie Awad: Also, did you know that most companies that are currently marketing CBD as a supplement or a food are technically doing it illegally to begin with? They’re not supposed to be making health claims that haven’t been proven about supplements like CBD. For example, the FDA told General Mills years ago that they couldn’t claim that Cheerios prevented heart disease. Ann Marie Awad: It’s also real important to mention that just because CBD has been made a bit more legal, it’s still very illegal for certain folks. So if you are in the armed forces, for example, you are definitely not allowed to have CBD. And if you’re not a citizen of the United States, CBD can cause you a lot of trouble. And that’s just the federal government. CBD is still illegal in a few states. And this hand-wringing over how best to regulate CBD, this gets Martin really worked up. Martin Lee: It should never have been made illegal in the first place. We’re still in a legal mess. And it will never be resolved until cannabis, as a whole, is legalized. It should never have been made illegal in the first place. It was made illegal as a result of a racist campaign. And the fact that it is still illegal today, it’s like the Confederate statue still standing, is what it is. Ann Marie Awad: Oh, wow. Martin Lee: It’s a testament to enduring racism in the United States. Racism is what gave us the Controlled Substances Act. Racism gave us the Marijuana Tax Act. And the fact that the Controlled Substances Act still includes cannabis in it, shows that racism still exists in our society. So that’s one way to look at it. But racism aside, it’s just not workable. It’s absurd. And it’s not functional. Ann Marie Awad: Yeah. We’re in a situation now where it’s something like 33 states have legalized medical marijuana, but the law of the land is still that there is no accepted medical use for marijuana. Martin Lee: And again, that’s absurd. The FDA can sit on its high horse and say, “Marijuana has never been put through double-blind randomized control studies, so it’s not a medicine.” Okay, if you judge it that way. But all that shows is really that the FDA’s way of assessing a medicine is incomplete or inadequate. Clearly cannabis has medical value. That’s been known for thousands of years. Ann Marie Awad: So I’ve used CBD a few times. I have this chronic back injury, and I got mixed results with CBD. And I guess that’s the key thing to know. Well, actually, there’s two big takeaways: mileage may vary, and buyer beware. Mileage may vary because this stuff really does affect people differently. Like I said, I didn’t have a “whoa” moment with CBD, but I have friends who use it regularly, and they swear by it. So everybody’s body is different, everybody’s experience is different. Ann Marie Awad: And buyer beware, as we discussed earlier, a lot of the stuff out there right now is not reliable. Some stuff that’s marked as having no THC has tested positive for THC. Lots of stuff promising to contain certain amounts of CBD contain way less than advertised. And there’s still a lot we don’t know about how CBD can interact with other drugs, as we mentioned earlier. Many studies show that CBD has no known lethal dose, and side effects like changes in appetite, tiredness, or diarrhea have been noted. But pretty much every study emphasizes that there is still so much we don’t know. And I guess that’s where CBD’s appeal comes from, right? The mystery, the hope. Ann Marie Awad: On Something is a labor of love reported and written by me, Ann Marie Awad. Produced and mixed by Brad Turner and Rebekah Romberg. Our editor is Curtis Fox. Music by Brad Turner and Daniel Mescher. Our executive producers are Rachel Estabrook and Kevin Dale. On Something is made possible by lots of talented people, like Francie Swidler, Kim Nguyen, Dave Burdick, Alison Borden, Matt Hertz, and Iris Gottlieb. Special thanks to actual scientist, Loren Reynolds, for his help with this episode. Ann Marie Awad: If you’ve got something to say to us, you can give us a call and leave us a voicemail at (720) 420-6587. That’s (720) 420-6587. You can also email us at humans@onsomething.org. This program is made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people. This podcast is also made possible by Colorado Public Radio members. Learn about supporting Colorado Public Radio at cpr.org. Because with all of this technical jargon, we might get lost in the weeds. I’m sorry. One thought on “Episode 8: CBD: The Hype and the Reality” Pingback: What Do You Know About CBD? – The Wise Patient Find us on your favorite podcast service and subscribe! Built with the Largo WordPress Theme from the Institute for Nonprofit News. © Copyright 2020, Colorado Public Radio. Feed your curiosity between episodes ShareTweet Email More More on Uncategorized Subscribe to Uncategorized	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line946
__label__wiki	0.505031	0.505031	OHCHR > English > Your Human Rights > Slavery > UNVTFCFS > Photograph exhibition Photograph exhibition The photograph exhibition entitled “Breaking free from slavery: a visual journey through 20 years of assistance to victims of contemporary forms of slavery” was organized to mark the 20th anniversary of the United Nations Voluntary Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery. It brings together 56 artworks from two renowned photographers: Roberto Romano (USA) and Pete Pattisson (UK) and 17 organizations who received grants from the Voluntary Fund to assist victims of slavery in their struggle to recover their freedom and dignity. These photographs, from all over the world, take the audience on a visual journey from slavery to freedom. The exhibition is divided in two sections. Portraits of Slavery showcases a collection of 25 photographs depicting enslaved individuals and the different facets of slavery and slavery-like practices in the 21st century. Portraits of Freedom comprises a series of 26 photographs of rescued victims of slavery, assisted by the Voluntary Fund, in their new lives. The exhibition was opened with statements by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery and the Vice Chairperson of the Board of Trustees of the UN Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery. Information on the Slavery Fund Mission Statement of the Fund E \| F \| S Video Testimony of Victims of Slavery and Trustees of the Fund Download the Fund's flyer in E \| F \| S (PDF) The Human Faces of Modern Slavery in E (PDF) Download the brochure of the Fund in E (PDF) How to apply/How to report to the Fund How to contribute to the Fund List of current donors Slavery-related documents Past slavery-related events Contact the UN Slavery Trust Fund	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line951
__label__wiki	0.567807	0.567807	Edmondson Resigns DA's Post to Run for Congress Published: Wed, April 1, 1992 12:00 AM Muskogee County District Attorney Drew Edmondson has resigned to campaign for Congress, and an assistant in his office has been named to succeed him. John David Luton, son of former state Sen. John Luton, has been an assistant district attorney on Edmondson's staff since 1986. Edmondson's resignation was effective immediately. He said he intends to run for the 2nd Congressional District seat held by Mike Synar, D-Muskogee. A graduate of Muskogee High School, Luton earned an undergraduate degree in finance from the University of Oklahoma in 1977 and graduated from the Oklahoma City University Law School in 1985. BIOG: NAME: Archive ID: 499074 NewsOK has disabled the comments for this article.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line952
__label__wiki	0.973335	0.973335	Adam Levine: "I'm Extremely Fascinated By Marriage" Adam Levine covers the May issue of Paper magazine and discusses his huge ego, obsession with marriage and how he's a "pain in the a." OK! NEWS: THE VOICE'S ADAM LEVINE LANDS A FRAGRANCE DEAL The Voice judge, who refers to co-star Christina Aguilera as "like rhinestones," says the other judges on the show weren't prepared for his personality. "I'm a very competitive person and I think it took a minute for everyone else to get it," he told the magazine. "I can be a huge pain in the a. But I'm also really nice and a completely affable and socially adept person. There's a difference between being an ahole and a pain in the a…" So is that what went wrong with his relationship with model Anne V.? The two split less than a month ago with rumors that the singer was "blindsided." While he doesn't go into specifics, he does seem interested in long-term commitement. "I'm extremely fascinated by marriage," he said. "I want to study marriage. I want to learn about it. I want to know it. I want to figure out whether or not I want to do it. I'm not just going to leap into it, because that's not good for anybody." OK! NEWS: ADAM LEVINE SPLITS WITH HIS VICTORIA'S SECRET MODEL GIRLFRIEND ANNE V That being said, don't expect Adam to go through his engagement and nuptials in a conventional manner. "I'm a big fan of not doing everything the way that I'm supposed to," he said. "I like to spike in some weirdness." Want to stay on top of adam levine news? Sign up for OK INSIDER!	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line953
__label__cc	0.719355	0.280645	The Bleachery in Rock Hill, SC revenflo / Clients Case Studies, Featured / Rock Hill’s Old Town Revitalization Rock Hill Printing and Finishing Company, otherwise known as The Bleachery, once employed 20% of the population of Rock Hill, SC. As with many textiles companies, the end came when all of the work moved out of the country. The Bleachery was then merely an abandoned building separating Winthrop University and the city’s downtown. In 2010, the city began an abatement (to the tune of five million dollars) of the property. The city assumed ownership of the 24-acre property and of the buildings that remained standing on the property. After the property was cleaned up, the city had to decide what to do with it next. Currently, the city is seeking developers and master developers for the Bleachery site. The city seeks high-employment uses and mixed-use developments. The city needed a central place online to store the piles of pdf’s and information they had on the Bleachery. They needed a doorway to the Bleachery. They needed to present the Bleachery as the huge opportunity that it is. Thus, the city decided it needed a website and Internet marketing for the Bleachery. The Hive Takes on The Bleachery The Hive took on the Bleachery project for the Fall 2011 semester. The first order of business was to design and develop a website for the Bleachery. As we set out to design and develop the Bleachery website, we were given a mountain of content. Piles of documents and pictures. The great challenge was to organize the content, then to understand how it would be presented in the user-interface and navigation of the site. The Bleachery had no brand, per se. So, we decided to build off of the Old Town brand for color scheme. Beyond that, we liked the idea of bringing together the old and the new. The history of the Bleachery is significant not only in Rock Hill but as a symbol to efforts in redevelopment around the US. Walkable Urbanism is the order of the day, and reclaiming our historic urban centers is a focus many communities share. The new and innovative use of old space is our key to rebirth. We sought to capture that concept in the look and feel of the Bleachery website. The colors speak to new. The imagery speaks to old. The focal point of the Bleachery project is the map integrated into the home page. The City of Rock Hill did not have a meaningful, public-facing use of their GIS map for marketing the Bleachery, and they wanted to better utilize the technology. In response, we made the dominant experience of the site be an interactive map. The Bleachery map uses Google Maps and pulls in the GIS map of the city into a blend of sorts. The map creates a content overlay that is an interactive toolbox that displays the most pertinent information from the website. Using the map’s navigation, the user can shift back and forth among four key areas that a developer of the Bleachery will be surely concerned with: The Bleachery, Downtown, York Technical College, and Winthrop University. In each view, a selected amount of information overlays acorss the map in a visual interactive way. And at anytime the user can drag the map to wherever they want to see and zoom the map. The user can also switch to straight GIS, which is a GIS map controlled by the city and can have on it whatever the city decides to put on it in terms of data (water lines, traffic flows, sewage lines, demographics, etc.). RockHillBleachery.com CityofRockHill.com RockHillUSA.com OnlyinOldTown.com HiveU.me « Children’s Attention Home » Episode 1: Retention Of Talent (Part 1)	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line956
__label__wiki	0.632391	0.632391	Javaad Alipoor The Believers are but Brothers Javaad Alipoor is an artist, director, writer and activist who regularly makes theatre with and for communities that don’t usually engage in the arts. He is a Scotsman Fringe First and Columbia University Digital Award winner. In 2017 his play, The Believers Are But Brothers, opened at Summerhall before transferring to London’s Bush Theatre before its world tour. Other credits as writer/director include a new adaptation of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for The Crucible Theatre, and a film adaption of Believers for the BBC. Javaad Alipoor is speaking at A recipe for the end of the world: take men, politics and the internet. Stir gently. Wednesday 22 May - Saturday 25 May, 7.30pm - 8.40pm Long table: What is the future of democracy in Australia? Take a seat at the table to ask the big question - what is the future of democracy in Australia? Friday 24 May, 2pm - 5.30pm	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line961
__label__wiki	0.757984	0.757984	HomeBookingsDJs Faze Action Faze Action, comprised of brothers Simon & Robin Lee, have been producing, writing, DJing and performing live for more than two decades. Their five LPs have all received critical acclaim, as have their countless remixes, meaning Faze Action is one of the most original, in-demand artists on the Balearic, Disco and House scene. Early in the duo’s career they released the successful single ‘In the Trees’, which featured classical cello playing from Robin. Along with ‘Disco Motion’, ‘In the Trees’ became an instant classic. Released on the Nuphonic label, these tracks transformed the musical landscape, paving the way for Disco’s revival. Growing up in London’s Amersham suburbs, Simon & Robin were always obsessed with Jazz, Funk, Disco, and the earliest House music. Simon would seek out records, and Robin would play along on the piano or cello. In the mid 90s, Simon had started DJing, while Robin was performing frequently in classical concerts. The brothers teamed up for their first record together and produced ‘Original Disco Motion’, a modern Disco masterpiece that Moodymann himself soon sampled. The underground classic track also gained support from the likes of Frankie Knuckles and Francois K. this paved the way for ‘In the Trees’, and the wider Disco revival spearheaded by the brothers. Over the years, Faze Action have always kept their releases original and creative. ‘Kariba’, for example, is a sublime combination of Afro, Disco and House, aided by Zimbabwe native Zeke Manyika. In 2006 the brothers set up their own label, FAR. Releases on this label have seen support from Joey Negro, Meat Disco and Dimitri from Paris, as well as wide critical acclaim. ‘Time By Your Side’, from the 2014 LP ‘Body of One’, racked up over one million Spotify plays. Outside of the studio, Simon & Robin are in-demand DJs, travelling the globe to play clubs and festivals. Their legendary sets connect the dots between Disco, Afro, House and Balearic. Also performing live, the brothers have connected with audiences on every continent, including during Glastonbury festival, and on a US tour with Groove Armada. 12K 9 9.5K Luca Carluccio Book Faze Action	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line964
__label__wiki	0.787425	0.787425	Zion Lutheran Church live nativity scene going strong RHINELANDER - Zion Lutheran Church didn't hold a live nativity scene for roughly 30 years. Last year, the event returned. In its second year back, the number of people involved has grown. "We have a message of timely importance that is important for all people," said Zion Lutheran Staff Minister John Kanter. "We want to share with our friends and neighbors in Rhinelander." The nativity will be the same as last year with live participants, live animals and even a choir. There is a slight change to the event, but it's an addition. "After the nativity itself, we will have refreshments that will be served in our school and also here in church," said Kanter. "We're going to have a Christmas carol sing along. People can come into the warm and sing some more Christmas carols." For people involved, the excitement is building for this unique event. "I just think it's a really cool opportunity we get to share our message with the community," said Live Nativity participant Liesel Fiebke. "It makes an opportunity for a family to do something special, something a little different each Christmas," said Kanter. "We know the Christmas story many of us, some of us may not know it as well. Here is an opportunity come see it presented." Students say they are looking forward to doing this event with their friends this weekend. They will have brand new costumes as well. "I'm really excited and a bunch of friends that are going to be in it are excited too to get to be an angel," said Fiebke. Presentation times will be at 2, 3 and 4 PM Saturday. The church is located at 160 North Brown Street in Downtown Rhinelander. After the final showing, people are also encouraged to go see Lights of the Northwoods at Hodag Park. Story By: Devin Biggs Cars stolen after being left unattended to warm up	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line965
__label__wiki	0.933819	0.933819	Fucking Articulate: Arianna Huffington’s Book Party By Shazia Ahmad, Noelle Hancock, Gabriel Sherman, Alexandra Wolfe and George Gurley • 04/19/04 12:00am Not everyone stuffed into MTV Networks chairman Tom Freston’s East 66th Street townhouse on April 12 wanted to say how they’d made a fool of themselves recently-even though the party was for Fanatics and Fools: The Game Plan for Winning Back America, Arianna Huffington’s 10th book. Her publisher at Miramax Books, Harvey Weinstein, declined to comment on any instances of his foolishness or fanaticism. “I’m retired,” he said, before turning his attention to investment banker Steven Rattner, whose smile clearly meant “no comment.” Mort Zuckerman, the third man in the pow-wow, came through, sort of. “How much time do you have?” he asked. Twenty seconds? “Not enough time.” “If you don’t embarrass yourself every once in a while, then you’re not loose enough,” Al Franken chimed in. “So I’m trying to think hard. I know-I made a couple mistakes in Lies and Lying Liars. All of it came from British intelligence. For example, I wrote that Sean Hannity lived up Newt Gingrich’s ass from 1993 to 1998-I got that from British intelligence. Turns out Sean took residence up Newt’s ass only in early ’94, early January of ’94, so that was embarrassing.” Soon, Ms. Huffington picked up a microphone and started riffing on President Bush. “George Bush was supposed to be here tonight, but he just sent a little note saying that the directions were not specific enough,” she said. There followed many hearty chuckles and a few “ho-ho-hos.” “He said he knows we gave him the time and the address, but there was no cross street,” Ms. Huffington continued to even more laughter. “And he said, ‘If there had been a cross street, he would have moved mountains to have been here, but without a cross street, what can he do?” Ms. Huffington moved on to more serious matters. “We can win in a landslide!” she said, before adding that “when the house is on fire, this is not the time to talk about remodeling. This is the time to put the fire out. And after we put the fire out and send George Bush back to Crawford, Tex., where in any case he seems to prefer to spend his time … until then, we can’t talk about remodeling.” Later on in the sumptuous townhouse once owned by Andy Warhol, swanning among such guests as Kurt Vonnegut, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Tina Brown, Barbara Walters, Barry Diller and Katrina vanden Heuvel, Ms. Huffington said she made a fool of herself back when she was a Republican. “That was a very bad idea,” she said. “But I think there’s a statute of limitations because, you know, when I was a Republican, Dennis Miller was still a liberal-he’s still funny. And Michael Jackson was still black. You know, it’s a long time ago, but I did make a fool of myself. Hi! Welcome! This is [former Howard Dean consultant] Joe Trippi-you can ask him.” Having a smoke outside was Tony Newman, a bearded 33-year-old originally from the Bay Area who is now the communications director of the Drug Policy Alliance, an organization that Ms. Huffington has worked closely with to end the war on drugs. “We have drugs all over our society,” Mr. Newman was saying. “We got weed, cigs, Prozac, Viagra, steroids, everything. But only certain people are going to jail for certain drugs. I smoke weed on the streets of New York every fucking day, and you know how many times I’ve been stopped by the cops?” He pulled out some printouts from a new Web site of his, http://www.whatifIwereblack.com, which featured photographs of Mr. Newman sparking up all over midtown Manhattan. “You would think that it’s easy to smoke weed in New York, but 60,000 get arrested for fucking smoking weed in the city,” he said. Mr. Newman called his friend Ms. Huffington an “amazing woman.” “Not only is she a great writer, she’s a great organizer,” he said. “She basically pulled together a whole fucking range of people tonight-super big shots, grassroots organizers. She’s a connector. You know what, she did it incredibly well when she was conservative and worked with Gingrich-ouch! But we have respect, ’cause she knows how to fucking do it, and now that she’s willing to come over …. ” Mr. Newman lit up again and went on, talking about a shadow convention that Ms. Huffington had helped put together to address issues that were missing from the platforms at both parties’ conventions in 2000. “Arianna put together an important segment,” he said. “She put together activists in the fucking media world. She pulled together activists working together on issues like drug-policy reform like myself. She pulled together these people and said, ‘You know what? Basically the house is on fire,’ I heard her say, ‘it’s not time to fucking remodel.’ Basically, the fucking state of the world is in our hands. There is something exciting about that. We got seven months: We gotta fucking bring down George Bush. This guy is a drunk driver behind the wheel and he is going to take us off the cliff. We gotta fucking remove the fucking drunk driver, man. This shit, this is fucking serious. You know, Arianna is gonna continue doing her thing. She’s going to go to fucking cities around the country, she’s gonna talk to local media, she’s gonna talk to campuses. She’s fucking articulate. She can articulate our vision.” Back inside, a dozen or so people were surrounding Ms. Huffington. “He’s fantastic,” she said of Mr. Newman. “We worked together at the shadow conventions; he was press secretary for my campaign. We were working together on the drug war. Do you have a copy of my book? If you look at the ‘New Contract for a Better America,’ one of the items is the need to stop fighting this war on drugs.” She had to introduce someone to Joe Trippi and drifted off. “She’s connecting, she’s connecting,” Mr. Newman said -George Gurley Here, Pussy-Pussy “That girl is a scandal,” Vogue magazine’s majestic editor at large, André Leon Talley, once said of Texan super-noodle Erin Wasson. “And she has got to learn how to walk.” Though Mr. Talley has ruled over the fashion world with a steely gaze and finger-snap that left many a model a little wobbly on her turns, the spotlight is now turning on his clever clogs, with his stage debut at the Martha Graham Dance Company’s City Center revival of The Owl and The Pussycat on April 14. (The piece was originally narrated by Liza Minnelli in 1978.) And what do you know: The gatekeeper of poise, style and sartorial je ne sais quoi has-how do we say this? Two. Giant. Left. Feet. As the narrator of Edward Lear’s 1871 nonsense ode, Mr. Talley’s molasses-coated enunciation provided the backdrop for the Graham Company’s dancers (a diminutive pussy performed by Virginie Mécène, Tadej Brdnik’s buff-chested owl) as they leapt and slid effortlessly above the footlights at an open studio rehearsal on April 8. “The ooooowl and the pussseeecat went to sssssea,” he intoned over the jingly-jangly music that always seems to accompany Ms Graham’s esoteric compositions. And then, in his trademark Manolo Blahnik spats-thud! plonk! stomp!-he strode around the makeshift stage. It’s possible that his large strides and massive clodding was meant to add some gravitas to the rather flitty business going on about him. “What a loverrrly pussssseeeee you arrrre, you arrrrre. What a loverrrly pussssseeeee you arrrre.” STOMP! PLONK! THUD! After the performance, Mr. Talley brushed off the idea that he was maybe a little out of his depth with all this prancy modern-dance stuff. “Oh, nooooo,” he said with a flick of the hand. “I feel so good. I’ve learned how to breathe better. I’ve learned how to stand, I’ve learned how to speak slower, and I’ve learned to relax in my rich delivery. I always speak so fast, almost like ticker tape or like typing on the computer board, and it’s just a whole world that’s opened up to me.” At tonight’s performance, the neophyte performer’s fashionista friends-Oscar De La Renta, Ralph Lauren, Anna Wintour-will get to see that new world of Mr. Talley’s for the first time. “Martha Graham was all about grace, gratitude and giving,” he told The Transom. “I call it the ‘three G’s.'” -Shazia Ahmad It’s Curtains for Tyco On Nov. 25, jurors in the trial against former Tyco chief executive L. Dennis Kozlowski and former chief financial officer Mark Swartz were shown a videotape of the interior of Tyco’s corporate residence at 950 Fifth Avenue. They craned their necks and cooed as they caught glimpses of the infamous $6,000 gold-threaded shower curtain and $15,000 umbrella stand that became potent symbols of Mr. Kozlowski’s corporate excess. But those baubles may now be history. According to a source who recently toured the 4,500-square-foot duplex, which is listing for $24.99 million, the extravagant items have been removed from the apartment’s ornate interior. “My client and I were looking for them. We started laughing when we didn’t see any shower curtain at all. It doesn’t have the accouterments that it had before,” the real-estate source, who asked to remain anonymous, said. The 11-room apartment is represented by a quartet of brokers from Brown Harris Stevens, including Elizabeth Sample, Jean Meisel, Amy Katcher and Brenda Powers. Ms. Meisel declined to comment or acknowledge any details concerning the interior of the apartment. Her partners on the $24.99 million listing didn’t return calls for comment. So where was the infamous curtain? Could it be that the expensive curtain was actually considered a turnoff in Tyco’s bid to sell the apartment and recover some assets out of the whole Kozlowski-Swartz scandal? “A lot of people would do the same,” The Transom’s real-estate source opined. “When a person is there to buy the apartment, they’re there to see the apartment, not the decorations. “It was source of embarrassment,” the source continued. “Why have [the shower curtain] in there?” A Tyco spokeswoman declined to comment on the whereabouts of Mr. Kozlowski’s former baubles or to confirm, if the items were sold, that the proceeds would be returned to Tyco coffers. “In anything related to that apartment-because it relates to matters that are pending litigation-it is inappropriate for us to comment at this time,” said Gwen Fisher, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey– and Bermuda-based conglomerate. Mr. Kozlowski’s lawyer, Stephen Kaufman, was traveling and unavailable for comment. If Tyco did sell off some of Mr. Kozlowski’s ornate decorations, the cash would come in handy, as the company hasn’t seen any from the apartment. In November, Tyco listed the 11-room spread for $28 million-a sum viewed as outlandish by real-estate watchers, and one that indeed failed to garner interest among potential buyers. After three months and no sale, Tyco slashed $3 million off the asking price in March, hoping to lure a flush tenant. The apartment has yet to find a purchaser. Perhaps the apartment’s more modest maquillage will help to win over reticent buyers. -Gabriel Sherman Mile-High Club Three days after the final episode of Average Joe: Adam Returns, Adam Mesh and his chosen one, Samantha Trenk, could finally walk down the street together. On Thursday, April 8, the lovebirds were walking hand in hand through midtown. “It’s a good thing we’re not married,” said a scruffy-faced but smiling Mr. Mesh, holding the hand of his chosen one. “Everyone says congratulations and good luck …. We feel like we’ve been walking around with just-married stickers on our backs.” That’s because 10.9 million people watched as the two paired off in the final episode of the Average Joe sequel. But filming had been completed three weeks before-and the two were not allowed to contact each other in the meantime, lest office betting pools all over America about whom Ms. Trenk would select be spoiled. How did they ever bear the time apart? “We talked on the phone everyday,” said Ms. Trenk, her head peeking out of a chunky turquoise scarf. Mr. Mesh was more specific. “Phone sex,” he said. And then, face reddening-as if sensing he’d said something that might get picked up in Star-he added lamely: “I’m just kidding.” The couple only saw each other once for a photo shoot while the show was on television. All they had left to remember each other by was that last plane ride at the end of the final episode, where the loser (Rachel Goetz) drove away in a limo and Mr. Mesh and Ms. Trenk ascended the steps of the jet, which flew off into the sunset. But Mr. Mesh, who was the loser himself on the first season of Average Joe, didn’t even get to relish his maiden voyage with the mile-high club. “The plane wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, right?” he said, casting a conspiratorial eye upon Ms. Trenk. “I mean, it’s like-a plane! We went half an hour away, and then instead of [flying] a half-hour back, we got off and drove three hours back.” Ms. Trenk rolled her eyes and added, “Yeah, it was like 4 o’clock in the morning. We could’ve just sat on the plane for a few minutes, then gotten off.” No pun, The Transom thinks, intended. -Alexandra Wolfe That if you work for Missy Elliott, you’d better be prepared to have her on your back 24/7. At the April 13 launch of her clothing line, which will be produced by Adidas, the hip-hop star revealed that her signature logo-a queen’s crown above the words “Respect M.E.”-can be found on birthday suits as well as her new track suits. “I took my dancers yesterday to go get them tattooed,” she confessed at a press conference on April 13. “All my dancers are getting it on their backs-Claudine, where you at?” The rapper then brought onstage product manager Claudine Joseph, who gamely pulled up a pant leg to show off her newly inked ankle (the dancers were off rehearsing for the “Ladies First” tour, which also features Beyoncé Knowles and Alicia Keys). “Aww, she’s so dedicated!” Ms. Elliott purred. “The crown is fitting for a queen, and ‘Respect M.E.,’ of course, is the name of the line. Oh, and the M.E., that’s me-Missy Elliott!” -Noelle Hancock Filed Under: Media, Politics, News & Politics, Daily Transom, New York, The Transom, Arianna Huffington, Mort Zuckerman, Andre Leon Talley SEE ALSO: Equinox Shocks West Village	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line967
__label__wiki	0.670607	0.670607	BBC News : - iBite : - Ovi Web Ovi PDF Ovi Greece Bad Boys Podcast Ovipedia Ovi Bookshop 19.01.2020 Ovi Team Ovi Story Ovi Guide Newsletter Submissions Partners Links Contact A good science fiction book expands the mind: Tobias Buckell by Kourosh Ziabari Print - Comment - Send to a Friend - More from this Author Born in Grenada in the Caribbean, Tobias Buckell is a New York Times Best-Seller science fiction and speculative fiction author. Having lived in Ohio since 1995, Buckell started submitting his writings to magazines and newspapers since he was in high school. He sold his first short story in an early age and continued selling stories to the American magazines since then. He has published four novels of which the most prominent ones are "Crystal Rain" and "Sly Mongoose". He has also written several short stories including "On The Eve of the Fall of Habesh" which was published in November 2010. Buckell is a professional blogger who writes on different issues concerning science fiction literature. In 2008, he donated his book archive to the department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University. Tobias joined me in an exclusive interview and answered my questions on his career as a science fiction author, the characteristics of a successful author and his motivations for working on science fiction literature. Kourosh Ziabari: You started writing and submitting short stories while attending high school. How did this early experience of engagement with literature contribute to your professional career as a science fiction author? Tobias Buckell: I think it let me break in to print much earlier than most authors. I had a ten year head start. But I also got very dedicated to reading as much as possible, during a period of my life when you have a lot of time. I was reading as many as two books a day for most of my young adult life, which let me absorb a great deal of story and story structure. Again, this allowed me to jump ahead a bit. KZ: What motivated you to become a science fiction author? What is in science fiction that persuades and inspires you to follow it? How is the feeling of creating a science fiction work? TB: I love the big ideas that come in science fiction. They're so large scale, it just grabs the imagination. I always feel, after a good science fiction book, that my mind has been expanded somewhat. I always sought that feeling as a reader. Now I try to give that back to my own readers. KZ: You have been the author of the sixth novel in the Halo book series titled "Halo: The Cole Protocol". A science fiction video game franchise was produced on the basis of this book series. What's the significance of creating video games according to science fiction works? Does it have a special impact on the children and young adults who are supposed to be the main addressees of such games? TB: The video game came first, and the books were based on it. I was a fan of the video game, so was very flattered when I was asked to write a book based in the universe of the game, as I had many ideas about things I wanted to know more about. Getting a chance to make them up was really cool. I think the people who read books based on the video games do it because they're getting a guarantee that the books will be fun and exciting, like the videogame. I think a lot of people who were forced to read in school assume books are dull, and they might read books based on a video game because they assume that the people associated with the game won't be boring. KZ: Having in mind the traditional styles of writing in the past decades when technology hadn't yet penetrated into the lifestyle of authors and writers, what's your estimation of the developments which have taken place in the styles and methods of writing? Can we imagine a world in which the authors and writers put aside the paper and pen completely? TB: Well, I pretty much rarely use pen and paper. I've always used a computer of some sort, starting with a Brother Word Processor machine when I first started writing stories. So I can imagine this already! KZ: What's your estimation of the impact of Jules Verne on the modern science fiction? Many critics believe that he ushered in a new approach to science fiction. What's your idea about that? TB: Verne's focus on the machine, and developing more rigorous 'what if' sort of science fiction has remained with us. Hard science fiction still tries to tell a story that is scientifically plausible, much like Verne did. KZ: Have you ever been inspired by a specific writer whom you believe has introduced something new and innovative to the world of science fiction? What will be your top five popular science fiction books if you're asked to name them? TB: I was very inspired by the Cyberpunk writers: Sterling, Gibson, et al, who showed a very blue collar sort of science fiction that was a bit more global than I'd been reading. They inspired me to get writing myself. Some of my favorite books are Merchanter's Luck, by C.J. Cherryh, Islands In The Net by Bruce Sterling, Neuromancer by William Gibson, and A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge. KZ: What are the most essential prerequisites to become a successful science fiction writer? Does a prosperous science fiction author need to have a special expertise? No special expertise, but certainly having an area of expertise somewhere is important, I believe. That's your foundation to build on. KZ: In one of your interviews, you alluded to the Isaac Asimov's method for writing. He would work on a project on a typewriter, and then leave it unfinished, switching to another project on another typewriter. Is this a habit of intelligent and genius people to start several works simultaneously and leave all of them unfinished at a same time? What part of this method persuaded you to adopt it during your recovery time? TB: Lots of smart people have lots of different methods, I believe. I was interested in adopting Asimov's method of writing on multiple projects because I wanted to only work on things when I was excited about them. By having multiple projects around, I could switch to different ones as I got bored and maintain my interest. KZ: What's your prediction for the future of science fiction? What trends are going to emerge? Which features are going to be added to science fiction? Does the development of technology accelerate the development of science fiction? TB: Well, at least one trend I think we're seeing is more global voices in science fiction, as the internet has joined us all up. Taking the conversation into a global forum is very exciting. KZ: Your best-selling novel Crystal Rain has attracted international attention and received wide admiration. Can you tell us a little about the story, its synopsis, the motivation behind writing it and your viewpoint regarding the international appreciation of it? TB: I call Crystal Rain a far future Caribbean lost colony novel. I play with steampunk and alternate history tropes in it. It's about a colony of Caribbean colonists who've settled a far away world that has been cut off from contact with the rest of the galaxy, and has gotten involved in a centuries old fight between aliens warring over control of the planet. KZ: For the final question, I want to ask you about the expectations you have of a well-structured, substantiated and interesting science fiction work. Should it be ornamented with too many technical, scientific terms and facts? Should the imaginary aspect prevail over the other parts? What's your viewpoint? TB: That's such a complicated question. All I ask is for a work to be interesting. That can be anything. Sometimes we use the technical stuff to headily explore the future. But sometimes we can just use the 'furniture' of science fiction to tell a metaphorical tale, and that's okay as well. Ovi+politics Ovi+culture Ovi Get it off your chest (comments policy) © Copyright CHAMELEON PROJECT Tmi 2005-2008 - Sitemap - Add to favourites - Link to Ovi Privacy Policy - Contact - RSS Feeds - Search - Submissions - Subscribe - About Ovi	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line973
__label__cc	0.722802	0.277198	Photonics workers: happy; wealthy(ish); ambitious Survey of more than 7500 people working in photonics suggests that nearly nine in ten find their job highly satisfying. Aerospace on top again: salary by discipline A new survey has found that the vast majority of people working in the global optics and photonics community have very high levels of job satisfaction. The analysis of more than 7500 responses represents the second such annual survey by the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE), and this year it featured additional questions relating to the enjoyment and perceived significance of their roles. Nearly 90% of respondents said that they found their work meaningful and respected the work of their peers, while just over 80% said that they enjoyed their work. Two-thirds of them agreed with the statement that they “loved their work and feel fortunate to get paid for doing it”. Above-average pay As with last year’s analysis, the survey confirmed that jobs in photonics pay well above the average level – especially so in more developed countries. Globally, the median salary for a photonics worker was found to be $73,000, while in the US that figure was $106,000. However, the best-paid photonics workers live in Switzerland, where the median salary was found to be just over $120,000 (compared with a country average of $50,000). Although well above average wages, the global median salary for those working in photonics did fall slightly from the figure of $75,000 recorded in last year’s survey. However, that is thought by the SPIE report’s authors to be partly a result of the slide in the value of the Euro currency versus the US dollar over the past year. Median salaries for photonics workers in North America, Oceania and Asia were all found to have increased slightly or remained stable when compared with the 2011 survey results, while in Europe the figure for higher-income countries dropped from $72,000 to $63,000. Commenting on that finding, SPIE CEO Eugene Arthurs said: “The stability evidenced by similarities in year-over-year results and the strong salary levels as compared to levels across all jobs reflect the strength of the optics and photonics sector and the high value that these jobs contribute to the economy.” “We hear from our academic members in many industrialized regions that their graduates often have several job offers awaiting them on graduation, and we hear from industry that some regions have trouble finding qualified new employees," Arthurs added, hinting that there is a strong need to produce more graduates with optics and photonics expertise. Aerospace on top Once again, the aerospace and military sectors turned out to be the best-paid within photonics. Median salaries for those working in aerospace stood at $108,500, while the semiconductor industry (a new category this year) came out second at just over $102,000. Bottom of the pile in terms of pay came those working in civil or environmental disciplines, earning a global median salary of only $36,000. And once again the survey results emphasized the significant premium attached to non-academic roles, although the degree of that premium is highly dependent on location. In North America, the median academic salary of $78,000 compares with nearly $112,000 for the commercial sector (a premium of 43%), but in higher-income Europe the premium appears far less significant. Here, photonics academics earn a median salary of around $57,000 rising to only $67,000 in the commercial world (a premium of 18%). Overall, though, the survey results emphasize that pay is not the most important factor for the majority of respondents. Photonics represents a rewarding career option as far as job satisfaction is concerned, and particularly so for those who value the need for autonomy and independence. It also suggests that photonics workers are ambitious people, with only one-third saying that they have good opportunities for promotion within their organizations. And for those who are more motivated by maximizing their salary? The best option appears to be to find a leadership role in the aerospace sector for a company based in Switzerland… • SPIE’s salary survey, conducted in April and May 2012, received more than 7500 validated responses from 101 different countries. For the full survey results and analysis, visit spie.org/salary. SPIE Salary Survey Salary survey: average photonics worker earns $75k	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line975
__label__wiki	0.990064	0.990064	Homeless Mom who sent 6yr old son to better school in the Wrong town jailed for 5 years A mother who pleaded guilty to fraudulently enrolling her six-year-old son in the wrong school district has been sentenced to five years in prison. Tonya McDowell sent her son to an elementary school in Norwalk, Connecticut, instead of her home city of Bridgeport. The 34-year-old, who was homeless when she was charged with felony larceny last year, said she wanted the best education possible for the boy. Jailed: Tracy McDowell pleaded guilty to fraudulently enrolling her six-year-old son in the wrong school district and has been sentenced to five years in prison McDowell last week entered her plea at Norwalk Superior Court under the Alford Doctrine, which means she does not admit guilt but concedes the state has enough evidence to convict her. Authorities told the hearing that she used a babysitter’s address to enroll her son in kindergarten in Norwalk when he should have attended schools in Bridgeport, her last permanent address. Her case drew national attention and support from civil rights leaders and other advocates who wanted the charge dismissed. Good intentions: The 34-year-old, who was homeless when she was charged last year, said she wanted the best education possible for her son McDowell told police she was living in a van and occasionally slept at a Norwalk shelter or a friend’s Bridgeport apartment when she enrolled her son Norwalk’s Brookside Elementary School. Police said McDowell stole $15,686 worth of ‘free’ educational services from Norwalk. She also pleaded guilty to four counts of sale of narcotics, which will be included in her prison sentence. In a separate case, she pleaded guilty on February 7 to selling drugs. Sign: The school in Norwalk, Connecticut, at the centre of the controversy School: Brookside Elementary, where Ms McDowell ‘illegally’ sent her son McDowell’s lawyer, Darnell Crosland, said she agreed to accept a plea bargain rather than continue fighting the charges even though she insists she is not guilty. Mr Crosland said: ‘You shouldn’t be arrested for stealing a free education. It’s just wrong.’ McDowell was sentenced to 12 years in jail, suspended after she serves five years, and five years probation. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2108733/Homeless-mother-Tanya-McDowell-sent-son-6-better-school-wrong-town-jailed-years.html ← Caught on camera: Man kidnaps woman in broad DAYLIGHT outside train station Father Forces Son To Wear Sign Broadcasting Bad Grades →	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line976
__label__wiki	0.812904	0.812904	OrangeFest Welcomes Voice Winner Craig Wayne Boyd OrangeFest, an Okmulgee festival formerly known as Super Saturday, is set for April 10-11, expanding into a two-day event with activities downtown around the square and on the OSU Institute of Technology campus. Admission and parking are free. Headlining this year’s festival is rising country star and reigning winner of NBC’s The Voice, Craig Wayne Boyd. The free concert presented by Tulsa radio station 106.1 The Twister is at 2 p.m. on the OSUIT campus. Friday evening events include an OSUIT alumni reunion, the OrangeFest Glo Run 5K, a Chalk Walk created by local artists, live music from local bands, and plenty of food offerings from downtown eateries as well as area food trucks. Heather Sumner, Okmulgee Main Street director, said in order for OrangeFest to be truly successful, it will take the entire community supporting the event. “We at Main Street are very excited and honored to be partnering, for the first time, with OSUIT in this event. We have worked very hard to include activities that will appeal to everyone throughout the two day festival,” Sumner said. “Having an event like OrangeFest allows people to see the partnership and collaborative efforts between OSUIT and the community. It will continue to grow and spark even more excitement in our Okmulgee Rising efforts.” Saturday the action moves to the OSUIT campus with interactive stops and live demonstrations from the university’s academic programs. Kid Zones will feature kid-friendly activities with robotics, Lego mindsets, and video games. Other activities the whole family can enjoy include a culinary tailgate party, muscle car expo, KiteFest, and live music. Craig Wayne Boyd will headline the free outdoor concert that wraps up OrangeFest on the OSUIT campus Saturday at 2 p.m. Boyd grew up near Dallas and sang in his church choir before becoming its director. He eventually moved to Nashville hoping to start his country music career, but after 10 years was on the verge of calling it quits when he auditioned for NBC’s “The Voice” in 2014. He took the top prize on the show’s seventh season and is now touring the country. Okmulgee Main Street is hosting their own version of the vocal competition show “Voices of Okmulgee” Saturday, March 28. Local bands and singers will compete for the judges’ attention, and the winners will perform during OrangeFest and enjoy an exclusive meet and greet opportunity with Boyd. “Main Street jumped at the opportunity to partner with OSUIT on its yearly festival, with the hopes of teaming up to make it one of the most successful downtown events of the year,” Sumner said. “We felt like it would be a great way to show the community that OSUIT and Main Street have goals that align as we are working together for the betterment of all Okmulgee, not just the downtown core.” Anita Gordy-Watkins, OSUIT’s executive vice president, said the outpouring of support and collaboration from the community is amazing. “The partnership with the community of Okmulgee has really taken this event to a whole new level. Main Street’s involvement has changed the dynamic, I believe for the better,” Gordy-Watkins said. “There’s an excitement and eagerness surrounding this year’s OrangeFest that’s unprecedented.” For a complete schedule of events and more information on OrangeFest, visit osuit.edu/orangefest.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line979
__label__wiki	0.544426	0.544426	5 Ways You Can Be A Rock Star Today August 19, 2013 August 21, 2013 / Alex Doriot You can be a rock star today. You may not be performing before 10,000 adoring fans inside an enormous arena as you read this. But trust me on this one. No, I’m not technically a rock star. But I did see some live and in person last week. The Killers are a rock group out of Las Vegas who have been performing their hits “Somebody Told Me” and “When You Were Young” around the world for the past 10 years. I got to see them perform at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Alpharetta, GA last week. Lead singer Brandon Flowers turned out to be a fantastic live performer and the entire band put on a great set. As I watched the show, I noticed a few simple traits The Killers embraced which all great rock stars have in common. Turns out you too can apply these 5 practices to your life to become a rock star in your office: 1) Compliment Your Audience – Throughout the show Flowers kept telling the Atlanta-area crowd what an amazing audience we were. He would say things like we were making this one of the best stops on the tour, and that we were turning Thursday night into a Friday night. Now I’m not under the illusion we were a unique crowd. Every good rock star says this to their audience every night. It’s a simple trick to encourage the crowd to keep being lively. It makes a crowd feel special, unique, and empowered. Heck, even just knowing the city’s name where you’re playing and shouting it out at some point will get any rock star a massive pop from the audience. Figure out your audience today. Pay them an unexpected compliment. Acknowledge them and they will be much more receptive to you. 2) Play To Your Strengths – The Killers have released 4 full-length studio albums in the past ten years. They’ve racked up a good number of radio hits along the way. “Mr. Brightside”, “Human”, “All These Things That I’ve Done”, “Runaways”. Through the course of the night they played every single one of them. If you’re a more established rock star you can’t be expected to play all of your hits in one show. Someone like Pearl Jam, The Rolling Stones, or Bruce Springsteen couldn’t fit all their classics into one night. But The Killers knew to play to their strengths. Sure, they played some deeper cuts casual fans might not recognize. But they weren’t too proud to play their most crowd-pleasing songs either. They kept the momentum going through the night by playing to their strengths. Assess what you’re good at today. Do more of that. If you’ve been successful at something in the past, don’t be afraid to do it again. 3) Take A Breather – By now everyone at a concert expects the encore break. About 15 or 20 songs into a set most rock stars will step off the stage pretending to leave the crowd without playing some of their biggest songs. We all know now to keep cheering for a few minutes so the band will come back out and play the preplanned encore. It’s all part of the act. But taking an encore break is a good tip for success. We all need to take a breather. Take small breaks during the day. There is no shame in that. Your body and your mind need to recharge. Just walk around your building for fifteen minutes and get some fresh air. Listen to some music. Do some push-ups. Take a break from the computer screen. You’ll be refreshed and ready to come back for your encore. 4) Embrace Community – The Killers returned from their encore alongside their opening act, a band called The Virgins. Together they played a cover of a Neil Young song called “Albuquerque”. It wasn’t the best cover I’d ever heard. But I do love anytime a rock star brings their opening act back out to the stage. It’s a great way to help establish a band or a performer the crowd probably didn’t pay much attention to earlier in the night. Every rock star needs a few big breaks along the way. If you’re already established in your office, embrace the community underneath you. Work with someone lower than you on a project. Check out what ideas they might have. They just might surprise you and bring out the best in you. 5) Finish With Fireworks – The Killers saved some of their biggest songs for late in the night. Along with those songs we got a killer fireworks show and confetti raining down from the ceiling. It made for a memorable way to end the night and send the crowd home happy. Your day may not have started out the way you wanted. You may have woken up late. You may have failed a test. You may have dropped the ball. Put it all behind you. Work harder than ever this afternoon. Finish with fireworks. You may never headline Madison Square Garden. You may never even headline a karaoke night at your local bar. But if you put any of these five principles into practice today, you’ll be one step closer to being a rock star in whatever you do. How can you be a rock star in your job today? All These Things That I've Done, Alpharetta, Atlanta, Audience, Battle Born, Brandon Flowers, bruce springsteen, Community, Encore, fireworks, Georgia, Human, Las Vegas, Mr Brightside, opener, Pearl Jam, rock, Rock Band, Rock Star, rolling stones, Runaways, Setlist, Somebody Told Me, The Killers, The Virgins, Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, When You Were Young ← Surf Like A Dog Do You Wear The Black Hat? → One thought on “5 Ways You Can Be A Rock Star Today” Pingback: Finding Your Home For The Holidays \| POP GOD	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line984
__label__cc	0.525485	0.474515	Windmill Plan Offers Slim Energy Pickens By Robert Zubrin 2008-08-09T03:15:08 In recent weeks, America's airwaves have been deluged by messages placed by Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, warning that the country is being taken for $700 billion for foreign oil this year, with still more to follow, a devastating loss amounting to "the largest transfer of wealth in human history." While very shocking, the Pickens ads are in fact understated, because the OPEC oil cartel is not just looting the United States, but the whole world, and will accumulate over $1.5 trillion in net profits this year. The entire U.S. Fortune 500 is worth $18 trillion. At their current rate of take, OPEC will acquire enough cash to buy majority control of every leading company in the United States within six years. This is a direct threat to American independence. "It's wrecking our economy," Pickens says. He's right about that too. America owes a debt of gratitude to T. Boone Pickens for stepping forward to sound the alarm over this national emergency. This is all the more true, since as an oilman, Pickens could simply have followed the model of others in the business and just sat tight, enjoying record profits while the country goes under. Instead, he chose to act as a patriot. So hats off to Mr. Pickens. That said, the plan he is advancing for dealing with the crisis -- build windmills to release natural gas from electricity generation so it can be used to power compressed natural gas (CNG)-driven cars, displacing gasoline in the process -- is technically flawed and needs to be revised. While a net exporter twenty years ago, the United States today imports about 18% of its natural gas. So without a very substantial change in our electric power generation portfolio, shifting from gasoline to natural gas would just shift us from one imported fuel to another. Wind power is an improbable candidate for achieving such a shift. Simply to replace the 18% of our natural gas we currently import would require multiplying the nation's current total wind power tenfold; to free up enough domestic natural gas to replace half our gasoline would require a thirty-fold wind power increase. The feasibility of doing this is very doubtful, not merely because of the size of the project but because wind power is intrinsically unreliable. When the wind speed drops in half, power output drops by a factor of eight, so wind simply cannot provide the baseload power. Rather, it can only be used as an as-available auxiliary to reduce somewhat the net overall fuel consumption of a fossil-fuel-driven baseload system that must have -- and frequently run at -- full power capacity to meet the needs of its customers. Replacing natural gas power generators with nuclear or coal-fired systems would be possible in principle, as both of these can provide reliable baseload power, but would take many years and entail many other problems. https://pjmedia.com/blog/windmill-plan-offers-slim-energy-pickens/	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line985
__label__wiki	0.846171	0.846171	Turnovers Haunt Sixers In 119-113 Loss To Wizards Filed Under:Local TV, Philadelphia 76ers WASHINGTON — As well as the Philadelphia 76ers have been playing at home lately, they just can’t consistently get their act together on the road, and a combined 15 turnovers by Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons contributed to a 119-113 loss at the Washington Wizards on Thursday night. The Sixers dropped to 5-7 away from Philadelphia — where they are 10-0 this season — despite 33 points from Tobias Harris, 26 points and a season-best 21 rebounds from Embiid, and 17 points and 10 assists from Simmons. Facing one of the most lax defenses in the NBA, Embiid had eight turnovers and Simmons seven. The 76ers ended up with 21 in all, leading to 30 points for the Wizards, who had lost five of their past six games entering the night. Bradley Beal had 26 points and 10 rebounds for Washington. Rookie Rui Hachimura scored 27, while Davis Bertans scored 19 of his season-high 25 points in the second quarter. The 76ers have lost 10 games in a row at Washington; their last victory in the nation’s capital came on Nov. 1, 2013. Still, the Wizards started this one about as poorly as possible at the offensive end, missing their first five shots and turning the ball over twice before finally making a basket after nearly 4 minutes. Raul Neto hit 3s on consecutive trips down the court to put the Sixers ahead 33-22 late in the first quarter. Bertans took over in the second, though, scoring 12 points in a row for Washington in one stretch and sparking a 16-2 run. In the first half, Bertans shot 8 for 8 overall, 6 for 6 on 3s, and totaled 22 points. The hosts stretched their edge to 75-61 midway through the third quarter and were up 91-81 entering the fourth, despite missing several players. Washington’s roster has been injury-depleted all season so far, most prominently missing All-Star point guard John Wall. Each day seems to bring more bad news, and Thursday was no different: Point guard Isaiah Thomas was a late scratch, while guard-forward Jordan McRae was ruled out for no less than two weeks. Others unavailable at the moment include starting center Thomas Bryant and forward C.J Miles. 76ers: Had won eight of their last nine games. … G Josh Richardson missed his fourth consecutive game because of right hamstring tightness. “A hamstring is one of those things where you think that you’re fine and you take one wrong step and it’s a week or two-week setback,” Richardson said. “I don’t really want to get in that whole scenario.” … Made 8 of 14 attempts on 3s in the first half, 5 of 14 in the second. Wizards: A little more than a half-hour before tipoff, PG Thomas was ruled out with a strained left calf. … G-F McRae is expected to miss at least two weeks after having surgery to remove a pin from his right ring finger to prevent infection. McRae had the pin inserted after getting hurt in a game on Oct. 23; the pin became dislodged during a game on Nov. 22. … Washington got back two reserve centers Thursday after injury absences: Ian Mahinmi (right Achilles) made his season debut, getting seven points and five rebounds in 13 minutes; Moe Wagner (left ankle) returned after missing two games and had five points and 11 rebounds. BROOKS ON BEN Wizards coach Scott Brooks on Simmons: “What’s crazy is, you hear about the, really, one thing that he can’t do. And it’s crazy that he gets criticized because he doesn’t shoot 3s. But if you don’t have to shoot 3s? Why do you need to shoot 3s if you get to the paint with ease and you have the strength and you can rebound, you can pass, you can finish with either hand.” 76ers: Host Cleveland on Saturday night to open a three-game homestand. Wizards: At Miami on Friday night.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line992
__label__cc	0.504978	0.495022	Posts Tagged ‘expression’ Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 2257, abuse, act, acted, acting, actor, age of consent, all fours, anal, anger, angry, appeal, art, artist, bad boy, barely legal, brutal, brutality, brutalization, brutalize, Bush administration, bush gore, case, censor, censored, censorship, charged, charges, child pornography, choke, choked, chokes, choking, cinema, community standards, consent, consenting adults, court, court of law, crime, deep throat, deep throated, deep throating, deepthroat, deepthroated, deepthroating, degradation, degraded, degrading, Department of Justice, detainees, direct, directing, director, disgust, disgusted, disgusting, disturb, disturbed, disturbing, DOJ, dominance, dominant, dominated, domination, edge, edgy, expression, extreme, fake rape, FBI, film, film maker, fist, fisted, fisting, fists, force, forced, forces, forcing, free will, freedom, gag, gag reflex, gagged, gagging, gags, gape, gaped, gaping, gonzo, gore, gory, gross, hardcore, humiliate, humiliated, humiliation, illegal, imprisonment, injustice, involuntary, Justice, Justice Department, land of the free, law enforcement, liberty, lipstick, lollipop, lollipops, master, max, max hardcore, misogynist, misogyny, mister, molest, molestation, molested, money shot, obscene, obscenity, offend, offended, offense, offensive, offfender, pain, Paul Little, pedophilia, persecution, pig, pigtails, playground, political prisoner, porn, porn star, porn stars, porno, pornography, prison, prosecution, prude, prudence, puke, rape, rectum, repulse, repulsed, repulsive, role, roleplay, S&M, sadism, sadist, sadomasochism, sadomasochist, scat, schoolgirl, schoolgirls, sex, sex film, sex films, sex flick, sex flicks, sick, slap, slapped, slapping, slaps, slave, slut, sodomy, speculum, spit, spread, stretch, taste, throat, torture, tyranny, urine, vagina, victim, victims, video, violate, violated, violation, violence, violent, voluntary, vomit, whore, XXX on 2008.11.04\| 4 Comments » http://www.maxhardcoretv.com/FreeMaxHardcore.htm As you have probably heard by now, the groundbreaking and legendary adult film maker Max Hardcore, was recently found guilty for the production of “Obscenity,” and sentenced to 46 months in federal prison, and fined Eighty-Five Thousand Dollars! Other artists who have been convicted of Obscenity in the past include comedian Lenny Bruce and author James Joyce. Max Hardcore’s films were found to be illegal because they “violated community standards.” With the assistance of the judge, the prosecutor inflamed the jury as they painting Max Hardcore as a violent predator – even though there was no real violence at all! Thoroughly prejudiced, the jury ignored the fact that Max’s scripted and staged productions involved only willing and well paid participants of legal age. The jury even ignored the glowing praise by one of his so-called victims who starred in three of the five movies on trial. Take a quick look at history and you will find that most truly great art violates community standards. Max Hardcore was sentenced to prison because he is a creative, brilliant, groundbreaking pornographer. Instead of being tried in Los Angeles, where he lives and works, he was tried in a conservative part of Florida, because some of his internet servers happened to be located there. This sets a very dangerous precedent to all those who have blogs or websites no matter where you live! Humanity progresses through offensive ideas. Socrates was sentenced to death for corrupting the youth of Athens. Copernicus and Galileo were arrested for proving that Earth was not the center of the universe. Jesus was crucified for teaching a religion of peace and acceptance. The freedom of speech is the right to pursue and develop ideas, and to share those ideas with the world. It is the right to pursue greatness and truth. It is the right to do art, to do science. It is to express yourself with the help of others, so long as everyone is participating of their own free will. By jailing a truly groundbreaking artist, the government has not just taken away one man’s freedom. They have taken away the right to pursue new ideas, to challenge and improve the accepted ways of doing things, to seek artistic greatness. And they have taken this right not only from Max Hardcore, but from every one of us. Stanton Audemars Rattled Films You Can Do Something About this! Max Hardcore was never a rich man, but has financed this case up to this point, and spent nearly all his money. To carry it onward to the appeals process, Max now needs the help of all people who know the importance of Freedom of Speech, and the Sanctity of one’s own home. Now is the time to show you mean business, and contribute whatever you can, be it $20, $100, $1,000, or more, every dollar counts! Max has set up a fund so he can mount a robust appeal, and get this case thrown out, for so many good reasons, that it shows the conservative elements of the Justice Department that people aren’t going to stand for being treated like unpatriotic citizens anymore! Here’s what you can do: Contribute by Check or Money Order: Make checks Payable, and Send them to: Sirkin, Pinales & Schwartz, LLP 920 Fourth & Race Tower Cincinnati, Ohio 45202-2726 (Memo Note on check that it’s for the Max Hardcore Defense Fund) Contribute using a Credit or Debit Card! Call them at: 513 721-4876 (Say you want to contribute to the Max Hardcore Defense Fund) True, not everyone is fond of Max. According to wikipedia, Max Hardcore (born Paul F. Little on August 10, 1956 in Racine, Wisconsin, U.S.A.) is a controversial male porn star and producer whose films usually feature him engaging in a variety of sexual acts with young women who dress and act like prepubescent girls. Although Hardcore often depicts his actresses as young and sometimes beneath the age of consent, they are not actually under 18. In his film Max Extreme 4, an actress over the age of 18 was portraying a character who states that she is 12 years old. Based on these movies, the city of Los Angeles in 1998 charged him with child pornography and distribution of obscenity. The fact that the actress was over the age of 18 was not disputed; they brought charges based solely on the fact that the actress was portraying a character who was under eighteen years of age. Just before the case was brought to trial in 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the statute prohibiting adults from portraying children in films and books was unconstitutional (See Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition). Based on this ruling, the child pornography charges against Hardcore were dismissed. The misdemeanor charge of distribution of obscenity was retained, but the jury failed to reach a verdict. An additional obscenity charge was subsequently levied against him by L.A., again resulting in a hung jury. Hardcore commented that “it was a frivolous waste of public resources.” On October 5, 2005, the offices of Max World Entertainment were raided by the FBI. Five video titles and the office’s computer servers were seized, ostensibly for research toward a federal obscenity indictment or a charge related to the 2257 record-keeping law. In response to this action, Hardcore released the following statement: “Once again, the government is wasting tax dollars and otherwise invaluable law enforcement resources to try to force a minority view of morality on all of America. Five of my movies have been targeted by the Federal Prude Patrol. There is no indication of any crime to be alleged except obscenity. If indicted, I will fight to protect my liberty, as well as the liberty of consenting adults to watch other adults engage in lawful, consensual, pleasurable sexual action. Shame on the Bush Department of Justice. I am proud of the movies I make and proud of those who buy and sell those movies.” In 2007 Max Hardcore was indicted by the United States Department of Justice Obscenity Prosecution Task Force on 10 counts of federal obscenity charges in Tampa, Florida and was found guilty on all charges in June 2008. He has been sentenced to 46 months in prison. Also on October 3 2008 the official Max Hardcore domain was forfeited, making the current official website http://www.MaxHardcoreTV.com. Glenn Greenwald writes in Salon, So, to recap, in the Land of the Free: if you’re an adult who produces a film using other consenting adults, for the entertainment of still other consenting adults, which merely depicts fictional acts of humiliation and degradation, the DOJ will prosecute you and send you to prison for years. The claim that no real pain was inflicted will be rejected; mere humiliation is enough to make you a criminal. But if government officials actually subject helpless detainees in their custody to extreme mental abuse, degradation, humiliation and even mock executions long considered “torture” in the entire civilized world, the DOJ will argue that they have acted with perfect legality and, just to be sure, Congress will hand them retroactive immunity for their conduct. That’s how we prioritize criminality and arrange our value system. this site suggests that some of Max’s scenes really were rape. However, if that is the case, why were no charges of rape ever filed, with the evidence being so easily available? Susannah Breslin writes, In Max Hardcore movies–“Anal Agony,” “Hardcore Schoolgirls,” “Max! Don’t Fuck Up My Mommy!”–women are verbally and physically degraded in an unprecedented myriad of ways. They are choked, slapped, throat-fucked, penetrated with fists, given enemas, pile-driven, urinated upon, vomited upon, and in some instances instructed to drink from glasses the money shots that have been delivered into their rectums. Most of the time, Little as Hardcore is the perpetrator of these acts. Not infrequently, his scenes are fraught with pedophilia themes, beginning when he stumbles upon his subjects in playgrounds, where they sit alone, in pigtails, talking baby-talk, and sucking on lollipops. Mostly, the sex scenes end with his latest costar a mess and Hardcore triumphant. Even for the most jaded porn watcher, Little’s ouevre is over the top. Watching Little’s work is less like watching a porn movie than it is akin to witnessing a vivisection. On the screen, Hardcore bends over the female bodies before him, sometimes with speculum in hand, as if attempting to get at something within her at which he can never quite get, and so to which he is doomed to return, his methods more and more hardcore. She continues, Because if you’re going to talk about how far we’ve come when it comes to porn, if you’re going to posit Paul “Max Hardcore” Little as the latest victim of the Bush administration, if you’re going to lament one more strike against your First Amendment rights, you should bear witness as to what a porn star drenched in vomit looks like. Fair enough. I’ve watched dozens and maybe even hundreds of Max’s films, going back over a decade. I’ve certainly watched hundreds that have been inspired by his work. Unless and until there is evidence of actual rape proven in a court of law, I tend to agree with Greenwald as reported in his exchange with Breslin: I really don’t care what consenting adults do with one another in order to entertain themselves or please themselves sexually–I’m not a busy body trying to sit in judgment of what other adults choose to do with themselves, especially in their sex lives. Not even the Government claimed that these films involved minors or non-consent, so as far as I’m concerned, it’s nobody’s business what they do, and whatever they do isn’t going to change my mind in the slightest. Breslin reports, In 2005, the Bush administration launched its so-called “War on Porn,” forming the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force, a Department of Justice outfit dedicated to pursuing obscenity prosecutions, and the FBI began recruiting for a “porn squad,” otherwise known as the Adult Obscenity Squad, focused on “manufacturers and purveyors” of pornography. She also finds irony in the following: Little’s defense, Greenwald points out, is the same defense the Bush administration has used to defend interrogation techniques used on detainees: “because the acts in question didn’t involve the infliction of severe pain, they weren’t illegal.” In the case of Little’s videos, he asserts, “There was no suggestion that any serious violence was ever inflicted or that the adult actors in the film were anything other than completely consensual.” In conclusion, he proclaims: “So, to recap, in the Land of the Free: if you’re an adult who produces a film using other consenting adults, for the entertainment of still other consenting adults, which merely depicts fictional acts of humiliation and degradation, the DOJ will prosecute you and send you to prison for years. What’s ironic about that? The Bush gang tortured people who did not consent. Max either tortured women who did consent – not a crime, and not even wrong – or he tortured women who did not consent. In which case, the Bush gang should have charged him with rape. They did not. Is it because they did not have a case? If they did have a case, why didn’t they charge him? And why is the same bunch who makes excuses for non-concensual torture so willing to go after concensual torture – because they wish to monopolize the act, or keep it out of sight and out of mind? Delaware Libertarian offers a clue: From News.com.au: THE Federal Government is planning to make internet censorship compulsory for all Australians and could ban controversial websites on euthanasia or anorexia. Australia’s level of net censorship will put it in the same league as countries including China, Cuba, Iran and North Korea, and the Government will not let users opt out of the proposed national internet filter when it is introduced. Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy Minister Stephen Conroy admitted the Federal Government’s $44.2 million internet censorship plan would now include two tiers – one level of mandatory filtering for all Australians and an optional level that will provide a “clean feed”, censoring adult material. Despite planning to hold “live trials” before the end of the year, Senator Conroy said it was not known what content the mandatory filter would bar, with euthanasia or pro-anorexia sites on the chopping block. “We are talking about mandatory blocking, where possible, of illegal material,” he told a Senate Estimates Committee. Previously the net nanny proposal was going to allow Australians who wanted uncensored access to the web the option to contact their internet service provider and be excluded from the service. So… Australia is going to have mandatory, state-instituted internet filtering, which is basically designed to eliminate anything the Australian government decides would be bad for its citizens to see, a list which apparently includes at this point any website discussing anorexia or euthanasia. But, as my non-Libertarian friends never tire of telling me: there is no such thing as a slippery slope. There is no such thing as a slippery slope. Thereisnosuchthingasaslipperyslope. As Majikthise points out, However, the CIA interrogators who videotaped the torture and degradation of non-consenting prisoners are still free. The same Justice Department that defended the legality of “enhanced interrogation” methods has named mainstream adult pornography a top enforcement priority.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line995
__label__wiki	0.68705	0.68705	Joe Sertich Joe Sertich, like most kids growing up, was fascinated by dinosaurs. Most of us, however, move on from that phase. Not Sertich. “I’ve always been a dinosaur nerd,” he said. “I’m interested in lots of things, but I guess I never really grew out of my fascination for dinosaurs.” Sertich turned his dino-love into a career as the curator of dinosaurs at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. A rare triple-major graduate of CSU (B.S., Zoology; B.S., Biology; B.S., Geosciences ’04), he is considered one of the top paleontologists in the world. His work takes him all over the globe and throughout the western U.S. in search of the next great find. And sometimes he lucks out and gets to work closer to home. That was the case last summer when construction workers in Thornton, Colorado, uncovered some large bones they thought could be fossils. Sertich was called in and – sure enough – it was a triceratops. Contact CSU © 2020 Colorado State University	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1002
__label__wiki	0.59884	0.59884	The Center for Revolutionary Scientific Thought (CReST) is the Potomac Institute’s futures group. The Center identifies and studies potentially-disruptive, emerging S&T areas and thinks through the policies that will be needed years, even decades, in advance. Disruptive technologies present unique challenges, and often policy ideation and implementation lag technology adoption. Forming meaningful policy requires thinking through a number of considerations, such as potential societal-level implications of the technology, unintended consequences, pathways for development, and possible derivative technologies. To be ready with well thought-through policy, we must start studying emerging technologies and their potential implications years in advance. CReST seeks to (1) identify key emerging technologies or scientific fields with disruptive potential, (2) anticipate the likely societal-level impacts of these technologies, and (3) ideate meaningful policy options to the government. The group engages with a range of thought leaders, from academics researchers to science fiction authors, as we assess the current state of emerging tech, develop forecasts, and think through the implications. A sample of topics that we study includes: life extension, the future of work, automation and artificial intelligence, data rights and privacy, bioengineering and synthetic biology, consciousness, the future of governance, existential threats, life in the universe, enhancement, and many others. CReST Reports CReST Bold Ideas Presents David Brin: Future Thoughts on Data Privacy, Tribalism, and Fair Play An Analysis of the Impacts of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) on U.S. National Security and Economic Interests Think Big:Science and Technology Policies for the Next Administration Intelligence Complexity CReST Bold Ideas Seminar: Lessons Learned from the Office of the Secretary of Defense CReST Bold Ideas Seminar: Featuring David Brin CReST Bold Ideas Seminar: Climate Change and Human Health - Prospects for the Future CReST Seminar: Convergence of Crime and Terrorism? CReST Seminar - Climate Change in the Pacific CreST Keynote - Ethical Issues in Neuroscience: From Policy to Science and Law Washington, DC - David Brin, a world-renowned science fiction author and futurist, spoke at the Potomac Institute as part of the CReST Bold Ideas seminar series. Dr. Brin brings a novel perspective when looking towards the future, and spoke on several topics of current debate including data privacy, tribalism, regulation and fair play. His writings on these topics, both essays and fiction, have been pivotal in shaping public discussions on transparency and individual rights. His wide-ranging discussion is summarized below. Dr. Brin discussed his concepts of transparency and sousveillance- “watching the watcher” - as the solution to current debates over digital privacy rights. He argued that the only way to destroy cheating and ensure individual rights is to break up power by democratizing technology. As the pace of technology development accelerates, he argues that we should not try to constrain technology because elites will always be able to find loopholes to get around these constraints. He criticized the European approach to data privacy as paternalistic in structure and therefore insufficient to fully protect individual rights. These concepts are described in his seminal nonfiction book, The Transparent Society, his recent book Chasing Shadows, and in his essays and speeches. Brin discussed his concept of disputation arenas, in which there are five accountability arenas (markets, science, democracy, justice courts, and sports). Brin embraces conflict and competition within certain bounds, and notes that, “across all of human history the only time we’ve ever gotten the benefits of competition has been regulated competition.” To Brin, a fairly regulated arena is responsible for harnessing creative competition, and that competition is the greatest creative force in the universe. Brin also touched on Hollywood themes, tribalism in politics, great power competition with China, and the need for every individual to be a critical thinker and contrarian. David Brin is a scientist, tech-pundit, forecaster, NASA adviser, and best-selling author. He is best-known for shining light — plausibly and entertainingly — on technology, society, and countless challenges confronting our rambunctious civilization. His best-selling novels include The Postman (filmed in 1997) plus explorations of our near-future in Earth and Existence. His short stories explore vividly speculative ideas. Brin's nonfiction book The Transparent Society won the American Library Association's Freedom of Speech Award for exploring 21st Century concerns about security, secrecy, accountability and privacy. As a scientist, tech-consultant and world-known author, he speaks, advises, and writes widely on topics from national defense and homeland security to astronomy and space exploration, SETI and nanotechnology, future/prediction, creativity, and philanthropy. Urban Developer Magazine named him one of four World's Best Futurists, and he was cited as one of the top 10 writers the AI elite follow. David Brin’s website: http://davidbrin.com/ Read the full report here The International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), the set of regulations that limit U.S. exports in the name of national security, need to be rescinded with new enabling legislation because they continue to be a threat to the United States (U.S.) national security and economic interests despite a well-intended Executive reform initiative that has taken place over the last seven years. The Potomac Institute has followed and actively engaged in the decades of debate surrounding U.S. export control rules and laws. The Institute noted in 2009 that the Executive Branch began its Export Control Reform (ECR) Initiative to address the many concerns of various stakeholders, such as those highlighted in a 2009 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report that examined the impacts of these rules and laws.12In 2015, the Institute opened a center focused on using science to improve regulations and regulatory policies –the Regulatory Science & Engineering Center (RSEC). One of its first studies was following up on the current reform initiatives taking place regarding the ITAR and determining what kinds of impacts the ITAR were still having on national security and economic interest related to science & technology (S&T). In carrying out this study the Institute conducted an extensive literature review regarding government, industry and academic accounts of the impacts the ITAR were having on the U.S. Additionally, the study team held workshops and seminars with experts in actually implementing the ITAR reform efforts and leaders from the sciences, defense industry, information technology sector, academia, military and legal communities. Our analysis found that the ITAR restricts companies’ abilities to develop and export certain technologies with potential military application. The regulations simultaneously inhibit international collaboration in relevant research and development, banning industry and academic scientists from sharing technical information with foreign entities and individuals. In today’s interconnected, globalized world that struggles with a diverse array of threats, ITAR impedes domestic scientific growth and weakens the national security of the U.S. and its foreign partners. In many ways our findings and conclusions reflect the same kinds of issues the NAS identified in 2009. Although, the recommendations of that study indicated the best solution was Executive rather than Legislative because it was believed Executive action could act more swiftly to address the many problems that needed rapid solutions. After seven years, our analysis indicates that many of the same problems still exist that prompted the reform effort indicating that a new strategy needs to be considered. Efforts to reform ITAR have not been successful because the underlying assumptions of the ITAR framework are flawed. Therefore, we conclude that the best course of action is to sunset ITAR. This report is a detailed account of our study methods and a thorough description of the findings, conclusions and recommendations from our analysis regarding the impacts of the ITAR on U.S. national security and economic interests related to S&T. The following is an abbreviated description of these findings, conclusions and recommendations. 1. National Research Council. 2009. Beyond “Fortress America”: National Security Controls on Science and Technology in a Globalized World. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press. doi:10.17226/12567. Please click here to download the entire report. THINK BIG argues that innovation in science and technology are the keys to American economic strength and national security. Rather than a return to the infrastructure, economy, and healthcare systems of the past, the report calls for a vision for the future. The report urges the new Administration to 1) develop policy based on the best available science and 2) use policy to foster the development of science and technology. The science and technology investment priorities identified in the THINK BIG report for the next Administration include: · America’s Future Infrastructure · Fostering American Industry Leadership · Revolutionizing Medicine · Climate Engineering Download the full PDF here. Intelligence Complexity details a theory of intelligence complexity based on discrete levels of intelligence: Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom (DIKW). The report provides detailed descriptions of each of these defined levels of intelligence and puts forward a framework that can be used to measure the intelligence complexity of any intelligent system. Intelligence Complexity’s DIKW framework provides an alternative to the Turing Test as a measure of a system’s ability to reach defined levels of intelligence. Intelligence Complexity also introduces a new concept (I = E x C) developed by author Michael Swetnam to explain what drives intelligent systems to learn. This theory posits that intelligence is inextricably linked to emotion, which is a key force that drives the development of human intelligence forward. The authors present a thermodynamic argument of emotion that attempts to explain the human intelligence system in terms of complexity, efficiency and entropy. Mr. Alan Shaffer’s seminar provided key insights into personal experiences throughout his career, both in the Air Force and in public service. Furthermore, Mr. Shaffer spoke and reflected on lessons and highlights acquired from more than a decade of serving in senior roles in the Pentagon. Attendees were provided a glimpse into his Pentagon career as a leader in research and engineering, including assignments as the Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. In this position, Mr. Shaffer was responsible for formulating, planning and reviewing the DoD Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) programs, plans, strategy, priorities and execution of the DoD RDT&E budget totaling roughly $25 billion per year. Mr. Shaffer discussed the acquisition and technology strategies employed at the DoD. He addressed the need for project managers to own the technological baseline, with an emphasis on technical expertise and experience. While the DoD operates on very complex statutory processes, Mr. Shaffer spoke to the Department’s ability to continue to be an innovating force. The DoD works in tandem with commercial technologies and Congress as partners in the technology innovation process. Mr. Shaffer posed his ideas for fueling agile innovation in the DoD through the development of open systems that work with industry, creating new markets for upgrades, and providing opportunities for creativity across all systems. Mr. Shaffer engaged the younger generation of attendees and reflected on the most important lessons from his career. Download pdf here. The CReST Bold Ideas Seminar series kicked off April 8, 2013, with David Brin - Scientist, Futurist, Author - speaking on "The Future Golden Age." David Brin, a world–renowned science fiction author and the first speaker for Bold Ideas speaker series at the Potomac Institute, brings a different prospective when looking at the future, or as he refers to “the golden age”. Brin firmly believes that technology and science will help solve a majority of life’s hard problems, but humans are holding back because of a “crisis of confidence”. Brin reminded the audience that today humans have powers that many believed centuries ago only gods possessed, such as light with a flick of a finger and flying in the sky. Humans have changed the structure of society from a pyramid arrangement, where a few ruled, to a more leveled field, from clans and tribes to multi-organization networks. Technology is the “game changer” for the future. Achievements, such as led lights and medical advancements, show how technology has enhanced the way of living. According to Brin, this is the “age of amateurs”. Humans educate themselves using technology, making it where they do not need professionals or experts for every problem that is faced. Studying infectious diseases and their causes, sources and spread can help build models to predict their spread, especially when factoring in ongoing climate change challenges. Potomac Institute Board of Regents member Dr. Rita Colwell spoke about “Climate Change and Human Health: Prospects for the Future.” Using cholera as an exemplar infectious disease, she considers the impact on human health in a world undergoing climate change. Cholera, which is caused by the bacteria Vibrio cholera, is found in many environments throughout the world, which leads to epidemics in areas with poverty, poor sanitation, and unsafe drinking water. In an effort to understand these epidemics, Dr. Colwell’s research group has made use of satellite imagery and modeling to predict the spread of infectious disease, finding correlations between outbreaks of cholera and chlorophyll on the sea surface, air temperature, and rainfall. In analyzing the evolution of Vibrio cholera, Dr. Collwell notes that the bacteria and other Vibrio human pathogens are extremely similar to bacteria isolated from thermal vents 2500 meters below sea level. With these novel findings, Dr. Colwell evaluated the recent cholera epidemic in Haiti in January 2010. Even before the earthquake, the record high rainfall and the hot summer were perfect preliminary conditions for the spread of cholera. The earthquake, however, led to a change in river pH, which, in combination with the other conditions, resulted in explosive growth of the bacteria. The case study of cholera in Haiti is an example of the link between climate change and infectious disease. The rise of heavily populated areas coupled with increased flooding and hotter temperatures will result in refugee migration, which can escalate the spread of disease worldwide. The modeling can also be used to project the spread of other infectious diseases, as seen with Dr. Colwell’s research into Yersinia pestis in Tbilsi, Georgia. Moreover, satellite imagery and modeling can enhance the surveillance and response mechanisms of global health organizations. These advancements, along with further investment in safe drinking water and sanitation, could greatly reduce the spread of disease worldwide. The “Convergence of Crime and Terrorism?” seminar was held at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies on November 21, 2013. The seminar centered on the concept that criminal activity and international security are related. Drawing from personal experiences in law enforcement, federal government, and academia, the three panelists evidenced the ways in which crime and terrorism are linked and how law enforcement can stem this issue. In sum, it is not accurate to describe transnational organized crime and terrorism as monolithic; yet it is known that they are inextricably linked. All three panelists provided various methods for dealing with this pressing issue. Mr. Placido argued that there is not a one size fits all approach, but that targeting the infrastructure of transnational organized crime can be effective. Dr. Felbab-Brown believes that the goal is to import the image of a “good” criminal, a criminal that does not collaborate with terrorists, is not very violent, is removed from society, and is without the capacity to corrupt institutions. Concluding the seminar, Mark Stainbrook stated that the goal of law enforcement is long-term prevention rather than detection, and that there exists a need to implement community-based police strategies. Accurate and consistent data collection on climate change is critical to helping develop effective disaster preparedness plans, and it impacts national security, food and water security, as well as immigration, according to Dr. Victoria Keener, Research Fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu. The report and transcript of the discussion about the wide-ranging impacts of climate change in the Pacific are highlighted in the report, now available Potomac Institute CEO and Chairman Michael S. Swetnam provided the keynote speech to the neuroscience community at a one-day symposium on "Ethical Issues in Neuroscience." Attendees included those who are working in or interested in learning about the intersection of neuroscience with policy, law, ethics, media, and society. Speakers included personnel from government, industry, think tanks, and academia. The symposium addressed the topics of neuroethics in defense, promoting and teaching neuroethics, and transitioning the focus from ethics to policy and law. Hey Industry, you’re welcome, for almost everything. Love, the Federal Government. CReST Blog Dec 12, 2019 \| 15:15 pm It’s time for Silicon Valley and all the other tech giants across commercial industry to stop sticking their nose up[…] It’s Time to Finally Regulate Google CReST Blog Aug 22, 2019 \| 13:53 pm By Alyssa Adcock The U.S. government must bring antitrust action against Google immediately. This should include (1) requiring Google to[…] The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies Calls for a Coordinated National Space Strategy on the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11 CReST Blog Jul 17, 2019 \| 05:09 am Our nation’s reliance on space has reached unprecedented levels, and the federal government must have a unified strategy commensurate with[…]	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1006
__label__cc	0.647945	0.352055	Rich blue, internally flawless blue sapphire, weighing 423 ct, is perhaps the second largest blue sapphire in the world. Since ancient times, Sri Lanka has prohibited the export of rough rocks. Originally found and cut Logan sapphire in Sri Lanka, which boasts over two centuries of cutting and mining industries. The sapphire cushion cut displays violet overtone. According to the GIA’s 1997 statement, the color of the Logan sapphire is purely natural and there was no evidence that the stone is heat treated. The stone shows moderate reddish orange florescence under ultraviolet radiation. This rock is currently on display at the Natural History Museum of the Smithsonian Institution.Blue Sapphire is one of the classic colored gemstones and is always in fashion. It is valued for its vivid color, its excellent hardness (9 on the Mohs scale) and its rarity. Collectors and investors search out particularly fine specimens, which have historically increased in value over time. Blue sapphire colors range from pale blue to cornflower blue to royal blue, navy blue and midnight blue. The main sources are Sri Lanka (Ceylon), Burma (Myanmar), Madagascar, Tanzania, Australia and Thailand. At one time exceptional sapphires came from Kashmir, but no new material has been found there for about 100 years.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1009
__label__cc	0.61847	0.38153	Commenced in January 2007 Frequency: Monthly Edition: International Paper Count: 100 Urban and Civil Engineering The Necessity of Urban Boundaries in Planning Legislation: A Case Study in Bilecik, Turkey Mercan Efe Güney, Barış Parlatangiller, Melik Ayer In Turkey, while urban area boundaries are enlarged by making decisions on investment areas in cities, development plans are made according to government decisions, rather than scientific criteria. Even environment protection laws state that “if public interest is at stake”, areas under mandatory protection can be transformed into investment areas. This leads to destruction of valuable agricultural lands. Paper demonstrates loss of agricultural lands by superimposing plans, Suitability of the Lands for Agricultural Use and Google Earth Images in an exemplary settlement, and expresses that urban area boundaries should be included in legislation as an official boundary for all settlements. Agriculture, boundary, city planning, development plan, legislation. Digital Article Identifier (DOI): urn:dai:10.1999/1307-6892/10010973 Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF A Framework and Case Study for Sustainable Development of Urban Areas Yasaman Zeinali, Farid Khosravikia This paper presents a multi-objective framework for sustainable urban development. The proposed framework aims to address different aspects of sustainability in urban development planning. These aspects include, but are not limited to education, health, job opportunities, architecture, culture, environment, mobility, energy, water, waste, and so on. Then, the proposed framework is applied to the Brackenridge Tract (an area in downtown Austin, Texas), to redevelop that area in a sustainable way. The detail of the implementation process is presented in this paper. The ultimate goal of this paper is to develop a sustainable area in downtown Austin with ensuring that it locally meets the needs of present and future generations with respect to economic, social, environmental, health as well as cultural aspects. Moreover, it helps the city with the population growth problem by accommodating more people in that area. Environmental impacts of human activities, sustainability, urban planning. Effect of Sodium Aluminate on Compressive Strength of Geopolymer at Elevated Temperatures Ji Hoi Heo, Jun Seong Park, Hyo Kim Geopolymer is an inorganic material synthesized by alkali activation of source materials rich in soluble SiO2 and Al2O3. Many researches have studied the effect of aluminum species on the synthesis of geopolymer. However, it is still unclear about the influence of Al additives on the properties of geopolymer. The current study identified the role of the Al additive on the thermal performance of fly ash based geopolymer and observing the microstructure development of the composite. NaOH pellets were dissolved in water for 14 M (14 moles/L) sodium hydroxide solution which was used as an alkali activator. The weight ratio of alkali activator to fly ash was 0.40. Sodium aluminate powder was employed as an Al additive and added in amounts of 0.5 wt.% to 2 wt.% by the weight of fly ash. The mixture of alkali activator and fly ash was cured in a 75°C dry oven for 24 hours. Then, the hardened geopolymer samples were exposed to 300°C, 600°C and 900°C for 2 hours, respectively. The initial compressive strength after oven curing increased with increasing sodium aluminate content. It was also observed in SEM results that more amounts of geopolymer composite were synthesized as sodium aluminate was added. The compressive strength increased with increasing heating temperature from 300°C to 600°C regardless of sodium aluminate addition. It was consistent with the ATR-FTIR results that the peak position related to asymmetric stretching vibrations of Si-O-T (T: Si or Al) shifted to higher wavenumber as the heating temperature increased, indicating the further geopolymer reaction. In addition, geopolymer sample with higher content of sodium aluminate showed better compressive strength. It was also reflected on the IR results by more shift of the peak position assigned to Si-O-T toward the higher wavenumber. However, the compressive strength decreased after being exposed to 900°C in all samples. The degree of reduction in compressive strength was decreased with increasing sodium aluminate content. The deterioration in compressive strength was most severe in the geopolymer sample without sodium aluminate additive, while the samples with sodium aluminate addition showed better thermal durability at 900°C. This is related to the phase transformation with the occurrence of nepheline phase at 900°C, which was most predominant in the sample without sodium aluminate. In this work, it was concluded that sodium aluminate could be a good additive in the geopolymer synthesis by showing the improved compressive strength at elevated temperatures. Compressive strength, fly ash based geopolymer, microstructure development, sodium aluminate. Scheduling of Bus Fleet Departure Time Based on Mathematical Model of Number of Bus Stops for Municipality Bus Organization Ali Abdi Kordani, Hamid Bigdelirad, Sid Mohammad Boroomandrad Operating Urban Bus Transit System is a phenomenon that has a major role in transporting passengers in cities. There are many factors involved in planning and operating an Urban Bus Transit System, one of which is selecting optimized number of stops and scheduling of bus fleet departure. In this paper, we tried to introduce desirable methodology to select number of stops and schedule properly. Selecting the right number of stops causes convenience in accessibility and reduction in travel time and finally increase in public preference of this transportation mode. The achieved results revealed that number of stops must reduce from 33 to 25. Also according to scheduling and conducted economic analysis, the number of buses must decrease from 17 to 11 to have the most appropriate status for the Bus Organization. Number of optimized stops, organizing bus system, scheduling, urban transit. Exploring the Correlation between Population Distribution and Urban Heat Island under Urban Data: Taking Shenzhen Urban Heat Island as an Example Shenzhen is a modern city of China's reform and opening-up policy, the development of urban morphology has been established on the administration of the Chinese government. This city`s planning paradigm is primarily affected by the spatial structure and human behavior. The subjective urban agglomeration center is divided into several groups and centers. In comparisons of this effect, the city development law has better to be neglected. With the continuous development of the internet, extensive data technology has been introduced in China. Data mining and data analysis has become important tools in municipal research. Data mining has been utilized to improve data cleaning such as receiving business data, traffic data and population data. Prior to data mining, government data were collected by traditional means, then were analyzed using city-relationship research, delaying the timeliness of urban development, especially for the contemporary city. Data update speed is very fast and based on the Internet. The city's point of interest (POI) in the excavation serves as data source affecting the city design, while satellite remote sensing is used as a reference object, city analysis is conducted in both directions, the administrative paradigm of government is broken and urban research is restored. Therefore, the use of data mining in urban analysis is very important. The satellite remote sensing data of the Shenzhen city in July 2018 were measured by the satellite Modis sensor and can be utilized to perform land surface temperature inversion, and analyze city heat island distribution of Shenzhen. This article acquired and classified the data from Shenzhen by using Data crawler technology. Data of Shenzhen heat island and interest points were simulated and analyzed in the GIS platform to discover the main features of functional equivalent distribution influence. Shenzhen is located in the east-west area of China. The city’s main streets are also determined according to the direction of city development. Therefore, it is determined that the functional area of the city is also distributed in the east-west direction. The urban heat island can express the heat map according to the functional urban area. Regional POI has correspondence. The research result clearly explains that the distribution of the urban heat island and the distribution of urban POIs are one-to-one correspondence. Urban heat island is primarily influenced by the properties of the underlying surface, avoiding the impact of urban climate. Using urban POIs as analysis object, the distribution of municipal POIs and population aggregation are closely connected, so that the distribution of the population corresponded with the distribution of the urban heat island. POI, satellite remote sensing, the population distribution, urban heat island thermal map. Evaluation of Japanese Kyoto Park in Terms of User Satisfaction Ruhugül Özge Gemici The need for open space, which is an important problem especially since the 19th century, has become more important in today's conditions. The most important factor in increasing the livability of cities is the open and green areas. Parks are the most important of the urban open and green space elements that provide the most benefit to users. In this context, the user satisfaction of the Japanese Kyoto Park, which is the subject of the research, was evaluated in the light of the questionnaires. With this analysis, the satisfaction level of the user using the park was determined. Suggestions have been developed for the park to be handled and regulated according to the user requests and requirements changing over time. Japanese park, landscape, landscape design, open and green areas. Demonstration of Land Use Changes Simulation Using Urban Climate Model Barbara Vojvodikova, Katerina Jupova, Iva Ticha Cities in their historical evolution have always adapted their internal structure to the needs of society (for example protective city walls during classicism era lost their defense function, became unnecessary, were demolished and gave space for new features such as roads, museums or parks). Today it is necessary to modify the internal structure of the city in order to minimize the impact of climate changes on the environment of the population. This article discusses the results of the Urban Climate model owned by VITO, which was carried out as part of a project from the European Union's Horizon grant agreement No 730004 Pan-European Urban Climate Services Climate-Fit city. The use of the model was aimed at changes in land use and land cover in cities related to urban heat islands (UHI). The task of the application was to evaluate possible land use change scenarios in connection with city requirements and ideas. Two pilot areas in the Czech Republic were selected. One is Ostrava and the other Hodonín. The paper provides a demonstration of the application of the model for various possible future development scenarios. It contains an assessment of the suitability or inappropriateness of scenarios of future development depending on the temperature increase. Cities that are preparing to reconstruct the public space are interested in eliminating proposals that would lead to an increase in temperature stress as early as in the assignment phase. If they have evaluation on the unsuitability of some type of design, they can limit it into the proposal phases. Therefore, especially in the application of models on Local level - in 1 m spatial resolution, it was necessary to show which type of proposals would create a significant temperature island in its implementation. Such a type of proposal is considered unsuitable. The model shows that the building itself can create a shady place and thus contribute to the reduction of the UHI. If it sensitively approaches the protection of existing greenery, this new construction may not pose a significant problem. More massive interventions leading to the reduction of existing greenery create a new heat island space. Heat islands, land use, urban climate model. A Remote Sensing Approach to Calculate Population Using Roads Network Data in Lebanon Kamel Allaw, Jocelyne Adjizian Gerard, Makram Chehayeb, Nada Badaro Saliba In developing countries, such as Lebanon, the demographic data are hardly available due to the absence of the mechanization of population system. The aim of this study is to evaluate, using only remote sensing data, the correlations between the number of population and the characteristics of roads network (length of primary roads, length of secondary roads, total length of roads, density and percentage of roads and the number of intersections). In order to find the influence of the different factors on the demographic data, we studied the degree of correlation between each factor and the number of population. The results of this study have shown a strong correlation between the number of population and the density of roads and the number of intersections. Population, road network, statistical correlations, remote sensing. Laboratory Investigation of the Pavement Condition in Lebanon: Implementation of Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement in the Base Course and Asphalt Layer Marinelle El-Khoury, Lina Bouhaya, Nivine Abbas, Hassan Sleiman The road network in the north of Lebanon is a prime example of the lack of pavement design and execution in Lebanon. These roads show major distresses and hence, should be tested and evaluated. The aim of this research is to investigate and determine the deficiencies in road surface design in Lebanon, and to propose an environmentally friendly asphalt mix design. This paper consists of several parts: (i) evaluating pavement performance and structural behavior, (ii) identifying the distresses using visual examination followed by laboratory tests, (iii) deciding the optimal solution where rehabilitation or reconstruction is required and finally, (iv) identifying a sustainable method, which uses recycled material in the proposed mix. The asphalt formula contains Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP) in the base course layer and in the asphalt layer. Visual inspection of the roads in Tripoli shows that these roads face a high level of distress severity. Consequently, the pavement should be reconstructed rather than simply rehabilitated. Coring was done to determine the pavement layer thickness. The results were compared to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) design methodology and showed that the existing asphalt thickness is lower than the required asphalt thickness. Prior to the pavement reconstruction, the road materials were tested according to the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) specification to identify whether the materials are suitable. Accordingly, the ASTM tests that were performed on the base course are Sieve analysis, Atterberg limits, modified proctor, Los Angeles, and California Bearing Ratio (CBR) tests. Results show a CBR value higher than 70%. Hence, these aggregates could be used as a base course layer. The asphalt layer was also tested and the results of the Marshall flow and stability tests meet the ASTM specifications. In the last section, an environmentally friendly mix was proposed. An optimal RAP percentage of 30%, which produced a well graded base course and asphalt mix, was determined through a series of trials. Asphalt mix, reclaimed asphalt pavement, California bearing ratio, sustainability. Fire Resilient Cities: The Impact of Fire Regulations, Technological and Community Resilience Fanny Guay Building resilience, sustainable buildings, urbanization, climate change, resilient cities, are just a few examples of where the focus of research has been in the last few years. It is obvious that there is a need to rethink how we are building our cities and how we are renovating our existing buildings. However, the question remaining is how can we assure that we are building sustainable yet resilient cities? There are many aspects one can touch upon when discussing resilience in cities, but after the event of Grenfell in June 2017, it has become clear that fire resilience must be a priority. We define resilience as a holistic approach including communities, society and systems, focusing not only on resisting the effects of a disaster, but also how it will cope and recover from it. Cities are an example of such a system, where components such as buildings have an important role to play. A building on fire will have an impact on the community, the economy, the environment, and so the entire system. Therefore, we believe that fire and resilience go hand in hand when we discuss building resilient cities. This article aims at discussing the current state of the concept of fire resilience and suggests actions to support the built of more fire resilient buildings. Using the case of Grenfell and the fire safety regulations in the UK, we will briefly compare the fire regulations in other European countries, more precisely France, Germany and Denmark, to underline the difference and make some suggestions to increase fire resilience via regulation. For this research, we will also include other types of resilience such as technological resilience, discussing the structure of buildings itself, as well as community resilience, considering the role of communities in building resilience. Our findings demonstrate that to increase fire resilience, amending existing regulations might be necessary, for example, how we performed reaction to fire tests and how we classify building products. However, as we are looking at national regulations, we are only able to make general suggestions for improvement. Another finding of this research is that the capacity of the community to recover and adapt after a fire is also an essential factor. Fundamentally, fire resilience, technological resilience and community resilience are closely connected. Building resilient cities is not only about sustainable buildings or energy efficiency; it is about assuring that all the aspects of resilience are included when building or renovating buildings. We must ask ourselves questions as: Who are the users of this building? Where is the building located? What are the components of the building, how was it designed and which construction products have been used? If we want to have resilient cities, we must answer these basic questions and assure that basic factors such as fire resilience are included in our assessment. Buildings, cities, fire, resilience. Evaluation of Hazardous Status of Avenue Trees in University of Port Harcourt F. S. Eguakun, T. C. Nkwor Trees in the university environment are uniquely position; however, they can also present a millstone to the infrastructure and humans they coexist with. The numerous benefits of trees can be negated due to poor tree health and anthropogenic activities and as such can become hazardous. The study aims at evaluating the hazardous status of avenue trees in University of Port Harcourt. Data were collected from all the avenue trees within the selected major roads in the University. Tree growth variables were measured and health condition of the avenue trees were assessed as an indicator of some structural defects. The hazard status of the avenue trees was determined. Several tree species were used as avenue trees in the University however, Azadirachta indica (81%) was found to be most abundant. The result shows that only 0.3% avenue tree species was found to pose severe harzard in Abuja part of the University. Most avenue trees (55.2%) were rated as medium hazard status. Due to the danger and risk associated with hazardous trees, the study recommends that good and effective management strategies be implemented so as to prevent future damages from trees with small or medium hazard status. Avenue tree, hazard status, inventory, urban. Implementation-Oriented Discussion for Historical and Cultural Villages’ Conservation Planning Xing Zhang Since the State Council of China issued the Regulations on the Conservation of Historical Cultural Towns and Villages in 2008, formulation of conservation planning has been carried out in national, provincial and municipal historical and cultural villages for protection needs, which provides a legal basis for inheritance of historical culture and protection of historical resources. Although the quantity and content of the conservation planning are continually increasing, the implementation and application are still ambiguous. To solve the aforementioned problems, this paper explores methods to enhance the implementation of conservation planning from the perspective of planning formulation. Specifically, the technical framework of "overall objectives planning - sub-objectives planning - zoning guidelines - implementation by stages" is proposed to implement the planning objectives in different classifications and stages. Then combined with details of the Qiqiao historical and cultural village conservation planning project in Ningbo, five sub-objectives are set, which are implemented through the village zoning guidelines. At the same time, the key points and specific projects in the near-term, medium-term and long-term work are clarified, and the spatial planning is transformed into the action plan with time scale. The proposed framework and method provide a reference for the implementation and management of the conservation planning of historical and cultural villages in the future. Conservation planning, planning by stages, planning implementation, zoning guidelines. Research on the Mode and Strategy of Urban Renewal in the Old Urban Area of China: A Case Study of Chongqing City Sun Ailu, Zhao Wanmin In the process of rapid urbanization, old urban renewal is an important task in China's urban construction. This study, using status survey and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method, taking Chongqing of China as an example, puts forward the problems faced by the old urban area from the aspects of function, facilities and environment. Further, this study summarizes the types of the old urban area and proposes space renewal strategies for three typical old urban areas, such as old residential area, old factory and old market. These old urban areas are confronted with the problems of functional layout confounding, lack of infrastructure and poor living environment. At last, this paper proposes spatial strategies for urban renewal, which are hoped to be useful for urban renewal management in China. Old urban renewal, renewal mode, renewal strategy, Chongqing, China. Transformation of the Traditional Landscape of Kabul Old City: A Study for Its Conservation Mohammad Umar Azizi, Tetsuya Ando This study investigates the transformation of the traditional landscape of Kabul Old City through an examination of five case study areas. Based on physical observation, three types of houses are found: traditional, mixed and modern. Firstly, characteristics of the houses are described according to construction materials and the number of stories. Secondly, internal and external factors are considered in order to implement a conservation plan. Finally, an adaptive conservation plan is suggested to protect the traditional landscape of Kabul Old City. Conservation, District 1, Kabul Old City, landscape, transformation, traditional houses. Restoring, Revitalizing and Recovering Brazilian Rivers: Application of the Concept to Small Basins in the City of São Paulo, Brazil Juliana C. Alencar, Monica Ferreira do Amaral Porto Watercourses in Brazilian urban areas are constantly being degraded due to the unplanned use of the urban space; however, due to the different contexts of land use and occupation in the river watersheds, different intervention strategies are required to requalify them. When it comes to requalifying watercourses, we can list three main techniques to fulfill this purpose: restoration, revitalization and recovery; each one being indicated for specific contexts of land use and occupation in the basin. In this study, it was demonstrated that the application of these three techniques to three small basins in São Paulo city, listing the aspects involved in each of the contexts and techniques of requalification. For a protected watercourse within a forest park, renaturalization was proposed, where the watercourse is preserved in a state closer to the natural one. For a watercourse in an urban context that still preserves open spaces for its maintenance as a landscape element, an intervention was proposed following the principles of revitalization, integrating the watercourse with the landscape and the population. In the case of a watercourse in a harder context, only recovery was proposed, since the watercourse is found under the road system, which makes it difficult to integrate it into the landscape. Sustainable drainage, river restoration, river revitalization, river recovery. Proposal of Blue and Green Infrastructure for the Jaguaré Stream Watershed, São Paulo, Brazil The blue-green infrastructure in recent years has been pointed out as a possibility to increase the environmental quality of watersheds. The regulation ecosystem services brought by these areas are many, such as the improvement of the air quality of the air, water, soil, microclimate, besides helping to control the peak flows and to promote the quality of life of the population. This study proposes a blue-green infrastructure scenario for the Jaguaré watershed, located in the western zone of the São Paulo city in Brazil. Based on the proposed scenario, it was verified the impact of the adoption of the blue and green infrastructure in the control of the peak flow of the basin, the benefits for the avifauna that are also reflected in the flora and finally, the quantification of the regulation ecosystem services brought by the adoption of the scenario proposed. A survey of existing green areas and potential areas for expansion and connection of these areas to form a network in the watershed was carried out. Based on this proposed new network of green areas, the peak flow for the proposed scenario was calculated with the help of software, ABC6. Finally, a survey of the ecosystem services contemplated in the proposed scenario was made. It was possible to conclude that the blue and green infrastructure would provide several regulation ecosystem services for the watershed, such as the control of the peak flow, the connection frame between the forest fragments that promoted the environmental enrichment of these fragments, improvement of the microclimate and the provision of leisure areas for the population. Blue and green infrastructure, sustainable drainage, urban waters, ecosystem services. Urban Renewal from the Perspective of Industrial Heritage Protection: Taking the Qiaokou District of Wuhan as an Example Yue Sun, Yuan Wang Most of the earliest national industries in Wuhan are located along the Hanjiang River, and Qiaokou is considered to be a gathering place for Dahankou old industrial base. Zongguan Waterworks, Pacific Soap Factory, Fuxin Flour Factory, Nanyang Tobacco Factory and other hundred-year-old factories are located along Hanjiang River in Qiaokou District, especially the Gutian Industrial Zone, which was listed as one of 156 national restoration projects at the beginning of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. After decades of development, Qiaokou has become the gathering place of the chemical industry and secondary industry, causing damage to the city and serious pollution, becoming a marginalized area forgotten by the central city. In recent years, with the accelerated pace of urban renewal, Qiaokou has been constantly reforming and innovating, and has begun drastic changes in the transformation of old cities and the development of new districts. These factories have been listed as key reconstruction projects, and a large number of industrial heritage with historical value and full urban memory have been relocated, demolished and reformed, with only a few factory buildings preserved. Through the methods of industrial archaeology, image analysis, typology and field investigation, this paper analyzes and summarizes the spatial characteristics of industrial heritage in Qiaokou District, explores urban renewal from the perspective of industrial heritage protection, and provides design strategies for the regeneration of urban industrial sites and industrial heritage. Industrial heritage, urban renewal, protection, urban memory. The Effects of T-Walls on Urban Landscape and Quality of Life and Anti-Terror Design Concept in Kabul, Afghanistan Fakhrullah Sarwari, Hiroko Ono Kabul city has suffered a lot in 40 years of conflict of civil war and “The war on terror”. After the invasion of Afghanistan by the United States of America and its allies in 2001, the Taliban was removed from operational power, but The Taliban and other terrorist groups remained in remote areas of the country, they started suicide attacks and bombings. Hence to protect from these attacks officials surrounded their office buildings and houses with concrete blast walls. It gives a bad landscape to the city and creates traffic congestions. Our research contains; questionnaire, reviewing Kabul Municipality documents and literature review. Questionnaires were distributed to Kabul citizens to find out how people feel by seeing the T-Walls on Kabul streets? And what problems they face with T-Walls. “The T-Walls pull down commission” of Kabul Municipality documents were reviewed to find out what caused the failure of this commission. A literature review has been done to compare Kabul with Washington D.C on how they designed the city against terrorism threat without turning the cities into lock down. Bogota city of Columbia urban happiness movement is reviewed and compared with Kabul. The finding of research revealed that citizens of Kabul want security but not at the expense of public realm and creating the architecture of fear. It also indicates that increasing the T-walls do not give secure feeling but instead; it increases terror, hatred and affect people’s optimism. At the end, a series of recommendation is suggested on the issue. Anti-terror design, Kabul, T-Walls, urban happiness. Development of Equivalent Inelastic Springs to Model C-Devices Oday Al-Mamoori, J. Enrique Martinez-Rueda 'C' shape yielding devices (C-devices) are effective tools for introducing supplemental sources of energy dissipation by hysteresis. Studies have shown that C-devices made of mild steel can be successfully applied as integral parts of seismic retrofitting schemes. However, explicit modelling of these devices can become cumbersome, expensive and time consuming. The device under study in this article has been previously used in non-invasive dissipative bracing for seismic retrofitting. The device is cut from a mild steel plate and has an overall shape that resembles that of a rectangular portal frame with circular interior corner transitions to avoid stress concentration and to control the extension of the dissipative region of the device. A number of inelastic finite element (FE) analyses using either inelastic 2D plane stress elements or inelastic fibre frame elements are reported and used to calibrate a 1D equivalent inelastic spring model that effectively reproduces the cyclic response of the device. The more elaborate FE model accounts for the frictional forces developed between the steel plate and the bolts used to connect the C-device to structural members. FE results also allow the visualization of the inelastic regions of the device where energy dissipation is expected to occur. FE analysis results are in a good agreement with experimental observations. C-device, equivalent nonlinear spring, FE analyses, reversed cyclic tests. The Investigation and Analysis of Village Remains in Jinzhong Prefecture of Shanxi Province, China Zhang Yu Shanxi Province is a province with a long history in China. The historical characteristics of Jinzhong Prefecture in Shaanxi Province are very prominent. This research has done a lot of field research and analysis, and has analyzed a large number of documents. The formation and characteristics of villages in Jinzhong Prefecture are summarized. But the remains of many areas have not been systematically discovered and analyzed. This study found that the reasons for the formation of villages are natural, cultural, traffic and economic reasons. It mainly includes water, mountain, and developed business culture during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. By analyzing the evolution characteristics of each period, the characteristics and remains of the existing villages are explained in detail. These types of relics mainly include courtyards, fortresses, and Exchange shops. This study can provide systematic guidance on the protection of future village remains. Jinzhong Prefecture, village, features, remains. An Investigation into the Impact of the Relocation of Tannery Industry on Water Quality Parameters of Urban River Buriganga Md Asif Imrul, Maria Rafique, M. Habibur Rahman The study deals with an investigation into the impact of the relocation of tannery industry on water quality parameters of Buriganga. For this purpose, previous records have been collected from authentic data resources and for the attainment of present values, several samples were collected from three major locations of the Buriganga River during summer and winter seasons in 2018 to determine the distribution and variation of water quality parameters. Samples were collected six ft below the river water surface. Analysis indicates slightly acidic to slightly alkaline (6.8-7.49) in nature. Bio-Chemical Oxygen Demand, Total Dissolved Solids, Total Solids (TS) & Total Suspended Solids (TSS) have been found greater in summer. On the other hand, Dissolved Oxygen is found greater in rainy seasons. Relocation shows improvement in water quality parameters. Though the improvement related to relocation of tannery industry is not adequate to turn the water body to be an inhabitable place for aquatic lives. Buriganga river, river pollution, tannery industry, water quality parameters. On Figuring the City Characteristics and Landscape in Overall Urban Design: A Case Study in Xiangyang Central City, China Guyue Zhu, Liangping Hong Chinese overall urban design faces a large number of problems such as the neglect of urban characteristics, generalization of content, and difficulty in implementation. Focusing on these issues, this paper proposes the main points of shaping urban characteristics in overall urban design: focuses on core problems in city function and scale, landscape pattern, historical culture, social resources and modern city style and digs the urban characteristic genes. Then, we put forward “core problem location and characteristic gene enhancement” as a kind of overall urban design technical method. Firstly, based on the main problems in urban space as a whole, for the operability goal, the method extracts the key genes and integrates into the multi-dimension system in a targeted manner. Secondly, hierarchical management and guidance system is established which may be in line with administrative management. Finally, by converting the results, action plan is drawn up that can be dynamically implemented. Based on the above idea and method, a practical exploration has been performed in the case of Xiangyang central city. City characteristics, overall urban design, planning implementation, Xiangyang central city. Reinvestment of the Urban Context in Historic Cities: The Case Study of El Sheikh Kandil Street, Rosetta, Egypt Riham A. Ragheb, Ingy M. Naguib Conservation and urban investment are a prerequisite to improve the quality of life. Since the historic street is a part of the economic system, it should be able to play an important role in the city development by upgrading all services, public open spaces and reuse of historical buildings and sites. Furthermore, historical conservation enriches the political, economic, social, cultural and functional aspects of the site. Rosetta has been selected as an area of study because it has a unique character due to its possession of a variety of monuments and historical buildings. The aim of this research is to analyze the existing situation of an historic street named El Sheikh Kandil, to be able to identify the potentials and problems. The paper gives a proposal for the redesign and reinvestment of the street and the reuse for the historical buildings to serve the community, users and visitors. Then, it concludes with recommendations to improve quality of life through the rehabilitation of the historical buildings and strengthening of the cultural and historical identity of the street. Rosetta city can benefit from these development proposals by preserving and revitalizing its unique character which leads to tourism development and benefits from the new investments. Adaptive reuse, heritage street, historic investment, restoration, urban design. A Wireless Feedback Control System as a Base of Bio-Inspired Structure System to Mitigate Vibration in Structures Gwanghee Heo, Geonhyeok Bang, Chunggil Kim, Chinok Lee This paper attempts to develop a wireless feedback control system as a primary step eventually toward a bio-inspired structure system where inanimate structure behaves like a life form autonomously. It is a standalone wireless control system which is supposed to measure externally caused structural responses, analyze structural state from acquired data, and take its own action on the basis of the analysis with an embedded logic. For an experimental examination of its effectiveness, we applied it on a model of two-span bridge and performed a wireless control test. Experimental tests have been conducted for comparison on both the wireless and the wired system under the conditions of Un-control, Passive-off, Passive-on, and Lyapunov control algorithm. By proving the congruence of the test result of the wireless feedback control system with the wired control system, its control performance was proven to be effective. Besides, it was found to be economical in energy consumption and also autonomous by means of a command algorithm embedded into it, which proves its basic capacity as a bio-inspired system. Structural vibration control, wireless system, MR damper, feedback control, embedded system. Shaping of World-Class Delhi: Politics of Marginalization and Inclusion Aparajita Santra In the context of the government's vision of turning Delhi into a green, privatized and slum free city, giving it a world-class image at par with the global cities of the world, this paper investigates into the various processes and politics of things that went behind defining spaces in the city and attributing an aesthetic image to it. The paper will explore two cases that were forged primarily through the forces of one particular type of power relation. One would be to look at the modernist movement adopted by the Nehruvian government post-independence and the next case will look at special periods like Emergency and Commonwealth games. The study of these cases will help understand the ambivalence embedded in the different rationales of the Government and different powerful agencies adopted in order to build world-classness. Through the study, it will be easier to discern how city spaces were reconfigured in the name of 'good governance'. In this process, it also became important to analyze the double nature of law, both as a protector of people’s rights and as a threat to people. What was interesting to note through the study was that in the process of nation building and creating an image for the city, the government’s policies and programs were mostly aimed at the richer sections of the society and the poorer sections and people from lower income groups kept getting marginalized, subdued, and pushed further away (These marginalized people were pushed away even geographically!). The reconfiguration of city space and attributing an aesthetic character to it, led to an alteration not only in the way in which citizens perceived and engaged with these spaces, but also brought about changes in the way they envisioned their place in the city. Ironically, it was found that every attempt to build any kind of facility for the city’s elite in turn led to an inevitable removal of the marginalized sections of the society as a necessary step to achieve a clean, green and world-class city. The paper questions the claim made by the government for creating a just, equitable city and granting rights to all. An argument is put forth that in the politics of redistribution of space, the city that has been designed is meant for the aspirational middle-class and elite only, who are ideally primed to live in world-class cities. Thus, the aim is to study city spaces, urban form, the associated politics and power plays involved within and understand whether segmented cities are being built in the name of creating sensible, inclusive cities. Aesthetics, ambivalence, governmentality, power, world-class. Estimation of the Parameters of Muskingum Methods for the Prediction of the Flood Depth in the Moudjar River Catchment Fares Laouacheria, Said Kechida, Moncef Chabi The objective of the study was based on the hydrological routing modelling for the continuous monitoring of the hydrological situation in the Moudjar river catchment, especially during floods with Hydrologic Engineering Center–Hydrologic Modelling Systems (HEC-HMS). The HEC-GeoHMS was used to transform data from geographic information system (GIS) to HEC-HMS for delineating and modelling the catchment river in order to estimate the runoff volume, which is used as inputs to the hydrological routing model. Two hydrological routing models were used, namely Muskingum and Muskingum routing models, for conducting this study. In this study, a comparison between the parameters of the Muskingum and Muskingum-Cunge routing models in HEC-HMS was used for modelling flood routing in the Moudjar river catchment and determining the relationship between these parameters and the physical characteristics of the river. The results indicate that the effects of input parameters such as the weighting factor "X" and travel time "K" on the output results are more significant, where the Muskingum routing model was more sensitive to input parameters than the Muskingum-Cunge routing model. This study can contribute to understand and improve the knowledge of the mechanisms of river floods, especially in ungauged river catchments. HEC-HMS, hydrological modelling, Muskingum routing model, Muskingum-Cunge routing model. Development of a Double Coating Technique for Recycled Concrete Aggregates Used in Hot-mix Asphalt Abbaas I. Kareem, H. Nikraz The use of recycled concrete aggregates (RCAs) in hot-mix asphalt (HMA) production could ease natural aggregate shortage and maintain sustainability in modern societies. However, it was the attached cement mortar and other impurities that make the RCAs behave differently than high-quality aggregates. Therefore, different upgrading treatments were suggested to enhance its properties before being used in HMA production. Disappointedly, some of these treatments had caused degradation to some RCA properties. In order to avoid degradation, a coating technique is developed. This technique is based on combining of two main treatments, so it is named as double coating technique (DCT). Dosages of 0%, 20%, 40% and 60% uncoated RCA, RCA coated with Cement Slag Paste (CSP), and Double Coated Recycled Concrete Aggregates (DCRCAs) in place of granite aggregates were evaluated. The results indicated that the DCT improves strength and reduces water absorption of the DCRCAs compared with uncoated RCAs and RCA coated with CSP. In addition, the DCRCA asphalt mixtures exhibit stability values higher than those obtained for mixes made with granite aggregates, uncoated RCAs and RCAs coated with CSP. Also, the DCRCA asphalt mixtures require less bitumen to achieve the optimum bitumen content (OBC) than those manufactured with uncoated RCA and RCA-coated with CSP. Although the results obtained were encouraging, more testing is required in order to examine the effect of the DCT on performance properties of DCRCA- asphalt mixtures such as rutting and fatigue. Recycled concrete aggregates, hot mix asphalt, double coating technique, aggregate crashed value, Marshall parameters. Use of Cellulosic Fibres in Double Layer Porous Asphalt Márcia Afonso, Marisa Dinis-Almeida, Cristina Fael Climate change, namely precipitation patterns alteration, has led to extreme conditions such as floods and droughts. In turn, excessive construction has led to the waterproofing of the soil, increasing the surface runoff and decreasing the groundwater recharge capacity. The permeable pavements used in areas with low traffic lead to a decrease in the probability of floods peaks occurrence and the sediments reduction and pollutants transport, ensuring rainwater quality improvement. This study aims to evaluate the porous asphalt performance, developed in the laboratory, with addition of cellulosic fibres. One of the main objectives of cellulosic fibres use is to stop binder drainage, preventing its loss during storage and transport. Comparing to the conventional porous asphalt the cellulosic fibres addition improved the porous asphalt performance. The cellulosic fibres allowed the bitumen content increase, enabling retention and better aggregates coating and, consequently, a greater mixture durability. With this solution, it is intended to develop better practices of resilience and adaptation to the extreme climate changes and respond to the sustainability current demands, through the eco-friendly materials use. The mix design was performed for different size aggregates (with fine aggregates – PA1 and with coarse aggregates – PA2). The percentage influence of the fibres to be used was studied. It was observed that overall, the binder drainage decreases as the cellulose fibres percentage increases. It was found that the PA2 mixture obtained most binder drainage relative to PA1 mixture, irrespective of the fibres percentage used. Subsequently, the performance was evaluated through laboratory tests of indirect tensile stiffness modulus, water sensitivity, permeability and permanent deformation. The stiffness modulus for the two mixtures groups (with and without cellulosic fibres) presented very similar values between them. For the water sensitivity test it was observed that porous asphalt containing more fine aggregates are more susceptible to the water presence than mixtures with coarse aggregates. The porous asphalt with coarse aggregates have more air voids which allow water to pass easily leading to ITSR higher values. In the permeability test was observed that asphalt porous without cellulosic fibres presented had lower permeability than asphalt porous with cellulosic fibres. The resistance to permanent deformation results indicates better behaviour of porous asphalt with cellulosic fibres, verifying a bigger rut depth in porous asphalt without cellulosic fibres. In this study, it was observed that porous asphalt with bitumen higher percentages improve the performance to permanent deformation. This fact was only possible due to the bitumen retention by the cellulosic fibres. Binder drainage, cellulosic fibres, permanent deformation, porous asphalt. Guidelines for Sustainable Urban Mobility in Historic Districts from International Experiences Tamer ElSerafi In recent approaches to heritage conservation, the whole context of historic areas becomes as important as the single historic building. This makes the provision of infrastructure and network of mobility an effective element in the urban conservation. Sustainable urban conservation projects consider the high density of activities, the need for a good quality access system to the transit system, and the importance of the configuration of the mobility network by identifying the best way to connect the different districts of the urban area through a complex unique system that helps the synergic development to achieve a sustainable mobility system. A sustainable urban mobility is a key factor in maintaining the integrity between socio-cultural aspects and functional aspects. This paper illustrates the mobility aspects, mobility problems in historic districts, and the needs of the mobility systems in the first part. The second part is a practical analysis for different mobility plans. It is challenging to find innovative and creative conservation solutions fitting modern uses and needs without risking the loss of inherited built resources. Urban mobility management is becoming an essential and challenging issue in the urban conservation projects. Depending on literature review and practical analysis, this paper tries to define and clarify the guidelines for mobility management in historic districts as a key element in sustainability of urban conservation and development projects. Such rules and principles could control the conflict between the socio–cultural and economic activities, and the different needs for mobility in these districts in a sustainable way. The practical analysis includes a comparison between mobility plans which have been implemented in four different cities; Freiburg in Germany, Zurich in Switzerland and Bray Town in Ireland. This paper concludes with a matrix of guidelines that considers both principles of sustainability and livability factors in urban historic districts. Sustainable mobility, urban mobility, mobility management, historic districts. Temperature Susceptibility of Multigrade Bitumen Asphalt and an Approach to Account for Temperature Variation through Deep Pavements Brody R. Clark, Chaminda Gallage, John Yeaman Multigrade bitumen asphalt is a quality asphalt product that is not utilised in many places globally. Multigrade bitumen is believed to be less sensitive to temperature, which gives it an advantage over conventional binders. Previous testing has shown that asphalt temperature changes greatly with depth, but currently the industry standard is to nominate a single temperature for design. For detailed design of asphalt roads, perhaps asphalt layers should be divided into nominal layer depths and different modulus and fatigue equations/values should be used to reflect the temperatures of each respective layer. A collaboration of previous laboratory testing conducted on multigrade bitumen asphalt beams under a range of temperatures and loading conditions was analysed. The samples tested included 0% or 15% recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) to determine what impact the recycled material has on the fatigue life and stiffness of the pavement. This paper investigated the temperature susceptibility of multigrade bitumen asphalt pavements compared to conventional binders by combining previous testing that included conducting a sweep of fatigue tests, developing complex modulus master curves for each mix and a study on how pavement temperature changes through pavement depth. This investigation found that the final design of the pavement is greatly affected by the nominated pavement temperature and respective material properties. This paper has outlined a potential revision to the current design approach for asphalt pavements and proposes that further investigation is needed into pavement temperature and its incorporation into design. Asphalt, complex modulus, fatigue life, flexural stiffness, four-point bending, master curves, multigrade bitumen, thermal gradient.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1013
__label__wiki	0.806454	0.806454	Leping Zhou Sun Yat-Sen University (SYSU) - Department of Neurology Guangzhou, GD 510080 VPS35 Interacts with Dopamine Transportor and Disrupts Dopamine Transporter Recycling Pathway Yi Huang, Leping Zhou, Jiawei Li, Xiang Chen, Joseph Thomas, Xiaofei He, Wenyuan Guo, Yixuan Zeng, Low Boon Chuan, Fengyin Liang, Jinsheng Zeng, Eng-King Tan, Wanli Smith, Zhong Pei and Christopher A. Ross Sun Yat-Sen University (SYSU) - Department of Neurology, Sun Yat-Sen University (SYSU) - Department of Neurology, National University of Singapore (NUS) - Department of Biological Sciences, Sun Yat-Sen University (SYSU) - Department of Neurology, University of Maryland, Sun Yat-Sen University (SYSU) - Department of Neurology, Sun Yat-Sen University (SYSU) - Department of Neurology, Sun Yat-Sen University (SYSU) - Department of Neurology, National University of Singapore (NUS) - Department of Biological Sciences, Sun Yat-Sen University (SYSU) - Department of Neurology, Sun Yat-Sen University (SYSU) - Department of Neurology, Singapore General Hospital - Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University - Division of Neurobiology, Sun Yat-Sen University (SYSU) - Guangdong Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Major Neurological Diseases and Johns Hopkins University VPS35, DAT, endosomal recycling	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1014
__label__cc	0.566608	0.433392	Life was different. I was different. Parkinson’s has changed me Brendan Quinn “My hopes faded. I was desperately trying to provide for my family” Author: Dean G. ParsonsPublished: 5 September 2019 Prep: Cook: Serves: In this guest post, Parkinson’s campaigner and author Dean G. Parsons has an honest and open conversation with his friend Brendan Quinn (pictured above) about young-onset Parkinson’s. In a revealing interview, Brendan reflects on the shock of being diagnosed with the condition in his late thirties, the pressures he feels to provide for his family – and his experience of deep brain stimulation Brendan Quinn was 35 years old when he received what he called “…the shocking diagnosis of young-onset Parkinson’s.” I interviewed the inspiring 38-year-old, from Nottinghamshire, UK, about his recent Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) surgery on a video link – he appeared on my screen from his car. “Inside a vehicle is one of the few places I have space to think,” Brendan chuckled. To learn about Brendan’s experience, I asked him what his life was like before Parkinson’s? “Life was different. I was different. Parkinson’s has changed me. I used to work hard and play hard, but I think I was too career driven and materialistic back then.” There was clear emotion in Brendan’s voice as he recounted how he got to where he is today, by his own admission Parkinson’s was not part of the plan. “I’d been an active kid. I’d dreamed that I’d retire at age forty, travel the world and have adventures. Parkinson’s destroyed that dream.” He continued: “My dad, a coal miner, died from a heart attack when I was young and I ended up skipping school to help my mum financially. It’s why I became so driven in business. I took on my mum’s mortgage. A lot of people depended on me, they still do.” For Brendan, it was that feeling of responsibility that made his Parkinson’s diagnosis so difficult to take. And like anyone living with young-onset Parkinson’s, it came at the worst possible time. He explained: “I’d started building my businesses. I was married. My daughter was four, and that’s when the two fingers in my left hand started twitching.” Despite experiencing the common Parkinson’s symptom, he never considered he might have a neurological condition. “Unbelievably, I’d never heard of Parkinson’s”, he said. “I put it down to stress, but eventually family suggested I should see my Doctor. “I was referred for extensive tests and once my results came through the neurologist broke the news. I had so little knowledge of Parkinson’s that I thought a course of antibiotics might treat it!” Despite being advised by others to slow down, Brendan started doing more. He attributed this to needing to make “his late father proud.” Guest author Dean G. Parsons The road to Deep Brain Stimulation It wasn’t an easy journey for Brendan. He tried various different drugs to treat his tremor, from levodopa patches to Sinemet, but found that nothing worked long-term. In fact, in the first six months he was diagnosed with a drug resistant tremor – and then subsequently developed severe dyskinesia. “My hopes faded as my symptoms worsened,” he explained. “I was desperately trying to provide for my family.” “I ended up joining a Facebook-support group called Parkinson’s Road. Their support changed my life. It’s vital to connect with others with Parkinson’s.” Together with his neurologist, Brendan decided that Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) was the only option – something he says came more daunting as it approached. “Surgery was authorised. I started preparing my businesses and family for my absence. This was a tough time. I was petrified.” “I’d heard bad things about DBS but my experience was amazing. I have little memory of the surgery. I remember having to tap my fingers, repeat the words ‘British Constitution’ to test my speech and I was able to jokingly ask whether my head was still screwed on?” So what advice does Brendan have for others considering DBS: “I would say, do it. Don’t be scared. The improvement in me is amazing. I’m now on half of my medication, my tremor is 90% gone. I feel renewed and I’ve grown through this.” As if Brendan hadn’t had enough to contend with, in the days leading up to his surgery he was faced with an entirely unrelated challenge. His business, Café Amelia – a café in Nottingham, UK, named after his eight year old daughter – was flooded. “I’d been preparing my businesses for my absence. Completely exhausted, I’d managed to go to a warehouse to pick up six weeks-worth of shop supplies. Colleagues on deliveries called me at 4am one morning. They informed me that Café Amelia had been flooded.“ “I felt almost broken.” said Brendan. “I’d lost thousands of pounds of stock and vehicles and surgery was just days away. The place was deep in water and filth. My dyskinesia and tremor were off the scale. If it wasn’t for friends who helped me clean up, I could have given in – but I’m a stubborn guy so kept going.” Despite the many difficulties and barriers Brendan has faced over the last few years, he refuses to allow it to dampen his spirit – or affect his philosophy on life. “Every day I ask myself what can I do, rather than what I can’t? I focus on today. For the first time in years, I believe in my future. My wife, Alana, has her husband back – and my daughter has her dad back.” A musical exploring young onset Parkinson’s EPDA to shine light on young onset Parkinson’s at the European Parliament 9 stunning works of art created by people with Parkinson’s A special gallery in London will showcase the artworks John Stapleton: “More Parkinson’s research is needed, full stop” #UniteForParkinsons: the broadcaster shares his experiences Slovenian Parkinson’s association celebrates 25th birthday in style 25 years of Parkinson’s campaigning in Slovenia	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1015
__label__cc	0.70566	0.29434	About Rocco’s World-renowned authentic Italian pastry using original recipes passed down through generations. Pasticceria Rocco About Usadmin2019-12-11T20:43:15+00:00 In 1956, a 17 year old Italian immigrant stepped off his boat with little more to his name than the shoes on his feet. 44 years later, that very same man passed the torch of the most iconic bakery in New York City to my sister and I. Years of dedication and refining have contributed to the quality desserts we at Rocco’s have consistently delivered, with tradition never sacrificed for passing trends. Our business has stood the test of time, and we invite you to become part of its ever-growing legacy. Rocco Generoso Sr.’s roots are as firmly planted in the West Village as they were in Italy. When he first arrived in ‘56, he found employment in Zema’s Bakery, located in the very spot Rocco’s is today. Starting as a dishwasher, he learned the art of baking from Joe Zema himself, and worked alongside him through the years. In 1974, after numerous changes in ownership, Rocco Generoso Sr. was able to buy the establishment he had called home for 18 years, and turned it into the landmark it is today. Rocco’s has been a staple of the West Village for decades, conjuring and creating memories for all of our patrons. There are those who speak with true affection about the store and what it means to them, with everything from childhood trips with their grandparents to a delicious cookie just last week. It’s near impossible to enter the West Village and not stop at Rocco’s, so much so that it’s become an essential tourist spot for the dazzled tourist and the fickle foodie alike. Rocco’s mission has always been simple and straightforward: the best quality service, ingredients, and products, with no exceptions. In keeping with this, we are always keeping our ear to the ground and finding new ways to build on the longstanding foundation that has been laid before us. We dedicate our day to the needs of our customers, and ensure every experience exceeds the expectations of the last. latitude longitude finder ©2020, Pasticceria Rocco, All Rights Reserved. Designated trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1016
__label__cc	0.626775	0.373225	Posts Tagged ‘Chomsky’ PLUTOCRACY: EPIGENETICS, Not Just Wealth And Democide CHOMSKY FINALLY Agrees With Patrice AYME: AMERICAN DREAM DIED BECAUSE OF PLUTOCRACY… But Chomsky does not go as far as using the word. And that makes him, and his devoted followers, miss the most sinister aspects of it all, and the reason why it is so hard to fix plutocracy, the EPIGENETICS OF EVIL. Thus they complain about the fleas, not the wolf carrying them. Details about how that instrument of US plutocracy, Nazism, came to be, thanks to US plutocracy and its banks, illustrate the demonstration: as long as something that big in the calculus of evil is altogether missed, there is little hope… English America did start as a plutocracy in the sense of an extremely wealthy class of the wealthiest investors sitting in England, after having ravaged Ireland. Jamestown was like that, Yes, it was a tiny hamlet fortress, but then the colony grew, mostly from using slaves for tobacco farming. Then England, wrecked by civil wars and revolutions, lost control of its American colonies until the 1700s. Attempts to make Lord Penn the ruler of Pennsylvania ended up in the American Revolution. Washington, Jefferson, and Al. were very wealthy and somewhat satanic, as they held slaves, and killed Natives, but they were small fry relative to blue blood European plutocrats, who were much wealthier, and thus had to be much more satanic to stay in power. So the English American republic became a not very plutocratic republic (if one doesn’t consider slavery, and the massacre of Native Americans, two huge ifs…) And on it went. The rebellious Confederacy was to some extent a plutocratic revolt centered around the idea of buying, selling and abusing people as if they were chicken: it failed. The first US billionaire was Carnegie. Carnegie was far left, by today’s standards, advocating 50% tax on the wealthy, and punishing estate taxes. His widely advocated ideas brought a mood conducive to the passage of the anti-trust act under President Teddy Roosevelt. Here is how the top 0.01%, the top 30,000, are doing in the USA: Inequality Fosters Plutocracy, The Rule, Not Just Of Wealth, But evil & Bad Genes So when did the US democracy go bad? JP Morgan, a banker, escaped the anti-trust thrust. Dr. Schacht, a German banker cum economist joined the Dresdner Bank in 1903. In 1905, while on a business trip to the United States with board members of the Dresdner Bank, Schacht met the famous American banker J. P. Morgan, as well as U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt. Schacht became deputy director of the Dresdner Bank from 1908 to 1915. Meanwhile, when Wall Street collapsed in 1907, JP Morgan “bought all of it” (or at least a big part of it), bringing the market around. By 1914, US plutocrats, and the racist president Wilson, conspired with the German Kaiser, enabling the Kaiser to hope to destroy his personal enemy, and the enemy of German, if not American and British plutocracy, the French Republic. That magnificent plot backfired on Germany when Great Britain declared war to the Kaiser within days of its attack on France. But it did not backfire for the USA, just the opposite: the US supported the Kaiser for three years with ammunition components, etc., while the UK and France piled up debts to the USA. More exactly, US plutocrats made a fortune, while putting the UK and the French Republic in their debt. In 1919, US plutocrats made it so that German fascists could have another go at the French Republic, by brandishing, of all things, the concept of peace. Remember, for US plutocrats, the motto of the French Republic, Liberty, EQUALITY… sounded like a funeral bell tolling. They absolutely had to remove that menace: at the time, the French empire was larger in population and extent, than the USA itself, and had the world’s most powerful army and air force (yes France was then mightier than the USA in several ways). While arguing that Germany should be protected from France, the US requisitioned giant amounts of German private property, then transferred that, with characteristic generosity, to US plutocrats, finishing the deal, by burning the records of these chummy transactions, in a highly convenient blaze, which made the transfer of these properties safe from retrospective consideration. I am not joking: the cause of the burning of the Commerce Building on January 10, 1921 was never determined: rats, smoking were excluded, and electric wires kept new and perfect. The fire started in the file room, was all over said room in a couple of minutes, and lasted five hours. In any case, the US became the de facto overlord of the so-called “Weimar Republic” (the official name was “Second German Reich”; Hitler changed it to “Third German Reich” in 1935). That enabled US plutocrats (some of them Jewish) to turn around the US antitrust law. The symbiosis between Nazism and US plutocracy was total, including the latter giving birth to the former. Dr. Schacht was central in this (and that’s why he was judged and exonerated, as one of the top 24 Nazi war criminals in 1945 at Nuremberg). To win the war, the US became, de facto, a sort of social democracy. It slowly went back to plutocracy when Nazi operators and collaborators such as the Dulles brothers, took control of the USA in the 1950s. A quick learner and follower, Richard Nixon, became president in 1969, setting up the HMO system, while making an alliance with the Chinese dictatorship. Ford, Carter, Reagan, ramped up the plutocratic pressure. The dam broke under Clinton, who actually dismantled the MOST IMPORTANT legislative piece of president Franklin D Roosevelt’s long presidency: the Banking Act of 1933 (“Glass Steagall”). The Deep State, suitably plutocratized then established a number of evil corporations which were used as intelligence agencies (internally and externally). This is when Sheryl Sandberg was parachuted from the Treasury Department where she was the official girlfriend of Lawrence Summers (successor of R. Rubin, ex- Goldman Sachs chair) to Google and then Facebook (she will meet with Trump Wednesday). Inequality grew. Chomsky, A Crow On Its MIT Branch, Crowing Lugubriously: That was for the causes. Chomsky started to condemn the “financialization” of the USA for the acceleration of inequality in 2013, under Obama (Patrice Ayme explained that it was caused by the abrogation of the Banking Act, already more than 10 years ago; Chomsky vaguely describes, Patrice explains…). Here is Chomsky’s latest description: “The ‘American Dream’ was all about class mobility. You were born poor, but could get out of poverty through hard work and provide a better future for your children. It was possible for [some workers] to find a decent-paying job, buy a home, a car and pay for a kid’s education… It’s all collapsed — and we shouldn’t have too many illusions about when it was partially real… The so-called American Dream was always based partly in myth and partly in reality.” Chomsky said, noting that Americans are losing their hope due to “stagnating incomes, declining living standards, outrageous student debt levels, and hard-to-come-by decent-paying jobs.” “The inequality in the contemporary period is almost unprecedented. If you look at total inequality, it ranks amongst the worse periods of American history… However, if you look at inequality more closely, you see that it comes from wealth that is in the hands of a tiny sector of the population… The current period is extreme because inequality comes from super wealth. Literally, the top one-tenth of a percent are just super wealthy,” Chomsky describes. One of my trusted commenters asked me recently what I thought of Chomsky. A philosopher is not just a botanist. A philosopher would explain, and suggest new explanations. Chomsky also avoid to use the concept of “plutocracy”. He describes it, he describes how wealth, being powerful, grabs power… But he doesn’t label it… which prevents him to go at the bottom of things, as he usually focus on “imperialism”… a completely different notion (imperium, that is military command, may happen with or without plutocracy; initially the concept was from the Roman Republic, which was not a plutocracy). Plutocracy, Epigenetics of Evil: However, that comes short. Very short. Chomsky does not dare to cross the semantic Rubicon of calling it for what it is, plutocracy, the evil power, the genetics, and epigenetics, of evil. This is why Chomsky clings to the idea that the American Founders debated what is at stake now. Now, they did not: the Internet has changed everything, starting with the minds, the moods, hence the genes, or the genetic expressions, to be a bit more precise. We know that fishes in a changed environment, change genetically. Females can become not just males, but super males. Plutocracy is not just the rule of wealth. We know, from studying epigenetics in other species, that animal behavior influences genetic, let alone neurohormonal expression. The absolute power of enormous wealth does not just corrupt absolutely, it corrupts genetically. Complaining about the fleas is good, but seeing the wolf carrying them, better. Wisdom is not just about seeing what’s wrong, but doing better what can be improved. Tags:"It all collapsed', Chomsky, Financialization, History plutocracy US, Inequality, plutocracy Posted in Economic Inequality, Fascism, Finance, Inequality \| 16 Comments » Chomsky: MIT Bimbo? Some praise Chomsky as the “Socrates For Our Times“. Before unleashing a deep and scathing critique to the heart of Chomsky’s mind, let me hasten to point out that I do agree with a lot of Chomsky’s remarks. Let me quote him in an interview posted June 16, 2014: “This war hysteria has never ceased, moving seamlessly from a fear of the German Hun to a fear of communists to a fear of Islamic jihadists and terrorists. “The public is frightened into believing we have to defend ourselves,” Chomsky said. “This is not entirely false. The military system generates forces that will be harmful to us. Take Obama’s terrorist drone campaign, the biggest terrorist campaign in history. This program generates potential terrorists faster than it destroys suspects. You can see it now in Iraq. Go back to the Nuremberg judgments. Aggression was defined as the supreme international crime. It differed from other war crimes in that it encompasses all the evil that follows. The U.S. and British invasion of Iraq is a textbook case of aggression. By the standards of Nuremberg they [the British and U.S. leaders] would all be hanged. And one of the crimes they committed was to ignite the Sunni and Shiite conflict.” The conflict, which is now enflaming the region, is “a U.S. crime if we believe the validity of the judgments against the Nazis. Robert Jackson, the chief prosecutor at the [Nuremberg] tribunal, addressed the tribunal. He pointed out that we were giving these defendants a poisoned chalice. He said that if we ever sipped from it we had to be treated the same way or else the whole thing is a farce.” Today’s elite schools and universities inculcate into their students the worldview endorsed by the power elite. They train students to be deferential to authority. Chomsky calls education at most of these schools, including Harvard, a few blocks away from MIT, “a deep indoctrination system.”” What is there not to like for someone such as me? Did I not just said the same over and over again, even yesterday (before the Chomsky interview was published)? [I agree, with all the preceding, especially what I emboldened. Actually, I have said these things vociferously, for years. I am happy Chomsky has joined the show. He should add MIT, and… himself, to the parade. Let me explain.] My objection to Chomsky is that we need a Death Star to destroy the plutocracy, and that Chomsky is a deeply malfunctioning Death Star. Chomsky’s analysis of World War One. What happened then bears and informs completely upon what is going on today: a few manipulating plutocrats, in one of the deadliest and deepest conspiracies ever, ganged up together, and achieved their objectives. (There was actually a hierarchy in the manipulative order, conspiracies within conspiracies: the half dozen Prussians, and the grandson of Queen Victoria who, technically launched WWI all by themselves, were manipulated by a number of higher level creatures… from the other side of the Atlantic! The very failure of Chomsky to know of the existence and nature of this meta-conspiracy mindset is his greatest failure. That makes him bark all day along, at the foot of the wrong tree.) Chomsky as Socrates? Some will see in that an innocent way of expressing oneself. Instead I view in this not just the pursuit of false prophets, but of a false analysis of humanity. Having a false evaluation of humanity makes oneself into a lambs ready to be devoured by plutocrats. The basic approach of Chomsky is the same as the one of Russell. It’s a variant of the one inaugurated by Kant, no less. Kant (following Confucius) said the state defined morality, so should be obeyed. Russell and Chomsky say:”All states are the same, so let’s just do away with them.” OK, they say: let’s do away with the military mindset; however, a state worth of its name, is, first of all, an army. Thus an anti-military posture is pure anarchism, and, thus pure impotence, hence the greatest help a fascist, plutocratic, oligarchic state can have. That makes Russell and Chomsky more like vaccinations rather than aggressions. In the end, they leave the state perhaps even stronger, and more unscathed, than Kant did. Chomsky and MIT mean well. Perhaps. But I doubt it. Indeed, Chomsky did not get the history of World War One (or Two) right yet. He makes the exact same mistake as the major plutocrat, pseudo-philosopher, Lord Russell. It’s the same grotesque call to turning the other cheek, after the first one has been torn out, and made into a gory mess, with some brains showing (maybe that’s why they lost their minds?) The Kaiserreich that made a surprise attack on August First 1914, deliberately launching a world war (that’s the way they had planned it since December 1912) was a regime that had long engaged in holocausts and Nazi style war crimes, and proceeded to do this exactly in Belgium and France in the following days. Weirdly, Chomsky, who recognizes that “Aggression was defined as the supreme international crime. It differed from other war crimes in that it encompasses all the evil that follows,” seems astonishingly unawares of the elementary fact that it is the Reich of the Kaiser which deliberately attacked in August 1914 (even Austria took several more days to declare war, despite Berlin’s frantic urging!) Yet, the bare facts are obvious: the envoy of the USA president told the Kaiser, June 1, that the USA would support him and proposed an alliance against France. Next the Kaiser attacked, and the USA became immensely rich, feeding the Kaiser, with, among other things, ammunitions, through the “neutral” Netherlands. When the USA saw that France and Britain were going to win, it came to the rescue of victory, and grabbed the spoils. Then the USA, by a somber public-private pirouette, transferred much German property into private American plutocratic hands… who then, basically, organized Nazism, as an occasion to indulge in business far removed from Teddy Roosevelt’s anti-monopoly laws! By forgetting, ignoring, or simply not knowing those basic facts, Chomsky makes himself a major ally of Wall Street plutocracy (the prime profiteer of the preceding; headed by JP Morgan). To claim, as Chomsky does, that the racist, mass murdering, war crime indulging, anti-Judaic dictatorship of the Kaiser was just the same as the French republic it attacked to destroy, out of sheer computation, to pursue its reign of terror and exploitation, is sheer madness. And it’s nothing new: that was the line of that major plutocrat, Lord Russell. And, implicitly, dear at heart of many British plutocrats (before their sons, over-represented in the officer class of the British Expeditionary Force, died by the thousands on the battlefields of Belgium and France; the sons were idealistic, the fathers, cynical… But, after they had to bury their progeny, they started to sincerely hate the Huns.) By attacking on August 1, 1914, the Kaiser actually broke the unity of plutocracy. It’s only being reconstituted now… And in danger of being broken again, not by Thomas Picketty’s rather bland remarks, but by that other major war minded plutocrat, Vladimir Putin. Chomsky is a false prophet, an objective accomplice of un-truth. Un-truth has never helped revolution. Moreover, the un-truth of Chomsky (war is bad, we are manipulated into it), is exactly the opposite of what we need in the realm of emotion. Plutocrats can easily brandish wars that have to be fought. Say World War One, or World War Two. Yes democracies had to fight them, just as the Secession War had to be fought, or the defense war of the French Republic in 1792, fighting for survival against all the plutocrats of Europe united, had to be fought. The mistake, in World War One, or in World War Two, was not to see that the plutocrats themselves had craftily organized it (just as they organized the plutocratization of the ex-USSR, and, Chomsky could notice, that oligarchization of the ex-Soviet Union was indeed directed from Harvard!) By saying war is the problem, and refusing to engage in an intricate causality debate Chomsky is enjoining us to enjoy the furious bleating of sheep against the wolves. That won’t do. Except for the wolves. Not only do wolves enjoy eating sheep, but they love killing them, with wild abandon, just because it’s fun. Something about bleating invites the humiliation of being torn open, and being unable to do anything about it. Our plutocrats are not any different. Bleating to their faces, thus, won’t do. Oh, by the way, Socrates was executed for his troubling role during Athens 30 year desperate fight for survival. The dictators that came to rule Athens, and collaborate with her enemies (Sparta, etc.), were all Socrates’ students. Socrates, the pseudo-great philosopher, spent most of his career bitterly criticizing Athens total democracy, while dining, feasting, getting drunk, and having sex with Athens’ Golden Youth (such as the Syracuse tyrant friendly Plato). Half of Athens’ population died during the war. A general amnesty was proclaimed when (under victorious Sparta’s supervision), democracy was re-established. The amnesty was scrupulously respected, but for one exception: Socrates. So to be called a “Socrates” is not necessarily a compliment. Or rather, if one is on the side of the plutocrats, it is. And that’s no compliment. Posing to look pretty, as bimbos do, does not bring the Cave Bear down. Any Neanderthal could have told you that. If MIT differs in this evaluation, MIT ought to go back to study the jungle. Against plutocracy, action without violent violation nor subtler comprehension, contends in vain. Patrice Aymé Tags:Chomsky, history, Inefficiency, Socrates Posted in American History, European History, Psychology, Systems Of Moods, Systems Of Thought, USA \| 15 Comments » Gene Obsession Recent discoveries have shown the importance of genetic variations (mostly “alleles”) for (say) physical performance. Many, if not most top sportspersons have a genetic advantage. That’s the dirty secret of sports. However some have tried to explain everything with genes, or “instinct”, or “innate behavior”. That’s what I call the genes’ obsession. A curious thing, as it’s well known to be erroneous: Genetic Controls Everything NOT Three patterns observed when studying the influence of genes and environment on traits in individuals. Trait A shows a high sibling correlation, but little heritability. Trait B shows a high heritability since correlation of trait rises sharply with degree of genetic similarity. Trait C shows low heritability, and also low correlations generally. Notice that even identical twins raised in a common family do not show 100% trait correlation. The curious thing is that the nature versus nurture debate has degenerated. A century ago the autodictat biologist Favre was famous for his studies of insects’ behavior. Skinner and behaviorism tried to displace him, with learning, and then Lorentz and Tinbergen received the Nobel for exhibiting unexpected behaviors in animals, with subtle entanglements of nature and nurture. What’s the genes’ obsession? It consists into believing that one could code for zillions of behaviors with a few thousand genes. My answer: you don’t, because you can’t. The mind is the answer to nature (as I will show in the next essay). A particularly silly example of the genes problem is Chomsky’s ‘Universal Grammar’ according to which ‘grammar,’ or linguistic ability, is hard-wired, and comes without being taught. Even more silly, Richard Dawkins’ Selfish Gene, pushed for the gene-centered view of evolution. Said he: “Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature.” Then he contradicted himself: “Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to…” And how are we going to do that, Mr. Dawkins? If our “biological nature” is to be “born selfish”, how come we can “teach” the opposite? With the help of God? And what of your mother? Was she selfish too? Dawkins sounds hopelessly confused and dissembling in his “Selfish Gene’ Chapter One. Here is another extract: “Among animals, man is uniquely dominated by culture, by influences learned and handed down. Some would say that culture is so important that genes, whether selfish or not, are virtually irrelevant to the understanding of human nature. Others would disagree. It all depends where you stand in the debate over ‘nature versus nurture’ as determinants of human attributes. This brings me to the second thing this book is not: it is not an advocacy of one position or another in the nature/nurture controversy. Naturally I have an opinion on this, but I am not going to express it, except insofar as it is implicit in the view of culture that I shall present in the final chapter. If genes really turn out to be totally irrelevant to the determination of modern human behavior, if we really are unique among animals in this respect, it is, at the very least, still interesting to inquire about the rule to which we have so recently become the exception.” In truth the genetic approach to everything, a la Dawkins, helps nought (as Dawkins more or less recognizes, when lucid enough). Besides, it is completely implausible. It’s not just that there are other inheritable geometric structures than genes (say: proteins, prions, organelles, etc.). The result of a few thousand genes may be a million proteins. Impressive. However, that’s it. But it’s simply impossible to imagine how proteins would be transformed into complex behaviors. A pile of construction materials does not a castle make. That’s why I am anti-Chomsky (although I approve of his hypocritical anti-imperialistic whining)… and anti-Dawkins (although I approve of this anti-theism). In a way Dawkins, Chomsky and their followers make the mistake theists did before Lamarck’s theory of evolution (erroneously known as Darwin’s theory of evolution). They believed a deus ex-machina out there, coded for everything, that there is something as “innate behavior”. They understand learning naught. In a way their superstitious attitude is a variant of the “Grace of God” problem of the Seventeenth Century: if God is omnipotent, what have humans to do with it? If genes are omnipotent, what has humanism to do with humanity? How can Dawkins learn anything, if he is just a selfish gene? As the graph above showed, genes are never omnipotent. Even suckling is not really “innate”. Any mother finds out that it takes a bit of training on both sides… As I will show next, much, if not most, “instincts” are just, most probably, fast learning. Tags:Chomsky, Dawkins, Genes, Innate, Instinct, Selfish Gene Posted in Biology \| 11 Comments »	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1017
__label__wiki	0.728493	0.728493	Chapter 3: After Katrina: Rebuilding a Residence Life Program by Dr. Walter M. Kimbrough August of 2015 marked the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. I was president of Philander Smith College in Little Rock, AR, during that time. Along with the rest of the nation, I watched the developments in shock. Dillard and Philander Smith are United Methodist institutions, as well as members of the United Negro College Fund (UNCF). Therefore, I also had access to a greater depth of information than the average observer. When I moved to Dillard in 2012 as president, I was interested in learning more about hurricanes and how they may impact a campus. I learned even more about the devastating effects of Katrina on Dillard. While the national news often equated the damage to the higher education institutions in the state, having a chance to speak with facilities staffs at Tulane, Loyola and Xavier confirmed that Dillard's damage was unequaled. It was clear to me. Although there were now two new buildings on campus, and a great deal of renovation, when I began my presidency—almost seven years after Katrina—the campus, like the city, was not fully restored. In particular, we had access to one campus residence hall, the on-campus apartments, and three off-campus properties. Three major residence halls were still under renovation. The process of rebuilding a campus, including a residence life program after a catastrophic event like Hurricane Katrina, provides a blueprint for others who may experience this kind of unfortunate incident. While many great decisions were made, there were some key lessons learned. When Katrina approached, Dillard evacuated all residential students to Centenary College of Louisiana, five hours north. Centenary and Dillard, sister United Methodist institutions, have an MOU which allows Dillard to send residential students there in case of evacuation. They provide usage of their dome for lodging, and students are able to eat on campus and use campus facilities. The idea was that after Katrina, the students would be able to return and the semester would resume. As we know, however, the levy next to campus was breached and water poured into the campus, water that covered the grounds for a solid three weeks. All totaled, 43 buildings were damaged or destroyed, including three that burned down, for an estimate of damages (including lost tuition revenue) of $400 million. All totaled, 43 buildings were damaged or destroyed, including three that burned down, for an estimate of damages (including lost tuition revenue) of $400 million. The semester was cancelled at that point and plans were to determine how to open in the spring even though the campus would be unusable. In addition, the University partnered with colleges and universities across the nation to find places for students to enroll that semester. The obvious challenge was evident: once you essentially "transfer" your entire student body, how will you get them back? Partnering with the Hilton hotel for lodging, and local institutions for classroom and administrative space (along with space at the hotel), Dillard reopened as a satellite university on January 3, 2006. At the time of Katrina, Dillard enrolled almost 2,000 students. When classes resumed, 1,100 students were enrolled, driven largely by seniors who were expecting to graduate that spring. The work for the University during the first half of 2006 was to renovate the campus enough to move back by the fall of 2006. This meant not only active construction using both insurance and FEMA money, but also soliciting private and federal sources of funding to rebuild the campus. One of the major successes was eventually being able to secure a $156 million loan from the Department of Education to address the needs of the campus. At the same time, the president, Dr. Marvalene Hughes (who began her presidency just 7 weeks before Katrina hit), not only raised funds but had to lead a campaign to assure people that Dillard would survive, which was a significant concern. In fact, suggestions were made to relocate the university to a completely new city out of the state. The University successfully completed enough of the renovations to reopen in the fall of 2006, housing 619 students (with about half of them at three off-campus properties which also housed faculty and staff who lost everything during the storm). Dillard was able to maintain an enrollment of 1100 for the fall of 2006 despite a large graduating class, and losing half of the freshman class that began weeks before Katrina. Yet that enrollment was over 40% lower than the previous fall. The ongoing worries about hurricanes impacting New Orleans, along with the slow pace for rebuilding the campus, continued to take a toll on enrollment. By the fall of 2008, enrollment stood at 851, now some 63% below the record high of 2300 in the fall of 2003. The good news is, however, this is the place where the enrollment drop finally bottomed out and the campus began to grow. At this point, Dillard was able to grow. Prior to Katrina, the administration, led by Dr. Michael Lomax, made an effort to improve the physical appearance of the campus, which included significant renovations. Katrina wiped away all of that work, and the University began to redo renovations with the goal of creating a vibrant, residential program. In addition, prior to Katrina during the rapid period of growth, the University acquired properties in the area to provide additional housing. Three apartment complexes were purchased, all within two miles of the campus. While the facilities did offer university-controlled housing, the distance, while not great, separated students from the main campus activities. In addition, concerns about crime in the neighborhood made them less than desirable for students and parents. However, these three properties, acquired between 2003 and 2004, were very important, post-Katrina, as they were easily renovated and provided housing for students, faculty and staff after the storm. While the university began the process of growth, and with the slow pace of renovating campus residential facilities, the campus had difficult choices to make. Part of the philosophy had been to develop a vibrant residential program that fostered a close-knit community, which, based on research, would lead toward higher retention and graduation rates. This was important for Dillard as an institution that traditionally enrolls many first-generation, low-income but strong students. Part of the philosophy had been to develop a vibrant residential program that fostered a close-knit community, which, based on research, would lead toward higher retention and graduation rates. At the same time, Dillard was desperate to grow enrollment. In addition to developing a revenue base in order to return to full operations and restart academic programs, Dillard wanted to resume its role as an anchor institution to the community; having active students, faculty and staff was important to dozens of small businesses. Because much of the pace of renovation was driven by insurance and FEMA, the University in the years post-Katrina housed many of the students off campus. There was unfortunately a dip in retention and graduation rates as well, which produced data points that harmed the institution's reputation in national rankings and, later, when presented in the College Scorecard launched by the Department of Education. Specifically, students who entered Dillard between 2000 and 2004 had an average retention rate of 72%. Those who entered between 2005 and 2012 had an average retention rate of 62%, 10 points lower. Similarly, prior to Katrina, graduation rates remained in the 40% range, while students enrolled during Katrina had rates in the 20 to 30% range. When I arrived in 2012, with a background in student affairs, I agreed with my predecessors that a vibrant on-campus living environment was important for Dillard University. We were nearing the completion of renovations, able to use the all-campus residential units by January of 2014. It would not be until the fall of 2014 that we would begin an academic year with all-campus housing available for use. We sold two of the troubled off-campus units, and the one within blocks from campus is now empty as we discuss how to renovate and remodel it into a modern residential unit. Since 2012, we hired new leadership for the residence life program with a strong directive to develop community on campus. We improved the First Year Experience program at the same time, also bringing in new leadership that provided a new model for intrusive, individualized advising and mentoring. Finally, beginning in 2015, we strengthened the religious life program which provided another strong foundation for the residential student population, connecting them to the campus through faith. The residential experience has been enhanced with new campus programming. We added a lecture series in 2013 to bring a variety of scholars, entertainers, writers and authors to campus for monthly events that also engaged the broader community. We enhanced the athletic experience, providing a rich game-day program employing dozens of students to promote the games, create campus spirit and build a social media buzz (an effort recognized by our NAIA athletic division in 2016). We have worked to create an atmosphere in which we actively seek to partner with entities to bring unique opportunities to campus. These programmatic elements helped to provide a firm foundation for our residential program, and the initial results suggest a new trend. Freshmen who entered in 2013, 2014 and 2015 had an average retention rate of 73%, returning this number to pre-Katrina levels. Additional analysis over time will determine if these short-term indicators last during a 4 to 6-year graduation period. The active campus life has engaged potential students, creating an increase in applications and recent growth in freshman class, as well as for alumni, who have increased their giving every year since 2012. As both groups visited campus, seeing students fully engaged and on campus was a far cry from 2012 when most of the housing was off campus. In the decade since Hurricane Katrina, Dillard University has been on a unique journey. An institution that was growing rapidly, reaching record enrollment in 2003, dropped over 60% of its enrollment due to the storm, and began the process of rebuilding the institution slowly but deliberately. While a horrific event, Katrina provided an opportunity not only to improve the campus infrastructure, but help create a new campus culture of engagement which will yield positive results.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1018
__label__wiki	0.766905	0.766905	The Remembered Home in Luna Sicat Cleto’s Typewriter Altar Author: Luna Sicat-Cleto Reviewer: Tito Quiling The house is our space—it is our own universe. An inhabitant’s world is first contained within the confines of their respective domestic spaces. These houses can take on the personalities of its inhabitants, reflecting their aspirations and goals, even holding their pains. But with the tendency to head towards promising dwelling spaces over the course of our lives, one’s consciousness regarding habitation and ownership can wear down with constant relocation. With all the changes which take place, in what ways can we commemorate our experiences and fortify the memories within our homes? Luna Sicat Cleto’s translated novel, Typewriter Altar, is centered on the series of remembrances by Laya Dimasupil (her given name means “freedom” while their family name translates into “could not be subdued”). Their experiences are mapped out by the houses they dwelt in, as well as their interactions with the neighbors and extended family members. As a narrator, a substantial part of Laya’s memories are linked to her father, Deo, where a significant amount of his world seemingly revolves around his typewriter and his career as an academic. Deo is illustrated as a cold patriarch—to Laya in particular. On the other hand, her father displays perpetual warmth towards his colleagues and students. The personal growths of Laya and Deo are shown to be rather divergent, as the daughter attempts to break away from what she sees as her parents’ individual hurdles, while the father chases after a fictive world. But more than looking at the concrete walls of their bungalow in terms of their physical division, the separation is also defined by their opposing minds. While Laya’s recollections of their mother, Gloria, came in increments, their home could not have functioned without her. The Dimasupil family resided in a few houses as outlined by Laya. There are snippets of memories from her childhood home in Kamantigue Street in flood-prone Marikina, to their brief stay in Project 6, Quezon City and to the modest chalet inside the university campus. But the bungalow located in the foothills of Montalban, Rizal became the house which forged their consciousness. Relocating from an urban to a pastoral setting entails a ceremonial detachment of sort. For the city dweller, the distinctive chaos found in the inner city gets embedded. This characteristic takes a back seat when one moves to the slower, rustic setting located in the fringes of the urban landscape. In their Montalban home, it is Gloria who runs the Dimasupil household full-time. Raising three girls, Laya, Butuin, and Amor, the former accountant exhibits full patience and devotion to her spouse, who is constantly preoccupied with his writing but participates in their domestic goings on every now and then. Inside their house, Deo’s writing area is a sacred space, with the typewriter as its centerpiece. In time, Laya discovers that there is more to her father’s typical stony demeanor towards them. From what appears to be opposite paths for the father and the daughter, time has steered them in the same lane. And just when Laya finds her footing as a writer, Deo’s health quickly deteriorates. At times, the intermittent switching of viewpoints can be quite confusing—is it Laya who is talking in this chapter? Or is one reading about Deo’s memories? Does Gloria and her recollections hold a substantial bearing in the narrative? However, as one continues through the pages, their recollections start to ease into one another, looking at the interrelated stories narrated by the characters and remembrances of each other’s idiosyncrasies. Their personal experiences and shared memories in the Montalban home are reinforced by sentient elements such as hearing the water pot whistle in the early morning, the odor of a slow-burning cigarette on the ashtray, and seeing the lone light on their front door—a family member waiting for someone’s arrival. In a video interview conducted by the University of the Philippines Press, Luna Sicat Cleto shares that the seed for her first novel, Makinilyang Altar, came from a periodic dream featuring an abandoned house containing books with bare pages. This image became the opening paragraph of her novel, whose gripping cadence remained when the book was translated as Typewriter Altar by noted Filipino poet, Marne L. Kilates. It is Laya who recaps this riveting dream sequence which foreshadows the series of events in her life as illustrated by her recollections. Sicat Cleto reveals that the novel is a fictional version of her life, where the characters are gleaned from significant people in her life—in particular, her parents, writers Rogelio and Ellen Sicat. In this vein, the book seems like an autobiographical work, but the author successfully pens a narrative that blurs the edges between a creative nonfiction piece and a novel. As Sicat Cleto treads on the thin line between fiction and reality, imaginings and memory become entangled in the process of writing. In fiction, the difficulty lies in writing from one’s experiences and being dangerously close to reality. There are certain levels of innovation that need to surface in the work, as well as elements of astonishment that are applied to be effective. While some components are intentional, others are accidental. One of the best payoffs whenever one walks through the landscape of words, is crossing paths with people who contribute to one’s writing life. For the author, finishing her first novel was both [sic] “a creative and an artistic challenge” which made her understand the complexities of this endeavor. According to Sicat Cleto, there are still unanswered subjects concerning the Filipino identity. Centering on the mixture of one’s identity, the persistence of this outlook can be perceived in the writings of Filipino authors. Following this thought, the situations and the characters in the book represents the multifaceted personalities of the modern Filipino, whose desires and fears transcend the personal domain and into the social sphere. Looking at this fragmented quality, these works by Filipino writers turn into an assemblage of remembrances and stories. While the author cannot project how the audience responds to a work, the reader must recognize that despite the authenticity of a story, it remains a work of fiction. Being noted as perhaps the only contemporary Filipina author with a translated novel, Luna Sicat Cleto’s work contributes to the growth of women’s writing in the Philippines. Apart from numerous literary accolades such as the UP Gawad Chancellor, the Gawad CCP Award for One-Act Play, and the Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for her poetry, essays, fiction, and short stories for children, Sicat Cleto’s writing has been anthologized in Forbidden Fruit: Women Write The Erotic (Anvil Publishing Inc., 1992) edited by Tina Cuyugan and in Ang Labintatlong Pasaway (Visprint Inc., 2014) edited by Jun Cruz Reyes. In 2002, Sicat Cleto came out with her novel Makinilyang Altar (University of the Philippines Press) which won the Madrigal-Gonzalez Best First Book Award in 2005 and her second book, Mga Prodigal (Anvil Publishing Inc.) was produced in 2012. Translated by distinguished Filipino poet Marne L. Kilates, Typewriter Altar (2016) is published by the University of the Philippines Press. Note: Supplementary information about the author and the book were taken from a video interview by the University of the Philippines Press (released in September 2016). Tito R. Quiling, Jr.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1019
__label__cc	0.740978	0.259022	OBEY GIANT Some time ago the Project Live Love team was introduced to an artist by the name of Shepard Fairey and his work OBEY Giant. In 1989 Shepard began a street art campaign based on a design that he had created of Andre the Giant’s face. The main piece they used was a sticker. He and others began posting these stickers wherever they went. Soon the stickers began showing up in many major cities across the U.S. The purpose of this campaign was nothing more than an exercise in phenomenology which is “the process of letting things manifest themselves.” The sticker had no meaning but existed only to cause people to react, contemplate and search for meaning in the sticker. The sticker became a phenomenon in Gen-X culture. LIVE LOVE The more we looked at Fairey’s work and how he was able to create a cultural impact by using a sticker, it only made sense that we would follow suit with a similar campaign. Only our campaign has a message… LIVE LOVE. We hope that, through posting stickers and wearing t-shirts, we can affect the minds and hearts of people who come in contact with them. We want to evoke a reaction. Whether you are touched by it’s simple message at a glance, or you search out it’s meaning to find this website, the Live Love Influence is designed to cause us all to think more about living love.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1022
__label__cc	0.730053	0.269947	Author: Anne Bokma (Return to Authors) Anne Bokma Anne Bokma is an award-winning journalist in Hamilton. She writes the "Spiritual But Secular" monthly column for the United Church Observer, reporting on the spiritual practices of the growing spiritual-but-not-religious demographic. Her blog, "My Year of Living Spiritually," is hosted on the Observer website. My Year of Living Spiritually - One in five Canadians considers themselves "spiritual but not religious" (SBNR) and these folks are hungry for experiences that bring a greater sense of meaning and connection to their lives. Published April 03, 2017 in Commentary Fringe Review: The Bootlegger's Wife, Published July 23, 2014 in Reviews - Fringe 2014 Fringe Review: Mommy's Mask, Published July 21, 2014 in Reviews - Fringe 2014 Fringe Review: Rise of the Prickly Pear, Published July 21, 2014 in Reviews - Fringe 2014 Fringe Review: XOXO The Relationship Show, Published July 20, 2014 in Reviews - Fringe 2014 Fringe Review: Love with Leila, Published July 20, 2014 in Reviews - Fringe 2014	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1024
__label__wiki	0.681533	0.681533	Tag: applying Young Chozen Goes Independent & Announces New Album ‘G.L.O.W.’ with Cover Young Chozen is excited to announce in 2013 he is stepping out as an independent artist and is releasing his sophomore album 'GLOW' April of this year. R-Swift Announces Release Date for Upcoming Album ‘Apply Pressure’ Paul Martinez R-Swift recently announced that he will be gearing up to release his next project ‘Apply Pressure’ on April 16th, 2013. Last year, in an interview with Rapzilla.com, R-Swift revealed the title of the project. When asked why the title, Swift said “It’s sort of like a double meaning. When you get wounded, they say to heal ...	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1025
__label__cc	0.523169	0.476831	Pulsenomics® is an independent research and index product development firm that leverages its expertise in data analytics, opinion research, financial markets, and economics to deliver unique insight and market intelligence to our institutional clients, partners, and the public at large. We develop authoritative household surveys, manage unique expert panels, and create innovative indexes to quantify and monitor attitudinal shifts pertinent to business strategy and economic health. Terry Loebs is the Founder and Managing Member of Pulsenomics LLC. He is the author of The U.S. Housing Confidence Survey™ and inventor of The U.S. Housing Confidence Index™. Terry created The Home Price Expectations Survey™, and since 2010, has managed an expert panel comprised of over 150 leading economists, investment strategists, portfolio managers, and real estate market analysts. He is also an independent director on the board of trustees of ETF Managers Trust, an exchange-traded funds complex with more than $3 billion in assets under management. Terry has more than 25 years of experience in the capital markets and in developing innovative products and services driven by U.S. housing data. Terry started his professional career on Wall Street as a fixed income analyst, and soon thereafter became immersed in the mortgage capital and housing markets as a whole loan trader, mortgage servicing rights and financial institutions banker. He was later recruited to help lead Case-Shiller Weiss, Inc. (CSW), initially as director of business development and sales before eventually sharing the role of President. As Senior Vice President at Fiserv Inc. (which acquired CSW in 2002), Terry continued his leadership of the merged firms' data analytics group and related product management, sales, marketing and business development activities. Over the course of a decade, he became recognized as a market pioneer of automated home valuation systems, led the commercial development of the Case-Shiller Indexes® and the successful effort to establish their world-wide reputation as the premier home price performance benchmark. At MacroMarkets LLC, a financial product development company co-founded by Robert Shiller, Terry was a central figure in the launch of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, and a catalyst in developing new financial products and market infrastructure for U.S. home price risk management, including the CME Home Price Futures and Options market, and the first stock exchange-traded home price-linked securities. Terry earned his undergraduate degree at the Fairfield University School of Business, and his MBA at The New York University Stern School of Business. He resides in suburban Boston with his wife and three children. Honorary Advisers Karl “Chip” Case and Robert Shiller were named Pulsenomics Honorary Advisers in 2013. Chip Case (1946-2016) was Professor of Economics at Wellesley College, where he held the Coman and Hepburn Chair in Economics, and taught for 34 years. He was a senior fellow of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University and President of the Boston Economics Club. Chip served as a member of the boards of directors of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, the Mortgage Guarantee Insurance Corporation (MGIC), the Depositor's Insurance Fund of Massachusetts, Century Bank, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and the Rapport Institute for Greater Boston. He authored or co-authored five books, including Principles of Economics, presently in its eleventh edition. Robert Shiller is Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale University, and Professor of Finance and Fellow at the International Center for Finance, Yale School of Management. Bob has written extensively about financial markets, financial innovation, behavioral economics, real estate, macroeconomics, statistical methods, and on public attitudes, opinions, and moral judgments regarding markets. He has been research associate, National Bureau of Economic Research since 1980, and co-organizer of NBER workshops: on behavioral finance with Richard Thaler since 1991, and on macroeconomics and individual decision making (behavioral macroeconomics) with George Akerlof since 1994. He writes a regular column "Finance in the 21st Century" for Project Syndicate, which publishes around the world, and "Economic View" for The New York Times. In October 2013, Bob was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, and was elected President of the American Economic Association for 2016 . Company/affiliation*	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1026
__label__wiki	0.613623	0.613623	Teaching the first law of thermodynamics via real-life examples Wheijen Chang The literature has revealed that many students encounter substantial difficulties in applying the first law of thermodynamics. For example, university students sometimes fail to recognize that heat and work are independent means of energy transfer.1 When discussing adiabatic processes for an ideal gas, few students can correctly refer to the concept of "work" to justify a change in temperature.1 Some students adopt the notion that "collisions between molecules produce heat" to explain the rise in temperature for an adiabatic compression process.2 When explaining processes entailing temperature variation, students tend to adopt the ideal-gas law.1,2 Although most university students have acquired a reasonable grasp of the state-function concept, which is valid for variation of internal energy, they fail to grasp the concept that work depends not only on the states but also the processes. Thus, they are unable to use the first law effectively.3 In order to help students comprehend the meaning, usages, and value of the first law, and to realize that the ideal-gas law itself is insufficient to analyze many reallife examples, this paper introduces four examples, some of which can be demonstrated in the classroom. The examples have been devised and gradually modified over a period of several years based on implementation in a calculus-based introductory physics course. Details of when, how, and why each example is adopted, along with the students' pitfalls, are described below. Published - 2011 Apr Chang, W. (2011). Teaching the first law of thermodynamics via real-life examples. Physics Teacher, 49(4), 231-233. https://doi.org/10.1119/1.3566034 Chang, Wheijen. / Teaching the first law of thermodynamics via real-life examples. In: Physics Teacher. 2011 ; Vol. 49, No. 4. pp. 231-233. @article{50408df988b34f1baa2a0a0aeead2c10, title = "Teaching the first law of thermodynamics via real-life examples", abstract = "The literature has revealed that many students encounter substantial difficulties in applying the first law of thermodynamics. For example, university students sometimes fail to recognize that heat and work are independent means of energy transfer.1 When discussing adiabatic processes for an ideal gas, few students can correctly refer to the concept of {"}work{"} to justify a change in temperature.1 Some students adopt the notion that {"}collisions between molecules produce heat{"} to explain the rise in temperature for an adiabatic compression process.2 When explaining processes entailing temperature variation, students tend to adopt the ideal-gas law.1,2 Although most university students have acquired a reasonable grasp of the state-function concept, which is valid for variation of internal energy, they fail to grasp the concept that work depends not only on the states but also the processes. Thus, they are unable to use the first law effectively.3 In order to help students comprehend the meaning, usages, and value of the first law, and to realize that the ideal-gas law itself is insufficient to analyze many reallife examples, this paper introduces four examples, some of which can be demonstrated in the classroom. The examples have been devised and gradually modified over a period of several years based on implementation in a calculus-based introductory physics course. Details of when, how, and why each example is adopted, along with the students' pitfalls, are described below.", author = "Wheijen Chang", journal = "Physics Teacher", publisher = "American Institute of Physics", Chang, W 2011, 'Teaching the first law of thermodynamics via real-life examples', Physics Teacher, vol. 49, no. 4, pp. 231-233. https://doi.org/10.1119/1.3566034 Teaching the first law of thermodynamics via real-life examples. / Chang, Wheijen. In: Physics Teacher, Vol. 49, No. 4, 04.2011, p. 231-233. T1 - Teaching the first law of thermodynamics via real-life examples AU - Chang, Wheijen N2 - The literature has revealed that many students encounter substantial difficulties in applying the first law of thermodynamics. For example, university students sometimes fail to recognize that heat and work are independent means of energy transfer.1 When discussing adiabatic processes for an ideal gas, few students can correctly refer to the concept of "work" to justify a change in temperature.1 Some students adopt the notion that "collisions between molecules produce heat" to explain the rise in temperature for an adiabatic compression process.2 When explaining processes entailing temperature variation, students tend to adopt the ideal-gas law.1,2 Although most university students have acquired a reasonable grasp of the state-function concept, which is valid for variation of internal energy, they fail to grasp the concept that work depends not only on the states but also the processes. Thus, they are unable to use the first law effectively.3 In order to help students comprehend the meaning, usages, and value of the first law, and to realize that the ideal-gas law itself is insufficient to analyze many reallife examples, this paper introduces four examples, some of which can be demonstrated in the classroom. The examples have been devised and gradually modified over a period of several years based on implementation in a calculus-based introductory physics course. Details of when, how, and why each example is adopted, along with the students' pitfalls, are described below. AB - The literature has revealed that many students encounter substantial difficulties in applying the first law of thermodynamics. For example, university students sometimes fail to recognize that heat and work are independent means of energy transfer.1 When discussing adiabatic processes for an ideal gas, few students can correctly refer to the concept of "work" to justify a change in temperature.1 Some students adopt the notion that "collisions between molecules produce heat" to explain the rise in temperature for an adiabatic compression process.2 When explaining processes entailing temperature variation, students tend to adopt the ideal-gas law.1,2 Although most university students have acquired a reasonable grasp of the state-function concept, which is valid for variation of internal energy, they fail to grasp the concept that work depends not only on the states but also the processes. Thus, they are unable to use the first law effectively.3 In order to help students comprehend the meaning, usages, and value of the first law, and to realize that the ideal-gas law itself is insufficient to analyze many reallife examples, this paper introduces four examples, some of which can be demonstrated in the classroom. The examples have been devised and gradually modified over a period of several years based on implementation in a calculus-based introductory physics course. Details of when, how, and why each example is adopted, along with the students' pitfalls, are described below. JO - Physics Teacher JF - Physics Teacher Chang W. Teaching the first law of thermodynamics via real-life examples. Physics Teacher. 2011 Apr;49(4):231-233. https://doi.org/10.1119/1.3566034	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1027
__label__wiki	0.666313	0.666313	Team Broken Trail Reports & Conditions Santa Fe Region La Tierra Network Dale Ball Trails Upper Mountain Trails Galisteo Basin Preserve White Mesa Downhill Parks Booking Duration * Book For 24 Hour Rental Pickup Window ? Select 10:00 AM 2:00 PM Book For Multi-day Rentals Gender * Select Male Female Weight * < 70 lbs (32 kg) 80 lbs (36 kg) 90 lbs (41 kg) 100 lbs (45 kg) 110 lbs (50 kg) 120 lbs (54 kg) 130 lbs (59 kg) 140 lbs (64 kg) 150 lbs (68 kg) 160 lbs (73 kg) 170 lbs (77 kg) Select 180 lbs (82 kg) 190 lbs (86 kg) 200 lbs (91 kg) 210 lbs (95 kg) 220 lbs (100 kg) 230 lbs (104 kg) 240 lbs (109 kg) 250 lbs (113 kg) 260 lbs (118 kg) 270 lbs (122 kg) 280 lbs (127 kg) 290 lbs (132 kg) 300 lbs (136 kg) Height * < 4' 3'' (130 cm) 4' 4'' (132 cm) 4' 5'' (135 cm) 4' 6'' (137 cm) 4' 7'' (140 cm) 4' 8'' (142 cm) 4' 9'' (145 cm) 4' 10'' (147 cm) 4' 11'' (150 cm) 5' 0'' (152 cm) 5' 1'' (155 cm) 5' 2'' (157 cm) 5' 3'' (160 cm) 5' 4'' (163 cm) 5' 5'' (165 cm) 5' 6'' (168 cm) Select 5' 7'' (170 cm) 5' 8'' (173 cm) 5' 9'' (175 cm) 5' 10'' (178 cm) 5' 11'' (180 cm) 6' 0'' (183 cm) 6' 1'' (185 cm) 6' 2'' (188 cm) 6' 3'' (191 cm) 6' 4'' (193 cm) 6' 5''+ (196 cm+) Select Frame Size * Select Inventory Inventory out of stock Order Summary: Yeti SB150 : $0.00 0 Hr(s) 0 Day(s) Add-ons: Sales Tax (8.44 %): (Click here if you have more then 1 person that needs rentals) Copyrights © Broken Spoke 2018 all rights reserved	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1029
__label__cc	0.580303	0.419697	Improving health, curbing climate change – a win-win situation Professor Elizabeth Robinson, whose research contributes to The Lancet Countdown, explores how actions that individuals and governments can take to improve our health can also help to curb climate change. We have known about climate change for many decades. We know that the planet is warming, extreme weather conditions are becoming more frequent, and that sea levels are rising. But we have not necessarily thought so much about the links between climate change and health. Countries might do well to focus on those actions that both improve the health of their populations and curb climate change. For example, efforts to reduce air pollution, encourage healthy eating and a more plant-based diet, increase ‘active transport’ such as walking and cycling, and enhance urban green spaces benefit our health and wellbeing and reduce pressures on a country’s public health services. In making these changes, a country contributes to the global public good of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Heatwave deaths Research done by the authors of the Lancet Countdown annual report suggests that climate change is already putting our health and our healthcare systems under considerable pressure. Around 70,000 excess deaths were caused by heatwaves in Europe in 2003, with around 15,000 of those excess deaths in France alone. Even though higher temperatures were experienced this year, far fewer excess deaths were recorded in France this year: 1,500. France achieved this in part through a raft of measures, including an early warning system, the establishment of cooling centres, and regulations concerning access to an air-conditioned room in nursing homes. Yet even in a higher income country such as France, those who are particularly vulnerable may not be able to avoid exposure to these increasingly frequent high temperatures. It is relatively easy to adapt in a higher income country, but much harder in a lower-income country. Of course, as countries grow economically, they will be able to afford to take measures to deal with heatwaves. But at some point, it becomes very difficult to protect people from heat. Above 35 degrees C we need to be able to sweat to keep our core at a safe level. When the air is sufficiently full of water vapour, sweat no longer evaporates and we cannot cool down. If we cannot avoid the heat, we die. Already there may be places where it is simply too hot to be outside, and there are cases of otherwise healthy people are dying from excessive heat. We can tell a similar story for crops. Although some crops may benefit from both increased carbon dioxide in the air and warmer growing seasons, already we can see the detrimental impacts of excessive heat on crop yield potential, and harvest losses due to the increased frequency of extreme weather events such as droughts and floods. Despite increases in total food production, the number of under-nourished people globally has been increasing since 2014, and climate change is part of the reason. Public health benefits for all An individual country has little control over the increasing heat, heatwaves, and extreme weather events due to the global climate crisis. That is why international agreements on climate action are so important. Of course many people would argue that higher-income countries have a moral responsibility to rapidly reduce their emissions, with or without international cooperation. Yet many seem reluctant to act. But there are several areas where win-win outcomes could be achieved. This could be done without the need for international cooperation, and without countries putting off actions because they would incur the relatively high costs whilst the rest of the world shared in the benefits without bearing any of the costs. Public health is one such area. Individuals and governments often make choices that harm their health, put pressure on their public health services, and harm the planet through increased emissions. This suggests scope for action which is relatively uncontroversial for an individual or for an individual country government, by instead making choices that improve health and reduce emissions. But even these choices can be difficult to implement. This could be partly down to inertia: we are used to things happening in a certain way. This could be because making change can be difficult or costly in the short run, so we put off making changes. This might also be because individual actions require support from the government. Actions that individuals and governments can take Many of us could be healthier if we walked, cycled, and used public transport more, rather than using our cars. In the process, air pollution would be reduced. But for many of us, society has evolved in a way in which using our cars is much more convenient, and walking or cycling may not feel so safe. So we need our governments to create an environment of safe walking and cycling spaces. We need them to provide affordable and reliable public transport. Many people could improve their health if they reduced their meat and dairy consumption and ate a more plant-based diet. In the process greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced. Making that change, learning to cook with and eat different ingredients, ensuring a balanced diet, can be a steep learning curve. It could also threaten the livelihoods of our farmers. But if we choose a nutritionally balanced diet that includes more locally produced plant-based options, sustainably produced milk, egg and meat products, and purchase and use responsibly to minimise waste, this could benefit our health, our domestic agriculture sector, and contribute to reduced emissions. Finally, there is increasing evidence that our mental health and wellbeing can be improved if we have access to more green urban spaces. England is well below its target for tree planting, which is needed to help the country reach its emissions reduction target. Planting trees in cities can help to achieve this target and improve wellbeing. Elizabeth Robinson is Professor of Environmental Economics at the University of Reading, specialising in the management of natural resources in low and middle income countries. She coordinates the working group on exposure and vulnerability of people to climate change for the Lancet Countdown, which tracks the links between public health and climate change. On 15 October she gave a public lecture at the University of Reading, Climate change: Turning up the heat on our health. Agriculture Policy and Development climate change environment policy health heatwaves lancet countdown	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1031
__label__cc	0.510693	0.489307	Epidemiology and ecology of rickettsial diseases in the People's Republic of China. M. Y. Fan, David Walker, S. R. Yu, Q. H. Liu Since 1949, information on rickettsial diseases in the People's Republic of China has been virtually nonexistent in the West. This is the first comprehensive review of the ecology and epidemiology of Chinese rickettsial diseases to be published outside the People's Republic. At least five rickettsioses exist in China: scrub typhus, murine typhus, epidemic typhus, Q fever, and one or more spotted fever-group (SFG) rickettsioses. Although epidemic typhus has been controlled and scrub typhus has abated in many areas, murine typhus, Q fever, and SFG rickettsiosis are important public health problems. Serologic surveys indicate high prevalences of antibodies to Coxiella burnetii, Rickettsia tsutsugamushi, and SFG rickettsiae in some regions; these rickettsiae have been isolated from humans, arthropods, and animals. Doxycycline has emerged as the best treatment for murine typhus, epidemic typhus, and scrub typhus. China offers both opportunities and challenges for the investigation and alleviation of the problems of rickettsial diseases. Reviews of Infectious Diseases Scrub Typhus Endemic Flea-Borne Typhus Epidemic Louse-Borne Typhus Rickettsia Orientia tsutsugamushi Coxiella burnetii Fan, M. Y., Walker, D., Yu, S. R., & Liu, Q. H. (1987). Epidemiology and ecology of rickettsial diseases in the People's Republic of China. Reviews of Infectious Diseases, 9(4), 823-840. Epidemiology and ecology of rickettsial diseases in the People's Republic of China. / Fan, M. Y.; Walker, David; Yu, S. R.; Liu, Q. H. In: Reviews of Infectious Diseases, Vol. 9, No. 4, 07.1987, p. 823-840. Fan, MY, Walker, D, Yu, SR & Liu, QH 1987, 'Epidemiology and ecology of rickettsial diseases in the People's Republic of China.', Reviews of Infectious Diseases, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 823-840. Fan MY, Walker D, Yu SR, Liu QH. Epidemiology and ecology of rickettsial diseases in the People's Republic of China. Reviews of Infectious Diseases. 1987 Jul;9(4):823-840. Fan, M. Y. ; Walker, David ; Yu, S. R. ; Liu, Q. H. / Epidemiology and ecology of rickettsial diseases in the People's Republic of China. In: Reviews of Infectious Diseases. 1987 ; Vol. 9, No. 4. pp. 823-840. @article{4984decc37bb44b8829bc74bc89dca27, title = "Epidemiology and ecology of rickettsial diseases in the People's Republic of China.", abstract = "Since 1949, information on rickettsial diseases in the People's Republic of China has been virtually nonexistent in the West. This is the first comprehensive review of the ecology and epidemiology of Chinese rickettsial diseases to be published outside the People's Republic. At least five rickettsioses exist in China: scrub typhus, murine typhus, epidemic typhus, Q fever, and one or more spotted fever-group (SFG) rickettsioses. Although epidemic typhus has been controlled and scrub typhus has abated in many areas, murine typhus, Q fever, and SFG rickettsiosis are important public health problems. Serologic surveys indicate high prevalences of antibodies to Coxiella burnetii, Rickettsia tsutsugamushi, and SFG rickettsiae in some regions; these rickettsiae have been isolated from humans, arthropods, and animals. Doxycycline has emerged as the best treatment for murine typhus, epidemic typhus, and scrub typhus. China offers both opportunities and challenges for the investigation and alleviation of the problems of rickettsial diseases.", author = "Fan, {M. Y.} and David Walker and Yu, {S. R.} and Liu, {Q. H.}", journal = "Clinical Infectious Diseases", T1 - Epidemiology and ecology of rickettsial diseases in the People's Republic of China. AU - Fan, M. Y. AU - Walker, David AU - Yu, S. R. AU - Liu, Q. H. N2 - Since 1949, information on rickettsial diseases in the People's Republic of China has been virtually nonexistent in the West. This is the first comprehensive review of the ecology and epidemiology of Chinese rickettsial diseases to be published outside the People's Republic. At least five rickettsioses exist in China: scrub typhus, murine typhus, epidemic typhus, Q fever, and one or more spotted fever-group (SFG) rickettsioses. Although epidemic typhus has been controlled and scrub typhus has abated in many areas, murine typhus, Q fever, and SFG rickettsiosis are important public health problems. Serologic surveys indicate high prevalences of antibodies to Coxiella burnetii, Rickettsia tsutsugamushi, and SFG rickettsiae in some regions; these rickettsiae have been isolated from humans, arthropods, and animals. Doxycycline has emerged as the best treatment for murine typhus, epidemic typhus, and scrub typhus. China offers both opportunities and challenges for the investigation and alleviation of the problems of rickettsial diseases. AB - Since 1949, information on rickettsial diseases in the People's Republic of China has been virtually nonexistent in the West. This is the first comprehensive review of the ecology and epidemiology of Chinese rickettsial diseases to be published outside the People's Republic. At least five rickettsioses exist in China: scrub typhus, murine typhus, epidemic typhus, Q fever, and one or more spotted fever-group (SFG) rickettsioses. Although epidemic typhus has been controlled and scrub typhus has abated in many areas, murine typhus, Q fever, and SFG rickettsiosis are important public health problems. Serologic surveys indicate high prevalences of antibodies to Coxiella burnetii, Rickettsia tsutsugamushi, and SFG rickettsiae in some regions; these rickettsiae have been isolated from humans, arthropods, and animals. Doxycycline has emerged as the best treatment for murine typhus, epidemic typhus, and scrub typhus. China offers both opportunities and challenges for the investigation and alleviation of the problems of rickettsial diseases. JO - Clinical Infectious Diseases JF - Clinical Infectious Diseases	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1032
__label__cc	0.559676	0.440324	The antiviral action of common household disinfectants and antiseptics against murine hepatitis virus, a potential surrogate for SARS coronavirus Christine Dellanno, Quinn Vega, Diane Boesenberg Background: The 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) infected over 8000 people and killed 774. Transmission of SARS occurred through direct and indirect contact and large droplet nuclei. The World Health Organization recommended the use of household disinfectants, which have not been previously tested against SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV), to disinfect potentially contaminated environmental surfaces. There is a need for a surrogate test system given the limited availability of the SARS-CoV for testing and biosafety requirements necessary to safely handle it. In this study, the antiviral activity of standard household products was assayed against murine hepatitis virus (MHV), as a potential surrogate for SARS-CoV. Methods: A surface test method, which involves drying an amount of virus on a surface and then applying the product for a specific contact time, was used to determine the virucidal activity. The virus titers and log reductions were determined by the Reed and Muench tissue culture infective dose (TCID)50 end point method. Results: When tested as directed, common household disinfectants or antiseptics, containing either 0.050% of triclosan, 0.12% of PCMX, 0.21% of sodium hypochlorite, 0.23% of pine oil, or 0.10% of a quaternary compound with 79% of ethanol, demonstrated a 3-log reduction or better against MHV without any virus recovered in a 30-second contact time. Conclusion: Common household disinfectants and antiseptics were effective at inactivating MHV, a possible surrogate for SARS-CoV, from surfaces when used as directed. In an outbreak caused by novel agents, it is important to know the effectiveness of disinfectants and antiseptics to prevent or reduce the possibility of human-to-human transmission via surfaces. American Journal of Infection Control https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2009.03.012 Murine hepatitis virus Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Local Anti-Infective Agents Dellanno, C., Vega, Q., & Boesenberg, D. (2009). The antiviral action of common household disinfectants and antiseptics against murine hepatitis virus, a potential surrogate for SARS coronavirus. American Journal of Infection Control, 37(8), 649-652. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2009.03.012 Dellanno, Christine ; Vega, Quinn ; Boesenberg, Diane. / The antiviral action of common household disinfectants and antiseptics against murine hepatitis virus, a potential surrogate for SARS coronavirus. In: American Journal of Infection Control. 2009 ; Vol. 37, No. 8. pp. 649-652. @article{1b76348e4f804ed4b62b40d76826fab6, title = "The antiviral action of common household disinfectants and antiseptics against murine hepatitis virus, a potential surrogate for SARS coronavirus", abstract = "Background: The 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) infected over 8000 people and killed 774. Transmission of SARS occurred through direct and indirect contact and large droplet nuclei. The World Health Organization recommended the use of household disinfectants, which have not been previously tested against SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV), to disinfect potentially contaminated environmental surfaces. There is a need for a surrogate test system given the limited availability of the SARS-CoV for testing and biosafety requirements necessary to safely handle it. In this study, the antiviral activity of standard household products was assayed against murine hepatitis virus (MHV), as a potential surrogate for SARS-CoV. Methods: A surface test method, which involves drying an amount of virus on a surface and then applying the product for a specific contact time, was used to determine the virucidal activity. The virus titers and log reductions were determined by the Reed and Muench tissue culture infective dose (TCID)50 end point method. Results: When tested as directed, common household disinfectants or antiseptics, containing either 0.050{\%} of triclosan, 0.12{\%} of PCMX, 0.21{\%} of sodium hypochlorite, 0.23{\%} of pine oil, or 0.10{\%} of a quaternary compound with 79{\%} of ethanol, demonstrated a 3-log reduction or better against MHV without any virus recovered in a 30-second contact time. Conclusion: Common household disinfectants and antiseptics were effective at inactivating MHV, a possible surrogate for SARS-CoV, from surfaces when used as directed. In an outbreak caused by novel agents, it is important to know the effectiveness of disinfectants and antiseptics to prevent or reduce the possibility of human-to-human transmission via surfaces.", keywords = "SARS, antiseptics, antiviral, disinfectants", author = "Christine Dellanno and Quinn Vega and Diane Boesenberg", doi = "10.1016/j.ajic.2009.03.012", journal = "American Journal of Infection Control", Dellanno, C, Vega, Q & Boesenberg, D 2009, 'The antiviral action of common household disinfectants and antiseptics against murine hepatitis virus, a potential surrogate for SARS coronavirus', American Journal of Infection Control, vol. 37, no. 8, pp. 649-652. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2009.03.012 The antiviral action of common household disinfectants and antiseptics against murine hepatitis virus, a potential surrogate for SARS coronavirus. / Dellanno, Christine; Vega, Quinn; Boesenberg, Diane. In: American Journal of Infection Control, Vol. 37, No. 8, 01.10.2009, p. 649-652. T1 - The antiviral action of common household disinfectants and antiseptics against murine hepatitis virus, a potential surrogate for SARS coronavirus AU - Dellanno, Christine AU - Vega, Quinn AU - Boesenberg, Diane N2 - Background: The 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) infected over 8000 people and killed 774. Transmission of SARS occurred through direct and indirect contact and large droplet nuclei. The World Health Organization recommended the use of household disinfectants, which have not been previously tested against SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV), to disinfect potentially contaminated environmental surfaces. There is a need for a surrogate test system given the limited availability of the SARS-CoV for testing and biosafety requirements necessary to safely handle it. In this study, the antiviral activity of standard household products was assayed against murine hepatitis virus (MHV), as a potential surrogate for SARS-CoV. Methods: A surface test method, which involves drying an amount of virus on a surface and then applying the product for a specific contact time, was used to determine the virucidal activity. The virus titers and log reductions were determined by the Reed and Muench tissue culture infective dose (TCID)50 end point method. Results: When tested as directed, common household disinfectants or antiseptics, containing either 0.050% of triclosan, 0.12% of PCMX, 0.21% of sodium hypochlorite, 0.23% of pine oil, or 0.10% of a quaternary compound with 79% of ethanol, demonstrated a 3-log reduction or better against MHV without any virus recovered in a 30-second contact time. Conclusion: Common household disinfectants and antiseptics were effective at inactivating MHV, a possible surrogate for SARS-CoV, from surfaces when used as directed. In an outbreak caused by novel agents, it is important to know the effectiveness of disinfectants and antiseptics to prevent or reduce the possibility of human-to-human transmission via surfaces. AB - Background: The 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) infected over 8000 people and killed 774. Transmission of SARS occurred through direct and indirect contact and large droplet nuclei. The World Health Organization recommended the use of household disinfectants, which have not been previously tested against SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV), to disinfect potentially contaminated environmental surfaces. There is a need for a surrogate test system given the limited availability of the SARS-CoV for testing and biosafety requirements necessary to safely handle it. In this study, the antiviral activity of standard household products was assayed against murine hepatitis virus (MHV), as a potential surrogate for SARS-CoV. Methods: A surface test method, which involves drying an amount of virus on a surface and then applying the product for a specific contact time, was used to determine the virucidal activity. The virus titers and log reductions were determined by the Reed and Muench tissue culture infective dose (TCID)50 end point method. Results: When tested as directed, common household disinfectants or antiseptics, containing either 0.050% of triclosan, 0.12% of PCMX, 0.21% of sodium hypochlorite, 0.23% of pine oil, or 0.10% of a quaternary compound with 79% of ethanol, demonstrated a 3-log reduction or better against MHV without any virus recovered in a 30-second contact time. Conclusion: Common household disinfectants and antiseptics were effective at inactivating MHV, a possible surrogate for SARS-CoV, from surfaces when used as directed. In an outbreak caused by novel agents, it is important to know the effectiveness of disinfectants and antiseptics to prevent or reduce the possibility of human-to-human transmission via surfaces. KW - SARS KW - antiseptics KW - antiviral KW - disinfectants U2 - 10.1016/j.ajic.2009.03.012 DO - 10.1016/j.ajic.2009.03.012 JO - American Journal of Infection Control JF - American Journal of Infection Control Dellanno C, Vega Q, Boesenberg D. The antiviral action of common household disinfectants and antiseptics against murine hepatitis virus, a potential surrogate for SARS coronavirus. American Journal of Infection Control. 2009 Oct 1;37(8):649-652. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2009.03.012 10.1016/j.ajic.2009.03.012	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1033
__label__wiki	0.642076	0.642076	Interpreting American Jewish History at Museums and Historic Sites Avi Y. Decter Jews are part and parcel of American history. From colonial port cities to frontier outposts, from commercial and manufacturing centers to rural villages, and from metropolitan regions to constructed communities, Jews are found everywhere and throughout four centuries of American history. From the early 17th century to the present, the story of American Jews has been one of immigration, adjustment, and accomplishment, sometimes in the face of prejudice and discrimination. This, then, is a narrative of minority-majority relations, of evolving norms and traditions, of ongoing conversations about community and culture, identity and meaning. Interpreting American Jewish History at Museums and Historic Sites begins with a broad overview of American Jewish history in the context of a religious culture than extends back more than 3,000 years and which manifests itself in a variety of distinctive American forms. This is followed by five chapters, each looking at a major theme in American Jewish history: movement, home life, community, prejudice, and culture. The book also describes and analyzes projects by history organizations, large and small, to interpret American Jewish life for general public audiences. These case studies cover a wide range of themes, approaches, formats. The book concludes with a history of Jewish collections and Jewish museums in North America and a chapter on “next practice” that promote adaptive thinking, continuous innovation, and programs that are responsive to ever-changing circumstances. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / AASLH Pages: 248 • Trim: 7 x 10 978-1-4422-6434-2 • Hardback • November 2016 • $89.00 • (£60.00) 978-1-4422-6435-9 • Paperback • November 2016 • $39.00 • (£24.95) 978-1-4422-6436-6 • eBook • November 2016 • $37.00 • (£24.95) Series: Interpreting History Subjects: Business & Economics / Museum Administration & Museology Avi Decter, managing partner of History Now, has worked in public history for nearly 40 years. His many projects include the Boott Cotton Mill at Lowell National Historical Park; the US Holocaust Memorial Museum; Louisville Slugger Museum and Visitor Center; and the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, PA. A superb accomplishment! First, Avi Decter and his collaborators set forth a bold curriculum for interpreting Jewish history—incorporating the finest recent scholarship on the Jewish experience of immigration, domestic and community life, and cultural participation in American history. And then they survey an amazingly diverse array of museum projects by which curators and public historians have advanced public understanding of this history. The result is a provocative dialogue between what we know and how we create. Everyone engaged in historical interpretation—in the classroom, the gallery, the cityscape, or on screens—has to read this book. — Richard Rabinowitz, President, American History Workshop Avi Y. Decter’s book, Interpreting American Jewish History at Museums and Historic Sites…provides a useful guide for exploring American Jewish life in American cultural spaces. Decter’s book is designed for secular American institutions; this is not a guide for interpreting material culture at Jewish museums and historical societies. Rather, this book argues for the inclusion of American Jewish stories in the larger cultural conversation…. The result is a useful toolbox for museums and historic sites interested in building the American Jewish experience into their galleries and tours…. Decter, Eleff, and Grossman provide a solid, important foundation for museums and historic sites interested in interpreting American Jewish life. — The American Jewish Archives Journal With contributions from three talented colleagues, Avi Y. Decter provides a unique and highly readable roadmap to this far-flung and diverse topography. Written for an audience of professionals at museums and historic sites as part of an American Association for State and Local History series, he aims to make the unfamiliar less foreign and give courage to curators and educators who are "afraid to get it wrong" (3). . . . Decter & Co. provide a crash course and a tantalizing parade of model projects. — American Jewish History Interpreting American Jewish History at Museums and Historic Sites provides a concise, thorough, and relevant history of the Jews in America that will serve as a useful resource for museum professionals (and volunteers) in any history-related organization. Of particular importance – and value – is the concluding chapter, “Toward Next Practice,” which offers imaginative yet eminently do-able programmatic approaches that are invaluable for any history-oriented institution seeking to remain relevant in today’s dynamic multimedia world. All in all, the volume’s synthesis of current scholarship with practical applications in a highly readable text should earn it a spot on any museum professional’s history bookshelf. — Marsha L. Semmel, Independent Consultant Decter and his co-contributors offer a concise, accessible introduction to Jewish history and a far-reaching tour of public history projects that have explored its rich story. Interpreting American Jewish History is a can-do handbook for those new to the subject, and the concluding chapter on “next practice” provides a roadmap for innovation that is a must-read for all museum professionals. — Benjamin Filene, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, Director of Public History, University of North Carolina at Greensboro	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1046
__label__wiki	0.544494	0.544494	Peter Hook & The Light’s “Substance – The Albums Of Joy Division & New Order” Tour Returning in 2018 July 31, 2017 by Jason DeBord Peter Hook & The Light are bringing their incredible “Substance – The Albums Of Joy Division & New Order” back to the U.S. in 2018. Hooky and the band will be performing both the Joy Division and New Order albums Substance live, in their original track sequence and in their entirety. Having reviewed the tour in 2016, Rock Subculture rated it the #3 show of all of 2016, so it is definitely expected to be one of the best tours in 2018. [Read more…] Filed Under: "On Tour" Dates & Announcements, Peter Hook & The Light Tagged With: 2018, 2018 tour, bass, bass guitar, california, cities, Concert, dates, Fac 51, Freebass, Hacienda, Hooky, Joy Division, live, manchester, Monaco, Music, New Order, new wave, north america, november, peter hook, Peter Hook and the Light, preview, Revenge, Slaves of Venus, substance, The Hacienda Club, tickets, tour, tour dates, united states Peter Hook & The Light Performing New Order’s “Substance” at The Fillmore \| San Francisco, California \| 11/5/2016 (Concert Review + Photos) November 7, 2016 by Jason DeBord Leave a Comment “The hangman looks round as he waits, the cord stretches tight, then it breaks…” Peter Hook & The Light opened their sold out concert at The Fillmore in San Francisco on Saturday night with the dark and prescient “In A Lonely Place”. Kind of an appropriate song to begin with for a few reasons… of course, it is from New Order’s Substance, which they played in it’s entirety, in it’s original track order (with three bonus songs on the front and one at the end). But it was also a song that the original members of New Order wrote as Joy Division with front man Ian Curtis from that original band. So it really doesn’t sound anything like a New Order song at all; it is distinctly Joy Division (dark, analog, and sans any pop sensibility). Having covered Peter Hook & The Light’s previous “album” tours in the past few years, I expected them to come out and do the Joy Division set first and the New Order set second, but they flipped the script. But that first song, is at once a Joy Division song and a New Order song… at the time a bridge from the past to the future. They led out with New Order’s Substance and closed the night performing the Joy Division compilation album of the same name. So how was it? Well, I saw the full original band perform in live in concert almost a quarter of a century ago. In recent years, I’ve seen Peter Hook as Peter Hook & The Light several times. I’ve also seen the rest of New Order (sans Peter Hook) touring separately several times as well. I have to say that, hands down, this show was the best “New Order” performance I’ve ever experienced. In my opinion, New Order’s Substance – their most seminal work – this is the best it’s ever been done live on stage. It truly exceeded my own hopeful and lofty expectations. At the center of it all is the fact that Peter Hook somehow continues to keep the “flame” of both Joy Division and New Order ignited and authentic to what it was and always will be to those who find power and meaning in the works of both bands. Brilliant show. [Read more…] Filed Under: Concert Reviews, Live Nation, Live Rock Music, News, & Events, Peter Hook & The Light, San Francisco California, The Fillmore Tagged With: 2016 tour, bass, bass guitar, california, cities, Concert, dates, Fac 51, Freebass, Hacienda, Hooky, Joy Division, live, manchester, Monaco, Music, New Order, new wave, north america, november, peter hook, Peter Hook and the Light, preview, Revenge, Slaves of Venus, substance, The Hacienda Club, tickets, tour, tour dates, united states Peter Hook & The Light Bring “Substance – The Albums Of Joy Division & New Order” To North America In October And November Peter Hook & The Light bring a second leg of “Substance – The Albums Of Joy Division & New Order” back to the U.S., kicking things off in Detroit tomorrow tonight, with shows running through the end of November. Hooky and the band will be performing both the Joy Division and New Order albums Substance live, in their original track sequence and in their entirety. [Read more…] Filed Under: "On Tour" Dates & Announcements, Peter Hook & The Light Tagged With: 2016 tour, bass, bass guitar, california, cities, Concert, dates, Fac 51, Freebass, Hacienda, Hooky, Joy Division, live, manchester, Monaco, Music, New Order, new wave, north america, november, peter hook, Peter Hook and the Light, preview, Revenge, Slaves of Venus, substance, The Hacienda Club, tickets, tour, tour dates, united states Peter Hook & The Light Performing New Order’s “Low-Life” and “Brotherhood” (with Moby) at The Fonda Theatre \| Hollywood, California \| 11/22/2014 (Concert Review + Photos) November 25, 2014 by Jason DeBord Leave a Comment “And that’s how you play The Perfect Kiss!” An emphatic Peter Hook, currently touring as Peter Hook & The Light (formerly of Joy Division and New Order) – rock and roll’s greatest bass player – is apparently a skilled mind reader as well, as he pulled that quote right out of my head to shout back through his microphone after playing the best rendition of the classic song that I’d ever heard. Hooky and his band are in 2014 touring New Order’s third and fourth albums (Low-Life and Brotherhood, respectively) in their entirety, having done the same in 2013 with the first two (Movement and Power, Corruption & Lies). As an added bonus with each of these outings, they open for themselves as Slaves of Venues with dedicated Joy Division sets, which collectively makes for quite a substantive and lengthy set of shows each night. At The Fonda Theatre in Hollywood Saturday night, the dedicated fans in attendance were also treated to a surprise guest appearance on stage for the encore, with none other than Moby coming out to perform vocals for the first two songs of that set to close out the evening. All and all, with a show kicking off around 9:30 PM and going until 12:30 AM, it was three solid hours of celebration for fans of Joy Division and New Order. It was certainly one of those special shows were the venue, artist, and fans all clicked perfectly to make for a very memorable experience and a blazing hot and awesome show by a legendary artist and performer, who in my opinion is the heart and soul of New Order keeping the most authentic live performance of their music alive for old and new fans. Filed Under: Concert Reviews, Fonda Theatre, Goldenvoice / AEG / Axs, Hollywood California, Live Rock Music, News, & Events, Moby, Peter Hook & The Light Tagged With: 2014, audio, bass, bass guitar, brotherhood, california, Concert, Concert Review, download, Fac 51, fonda theatre, Freebass, Hacienda, Hollywood, Hooky, interview, itunes, Joy Division, live, low life, lowlife, manchester, Monaco, Music, New Order, new wave, north america, november, peter hook, Peter Hook and the Light, photography, photos, podcast, Revenge, review, Slaves of Venus, The Hacienda Club, tour, tour dates, united states Peter Hook of Peter Hook & The Light, New Order, Joy Division: “Rock Talk” Podcast Audio Interview This article features the latest in an ongoing series of “Rock Talk” podcast audio interviews for the Rock Subculture Journal. Today’s guest is Peter Hook. Peter Hook is a founding member of Joy Division and New Order, and next week embarks on his latest tour as Peter Hook & The Light, covering the third and forth New Order albums, Lowlife (1985) and Brotherhood (1986), in full. Last year, he and his band covered the first two New Order albums and my review of that tour can be found in a separate article (see: “Peter Hook & The Light Performing New Order’s “Movement” and “Power, Corruption & Lies”…). http://rocksubculture.com/Podcast/Rock-Talk-Rock-Subculture-Interview-015-Peter-Hook.mp3 Filed Under: "Rock Talk" Podcast Interviews, Peter Hook & The Light Tagged With: 2014, audio, bass, bass guitar, brotherhood, california, canada, Concert, Concert Review, cover, download, Fac 51, Freebass, Hacienda, Hooky, interview, itunes, Joy Division, live, low life, lowlife, manchester, Monaco, movement, Music, new music, New Order, new wave, north america, november, peter hook, Peter Hook and the Light, podcast, power corruption and lies, Revenge, Slaves of Venus, The Hacienda Club, tour, tour dates, united states, what do you want from me New Order at The Bill Graham Civic Auditorium \| San Francisco, California \| 7/11/2014 (Concert Review + Photos) July 12, 2014 by Jason DeBord 7 Comments “…since we’re in San Francisco, we thought we’d do something special.” Bernard Sumner, singer and guitarist for New Order, as preface to an unexpected, second encore closer and cover of “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)” at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium last night. One of just a half dozen dates on this North American tour, the concert showed a band that has worked to refine their live set, with updated visuals as well as a bit of tweaking and reworking of what has become their usual selection of songs. It was definitely the best I’ve heard them in the past four years, and they seemed most energized during their performance of new song, “Plastic”. The sold out crowd of around 7,000 never stopped moving and bouncing as they ripped through a sequence of favorites at the end with “True Faith”, “The Perfect Kiss”, and “Blue Monday”. As has been tradition, they closed out with an encore of a few Joy Division covers, but the Scott McKenzie cover at the very end showed that they can still surprise when they are inspired to do so. Filed Under: Another Planet Entertainment, Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, Concert Reviews, La Roux, New Order, San Francisco California Tagged With: 2014, 80s, announcement, artist, band, Bernard Sumner, bill graham, bill graham civic auditorium, Concert, Concert Review, cover, dj whitney fierce, electronic, england, english, gig, Gillian Gilbert, Jason DeBord, Joy Division, july, july 12, july 2014, la roux, live, modern rock, Music, New Order, new wave, north american, performance, Phil Cunningham, photography, photos, San Francisco, set list, setlist, show, Stephen Morris, synth, Tom Chapman, tour, u.s., uk New Order Returns to North America in July with “Summerfest” Appearance & Small Tour; La Roux Joins in California Concerts New Wave and electronic music pioneers New Order will be returning to the United States next month for a limited number of special performances, one festival appearance, and one show in British Columbia. La Roux – with new album Trouble in Paradise due July 7 – will be supporting at the two California shows in San Francisco and Los Angeles. New Order are also working on new music, and debuted one of those new songs, “Singlularity“, at their appearance at Lollapolooza Brazil back in March. [Read more…] Filed Under: "On Tour" Dates & Announcements, La Roux, New Order Tagged With: 2014, announcement, artist, band, Bernard Sumner, Concert, electronic, england, english, gig, Gillian Gilbert, Jason DeBord, Joy Division, july 2014, la roux, live, modern rock, Music, New Order, north american, performance, Phil Cunningham, show, Stephen Morris, Tom Chapman, tour, u.s., uk Peter Hook & The Light To Tour “Lowlife” and “Brotherhood” Across North America in November March 5, 2014 by Jason DeBord Leave a Comment Former Joy Division and New Order principal Peter Hook will be taking his Peter Hook & The Light across North America later this year, performing New Order’s third and fourth albums, Low Life and Brotherhood. Currently they have plotted out 14 dates in Canada and the U.S. during the first three weeks of November. The special tour promises to play many of New Order’s biggest hits produced during that period between 1983 through 1987, including “Confusion”, “True Faith”, “Thieves Like Us”, “Bizarre Love Triangle”, “The Perfect Kiss” and more, including B-sides. [Read more…] Filed Under: "On Tour" Dates & Announcements, Peter Hook & The Light Tagged With: 2014, bass, bass guitar, brotherhood, canada, Concert, Concert Review, cover, Fac 51, Freebass, Hacienda, Hooky, Joy Division, live, low life, lowlife, manchester, Mezzanine, Monaco, movement, New Order, north america, november, peter hook, Peter Hook and the Light, power corruption and lies, Revenge, San Francisco, Slaves of Venus, tour, united states Peter Hook & The Light Performing New Order’s “Movement” and “Power, Corruption & Lies” at Mezzanine \| San Francisco, California \| 9/27/2013 (Concert Review) September 28, 2013 by Jason DeBord 9 Comments “I asked him what he wanted for his birthday… What do you think he said? He said, ‘Dad, I wanna play ‘What Do You Want From Me?”” Peter Hook of Peter Hook & The Light, currently, and formerly of Joy Division, New Order, Ad Infinitum, Revenge, Freebass, and Monaco. “What Do You Want From Me?” was the top single produced by Monaco, and as Peter Hook (more affectionately referred to simply as Hooky) recounted his conversation on stage before the packed crowd at Mezzanine in San Francisco last night, he held his hand on his heart, touched by his son’s request, and beaming with pride. It was definitely a special sort of evening last night, with more than the one big surprise, as I don’t believe his current band Peter Hook & The Light – with son Jack on bass – have ever performed that song live for the public. The other big surprise of the night was opening and supporting band Slaves of Venus… but more on that later. In the end, it was nearly three hours of not just the promised first two New Order albums, Movement and Power, Corruption & Lies, but a bit of Joy Division as well. Really much more to cover than I can even contemplate in this opening teaser, but it was a stellar show and a showcase of amazing music. Filed Under: Concert Reviews, Jay Siegan Presents, Live Rock Music, News, & Events, Mezzanine, Mezzanine, Peter Hook & The Light, San Francisco California, Slaves of Venus Tagged With: bass, bass guitar, california, Concert, Concert Review, cover, Fac 51, Freebass, Hacienda, Hooky, Jay Siegan Presents, Joy Division, live, manchester, Mezzanine, Monaco, movement, New Order, peter hook, Peter Hook and the Light, photography, photos, power corruption and lies, Revenge, review, San Francisco, Slaves of Venus, tour, video, what do you want from me, youtube New Order & Johnny Marr at The Boulevard Pool at The Cosmopolitan \| Las Vegas, Nevada \| 4/11/2013 (Concert Review) April 12, 2013 by Jason DeBord 10 Comments This is probably the first and last concert in which I will have seen and heard two of my three all-time favorite songs performed live at the same show – New Order’s “Blue Monday”, and “How Soon Is Now?” by original guitarist and co-songwriter for The Smiths, Johnny Marr. If only Depeche Mode were on hand to play “Never Let Me Down Again”, I would have had all three. Obviously, the rare combination of Johnny Marr and New Order playing on the same bill made for an incredible night of music at The Boulevard Pool at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas. Though they never shared the stage at the same time, it was a show that celebrated some of the most significant and influential players in music in the past three decades. Johnny Marr’s first solo record, The Messenger, came out earlier this year to great critical reception, and his set included a mix of the new work as well as a few songs from The Smiths, Electronic number, and one cover. New Order changed things up a bit since their tour last year, playing “World (The Price of Love)” live for the first time and closed out with an encore of three Joy Division songs. Filed Under: Concert Reviews, Johnny Marr, Las Vegas Nevada, New Order, The Cosmopolitan Tagged With: 2013, april 11, Bernard Sumner, boulevard pool, coachella, Concert, Concert Review, cosmopolitan, cover, electronic, Gillian Gilbert, Johnny Marr, Joy Division, Las Vegas, live, New Order, Phil Cunningham, photography, photos, set list, setlist, Stephen Morris, the messenger, The Smiths, Tom Chapman, tour, video	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1050
__label__wiki	0.931524	0.931524	aka/ Albemarle Library For Schools (1954-1978) John Murray (London, UK) Size: 5.25″ x 8″ The publisher John Murray, founded in 1768, had an impressive back-list of titles available by 1947 when the Albemarle Library began. The series is to be, according to an announcement in The Publisher (vol. 161, 1947), “a comprehensive library of contemporary non-fiction works by modern authors, on a wide range of subjects.” Titles in the series were carefully edited and, in some cases, condensed or modified from the originals to make the books more accessible for a modern audience. In the case of Memoirs of a Highland Lady, below, the original nearly 500-page book was edited down to about 300 pages. These edits were, however, seemingly done by competent, academic editors. In 1954 new titles in the series have the name Albemarle Library for Schools. Previously published titles in the series continue to carry the original series name. Dust jackets are common to the series in most cases. A few unique designs were used, such as that for C.F. Meade’s Approach to the Hills, originally published in 1940 and reissued in the Albemarle Library in 1947. This was probably because a recent set of jacket artwork was available. The common jackets consist of red typography over a grey printed background. This copy of Elizabeth Grant’s Memoirs of a Highland Lady was originally published in 1897. The title, series name and publisher’s imprint and colophon are included on the jacket spine. The series name is also included, as a series colophon, on the front of the jacket. The front jacket flap contains a brief biography of the author, and the price of 1 pound, net. The back of the jacket is printed in grey, but with no typography. The rear flap lists titles in the series, at this time 9 books. Between 1947 and 1950 10 titles were published in the Albemarle Library. Reprints occur as late as 1978. Between 1954 and 1965 13 titles were published in the Albemarle Library for Schools. Reprints occur as late as 1978. A total of 23 titles were issued, then, in both of the Albemarle Libraries. The Last of the Empresses: and the Passing from the Old China to the New, Daniele Varè (1947) The Story of San Michele, by Axel Munthe (1947) Raggle-Taggle, by Walter Starkie (1947) A Winter in Arabia, by Freya Stark (1948) Approach to the Hills, by C.F. Meade (1948) The Private Letters of Princess Lieven to Prince Metternich, Peter Quennell, ed. (1948) King George V, by John Gore (1949) Memoirs of a Highland Lady, by Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus (1950) Private Diaries of Daisy, Princess of Pless, D. Chapman-Huston, ed. (1950) Queen Adelaide, by Mary Hopkirk (1950) Edward Wilson of the Antarctic: Naturalist and Friend, George Seaver (1954) A Pattern of Islands, by Arthur Grimble (1955) Aspects of the Short Story, by Edward Loring Black (1956) Modern Adventure, F.E.S. Finn, ed. (1958) Aspects of Science Fiction, Geoffrey Donald Doherty, ed. (1959, revised 1965) The Comic World of Dickens, Bernard N. Schilling, ed. (1959) Return to the Islands, by Arthur Grimble (1960) The Albemarle book of Modern Verse for Schools, by F.E.S. Finn (1962) Far Afield, by F.E.S Finn (1962) A Ring of Bells: Poems of John Betjeman (1962) Humorists of the Eighteenth Century, by George Glencairn Urwin (1962) Aspects of the Short Story, by E.L. Black & J.P. Parry, ed. 1965 Second Orbit: A New Science Fiction Anthology for Schools, Geoffrey Donald Doherty, ed. (1965) Albemarle Library for Schools Cream colored cloth bindings include red typography on the book spine along with the publisher’s name, but no series name. A catalog of 8 titles (all but the Memoirs) faces the title page. The title page includes the series colophon. A detailed publishing history is included on the copyright page, consisting of the original edition (1898), its sixth impression (1928), the initial Albemarle Library edition published in 1950, and this, the third printing in the series, in 1967. The book was printed in Great Britain Butler & Tanner, Ltd. The table of contents and illustrations:	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1057
__label__wiki	0.870746	0.870746	Oxford University Press (London, UK; New York, US) Size: 7.5″ x 5.25″ The Champak Library series, first issued in 1947, was a product of the India offices of the Oxford University Press. Indian offices were located, around 1950, in Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi, and Madras. According to Indian Book Industry (vol. 6, 1972, p. 20) “The only company … to take some interest in the general Indian cultural scene, as distinct from Indian textbooks, was Oxford University Press. It launched the Champak Library for this purpose.” The last new title (the 12th in the series) was issued in 1966. Reprints occur until at least 1970. The Champak Library was modeled after the typical reprint series – smaller format, common design components, with an emphasis on “classics” within its field of specialty, which was Indian life and literature. As far as I can find, the series was edited, printed and sold in India. I have not been able to learn if titles were available through Oxford University Press elsewhere in the world. The pricing on the jacket below is in rupees. Dust jackets are of two styles: unique jackets, typically illustrated, and a common design (as below). This copy of Jim Corbett’s My India (a second printing in the series, first is 1954, 2nd is 1959) is one of three titles by Corbett in the series and has one of the common design jackets. I’ve seen this jacket design on titles issued later, with the unique jackets on the earlier titles. The jacket is printed on heavier linen paper, with contrasting orange and green colors (mimicking the colors of the champak tree flowers and leaves). The jacket spine includes the title, author and series name. The jacket front includes a large colophon for the series consisting of a champak flower and leaves. The front jacket flap describes the book and its author. The price is 6 rupees. The back of the jacket lists titles in the series organized by author. Each title includes an excerpt from a review of the title, or note about the title, in addition to its price (either 6 or 7 rupees). The rear jacket flap lists quotes from reviews of the series title. The twelve titles in the Champak Library, with the year of initial publication: 1947: The Cow of the Barricades and Other Stories, by Raja Rao. 1947: Kanthapura, by Raja Rao. 1947: Man-eaters of Kumaon, by Jim Corbett 1948: The Adventures of King Vikrama, by Hansa Mehta; Samalabhata 1950: I follow After: An Autobiography, by Lakshmibai Tilaka 1950: Three Plays: Mukta-dhara, Natir puja, Chandalika, by Rabindranath Tagore; Marjorie Sykes 1952: With No Regrets: Krishna Hutheesing’s Autobiography, by Krishna Nehru Hutheesing 1953: The Man-Eating Leopard Of Rudraprayag, by Jim Corbett 1954: My India, by Jim Corbett 1958: Leaves from the Jungle; Life in a Gond Village, Verrier Elwin 1961: Jungle Lore, by Jim Corbett 1966: Twilight in Delhi, Ahmed Ali Green cloth bindings with minimal decorations and black typography: The series has corresponding endpapers with the series name and a repeating pattern of champak leaves and flowers, in green. The half title page with an enormous Ex-libris sticker, apparently placed here as to not obscure the designed endpapers. An illustration of a tiger faces the title page. A gift inscription (dated July 1962) is written on the title page. The copyright page includes the OUP imprint (including offices in Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras). The author’s birth and death dates are listed. “First published 1952. First Indian edition 1952. First published in the Champak library 1954. Second impression 1959.” The book was printed in India: “Printed in India at the Diocesan Press, Madras 7 and published by John Brown, Oxford University Press, Madras 2 from plates.” The last page of the book includes a booksellers stamp: Higginbothams (P.) Ltd. 26/7 Rs.” British stowaway librarian Abel Joshua Higginbotham was booted from a British ship in Madras (now Chennai) in the 1840s and opened his own bookstore in 1844. The store is currently a chain with 22 locations in south India. The rear endpapers include a map with “ye olde mappe” decorations, of the area referenced in Corbett’s book:	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1058
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Warner Music Hong Kong Release CD - EXCELLENT Insert/Inlay/Booklet - NM Jewel Case not graded Tracklist 曲目: 1. 幾時愛我 2. 如世上沒斜陽 3. 承受 4. 這份情 5. 冷靜 6. 假如你要走 7. 沙沙的雨（倫永亮合唱） 8. 生命彩虹 9. 只有愛 10. 天老情未老（柔情版） ⭐🇺🇲 UB40 - Labour of Love (1983) Audio CD More listings @ https://carousell.com/p/101675862 ********************************* Made in USA CD - NM Insert/Inlay/Booklet - NM Jewel Case not graded Tracklist: 1. Cherry Oh Baby 2. Keep On Moving 3. Please Don't Make Me Cry 4. Sweet Sensation 5. Johnny Too Bad 6. Red Red Wine 7. Guilty 8. She	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1059
__label__cc	0.548655	0.451345	The price of war in Georgian England Posted by Philip Atherton in No category assessed taxes, Coastguard, Napoleonic wars, Pitt the Younger, taxes The punitive tax regime that encouraged smuggling at every level of society needs to be seen in context to the size of the debt that Britain was facing. After successive wars with Spain, America and France the National Debt had grown more than five-fold within 80 years. In November 1784 the Reading Mercury published a summary of how the debt had built up between 1701 and 1784. The cost of the war with Spain and America had seen the debt rise from £46m in 1740 to £257m by midsummer 1783. The Reading Mercury estimated that if the war with America was concluded the tally would stand at £272m. A succession of prime ministers recognised the growing scale of the problem but it would be Pitt the Younger who worked so arduously at reducing what he saw as a central threat to the nation whilst juggling yet another war, this time with the French. By August 1795 the National Debt reached £409,655,570. The annual interest alone was over £16 million and the cost of the war for the last year added £62,357,312. The Government was so worried and Pitt’s critics so vocal he was persuaded to appoint a Finance Committee similar to the one that had checked overspending during the American war. This Committee would, over the years, document vast sums of money seeping out because of ‘fraud, lack of competitive tendering, a mass of sinecures and fees and an ancient unchecked accounting system hopelessly in arrears’. Under these circumstances, it is hard to believe that Britain was richer than France and better organised, financially, but that appears to be the case. Attentive housekeeping enforced under Parliamentary power could monitor the accounts of the Treasury, challenge and ask questions. In an attempt to manage the Debt, Pitt had introduced his ridiculed ‘sinking fund’, setting aside £1 million to invest each year and intended to pay off the Debt. The fund might have worked in peace time but with another costly war came massive costs and more debt. To find money for the army, navy, armaments and home defence, and for subsidies to foreign allies (Prussia and Austria in particular) Pitt increased taxes and raised loans. The loans were primarily financed through consols ‘consolidated annuities’ paying 3 per cent to investors. Gillray Everything taxable – even the dog Increased funds also came from a range of new ‘assessed taxes’ on virtually everything Pitt could imagine: ‘…servants, gamekeepers, hats, ribbons and gloves, horses and carriages, shooting licences and cards, spirits and sporting dogs, newspapers and letter franks, wills and wig powder.’ This might have been seen as tax burden on the more wealthy, but there was a real fear that this would reach down to the poor as servants, grooms, carriage makers and farmers lost their jobs and went bankrupt. In private letters and appeals, we can see families attempting to reorganise their finances to meet the new demands of ‘assessed taxes’. They were also prepared to make sacrifices if necessary in order to meet the new threat appearing across the Channel. The costs of home defences through subscriptions became a cost of living at the top of the household list. In one piece of correspondence we get an inkling of the fear that lay just a few miles offshore: ‘The King of France Louis 16, inhumanly and unjustly beheaded on Monday last by his cruel, blood-thirsty Subjects – Dreadful times I am afraid are approach to all Europe – France the foundation of all of it – The poor King of France bore his horrid fate with manly fortitude and resignation – Pray God he may be eternally happy in thy heavenly Kingdom. And mercy upon his Queen.’ It had not taken long for any supporters of the Revolution to realise that this was a threat to the fabric of British society. The poor had overturned the bastions of power and seized it for themselves. Attempt were made to formulate peace proposals but met with little success. When news of Louis’ execution reached London, Pitt expelled the French Ambassador. On February 1st the Convention declared war on Great Britain and the Republic of the United Netherlands. War had not only been declared, it was at the very doorstep of the country, Pitt would tell the House of Commons eleven days’ later. Here was a war that needed checking because the principle of what was happening across the Channel ‘threatened the most fatal consequences to the tranquility of this country, the security of its allies, the good order of every European government and the happiness of the whole human race’ as Pitt told the House. What Britain faced was an enemy with a population twice its size and a new concept in European military development – the first system of conscription where each citizen had to show their loyalty to the Republic. In theory, also, the financial strengths of France should have outweighed those of Britain, but it was arguably financial acumen that would put this victory decisively in the English camp, even though the cost was enormous. A tax with a questionable history ‘A new way to pay the National-Debt’ by James Gillray, published April 1786. The National Debt covered amongst other things, the overheads of the royal household and the cost of wars. These two costs alone had a very mixed reception amongst the public. Satirists like Gillray used it to good effect in their cartoons. ‘A new way to pay the National-Debt’ shows King George III and Queen Charlotte standing before the Treasury, moneybags under their arms, their pockets overflowing and bursting with coins (funds from the Treasury to cover Royal debts). William Pitt with his pockets full of coins, hands the king another moneybag taken from an overflowing wheelbarrow. The Prince of Wales, George IV, stands to the right looking destitute; a quadriplegic sits on the ground to the left with an overturned and empty hat between the stubs of his legs, which are fitted with prostheses. (Library of Congress) A new smuggling agenda Practically anything and everything now attracted a tax. Imports of course, remained a prime target for increased taxation if only because this was an established practice. However, the double-taxation system (customs duty and excise duty) was seen as particularly cynical and at times, Draconian. If this was the general sentiment then any announcement of new taxes on imported items was like a shopping list for smugglers. Everyone recognised this and everyone realised what the solution was: End the tax and you end the reason for smuggling but that didn’t solve the estimated £679 million debt mountain that had accrued by the early part of the 1800s. This mountain was more than double the GDP. And the cost of the wars with the French, alone, would top £831 million. It was the financial inefficiencies of the French, a strong British national output and a well-organised business sector that ensured the military got what they needed. (The various financial collapses of regional banks especially would be another painful financial blow to the moneyed gentry and speculators. It was to be the cause of William Henry Baldock’s retirement from public life despite his many other successes including smuggling. Baldock would retire and become a recluse, still admired by many, but unable to face the public gaze and admiration.) ‘Excise’ was a type of tax on domestic consumption. During the years of the Civil War, it covered many different items. But it was reduced ten years later to cover just chocolate, coffee, tea, beer and spirits. However, it was an effective way of raising tax revenue, so successive governments re-introduced and repealed Excise duty on various items including essentials such as salt, leather and soap. The difference between these two taxes was of little interest to the people, who cared only that what they bought was becoming increasingly expensive. In the 18th century, extraordinary quantities of goods were smuggled into Britain. At one time it was estimated that at least two thirds of all tobacco consumed in London was contraband. In some areas, whole communities became dependent on smuggling. Many communities in the late 1700s (such as the Scilly Isles) were in league with the smugglers who could provide contraband goods, such as tea or tobacco, which they could not otherwise afford. The heyday of smuggling was during the wars against France and Napoleon. After the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 smuggling went into decline. This was accelerated when the preventive effort was stepped up with the introduction of coastal blockades, blockademen and the Coastguard. By the late 1820s, the effectiveness of the two forces was apparent. With the end of the war, the authorities finally had the manpower to patrol and regulate the coast – especially around the Kent and Sussex coastline. In 1831, the Coastguard Service became responsible for the entire coastline and ultimately becoming the preventive force. The Coastguard drove smuggling underground, but economics finally ended the smuggling era. Britain adopted a free-trade policy in the 1840s reducing import duties significantly, thus making smuggling no longer viable as an occupation. (HM Revenue and Customs) Jenny Uglow. In These Times: Living in Britain through Napoleon’s Ward, 1793-1815. Library of Congress. History of the Revenue and Customs 3 thoughts on “The price of war in Georgian England” Brodie Waddell said: Fascinating post and thanks for sharing your research. I’m currently working on the the various social and economic problems caused by an earlier war against France: that of the 1690s. As you’d expect, I’m finding many of the same issues and complaints then, though I’m sadly lacking in such wonderful visual illustrations. I wish Gillray had been publishing in my period! Have you taken a look at Uglow’s new book ‘In These Times’? It seems like it might have some useful material on this. Philip Atherton said: Thank you for your kind comments, Brodie. As you rightly point out, I’m lucky to have the eyes of the Georgian cartoonists to see with as well as all the other sources – although you have to recognize their political nuances to get the full meaning. I’ve found so many surprises in the detail of the cartoon – they include all sorts of asides and quips as well as focusing on the key theme. The Jenny Uglow book is full of riches. Just looking at her sources shows how much work must have gone into “In These Times”. I’ve cited her at the end of this blog which is the least one can do and really recommend her work. For me, the portraits are invaluable. Again, thank you for taking time to comment. Ah yes, I missed the citation of Uglow somehow. Glad to hear you’ve found it useful: I’m planning to use it as a comparator when talking about the 1690s. Good luck with the research! Leave a Reply to Brodie Waddell Cancel reply	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1061
__label__cc	0.58942	0.41058	Is Vaping Healthier than Smoking? Vaping: Your questions answered. Here’s our Q&A on this cigarette alternative. The use of e-cigarettes, or vaping, has become a common alternative to smoking traditional tobacco. However, its long-term health effects are not yet fully known. Here are some common questions about vaping and how it compares to smoking regular tobacco. Q: How does vaping work? A: Vaping refers to the use of electronic cigarettes, which are also known as vaporizers, vape pens, e-cigarettes, mods, or electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS). E-cigarettes vary in shape and size, but they all contain a liquid that is heated until it turns into a vapor and then inhaled. Q: Is vaping addictive? A: Vapor from e-cigarettes usually contains nicotine, a highly addictive chemical. Studies have also shown that some e-liquids contain other cancer-causing chemicals and toxins, heavy metals, and other addictive compounds. Related: What Is High Blood Pressure and How Can You Prevent It? Q: What other health concerns are there? A: Another major concern is the number of young people who use e-cigarettes. Multiple studies suggest that teenagers who smoke e-cigarettes are more likely to move on to tobacco or other drugs. This is because of the effect nicotine has on the brain's reward system. Nicotine is also dangerous for a teen's developing brain—it can cause problems with attention span and learning and raise risks for mood disorders and long-term problems with impulse control. Related: Why Weight Lifting Is Good for Heart Health Q: Is vaping healthier than traditional smoking? A: Vaping is not good for your health. However, it is less harmful for you than smoking if used as a complete tobacco replacement. Because vaping can encourage the brain to become more easily addicted to other drugs, experts recommend that you don't start using e-cigarettes if you have never smoked before. Q: Can vaping help you quit smoking regular cigarettes? A: There is currently no sufficient evidence that e-cigarettes help smokers quit. In fact, some studies have found that people who tried to use e-cigarettes as a quit aid were less likely to quit smoking than those who didn't. There are many other smoking cessation methods approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that can help smokers quit effectively and safely. While you’re here, check out our other healthy living articles. For information on our medical and dental plans, visit selecthealth.org/plans. References: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; National Institute on Drug Abuse; U.S. Food and Drug Administration Why Weight Lifting Is Good for Heart Health Here’s how pumping a little iron can help strengthen your heart. 7 Effective Ways to Recycle During the Holidays The 3 Most Important Ways to Strengthen Relationships Want to strengthen your relationships with others? Improve your life using these three tips to improve your relationships with friends, coworkers, and family. How Do You Compare to the Average Idahoan? Did you know more than half of all Idahoans exercise at least 150 minutes every week? Take a look at some of these other facts to see how you stack up!	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1067
__label__cc	0.551409	0.448591	Sensenbrenner Rapid DNA Legislation to be Signed into Law WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Rapid DNA Act, introduced by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and passed in the House of Representatives with bipartisan support earlier this year, has passed in the Senate and now heads to President Donald Trump to be signed into law. The Rapid DNA Act would establish a system for the integration of Rapid DNA instruments for use by law enforcement to help reduce the DNA backlog. Unlike traditional DNA analysis, which can take weeks, Rapid DNA analysis permits processing of DNA samples in approximately 90 minutes or less. This technology has the potential to revolutionize the way in which arrested individuals are enrolled in the criminal justice system, shorten the time required for their DNA to be linked to unsolved crimes, and expedite the exoneration of innocent suspects by giving law enforcement officials a new system that meets FBI quality assurance standards to compare DNA samples collected at the time of an arrest to profiles in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). Congressman Sensenbrenner: “Rapid DNA is a promising new technology and an effective tool for law enforcement – I’m thrilled to see its final passage in the Senate. This technology will help quickly identify arrestees and offenders, reduce the overwhelming backlog in forensic DNA analysis, and make crime fighting efforts more efficient while helping to prevent future crimes from occurring. It will also save time and taxpayer dollars. I look forward to President Trump promptly signing it into law.” Congressman Sensenbrenner Statement on Obamacare Premium Increases WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner released the following statement on health insurance companies across the country looking to increase Obamacare premiums: Congressman Sensenbrenner: “Unfortunately today we’re seeing further evidence of the failures of Obamacare. Across the country, health insurers are looking to once again increase premiums by as much as 30 percent, putting added pressure on millions of Americans who cannot afford it. “Wisconsin is not immune from these increases. Molina Healthcare of Wisconsin is proposing an increase ranging from 30 to 46 percent for its member plans. Increases like these will be devastating for Wisconsinites who are not eligible for Obamacare subsidies. “Earlier this year, the House of Representatives passed a smart, patient-centered repeal and replace plan that would make health insurance better and more affordable. It’s my hope that Congress can move forward to find real solutions that will finally put an end to skyrocketing prices and provide the quality care that Americans need and deserve.” Congressman Sensenbrenner Names New Chiefs of Staff WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) announced that Loni Hagerup, Sensenbrenner’s deputy chief of staff, and Matt Bisenius, director of legislative affairs at the National Propane Gas Association, will serve as co-chiefs of staff beginning in August. The news comes after the announcement that current Chief of Staff Bart Forsyth has accepted a new position with the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). “Working on Capitol Hill is an unparalleled opportunity to do good and make a difference in people’s lives. In Henry Hyde and Jim Sensenbrenner, I’ve had the distinct privilege of serving two historic Members of the House of Representatives,” said Forsyth. “I am deeply grateful to both of them for the opportunities they have given me. It is particularly hard to leave Congressman Sensenbrenner and his amazing staff, but I am excited to join a world-class team at PhRMA and to continue my work with the Hill on PhRMA’s behalf.” Forsyth served under Sensenbrenner in a number of capacities, including his work on the House Science Committee as investigative counsel, Sensenbrenner’s chief of staff on the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, his work on the House Judiciary Committee, and finally as Sensenbrenner’s chief of staff in his personal office. “It’s always difficult to part with talented members of staff, especially those who have served faithfully for many years,” said Sensenbrenner. “Bart has been a true asset as a trusted advisor, effective facilitator, and respected leader. I’m thankful for his distinguished service and wish him continued success as he begins this new chapter.” Stepping into the role of chief of staff are Sensenbrenner alumni Loni Hagerup and Matt Bisenius. Hagerup, a long-time Sensenbrenner staffer, began her political career in the Wisconsin State Assembly as a legislative aid before moving to Washington, D.C. to work for Sensenbrenner as his staff assistant in 1985. After serving in the Reagan administration, she returned to work with Sensenbrenner in Wisconsin in various roles as campaign manager, district director, and most recently deputy chief of staff. “I’m thrilled to continue my service with Congressman Sensenbrenner in this new role, although Bart’s absence will certainly be felt,” said Hagerup. “Team Sensenbrenner has benefitted immeasurably from his keen legal mind, sharp communication acumen, and adept people skills. Bart’s leadership has been exemplary and he will be missed.” Matt Bisenius rejoins Congressman Sensenbrenner’s staff from the National Propane Gas Association, where he currently serves as the director of legislative affairs. Matt joined NPGA in August 2014, and has managed several successful advocacy campaigns during his tenure. Prior to joining NPGA, Matt worked as the senior legislative assistant for Congressman Sensenbrenner. “I am excited for the opportunity to return to the Sensenbrenner office. The Congressman’s exceptional record of constituent service and legislative success greatly benefits Wisconsin’s Fifth District. I look forward to working with the staff to further support and expand the Congressman’s work.” Addressing the opioid crisis: Q&A with Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner By Commissioner David Jeffrey for Huff Post Last summer, President Barack Obama signed The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) into law to combat the skyrocketing opioid epidemic in our country. Drug overdoses related to prescription pain relievers and heroin are now the leading cause of death among Americans under 50. More than 90 Americans die each day from the opioid epidemic. As you may have seen in the news, rustbelt states are at the center of the epidemic. In Ohio, according to the state Department of Health, opioid-related deaths jumped from 296 in 2003 to 2,590 in 2015 – a 775 percent jump. In Indiana, we’ve seen double digit percentage increases in the patient count at our Harbor Light Centers, which offer treatment and recovery programs for those struggling with addictions. With support from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, CARA is the first major federal addiction act in 40 years. The legislation encompasses all six pillars necessary for a coordinated response – prevention, treatment, recovery, law enforcement, criminal justice reform and overdose reversal. CARA gives nonprofit organizations such as The Salvation Army critical help for our work with the thousands of Americans struggling with addiction. To mark the first year since the legislation passed, I asked Wisconsin Representative Jim Sensenbrenner about how we can continue to raise awareness about the severity of the opioid epidemic. Q: What is the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) and how does it help Americans struggling with addiction to opioids? A: The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) helps those with addiction through alternative incarceration programs and outpatient treatment options for non-violent drug offenders. Such options not only better serve individuals, but save significant taxpayer dollars. The legislation also creates community-based anti-drug coalitions and a national education campaign, which helps rebuild communities, deter young Americans from trying drugs, and stalls the increase of addicts, overdoses, and deaths. Q: Why do you feel it’s important to raise awareness about the rise in opioid consumption? A: Opioid abuse has become a major problem in the United States. Not only does it ruin the lives of individual users, but it has negative impacts on the families and friends of abusers as well. Addiction also weakens communities and puts unnecessary added pressure on taxpayers who ultimately pay for increased health care, incarceration, and judicial costs. Q: What should every American know about the opioid epidemic? A: Opioid addiction isn’t specific to any one demographic. It grips individuals from all walks of life. From urban neighborhoods, to quiet suburbs, to rural America. Q: Why is continued support still needed for federal legislation to combat the opioid epidemic? A: Between 2002 and 2013, national heroin deaths nearly quadrupled, reaching more than 8,000 annually by 2013. In that same year, an estimated 517,000 people used heroin – a figure up 150 percent from just six years earlier. Between 2006 and 2011, my home state of Wisconsin experienced a 350 percent increase in heroin samples submitted to the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory by law enforcement. In 2012, the number of heroin-related deaths jumped by nearly 50 percent and statewide data shows one quarter of Wisconsinites who abuse the drug began using when they were younger than 25 years old. It’s clear that this problem won’t solve itself. It will take the hard work and cooperation of Congress, as well state and local entities, to find and implement serious solutions to fight this epidemic. Q: How can social service providers help raise awareness about the opioid epidemic or help those struggling with addiction? A: The community-based anti-drug coalitions noted in CARA will play a large role in helping social service providers on the local levels. While the federal government can help with these efforts through additional funding, the real, meaningful work takes place within communities. Q: What’s been the most surprising thing you’ve learned about people struggling with addiction to opioids? A: The fact that many abusers begin at a young age is troubling, which is why some provisions within CARA focus on an awareness campaign. It’s critical that we not only help those currently struggling with addiction, but also our nation’s young adults. If we can stop them from trying opioids and other drugs, we can stop the tragedies of addiction before they happen. Recognizing the 27th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act Mr. Speaker, today I rise to recognize the 27th anniversary of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Congress passed the ADA to break down the physical and societal barriers that kept disabled Americans from fully participating in the American Dream. From creating standards for wheelchair accessibility in places open to the public, to requiring 911 phone lines to be equipped to respond to hearing-impaired callers, the ADA has transformed the lives of millions of Americans. The progress we’ve made is remarkable, and I’m proud to have been part of these efforts. Throughout my career, I have seen few pieces of legislation that bring all people together as much as the ADA. Not only did this historic legislation pass both chambers with large bipartisan majorities, but the ADA Amendments Act passed unanimously in 2008. This legislation shows that Congress can come together to solve problems for the betterment of the American people. I proudly stand with the thousands of advocates who come to Washington D.C. this week to continue the fight for the rights of all Americans. PROs Introduce Incomplete Music Database to Combat Sensenbrenner Bill WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, performing rights organizations (PROs) BMI and ASCAP announced they will be joining efforts to release a database for musical works and sound recordings. This announcement comes just six days after Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) introduced the Transparency in Music Licensing Ownership Act, which also aims to establish a comprehensive database for music and sound recordings through the Register of Copyrights. Despite claims from BMI and ASCAP that they have been working on this joint database for the past year, they have made no effort to cooperate with Members of Congress on the issue. Further, such a database would be incomplete due to the lack of participation from all PROs, meaning business owners across the country would continue to be plagued by the convoluted and difficult process of finding and purchasing the correct licenses to play and perform music in their establishments. There is an overwhelming atmosphere of mistrust between businesses and PROs, which is why it’s imperative that a publicly accessible database is established through the Register of Copyrights. Business owners and those seeking music licensing should have the ability to access a complete, easy-to-navigate system which will provide them peace of mind in knowing that they have the facts they need to make smart, legal purchasing decisions. A third party database will streamline and bring much-needed transparency to the process. Under the BMI and ASCAP initiative, businesses would still be subject to statutory damages – this is unacceptable and it’s a problem only Congress can solve. Congressman Sensenbrenner: “If BMI and ASCAP were serious about establishing a music database, not only would they have spoken to my office and other interested Members of Congress about their plans, but they would have also included their fellow PROs in the initiative. With their announcement today, they are grasping at straws; trying to maintain power over a failing process that only serves their interests, not those of the American consumer.” Some of the key provisions of Congressman Sensenbrenner’s Transparency in Music Licensing Ownership Act include: Federal agencies must modernize to be competitive and effective This commentary appeared in the July 17, 2017 issue of SpaceNews Magazine. As the Trump administration continues to review federal spending and implements good-government policies in Washington, it should take into consideration America’s outdated acquisition policies and procedures at the Pentagon and NASA. Modern manufacturing and production is becoming increasingly complex, especially within highly regulated industries such as aerospace and defense. Ensuring quality in these industries can mean the difference between life and death. Quality and mission assurances are significant components of the hundred million dollar legacy launch cost of NASA. This spring, NASA’s Inspector General (IG) revealed that America’s space agency lost more than $1 billion over the past decade due to components that failed to meet performance expectation or quality standards. Moreover, NASA is not the only organization that falls prey to a continuing escalation of complexity with a growing risk of failure. We need to look no further than current programs for multipurpose aircraft to support the Air Force and Navy. The lack of appropriate oversight, reporting, and corrective actions continues to cost taxpayers millions of dollars, delaying strategic defense initiatives in the process. In order to reduce costs, rather than looking for things to avoid in the future, companies, especially those with government contracts, should instead turn to a solution that will automate the critical and necessary quality and mission assurance tasks. An electronic quality management system (QMS), which has been designed specifically to support defense contractors and their supply chain partners, allows for the integration of quality and manufacturing data with a seamless interface to a company’s enterprise resource planning solution. A modern QMS can provide many benefits to an organization. The ability to track the entire product lifecycle in real-time, including the documentation of a component’s condition, history and genealogy ensures improved quality and lowers production costs. With a complete online product history, that information is immediately available to the Department of Defense (DoD), as well as auditors. The information they request is available in minutes, rather than days. However, the uses of electronic QMSs are not widely adopted throughout government supply chains and inconsistent federal policies on the matter are not helping. A 2014 Pentagon IG report found that DoD has not established an overarching quality management policy to ensure the consistent application of QMS requirements across the military, nor does it have an effective feedback mechanism in place to evaluate the performance of quality management systems. As a result, the IG recommends the Pentagon emphasize the importance of a robust quality management program throughout the entire acquisition life cycle, and establish standardized reporting requirements for quality assurance metrics throughout the Defense Department. Congress and the Executive branch both agree that government acquisition programs are ripe for modernization and improvement. This shared view is reflected in the increasing size of our acquisition workforce – especially at the Pentagon – and the fact Members of Congress inserted more than 10 provisions specifically targeting the acquisition workforce in the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). One such provision, which was included in last year’s NDAA conference report, encouraged the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), which is responsible for conducting Defense contract audits, to examine the potential for electronic quality management systems to improve the ability of DCAA to conduct thorough and timely audits. This is a step in the right direction to ensure potential production mishaps are identified and remedied before they develop into severe problems resulting in increased costs and missed deadlines. Managing the supply chain and generating the associated data is not a simple operation. Complex manufacturing involves supply chains comprised of multiple levels. Airplanes alone are made from hundreds of thousands of parts from thousands of supplies – domestic and international. Having the ability to hold all suppliers accountable and the capacity to score the supplier in a real and meaningful way is critical to driving higher quality across the DoD, NASA, and other strategic initiatives supported by tax dollars. Moving forward, the government should continue to examine the potential use of electronic quality management systems within its own agencies, and encourage its private sector contractors to follow suit. U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) chaired the House Science Committee from 1997–2001. Expansion of federal forfeiture threatens property rights Forfeiture has been a part of the American justice system for more than 200 years. It has been a tool used by law enforcement – both local and federal – to fight criminal activity, such as drug trafficking. However, over the years, there have been numerous cases of abuse in the forfeiture process, specifically in civil cases. These abuses threaten citizens’ constitutional rights, put unnecessary burdens on innocent Americans, and weaken our faith in law enforcement. While I disagree with the decision by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his Department of Justice to expand the federal asset forfeiture program in the coming months, the expansion makes it more important than ever that Congress pass reform measures. I have long been a supporter of criminal asset forfeiture – the seizure of property after the conviction of crime—but with civil asset forfeiture, law enforcement has a direct economic incentive to take people’s property without ever even charging them with a crime. Civil forfeiture cases make a mockery of the Constitution and its protection of private property by creating the legal fiction that the property itself is the defendant in a crime. The law pretends that inanimate objects have committed wrongdoing and then assumes that property should be entitled to fewer procedural protections than people. For innocent individuals, getting seized property back can be a long, onerous, and often prohibitively expensive process. According to a Washington Post investigation, nearly 62,000 cash seizures have occurred since Sept. 11, 2001, and only a sixth of those cases were legally challenged. This is partly due to the high costs of bringing legal action against the government. Because law enforcement can seize assets despite the innocence of a property owner, many cases harm lawful citizens and places the burden of proving innocence on them. If an individual can prove their property was not linked to criminal activity, their seized assets can be returned. However, this often involves months – sometimes years – of judicial battles, requiring costly legal representation. In 41 percent of civil asset forfeiture cases where there was a challenge, the government returned the seized money. This is a remarkably high error rate for seizures. Worse still, 40 percent of those cases took more than a year to resolve and required individuals to sign agreements stating they would not sue the police. Current forfeiture laws put law-abiding citizens at risk for unwarranted seizures, and the DOJ proposal to expand programs supporting such laws will only make the problem worse. The suggested changes to federal civil asset forfeiture laws will circumvent state laws enacted in 13 states around the country, increasing incentive for local law enforcement to participate in the federal program and diminishing the Tenth Amendment. Although it’s true that in many cases, seizures aid in the apprehension and conviction of known criminals and drug traffickers, some put superfluous burdens on innocent people. Reform to the current federal forfeiture laws is necessary to curb abuse, restore confidence in law enforcement, and help citizens protect their property rights. It’s imperative that we add more due process to forfeiture proceedings, and expanding forfeiture without increasing protections is, in my view, unconstitutional and wrong. In 2000, Congress took steps to begin the reform process by passing the Civil Action Forfeiture Reform Act (CAFRA). The legislation required the government to procure a warrant upon probable cause before seizing property, to send a written notice of a seizure to property owners, and compelled the government to present clear evidence that the seized property was used for criminal activity. It also gave innocent owners the ability to retrieve their seized property faster. In both the 114th and 115th Congresses, I introduced the Deterring Undue Enforcement by Protecting Rights of Citizens from Excessive Searches and Seizures (DUE PROCESS) Act, which builds upon the reforms in CAFRA by increasing transparency in the process, adding protections for innocent owners, and implementing additional protections to ensure property owners have the opportunity to contest seizures. It also improves the notice that the government must give property owners, makes it easier for them to be heard by a judge, and entitles property owners to an initial hearing, where they can retrieve confiscated property immediately if it was not seized according to the law. The legislation also increases the availability of attorney fees for innocent owners, and places a higher burden of proof on the government. The government should not be in the business of incentivizing forfeiture of property from innocent Americans, but by expanding federal asset forfeiture programs, that’s exactly what the Department of Justice is doing. While I urge the Department to reverse its decision, if we are going to increase the number of federal forfeitures, it is more imperative than ever that we also pass the DUE PROCESS Act. Forfeiture is a critical tool in the fight against crime, but it is also vulnerable to abuse. We must be vigilant in order to protect innocent citizens, preserve honesty in policing, and curb unwarranted searches and seizures. Sensenbrenner represents Wisconsin’s 5th District and is a member of the House Judiciary Committee. Jim Sensenbrenner: Giving our nurses a helping hand No matter what the circumstances are surrounding a visit to a hospital or medical facility, nurses are the first people a patient sees for treatment. They listen, comfort, and administer vital services that keep our health care industry functioning. There are approximately three million nurses in the United States, making them the largest segment of the health care workforce in the country. These men and women are on the front lines of health care, providing the quality support and services we need to stay healthy. And while nursing it is currently one of the fastest growing occupations in the nation, the demand for nurses is outpacing the supply and the nation is facing a severe shortage here in Wisconsin, and nationwide. According to a 2015 Georgetown University study, despite the economy creating 1.6 million job openings for nurses through 2020, the United States will face a deficit of nearly 200,000 nursing professionals. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that there will be 1.2 million vacancies for registered nurses between 2014 and 2022. Further, it predicts that the shortfall will be more than twice as large as any nursing shortage experienced since the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid in the mid-1960s by the year 2025. In Wisconsin, data produced by the Public Policy Forum shows that the state will need to grow its registered nurse workforce by 24 percent between 2010 and 2020 to meet demand. The gap between supply and demand is estimated to be 10,500 by 2030. This discrepancy will be most devastating in the state’s rural areas, where it is often more difficult to recruit and retain health care professionals due to location and salary constraints. Current and worsening nursing shortages are driven by various factors, including an aging population and workforce, and an inadequate and expensive educational infrastructure. As the Baby Boomers grow older, they demand more health care services. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that between 2012 and 2050, the population of those over the age of 65 will be nearly 84 million. Further, Americans in this demographic are retiring at an increased rate. That includes those in the health care industry, leading to the large number of nursing shortages we’re experiencing. As significant numbers of Baby Boomers leave the workforce, there aren’t enough people to take their place. This is largely due to an education system that turns away applicants to nursing programs and medical and physical therapy schools and cannot employ enough qualified instructors in these programs. Together, these factors have created an alarming problem that must be addressed. While no one piece of legislation can solve each issue contributing to America’s nursing shortage, there are steps Congress can immediately take to help alleviate some of the pressure on the industry. One such step is increasing the amount of foreign-trained nurses allowed into the United States on temporary work visas to help fill the thousands of nursing positions left unfilled. I recently introduced the Emergency Nursing Supply Relief Act, which would do just that. This legislation expands the amount of available visas to up to 8,000 for qualified applicants and provides immediate relief for hospitals facing shortages. America’s health care industry faces a lot of uncertainties, but ensuring there are enough nurses to care for our nation’s patients shouldn’t be one of them. The Emergency Nursing Supply Relief Act is a common sense response to this growing problem and takes pressure off the thousands of medical facilities struggling to keep up with the ever-increasing demand for professional nurses. Nurses are the driving force behind effective, quality care in the United States. It’s in America’s best interest to act quickly and find solutions that will not only help this vital industry, but also benefit the millions of American health care consumers who depend on nurses every day. Transparency in Music Licensing Helps Small Business An important aspect of Wisconsin’s history and culture centers on its bars, restaurants, and breweries. These are places where Wisconsinites of all kinds can put aside their differences and come together over a great schnitzel, a strong Old Fashioned and festive live music. But over the past several years, I’ve heard from many local business owners in my district that they’ve had to decrease their use of live music as a result of a complicated and convoluted music licensing process. This problem certainly isn’t localized to Wisconsin. It’s happening throughout the entire country, and it’s up to Congress to take the necessary steps to fix it. The problem, simply stated, is that when a venue wants to play music, they turn to the performing rights organizations that offer blanket licenses covering millions of songs within their respective catalogs. However, this process is inefficient, confusing and costly to bar and restaurant owners. Without a clear database of options and licensing requirements, business owners are often left to guess what licenses they need and what products they’re actually purchasing. This confusion is not only frustrating, but opens up unsuspecting business owners to copyright infringement lawsuits, despite the fact they were trying to follow the letter of the law. I have heard numerous times about the ways in which PROs like the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and Broadcast Music Inc. have used their power over information and near duopoly control of music — together they control almost 90 percent of all music — to harass business owners. As a result, many venues are choosing to stop playing music or booking live performances. When venues stop playing music, it not only impacts the atmosphere at bars and restaurants, but it also affects the entire music ecosystem. This loss means less revenue is generated for songwriters and that there are fewer opportunities for artists to perform and discover new audiences. One simple solution to help alleviate the problem is to house all music copyright ownership and licensing information in one database. Such a database doesn’t currently exist. PROs claim that their proprietary databases are available for small-business owners to access, but these databases are not interoperable or comprehensive. In fact, each PRO explicitly states that their database can’t be relied on to make licensing decisions. In response to this problem, I’ve introduced the Transparency in Music Licensing and Ownership Act, which would establish a comprehensive and actionable database that would be maintained by the U.S. Copyright Office. Ever since the issue was first brought to my attention in the 1990s, I’ve been actively involved in enacting meaningful reforms in the music licensing space. Over the years, it has become clear to me that a public database is necessary to offer all stakeholders a real-time and fully searchable record of music ownership and licensing information that they can rely on. My colleagues in the House Judiciary Committee and I have spent several years examining the Copyright Act and its need for reform. After more than 20 hearings and an extensive open comment period, there is overwhelming support to modernize our copyright laws and make them easier to follow. This includes the adoption of new user-friendly technologies and instituting procedures to ensure transparency in music licensing. Business owners make hundreds of decisions daily — each one made in order to achieve the best results for their bottom lines. Without a clear and actionable music licensing database, they are left without a choice when it comes to which licenses are best for their needs. It doesn’t need to be this way. The Transparency in Music Licensing Ownership Act is a commonsense solution to a growing problem that impacts the lives and businesses of Americans nationwide. It is a positive step forward in helping our country’s business owners make the best possible decisions while ensuring that copyright owners are fairly compensated for their work. In Wisconsin, and throughout the country, music is essential for bringing people together. Making it easier to share and enjoy music is good for our businesses, our communities, and our well-being. I hope my colleagues will join me in support for this legislation.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1068
__label__cc	0.527308	0.472692	What ISIS and Trumpists Have in Common by Sensible Socialist on November 14, 2016 November 14, 2016 After the successful election of Donald Trump the liberal establishment is still trying to figure out what happened. While it is important to note that Hillary Clinton leads by over half a million votes in the popular vote, the 18th century institution of the Electoral College means Trump will be the next leader of the so-called “free world.” For many liberal activists, commentators, and pundits there appears to be only one explanation: the white working class is as racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-immigrant, and authoritarian as the man they voted for. For these bewildered souls, the left had to hold its nose and vote for a candidate they may not have liked, but was the lesser evil; whereas those who voted for Trump did so because they fully support every policy proposal. This notion has no merit. Though polls have shown themselves to be basically without much value or explanatory power, the exit polling shows that, along with fears of terrorism, immigration, and tax policy, economic hardship was one cross-cutting explanation. But how does economic hardship translate into voting for capitalism’s poster boy? A similar debate rages among those trying to understand ISIS and those fighting for it in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, and elsewhere. The same fault line appears: while some want to deflect the influence of Islamic ideology, others lay the blame only with it. For the former, it is the lack of economic opportunity and war which serve as the catalyst for terrorism, where the latter claim that the teachings of Islam, 5th century as they are, can fully explain the root of modern terrorism. When looking at Trump’s victory and the growth and spread of Islamic ideology both of these sides fail. This isn’t because either side lacks merit, but because both sides contain part of the truth. There are two constants at play which bring about Islamic and Trumpist ideologies: capitalist failure and false consciousness. The first part of this equation, the failure of capitalism, is fairly obvious. While there has been a marked decrease in overall poverty due to industrialization in the Far East, the Middle East has become little more than a hinterland for imperial powers to seek out resources to extract and, where possible, exploit cheap pools of labor. In America, the neo-liberal push for globalization has meant that for the average American worker, little prospect for a job in their field, or going back to school with the inevitable five-to-seven figure debt without the guarantee of work at the end. For both groups, capitalism has simply failed them. But both sides don’t blame capitalism really, but rather seek to find some other explanation of their situation. When looking for a cause to one’s suffering some explanation is better than none, and the easiest is usually preferred, as lengthy and complex arguments either bore or fail to speak truth to power in any effective way. Though Occam’s Razor would indicate that the simplest explanation tends to be the truth, political-economy is not physics, and the truth is usually nuanced and complex. False Consciousness That is why the false ideologies of ISIS and Trump have so much power. They are simple and play off divisions in society. For ISIS, the false consciousness comes both in its critique – western capitalism fails because it is impious, decadent, and leads to death, particularly of Muslims – and its solution – dismantle the western social order entirely and revert back to 5th century social and economic order. For Trumpists, it is also their critique – the government creates the conditions for “crony-capitalism” that hurts small and medium businesses and allows immigrants to take American jobs – and their solution – let the rich take more in taxes and kick out the immigrants. This notion of false consciousness isn’t new. As Engles wrote, for ideologies like ISIS and Trumpists, the central notion of each depends on the: appearance of an independent history of state constitutions, of systems of law, of ideological conceptions in every separate domain, which dazzles most people. This bewilderment comes from the simplicity of the basic idea. Understanding the nature, social relations, and inevitable results of capitalist production takes time and careful study, and isn’t – by and large – taught in public or private schools. Rather, students in America are taught that it isn’t fundamental problems with capitalism that are at issue, but rather problems of public policy. For ISIS, America is a decadent superpower, hell bent on killing every last Muslim it can find. These “justifications” are simple and do not contest the power that perpetuates them. In fact, it is power itself, held by the ruling classes in each society, which benefit from these “critiques” precisely because they don’t contest the basis of the ruling elite’s power. This how cultural hegemony, a theory outlined and explored by Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci, functions. Since the ruling class controls the means of information dissemination in the schools, media, church, political system, and other cultural institutions, it creates and perpetuates the memes in society. In short, the ruling class uses its dominance to continue its dominance. As Chomsky explored in “Manufacturing Consent” in relatively free societies, this is done primarily by propaganda. Anyone alive during and after the cold war saw this principle in action. In less free societies, like those in the Middle East, it’s less about propaganda, which necessitates the need for hiding behind or inside “free and independent” institutions, and more about naked domination. The spread of Wahhabi schools and information dissemination outlets, namely by Saudi Arabia, has allowed the ISIS memes to perpetuate across the region. But it spreads this message for the same reason the ruling class in every society does, because it serves their interests. The Hope The great value of Marxism is that it focuses primarily on the material conditions of a society. It presupposes that when conditions are ripe, socialist organizations can be created and push for, ultimately, revolution against the capitalist system. This has led some to consider the transition from capitalism to socialism to be an inevitability, that when the conditions are right, the working class will, on its own, organize and revolt. However, the 20th century proved this thesis incorrect. Rather, as Gramsci noted, in situations of cultural hegemony, you also have to present a counter narrative to that of the prevailing and elite-serving narrative ubiquitous in elite-dominated societies. Today, this process is daunting. Not only is the working class at a low point in labor organization, but the elite have a nearly unchecked ability to perpetuate whatever memes it wishes. The internet, though, like so much else that capitalism creates, provides new ground to make alternative narratives more abundant. However, the decentralized nature of social media and the blogosphere serve to make difficult a united message to deliver to an alienated and angry working class. Still, unlike the prognostication of the liberal elite that “the deplorables” are beyond the pale. But the anger and resentment of the working class, sometimes expressed and understood through the prism of xenophobia or racism, makes them ripe for a new message. History has shown that when presented with a left alternative, like in the 1930s, the working class turns in that direction. Why? Because Marxists have an advantage in their messaging. While the ruling class has to rely on falsehoods and misrepresentation, it produces “facts” only by repetition and the destruction or discrediting of other voices, we are able to use the truth, an understanding of the issue based on material conditions and actual relations of production. Though difficult in necessitating a deconstruction of the false consciousness produced by the cultural hegemony, the truth can act as a battering ram that, in a short while and with some effort, can smash the false notions carried by workers from Mosul to Montgomery and arm them with the means to smash the state. Prev Post: From Hobby to Weapon: The Rise of the Aerial-borne Improvised Explosive Devices Next Post: Losing Sight of Civilian Protection in Kashmir @pplswar says: The material basis of Trumpism and ISIS is the same — both are “based on de-classed and/or downwardly mobile social strata.”	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1069
__label__cc	0.716548	0.283452	Travel 2017 – Moselle Road Trip, Day 12 Wednesday October 4th – Day 12, Traben-Trarbach, Kinheim, Minheim We got off to a very slow start as it was another foggy morning. We were also not in a hurry as Lynne had decided that she really needed a pedicure and manicure and that this would be a good time to do it. I’d expected that this would take around 90 minutes when we booked the appointment for her at the hotel’s spa, but it took twice that, which left me time to take a slow wander around Traben-Trarbach (or Tr-Trarbach or Traben-Tr depending on which side of the river you’re on at the time). After I’d been out and about for a while I decided that I’d take it easy so I parked on the terrace of our room and watched the world go by, when I wasn’t taking the time to photograph some of the autumnal flowers and foliage still rampant along the railings. It was all very lovely and relaxing and gave me time to bury my nose in a book as well (John le Carre’s “A Legacy of Spies” which I’d been saving to read in Germany as it seemed appropriate) until Lynne arrived back and we set off to investigate the other side of the river. We crossed the main bridge, the Brückentor (or Bridge Gate), designed by the incredibly prolific Bruno Möhring and opened in 1899. From there we were straight into the main street of Trarbach, where a lot of shops seemed to be attracting tourists from the various river boats. There’s a lot of history on this side, as it’s really the original site of settlement along this bit of the river, and the town very handily has plaques recording a variety of events including the winter when the river froze over (1783-4). There are some lovely views up to the tops of the vineyards from the high street and the medieval street patterns are still visible in places like the bones of an old dinosaur showing through. It all looked very steep. We did a bit of thinking and decided that maybe we wouldn’t flog up to the top and the ruins of the Mont Royal Fortress (built in 1687 for Louis XIV by Vauban, this was a fortress providing space for 12,000 soldiers and 3,000 horses but was demolished by the French themselves, just a decade later, following the Treaty of Ryswick) or to the Ruins of the Grevenburg which loom above the old town. This was built around 1350 for the Counts of Sponheim. It was besieged, damaged, occupied and rebuilt, and was conquered for the fourth and final time in 1734 by the French, during the War of the Polish Succession. The castle was blown up leaving little in the way of superstructure but much in the way of foundations. We could, however, find and view plenty of other buildings including quite a few Art Nouveau buildings which presumably went up as a result of the prosperity brought to Traben Trarbach by the railway connection built in 1883. Suddenly their wines could be sold far and wide and shipped easily, hence the collection of splendid villas, especially on the Traben side where there was space to build. However, I digress. We walked past the lovely little square (and it is very small) where the old town mill is now a restaurant of some repute. We would drop back in later for a light lunch but first there were other things to look at in the streets behind the main town area in the form of some lovely houses and villas that are now business premises. We were now ready for a light lunch so returned to the Stadt Muhle where the waiter clearly thought we’d gone mad because we wanted to sit outside. The thing is it’s lovely out there and it wasn’t that cold, especially under the canopy. He did forget we were there so I had to go back in to order for us. We went for a round of Federweissers again, because it’s fruit juice really! We also shared a portion of Grawes with a massive bratwurst. Grawes is basically mashed potato and sauerkraut combined, with added speck (very fatty bacon). It’s not exactly a slimmer’s meal but it’s very, very tasty! From here we headed to the third of Traben-Trabach’s churches, the Evangelical church which is up a ludicrous amount of steps. I suspect the congregation of being at least part mountain goat… Behind the church is what used the be the Alte Lateinschule (Old Latin School) which dates from 1573. It is now a pilgrimage hostel on one of the German branches of the pilgrims’ route to Santiago di Compostela. The church itself is also of historic interest with it’s rare twin choir. The first historical mention of a church here is in 1330 when it was extended by the Count of Sponheim, and the right hand side choir was founded as a county burial chapel in 1379. It also has a beautiful vaulted and painted ceiling that would make it worth a look in its own right. It’s a lovely spot, with fine views up the vineyards and down over the town, and it was worth the climb. As a result of all of that we weren’t at all surprised to find that some of the local buildings had scallop shell embellishments, the scallop being the emblem of pilgrims on the route. A stroll back towards the river saw us blunder over an unlikely competition car on the way to the Buddha museum. Mind you the Buddha Museum is pretty unlikely in its own way, being, as you might have guessed, full of representations of Buddha. It’s also in a pretty wonderful Art Nouveau building that used the be a winery. From here we walked back towards the bridge, trying to get into the other church on this side of the river only to find it closed… due to repairs to the organ. This really did keep happening and it was starting to be somewhat hysteria-inducing. I settled for a clamber to the top, via a lot of old coats of arms and a lot of stairs. It was worth it for the views from the top even with the anti-pigeon mesh – though I had to enjoy it on my own. Lynne really doesn’t do heights or small winding staircases if there’s no good reason to. It was starting to get cold and somewhat windy and I had a scheduled trip back to Minheim in pursuit of the orange wine we drank in Helsinki. After our somewhat abortive trip to Minheim over the weekend I’d done a bit of digging on Google and had managed to make contact with the winemaker, Christoph Koenen, who had arranged for me to swing by the vineyard and winery at 17:00 to buy some of his Wirewalker wine. He seemed a little bemused by the mad Englishwoman on his doorstep but happily handed over a box at a slightly reduced rate too. I drove back the quick route, having been hampered at every turn by tractors pulling cart loads of grapes, and a little old lady in a VW who should probably not be behind the wheel any longer if her 15 mph progress and repeated indicating then not actually turning off was anything to go by! There was also a second sighting of the pumpkin seller on the approach to Kinheim, whose wares were spread out along the grass verge. Some of them were very odd looking! We had one last trip to the hotel bar and a round of Hugos, along with a little photography. We then set out for a gentle stroll along the riverside, admiring the boats as dusk started to creep in. From there we walked to the neighbouring hotel for dinner. The newly renovated Moselschlosschen looks very good and its restaurant, Zum Schlösschen, certainly delivered the goods. A round of excellent bread appeared while we considered the menu. Given the season, it had to be the Gourmet Pumpkin Menu. Lynne and I both started with the braised veal cheek croquette, which came withsweet and sour pumpkin, beetroot gel and some wonderfully sticky caramelized walnuts. We also had the same mains, a pink-roasted duck breast with a plum and pepper sauce, romanesco cauliflower and a pumpkin puree. Unlike what often happens in the UK, the duck genuinely was cooked pink, as it should be, and was all the better for it. The sauce was glorious, shiny and unctuous, and the sweetness of the pumpkin puree nicely contrasted the sharp fruitiness of the sauce. For dessert there was a fried polenta slice with pumpkin, figs, ginger ice cream, and a passion fruit sauce. I felt the polenta was rather dull but the rest of the dessert was fruity, fine and just the thing to end a meal. We paid the bill and waddled back to our room where it proved rather difficult to get off to sleep because there was a river cruise boat moored opposite with its generator running all night. It looked pretty out there though. Sleep came eventually and when we woke up in the morning the boat was already gone. Categories: 2017, Arts, Bars, Cooking, Drink, Europe, Food, Food and Drink, Germany, Hospitality, Hotels, Minheim, Museums, Restaurants, Traben-Trarbach, TravelTags: 2017, Art, Arts, Bars, Cocktails, Cooking, Dinners, Drink, Drinks, Europe, Food, Food and Drink, Germany, History, Hospitality, Hotel Bellevue, Hotel Moselschlosschen, Hotels, Kinheim, Michelin Guide, Minheim, Museums, Restaurants, Rheinland-Pfalz, Sightseeing, Traben-Trarbach, Travel, Wine, Zum Schlosschen By Stella 3 weeks ago ( 2 ) By Stella 4 weeks ago	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1074
__label__wiki	0.913216	0.913216	The sanctuary windows at St. Andrew’s are identified by image or name and in some cases both image and name. Hidden within the contents are stories that often are overlooked or forgotten with the passage of time. One of the more Intriguing names is that of Sir Robert Laidlaw. How did a man who is addressed by the English title ‘Sir’ get his name on a window at St. Andrew’s by the Lake, Duluth, Minnesota? Who was Sir Robert Laidlaw and what was his connection to St. Andrew’s? Sir Robert’s life story is especially fascinating. He was born in Scotland in 1856. As a young man he joined the British textile trade in London. From this introduction to the world of commerce he developed a business empire that spanned several continents—diamond fields in Africa, rubber plantations and tea estates in Asia. He lived in Calcutta, India for 20 years. There he founded Whiteaway and Laidlaw, a premier department store with branches in eighty Asian cities. The specialty was imports and exports of various goods. The store was sometimes referred to as the Selfridges of India. In England Sir Robert was assisted by Winston Churchill who helped him campaign for a member of parliament, a position which he won. He was knighted in 1909 and became British Commissioner to the International Opium Commission in Shanghai. Sir Robert was a visionary and philanthropist who generously endowed two schools in Calcutta, one for boys and another for girls. He gifted money, land and buildings to numerous causes that he deemed worthy. He was closely connected with missionary work in India and other places where he saw a need for benevolent monetary and types of assistance. In India Sir Robert was a member of the Dharmatolla Street Methodist Episcopalian Mission Church and back in England he was connected with the Westminster Congregational church. In 1913 Sir Robert Laidlaw became president of the World’s Sunday School Association. The mission of the organization was to promote Christian education among youth worldwide. Sir Robert’s death in 1915 at the age of fifty-nine was a shock to Sunday school people in America. He had been a tireless worker for religious and philanthropic efforts around the world, including the United States. The question still remains: How did Sir Robert get his name on one of our sanctuary windows? He had traveled in America. His eldest daughter attended Gaucher College in Baltimore. St. Andrew’s was a mission church at that time. Somehow Sir Robert Laidlaw became aware of St. Andrew’s need for a contribution and believing in its mission he generously complied as he probably did for many other mission churches in the United States. We can be grateful today for his generous spirit. Submitted by Arlene Renken	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1081
__label__wiki	0.575887	0.575887	ManTech International Corporation was formed in 1968 and has since been offering "information technology and technical services solutions to federal government clients. Today, ManTech has grown to become one of the U.S. government’s leading providers of innovative technologies and solutions for mission-critical national security programs supporting the Department of Defense, the Intelligence Community, the Department of State, the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. Our expertise covers software development, enterprise security architecture, information assurance, intelligence operations support, network and critical infrastructure protection, information technology, communications integration and engineering support. [1] [ManTech designs, developes, procures, implements, operates, tests and maintains] mission-critical, enterprise information technology and communication systems and infrastructures for ... federal government customers in the United States and 31 countries worldwide. Most of ... over 4,700 employees hold government security clearances, many of whom hold Top Secret clearances, including access to Sensitive Compartmented Information, allowing [the company] to work with ... customers in highly classified environments. Given the critical nature of many ... services and [the] close relationships with ... customers, [ManTech is] often called upon to support ... customers as they respond to crisis situations and front-line deployments around the world."[2] 2 Acquisitions 3 Executive Team 4 Board of Directors 5 Advisory Board 7 Related SourceWatch resources January 6, 2006, ManTech announced receiving a contract to support the U.S. Army as a lead subcontractor to VSE Corporation to "provide a substantial level of the services ordered under the contract, including deployed sustainment management; deployed logistics and repairs management; unique system training and curriculum support; and resource management, acquisition and administrative support for unique and specialized systems. These services will be provided in Southwest Asia - including Iraq and Afghanistan." [3] December 12, 2005, ManTech was awarded a five-year, $10.5 million contract from the Department of Homeland Security, Transportation Security Administration to provide analytic services for the vetting of non-US citizens requesting flight training in the US, as a part of the TSA's ALien Flight School Program. [4] December 12, 2005, ManTech was awarded a contract worth a possible $27.5 million from the U.S. Air Force to provide security services to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. [5] November 17, 2005, ManTech announced the awarding of $125 million in contracts in October. The delay and non-specifics surrounding the contracts are due to their sensitive nature. [6] October 24, 2005, ManTech announced a contract worth a possible total of $34.9 million from the Naval Sea Systems Command to "to provide services for the design and development of militarized products for the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC), Indian Head Division." Under the contract, "ManTech will provide Human System Integration (HSI) engineering, technical, and management services to products and systems such as unmanned vehicles, training ranges, air-to-air/air-to-ground weapons, and aerial target shipboard combat systems. Other support involves the design and development of performance tools; technical data support; product/systems deployment planning and support; testing; training; and program management support." [7] February, 2005, it was reported ManTech had been awarded a $23 million contract from the Naval Air Systems Command for "modeling, algorithm and software development to assess joint capabilities, threats, readiness, force levels, costs, survivability and vulnerability factors." [8] January 10, 2005, ManTech was awarded a $51.3 million engineering services contract from the Naval Sea Systems Command to "provide technical and logistic support for submarine and surface ship signature measurement trials.This includes data collection, testing, analysis, operations, maintenance, logistics, and repair services." [9] On April 9th, 2007, ManTech announced their acquisition of SRS Technologies, a provider of "high-end, mission-critical, advanced technology systems engineering and Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) services and solutions." Echoing ManTech's client list, the SRS acquisition, still subject to certain conditions and approval under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, will deepen ManTech's "position as a leading player in the national security marketplace," said president and COO Robert Coleman. The acquisition is expected to be complete in the second quarter of this year. [10] George J. Pedersen, Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer, and Co-founder of ManTech International Corporation; Chairman of the Executive Committee of GSE Systems, Inc. Robert A. Coleman, President and Chief Operating Officer] Kevin M. Phillips, Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Vice President Kurt J. Snapper, Senior Corporate Vice President, Chief Technology Officer Eugene C. Renzi, Executive Vice President and President of ManTech Telecommunications and Information Systems Corporation (MTISC) Gary A. Dorland, President of ManTech Security and Mission Assurance (SMA) Jay W. Kelley, President ManTech Space Systems Joseph R. Fox, President of ManTech Information Systems and Technology (IS&T). Kenneth J. Farquhar, President of ManTech Systems Engineering Corporation (MSEC) Jo-An (Jaye) Free, Corporate Vice President, Secretary of the Corporation and Executive Assistant to the Chairman of the Board, CEO and President of ManTech International George J. Pedersen Richard L. Armitage Mary K. Bush Barry G. Campbell Walter R. Fatzinger, Jr. Admiral David E. Jeremiah, USN Ret. Richard J. Kerr Lt. Gen. Kenneth A. Minihan, USAF Ret. Stephen W. Porter Paul G. Stern (no longer listed on website, may not function any longer) Admiral David E. Jeremiah, USN Ret., Chairman Sir Colin McColl Dr. Roger L. Hagengruber General Thomas C. Richards, USAF, Ret. Lt. General Harley A. Hughes, USAF, Ret. Joseph H. Rothenberg LT GEN Gordon E. Fornell, USAF (Ret.) LT GEN Lincoln D. Faurer, USAF (Ret.) Edward Murray Cook Robert Fogel William H. Geiger Dr. Robert J. Hermann 12015 Lee Jackson Hwy Web: http://www.mantech.com Locations in over 42 countries and 13 states within the U.S. Related SourceWatch resources Air Force Augmentation Program Post-war Iraq Post-war Iraq contractors Retrieved from "https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=ManTech_International_Corporation&oldid=305520" Civil liberties (U.S.)	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1083
__label__cc	0.683449	0.316551	Discussion Topics - Essay Example Historians point to the 1950’s as the beginning of this movement. As historian Anthony Badger (The Gilder, 2009) explained in Historians on Postwar America, because African Americans were… Author: igerhold Extract of sample "Discussion Topics" Grand Expectations I think the most significant challenge of this era was the Civil Rights Movement. Historians point to the 1950’s as the beginning of this movement. As historian Anthony Badger (The Gilder, 2009) explained in Historians on Postwar America, because African Americans were allowed to serve in the Civil War and World War II and eventually allowed to vote, they developed rising expectations of being treated as an equal by the white people. Many times, this hope was met with disappointment which is why, as Badger shared, history was witness to several protests by African Americans such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Sit-in Protest in Greensboro, North Carolina. (The Gilder, 2009) The Civil Rights Movement is very important in American history because it consequently put a stop to obvious discrimination and abuse of people who helped America gain freedom and prosperity. Despite the optimism of the times, African Americans were still being looked down on in American society. Individual Influence I have chosen Rosa Parks as someone who played a very significant role in post-war America. Rosa Parks was just a civilian but what she did on the bus in Montgomery, not giving up her seat in the colored section of the bus for a white person, sparked much needed reform. Mrs. Sparks had paid the right fare and was seated in the right section of the bus. However, because preference was given to white people that time, Mrs. Sparks was ordered to move. The simple act of Mrs. Sparks, even if she got arrested for it, helped bring about tremendous change in the life of African Americans. Thanks to Mrs. Sparks and other like her who fought for the recognition of black people, the white people stopped treating African Americans as lesser individuals and instead, the “white” society started treating “black people” as equals. African Americans were given the rightful privileges due to them as citizens of the United States. The Gilder Lehrman Insitute of American History. (Producer). Anthony Badger on the Civil Rights Movement. Historians on Postwar America. Podcast retrieved from http://old.gilderlehrman.org/institute/era_present.php Read More Bus Boycott Post Civil War Era (“Discussion Topics Essay Example \| Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 7”, n.d.) Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/history/1612357-discussion-topics (Discussion Topics Essay Example \| Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 Words - 7) https://studentshare.org/history/1612357-discussion-topics. “Discussion Topics Essay Example \| Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 Words - 7”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/history/1612357-discussion-topics. CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF Discussion Topics Responses to Discussion topics ...the duration of disability differs with each condition (Sadock & Sadock, 2007). For instance, the diagnosis of major depressive disorder is considered when a sad mood or a general lack of interest persists for at least two weeks. Therefore, even if a normal individual shows signs of depression but only for a week, the diagnosis is still not apparent and the individual is relatively “normal”. Q3. Discuss ways that culture shapes the clinical presentation of mental disorders. Culture determines the types of social behaviors generally accepted in a specific geographic location. Aside from age, gender, physiologic, and neuroendocrine factors, the clinical diagnosis of every psychiatric disorder considers an individual’s... 5 Pages(1250 words)Assignment Literature Discussion Topics 2: ...1) There were many explorers which traveled west of Europe and found the Americas, including Christopher Columbus, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and Samuel de Champlain. These three explorers had different experiences with the Native Americans. The first of which, Christopher Columbus, who is traditionally but falsely known as the discoverer of America, went on several voyages to the uncharted territories of the world. In his four voyages, the first of which started on 1492, he landed in the Americas, as well as nearby locations such as the Caribbean islands. His first impression of the native Indians, as he called them, was very good. He thought they were kind, hospitable and benevolent .however, his approach towards them... There were many... Literature Discussion Topics: ...Apess and Seattle Both William Apess and Chief Seattle were known as powerful orators during the 19th century. Both speaking from a Native American standpoint and both speaking about the plight of the Native Americans in the wake of the increasing spread of white people, each of these men had similar concerns at heart at the time they made their more famous speeches. One of the common characteristics of each of these men’s speeches is the use of rhetorical questions asked throughout. In each case, the speaker used rhetorical questions to focus attention upon the point being made, whether it was the treatment of the Indians by the white men argued by Apess or the cultural differences that existed between the Indians... and Seattle Both... ...Discussion Topics Discussion Topics Pivotal decades symbolize periods of revolution. Almost every country has experienced a type of revolution. The United States experienced technological, economic, social and political revolutions that vastly affected the country (Charlie, 1998). Most of the revolutions materialized in the period of 1900 to 1920. In this essay, pivotal decades and savage peace will be discussed in relation to 1900-1920 and there historical significance to the United States. The first two decades of the 20th century are pivotal since the Americans fought their first ever international war. During this period, the United States fought in... ...Discussion Topics “Fear” was on the minds of Americans from 1920 to 1945. In particular, most Americans feared the great depression. According to Romer, America experienced the worst depression a few days before president Roosevelt became the president (767). The great depression is likely to have resulted from the era of prosperity, which was unequally distributed. During this era, banks failed leaving millions of people without savings. In addition, factories closed down forcing people into unemployment. The tariff act of 1930 is considered as the worst mistake that Americans ever made. The act was meant to raise taxes as a strategy to cut down on people’s spending and hence increase the recovery... ...ESSAY, HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE; DISCUSSION TOPICS al Affiliation Grade A specific challenge that confronted theUS in 1974-1999; its impact on the nation and the contribution to America being a ‘‘restless Giant’’ Economic war: Between 1974 and 1999 there was economic competition between U.S and U.S.S.R. which led to the cold war. US focused on the economic recovery and improvement of the defense forces. This enabled American rose in power and became the superpower after the break-up of the U.S.S.R. in 1991. However, the enmity between the US and the Middle East countries increased leading to the American hostages e.g. Iran hostage crisis. The United States began to monitor the affairs of the rest of the world; economically... HISTORY... ...Discussion Topics Discussion Topics The health sector is faced numerous issues in various areas such as politics and managerial conflicts. For an organization to prosper, there should be a well established chain of commands (Johnson, 2008). In the health sector, an important role model is the manager who is the team leader. Managers interact with other individuals outside the organization in an attempt to gain more ground and reach out more. There are also supervisors whose oversee the tasks carried out by the employees and maintain daily routines. Supervisors and managers need to work as a unit and convey information to each other. If not, there will be a total disaster.... ...Discussion Topics Topic The founding fathers came up with the idea of dividing powers to ensure that the libertiesof the people are not vulnerable. Different institutions had to bear certain responsibility in different areas to set effective governance. The different branches of the government and different institutions could only achieve this. It regulates the course of governance; keeping the government from moving in contrary to the founding principles. Different institutions holding power is the basis of a republic and any democratic nation (Beard & William 82). In the age of warfare and nuclear weapons, this system is appropriate to ensure that power is not abused in any way. If... 2 Pages(500 words)Assignment HR & Communication in Projects - Weekly Discussion Topics ...HR & Communications in Projects - Weekly Discussion Topics HR & Communications in Projects - Weekly DiscussionTopics There are a number of attributes that are considered to be important to a project manager as pertains to the building up of a team. One of these qualities is communication. A project example of the importance of this attribute is that it is important for project manager to communicate in a clear manner as quality written or verbal communication skills will serve to allow these project managers to be able to present the team’s expectations to its members in a manner in which these members can be able to understand. Bad communication can often result in the failure of a team to attain its... 2 Pages(500 words)Coursework Two Gods or One Let us write or edit the essay on your topic "Discussion Topics" with a personal 20% discount. Let us find you another Essay on topic Discussion Topics for FREE!	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1093
__label__wiki	0.629086	0.629086	Spanish SP Chinese CH Swedish SW 2K 2K Activision Ac EA EA Bethesda Bs Klei Kl Paradox Pd SEGA Se Ubisoft Ub Valve Vl Warner Wa Action Ac Strategy St RPG Rp Indie In Adventure Ad Sports Sp Simulation Si Early Access Ea Ex Early Access Ee MMO Mo Free Fr Atmospheric At Crafting Cr Experimental Ex Female Protagonist FP Kickstarter KS Open World OW Remake Re Space Sim SS Stealth St Warhammer 40K WH Zombies Zb Winter Novel App data Snow, dullness, depression. Constant dissatisfaction with work and superiors and feeling like there is no escape. Is this what life will always be? Perhaps… but I can always hope for change to be just around the corner! Store \| Hub \| SteamDB Developer: DeXP Publisher: DeXP Genre: Casual, Indie, Simulation Languages: English, Polish, Portuguese - Brazil, Russian, Ukrainian Tags: Indie (338), Casual (27), Visual Novel (26), Simulation (24), Anime (17), Pixel Graphics (11), 2D (9) Category: Single-player, Steam Achievements, Full controller support, Steam Trading Cards, Steam Cloud Old userscore: 82% Owners: 20,000 .. 50,000 Peak concurrent players yesterday: 1 Playtime total: 04:45 (average) 05:41 (median) Steam Spy is still in beta, so expect major bugs. Audience (2 weeks) CCU (daily) CCU (hourly) Twitch (daily) Twitch (hourly) Tags over time Playtime (total) Playtime (2 weeks) Owners data: Access restricted. This feature is only available to users with special access rights. Sorry. If you want to proceed, you need to register or log in first and then back Steam Spy on Patreon. Look for Indie or Pro pledge. Don't forget to use the same email as on Steam Spy! 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__label__wiki	0.658939	0.658939	Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy By: Eric Metaxas Vendor: Thomas Nelson Publishers Publication Date: 2011 Format: Book Page Count: 608 The reception of Eric Metaxas' Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, and Spy met with unparalleled, resounding, and unexpected success among the Christian community and beyond in 2010. Yet, the book has caused a great deal of controversy among scholars, academics, and others who follow Bonhoeffer closely. This was not unexpected as Bonhoeffer was specifically intended to be a critique of those who understood Bonhoeffer to be "liberal" in his theological leaning as both evangelical scholars and non-evangelical scholars argued he was. Metaxas' book challenges this assumption by telling Bonhoeffer's story so as to demonstrate his theological orthodoxy. This fact, which undergirds so much of what Metaxas is trying to accomplish--namely--reclaim Bonhoeffer, has proved controversial in many people's minds. It is well known that Bonhoeffer is the first comprehensive biography of Bonhoeffer since the German theologian's brother-in-law, Eberhard Bethge, released his massive 1000pp+ biography in the early 1970's. Since that time however, much new information has come to light, and Bonhoeffer's story has been in desperate need of updating. It is Bethge's work, along with the new material Metaxas has synthesized that provided the groundwork for Bonhoeffer. The result has been widely acknowledged to be a masterful story complimented by lucid and inviting prose, historical accuracy, and deeply moving-emotional narrative which invites reader's into the world and life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Adolf Hitler and the Nazi's seduced a nation, bullied a continent, and attempted to conquer the world while exterminating European Jews secretly. While espionage and intrigue were the rule of the day, and while many groups discussed assassination, only one real organized attempt was made by German nationalists to rid the world of Adolf Hitler, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a key contributor. But how did Bonhoeffer, a Christian pastor and brilliant theologian come to the point of murder and step into what Metaxas understands to be the roles of "prophet" and "spy"? Metaxas' book is the fullest accounting of that transition, that struggle, produced for a broad readership. He tells the stories of Bonhoeffer's heart-wrenching 1939 decision to leave the safety of America for Hitler's Germany, of Bonhoeffer's from theological resistance to political action in Germany, of his key theological relationships with George Bell, Karl Barth and others, of his tragic romance with Maria von Wedermeyer, and of his imprisonment and subsequent martyrdom. Finally, Bonhoeffer gives witness to the extraordinary faith of an incredible human being, while also illuminating the tortured fate of a nation he sought to deliver from the evil tyranny of National Socialism, and its political party, the Nazi party. The reader will come face to face with a man determined to do the will of God radically, courageously, and even to the point of death. They may even find themselves asking: would my own faith provide me this kind of courage? Thomas Nelson Publishers Shattered: Struck Down, But Not Destroyed (Digital) Frank Pastore, Ellen Vaughn Into the Deep (Digital) Robert Rogers, Stan Finger My Hair and God's Mercies . . . New Every Morning (Digital) Yvette Maher, Amy Tracy Castaway Kid (Digital) R.B. Mitchell You're reviewing: Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1099
__label__wiki	0.652179	0.652179	Some of 2015’s best TV used identity and diversity to riff on and spiff up familiar genres. Some of the year’s best shows used identity and diversity to riff on and spiff up familiar genres. By Willa Paskin Dec 25, 20159:00 AM Black-ish, Empire, and Jane the Virgin. Photo illustration by Slate. Photos courtesy ABC, Fox, The CW. Couch potatoes, Oh God, Margaret, I love the idea of secret TV show crushes, though I feel like it would be very hard to name a show you do not watch. Hindsight, VH1’s now-canceled drama about a woman in her late 30s who travels back to her 20s and the 1990s, might count, but I know you loved that too. (Plotwise, think Sliding Doors, but with time travel.) Hindsight has a kind of small-scale, DIY flavor about it, a callback to a time when TV was less polished, but I really dug it, all of its ’90s references, and the way it interrogated true love stories while giving us lots and lots of smooching. As for shows I like that you guys might flat-out dislike: At this point, does Homeland count? Hi, my name is Willa, and I have a Homeland problem. Just when I think I’m out, it pulls me back in. This season started kind of tiresomely (Carrie goes crazy again, this time … on purpose!) but has settled into a very well-plotted, chilling, and all too timely terrorism thriller. (If you take a subway to work every day and are prone to anxiety, best to skip.) Homeland is good at delivering intelligent John Le Carré jolts in a contemporary context, and I’m not going to overthink my enjoyment of it (until the next time I overthink my enjoyment of it). If I can’t think of other shows I really like that you guys might hate (New Girl?) I can think of a show I basically dislike at this point, that I know one of you still harbors affection for: Downton Abbey. June, how are you still hanging in with the Granthams? That said, I will admit to having watched and rewatched and rewatched the Downton Abbey Season 2 Christmas special more times than I can count. (That’s the one where Lady Mary and Matthew finally get together for realsie: Obviously, I dislike Downton with the passion of someone who once loved it.) Alan and June, you have both mentioned that rewatching is not what it used to be, and I couldn’t agree more, but it bums me out a little. I think the pleasures of rewatching are at the very heart of the pleasures of television and that this is true even as the average viewer is doing less and less rewatching, if only because there are fewer and fewer reruns available to watch. That said, I think there’s an element of the rewatch in all television viewing. June, you say you don’t rewatch much anymore, but I think watching procedurals is a kind of rewatching. Little kids watch the same things over and over and over again: This is why so many parents know the lyrics to Frozen. As we get older and more sophisticated, our tastes broaden. We don’t want to watch the same entertainment hundreds of times in a row. Sometimes we want to watch slightly different variations on that entertainment hundreds of times in a row. (Not to knock adults completely; sometimes we want to watch wild and fresh and challenging stuff too.) Slightly different variations on the same stuff: That is the procedural, which is a kind of endlessly replicating sequel, with the same characters doing very similar things in very similar ways, week after week after week, whether it’s catching bad guys or trying cases or saving patients, with just enough variation to keep things lively. And it’s not just procedurals that can be relied on to give you a familiar shot of pleasure. However original a TV show is, after a couple of episodes, you have some idea what you are in for, even if part of what you are in for, as with Mr. Robot, is a twist or, as with Game of Thrones, is something awful happening to a character you care about. Every episode of every show has familiar characters, a familiar tone, and familiar themes (this season of The Leftovers notwithstanding). I want to be clear: I am not dissing this phenomenon. Gussied up, it’s called genre pleasure, and there’s no art or entertainment-consuming adult in the world who doesn’t have his or her predilections. Not every rom-com (or costume drama or detective noir or superhero story) is the same, but there is satisfaction and comfort to be had in what they share and, in the best cases, thrills and provocations to be found in what they don’t. I think some of the best shows of this year have brilliantly manipulated comfort and provocation, wedding existing genres with underrepresented perspectives and characters in ways that feel both inevitable and invigorated. Empire is an over-the-top, prime-time melodrama with clear predecessors in shows like Dynasty and Dallas, a recognizable setup that only makes the show’s focus on a rich, powerful black family feel that much more ballsy and overdue. Blackish is a family sitcom through and through, which makes its take on subjects that have not been treated by the family sitcom before—from the N-word to guns—all the more striking. And you could say something similar about Jane the Virgin, Master of None, Fresh Off the Boat, and Jessica Jones, to name some of the shows this year that used identity and diversity to riff on and spiff up familiar forms. And that’s the highfalutin take. Sometimes, it’s just really nice to watch something fun and reliably competent. As a critic, I try to remember that TV critics have a weird relationship to television. For one thing, we watch so, so much of it. For another, we don’t do much watching as a means of relaxation and release. (That, Alan, is what is so great about the idea of you cueing up old episodes of The Sopranos or Justified: Your love for TV has not been dimmed by it becoming work.) But relaxation is why most people watch TV. And what is so great about the TV ecosystem, as you put it, Margaret, at this moment is that the predictably pleasing and unpredictably pleasing are both in abundance, available in great amounts whenever you need them. I was on maternity leave for part of this year, and I had some big TV-watching ambitions. Instead, in the middle of the night, I watched the first three seasons of Grey’s Anatomy—again. And I was so happy it was there for me, my old friend, to be rewatched when I needed it. Guys, I have strayed from embarrassing TV loves, but I liked that game! Play if you feel so inspired. This reminds me of another thing I didn’t like that I think other people did. (Why can’t I play this game the right way?) The season finale of You’re the Worst. I thought the depression storyline this year was great, but that the finale gave it a cheap and rushed coda. People don’t just get out of serious depression one morning. The drugs or therapy should have come first, not after. We’re more than halfway through, and there are still lot of shows we haven’t touched upon: Penny Dreadful, The Walking Dead, Silicon Valley, Veep, Game of Thrones, Getting On, Scandal, Nathan for You, Project Greenlight, not to mention the shakeups in late night and sketch comedies like Inside Amy Schumer, Key and Peele, and The Kroll Show. Toward that end: Are there scenes and moments and tooth-pullings from this year that are still burned into your brains? I would love to hear about them. Oh, and while we’re playing games: Let’s rank the Pfefferman siblings, following Season 2, in order from least to most abhorrent. My order is Josh, Sarah, Ali. I suspect my placement of Sarah will be controversial, but at least she only destroyed super-annoying Tammy with her selfishness, and not the lovely Syd. Still, poor Tammy. To get each new entry in the 2015 Slate TV Club in your inbox, enter your email address below: The TV Club, 2015 TV	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1103
__label__cc	0.547598	0.452402	New Superior in Ethiopia At the recent Enlarged Council in Arba Minch , Fr. Bukenya Dennis Ssebuggwawo CSSp. was elected Superior. He was born in 1968 in Uganda. Having done his Philosophical studies in Arusha and novitiate at Lushoto, in Tanzania, he made his first profession in 1998. He did his theological studies at Enugu Spiritan International School of Theology, Nigeria and made his final profession and diaconal ordination in Nairobi in 2002. He was ordained in Kampala in 2003. His mission appointment was in Aba Diocese, Nigeria, and then in Mulagu Parish in Kampala Archdiocese in Uganda. In 2010 he came to Ethiopia and has been Parish Priest in the Parish of St. Simeon, Arba Minch, for the past three years. (Fr. martin Kelly, CSSp.)	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1111
__label__wiki	0.941971	0.941971	Football Manchester United Marcus Rashford focused on fulfilling potential at Man United after Cristiano Ronaldo comparison Press Association Sport 16:30 14/12/2019 Marcus Rashford is fully focused on fulfilling his potential as the homegrown forward looks to become a Manchester United great like Cristiano Ronaldo. Fresh from his latest stunning display in Sunday’s thrilling win at Manchester City, manager and 1999 treble-winning striker Ole Gunnar Solskjaer likened the 22-year-old to one of the greatest players of all time. Ronaldo is a United hero following medal-laden spell at Old Trafford, with the Norwegian saying it is “very easy” to compare Rashford to the Juventus forward given the “skills, body shape, attitude, attributes – everything”. Put to Rashford that there cannot really be any higher praise than that as a United player, Rashford said: “No, I think it’s (a case of) as a forward player, ever since I’ve come through they always compare you with forwards that have been in the past and it’s something that you don’t really have much of an input on. “All you do is try to do your best on the pitch and then people outside do the talking about it. WATCH: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer on Marcus Rashford’s special Man United milestone Man United’s Phil Jones joins Ronaldo and Roberto Baggio in the best XI of injury plagued players “It will be a similar thing for (the next crop). You see the other young players coming through now, they’ll have it in the future as well where they’re always being compared to other forwards. “It’s just a thing people like to do with forwards so it’s obviously nice, definitely a compliment. @jesselingard 😆😆 A post shared by Marcus Rashford (@marcusrashford) on May 25, 2017 at 10:07am PDT “For me, I understand how far I’ve got left to go to reach the heights they reached so I am very clear-minded and just focused on myself.” Solskjaer believes Rashford “has every chance in the world to become a top, top player” at a club that against Everton this weekend will celebrate a 4,000th successive match containing a youth product in the squad. George Best, Sir Bobby Charlton and the Class of 92 are among those that have come through at United during a run that started in 1937 – the kind of players that the 22-year-old would love to one day be considered alongside. “Obviously it’s a nice feeling to have the start I’ve had, but you never have a moment to really sit back and look at it,” he said, having kicked on since his stunning debut against Midtjylland in February 2016. “There’s always another game around the corner. “For me, it’s not necessary to look back and look at what you’ve achieved so far. “It’s more about what you can achieve in the future and the potential of the team. That’s the way I look at it. “As a group, as a collective, if we start winning more games, if we start being involved in big games, winning trophies, it won’t just be my name that’s mentioned with them people, it will be as a collective. “If we can do that, I think that’s what we all want.” Rashford remains impressively level-headed and driven at a time when he is being praised to the hilt. The England international’s 13-goal haul already equals his best goalscoring return for United in a single season, while he has been directly involved in 15 goals in his past 14 matches for club and country. “I think just the moments where we’ve obviously won trophies stands above this moment now,” Rashford said in an interview with the PA news agency. “The results have still been inconsistent but the performances have been getting better so we can see where we’re heading. “Obviously there’s a lot of young players in the squad and in the starting XI so we’re sort of learning as we go along. “But, you know, it’s the first time we’ve had back-to-back wins in the league so hopefully that can start something off for us and we can get used to just getting results and performing.” Cristiano Ronaldo Manchester United English Premier League European Football	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1112
__label__wiki	0.861382	0.861382	Motorsport Formula One How Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc contract extensions affect the driver market Niall McCague - Senior Writer 17:00 09/01/2020 In the wake of Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen inking bumper extensions to their respective contracts over recent weeks, it is clear the two knights are firmly focused on hunting down Lewis Hamilton’s world title. The decision for Ferrari and Red Bull to lock down both drivers until 2024 and 2023 respectively warns off any potential suitors, while also showing their belief in achieving championship glory. It is the ultimate show of faith by both teams, especially with the new regulations on the way in 2021, and a driver market that is set to be one of the most volatile at the end of the year, given the majority of the grid are entering the final year of their contracts. Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo are among the key names that will be up for contract renewals after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix later this year. But with Verstappen and Leclerc committing their futures, it means less chance of any significant changes among the top teams. Max Verstappen is charged up Red Bull after penning richly-deserved new contract How the likes of Chris Gayle and Virender Sehwag have defied conventions in Test cricket With the Dutchman off the table for Mercedes, the Silver Arrow are bound to want to secure Hamilton for another three season, especially with him being on course to beat Michael Schumacher’s record of seven world titles. His current salary is believed to be €50 million per annum. Valtteri Bottas – who earns a reported €7.5 million per season – has been a proven number two and has forged a solid relationship with the Briton. If Mercedes opt against extending the Finn’s deal after this season, then George Russell or Esteban Ocon are ideal candidates for the second seat. Their low cost could offset the increase Hamilton may demand to remain at the side while injecting some fresh youth into the team. At Ferrari, Leclerc’s long-term position means Vettel’s place is weakened even more. The German needs to up his game after a disappointing 2019 season, especially with Antonio Giovinazzi, Giuliano Alesi, Mick Schumacher and many more rising stars vying for his seat. Just four drivers are signed beyond the end of 2020 😱 Who knows what lies ahead?#F1 pic.twitter.com/eW7aCMIwXu — Formula 1 (@F1) January 7, 2020 While Kimi Raikkonen essentially accepted an unofficial number two role to stay at the Prancing Horse, Vettel is the type of character that would be unwilling to do that. A four-time world champion, who put the fight up to Hamilton for large spells of 2017 and 2018, his form wilted last season, and he finished fifth in the drivers’ standings, 24 points behind Leclerc. If Vettel’s €40 million salary is not renewed, then there is more chance of him retiring satisfied with his multiple world titles and 53 race wins, rather than dropping down to Alfa Romeo to replace a 40-year-old Raikkonen. Why go from a team that can compete for race victories to just being content to pull in a wage and barely challenge for top-10 finishes at Alfa Romeo? Ferrari Academy Driver’s like Giovinazzi, Alesi or Schumacher deserve a mention if the Scuderia seat is vacant, but don’t forget Daniel Ricciardo’s contract runs out at Renault at the end of the year too. The Australian, who turns 31 in July, may be less likely to play a supporting role to Leclerc but a chance to join Ferrari would be too difficult to turn down. It would mean being back in a quick and beautifully balanced car that can challenge for podiums and race wins, and forge one of the strongest line-ups on the grid with Leclerc. For now, it is uncertain what will happen at the end of 2020, but one thing for sure is that fresh contracts signed in recent weeks means less chance of any upsets at the top teams. Charles Leclerc Ferrari Max Verstappen Mercedes Formula One Motorsport Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship... 15/01/2020 Fantasy Premier League tips: Jamie Vardy... 15/01/2020 Corporate Sports Championship 2020: The... 15/01/2020 WATCH: Xavi explains why he turned down... 11 hours ago	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1113
__label__wiki	0.733191	0.733191	Why are professional athletes allowed to compete in the Olympic games? When the International Olympic Committee was formed in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin, he intended the athletes competing in the Olympics to only be amateur athletes. The definition of an amateur athlete is someone who doesn't receive compensation: Amateur sports are sports in which participants engage largely or entirely without remuneration. The distinction is made between amateur sporting participants and professional sporting participants, who are financially remunerated for the time they spend playing or training. Why are professional athletes now allowed to compete in the Olympic games? steelersquirrelsteelersquirrel The IOC officially began allowing professional athletes to compete in the Olypmic Games in 1988, basically leaving it up to the individual sporting federations to decide if they would permit it. The only sports which continue to claim they are "amateur only" are boxing and wrestling, but even that's a bit of a misnomer: certain national boxing or wrestling Olympics committees pay out cash rewards, but since the fighters are not paid to fight, they are not considered professional. This topic is actually the subject of an article by Simon Eassem, published for the Second International Symposium for Olympic Research. The entire publication is called Critical reflections on Olympic ideology though it seems to be pretty hard to find. But the basic factors behind the IOC's decision were: In many sports, all of the truly dominant athletes are professionals; amateur athletes, especially in team sports, are "going pro" much younger, sometimes right out of high school. This means that the idea of the best athletes in the world competing in the Olympics was simply not true, since the best in the world were excluded. A number of high profile "scandals" occurred due to the strict application of the definition of a professional. One notable example was Jim Thorpe, who won multiple medals in 1912. He had previously played semi-pro baseball, so even though his medals were not in baseball (he was a track & field athlete), his medals were stripped. In addition, many athletes were excluded from competing because they earned money as trainers or tutors, and not as competitors. The whole idea of pure-amateur competition was rooted heavily in the aristocratic English public school. The original intent was that amateur athletes not only didn't play professionally, they didn't train professionally -- any sort of training was considered cheating. Clearly, by the 1970s, that idea was long since abandoned, and was considered an artifact of the English "class system". Most importantly, IMO, was the fact that so many countries just flat out cheated. Eastern-bloc countries were notorious for skirting the edge of the rules by having state-sponsored "full time amateurs". Their Olympic athletes were given everything they needed to live and train, but were not technically paid to do it, and all the money came from the government. This put the Soviet countries at a distinct advantage over the privately-funded Western athletes for a long, long time. Ultimately, the IOC just decided that excluding pro athletes made the games less interesting, less competitive, and less fair. It also helped that the Olympics were big business by that point, with television rights fees, sponsorship money and similar sources of income. Having huge, marquee-level celebrity athletes brought in lots more money. Erkin Alp Güney KutuluMikeKutuluMike Also worth considering that this controversy already existed in sport before Coubertin. For example WG Grace technically was an amateur cricket player but in fact was paid. Also that football (soccer) has tried a series of real messes of rules which try to increase the amateur-ness of the players without actually coming out and saying that (because then they'd get fourth-rate squads). For example in 1984 European and South American (i.e, strong) countries were limited in what professional players they could use, and others weren't. – Steve Jessop Aug 8 '16 at 20:06 Interesting - people often enquire on Stack Exchange about whether I'm named after or any relation to Jim Thorpe (no, and nope - I'd never even heard of him before said comments) - now I find out he's scandalous! – James Thorpe Aug 9 '16 at 14:16 In fairness to Mr. Thorpe, the IOC eventually decided they had overreacted and gave his medals back; unfortunately he had died 30 years earlier. – KutuluMike Aug 9 '16 at 14:18 That explains the 1992 dream team then, doesn't it. – corsiKa Aug 9 '16 at 21:37 Your last point, BTW, was being copied by Western teams too; part of the USOC's job as of the late 70s if not earlier was to appropriate Federal monies to training and housing the US Olympic teams as they prepared for the Games. Otherwise it would have been even harder to attract the best amateur athletes to compete, for team sports especially where they all have to be in the same place at the same time. – KeithS Aug 10 '16 at 15:29 Several reasons: The more compensation amateurs were allowed to receive, the more the definition between "amateurs" and "professionals" became indistinguishable (if it wasn't already). Increased viewership. Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1894, had intended that Olympic competition should be among amateurs rather than professionals. In the dictionary, "amateur" means: a person who engages in a study, sport, or other activity for pleasure rather than for financial benefit or professional reasons. However, in 1971, the IOC approved compensation for amateur athletes(1). Eastern nations were sponsored to train and compete on a full-time basis by their governments. As a result, US athletes found it difficult to compete with athletes from eastern nations, resulting in the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act in 1978 allowing US athletes to receive compensation. Moreover, professionals had better brand-recognition than amateurs, as the following quote notes(2): "The pros are there for a reason," the esteemed sports journalist Ron Rapoport, who has covered six Olympics ... "People will tune in to watch athletes they know. The pro athletes are pre-sold to the public, which means increased viewership." After these developments, professionals became eligible for the Olympics(3): After the 1988 Games, the IOC voted to declare all professionals eligible for the Olympics, subject to the approval of the international federations in charge of each sport. user527user527 Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged olympics or ask your own question. Why do professional boxers not compete in boxing in the Olympics? Why is drafting allowed on the bike in an Olympic triathlon and not otherwise? Athletes who have won Olympic medals under the olympic flag Why is a bronze medal not awarded when two silvers are awarded in the Olympic Games? Olympic sports where teams compete for entry Who are the “Olympic Athletes from Russia”? Athletes under the Olympics flag competing in team sports	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1114
__label__wiki	0.900099	0.900099	Lynx-Sparks Preview September 7, 2019, 7:26 PM UTC The Los Angeles Sparks are playing some of their best basketball of the season, and will be rewarded with a first-round bye. The Minnesota Lynx, meanwhile, are doing the same and also hope to open the postseason at home. Looking to secure a first-round home game, the visiting Lynx aim for a sixth straight victory in Sunday's regular-season finale against a Sparks team trying to extend its home-winning streak to 14 in a row. L.A. (21-12) clinched the No. 3 seed in next week's playoff with a 102-68 victory over Seattle on Thursday. Coming with it, a first-round bye, meaning the Sparks will get a week to prepare for their first playoff opponent. It was also the second straight overall win and sixth in eight games for the Sparks, and 13th consecutive at home since losing to Washington there on June 18. "We're having balance, having harmony," forward Chiney Ogwumike, who had 12 points off the bench as L.A. shot 54.7 percent, said via the Sparks' official Facebook page. "I felt like this was just a good morale boosting type of win for us, especially this time of year." Candace Parker had 20 points with nine rebounds and Nneka Ogwumike (16.2 points per game, 9.0 rebounds per game) added 14 with 10 boards for Los Angeles against the Storm. Parker (11.2 ppg, 6.3 rpg) has totaled 41 points and 20 rebounds in the last two games. She had 20 with 10 boards in an 81-71 home victory over Minnesota on Aug. 20. While it's uncertain how much time, if any, regulars like Parker will see in this contest, L.A. has a chance to complete a season sweep over Minnesota. However, the Lynx (18-15) are riding a season-high five-game winning streak and will keep the sixth seed for the playoffs - and a first-round home date versus Seattle - with a victory. Should Minnesota lose Sunday and Seattle win at Dallas, the teams would be tied. The Storm, though, will then host the Lynx in the first round based on the defending WNBA champs owning the tiebreaker over Minnesota. So, the Lynx control their destiny while trying to stay hot after winning 83-69 at Phoenix on Friday. Odyssey Sims scored 22 points and Sylvia Fowles had 11 points with 11 rebounds to move into second place on the WNBA's all-time rebounding list. Sims (14.6 points per game) has averaged 20.7 points and shot 54.2 percent over the last three games. However, she's totaled just 18 points in the previous two games versus Los Angeles this season.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1116
__label__wiki	0.948083	0.948083	Riske ousts Kerber in Zhengzhou, Mladenovic advances September 10, 2019, 3:11 PM UTC Tennis: US Open (Reuters) - American Alison Riske fought back from a set down to beat Germany's Angelique Kerber 5-7 6-4 7-6(6) in the first round of the inaugural Zhengzhou Open on Tuesday, extending the former world number one's poor run of form. Riske held her nerve to save a match point in the third-set tiebreak before going on to inflict a fourth consecutive first-round defeat on Kerber, who was beaten by Kristina Mladenovic in her first match at the U.S. Open. The German, a three-times Grand Slam champion, was beaten in the second round at Wimbledon and suffered first round defeats in Toronto and Cincinnati in the run-up to the year's final Grand Slam at Flushing Meadows. Mladenovic made short work of Chinese wildcard Duan Yingying earlier in the day, winning 6-2 6-3 to set up a second round meeting with fellow Frenchwoman and her former doubles partner Caroline Garcia. "It was very tricky conditions. It's super humid and it's never easy to start a tournament," said Mladenovic, who won 79% of her first serve points during the match. "Every first round is difficult and Yingying, I've played her in the past and she's a very powerful player with a big serve. I think the key today was the consistency on my serve, and I managed to read hers well, which is her biggest weapon." Former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko beat 23-year-old Chinese qualifier You Xiaodi 6-3 0-6 6-2 to reach the last 16, while France's Fiona Ferro and Alize Cornet also advanced. (Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar and Rohith Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Christian Radnedge)	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1117
__label__wiki	0.903703	0.903703	SportsOttawa.com / Ottawa Sportspage Your Not-For-Profit Voice for Local Sport GROUP > Elite Amateur Sport Bobsleigh/Skeleton Para Sport More & Summer Sports Ottawa Sportspage Rideau wins Canadian crown a year before nationals come to town sportsottawa / October 10, 2019 Toshka Besharah of the national-champion Rideau Canoe Club. (Photo: Scott Bradley) By Cameron Chaddad With her multiple-medal performance, Ottawa’s Toshka Besharah played a crucial part in helping the Rideau Canoe Club win its second straight Championship Burgee at the 2019 Canoe Kayak Sprint National Championships. The 16-year-old’s five gold medals were part of 32 that were won by the club’s athletes, who also picked up 21 silvers and 12 bronze medals at the event held in Wascana, Sask. from Aug. 27 to Sept. 1. Besharah was born in Ottawa and has been a paddler with the club since she was six years old. Even prior to then, she said her life had always revolved around sports. “Athletics is my passion,” Besharah told the Sportspage. “I’ve been in sports before I could walk. I grew up in a very active household.” Besharah’s first experience with organized sports came when she was enrolled in gymnastics at the age of three. In addition to gymnastics she played soccer, hockey, swam and skied competitively while growing up. It wasn’t long before she realized her true calling came in a boat. At eight years old she joined the full summer program at Rideau, which contributed to what she described as her falling in love with the sport. A few years later she decided paddling was something she wanted to take seriously and decided to drop her other sports for a year-round schedule dedicated to kayaking. It was at 13 years old that Besharah says she knew she had made the right choice after winning her first individual K-1 (individual) provincial gold medal. She traces a lot of her internal drive – including her ambition to one day paddle for Canada’s senior national team – to her first provincial medal. “It was a huge deal for me at the time. From then on, I began to focus and take paddling more seriously,” Besharah says. Last year presented Besharah’s first opportunity to compete at the national championships. Despite being just 15 years old, she would go on to win the Under-16 K-1 200m championship (a title she defended this year, setting a new national record of 43.35 second). As well as her various achievements in kayaking, Besharah says participating in the sport has also taught her important life lessons, like discipline and respect. It’s also taught her that nothing in life comes easy and that she has to work hard to achieve her goals as well as teaching her lessons about teamwork. “It has taught me team skills (like) how to work together, when things may not go your way working as a team (that) to find the best answer that includes everyone’s ideas,” Besharah said. Earlier this past summer, Besharah won a bronze medal at the ICF Junior & U23 Canoe Sprint World Championships, which were held in Romania. Nepean High School grade Maren Bradley was also a member of the team that placed 3rd in the K-4 junior women’s 400 m event. Fellow Rideau paddler Ella Hodgson-Pageau won a silver medal at that event as well, placing 2nd in the C-2 junior women’s 200 m race. Hodgson-Pageau won 7 gold medals for Rideau at this year’s national championships, while Bradley took home 6 golds of her own. Rideau’s Besharah, Hodgson-Pageau, Matthew O’Neill (who won 5 gold medals at nationals), Kieran Graham (who won 4 gold medals at nationals) and Jacob Price (who won 3 gold medals at nationals) each also competed at the Olympic Hopes International Regatta in Bratislava, Slovakia in September. Hodgson-Pageau won 2 gold medals and 1 silver medal at the regatta, while Besharah returned to Ottawa with a bronze medal. O’Neill won a bronze medal and a silver medal, while Graham won a bronze medal of his own as well. Besharah says her intention is to continue competing internationally in the sport that she describes as her passion in life. Rideau likely couldn’t have imagined a better segue into the year that they’ll host the national championships than by winning their 3rd national title since 2015. Rideau’s site in Mooney’s Bay will be home to the 2020 Canoe Kayak Sprint National Championship from Aug. 25-30 next summer. October 10, 2019 in Canoe-Kayak, Community Clubs, Elite Amateur Sport. Pan Am Games silver medallist Betteridge amidst locals looking to paddle at Olympics July Snapshots: A roundup of local sports action Rideau athletes shine at annual regatta ← October Snapshots: A roundup of local sports action Local Mobility Cup competitor sails successfully into second act → Categories Select Category 1. BY GROUP Community Clubs Elite Amateur Sport High Schools Junior Leagues Our news Sponsored Content Universities Your News 2. BY SPORT Aquatics Athletics Baseball Basketball Bobsleigh/Skeleton Canoe-Kayak Combat Sports Curling Cycling Football Gymnastics Hockey Para Sport Racquet Sports Ringette Rugby Skating Skiing Soccer Triathlon Volleyball Way More Sports Bowling Dance Fencing Field Hockey Golf Lacrosse Modern Pentathlon Rowing Sailing Ultimate Wrestling Uncategorized	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1118
__label__cc	0.68934	0.31066	Home · Holiday Greetings · Holiday Parties ·Dots and Shine - Party Invitation Dots and Shine - Party Invitation Select a Quantity Select a Quantity 25 for $160.00 50 for $178.30 75 for $196.60 100 for $214.90 125 for $253.90 150 for $292.90 175 for $331.90 200 for $370.90 225 for $409.90 250 for $448.90 275 for $487.90 300 for $526.90 325 for $565.90 350 for $604.90 375 for $643.90 400 for $682.90 425 for $721.90 450 for $760.90 475 for $799.90 500 for $838.90 525 for $877.90 550 for $916.90 575 for $955.90 600 for $994.90 625 for $1033.90 650 for $1072.90 675 for $1111.90 700 for $1150.90 725 for $1189.90 750 for $1228.90 775 for $1267.90 800 for $1306.90 825 for $1345.90 850 for $1384.90 875 for $1423.90 900 for $1462.90 925 for $1501.90 950 for $1540.90 975 for $1579.90 1000 for $1618.90 1025 for $1657.90 1050 for $1696.90 1075 for $1735.90 1100 for $1774.90 1125 for $1813.90 1150 for $1852.90 1175 for $1891.90 1200 for $1930.90 1225 for $1969.90 1250 for $2008.90 Let's Celebrate shines brightly in the foil color of your choice and adds to the festive dots and stripes on this party invitation. Type of Printing: Foil stamped and Flat printed Black and Platinum Ink and Red Foil Lettering: FNH Verse: N502	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1119
__label__wiki	0.896483	0.896483	Story: Nelson region Māori history European settlement Sea and air transport and communications Mining, quarrying and energy Forestry, fishing, manufacturing and tourism Arts, culture and science Johann Heine, Upper Moutere, 1880s The retired Reverend Johann Heine sits reading in his rocking chair in the garden of the Lutheran parsonage at Upper Moutere in the 1880s. Heine had arrived in Nelson with the first German-speaking immigrants in March 1843. He moved to the Upper Moutere valley in the 1850s, and became the community pastor. The Heine family enlarged an existing house to 15 rooms, the largest of which served as a schoolroom and church until a small church was built in 1864. The German immigrants named the settlement Sarau after a beautiful village in northern Germany. Both names – Sarau and Upper Moutere – were used until the First World War, when German names were anglicised, and Sarau was dropped. Alexander Turnbull Library, Miss C. Heine Collection (PAColl-2232) Reference: 1/2-032576-G Petition of ‘Working Men of Nelson’ Proclaiming Nelson a city Carl Walrond, 'Nelson region - European settlement', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/photograph/28825/johann-heine-upper-moutere-1880s (accessed 20 January 2020) Story by Carl Walrond, updated 1 Aug 2015 Heine was one of four Don Allen (not verified) Heine was one of four Lutheran clergy who had arrived, at the young Wakefield settlement of Nelson, with the first German speaking migrants, aboard the ship St Pauli, on 14 March 1843. They came ashore on the 16th. Heine was one of two missioners who had accompanied two ordained pastors. He would be ordained as a pastor at Nelson, on 12 August 1849, by his former colleague at Nelson – Pastor JFH Wohlers, now of Ruapuke Island, in Foveaux Strait. Heine moved, with most of the remaining Nelson Germans to the upper Moutere valley in the early 1850s. His home (depicted) was built by a fellow settler – Cordt Heinrich Bensemann, my great-great-great grandfather. Its remains still stood in the early 2000s. Sarau/Upper Moutere's first Lutheran church was, following an 1863 community meeting, erected in 1864 and was consecrated on 18 Feb 1865. Due to the effects of the previously unknown borer beetle, the original kahikatea church was replaced in 1905 – by one built of rimu! Pastor Heine was survived by his widow – Anna, daughter of Cordt Bensemann. Anna (Bensemann) Heine would die on 8 January 1910. At least two similar photographs survive, within the Bensemann and Heine families, indicated as dating from about the same period - the late 1880s.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1124
__label__wiki	0.50509	0.50509	4chan adds WebM support for “better animated images” By Terence Huynh on April 7, 2014 Google’s WebM video format now has an unlikely backer. The infamous imageboard 4chan has announced that it will allow users upload WebM videos to the site, in order to provide “better animated images” support. Because the file format is being used as an alternative to the traditional animated GIF, 4chan will only accept WebM video with no audio, that are shorter than 120 seconds long, no larger than 2048×2048 pixels, and less than 3 MB in size. “While WebM is technically a video file format, it offers many advantages over animated GIFs – namely superior image quality, support for more than 256 colours, and reduced file size,” 4chan’s founder Christopher Poole – or moot – said in a blog post explaining the decision. One of the biggest limitations of WebM has been browser support. Opera, Firefox and Chrome natively support the video format, while Internet Explorer and Safari do not. This is largely because the W3C were unable to decide on a file format for HTML5 video that all browsers should support to maintain interoperability, and Microsoft and Apple are backing the alternative H.264 video format. Poole, however, notes that 86 percent of visits come from browsers that “include full or partial support for WebM” – so it’s not much of a problem for them. As well, plugins exist for Internet Explorer and Safari to support WebM. 4chan has also provided a quick guide (warning: potentially NSFW) on how to encode videos for the site. tgau.co/1hCsTNy	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1126
__label__wiki	0.619637	0.619637	Marcello Mastroianni: the multiple facets of an Italian outstanding star A next door guy rather than a "reluctant Latin lover" Foto: 1968: Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni (1924 - 1996), who is playing Valerio in Vittorio de Sica's 'A Place For Lovers' (aka 'Amanti'). (Photo by Keystone Features/Getty Images) Today would be the birthday of a great Italian icon, Marcello Mastroianni. The "reluctant Latin lover" - so called by the Americans - was born in Frosinone on the 28th September 1924. His life was characterized by multiple roles besides great characters of Italian theatre and cinema scene, such as Luchino Visconti and Federico Fellini. Mastroianni was the traitor in "Allonsanfan", the tormented journalist in "Dolce Vita", the impotent husband in "Bell'Antonio" and even the homosexual in "Todo Modo", all roles that amused him over time. Rather than a "reluctant Latin lover", Mastroianni portrayed himself as "a passionate explorer of female universe" also unable to stably stop on one single element, being a woman, a single passion, a dream or an ideal. Mastroianni himself commented on his turmoil stating: "I know I'm not mature at all...I feel as I'm always lacking... I always need something more. Therefore, I want everything...I'm ready to be subjected to any influence not to miss out on anything". Mastroianni's interior unrest was well-known to all his women: his wife Flora Carabella (Barabara's mother from whom Mastroianni never divorced), Catherine Deneuve (Chiara's mother) and also his partner Anna Maria Tatò, together with all the others in between these important stories. Mastroianni had a very controversial relationship with women, considered his extraordinary driving force: "I need a woman to work, to think and even to live. If I'm alone, I'm worth half", Mastroianni declared. Mastroianni's figure has always been accompanied by humility and affection not only towards is lovers but also towards his friends and colleagues. His talent was outstanding and the key of his popularity was to be able to keep a low profile, to appear as a "normal guy" to whom extraordinary things happen. Furthermore, Mastroianni was also able to make fun of himself, engaging the audience being ironic about the existential dilemmas of life.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1132
__label__wiki	0.814068	0.814068	This Chart Shows the Hidden Problem in America's Gun Debate By Jack Linshi A new report from the General Social Survey (GSS) says the percentage of Americans who own guns fell to 32% in 2014, down from 49% back in 1973. But other data runs contrary to the idea that fewer Americans own firearms — according to Gallup’s historical data, gun ownership hasn’t changed much from what it was in the 1970s: 43% in 1972 compared to 42% in 2014. Here’s a look at how the two sources of historical gun data compare: Since the federal government doesn’t collect data on U.S. gun ownership, comprehensive gun trends research has fallen into the hands of independent agencies like GSS and Gallup, whose results are often curiously at odds. Judge Upholds Ban on Weapons at Pro-Gun Rally in Virginia TSA Found a Record Number of Guns at U.S. Airports in 2019 While GSS has become arguably the authoritative institution for gun data, it’s often criticized by pro-gun advocates for being partially funded by the Joyce Foundation known for its anti-gun efforts. Pro-gun advocates such as political commentator John Lott have also pointed to data showing a rise in the number of concealed handgun permits issued by various states, supporting Gallup’s findings that gun ownership may be increasing or remaining steady. But GSS’s findings have found support from Pew Research, whose research on gun trends “largely confirm” the decline in gun ownership reported by GSS. The exact reason for the disparity across major gun ownership studies is still unknown. Some researchers suspect gun survey results are influenced by people’s lack of openness with pollsters. Another challenge is choosing a representative sample to survey, as there are “sharp differences” between gun ownership rates across demographic categories, according to Pew. As Gallup’s editor-in-chief, Frank Newport, describes it, “it’s an intriguing social-science puzzle as to why we are seeing the differences. I’ve learned in my career that the best answer to these kinds of questions is to get more data.” The 50 Best Podcasts to Listen to Right Now	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1134
__label__wiki	0.609898	0.609898	Twitter Youtube Instagram Facebook Contact Us Their Voices The latest on freedom of expression in Vietnam Latest News and Analysis From the Ground Tran Thi Nga Released Early and Exiled to the US, Amidst Continued Crackdown Against Political Activists in Vietnam https://the88project.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/tran-thi-nga.jpg 488 487 Huong Nguyen https://the88project.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/88project.png Huong Nguyen2020-01-11 03:07:462020-01-11 03:16:31Tran Thi Nga Released Early and Exiled to the US, Amidst Continued Crackdown Against Political Activists in Vietnam Crackdown on Freedom Publishing House: Public Security Harassed, Detained Readers And Confiscated Personal Belongings Without Warrant https://the88project.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Ho-Sy-Quyet-and-his-son_Source-Ho-Sy-Quyet.jpg 341 512 kayleedolen https://the88project.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/88project.png kayleedolen2020-01-10 04:59:392020-01-10 04:59:39Crackdown on Freedom Publishing House: Public Security Harassed, Detained Readers And Confiscated Personal Belongings Without Warrant Thanh Hoa Province: Ordinary Citizens Imprisoned For Expressing Discontent With Sea Square Construction Project In A Public Meeting https://the88project.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Le-Cao-Dung-and-Le-Van-Tuan-at-trial_Source-Bao-Thanh-Hoa.png 360 640 kayleedolen https://the88project.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/88project.png kayleedolen2019-12-18 01:27:322019-12-18 01:27:32Thanh Hoa Province: Ordinary Citizens Imprisoned For Expressing Discontent With Sea Square Construction Project In A Public Meeting Brawls Broken Out and Arrests Made: The Loc Hung Vegetable Garden Crisis Worsens https://the88project.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Loc-Hung-protest-12.3.19_Source-Facebook-Vườn-Rau-Lộc-Hưng.jpg 384 512 kayleedolen https://the88project.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/88project.png kayleedolen2019-12-11 15:47:262019-12-11 15:47:26Brawls Broken Out and Arrests Made: The Loc Hung Vegetable Garden Crisis Worsens Vietnam Free Expression Newsletter No. 2/2020 - Week of January 6-12 https://the88project.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Chung-Hoang-Chuong_Defend-the-Defenders.jpg 300 300 kayleedolen https://the88project.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/88project.png kayleedolen2020-01-13 14:36:092020-01-13 14:36:09Vietnam Free Expression Newsletter No. 2/2020 - Week of January 6-12 Vietnam Free Expression Newsletter No. 1/2020 - Weeks of December 23-29 and December 30-January 5 https://the88project.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Nguyen-Van-Trang.jpg 399 399 kayleedolen https://the88project.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/88project.png kayleedolen2020-01-06 14:00:362020-01-06 14:00:36Vietnam Free Expression Newsletter No. 1/2020 - Weeks of December 23-29 and December 30-January 5 Vietnam Free Expression Newsletter No. 51/2019 - Week of December 16-22 https://the88project.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Cao-Ha-Truc_Source-Facebook-Vo-Hong-Ly.jpg 526 527 kayleedolen https://the88project.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/88project.png kayleedolen2019-12-23 14:42:542019-12-23 14:42:54Vietnam Free Expression Newsletter No. 51/2019 - Week of December 16-22 Vietnam Free Expression Newsletter No. 50/2019 - Week of December 9-15 https://the88project.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Dao-Quang-Thuc-1.jpg 212 212 kayleedolen https://the88project.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/88project.png kayleedolen2019-12-16 14:32:222019-12-16 14:32:22Vietnam Free Expression Newsletter No. 50/2019 - Week of December 9-15 Hồ Sỹ Quyết - Statement Regarding Detention and Confiscation of Personal Belongings Without A Warrant https://the88project.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Ho-Sy-Quyet-and-son-Source-HSQ.jpeg 1152 1536 Huong Nguyen https://the88project.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/88project.png Huong Nguyen2020-01-09 16:04:502020-01-09 16:39:51Hồ Sỹ Quyết - Statement Regarding Detention and Confiscation of Personal Belongings Without A Warrant Tran Huynh Duy Thuc’s Letter From Prison, September 2018: “Creative Methods Are Needed to Bring Freedom to Our Society” https://the88project.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/tran-huynh-duy-thuc.png 227 195 kayleedolen https://the88project.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/88project.png kayleedolen2019-12-04 15:11:002019-12-04 15:11:00Tran Huynh Duy Thuc’s Letter From Prison, September 2018: “Creative Methods Are Needed to Bring Freedom to Our Society” 11 Birthdays in Prison: Interview with Tran Huynh Duy Thuc's Daughter https://the88project.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/thdt-smaller-image.jpg 737 736 kayleedolen https://the88project.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/88project.png kayleedolen2019-11-30 14:41:412019-11-30 14:41:4111 Birthdays in Prison: Interview with Tran Huynh Duy Thuc's Daughter Interview with Phan Kim Khanh's family https://the88project.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/phan-kim-khanh.jpg 768 768 comms https://the88project.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/88project.png comms2019-11-26 09:41:312019-11-26 09:41:31Interview with Phan Kim Khanh's family © 2019 The 88 Project . The 88 Project is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization registered in the state of Illinois, United States.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1144
__label__cc	0.604689	0.395311	Tag Archives: Bugatti Cars, Technology The world needs another Bugatti Veyron At $2 million, the Bugatti Veyron is a seriously expensive car with equally expensive maintenance – an oil change alone costs $21,000. The car’s not exactly a looker, either. But the Veyron is an exceptional kind of insane, and the world could use more of it. Tagged Bugatti, Bugatti Veyron Bugatti 16C Galibier four-door gets the green light for production A report from Bloomberg suggests that the Bugatti 16C Galibier sedan has been approved for production. Tagged Bugatti, Bugatti 16C Galibier New Bugatti Veyron in the works? Auto Express is reporting that a new, even faster Bugatti Veyron is in development. Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport begins sales in India, priced at $3.6 million The Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport has been put on sale in India with a price tag of $3.6 million. Tagged Bugatti, Bugatti Veyron, Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Car Launches, Cars, Top Gear Looking back at the past decade in motoring: Part 1 So then, it’s a new year, but it’s also the dawn of a new decade (Admittedly, it has been for almost two months now, but a series of articles like this takes some time). So we decided to look back into the last decade and talk about some of the big events which happened. It was undoubtedly a great decade for cars, so there’s plenty of stuff to get through. There were also some bad moments though, and we’ll be discussing those as well over the next week or so with a series of articles. Tagged 9ff, 9ff GT9, 9ff GT9-R, Arash, Arash AF-10, Audi, Bugatti, Bugatti Veyron, Keating, Keating TKR, Lamborghini, Lamborghini Gallardo, Porsche, Porsche 911, Porsche 911 Turbo, Shelby Supercars, Volkswagen Group, Zenvo, Zenvo ST1 Car Companies, Cars VW Group to stop expansion Martin Winterkorn - VW Group CEO The biggest car producer in the world, Volkswagen, has announced that it has no more interest in expanding, therefore buying other brands. After purchasing a 19.9% stake in Suzuki and a 49.9% stake in Porsche in the last months, VW’s CEO Martin Winterkorn said that he has no more intentions of acquiring stakes in other brands. Tagged Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, Porsche Boxster, SEAT, Skoda, Suzuki, Volkswagen, Volkswagen Group Ferrari is working on an Enzo successor Well, about time we say because it’s been quite a large gap between the Enzo and this. Of course, that may be explained by the fact that they did the 458 as well, or that they haven’t been going bonkers in such a long time. It will presumably be called the F70 (the Enzo was actually called the F60 but in order to celebrate Ferrari’s 60 years anniversary, it received the founder’s name). You might remember my last article about the rumours of Ferrari developing turbocharging and it seems I guessed right, the new limited edition model might just receive a twin-turbo V8, or a natural aspirated V10, or anything in fact. We don’t know, it’s all a guess at best. As Ferrari usually do, they take their last edition limited edition model (Enzo here), and make a mad, ready for the track version of it (FXX here) and then they make better what they could make better, throw in a bit of F1 technology and there you are – the new model arrives. So normally the new F70 should get FXX bits and F1 technology and the new turbo system perhaps. But what Ferrari are trying to do now is keep the weight down, they don’t want to have a million horsepower engine with 2 tons of car. The new engine is expected to produce as much power as the Enzo but with a new body weighing only 1000kg. That means a power to weight ratio of more than 600hp/tonne. That’s more than a Bugatti Veyron. Another reason for concentration on reducing weight is CO2, as the Italian car company wants to reduce the CO2 output on its vehicles. Now that is great news, so climb out of your Priuses eco-mentalists and get the new limited edition rampaging stallion. Well, probably not, as they will only make 399 and you can’t just go to the factory and say “I want one”, you have to be invited by Ferrari. Source: Autoblog Tagged Bugatti, Bugatti Veyron, Chrysler Group, Ferrari, Ferrari 458 Italia, Ferrari Enzo, Fiat Group, Toyota, Toyota Prius, Volkswagen Group Car Launches, Cars, Videos Insane Tuned Lamborghini So imagine you’re a millionaire. You’re looking for a high-end supercar, like the Veyron. You find that everything in that class is a bit slow though. So, of course, you commission someone to build something even better. That’s exactly what’s happened here. Tuning company Underground Racing was commissioned by a customer named Jonah to build a twin-turbo Lamborghini Gallardo. The result? 1500hp at the wheels (Though it does require the use of VP C16 racing fuel). Compare that to the 1287hp the Shelby Supercars Ultimate Aero has at the crank, and you begin to realize just how fast this thing is. You may also bring up the Keating TKR as an argument, which has 1800hp at the crank. Now, there’s no official figure on the brake horsepower for this, but considering the drivetrain loss for AWD cars is about 25%, this should put out around 1875bhp, 75 more than the Keating. Admittedly, this is only an estimate, but there’s 75bhp of leeway before the Keating has the advantage, so I reckon this puts out more power. The owner, Jonah, managed to clear the quarter mile in this in less than 10 seconds at a speed of over 160mph, and keep in mind that he isn’t a professional racing driver, hasn’t been to the drag strip in over a decade, and this was the first time he drove the car. Give a proper driver some time to practice in it, and I reckon this could clear the quarter mile in less than 9 seconds. Compare that to the Shelby Ultimate Aero Twin Turbo, which did the quarter mile in 9.90 seconds at 144mph with a proper driver in it, and you yet again see the sheer madness of this car. Besides this insane engine, there have been some other changes. It’s got new wheels and new tires, the rear lights have been tinted, and a spoiler has been added. This may have come with the original car though, as it looks a bit like the Superleggera spoiler, so maybe the base car was a Superleggera. By the looks of the pictures, the car has also been lowered slightly. Details are a bit sparse, so I don’t know whether or not they modified the suspension, though I’d sure hope they did, as 1500whp with suspension intended for about 500bhp is insanity. The engine is hooked up to a six-speed transmission of some sort. As far I can tell from the video below (Official video released by Underground Racing), the twin-turbo kit is now available for anyone who owns a Gallardo. Source: WorldCarFans Tagged Bugatti, Bugatti Veyron, Keating, Keating TKR, Lamborghini, Lamborghini Gallardo, Shelby Supercars British Man-In-A-Shed Car Heading for the Record Books Note: Article recreated after losing the original for an unknown reason. British man-in-a-shed company Keating has got some serious ambitions: setting the record for the fastest production car in the world. They plan to do this using the Keating TKR. It’s quite an amazing machine actually. It has a 7.0L engine developing an insane 1800hp. That’s about 800 more than the Bugatti Veyron, and about 600 more than the current record holder, the Shelby Supercars Ultimate Aero Twin Turbo. You’ve probably never heard of it though. Even if you have, you’ve probably never seen one in the flesh, as only 4 have been sold. 1 is in the UK, 1 is in the US, and two are in Australia. Now, it’s already achieved what it needs to. In test runs, it hit 260.1mph, 3 more than the SSC Ultimate Aero and 7 more than the Bugatti Veyron. The problem is, that’s 3 more than the official record of the Ultimate Aero. The Ultimate Aero gets updated every year, and the latest model has a claimed top speed of 287mph, so while they can make the official record, so long as 260.1mph can be repeated again in the presence of officials, there will be people out there whining that it hasn’t beat 287mph. So to really prove itself, it needs to beat that. Keating realizes that, and has set themselves the goal of a whopping 300mph. I wish them good luck, and boy, would I love to have a ride in one of these myself. 1800hp at your disposal is my idea of heaven (Though it could also end in you actually going to heaven). Just one thing though, that rear end: Zonda rip-off? Source: WorldCarFans and an Autoblog article which, by coincidence, seems to have disappeared as well (Or maybe I just can’t find it) Tagged Bugatti, Bugatti Veyron, Keating, Keating TKR, Shelby Supercars	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1147
__label__wiki	0.53046	0.53046	[Rare] Silk, leather, redrafted psalmists’ epistles, calved fully somehow. Conference time again in the college of a capital, Rare books cataloguing, the session warming with Dates Latin counting backwards to Christ [square brackets]. Count the signatures stitched into spine lines: A time when these words would clear a room, Or set in uproar, have them hanging by a thread. If no author authority, then do with what’s there. An impression is not an edition, is never finished. A print run may’ve diminished to an example of one. The item in hand has long not soaked the sun. Attend to publisher At The Sign Of The Head Backwards from the churchdoor quick and dead. Check for existence in the best register, titled ‘Early and Often’. Sonnet written by Philip Harvey during the ANZTLA Conference in Sydney this week. Labels: Book in poetry, Rare books Roland Murphy & Wisdom Literature (1) A short biography of Roland Murphy O.Carm. Roland Murphy O.Carm. (1917-2002) was the subject of July’s Carmelite Conversation at the Carmelite Library. Fr Roland was an American Carmelite and prolific biblical scholar. His youthful study life began at the critical moment when the Catholic Church had just approved pursuit of the historical critical method in reading the Bible. This huge advance in thinking resulted in a remarkable outpouring of work from Roland Murphy, especially on his favourite subject, the Wisdom Literature of the Hebrew Bible. The Conversation included, for enjoyment and edification, structured readings of parts of his translations and commentaries on Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and Psalms. Here is the biographical section of the morning’s offerings, prepared by Philip Harvey. A theological cataloguer becomes familiar with the names of well-known and not-so-well-known theologians. We make it our business to know who’s who, also who they all are, in fact. We describe their books, follow their reviews, and watch out for the latest works. A name that I’ve known for as long as I’ve worked in theology libraries is Roland Murphy, though until this year the only book of his I’d spent time with at length was ‘The Tree of Life’, his enriching overview of the Wisdom Literature of the Hebrew Bible, now in its third and I suspect final edition. Roland Murphy died in 2002 at the biblical age of 85. Those with calculators can tell us that he was therefore born in 1917. A fellow Carmelite remembers him at seminary at Niagara Falls, Ontario in 1930. Two periods each day were devoted to the study of Latin, where Roland stood out because “invariably he received a mark of 100 on the daily vocabulary test.” (Egan 84) His exceptional gift for language would inform his whole career, as eventually he came to master the modern languages of German, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish; the biblical languages of Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic; and the ancient languages that impact on scriptural composition: Syriac, Akkadian, Arabic, and Ugaritic. “Coincident with the graduate studies Roland began his twenty-five year career as teacher of Scripture at Whitefriars Hall. This direct contact with a whole generation of Carmelite students was the single most important feature of his influence on the intellectual life of the Carmelites. His achievements and reputation outside the community as university professor, researcher, writer, and editor, gave him a high profile and were a source of pride and admiration among his Carmelite brethren. But the teaching put the man in living contact with the students, where he touched minds and hearts. Here students experienced his contagious enthusiasm for Scripture, his competence as a scholar, his rigorous honesty in both academic and practical matters, his high standards and expectations, and his undeviating commitment to truth. Roland was a giant: physically, mentally, and spiritually. In his religious life he followed the strictior observantia and taught by silent example rather than word.” (Egan 59-60) Stories abound of his “contagious enthusiasm for Scripture”. “Roland livened his classes by dramatizing the biblical stories and by taking on the different personages. He was the first in my experience to use the term ‘Yahweh’ for God. It wasn’t long before thestudents pinned on him, outside of class of course, the very title he used for God, ‘Yahweh’. “When Roland taught the prophets, he could play the prophet as he resoundingly condemned the kings of Israel and Judah, echoing the judgment of Yahweh. He paced back and forth with those giant strides that his six foot four frame permitted. More than once he had to grab the toppling blackboard as he went on his pursuit of God in history. We left class breathless from his physical and psychic energy. “ I [Peter Hinde, O.Carm.] recall his treatment of Wisdom, the Song of Songs, Ben Sirach, and Ecclesiastes. He delighted in the concrete imagery of wisdom literature: ‘As a door turns on its hinges, so does the sluggard in his bed’ (Proverbs 26:14) He’d scrutinize the room as if looking for an example in the class.” (Egan 68) Sources vary as to Fr Roland’s height, others saying he was six foot seven. Those of you who have studied the Bible in church or theology school will wonder at his idea of an exam. “Many of his students from the early 60’s remember the final exam in which for the first hour they were told to outline Salvation History from the Garden to candles glowing in the Temple after the Maccabbean revolt. During the second hour of the exam they were to fill in the outline!” (Egan 69-70) When we look at his works set out before us, we cannot miss that Everest amongst the many peaks, ‘The Jerome Biblical Commentary’, of which he was one of the three editors, as well as major contributor. It was published in 1968 and has served as the first resort, and sometimes alas the last resort, of Catholic theological students ever since. In other words, this is an author whose words reach millions of readers every year, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, even if they have no idea that they are reading Roland Murphy. Some would say that the Jerome Commentary is merely the Annapurna put beside his work as translator of the New American Bible (NAB). The point I am making is that his life was one of concerted and brilliant scholarship. His talent as a teacher was in some ways simply an extension of his extraordinary breadth of working knowledge and unbounded enthusiasm for the Bible. He produced more than 230 books and articles in his life. I have calculated that if we had a reading simply of the titles and publishing details of all those works it would take longer than the hour and a half we have together now. His career in this respect takes him well beyond the confines of seminary teaching in Washington D.C.As well as Catholic University of America, where he also taught Semitic languages and theology, he studies Arabic at the American Schools of Oriental Research in Jerusalem. He had strong connections with the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, as we would expect. He held important professorial positions, was President of the Catholic Biblical Association and the Society of Biblical Literature of the United States. (Corley) For 25 years he taught inside Catholic schools of theology, but after the Vatican Council Roland Murphy began dividing time with Protestant schools: the Presbyterians at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Yale and Princeton Universities, and then for many years with the Methodists at Duke University (Corley). This itself is another historical shift in his life – the ecumenical engagement – that he pursued and led by example. Working with Protestant scholars and students further expanded his worldview and knowledge. They could learn from him and he could learn from them. We may never learn about all the differences he had with Catholic faculties of theology, though being of independent mind he does seem to have had encounters. For example, he signed a petition in support of more openness about the encyclical Humanae Vitae (1968), explaining that he was not in rebellion against it, just part of the loyal opposition. Biographical writing on Roland Murphy is coy about details of departmental clashes, but his gradual shift to faculties of advanced non-Catholic schools is observable through this period. For biblical studies and Fr Roland this was an expansion of possibilities. One story (source now lost) that I have encountered is told by a student at Duke. She was starting her study in Old testament and needed to meet her new teacher, Roland Murphy. Wher can I find him? What does he look like? She was told to look out for a Q-Tip. This expression was new to me so I googled it. In the United States a Q-Tip is a brand of cotton bud. In other words, the person she was looking for had a head of white hair. Which, of course, was true, he was tall and by this time had a white mane of hair. This story appeals to me: someone who has dedicated his life to the study of Wisdom ends up as a Q-Tip. I wish to make some observations about his writing style. Roland Murphy’s commentaries, his essays and articles, are written in an English that is concise, spare, and direct. This style is in marked contrast to what we consider the attributes of the poetry and Wisdom sayings of the Bible, which are imaginative, ambiguous, multi-layered, daring, even flowery. It is not just that Wisdom Literature is expected to be this way. Fr Roland’s scholarly attention is upon the fact that it is the very nature of this literature. We notice and hear the differences when we read his translations beside his own interpretations. While I have wondered at the seeming contradictions in these styles, I hesitate to make final judgments, or conclude that it is unusual. His concise English style has been cultivated and his normal speaking voice. The style gets to the point, strives for utter clarity of meaning, sets the scene for discussion. I do wonder if it has been influenced by a lifetime reading ancient languages, with their clipped words, invisible particles, and tricky declensions. The Bible wishes to say things in the briefest and surest ways possible – the attention span of people being what it is – and this has affected his written English. I would also draw attention to his mode of translation, which would avoid prosy English in favour of hardline arrangement, even to the point of placing words strictly in the order they appear in the original. My conclusion to this biography returns to his life as a Carmelite, for throughout his life he always lived with the support and friendship of the Order. It is valuable to hear his confrere Kilian Healy write this. “It is the liturgical life of the [Carmelite] community, the daily recitation of the liturgy of the Hours, and the celebration of the Eucharist that plays an important part in Roland’s life. The Word of God which he studies each day and proclaims in the classroom has become the soul of his prayerful life. In this he is faithful to the Carmelite Rule that exhorts its members: ‘Each one of you is to stay in his own cell or nearby, pondering the Lord’s law day and night and keeping watch at his prayers unless attending to some other duty.’ (ch.7) ‘The sword of the spirit, the Word of God, must abound in your mouths and hearts. Let all you do have the Lord’s Word for accompaniment.’ (ch. 14)” (Egan 67) Corley, Felix. Fr Roland Murphy, O.Carm. (1917-2002) – Catholic Biblical Scholar. In The Independent newspaper, London, 2002. Egan, Keith & Craig Morrison (editors). Master of the sacred page : essays and articles in honor of Roland E. Murphy, O.Carm., on the occasion of his eightieth birthday. Carmelite Institute, 1997 Labels: Bible, Roland Murphy, Translation Roland Murphy & Wisdom Literature (2) Modern interpretation of Scripture, Catholic teaching, and the Interpreters Roland Murphy O.Carm. (1917-2002) was the subject of July’s Carmelite Conversation at the Carmelite Library. Fr Roland was an American Carmelite and prolific biblical scholar. His youthful study life began at the critical moment when the Catholic Church had just approved pursuit of the historical critical method in reading the Bible. This huge advance in thinking resulted in a remarkable outpouring of work from Roland Murphy, especially on his favourite subject, the Wisdom Literature of the Hebrew Bible. The Conversation included, for enjoyment and edification, structured readings of parts of his translations and commentaries on Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and Psalms. Here is the section on Bible and the Church, prepared by Philip Harvey How do any of us read the Bible? And if we do read the Bible, why? When Jews read Scripture, as they are required to do, they tap directly into their most ancient writings of origin, story, legend, poetry, law and so forth. They must be familiar with Torah, the first five books, and aware of the other great sections known as Nevi’im (Prophets)and Ketuvim (Writings). Ketuvim is the section that has Roland Murphy’s closest attention. The Jewish practice of different ways of reading the same passage of Scripture, known as Pardes, can be traced through the Common Era. Pardes is an acronym for the four different ways: Peshat, meaning the straight or literal way of reading; Remez meaning ‘hints’ or in other words the deep allegorical meaning beneath the literal meaning; Derash meaning the seeking or inquiring way, exemplified by midrash; and Sod meaning the mystical way given through revelation and inspiration. These ways include space for not knowing the meaning, or leaving yourself open to emptiness, to other possibility. It should be said now that this is a seriously anti-fundamentalist method of reading Scripture, even as Scripture is treated as fundamental to faith. Jewish tradition says there is no one way of reading the words, value may be found in different approaches. Interestingly, the 4th century monk John Cassian identified four ways in which the Bible could be read: the literal, the symbolic, the ethical, and the mystical. The Bible itself, Old and New Testaments in Christian tradition, became a contested work at the Reformation. Much of this had to do with who could interpret and what language was appropriate. While Humanists like Erasmus delighted in studying the texts in original languages, creating complutensians, and arguing for vernacular translations, the church was confronted with division. Protestants insisted on having the Bible each in their own language. It was felt that anyone could freely interpret the text, you didn’t need to be a priest or an expert. When Rome opted to retain the Latin Bible as authoritative and interpretation as the jurisdiction of the clergy, the future was fixed. This was not helped in the 18th century by Enlightenment sidelining of Scripture and questioning of many of its most valued preconditions, even to the point of questioning the historicity of Jesus Christ. We continue to hear this sort of banter from self-styled radical atheists to this day. Often their own reading of Bible has not gone beyond mono. While Protestants were free to develop new theories about the Bible, Catholics remained suspicious of new learning that could deepen our understanding of the biblical texts. Homiletical practices were acceptable but the modernising approaches were avoided, when not received with hostility. All of which came to head in 1893 when Pope Leo XIII issued the encyclical Providentissimus Deus, ‘On the Study of Holy Scripture’. It was a creature of its time and place. In it, the Pope reviewed the history of Bible study from the Church Fathers to the present. He spoke against the errors of Rationalists and ‘higher critics’, outlining principles of Scripture study and guidelines for how it was to be taught in seminaries. He also addressed the issues of apparent contradictions between the Bible and the sciences, or between one part of scripture and another, and how such apparent contradictions can be resolved. This triumph of anti-Modernism put back Catholic scholarship, but needs to be appreciated in the light of one of the Papacy’s greatest backflips of all time, the encyclical issued fifty years later, Divino afflante Spiritu, ‘Inspired by the Holy Spirit’. More kindly people have called it an “about-face”. (Egan 83) Pope Pius XII in 1943 called for new translations of the Bible into vernacular languages, including the same languages rejected in the 16th century. Significantly for the life of people like Roland Murphy, these translations were to be made from the original languages and not the Latin Vulgate. The Vulgate of Saint Jerome had formed the textual basis for all Catholic vernacular translations until then. It determined critical and other readerly responses. It was the way a Catholic understood the Bible, whether educated or uneducated. When the great English theologian Ronald Knox translated the Bible his superiors required him to work primarily from Jerome’s Latin, even though the Greek and Hebrew were known to him. This waste of scholarship was overturned by Pope Pius’s encyclical, and it is painful to read the 1955 subtitle of Knox’s work: ‘The Holy Bible : a translation from the Latin Vulgate in the light of the Hebrew and Greek originals’. This sort of thing will never happen again. It needs to be remembered that when the translation committee produced what came to be called the King James Bible in 1611, they worked without hindrance from the Hebrew and Greek, and other languages, which they knew intimately, being the best linguists in the realm. The editors of The Jerome Biblical Commentary, in their preface, described Pius XII’s encyclical of 1943 as a "Magna Carta for biblical progress." Divino afflante Spiritu inaugurated the modern period of Roman Catholic biblical studies by encouraging the study of textual (or lower criticism), pertaining to text of the Scriptures themselves and transmission thereof (for example, to determine correct readings) and permitted the use of the historical-critical method (or higher criticism), to be informed by theology, Tradition, and church history on the historical circumstances of the text, hypothesizing about matters such as authorship, dating, and similar concerns. This is why Roland Murphy launched forth into the study of ancient languages when he did, and why his works argue the meanings of verses in more informed and exciting ways. While the encyclical never mentions Protestant or other biblical scholarship in so many words, it is now understood that the advanced state of non-Catholic biblical studies was a serious prompt to the thinking of the encyclical and consequent actions. “The historical critical method was declared not only appropriate, but even necessary, and Catholic scholars were now free to explore all facets of scriptural inquiry. It was the dawning of an exciting era in scriptural studies.” (Egan 62-63) When we think of some of the great commentators in our own country, Frank Moloney, Brendan Byrne, Antony Campbell and others, it is this moment in time that made possible their work, for which we are all the beneficiaries. And likewise that earlier generation, of which Roland Murphy was one of the pre-eminent leaders. It is worth reading an account by one of his Carmelite students from that time in order to get an idea of what an impact this new learning had on anyone engaged in its purposes. “He proved at once to be a font of water in what might otherwise have been a desert. He led us to the actual texts and we plunged right in. Endowed with resonant voice and prophetic stature. Roland highlighted a text with gestures and facial expressions. Scripture had colour, nuance, and spiritual depth. He would invite us to find passages that most intrigued each one of us and then tell us to write our own comments and add whatever insights we might draw from scholarly commentators. In this way we examined the Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. We explored a text and personally appropriated favourite passages. Proverbs, for example, was a mine of wisdom and wit; it also provided an insight into the parallelism of Hebrew poetry. We shared not only Roland’s insights, but also his enthusiasm for the Word of God.” (Egan 86-87) Historically it is significant that the shift from central use of the Bible in Latin that happened through the 1950s prefigured the shift away from the centrality of Latin in the liturgy, in favour of the vernacular – a momentous change brought about by the Second Vatican Council. Fifty years again after Pius XII’s encyclical, Pope John Paul II and his colleague Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger published in 1993 ‘The interpretation of the Bible in the Church’, an extended appraisal of Catholic biblical method. The historical-critical method has in this short space of time been joined by many other new and related forms of biblical criticism, all of which are examined carefully for plusses and minuses. Most telling in this document is the acceptance that new methods of reading the Bible keep developing and the best the Church can do is test each one against Tradition and practice. It is a far cry from the dread of Modernism that animated Pope Leo XIII one hundred years before. Cardinal Ratzinger goes so far as to assert, “It is quite impossible to return to a precritical level of interpretation, a level which they now rightly judge to be quite inadequate.” (Pontifical 31) Pontifical Biblical Commission. The interpretation of the Bible in the church : address of His Holiness John Paul II and document of The Pontifical Biblical Commission Roland Murphy & Wisdom Literature (1) A short biog... Roland Murphy & Wisdom Literature (2) Modern inter...	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1148
__label__cc	0.66297	0.33703	US energy policy Eccentric orbits New planetary perspectives El Niño could mean 2015 is even hotter than last year’s scorcher James Dyke, University of Southampton James Dyke Lecturer in Complex Systems Simulation, University of Southampton University of Southampton provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK. El Niño means drought in Australia – and floods in America. Len Matthews, CC BY-NC-SA It’s confirmed: 2014 produced the highest global temperatures since records began in the 1880s. As if that’s not cause enough for concern, this year threatens to see the return of El Niño, which like some enraged climate-driven Godzilla, could emerge from the depths of the South Pacific and lay waste to entire regions. While the effects can be felt around the world, it is nations bordering the Pacific that are most affected by this natural phenomenon which puts parts of the Earth’s climate into reverse. Rain that would have fallen in northern Australia and Southeast Asia falls instead on the west coast of the Americas. Messing with the hydrological cycle can cause both major droughts and floods on different continents. El Niño can at the same cause crops to fail because of lack of rainfall while on the other side of the world wash away entire communities. El Niño and La Niña are the two opposing phases of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) which is the name given to the phenomenon of regular and sometimes large annual variations in sea surface temperatures, air pressure and rainfall. El Niño is characterised by significant warming of portions of the Pacific while La Niña sees lower temperatures in these waters. During an El Niño event, sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial regions of the Pacific increase significantly. This weakens the trade winds that blow westwards across the South Pacific. One result of this is that the warm waters that were previously concentrated into an area of the south west Pacific towards Australasia spread out eastwards across the whole ocean. This delivers a pulse of heat from the seas to the atmosphere. Click to zoom in. Delphine Digout, Grid-Arendal It is no coincidence that previous temperature records have been broken during El Niño years. One of the most significant El Niño events in the 20th century happened over 1997-98 and 1998 was, until last week, the hottest year ever. It hasn’t escaped people’s attention that 2014 snatched the title even without a helping hand from an El Niño. This year we may well find out what El Niño-assisted temperatures might be like as a number of meteorological agencies are giving about a 60% chance for El Niño over the northern hemisphere winter in 2015, perhaps persisting until spring. This estimate is based on something called the Oceanic Niño Index which is a measurement of temperature anomalies in three regions of the equatorial Pacific. If this is greater than 0.5°C for three consecutive months then alarm bells start ringing. That temperature change may not sound much, but a lot of energy is required to increase the temperature of billions of litres of water by even half a degree. Water stores an immense amount of heat compared with air such that it takes 1,000 times more energy to heat a cubic metre of water by 1°C as it does the same volume of air. Next time you boil the kettle, watch the electricity meter whizz round for a sense of this energy cost. The bottom of the oceans are cold, approximately 4°C three kilometres down. That represents a massive heat sink in which to hide extra energy from the surface. Since the 1970s, more than 90% of the additional heat due to higher greenhouse gas levels has been absorbed into the oceans. Some have argued that avoiding certain changes in ocean heat content is a more useful safeguard against dangerous climate change than the currently employed 2°C threshold of surface warming. Given their importance to climate dynamics, understanding what is going on in the oceans is vital if we are to produce useful scenarios for future climate change. Research published in the journal Science last year proposed the hypothesis that more heat is being drawn down into the ocean depths rather than warming the Earth’s surface, perhaps explaining the global warming “hiatus” observed since 1998. The record breaking 1997-98 El Niño may even have been an important driver of this large scale change in ocean currents. Does that mean there are reasons for optimism? Could a form of negative feedback be operating whereby higher surface temperatures lead to more heat being transferred from the surface to the ocean depths? Would this produce a braking effect on temperature increases? I think it’s fair to say this would have to be pure speculation. Climate-ocean dynamics are too complex to be able to discern such a process right now. What is certain is that there are large changes occurring in the amount of energy in the Earth’s oceans. One way or another this will have an effect on atmospheric processes and us surface dwellers. It’s also worth remembering that since 1998 there has been a steady increase in both sea levels and ocean acidity while glaciers have continued to retreat. Muir Glacier 1941 and 2004: now you see it, now you don’t. NSIDC, CC BY-SA The El Niño Southern Oscillation brings climate change into focus because it can produce such large and sudden changes in the weather. Current assessments are that an El Niño this year would likely be quite weak and nothing like the titan of 1997-98. The beast may continue to slumber. But unless there have been dramatic and long lasting changes to the El Niño Southern Oscillation, it will inevitably rise up and issue a roar that will be heard around the world. For now, satellites peer down and monitor surface temperatures while arrays of buoys sample a range of parameters under the water. Fingers crossed they don’t detect a monstrous shape forming any time soon. Weather records December 18, 2014 Get into the festive spirit by not eating turkey this Christmas February 20, 2015 Can civilisation continue? An Earth system scientist explains	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1149
__label__cc	0.54935	0.45065	Plaintiff Mark Janus, right, speaks outside the Supreme Court AP Photo/Andrew Harnik Teachers’ activism will survive the Janus Supreme Court ruling June 27, 2018 8.21pm EDT Sherman Dorn, Arizona State University Sherman Dorn Professor of Education, Arizona State University Sherman Dorn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. Arizona State University provides funding as a member of The Conversation US. The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Janus v. AFSCME 31 will hurt public employee unions in both membership and funding. The majority opinion, written by Associate Justice Samuel Alito, said that requiring public employees who are not union members to pay fees to a union for representation compels them “to subsidize the speech of other private speakers” – a union. That, the justices ruled, violates the First Amendment. This decision essentially turns all of the United States into a “right-to-work” environment for public employees. That means unions in the majority of states can continue to represent teachers, police and other public workers, but those unions can’t require workers to join or pay representation fees. The ruling affects hundreds of thousands of teachers, public health workers and police officers in 21 states from Hawaii to Maine. As a scholar of the history of post-World War II education policy, I see this decision as an important landmark in the history of teachers unions. The Supreme Court ruling is a serious legal and financial blow, but it will not kill public employee unions, teachers unions – or the ability of teachers to work together to amplify their voices for social change. The choice for teachers unions Collective bargaining is an important role for unions, but it’s important to understand that unions have long been about more than that. Hartford teachers strike, 1968. Hartford History Project Starting in the 19th century, teachers – who were mostly women – fought for decades to gain the right of union representation. That fight was not just about fair salaries and treatment. There has always been a social and political side of unionism. The first major teachers’ union in Chicago allied with social reformers to sue for the collection of corporate taxes in the early 20th century, for example. The enforcement of those corporate taxes funded schools and city services in general. Decades later, national teachers’ unions and union leaders often worked in collaboration with civil rights organizations. In the battle over voting rights in Selma, Alabama, teachers led by the Rev. Frederick Reese comprised the first group of professionals to join the voting rights marches, in January 1965. These two dimensions of union history – advocacy for workers of specific employers and a broader engagement about the terms of politics and the social contract –– have consistently been at play, true of local as well as national unions. Activist unions fight for parental leave and early childhood education – for values, in addition to salaries and a lunch that teachers can take by themselves. Activist unions can survive in a “right-to-work” environment. I know this personally. When I worked in Florida, I recruited dozens of my colleagues to join my university’s faculty union. Since the revision of the state’s constitution in 1968, Florida’s teachers and other public employees have operated under the state’s “right-to-work” provision in the state constitution. In other words, the United Faculty of Florida thus had the same legal context all public employee unions now face after Janus. When promoting membership, I explained what our union did concretely. But many of my former colleagues joined because our union defended values shared by faculty. Arizona teachers striking in April. AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin This spirit of activism was on display this year as thousands of teachers in West Virginia, Arizona and Oklahoma effectively organized despite having no union. Arizona’s teachers shut down schools for six days. They pushed a conservative legislature and governor into making a down payment on increased funding for schools and teacher salaries. Like their counterparts in West Virginia and North Carolina, Arizona’s teachers persuaded the public that they were walking out on behalf of their students and on behalf of what education could and should be. In making the case about more than teacher salaries, Arizona teachers revived a long history of social movement by teachers. The teachers who started the movement to organize the walkout were not leaders of a union, but they made the type of impact on teachers’ lives and public policy that we usually associate with unions. Legal status is not the only factor that determines what teachers unions and a public workers social movement can accomplish. In my opinion, those who think the Janus ruling is irrelevant are fooling themselves. So are those who think this decision will kill all public employee unions. The factors that pushed teachers to unionize in the past century will not go away. The tools at their disposal may change – but the drive to improve their careers and workplaces will continue. Labor power	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1150
__label__wiki	0.690926	0.690926	Home / Artists / Stellar Award Nominated Vocalist Cheneta Jones Introduces New Single “It’s You” Featuring Zacardi Cortez Stellar Award Nominated Vocalist Cheneta Jones Introduces New Single “It’s You” Featuring Zacardi Cortez St. Louis based breakout new artist CHENETA JONES had an incredible introduction into Gospel and Christian Music. Her 2012 debut album TRANSFORMED (Real Talent Media Group / Habakkuk Music /Universal) debuted at #13 on Billboard’s Top Gospel Albums and #17 on Billboard’s Top Heatseekers Chart. TRANSFORMED yielded two Top 25 Gospel Radio singles “Get There” and “Be Like You” and ultimately garnered the former Tye Tribbett background singer her first Stellar Nomination for New Artist of the Year. In the few short years since her entry into Gospel music as a bonafide musical force, Cheneta Jones has continued to plant her music and ministry firmly in an ever changing world to which her desire is to elevate, motivate and inspire with her voice. 2015 is bound to be another astounding year for the vocalist as she works on her sophomore project and introduces her first single “It’s You” (A Love Song). The beautiful and elegant singer and songwriter penned “It’s You”, with the help of producer Dana Sorey (Jason Nelson, Eric Roberson, Anthony Brown), as a Love song to Jesus. “People write love songs to one another all the time, but I wanted to write one to God and give Him honor and pour my love on Him,” Cheneta tenderly shares. “One of my favorite male vocalists is Zacardi Cortez,” she continues. “I’m so glad to have him on this song and he did an amazing job!” Cheneta and Zacardi croon the perfect love ballad as gospel radio embraces the heartfelt tune reminiscent of the classic inspirational love ballads and style of mutli-award winning brother sister super duo BeBe and CeCe Winans. “It’s You” launches Cheneta’s sophomore project I AM CHENETA JONES with a targeted Fall 2015 release date. Since her first CD, Cheneta has experienced many changes, challenges, high and low moments in life as so many do. I AM CHENETA JONES is proving to be somewhat of a chronicle of her growth as an artist and personal test and trials as a young woman in ministry. “This new project will definitely reflect my recent struggles – finding my identity, redefining myself as an artist and using God’s Word to find out who I am instead of letting people define who I am,” Cheneta confidently states. “I’ve grown as a songwriter because life experiences can help you write genuine, prolific songs,” she continues. “I’m in a different season of maturity because the enemy continued to attack me, but God’s mandate for me was greater and I remained tenacious, holding on to God and His promise to me. No matter what circumstances arise, God will make sure all things come together for His good if we just remain faithful.” Cheneta’s pure voice is an emission of her audacity to love God and be loved by God. “It’s You” is more than a song, it’s a statement of faith and dedication and a call for all to unite to the One who first loved. "It's You" Cheneta Jones Featuring Introduces New Single Nominated Stellar Award Vocalist Zacardi Cortez 2015-05-07 About Mike Jones Michael Jones is the Director of Public Relations for Urban Roundup Group, LLC and Chief Editor of uGospel.com. He began his career in the Gospel Music Industry upon graduating from Rowan University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications. Since then, Jones has had the honor of interviewing Kirk Franklin, Donald Lawrence, Erica Campbell, Deitrick Haddon and many more of Gospel’s elite.	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1153
__label__wiki	0.780165	0.780165	Exceptional legal aid funding should not be limited to extreme cases – Court of Appeal 17 December 2014 by Rosalind English R (on the application of) Gudanaviciene and others v The Director of Legal Aid Casework and others [2014] EWCA Civ 1622 – read judgment The Court of Appeal has ruled that the Lord Chancellor’s Guidance on exceptional funding in civil legal aid is incompatible with the right of access to justice under Article 6 of the ECHR and Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. The Court has further decided that this Guidance was not compatible with Article 8 of the ECHR in immigration cases; in other words, that legal aid should not be refused when applicants for entry to the UK seek to argue that refusal of entry would interfere with their right to respect for private and family life. This was an appeal against a ruling by Collins J in the court below that the appellant Director’s refusal to grant the respondents exceptional case funding under Section 10 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 in their immigration cases was unlawful. The Lord Chancellor’s exceptional funding guidance provided that civil legal aid under Section 10 should be granted in very limited circumstances. The Guidance says that the overarching question to consider is whether the withholding of legal aid would make the assertion of the claim practically impossible or lead to an obvious unfairness in proceedings. This is a very high threshold. The judgment presents something of a maze to the reader because it brings five cases under one umbrella – there being no appeal against Collins J’s order on the sixth (IS). The Court of Appeal had to decide, in relation to each case, what was the correct interpretation of Section 10 of LASPO; whether the Guidance was compatible with the provisions relating to access to justice under the Human Rights Convention and the EU Charter, and whether the Guidance was compatible with Article 8 of the Convention in immigration cases. On the last point, the respondents contended that there was no Strasbourg authority which has decided that Article 8 alone required the provision of civil legal aid in an immigration case. There was, they submitted, a good reason for this. The decision of the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR in Maaouia v France (2001) 33 EHRR 42 makes it clear that decisions relating to the entry, stay and deportation of immigrants do not involve the determination of civil rights. They are, therefore, outside the scope of article 6(1) of the Convention. This is so notwithstanding that the decisions in question may “incidentally ha[ve] major repercussions on the applicant’s private and family life or on his prospects of employment” (para 38). The Court did not agree with this approach. The fact that immigration decisions did not involve the determination of civil rights did indeed mean that Article 6(1) could not be invoked in relation to such decisions. But it did not follow that the procedural obligations of Article 8 do not apply to immigration decisions. Article 8 is frequently engaged in immigration decisions. The procedural protections inherent in article 8 are necessary in order to ensure that article 8 rights are practical and effective. [69] As we will see, some individual appeals by the authorities were allowed, and some dismissed. Reasoning behind the Court’s decision In the Court’s view, there was nothing in the language of section 10(3) to suggest that exceptional case determinations will only rarely be made. The provision did not in other words impose a condition that an exceptional determination should only be made where it could definitely be said that refusal would be a breach, which is what the guidance said. The question whether a refusal of legal aid would be a breach of an individual’s Convention rights or enforceable EU rights must be answered by applying the approach to be derived from the ECtHR and the CJEU case-law respectively. Therefore, when the Director concluded that a denial of exceptional funding would breach Convention or EU rights, he should make an exceptional funding determination: The concept of real risk has no part to play in the question whether the denial of legal aid would amount to a breach of an individual’s procedural rights under the Convention or under article 47 of the Charter.[31] Although the Guidance correctly identified many of the particular factors that should be taken into account in deciding whether to make an exceptional case determination, their effect was substantially neutralised by the “strong steer” highlighted by the court, which sent a clear signal to the caseworkers and the Director that the refusal of legal aid would amount to a breach of article 6(1) only in rare and extreme cases. In our judgment, there are no statements in the case-law which support this signal. In giving a clear signal that refusal of legal aid would only breach Article 6 in “rare and extreme cases”, the Guidance misstated the effect of Strasbourg case law. As was established in Airey v Ireland, the Convention guaranteed effective, not theoretical rights; the question was whether the applicant’s appearance before the tribunal in question without a lawyer was effective; it was relevant whether the proceedings taken as a whole were fair, and appeared to be fair; and equality of arms had to be guaranteed. None of the cases following Airey (Munro v UK (1984), Stewart-Brady v UK ; Steel v United Kingdom; McVicar v United Kingdom, and P v United Kingdom [2002] established that legal services were required only in extreme cases. As for Article 8, the established case law shows that Article 8’s procedural obligations do apply to immigration decisions. The procedural protections were necessary to ensure that the right to respect for home and family life were practical and effective. Whether legal aid was required depended on the facts of each case, including the importance and complexity of the issues and the individual’s ability to represent himself without assistance. The supply of assistance in immigration proceedings was restricted, individuals could well have language difficulties, and the law was complex. The Guidance provided, incorrectly, that legal aid was not available in any immigration case, regardless of the circumstances. The individual cases The extent of the Article 8 protection depended on the facts of each individual case. The first respondent was appealing against deportation after a criminal conviction for assault against her violent partner. A Lithuanian citizen, she had a very poor command of English and would be unable to approach her appeal objectively. Without legal advice, she would not begin to know how to prepare her appeal. But the second of the respondents, Nigerian citizen LS, claimed to be a trafficking victim. Directive 2011/36 art.12(2) did not confer an entitlement to legal aid in the process of identifying people as trafficking victims. Further, although the Director’s decision to refuse legal aid was flawed by its reliance on the Guidance, his conclusion that there would be no breach of Convention rights was correct in the circumstances. Relief should have been refused as a matter of discretion. It was further argued on LS’s behalf that, if a right to legal aid at the referral stage was not conferred directly by article 12(2) of the Trafficking Directive, the right may arise under article 47(3) of the Charter and Article 41 of the Charter. According to the Master of the Rolls, the argument took LS nowhere. The provisions of the Charter in question cannot give rise to some form of implied right under the Directive. If article 47(3) is considered as an independent source of rights, it is difficult to see how LS, as a Nigerian national who came to the UK from Nigeria, could rely on it.[108] Now to case 3. Mr Reis, a Portuguese national, entered this country in 1998 at the age of 12. Since about 2002 he has committed a considerable number of criminal offences which had increased in seriousness. His deportation appeal was not straightforward, since an EU citizen is entitled to the enhanced protection afforded to EU citizens who have resided in the UK for a continuous period of ten years. This constituted a “particularly complex legal issue”, meaning he was unable to effectively represent himself. The refusal of legal aid was based on an application of the Guidance which set too high a threshold. Collins J below quashed the refusal and directed that legal aid be granted for the hearing before the First Tier Tribunal. The Court of Appeal upheld his judgment. Case 4 concerns B, an Iranian national who arrived in the UK in March 2013. She claimed asylum fearing persecution for her political activities on behalf of Kurds. She was granted refugee status and given five years leave to remain. This case turned on whether her son and husband should have been given legal aid to apply for family reunion. Family reunion was not a right arising from the Refugee Convention and was accordingly not in scope for legal aid. However, the legal provisions governing family reunion and the procedure for making entry clearance applications are a complex and time-consuming process involving multipart evidential preparation without which family reunion applicants can be readily refused. The respondent would therefore not have been unable to have any effective involvement in the decision-making process without assistance. The Director ought therefore to have concluded that failure to provide legal aid would amount to a breach of her Convention rights. The point of law relied on by the fifth respondent (Ms Edgehill, a Jamaican national applying for leave to remain in the UK) had been raised by another party who was legally represented. While separate legal representation would have been desirable, failure to provide legal aid did not breach Article 8. A parting shot The Master of the Rolls ended his judgment by noting that an important strand of the authorities’ submissions was that, to some extent at least, courts (and in particular specialist tribunals) are able to adopt an inquisitorial approach and in that way ensure that litigants in person enjoy effective access to justice. We accept that this will be possible in many cases. But these appeals show that there are cases where this is not possible. We would point out that, in some circumstances, legal advice to the litigant in person may be more important than legal representation at the hearing for ensuring effective access to justice. We suggest that consideration be given to whether, in an appropriate case, ECF [Exceptional Case Funding] be provided for early legal advice even where it is not considered to be necessary for representation at the hearing. [185] Sign up to free human rights updates by email, Facebook, Twitter or RSS The non-residents legal aid case – LC advised to go for the ball, not his opponents’ shins Plan to stop non-residents getting legal aid unlawful, rules High Court – Angela Patrick Lack of legal aid stalls contact hearing Serious fraud trial abandoned because of cuts to legal aid	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1158
__label__wiki	0.516651	0.516651	The memory alchemists turning rain to gold We meet Hilde and Ylva Østby, to hear about their 'Adventures in Memory', and run an exclusive chapter from the book. You cover such broad ground in Adventures in Memory, pairing findings from neuroscience research with insights from literature, psychology, history, anthropology, architecture, mythology, and more. Why did you choose to incorporate so many different perspectives? Memory is so much more than the physiological processes within and between neurons in the brain. It concerns all of us, and makes an impact on – and is impacted by – all aspects of culture and society. We wanted to show through vivid examples why memory matters. We were also fascinated by the collective memory of human civilisation – the history books and literature that allow us to learn from our shared past. We felt that had to be reflected in the book as well. In Adventures in Memory, you also interview some fascinating characters, including people with extraordinary memories as well as those with extraordinary problems remembering. What were some of the highlights from these conversations for you Our conversation with Adrian Pracon, one of the survivors of the terrorist attack and mass shooting in Utøya, Norway, made a lasting impression on us. It is difficult to remain unmoved by his account of how the traumatic memories have tormented him. He took us on a trip to the Island where he and so many teenagers and young people were shot down. That experience, walking through the beautiful spring scenery while he showed us where he hid and where he saw people being killed… it was such a strong contrast. How can you live with memories like that and integrate them into your life, without being crushed by them? We also talked to several people who had lost memories of their childhood and youth, in part or completely, and we were fascinated by how they coped with what we would consider terrible circumstances. It is really possible to live a happy life without all of your memories? In a way, their story is true for all of us – we forget far more than we remember. We just never think of all the stuff we have forgotten! What is a 'cumulative' memory? Is this different from what you call a 'false memory'? A false memory is by definition something that has never happened, which you remember as if it were real. Cumulative memory, on the other hand, is a term we use to describe memories of events that have been repeated many times, like taking the bus to work or cuddling your child at bed-time. Because we don’t remember each separate instance the event took place, we construct a compilation of all those instances, so to speak. These compilations are similar to false memories in that they are not necessarily true renderings of the past, just approximations. All those times you took the bus were unique, and likely none of those experiences were exactly like what you imagine when you think about 'taking the bus'. But really all memories, true or false, are constructed in our minds. There isn’t as much of a difference between 'true' memories and false memories as we like to think. Many of the people you interview in Adventures in Memory have gone to outrageous lengths to improve their memory. We meet taxi drivers who had to train for years to navigate London’s crooked streets; quiz masters who diligently read their morning newspaper with a notepad and pen at their side; and a World Memory Champion who uses decks of cards to memorise lists of completely useless things. What drives us to these extremes? Why is remembering so important to us? Remembering gives us a sense of being in control and on top of things, whether it is control of performance and achievement, of our personal history, or of time itself. But for most of us, this is an illusion. Even if some of our experiences are etched into our brains as memory traces, they always come back to us transformed – perhaps even better than before, as Marcel Proust, author of In Search of Lost Time, might argue. It’s funny: we fear the loss of control that comes with forgetting, but most of us don’t even know what it is that we can no longer remember. There’s a very provocative line in the book: 'Forgetfulness is underrated'. Can you expand on this idea? Remembering and forgetting are both integral parts of memory. Forgetting is our brains’ way of tidying up so that the memories that remain can stand out and shine. Forgetfulness is nature’s way of showing us that time that has passed is best reconstructed, often with flaws, rather than remembered in perfect detail. And think about it: isn’t it a relief to forget sometimes? Good riddance to all those mundane seconds of our lives and all those bad feelings! And when it comes to the good experiences, forgetting what it was like to ride that roller coaster the first time around makes the experience all the more exhilarating on your next visit – if roller coasters are a good thing, that is. What was it like to write this book together as sisters? It was both a lot of fun and a challenge. We contributed equal amounts to the book, through writing, experimenting, and generating ideas. Going places and interviewing people together was really great, as was setting up experiments. As sisters, we are more honest with each other than most people, which actually helps with the writing process. Let’s just say that this adventure has given us a whole bunch of new memories together. Ylva, you’re a trained neuroscientist. Did you learn anything new while working on Adventures in Memory? Definitely! There are so many winding roads of memory research that I wouldn’t normally go down in my day-to-day work. And as a clinician, I mostly see clients with memory complaints, so learning more about people with superior memory abilities was an eye-opener. Also, learning from Hilde that memory was considered a divine art by 16th and 17th century alchemists was really fascinating. Writing this book has truly been inspiring for my research. Hilde, you have some thought-provoking ideas about the connection between memory and writing, drawn from your own experience as a journalist and novelist. Can you tell us more about it? While writing this book, it dawned on me how closely related the art of storytelling and the act of remembering are – how our stories and all of the most beautiful pieces of literature are structured just like memory itself. So learning more about memory definitely taught me more about writing. Also, as a historian, I realised how much focusing on our individual, fallible memories can be a mistake, especially in a court of law. False memory research started in the 1970’s because researcher Elizabeth Loftus wanted to examine why we so often wrongly accuse people of crimes they never committed – and do so with so much certainty. In truth, our memories are very unreliable, and she proved that through a number of spectacular experiments, including tricking people to think that they loved asparagus or hated eggs. I believe memories are supposed to be collective; together we can remember more than we can alone. Our stories, together, connect us to each other, keeping us within a shared reality. Lately, there’s been a lot of emphasis on mindfulness, on learning to live in the present moment rather than letting the mind wander. But in the book, you write that 'mindfulness has given future thinking a bad name'. Can you explain what you mean? Mindfulness is actually not about living in the present; that is a common misunderstanding. Instead, it involves a controlled form of mind wandering, in which one anchors the experience in the present moment. So it’s actually more correct to say that the misunderstandings around mindfulness and the hype it has created has given future thinking a bad name. People mistake mind wandering with rumination and loss of control. But rumination is not the same as mind wandering; it’s really a form of stagnated thinking. In life, we need these free moments of mind wandering to let our mental time machine run, process our memories, and develop a vision for our future. You talk to many of the main players in terms of psychologists studying memory. Did you find anything notable about them as a group? One thing that strikes us is how versatile these scientists are. Alan Baddeley may be known for his working memory model, but he has done so much more – the diving experiment, a system for making the postal codes in UK more memorable, to mention a few – and the same goes for Eleanore Maguire and Edward and May-Britt Moser. While they have their specialized fields of memory research, they are constantly developing new ideas. And they were all great fun to talk with! They are such an inspiration. At the same time, we must not forget that many researchers are contributing to the field through rigorous work that may not seem groundbreaking or spectacular. But without it, science would not go forward. The interdisciplinary nature of memory research also means that no one researcher or research group can grasp the whole understanding of what memory is. It is such a beautiful example of how the scientific community works as a whole to push knowledge forward. Ylva, I loved the phrase – actually your sister’s, but about what you were doing – ‘As if you were a memory alchemist and transformed the day into gold!’ Tell me a bit about your approach to remembering at that stage of the book, and whether you have kept it up. I wanted to know whether it was possible to keep more of my everyday life in my memory, but in the end, it turned out to be an exploration of the bliss of forgetting. In order to remember each day, I inserted an avatar representing the day of the month into the events of that day. So for the 7th, it was gold (because to me personally, the number seven is golden – a slight case of synesthesia of mine), so gold nuggets would lie around in the wet snow on the pier when we watched the divers in February, and the rain turned into tiny bits of gold falling from the sky outside the coffee shop were we used to sit while writing the book. The experiment made me really thankful for the memories I do get to keep, and perhaps more aware of the fact that the moment in the here-and-now may not be re-experienced, and that I simply do not have control over that. Also, the task turned into an obsession while it lasted, even to the extent that my mindset wouldn't let go immediately after the 100 days were over. When it finally did, and I turned back to normal, it made me more content with what I forget. At the same time, those golden moments also remind me of the parts of my life that don't stand out as particularly noteworthy and spectacular, just those everyday moments that is life, and I still wish I could remember more of them, too. It is a dilemma. Now, almost three years later, I can feel forgetting eating away at those memories, and I think a vast amount of it is now gone, despite my efforts. Trying to control memory is like trying to hold back the sea. I have not kept it up. That would be insane. With my limited memory, trying to keep track of all the days of my life is a terrifying idea! But what I have kept, and what Hilde has taken away from it too, is the idea of cherishing the details of memories, even if they are not spectacular, and using them to heighten awareness of being alive and boosting happiness. Final thoughts, Hilde? Since research shows that depression is transforming our memories, making them more general and vague, I reckoned that happiness is in the details – you know they say 'the devil is in the details', but obviously that's where happiness dwells, too! So I started focusing on the beautiful, everyday details in my life, trying to cling on to them. Actually they started using this tecnique in therapy, too. Whenever I feel a little bit down I try to focus on my daughter's beatiful eyes, or the colour on the flowers in my dining table. It really helps. Also, this is the very nature of literature, the awareness to details. So reading will also make you feel better. - Hilde Østby is a writer and editor and the author of Encyclopedia of Love and Longing, a novel about unrequited love that was published to critical acclaim in Norway. She has a master’s degree in History of Ideas from the University of Oslo. - Ylva Østby is a clinical neuropsychologist with a PhD from the University of Oslo who devotes her research to the study of memory. She is also vice-president of the Norwegian Neuropsychological Society. She lives in Oslo, Norway. Adventures in Memory: The Science and Secrets of Remembering and Forgetting is published by Greystone Books. Here we extract an exclusive chapter, with kind permission. Chapter 2: Diving for Seahorses in February Or: Where do the memories go? Beyond the pier at Gylte Diving Center, an hour’s drive out of Oslo, Norway, there are more than forty different types of marine slugs (nudibranchs). They come in all colors, from dark purple to transparent white. Their bodies are covered with tentacles with small stars at the tip, or are decorated with pink fringes like a Disney character from the 1950s. They stretch orange fingertips toward the shiny ceiling of the water’s surface or defiantly pull their luminescent, light-green feelers into their bodies. They slither around in clouds of glittery particles that swirl around the water here by the pier. The water is only forty degrees Fahrenheit. Farther into the fjord, we’ve seen ice floes bobbing up and down at the water’s edge. Soon, the slugs in the water will be joined by ten black-clad men chasing the seahorse’s secret. The divers’ flippers thump against the pier as they hobble like penguins toward the sea, then swirl up clouds of particles as the divers slowly sink to a depth of fifty feet. From our vantage point on the pier, we can see bubbles on the dark surface of the water, revealing where the divers are. The seahorses they are looking for are not in the water – we are, after all, in the Oslo Fjord. No, they are hidden beneath their tight diving hoods. The divers have plunged into the ice-cold February water to find out what goes on in the hippocampus. They’re hunting for memory. Together we are going to find out how memories behave when they enter our minds. Researching memory is, in a way, quite similar to diving. Our divers are about to break the surface and descend into the depths of memory itself. The only sign that there are memories below the surface is what rises and bursts, like the divers’ bubbles breaking the surface of the water. The experiment we are re-creating, famous in memory research, was first conducted in 1975 off the coast of Scotland. Memory researchers Duncan Godden and Alan Baddeley decided to test a popular idea, that you can remember something better when you return to the place where it happened. You know, like in crime novels, where the detective remembers an important detail when he returns to the scene of the crime. It’s a simple theory: when we are in the same environment as we were when an event took place, the memory of it will come streaming back, whether we want it to or not. Are memories easier to recall at the location where we first encountered them? How and where do they find a permanent place in our brain? To properly test this, Godden and Baddeley constructed an experiment in which people had to perform a task in two different environments, on land and underwater. Their assignment was to memorize lists of words either on the pier or twenty feet deep in the water, and later recall the lists either on the pier or in the water. One list was to be learned on the pier and recalled on the pier. After some time, a second list was to be learned underwater and recalled on the pier; a third list was learned underwater and recalled underwater; and a fourth list of words was learned on the pier and recalled underwater. The researchers anticipated that everything going on in the water – the cold and wet environment, breathing through masks, and so on – would make the divers remember less than they would on the pier. Theoretically, it should also be harder to learn something underwater as opposed to on land, given that the pressure and the mixture of gases the divers breathe would make it more difficult to focus. On this cold February morning in 2016, when we send our divers into the Oslo Fjord, it’s the first time anyone has repeated Baddeley and Godden’s experiment in seawater – some have re-created it in a swimming pool, but we all know that’s not the same. Will these ten men – thirty to fifty-one years of age – show the same results as in the legendary British experiment? “Now I can tell you exactly where I have been underwater, after many thousands of dives. I could not do that before,” says hobby diver Tine Kinn Kvamme, the experiment photographer. The lack of oxygen underwater, along with the stressful experience, means that people’s brains function differently from how they usually do. “When people first start to dive, few remember anything at all, nor can they report what happened underwater. First-time divers are asked to write their names backward underwater. Often, they will write things like ‘backward,’ or they will turn around only one letter in their name. If you ask them how many wheels a cow has, they’ll answer four,” she says. Ordinarily, memories reside within a large brain network. When memories enter our brain, they attach themselves to similar memories: ones from the same environment, or that involve the same feeling, the same music, or the same significant moment in history. Memories seldom swim around without connections, like a lonesome fish. Instead, they are caught in a fishing net full of other memories. When you want to recall a memory, you have a greater chance at catching it if you scoop up the other memories around it. When you pull in the net, it’s full of memories, and you can keep hauling it in until you find the memory you’re after. Would memory still work this way in a stressful situation, with subjects who had to deal with diving equipment and other distractions? Would context help the divers remember what they learned underwater when they’re also asked to remember it underwater? The experiment in 1975 showed the expected results: the word lists memorized underwater were also better remembered underwater, and the lists memorized on land were better remembered in a dry environment. We anticipate the same from our divers, but we don’t want their expectations to influence the results, so we haven’t told them what happened in the original experiment. The atmosphere is tense at Gylte Diving Center. We are not re-creating this classic psychological experiment just for fun: results from psychological experiments are not always reliable. A great deal can happen by coincidence, and it’s often only the results that confirm the hypothesis that are reported, while those researchers who find opposite results tuck them away in a drawer, ashamed and disappointed. When a team of researchers took on the task of re-creating one hundred experiments from different areas of psychology, only thirty-six were successful. The diving experiment was not among the hundred re-creations – but it’s having its time today, an ice-cold and rainy February day in Drøbak. Throughout history, philosophers and authors have asked themselves what memory is, how we learn and remember things, and what makes a memory reappear. At risk of offending an entire professional group: in many ways, we can call the philosophers of ancient times neuropsychologists, because they observed and tried to understand how the brain works without having access to today’s research methods. The million-dollar question that everyone is trying to answer is where in our brains our memories actually end up, and how it is possible for all our experiences to consolidate into a pink mass of brain cells and blood vessels. In 350 BCE, in De Memoria et Reminiscentia (On Memory and Reminiscence), Aristotle compared the memory process to making an impression in a wax seal. But exactly how the experiences turned into memories, he couldn’t say. By studying the divers at Gylte, we may not be able to see their brains etching words into wax seals, but we can observe how memories connect and become dependent on each other. Context-dependent memory tells us something very basic about how memories are stored. How much you know in a broad sense determines what you understand of the new things you learn. Your understanding of your new experiences depends on your prior experiences. This network of knowledge creates context for the new learnings – they get caught in the fishing net, if you will. When you know what the French Revolution was all about, it’s easier to understand the Russian Revolution, and when you have gained insight into Russian Communism, it shines a new light on the French republics, and so on. When our divers eventually resurface – ice-cold faces and eager eyes – and hand us their notebooks, filled with all they remember from a list of twenty-five short nonsense words, we will see with our own eyes how their brains have worked, linking words and seaweed and cold water together into the same network. But we’re still standing on the pier, while the February cold eats its way into our woolen underwear. It’s anything but magical. By contrast, during the Renaissance, in the 1500s and 1600s, many viewed memory as something magical. At the time, magicians and alchemists not only tried to make gold, but first and foremost used rituals and symbols to gain power over the world through enlightenment. Secret organizations, like the Rosicrucian Order and the Freemasons, believed that an individual could progress through many stages of enlightenment to become almighty, almost like a god. The most magical art of all was remembering, which they believed was connected to imagination, to the divine creativity of humans. When you think about it, it’s not such a strange idea, because there really is something magical about our ability to store the past and retrieve it as lifelike images. Between our temples, most of us are equipped with our own private memory theater, which continually stages performances, always with slightly new interpretations – and now and then, with different actors. Today we know that everything we think and feel takes place in our brain cells, yet it is still almost impossible to grasp that our whole lives are to be found in our brains. So many emotions – fantastic, sad, beautiful, loving, and scary experiences – are hidden in our cerebral convolutions as electrical impulses, inaccessible to other people around us. Even people who have experienced the same thing have completely different memories of it. But what sort of physical trace does a memory actually leave in our brain, and if we can locate it, can it explain memory? Memories are both abstract (states or episodes we can return to in our minds), and concrete (strengthened connections between neurons). Memories are incredibly complex. They are more than the trivia required to win a quiz show, more than the individual facts you look for among thousands of less relevant items in long-term memory. Just think of something you have experienced, recall your memory of it, and feel the sensations it contains. Are you watching it on your inner film screen? Do you hear the sounds, the voices; do you see the smiles, the eyes of the one you’re talking to? Are you on the beach on a summer’s day while the waves break against the sand? And the smells! Unlike at the movie theater, here we can smell the cinnamon buns and the ocean breeze, the seaweed in the bay, and hot dogs on the barbecue on the neighboring beach. You can even feel things, like the water hitting your body as you dive into the sea. All these sensations flutter about our brains as we remember. It’s not possible to describe a memory by pointing to a few connections in the brain. It has to be felt. At any rate, the hunt for the memory trace, the physical imprint of memory, has been a major part of brain research ever since neurons were discovered – well, actually, ever since Aristotle talked about wax seals. Some called it the engram, an inscription in the brain, and finding it became the holy grail of memory research. If we could find the engram, we would also understand the brain itself. With the help of our divers, we are trying to find the fishing net that holds our memories, the memory network. Every one of the squares in the net must be attached in some way; they are links that exist physically in the brain. Finding these links, and what they consist of, was a necessary step toward understanding how the brain handles memory. Before the 1960s, no one had succeeded in doing this. A happy rabbit was perhaps all that was missing: Terje Lømo would find the very first memory trace, the smallest part of a memory, inside a rabbit brain. He is now professor emeritus in medicine at the University of Oslo and has worked mainly in physiology, the study of how the body works. “I am most interested in how things work. Simply describing the brain was not enough for me,” he says. In 1966, he was leaning over a rabbit. It had once lived in the countryside, happily eating clover, without a care in the world. In the hands of Lømo, though, it now faced a problem. There it lay, sedated and with a fairly big hole in its brain, while the researcher came closer with tiny electrodes. “We sedated the rabbits and sucked out a little of their cortex, so that the hippocampus was exposed. Then we poured warm, clear paraffin in the hole; it gives a good view, keeps everything in its place, and makes it warm and moist enough for the brain to continue working through the experiment. We had a window into the hippocampus.” His main goal was to find out what happened when he sent small electrical impulses through the brain, not because he was particularly interested in the hippocampus, but because that part of the brain was easier to observe. As opposed to the very complex cortex, the layout of the hippocampus was much simpler and more understandable, and the routes through it were already well known. At the time, Lømo worked with Per Andersen, who had discovered that neurons could suddenly send off a train of signals, which were first measured by small electrodes used in experiments originally not concerned with memory at all. But neither Andersen nor other researchers knew what these signals meant. Now Lømo had decided to examine them more closely, which is where the happy – but soon dead – rabbit came into the picture. Lømo used a small electrode to set off tiny electrical impulses to travel from one part of the brain into the rabbit’s hippocampus, where he measured the signals with a small receiver. What young Lømo found was astounding and had never before been described. When he sent these electrical impulses through the rabbit’s hippocampus in small “trains” of repeated signals, the cells at the other end eventually needed less stimulation to become triggered. Some form of learning must have taken place; it was as if the neuron remembered that it was supposed to send its impulse when it had received the message from the preceding neuron! As if, initially, the first neuron had to nag it to send its signal: “Come on, come on, come on, fire already!” After having been prompted enough times, it understood to fire after just a cautious “Fire now!” And this response persisted. Something had permanently changed in the brain. What he’d discovered was simply the smallest part of a memory, a tiny little memory trace. This response is now called long-term potentiation, meaning that a physical change occurs in some synapses in response to a recurring stimulus. At the same time as Lømo was making his discovery, neuroscientist Tim Bliss – a few thousand miles away from Oslo, at McGill University in Canada – had been looking for memory on a cellular level. What he lacked was the evidence that strengthened synapses were connected to memories. That is, until Lømo stumbled upon long-term potentiation! Bliss traveled to Oslo and the two did some experiments in 1968 and 1969, resulting in a scientific paper they published in 1973. Their paper presented a theory of how a memory is created on a micro level. Almost nobody paid attention to the paper until twenty years later, because academia wasn’t ready for it. There was simply no context; no other studies had trodden even close to this particular corner of research. Since then, though, Bliss and Lømo’s paper has formed the basis for much of modern memory research. And now we know more: a memory consists of many of the connections they documented. One neuron can participate in many different memories. Memories are large networks of connections between neurons in the brain. When something becomes a memory, new links form – neurons either turn on or turn off, and either fire or don’t fire a signal in the brain, and in that way form a pattern. Our memories cannot all remain in the hippocampus, so they spread out across the cortex. It takes time before a memory matures and all the complex connections it requires to store all that makes a memory – smells, tastes, sounds, moods, and images – are established in the brain. “Sleep is needed for a memory to consolidate. We believe that while we’re asleep, we go through the events of the day in order for them to attach to the cortex. But when we are stressed, this doesn’t always happen. The neurons don’t fire in the same way. When I tried to re-create my experiment on other rabbits a couple of years later, it didn’t work,” Lømo recounts. He’d been lucky the first time he experimented. His rabbit, despite its untimely end, had lived a happy life. The rabbits in the second experiment were stressed, so the neurons in their brains didn’t work as they should have. In other words, you must treat your test animals nicely if you want to learn from them. The same goes for humans: when we are stressed, we don’t retain memories as easily as when we are happy and relaxed. At about the same time as Lømo’s discovery, there were other breakthroughs in the hunt for the memory trace. In 1971, John O’Keefe at University College London found cells in the hippocampus that remember certain locations. For example, there are some cells in the hippocampus that are active only when we sit on a certain chair, and not on another chair – even in the same room. It is evidently up to some cells (place cells) to remember where we have been at all times. But to remember a place in and of itself – is that a memory? The Norwegian neuropsychologists May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser – together with John O’Keefe – were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2014 for their work on that very question. The two Norwegians received the prize because they decided to develop O’Keefe’s research further and look beyond the hippocampus. Their work examined the entorhinal cortex, which connects the hippocampus and the rest of the brain. The Mosers experimented with rats, which, when they were free to explore their environment, showed cells firing in exactly that part of the brain. With tiny metal electrodes surgically inserted into their brains, these rats wandered around their cages. A single neuron in the entorhinal cortex didn’t react to just one place the rat had scurried to, like place cells, but to several places. Amazing, that what they were expecting to be place cells didn’t remember only one location but several locations in the same area! But when the Mosers marked the points in the cage where the cells had fired, they formed a perfect hexagon on their computer screen. The more the rats ran around in their cages and mazes, the more obvious it became; on the Mosers’ computer, a clear honeycomb pattern emerged. One cell, one hexagonal grid pattern. It was a coordinate system of the environment. “At first, we thought there was something wrong with our equipment,” Edvard Moser says. “The pattern that emerged was too perfect to come out of something real.” Each of these neurons makes its own grid, each slightly offset from that of the neighboring cells, so that all points in the environment are covered. Some grids are fine-meshed, while others react to points far away from each other, even farther than it is physically possible for the researchers to measure indoors. Without these grid cells, we are not able to understand or remember locations and where we are in relation to where we have been. We make these patterns wherever we go – wherever we stand, lie, or drive. “We sent the rats into a ten-armed maze, and it turned out that they continued to make the grid pattern but also started a new one for each ‘arm.’ We believe that these patterns are patched together, so that the rats remember how to get through the maze,” Edvard Moser says. Since then, other researchers have found the same result in patients undergoing epilepsy surgery. It was as anticipated: in humans, as in rats, all locations are stored in a hexagonal pattern. We are all bees! We all organize the world around us as a hexagonal grid. “We believe that this was developed very early in the evolution of mammals,” Edvard Moser says. “And we believe that what we have discovered about grid cells is central for episodic memory. It is, after all, impossible to create memories without tying them to a place.” Other researchers agree that place and grid cells play a special role in episodic memory. Some go so far as to say that this system in the hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex has become specialized to assign each memory its unique memory trace, as part of a unique memory network. Perhaps, at first, the sense of place was the primary task for the hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex. But as evolution proceeded, our memory maps were given a new function: to take our individual experiences and tie them together in a grid. Hexagonal maps of the environment became hexagonal-patterned fishnets of memories. Recently, researchers in California have been able to demonstrate, in the hippocampi of mice, how memory networks link themselves to context-dependent memory. Like Terje Lømo, they made a window into the hippocampus, to the tiny little piece of it called cornu ammonis, Ammon’s horn. Looking at the hippocampus in cross-section, it looks like a goat’s horn, bent inward, into a spiral. Here, through the tiny window into the cradle of memory, the California researchers could see, under a slightly fancy microscope, how the neurons lit up when the mice were placed in different environments. They made three different cages, which would give rise to three different memories: a round cage, a triangular cage, and a square cage. The smell, texture, and other conditions also varied between the three cages. The crucial factor was how close in time the various experiences took place. Two groups of mice were compared. Half of the mice had a go at the triangular cage, and then directly afterward they were placed in the square cage. These mice got to experience two different cages in quick succession. The rest of the mice were placed in the round cage and then, seven days later, in the square cage. The second group of mice had two experiences – episodic memories – distinctly separated in time. When the researchers watched through the microscope while the mice were exploring the cages, they could see activity in the neurons in a defined area. Each of the three cages created a signature pattern of neuronal activity in the hippocampus, meaning distinct memories. The exciting part was that the experiences that took place close together in time led to activity in groups of neurons that overlapped. These two experiences hooked on to each other, not only in time but also in place, in the hippocampus of the mice. Meanwhile, when mice visited two cages a week apart, it was accompanied by activity in two separate groups of neurons in the hippocampus. The researchers believe this happens because the activation of the one group of neurons causes other nearby neurons to become easier to activate. Everything links together in a network. The main point of Godden and Baddeley’s context-dependent memory experiment has, in this way, been demonstrated in the brain – not in diving mice, but by diving into the cortex of the mice. When we experience something – as we find ourselves in a specific situation at a specific location – and it becomes a memory in the brain, it spreads out across the cortex until we recall it. A memory is composed of thousands of connections between neurons; it is not one connection that makes a memory. A memory is more than Terje Lømo’s long-term potentiation. But what does a memory look like? Can we see a complex memory the way we can see a simple memory trace? To be able to do this, we must exit the rabbit and mouse brains and enter the human brain. And we must watch the brain while memories are recalled. Fortunately, we don’t need to sedate humans and open their heads to get a glimpse of their memories. As we learned in chapter 1, Eleanor Maguire at University College London has used an MRI scanner and some reminiscing volunteers to observe the traces of their memories as they relive their past experiences. An MRI machine uses a strong magnetic field to take pictures of the body. Different body tissues react differently to the magnetic field, which results in detailed images. The MRI machine can be programmed in a certain way to read the oxygen level in the blood flowing through the brain. Since neurons use oxygen to function, we can tell from the images where there’s a lot of activity. We then know where in the brain nerve cells are most active while the test subjects remember things. This is called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) – images of the brain while it is working – as opposed to structural MRI, which shows us only what the brain looks like. The memories light up like tiny flashlights underwater, flashes that light up the sea in little spurts. But is it really possible to see what memory a person is recalling? In Eleanor Maguire’s laboratory, participants allowed themselves to be scanned by an MRI machine at the same time as they were asked to remember their own experiences. The professor actually managed to figure out what they remembered by studying the fMRI images. Maguire watched the activity in the hippocampus while the test subjects were thinking of episodes from their past, and she could see that each memory had a unique pattern of activity. She had a computer program that learned which of the test subjects’ memories were tied to which patterns of activity. From that, the computer program could pick out which fMRI images hung together with which memories. Is this simply a mind-reading machine? “These are memories we had agreed with the volunteers, before the scanning took place, that they would recall, not random memories. In a way it’s, in very general terms, a kind of voluntary ‘memory’ reading,” Eleanor Maguire says. So far, she can see the track in the vinyl record, but she can’t hear the music. “The next step would be to be able to see what people remember without having decided on a fixed set of memories beforehand. But it’s a long way until we get to that level,” she assures us. We can safely leave mind reading to science fiction films and books. Maguire isn’t doing this because she thinks memories can be reduced to a checkerboard pattern in an MRI image. To her, memories are vastly complex – they are unique experiences that can only be fully known by the one who keeps them. They are also not static. She has observed that something happens to memory traces over time: two weeks after an initial memory is encoded, its memory trace is visible in the front of the hippocampus, but much older memories from ten years previous are processed further back in the hippocampus. “Memories contain many pieces of the initial experience that are later brought back and put together again,” she explains. “When the memories are still fresh, they are more easily accessible; we can easily picture the episode and how it happened. In the beginning, it is readily available within the hippocampus. As a memory ages, the pieces are stored in other parts of the brain and it takes more effort to reconstruct it and bring it back. The hippocampus puts all the pieces together in a coherent scene.” But what is she actually looking at? What gives the memories a unique “signature” in the fMRI images of the hippocampus? Eleanor Maguire believes that there are groups of neurons working together on one memory. “The fact that we can see unique patterns for each memory must mean that information about the person’s experience is present there; it has to be in some way related to the biological memory trace.” But because the resolution of an fMRI image is extremely coarse, we can only see large groups of nerve cells activated at the same time, as opposed to individual neurons. “While it is important to study memory on a cellular level, we should also think of a memory rather like a big cloud of activity. A memory is more than the single synapses – it is much more complex than that,” says Maguire. To her, episodic memories are first and foremost about scenes. “All the little pieces that together make up a memory don’t mean anything unless they are placed in a scene. The action takes place somewhere.” But as an episode is tied to a place and forms a scene in your mind’s eye, an important component of this may be a set of grids – the map within the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex. The memory is tied down by all the little synapses being strengthened through long-term potentiation. Synapse by synapse, the memories are clicked into place. “We are hoping that our discovery can help solve the enigma of Alzheimer’s disease. Long before there are other symptoms, people with Alzheimer’s experience spatial navigation problems,” Edvard Moser says. The newest episodic memories also suffer first when the disease sets in. They go before all the knowledge we have gathered throughout life does, and also long before mature memories from long ago dissolve, like clouds of sparkling particles that swirl out to sea, never to return. But what about our divers? You haven’t forgotten, have you, that we sent ten men down into the ice-cold water of the Oslo Fjord at the beginning of this chapter? The rain is dripping from the eaves of the diving center here on dry land, and we’re rubbing our cold and wet hands together in a futile attempt to stay warm, our teeth chattering. The divers are, of course, voluntary participants; nobody is forcing them to do this. Still, with only a few remaining bubbles on the surface reminding us that they are down there, it’s easy to be a bit worried. What if something were to happen? And what if they remember as poorly as, well, a jellyfish? We will return to the divers shortly, but since we brought it up: Do jellyfish remember? “We don’t know if jellyfish remember,” biologist Dag O. Hessen says. “But jellyfish do have a kind of ‘will,’ since they swim in a certain direction, even if they don’t have a brain, only nerve fibers. However, all animals, even the simplest ones, have a certain capability to learn.” How did human memory become as advanced as it is? Why do we remember the way we do and not the way jellyfish do? What might the alternatives have been? “We have not been able to prove that animals have memories that work like human memories. We believe that other animals’ memories associate to a situation and pop up when they see or feel something, as when for example a cat sees a cupboard door and remembers that it hurt its tail there once,” Hessen explains. So there’s no proof that zebras can stare melancholically into the sunset and remember the great loves of their lives, or that a dog can suddenly bark mournfully because it’s thinking of a sad episode from its youth. No gazelles cringe because they’re thinking about an embarrassing moment two years ago, no leopards experience a flash of happiness when a memory hits them of how they killed their first prey. At least, not that we have been able to prove. “We believe that only humans do this: look back in time regardless of context. All animals and plants have some form of memory, in the sense that they adapt to the environment. It’s beneficial to learn to avoid dangers and remember how to secure food and partners. It’s obviously an evolutionary advantage for all living organisms, even for short-lived ones, to be able to remember and not only live in the moment. What’s special about humans is our ability both to see the past before us and to create visions of the future. To be able to envision the future is possibly a byproduct of memory,” Hessen believes. The biologist suggests that there’s another reason for humans to have developed a large brain with advanced memory, something that has to do with our social groups. “We know that social animals have larger brains and more memory than animals that aren’t social animals.” An example: all bats are, in a sense, social animals, but vampire bats are particularly social. They live in groups, and they can’t survive for more than three days without fresh blood. According to Hessen, researchers have found that bats – sympathetically enough – help each other by regurgitating blood for others, even bats outside their family, and it seems as if they remember favors that have been done for them earlier. There’s a form of reciprocity between vampire bats that’s very similar to humans, like friendship. “Many believe that humans have good memory because people are social animals with many hierarchies and exchanges of favors. Sympathies and antipathies depend on remembering. And the longer one lives, the more one has to remember complicated social structures,” says Hessen. Animals that live longer remember more. An example is the elephant. It does actually remember – like an elephant. This is just one of many anecdotes about elephant memory. In 1999, as the zookeepers in the elephant sanctuary at Hohenwald, Tennessee, introduced their elephant Jenny to a newcomer named Shirley, Jenny became agitated. Shirley also seemed more than usually preoccupied with Jenny. The two elephants behaved as if they knew each other. Upon investigation it turned out that, for a short while more than twenty years earlier, the two elephants had worked together in the touring Carson & Barnes Circus. According to Hessen, researchers that have followed elephants over long periods of time have found that elephant herds are highly dependent on good memory. The matriarch of the herd must be old enough to have the experience to lead her herd to safety if there is a fire or to find water during dry spells; younger matriarchs risk making fatal mistakes. The elephants Shirley and Jenny acted as if they really had human-like emotional memories of each other. But memories can also be far less complicated, without being less impressive. Several animals have a kind of instinct – or memory – for time and place. Puffins return to the west coast of Norway on exactly the same date year after year, regardless of weather. American and European eels swim all the way to the Sargasso Sea to spawn. Monarch butterflies have multiple generations each year, of which only one lives long enough to migrate south and back. It’s impossible for the new generation of migrating monarchs to remember where their great-great-grandparents came from, but still they know to go south to particular wintering grounds. Is this memory or instinct? And can instinct be tied to a certain geographic location or a certain date? “When the salmon returns to the spawning grounds it came from, it uses its sense of smell, and the sense of smell is closely related to memory in most animals. But there’s a lot about animals’ memory that’s still a mystery to us, as for example this thing about the eel,” Dag O. Hessen says. Even in the human brain, the so-called olfactory bulb is situated close to the hippocampus, pointing to the fact that smell is the sense most closely tied to memory. This doesn’t mean that the other senses aren’t strong too. Marcel Proust came up with his seven-volume work when he tasted a madeleine cookie dipped in tea. For many, sounds and music are tied to strong memories; just think of how an advertising jingle can stick in your memory. How many thousands of tunes are we familiar with? Songbirds are birds with good memory. Just like us, they have to learn tunes – they aren’t born with them. A songbird placed in some other songbird’s nest will learn the wrong tune; a blue tit that is placed in the nest of great tits will learn the great tit’s tune. The songs of songbirds can have both dialects and other variants. The European pied flycatcher, for example, varies its tune according to its intended recipient: the “wife” or a “mistress.” What makes a bird’s memory especially impressive is its brain. Birds have several song centers in their brains, one of which is the higher vocal control center, which grows each spring and has almost completely receded again by the fall! “We don’t know why it happens, because the birds remember the tune they’ve learned even without the higher vocal control center,” ornithologist Helene Lampe at the University of Oslo tells us. There is still a lot scientists don’t know about this avian brain region. Female birds typically don’t have particularly well-developed higher vocal control centers yet are still able to sing. It’s believed they have it so they can identify and remember rivals, but in the case of the European pied flycatcher, it does the female no good; she watches the nest while the male is out looking for more “mistresses.” “This is a songbird mystery we still haven’t solved. We don’t know where the song is actually stored, but recent research points to the auditory center of the brain being used for some storage,” Lampe says. Many types of birds remember amazingly well: migratory birds remember where to go, parrots and crows can learn human language, and jays that cache food find their way back to their stashed nuts. “Hoarding requires a good episodic memory – that is, having a vivid memory of the act of burying the nuts. Remembering this experience makes it possible to find them later,” Lampe says. Herein lies one of the great controversies in memory research: How uniquely human actually is episodic memory, and can we find evidence that other animals and birds also have this form of memory? Scientists don’t have a final answer. We take our way of remembering for granted. The human, or mammalian, way of connecting experiences through long-term potentiation, creating large memory networks that are kept in place by the hippocampus, could be just one way of doing it. Nature has a wealth of alternatives to offer. Animals without hippocampi also have memory. Even one-celled animals, like slime molds (Mycetozoa), show signs of remembering. In one experiment, researchers exposed a slime mold to moisture and drought on a regular basis and watched it react. After a while, they stopped stimulating it this way, but it kept reacting at the same intervals as before, for quite some time. Slime molds have even found the quickest way through a simple maze! Amoebas leave slime where they’ve been, so that they don’t reenter a dead end in the maze but rather explore new paths. They wander through the maze with their one-celled memory, never knowing that evolution has raced past them. Slime molds, jellyfish, songbirds, eels, monarch butterflies, vampire bats, puffins, and elephants represent different mysteries when it comes to memory. Which ones have memory, and which just have instinct? They each show us that there are many ways nature can meet the need to keep information for later use. But human memory is perhaps the greatest and most complex. What other animals remember episodes from not only their own lives but also their ancestors’ lives from many thousands of generations ago, and record their memories for others to read and remember? There are enough mysteries within our own memories to keep us busy. Take, for example, Henry Molaison, who opened up so much research into memory: How could the man without hippocampi remember his life before the surgery? As we know, memories appear in the hippocampus when we retrieve them; they light up on the screen of Eleanor Maguire’s MRI machine, where they create different patterns. How was it possible for Henry to remember anything at all without his hippocampus, when it is the hippocampus that reassembles memories? This is something memory researchers are still fighting about. The fight is as big as the battle about the role of the hippocampus in memory. Henry’s memories prior to the surgery had gone into storage the normal way, with the help of the hippocampus. His memories had consolidated as memory traces tied experiences together. Later, the synapses in his cortex were strengthened, until they could manage without the help of the hippocampus. This process may take many years. That’s why Henry didn’t remember anything from the last couple of years prior to the surgery. The memories from this period were simply too unstable and dependent on the hippocampus. For a long time, it was believed that this was the full explanation and that the hippocampus wasn’t necessary at all when it came to recalling early memories. But then researchers, like Eleanor Maguire and others, started to notice that things happen in the hippocampus when we retrieve a memory. They didn’t question whether or not Henry’s memories were real, but they did point out that a memory is not just a memory. A memory may have turned into a story that includes facts about what happened, not unlike an anecdote. On the other hand, a memory can also be something completely different: a re-creation of the experience, filled with sensory experiences, emotions, and details of how the episode unfolded in time and space. Henry’s memories were probably more like the first kind, resembling book knowledge or simple tales, called semantic memory. He seldom gave particularly detailed descriptions of his childhood. Often, the stories began with “I used to . . . ,” followed by facts about where he’d gone to school, where he’d vacationed, and who his family was. He possessed a rather dry encyclopedia about himself. Presumably, he could not recall lifelike, smelly, noisy, emotional memories. After having known Henry for years, researcher Suzanne Corkin was convinced that his memories lacked the vividness so characteristic of episodic memories. Back at Gylte Diving Center, we’ve split the divers into two groups and numbered them from one to ten. The divers are completing their first memory test, the one we use for comparison, measuring their normal memory. The men are visibly sweating over the twenty-five words we gave them to remember. Not only because the test is hard; they have to look at their list of words for two minutes, then go for a little walk and return to the table to write down what they remember. But with the diving gear already halfway on, they are hot and perspiring more than they might like. The divers manage to remember between six and seventeen correct words, completely normal results. That day by the fjord, the rain on our skin feels like pins and needles of nervousness as the first group goes down into the water. What if we don’t find out anything at all? What if the men are diving in vain and don’t get to prove anything about memory and context? Of course, we can’t go through life relying on our surroundings to help us remember everything. Godden and Baddeley also pointed out that this was an unreasonable idea. In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (originally published in 1689), the philosopher John Locke described a man learning to dance in a room with a large trunk. He could do the most elegant dance steps, but only as long as the trunk was there. If he was in a room without the trunk, he was hopeless on the dance floor. This sounds very strange, and fortunately the story probably isn’t true. It highlights, though, the idea of context-dependent memory. The point Godden and Baddeley made was that our memory may rely on context to a certain degree. Can this be useful in some way? Should we cram for an exam in the location where we’ll be taking it? Or remain in the same apartment until our dying day for fear of losing the memories that have been made there? Fortunately, we do have access to our memories when we are not in the same environment as where we experienced an event. The divers at Gylte can recount the amazing experiences they’ve had in the water even when they are safely on shore. Our memory networks – our fishnets of memories – benefit from context beyond just our physical surroundings. We create the strongest memory networks on our own, when we learn something truly meaningful and make an effort to understand it. Someone who is passionate about a particular subject, such as diving, will more easily learn new things about diving than about something she’s never been interested in before. This is because she already has a large memory network devoted to diving where she can store her new knowledge, and because she is motivated. It’s as if we can add another layer of netting just because the self is involved; memory is self-serving. Memories are linked to what concerns you, what you feel, what you want. Too bad, then, that so much of what we actually need to remember is so darned uninteresting! Lately, others have tried to test context-dependent memory in other ways. Do we remember things we learn while skydiving? The researchers concluded that the stress level of skydivers was so high that it erased all effects of context. This may not be so strange—if we are so high on adrenaline that we barely notice where we are, there are no surroundings to support those memories. More practical were the researchers who wanted to examine if medical students remembered more when they were in the classroom where they had first been taught. The classroom, in this case, was either an ordinary classroom or an operating theater, where the students were dressed for surgery. Fortunately for the future patients of those medical students, it turned out in the experiment that the differences were so minimal that doctors can safely continue practicing medicine far from the context of learning. In our experiment at Gylte, we split the divers into two groups. The divers in the first group would be tested on what they remembered on land after trying to memorize twenty-five words underwater. The others had to both learn and recall the words underwater. The five divers in the first group come ashore, splashing as they go. They wriggle out of their masks and flippers, unhook leaden oxygen tanks and sit, legs spread apart, on the bench along the wall of the Diving Center. The results are miserable. One of them remembered only words from the first test – the one for comparison – and got a zero on the underwater words. The best one remembered thirteen words from the list he saw underwater, but this too was worse than he’d done during the first test on land. The average result of the comparison test, inside the Diving Center, was 8.6 correct words. The divers remembered an average of 4.4 words when they emerged from the water. “I sort of thought I had the words there while I was underwater, but then we got up on land, and it was as if my mind changed completely, and I lost it,” one of the divers says. The removing of flippers, tottering up from the edge of the pier along the walk to the Diving Center, lifting the tanks from their backs, and grabbing a piece of paper may of course have disturbed their trains of thought and pushed the words out of the way. Duncan Godden and Alan Baddeley had pondered this possibility and tested whether all the trouble of getting back onto dry land could have thrown off the result. They let one group of divers learn the words on land, then dive and come up again, and compared them with a group who’d learned the words on land and waited the same amount of time, but without moving. The group that dived in the middle remembered just as much as those who had remained still in the same place. So all the hassle of changing location could not have explained why the divers who learned in the water remembered less on land. Deep beneath the surface, the divers in the second group have taken out their flashlights and waterproof notepads that make it possible for them to write underwater. Bubbles from their breathing pop on the water’s surface; they are fifty or fifty-five feet down, and it’s hard to handle the plastic-covered sheet to write the twenty-five new words. They’ve gathered in a circle in the dark, and short flashes from the flashlights tied to their arms shine through the water every time they move their hands and write. Like the words they learned on land, these are mainly one-syllable words: short and concrete and easy to write with gloves on. This group had remembered an average of 9.2 words when they were tested in the Diving Center. But what happened when they tried to learn twenty-five words underwater and were supposed to remember them underwater? As the bubbles grow bigger and the divers slowly rise to the surface, those of us on the pier are long since soaked through and clinging to empty and wet paper coffee cups. Even the seagulls have stayed at home today. The divers, on the other hand, are not in a hurry. They rest for a while a few feet under the surface before they get out of the water. Around us, clumps of old snow lie between tufts of rotten grass. Our excitement has been building this whole ice-cold morning, as has our longing for hot chocolate and dry socks; the divers, however, are satisfied with their dive. They proudly hand us their notes. When we examine the results, it occurs to us that we have managed to re-create the experiment from the 1970s almost down to the smallest detail. The divers who were supposed to learn and remember underwater have remembered on average 8.4 words in the deep, almost matching their achievement on land earlier that day. They pulled this off despite factors like increased pressure underwater, gas mixtures and masks and wet suits and the sound of breathing, clouds of bubbles swirling toward the surface, flashes from flashlights sweeping the bottom of the sea, blurry vision, uncomfortable wet gloves, and difficulties holding pens and waterproof notepads. In the famous experiment from the 1970s, it was clear that the context had an obvious effect – the divers had remembered the list of words much better in the water when they had also memorized it in the water. Actually, they remembered it equally as well as the list they memorized and recalled on land. When the divers were in the water, they recognized where they had been before, and this memory triggered the memories of what they had learned, so that the words popped up almost by themselves, like images on a screen. Caterina Cattaneo led the divers in our experiment. She has almost thirty years of underwater experience and has dived at a depth of two hundred feet. This was a simple dive for her. The water temperature was comfortable, she claims, as she swings herself up on the pier and wrestles herself out of her diving mask. The February rain sprinkles the fjord behind her. “I’ve never seen seahorses here,” she tells us. “I’ve seen two on Madeira. They were tiny and very cute. They bobbed up and down, their tails wound around a sea plant. But the current was strong, and suddenly I was far away from them. I only caught a glimpse of them.” Excerpted from Adventures in Memory: The Science and Secrets of Remembering and Forgetting by Hilde Østby and Ylva Østby (November 2018, Greystone Books). Reproduced with permission from the publisher. False memories of childhood abuse ‘It was an exciting time to be a cognitive psychologist’ After the facts	cc/2020-05/en_head_0047.json.gz/line1165

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