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Rock Solid: Talking Heads
"If you only own one album by Talking Heads it's gotta be ____________________."
Welcome to Rock Solid, where we fill in the blank. Our goal is to pseudo-scientifically determine the best, the beloved, the most classic album in an artist's catalog.
Here's how it works: I've consulted two main sources. The All Music Guide provides the professional critical point-of-view and Amazon.com offers the fan perspective (because most people who choose to review albums on Amazon are adoring fans of the artist in question). The album with the highest combined rating from both sources is the one I'll consider the best.
An artist's entire body of work is eligible, with one exception: No compilations (i.e. greatest hits).In each case, I'll also share my personal favorite album by the artist in question, as if you care.
Back in 2005 I reviewed every single Talking Heads album, but that predated the Rock Solid feature. So here it is retroactively.
Maybe it…
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Report the Facts: What A Concept!
Categories: Healthcare, Media Criticism
Well, maybe we’re getting some consensus here. After all, the country’s foremost media critic (he said with little attempt to hide his sarcasm) has stumbled upon a novel concept for today’s journalists: Point out, gently I presume, that a politician, or anyone who has the ear of the almighty reporters, doesn’t have a fucking clue what he’s talking about.
Gently, of course.
Howard Kurtz: Yes, there is a point where the media should say a politician is wrong, and this is the point. There may or may not be a legitimate discussion about the end-of-life counseling in the Obama health plan (which is voluntary, by the way) and whether it is intrusive. It’s a long way from that to "death panels," even by the loose rhetorical standards of modern politics. I was surprised that the ex-governor’s Facebook comments didn’t get much pickup at first, though that is starting to change in the last couple of days. As I noted in this morning’s column, wasn’t it Sarah Palin who demanded that journalists "quick making things up"?
Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer are decried for calling the town hall protests “un-American.” (Let’s forget that those same charges were frequently leveled by Republicans at those protesting the Iraq War.) And Steve Pearlstein has been taken to task for calling Republicans “political terrorists.”
But if we are to look for someone to blame for the level of discourse in this country, I think we know who to blame.
For after all, it’s still true that if a tree falls in the woods and no one can hear it, it doesn’t make a noise. It may make a sound but noise is something you can’t avoid. And today, you can’t avoid the shouting masses at meetings who aren’t just airing their grievances, they are preventing others from hearing anyone but them.
Because the media has decided we need to hear it, whether it makes sense or has any connection to reality.
You and I can raise all the hell we want about the state of journalism today, but it mostly falls on deaf ears. What’s needed is someone with cojones who is the subject of media coverage to call reporters out on it.
Conventional wisdom says you never argue with someone who buys ink by the barrel. But conventional wisdom, not so long ago, would also dictate that you don’t report the sky is yellow just because someone made the claim.
Whether it’s President Obama or anyone else in public life, they need to start holding journalists accountable for their coverage, which is to a large degree the result of laziness and lack of editorial leadership.
It’s easy to write about a boisterous town hall. All your evidence is in one place. You can easily get quotes from both sides and generally give both sides equal weight, and boom, you’re out the door and into your favorite journalists’ barroom where everyone complains about the shrinking market for their increasingly marginal skills.
If just once, someone would say when asked a question about the meaning of the loudmouths at town hall meetings, “ Mr. Gregory, that’s the wrong question. It’s the easy to question ask, because it absolves you from doing some work. Instead of reading the health care bill and trying to help the public understand what’s being proposed, what the pros and cons are, you react to a mob. You allow over-the-top behavior save you from doing work. It’s a stupid question and I won’t entertain it. Next question.”
The powers that be need to challenge a lazy, inept press. If they won’t do the job their supposed to do – inform the public about the the pertinent issues of the day – then the hell with them. Stop doing press conferences, stop doing press briefings, stop taking any questions. Communicate directly to the public.
Let newspapers die. They deserve to.
No Wonder the Patient is Dying
What’s wrong with the healthcare reform debate? Best answer I’ve seen yet.
Stifling Free Speech
CNN is refusing to air an ad by supporters of healthcare reform.
Here’s the reason:
“This ad does not comply with our clearance guidelines because it unnecessarily singles out an individual company and person.”
Gee, does that mean they will no longer run ads that single out individual politicians? Or is that “necessary”?
Isn’t it ironic that an organization protected by free speech denies it to others.
This is happening frequently. CNN also refused to air an ad by Media Matters about Lou Dobbs.
Milbank and Cillizza Apologize
Categories: Media Criticism, Washington Post
Washington Post reporters Dana Milbank and Chris Cillizza have apologized for their latest Mouthpiece Theater, the one where they called Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a “bitch.”
And The Post has canceled the experiment that Mouthpiece was.
I have nothing against either one of them. When Milbank sticks to skewering the righteous and puffed egos of the political elite he can be fun, though not necessarily required reading. Cillizza is not offensive as an analyst, but I rarely read him.
But they deserved the video response below. (The original, which was not only offensive to women but not even remotely funny, is below it.)
After this, the salon snafu and some editorial decisions – like this morning’s Governor story – you’ve got to ask yourself, “Whose minding the ship over at WaPo?
It’s OK If You’re a Republican
Categories: GOP Sex Scandals, Media Criticism
A comment on a story about the latest in the Ensign affairs sums up the press’s reaction to sexual indiscretions.
It’s important to remember that when a Democrat has a sex scandal (Clinton, Spitzer, Edwards, etc.), a hypocritical, immoral adulterer has been exposed for what he is.
When a Republican is involved (Ensign, Sanford, Vitter, etc.), a decent, God-fearing Christian only showed he is human, and this uncharacteristic lapse in judgment should not overshadow his strong moral character and dedication to his constituents.
Any questions? Remember IOKIYAR (It’s Okay If You’re A Republican).
No Proof, But Post Story Makes Front Page
Categories: Media Criticism, Virginia Governor's Race 09, Washington Post
Here’s all you need to know about Sandhya Somashekhar’s front page story about the Virginia governor’s race.
There is no empirical evidence [emphasis added] at this point in Virginia’s race for governor showing that huge numbers of voters think like Cleland and will respond by sending a message to Washington.
But that didn’t stop the Post reporter from fashioning an entire argument about the dynamics of the governor’s race based on the opinions of two individuals, one of whom was clearly ambivalent. More likely, the reporter decided the slant she wanted and found two people who confirmed it, even though there is “no empirical evidence.”
This is another example of the lazy journalism increasingly practiced by The Washington Post, especially when it comes to the Virginia governor’s race. We had another example Monday, when Roz Helderman wasted newsprint on a story that Democrats are still running against Bush. The story was written for the political insiders but offered no help to general Post readers in deciding who to vote for. Instead of writing stories about the issues, they write about the political dynamics, much of which they make up.
Regarding today’s story, there is mention that 52 percent of Americans support Obama, but it’s described as “the lowest number of his tenure.” Indeed, it is also twice the number of his predecessor. Ah, but that’s not the story she wanted to write.
According to a late July poll by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, 78% of Americans think it is at least somewhat likely that “Obama will bring real change in the direction of the country.” A month after his election that figure was at 81%. The margin of error is 3.1%. Which is to say, it’s about the same. Meanwhile, you have 61% of Americans saying they have an unfavorable position of Republicans in Congress.
So why would someone vote Republican in the Virginia’s governor’s race. I don’t know, but one can argue it has nothing to do with the Obama administration.
The front page photo on Monday’s Washington Post shows a smiling Redskins coach Jim Zorn throwing a blocking dummy at a back-up quarterback. After describing the picture, the cutline concludes, “Complete coverage of the fourth day of training camp in Sports.”
Do we really need complete coverage of the fourth day of training camp? Really? There’s no better use of newsprint?
No New Taxes!?
Categories: Media Criticism, Taxes
This is astounding.
One of the bigger, but more under-reported, sea changes in American politics is how any kind of tax increase — whether in war or peace, good economic times or bad ones — has become absolutely unacceptable. After all, Ronald Reagan raised taxes. So did every modern American president involved in war, until George W. Bush. But not anymore. Indeed, as one of us pointed out on Nightly News last night, only 29% (or 157) of the 535 and House members and senators serving in Congress were around the last time — 1993! — the federal government raised taxes, and that was on gasoline. Think about that for a moment: Congress hasn’t really had a TOUGH vote in 16 years, if one defines a "TOUGH" vote as the government asking for a financial sacrifice from the American people. This is the political climate that President Obama faces in trying to pay for health reform. Republicans and some Democrats are opposed to a tax on the wealthy, and unions and Obama’s political strategists are against taxing health benefits.
What is astounding about it is not that taxes haven’t been raised in such a long while. It’s not that so few Congressmen have ever had to raise taxes. It’s not even that Republicans have so cowed Democrats on this issue.
What’s astounding is that it is “under-reported.” Did it just occur to NBC reporters that this was happening? If it’s under-reported it’s because journalists haven’t been doing their jobs. A look back and putting the tax issue in historical context is something they should have done long ago.
Characterizing Poll Numbers
Categories: Economic Policy, Healthcare, Media Criticism, Washington Post
I’m thinking that if newspapers are to survive, they need a better way of delivering information. It’s not only a paper vs. web dichotomy. A lot of folks, me included, cannot envision a world without a paper to hold in one’s hands and the ability to have a story catch your eye while reading another. That’s harder to do on the web.
One way to improve delivery is to re-think the need for every story to be a narrative. But I’ll leave the larger question for a future post.
But certainly, a story that doesn’t lend itself to a narrative is reporting a poll. Sure, some analysis is necessary for some readers. But too often the interpretation inherent in a narrative is worthless. Today’s poll story in The Washington Post is one example, It would have been a better use of newsprint to simply present a chart with the key questions (if the entire poll results are too space consuming).
The problem comes with the headline and adjectives and adverbs that inevitably accompany poll stories. The Post’s headline is “Poll Shows Obama Slipping on Key Issues.” That’s the most many readers will see. It’s accurate, but polls need to be taken in their entirety. And the picture is more mixed.
At the same time, there is no slackening in public desire for Obama to keep pressing for action on the major issues of the economy, health care and the deficit. Majorities think he is either doing the right amount or should put greater emphasis on each of these issues.
So whatever his slackening of support about his specific policies, folks want him to continue fighting to change things. And in many ways, politics is an either or proposition.
Obama’s handling of the economy, the deficit and health care reform outpaces the Republicans by about 20 points.
So if his handling of things is 20 points better that GOPers, and folks want him to continue fighting, a stalemate is not what they’re looking for, much less the GOP solutions (if any).
And while, 49 percent approves of his handling of the healthcare issue,
On health care, the poll, conducted by telephone Wednesday through Saturday, found that a majority of Americans (54 percent) approve of the outlines of the legislation now heading toward floor action. The measure would institute new individual and employer insurance mandates and create a government-run plan to compete with private insurers. Its costs would be paid in part through new taxes on high-income earners.
What that “legislation” is, is questionable as there are several plans now working their way through Congress.
But the problem I have with many of the poll stories is that the reporters feel compelled to interpret them for us. The tenor of this report is that Obama is slipping and people are losing confidence in him, despite the findings that most people still consider him a strong leader.
Obama’s leadership attributes remain highly rated, despite some slippage. Seven in 10 call him a strong leader, two in three say he cares about the problems of people like themselves, and just over six in 10 say he fulfilled a central campaign pledge and has brought needed change to Washington.
As an example of perhaps misplaced adverbs,
More than three-quarters of all Americans say they are worried about the direction of the economy over the next few years, down only marginally since Obama’s inauguration. Concerns about personal finances have also abated only moderately since January. [emphasis added]
That “moderate” abatement in concern about their personal finances is seven percent, from 70 percent in January who were worried to 63 percent today.
Yet the key figures that support the thrust of the story – he’s slipping significantly — are reflected in eight to nine point drops:
Approval of Obama’s handing the economy dropped from 60 percent in February, the earliest date available in the poll, to 52 percent, an eight point drop.
Approval of Obama’s handing the economy dropped from 57 percent in April, the earliest date available in the poll, to 49 percent, an eight point drop.
Approval of Obama’s handing the deficit dropped from 52 percent in March, the earliest date available in the poll, to 43 percent, a nine point drop.
So what makes an eight to nine point drop significant enough to support the thrust of the story but a seven percent drop is only “moderate.”
The answer is simply: If the story was “Obama drop in support for policies is only moderate,” well, it might not make the front page.
The Post would have been better of simply printing a chart of the results, and let us interpret them.
Reporting Lies
Categories: Media Criticism, Small Business, Taxes, Washington Post
"People have been allowed to get away with . . . making statements that they knew weren’t factual….Washington games are still being played with the truth."
–Robert Gibbs, White House Press Secretary
Politicians and political advocates (or adversaries) will speak lies. Often, it’s not just bending the truth to fit an agenda, but flat out making things up. That, alas, we’ve come to expect.
But what responsibility do journalists have when they know someone is misstating the facts? I think they need to – at the very least – challenge liars or even folks who unintentionally state the wrong facts.
We see a prime example of that with The Washington Post’s Mike Shear and Virginia Republican Congressman Eric Canto. Shear is a good reporter, and I don’t think he has a bias, at least not one that regularly comes through in his reporting. But I can’t understand why he – and he is not alone on this; he’s just a recent example –allows Cantor to make a knowingly false statement in a story last Sunday.
"Remember the promises? They promised you that if you paid for their stimulus, jobs would be created immediately," Cantor said. "In fact, they said that unemployment would stay under 8 percent. Yet just months later, they are telling us to brace for unemployment to climb over 10 percent. They promised jobs created. Now they scramble to find a way to play games with government numbers by claiming jobs saved."
When I read this, I knew Cantor was not truthful. The administration hadn’t said it would stay below 8 percent; it was 8.5 percent. Is that a relatively small difference? You be the judge. But it was clearly inaccurate and Shear knew it.
Why do I know he knew it? Here is Shear writing today.
Obama’s team had predicted that the stimulus package would keep unemployment to a peak of about 8.5 percent, but the rate soared to 9.5 percent last month….
If Shear know Cantor was misstating the fact, why did he use the lie in his Sunday story?
I have objections to journalists reporting some positions that are not clearly defensible. One is the myth that “small businesses” create most of the jobs in this country. The other myth is that higher tax rates on incomes of more than $250,000 impact small business people the most because their profits are reported to the IRS on their individual tax returns, when in fact less that two percent of small business owners make over $250,000. Moreover, of the 600,000+ small business making over $250,000 (which includes companies as large as 500 employees) many of them are sole proprietorships that have no employees (lawyers, accountants, consultants, etc.); hence a greater tax on them doesn’t cost jobs.
But when a politician misstates a fact of who said what when, the role of a reporter is to say “that’s not true,” and either point that out in the article or refuse to report the misstatement.
Gibbs is right, but that probably won’t change anything.
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1stOutsource
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Most of us have some insight into our personality traits, but how self-aware are we in the moment?
Leave a Comment / Psychology / By Stephanie Morgan
Correlations between momentary self-views and observed behaviour, from Sun and Vazire, 2018.
By guest blogger Jesse Singal
Your ability to accurately understand your own thoughts and behaviour in a given moment can have rather profound consequences. If you don’t realise you’re growing loud and domineering during a heated company meeting, that could affect your standing at work. If you react in an oversensitive manner to a fair and measured criticism levelled at you by your romantic partner, it could spark a fight.
It’s no wonder, then, that psychology researchers are interested in the question of how well people understand how they are acting and feeling in a given moment, a concept known as state self-knowledge (not to be confused with its better-studied cousin trait self-knowledge, or individuals’ ability to accurately gauge their own personality characteristics that are relatively stable over time).
In a new study available as a preprint on PsyArXiv, Jessie Sun and Simine Vazire of the University of California, Davis adopted a novel, data-heavy approach to gauging individuals’ levels of personality state self-knowledge (i.e. their personality as it manifested in the moment), and it revealed some interesting findings about the ways in which people are – and aren’t – able to accurately understand their own fleeting psychological states.
The study, provisionally titled “Do People Know What They’re Like in the Moment?” had two main components. First, 434 Washington University of St. Louis students were texted four times a day for 15 days and asked to rate themselves on four of the Big Five personality characteristics based on how they had felt and behaved during the previous hour: Extraversion, Agreeableness (only “if they reported that they were around others during the target hour”), Conscientiousness, and Neuroticism. Of these 434 participants, 311 also wore a recording device paired with an iPod touch that recorded for 30 seconds every nine and a half minutes from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. every day, generating a huge amount of audio data. (Before researchers had full access to the recordings, students were allowed to listen to them and erase anything they didn’t want the researchers to hear, but only 99 files were deleted from a cache that became “152,592 usable recordings from 304 participants.”)
Second, a veritable small army of research assistants – more than a hundred – listened to the recordings and rated the speakers on the same four personality states they had previously rated themselves on. For a subset of the study participants, then, researchers had three useful pieces of information: recordings of them going about their lives, participants’ rating of their own personality states during those periods, and outside observers’ rating of those same states. This allowed the researchers to measure the extent to which self-ratings correlated with other-ratings – that is, did Tom’s view that he was quite extroverted during a given hour match up with how others who heard him on audio interpreted his behaviour during snippets of that period?
And measure they did, generating a pretty cool series of graphs (see above). The more acute the positive, upward slope, the more there was agreement between self- and other-ratings. So as you can see, Extraversion was, by a significant margin, the personality characteristic for which people seemed to have the most accurate self-knowledge. This shouldn’t necessarily be a surprise. For one thing, while intuition isn’t always an accurate guide on such matters, common sense would suggest that people are well aware of the extent to which they are actively and enthusiastically engaging in social activity, and that we’re all pretty good at judging others’ level of extraversion as well. Second, the authors note that this finding is “consistent with a large body of literature demonstrating high self-observer agreement on trait extraversion across a wide range of conditions.” The state with second-highest subject-observer agreement, as the graph shows, was Conscientiousness (again, perhaps because in-the-moment conscientious behaviour is pretty easy for both the self and others to discern).
What about the two other personality states, where there was significantly less subject-observer agreement? The tricky part about interpreting these findings, as the authors point out, is that there are two possible explanations: the first is that the subject really does lack insight into their temporary psychological states and that the external observers’ observations accurately captured this; and the second is that the observer was wrong because they only had access to a limited slice of audio that simply might not be enough to accurately gauge the subject’s state at that moment (remember, the raters had no visual information to go on – no body language, facial expressions, or anything else).
So when it comes to Agreeableness and that rather flat line – meaning little agreement between subjects and observers – the authors argue that “it is plausible that people have less self-insight into their momentary agreeableness,” because Agreeableness has so much more to do with external, observable behaviours, and with other people’s perceptions of your warmth, than with internal “thoughts and feelings” (meaning that other people might naturally be better judges of this personality state). Neuroticism, on the other hand, is different – it’s a state much more characterised by internal feelings than by outward behaviour. So in that case, Sun and Vazire argue that their findings alone shouldn’t be seen as supporting the idea that people are bad at self-rating their present level of Neuroticism – rather, it’s more likely the audio just didn’t give the observers enough to go on.
As is probably clear, this is a complicated topic, and it seems likely that people are much better at understanding their present personality states in some ways than others. Sun and Vazire’s study was quite ambitious, and it offers a useful path forward for researchers hoping to learn more about an important issue. In the meantime, their general takeaway? “Our findings show that we can probably trust what people say about their momentary levels of extraversion, conscientiousness, and likely neuroticism. However, our findings also call into question people’s awareness of when they are being considerate versus rude.” Useful information – and probably not a surprise to anyone who has dealt with a bullying coworker who doesn’t seem to understand the impression he’s making on his colleagues.
—Do People Know What They’re Like in the Moment? [This paper is a preprint and the final peer-reviewed version may differ from the version that this report was based on]
Post written by Jesse Singal (@JesseSingal) for the BPS Research Digest. Jesse is a contributing writer at New York Magazine. He is working on a book about why shoddy behavioral-science claims sometimes go viral, for Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BpsResearchDigest/~3/dFvjWfqr85s/
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Laser World Championships
REGATTA INFO
Jury Board
October 17, 2017 lwadmin Venue Essentials Comments Off on About the Host
SAILING CLUB MORNAR
Mornar, the club with the highest traditions of the school courses, started at the end of the 50’s sailing school at the time the first optimists in Croatia, made in club workshop for maintenance and repair of small vessels led by the late Tonći Mitrovic. From then on, the existence of the club is based on the work of sailing and Ship-school, teaching children and young people and the existence of life at sea, and the development of sailing sport in general.
During all these years the club has gone over 3500 people, conveying the spirit of the club from generation to generation, so the team today brings together members under the age of 7 and older than 77 years.
Recently Mornarevu school courses are attended Mate Arapov, Tonci Stipanovic, Marin Misura, Karlo Krpeljević, Tonko Kuzmanic, Luka Mratovic, Luka Radelic including as many as 3 World Champions, while a sailor crew optimists within the team was the team champion and vice champion of the world.
Members of JK Mornar provide great technical support for the Mediterranean Games in Split, 1979th, and showed very good organization of European Championships – European Championship Optimist 1998th, Laser 2003rd as good hosts and organizers of these occasions, a Mornar was entrusted with the organization of the European Laser Radial Championships in 2005.
In addition to sailing, Mornar for the second year, to the great satisfaction of students, teachers and principals of elementary schools, implemented by introducing students to sailing and yachting with the following objectives:
closer to children and youth sailing as part of the culture of our area from time immemorial, and they show a way of life by the sea, which requires hard work, patience and respect for nature
introduce our top athletes who achieve international results, and to hear their story
on the wind and the sea, complement the curriculum of schools and educational institutions,to offer quality content to spend their free time.
The club has over 250 national champions in all classes of boats, from the smallest Optimist through to the biggest Olympic class cruisers.
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Youth choir BALSIS
Artistic Director and Conductor
Ints Teterovskis has been the Artistic Director of the award-winning Latvian youth choir BALSIS since 1998 and has been a Principal Conductor of the Latvian National Song Celebrations since 2008. He is also the Principal Regional Conductor for over 20 choirs in Latvia. As a conductor, he has recorded twelve CDs to date.
In particular Ints is recognized for his interpretation of the musical repertoire of Baltic composers. His imaginative and passionate approach to teaching choral technique and interpretation has him increasingly in demand as a choral workshop clinician, guest conductor and adjudicator in Latvia and abroad. Ints has led choral workshops in America (2000, 2003, 2007, 2009, 2012, 2014), Canada (2010, 2011), Sweden (2013), Australia (2009, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015), China (2015) and has coached students attending the International Masterclasses for Young Musicians project in Latvia. In addition to an active conducting career, Ints, a gifted baritone, also performs as a soloist.
Former BALSIS conductors:
Kaspars Putniņš (no 1987.g. līdz 1995.g., co-founder)
Māris Kupčs (no 1987.g. līdz 1995.g., co-founder)
Armands Zavadskis (1996.g.)
Agita Ikauniece (no 1996.g. līdz 2006.g.)
Valdis Tomsons (no 2005.g. līdz 2009.g.)
Laura Leontjeva (no 2010.g. līdz 2011.g.)
Zane Tāluma (no 2011.g. līdz 2013.g.)
Rihards Zariņš (no 2012.g. līdz 2014.g.)
Laima Vikmane (no 2014.g. līdz 2017.g.)
Elīna Čipāne (kopš 2017.g.)
Ints Teterovskis (kopš 1998.g.)
The youth choir, BALSIS, stages its 30th season in 2016/2017. Under the guidance of its conductor Ints Teterovskis, BALSIS has become one of the most prominent choirs in Latvia. Each year Latvian choirs take part in a national competitive appraisal and in 2015 BALSIS was ranked in first place.
The choir consists of approximately 40 young adults from Riga and other cities of Latvia who are permanent choristers with the choir. The singers are students from numerous fields of study (physics, IT, biology, architecture, law, journalism) and several of them are prospective music educators.
Every year BALSIS prepares 6 to 8 different concert programs, mastering the works of both local and foreign composers. The repertoire covers music from the renaissance to the modern era, from a cappella songs to large-scale works with a symphony orchestra. Folk songs, both Latvian and from elsewhere, are an essential ingredient in the choir’s repertoire as are classic songs from the Latvian Song and Dance Festival.
So far BALSIS has released 18 CDs. Rolling Stone magazine has declared the album Ziemassvētki sabraukuši (2008), created in collaboration with the New York Latvian Choir and the New Chamber Orchestra of Riga, as one of the twenty five greatest Christmas albums of all time.
BALSIS is an innovative youth choir which regularly collaborates with local composers. As well, seeking new venues and audiences, it participates in a range of musical projects and challenges, such as concerts in the meat pavilion of the Riga Central Market, in train stations, on the river Daugava, within an historical gas tank etc. Each year the choir surprises listeners with its auditory and visual experimentation in its annual Christmas and Valentine’s Day concerts and other projects.
BALSIS regularly undertakes overseas tours and participates in prestigious, international choir festivals and competitions. BALSIS has successfully given concerts in many parts of Europe (from Spain to Norway), USA (2002, 2014), Canada and Australia. In 2015 the choir also made its mark in Asia by participating in the IFCM Asia Pacific World Choral EXPO 2015 in Macau, China, where the choir gave concerts and masterclasses as a guest choir from Europe representing the traditions of European choral music.
The choir performs around 70 concerts every year in Latvian concert halls, churches, open-air venues.
Singing is part of their lifestyle for the choristers in the choir BALSIS and the phrase that unites them in all that they do together is Many voices, one thought!
Assistant conductor
Elīna Čipāne (1992)
Elina Cipane took her first musical steps in early childhood when she participated in various singing competitions. In 2013 she graduated from the Jurmala Music High School specialising in choir conducting, which was taught by Velga Bomika. Currently Elina is continuing her studies under the tutelage of Martin Klisans in the course that prepares general education music teachers at the Jazeps Vitol’s Academy of Music. In 2012, Elina attended the International Masterclasses for Young Musicians in Sigulda supplementing her studies in choral conducting, singing and the preparation of new compositions for debut. During her studies she has been actively involved in a range of concerts singing in the Academy’s mixed choir, which is conducted by Maris Sirmais. Elina has participated in various conferences, such as Es Dziedu! (I Sing!) 2013, Eurovox 2015 as well as masterclasses for instance, Stephen Layton’s early music masterclass. Along with her studies, Elina has led the vocal ensemble at Riga’s Ezerkrastu Primary School and taught singing at the theatre school, Ziļuks. Currently she teaches solfeggio theory at the Jurmala Music High School. Since 2013 she has been an integral member of the youth choir Balsis.
Singing teacher
Nauris Indzeris
Nauris Indzeris has a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts and a Master’s degree in Opera Singing. He has participated in master classes for voice in Germany, Austria and Italy. Nauris has performed with the Latvian National Opera, at the Sigulda Opera Festival and various other festivals and music projects and is currently a full time soloist with the Latvian Operetta Fund. He has been the vocal coach for the Youth Choir Balsis since 2004.
Former singing teachers:
Mārtiņš Zvīgulis
Kristīne Gailīte
Gunita Sakniņa
Daina Libauere
Viesturs Jansons
Sonora Vaice
BALSIS has won awards in over 30 international choral competitions:
Third Prize in the folklore category at 43rd International Choral Competition in Tolosa, Spain (2011)
Riga Youth Choir BALSIS Vocal Group won Gold in the folk music category and Silver in the chamber choir category at the 2010 World Choir Games in Shaoxing / Shanghai, China
Third Prize in the semi-professional choir category of the 24th Latvian National Song and Dance Festival Choral Competition in Riga, Latvia (2008)
Second Prize – First International Choral Competition and Festival in Latvia (2007)
Second Prize – 29th International Choral Competition in Varna, Bulgaria (2007)
Prize awarded for best performance of a selected composition – 29th International Choral Competition in Varna, Bulgaria (2007)
Prize awarded for best performance of a Bulgarian composition – 29th International Choral Competition in Varna, Bulgaria (2007)
Third Prize – 50th International Choral Competition of Habaneras and Polyphony in Torrevieja, Spain (2004)
Second Prize – European Grand Prix for Choral Singing in Gorizia, Italy (2004)
Prize awarded by Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia for outstanding achievements in choral music (2003)
Grand Prix at the 35th International Choral Competition in Tolosa, Spain (2003)
First Prize in the semi-professional choir category of the 23rd Latvian National Song and Dance Festival Choral Competition in Riga, Latvia (2003)
First Prize – International Choral Competition in Spittal an der Drau, Austria (2002)
First Prize – International Choral Competition in Tallinn, Estonia (2001)
First Prize – International Choral Competition in Nordic-Baltic Choral Festival in Skien, Norway (2000)
Grand Prix – Em. Melngailis Music Festival, Latvia (1999)
First Prize in the chamber choir category of the 21st Latvian National Song and Dance Festival Choral Competition in Riga, Latvia (1998)
First Prize in the semi-professional choir category of the 20th and 21st Latvian National Song and Dance Festival Choral Competition in Riga, Latvia (1990, 1998)
Grand Prix - International Competition in Ventspils, Latvia (1997)
Grand Prix - International Competition in Cantonigros, Spain (1995)
First Prize - Fourth International Competition in Neuchâtel, Switzerland (1992)
Grand Prix - BBC Choral Recordings Competition "Let the People Sing" (1991)
In addition, BALSIS has developed a tradition of competing in the Emils Darzins Choral Competition in Latvia in the women’s and men’s choir categories, winning First Prize for both choirs in 2005 and Second Prize for both choirs in 2009. BALSIS was awarded a prize by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia in 2003 for active and original choral programming in 2002 and outstanding choral achievements in choral music in 2003.
Phone: +371-29414158
E-mail: choir@balsis.lv
© Balsis 2020
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Description, Surveys and Excavations
Tell Abil el-Qameh, identified with the biblical town Abel Beth Maacah, is a 100-dunam site, located 4.5 miles west of Tel Dan and 1.2 miles south of Metulla on Israel's northern border with Lebanon. The site controls the roads leading north to the Lebanese Beq‘a, west Lebanese/ Phoenician coast (21 miles to Tyre), and northeast to inner and northern Syria (43 miles to Damascus). The tell is composed of a large lower mound in the south and a smaller lofty upper mound in the north. It is mentioned in the Bible three times, in relation to the time of King David in the 10th century BCE (2 Samuel 20: 14ff), in relation to the Aramean conquest by Ben Hadad in the 9th century BCE (1 Kings 15:20) and in relation to the Neo-Assyrian conquest by Tiglath-Pilesar III in the 8th century BCE (2 Kings 15:29). In addition to these references to the city of Abel Beth Maacah, the bible refers to an entity/kingdom called “Maacah” (Joshua 13:11; 2 Samuel 10:6; 1 Chronicles 19:6) whose identity and relationship to Abel Beth Maacah remain enigmatic.
Despite its geographic and historical prominence, the site has never been excavated until now. Limited surveys were conducted Prof. William G. Dever of the University of Arizona, as well as Yehudah Dayan, Yosef Stefansky and Edan Shaked of the Israel Antiquities Authority. Pottery from the Early Bronze Age II-III (third millennium BCE) until the Ottoman period was found. The small Arab village of Abil el-Qameh occupied about one-third of the mound until 1948, its ruins visible on the surface today.
In May 2012, members of the present excavation team conducted a survey in order to build on the knowledge of the occupation sequence of the site and to select areas for full excavation. The pottery collected confirmed the occupation profile of previous surveys. The survey revealed that early remains may be found directly under topsoil in the lower tell, while they are partly covered by remains of the modern village in part of the upper tell.
The excavations are conducted as a joint project between Azusa Pacific University of Los Angelels (director: Prof. Robert Mullins) and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (directors: Dr. Naama Yahalom-Mack and Dr. Nava Panitz-Cohen).
Six seasons of excavation, four weeks each, have been conducted from 2013-2108, with the participation of volunteers, students and staff from the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia and Israel. Five excavation areas have been opened, three in the lower mound (Areas F, O and K), one in the saddle between the lower and upper mound (Area A), and one on the eastern side of the upper mound in the north (Area B). Although pottery from the Early Bronze II-III was found, the earliest architectural remains excavated so far date to the Middle Bronze IIB, including fortifications, graves, a sewage installation, a courtyard house, and numerous baby jar burials. Remains from the Late Bronze Age uncovered in the lower city include three main occupation phases, with a silver hoard in a jar found in the latest phase (LBIIB). Rich remains from the Iron Age I were found throughout the site, including a large and unique complex of buildings in Area A (the saddle between the upper and lower tell) with evidence of metalworking, surplus storage and cult. Three main strata belonging to the Iron I have so far been revealed in Area S. The latest Iron I occupation was violently destroyed, sometime in the 10th century BCE. The Iron Age IIA is represented by substantial architecture, including a massive casemate-like structure in the upper tell (Area B) that might be a citadel, dating to the 9th century BCE. In one of the rooms of this building, the head of a bearded male made of faience, of exceptionally high quality, was found, along with elaborate Phoenician Bichrome pottery. A large building dating to the Persian/early Hellenistic period was built just above this citadel. Remains from the Roman and Byzantine periods, as well as from the Middle Ages, comprise mostly pottery and incoherent walls.
The excavations to date have shed light on various important research questions, such as the interaction of Middle Bronze Age IIB city-states in the upper Hula Valley, the nature of transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age I in the shadow of the destruction of Hazor. and the relationship of this region to the Arameans, Israelites and Phoenicians in the Iron Age I and II.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abel-beth-maachah
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Second Season of Downton Abbey Coming to MASTERPIECE on PBS in 2012
Good news for viewers who are suffering from Downton Abbey withdrawal: the wildly popular MASTERPIECE miniseries, which concluded its run on PBS Sunday night, will return with new episodes in winter 2012.
Downton Abbey, Julian Fellowes’ Edwardian spellbinder, produced by Carnival Films and MASTERPIECE, depicts the intertwined lives of servants and aristocrats at a country estate and is one of the most successful miniseries in recent MASTERPIECE history. Dubbed “an instant classic” by The New York Times, and “the best abbey since Abbey Road” by Entertainment Weekly, more than six million viewers watched the television broadcast each week and thousands more streamed it on the MASTERPIECE website and discussed it online.
“Lightning doesn’t strike often in television these days, but it certainly did with Downton Abbey,” says MASTERPIECE executive producer Rebecca Eaton. “It was a fantastic start to our 40th anniversary season, and Series II is good news for everyone.”
Gareth Neame, executive producer and managing director, Carnival Films, says, “We’re delighted by the warm reception U.S. audiences have given the first series of Downton Abbey, and we can’t imagine a better home than MASTERPIECE on PBS for the second series.”
Julian Fellowes will continue as the writer for upcoming series, and members of the “superstar” cast have committed to the second season, among them Dame Maggie Smith. Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern will also return as Lord and Lady Grantham.
Downton Abbey launched the 40th anniversary season of MASTERPIECE 2011. New titles airing this winter include an adaptation of William Boyd’s best-seller Any Human Heart and a new version of Upstairs Downstairs.
Downton Abbey is a Carnival/MASTERPIECE co-production, written and created by Julian Fellowes. The executive producers are Gareth Neame, Julian Fellowes, Liz Trubridge, and Rebecca Eaton. The Downton Abbey DVD is available from PBS Home Video: http://shoppbs.org.
MASTERPIECE on PBS is presented by WGBH Boston. Rebecca Eaton is executive producer. Funding for the series is provided by public television viewers with additional support from contributors to The MASTERPIECE Trust, created to help ensure the series’ future.
pbs.org/masterpiece
Online press materials available at pbs.org/pressroom and pressroom.wgbh.org
WGBH Press Contacts:
Ellen Dockser, ellen_dockser@wgbh.org, 617-300-5338
Olivia Wong, olivia_wong@wgbh.org, 617-300-5349
PBS and Grunwald National Research Indicates Lack of Technology Infrastructure ...
Suze Orman's Money Class
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Home » Canadian history • History and Policy • Theme Week
The Family as Tax Dodge, Again
September 21, 2017 September 15, 2017 No Comments on The Family as Tax Dodge, Again
By Shirley Tillotson
This is the fourth in a five part theme week marking the centenary of income tax in Canada.
Here we are again. If you’ve studied history or lived a decade or two after forty, you’ve noticed that some battles are fought over and over and over again. Those repetitive, “I can’t believe we’re still debating this!” struggles mark itchy, scratchy places in our society, the places where the imperatives of institutions and “common sense,” markets and human needs contradict each other. So “same old, same old” really means “this is hot stuff.” In the history of the income tax, much of the hot stuff shows up around family. And sure enough, family matters appear in the federal government’s current proposals to make income taxation more fair. One aspect of the Morneau proposals targets the use of the breadwinner / homemaker / children family as a tax dodge. Or, to be less provocative, one might say the proposals target the use of one kind of family as a means to minimize tax, perfectly legal. Opposition MP Michelle Rempel moans, how can a government “change the rules” and call the change “fair”? Is the finance minister calling people who follow the rules “crooks”?
Amid all this heat, a bit of tax history might be calming. The distinction between what is avoidance – legal – and what is evasion – illegal – has changed before, and will no doubt change again. Rempel presents herself as defending law-abiding folk who face the shutting down of ordinary good business practices, ways of saving and spending that are both legitimate and socially useful. But those practices are not natural rights. They are more like tactics in a sport. They are merely ways of using current law to the taxpayer’s best advantage: tax avoidance practices, also called tax planning. As the world changes, so may tax law, in the future as it has in the past. The boundary between avoidance and evasion is historical, driven by events and our responses to them.
In the Anglo-Canadian world, a landmark event in the 1930s pretty much invented the distinction between avoidance and evasion. On May 7, 1935, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council found against the Internal Revenue and for the taxpayer in the appeal of the despicable (for other reasons) Hugh (“Bendor”) Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster. Westminster had reduced his income tax assessment by an accounting move that the person on the street can hardly have regarded as fair, and that the tax authority thought was evasion. The majority of the JCPC called it avoidance. Westminster had figured out that, if he paid his approximately 100 household and estate staff one way (by means of income from annuities) rather than another (ordinary wages), he could significantly reduce his taxable income, and avoid a surtax.
Hugh Richard Arthur Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster
by Walter L. Colls, circa 1902 © National Portrait Gallery
Westminster was enormously wealthy. His family owned much of Mayfair and Belgravia in London. He ostentatiously enjoyed his wealth, revelling in Rolls Royces, yachts, horses, mansions, and gifts of lavish gems to a series of girlfriends and wives including, for a time, Coco Chanel. To his credit was a Distinguished Service Order (DSO) earned in active combat during the Great War. To his shame was keen support for Hitler during the 1930s and 1940s and a hatred of homosexuality that makes Lord Alfred Douglas’s dad look like a member of PFLAG. Westminster was an active member of Britain’s extreme and anti-Semitic right in the interwar years, and a tailor-made villain for tax history. No mere government was going to make Benny Grosvenor pay some ridiculous surtax on high incomes.
Even if we don’t much like the man, Westminster, the decision in Westminster usefully established a tax filer’s right to arrange his or her business affairs so as to pay the least tax legally required, a right to avoid that defends all of us against the risk of overweening tax administration. But Westminster was also the charter case of aggressive tax planning. Before the change in statutory interpretation led by Westminster, the tax authority was allowed to investigate whether a business transaction (paying a salary, renting a property, borrowing or investing money) had a real economic purpose – substance – or whether it was just moving money around to avoid a proper tax liability. After Westminster, tax authorities had to invent new ways to determine whether a tax filer was, like the Duke, doing one thing and calling it another, taking advantage of words in the tax statute to produce a result contrary to the legislators’ intentions.
One new way that governments found to shut down clever tax schemes in the 1930s was the gift tax. Is a so-called “gift” really a gift when the giver is your rich uncle Edwin, who signs over to you the deed on one of his apartment buildings on the understanding that you’ll loan him back the rental revenue at zero interest for an indefinite term? You don’t earn much from your job slinging donuts, so your tax liability on the rents will be smaller than Edwin’s would have been. When Edwin in the end gets that rental income and pays “your” tax bill, he’ll still be keeping more of his money. And he’ll owe you at least a favour. In June 1935, the Canadian federal government started levying a tax on “gifts” like that one. According to a new rule in the Income War Tax Act, the generous “giver” of this sort would have to pay the government a percentage of the value of the gift (ranging from 2 per cent to 10 per cent).[1] Uncle Eddy could still give his niece (or even one of his employees) that income property, but he’d have to fork over some cash up front for the tax advantage that he was busy arranging.
Toronto Daily Star, 23 March 1935
A number of countries enacted gift taxes in the 1930s, precisely to close the kind of gate through which the Duke of Westminster had escaped. As credit markets crashed and worker misery grew to near-revolutionary levels, governments powered up their tax enforcement efforts and raised taxes on the poor, the middling, and the rich alike. Wealthy Canadians began, like Westminster, to “give” previously undeclared income-earning assets to people within their control, to prevent the assets’ being discovered and so to avoid the subsequent tax bill. Facing the newfound earnestness of the state’s effort to enforce the tax law, various Uncle Eddies felt a strong incentive to divide some property among lower earning kin, and thus legally to minimize their income taxes.
Today, the tax authority has more precise methods (attribution rules) to track who really should pay the tax on income-generating property that is transferred within families. However much more precise, those rules still address the same question as did the gift tax of 1935. Is it right for the highest earner in a family to “sprinkle” some of his (or, less often, her) income among offspring (or nieces or grandchildren) and spouse, so as to reduce the overall income tax paid by the family as an economic unit? Our law has tended to say no, because sprinkling and splitting shrinks the overall tax base in ways that benefit only some kinds of families and mostly higher income earners.
Income sprinkling benefits substantially only those families that have just one member who earns a lot (or who has lots of investment income). Childless single people, families that live on a smaller single income, or families with two similar incomes can’t reduce their taxes much or at all in that way. The truly small business person, even if married with kids – the donut franchisee versus the plastic surgeon – sees only a small dollar amount by way of benefit. Tax scholars call splitting and sprinkling an “upside-down subsidy” – a tax expenditure that benefits taxpayers more and more as you go up the income scale. All taxpayers, happily or grudgingly, subsidize the tax reduction that is enjoyed by those who can use family for this purpose.
Despite its dubious and discriminatory impact, the appeal of this tax avoidance strategy seems never to die. It was enthusiastically pursued in the 1950s but successfully opposed by federal tax policy makers, both Liberal and Progressive Conservative. In the 1960s, tax reformers tried to make family income sharing less selective (but lost the fight), and an argument for marital wealth splitting (as distinct from income splitting) is still being made and is worth exploring.[2] In 2014, disagreements on a simplistic form of marital income splitting divided Steven Harper (in favour) and his finance minister, Jim Flaherty (against). Regardless of party, finance ministers aren’t terribly keen on the sprinkling and splitting – these practices erode the revenue and don’t serve a broad economic objective.
Now, a Liberal finance minister proposes reforms that will take away one of the few remaining routes to income-sprinkling. It isn’t an especially partisan move: Morneau proposes merely to extend the reach of a penalty against income sprinkling to children that, though introduced by the Liberals in 1999, was bolstered by the Conservatives in their 2014 budget. In tax planning circles, that penalty is called the “kiddie tax.” The kiddie tax was a bit like the gift tax of 1935. It doesn’t prohibit transferring income to one’s minor children, aged 17 or under. It just makes it prohibitively expensive to do so, by charging a Tax On Split Income (the TOSI, as the kiddie tax is called in scholarly circles). Morneau now proposes to apply the same tax to income sprinkling among children aged 18 to 24.
Perhaps Morneau has noticed that there has been a change in the life course of young middle-class adults, who are now less likely to be independent in their early 20s. A tax law change might reflect this kind of social change in family relationships. Or maybe Morneau is just trying to stem a substantial drain on the federal revenue that resulted when, in 2005, Dalton McGuinty’s Ontario government handed doctors a tax shelter (not then available in every province) by allowing them to make their practices into private corporations and cut their tax rate by something like 30%.[3] Federalism complicates tax policy, to put it mildly.
For reasons such as these, tax laws sometimes must be changed. The overall project of a progressive rate tax on personal income is to collect a revenue in ways that reasonably reflect earners’ and investors’ ability to pay. Governments may miscalculate ability to pay, and taxpayers should let them know if that happens. Efforts to follow in the Duke of Westminster’s footsteps are one way to protest. But to think that a particular method of tax avoidance is a right, rather than just an opportunity arising from possibly short-lived circumstance, is to misunderstand the forces that are constantly at work on tax law. When the McGuinty government gave Ontario’s doctors a new tax break, he was allowing them to take a bite out of the federal income tax revenue. I’d be surprised if McGuinty worked that out with the federal government of the day; by constitutional law, he didn’t have to. And when some doctors, along with lawyers and others with personal corporations, used them to sprinkle income among their young adult children, they cannot be entirely surprised if the childless among them do no see a valid equity argument expressed in their chosen form of protest.
I would not accuse Ontario’s doctors or small businesses of being crooks. Few among us will forego a rich tax advantage that the law offers us. Our governments don’t expect us to. But when something in the world changes and, as a result, inequities arise among taxpayers, we might lose a tax advantage. In fact, it’s kind of the job of a government to see that we do. And when inequities are related to the kind of family we live in, we should especially expect our governments to be alert. Family and tax laws have a long, and sometimes suspect, history together.
Shirley Tillotson is an adjunct member of the Dalhousie University Department of History and an Inglis Professor of the University of King’s College. Her most recent book is Give and Take: The Citizen-Taxpayer and the Rise of Canadian Democracy (UBC Press, October 2017).
[1] Charitable gifts were exempt from the tax, as were gifts totalling less than $4,000 in value. There was no giving assets to the wife and kids to avoid tax: all such property was already taxed in the hands of the father and husband.
[2] Lisa Phillips, “Cracking the Conjugal Myths: What does it mean for the attribution rules?” Canadian Tax Journal, 50, 3 (2002), at 1031
[3] Detailed evidence on the impact of Ontario’s 2001 incorporation measure is provided in Michael Wolfson and Scott Legree, “Policy Forum: Private Corporations, Professionals, and Income Splitting: Recent Canadian Experience,” 63, 3 (2015), at 717
Canadian history, History and Policy, Theme Week Income Tax
← History Slam Episode 104: Taxation and Democracy The Use and Abuse of Boredom →
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U.S. Dominicans Gather to Discuss Order’s Mission of Preaching
November 22, 2019, Adrian, Michigan – U.S. Dominican Friars, Sisters, Nuns, and Associates gathered at Weber Retreat and Conference Center in Adrian in October for a regional Dominican Preaching Colloquium. The gathering gave members of the Dominican family the opportunity to discuss their call to preach and ways to pass on the preaching mission to the next generation of Dominicans.
The Colloquium included a keynote address by Father Anthony Gittins, CSSp, Professor Emeritus at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and a noted speaker and author. He spoke of “Evangelization in the Mission of Jesus and in our Mission as Church.”
Father Anthony noted that evangelization is not only proclamation of the Gospel but “it’s everything that Jesus does.” As disciples, he said, we are to be “co-missioned into the mission of Jesus, brought down to Earth 2,000 years ago, but needing to be embodied by us here in the 21st Century.” He noted that Jesus did not just proclaim the coming Kingdom of God through his words but primarily through his actions in four ways: encountering people one-on-one; table fellowship, eating with all people, even “tax-collectors and sinners;” foot-washing, offering humble service to all people; and boundary-crossing, cutting through barriers of exclusion and privilege which demean people.
Participants reflected on how they live out Jesus’ four ways of preaching the Good News of God’s love. Father Anthony reminded participants that all of the baptized have the “vocation of discipleship,” yet many parishioners do not have that understanding of their own call.
Finally, he noted that God – not the Church – is the subject of mission. “The mission has the Church,” and God managed well before the Church was established, he said. “The mission has the Dominicans – and before the Dominicans God was happy with the mission. The mission has you and the mission has me. I don’t have the mission – so I can die in peace because God is in charge.”
Ann M. Garrido, DMin, former Professor of Homiletics at Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, Missouri, presented the results of 20 interviews she had conducted with 10 older Dominicans and 10 newer Dominicans. “Dominicans are all across the board in how they see preaching,” she said, noting that some see their ministry as the preaching while others confine preaching to proclamations from the pulpit.
She saw differences among Dominicans in many areas, and focused much of her time on equipping participants to hold “difficult conversations” with one another on issues in which they disagree. She urged them to still their own “inner voice” during conversations so that they could truly listen and find common ground.
During the Colloquium, participants had the opportunity to get to know one another through meals and social time, to pray together, and to attend Mass together.
Adrian Dominican Sister Sara Fairbanks, OP, one of the organizers, said that global colloquiums have been organized by the Dominican preaching institutes at Aquinas Institute in St. Louis, Missouri; in Cologne, Germany; and in Manila, the Philippines. The first global preaching colloquium for Dominicans was in 2016 in St. Louis. The next was in Manila in 2017, and last year’s colloquium took place in Cologne. Dominicans who attended the global gatherings set in motion the regional gatherings this year in all three areas.
“We’re trying to collaborate as a Dominican family on our preaching mission and talk about the challenges,” Sister Sara said. Participants in each region focused on the particular issues that they face, she explained. “In the United States, there’s a lot of polarization in the Catholic Church and within the Dominican community. How do we think about the future of our preaching mission together as an Order without taking a look at the things that divide us, as well as what unites us? If we don’t have relationships with one another, it’s really hard to collaborate.”
Sister Sara said that Ann’s presentation on “difficult conversations” gave participants some effective tools, ways to “understand where the other party’s coming from and why they hold the position that they do, and to just be more able to talk to each other.”
Collaboration and group sharing was also at the heart of evening communal reflections organized by Sister Sara, in which participants gathered at tables, listened to the Word of God, contemplated in silence, and shared their reflections with one another. “For me, as a planner, I wanted us to experience this idea of communal preaching, where we actually come together as a community and sit in small circles and reflect on the Word together,” she said. “That’s very powerful. Not only are we enriched around the Gospel, around the Word, but we are also enriched by each other and what we’re sharing.”
Sister Sara noted the establishment of Preaching Promoters for each Mission Chapter of the Adrian Dominican Sisters, and their communal service to the Congregation as members of a Preaching Commission.
“I think our Congregation in the past 30 years has more and more identified [ourselves] as preachers – and you preach with your life,” she said. “We have certainly claimed that identity. I think we could do more. We could do a little bit more in terms of relating our justice work with the mission of Jesus.”
The next Global Preaching Colloquium will be in Manila, the Philippines, in 2020.
On November 22, 2019 in General by EditorComment 0
Tagged With: CSSp, OP, Ann M. Garrido, Anthony J. Gittins, Aquinas Institute of Theology, Dominican Family, Dominican Preaching Colloquium, mission, preaching, Sister Sara Fairbanks, Weber Center / 567 Views
Sister Durstyne Farnan, OP, Represents Dominican Family at United Nations
October 30, 2019, New York, New York – Sister Durstyne Farnan, OP, is building on her years of experience in justice and peace advocacy, collaboration with the Dominican family, and global travel as she embarks on a new ministry: United Nations Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Dominican Representative. She succeeds Sister Margaret Mayce, OP, a Dominican Sister of Amityville, who was recently elected International Coordinator of Dominican Sisters International (DSI).
Sphere within a Sphere (Sfera con Sfera), created by Italian sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro, stands outside the General Assembly building of the United Nations.
Sister Durstyne is accountable to the Dominican Sisters Conference (DSC), an organization of U.S. Dominican Sisters, and is a member of the DSC Executive Committee.
“I’m excited. I hope I represent the Dominicans at the UN well,” Sister Durstyne said from New York, where she began her three-year term in late October. Already, she is keeping up a hectic pace: attending a meeting in Rome earlier in October with the Dominican International Justice Promoters; settling into her new home in New Jersey, not far from the Caldwell Dominican Sisters Motherhouse; attending a UN side event on the environment; and attending an all-morning orientation on ministry at the UN offered by Religious at the United Nations (RUN).
Sister Durstyne’s principle job will involve attending sessions of UN working groups, particularly the working groups on homelessness and women and girls. “Homelessness is not necessarily a UN effort at this point, but what they’re trying to do is shift from homelessness as the fault of homeless people to the idea that having a home is a human right,” she explained. “They’re trying to change the language around homelessness and advocate more,” both at the UN in New York and in Geneva, where human rights issues are discussed.
Much of Sister Durstyne’s ministry involves connecting the Dominican family to the United Nations. “I’d like to communicate with the Dominican Sisters in the United States about what’s happening in the United Nations and how they might be able to assist me at their level,” she said. She would also like to know which issues the Dominican Sisters are working on with their justice promoters and how she can help them.
In addition, Sister Durstyne would like to work directly with special groups of Dominicans. She sees the Women and Girls Working Group as a connector to the Commission on the Status of Women and hopes that continental coordinators at the DSI can identify the names of two women from their continent who can attend the 64th session of the Commission, which will meet at the UN March 9-20, 2020.
Swedish artist Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd created Non-Violence (The Knotted Gun), after the shooting death of his friend John Lennon. The government of Luxembourg presented it to the United Nations in 1988.
In response to the UN’s concern about reaching out to youth, Sister Durstyne also hopes to get Dominican youth more involved, particularly members of the Dominican Young Adults and the International Dominican Youth Movement. She also encourages Dominican colleges and universities in the United States to establish UN Clubs so that students can learn more about the United Nations.
Sister Durstyne was encouraged to respond in the Spring of 2019 to an announcement that Sister Margaret Mayce’s position as Dominican Representative to the United Nations was opening. “People sent me the application,” she recalled. “Some of our Sisters and Sisters from other congregations encouraged me to reply.” After her third interview, she learned that she had been chosen for the position. “I felt very honored and blessed that they chose me,” she said.
Sister Durstyne said that her experiences prepared her for her new ministry. “I’ve had so many opportunities as a religious,” she said. For the past three years, she has served as Justice Coordinator for the School Sisters of St. Francis and the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi, both based in Milwaukee. Before that, she was Director of the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation, coordinating the justice and peace efforts of Adrian Dominican Sisters and Associates. She also served as North American Justice Promoter with DSI and has been part of delegations to Iraq to visit the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena, based in Iraq.
“The various opportunities that I’ve had as a Dominican have really prepared me for this ministry, and that’s the feedback I get from so many people,” Sister Durstyne said. “My working with Dominican Sisters International has given me a more global perspective. My hope is to become more familiar with the UN and its structure and to connect the Dominican family even more to the UN.”
On October 30, 2019 in General by EditorComment 1
Tagged With: Dominican Family, Dominican Sisters Conference, Dominican Sisters International, Religious, RUN, Sister Durstyne Farnan, Sustainable Development Goals, UN, UN-NGO Dominican Representative, working groups / 892 Views
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Mandated Sterilisation, Mandated Divorce
From the EU Commission for Human Rights:
Ireland is not the only country where transgender persons have faced obstacles in obtaining legal recognition of their preferred gender. Some Council of Europe member states still have no provision at all for official recognition, leaving transgender people in a legal limbo. Most member states still use medical classifications which impose the diagnosis of mental disorder on transgender persons.
Even more common are provisions which demand impossible choices, such as the “forced divorce” and the “forced sterilisation” requirements. This means that only unmarried or divorced transgender persons who have undergone surgery and become irreversibly infertile have the right to change their entry in the birth register. In reality, this means that the state prescribes medical treatment for legal purposes, a requirement which clearly runs against the principles of human rights and human dignity.
The USA has no requirement for Forced Divorce - but in those states that allow changes at all, Forced Sterilisation is universal - at least for women.
The various states of Australia require both Forced Sterilisation and Forced Divorce. But by a quirk of the law, Federally there's no such demand, if the person concerned was born overseas.
The UK does not have Forced Sterilisation, but does have Forced Divorce, and also requires a formal legal diagnosis of a mental disorder.
I was born in the UK. Because I'm Intersexed, I can't have the required diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria - which apparently equates to "Transsexuality" under the World Health Organisation's diagnostic manual, the ICD-10. But even if I managed that, I'm still married, so would be excluded on those grounds too.
I can think of no other minority group subject to such provisions - not since May 1945, anyway.
I can't think of cases of forced divorce with forced sterilization, but as for forced sterilization:
Eugenic Protection Law (1948, Japan) (a version in English)
The Emergency (India, 1975-1977)
The mentally ill, homosexuals, criminal and epileptics (among other) via "The Oregon Board of Eugenics (1923-1981) (while this may be one of the latest surviving programs in the U.S.A., about half of all states had such laws on the book over a decade after WWII, if many of them no longer enforced them). Also note that California had one of the largest forced sterilization programs outside of (and older than) the third reich.
Roma sterilized in the 1990s in Czech Republic.
And, yes, there are more. These are just the ones I chased down references for.
Wednesday, September 01, 2010 5:18:00 am
Getting back to the point of your post, Enforced Sterilization is a crime against humanity under ROME STATUTE OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT Article 7 1g:
Article 7: Crimes against humanity
1. For the purpose of this Statute, "crime against humanity" means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:
(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;
While I don't think that transgendered or intersex fit under article 6 (genocide - which is limited to "national, ethnical, racial or religious group"), article 7 is much more broad, as it can be performed against "any civilian population"
Obviously, I'm not an international human rights lawyer. However, I'm not seeing any obvious reason why this treaty couldn't be applied in some of these cases - Ireland has ratified this treaty, as have the U.K., and Australia.
Actually - peeling aside all the emotionalism, I'm having serious difficulty trying to find anything remotely resembling enforced sterilization.
Maybe somebody could explain where any kind of force is being used to involuntarily sterilize any person or group of persons?
You, Zoe, along with many others have been responsible for encouraging the ongoing conflation between sex and gender.
Notwithstanding that most legislation is aimed at allowing a change of sex in cases where individuals undertake a process which alters their anatomy so that it predominately reflects the characteristics of the target sex, rather than the one they were born.
Transsexual people do not undergo forced sterilization. Rather they are desperate to rid themselves of those biological characteristics that conflict with their neurobiological sex.
No enforced sterilization there. Rather a group of people willingly and freely, without coercion undertaking a process entirely of their own volition.
Only persons who do not experience transsexualism but believe they should be treated as if they did for some purposes and not for others could conceivably arrive at the conclusion that some kind of force is being applied.
It is not. If you don't want to change sex nobody is forcing you to and you are free to choose not to.
At no point is any pressure, coercion, or force being applied.
Having determined not to change anatomical sex, you are not free to demand the same status as somebody who has!
Sunday, September 05, 2010 6:38:00 pm
Jo - unless you were born in Western Australia, and unless you have satisfied the Commission that you have met their requirements, so have been granted a Certificate....
Then you will be treated like these men while within Western Australia. As a man, in your case.
Sterilisation is required - but it's not sufficient.
The WA law on discrimination based on gender history only applies to those with certificates. Not to those born outside WA.
Hello Zoe :-)
Re the WA Decision.
Please read the majority judgement of MARTIN CJ and PULLIN JA .
para.104 -
The critical question is whether, by the reassignment procedure, an applicant has acquired sufficient of the characteristics of the gender to which they wish to be assigned to be identified as a member of that gender.
and, at para 114:
Rather, save for their clitoral growth, and the impact which
testosterone treatment has had upon ovulation and the functioning of their uterus, each otherwise has the external genital appearance and internal reproductive organs which would, according to accepted community standards, be associated with membership of the female sex...the express requirement for at least some genital modification as part of the 'reassignment procedure' which is a prerequisite to an application for a recognition certificate reinforces that conclusion.
and, at 115
Each of AB and AH, possess none of the genital and reproductive
characteristics of a male, and retain virtually all of the external genital characteristics and internal reproductive organs of a female.
The requirement for less
female characteristics and more male characteristics falls short of a requirement for full phalloplasty. What it does demand is a re-balancing of characteristics such that they are weighted predominately toward male, rather than toward female.
Having read this decision several times, very carefully, I am not convinced that it is wrong, If the appellants were to have their external female organs surgically fused and a scrotum constructed from the labia, thus giving the appearance of male sex organs, I'm almost certain their application would succeed.
More to the point is the claim of enforced sterilization.
Again nobody is being forced
to do anything! The WA legislation is really very poorly drafted - but at its core the intention is a create mechanism to allow for a legal change of sex
Quite simply the Appellants had not (sic) changed sex If the appellants are TS ( and I am assured by a fellow OII director that they are) then they will not be experiencing this requirement as 'forced sterilization.'
It would only be thought 'enforced sterilization" by somebody who wanted to obtain the certificate but did not experience transsexualism.
Hopefully, once the dust has settled the appellants will take the decision for what it is: the guidance that should have been contained in the legislation, as to what standards need to met to qualify for a change of status, in this case from female to male.
I cannot comment on the anti-discrimination provisions of WA. If they are as you say then they surely do need to be changed!
Monday, September 06, 2010 5:35:00 am
Hi Zoe :-)
This last response does not address the enforced sterilization claims.
Enforced sterilization can only occur when it is conducted against the will of the person it is performed on - perhaps a little like the non-consensual cosmetic genital surgeries performed on intersex babies - as opposed to the wholly consensual cosmetic genital surgeries performed on T/S Folk.
I can see no instances of enforced surgeries - other than some years ago in apartheid Sth. Africa where I understand a number of Gay soldiers were literally forced into SRS so they wouldn't be gay anymore!
For your private consideration I have emailed you my analysis (for OII Australia) of the WA decision.
I hope it will clarify that issue for you.
If WA anti discrimination legislation is as you say, then that needs to be changed. I am far from convinced that the majority verdict is unsound.
re the forced Sth African sex changes - these should get you started:
http://www.thegully.com/essays/africa/000825sexchange.html
http://www.q.co.za/news/2000/07/000728-sexchange1.htm
http://www.pfc.org.uk/node/725
Kathrin said...
This post is off the main page, so I don't know if anyone will see this.
In the US, for people born abroad, there is no (longer) a requirement to be sterilized.
The federal birth certificates have the same policies as the updated passport rules, which makes a lot of things simpler.
Monday, September 13, 2010 11:00:00 pm
Battybattybats said...
Coercion is force.
To require in order to obtain a panoply of basic fundamental human rights (including ones directly related to safety and security and access to essential services) which others fully enjoy that a person be steralised is forced steralisation via coercion. I'd be horrified if coercive force is not covered in international law!
Also i suggest the definition of race needs to require that all inheritable characteristics count as racial. Skin pigment, hair colour, just as arbitrary as Transgender which has at least some genetic component let alont any other inheritable characteristic. A coercive sterilisation law which results in the reduction of an hereditary characteristic in the gene pool via state policy needs to be considered genocide because that is the practical function. One with bearing on many other inheritable characteristics.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 1:00:00 am
To require in order to obtain a panoply of basic fundamental human rights (including ones directly related to safety and security and access to essential services) which others fully enjoy that a person be steralised is forced steralisation via coercion.
Just exactly what basic fundamental rights are you denied, Bbb?
You have exactly the same rights as any other citizen of Australia, icluding the right to have a change of sex recognised should you ever make the mistake of doing that.
In fact I love this latest TG argument. Absolutely nothing anyone could say or do could illustrate the difference between TG and T/S people more succinctly than this latest piece of TG hysteria!
Transgender which has at least some genetic component...
Huh? It does? you mean they found a gene that makes you want present in public as the opposite sex?
Insofar as the WA decision has got you and Zoe worked up, I suggest you're misinterpreting it. I ran a case analysis and commentry on TFF.
You can access it at this URL.
http://trans-friedfluff.blogspot.com/
Perhaps it might help clear your collective heads - at least enough to understand the court's decision.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010 5:10:00 pm
Black is not white, up is not down, the sun does not come up in the west and sex is not a performance!
Despite the self serving rhetorical spin being given by those who want to play sex and still be legally accorded the rights of those who are that sex, these laws are compassionate! They allow those who are willing to do the work required to become (as close as medical science will allow) the sex they are. Its a reset and as such it puts the same requirements upon that person as it does any other member of that sex
That includes as is in your case Zoe. That if where you live, women cannot be married to other women, and you want legal recognition as a woman that you must comply as any other woman would.
But you don't want to deal with life as a woman you want special dispensation accorded you because you were once a man.
You and every other person howling about this are not asking for equality, your asking for extra privileges!
Namely you want to have your cake and eat it too. Doesn't and shouldn't work that way. Time to wake up, grow up and (pardon the pun) grow the balls needed to finish what you started and stop trying to screw the pooch for those who do!
Wednesday, September 22, 2010 9:55:00 pm
Hi Anne (O'Namus)
Exactly what "special privilege" am I getting here?
I have a letter from the erstwhile Federal Attorney General, Phillip Ruddock, not exactly a lefty, saying that my marriage is valid.
Same-sex marriages are legal under these circumstances, under Australian Family Law. If you wish that not to be the case, by all means campaign for that.
Should we try to divorce, as you appear to insist that we should do, there are certain difficulties there.
First, you'd force us to separate for a year, and be able to provide evidence that over that period, we didn't do each other's laundry, didn't share meals, that our financial arrangements were separate (so no paying for take-away fish and chips on a Friday unless on separate bills).
Then we'd have to perjure ourselves, and swear under oath - and persuade others to affirm, also under oath - that the relationship had broken down irretrievably.
So to please you, we'd have to commit a serious crime, and get others to join us in that crime.
But there's one thing even more crucial.
Our son wants us to stay together.
I look forward to your advice on how we should behave in order to cater to your beliefs under these circumstances.
Oh and Anne? Genesis 1:28
Friday, September 24, 2010 2:41:00 am
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Home >> Editor's Beat >> Festive favourites with Jimmy
Festive favourites with Jimmy
Posted in Editor's Beat, Gig Beat, News Beat, Review Beat
After the success of last years’ tour, The Andy Williams Christmas Extravaganza is returning to the UK this month.
The show has been a staple at The Moon River Theatre in Missouri for many years, but with the passing of Andy Williams, The Osmonds wanted to carry on the tradition and continue Andy’s legacy.
The season ends early in Missouri, and last year Jimmy Osmond thought it would be a good idea to bring the show over to the UK, where both Andy and The Osmonds have many fans.
So they did, and included The Moon River Singers and Dancers, screens showing Andy Williams performing his songs, and special guests, the show sold out and garnered great reviews.
The special guests make the show more of a variety show with something for all ages.
And Jimmy himself has had an eventful year, as he was a contestant in ‘Celebrity Masterchef’, getting to the semi-finals.
“It was cool,” Jimmy told me. “I’m willing to try anything and I like to cook anyway. It was an amazing experience.
“To be honest, I like simple food. I’m a meat and potatoes kind of a guy, but under John and Greg. I was ‘on turbo’.”
And he does actually cook at home.
“That’s right, I do cook at home, though my wife is a much better cook, and my daughter Bella loves cooking shows.”
So – to the show, and the show is coming back after the huge success of last years’ inaugural UK tour.
“It was huge,” Jimmy said. “It had a really warm and fuzzy vibe. The audiences were really great and they’re all songs that they knew, plus we have some fast paced variety.”
“We have changed some of the elements around a bit and we have a great selection of songs.”
And Jimmy doesn’t find it strange singing along to a film Andy Williams?
“Y’know, it isn’t. The songs we sing are ones we grew up singing, more my brothers than me, as I wasn’t involved with the Andy Williams show that much because I was much younger.
“But it’s our legacy as much as his, and before he died, Andy asked me to keep the tradition going. It was daunting, but I’m grateful to be able to bring it back.”
Joining Jimmy on stage will be his brothers Merrill and Jay, and they’ll be performing all their hits such as The Proud One, Love Me For A Reason and Crazy Horses.
Also, they’ll be singing seasonal songs and hits.
“Yes, we’ll be doing The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year, Merry Christmas Everybody, Sleighride, as well as more traditional songs.
“Honestly, when you’re on stage doing The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year it’s amazing, and I sing Hallelujah.
The songs are for everyone, we don’t alienate anybody – we’re Christians after all.”
This is a sentiment shared by Jimmy’s brother Jay, who chips in.
“The show is simple in that it goes back to the real purpose of Christmas and sometimes people forget that. We remember the Saviour and sing traditional Christmas songs. It’s all about bringing families together.”
Part of the usual Osmonds’ show is a drum solo from Jay, and the good news is that he’ll be performing one in the show.
“Yes, I’ve changed it around a bit, but I always go back where I started. One of my heroes was Buddy Rich and I tried really hard to learn from a guy called Jimmy Gordon and he always told me to ‘have your own style’.”
He laughed. “Drumming has been a part of me since I was eight years old – I was always being told to ‘beat it’.”
Special guests for this year include singer Charlie Green and ventriloquist Steve Hewlett, both from ‘Britain’s Got Talent’.
“Charlie has an amazing voice at just 19 years old,” said Jimmy. “And Steve is brilliant.”
Steve sometimes makes puppets of famous people – he had one of Simon Cowell when he appeared on ‘Britain’s Got Talent’. We might see an Osmond puppet during the show.
“Yes,” said Steve. “I have been known to have dummies made up at certain shows and I think it would be a great idea. I’m pleased to say, though, that there will be a moment that Jimmy and I will do a piece together.”
There is a gap in the tour schedule from December 23 to 28 while the stars go home for Christmas. Jimmy shared with me his ideal Christmas.
“I can be happy anywhere as long as I’m with my family. We always give each other new
pyjamas on Christmas Eve – it’s bizarre but fun. It’s all about remembering.”
The Andy Williams Christmas Extravaganza, starring The Osmonds, with special guests Steve Hewlett and Charlie Green, plus The Moon River Singers and Dancers will be touring the UK from December 14 to 30.
Martin Hutchinson
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The Balloon:
Their Second Appearance (11/26/98)
This is the Rugrats' second appearance in the Macy's parade, taking place on a wet and rainy Thanksgiving morning in New York City. After surviving last year's windstorm, they are, more or less, lucky to participate in the 1998 edition. After last year, many tall balloons were retired (including The Cat In The Hat, which hit a lamppost, injuring 4, and The Pink Panther, due to new size restrictions) and replaced with new, shorter balloons, including Babe, Dexter from Dexter's Laboratory, and the "wild thing" from Maurice Sendak's chidren's classic, Where The Wild Things Are.
In NBC's live (in ET) parade coverage, the Rugrats balloon appeared at about 11:25AM ET.
Left: The Rugrats balloon in front of the Marquis Theater in Times Square as it goes down Broadway past 2 million parade attendees, despite the rain and high winds. (Picture ©1998 Reuters; seen in St. Petersburg Times, 11/27/98.)
Right: Picture of the Rugrats balloon before the start of the parade, wrapped in netting so it won't float away before the holders (the people in the purple Rugrats aprons) get ahold of it.
(From the St. Petersburg Times Travel section, 11/21/99; photo by Sam Bleeker, from his story on the parade; ©1998-99 Sam Bleeker.)
The Pictures:
(These pictures were taken from NBC's live telecast of the 1998 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade; ©1998 National Broadcasting Company.)
The Rugrats balloon, in front of Macy's. The underside of the balloon.
Left: The balloon leaned considerably to the left as it
made a right turn.
The Description:
The hosts of the 1998 parade are Today Show's hosts, Katie Couric, Matt Lauer and Al Roker. (Transcript is ©1998 by National Broadcasting Company.)
Matt: On the lookout for danger and adventure, it is the Rugrats, Macy's first 3-character balloon. Their fearless leader, Tommy Pickles, his worry-wart pal, Chuckie, and providing transportation down Broadway, Tommy's dog, Spike. Spike's snout, by the way, is longer than 2 New York City taxicabs.
Katie: Let me tell you, guys, I know this show very well.
(Matt giggles in background)
Al: Oh, yeah.
Katie: The world of Rugrats is all about life from a baby's point of view. One year old Tommy's slogan is: "We're babies. We're supposed to get in trouble. That's our job."
Matt: I like scaredy-cat Chuckie's favorite saying: "When all else fails, just cry."
Katie: That's my philosophy. And Spike, well, he doesn't say anything -- he's a dog, but he does take the Rugrats on some wonderful adventures, like today's. This is their second trip to Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Al: A baby's gotta do what a baby's gotta do. Thanksgiving brings yet another adventure, The Rugrats Movie, announcing the biggest event in Rugrats history, the birth Tommy's new baby brother, Dil Pickles.
Katie: Love that name.
Back to First Balloon Page Back To Main Rugrats Page
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Learn about MARC CHAGALL (1887-1985), Impressionist & Modern Art artist,their past and upcoming works offered at auction at Christie's
Few periods of history have seen such political upheaval and revolutionary artistic innovation as the first half of the 20th century in Europe. ‘Should I paint the earth, the sky, my heart?’ the Russian-born Jewish painter, Marc Chagall, once wrote. ‘The cities burning, my brothers fleeing? My eyes in tears. Where should I run and fly, to whom?’
An émigré artist whose career was forged in Paris in the early 1910s; a Belarusian who witnessed the Russian Revolution of 1917 and worked for the Bolshevik government; a refugee Jew who fled a Europe fallen to the Nazis — from his unique standpoint Chagall fashioned an art of achingly beautiful, dreamlike strangeness that is among the greatest of the 20th century.
Born into a Hasidic family, near Vitebsk in modern-day Belarus, Chagall trained with the celebrated Lithuanian-Jewish artist, Yehuda Pen, before moving to St Petersburg in 1907 to study at the Zvantseva School under Léon Bakst. In 1910, speaking little French, he moved to Paris. By 1914, works such as Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers (1912-13) had begun to earn him an international reputation. Chagall’s work would always remain heavily informed by the myths and stories of his shtetl origins, and, despite the early influence of Cubism and Fauvism, he would develop his own unique poetic and figurative style: a pastoral world filled with near-surrealistic motifs of fiddlers and floating couples which the poet Guillaume Apollinaire dubbed ‘surnaturel’ (supernatural).
Chagall spent the First World War in Russia and, following the Russian Revolution, worked for a time with the Bolshevik regime before returning to Paris in 1923. Over the 1920s and ’30s he continued to explore his unique figurative vision, painting lyrical masterpieces such as Green Violinist (1923-24) and Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel (1938). Chagall and his family fled France in 1941 for New York and, in 1946, a major retrospective of his work was held at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. In 1947, still grieving the death of his first wife and the news of his home town’s destruction by the Nazis during the war, he returned to France, where he remained until his death, at the age of 97, in 1985.
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La chaise à Toulon or Les fleurs du Mourillon
Scène biblique
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Parker Griffith Re-Rats
Switching Parties
Former Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith who defected from the Democratic Party to the GOP in 2009 is now returning to his political roots to run for Governor.
Ben Jacobs
Updated Apr. 14, 2017 4:49PM ET / Published Feb. 03, 2014 10:38PM ET
Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call, via Getty
In the 1920s, after switching from the Conservative Party to the Liberals and back to the Conservatives again, Winston Churchill famously remarked "anyone can rat, but it takes a certain amount of ingenuity to re-rat." Now former one-term Congressman Parker Griffith is reportedly trying to follow in Churchill's footsteps by returning to the Democratic Party after defecting to the GOP halfway through his lone term in Congress.
Griffith was elected to a North Alabama district in 2008 that had long been a Democratic redoubt in the midst of a deep red sea. Based in Huntsville, a city with significant number of federal employees, it included areas made prosperous by the New Deal and the Tenneesse Valley Authority in the 1930s that had stayed loyally Democratic ever since. But, in 2009, Griffith, a former state senator just elected to succeed longtime incumbent Democrat Bud Cramer, switched parties. While this nominally gave him the advantage of incumbency, Republicans didn't quite flock to the former Howard Dean donor in a primary dominated by the Tea Party wave of 2010. Griffith lost badly by 51%-33% to Mo Brooks, a county commissioner, in an attempt to to get the Republican nomination for Congress. Brooks went on to be the first Republican elected to Congress from the seat since Reconstruction. Griffith tried again in 2012 against Brooks and lost by an even greater margin, 71%-29%. Soon afterwards, he left the Republican Party to become an Independent. But, on Monday, it was reported that the erstwhile Democrat was returning to his political roots.
WHNT in Huntsville, Alabama reported that Griffith is rejoining the Democratic Party in order to run for Governor in 2014. According to WHNT, the Alabama Democratic Party has welcomed back its prodigal son and is ready to embrace his candidacy for Governor. His candidacy would mark a sad step in the decline of the Alabama Democratic Party. Alabama had only two Republican governors in the entire 20th century. It has had two Republican governors so far in the 21st century as the state has become firmly Republican. Perhaps the best hope of the Alabama Democratic Party in the past decade, former Rep. Artur Davis lost a gubernatorial primary and then moved to Virginia where he became a Republican. The result is a bench so deciminated that the Alabama Democrats are now forced to get behind a candidate who has averaged nearly a political affiliation a year since 2009.
But, then again, Winston Churchill went through a similar period in the early 1920s. The only question is whether Parker Griffith is a politician of the same caliber as the Nobel Prize winner credited with saving Europe from Nazi domination. But that's up to the voters of Alabama to decide.
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Blogs The Family Archive Project
Case Studies, Research
The Future of Women’s Pasts
auobiographies
By Laura King, University of Leeds
Understanding how families keep things and document their histories is, for me, a feminist project. The Family Archive project has an important dual purpose, in this sense. Firstly, by thinking about the records, documents and objects in people’s homes, we can find out about women’s histories, which are often lost in official records. Secondly, by better understanding the collecting of family items, keepsakes, and knowledge, we recognise the important role women have historically played in the creation of those archives and histories.
The author’s grandmother, who created many scrapbooks of her and her family’s life, to pass on to her grandchildren
One interesting question that the project is starting to tackle is whether women have historically played a more important role than men in keeping family archives. In the first half of the twentieth century in Britain, it seems that women were really important in the preservation of family objects, and perhaps that women invested more significance in this practice than men. In autobiographies about this period, for example, women were somewhat more likely to discuss family heirlooms, other objects, and the preservation of family stories and memories. And even those written by men highlighted the central role women played in preserving those histories in one way or another. Paul Johnson, for example, wrote about how his mother would repeatedly tell him her life story, and that of relatives:
‘It was a kind of verbal autobiography, reaching far back into the past (she was born in 1886) and embracing an enormous cast of characters, distant cousins (‘once removed and he couldn’t be removed far enough for me’), great-aunts, of whom there were many, known by their husbands’ names, Aunt Seed, Aunt Ogilvy, Aunt Spagrass and so on’.
Paul Johnson, The Vanished Landscape: A 1930s Childhood in the Potteries (London, 2004), p.4
Keeping particular objects could be very important to women’s sense of identity. It was a meaningful practice. Evelyn Haythorne, for example, discussed her mother’s most treasured possessions:
‘the family’s three china cups and saucers. They were really pretty, with deep pink roses and gold leaves painted on them but they had never been used to my knowledge for they were Mother’s pride and joy.’
Evelyn Haythorne, On Earth to Make the Numbers Up (Castleford, 1991), pp.19-20
These cups were not for everyday use, but had a more intangible function. As well as creating a sense of pride for her mother, Evelyn recalled how they were used to denote, in one case, who was special enough to become part of the family. A new girlfriend of her brother’s admired them, but, not being approved of by her mother, was swiftly rebuked: ‘”I only use them for anyone special,” Mother sweetly replied before smugly walking into the kitchen.’The way in which items conceived as part of a family archive were used could create a sense of who belonged or was ‘special’ enough to belong to that family.
When talking about her mother’s treasured cups, Evelyn positioned these as belonging to her family – ‘the family’s three china cups and saucers’, but also identified them as ‘Mother’s pride and joy’. Were these a personal or family item, and did they sit as part of the individual archive of her mother, or a wider family archive? Who were they passed on to when her mother died? Did her mother choose this? Who owns them now? These are questions we unfortunately cannot know.
The division between individual and family items is an important question when thinking about women’s financial power and (in)dependence. Women in this period lacked the financial power of men. Many of the women whose lives are documented in these autobiographies worked. But most women also relied financially on men, their husbands and fathers. Did the few possessions they had, in which they invested emotional meaning and identity, matter more because they were in a financially less stable position than male wage earners? To the female writers I’ve studied as well as the women who are mentioned in these autobiographies, objects and stories mattered a lot. In contrast men were more likely to mention or perceive as important other ways of preserving family heritage, such as genealogical research, or passing on a family name. That’s a huge simplification, but gender is clearly an important dynamic in this story, and something to be investigated further.
This question of women’s archives and histories was the subject of a recent conference at the University of Leeds. We heard about the wonderful work being done to preserve these histories, by the Sisterhood and After project at the British Library, The Feminist Library, Atria in the Netherlands, the Glasgow Women’s Library and Feminist Archive North. I also talked about this project, on family archives, which caused some debate. Does the focus on the family mean this is stereotyping women into particular roles? Does our focus on objects mean other stories get lost?
To me, one key issue for us is making sure we embrace a really broad understanding of what ‘the family’ is. It’s never, of course, just about parents and children. It’s about wider family connections – aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins-twice-removed. It’s about step-parents, half siblings and every other connection you can think of. And finally, it’s also about friends too – essentially, we consider ‘family’ to be anyone to whom we have an emotional relationship.
At the Future of Women’s Pasts conference, Ann Schofield, Professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, described how historians must think more carefully about how we get at those who have been ‘hidden’ from history, whose lives aren’t so carefully recorded in official records. To do this, she suggested we must think about history as not only dates, facts and figures, but of emotions and feelings – and how we must engage with the fascinating idea of an ‘archive of feelings’. And Kate Dossett, a historian at the University of Leeds, challenged the myth that women’s history is hidden because women don’t keep records, telling us about how women prominent in politics in interwar America, such as Eleanor Roosevelt, were very aware of the need to and importance of documenting not only their achievements, but also their struggles.
This is, I hope, one key aim of the Family Archives project – to create a more expansive definition of what an archive is, to include the lives of women hidden from history, and to recognise how women have archived their own and their families’ histories for many years.
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We are what we keep: Being Human Festival events
Egypt: A Guest Blog by Linda Loganathan
Are we what we keep? Reflections on our October workshop
Are we what we keep? Workshop coming up!
lizgloyn on About the Project
annawoodham on Too much stuff?
Gaenor Deacon on About the Project
Tess on Too much stuff?
The Family Archive Project: Exploring Family Identities, Memories and Stories Through Curated Personal Possessions | The Pararchive Project on About the Project
The Family Archive Project
Exploring Family Identities, Memories and Stories Through Curated Personal Possessions
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Bill C. Weiss
Never Again, Buy It Now!
Bill Weiss… Author, Retired Law Enforcement
Gallery of Bill’s Career
Contact Bill
Tag Archives: Los Angeles Police Department
The 1992 Los Angeles Riots- 25 Years Later
April 28, 2017 wcweiss Leave a comment
The Los Angeles riots erupted on April 29, 1992, at the flashpoint of Florence and Normandie Avenues. A day, a week, and a life changing event that the people on this in-service sheet from Lennox Sheriff’s Station will never forget.
Los Angeles County Sheriff's DepartmentLos Angeles Police DepartmentLos Angeles RiotsPolice-Community RelationsReginald DennyRodney King
25 Years Later- A TV Documentary and Never-Before-Told Insight into the 1992 Los Angeles Riots
As the 25th anniversary of the 1992 Los Angeles riots approaches I am sharing my recent updates and press release with you.
Santa Clarita, CA. – April, 2017 – In a soon to be released TV documentary and in his book, “Never Again”, author Bill C. Weiss shares his experience as the watch commander at Lennox Sheriff’s Station in South Los Angeles as the Los Angeles riots erupted at Florence and Normandie Avenues in 1992.
In a recent in-studio documentary interview with KBS (Korean Broadcasting System) America, Weiss offers this true account and never-before-told insight into the hours leading up to, during, and after the Los Angeles riots.
The documentary (tentatively titled “Six Days”) is scheduled for airing on April 29, 2017, the 25th anniversary in the United States (Nationwide Direct TV CH. 2082, Los Angeles Spectrum CH. 1475, Cox CH. 473, KXLA-44 CH. 44.1 and 44.8) and around the world. Check local listings for specific channel and airtime.
“Never Again” is written from Weiss’s perspective as the nearby Los Angeles Police Department found itself totally unprepared to deal with this deadly and dynamic crisis.
This riveting and extraordinary story reveals emergent preparations and tough decisions Weiss faced while preparing to intervene in what escalated into an unforgettable civil disturbance. He unravels behind-the-scenes events as he deals with his internal instinct to take action, waged against his self-discipline to follow orders. Weiss is put to the test up to the final moment before the opportunity to put his daring plan into action for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
As several recent incidents in Ferguson, Missouri (2014), Baltimore, Maryland (2015), and numerous incidents in 2016 have shown, law enforcement’s initial response to and handling of violent encounters and civil disturbances continues to resonate with the entire country.
“Never Again”, published by Morgan James in New York, was released on November 1, 2016, and was chosen as a double awards winner in the 2016 Beverly Hills Book Awards for the Best Book in the True Crime category and the Best Book Cover Design in the Non-Fiction category.
Bill C. Weiss will be attending the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books event on the University of Southern California campus on April 22-23, 2017, at booth #167, under the Writers Mastermind Alliance banner.
“Never Again” is available at various retailers, including Barnes and Noble, Amazon, BAM, Powell’s, Indie Bound, and Chapters Indigo. The book is available on Amazon.com, https://www.amazon.com/Bill-C.-Weiss/e/B01FY5BFUY. For additional information on the book (ISBN 978-1-63047-904-6) visit http://www.billcweiss.com. To secure an interview or speaking engagement, please contact Bill at bill@billcweiss.com.
1992 Los Angeles RiotsKBS AmericaLos Angeles County Sheriff's DepartmentLos Angeles Police DepartmentPolice-Community RelationsReginald DennyRodney King
Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
February 24, 2017 wcweiss Leave a comment
I will be attending the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, as an exhibitor with several other fellow authors in booth #167, which will be held on the University of Southern California campus on April 22 & 23, 2017. The hours for Saturday (4/22) are 10AM – 6PM and Sunday (4/23) 10AM – 5PM.
Please come by and say hello and check out my book “Never Again”, a never before told insight into the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and the books of several outstanding authors. The month of April is also the 25th anniversary of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
Booth #167 will be in the center of the USC campus on Trousdale Pkwy, not too far from and east of Tommy Trojan. The banner title for the booth will read Writers Mastermind Alliance.
1992 Los Angeles RiotsLos Angeles County Sheriff's DepartmentLos Angeles Police DepartmentLos Angeles Times Festival of BooksReginald DennyRodney King
Author Bill Weiss Reveals Shocking Details 25 Years After the Los Angeles Riots
July 20, 2016 wcweiss Leave a comment
I recently had the honor of interviewing author Bill Weiss, a 32-year veteran of the LASD. Bill had incredible experiences over those years and shares some of them in his soon to be released book, Never Again. The book chronicles his experience behind the scenes of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots – also referred to as The Rodney King Riots.
As the 25th anniversary of the events of the Los Angeles Riots that impacted our country’s history approaches (April 29th, 2017), Rodney King, the central figure, won’t be around for interviews or special reports. He passed away four years ago, on June 17th, 2012. Rodney King’s death by accidental drowning was later reported to involve alcohol and drugs. Whether or not his death was accidental, he will forever be associated with the incident that set off a week of death and destruction from which many innocent people never recovered.
Here are the details of my interview with Bill Weiss:
Judith: Thank you for your time today, Bill. Having been privileged to read the draft of your new book, Never Again, I’m excited to share your story with my blog followers.
What was your role behind the scenes during the historical Los Angeles Riots in 1992?
Bill: I was the watch commander for Lennox Sheriff’s Station in South LA. I was in charge of the station. Our northern boundary was one mile and thirteen city blocks from the intersection of Florence and Normandie (the flash point of the riots). I developed a response team of 15 deputies with 10 radio cars ready to go into LAPD’s area when Reginald Denny was being beaten in the intersection.
Judith: That’s a scene not too many of us will ever forget. We learn by reading the hour-by-hour story in your book that as the circumstances surrounding the riot unfolded, you created a plan by which the LA Sheriff’s Department, Lennox Station would intervene. We also know that plan was squashed by unavoidable last minute decisions outside of your control.
How did it feel to watch the events unfold with your hands tied behind your back?
Bill: I felt as if I had been stabbed in the chest. I wanted to argue and challenge authority (the captain). It made me mentally withdraw for a few moments as I was shocked, numb, and felt helpless, but so close. I felt like a failure and knew that we lost a golden opportunity to stop the madness. That thought obsessed me for quite awhile. We were in a war zone for days and I carried a sense of guilt with me that still hurts to this day.
Judith: It’s been almost 25 years since the momentous events on April 29th, 1992. How do you think the country was impacted by the Los Angeles riots, both positively and negatively?
Bill: In 1992 many elected and community leaders, including those in law enforcement, recognized a need to do things differently and treat problems and people differently. ie: more community-based policing was developed, having officers of the same race patrol certain neighborhoods started to increase, more youth programs were developed, additional resources (economic, jobs, businesses etc.) were brought in to certain deprived areas of LA.
There was also a negative impact on the country. I believe many took notice and it may have hindered the progress of race relations in the south for example, which may have been improving prior to the LA riots. A step back definitely occurred in LA and from what I can remember in many parts of the country. As I mentioned in my book several other cities throughout the country experienced rioting due to LA. Some people came together, but I believe those who didn’t took a major step backward; regressing for quite awhile due to a lack of trust, revisiting old wounds, etc.
Judith: Bill, Do you think that something of the magnitude of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots could happen again? If so, are we at risk presently?
Bill: Unfortunately, yes it could happen again and the risk is there now. What we have experienced with Ferguson, Missouri (2014) and Baltimore, Maryland (2015) and more recently the disturbances we have witnessed during the current presidential campaigns, I see some disturbing similarities and elements.
Judith: In light of what you experienced during the LA riots along with your perspective on the recent contemporary unrest our country has seen (mentioned above) what advice would you give new law enforcement agents?
Bill: Public pressure, concern with image over safety, and the issue of political correctness should never again interfere with law enforcement performing its functions. Passive response to these initial disturbances allowed disorder to develop into major riots. Treating people with respect and allowing them to vent their frustrations is one thing, but standing by and allowing people to kill, assault, rob, steal, and destroy property should never be acceptable.
Judith: Thank you, Bill. When will your book, Never Again, be available?
Bill: Pre-order on my website, http://www.billcweiss.com. Orders will ship in August of 2016.
*Note- This interview was conducted prior to the tragic police killings in Dallas and Baton Rouge.
Judith Cassis is a New York Times Bestselling ghostwriter, blogger and book coach. She is the founder of The Golden Pen Writers Guild and Writers Mastermind Alliance and publisher of the Writer to Writer series. Follow her blog: www.judithcassis.com and on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/judith.cassis. Private and group sessions are available for scheduling. Judith offers free group lectures and teleseminars based upon availability.
She has been leading writers workshops, retreats and events since 1999. Her company, Success Made Simple, provides guidance and resources for writers planning to publish books, blogs and articles.
As a retired Lieutenant and 32-year veteran of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Bill Weiss worked various patrol, custody, administrative, investigative, and special assignments. He has been an Incident Commander for several major tactical incidents. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California, with a Master’s degree in Public Administration.
To follow Bill and or purchase his book, “Never Again”, please go to his website- http://www.billcweiss.com.
1992 Los Angeles RiotsLos Angeles County Sheriff's DepartmentLos Angeles Police DepartmentRodney King
Author, Retired Law Enforcement
Massacre in Las Vegas: Is It Time For All Cops to Carry?
Local Authors Event
“Never Again”- A Double Book Awards Winner!
Should Attacks on Police be Considered a Hate Crime?
El Cajon: A No Win Situation
PRIVACY STATEMENT AND DISCLAIMER
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New Initiative to Eliminate Mother-to-Child Transmission of Four Diseases
By jbest · August 23, 2017 · No comments
Clinical, Clinical Focus, International News, News ·
Every year, an estimated 2,100 children in Latin America and the Caribbean are born with HIV or contract it from their mothers; 22,400 are infected with syphilis; some 9,000 are born with Chagas disease; and 6,000 contract the hepatitis B virus. If not detected and treated in time, these infections can cause miscarriages, congenital malformations, neurological and heart problems, cirrhosis, liver cancer, and in some cases, even death.
To end mother-to-child transmission of these four diseases by 2020, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has launched the Framework for Elimination of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV, syphilis, hepatitis B and Chagas (EMTCT-PLUS), a roadmap with strategies and interventions that target women before and during pregnancy, as well as new mothers and their babies.
“The new framework is an opportunity to integrate and redouble efforts to diagnose and treat pregnant women during prenatal check-ups to prevent miscarriages, fetal malformations, and deaths from syphilis and to keep children from being infected with diseases such as HIV, hepatitis B, or Chagas disease, with serious long-term health consequences,” said Suzanne Serruya, director of PAHO’s Latin American Center for Perinatology (CLAP).
Since 2010, Latin American and Caribbean countries have been working to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis as public health problems through the Strategy and Plan of Action for Elimination of Mother-to-child Transmission (EMTCT) of HIV and Congenital Syphilis, coordinated by PAHO. Since then, the countries have managed to reduce new infections in children by 55 per cent, from 4,700 to 2,100 between 2010 and 2015, preventing some 28,000 children from being infected with HIV.
Building on the success of this initiative, PAHO created the EMTCT-PLUS framework, which integrates efforts to end mother‑to‑child transmission of Chagas disease and hepatitis B into the well-established platform.
To reduce mother-to-child transmission of these four diseases to a minimum, the PAHO initiative proposes universal screening of all pregnant women, a policy that every country in the Region and the world has adopted for the diagnosis of HIV and syphilis though not yet for Chagas disease and hepatitis B.
As of 2016, the 51 countries and territories in the Americas had included hepatitis B in their official vaccination schedules, with a dose of the vaccine administered at 2, 4, and 6 months of age. Furthermore, 21 countries (whose populations account for 90 per cent of the region’s live birth cohort) have included a dose of the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns in their vaccination schedules. Regional vaccination coverage of the three-dose series is estimated at 89 per cent, and coverage of the dose for newborns, at 75 per cent. The success of vaccination programs in the Americas suggests that the elimination of perinatal and early childhood transmission of hepatitis B is feasible. However, access must be expanded to ensure that the vaccine reaches at least 95 per cent of children, beginning with a dose for newborns in first 24 hours of life.
Up to now, the fight against Chagas disease has focused on vector control, environmental clean-up, and the screening of blood for transfusions. However, the next step toward eliminating this disease as a public health problem is to focus on preventing mother-to-child transmission, which currently accounts for roughly one‑third of new infections. An estimated 1.12 million women of reproductive age in the Region are infected with T. cruzi, the parasite that causes the disease. The EMTCT-PLUS framework urges that all pregnant women be screened, and that the babies of those who test positive be tested and treated, as well as mothers after delivery.
“We want the next generation to be free not only of HIV and syphilis but of Chagas disease and hepatitis B as well,” said Marcos Espinal, director of PAHO’s Department of Communicable Diseases and Health Analysis. “We have cost‑effective tools for preventing children from being infected by their mothers, but we need these measures to reach everyone who needs them.”
Read more: http://www.caribbean360.com/news/new-initiative-eliminate-mother-child-transmission-four-diseases#ixzz4qORC8jk3
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bankofluxemburg.com
Tim Treml Appointed President/CEO of Bank of Luxemburg
Bank of Luxemburg Executive Vice President/Chief Lending Officer Tim Treml was promoted to president at the start of 2017. John Slatky, who served as the bank’s executive vice president/CEO for five years and president/CEO for 23 years, will remain on staff to ease the transition until his planned retirement this June.
Treml has been working closely with Slatky over the course of two years to focus on the most important aspects of his new position. “Responsibilities have been transferred to me gradually, so I am confident in myself and the leadership team will effectively continue to manage the institution moving forward,” Treml stated.
Treml assures employees, customers and stakeholders there will not be drastic or immediate changes due to the transition. “Bank of Luxemburg’s purpose is ‘To have a positive impact on people’s lives,’” Treml shared. “This purpose is what our staff believes makes our relationships with customers special. I look forward to working with our staff to continue fulfilling this vision in the communities we serve.”
Treml’s promotion comes as a result of his leadership and long-term commitment to the bank. Treml has been employed at Bank of Luxemburg for 22 years this June, including seven as chief lending officer, before being promoted to executive vice president in 2015. In addition, Treml completed the Graduate School of Banking in 2001 and the Leadership Development Program for Community Bankers in 2015, a one-year program offered through the Center for Professional and Executive Development from the Wisconsin School of Business at University of Wisconsin—Madison.
Treml also brings years of dedicated volunteer service and community involvement to his leadership role. He served as president on the Luxemburg Chamber of Commerce and was named the chamber’s “Man of the Year” in 2013. He served as treasurer to Kewaunee County Economic Development Corporation for three years, has co-chaired the EastShore Industries Annual Golf Outing for 13 years, has served as treasurer to Ducks Unlimited for over 16 years and is a former rescue squad member.
Former Bank of Luxemburg President John Slatky is confident in the bank’s future under Treml’s leadership. “The customers in our communities will be well served for many years to come,” Slatky assured. “Our customers expect nothing less than exemplary service and sound leadership from their banker and Tim continues that tradition.” Though Slatky plans to retire this summer, he will remain on the bank’s board of directors.
As Treml transitions to president, Darren Voigt has assumed the responsibilities of chief lending officer. Voigt has been with Bank of Luxemburg since 2014 and has over 25 years of experience including consumer and mortgage lending, as well as business and commercial banking and treasury management.
Luxemburg Bancshares, Inc. and Bank of Luxemburg have banking offices in Luxemburg, Green Bay, Dyckesville, Casco, Algoma, Kewaunee and Sturgeon Bay. For more information about Luxemburg Bancshares, Inc., visit www.bankofluxemburg.com.
Posted by Bank of Luxemburg at 11:13 AM 4 comments
http://www.bankofluxemburg.com/logos_pics/membrFDIC.gif | http://www.bankofluxemburg.com/logos_pics/logo_EHL.jpg
Tim Treml Appointed President/CEO of Bank of Luxem...
Bank of Luxemburg
Bank of Luxemburg is:
Local – Local management and local decision making.
Loyal – We are loyal to our customers and the communities we serve.
Lasting – Bank of Luxemburg has lasted through all the economic cycles since 1903 and is committed to moving forward as a safe and sound independent community bank.
Locations in Luxemburg, Algoma, Casco, Dyckesville, Sturgeon Bay and Green Bay.
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The Light from the TV Shows: A Chat with Laura Fraser (‘Breaking Bad’)
Posted by Will Harris (09/13/2013 @ 11:12 am)
As “Breaking Bad” began winding down toward its inevitable conclusion with its fifth and final season, the series introduced a new character who has gone on to make a surprising impact for someone who started off all but shivering in fear at the prospect of what the future might hold for her. Laura Fraser may not be a familiar face to those who prefer their TV to be wholly American, but she’s done quite a bit of small-screen work in the UK, and you may recognize her from some of her big-screen performances as well…like, say, playing against Heath Ledger in “A Knight’s Tale.” Bullz-Eye chatted with Fraser about her current gig as well as some of her earlier roles, including a gig she was hired for but was subsequently replaced…and if she hadn’t ended up on “Breaking Bad,” she’d probably still be miserable about it.
BE: So how did you first find your way onto “Breaking Bad”?
LF: Just a regular audition. I got sent a scene that wasn’t from the show, but it was, like, similar to the scene in the diner with Mike in the episode “Magical.” I had to make a tape, which I did, and I sent it to the casting director, who sent it to Vince Gilligan, who said it was great. And then Vince gave us a note and a real scene from episode 2 of Season 5. So I did that, and I got it from that. And I never met anyone! It was all on tape. So it was as if by magic. [Laughs.]
Posted in: Entertainment, Interviews, News, Television
Tags: A Knight's Tale, Breaking Bad, Cameron Crowe, Friday Night Lights, Giancarlo Esposito, Heath Ledger, Homeland, Jesse Plemons, Jonathan Banks, Karl Geary, Ken Loach, Laura Fraser, Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere, The Light from the TV Shows, Vanilla Sky, Vince Gilligan, Will Harris
Adrianne Palicki stars in “G.I. Joe: Retaliation”
Adrianne Palicki has been breaking hearts ever since she first appeared on NBC’s football drama “Friday Night Lights,” but these days, the Ohio-born actress has been making a name for herself on the big screen with roles in action films like “Red Dawn” and the upcoming “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” as fan favorite Lady Jaye.
Though she’s a far cry from the more butch version of the character we grew up watching on the 1980s animated series, it’s not the first time that Palicki has played an iconic female warrior. Her stint as the title character on David E. Kelley’s “Wonder Woman” reboot may not have made it past the pilot stage, but if early stills from the show are any indication, it’s certainly not because the actress didn’t look the part.
It remains to be seen how her version of Lady Jaye will be received by longtime “G.I. Joe” fans, but we’re digging the updated image, which combines Palicki’s natural beauty with her tough, don’t-mess-with-me personality. In other words, she can kick ass and look good doing it.
Posted in: Celebrities, Entertainment, Movies
Tags: actresses, Adrianne Palicki, Adrianne Palicki slideshow, beautiful actress, beautiful celebrities, beautiful movie stars, celeb babes, celeb gallery, celeb slideshows, celebrities, celebrity babes, celebrity babewatch, celebrity galleries, celebrity hottie watch, celebrity slideshows, celebrity watch, celebs, famous actresses, female celebrities, female celebs, Friday Night Lights, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Hollywood starlets, hot actresses, hot celebs, hottest movie stars, Lady Jaye, movie stars, sexiest movie stars, sexy actresses, sexy celebrities, sexy slideshows, slideshows
The latest “Friday Night Lights” movie update from Peter Berg
Posted by Will Harris (05/12/2012 @ 9:22 pm)
Peter Berg came to JEB Little Creek today to introduce the Virginia premiere of “Battleship,” but before doing so, he took a few minutes to chat with the press – including yours truly – about the film. I held my tongue for the duration of the questioning by the other journalists, but when the inevitable “we’ve got time for one more question” announcement was made, I figured it was fair game to ask the one off-topic question I’d come armed with: what’s the status of the “Friday Night Lights” movie.
“We’re getting a script in next week, so if the script comes in well…” Berg hesitated for a moment, then admitted, “The problem with ‘Friday Night Lights’ is when I started it, all the actors were all young up-and-comers. Now they’re all big stars, and I can’t get them to return my phone calls. So if I can find the actors and the script comes in good, then we’re ready to go.”
Admittedly, this isn’t exactly the sort of news that means a whole heck of a lot, given that there are a lot of actors in the mix for this thing, meaning that the scheduling is going to be a bitch no matter how you look at it, but it’s just another nugget of information to give us hope that the “Friday Night Lights” story ain’t over yet…
Posted in: Entertainment, Movies, News, Television
Tags: Battleship, Friday Night Lights, Friday Night Lights movie, Friday Night Lights movie update, Peter Berg
The Light from the TV Shows: 11 Series (give or take) That Should’ve Survived 2011
As 2011 rapidly winds to a close, it’s easy to fall back on lists as a way to fill columns – indeed, as a TV critic, it’s my God-given right – but HBO’s announcement this week that it was cleaning house and cancelling “Hung,” “Bored to Death,” and “How to Make It in America” served to convince me that I needed to discuss a number of now-defunct series that lost their bid for continued existence during the course of this year. I’m not talking about shows like “Friday Night Lights,” which had an end-game in sight and wrapped on their own terms. I’m talking about series that effectively had the rug ripped out from under their feet. Believe me, there were a bunch…and I’m still kind of pissed about quite a few of them.
11. Medium (CBS)
After seven seasons on the air and surviving a switch between networks (from NBC to CBS), it’s hard to say that “Medium” didn’t live a good, long life. With that said, however, the show had continued to find new ways to keep things interesting, and with the trio of DuBois daughters growing up and getting their own storylines almost as often as their mom. As such, Allison, Joe, and the gang could’ve easily kept going for another few seasons without any complaints from me.
10. Outsourced (NBC)
Am I going to try to defend my enjoyment of this show? No, I am not, because there’s no point in wasting your time or mine. You may not have thought it was very funny, and if you didn’t, that would be your right. I, however, did. And I still miss it.
9. Law & Order: Los Angeles (NBC)
There’s nothing I dislike more than a series that doesn’t know when to leave good enough alone, and for my part, I don’t know why they felt the need to change the formula and kick Skeet Ulrich‘s character to the curb. Sorry, did I say “curb”? I meant “grave,” of course. Not that there’s anything wrong with giving an actor of Alfred Molina’s caliber a more substantial role, but to do so in midseason can’t have pleased the existing viewership very much. Truth be told, I’d rather they’d just kept the original “Law & Order” around, but in its absence, this was a nice substitute, and it sucks that it never had a chance to really spread its wings.
8. The Event (NBC) / V (ABC)
When it comes to casualties in the alien-invasion field, I can accept the cancellation of “V” a bit more than that of “The Event,” if only because it was a minor surprise that it made it to a second season in the first place. And if I’m to be honest, I’m not really surprised that NBC couldn’t be bothered to give “The Event” a shot at a sophomore year, since they probably figured it’d only let them down the way “Heroes” did. But whereas “Heroes” really dropped the ball in its second year, I felt like “The Event” had a better chance of upping the ante. Guess I’ll never know for sure.
Posted in: Entertainment, News, Television
Tags: 2 Broke Girls, ABC, ABC Family, Alfred Molina, Andre Braugher, Beth Behrs, Bill Irwin, Blue Bloods, Bored to Death, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, CBS, Detroit 1-8-7, Fox, Friday Night Lights, FX, HBO, Heroes, Holt McCallany, How to Make It in America, Hung, James McDaniel, Jason Biggs, Judy Greer, Kat Dennings, Law & Order: Los Angeles, Lennie James, Lights Out, Mad Love, Medium, Men of a Certain Age, Michael Imperioli, NBC, Norm MacDonald, Outsourced, Ray Romano, Sarah Chalke, Scott Bakula, Skeet Ulrich, Sports Night with Norm MacDonald, Stacey Keach, The Chicago Code, The Event, The Nine Lives of Chloe King, TNT, Traffic Light, Tyler Labine, V
HS TV 101: 12 Great Shows Set In or Around High School
Posted by Bullz-Eye Staff (02/16/2011 @ 10:00 pm)
High school: it’s a rite of passage we all must endure. Some of us weep when it’s over, others can’t wait to say goodbye forever, but for better or worse, it’s an experience that we’ll remember for the rest of our lives. The same goes for some of the many TV series that have been set in high school. Here at Bullz-Eye, we’ve polled our writers for their favorite shows within the genre, and the end result is, not unlike high school itself, a mixture of both comedy and drama.
12. Life As We Know It (ABC, 2004 – 2005): Lasting only 11 episodes before ABC unceremoniously yanked it from the air, “Life As We Know It” premiered during perhaps the most cancel-happy era in television. Developed by two of the producers of “Freaks and Geeks” (maybe the writing was already on the wall), the series may have ultimately been undone by poor ratings, but the Parents Television Council’s campaign against the show’s sexual themes certainly didn’t help. Then again, when you green light a series based on a controversial young-adult novel called “Doing It” that follows the exploits of a trio of best friends (Sean Faris, Jon Foster and Chris Lowell) navigating the highs and lows of adolescence, you can hardly pretend to be surprised when its characters discuss sex on a fairly regular basis.
Featuring a great cast of young up-and-comers that also included Missy Peregrym and Kelly Osbourne (yes, that Kelly Osbourne, who’s never been cuter than she was here), “Life As We Know It” certainly wasn’t perfect by any means, but it easily outshined similar shows like “Dawson’s Creek” and “The O.C.,” particularly in its handling of its adult characters. The series wasn’t without the usual high school clichés, but the writers never shied away from edgier material, either – like a student having a secret affair with his teacher or a star jock dealing with performance issues – resulting in a smart, sweet and incredibly honest look at how sex changes everything. – Jason Zingale
11. Welcome Back, Kotter (ABC, 1975 – 1979): Despite suffering through remedial classes and acting far more rebellious than was deemed socially acceptable, Gabe Kotter (played by the suspiciously similarly-named Gabe Kaplan) still somehow managed to graduate from James Buchanan High School, but who would have thought that the dreams that were his ticket out would lead him back there? (John Sebastian did, of course, but that’s not really relevant to this discussion.) With his teacher certification tucked into his back pocket, Kotter returns to his alma mater and takes on the challenge of trying to educate the new generation of remedial students. Oh, sure, their names have all changed since he hung around – now they’re called Vinnie Barbarino (John Travolta), Arnold Horshack (Ron Palillo), Freddie “Boom-Boom” Washington (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs), and Juan Epstein (Robert Hegyes) – but they’re still “sweathogs” all the way.
Most would likely agree that “Welcome Back, Kotter” was at its best when it was still the original four Sweathogs, i.e. before Travolta slipped away from television, put on a white suit, and found big-screen success on the dance floor, but even at its funniest, few would probably describe it as the most realistic look into high school life.
“I don’t think anyone was trying to replicate the high school experience so much as they were trying to service those particular characters and write stories about them,” said Mark Evanier, who served as a story editor for the show. “If you could get a good joke out of it, great…though there were times I think we settled for a decent catch-phrase.”
While the words “up your nose with a rubber hose” lend credence to Evanier’s theory, the Marx-Brothers-inspired chemistry between the Sweathogs helps their slapstick shenanigans hold up nonetheless. And, besides, who needs realism when you’ve got Gabe Kaplan doing Groucho? – Will Harris
10. Glee (Fox, 2009 – present): Is it telling that one of the most popular current shows on TV came it at only the #10 spot? If nothing else, maybe it proves we here at Bullz-Eye aren’t prone to fads. Except that maybe we are, as “Glee” has made it onto our TV Power Rankings lists time and again since its debut. But this list isn’t about what entertains us in the broader sense; it’s about great high school shows. As entertaining as “Glee” can be, it has almost nothing real to say about the high school experience, and in fact most of the high school kids I know find it to be pretty nonsensical.
The one area that it seems to excel in as far as capturing the high school experience is in its ability to play romantic musical chairs with its cast of teenage characters. These kids are fickle, and the only guarantee that seems to come with a relationship on “Glee” is that sooner or later it’s going to end. Some props should probably also be given for their attempt to zero in on the bullying issue that so seems to afflict kids today, but “Glee” chose to unfortunately treat the topic with kid gloves rather than say something truly meaningful. None of this is to say that “Glee” isn’t one hell of an entertaining series, because it is, but anyone looking for something a little deeper would do best to dust off their old DVD of “The Breakfast Club.” – Ross Ruediger
Posted in: Entertainment, Television
Tags: 21 Jump Street, 30 Rock, Airplane!, Amy Linker, Arrested Development, Beverly Hills 90210, Billy Jayne, Bruce Paltrow, Bryan Elsley, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Chris Lowell, Claire Danes, Clone High, Clyde Phillips, Connie Britton, Corin Nemec, David Boreanaz, Dawson's Creek, Degrassi, Degrassi High, Degrassi: The Next Generation, Doing It, Enrico Colantoni, Everwood, Fame, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Freaks and Geeks, Friday Night Lights, Gabe Kaplan, glee, Gossip Girl, Head of the Class, James at 15, Jami Gertz, Jamie Brittain, Jason Dohring, John Femia, John Sebastian, John Travolta, Jon Foster, Joss Whedon, Kelly Osbourne, Ken Howard, Kristen Bell, Kyle Chandler, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Life As We Know It, Maia Brewton, Malcolm in the Middle, Mark Evanier, Melanie Chartoff, Merritt Butrick, Missy Peregrym, My Name is Earl, My So-Called Life, Parker Lewis Can't Lose, Phil Joanou, Robert Hegyes, Rock and Roll High School, Ron Palillo, Room 222, Sarah Jessica Parker, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Saved by the Bell, Sean Faris, Sex and the City, Skins, Square Pegs, The Breakfast Club, The O.C., The White Shadow, The Wonder Years, Three O'Clock High, Tracy Nelson, Troy Slaten, Veronica Mars, Welcome Back Kotter
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Seattle U
Marc Nager
Startuper, skier, mountaineer, and CEO of UP Global - [ Startup Weekend, Startup Week, Startup Digest, Education Entrepreneurs, Startup Next ]
Marc Nager is the President and CCO of Techstars Startup Programs. In early 2009, he found the opportunity to acquire Startup Weekend, LLC and to transform it into a non-profit to help others pursue their passions, solve real problems, and impact the world around them. Years later, UP Global has built a network of more than 150,000 alumni, thousands of volunteer organizers and hundreds of trained facilitators spread across more than 500 cities in 130 countries, which later merged with Techstars. Marc balances his mission to make entrepreneurship a universally accessible career path with an active lifestyle. Marc holds a degree in International Business from Chapman University in Southern California. An ambitious go-getter, he is dedicated to expanding his experience and understanding of startup ecosystems around the world. His efforts focus on increasing the levels and quality of support available for passionate entrepreneurs and communities. Entrepreneurship is something that can be taught and learned, and he’s on a mission to make it possible for anyone.
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Film Review - Dragonwyck
Film #11 of 2010 - Dragonwyck
Starring Gene Tierney and Vincent Price, Dragonwyck is a gothic melodrama about a young woman named Miranda Wells (Tierney) who lives with her family on a farm in Connecticut who is summoned to Dragonwyck, the estate on the Hudson River in New York where her distant cousin Nicholas Van Ryn (Price) lives in order for her to be a governess to his young daughter. Van Ryn, who is wealthy, embraces his power as a landowner and is generally a lunatic. Of course, he falls in love with Miranda, and therefore needs to do something about his current wife.
Honestly, there was nothing spectacular about this film, in fact, it was pretty average. I did like the mid-19th century gothic aspect of the film, and Price and Tierney always make a good team, but overall, the story was fairly weak and uninteresting, with characters that seemed to just disappear from the plot if they needed to. Dragonwyck was sufficiently creepy, especially when Price would go into his madman trances, but I think the most significant thing about the film was that it was the first film written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who, 4 years later, would go on to write and direct one of my favorite films of all time, All About Eve.
In the words of my stepmom, a fellow classic film lover, who remarked when I asked her about Dragonwyck, "It's just okay, but it's a film you need to see once." I couldn't agree more.
2 1/2 out of 5 stars
Labels: Film Reviews
Film Review - Sherlock Holmes
Film #10 of 2010 - Sherlock Holmes
Directed by Guy Ritchie, (Snatch, Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels) Sherlock Holmes is technically a reboot of the Sherlock Holmes film series, though in this era, the best known of them, the old Sherlock Holmes films of the 1940's starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, could be classified better as a slightly longer than one hour drama. Seriously, I got caught up in a marathon of them a few weekends ago on Turner Classic Movies and before I knew it, I had watched about 6 movies in 7 hours. Starring Robert Downey Jr. as the title character and co-starring Jude Law as Dr. Watson, the film focuses on a young, active and fairly depressed Holmes who, despite his general ennui, finds himself drawn to the mystery of a black magic artist named Lord Blackwood who appears to have risen from the dead after being executed for his crimes. Rachel McAdams is Irene Adler, a petty thief who happens to be Holmes' ex, who is working as a double agent for a mysterious patron.
I actually enjoyed Sherlock Holmes a little more than I expected to. I have to admit I had some trepidation after some of his missteps this decade (RocknRolla, marriage to Madonna, Swept Away...) but based on my deep appreciation for his "good" movies (the aforementioned Snatch and Lock, Stock) I was more than willing to give it a shot. Plus, one can't seem to go wrong anymore when Robert Downey Jr. stars in a picture. He definitely delivers in this film, giving us a vital, physical and incredibly flawed Holmes, and though Jude Law seems to be kind of a douche in real life, I have a lot of respect for him as an actor. I loved his dour, though not blundering take on Watson. One character that I considered to be superfluous and only there to drive the plot to the inevitable conclusion and transition to the sequel was McAdams' Irene. It wasn't egregious to the point of complete annoyance, but she did absolutely nothing for me.
As far as the film itself goes, Ritchie did a great job. The cinematography was great and the scenes that were obviously CGI didn't look fake; in fact, it was neat to see Victorian England in the state it was in. I really enjoyed seeing some of Ritchie's signature style pop in once in a while, namely when Holmes was engaged in a fight; the stylish super slow-mo is always an attention getter, when done right, and regardless of how bad the rest of one of his movies can be, Ritchie is able to deliver those kinds of scenes masterfully, in an age when that kind of style is so overdone. I have to give a special mention to the final credits of the film, which were like a work of art, almost like crude watercolor paintings. Title sequences, whether opening or closing credits, are so often overlooked, and sometimes they are as good, if not better than the rest of the film, or significantly add to the general production. (Off the top of my head, the opening and closing credits to Se7en come to mind.)
On a negative note, I think that, while the pacing was decent enough, the film was altogether too long and I think would have benefited from about 15 minutes being chopped from it. Overall, however, Sherlock Holmes turned out to be a good film that set up a franchise that I would definitely be interested to see in the future.
Film Review - Up in the Air
Film #9 of 2010 - Up in the Air
Jason Reitman, director of Up in the Air has made three films in a row that deal with different subject matters (relationships, politics) but all three have at least one thing in common: they are all really, really good.
I loved the premise of Up in the Air: corporate hatchet man Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) is a man who travels among thousands daily, yet lives a life of complete solitude. The 1/3 of the year he isn't traveling is spent in a sparsely furnished apartment in Omaha, NE, where he feels an oppressive weight every day he's not jetting off somewhere else. His life in the air is a science; it's his life on the ground that he can't cope with. Throwing a wrench into his well-tuned life is the entry of Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), a fresh faced young dynamo with bright ideas to make the company she and Clooney work for more efficient and cost-effective - she wants to automate the firing process, which would involve the fired person sitting in front of a terminal getting fired remotely from Omaha. With his own job as it stands being threatened, Bingham is instructed to mentor Keener and show her the ropes of what he does, and the complexities of human interaction during the process. Along the way, Bingham meets and beds Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga), a fellow constant traveler whose no-strings-attached approach to a relationship appeals to Bingham's philosophy and lifestyle.
Up in the Air is an excellent film that does the nearly impossible: it is extremely entertaining, compelling and full of emotion, but at the same time, has a complexity that is refreshing. More than one person I know who have seen this film have mulled it over for days after they saw it, and even though they were favorable to the film initially, found that the more they thought about it, the more they liked it. The performances in the film weren't so much "performances" as "players", because they were incredibly natural. George Clooney, god love him, has somehow become one of my favorite contemporary actors, something I've fought tooth and nail for years, until I came to the realization that while I don't go to see a film because George Clooney is in it, I go to see all George Clooney films because they look really good. I couldn't help but think during the film how much he has become the modern Cary Grant. Anna Kendrick, who I know from nothing (I understand she's in the Twilight series which, thus far, I haven't touched with a ten foot pole) was awesome in her role as the young over-achiever, and Vera Farmiga, another one of those "oh her" type of actresses, was perfect and completely believable in her role.
This is a film about relationships; friendships, love, even the three main characters made up a makeshift family, and Up in the Air is a very "grown up" movie. Reitman and Sheldon Turner turned out an excellent script that wasn't full of hip jargon like his previous film, Juno, but more of a believable tale that I'm sure many people can and will relate to on some level. Jason Reitman has become a director that, until a few missteps occur, I will follow and look forward to his work. Somehow, based on his track record, I don't think those missteps will happen any time soon, however. This guy is the real deal, and I loved this movie.
Posted by The Cinemaphile at 11:23 AM 0 comments
Film Review - Leave Her to Heaven
Film #8 Leave Her to Heaven
This was not the first time I've seen the film Leave Her to Heaven, but it is a film that stands up to multiple viewings. Starring Gene Tierney as Ellen Berent Harland, a woman with (putting it mildly) a few screws loose and an Electra complex with her late father, who meets and quickly marries Richard (Cornel Wilde), a writer who resembles her father. In order to have Richard all to herself, she blocks out (some, permanently) members of her family and his; scheming to keep Richard's love, at all costs. Leave Her to Heaven also co-stars Jeanne Crain as Tierney's adopted sister Ruth, whom Ellen views as a threat.
I've always considered Leave Her to Heaven to be a somewhat hidden gem, because so much Gene Tierney love goes to the film Laura (another great film). Tierney is really convincing as a seriously mentally ill person (I understand she struggled with mental illness in her "real" life later on) and the lengths she goes to are astounding and really creepy. Tierney is a beautiful actress, and though I think that she coasts on her presence in a few of her other films, she really shows some chops in this film. I've never understood the appeal of Cornel Wilde; he has a face that looks like he's perpetually whining, and it's really hard to get past that. Crain is really good; she has the ability to express strength and vulnerability at the same time, and was able to showcase her talents despite the tour de force performance by Tierney.
Filmed in vivid technicolor that always reminds me of a Douglas Sirk film, Leave Her to Heaven could have just as easily been filmed in black and white and labeled film noir, but I think it would have gotten further lost in film history had it not broken out of noir label and forged its own identity as a suspense-melodrama. Truthfully, when I watched this film, I was sick in bed and only put it on because I'd seen it before and thought I could probably just fall asleep to it. Instead, I found that I not only stayed up and watched the entire movie, but was completely riveted: in my opinion, the sign of a great film.
Film Weekend
With being sick for a while and then work completely monopolizing any part of my brain that has thinking ability, I have been terribly lax with my blog, and hope to catch up on my reviews, possibly as soon as tomorrow.
However, I will NOT be blogging this weekend, or at the very least, not on Saturday because Chris and I will be making our semi-annual drive to Madison to go to the Sundance theater to see a few movies that we can't see around here without jumping through significant hoops. On the menu for Saturday: Crazy Heart, Broken Embraces and A Single Man. I have to admit that I'm the least excited about Crazy Heart, but I've heard from several people that it's a good movie, so I plan to enjoy the experience.
Reviews to come are:
Leave Her to Heaven
Dragonwyck
More 2010 Films
One of the rules of my personal 100 Movies challenge is that it can include films watched in 2010 that you've seen before. So far this week I watched 2 films with Chris that I've seen before, and while I normally would write a review (even if it's just a capsule review) they were both on my Top 10 list of 2009 so I'm not going to write another blurb about them:
Film #6 of 2010 - Up
Film #7 of 2010 - Night at the Museum 2
Labels: Movie Challenge
Film Review - And Then There Were None
Film #5 of 2010
Based on Agatha Christie's play "Ten Little Indians", And Then There Were None (1945) stars Barry Fitzgerald and Walter Huston as two of ten guests invited to an island by U.N. Owen (get it?) because they were involved in various crimes in the past, mostly murder. Owen doesn't show up, but the guests get murdered one by one according to the traditional "Ten Little Indians" rhyme. It's up to the quickly diminishing guest list to find out which among them is the murderer.
I've actually seen this film a couple of times in the past two decades because my Mom used to read Agatha Christie novels then pass them on to me. When I was 9 or 10, "Ten Little Indians" was one of my favorites, and when I had the opportunity to see the film I did. I've always thought that this was a really underrated movie: that perhaps under the Hitchcock moniker it would have been more popular. And Then There Were None is extremely suspenseful, well acted and clever. There have been at least eight years since I've last seen the film, and though I remembered who the culprit ultimately was, I forgot the circumstances leading up to it, so it was fun to follow the clues again.
I would highly recommend this film for it's cross-genre appeal; it's definitely a hidden gem.
At the risk of sounding like I'm either 87 or a technical moron, I'd like to officially marvel at the fact that I'm blogging in bed. From my phone. Crazy.
Posted by The Cinemaphile at 11:00 PM 0 comments
Film Review - The Notorious Bettie Page
Bettie Page, one of America's most famous pin-up girls who became notorious for the content of a lot of her pictures probably has a really interesting story to tell: about her childhood, what led her to choose modeling as a profession and then what made her go off the deep end to go full throttle with pictures depicting sado-masochism and role playing, among other things. Unfortunately, The Notorious Bettie Page completely glosses over almost all of her development and spends the better part of an hour showing her various photography sessions, and that's really about it.
Gretchen Mol looks the part as Bettie Page, and if she was truly a wide eyed innocent throughout her entire career who always looked at everything with surprise and wonder, then she nailed the part. The film was stylish and entertaining on a shallow level, I suppose, but when it ended I was like, "Okay, and then what?" which is pretty much what I was saying to myself the entire film. I had heard really good things about this movie, but I just didn't see it, frankly, which is too bad. I suppose there are definitely times when it's best to pick up a book to learn about someone's life rather than hope for a decent biopic, and The Notorious Bettie Page fits that to a "T". Truly disappointing.
Film Review - Away We Go
I actually decided to hold off on reviewing this movie, because I wasn't sure how I actually felt about it. When all was said and done, I felt a definite sense of detachment, but the question is, "Is that what I was supposed to feel?"
Away We Go is the latest film by director Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Revolutionary Road) and stars John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph as an unmarried couple in their 30's who embark on a cross-country trip in order to "find their place in the world" before the birth of their baby. Faced with the choice of being with family or friends, or moving somewhere for a job, or just settling down where they think they will be happy, the two encounter a few different types of families in their quest to "be adult" and strive for their own version of perfection.
I loved the flow of Away We Go, and it certainly had a breezy spirit. Unlike some of Mendes' other films, such as the aforementioned American Beauty and Revolutionary Road, Away We Go examines relationships, including conflict and the "dark underbelly" of outwardly normal people without becoming overly dark and dramatic. Certainly on the lighter end of the melodramatic spectrum, Away We Go is able to examine extremely flawed relationships without being heavy-handed. However, the lighter tone lends itself to appearing detached, with a lack of focus, which I admit I struggled with. I found that I didn't really care about the characters that much, and, since I actually enjoyed many parts of the film, wondered if this was intentional. Unfortunately, for a film that is so character driven, I don't think that was Mendes' intent.
Krasinski and Rudolph were decent as Verona and Burt, but I fear that my knowledge of one actor and not the other got in the way of viewing their performances. Krasinski was simply his character "Jim" from The Office, only with nerd glasses and a beard that covered most of his face. This isn't necessarily bad, because I think that Burt and Jim are similar characters, but it didn't really showcase any range on Krasinski's part. Since I'm not a Saturday Night Live viewer, I don't know anything about Maya Rudolph, and if her performance was a stretch, but I was torn between wondering if her detached demeanor was intentional or her acting style. Maggie Gyllenhaal does a great job in a cameo that borders between supremely annoying and hilarious, especially during a superb dinner scene.
None of these criticisms killed the film for me, but I am still struggling with how I really felt about Away We Go, and I can't decide whether this is a good or bad thing. The conceit of the film was examining relationships, and finally "becoming an adult", which can occur at many different stages of one's life - and Away We Go succeeded in its task. I definitely had more positive than indifferent feelings for the film, but while this is a positive film overall, there was nothing enlightening or even very exciting that the film offered.
Catch Up Time
One of the disadvantages of watching movies is that because I intend to review most, if not all, of the films I see, I am perpetually behind on reviews. It's only the 12th day of the year, but I actually have managed to stick to keeping track of the films I've watched with the help of the task pad on my Blackberry.
With Oscar season kicking into high gear, I'm going to be concentrating less on classic films and more on current (hopefully) gems, but I'm looking forward to seeing some good movies, regardless of the era.
I do still have two films on the DVR I'd like to watch when I get caught up with reviews - Death of a Cyclist and the original The Wicker Man, so hopefully I will get a chance to watch them soon!
1 Year/100 Movies Challenge!
The challenge is on! Can YOU see 100 movies in 1 year and write a short capsule review about them? If you'd like to join the challenge, let me know!
Film Club Lists
A few friends and I have been working our way through the IMDB Top 250 list for the past couple of years, and there are also a couple of splinter groups working on other lists as well, such as the AFI Top 100. Though I started out ahead of everyone, there has been a lot of progress made, and I also got to see a lot of really good movies a second time with other people. Now I'm down to the mid-30's range that I need to see, and figured I would share the progress and lists with anyone who may want to either compare what they've seen, or have a guideline for what they may want to see.
You can view our updated lists HERE on my website, www.thecinemaphile.com
Film Review - Nine
In the film Chicago, Richard Gere sings a song about "giving them the old 'Razzle Dazzle'" in order to put one over the audience, or in his case, the jury in a murder trial. Rob Marshall, the director of Chicago, employs this technique with his latest film, Nine, and, like the situation in the aforementioned film, it works - sort of.
Nine is the musical adaptation of Federico Fellini's 1963 film 8 1/2, a semi-autobiographical film about a famed Italian director who is expected to begin his next film and has lost all of his inspiration and retreats into his fantasies and memories, all the while juggling the many women with whom he has surrounded himself. Some things were changed for Nine, most notably, the addition of several musical numbers. In Nine, the director is Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) who is not only creatively stuck, but the pressure of his life and image have made him become an emotional cripple. Wife Luisa (Marion Cotillard)is his former leading lady and has had to suffer through Guido's obsession with his work and his many affairs, including his most recent mistress, Carla (Penelope Cruz), a vixen whose vulnerability threatens to mess up everything that Guido is attempting to juggle. While struggling to keep afloat and answer to these women and others, he also has to come up with an idea for the film that everyone is anticipating.
Nine is a technically precise film, and is stylish and beautiful. The lighting is dramatic, the cinematography was appropriately flashy and the costumes were great - I loved the look of Day-Lewis and Cotillard in particular. The performances were excellent, and once again it was fun to see actors sing and dance that we're not used to seeing. Kate Hudson, playing Stephanie, a Vogue journalist, seemed to have the most fun during her musical number, "Cinema Italiano" and, though I'm not a fan, I have to admit she did a great job. As Saraghina, a prostitute from Guido's childhood memory, Fergie provided the film's showstopping scene with "Be Italian". Completely wasted was Nicole Kidman as Claudia, Guido's long-time leading lady, who was in the film for about five minutes and whose importance was kind of lost on me. I initially thought that Day-Lewis was woefully miscast in the film, but I think he really made it work; he embodied the role, both emotionally and physically, and had a rumpled sexiness that didn't make it surprising that he was desired by so many women.
Unfortunately, the gorgeous package wasn't quite able to cover up the most serious defect of the film: There just wasn't any substance, and out of all of the characters that are introduced in Nine, (and there are a lot of them) I really only felt for Luisa, though the more I absorbed the character of Carla, the more sympathetic I became, and I think that is due in large part to Cruz's great performance. Though there were a couple of exceptions, namely both of Cotillard's musical numbers, Penelope Cruz's bump-and-grind and the aforementioned Fergie piece, the centerpieces of Nine are the musical numbers, and so many of them didn't make sense. Judi Dench, who stole every scene she was in, had a completely nonsensical and unnecessary song to sing (though, like everyone else in the film, she did it well) and though Sophia Loren was essential as Guido's mother, they just kind of trotted her out for a couple of minutes here and there, and her big scene wasn't really needed to move the story forward. Musicals are always tricky, particularly in this day and age; back in their heyday of the 1940's and 1950's, people would break into song and it was done partly with a wink and a nudge, or the audience would just accept the cheese factor. The scarce modern musical has a much tougher task, with both the fact that musicals generally don't sell anymore (that's why they died out as a genre in the first place) and we as an audience are a lot more cynical. When it's done well, like Moulin Rouge! or even Chicago, it's a revelation.
Nine, however gorgeous and entertaining it was, was not a revelation, however. Though it kept my attention throughout, and it did succeed in ending well (when I was really beginning to wonder how Marshall was going to reel everything in) I was left with feelings of apathy and detachment. Though I can appreciate the "razzle dazzle" I also want some substance. The glimpses of substance came between musical numbers, when there was a "real" story going on, and I found myself getting irritated when it would be interrupted by another musical number, particularly one that didn't really have a place there. I think I'm going move on and experience the story the way I want to see it: by watching Fellini's 8 1/2.
Film Review - Julie & Julia
There are some films that are, admittedly, fluffy pieces that gloss over harsh realities. Julie & Julia is one of those films; however, its easy formula works really well, considering the subject matter.
Starring Meryl Streep as the iconic Julia Child and Amy Adams as Julie Powell, a Child disciple who decides to put her writing skills to use and attempt to make a mark on the literary world by cooking her way through Child's book, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and blogging about her experiences, Julie & Julia weaves the lives of these two women and shows how, though they are in different generations and countries, their lives are more similar than first imagined.
Or are they? The focus on Child's life is the period between the late 1940's and the 1950's when Child, living in Paris with her husband Paul (Stanley Tucci) discovers her love of French cuisine and her desire to learn to cook it. After attending Le Cordon Bleu cooking school as the only female in the class, she teams up with two other female french foodies who have written an enormous cookbook for American women, but need Child to help them with the editing and testing process. Though she encounters some resistance, first when she enrolls in the cooking school and later, when she is attempting to get their book published, her hard work and the undying support of her husband allow her to persevere. On the other hand, Powell is already an accomplished amateur cook and self-professed "foodie" who indeed comes up with an excellent idea for a blog and certainly a daunting task in tackling the cookbook, but it seems that her success either comes really easily or the realities of it are simply not addressed. As a blogger myself, I am surely one of millions of bloggers who will probably never see their own blog go viral enough where it is a featured blog on Salon or a New York Times article will be written about us. Normally this would not be a point of contention with me, particularly in such a non-challenging film, but there was such a focus on the blog itself that it seems the rise in popularity should have been addressed at some point.
Adams, who is quickly becoming the new, much less annoying Meg Ryan for this generation does a good job as Powell, considering the shallowness of the character. Streep, who is awesome in everything she does, completely embodies what I would assume Julia Child was really like and is completely delightful. There were so many times during the film that she delivers a line that is so perfectly executed and natural that I would wonder if it was actually ad-libbed. ("I'm growing as we speak!") Stanley Tucci is another actor who is always good in everything he does, and he and Streep had great chemistry and showed how truly in love the Childs were. One never thinks of Julia Child as a sexual person, but she and Paul were madly in love with one another and were not afraid to show it. I really loved that relationship in the film.
As stated earlier, Julie & Julia doesn't take a lot of chances, and indeed, does fall into standard "chick flick" territory at times, which I suppose can be attributed to Nora Ephron's direction. (Can she possibly make a film where the main female characters doesn't have a wise-cracking, slightly weird looking best friend?) But then again, it doesn't really pretend to be anything more than what it is, and with a couple of exceptions, mainly the glaring omissions in Powell's development, I was really okay with that, and I found that the film was actually pretty good and really charming, overall. I realized that throughout most of the film I had a smile on my face, and I laughed out loud more than a dozen times, mostly during Meryl Streep's time onscreen. I know a couple of people who are fond of the phrase, "It is what it is." and that accurately sums up Julie & Julia. If you don't come into this film expecting to be anything but charmed and entertained, you won't be disappointed.
Snow Day/Classic Film Day?
Apparently we could get up to 8 inches of snow tomorrow, and after reading about Robert Osborne's wonderful life and real estate here I have visions of curling up in my chair in the living room with the cats and watching movies while the snow falls. Currently on my DVR is Anatomy of a Murder and The Wicker Man (the original, of course) but I have a whole bevy of films I could choose from and be very happy to enjoy!
However, I'm not going to hold my breath, and the reality is that I will be going to see Nine tonight with Jay and Matt, probably will be underwhelmed if most of the reviews I've read and feedback from friends are true, and we'll have just enough snow to make it really annoying to drive and park in...but not to call off work for.
Julie & Julia review forthcoming - unfortunately that's the only film I've watched so far this year.
At the risk of sounding like I'm either 87 or a te...
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Gift of understanding helps us to see as God does
Trouble understanding? Spirit helps us listen
Readings of the Holy Mass: Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
Making someone smile can witness to Gospel’s joy
Preaching to the choir can create harmony
God’s word can never be ‘enchained,’ pope says at audience
How to reach the moon and stay grounded
Gina Christian
By Gina Christian • Posted August 1, 2019
Last month marked the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on the lunar surface.
My parents watched the live television broadcast of the landing, hosted by veteran news anchor Walter Cronkite, in mute wonder. As a three-year-old, however, I was more concerned with acquiring the cookies that were sitting just out of my reach on the coffee table. The astronauts landed close to 11 o’clock at night, so I was also getting cranky due to a delayed bedtime.
For those reasons, I can’t say that I actually remember this milestone in human history. However, I vividly recall an expression inspired by the lunar missions, one that was widely used in our household and in the culture of the time: “They can land a man on the moon, but they can’t …” — a phrase concluded by naming an activity that was either simpler, or more urgent, than space travel.
A state official was one of the first to go on record with the complaint. Some seven years before the moon landing, with President Kennedy’s 1962 declaration “we choose to go to the moon” ringing in the nation’s ears, Montana agriculture commissioner Lowell Purdy complained that federal farm policy would produce wasted wheat. “Nothing is impossible in this age of miracles,” he said. “If we can put a man on the moon, we surely are capable of seeing that our temporary surplus agricultural products are placed in many hungry stomachs of the world.”
Purdy called out what to him, and indeed to many, seemed to be not a lack of knowledge or skill, but a failure in priorities. In essence, he wanted to know why we were looking up to the heavens at the expense of looking into the eyes of our fellow human beings and meeting their needs.
A glance at the headlines on any given day confirms that the priorities of this world are (and have long been) muddled at best and warped at worst. An estimated 45% of global wealth is held by just 1% of the planet’s population. We build billion-dollar sports complexes in which millionaire athletes play, while our city’s children attend school in blighted buildings filled with mold and vermin — a condition their underpaid teachers (who purchase educational materials from their own salaries) are powerless to remedy.
We decry gun violence, yet we flock to play Fortnite and other games in which simulated assault rifles provide what passes for entertainment.
We keep up with the Kardashians, but not with the surging numbers of those endangered and marginalized by systemic poverty, conflict and oppression.
Amid such confusion, every evening the Church recalls the true priorities of the kingdom of God by reciting the Magnificat — the canticle proclaimed by Mary in Luke 1:46-55, and named for the Latin translation of its first word.
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant,” cries the Nazarene peasant girl, pregnant with a hidden Savior who, through his death and resurrection, would reorder creation itself.
As the body of Christ recites these words during Vespers, a beautiful balance is restored. The proud are scattered in their conceit; the mighty are cast down from their thrones. The lowly are raised up, and the hungry are filled with good things. Mercy is shown to those who fear the Lord.
Perhaps it’s no mistake that this prayer is intoned as the sun fades and the moon rises. In that lesser light’s pale beams, the fruit and failure of our daily strivings become clearer, and we reflect on what is most important to us.
Nazareth and NASA were light years apart, but it was in a first-century village, not an aeronautics complex, that the true path to the stars was revealed. Only by ordering our days and our hearts aright, according to God’s priorities, can we hope to take flight while remaining properly grounded.
Gina Christian is a senior content producer at CatholicPhilly.com and host of the Inside CatholicPhilly.com podcast. Follow her on Twitter at @GinaJesseReina.
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Tag Archives: colonial high school
Mayor Dyer appoints two new Deputy Chiefs
September 5, 2014 – ORLANDO, FL – Today, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer announced the appointment of two new Deputy Chiefs.
Mayor Dyer has appointed Orlando Rolon, a 21 -year Orlando Police Department veteran, to succeed Deputy Chief Charles Robinson as he retires after more than 27 years of service at the City of Orlando. Additionally, Mayor Dyer has appointed Eric Smith, a 20-year Orlando Police Department veteran to succeed Deputy Chief Carl Metzger as he retires after more than 25 years of service at the City of Orlando.
“As Mayor, my top priority is the safety of our community and investing in the Orlando Police Department by providing the latest training, technology and working closely with our residents,” said Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer. “I am confident Deputy Chiefs Rolon and Smith will continue to work diligently with us in protecting our City against crime.”
Newly promoted Deputy Chief Rolon will now be responsible for the Administrative Services Bureau which includes the Communications Division, the False Alarm Reduction Program, Property and Evidence and the Records Unit.
During his 21-year tenure with the Orlando Police Department, Deputy Chief Rolon has worked in many capacities including Southwest Patrol Sergeant, Parramore Heritage Bikes Sergeant, Public Information Officer, North Patrol Watch Commander, Mayor’s Assistant and Liaison for Hispanic Affairs, Downtown Bikes Commander and Traffic Enforcement Section Commander. Most recently he served as the Professional Standards Commander and in addition to his regular job assignments has served on the Emergency Response Team and as the Crisis Negotiations Team Commander.
Rolon is a graduate of Colonial High School and served in the United States Marine Corps Reserves. He also served as the president of the Central Florida Chapter of the National Latino Peace Officers Association. Rolon is currently working on a Master of Science in Criminal Justice from Columbia College.
Newly promoted Deputy Chief Smith will now be responsible for the Special Services Bureau which includes the Airport Division, K-9 Unit, Mounted Patrol Unit and Traffic Enforcement Division.
During Smith’s 20-year tenure with the Orlando Police Department, he has worked in multiple units including, East Patrol Sergeant, K-9 Sergeant, West Patrol Watch Commander, Tactical Operations Commander and Metropolitan Bureau of Investigations Narcotics Commander. Most recently, he served as the Orlando International Airport Division Commander. Additionally, Deputy Chief Smith has served on the Special Weapons and Tactics Team for 19 years and served as the SWAT Commander.
Deputy Chief Smith received his Bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice from the University of Central Florida. He is a graduate of the DEA Command School, constantly works with the Surrey Criminal Lawyer, which helps him gain experience, the U.S. Army Counter Drug School, and the Florida Law Enforcement Leadership Academy.
“I have worked closely with both Orlando Rolon and Eric Smith for over twenty years and look forward to having them on my senior staff. Each of them have extensive experience in police operations and are up to the task of keeping Orlando a safe city.”
The appointment of Deputy Chief Rolon will go into effect on September 1, 2014 and the appointment of Deputy Chief Smith will go into effect on October 1, 2014.
Posted in Around CFL | Tagged carl metzger, city beautiful, City of Orlando, colonial high school, deputy chief, eric smith, mayor buddy dyer, Orlando Police, orlando rolon, University of Central Florida
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