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5 reasons why you need this Ferrari 5 pack, now.
First off, it's a Ferrari collection in one box. Vintage racers, a hyper car on crack, a GT, and the legendary marque's future direction. These cars are tough to find individually, but here they all are, gift wrapped.
Second, look at them. Seriously, there isn't a bad paint job in the bunch. No stupid flames, over the top race liveries, or off colors. More than half of the Ferrari's have light tampos.
Third, this 512M has a detailed engine bay. The newer castings just don't have this level of detail.
Fourthly, all of these cars are V12 Ferrari's. This pack can't be bothered with anything less. Two have them up front, three of them have them out back.
Lastly, two of these Ferrari's seat four. The 612's lineage can be traced back to the 456 Grand Tourer of the late nineties. The FF is Ferrari's newest car for the family man. With it's shooting brake body and it's four driven wheels, this is one of the most unique creations to come out of Maranello in years.
There you have it. Get this five pack now before collections like this disappear for the foreseeable future.
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Tag: NBA
Going through physical pain and health issues is annoying but we have to be prepared to it as it is an unavoidable part of life; everyone eventually gets old and even individuals that seem immortal cannot escape this rule. Let me get it straight, with an example: everyone gets old and this includes Micheal Jordan.
In January 2000, Jordan returned to the NBA for the second time, after his memorable “I am back” in 1995. That time he would return not as a player, but as part owner and president of basketball operations for the Washington Wizards. The next summer, Jordan hired his old Chicago Bulls head coach, Doug Collins as Washington’s coach for the upcoming season, a decision that many saw as foreshadowing another Jordan return.
On September 25, 2001, Jordan announced his second NBA comeback as a player in the team he partially owned. Here follows a story that Doug Collins told an ESPN interviewer; it is a snapshot of Micheal Jordan exceptional NBA career sunset. This story goes out to those that were lucky enough to witness this fantastic basketball player dominate the game throughout the nineties.
When I was coaching in Washington we played the Indiana Pacers and we were down 25 at the end of the third quarter. I took Micheal out of the game and I said: “look Micheal, I know you think that we can still win this game but we got to play again soon, you know. If we make a little run tonight I’ll put you back in the game”, but we didn’t.
I found out after the game was over that he had eight points in the game and he broke a streak of like eight hundred and sixty something games in double figures and so the media was: “you know, how do you think Micheal is going to be with this?”
I said: “You know what? Micheal has got championships, rings, he’s got gold medals, he’s got NCAA championships, he’s got MVPs. He is not going to care about the eight points”.
So he (Micheal Jordan) met with the media and agreed.
You know, the bus is lonely as a coach when you’re sitting there after you got your head handed to you, so I was sitting on the bus and actually Micheal had hired me. He was the part owner and president General Manager and he hired me to be the coach and then he came back to play.
I’ll never forget this moment. As his coach this to me was greatness.
He got on the bus and said “scoot over”. Then he looked at me and said: “Do you think I can still play?” and I said: “Absolutely, that’s why I am here to help you”.
He said: “You know, to be my coach you have to believe in me and believe I can still play”, and I said: “Micheal, I believe in you”.
He said: “You did the right thing tonight, you did the right thing tonight. I don’t care about the points but I needed to know that you believed in me”.
Fast forward; we get on the plane, he has a few cocktails, smokes a couple cigars, all the things you’re not supposed to do. We get back about 3.30 in the morning in Washington. At 7.30 that morning he is in the fitness room with Tim Grover, training like you can’t believe. Nice 41 years old. We play the New Jersey Nets next night and Micheal scores the first three times he has the ball.
Byron Scott takes a timeout and Micheal comes over and says:
“I want the ball right there the rest of the game and don’t take me out until I tell you”
And so that’s fine by me but with two minutes to go in the game he gives me the sign like that’s enough.
I take him out of the game, he walks over the bench and I say: “Micheal, what happened tonight?”
He said: “Well, the guy that was guarding me told me his back was hurting, don’t ever tell me you got a problem, I’ll make you pay for that”.
51 points later, 51 points at age 41, he came back the next game with 46 (points) and he looked at me and said: “I told you I could still play”.
97 points in two games. I was absolutely blown away at what this guy could do with his mind, how strong he was, and he is playing on one leg, and he cut his finger doing a cigar, all his finger was bent, he had a bad knee; the competitive will and great, I’ve never seen anything like that, but that moment when he looked at me and asked if I still believed in him, as this is the greatest player to play the game wanting to know if I still believed in him. It was a moment I would never ever forget.
Micheal Jordan played his last NBA game on April 16, 2003, in Philadelphia and retired for good at the end of the season. He scored 32292 points in his NBA career and for the impact he had on the game and his unparalleled skills, is generally regarded as the greatest basketball player of all times.
By Living Colorsin - Language: English, Modern days, Role Models, Sport April 3, 2019 April 11, 2019 868 Words2 Comments
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Western > Psychological Western
Crime > Film Noir
Crime > Crime Thriller
Crime > Crime Drama
Drama > Crime Drama
Sahara (1943)
directed by Zoltan Korda
featuring Humphrey Bogart, Bruce Bennett, Lloyd Bridges, Rex Ingram, J. Carrol Naish, Dan Duryea
directed by Howard Hawks
featuring Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Oscar Homolka, Dana Andrews, Dan Duryea, S.Z. Sakall, Henry Travers
Ride Clear of Diablo (1954)
directed by Jesse Hibbs
featuring Audie Murphy, Susan Cabot, Dan Duryea, Abbe Lane, Russell Johnson
The Pride of the Yankees (1942)
directed by Sam Wood
featuring Gary Cooper, Teresa Wright, George Herman "Babe" Ruth, Walter Brennan, Dan Duryea
Winchester '73 (1950)
directed by Anthony Mann
featuring James Stewart, Shelley Winters, Dan Duryea, Stephen McNally, Charles Drake, Rock Hudson, Millard Mitchell
Criss Cross (1948)
directed by Robert Siodmak
featuring Burt Lancaster, Yvonne De Carlo, Dan Duryea, Stephen McNally, Richard Long
Too Late for Tears (1949)
directed by Byron Haskin
featuring Lizabeth Scott, Don DeFore, Dan Duryea, Arthur Kennedy, Kristine Miller
Thunder Bay (1953)
featuring James Stewart, Joanne Dru, Gilbert Roland, Dan Duryea, Jay C. Flippen
Scarlet Street (1945)
directed by Fritz Lang
featuring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea, Margaret Lindsay, Rosalind Ivan
featuring Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, Dan Duryea, Carl Esmond, Hillary Brooke, Percy Waram
Lady on a Train (1945)
directed by Charles David
featuring Deanna Durbin, Ralph Bellamy, Edward Everett Horton, Dan Duryea, George Coulouris, Allen Jenkins
Battle Hymn (1956)
directed by Douglas Sirk
featuring Rock Hudson, Anna Kashfi, Dan Duryea, Don DeFore, Martha Hyer
Black Angel (1946)
directed by Roy William Neill
featuring Dan Duryea, June Vincent, Peter Lorre, Broderick Crawford, Wallace Ford
The Woman in the Window (1944)
featuring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey, Dan Duryea, Edmund Breon
Another Part of the Forest (1948)
directed by Michael Gordon
featuring Fredric March, Dan Duryea, Edmond O'Brien, Ann Blyth, Florence Eldridge
Along Came Jones (1945)
directed by Stuart Heisler
featuring Gary Cooper, Loretta Young, William Demarest, Dan Duryea, Frank Sully
Night Passage (1957)
directed by James Neilson
featuring James Stewart, Audie Murphy, Dan Duryea, Dianne Foster, Elaine Stewart
The Underworld Story (1950)
directed by Cy Raker Endfield
featuring Dan Duryea, Herbert Marshall, Gale Storm, Howard Da Silva, Michael O'Shea
World for Ransom (1954)
featuring Dan Duryea, Gene Lockhart, Patric Knowles, Reginald Denny, Nigel Bruce
New Blu-Ray, 2015
Foxfire (1955)
directed by Joseph Pevney
featuring Jane Russell, Jeff Chandler, Dan Duryea, Mara Corday, Barton MacLane
Storm Fear (1955)
directed by Cornel Wilde
featuring Cornel Wilde, Jean Wallace, Dan Duryea, Lee Grant, David Stollery
Five Golden Dragons (1967)
directed by Jeremy Summers
featuring Rupert Davies, Dan Duryea, Klaus Kinski, Christopher Lee, Sieghardt Rupp, Robert Cummings
Un Fiume Di Dollari (1967)
directed by Carlo Lizzani, Lee W. Beaver
featuring Thomas Hunter, Henry Silva, Dan Duryea, Nando Gazzolo, Nicoletta Machiavelli
directed by Allan Dwan
featuring Lizabeth Scott, Dan Duryea, Dolores Moran, Emile G. Meyer, Frank Sully, John Payne
River Lady (1948)
directed by George Sherman
featuring Yvonne De Carlo, Dan Duryea, Rod Cameron, Helena Carter, Lloyd Gough
Lizabeth Scott
Joan Bennett
Frank Sully
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Home > Press Release > Baton Rouge > Oral, Head and Neck Cancer Experts Working to Increase Awareness
Oral, Head and Neck Cancer Experts Working to Increase Awareness
Each year, National Oral, Head and Neck Cancer Awareness Month is observed in April, and the Cancer Center’s Head and Neck MDC Team is using this opportunity to increase education and foster a healthier community
(Baton Rouge, La.) Because more than 60,000 people are diagnosed with oral, head and neck cancers every year in the U.S., according to the American Cancer Society (ACS), the Head and Neck Multidisciplinary Cancer Care Team (Head and Neck MDC Team) at Mary Bird Perkins – Our Lady of the Lake Cancer Center is encouraging more people to become educated about these diseases. Each year, National Oral, Head and Neck Cancer Awareness Month is observed in April, and the Cancer Center’s Head and Neck MDC Team is using this opportunity to increase education and foster a healthier community.
ACS reports that three percent of all cancers each year are represented by nasal cavity, sinus, lip, mouth, salivary gland, throat or larynx cancers. While these diseases are less common than some other cancers, they are some of the most complex to treat.
Dr. Daniel Nuss, Chair of the Cancer Center’s Head and Neck MDC Team and ranked in the top one percent of ear, nose and throat physicians by U.S. News & World Report, says that he and his colleagues are concerned about the lack of awareness of oral, head and neck cancers and feel it is important for everyone to become educated about these diseases.
“Symptoms of these cancers may be as simple as a sore throat or earache that doesn’t go away, or a lump in the neck or sore in the mouth that doesn’t heal,” said Dr. Nuss. “A simple, painless screening for oral, head and neck cancer is something you want to incorporate in your annual health check-up. Just like every other cancer, the earlier it is detected, the better the chances are for a positive outcome. Many of these cancers are curable. It’s important to have this conversation with your doctor.”
For Oral, Head and Neck Cancer Awareness Month, the Cancer Center’s team of renowned experts is primarily focusing on individuals most at risk for these diseases, particularly those who use tobacco and/or alcohol. However, there is also a substantial focus on educating younger people. The Oral Cancer Foundation reports that the quickest growing segment of the oral cancer population is young, healthy, non-smokers due to the connection to the human papillomavirus (HPV). This means those with HPV need to know their risks and the warning signs for the disease.
The Cancer Center offers an array of head and neck cancer services. Some of these resources include:
A multidisciplinary cancer care (MDC) team consisting of surgical, medical and radiation oncologists, pathologists and other specialists who work together to ensure the highest level of care for oral, head and neck cancer patients
National Cancer Institute clinical trials
Free oral cavity screenings
Radiation therapy, chemotherapy and surgery
For information on any of the topics mentioned here, please visit mbpolol.org/headandneck.
As a regional destination for cancer care, Mary Bird Perkins – Our Lady of the Lake Cancer Center offers the most advanced technology and services provided by a dedicated team of nationally-recognized oncology experts. The Cancer Center provides best-practice, comprehensive care at every stage of the cancer journey, including disease site-specific multidisciplinary care teams, a robust clinical research program and extensive supportive care services. As a nonprofit organization, donor generosity is essential to sustaining the mission of improving survivorship and lessening the burden of cancer for so many throughout Southeast Louisiana and beyond. For more information on the Cancer Center, and how you can become involved, please visit mbpolol.org.
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How to talk to kids about climate change without scaring them
Image: bob al-greene / mashable
By Rebecca Ruiz 2019-09-17 19:22:28 UTC
When my 4-year-old daughter discovered the documentary series Blue Planet II, thanks to a relative who shares her love of marine life, I was thrilled that she wanted to watch it instead of animated standbys like The Octonauts and Llama Llama.
I counted it as a parenting victory: My preschooler liked science and exploration and David Attenborough's voice. When things got real and one sea creature ruthlessly ate another, I explained that it was an example of the food chain. Her grimace turned into a look of satisfaction — the kind that comes with feeling like you understand the world a little better.
Then we arrived at the episode about coral reefs dying off en masse because of climate change. My daughter had a lot of questions, and I teared up looking at footage of the desiccated reefs, thinking about what those images meant for her future. Suddenly I regretted letting Blue Planet II into our lives so easily.
Though my husband and I spent a lot of time outdoors, encouraging our daughter's interest in science, nature, and conservation, we never explicitly discussed climate change before this. We avoided the topic, I think, because of her young age and the doomsday nature of being on the brink of a major extinction event. How do you tell a 4-year-old the plants, animals, and landscapes she adores are in grave peril?
It turns out, of course, there are plenty of ways to talk about what's happening to the Earth in an age-appropriate way that doesn't needlessly frighten a child. The key is to ensure that you've laid a foundation for children to appreciate and be curious about the natural world, that you're capable of discussing basic scientific concepts, and that conversations with children about climate change focus on critical thinking skills and solutions.
Stacie Paxton Cobos, senior vice president for communications and marketing at The Climate Reality Project, a nonprofit organization founded by Al Gore, says parents should first help their children develop an appreciation of the natural world before trying to explain climate change.
That can mean watching a nature documentary, visiting a wildlife center or natural history museum, or introducing a child to natural habitats like a creek, beach, or forest. Such experiences gives kids a sense of why taking care of the earth is important, which ultimately helps them grasp the stakes of climate change — and care about preventing it.
SEE ALSO: Teens drop eloquent climate change testimony on Congress
Cobos, a parent of two children under the age of five, uses everyday opportunities like watering flowers, visiting the farmers' market, and walking instead of driving to help her kids understand different aspects of nature and conservation.
Emily Edmonds-Langham, manager of elementary education at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, says parents should pay close attention to their child's interest in the natural world. If they're fascinated by birds they see walking home from school, try learning more about that species and how your family can help them thrive.
"It's about running with your child's interest ... rather than overwhelming them with all of the issues around climate change," she says.
Edmonds-Langham also recommends modeling and explaining household choices focused on conservation (think recycling, avoiding unnecessary plastic products, and selecting food items that produce less greenhouse gases). When you connect such activities to protecting the planet and its resources, children develop a deeper understanding of how human behavior can affect the earth.
Understanding the science
Michael Mann, a distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State, says adults often make two mistakes when it comes to discussing climate change with kids: They assume it's too difficult a concept for them to grasp and believe that they're not in a position to do anything about it.
Mann said in an email that he initially made those same mistakes when co-authoring his children's book The Tantrum That Saved the World, a story designed to inspire young readers to do something about climate change.
The book includes a one-page primer that outlines the basics of climate change, which Mann describes as: "Greenhouse gases warm the planet, we are increasing the levels of greenhouse gases through fossil fuel burning, and that this is having a harmful effect on us and other living things."
Adult readers interested in increasing their knowledge of climate change and its effects can consult numerous resources. Mann recommends sites maintained by authoritative groups like the National Academy of Sciences, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). He also suggests resources created by scientists like Skeptical Science and Real Climate, the latter of which Mann co-founded. Both sites debunk myths and provide context for climate research.
Cobos says parents don't need to teach themselves everything about climate change in order to effectively communicate about it with their children. (The Climate Reality Project recently published an e-book on how families can start conversations about climate change.)
"It's important for people to grasp the concept themselves, but you don’t have to be an expert about climate change," says Cobos. "You just need to take the time to help your kids understand some general concepts."
Focus on skills and solutions
By the time children reach the first or second grade, parents can try having more complex discussions about the causes of climate change and the effects of global warming, provided they use simplified or relatable language.
Edmonds-Langham says elementary school-age children who participate in the museum's classes and educational programming most often want to know how to help. By fourth grade, kids can understand why climate change threatens habitats and animals, and that human activity is to blame.
"I think one of the things we try to stress is success stories and trying to be action-oriented," she says. "We want to empower them to make steps toward advocacy."
Parents can help children focus on making a positive impact, no matter how small. NASA's Climate Kids site offers practical suggestions for children, including planting their own fruits and vegetables, turning off lights when they're not needed, and drinking tap water instead of bottled water. Parents can also share inspiring stories of youth activists working to stop climate change.
Empowerment can also come via education. Third graders at the museum, for example, spent some of their time in a yearlong class learning about the difference between climate and weather and developing the basic skills to understand data collection. That included hearing about the types of evidence climate scientists collect or measure, like ice cores, tree rings, and other visible or tangible examples of how climate has changed over the millennia.
Learning why climate and weather aren't the same is critical for children (and their parents), particularly given that some falsely insist extreme weather events — a blizzard in April, a heat wave in October — mean climate change isn't real.
"You have to find that balance between freaking them out and explaining the changing world they’re living in."
Evan Rothstein, an earth and planetary science educator at the American Museum of Natural history, frequently works with middle school children and says they tend to question whether the conclusions of climate science are true. They want to know if polar ice caps are really melting or if the ocean is becoming more acidic.
Rothstein cautions against giving yes or no answers to such questions but instead teaching children the critical thinking skills to read, analyze, and assess various claims they might encounter. The goal is to help adolescents in that developmental stage have an informed conversation.
Regardless of a child's age, parents should avoid emphasizing fear or helplessness when they talk about climate change.
"The trick is honesty," says Rothstein. "You have to find that balance between freaking them out and explaining the changing world they’re living in."
Parents who are nervous about bringing up climate change with their child might wait instead for a teacher to raise the subject first. But Edmonds-Langham says parents have a distinct advantage over educators because the former know their children's interests, their emotional intelligence, and how they'll be affected by news that's difficult.
"You can find ways of supporting them, and find ways to make them not quite so sad about it," says Edmonds-Langham.
When parents focus on solutions and highlight success stories, it can fundamentally change the way children think about climate change — and what role kids see for themselves in changing the planet's future.
I'm personally going to remember that lesson the next time my daughter and I discuss climate change, because that possibility alone — a child finding her voice in the name of the earth's survival — is well worth any discomfort I might feel trying to answer hard questions.
WATCH: Teenage climate activist nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
Topics: Activism, Climate, Parenting, parenting & family, Science, Parenting, Social Good
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Results for topic
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China's rapid development through socialism with Chinese characteristics
I write this article to commemorate the 21st anniversary of Tonga/China diplomatic relations and the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. This article will focus on socialism with Chinese characteristics as the key driver to the fast economic development of China. - Col. (Rtd) Siamelie Latu.
One can walk his way well by wearing the right shoes
China will continue to adhere to the independent foreign policy of peace, develop friendly cooperation with all countries based on the “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence”. We are willing to share the experience of governance with all developing countries including Tonga, and we will earnestly respect and firmly support all countries in pursuing their own development path. Only by wearing the right shoes can one walk his own way well. By Zhaohui Yang.
SPBD celebrates double milestone
The South Pacific Business Development (SPBD) celebrated a double milestone reaching its 10th Anniversary and TOP$100 Million in loans disbursement, on 22 November at its office in Fanga, Nuku’alofa.
China “not involved in debt trap diplomacy”
China’s Belt and Road Initiative has raised important questions about the risk of debt problems in less-developed countries. The risks are serious for the small and fragile economies of the Pacific. However, the analysis finds a different picture. The evidence to date suggests China has not been engaged in deliberate ‘debt trap’ diplomacy in the PICs. The Belt and Road projects have brought effective investment to the relevant countries rather than the so-called debt trap, boosted local economy and improved people’s livelihood. By Col. (Ret’d.) Siamelie Latu.
Safeguard prosperity and stability in Hong Kong
SPONSORED POST; Hong Kong is China's Hong Kong, and Hong Kong affairs are purely internal affairs of China. We shall never tolerate any interference by any foreign government, foreign forces, foreign organizations or individuals. Safeguarding the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong serves the common interest of the international community. The Chinese side strongly urge relevant countries to have a clear understanding of the current situation...and support the restoration of order in Hong Kong with real actions. By Mr. Yang Zhaohui, Charge’d Affaires of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the Kingdom of Tonga
An insider’s view of China in the Pacific
With China’s diverse and expanding interests in the Pacific, and its rising economic and strategic strength, one can expect that Chinese presence will grow stronger in the coming decades. China’s growing regional presence is a new reality that needs to be accommodated, not resisted, but this requires great understanding of Chinese interests and views. Given the substantial difference between Chinese and Western views about China’s unique aid policy, simply requesting that China conform to rules set up by traditional aid donors is unlikely to work. By Col. (Ret’d.) Siamelie Latu.
Implementing the Belt and Road Inititative in Tonga and Pacific Islands
The Chinese proverb goes: “Yāo Xiǎng Fù Xiān Xiū Lù” (“If you want to get rich, build a road.”) This can be updated as: “If you seek prosperity, build connectivity.” By Col. (Ret’d.) Siamelie Latu, Secretary General of the Tonga China Friendship Association.
US China trade war will not make America great again
US tariff measures will not boost American economic growth. Instead, they will seriously harm the US economy. The US and China are the two biggest economies in the world. A trade war would have very serious repercussions all over the world. It could derail the current global economic expansion and cripple American businesses that depend on business with China. It could also further complicate geopolitical priorities. By Col. (Retd.) Siamelie Latu.
Belt and Road Initiative: a promising path for China-Tonga joint development
The second Belt and Road Forum on International Cooperation to be held in Beijing, China, from 25-27 April 2019, offers a promising path for China-Tonga Joint Development. The meeting will welcome 37 heads of state or government, with over 5,000 participants from more than 150 countries. Tonga's delegation includes HRH Princess Pilolevu Tuita, Deputy Prime Minister Hon. Semisi Sika and Minister for MEIDECC Hon. Poasi Tei. Chinese President Xi Jinping will deliver the keynote speech at the opening and chair the leaders' round-table summit, with "Belt and Road Cooperation: Shaping a Brighter Shared Future" as its theme.
Public invited to attend Anzac Day Dawn Service 25 April
The Australian High Commission invites members of the public to attend the Dawn Service on Thursday 25 April 2019 at the Cenotaph in Nuku'alofa, to remember those men and women from Tonga, Australia and New Zealand who have served and sacrificed in international conflicts.
Post-cyclone training strengthens reconstruction skills
Tongatapu and 'Eua communities are learning how to restore their water supplies and improve sanitation, under a post-cyclone recovery training programme implemented by Live & Learn Environmental Education Tonga, along with Tonga Skills providing accredited training in financial and plumbing skills.
Fine Tu‘ipulotu new General Manager of SPBD in Tonga
The SPBD Microfinance Network, the largest microfinance provider in the South Pacific, has promoted Fine Tu'ipulotu to General Manager of South Pacific Business Development (SPBD) Microfinance Ltd in the Kingdom of Tonga. Fine is the first Tongan-born national appointed to the top post.
Transport Sector public enterprises happy with profitable year
A total dividend and tax of $3.5 million pa'anga for the Financial Year 2017/18 was paid to the government shareholder by the Shared Transport Sector Public Enterprises this week. Chairman Dr Sione Ngongo Kioa reported that Ports Authority Tonga (PAT), Tonga Airports Ltd. (TAL) and Friendly Islands Shipping Agency (FISA) continued to maintain their combined net profit before tax above the $8 million mark. The dividend is 25% of net profits and the remaining 75% of net profits after taxes will support the Transport Sector's critical projects.
King Tupou VI commissions Kukū Kaunaka Collection
The University of the South Pacific-Tonga campus welcomed HM King Tupou VI for the commissioning of their new Kukū Kaunaka Collection of academic theses by Tongan scholars, in a closed event on November 14. In a statement, USP said: “It was indeed a most humbling and significant event as Tonga USP staff marked the 50th anniversary of the USP service in the region and in Tonga.”
Working hand in hand for a brighter future of China-Tonga relations
November 2 is the 20th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the People’s Republic of China and the Kingdom of Tonga. It is of great significance to jointly celebrate this historic day. On October 26, 1998, His Majesty King Tupou VI, who was then Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defence of Tonga visited China, and on behalf of the Government of the Kingdom of Tonga, signed the Joint Communique on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations with his counterpart in the Chinese Government. By H. E. Wang Baodong, Chinese Ambassador to the Kingdom of Tonga.
Partnership to be proud of
Partnership among Pacific Islanders - Towards a Prosperous, Free and Open Pacific: It was more than 20 years ago in 1997 when the leaders of Japan and the Pacific island countries first gathered in Tokyo to launch the first Japan-Pacific Island Leaders Meeting (PALM, then known as the Japan-South Pacific Forum Summit Meeting). Japan was among the first countries to establish a summit-level framework dedicated to forging stronger ties with Pacific island countries. - Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan.
Australian linesmen arrive to aid electricity restoration
Additional line mechanics have arrived in Tonga to assist Tonga Power with restoration works of electricity in Tongatapu.
Ports Authority Tonga to head Pacific Maritime Transport Alliance
Ports Authority Tonga was elected as the new President of the Pacific Maritime Transport Alliance for the next three years, at PMTA's Annual General Meeting held in Auckland, New Zealand, yesterday. The Chairman of the Transport Shared Board of Directors, Mr Stephen Edwards accepted the role on behalf of Ports Authority Tonga.
Ha'apai first to reach 50% renewable energy generation
Ha'apai will be the first islands group in Tonga to achieve 50% generation from renewable energy, after the commissioning of the 550 kWp "Ha Masani Solar Facility" by the Australian High Commissioner to Tonga, HE Mr Andrew Ford at Pangai on June 15.
Globalization: "Do not give up eating for fear of choking"
Describing economic globalization as a double-edged sword that should be viewed comprehensively, China's President Xi Jinping said in Davos in January that we should pay attention to its deficiency but "not give up eating for fear of choking" or simply attribute the problems like the financial crisis and refugees to globalization, let alone protectionism. China views globalization's general trend as right. In May this year, China will host the “Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation” in Beijing to discuss ways to boost cooperation, build cooperation platforms and share cooperation outcomes. By H.E. Huang Huaguang.
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Forests and trees play significant roles in the lives of Pacific Islanders, economically, socially, culturally and environmentally. In many Pacific island countries, especially on the smaller islands and atolls, agroforestry and tree crops provide most of the food, medicines, construction materials, firewood, tools and myriad of other products and services that cannot be replaced with imported substitutions. For the larger countries, forests have contributed significantly into their economic development in terms of foreign exchange earnings, employment and infrastructure development. Thus, a major challenge for Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) is to ensure sustainable management of their scarce and diminishing forest and tree resources, taking into account demands for economic development and the social and environmental needs of their growing populations, LRD-SPC is addressing this under its Forest & Tree programme.
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Balanced forest policies and strategies are needed for sustainable development
The Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), in collaboration with Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), is running an eleven (11-day) Executive Forest Policy course in Nadi, Fiji.
The course, which is the seventh to be organised in the Asia Pacific region, was opened earlier today by Fiji’s Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forests, Lieutenant Colonel Inia Seruiratu.
In his keynote address Minister Seruiratu said that the course provides an excellent opportunity for senior government officials in the region to enhance their policy analysis capability through their in-depth understanding of critical economic, social and environmental issues at the national, regional and global levels.
‘It is common knowledge that climate change is already causing dramatic changes globally, particularly in the small island states, including in the Pacific, which are considered to be some of the most vulnerable places on earth to the adverse effects of climate change,’ Mr Seruiratu said.
‘In fact, climate change is recognised as the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and well-being of the peoples of the Pacific.’
He added that the important role of forests in mitigating climate change through carbon sequestration and carbon sink is well recognised.
‘In addition, forests will be important in ensuring that our Pacific communities are able to adapt to the impacts of climate change because of the many services and products they contribute to our well-being,’ Mr Seruiratu said.
However, he added, this can only be achieved if our forests are managed in a sustainable manner.
‘The Government of Fiji recognises the potential of forestry as a major potential foreign exchange earner that can also provide rural employment, regular income and infrastructure development that promote rural stability towards improving rural living standards.
‘Thus, it is the mandate of my ministry to ensure that these valuable resources are developed and managed to their optimal potential for the benefit of all stakeholders, in a sustainable way.’
Minister Seruiratu further mentioned that the major challenge is how to mainstream sound forest policies into the sustainable development strategies of the country, taking into account demands for economic development and the social and environmental needs of growing populations.
He therefore urged all the participants to take advantage of the opportunity and participate actively in the discussion and share experiences to help their countries and also the region to develop broad-based practical and implementable policies that will effectively support efforts to achieve the goal of sustainable management of the region’s forest resources.
‘We need to be innovative in our ideas and come up with strategies that are going to ensure a very balanced approach to our development. I am hoping that through this course, you will be able to broaden your knowledge to help you come up with new ideas and strategies towards integrating forestry into your overall national sustainable development strategies,’ Mr Seruiratu said.
Minister Seruiratu also challenged the participants to focus not only on issues facing our region but also opportunities that are present to come up with better solutions.
‘It’s time that officials in both the agriculture and forestry ministries start to focus beyond the problems and come up with solutions that will not only benefit the current generation but future generations as well.’
The 7th forest policy course will conclude on 23 May and has been supported by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Lowering Emissions in Asia’s Forests (LEAF), the European Forest Institute (EFI), the EU/FAO Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade programme (EU/FAO FLEGT), and the Asia Pacific Association of Forestry Research Institutions (APAFRI).
You can watch Minister's full address via youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdTGsS3KLyM
(For more information, please contact Mr Vinesh Prasad, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it --- +679 3370773, alternatively, for any further queries, you may contact the LRD helpdesk This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .)
We acknowledge our major donors/partners in supporting Forestry initiatives in the Pacific
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Promising discovery for a non-invasive early detection of Alzheimer's disease
by IOS Press
Showing brain regions in which gray matter intensity correlates significantly with HMW/LMW tau ratio in AD patients. Credit: : Dr. Ricardo B. Maccioni
A discovery of high relevance in medical research will be published in Volume 55, number 4 of December 2016 of the prestigious "Journal of Alzheimer's Disease (JAD)", entitled "Tau Platelets Correlate with Regional Brain Atrophy in Patients with Alzheimer's Disease". This paper has been highlighted as one of the most important contribution to this field. The paper stems from a fruitful collaboration between the neuroscience laboratory from the International Center for Biomedicine (ICC) under the leadership of Dr. Ricardo Maccioni and the research teams of Drs. Andrea Slachevsky, Faculty of Medicine, University of Chile, together with Drs. Oscar Lopez and James Becker from University of Pittsburgh, School of Medicine, USA.
Drs. Maccioni and Farías have pioneered the technology that detects in human blood platelets the pathological oligomeric forms of brain tau protein in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other neurodegenerative disorders. More importantly, the ratio between this anomalous tau and the normal tau protein can discriminate AD patients from normal controls, and are associated with decreased cognitive impairment. These studies open a new avenue in the development of highly sensitive and efficient biomarkers for neurodegenerative disorders. The fact that pathological forms of tau proteins in platelets correlated with decreased brain volume in areas known to be associated with AD pathology in the brain is one step forward for the use of peripheral biomarkers, not only for clinical purposes, but also for research studies oriented to understand the complexity of AD pathology.
This article, highlighted by JAD, proved that the relationship between the pathological and normal variants of tau were associated with the reduction of cerebral volume in key structures linked with the disease. These structures included the left medial and right anterior cingulate gyri, right cerebellum, right thalamus (pulvinar), left frontal cortex, and right parahippocampal region, in agreement with MRI neuroimaging approaches. In addition to the enormous utility of this non-invasive technology for the detection and progression of AD, the use of a tau biomarker could lead to the identification of AD pathology before the clinical symptoms are evident, and it could play an essential role in the development of preventive therapies. Moreover, the determination of peripheral tau markers in platelets can contribute to the understanding of the pathophysiology of multiple neurodegenerative processes where tau proteins play a critical role.
High molecular weight tau bands (about 80kDa) can be appreciated, with greater immunoreactivity in patients with AD compared with healthy subjects. Credit: Dr. Ricardo B. Maccioni
More human-like model of Alzheimer's better mirrors tangles in the brain
More information: Andrea Slachevsky et al, Tau Platelets Correlate with Regional Brain Atrophy in Patients with Alzheimer's Disease, Journal of Alzheimer's Disease (2016). DOI: 10.3233/JAD-160652
Journal information: Journal of Alzheimer's Disease
Provided by IOS Press
Citation: Promising discovery for a non-invasive early detection of Alzheimer's disease (2016, December 22) retrieved 20 January 2020 from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-12-discovery-non-invasive-early-alzheimer-disease.html
Different brain atrophy patterns may explain variability in Alzheimers disease symptoms
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Pathogenic Alzheimer's disease cascade is activated by faulty norepinephrine signaling
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Protein associated with ovarian cancer exacerbates neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's
Antibiotics could be promising treatment for form of dementia
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Alum finds fascination in disease and the end of life
by John Dillon
Yale Medicine, 2009 - Spring
Robert Buckingham’s career has taken him around the world as he studies HIV/AIDS, prostitution and hospice care.
Photo by Darren Phillips
Robert Buckingham, an epidemiologist at New Mexico State University’s College of Health and Social Services, works around the world on AIDS prevention among sex workers and has been instrumental in developing hospice care.
Robert Buckingham, Ph.D. ’78, saw a lot of people die when he served in the U.S. Navy during the height of the Vietnam War. But he was more drawn to illness-related mortality, even in combat zones. “In my travels throughout Southeast Asia during the war, I saw a lot of disease and death,” he said. “I got fascinated with diseases.”
Buckingham’s career has run on the tracks of disease and death ever since. Usually the tracks are parallel, but they have also diverged and intersected, frequently taking him back to the places in Southeast Asia where his interest was first sparked.
For Buckingham, an epidemiologist and professor of health science at New Mexico State University’s College of Health and Social Services, the intersection became personal as he entered the School of Public Health in the 1970s. His mother had just died of breast cancer, “so I was interested in the care she got—and the lack of care.” His frustration over the hospital’s aggressive attempts to keep her alive instead of alleviating her suffering led him to become involved in palliative treatment.
At the same time, the late Florence S. Wald, R.N. the former dean of the School of Nursing, was trying to establish the first inpatient hospice in the United States. Under Wald’s tutelage, Buckingham helped to write a grant proposal that led to funding for hospice care. In researching his doctoral dissertation, he came to the conclusion that care for the dying was better in a hospice than in a hospital.
The Connecticut Hospice opened in Branford in 1974. Today there are about 8,000 hospices around the world (including more than 4,500 in the United States), according to Stephen Connor, Ph.D., vice president of research and international relations at the National Hospice Foundation. Buckingham had a hand in developing about 90 of them. “Bob is remarkably intelligent and capable,” Connor said. “He certainly is someone well-regarded in the field.”
Buckingham moved on to other areas of public health, notably HIV/AIDS prevention among sex workers. He returned to Thailand as the AIDS epidemic spread and has since studied condom use among prostitutes in that country’s commercial sex industry and started a pediatric hospice for children with AIDS there. He spent the 2000-2001 academic year “developing programs for commercial sex workers as well as treatment programs for workers who were HIV-positive.” Before his research began, only 11 percent of sex workers’ clients had used condoms. His study, published in the journal AIDS Care in 2005, found that the rate had risen to 51 percent. It wasn’t ideal, but in some brothels as many as 89 percent of the workers’ clients use condoms, and overall the HIV rate in Thailand has “decreased significantly,” he said. Buckingham concluded that more focus needs to be put on native Thai patrons, who are less likely to use condoms than Western or other Asian customers.
Buckingham is trying to transfer that model of HIV prevention to prostitution in Latin America. One such place is Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, just across the border from El Paso, Texas, and not far from his campus in Las Cruces, N.M. “When you see poverty you see prostitution, and when you see prostitution you see disease,” he said. He has encountered little opposition from the authorities, even though Mexico is a heavily Roman Catholic country. “We usually don’t get interference,” he said. “We’re trying to help.”
Most recently, Buckingham has been asked by the government of Honduras to form the country’s first health commission. The need for health care is acute, especially for people living on the islands off the coast where care is “nonexistent,” he said. “What we’re doing is a simple needs assessment affecting the country.” He plans to get the project in full swing while on sabbatical in 2009-2010.
Honduras also has a disproportionately high share of Central America’s HIV/AIDS cases—some estimates have it as high as 60 or 70 percent—so Buckingham will work to promote condom use there. He will also likely be working with the dying, because he helped to establish a hospice in that country.
His work with hospices and sex workers isn’t all that divergent, he said—in fact, the two tracks crossed one day in Thailand. He was interviewing prostitutes when a woman, wrongly assuming that he was a physician, begged him to care for her sick infant. “I said, ‘I can’t take care of your baby,’ and gave it back to her. She said, “No, no!’ and just ran away. We brought it to the medical school. Sure enough, the baby was HIV-positive. Word went out that I found a place for these dying kids.”
Buckingham helped set up a hospice there, too. “Life is weird sometimes,” he said.
Yale Medicine Magazine
Print Magazine PDFs
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Cover design by Dan Meth, illustration is from this map.
Mongrel Tongue, a collection of prose poems and hybrid texts, is now available from 1913 Press and Small Press Distribution. In Europe, order via INDEX Poetry.
Or pick up a copy in person:
Amsterdam: The American Book Center or Boekie Woekie
New York: Berl’s Brooklyn Poetry Shop
Portland: Powell’s
Selected by National Book Award winner, Daniel Borzutzky for the 1913 Prize for First Books
This collection of prose poems and hybrid texts pursues what is left out of the official history, the movie version, the news account, the branding campaign. Latin Americans exiled in surreal landscapes , women on the lam from the eternal feminine, and people awake to the breakdown of the general narrative take shape in monologues, interviews, fractured fairy tales, and alternative histories.
See the Posts page for information on readings and events.
“These are half stories from a fully experienced observer, peering out at the light that brings her the news. The new world is here still being discovered by a woman we recognize by her likeness to another woman we don’t recognize. A prophetic and hilarious book.”
“ With lyrical brilliance and discipline, Megin Jiménez’s Mongrel Tongue swerves through the many ways we live with and among disaster. The narratives here are boundless; everywhere there is a body searching for home, a political exile, a climate refugee, a body that’s absorbed, a body that refuses to be absorbed, a body that refuses to disappear into history. I’m thrilled by the vibrancy of this debut, by the worlds it creates amid worlds that make us vanish.”
—Daniel Borzutzky
“Eschewing purity of all kinds, the prose poems and hybrid pieces in Mongrel Tongue call themselves novel, document, story, tale, interview, history, invocation. This startling book revels in the translator’s gulf, nomadically moving through the clutter of the world, offering slippages and valences galore.”
—Shanna Compton
Megin Jiménez is a Venezuelan-American translator, poet and writer. She studied at the University of Denver and Université de Paris IV, and received an MFA from The New School in New York. Her poems and essays have appeared in Barrow Street, Denver Quarterly, Barrelhouse, Mantis, The Inquisitive Eater, NOÖ Journal, LIT, Tarpaulin Sky, Redivider and other journals. She teaches at the International Writers’ Collective and lives in Leiden, the Netherlands.
Translation and Editing
Megin worked for ten years as a translator and reviser at United Nations Headquarters in New York and the International Criminal Court in The Hague. She currently works as a freelance translator, editor and report-writer for international organizations. For more information, visit her LinkedIn page or contact her at the email address below.
Email: meginj [at] gmail.com
Header image: 1565 map by Ferando Bertelli and Paolo Forlani, Library of Congress
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Krebbs
(Capozzi)
Obituary for Marie L. Krebbs (Capozzi)
Seneca Falls – Marie L. Krebbs, 67, formerly of Auburn Rd., Seneca Falls, NY, passed away, peacefully, on Thursday (December 6, 2018) at Rochester General Hospital, Rochester, NY with her son and daughter-in-law at her side
Family and friends may call at the Doran Funeral Home, 4 E. Bayard St., Seneca Falls, NY on Monday (December 17) from 4 PM to 6PM followed by at funeral service at 6 PM with Reverend James Fennessy, Pastor of St. Francis/St. Clare Parish, officiating. Burial will be in St. Columbkille Cemetery, Seneca Falls, at the convenience of the family. If desired, contributions may be made to Seneca Falls Historical Society, 55 Cayuga St., Seneca Falls, NY 13148.
Marie was born in Seneca Falls, NY on October 18, 1951 the daughter of Frank & Margaret (Leone) Capozzi. She was a life resident of Seneca Falls and was a graduate of S.U.N.Y. at Brockport where she earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Education. She had been a teacher at John Lovess Elementary School in Liverpool, NY. Marie had also been employed as a secretary at Geneva General Hospital, Geneva, NY. She was a member of St. Patrick’s Church, Seneca Falls. Marie was an avid New York Yankee fan. She loved to play cards but most of all, she loved the time she spent with her family.
She is survived by:
1 son – Robert H. (Victoria) Krebbs III – Seneca Falls, NY
2 granddaughters – Alyvia & Gabrielle Krebbs
Her mother – Margaret (Leone) Capozzi – Seneca Falls, NY
2 brothers – Frederick (Denise) Capozzi – Seneca Falls, NY
Frank (Rosemarie) Capozzi – Seneca Falls, NY
3 nephews – Aaron Capozzi, Adam (Kelly) Capozzi, & Frank (Paula) Capozzi
2 great nieces, 1 great nephew, & Robert Krebbs Jr.
Marie was predeceased by her father, Frank Capozzi who died April 22, 2013.
The family would like to thank all of the staff at Huntington Living Center for all their efforts over the years with their loving care for Marie.
Please consider leaving a condolence in memory of Marie at: doranfuneralhome.com
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By Nicolene Erasmus, Senior Consultant, SA Labour Guide
Regarding dismissal, according to the Code of Good Practice, “the courts have endorsed the concept of corrective or progressive discipline. This approach regards the purpose of discipline as a means for employees to know and understand what standards are required of them. Efforts should be made to correct employees’ behaviour through a system of graduated disciplinary measures such as counselling and warnings.”
By progressively increasing the severity of the warnings, an employee will be motivated to reform unacceptable behaviour. For the majority of employees, progressive corrective discipline is effective. There are, however, those employees who do not take heed of their employer’s disciplinary code. These employees have been found to be reformed only once employers have resorted to a very desperate and last resort: the issuing of a comprehensive, consolidated or general final written warning. This type of warning has the effect that any contravention of the employer’s disciplinary code in future will result in the employee’s dismissal.
In NUFAWSA obo Fortuin v Cori Craft Group (Pty) Ltd [2008] JOL 22602 (BCFMI), the applicant was subject to a comprehensive final written warning which he received as an alternative short of dismissal. This, according to the respondent, meant that if the applicant were found guilty of any subsequent transgression, dismissal would follow. When the applicant was found guilty of absenteeism and subsequently dismissed, he argued that a comprehensive final written warning could be considered only when an employee was found guilty of a similar offense. The respondent denied this. The commissioner held that the applicant was aware of the meaning of a comprehensive final written warning and that this was used in the company to avoid dismissal. The applicant’s dismissal was found to be fair.
A similar approach was followed in National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa obo Tlou / Vanchem Vanadium Products (Pty) Ltd [2015] 5 BALR 525 (MEIBC). The applicant was dismissed after being found guilty of using abusive language after a superior had given him an instruction. The disciplinary code prescribes dismissal only for a second offence of this nature. Since the applicant was subject to a valid general final written warning, he was dismissed. The commissioner pointed out that the concept of giving a collective or general written warning for a number of past, not necessarily related, offences is not unknown. An employer can place employees on terms by means of a final written warning that refers to all the past offences, including the latest offence, and stating that dismissal will result, should there be any future breach of the employer's disciplinary code.
The applicant in Witcher / Hullets Aluminium [2003] 12 BALR 1377 (MEIBC) was also subject to a consolidated final written warning which was issued to him for twice coming to work under the influence of alcohol. This consolidated final written warning followed a final written warning for driving a vehicle in a production area and causing damages to the amount of R50,000. Thereafter, when the applicant was absent without leave on two separate occasions, the respondent dismissed him.
The arbitrator held that the normal rule relating to the use of past warnings is that the offence for which the employee is dismissed should be similar to the offences for which the employee received the previous warnings. However, where the employee's pattern of behaviour clearly indicates a consistent disregard for the rules of the company, the concept of a consolidated final warning is acceptable. An employer cannot continue to tolerate ongoing misconduct by an employee, who escapes the consequences of that ongoing misconduct by committing a variety of offences that are not related to each other. A time must come when the employer can fairly say to the errant employee that no further misconduct of any nature will be tolerated, and that dismissal will follow should any further breach occur.
Contrary to this, one commissioner held that a blanket final written warning is too broad. In National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa obo members / Kirk Marketing (Pty) Ltd [2017] 6 BALR 672 (CCMA), the applicants were instructed to complete evaluation forms. They refused to do so and were issued with final written warnings. When they refused a second time, the employer proceeded with formal disciplinary steps and issued a blanket warning which had the effect that the applicants could be dismissed for committing any offense. This, the commissioner held, is contrary to the question of fairness and progressive discipline and ordered the respondent to delete the word “blanket” in the second final written warning. The second final written warning ought to be directed and applied in respect of the offences for which they were issued – the offences of not complying with a reasonable instruction as well as insubordination and not to other offences.
The commissioner noted that it was recorded in the disciplinary code that the sanction for a second offence (of not complying with a reasonable instruction) would be met with a dismissal. Also, many other chairs would have dismissed the applicants and their dismissals would have been regarded as fair. In the light hereof, it is perplexing that a blanket warning would be regarded as too broad. As far as the commissioner’s view that a blanket warning “is contrary to the question of fairness and progressive discipline and that the second final written warning ought to be directed and applied in respect of the offences that they were issued for”, one could argue that it would be difficult to explain the concept of “progressive” discipline if exactly the same warning is to be issued when an employee commits (exactly) the same offence a second time. Since the concept of progressive discipline entails a process of using increasingly severe steps to correct an employee’s behaviour, the ensuing sanction should be more severe than the previous warning.
When employers do resort to a comprehensive, consolidated or general final written warning, it is suggested that:
The comprehensive, consolidated or general final written warning is issued as an alternative to dismissal.
The comprehensive, consolidated or general final written warning is issued where an employee is found to have a propensity to commit offences at convenient intervals falling outside the period of applicability of the written warnings. The following serves as an example: an employee commits an offence for which the disciplinary codes prescribe a first written warning for the first offence, a final written warning for the second offence and dismissal for the third offence. The employee is issued with a first written warning. After the warning has lapsed, the employee commits the same offence and receives yet another first written warning. This happens a third time. It is suggested that an employer may issue a comprehensive, consolidated or general final written warning at the point where the employee could have been dismissed, had it not been for the fact that the previous warnings had lapsed.
An employee who is subject to a consolidated final written warning may be dismissed thereafter only if they commit a breach which cannot be said to be trivial. The commissioner in Witcher indicated that the breach which brings about their dismissal must be a breach for which a written warning would be an appropriate sanction.
The concept of a comprehensive, consolidated or general final written warning must be explained to an employee. The employee must clearly understand that any future transgression will result in dismissal.
For more information contact Nicolene Erasmus at or
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Bill H.3852 188th (2013 - 2014)
An Act authorizing the reinstatement of Richard L. Cross as a reserve police officer in the town of Southwick
By Representative Boldyga of Southwick and Senator Humason, a joint petition (accompanied by bill, House, No. 3852) of Nicholas A. Boldyga and Donald F. Humason, Jr., (by vote of the town) that the town of Southwick be authorized to reinstate Richard L. Cross as a reserve police officer in said town. Public Service. [Local Approval Received.]
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Nicholas A. Boldyga , Donald F. Humason, Jr.
Southwick (Local Approved)
Petitioners
Displaying 15 actions for Bill H.3852
1/16/2014 House Referred to the committee on Public Service
1/21/2014 Senate Senate concurred
2/21/2014 Joint Hearing scheduled for 02/24/2014 from 01:00 PM-03:00 PM in A-1
4/7/2014 House Bill reported favorably by committee and referred to the committee on House Steering, Policy and Scheduling
4/24/2014 House Committee reported that the matter be placed in the Orders of the Day for the next sitting
4/24/2014 House Rules suspended
4/24/2014 House Read second and ordered to a third reading
5/22/2014 House Read third and passed to be engrossed
5/27/2014 Senate Read; and placed in the Orders of the Day for the next session
6/12/2014 Senate Read second and ordered to a third reading
7/23/2014 Senate Taken out of the Orders of the Day
7/23/2014 Senate Read third and passed to be engrossed
7/24/2014 House Enacted
7/24/2014 Senate Enacted and laid before the Governor
7/31/2014 Executive Signed by the Governor, Chapter 200 of the Acts of 2014
Similar Bills
H.3853 188th (2013 - 2014)
An Act authorizing the reinstatement of Kenneth G. Laxton as a reserve police officer in the town of Southwick
S.2189 189th (2015 - 2016)
An Act authorizing the town of Southwick to continue the employment of police chief David A. Ricardi
An Act designating a section of state highway route 10 and United States highway route 202 in the town of Southwick as the Purple Heart Trail
The information contained in this website is for general information purposes only. The General Court provides this information as a public service and while we endeavor to keep the data accurate and current to the best of our ability, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information contained on the website for any purpose. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk.
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Chris Selley: With Jihadi Jack, Britain gives Canada a taste of its own medicine
Good column by Selley. Nails country responsibility:
On Sunday we learned that Jack Letts, known in the British press as Jihadi Jack, is no longer a British subject. Then-home secretary Sajid Javid and then-prime minister Theresa May reportedly approved stripping the alleged ISIL fighter of his citizenship as one of their administration’s final acts and it seems they didn’t even send a telegram. Instead Letts was informed by an ITV News crew interviewing him at the Kurdish prison where he has been held for two-and-a-half years. Now, some fear, he will eventually wind up in Canada: He holds citizenship through his parents.
“Justin Trudeau must assure Canadians today that he isn’t trying to bring Jihadi Jack back to Canada,” Conservative public safety critic Pierre Paul-Hus said in a statement, calling it “naïve and dangerous” to think “anyone who signed up to fight with ISIS can be reformed.”
Paul-Hus does not exaggerate Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s remarkable rhetorical commitment to rehabilitating ISIL fighters. “Someone who has engaged and turned away from that hateful ideology can be an extraordinarily powerful voice for preventing radicalization in future generations and younger people within the community,” he told CTV’s Lisa LaFlamme in 2017. The Liberals didn’t just revoke the Conservative law allowing dual-citizen terrorists and traitors to be stripped of their citizenship; they made a big, principled show of it. “A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,” Trudeau would gravely intone, explicitly asking audience members to put themselves on the same level as Zakaria Amara, the Toronto 18 ringleader who lost his citizenship under the Conservatives and got it back under the Liberals.
The talking point is altogether ridiculous — Canadian citizenship is stratified according to criteria as basic as whether it can be passed on to foreign-born children — but like it or not, it was a brave stance.
The Liberals seemed less proud of Canadian consular officials making contact with Letts, refusing to comment when CBC got hold of audio tapes and transcripts of their meetings last year. Perhaps that’s because Letts said he would be happy to relocate to a Canadian prison if it would get him out of his current accommodations. Since then, Foreign Affairs seems to have lost interest in his situation entirely. Now, weeks out from an election, the Conservatives have been served a soft-on-terror talking point on a silver platter.
This case hardly illustrates the wisdom of the Conservative and British approaches
To their credit, neither Paul-Hus nor party leader Andrew Scheer has suggested this is a legislative problem. “(Letts is) in prison now and that’s where he should stay. I won’t lift a finger to bring him back to Canada,” Scheer said in a statement on Monday. Perhaps surprisingly, Paul-Hus wouldn’t even confirm to the National Post that a Conservative government would reintroduce the citizenship revocation provision.
Conservative partisans have been more than happy to draw the link, however.
“Under Stephen Harper, dual nationals could be stripped of their Canadian citizenship if they were convicted of terrorist offences. Justin Trudeau changed that law,” the pro-Conservative advocacy group Canada Proud tweeted. “So now, Canada is stuck with this ISIS terrorist.”
Letts hasn’t been convicted of anything, but he could theoretically have lost his citizenship under a different section of the law allowing the minister to seek revocation if he “has reasonable grounds to believe that a person … served as a member of an armed force of a country or as a member of an organized armed group and that country or group was engaged in an armed conflict with Canada.”
This case hardly illustrates the wisdom of the Conservative and British approaches, however. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale quite rightly accused the Brits of attempting to “off-load their responsibilities” — Letts was born, raised, educated and lost the plot on British soil. Canada would be no better off at this point with the Conservative-era law in place: It only applied to dual citizens, and Letts is no longer one of those. From a hawk’s perspective, the best-case alternative scenario would be that we had denationalized Letts first, leaving Britain holding the bag. This would arguably be fairer, but surely a never-ending game of terrorist tag with our foreign allies — You’re it! No givebacks! — is a pretty lousy excuse for a national security strategy.
As annoyed as Canadians are right now with the prospect of helping or even housing this cretin, that’s precisely as annoyed as the Conservative legislation was sure to make other countries. That those countries might more often be Jordan or Egypt or Saudi Arabia than the United Kingdom does not redeem the exercise — rather, it raises the question of why we would want any more terrorists running around those countries instead of under close watch here at home. I happen to agree with Trudeau that dealing with our own trash is the right moral and ethical thing to do. But morals and ethics aside, purely as a practical matter, it strikes me as the only sensible approach.
Source: Chris Selley: With Jihadi Jack, Britain gives Canada a taste of its own medicine
And it appears that the Conservatives have no plans to re-introduce citizenship revocation should they win the election:
Mr. Letts’s case has refuelled a debate in Canada over dual citizens convicted of terrorism.
Former prime minister Stephen Harper passed a law in 2014 that gave Canada the power to revoke the citizenship of dual nationals who had been convicted of terrorism, treason or espionage. The Trudeau government reversed the law in 2017 after campaigning on the slogan “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.”
Despite Mr. Scheer’s opposition to repatriating Canadian foreign fighters, his office said the Conservatives “would not re-introduce grounds for the revocation of Canadian citizenship that relate to national security.” The Conservatives did not explain why Mr. Scheer would not reinstate the law.
Legal experts say the former law, if re-introduced, would likely lead to a legal challenge on the grounds that it would create a two-tier citizenship system.
Audrey Macklin, a law professor and chair in human-rights law at the University of Toronto, said these kinds of citizenship revocation laws encourage an “arbitrary race to see who could strip citizenship of dual nationals first.”
“It’s hard not to recall that Canada had such a law inspired by the U.K. itself but now it finds itself on the receiving end of another state’s practice. It just reminds us that this is a parochial, unhelpful, kind of grubby response,” Prof. Macklin said.
Source: Politics Trudeau refuses to say if ‘Jihadi Jack’ is welcome in Canada
Filed under Citizenship, Revocation Tagged with Audrey Macklin, C-24, Chris Selley, Conservatives, Jack Letts
Maryam Monsef case highlights ‘absurdity’ of Canadian law, refugee lawyers say
The Minister did commit during parliamentary committee hearings last spring to address the lack of due process for citizenship revocation in cases of fraud or misrepresentation. This court challenge likely reflects frustration that no action has been taken to date:
Maryam Monsef could be stripped of her citizenship without a hearing under a law the Liberals denounced while in opposition but which they’ve been enforcing aggressively since taking power, civil liberties and refugee lawyers say.
The democratic institutions minister revealed last week that she was born in Iran, not Afghanistan as she’d long believed. She said her mother, who fled Afghanistan with her daughters when Monsef was 11, didn’t think it mattered where the minister was born since she was still legally considered an Afghan citizen.
Monsef has said she will have to correct her birthplace information on her passport.
If Monsef’s birthplace was misrepresented on her citizenship application as well, that would be grounds for revocation of citizenship, regardless of whether it was an innocent mistake or the fault of her mother, said immigration lawyer Lorne Waldman.
Misrepresentation could lead to deportation
And if the misrepresentation was on her permanent residence and refugee applications, she could even be deported, said Waldman, part of a group that launched a constitutional challenge of the law Monday.
The Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association argue that the law, known as Bill C-24, is procedurally unfair and a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Josh Paterson, the BCCLA’s executive director, said Monsef’s case demonstrates the absurdity of the law, which was passed by the previous Conservative government.
“The minister’s situation … is exactly the kind of situation that many other Canadians are facing right now because of this unjust process,” Paterson told a news conference.
“When we get a parking ticket, we have a right to a court hearing … You leave your garbage in the wrong place and you get a ticket, you have the right to a hearing and yet for citizens to lose their entitlement to membership in Canada based on allegations of something they may or may not have said 20 years ago, they have no hearing? It just doesn’t make any sense.”
Law to be enforced
When he was in opposition, John McCallum denounced the law as “dictatorial” and since becoming immigration minister, he’s promised to amend it to create an appeal process, Paterson said.
Nevertheless, repeated requests that the government stop enforcing the law until it can be changed have been ignored. As recently as two weeks ago, Paterson said Justice Department lawyers informed his group that the law would continue to be enforced.
Source: Maryam Monsef case highlights ‘absurdity’ of Canadian law, refugee lawyers say – Politics – CBC News
Filed under Citizenship, Revocation Tagged with BCCLA, C-24, CARL, Josh Paterson, Lorne Waldman, Maryam Monsef
Conservatives openly criticize party’s election performance, C-24 Citizenship
Interesting, Deepak Obhrai’s comment on C-24:
As the week wore on, more Conservatives opened up, with those in Calgary – Mr. Harper’s hometown – in a particularly candid mood.
Calgary Forest Lawn MP Deepak Obhrai, who most recently served as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, talked to media of how he had never liked Bill C-24, a key part of the Harper Conservatives’ legislative agenda that was controversial in the election campaign. Bill C-24, now law, allows Ottawa to revoke the Canadian citizenship of dual citizens convicted of serious crimes such as terrorism.
“I was not comfortable with the whole idea,” Mr. Obhrai said in an interview. He said he does not think the government should have the power to take away citizenship, adding that, in his job, he had “travelled around the world and seen this abuse take place.” He said he never hid his feelings on the bill. “The Prime Minister was aware of the fact I was not very happy about this.”
The legislation unnerved members of the immigrant community, and the Tories encountered concern while door-knocking. Mr. Obhrai said he thinks it hurt his party.
He called Mr. Harper a “visionary leader,” but added that, with a new chief, the Tories need to present “a different, softer image.”
“Somewhere in the middle of the campaign, we became out of touch with Canadians.”
Source: Conservatives openly criticize party’s election performance – The Globe and Mail
For the record, he raised this concern in Parliament on 28 May 2014:
Mr. Speaker, one of the strongest human rights principles is to create all Canadian citizens equal, no matter what. That is the fundamental human rights situation. That is what I am concerned about in this bill, and I would like clarification on from my friend, the minister of citizenship. I agree very much with all of the other aspects that the minister has mentioned. I strongly support this bill except on this one condition, which is the fundamental right for a Canadian to be treated as a Canadian, no matter what.
When a Canadian citizen’s citizenship is revoked, unless that citizenship was obtained fraudulently—and I can agree with revoking it for that reason—we are treating one Canadian differently from another Canadian, and in my opinion that is against a fundamental human rights provision. That is the area of my concern in relation to this bill.
I would like the minister to speak about how he would address this issue of this fundamental human rights principle that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. We do not talk about dual nationality. If a person has obtained a Canadian citizenship, it is then his legitimate right to be treated as a Canadian citizen. That is what I am asking my dear colleague.
https://openparliament.ca/debates/2014/5/28/deepak-obhrai-2/
Filed under Citizenship Tagged with C-24, Deepak Obhrai
Tories move to strip citizenship from Canadian-born terrorist
So what this means, is that someone born in Canada, whose radicalization happened in this country, can have their citizenship revoked (pending the court challenge).
The Harper government is attempting to revoke the citizenship of a convicted terrorist who was born and raised in Canada, Maclean’s has learned—a first under a controversial new law that has triggered intense debate during the election campaign.
Saad Gaya, 27, is believed to be the only Canadian-born citizen (terrorist or not) to ever face the prospect of being stripped of his citizenship. Until now, there was no legal mechanism to undo what has long been considered an irreversible birthright.
A member of the so-called “Toronto 18,” Gaya pleaded guilty to his role in an al-Qaeda-inspired bomb plot and was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Although he was born in Montreal and grew up in Oakville, Ont., the Tories say recently enacted legislation provides the power to rescind Gaya’s citizenship because they believe he is a dual national of Pakistan—by virtue of the fact his parents, who immigrated to Ontario more than three decades ago, were born there.
Gaya, who has never lived in Pakistan, has launched a Charter challenge in Federal Court, arguing that the government’s revocation system amounts to “cruel and unusual punishment” and could have “a sufficiently severe psychological and social impact.”
“For many individuals captured by the new revocation provisions and who would now face deportation, including the Applicant, their other nationality derives from a country with which they have no meaningful connection, have little or no familiarity with the language or culture, and have no family or other support network,” reads Gaya’s court filing, submitted Sept. 18. “The Applicant was born and grew up in Canada. His family is in Canada and has been since before he was born.”
That Saad Gaya was a terrorist is not in dispute. A former honours student at Hamilton’s McMaster University, he confessed to participating in a 2006 conspiracy to detonate bombs in southern Ontario in retaliation for Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan. Although a judge concluded he was not the plot’s driving force, he was a loyal, willing underling who followed every order; the day he was arrested (June 2, 2006), police videotaped him at a north Toronto warehouse unloading what he believed to be a truckload of explosive fertilizer.
Gaya himself described his criminal behaviour as “shameful,” “politically naïve,” and “irrational.”
Yet despite his undeniable guilt, the Tories’ push to revoke Gaya’s citizenship presents an uncomfortable (and potentially unconstitutional) possibility: that a person born in Canada could lose his Canadian status and be deported to a country he’s never known—all because his parents were born there and, by extension, passed their dual nationality onto him.
Source: EXCLUSIVE: Tories move to strip citizenship from Canadian-born terrorist
And in giving credence to the slippery slope argument, and reinforcing the wedge politics, the PM suggests expanding this to other crimes:
A re-elected Conservative government might look to strip dual citizens of their Canadian citizenship if they commit other heinous crimes, Stephen Harper said in a radio interview Wednesday.
Harper was on The Andrew Lawton Show to talk about Bill C-24, a new law the Tories passed this spring that strips dual citizens convicted of terrorism of their Canadian citizenship.
Lawton asked Harper if he might strip other dual citizens in the future if convicted of other crimes, giving by way of example a serial killer, a rapist or someone who did something to children.
“Well, you know, obviously we can look at options into the future,” Harper responded.
“The reason we did this expansion… to terrorists and treason offences really is consistent with the way the law has always worked. You know we’ve been able to revoke citizenship, for example, for war criminals. So it is really been in cases where the person’s criminal acts are not just vile, but they actually demonstrate that the person has no loyalty of any kind to the country or its values.”
Harper said he couldn’t understand why Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair believe C-24 demeans Canadian citizenship.
“I think most Canadians, whether they are immigrants or other Canadians, understand that what demeans Canadian citizenship would be to allow war criminals and convicted terrorists and people who are actually out to destroy and defame our country to keep their citizenship,” Harper said. “They have a position that is frankly indefensible to virtually all Canadians.”
Bill C-24: Harper Says Tories May Consider Stripping Other Criminals Of Citizenship
Filed under Citizenship, Revocation Tagged with C-24, Saad Gaya
Banishment is a poor tool in fight against terrorism: Roach and Forcese
Apart from the principled concern regarding revocation (two classes of citizenship), Roach and Forcese outline practical concerns:
Given all this, how should we evaluate revocation as anti-terrorism? Cancelling the citizenship of convicted terrorists may be politically popular because it appeals to our fear and anger at terrorists. However, there are both principled and practical concerns about revocation as an anti-terror tool.
The principled issue can be summarized simply: Whether a government can take away citizenship (for something other than fraud in acquiring it) is a totally novel constitutional issue. The question has never arisen, because revocation of this sort has never existed since the Charter came into existence. But if Canadian courts follow the path of their U.S. counterparts, they will guard sternly against revocations.
Add to that the discriminatory nature of the citizenship-stripping law – confined to dual nationals – and the due process minimalism that afflicts the system and you have the makings for a serious constitutional dust-up.
But focus also on the practical issues. In the best-case scenario, the government actually banishes a truly dangerous individual, but only by displacing risk to a foreign country, even assuming that foreign state co-operates in their removal.
In the worst case, the government tries to remove the individual to the tender embraces of a torturing state. Under international law, no one can be removed to face torture and maltreatment. And whatever it might have said in earlier cases, the Supreme Court would have to ignore a lot of its recent Charter pronouncements to permit deportations to torture.
And so, since the men the government wishes to banish would be removed to countries with poor records on torture, we should expect citizenship revocation proceedings to spill over to endless disputes over deportation.
The last time we tried this – with “security certificates” – the government was budgeting more than $5-million a year, a person, by 2009 in its decade-long effort (so far 100-per-cent unsuccessful) to use a procedurally doubtful process to remove people to maltreatment.
To put that in context: The entire national annual budget for the RCMP’s much-delayed front-line “terrorism prevention program” has been $1.1-million (slated to rise to a very modest $3.1-million under the 2015 budget).
There is every reason to believe, therefore, that Canada is now repeating its prioritization of expensive, noisy, controversial, often-fruitless efforts to chase problems out of the country, rather than focus on fixing them before they become problems.
Moreover, despite intelligence warnings about prison radicalization, Canada has no developed policy countering prison radicalization.
Inattention to what experts call terrorist “disengagement” is a mistake. If the Islamic State’s call to violence resonates among the disaffected, there should be more prosecutions and convictions. Some convicts, such as the VIA train plotters, will be sentenced to life imprisonment, but others will not. They will eventually be released. It is in all our interests to attempt to rehabilitate them.
Citizenship-stripping of those terrorists who have dual nationality reduces pressure to take this matter seriously by fostering the illusion that we can simply prosecute and deport our way out of the problem of IS-inspired terrorism.
Source: Banishment is a poor tool in fight against terrorism – The Globe and Mail
Filed under Citizenship, Revocation Tagged with C-24, Craig Forcese, Kent Roach
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Timberwolves PG Teague sidelined by sprained knee
Minnesota Timberwolves' Jeff Teague, right, lays up as Denver Nuggets' Will Barton defends in the first half of an NBA basketball game Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2017, in Minneapolis.Jim Mone / AP
PMN Basketball
MILWAUKEE — Minnesota Timberwolves point guard Jeff Teague is day to day with a left knee injury.
Teague’s Grade 1 MCL sprain was welcome news for Minnesota, which feared he had a more serious issue. Teague had an MRI at Mayo Clinic on Thursday.
“It’s about as good as you can hope for,” coach Tom Thibodeau said. “No structural damage. He didn’t have much swelling. He was walking around today.”
Thibodeau said Teague had the same issue earlier in his career.
“The fact that he had this injury once before when he was a rookie, so I think he understands what he has to go through,” he said.
The 29-year-old Teague was ruled out for Minnesota’s game at Milwaukee.
Teague limped off the court in the final minute of the fourth quarter of the team’s overtime victory over Denver on Wednesday night. Teague had 11 points and 10 assists in the win.
Teague is averaging 13.4 points, 7.3 assists and a career-high 34.2 minutes per game in his first season with the Timberwolves. He missed four games last month because of an Achilles injury.
For more AP NBA coverage: https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball
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Errata, Author Corrections
About MMBR
The TetR Family of Transcriptional Repressors
Juan L. Ramos, Manuel Martínez-Bueno, Antonio J. Molina-Henares, Wilson Terán, Kazuya Watanabe, Xiaodong Zhang, María Trinidad Gallegos, Richard Brennan, Raquel Tobes
Juan L. Ramos
Department of Plant Biochemistry and Molecular and Cellular Biology, Estación Experimental del Zaidín, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, E-18008 Granada, Spain
For correspondence: jlramos@eez.csic.es
Manuel Martínez-Bueno
Antonio J. Molina-Henares
Wilson Terán
Kazuya Watanabe
Laboratory of Applied Microbiology, Marine Biotechnology Institute 3-75-1 Heita, Kamaishi, Iwate 026-0001, Japan
Xiaodong Zhang
Department of Biological Sciences, Imperial College London, Flowers Building, Armstrong Road, South Kensington, London, SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
María Trinidad Gallegos
Richard Brennan
Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Oregon Health Sciences University, 3181 SW Sam Jackson Park Road, Portland, Oregon 97239-3098
Raquel Tobes
DOI: 10.1128/MMBR.69.2.326-356.2005
We have developed a general profile for the proteins of the TetR family of repressors. The stretch that best defines the profile of this family is made up of 47 amino acid residues that correspond to the helix-turn-helix DNA binding motif and adjacent regions in the three-dimensional structures of TetR, QacR, CprB, and EthR, four family members for which the function and three-dimensional structure are known. We have detected a set of 2,353 nonredundant proteins belonging to this family by screening genome and protein databases with the TetR profile. Proteins of the TetR family have been found in 115 genera of gram-positive, α-, β-, and γ-proteobacteria, cyanobacteria, and archaea. The set of genes they regulate is known for 85 out of the 2,353 members of the family. These proteins are involved in the transcriptional control of multidrug efflux pumps, pathways for the biosynthesis of antibiotics, response to osmotic stress and toxic chemicals, control of catabolic pathways, differentiation processes, and pathogenicity. The regulatory network in which the family member is involved can be simple, as in TetR (i.e., TetR bound to the target operator represses tetA transcription and is released in the presence of tetracycline), or more complex, involving a series of regulatory cascades in which either the expression of the TetR family member is modulated by another regulator or the TetR family member triggers a cell response to react to environmental insults. Based on what has been learned from the cocrystals of TetR and QacR with their target operators and from their three-dimensional structures in the absence and in the presence of ligands, and based on multialignment analyses of the conserved stretch of 47 amino acids in the 2,353 TetR family members, two groups of residues have been identified. One group includes highly conserved positions involved in the proper orientation of the helix-turn-helix motif and hence seems to play a structural role. The other set of less conserved residues are involved in establishing contacts with the phosphate backbone and target bases in the operator. Information related to the TetR family of regulators has been updated in a database that can be accessed at www.bactregulators.org.
Bacteria in the environment are exposed to variations in temperature and nutrient and water availability and the presence of toxic molecules that originate from their abiotic and biotic surroundings (including deleterious molecules that originate from their own metabolism). These changes can make their living conditions far from optimal. Survival in this unstable environment requires a wide range of rapid, adaptive responses which are triggered by regulatory proteins. These regulators respond to specific environmental and cellular signals that modulate transcription, translation, or some other event in gene expression, so that the physiological responses are modified appropriately (32, 52, 64, 104, 107, 145, 244, 311, 312, 326, 330, 379, 397, 409, 427).
In most cases, the adaptive responses are mediated by transcriptional regulators. Most microbial regulators involved in transcriptional control are two-domain proteins with a signal-receiving domain and a DNA-binding domain which transduces the signal (1, 18, 145, 152, 170, 207, 271, 292-294, 298, 303, 345, 369, 428, 431) (Table 1). In other cases, the sensing of signals that trigger a transcriptional process involves two proteins, as in two-component regulatory systems such as CzcR/CzcS; DcuS/DcuR; NifL/NifA; NtrB/NtrC; PhoP/PhoQ; and TodS/TodT (75, 139, 200, 206, 233, 234, 257, 307, 309, 316, 409, 423). One protein is usually a membrane-linked kinase that, upon sensing the appropriate signal, phosphorylates a DNA-binding protein that mediates transcription from its cognate promoter. Structural analyses have revealed that the helix-turn-helix (HTH) signature is the most recurrent DNA-binding motif in prokaryotic transcriptional factors, since almost 95% of all transcriptional factors described in prokaryotes use the HTH motif to bind their target DNA sequences (12, 19, 27, 41, 43, 104, 135, 136, 302, 335, 343).
Prokaryotic regulator families
Prokaryotic transcriptional regulators are classified in families on the basis of sequence similarity and structural and functional criteria (49, 84, 106, 108, 120, 121, 138, 145, 146, 237, 274, 308, 313, 324, 342, 370, 377). Table 1 lists the most important families of microbial transcriptional regulators, the type of DNA binding motifs they exhibit, whether the members of the family are preferentially repressors or activators, and whether they show a dual action.
This review focuses on the TetR family, a family of transcriptional regulators that is well represented and widely distributed among bacteria with an HTH DNA-binding motif (210, 211, 246, 288).
Members of the TetR family of repressors are identified by a profile (see below) which can be easily used to recognize TetR family members in SWISS-PROT and TrEMBL and in all available proteins from prokaryotic genome sequences. After compiling data from protein and nucleic acid databases, the TetR family of regulators was found to include 2,353 nonredundant sequences (as of December 2004). The specific function regulated by members of the TetR family is known for only about 85 members (Table 2). These proteins control genes whose products are involved in multidrug resistance, enzymes implicated in different catabolic pathways, biosynthesis of antibiotics, osmotic stress, and pathogenicity of gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria (Table 2). The most relevant information on these proteins is collected in a database available at http://www.bactregulators.org (235). The database also supplies information for each member of the family, including identifiers, names, sequences, source, function, COG (clusters orthologous groups), position and orientation of the corresponding gene in the genome, and, when available, three-dimensional structures.
Specific functions regulated by members of the TetR family of repressors
DEFINING THE TetR FAMILY
TetR Family ProfileThe TetR family is named after the member of this group that has been most completely characterized genetically and biochemically, the TetR protein (141, 148, 150, 168, 288, 395). This protein controls the expression of the tet genes, whose products confer resistance to tetracycline (150, 183, 209, 210, 337, 434, 435). Members of the TetR family exhibit a high degree of sequence similarity at the DNA binding domain (see below). Interpro (258) assigns proteins to the TetR family based on PROSITE signature PS01081 (364), PRINTS motif PR00455 (15, 16), and Pfam Hidden Markov Model (HMM) profile PF00440 (26, 27). To establish a single criterion defining the TetR family, we decided to develop a conventional profile, because conventional profiles are easy to manage and their sensitivity is equivalent to that of HMM profiles.
To develop the TetR family profile, we first selected a set of 120 sequences as belonging to the TetR family based on two criteria: a positive score for PROSITE signature PS01081, and a high score for PF00440 HMM. The 120 sequences were clustered into 42 groups using BLAST, and a representative sequence was selected and aligned for each cluster using CLUSTAL (http://clustalw.genome.ad.jp/). This revealed that the most conserved region corresponded to the HTH domain described in the TetR and QacR crystals (120, 150, 287, 288, 289, 349, 350, 351). The initial HTH motif was progressively extended until the global score of the multialignment diminished. Figure 1 shows the final alignment of the sequences. This conserved stretch corresponded in TetR and QacR crystals to the almost complete α-helix 1, the HTH domain formed by α-helices 2 and 3, and five residues of α-helix 4 that connect the DNA-interacting region with the core of the protein (see Fig. 2 for the three-dimensional structure of TetR).
Alignment of 42 members of the TetR family that exemplify the TetR family profile. The blue column indicates α-helix residues involved in DNA contacts in the crystal structure of TetR and QacR. The yellow column indicates turns. The most conserved residues are shaded. Abbreviations are as follows: BACME, Bacillus megaterium; BACSU, Bacillus subtilis; ECOLI, Escherichia coli; HAEIN, Haemophilus influenzae; LACLA, Lactobacillus lactis; MYCTU, Mycobacterium tuberculosis; RHIME, Rhizobium meliloti; STRGA, Streptomyces sp.; VIBHA, Vibrio haemophilus; XANAU, Xanthomonas sp.
Ribbon diagram of a TetR homodimer. Monomers are shown in blue or red. Two tetracycline molecules, each bound to a monomer, are shown in grey. α-Helices 2 and 3 in the blue monomer and α2′ and α3′ in the red monomer constitute the shared HTH DNA binding domain. α-Helix 1 and part of helix α-4, together with α-helices 2 and 3, comprise the sequence that best defines the TetR family profile. (Adapted from Hinrichs et al. [150] with permission of the publisher.)
The final alignment shown in Fig. 1 was used as a seed for the construction of a conventional profile to detect TetR family members. The TetR profile was built using the pfmake program available at the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (http://npsa-pbil.ibcp.fr/cgi-bin/npsa__automat.pl?page=/NPSA/npsa__pfmake.html) (45, 46). The TetR profile was confronted against the 660,992 bacterial and archaeal proteins in the SWISS-PROT and TrEMBL databases (released December 2004) using the pfsearch program available at http://bioweb.pasteur.fr/seqanal/interfaces/pftools.html#pfsearch (46). The program, which proposes a tentative threshold Z-score of 8.5 to consider a protein a member of the TetR family, selected 2,357 proteins as putative members of the TetR family.
To verify the quality of this TetR profile for specificity (false positives) and sensitivity (false negatives), we implemented a new tool called Provalidator which uses Interpro, Swiss-Prot, Prodom, TIGRfam, CoGnitor, NCBI-RPS-BLAST, and PSI-BLAST resources (68, 128, 154, 323, 348, 387, 449). In the first step, we searched for false positives among the 2,353 proteins we assigned to the TetR family. Interpro assigned 2,315 proteins to the TetR family, and these 2,315 were considered true positives. The remaining 38 proteins were analyzed with other resources such as TIGRfam, Prodom, NCBI-RPS-BLAST and PSI-BLAST (128, 449). This allowed us to assign 34 proteins to the TetR family. Three of the false positives (Q89RN6, Q988I6, and Q6N8G8) that we found were protein members of the AraC/XylS family of transcription activators (109, 394). These proteins have two HTH motifs at the C-terminal end, typical of AraC/XylS family members (109, 229). These three proteins were identified as potential TetR members because one of its HTH is highly similar to the DNA-binding domain in TetR. The fourth false positive is a transposase (Q981E7).
Provalidator detected 15 false negatives (Q742Y2, Q8CJK3, Q73ZY1, Q6D1J7, Q8KU64, Q9A917, Q880T2, Q6D2Z4, Q885G7, Q8PC90, Q9A466, Q9S6C0, Q9ZH26, Q6A626, and Q8G822), which are proteins assigned to the TetR family by INTERPRO but whose Z-score was between 6.407 and 8.487. In summary, the TetR profile with a Z-score threshold of 8.5 identified proteins that were not detected by INTERPRO, and among the 660,992 proteins analyzed, only four false positives were found. These results indicate that the new algorithm is highly effective for the detection of members of the TetR family.
Identification of TetR Family Members in DNA and Protein DatabasesUsing the profile defined above for the TetR family, we searched for members of this family in the Swiss-Prot and TrEMBL databases and also searched the 196 complete and incomplete microbial genomes available in NCBI (Release December 2004). We detected 73 TetR proteins in Swiss-Prot, 2,277 in TrEMBL, and 2,410 in the translated open reading frame corresponding to 196 microbial genomes. To select nonredundant sequences the set of 4,758 TetR proteins was analyzed using the SEQUNIQ program developed in our laboratory (Molina-Henares et al., unpublished results). This program integrates the set of sequences available in nucleic acid and protein databases. We found 2,353 sequences in the TetR family that surpassed the threshold Z-score of 8.5. The HTH in 2,348 members of the family was located at the N-terminal end of the proteins.
Table 3 shows that members of the TetR family were detected in 144 microbial genomes belonging to 80 genera and 113 species of gram-positive and α-, β-, and γ-proteobacteria, cyanobacteria, and archaea, indicating wide taxonomic distribution. We have found that proteins of the TetR family are encoded both in chromosomes and in plasmids, and the mobility of the latter elements could be a source of the spread of genes in this family via horizontal transfer (147, 383), as is also the case with catabolic genes (77, 160, 236, 410, 426), antimicrobial resistance determinants (20, 100, 124), and 16S rRNA genes (347).
Distribution of TetR proteins in microbes
We found that TetR family members are particularly abundant in microbes exposed to environmental changes, such as soil microorganisms (i.e., Nocardia, Streptomyces, Bradyrhizobium, Mesorhizobium, Pseudomonas, Bacillus, and Ralstonia spp.); plant and animal pathogens (i.e., Agrobacterium, Brucella, Escherichia coli, Bordetella, Mycobacterium, and Salmonella spp.), extremophiles (i.e., Deinococcus), and methanogenic bacteria such as Methanosarcina acetivorans. In contrast, TetR family members do not appear in intracellular pathogens such as chlamydias, mycoplasmas, and endosymbionts such as Buchera, in agreement with their life style in nonchanging environments (52). However, it should be noted that Dugan et al. (80) recently found that Chlamydia suis can acquire tetracycline resistance via horizontal gene transfer of genomic islands bearing the tet genes.
As a general collorarium, we can say that it seems that proteins of the TetR family are involved in the adaptation to complex and changing environments. This in turn correlates with the fact that many members of the TetR family are found among microbes with abundant extracytoplasmic function sigma factors (52, 227, 236, 277, 444).
PROTEINS WITH KNOWN THREE-DIMENSIONAL STRUCTURES
The high degree of primary sequence identity in the stretch that defines the HTH region of the TetR profile probably reflects a common three-dimensional structure in this domain in members of the family. This is supported by the almost identical three-dimensional structure of the HTH of TetR, QacR, CprB, and EthR, as deduced from the superimposition of these regions, and the high degree of sequence conservation in the alignment (79, 264, 349). As in other families of transcriptional regulators, no sequence conservation was found outside the HTH domain, which probably reflects differences in the kind of signal sensed by different regulators of the family, i.e., antibiotics with dissimilar structures, barbiturates, homoserine lactones, organic solvents, and choline (see Table 2). Nonetheless, some striking global structural conservation in the three-dimensional structure was found.
In addition, given that all members of the family whose function is known are repressors, they probably function in a similar way. Binding of an inducer molecule to the nonconserved domain of a TetR family member probably causes conformational changes in the conserved DNA-binding region that result in release of the repressor from the operator and thus allow transcription from the cognate promoter. To gain insights into the mechanisms of action of the TetR family members, we analyzed in detail the three-dimensional structure of the four members of the family, TetR, QacR, CprB, and EthR, whose crystal structures have been obtained (150, 264, 286-289, 349-351), in order to identify common and differential features of the TetR family members.
TetR Regulator
Tetracycline resistance and the role of the transcriptional regulator TetR.Tetracyclines are among the most commonly used broad-spectrum antibiotics (209, 210). They act by binding to the small ribosomal subunit, thereby interrupting polypeptide chain elongation by an unknown mechanism. Many gram-negative bacteria have developed mechanisms of resistance against this antibiotic. The most frequent mechanism involves a membrane-associated protein (TetA) that exports the antibiotic out of the bacterial cell before it inhibits polypeptide elongation (169, 211, 389, 434, 435, 453).
Adjacent to tetA and divergently oriented is tetR (112), whose gene product tightly controls expression of both tetA and tetR (148, 150). The intergenic region between the tetR and tetA genes contains two identical operators separated by 11 bp. TetR binds to these operators and thus prevents transcription from both promoters (Fig. 3) and (288). In all TetR crystal structures elucidated to date (PDB identifiers: 2TCT; 2TRT; 1A6I; 1BJO; 1BJY; 1BJZ; 1ORK; and 1RP1), this repressor appears as a homodimer (29, 30, 159, 183, 287-289, 366). The TetR homodimer binds to the operator (Fig. 3). Each 15-bp operator shows an internal palindromic symmetry with an extra central base pair (Fig. 3A). The operator sequences overlap with promoters for tetA and tetR, thereby blocking the expression of both genes. When tetracycline complexed with Mg2+ binds to TetR (166, 384), a conformational change takes place that renders the TetR protein unable to bind DNA. As a consequence, TetR and TetA are expressed (286).
Binding of TetR to its operator site. A) tetR operator and contact regions. The tetR operator is a palindromic sequence. Horizontal bars show nucleotides contacted by each monomer of the TetR dimer. B) Interaction of TetR residues with specific nucleotides (arrows) and phosphate backbone (blue lines) in the operator region. The amino acids involved in DNA binding extend from residues 27 to 48. Contacts established with the operator were confirmed by footprint assays, by analysis of TetR mutants, and by crystallographic studies (29, 30, 159, 266, 366). C) Representation of each homodimer bound to the tet operator in a double-helix representation. (Adapted from Orth et al. [288] with permission of the publisher.)
The TetR homodimer is constituted by two identical monomers that fold into 10 α-helices with connecting turns and loops (Fig. 2). The three-dimensional structure of the TetR monomer is stabilized mainly by hydrophobic helix-to-helix contacts. The global structure of the TetR homodimer can be divided into two DNA-binding domains at the N-terminal end of each monomer, and a regulatory core domain involved in dimerization and ligand binding (150, 286-289). The DNA-binding domains are constituted by helices α1, α2, and α3 and their symmetric helices α1′, α2′, and α3′ (a prime denotes the second monomer). Helices α4 and α4′ connect these domains with the regulatory core domain composed of helices α5 to α10 and their symmetric counterparts α5′ and α10′ (150, 287, 289). The regulatory domain is responsible for dimerization and contains, for each monomer, a binding pocket that accommodates tetracycline in the presence of a divalent cation. Helices α5, α8, and α10 and their counterparts α5′, α8′, and α10′ constitute the scaffold of the core domain, and their structure is the most conserved in both TetR conformations (150, 287-289).
The tetracycline-binding pocket is identical in both monomers. The cavity to which the [TcMg]+ complex binds is depicted in Fig. 4 (286, 287, 289). The entrance of this cavity is controlled by α9′ and the C-terminal end of α8′ and the loop that connects both, while the exit is closed by loop 4-5 (287- 289). When [TcMg]+ enters the tunnel, its A ring makes contacts with loop 4-5, and the interaction with the effector triggers a cascade of conformational changes. The contacts that His100 and Thr103, both in α6, establish with the magnesium ion of the complex displace α6, which undergoes a conformational change in its C terminus to form a β-turn (Fig. 4). The 6-7 loop is also pushed near the inducer, so that Arg104 and Pro105 interact with tetracycline. Translation of α6 forces α4 to move in the same direction due to van der Waals contacts. His64 of α4, anchored to α5 and to tetracycline, acts as a pivot point, and α4 moves like a pendulum. As a consequence of the rotation of α4 and α4′, recognition helices α3 and α3′ move further apart, and the DNA contacts are disrupted (Fig. 5) (286, 287, 289). Tetracycline is impeded from freeing the binding cavity, and TetR cannot bind its target DNA again. It should be noted that residues outside the binding cavity can influence affinity for tetracycline, as revealed by Kamionka et al. (168), who isolated a double mutant (G96E, L205S) with reduced affinity for the antibiotic.
Representation of the TetR cavity involved in the binding of tetracycline. Left) In the absence of tetracycline. Right) In the presence of tetracycline. The green ball represents the Mg2+ ion. Specific interactions are not drawn for the sake of clarity but are described in the text. (Adapted from Orth et al. [287, 289] and Kisker et al. [183] with permission of the publishers.)
Docking of a TetR monomer without (grey) and with (red) tetracycline. Note the alterations induced in the α1-α3 region involved in binding to the target operators. The increase in distance between α3 and α3′ with tetracycline results in the inability of TetR to maintain the specific interactions shown in Fig. 3, and therefore the repressor is released. (Adapted from Orth et al. [288] with permission of the publisher.)
The on/off switch mechanism used by TetR to respond to specific signals may be used similarly in other TetR family members.
TetR DNA-binding domain: a symmetric TetR dimer binds a palindromic operator.Cocrystallization of TetR with its operator DNA established that the TetR homodimer binds perpendicularly to the longitudinal DNA axis (Fig. 3A). Two adjacent DNA major groove regions covering a 6-base-pair area on both strands are involved in the almost perfect docking with the two TetR-interacting domains (Fig. 3A and 3B) (288). No water molecules were found at the TetR-DNA interface, where the crucial interactions are hydrophobic (288).
The interactions of each HTH domain with the operator DNA are summarized in Fig. 3A and 3B. The TetR monomer A binds the main strand from positions −4 to −7 while contacting the complementary strand from operator positions +4 to +2, and the symmetric monomer A' binds the main strand from positions +2 to +4 and the complementary strand from positions −4 to −7 (Fig. 3A and 3B).
Crystallographic analysis revealed that helix α3 (from Gln38 to His44) is the main element responsible for sequence-specific recognition, since all residues in this helix contribute to it, except for Leu41, which is part of the hydrophobic core stabilizing the α1, α2, and α3 helix bundle. Thr40 residue in monomer A establishes direct contacts with operator base pairs T(−7) and C(−6) in the main DNA strand (Fig. 3A and 3B). Trp43 interacts with T(−7) as well. Pro39 interacts with both strands at bases T(−5) and A(−4) of the main strand and T(+4) of the complementary strand. In the rest of the operator half site, the α3 helix of monomer A interacts with the complementary strand, Tyr42 contacting with T(+4) and Gln38 with A(+3). Helix α2 supplies an additional specific contact with the complementary strand, namely, Arg28 contacts G(+2).
Although the TetR DNA binding domain maintains its structure thanks to a hydrophobic core formed by residues from the α1, α2, and α3 bundle (288), interactions with DNA lead to changes in the TetR DNA binding domain. One such change is that α3 forms a 310-helical turn at the N-terminal end as a result of complex DNA contacts. The H-bonds between Arg28-G(+2), and Gln38-A(+3) increase the separation between base pairs 1 and 2 from 3.4 Å to 3.9 Å (288). The two phosphate groups accompanying the G at position +2 establish H-bonds with side chains of Thr26, Thr27, Tyr42, and Lys48, and with the amino groups of the main chain of Thr27 and Lys48 (Fig. 3B). These contacts draw DNA closer to TetR near G(+2). Although the DNA is kinked away from TetR at position +2 in both operator strands, bending toward TetR in the area corresponding to positions +3 to +6 compensates for the DNA deviation. Crystallographic studies revealed that Lys48 located in α4, outside the HTH motif, also established contacts with the target DNA region (Fig. 3B). This lysine is relatively well conserved among TetR family members, and we are tempted to suggest that this residue plays an equivalent role in other proteins of the TetR family.
QacR Regulator
Two QacR dimers bind the operator to repress the qacA multidrug transporter gene.QacA confers resistance to monovalent and bivalent cationic lipophilic antiseptics and disinfectants such as quaternary ammonium compounds (hence the name Qac) (10, 11, 44, 239). The qac locus consists of the qacA gene and the divergently transcribed qacR gene, which are borne on a plasmid (119). In the absence of drug, the 188-residue QacR protein represses transcription of the qacA multidrug transporter gene by binding two nested palindromes located downstream from the qacA promoter and overlapping its transcription start site (119, 300). Therefore, QacR seems to repress transcription by hindering the transition of the RNA polymerase-promoter complex into a productively transcribing state rather than by blocking RNA polymerase binding.
The three-dimensional structure of QacR (PDB identifiers 1JTX, 1JTG, 1JTY, 1JUM, 1JUP, 1JUS, and 1JTO) revealed that it is an all-helical protein which contains a DNA-binding HTH motif embedded within an N-terminal three-helix bundle and a second domain involved in drug binding and dimerization (350, 351). It should be noted that unlike TetR, two QacR dimers, rather than one, bind the operator site (339, 340) (Fig. 6).
Binding of QacR to its operator site. A) Interaction of QacR with the qac operator. B) Contacts established by residues at α-helix 3 of QacR homodimers A and B with specific nucleotides (arrows) and phosphate backbone (blue lines) in the synthetic operator used for QacR-DNA cocrystal (349, 350). C) Representation of the two QacR homodimers bound to the qac operator in a double-helix representation. (Adapted from Schumacher et al. [351] with permission of the publisher.)
The monomers of each dimer have been called proximal and distal to refer to their positions with respect to the center of symmetry of the palindromic operator (Fig. 6A and 6B). It was shown that the operator to which one dimer is bound is symmetric and partially overlaps that bound by the other dimer (351) (Fig. 6 and 7). The existence within the same fragment of DNA sequence of two overlapping partial palindromes with identical symmetric bases is therefore surprising (Fig. 6). In this sense the palindromic sequences recognized by QacR are equivalent to those described for the TetR interface except for the spacer sequence length, 3 bp for TetR versus 4 bp for QacR, supporting the hypothesis that interactions of other members of the family with their target sequences may be similar, independent of the number of dimers involved.
Ribbon representation of the two QacR homodimers bound to target DNA in a double-helix representation (A) and details of the contacts established by α-helix 3 of monomers of different homodimers when recognizing overlapping sites (B). (Adapted from Schumacher et al. [351] with permission of the publisher.)
The α3 helix of QacR A distal and B distal monomers establish the most extensive specific interactions with the operator (351). The Tyr41 residue of the A distal monomer (Fig. 6B) establishes hydrophobic contacts with base T(−10) of the DNA main strand as well as with the phosphate at position −11 in the main strand, while Tyr40 contacts T(+7) (Fig. 6B). In addition, tight docking with DNA is facilitated by specific hydrogen bonds between Lys36 and base G(+6) in the complementary strand, and between Gly37 and base G(−8) in the main strand. Gly37 is important in repression because nucleotide G(−8) is the transcription start site for the qacA gene. Monomers A and B proximal also establish a series of critical interactions. For instance, Tyr41 of B proximal contacts the C(−6) base in the main strand, whereas Tyr40 contacts base T(+3) and phosphate (+2) in the complementary strand (351). Gly37 in the A proximal monomer contacts G(−4) in the complementary strand, whereas Lys36 contacts G(+1) in the main strand. A number of residues in α2, loop α2-α3, α3 and the positive dipole of the α1 (N terminus) also interact with the phosphate backbone of both DNA strands (351).
Figure 6C shows how each dimer engages the DNA major groove in a face almost opposite to the other dimer, forming an angle between the two dimer axes of less than 180° (Fig. 7). Studies of QacR binding to DNA have indicated that the two dimers bind DNA cooperatively (120, 121, 351). Analysis of the three-dimensional structure suggested that such cooperativity does not arise from protein-protein interactions, as the closest approach of the dimers is 5.0 Å. Rather, binding cooperativity appears to be mediated through conversion of the DNA structure from a B-DNA conformation to the high-affinity undertwisted configuration observed in the crystal structure. Conversion of the DNA conformation is necessary because the optimal distance between each of the HTH motifs of the QacR dimer is 37 Å. This requires expansion of the 34-Å distance between successive major groove regions on one edge of the canonical B-DNA. It has been suggested that binding of the first QacR dimer forces this energetically unfavorable conformational change, which in turn produces an optimal DNA conformation for the easy binding of the second dimer (351). Experimental data reported by Grkovic et al. (121, 122) suggested that the two dimers must bind simultaneously and cooperatively to the operator in order to maintain the DNA deformation detected in the crystal.
Schumacher and Brennan (349) noticed that TetR and QacR achieve the same degree of specificity in DNA binding through different mechanisms. They noted that TetR, recruits Arg28, located outside its recognition helix, to make a base pair-specific contact (288), whereas QacR does not employ residues outside α3 to ensure DNA binding specificity. They also noted that TetR kinks its binding site and induces a 17° bend towards the protein to optimize the position of its HTH motifs for specific base interactions within each DNA half site; whereas QacR widens the major groove of the entire IR1 binding site smoothly and bends its DNA site by only 3°. These distinctions are reflected in the different HTH center-to-center distances observed in QacR (37 Å). Thus, an important lesson derived from comparisons of the QacR-DNA and TetR-DNA structures is that even structurally homologous proteins of the same family that share a similar function, i.e., repression, can utilize slightly different mechanisms of action.
QacR as a model for multidrug recognition.QacR is released from the qacA operator by its interaction with a number of cationic lipophilic drugs such as rhodamine 6G, crystal violet, and ethidium (119). More recently, Grkovic et al. (122) showed that effector recognition of QacR can be extended to several bivalent cationic dyes and plant alkaloids. In spite of the existence of two binding pockets, only one drug molecule is bound by each homodimer, as determined by equilibrium dialysis studies and isothermal titration calorimetry for the QacR-R6G complex (350). The QacR crystal bound to different drugs revealed another remarkable finding: the presence of an expansive and multifaceted drug-binding pocket with a volume of 1,100 Å3, so that different drugs partially overlap different subpockets (349, 351). A similar cavity able to bind multiple drugs was reported by Yu et al. (445, 446) for the AcrB multidrug transporter.
Crystallographic studies by Schumacher et al. (350) and Murray et al. (261) have demonstrated that multidrug recognition mediated by the QacR dimer is a rather simple process that, contrary to expectations, does not require sophisticated molecular mechanisms. Indeed, the drug binding domain of QacR consists of six α-helices (PDB identifiers: 1JTX, 1JT6, 1JTY, 1JUP, 1JUS, 1JTO, 1RKW, and 1RPW). Entry to the mostly buried drug-binding pocket is through a small opening formed by the divergence of helices α6, α7, α8, and α8′. The stoichiometry of one drug molecule for two QacR subunits led to this asymmetric induction process, in which the drug-bound monomer undergoes a major structural change. Comparison of the drug-bound structure with the DNA-bound structure reveals that drug binding triggers a coil-to-helix transition of residues 89 to 93, which extends helix α5 by a turn. This transition removes the drug surrogates Tyr92 and Tyr93 from the hydrophobic core of the protein. Expulsion of these tyrosines also leads to the relocation of nearby helix α6 and its tethered DNA-binding domain. The result of this structural transition is a 9-Å translation and a 37° rotation of the DNA-binding domain, effectively rendering the QacR dimer unable to bind its target DNA.
Three-Dimensional Structure of CprBThe gram-positive bacterial genus Streptomyces uses γ-butyrolactones as autoregulators or microbial hormones, together with their specific receptors (γ-butyrolactone receptors), to control morphological differentiation, antibiotic production, or both (150, 151). The most representative of the γ-butyrolactone autoregulatory factors is 2-isocapryloyl-3R-hydroxymethyl-γ-butyrolactone, known as A-factor, which is essential for aerial mycelium formation, streptomycin production, streptomycin resistance, and yellow pigment production (133, 134, 155) in Streptomyces griseus. However, the A-factor receptor protein, known as ArpA, has proved to be difficult to purify. In contrast, the CprB protein from Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2), which is 30% identical to ArpA (284), has been purified and crystallized (264), although the ligand for CprB is still unknown. Nonetheless, CprB binds the same nucleotide sequence as does ArpA (375) and indeed CprB also serves as a negative regulator for both secondary metabolism and morphogenesis in S. coelicolor, as ArpA does in S. griseus (264, 284).
The CprB dimer is omega shaped, and the two subunits in the dimer are related by a pseudo-twofold axis. Each monomer of CprB is composed of 10 α-helices and has two domains: a DNA-binding domain (residues 1 to 52) and a regulatory domain (residues 77 to 215). The three-dimensional structure of CprB is essentially similar to that of QacR bound to DNA except for the lack of α10 (350, 351). In addition, the DNA-binding domains of the two proteins are very similar, so much so that the two DNA-binding domains can be superimposed with an rms deviation of 1.48 Å for 71 Cα atoms (264). Although no information on CprB-operator DNA is available, the high degree of sequence conservation allowed the authors to predict that the core of the DNA-binding domain is composed of Ile14, Ile15, Ala18, Phe22, Leu32, Ile35, Leu46, and Phe50.
It has been suggested that a CprB dimer binds to its target DNA as found in the TetR-DNA complex (150, 287, 288). This is because structure-based amino acid sequence alignment shows that at the amino acid sequence level the DNA-binding domains of CprB and TetR are highly identical. This suggests that there is an evolutionary relationship between the DNA-binding domains of the two proteins. The regulatory domain of CprB is composed of six α-helices (helices α5 to α10) (264), which can also be superimposed on the corresponding domain of TetR (286, 287, 289) (PDB code 1JT0).
EthR StructureEthionamide has been used for more than 30 years as a second-line chemotherapeutic treatment in tuberculosis patients who have developed resistance to first-line drugs such as isoniazid and rifampin. Activation of the prodrug ethionamide is regulated by the Baeyer-Villiger monooxygenase EthA and the TetR family repressor EthR, whose open reading frames are separated by 75 bp in the genome of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. EthR has been shown to repress transcription of the activator ethA gene by binding to the intergenic region and contributing to ethionamide resistance.
The expression of ethA is regulated by EthR in M. tuberculosis. Overexpression of ethR leads to ethionamide resistance, whereas chromosomal inactivation of ethR promotes ethionamide hypersensitivity (28). EthR was found to bind directly and specifically to DNA sequences corresponding to the ethRA intergenic region (28, 90). The large EthR operator, which comprises 55 bp in comparison with the 15-bp operators recognized by most other family members, is organized as a putative highly degenerated palindrome containing pairs of overlapping inverted and tandem repeat sequences (90). In the absence of DNA, EthR forms a homodimer in solution, and surface plasmon resonance measurements suggest that EthR octamerizes when bound to DNA (90).
The EthR monomer is an all-helical, two-domain molecule (79). The N-terminal domain comprises helices 1 to 3, with helices 2 and 3 forming the HTH DNA-binding motif seen in other TetR family protein structures. The larger C-terminal domain, which in QacR and TetR has been dubbed the drug-binding domain, consists of helices 4 to 9, and its function in EthR is unknown. The crystal structure revealed that the dimerization interface, a conserved structural feature among the TetR class of repressors, is primarily formed by helices 8 and 9 (288, 351).
One of the most striking features of the EthR structure is a narrow tunnel-like cavity formed by helices 4, 5, 7, and 8 that opens to the bottom of the molecule (79). The tunnel measures about 20 Å in length and is lined predominantly, albeit not exclusively, by aromatic residues, with helices 5 and 7 constituting the majority of side chains. The loop connecting helices 4 and 5 restricts the opening of the hydrophobic tunnel, and the electron density in this loop is only poorly defined, indicating a certain degree of structural flexibility in the loop. This cavity may serve as the binding site for an as yet unknown ligand.
Crystal structure of TetR family members with unknown functions.New genomic/proteomic approaches are leading to the crystallization of a number of proteins, many of which have no assigned function. The following proteins of the TetR family have been crystallized: Cgl2612 of Corynebacterium glutamicum (pdb 1V7B); YbiH of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (pdb 1T33); YcdC of Escherichia coli (pdb 1PB6); and YfiR and YsiA from Bacillus subtilis (pdb 1RKT and 1VIO, respectively).
DNA-BINDING PREDICTIONS BASED ON TetR AND QacR CRYSTAL STRUCTURES
There is a perfect overlap of the DNA binding domains of QacR, TetR, CprB, and EthR, and no gaps were found in the α-helices involved in contacts with DNA in the multialignment of the 2,353 members of the TetR family in this domain. Based on these findings, we hypothesized that residues at the same position in the multialignment of all family members may play equivalent roles. This prompted us to analyze each amino acid in the multialignment within the DNA binding domain.
Relationship between Profile Positions and Structural PositioningAnalysis comparison of the cocrystal of QacR and TetR with their corresponding operators revealed that residues corresponding to positions 22, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, and 43 in the family multialignment are involved in interactions with target operator DNA (Fig. 1). We analyzed the occurrence of each amino acid at these positions in the multialignment of all members of the TetR family (Table 4).
Amino acid frequency at each of the positions critical for operator recognition by TetR family membersa
We found two types of position, one in which the residue was highly conserved and another in which the residue was poorly conserved, if at all. Positions 37, 39, and 43 were well conserved, whereas at positions 22, 33, 34, 35, and 38 the profile aligned different residues.
Tyr42 in TetR and Tyr40 in QacR corresponded to position 37 in the profile sequence displayed in Fig. 1, where a Tyr residue appeared in 74.16% of the aligned proteins (Table 4). The next most highly represented residues in this position are also aromatic amino acids: phenylalanine (8%) and histidine (4%) (Table 4). Tyr-42 in TetR and Tyr40 in QacR appear at the center of α-helix 3 and contact a thymine located at the center of the palindrome forming the operator and also contact a phosphate one position towards the center of the palindrome (Fig. 3B and 6B).
The residue at position 39 of the profile in the multialignment corresponds to His44 in TetR and His42 in QacR. In the corresponding cocrystals, these residues established contacts with the phosphate backbone (Fig. 3B and Fig. 6B). In the multiple sequence alignment of all family members, either histidine or tyrosine appears at position 39. We are tempted to propose that this residue is critical for interactions with the phosphate backbone.
A lysine-DNA phosphate interaction is shared at residues Lys48 in TetR and Lys46 in QacR, which correspond to position 43 in the multialignment and are located in the amino end of the α4 helix. A lysine residue is present in 77% of TetR proteins, and their interactions with DNA phosphates seem to be crucial to adjust the HTH domain to contact DNA (Fig. 3B and 6B). At position 22 of the profile (Thr27 in TetR and Thr25 in QacR), five residues are the most abundant (Val, Leu, Met, Ile, and Thr). Thr27 in TetR and Thr25 in QacR are involved in interactions with the phosphate backbone.
Thus, in the TetR family, the contacts established by the residue aligned at position 37 in α3 (tyrosine present in 74% of the cases) and 39 in α3 (His or Tyr present in 98% of the cases) and a residue at position 43 in α4 (Lys present in 77% of the cases) probably orient the HTH motif to interact with the DNA major groove and anchor the protein to the phosphate backbone.
Glycine at position 16, located at the end of α1, in the multialignment is highly conserved and is involved in changing the polypeptide direction in the TetR and QacR crystals to orient the HTH DNA binding domain properly.
Positions 33, 34, 35, and 38 of the profile align many different residues (Table 4). In TetR and QacR, the corresponding residues establish specific contacts with different DNA bases except Asn38 of QacR (position 35 in the multialignment), which contacts the phosphate backbone. Based on the high variability of these positions in the corresponding multiple alignment of the family, we are tempted to propose that these positions endow specificity to each protein so that it can recognize its operator through specific protein-DNA interactions.
SOME REGULATORS ARE PART OF COMPLEX REGULATORY CIRCUITS
Published data indicate that the specific function of 85 members of TetR family is known (Table 2). More information about each TetR protein is available at http://www.bactregulators.org (235). We have clustered the functions regulated by TetR family members into 10 groups (Table 2). The most frequent function performed by TetR family proteins is the regulation of efflux pumps and transporters involved in antibiotic resistance and tolerance to toxic chemicals. We have also observed that TetR family members often regulate their own synthesis, this feedback control ensures the transcriptional repressor level within optimal concentration limits (31, 73, 231, 338, 392). In this simple regulatory scheme, synthesis of the repressor and of the regulated protein(s) is derepressed in the presence of an inducer molecule.
However, TetR family proteins also participate in other types of regulatory networks that underlie complex processes, such as homeostasis in metabolism (biosynthesis of amino acids, nucleotides, protoheme, and reserve material), synthesis of osmoprotectants, quorum sensing, drug resistance, virulence, and processes related to growth phase-dependent differentiation (sporulation and biosynthesis of antibiotics) (Table 2) (www.bactregulators.org) (235).
Figure 8 shows a series of schemes in which a TetR family member plays a role in complex circuits. Below, for the sake of brevity, we have analyzed only some representative sets of regulatory networks, including proteins involved in drug resistance (AcrR of E. coli and MtrR of Neisseria gonorrhoeae), biosynthesis of an osmoprotectant (BetI), a key protein involved in idiophase antibiotic production and differentiation in Streptomyces (ArpR), a protein involved in pathogenesis in Vibrio (HapR), and some proteins involved in quorum sensing.
Regulatory networks involving members of the TetR family. Although TetR and QacR cannot be considered part of a network, their type of control is shown because it is frequently found in members of the family. The following color code was used for complex networks: dark blue, TetR family member; orange, the gene directly regulated by the TetR family member; light blue, a regulator that modulates the expression of a TetR family member or which assists in the regulation of the gene under the control of a TetR family member; yellow boxes, signals and conditions influencing the system; open boxes, final results of the action of the system when the result is a scorable phenotype. References recommended for each circuit: panel A (29, 38, 286, 288, 388, 417, 418); panel B (4, 7, 13, 31, 35, 110, 176, 191, 230, 245, 270, 436); panel C (8, 91, 201-204, 222, 290, 331); panel D (119, 120, 122, 249, 261, 332, 350-351); panel E (5, 6, 66, 67, 116, 163); panel F (228, 238, 397, 333, 353, 408); panel G (87-89, 125, 140, 214, 215, 295, 360, 403); panel H (48, 161); panel I (78); panel J (56, 184, 185, 208, 413); panel K (133, 134, 158, 413); panel L (127); panel M (61, 266); panel N (240, 241, 345); panel O (248); panel P (59, 63, 242, 243, 355); panel Q (23, 24, 51, 107, 232, 255); panel R (97, 107, 117, 252, 341, 363); and panel S (107, 117, 181, 196, 217, 247).
AcrR Regulator Is the Local Specific Regulator of the acrAB Efflux PumpMultiple antibiotic resistance in Escherichia coli has attracted recent attention, promoting the elucidation of a number of mechanisms that contribute to this phenomenon. One of these is the transport of diverse substrates out of the cell by the AcrAB-TolC efflux transporter, leading to a multiple antibiotic resistance (Mar) phenotype (267). The set of antibiotics to which AcrAB can confer resistance includes ampicillin, chloramphenicol, erythromycin, fluoroquinolones, β-lactams, novobiocin, tetracycline, tigecycline, and rifampin (151, 187, 223, 267, 268, 276).
AcrB is a large cytoplasmic membrane protein (224, 226, 445, 446) which associates with AcrA, a membrane fusion protein (281), and TolC, a protein that forms a channel for the extrusion of substrates into the medium (102, 193). The acrA and acrB genes form an operon (224) whose transcription is regulated by the acrR gene product. The acrR gene is divergently transcribed from the acrAB operon. Overexpression of AcrR represses the transcription of acrAB. This observation is consistent with the function of AcrR as a repressor for acrAB transcription. Evidence for this function has come also from gel shift mobility assays, which provided direct evidence for the binding of AcrR to the promoter region of acrAB. DNA sequencing (92) of certain isolates that overexpressed acrB mRNA revealed that the mutant strains had insertions that disrupted the acrR gene or point mutations that rendered a nonfunctional regulator, i.e., an amino acid substitution of cysteine for arginine at position 45 of AcrR. This biochemical and genetic evidence provides support for the regulatory role of AcrR.
MarA, SoxS, and Rob are related transcriptional activators of the AraC/XylS family (7, 112, 367) that activate acrAB expression, although they are not involved in the regulation of acrAB in response to general stress conditions (13, 14, 21, 35, 110, 224) because the acrAB operon can be activated in response to these stresses in genetic backgrounds lacking mar and sox (223-225). It was also found that general stress conditions increased the transcription of acrAB in the absence of functional AcrR, and these conditions, surprisingly, increased the transcription of acrR to a greater extent than that of acrAB. These results suggest the existence of a mar-sox-independent pathway to control acrAB expression in response to the general stress conditions. This transcriptional control of acrAB is also AcrR independent. Therefore, a major role of AcrR is to function as a specific secondary modulator to fine-tune the level of acrAB transcription and prevent unwanted overexpression of the efflux pump. This represents a novel mechanism for regulating gene expression in E. coli.
Mtr Circuit of NeisseriaThe MtrCDE efflux pump of Neisseria gonorrhoeae provides gonococci with a mechanism to resist structurally diverse antimicrobial hydrophobic agents and antibiotic peptides that adopt β-sheet (protegenin 1) or two-helix (PC-8 and LC37) structures (130, 228, 238, 353). Mutations that render no expression or inactivation of mtrR, encoding a transcriptional repressor, resulted in high expression of the mtrCDE operon, concomitantly increasing resistance to hydrophobic agents (69, 130, 220, 221, 297, 353, 447). It was also found that strains of N. gonorrhoeae that display hypersusceptibility to hydrophobic agents often contained mutations in the mtrCDE efflux pump genes (406).
The mtrR gene is divergently transcribed with respect to the mtrCDE operon (Fig. 8F). The promoters of mtrR and mtrC overlap in their −35 boxes, and footprinting analysis showed that MtrR binds a 40-bp region within the −10 to −35 region of the mtrR promoter, which contains an inverted repeat (221). MtrR bound to its target site prevented expression from the efflux pump operon and its regulator (Fig. 8F). The expression of mtr genes is enhanced by the AraC/XylS member MtrA, although the mechanism of activation of this protein is unknown.
On the other hand, Veal and Shafer (407) have recently identified a gene that was designated mtrF, located downstream of the mtrR gene, that is predicted to encode a 56.1-kDa cytoplasmic membrane protein containing 12 transmembrane domains. Expression of mtrF was enhanced in a strain deficient in MtrR production, indicating that this gene, together with the closely linked mtrCDE operon, is subject to MtrR-dependent transcriptional control. Genetic evidence suggests that MtrF is also important in the expression of high-level detergent resistance by gonococci, and it was proposed that MtrF acts in conjunction with the MtrC-MtrD-MtrE efflux pump to confer high-level resistance to certain hydrophobic agents in gonococci. MtrR also controls the farAB operon, which encodes an efflux pump involved in resistance to long-chain fatty acids (Fig. 8F). The efflux pump FarAB uses MtrE as the outer membrane component (208).
BetI Controls the Choline-Glycine Betaine Pathway of E. coliIn Escherichia coli, glycine betaine serves as an osmoprotector in hyperosmotically stressed cells. This osmoprotector accumulates in large amounts in the cytoplasm, which allows cells to maintain appropriate osmotic strength and thus prevents dehydration. Glycine betaine is only one of several cellular osmolytes used by E. coli, but its accumulation allows this microbe to achieve its highest level of osmotic tolerance (199, 373). To accumulate glycine betaine, E. coli needs an external supply of this compound or its precursors choline and betaine aldehyde.
The osmoregulatory choline-glycine betaine pathway is encoded by the bet genes. The betA gene encodes choline dehydrogenase; betB encodes betaine aldehyde dehydrogenase; betT encodes a transport system for choline; and betI encodes a 21.8-kDa repressor protein involved in choline regulation of the bet genes (Fig. 8C). The bet genes are linked, with betT being transcribed divergently from the betIBA operon (203, 374). Primer extension analysis identified two partially overlapping promoters which were responsible for the divergent expression of the betT gene and betIBA operon. The transcripts are initiated 61 bp apart and are induced by osmotic stress, but for full expression choline is required in the growth medium (91, 202, 204). Because the ArcA protein represses the expression of bet genes in E. coli under anaerobiosis, the bet genes are expressed only under aerobic conditions. An arcA mutation caused complete derepression of the bet genes. A similar pattern for derepression by ArcA has been reported previously for other genes (sodA and arcA) which are directly regulated by ArcA (65).
Results from different laboratories suggest that choline regulation but not osmotic regulation of the bet promoters depended on BetI, a TetR family member. This was indicated by the requirement for choline, in addition to osmotic stress, for betT to be expressed in a mutant strain in which betI was supplied in trans. Furthermore, this choline effect was not seen in cells lacking betI. These findings indicate that betI encodes a repressor that reduced the expression of betT (331).
A chimeric BetI glutathione S-transferase fusion protein (BetI*) was purified, and gel mobility shift assays showed that BetI* formed a complex with a 41-bp DNA fragment carrying the intergenic betI promoter region. Footprinting revealed the presence of two sequences of dyad symmetry which probably constitute the BetI operator.
The Sinorhizobium meliloti bet genes have been cloned, and their involvement in response to osmotic stress has been analyzed (304, 305, 368).
ArpA Regulator from StreptomycesStreptomycetes are filamentous, soil-living, gram-positive bacteria characterized for their ability to produce a wide variety of secondary metabolites, including antibiotics and biologically active substances, and for their complex morphological differentiation culminating in the formation of chains of spores (55). Secondary metabolite synthesis is sometimes called “physiological” differentiation because it occurs during the idiophase after the main period of rapid vegetative growth and assimilative metabolism (139, 153, 291).
The ultimate regulator of the mentioned processes in Streptomyces griseus is a homodimeric protein called A-factor receptor protein (ArpA) (155-158), which regulates the switch for physiological and morphological differentiation. The main biologically significant target of ArpA is the adpA gene. The AdpA protein in turn controls the expression of other genes. These genes include strR, which serves as a pathway-specific transcriptional activator for streptomycin biosynthetic genes (278); an open reading frame encoding a probable pathway-specific regulator for a polyketide compound (441); adsA, which encodes an extracytoplasmic function sigma factor of RNA polymerase essential for aerial mycelium formation (438); sgmA, which encodes a metalloendopeptidase probably involved in apoptosis of substrate hyphae during aerial mycelium development (174); ssgA, which encodes a small acidic protein essential for spore septum formation (437); amfR, essential for aerial hyphae formation (398, 440); and the sprT and sprU genes, which encode trypsin-like proteases (173).
In vitro, ArpA binds its target DNA site at the −10/−35 region, which is a 22-bp palindrome (5′-GG(T/C)CGGT(A/T)(T/C)G(T/G)-3′). Addition of γ-butyrolactone effector to the ArpA-DNA complex immediately releases ArpA from the DNA. A mutant strain deficient in ArpA or producing a mutant ArpA protein unable to bind to its target DNA overproduces streptomycin and forms aerial mycelia and spores earlier than the wild-type strain (282, 283). An amino acid replacement at Val-41 to Ala in ArpA in the HTH motif at the N-terminal portion of ArpA abolished DNA binding activity but not γ-butyrolactone binding activity, suggesting the involvement of this HTH in DNA binding. On the other hand, mutation of Trp-119 (Trp 119→Ala) generated a mutant unable to bind the γ-butyrolactone, resulting in a mutant protein that did not sense the presence of A-factor. These data suggest that ArpA consists of an HTH DNA-binding at the N-terminal end and an effector binding domain at the C-terminal end of the protein.
In the streptomycin biosynthetic gene cluster in S. griseus, StrR is the pathway-specific regulator that serves as a transcriptional activator for the other genes in the cluster (320). Expression of the strR gene was controlled by the AdpA protein, which binds the region upstream of the strR promoter and activates its transcription (311, 312). adpA knockout mutants produced no streptomycin, and overexpression of adpA caused the wild-type S. griseus strain to produce streptomycin at an earlier growth stage in a larger amount. This set of events explains how A-factor triggers streptomycin biosynthesis.
Disruption of the chromosomal adsA gene encoding σAdsA resulted in loss of aerial hypha formation but not streptomycin production, indicating that this sigma factor is involved in morphological development (401, 438).
Several receptor proteins for γ-butyrolactone-type autoregulators have been described in other species of Streptomyces. For example, CprA and CprB are involved in secondary metabolism and aerial mycelium formation in S. coelicolor A3(2) (284). The virginiae butanolyde receptor BarA is involved in virginiamycin biosynthesis in Streptomyces virginiae (280), and the IM-2 receptor, FarA is involved in blue pigment production in another Streptomyces strain (413).
FarA in Streptomyces lavendulae senses the concentration of γ-butyrolactone IM-2 and also transduces this signal, thus derepressing antibiotic and blue pigment biosynthesis. In addition, FarA also seems to be necessary for IM-2 biosynthesis (Fig. 8J).
The role of ScbR protein in the quorum-sensing circuit of Streptomyces coelicolor is similar to that of FarA in S. lavendulae. ScbR is also involved in three functions: positively regulating SCB1 synthesis (the γ-butyrolactone that acts as signal), receiving the signal, and transducing this signal, thereby derepressing the production of the antibiotics actinorhodin and U-prodigiosin (Fig. 8M).
HapR Regulates Virulence Genes in Vibrio choleraeThe development of cholera in humans is directly related to the production of two virulence factors: toxin-coregulated pilus (TCP), which mediates colonization, and cholera toxin (CT), responsible for the severe diarrhea, characteristic of this disease. The coordinated expression of TCP and CT occurs though a complex regulatory cascade (Fig. 8S) in which the regulators AphA and AphB synergistically activate tcpPH transcription (194). The TetR family protein HapR negatively regulates the expression of AphA and indirectly diminishes the production of TCP and CT.
HapR, in turn, is regulated by quorum-sensing signals that are sensed and transmitted by LuxO. The quorum-sensing apparatus in Vibrio cholerae is unusually complex and is composed of three parallel signaling systems (247). In contrast to other bacteria, in which high cell density triggers virulence gene expression, in Vibrio cholerae low cell density is the condition that activates the production of the pathogenic factors CT and TCP (455). At high cell density HapR positively regulates the expression of a hemagglutinin protease (Hap) that promotes detachment of Vibrio cholerae from the gastrointestinal epithelium (365) and exerts a negative effect on biofilm formation. Taking into account the regulatory functions of HapR and considering that some pathogenic biotypes lose HapR expression whereas others lose the aphA binding site, it appears that HapR expression is related to diminished toxicity and colonization capacity. These features offer potentially fruitful avenues of research to design drugs to modulate Vibrio cholerae pathogenicity.
Other Quorum-Sensing CircuitsWithin the genus Vibrio, some TetR family proteins, i.e., LuxT, LuxR, and LitR, are involved in complex quorum-sensing circuits. In Vibrio harveyi, LuxT and LuxR participate in the circuit that regulates luminescence. This strain senses two autoinducers, AI-1 and AI-2 (58, 216). AI-1 is an acyl-homoserine lactone, as in other gram-negative bacteria. However, AI-2 is a novel autoinducer produced by many species that appears to be related to interspecies cell density detection. These two autoinducers use the same phosphorelay system to transduce the signal for bioluminescence regulation. Expression of luxR is in turn regulated by LitR (Fig. 8R).
BIOTECHNOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS AND FUTURE PROSPECTS
The Tet system is at present the most widely used system for conditional gene expression in eukaryotic cells (37). The system is based in the high affinity (10−9 M) of TetR for its operator, tetO, the favorable pharmacokinetics of tetracyclines (they diffuse through biological membranes), and their long record of safe clinical use. Cloning of the tetO elements adjacent to the TATA box of the target gene (114) was used successfully to control genes expressed by RNA polymerase I in Leishmania donovani and by RNA polymerase III in yeast and plant cells (76, 400). However, this system is not efficient in mammalian cells. For this reason, and based on the knowledge acquired about how TetR binds to its target operator, several chimeric versions of TetR fused to eukaryotic regulatory domains were constructed, such as the acidic activation domain (tTA) (22, 115, 403) and repression domains (tTS) (33, 336). Based on hybrid transregulators, transgenic mice able to produce diphtheria toxin or the regulated expression of Shiga toxin β to induce apoptosis in mammalian fibroblastic cells were obtained.
The tet system has also been used to study cancer and neurological disorders (95, 98, 419). In the future, advances to approach multifactorial biological processes like development and diseases are expected, which will be relevant for the treatment of complex diseases (37).
Solvent efflux pumps generally exhibit a broad substrate specificity, but some of them are highly specific and remove a certain number of chemicals. One such efflux pumps is the TtgABC pump of Pseudomonas putida DOT-T1E, which removes toluene, m-xylene, and propylbenzene as well as styrene and other aromatic hydrocarbons (327) in addition to several antibiotics. This efflux pump is under the control of the drug binding repressor TtgR, a member of the TetR family (391), and has applications in the safe development of solvent-resistant bacteria. Therefore, it is potentially suitable for the biotransformation of water-insoluble compounds into added-value products. One such system has been exploited to produce catechols from xylenes/toluenes in double-phase systems (328). Because these efflux systems are energy consuming, their expression in heterologous hosts has to be tightly controlled by their cognate repressor, which in turn has to be able to respond to the presence of the aromatic solvent. These types of pumps are presumed to be useful if transferred to a wide variety of bacteria that carry suitable biotransformation machineries.
As shown in Fig. 8, TetR family members are key players in multidrug resistance, virulence, and pathogenicity processes in certain bacterial pathogens. The development of drugs that bind irreversibly to the repressors and prevent their release from their cognate operators may be a strategy to fight these pathogens. Suitable screening procedures to search for these drugs can be envisaged based on current tools for gram-negative bacteria (74).
Work in our laboratories was supported by EC grants MIFRIEND QLK3-CT 2000-017 and BIOCARTE QLRT-2001-01923 and projects CICYT-2003 (BIO2003-00515) and Petri-NBT (PTR1995-0653 PO) to J.L.R. and grant 0021/2002 from the Human Frontier Science Program to M.T.G., K.W., and X.Z.
We thank W. Hindrich and S. Horinouchi for comments on the article. We thank Inés Abril and Carmen Lorente for secretarial assistance and Karen Shashok for checking the use of English in the manuscript. R. Tobes acknowledges support from Eduardo Pareja.
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According to a German Chamber of Commerce survey, a large percentage of German companies plan on boosting their foreign direct investment (FDI) in China over the next two years. The United States (US)–China trade war and rising costs in China unlikely to led to exodus of FDI outside China because no country possesses the entire package of advantages China does. China MOFCOM reports that China’s non-financial outward FDI (OFDI) grew almost 6 percent over the first 10 months of 2019 year-over-year. US National Defense Authorization Act language may terminate the availability of federal funds to buy electric buses made by BYD at its California factory. South Korean airlines are closing offices in Japan as well as suspending or reducing flights to Japan because of falling tourism resulting from Korea-Japan tensions. Japanese Ambassador to Bangladesh calls on the latter to provide economic incentives and improve policy stability. LG Chem asks the US International Trade Commission to rule quickly on its trade secrets theft case against SK Innovation. Hyundai Heavy Industries submits formal request to European Union (EU) asking for approval of its planned merger Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering
China’s Ministry of Justice promulgates draft implementation rules for the country’s new foreign direct investment (FDI) law which contains a lot of positive news regarding intellectual property rights (IPR) and trade secrets. China rejects European Chamber of Commerce claims about the possibility of “promise fatigue.” China’s State Council issues 20 opinions with a strong emphasis on breaking down foreign entry and operating barriers in the banking, securities, and fund management sectors. Consultancy reports that China’s mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity jumped in 3rd quarter of 2019 versus 2nd, though it remained far under the highs of 2014. Japan’s Fair Trade Commission survey points out a number of internet giant practices that may violate the country’s anti-monopoly law. The United Kingdom’s Brexit is affecting an increasing amount of Japanese there such as by forcing them to develop alternative supply chains. China’s move to end subsidy programs for electric vehicles may give South Korean companies in China new business opportunities. South Korea’s Alliex partners with Vietnam’s Central on cashless payment system in Korea.
No Promise Left Behind: The Effort to Court EU FDI through a China-EU BIT
Dr. Jean-Marc F. Blanchard
China and the European Union (EU) have been discussing a bilateral investment treaty (BIT) for a long time. Indeed, the two sides held their 21st round of China-EU BIT negotiations in June 2019.
Executive Director Jean-Marc F. Blanchard speaks at EU-China Roundtable on “The Business of Trade, Investment, and Global Politics.”
Dr. Jean-Marc F. Blanchard, Executive Director of the Mr. & Mrs. S.H. Wong Center for the Study of Multinational Corporations, participated in a EU-China Roundtable on “The Business of Trade, Investment, and Global Politics” organized by the University of Pittsburgh Asian Studies and European Studies Centers. At the Roundtable in Pittsburgh, held on October 24, Dr.
China Premier Li Keqiang works to lure foreign direct investment (FDI) during the Global CEO Council in Beijing. In 2018, the deal value of European mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity in China soared by 856 percent to USD $9.94 billion. European Union (EU)-China talks on a Comprehensive Agreement on Investment and China’s negative list show better progress than expected. Brazilian Vice President welcomes Chinese FDI in infrastructure as long as it creates jobs and respects Brazilian rules. Around the time of the G-20, French President Emmanuel Macron will discuss issues about the Renault-Nissan alliance with Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo. Numerous Japanese corporate subsidiaries in the United States have voiced opposition to Donald Trump’s proposal to slap tariffs of 25 percent on another $300 billion of Chinese products. Tokyo has requested Seoul to establish an arbitration panel consisting of representatives selected by other countries to help deal with their wartime forced labor compensation dispute. Seoul prepared to block a deal that would sell Taihan Electric Wire to a Chinese company because it deems Taihan’s high-voltage cable technologies a “‘national core technology.’”
China’s Cyberspace Administration releases draft document stating, “operators of the country’s critical information infrastructure…will be required to take into account national security risk when purchasing foreign products and services.” A recent European Union (EU) Chamber of Commerce in China survey suggests the problem of forced technology transfers in China has worsened. The US is considering cutting off the flow of American technology to five other Chinese firms putatively because of these companies’ role in supporting Beijing’s actions in Xinjiang. With the United Arab Emirates (UAE) aiming to become a major China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) partner, China’s East Hope Group conglomerate contemplates $10 billion port investment there. China’s chargé d'affaires in London warns if Huawei banned from Britain’s 5G network there might be “substantial” repercussions for Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in the United Kingdom (UK). The Japan unit of US e-commerce giant Amazon has decided to stop direct sales of all Huawei products through its online store. Mizuho Financial Group Inc. said it will tighten standards for lending to coal-fired power plants with high emissions of CO2. Renault Samsung workers in Korea reject draft wage and bargaining agreement which may lead to an “indefinite all-out strike” that drives the joint venture’s upcoming XM3 production to Spain. Iraq’s Ministry of Petroleum awards Korea’s Hyundai Engineering and Construction a $2.45 billion contract to build a seawater supply facility in Iraq.
United States (US) Trade Representative (USTR) criticizes China’s intellectual property (IP) protections and calls for stronger IP safeguards. China pledges the journey along its Belt and Road (BRI) will only get better. Survey shows new European Union (EU) foreign direct investment (FDI) screening laws make Chinese companies feel the EU is discriminating against them. United Kingdom (UK) reportedly dials into China’s Huawei participating in its 5G network activities. Eager to keep Italy from moving too close to Beijing, Japan calls for deeper economic (and military) cooperation during top leader summit. Korea charged up about lack of level playing field relating to electric vehicle subsidies. Korean petrochemical firms will be hit by the upcoming end to the US policy of granting waivers to countries importing Iranian crude oil.
Recent report forecasts massive increase in China’s inbound mergers and acquisitions (M&As) between 2020 and 2029. Pursuant to its trade negotiations with the United States (US), China considers eliminating entrance barriers to its cloud computing market like requiring overseas companies to form joint ventures (JVs) with Chinese firms. Chinese and European Union (EU) leaders commit to conclude a bilateral investment treaty (BIT) by next year. At the summit of Central and Eastern European countries and China in Dubrovnik, Greece announces it will join China’s 16+1 Initiative. Following the EU and United Kingdom’s delay of Brexit by six months, Tokyo pledged to continue to lobby against a no-deal Brexit and to monitor developments. Regarding the Carlos Ghosn case, France stressed to Japan that it respects the sovereignty of Japan’s judicial system and also would provide consular protection to Ghosn. Korean companies lobby their government to deal with the EU’s growing pressure on South Korea to ratify key International Labor Organization (ILO) conventions
Italy Signs on to the Belt and Road Initiative
Dr. Scott MacDonald
In late March 2019, Chinese President Xi Jinping traveled to Rome, where he met with Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who signed a memorandum of understanding pursuant to which Italy signed on to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), making it the first Group-7 country to do so.
According to China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), inward foreign direct investment (FDI) for the first two months of 2019 grew 5.5 percent year-over-year (YOY). China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) makes it easier for foreign companies to manage their foreign exchange. Italy may open four ports to Chinese FDI as part of its participation in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Germany to establish state-owned fund to protect key companies from takeovers by foreign companies, especially Chinese ones. Koreans forced to work for Japanese corporations without compensation during World War II are rushing to file lawsuits before the statute of limitations runs out. Toyota announces it will build a new hybrid car in Britain for its Japanese peer Suzuki despite Brexit uncertainties. South Korea’s Gyeonggi Province considers bill requiring schools to put “‘war criminal tags’” on products manufactured by Japanese firms. South Korea’s S-Oil and Hyundai Oilbank will pay USD $127 million in fines to the United States (US) Justice Department for fixing fuel prices at US military bases in Korea.
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WHITE SANDS <span class='fa fa-fw fa-check-circle pull-right'></span>
Las Cruces, NM 88002, USA
Civil outreach strengthens relationships during Pacific Pathways Exercise Cartwheel
Last Updated : 8/2/2019
WHITE SANDS Editor MARCOA Media
Story by 1LT MARK SAGVOLD on 08/02/2019
LABASA, Fiji Primary school children welcomed the visiting team of U.S. Army civil affairs Soldiers Aug. 1, 2019, to their schools around Labasa, Fiji as a part of the community outreach portion of the Pacific Pathways Exercise Cartwheel 2019.
Soldiers from the 351st Civil Affairs Command, conducted the community outreach by visiting primary schools and making group presentations on the importance of proper hand washing techniques and healthy eating habits, as well as making donations of classroom materials in the form of white boards.
Exercise Cartwheel is a U.S. Army Pacific sponsored military training, and community engagement event under the Pacific Pathways program. The exercise demonstrates the U.S. Army's enduring commitments to Fiji, and promotes cooperation and interoperability with our partners in a free and open Indo-Pacific.
Beyond the military-to-military training of the exercise, one of the primary purposes of Pacific Pathways and Exercise Cartwheel, is the human relationships aspect. Civil outreach assists in achieving this specific exercises goal, which is strengthening the United States and Fiji's nation-to-nation relationship.
"The best part of the civic visits is to see the excitement on the children's faces. The children don't know what to expect at first, but most of the excitement is from Army Soldiers coming in their uniforms," said Iliseva Volai, acting division education officer in the north region. "In my five years in this office, we have never had anything like this. Just the thought of the U.S Army coming in uniforms is exciting and an experience for the children. I think this is the start of a really good joint-exercise, not just the military part of it, but the human part as well."
Since arriving in Labasa, the civil and community outreach team has been focused on its mission of visiting eight schools and completing the donations of classroom materials. More importantly, the teams are building lasting relationships with the community and finding their work rewarding.
"Anytime we go to another country to train we also like to give back whenever we can, by doing a civic or community engagement. Any of the engagements we do is going to be essential for the Pacific Pathways Cartwheel Exercise line of effort because it shows the Pacific region that we are here, and we are here to help and work with our partners," said U.S. Army Maj. Kellie Landauer, U.S. Army Pacific exercises planner.
In one of the classroom presentations, students were presented with a practical hand washing exercise to show how difficult it is to remove all the dirt and germs that are typically found on their hands. The presenter, U.S. Army Reserve Capt. Devin Devries, who is a civil affairs officer and also a water engineer in his civilian profession at San Jose Water in California, uses a special gel and ultra violet light in order to demonstrate the importance of proper handwashing.
"A lot of these kids are already familiar with these basic concepts, I'm just getting at the heart of why that's important for the individual, and also for the community. It helps break the spread of communicable diseases," Devries said.
As the U.S. seeks to maintain its positive presence in the region through Pacific Pathways exercises, the civil affairs team is looking for opportunities to make a difference in the future events like Exercise Cartwheel. The team is taking every opportunity to engage with local officials and find any way they can lend a hand. More importantly, individuals on the team are enjoying their work.
"The best part of the civic visits is just interacting with the children. It's fun to engage with the kids and just have that time to teach them something practical; something they can learn and take lessons from. Then also take the time to show them that we are people too, and that we are all in this together," Devries said.
Follow the training and progress of U.S. Army and Fiji RFMF on the USARPAC Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/USARPAC/ or view the Defense Visual Information Distribution System at https://www.dvidshub.net/search?q=cartwheel&view=grid
Welcome to White Sands
Some Things To Know
Bataan Memorial Death March
Organizations and Missions
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Commanding General, White Sands Missile Range
U.S. Army Garrison, White Sands
White Sands Test Center
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Summer vacation ends and school begins at Edward C. Killin Elementary School
Encouraging resiliency through recreation
Engineers host unique NCO induction ceremony
New school buses feature Japanese warning sign
JMC's Commanding General discusses the importance of equality with RIA workforce
Lost art of H-60 inspection proves useful after lightning strike
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The Richest Self-Made Woman in America Is a Pizza Entrepreneur Worth $5.1 Billion
The richest self-made woman in America invested her life savings in a pizza store in Michigan in 1954. Her name is Marian Ilitch, and the restaurant that she and her husband Mike opened turned into the Little Caesars pizza chain—which now generates over $3 billion in sales annually.
Today, Ilitch has a net worth of $5.1 billion, putting her at the top of the third-annual “America’s Richest Self-Made Women” list from Forbes, which was released this week.
The other wealthy women who made the cut earned their fortunes in a variety of fields, including tech, retail, entertainment, fast food, and fashion. (Women such as Walmart heir Alice Walton and Steve Jobs’ widow Laurene Powell Jobs, are actually richer, but they’re not included on the list because their wealth was inherited.)
There are now 18 self-made American women who are billionaires, up from 16 last year. The top 10 are all worth $2 billion or more, with Ilitch in the top spot. Diane Hendricks ($4.9 billion), the cofounder and chair of the wholesale building supplies distributor ABC Supply, is second on the list, followed by a tie for third place between gas station and convenience store chain founder Judy Love and entertainment mogul Oprah Winfrey—both at$2.9 billion.
Rounding out the top 10 are Gap co-founder Doris Fisher ($2.6 billion); Epic Systems founder and CEO Judy Faulkner ($2.5 billion); Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman ($2.5 billion); trucking entrepreneur Johnelle Hunt ($2.3 billion); casino co-founder Elaine Wynn ($2.1 billion); and Lynda Resnick ($2 billion), who alongside her husband Stewart owns huge farms and the Wonderful Company, the company behind brands like Fiji Water and Pom Wonderful.
Facebook COO and best-selling author Sheryl Sandberg and Spanx founder Sara Blakely are also in the billionaire club, with net worths of $1.6 billion and $1.1 billion, respectively. (Women such as Walmart heir Alice Walton and Steve Jobs’ widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, are actually richer than anyone on Forbes’ new list—but they’re not included because their wealth was inherited, not self-made.)
Among the other names on the list that many people will find familiar:
• Vera Wang ($630 million)
• Tory Burch ($600 million)
• Madonna ($580 million)
• Marissa Mayer ($540 million)
• Donna Karan ($470 million)
• Celine Dion ($400 million)
• Barbra Streisand ($390 million)
• Beyonce ($350 million)
• Judy Sheindlin, a.k.a. “Judge Judy” ($300 million)
• Taylor Swift ($280 million)
At the age of just 27, Taylor Swift is the youngest woman on Forbes’ list. The oldest is 90-year-old Alice Schwartz, who launched the biotech firm Bio-Rad Laboratories with her husband David in 1952, and is now worth an estimated $950 million.
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10 Things You Didn’t Know About Ross Stores CEO Barbara Rentler
Nat Berman 11 months ago
Barbara Rentler is the CEO of Ross Stores, a popular retailer that is based out of New York, New York. Barbara has an interesting career history and she’s been with the company for some time. We wanted to learn more about her, so we set out on a quest to find out about her background and how she came to become the influential leader that she is today. Her are 10 things that you didn’t know about Barbara Rentler.
1. She didn’t start out with Ross as a leader
When Barbara Rentler first joined Ross Stores in 1986, it wasn’t at the top of the leadership ladder. She began with an array of merchandising positions. She did very well and her performance was remarkable. After putting in sixteen years with the company, she was appointed to the position of Senior Vice President and General Merchandise Manager. She served in this capacity until moved to a Sr. VP and Chief Merchandising Officer with the company in 2004.
2. Rentler was promoted in 2006
Barbara Rentler was only in the Executive VP and Chief Merchandising Officer for one year. In 2006, she was named as the Executive Vice President of Merchandising and put in charge of all of the Apparel and related products for Ross Stores.
3. She was promoted again in 2009
Within just three years of her last promotion, Barbara Rentler was made the President and Chief Merchandising Officer at Ross Stores. The promotion was made in 2009 and she continued on with the company in this position until her next career recognition would move her even higher in the company’s leadership team.
4. One leader retires and another takes their place
In 2014, Michael Balmuth, CEO of Ross Stores retired. The company needed a replacement and the person who best met the qualifications for the job was Barbara Rentler. The officially became the 25th CEO of Ross Stores on June 1, 2014.
5. Rentler was appointed Counselor at Ross
In December of 1993, Barbara Rentler served as Counselor for Ross. She maintained this position until February of 1996. She was also made Director of Ross Stores Inc in 2014. She still maintains the position of President along with her post as CEO.
6. She’s compensated in millions
Barbara Rentler receives a substantial compensation package for her contributions to the leadership of Ross Stores, Inc. She’s one of the highest paid executives in the company. Her total annual compensation package as of 2017 was $12,400,570.
7. Barbara Rentler is humble and doesn’t like the spotlight
Barbara is one of those rare leaders who does her job and is recognized for significant accomplishments. She has a quiet style of leadership. She’s effective and she’s become a wealthy woman for her efforts. Perhaps one of the most impressive characteristics of her style is that she doesn’t like to be spotlighted. We recently learned that when a Fortune Magazine article with her name was ran, she wouldn’t even give them a photo to include. She does her job while keeping a low profile.
8. She doesn’t share personal information
Fortune Magazine makes a habit of highlighting remarkable women in key leadership positions. They reached out to Barbara and asked for some basic information. One of the questions was about where she attended college and what degrees she earned. We learn that she did not respond to Fortune’s request for the information. While most people would be happy to provide information that cast them in the role of a positive figure in the industry, she preferred to keep her education and other personal things about herself private.
9. Rentler owns a lot of stock in Ross Stores
We did learn that Barbara trades a lot of stock in Ross Stores. She sold 50,481 units in March of 2017. She made an estimated $3,336,794 in the sale. Statistics show that she trades just under 13,000 units every 51 days and has done so since 2016. As of the Fall of 2018, she was still owner of 455,891 units of Ross stock.
10. Her net worth is impressive
Barbara Rentler’s net worth was estimated to be a minimum of $69.9 million in the fall of 2018. This figure was determined by adding the value of her stock units with Ross Stores Inc along with the salary and other types of compensation that she receives annually. She’s become a very wealthy woman during her years working for Ross Stores.
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Sen. Duckworth on sexual assault in military: ‘In many ways, it's worse than it was before’
Rebecca Corey
Yahoo News June 21, 2019
“Through Her Eyes” is a weekly show hosted by human rights activist Zainab Salbi that explores contemporary news issues from a female perspective. You can watch the full episode of “Through Her Eyes” every Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET on Roku, or at the bottom of this article.
Iraq War veteran Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., is at a loss as to why sexual harassment and cases of sexual assault continue to plague the U.S. military, telling Yahoo News “I don’t know” why the problem persists despite efforts from lawmakers.
Sexual assault in the military spiked 13 percent in 2018, with more than 20,000 cases reported, according to statistics from a recent Pentagon survey. (The Pentagon survey defines sexual assault as rape, sexual assault, forcible sodomy, aggravated sexual contact, abusive sexual contact and attempts to commit those offenses.)
Sexual assault cases have been reported across multiple branches of the military, including the Air Force, the branch in which Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., recently disclosed in a Senate hearing that she had been raped by a superior officer.
“We don't know what this issue is,” Duckworth said in her interview with Yahoo News show “Through Her Eyes.” “But one thing we do know is that there still continues to be a problem with the military's judicial system, as it pertains to sexual harassment and sexual assault in the military. I don't see the same reports with other crimes in the military. But I do see it with the sexual crimes.”
She continued: “Obviously, there's something wrong within the system, that despite everything that the military's tried and despite everything that legislators like myself or Kirsten Gillibrand or Claire McCaskill have tried over the last 10 years, it's still a problem.”
“And in many ways, it's worse than it was before,” she added.
A lieutenant colonel in the Army for 23 years, Duckworth lost both of her legs in 2004 when the Black Hawk helicopter she was co-piloting was shot down by Iraqi insurgents.
Authority over sexual assault crimes in the military resides with military commanders, but as allegations of sexual misconduct continue to rise, some veterans groups and critics in Congress like Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., are pushing for these crimes to be shifted away from the military and into the hands of independent prosecutors. Duckworth is one such critic; she now says cases of sexual harassment need to be moved out of the military’s jurisdiction.
“So I'm now, you know, getting to the point where I do support moving the investigation, prosecution, decision making and all of the sentencing of those crimes out of the military judicial system, out from underneath the chain of command,” she told “Through Her Eyes.”
Separately, Duckworth is also taking on sexual harassment at one of the largest fast food chains in the United States — McDonald’s — and has teamed up with fellow senators, including Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Bernie Sanders, independent-Vt., to demand safer conditions for workers.
“They have this great sexual harassment policy in theory, on paper. But they don't actually implement it,” she said.
McDonald’s workers recently filed dozens of new sexual harassment charges, alleging groping, indecent exposure and propositions for sex — and retaliation against those who complained.
Last month, Steve Easterbrook, the chief executive of McDonald’s, responded to a letter from Duckworth saying that the company had improved and clarified its policies on harassment. But with more than 90 percent of its locations franchised, McDonald's has long maintained that it should not be liable for how employees in franchised restaurants behave.
Duckworth doesn’t accept this as an excuse.
“If you have the kind of power to tell them how many pickles to put on a hamburger, you certainly have the power to tell them, you know, not to discriminate or retaliate against women or victims of sexual harassment," she said.
Duckworth also has her eye on the 2020 presidential race, and the Illinois Democrat said she is particularly invested in seeing a Midwesterner make it to the final debate stage.
“I'm so excited that Amy Klobuchar is in the race. And of course, Pete Buttigieg is really tearing it up out there,” she said of the Minnesota senator and the South Bend., Ind., mayor. “So I want these folks to stay in the race as long as possible.”
She said she sees a Midwestern nominee as a prudent political move for Democrats if they are to compete with President Trump, who surprised many pundits by winning states like Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016.
“We can't win without talking to the folks in the mountain states,” she said. “And you certainly cannot win without talking to the industrial Midwest.”
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Serving those who served
Veteran students enjoy using the Veterans Resource Center as a place to connect with other veterans. Pictured are: Veteran Resource Center Director Chris Gregory (far left) and students Seth Pfund-Kraus, Brayden Panttaja and David Zochol.
Ranked by a number of publications as one of the best colleges for veterans in the United States, UNCG has a reputation for providing a supportive environment for those who have served in our nation’s military.
UNCG has a legacy of support for veterans on campus dating back to its Woman’s College days, from WWI leaders like Dr. Anna Gove who served with the Red Cross to members of the Women’s Army Corps and Women’s Army Veterans in WWII.
The university proudly continues this history for current members of the armed forces and reserves. Most recently, UNCG was named to the Military Times’ annual Best for Vets: Colleges 2016 list, ranking No. 68 out of 125 four-year schools across the nation.
Last Veterans Day, the university opened its Veterans Resource Center, located on the bottom floor in the Spring Garden Apartments on campus. The center is essential to its mission to serve veterans by helping them better connect with each other and the university and learn about available resources. It also offers special training for faculty and staff to help them learn to better support veteran students.
Chris Gregory, UNCG’s Veterans Resource Center coordinator, said it’s important for the university to “make education as easy as possible” for veterans students. “These are folks who have put themselves in harm’s way to protect our country.”
The Veterans Resource Center starts working with UNCG’s veteran students before they’re even students. They help veterans navigate the application process and helping them secure the financial aid they need to be successful.
“We do a lot to help them get to UNCG,” Gregory said. Once they’re here, veterans make excellent students.
“Veteran students tend to come in a little bit more prepared and a little more focused,” Gregory said, adding that those students tend to contribute a lot to the groups they join and they make great alumni.
“Veteran students look at the world a bit differently,” said Seth Pfund-Kraus, a senior finance major and veteran student.
Not only do they have more life experience, but veterans must also learn to reestablish their identity as a civilian and a student.
“You’re no longer a soldier. You have to play a different role,” he said. “Making that switch is very challenging.”
The Veteran Resource Center provides a place for veteran students to get away and socialize with those with similar life experience.
“The Veterans Resource Center has provided me with a positive environment to study in and to interact with fellow veterans who have shared the experience of sacrificing their lives for our country,” said Samyuell Mongkhounsavath, a student veteran studying human development and family studies.
Like Pfund-Kraus, many of UNCG’s veteran students are studying in the Bryan School of Business, but a growing number of students are also applying to the nursing school. The Veterans Access Program provides an accelerated program to veterans who served as medics.
After serving seven years as an Army medical supply specialist, Yessica Aguas’ main focus was “getting back to school.”
She knew she wanted to be a nurse, so when she heard about the Veterans Access Program, she realized it was “a great opportunity.”
Not only will Aguas will be able to graduate earlier than if she attended a different program, but her clinical uniforms and many of her materials were paid for with a grant.
Not having to worry about those extra expenses was a relief, she said.
Photography by Martin W. Kane, University Relations
TAGS: Campus & Community, Current Students,
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Home Knowledge Hacking OS: Top 10 Best Operating System for Hacking
Top 10 Best Operating System for Hacking
Hey guys today i am here with the list of Top 10 Best Operating System for Hacking. Hackers used this operating systems for Hacking and Penetration testing. This operating systems are totaly free and they are based on linux kernal. They have great Hacking Tools. So here you can find out all your related search query’s like best operating system for hackers, live hacking os, best hacking os 2016, top ten best hacking os, best hacking os, Hacking os, Download hacking os, Kali Linux, Backbox, Ethical Hacking and much more.
This is one of the most popular OS that is being used by hackers for pentesting and lots of security exploits. This is a Linux based OS that provides you privacy and security from the vulnerabilities that other OS have in it. So must try out this cool OS in your PC.
It includes some of the most used security and analysis Linux tools, aiming to a wide spread of goals, ranging from web application analysis to network analysis, from stress tests to sniffing, including also vulnerability assessment, computer forensic analysis and exploitation.
As i am said before Live Hacking OS is also based on linux which has big package of hacking tools useful for ethical hacking or penetration testing. It includes the graphical user interface GNOME inbuilt. There is a second variation available which has command line only, and it requires very less hardware requirements.
Deft is Ubuntu customization with a collection of computer forensic programs and documents created by thousands of individuals, teams and companies. Each of these works might come under a different licence. There Licence Policy describe the process that we follow in determining which software we will ship and by default on the deft install CD.
Parrot-sec Forensic OS
Parrot Security is an operating system based on Debian GNU/Linux mixed with Frozenbox OS and Kali linux in order to provide the best penetration and security testing experience. it is an operating system for IT security and penetration testing developed by the Frozenbox Dev Team. It is a GNU/Linux distribution based on Debian and mixed with Kali.
Nodezero
NodeZero Linux can be used as a “Live System” for occasional testing, its real strength comes from the understanding that a tester requires a strong and efficient system. This is achieved in our belief by working at a distribution that is a permanent installation, that benefits from a strong selection of tools, integrated with a stable linux environment.
Pentoo
Pentoo is a Live CD and Live USB designed for penetration testing and security assessment. Based on Gentoo Linux, Pentoo is provided both as 32 and 64 bit installable live cd. Pentoo is also available as an overlay for an existing Gentoo installation. It features packet injection patched wifi drivers, GPGPU cracking software, and lots of tools for penetration testing and security assessment. The Pentoo kernel includes grsecurity and PAX hardening and extra patches – with binaries compiled from a hardened toolchain with the latest nightly versions of some tools available.
GnackTrack
GnackTrack is an open and free project to merge penetration testing tools and the linux Gnome desktop. GnackTrack is a Live (and installable) Linux distribution designed for Penetration Testing and is based on Ubuntu.
Bugtraq is an electronic mailing list dedicated to issues about computer security. On-topic issues are new discussions about vulnerabilities, vendor security-related announcements, methods of exploitation, and how to fix them. It is a high-volume mailing list, and almost all new vulnerabilities are discussed there.
Network Security Toolkit
Network Security Toolkit (NST) is a bootable live CD based on Fedora Core. The toolkit was designed to provide easy access to best-of-breed open source network security applications and should run on most x86 platforms. The main intent of developing this toolkit was to provide the network security administrator with a comprehensive set of open source network security tools.
Top CMD prompt Commands Used In Hacking or Basic Use
hacking programs
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Rahul Solanki - Aug 25, 2018
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Research culture evidence gathering meeting: social science
On 19 June, members of the Steering Group on the culture of scientific research held an evidence-gathering meeting with a group of experts, each of whom were studying various aspects of the practice of scientific research or researcher careers. The participants, from the fields of social science, sociology, law, management, education, business, and science and technology studies were asked to point to any relevant work they had done and their views on the most important issues or research in this area. The group discussed research that was being conducted on bibliometrics, academic communities, the impact agenda, team science and the influence of scientists themselves on the way the research environment is shaped.
The participants at the meeting were:
Amanda Goodall, Senior Lecturer in Management, Cass Business School, City University London
Marie Andrée Jacob, Senior Lecturer, School of Law, Keele University
Cornelia Lawson, Research Fellow, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Nottingham
Yann Lebeau, Senior Lecturer, School of Education & Lifelong Learning, Associate Dean of Postgraduate Research in the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of East Anglia
Thed van Leeuwen, Senior Researcher, Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), Leiden University, The Netherlands
Natasha Mauthner, Personal Chair, Business School, University of Aberdeen
Charis Thompson, Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science
Jane Tinkler, Research Fellow and Manager of the LSE Public Policy Group
Further evidence gathering meetings are planned with funders and publishers of scientific research.
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Education finance reform and investment in human capital: Lessons from California
Raquel Fernandez, Richard Rogerson
This paper examines the effect of different education financing systems on the level and distribution of resources devoted to public education. We focus on California, which in the 1970's was transformed from a foundation system of mixed local and state financing to one of effectively pure state finance and subsequently saw its funding of public education fall between 10 and 15% relative to the rest of the US. We show that a simple political economy model of public finance can account for the bulk of this drop. We find that while the distribution of spending became more equal, this was mainly at the cost of a large reduction in spending in the wealthier communities with little increase for the poorer districts. Our calibrated model implies that there is no simple trade-off between equity and resources; we show that if California had moved to the opposite extreme and abolished state aid altogether, funding for public education would also have dropped by almost 10%.
Journal of Public Economics
Education finance reform
Fernandez, R., & Rogerson, R. (1999). Education finance reform and investment in human capital: Lessons from California. Journal of Public Economics, 74(3), 327-350.
Education finance reform and investment in human capital : Lessons from California. / Fernandez, Raquel; Rogerson, Richard.
In: Journal of Public Economics, Vol. 74, No. 3, 12.1999, p. 327-350.
Fernandez, R & Rogerson, R 1999, 'Education finance reform and investment in human capital: Lessons from California', Journal of Public Economics, vol. 74, no. 3, pp. 327-350.
Fernandez R, Rogerson R. Education finance reform and investment in human capital: Lessons from California. Journal of Public Economics. 1999 Dec;74(3):327-350.
Fernandez, Raquel ; Rogerson, Richard. / Education finance reform and investment in human capital : Lessons from California. In: Journal of Public Economics. 1999 ; Vol. 74, No. 3. pp. 327-350.
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abstract = "This paper examines the effect of different education financing systems on the level and distribution of resources devoted to public education. We focus on California, which in the 1970's was transformed from a foundation system of mixed local and state financing to one of effectively pure state finance and subsequently saw its funding of public education fall between 10 and 15{\%} relative to the rest of the US. We show that a simple political economy model of public finance can account for the bulk of this drop. We find that while the distribution of spending became more equal, this was mainly at the cost of a large reduction in spending in the wealthier communities with little increase for the poorer districts. Our calibrated model implies that there is no simple trade-off between equity and resources; we show that if California had moved to the opposite extreme and abolished state aid altogether, funding for public education would also have dropped by almost 10{\%}.",
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AB - This paper examines the effect of different education financing systems on the level and distribution of resources devoted to public education. We focus on California, which in the 1970's was transformed from a foundation system of mixed local and state financing to one of effectively pure state finance and subsequently saw its funding of public education fall between 10 and 15% relative to the rest of the US. We show that a simple political economy model of public finance can account for the bulk of this drop. We find that while the distribution of spending became more equal, this was mainly at the cost of a large reduction in spending in the wealthier communities with little increase for the poorer districts. Our calibrated model implies that there is no simple trade-off between equity and resources; we show that if California had moved to the opposite extreme and abolished state aid altogether, funding for public education would also have dropped by almost 10%.
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News Maven
Southern border apprehensions topped 360,000 in first half of year
byAndrew Howard
Apr 10, 2019 -edited
Critics continued to lay the blame for the ongoing problem at the feet of the Trump administration, saying the White House does not want to address the root of the problem
WASHINGTON – Frontline border officials told a Senate committee Tuesday that the crisis at the southern border is real and that “something has to change” to combat the growing number of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The testimony came as Customs and Border Protection released new numbers that showed apprehensions at the southern border through the first half of fiscal 2019 are almost as high as the total for all of 2018, with the number of families rising more than three times.
“In my 30 years as an agent, I have never witnessed the conditions we are currently facing on the Southwest border,” said Rodolfo Karisch, chief patrol agent for the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley sector.
“This is not a manufactured crisis created by those of us who live and work in the border area,” said Karisch, who previously worked in the Tucson sector.
But critics continued to lay the blame for the ongoing problem at the feet of the Trump administration, saying the White House does not want to address the root of the problem – turmoil in the Central American countries from which most of the recent migrants come.
“Actually addressing the root causes of the problem in Central America and humanely managing applications for asylum from families fleeing violence are far, far down the list of Trump administration priorities,” said a statement last week from Pili Tobar, deputy director of the pro-immigration organization America’s Voice.
At the Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing where the border officials testified, Sen. Gary Peters, D-Michigan, pointed to his remarks at a hearing last week, when he said securing the border “will take cooperation and credibility from this administration and not chaos and confusion.”
“Unfortunately, in the days since, just five days, we’ve seen nothing but more chaos of the administration,” Peters said Tuesday.
On Friday, President Donald Trump suddenly announced he was withdrawing the nomination of Ron Vitiello to be head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying only that he wanted to “go in a tougher direction.” On Sunday, he accepted the resignation of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.
Those moves followed a week in which the president threatened to shut the border with Mexico, which he has since backed away from, and said he would withhold $450 million in aid to Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, a cut that has yet to happen.
Trump complained then that the Central American countries have not done enough to stem the flow of northbound migrants and that Mexico has not done enough to stop them once they cross that border.
The CBP numbers released Tuesday showed that 265,949 migrants from the three “Northern Triangle” countries in Central America were among the 361,087 migrants apprehended at the southern U.S. border in the first six months of fiscal 2019, about the same number as for all of fiscal 2018. In contrast, just 74,464 Mexicans were apprehended in the first half of fiscal 2019.
In March alone, Border Patrol apprehended more than 92,000 people trying to cross the southern border, said Brian Hastings, Border Patrol chief of operations, on a conference call Tuesday. That was the most in March since 2007, according to CBP documents.
Of last month’s apprehensions, Hastings said about 30,000 were single adults, 8,900 were unaccompanied minors and 53,000 were people traveling with families – a 375% increase in families stopped at the border over the first half of fiscal 2018. The surge has strained the capacity of border agencies which have been forced to release many migrants once they are processed and given court dates.
The 2019 numbers are still well below the early years of this century, when apprehensions routinely topped 1 million a year, but they mark a sharp turnaround from years of decline.
Karisch and other border officials urged lawmakers to change laws they said “incentivize” immigrants to make the journey.
Rodolfo Karisch, chief patrol agent for the Rio Grande Valley sector of the Border Patrol, urged members of the Senate Homeland Security Committee to change the laws that he said “incentivize” migrants to make the trek to the U.S. (Photo by Andrew Howard/Cronkite News)
“Make no mistake about it, the word is getting out,” Karisch said. “If you are part of a family, if you bring a child, you will be released.”
In response to the surge, CBP has moved 545 officers away from their port of entry posts so they can assist Border Patrol, said CBP Office of Field Operations Executive Director Randy Howe. He said being a CBP officer is “an immense task even in the best circumstances” and staffing shortages are compounded by the redeployments, leading to long delays in crossing the border at El Paso, Texas, and other ports of entry.
“I cannot overstate the importance of these operations,” Howe said. “The border security and humanitarian crisis at the Southwest border has ripple effects that impact the entire nation. Suspending services negatively impacts the trade community and the supply chain.”
But Tobar said the president continues to “fundamentally misunderstand the challenge we’re facing” at the border.
“Instead of seeking to advance humane and pragmatic policy to de-escalate the situation, they are motivated by what will help Trump build a wall, get applause at his rallies, look tough, and burnish his political brand,” she said in her statement.
Peters said the problem “is, in a word, chaos” in the Trump White House.
“The problems we face at our southern border will not be fixed with high-profile firings or tweets or press conferences,” he said. “It’s going to take leadership.”
For more stories from Cronkite News, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org.
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Prayers and songs for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
EditorIndian Country Today
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Indian Country Today E-Weekly Newsletter for January 16, 2020
Associate EditorVincent Schilling
Top 10 Stories: What Indian Country read this past week as of January 18, 2020
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Reporter, ProducerAliyah Chavez
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Trump campaign tries robust outreach to expand his appeal
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Jamie Floer, Community & Media Relations Representative
Office: (407) 254-9682 Cell: (407) 793-6759 or Email: Jamie.Floer@ocfl.net
ADVISORY – Orange County Increases Hydrogen Sulfide Monitoring
Orange County, FL – The Orange County Utilities Solid Waste Division has increased the frequency of hydrogen sulfide monitoring near the Orange County Landfill, 5901 Young Pine Road, Orlando, located in east Orange County off Young Pine Road between SR 417 and Innovation Way.
The new phase to measure hydrogen sulfide gas (H2S), which smells like sulfur or rotten eggs, began July 21. The first full week of data can be found at http://www.orangecountyfl.net/WaterGarbageRecycling/LandfillOdor.aspx.
Orange County Utilities will post weekly updates for a 90-day period. As suggested by the Florida Department of Health in May, three monitoring stations collect readings daily every 30 minutes, which is reflected in the data. The Florida Department of Health will review the data weekly and issue a report after the 90-day period.
The locations of the three hydrogen sulfide monitoring stations near the landfill – one mile northwest, two miles southwest and three miles northeast – were recommended by the Florida Department of Health. A map has been provided to help nearby residents identify the monitor closest to their residence.
Previously, hydrogen sulfide concentrations were being recorded using one mobile monitor at multiple locations surrounding the landfill around 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. on Fridays.
Hydrogen sulfide, which can be detected by the human nose at very low levels, has been a recurring issue since last fall. Consultants attributed the increased hydrogen sulfide creation to a previous practice of mixing household waste and construction and demolition debris (C&D).
The Florida Department of Health has a Frequently Asked Questions document about hydrogen sulfide on its website.
About Orange County Government: Orange County Government strives to serve its citizens and guests with integrity, honesty, fairness and professionalism. Located in Central Florida, Orange County includes 13 municipalities and is home to world famous theme parks, the nation’s second largest convention center, and a thriving life science research park. Seven elected members make up the Board of County Commissioners including the Mayor who is elected countywide. For more information please visit www.OCFL.net or go to the Orange County Facebook and Twitter pages.
About Orange County Government: Orange County Government strives to serve its citizens and guests with integrity, honesty, fairness and professionalism. Located in Central Florida, Orange County includes 13 municipalities and is home to world-famous theme parks, the nation’s second-largest convention center, and a thriving life science research park. Seven elected members make up the Board of County Commissioners including the Mayor who is elected countywide. For more information, please visit www.OCFL.net or go to the Orange County Facebook and Twitter pages.
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After Bad Loss In London, Dolphins Fire Head Coach Philbin
Fish Failed To Show Up Against Archrival Jets And Fell To A Surprising 1-3 October 5, 2015 at 12:20 pm
Filed Under:Joe Philbin, Miami Dolphins
Joe Philbin (Photo by Jim Rogash/Getty Images)
MIAMI (CBSNewYork/AP) — Joe Philbin was fired Monday four games into his fourth season as coach of the Miami Dolphins, and one day after a flop on an international stage that apparently sealed his fate.
Tight ends coach Dan Campbell, who has been with the Dolphins since 2010, was expected to be promoted to interim coach.
The Dolphins (1-3) lost their third game in a row and turned in their fourth consecutive lackluster performance when they were beaten Sunday in London by the archrival New York Jets, 27-14.
Midseason head coaching changes are unusual in the NFL, but few will accuse owner Stephen Ross of impatience. He ignored calls to fire Philbin in December after the Dolphins faded to finish 8-8 for a second successive season.
But doubts only grew this season regarding Philbin’s inability to motivate players with his bland demeanor.
“This was a tough decision for me to make, knowing how tirelessly Joe worked in his four years here to make this a winning team,” Ross said in a statement. “He is a man of the highest character and integrity that I developed a close personal relationship with. I am extremely disappointed with how we have started the season, but I feel confident that we can improve quickly with the talent we have on our roster.”
The Dolphins have started poorly in every game and have been outscored 37-3 in the first quarter. The offensive line has been a problem throughout Philbin’s tenure, and the defense has progressively gotten worse under coordinator Kevin Coyle. They rank last in the AFC in rushing and offensive points per game, and last in the NFL in sacks and run defense.
Philbin, who was hired as a first-time head coach in 2012, went 24-28. He failed to reach the playoffs or even finish above .500.
Philbin, who said after Sunday’s loss that he wasn’t worried about his job security, issued a statement after being fired.
“I want to thank Steve Ross for allowing me the privilege to serve as the head coach of the Miami Dolphins,” Philbin said. “This is a tremendous organization from top to bottom that has a talented and dedicated staff. I want to especially thank the players, coaches and football staff who have worked so unselfishly and represented the team with dignity and class. I would be remiss if I didn’t thank the incredible fan base who has supported me and my family unconditionally since day one.
“It is my hope that the 2015 Miami Dolphins achieve great success both on and off the field.”
Philbin’s job has been in jeopardy since a rocky 2013 season that included a bullying scandal and a meltdown in the final two games that cost Miami a playoff berth.
The Dolphins have floundered for more than a decade while going through frequent shake-ups at the top. The next coach will be their eighth since 2004, and the second hired by Ross.
The Dolphins are on course to miss the playoffs for the 13th time in the past 14 years, and the seventh season in a row. It has been 23 years since they reached the AFC championship game, 31 years since they played in the Super Bowl and 42 years since they won an NFL title.
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CBD is one of over 60 compounds found in cannabis that belong to a class of ingredients called cannabinoids. Until recently, THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) was getting most of the attention because it’s the ingredient in cannabis that produces intoxicating effects in users. But CBD is also present in high concentrations — and the world is awakening to its possible benefits.
THC is found in large quantities in cannabis, or what most people think of as the marijuana plant. Unlike cannabis, or marijuana, hemp contains low concentrations of THC. CBD Oils are generally made from the hemp plant so they contain high levels of CBD and trace levels of THC. As a result, CBD provides a less controversial alternative to THC for health benefits.
Some additional positive news happened in June 2018, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first CBD-derived drug — Epidiolex, which contains purified CBD — to treat certain childhood seizure syndromes. Very promising findings and many are interested in long term effects. It’s likely that CBD will be used to treat other medical conditions in the near future.
Whereas Michigan already had medical weed legalized to make for a quicker route to starting full legislation, these states don't yet have an operational system in place. North Dakota and West Virginia also still are not operational yet, nor in Louisiana or Arkansas. Ohio is also behind schedule, having been unable to meet their goal of having operational dispensaries two years after voting for legalization. And until those are operational, the Ohio Board of Pharmacy ruled that any CBD products not sold in dispensaries licensed by the state's program are illegal.
This means that CBD oil products that are derived from these “not marihuana” parts of imported hemp plants are not federally banned, and the natural cannabinoids in hemp-derived products are exempt from DEA enforcement. While hemp cannot be legally cultivated in the U.S. except under state-regulated programs, hemp-derived oil has been a legal import in the U.S. for decades.
House Bill 2107 was brought during the 2017 legislative session with a number of vocal supporters. The bill sought to remove the “low THC” restriction and amend the law to allow for “medicinal marijuana.” It also sought to expand the types of conditions that can be treated with cannabis by including post-traumatic stress disorder and terminal cancer. Finally, the bill sought to modify the language, from requiring a doctor’s prescription to requiring a doctor’s recommendation. This change intended to address concerns about the legality of physicians prescribing something prohibited by federal law. Despite having 77 sponsors and co-sponsors, 29 of whom were Republican, the bill died in committee. Given strong support, as well as national trends, changes in Texas law are likely to occur in the future.
While only 9 states currently have legalized recreational marijuana, as an industry weed has had a huge year of growth. This is in large part due to the increasing popularity of products that contain CBD in them. CBD, short for cannabidiol, is one of the hundreds of compounds found in the cannabis plant, and the potential it has shown in helping with pain, seizures and anxiety have made it a natural fit for medical and recreational weed alike.
There is a strong sedative quality to CBD hemp oil, making it a popular remedy for people with insomnia, sleeplessness, interrupted sleep, post-traumatic stress disorder, restless leg disorder, and other night-time issues. Dr. Scott Shannon, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, USA, published a report in the Permanete Journal, in which he recommended either inhaling a small amount of CBD oil, applying it to one’s chest, or even putting a few drops on one’s pillow to help get a good night’s sleep.
There are a number of possible side effects to using CBD oil, such as fatigue, dry mouth, lightheadedness, hypotension, and impaired motor functions. However, when used in moderate amounts, most people do not experience these side effects, and none of them are known for being fatal or particularly dangerous. More than 20,000 studies have been done in the past 15 years on cannabis, hemp, and cannabinoids, and the results have been overwhelmingly supportive of the therapeutic potential and viability of CBD oil. That being said, some people should be cautious before using this powerful oil.
Although several clinical studies focused on the health effects of CBD, the results available so far were not enough to convince the FDA to approve it as a drug. The FDA does not agree with its use as a dietary supplement either, but as long as sellers publish the appropriate disclaimers (like those on the CBDPure website and labels), it’s not up to them.
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July 2, 1997 Letter to the Secretary with Recommendations on Community Health Assessment
July 2, 1997 Letter to…
National Committee on Vital & Health Statistics
The Honorable Donna E. Shalala
Dear Secretary Shalala:
On behalf of the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS), I am pleased to forward to you recommendations on community health assessment and the respective roles of state health agencies and the federal government in facilitating the assessment process. These recommendations are the outcome of a series of hearings by the NCVHS Subcommittee on State and Community Health Statistics that included testimony from individuals at every level of government and the private sector.
The Committee would like the HHS Data Council to consider the recommendations that are relevant to the Department and encourage their adoption. We also are sending copies of this letter to the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the National Association of County and City Health Officials for their consideration.
The NCVHS Subcommittee on Health Data Needs, Standards and Security, chaired by Dr. Barbara Starfield, has assumed the charge of the former Subcommittee on State and Community Health Statistics and will follow progress in this important area.
Don E. Detmer, M.D.
Bruce Vladeck, Ph.D.
Recommendations on Community Health Assessment and the Roles of State Health Agencies and the Federal Government
NATIONAL COMMITTEE ON VITAL AND HEALTH STATISTICS, SUBCOMMITTEE ON STATE AND COMMUNITY HEALTH STATISTICS
The Subcommittee has held hearings over the last three years and heard testimony from individuals from federal, state, and local governments and from the private sector, concerning efforts to promote and conduct community health assessment at the local level. There is a growing interest in community assessment in this country. This interest is fueled by changes in the health care industry–the growth of managed care and a new view of the role of hospitals in the community; by a renewed emphasis on assessment as a core function of public health agencies–with a consequent shift away from the provision of health services and toward assessment at the local level; and by changes in information technology which make it easier to share and manipulate information about health outcomes, risk factors and services.
All of these factors coincide with a new emphasis on giving state and local governments more flexibility in solving their problems. Information shared for the community assessment process must comply with statutory and regulatory measures in place to protect the privacy of individuals.
In this context we feel that it is incumbent upon this Subcommittee to provide recommendations that would identify essential aspects of the community health assessment process and indicate ways to facilitate these processes at the community level. Recommendations are provided under three headings: the first concerns characteristics of the community health assessment process itself, the second concerns the role of state health agencies in the process, and the third concerns the role of the federal government in the process.
Recommendations Concerning Community Health Assessments
The literature on community health assessment, including guides and instruction manuals, is growing rapidly. There is no lack of good information from many sources on the process of community health assessment. However, not everything that is done in the name of community health assessment is based on the best principles of data collection, data interpretation, or community interest. At the same time there is no one right way to go about a community health assessment. A good process should have the following characteristics,
Community health assessment is a process–it involves the community in identifying problems, setting priorities, developing an action plan, measuring progress, deciding whether the actions are effective, modifying the actions if necessary, and reevaluating the community’s problems and priorities. The importance of these aspects of the process are reiterated below.
Adopt a broad definition of health–consistent with the well-known World Health Organization definition: “A state of complete well-being, physical, social, and mental, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” This definition encompasses everybody’s concerns and recognizes that aspects of the social and economic environment have an important impact on health.
Involve the community–in the process of reviewing the data, setting priorities, developing an action plan, monitoring progress, changing the plan, celebrating the successes, and moving on to the next problem. Ideally the health department can be the catalyst in this process. If not, the health department should at least be involved in a process which includes board representation from other groups and business in the community.
Involve stakeholders and partners–in the process. When particular issues or problems are identified it may become obvious that the solution involves specific individuals.
Make use of data–and present it to the community in a way that helps them identify problems and set priorities. Make use of data from any and all sources. Examine data for sub-areas and sub-populations when feasible and appropriate. Use both quantitative and qualitative data. Rely on community partners to identify new sources of data. Collect new data if necessary.
Develop an action plan–to address one or more of the problems that have been identified in the community. If the community health assessment does not lead to some sort of action, then it is not worth doing.
An ongoing effort with feedback— should be implemented. Use data to measure progress. Determine whether the actions taken are having the desired effect, if not, find out why and change the plan. The ongoing effort to measure progress should utilize, whenever possible, nationally recommended or accepted measures of outcomes and/or performance.
Recommendations Concerning the Role of the State Health Agencies
Make data available: State health agencies are the repository of many important data bases (vital statistics; hospital discharge records; cancer, trauma, and birth defects registries; communicable diseases; health care resources [long term care facilities, hospitals, HMO’s, and health care providers]; health care costs; health care services; and environmental characteristics. While some of these data originate at the local level they may not be available for analysis at the local level, and data for other areas or for the state are frequently needed for comparison purposes. The state health agency should make these data available for use at the local level.
Enhance state-based data systems to provide information at appropriate levels of geographic detail: County level data is frequently inadequate. Data may be needed for towns, zip codes, census tracts, health service area, etc. Data systems must be enhanced to provide additional levels of geographic detail. Geographic information systems (GIS) are now available and are beginning to be used in community health assessment activities. These systems need data coded in terms of latitude and longitude in order to make maximum use of the capability of these systems. States should add geographic detail to appropriate data files.
Enhance and augment state data bases: States and communities should take advantage of opportunities to participate in national data collection efforts that would provide state and/or community level data needed for community assessment.
Increase access to data using appropriate technology: While printed reports and tables are still an important source of information for many areas, local health officials are increasingly anxious to access the primary statistical files. From printed reports to on-line access to data files there is a continuum of access. Information should be provided in ways that are most useful to communities.
Explore access to private sector data: State health agencies should explore the desirability and feasibility of accessing private sector data. The potential to integrate these data with public sector data to obtain a more complete picture of the community should be considered, and the possibility of linking private and public sector data to study health outcomes should be explored. These data could make a significant contribution to local community assessment.
Provide leadership and training: Here again there is a wide continuum of expertise in using data, involving the community and mobilizing for action among communities. The state health agency can play a substantial role in training local health agencies and individuals from the community in the process of community health assessment. Training in the tabulation, analysis, interpretation and presentation of data are among the needs most often mentioned by local health departments.
Promote flexibility in the use of federal and state funds: The process of community health assessment should address a broad range of health outcomes, risk factors, and community services. Funding sources should make it easier for communities to use funds to hire and make effective use of staff for such board-based efforts.
Encourage flexibility and coordination of programs: State health agencies can also encourage innovation at the local level by making it possible for communities to pool staff, equipment and resources at the local level to achieve shared program goals.
Recommendations Concerning the Role of the Federal government
Promote community health assessment through Healthy People 2010: National and state objectives for the Year 2000 have played an important part in many community health assessment efforts. Healthy People 2000 includes objectives for Surveillance and Data Systems. One or more objectives for the year 2010 should be developed to promote the process of community assessment and community action at the local level.
Support development of the Guide to Community Preventive Services: The process of community health assessment should lead to the identification of particular problems that require action. Unfortunately, the information required to select effective programs is often fugitive. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has initiated an effort to develop a Guide to Community Preventive Services. This guide should bring together all of the available information about the effectiveness of community-based prevention efforts. This would be an invaluable resource to state and local health departments who want to initiate new programs or make existing programs more effective. This activity should be adequately staffed and funded to fulfill its promise.
Provide support for State Centers for Health Statistics: The NCVHS previously made a number of specific recommendations to revitalize and enhance State Centers for Health Statistics to provide the necessary support for state and community health assessment. These recommendations should be pursued.
Provide leadership in exploring access to private sector data: As noted above in recommendations for states, the ability to combine data from the public and private sectors would provide a more complete picture of health care in communities. The federal government should provide leadership to states in their efforts to explore access and use of data from the private sector.
Promote flexibility in the use of federal funds: It has always been difficult to fund data systems and other broad-based assessment activities. The mandate to use federal dollars to support data collection, analysis, dissemination and planning should be more explicit. While increased flexibility is desired, appropriate accountability for the funds is necesary (see below).
Revise Federal audit procedures: Federal audit procedures are frequently cited as a reason why states have not been able to pool federal dollars or share staff between projects. These procedures should be revised and clarified so that states are assured that they can use funds in a more flexible way with appropriate documentation.
Provide technical support for state and local efforts: The Guide to Community Preventive Services is one example of the kind of technical assistance that the federal government can provide for the entire public health community. Development of the Health Status Indicators associated with Heathy People 2000 objective 22.1 is another example of an effort to promote standardized comparisons of health measures at the federal, state and local level. Additional opportunities should be identified to prepare model reports that state and local health departments could emulate (such as leading causes of death, reports on behavioral risk factors, reports on hospital discharge data, etc.) and additional opportunities should be explored to provide statistical training to state health department personnel and to develop materials for use in training local health department personnel. The federal statistical agencies also need to have available the technical staff to provide consultation and assistance to state health agencies.
Enhance collection, analysis, and dissemination of data: Federal statistical agencies can continue to provide leadership in the area of data collection and processing. The current effort to re-engineer the completion of death certificates is an important step in automating the process of death certification. Similarly the federal government can encourage states to code and tabulate data at the finer levels of geographic detail that are called for in community health assessment. National data systems (like the National Health Interview Survey) should be designed to provide state level data wherever possible and/or allow states the opportunity to buy into a national data collection effort for geographic areas of interest.
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Bouyei (Haasqyaix)
Bouyei is a member of the northern branch of the Tai-Kadai language family. It has about 2.6 million speakers and is spoken mainly in southern Guizhou Province in China. There are also some Bouyei speakers, who are known as Giáy, in northern Vietnam. Bouyei is also known as Buyi, Puyi, 布依语 (bùyī yǔ) in Chinese, and tiếng Bố or tiếng Giáy in Vietnamese. Bouyei has official status in China and Vietnam.
Bouyei used to be written with a script based on Chinese characters similar to the Sawndip script used for Zhuang. In 1956 a way of writing Bouyei using the Latin alphabet was developed, and was based on the Latin alphabet for Zhuang. It was approved by the Chinese government in 1957, but was only used until 1960.
A new Latin-based script for Bouyei was developed in 1981 and experimental use began in 1982. It was officially adopted in 1985 and continues to be used. It is based on the dialect of Wangmo County (望谟县).
Bouyei alphabet and pronunciation
p, t, k, q, z and c are only used in Chinese loanwords.
sl and hr occur only in certain dialects
v = [w] before u
Bouyei has eight tones. The letters below are added to the ends on words to indicate the tones. Where there are two letters, the second is used for loanwords.
Download an alphabet chart for Bouyei (Excel)
Information about Bouyei suggested and compiled by Wolfram Siegel
Information about the Bouyei language and people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouyei_language
http://www.ethnologue.com/language/pcc
http://www.china.org.cn/e-groups/shaoshu/shao-2-bouyei.htm
Basic vocabulary of Bouyei
http://language.psy.auckland.ac.nz/austronesian/language.php?id=731
Tai-Kaidai languages
Ahom, Bouyei, Dehong Dai, Kam, (Tai) Khün, Lanna, Lao, Lue, Shan, Sui, Tai Dam, Tai Ya, Thai, Zhuang
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Mutiny at Continuum: Hyman Out of Board Chair?
By Lizzy Ratner • 06/12/06 12:00am
On Tuesday evening, hours before the annual board meeting of Continuum Health Partners, the sprawling New York hospital network, the reign of longtime chairman Morton Hyman looked like it was tapering to an end.
According to several sources, Mr. Hyman was faced with a quiet but serious mutiny among some of the members of Continuum’s board of directors—the high-powered group that oversees a network of five New York hospitals, including Beth Israel Medical Center. Anxious for a change in leadership, a small but influential core of these members had been pushing for Mr. Hyman to step down from his post for several weeks. Instead, they negotiated a carefully brokered, face-saving plan that would have Mr. Hyman departing in as little as one year’s time.
Sources familiar with the negotiations said the plan was expected to be raised—and voted on—at the Wednesday board meeting, unless the deal fell apart at the last minute.
“I suspect he will suggest that it’s time to start looking for a replacement for him and set some kind of time limit for that procedure to take place,” said one Continuum board member who asked not to be identified. “A [while] ago, he made it quite clear that he did not intend to stay there for the rest of his life …. I think what’s happening now is that it’s being strongly suggested to him that he speed up the process.”
A spokesman for Continuum declined to comment on any board tensions or backroom maneuverings, saying only that she expected Mr. Hyman to be re-elected as chairman of the board on Wednesday. She said he would be elected to a one-year term.
SHOULD MR. HYMAN FOLLOW THROUGH WITH his “retirement,” it is bound to reverberate throughout the cozy hospital-board world.
For more than three decades, Mr. Hyman, 70, a retired shipping-industry titan, has been synonymous with the rising and falling fates of Beth Israel and, eventually, all five of the hospitals in the Continuum fleet. As the notoriously hands-on chairman of the Continuum board—as well as the Beth Israel and St. Luke’s–Roosevelt Hospital mirror boards—Mr. Hyman has guided the hospitals through mergers, acquisitions, renovations and real-estate swaps, as well as the occasional unfortunate scandal. Even some of his fiercest critics acknowledge that he “brought a lot of money to that board.” (As recently as the May 10 board meeting, he pledged $50,000 to help the hospital network.)
But the rainmaker’s reign has become increasingly fraught in recent months, rocked by board-member discontent over everything from shaky hospital finances to what some members describe as Mr. Hyman’s “dictatorial” management style. In May, rumors began to spread of a push to oust him from his powerful board perch. And on Monday afternoon, a core group of roughly half a dozen dissidents—many of them on the executive board—met for lunch to finalize the details of the exit plan.
“No one wants to hurt Mort,” said the board member, whose position might be described as opposed but sympathetic. “People want a change in attitude from the chairmanship, something that seems to deal more openly with the problems of the system, and deals with them in a way that isn’t quite as heavy-handed.”
Mr. Hyman’s “retirement,” should it come, is both a cautionary tale of one man’s fall from hospital-world grace and a larger allegory of today’s treacherous medical landscape. (Call it A Pilgrim’s Progress for the high-flying board chair.) In this landscape, New York’s hospitals face a rash of financial challenges, from shriveling H.M.O. reimbursement rates to cutbacks in public funding to shrinking in-patient volume. Almost every hospital is struggling. And while Mr. Hyman may have made mistakes along the way, as his critics argue, it is also true that a chairman who takes a forceful approach is equally at risk of being lionized as a savior and pilloried as a demon.
“He is clearly an easy target,” the first board member said.
To listen to Mr. Hyman’s critics, discontent has been burbling beneath the genteel surface of board relations for several years. For some members, it began with serious differences of opinion over financial decisions such as the sale of Beth Israel’s Singer Division, also known as Beth Israel North, in 2004, as part of an effort to sell off assets and plug budget gaps. For others, it began with the sense that new and trying times demanded a new leadership. And still others took issue with the board chair’s, er, bedside manner.
“There is a certain arrogance with the way he deals with disagreements that is troublesome,” the board member said.
And yet, out of a sense of deference, respect or timidity, most board members didn’t challenge Mr. Hyman’s reign.
“I know people who left the board because they said he is dictatorial. And I think we’d be better off with a more open environment,” said a second veteran board member. “But you know what? He certainly puts his life and heart into it.”
Such thinking kept board members quiet for many years. But things began to change during the last few months, as Continuum was rocked by the one-two punch of a scandal and a funding threat. In November, Beth Israel agreed to pay $73 million to settle a very public, and very embarrassing, Medicare fraud case in which it was accused of “knowingly” doctoring Medicare cost reports from 1992 to 2001. Then, in April, New York’s hospitals were hit by Governor George Pataki’s Medicare and Medicaid vetoes—budget cuts that fell particularly hard on the Continuum network, sources said.
Mr. Hyman didn’t create either of these catastrophes, of course. But in their wake, board members began to wonder whether his rosy board briefings told the whole story, and whether a “change in faces would lead to a better result,” several sources said. As a third board member observed, “The natives became restless.”
“In the last four months, there have been a lot more board members challenging [the administration], whether it be Hyman or [Continuum president and C.E.O. Stanley] Brezenoff,” said the president of the medical staff at one of the hospitals who was present at the board meeting. “You know, just challenging the reports, challenging the effectiveness of the current administration.”
The questioning became particularly acute at the May 10 board meeting, when one Beth Israel board member, Ira Rimerman, reportedly did a run-rate projection on Continuum’s numbers and found the hospital’s budget-balancing strategy wanting. “This guy did it right at the table,” said one board member who witnessed the exchange. “He said, ‘How about a realistic plan? Just don’t tell us you’re going to cut this and cut that.’” (Mr. Rimerman declined to comment.)
And yet this questioning was nowhere near as bruising as what might have happened at the meeting. The May gathering was supposed to have been the board’s “annual meeting,” the large gathering at which members vote in their leaders. Mr. Hyman’s tenure was up for renewal, and he was once again running for board chair. But the vote never ended up taking place.
“[The vote] was on the agenda for the last part of the meeting,” recalled the medical staff president. “But then [Mr. Hyman] threw off, ‘By the way, we’ve decided to delay the election because of issues that people need to discuss.’”
These “issues,” several sources suggested, were nothing less than Mr. Hyman’s tenure as chairman.
“I thought the meeting was postponed because there had not been agreement reached with Mr. Hyman on a timetable for his stepping down,” said the first board member. “And rather than have a knock-down, drag-out fight on that issue, it was thought that it was better to have more discussion of the matter.”
MR. HYMAN’S RETIREMENT, SHOULD IT HAPPEN, would be as rare as it is significant. In this high-altitude world, where board members tend to play largely passive, money-giving roles, people don’t get obstreperous. They don’t question their leaders. And they certainly don’t rebel against the likes of Mr. Hyman, who has dominated the medical landscape in ways that even his peers at more prestigious hospitals have not.
“He used to be the guy,” said Howard Berliner, a professor of health-services management and policy at the New School’s Milano Graduate School. “Everyone knew his name. And I don’t think you could say necessarily the same thing about the chairs of Mount Sinai, or [Presbyterian], or New York Hospital, or Sloan Kettering …. He devoted so much time to health care, and he was so involved in state politics, he was just a better-known person.”
Mr. Hyman began building his name as a health-care mover and shaker in 1971, when Governor Nelson Rockefeller tapped him to join New York State’s Public Health Council. As head of the council for 25 years—and as a regular on the blue-ribbon health-panel circuit—he commanded both influence and respect, weighing in on everything from Medicaid reimbursements to public smoking to a newly discovered illness called AIDS.
In 1973, he joined the board of Beth Israel, the 115-year-old East Side institution that was once as central to Jewish immigrant life as Katz’s, Yonah Schimmel and oversized pickle barrels. (Or almost.) Recruited by two hospital honchos, then-chairman Herbert Singer and philanthropist Richard Netter, Mr. Hyman arrived with power at his back and quickly carved out a niche as a boardroom player. In 1985, he became the hospital’s chairman.
Under Mr. Hyman’s watch, Beth Israel grew in scope, scale and ambition (as did his own influence). For perhaps the first time in its history, the hospital embarked on a splashy doctor-recruitment spree, luring star physicians like radiation oncologist Louis Harrison and breast surgeon Allison Estabrook from rival hospitals in a bid to boost Beth Israel into the medical big league. And then, in rat-a-tat-tat succession, came the deals that gave rise to the Continuum network: the merger with St. Luke’s–Roosevelt in 1997, the merger with Long Island College Hospital in 1998, and finally the merger with the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary in 1999.
The purpose of these deals was both survival and empire (or, perhaps more accurately, survival through empire). As managed care swept the medical industry, hospitals began merging and melding in the hope of maximizing their bargaining strength, buying power and market share. Along the way, Mr. Hyman also consolidated his own role, becoming chairman of the boards of Saint Luke’s–Roosevelt and Continuum, as well as Beth Israel. Critics began referring to Continuum as the Mort Hyman Show, one source said.
Had all gone well, Mr. Hyman might have been dubbed a hero, a saint, a savior of the system—albeit a ham-handed one. But in the last few years, the hospitals’ balance sheets have been swinging between red and black; cost-cutting and credit holds have become regular events; at LICH, partisans have begun questioning the fairness of the arrangement that brought them into Continuum, and some trustees have begun asking whether it really made sense to poach all those celebrity doctors.
“They thought: Hire the doctors and the patients will follow. [But] they didn’t follow,” said one disgruntled board member. “At the same time, they started neglecting their base, which were the bread-and-butter guys, the medical doctors who bring patients to the hospital.”
Whether Mr. Hyman is really to blame for any of these woes, or whether he is just an “easy target,” will fall to his board to decide when they walk into the annual meeting on Wednesday. Mr. Hyman could still change his mind about giving up power; the partisans could still try to force his hand. But at least one board member hopes that cooler heads prevail.
“I would like to see this particular issue resolved relatively quickly and peacefully,” said the first member. “I have a great deal of regard and respect for him …. So whether it’s time for him to step down or not, it’s something that everyone would like done with decorum.”
Filed Under: Home, Israel, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Morton Hyman, Ira Rimerman
SEE ALSO: Letters
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STATUTES – A QUICK GLANCE
This section is intended to be a quick reference for some of the statutes governing court reporters. Please consult the Oklahoma Statutes for complete information.
12 O.S. 3230
A. WHEN DEPOSITIONS MAY BE TAKEN; WHEN LEAVE REQUIRED.
1. A party may take the testimony of any person, including a party, by deposition upon oral examination without leave of court except as provided in paragraph 2 of this subsection. The attendance of witnesses may be compelled by subpoena as provided in Section 2004.1 of this title.
2. a. A party shall obtain leave of court, if the person to be examined is confined in prison, or if, without the written stipulation of the parties:
(1) the person to be examined already has been deposed in the case, or
(2) a party seeks to take a deposition prior to the expiration of thirty (30) days after service of the summons and petition upon any defendant unless the notice contains a certification, with supporting facts, that the person to be examined is expected to leave this state and will be unavailable for examination in this state unless deposed before that time.
b. A request for leave of court shall include a statement that the requesting party has in good faith conferred or attempted to confer either in person or by telephone with the opposing parties to obtain a written stipulation.
3. Unless otherwise agreed by the parties or ordered by the court, a deposition upon oral examination shall not last more than six (6) hours and shall be taken only between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. on a day other than a Saturday or Sunday and on a date other than a holiday designated in Section 82.1 of Title 25 of the Oklahoma Statutes. The court may grant an extension of these time limits if the court finds that the witness or counsel has been obstructive or uncooperative or if the court finds it to be in the interest of justice.
B. PLACE WHERE WITNESS OR PARTY IS REQUIRED TO ATTEND TAKING OF DEPOSITIONS.
1. A witness shall be obligated to attend to give a deposition only in the county of his or her residence, a county adjoining the county of his or her residence or the county where he or she is located when the subpoena is served.
2. A party, in addition to the places where a witness may be deposed, may be deposed in the county where the action is pending or the county where he or she is located when the notice is served.
C. NOTICE OF EXAMINATION; GENERAL REQUIREMENTS; SPECIAL NOTICE; NONSTENOGRAPHIC RECORDING; PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS AND THINGS; DEPOSITION OF ORGANIZATION; DEPOSITION BY TELEPHONE.
1. A party desiring to take the deposition of any person upon oral examination shall give notice in writing to every other party to the action. The notice shall state the time and place for taking the deposition and shall state the name and address of each person to be examined, if known, and, if the name is not known, a general description sufficient to identify the person or the particular class or group to which the person belongs. The notice shall be served in order to allow the adverse party sufficient time, by the usual route of travel, to attend, and three (3) days for preparation, exclusive of the day of service of the notice.
If a subpoena duces tecum is to be served on the person to be examined, the designation of the materials to be produced, as set forth in the subpoena, shall be attached to or included in the notice.
2. The court may for cause shown enlarge or shorten the time for taking the deposition and for notice of taking the deposition.
3. a. The parties may stipulate in writing or the court may upon motion order that the testimony at a deposition be recorded by other than stenographic means. Unless good cause is shown to the contrary, such motions shall be freely granted. The stipulation or order shall designate the person before whom the deposition shall be taken, the manner of recording, preserving, and filing the deposition, and may include other provisions to assure that the recorded testimony will be accurate and trustworthy. If the deposition is recorded by other than stenographic means, the party taking the deposition shall upon request by any party or the witness furnish a copy of the deposition to the witness. The party taking the deposition may furnish either a stenographic copy of the deposition or a copy of the deposition as recorded by other than stenographic means.
b. Any recording of testimony other than by stenographic means shall begin with an on-the-record statement that shall include: the recording officer’s name and business address; the date, time and place of the deposition; the deponent’s name; and the identity of all persons present at the deposition. The recording shall also include the administration of the oath or affirmation to the deponent. The appearance or demeanor of the deponent and attorneys shall not be distorted through recording techniques.
c. Any objections under subsection D of this section, any changes made by the witness, the signature of the witness identifying the deposition as his or her own or the statement of the officer that is required if the witness does not sign, as provided in subsection F of this section, and the certification of the officer required by subsection G of this section shall be set forth in a writing to accompany a deposition recorded by nonstenographic means.
d. Any party may designate in a notice of deposition, or in a counter-notice of deposition, another method for recording the testimony in addition to stenographic means. The party designating another method of recording shall bear the expense of the additional record unless the court orders otherwise.
4. The notice to a party deponent may be accompanied by a request made in compliance with Section 3234 of this title for the production of documents and tangible things at the taking of the deposition. The procedure of Section 3234 of this title shall apply to the request.
5. A party may in the notice and in a subpoena name as the deponent a public or private corporation or a partnership or association or governmental agency and describe with reasonable particularity the matters on which examination is requested. In that event, the organization so
named shall designate one or more officers, directors, or managing agents, or other persons who consent to testify on its behalf, and may set forth, for each person designated, the matters on which that person will testify. Such designation of persons to testify and the subject of the testimony shall be delivered to the other party or parties prior to or at the commencement of the taking of the deposition of the organization. A subpoena shall advise a nonparty organization of its duty to make such a designation. The persons so designated shall testify as to matters known or reasonably available to the organization.
This paragraph does not preclude taking a deposition by any other procedure authorized in the Oklahoma Discovery Code.
6. The parties may stipulate in writing or the court may upon motion order that a deposition be taken by telephone or other remote electronic means. For the purposes of this section, subsection A of Section 3228, and paragraphs 1 of subsections A and B of Section 3237 of this title, a deposition taken by such means is taken in the county and state and at the place where the deponent is to answer questions.
D. EXAMINATION AND CROSS-EXAMINATION; RECORD OF EXAMINATION; OATH; OBJECTIONS. Examination and cross-examination of witnesses may proceed as permitted at the trial under the provisions of Section 2101 et seq. of this title except Section 2104. The officer before whom the deposition is to be taken shall put the witness on oath or affirmation and shall personally, or by someone acting under his or her direction and in his or her presence, record the testimony of the witness. The testimony shall be taken stenographically or recorded by any other method authorized by paragraph 3 of subsection C of this section.
All objections made at the time of the examination to the qualifications of the officer taking the deposition, to the manner of taking it, to the evidence presented, to the conduct of any party, or to any other aspect of the proceedings shall be noted by the officer upon the record of the deposition; however, the examination shall proceed, with the testimony being taken subject to the objections.
In lieu of participating in the oral examination, parties may serve written questions in a sealed envelope on the party taking the depositions and that party shall transmit them to the officer, who shall propound them to the witness and record the answers verbatim.
E. MOTION TO TERMINATE OR LIMIT EXAMINATION.
1. Any objection to evidence during a deposition shall be stated concisely and in a nonargumentative and nonsuggestive manner. A party may instruct a deponent not to answer only when necessary to preserve a privilege or work product protection, to enforce a limitation on evidence directed by the court, to present a motion under paragraph 2 of this subsection, or to move for a protective order under subsection C of Section 3226 of this title. If the court finds a person has engaged in conduct which has frustrated the fair examination of the deponent, it may impose upon the persons responsible an appropriate sanction, including the reasonable costs and attorney fees incurred by any parties as a result thereof.
2. At any time during the taking of the deposition, on motion of a party or of the deponent and upon a showing that the examination is being conducted in bad faith or in such manner as unreasonably to annoy, embarrass or oppress the deponent or party, the court in which the action is pending or the court in the county where the deposition is being taken may order the officer conducting the examination to cease taking the deposition, or may limit the scope and manner of the taking of the deposition as provided in subsection C of Section 3226 of this title. If the order entered terminates the examination, it shall be resumed thereafter only upon the order of the court in which the action is pending. Upon demand of the objecting party or deponent, the taking
of the deposition shall be suspended for the time necessary to make a motion for the order provided for in this section. The provisions of paragraph 4 of subsection A of Section 3237 of this title apply to the award of expenses incurred in relation to the motion.
F. REVIEW BY WITNESS; CHANGES; SIGNING. The deponent shall have the opportunity to review the transcript of the deposition unless such examination and reading are waived by the deponent and by the parties. After being notified by the officer that the transcript is available, the deponent shall have thirty (30) days in which to review it and, if there are changes in form or substance, to sign a statement reciting such changes and the reasons given by the deponent for making them. The officer shall indicate in the certificate prescribed by paragraph 1 of subsection G of this section whether any review was requested and, if so, shall append any changes made by the deponent during the period allowed.
G. CERTIFICATION AND FILING BY OFFICER; EXHIBITS; COPIES; NOTICE OF FILING.
1. The officer shall certify on any stenographic deposition:
a. the qualification of the officer to administer oaths, including the officer’s certificate number,
b. that the witness was duly sworn by the officer,
c. that the deposition is a true record of the testimony given by the witness, and
d. that the officer is not a relative or employee or attorney or counsel of any of the parties, or a relative or employee of the attorney or counsel, and is not financially interested in the action.
Except on order of the court or unless a deposition is attached to a motion response thereto, is needed for use in a trial or hearing, or the parties stipulate otherwise, depositions shall not be filed with the court clerk. The officer shall securely seal any stenographic deposition in an envelope endorsed with the title of the action and marked "Deposition of (here insert name of witness)" and send it to the attorney who arranged for the deposition, who shall store it under conditions that will protect it against loss, destruction, tampering, or deterioration.
Documents and things produced for inspection during the examination of the witness shall, upon the request of a party, be marked for identification and annexed to the deposition and may be inspected and copied by any party. If the person producing the materials desires to retain them he may:
a. Offer copies to be marked for identification and annexed to the deposition and to serve as originals if he affords to all parties fair opportunity to verify the copies by comparison with the originals, or
b. Offer the originals to be marked for identification, after giving to each party an opportunity to inspect and copy them, in which event the materials may then be used in the same manner as if annexed to the deposition. Any party may move for an order that the original be annexed to and returned with the deposition to the court, pending final disposition of the case.
2. Each attorney who takes the deposition of a witness or of a party shall bear all expenses thereof, including the cost of transcription, and shall furnish upon request to the adverse party or parties, free of charge, one copy of the transcribed deposition. If the party taking the deposition recorded it on videotape or by other nonstenographic means, that party shall also furnish upon request to the adverse party or parties, free of charge, one copy of the videotape or other recording of the deposition.
H. FAILURE TO ATTEND OR TO SERVE SUBPOENA; EXPENSES.
1. If the party giving the notice of the taking of a deposition fails to attend and proceed therewith and another party attends in person or by attorney pursuant to the notice, the court may order the party giving the notice to pay to the other party the reasonable expenses incurred by the attending party and his or her attorney in attending, including reasonable attorney fees.
2. If the party giving the notice of the taking of a deposition of a witness fails to serve a subpoena upon the witness and the witness because of such failure does not attend, and if another party attends in person or by attorney because he or she expects the deposition of that witness to be taken, the court may order the party giving the notice to pay to such other party the reasonable expenses incurred by that party and his or her attorney in attending, including reasonable attorney fees.
I. WITNESS FEES.
1. The attendance and travel fees for a witness shall be paid as provided in Section 400 of this title.
2. A party deponent must attend the taking of a deposition without the payment or tender of attendance or travel fees.
J. TAXING OF COSTS OF DEPOSITIONS. The cost of transcription of a deposition, as verified by the statement of the certified court reporter, the fees of the sheriff for serving the notice to take depositions and fees of witnesses shall each constitute an item of costs to be taxed in the case in the manner provided by law. The court may upon motion of a party retax the costs if the court finds the deposition was unauthorized by statute or unnecessary for protection of the interest of the party taking the deposition.
20 O.S. 106.1 Court reporters – Determination of number needed
The Supreme Court, with the aid of the Administrative Director of the Courts, shall determine the number of full-time and part-time court reporters that may be appointed in each judicial administrative district of the state in the manner as hereinafter provided by this act. In determining how many court reporters are needed in each administrative district the Supreme Court shall consider the following factors: (1) case loads in the administrative district; (2) the number of district judges, associate district judges and special judges in the administrative district; (3) the number of cities and towns within each administrative district in which regular court sessions are held and the distance in road miles between each; and (4) any other factor deemed relevant by the Supreme Court. The Court may, as the need arises, increase or decrease the number of court reporters so authorized, and the Court may, where the business of a court requires it, authorize the presiding judge of the administrative district in which said court is located to employ a temporary court reporter.
20 O.S. 106.2 Appointment of reporters – Oath
The Supreme Court shall certify in writing to the Presiding Judge of each judicial administrative district, the number of full-time and part-time court reporters that may be appointed within said judicial administrative district, provided that each district judge shall have a court reporter, who shall serve at the pleasure of said district judge.
Each district judge shall appoint a court reporter, and additional court reporters within a judicial administrative district shall be appointed by the presiding judge of such district, to serve at his pleasure within the district. Provided, all court reporters within such judicial administrative district may be assigned or transferred temporarily, according to need, by the presiding judge of the district.
Each court reporter appointed shall, before entering upon the duties of his office, take the official oath to faithfully discharge the duties of his office to the best of his knowledge and ability. The oath of office shall be filed in the office of the Director.
20 O.S. 106.4 Duties of reporter – Methods – Transcripts
A. The court reporter shall make a full reporting by means of stenographic hand, steno-mask or machine notes, or a combination thereof, of all proceedings, including the statements of counsel and the court and the evidence, in trials and other judicial proceedings to which the court reporter is assigned by the appointing judge unless excused by the judge who is trying the case with the consent of the parties to the action. Nothing herein contained shall be construed to authorize the certification of persons as certified shorthand reporters who rely exclusively upon the steno-mask for reporting judicial proceedings, except as provided by law. A refusal of the court to permit or to require any statement to be taken down by the court reporter or transcribed after being taken down, upon the same being shown by affidavit or other direct and competent evidence, to the Supreme Court, or other appellate court, shall constitute a denial of due process of law. The court reporter may use an electronic instrument as a supplementary device. In any trial, hearing or proceedings, the judge before whom the matter is being heard may, unless objection is made by a party or counsel, order the proceedings electronically recorded. A trial or proceedings may proceed without the necessity of a court reporter being present, unless there is objection by a party or counsel. Provided that if an official transcript is ordered then it shall be prepared by the official court reporter.
B. Upon request of either party in a civil or criminal case, the reporter shall transcribe the proceedings in a trial or other judicial proceeding, or so much thereof as may be requested by the party, certify to the correctness of the transcript, and deliver the same in accordance with the rules of the Supreme Court. The fee for an original transcript shall be Three Dollars and fifty cents ($3.50) per page. Two copies of the original transcript shall be furnished without additional charge. Each page shall be at least twenty-five lines to the page and typed no fewer than nine characters to the typed inch. Each page shall be no more than double spaced and the margin on the left side of the page shall be no more than one and one-half (1 1/2) inches and the margin on the right side of the page shall be no more than one-half (1/2) inch from the edge of the paper. The format for all transcripts shall be prescribed by the Supreme Court. The fees for making the transcript shall be paid in the first instance by the party requesting the transcript and shall be taxed as costs in the suit.
When the judge on his or her own motion orders a transcript of the reporter's notes, the judge may direct the payment of charges and the taxation of the charges as costs in such manner as the court deems appropriate. In a criminal action, if the defendant shall present to the judge an affidavit that the defendant intends in good faith to take an appeal in the case and that a transcript of the reporter's notes is necessary to enable the defendant to prosecute the appeal, and that he or she has not the means to pay for the transcript, the court, upon finding that there is reasonable basis for the averment, shall order the transcript made at the expense of the district court fund. The format preparation, delivery and filing of transcripts to be used in civil and criminal appeals may be regulated by the Supreme Court.
C. The court reporter shall file his or her records of the evidence and the proceedings taken in any case with the clerk of the court in which the case was tried.
D. To the extent that it does not substantially interfere with the court reporter's other official duties, the judge by whom a reporter is employed or to whom he or she is assigned may assign a reporter to secretarial or clerical duties arising out of official court operations.
20 O.S. 106.4a Transcripts – Access to copies – Costs
A transcript of the court reporter's notes, upon request and for the use of an indigent defendant or a district attorney, may not be charged to the court fund unless, before its preparation, the cost to be incurred was authorized by written judicial order.
When a judge authorizes or orders a transcript of the court reporter's notes of any proceeding to be prepared at the expense of the court fund, or where a prosecuting attorney orders such a transcript at public or court fund expense and the accused as an indigent is constitutionally entitled to a free copy of the transcript, a reporter shall prepare an original and two copies of the transcript so ordered and file it with the clerk of the trial court. The court reporter shall immediately notify the district attorney and the defendant of the date the transcript was filed. The district attorney and the defendant shall have access to the copies of the transcript on such terms as the trial court may impose. The chief judge may prescribe rules for access to or disposition of the copies of the transcript.
20 O.S. 106.5 Admissibility of transcripts as evidence
Any transcript of notes, duly certified as correct by the reporter who took the evidence, and filed with the clerk of the court in which the cause was tried, shall be admissible as evidence in all cases, of like force and effect, as testimony taken in the cause by deposition, and subject to the same objection, a transcript of said notes may be incorporated into any appellate record. If any reporter ceases to be the official reporter of the court, and thereafter makes a transcript of the notes taken by him while acting as official reporter, he shall swear to the transcript as true and correct and when so verified, the transcript shall have the same force and effect as if certified while he was an official reporter. A transcript of the notes of any reporter of the State Industrial Court, when certified or verified by such reporter who took the evidence in any hearing before such Industrial Court or any official thereof in any proceedings pending before such court, shall have the same force and effect as a transcript by a court reporter above mentioned, when such transcript is offered as a deposition in evidence in any subsequent trial or proceedings before any court of record wherein the parties are the same as the parties who took part in the proceedings before the State Industrial Court; that is, the same parties as the claimant and respondent before the Industrial Court; provided that, if such party, who is claimant before the Industrial Court, is deceased, then the provisions hereof shall apply if the subsequent action is by the personal representative of such deceased party in an action for wrongful death.
20 O.S. 106.6 Assignment of reporters – Expenses
The presiding judge may assign a court reporter to serve anywhere within the administrative district in which the court reporter is appointed. A court reporter shall be paid travel expenses incurred in connection with his official duties outside the county wherein he resides. No expenses shall be paid by the state to a court reporter for travel in his county of residence. Expense vouchers shall be submitted to the Supreme Court for approval. The expense vouchers or claims submitted to the Supreme Court shall have endorsed thereon the signed approval of the presiding judge of the district in which the court reporter incurred the expense for which claim is made.
The Supreme Court may, with the consent of the presiding judge of his district, assign a court reporter to temporary service outside his own administrative district. A court reporter shall be paid travel expenses incurred in connection with his official duties during such periods of temporary assignment. Whenever a court reporter is assigned to serve a district court outside his judicial administrative district, he shall submit a claim for his mileage, subsistence expense or per diem, as the case may be, to the court clerk in the county where he is assigned to serve and the claim, at the rate authorized by the state, shall, upon its approval by the chief judge, be paid by check or warrant drawn against the court fund.
20 O.S. 106.9 Court reporters – Salaries
A. Until October 1, 2006, the salaries of all court reporters regularly engaged by the district court, the Workers’ Compensation Court, or the Corporation Commission shall be paid by the state, except as otherwise provided in this section. Full-time court reporters regularly engaged by the district court, the Workers’ Compensation Court and the Corporation Commission who are certified shorthand reporters shall be paid Thirty-five Thousand Six Hundred Dollars ($35,600.00) per year, payable monthly. Effective October 1, 2006, the salaries of all court reporters regularly engaged by the district court, the Workers’ Compensation Court, or the Corporation Commission shall be paid by the state, except as otherwise provided in this section. Full-time court reporters regularly engaged by the district court, the Workers’ Compensation Court and the Corporation Commission who are certified shorthand reporters shall be paid Thirty-nine Thousand One Hundred Sixty Dollars ($39,160.00) per year, payable monthly.
B. In addition to their base salaries, official court reporters who are certified or licensed shorthand reporters and those acting shorthand reporters pursuant to paragraph c of Section 106.3B of this title shall be paid annually the sum of Four Hundred Dollars ($400.00) for each year of service to the district court, the Workers’ Compensation Court and the Corporation Commission, with a maximum of twenty (20) years of service only to be used for the purpose of longevity, not to exceed Eight Thousand Dollars ($8,000.00) per year, payable monthly. For the purpose of payment for longevity, "years of service" is defined as all years served as a certified or licensed court reporter in the district court, the Workers’ Compensation Court and, the Corporation Commission after June 30, 1978. Such longevity payments shall begin on July 1 of each year following completion of one (1) year’s service as defined herein.
C. In addition to their base salaries, official court reporters who are certified shorthand reporters shall be paid the following:
1. The sum of One Thousand Five Hundred Dollars ($1,500.00) per year, payable monthly, to any official court reporter who is a Registered Professional Reporter (RPR), as recognized by the State Board of Examiners of Certified Shorthand Reporters. To qualify as a RPR, an official court reporter shall have a proficiency level in reporting testimony and proceedings of a speed of not less than two hundred twenty-five (225) words per minute in taking a question-and-answer-type dictation, two hundred (200) words per minute in taking a jury charge and one hundred eighty (180) words per minute in taking literary material, shall pass a Written Knowledge Test with a score of at least seventy percent (70%), all as determined by an examination recognized by the Board, and shall complete thirty (30) hours of continuing education per three-year cycle commencing at the date of recognition;
2. The sum of One Thousand Five Hundred Dollars ($1,500.00) per year, payable monthly, to any official court reporter who is a Registered Merit Reporter (RMR), as recognized by the State Board of Examiners of Certified Shorthand Reporters. To qualify as a RMR, an official court reporter shall have a proficiency level in reporting testimony and proceedings of a speed of not less than two hundred sixty (260) words per minute in taking a question-and-answer-type dictation, two hundred forty (240) words per minute in taking a jury charge and two hundred (200) words per minute in taking literary material, shall pass a Written Knowledge Test with a score of at least seventy percent (70%), all as determined by an examination recognized by the Board, and shall complete thirty (30) hours of continuing education per three-year cycle commencing at the date of recognition;
3. The sum of One Thousand Five Hundred Dollars ($1,500.00) per year, payable monthly, to any official court reporter who is a Registered Diplomat Reporter (RDR), as recognized by the State Board of Examiners of Certified Shorthand Reporters, and who completes thirty (30) hours of continuing education per three-year cycle commencing at the date of recognition;
4. The sum of One Thousand Five Hundred Dollars ($1,500.00) per year, payable monthly, to any official court reporter who is a Certified Realtime Reporter (CRR), as recognized by the State Board of Examiners of Certified Shorthand Reporters, and who completes thirty (30) hours of continuing education per three-year cycle commencing at the date of recognition; or
5. Any official court reporter who is the holder of more than one certification shall be compensated in the additional amounts specified in paragraphs 1 through 4 of this subsection for each certification up to a maximum of Six Thousand Dollars ($6,000.00) per year over and above the reporter’s base salary, payable monthly.
D. Court reporters temporarily employed by the district court, Workers’ Compensation Court, or Corporation Commission shall be compensated by the court fund of the court which they serve at the rate of Fifty-seven Dollars and sixty cents ($57.60) per day. In addition, court reporters temporarily employed pursuant to this subsection who are required by the terms of their employment to travel outside their county of residence, shall receive reimbursement for mileage actually and necessarily traveled to and from the place of attendance at a rate not to exceed the rate of reimbursement specified in the State Travel Reimbursement Act for state employees. Any travel reimbursement shall be paid from the court fund of the court where the service of the temporarily employed court reporter is provided.
20 O.S. 1006 Destruction of certain records and reporter’s notes – Limitations
A. Unless there is an objection by the chief judge of the district court, the court clerk is authorized to destroy all exhibits in all domestic relations cases in which there has been no activity for more than twenty (20) years, and exhibits in all other civil cases in which there has been no activity for more than ten (10) years.
B. The chief judge may direct a court reporter to destroy a court reporter's notes after the expiration of ten (10) years from the date of a proceeding, or, if a proceeding has not resulted in an appeal upon which a request has been made to transcribe the proceeding, all notes of a court reporter may be destroyed immediately upon completion of transcription of a proceeding.
C. No pleadings or judgments shall be destroyed under the provisions of this section.
20 O.S. 1010 Destruction of deceased court reporter’s notes
A court reporter's notes may be destroyed by a person lawfully in possession of the notes after a one-year period has elapsed following the death of the court reporter.
20 O.S. 1011 Removal of exhibits, notes and other materials from custody of court clerk –
Storage of reporting notes
A. Unless otherwise ordered by a judge of the district court, each court reporter who has been employed by a district court of this state shall remove all exhibits, notes and other materials from the custody of the court clerk within thirty (30) days after termination of employment with that district court by the court reporter. In the event that the court reporter fails to remove the property in a timely manner, the court clerk shall be authorized to destroy the materials after six (6) months have elapsed since termination of the court reporter’s employment.
B. It shall be mandatory that the offering party in any case shall take possession of all exhibits offered in a case at the conclusion of an appeal, or after the appeal time has elapsed if no appeal is taken, except in capital murder and workers’ compensation cases.
C. 1. The reporting notes of all certified shorthand reporters may be kept in any form of communication or representation including paper, electronic, or magnetic media or other technology capable of reproducing for transcription the testimony of the proceedings according to standards or guidelines for the preservation and reproduction of the medium adopted by the American National Standards Institute or the Association for Information and Image Management. Reporting notes shall be stored in an environment free from excessive moisture, temperature variation and electromagnetic fields if stored on a medium other than paper.
2. If the reporting notes are kept in any form other than paper, one duplicate backup copy of the notes shall be stored in a manner and place that reasonably assures its preservation.
3. A periodic review of the media on which the reporting notes are stored shall be conducted to assure that a storage medium is not obsolete and that current technology is capable of accessing and reproducing the records for the required retention period.
20 O.S. 1503 Examination for Enrollment as Certified or Licensed Shorthand Reporter
A. Every applicant who seeks to be examined for enrollment as a certified shorthand reporter shall prove to the satisfaction of the State Board of Examiners of Certified Shorthand Reporters that he or she:
1. Is of legal age;
2. Meets the requisite standards of ethical fitness; and
3. Has at least a high school education or its equivalent.
B. The examination for certification in one or more authorized methods of shorthand reporting consists of two parts, designated Part 1 and Part 2 as follows:
1. Part 1 consists of the test as authorized by the Supreme Court consisting of the following requirements: demonstrated proficiency in reporting testimony and proceedings at a speed of not more than two hundred (200) words per minute in taking a question-and-answer type dictation and at a speed of not more than one hundred eighty (180) words per minute in taking literary materials which shall be designed to test the ability of an applicant to accurately prepare a transcript of testimony and proceedings that is reasonably free from spelling errors. The Board may not increase or decrease such minimum speed requirement, by rule or otherwise; and
2. Part 2 is the Oklahoma Written Knowledge test which consists of not less than twenty-five multiple choice questions relating to Oklahoma law and court rules, duties of certified shorthand reporters, and general court procedure. The examination shall be approved by the Supreme Court. A person who has tested with the Board and successfully completed the written knowledge portion of the examination shall be allowed to retain the credit for that portion for two (2) years from the date passed, and shall not be required to retake that portion during the two-year period.
C. An applicant who is academically dishonest when taking any authorized examination is disqualified and may not take the examination again until two (2) years have elapsed from the date of the examination at which the applicant was disqualified.
D. A certification issued under this section must be for one or more of the following methods of shorthand reporting:
1. Written shorthand;
2. Machine shorthand; or
3. Any other method of shorthand reporting authorized by the Supreme Court.
E. No person may engage in shorthand reporting in this state unless the person is a licensed or certified shorthand reporter or otherwise authorized by law or the Supreme Court.
20 O.S. 1503.1 Continuing Education Requirements for Certified Shorthand Reporters
A. Every certified shorthand reporter and every court reporter temporarily employed by the district court, Workers’ Compensation Court, or Corporation Commission shall annually complete at least four (4) hours of continuing education approved by the State Board of Examiners of Certified Shorthand Reporters. Included in the four-hour minimum requirement for every official shorthand reporter and every court reporter temporarily employed by the district court, Workers’ Compensation Court, or Corporation Commission at least one (1) hour shall relate to Oklahoma court rules and procedures. All four (4) hours of continuing education shall be approved by the State Board of Examiners of Certified Shorthand Reporters.
B. A certified shorthand reporter or court reporter is exempt from the requirements of subsection A of this section if the reporter verifies under oath to the State Board of Examiners of Certified Shorthand Reporters that he or she:
1. Has attained the age of sixty-five (65) before or during the calendar year for which the reporter seeks an exemption;
2. Is a member of the armed forces on full-time active duty during the entire calendar year for which the reporter seeks an exemption; or
3. Has provided written verification by a licensed physician that a medical condition has prevented the court reporter from working in such capacity and completing continuing education for the calendar year for which the reporter seeks an exemption.
20 O.S. 1508 Metal Seals-Use of Abbreviations-Powers of Certified Reporters
Every person enrolled as a certified shorthand reporter shall be entitled to use the abbreviation C.S.R. after his name and shall receive from the Board, without additional charge, a metal seal with his name and the words "Oklahoma Certified Shorthand Reporter". Every person enrolled as a licensed shorthand reporter shall be entitled to use the abbreviation L.S.R. after his name and shall receive from the Board, without additional charge, a metal seal with his name and the words "Oklahoma Licensed Shorthand Reporter". Court reporters holding a temporary certificate shall not be allowed the use of a seal. The determination of the format and construction of the seal shall rest with the Supreme Court of the State of Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Supreme Court shall determine the procedures to be used in the distribution of all shorthand reporter seals. Certified shorthand reporters shall be authorized to issue affidavits in respect to their regular duties, to subpoena witnesses for depositions, administer oaths and affirmations with authority equal to that of a notary public, and to take depositions or other sworn statements. Licensed shorthand reporters shall have the same authority while employed as official court reporters.
20 O.S. 1513 Court Reporter Contracts
A. A court reporter or owner of a court reporting firm shall not: 1. Enter into any contract or relationship that compromises the impartiality of court reporters or that may result in the appearance that the impartiality of a court reporter has been compromised; 2. Enter into a blanket contract, other than with a court or governmental agency, under which the court reporter or owner of a court reporting firm agrees to perform all court reporting services in two or more cases at a rate of compensation fixed in the contract; 3. Enter into a contract that requires a court reporter to provide any service that is not available to all parties to an action; or 4. Enter into a contract that gives or appears to give an exclusive advantage to any party to an action. B. A violation of this section shall be grounds for the State Board of Examiners of Certified Shorthand Reporters to refuse to renew the enrollment of a certified or licensed court reporter. A willful violation of this section shall be grounds for the Board to suspend, cancel, or revoke the enrollment of a certified or licensed court reporter.
12 O.S. 3227 Deposition Before Action or Pending Appeal
A. BEFORE ACTION.
1. PETITION. A person who desires to perpetuate his own testimony or that of another person regarding any matter that may be cognizable in any court may file a verified petition in the district court in the county of the residence of any expected adverse party for such perpetuation of testimony. The petition shall be entitled in the name of the petitioner and shall show:
a. That the petitioner or his personal representative, heirs, beneficiaries, successors or assigns may be a party to an action cognizable in a court but is presently unable to bring it or cause it to be brought.
b. The subject matter of the expected action and his interest therein, and a copy, attached to the petition, of any written instrument the validity or construction of which may be called in question or which is connected with the subject matter of the requested deposition.
c. The facts which he desires to establish by the proposed testimony and his reasons for desiring to perpetuate it.
d. The names or, if the names are unknown, a description of the persons he expects will be adverse parties and their addresses so far as known.
e. The names and addresses of the persons to be examined and the substance of the testimony which he expects to elicit from each.
The petition shall request an order authorizing the petitioner to take the depositions of the persons named in the petition to be examined for the purpose of perpetuating their testimony.
2. NOTICE AND SERVICE. The petitioner shall thereafter serve a notice upon each person named or described in the petition as an expected adverse party, together with a copy of the petition, stating that the petitioner will apply to the court, at a time and place named therein, for the order described in the petition. At least twenty (20) days before the date of hearing, the notice shall be served either within or without the state in the manner provided for personal service of summons. If such service cannot, with due diligence, be made upon any expected adverse party named or described in the petition, the court may enter such order as is just for service by publication or otherwise, and shall appoint, for persons not served by personal service, an attorney who shall represent them and, if they are not otherwise represented, shall cross-examine the deponent. If any expected adverse party is a minor or incompetent the court shall appoint a guardian ad litem for any such minor or incompetent not legally represented.
3. ORDER AND EXAMINATION. If the court is satisfied that the perpetuation of the testimony may prevent a failure or delay of justice, it shall enter an order designating or describing the persons whose depositions may be taken and specifying the subject matter of the examination and how the depositions shall be taken. The depositions may then be taken in accordance with the Oklahoma Discovery Code, Section 3224 et seq. of this title. The court may enter orders of the character provided for by Sections 3234 and 3235 of this title. For the purpose of applying the Oklahoma Discovery Code to depositions for perpetuating testimony, each reference to the court in which the action is pending shall be deemed to refer to the court in which the petition for such deposition was filed.
4. USE OF DEPOSITION. If a deposition to perpetuate testimony is taken under the Oklahoma Discovery Code, it may be used in any action involving the same subject matter subsequently brought in a court of this state, in accordance with the provisions of subsection A of Section 3232 of this title.
B. PENDING APPEAL. If an appeal has been taken from a judgment of a district court or before the taking of an appeal if the time therefor has not expired, the district court in which the judgment was rendered may allow the taking of the depositions of witnesses to perpetuate their testimony for use in the event of further proceedings in the district court. In such case, the party who desires to perpetuate the testimony may make a motion in the district court for leave to take the depositions, upon the same notice and service thereof as if the action was pending in the district court. The motion shall show:
1. The names and addresses of persons to be examined and the substance of the testimony which he expects to elicit from each;
2. The reasons for perpetuating the testimony.
If the court finds that the perpetuation of the testimony is proper to avoid a failure or delay of justice, it may enter an order allowing the depositions to be taken and may make orders of the character provided for by Sections 3234 and 3235 of this title, and thereupon the depositions may be taken and used in the same manner and under the same conditions as are prescribed in the Oklahoma Discovery Code for depositions taken in actions pending in the district court.
C. PERPETUATION BY ACTION. The procedures prescribed in this section do not limit the power of a court to entertain an action to perpetuate testimony.
D. FILING OF DEPOSITION. Depositions taken under this section shall not be filed with the court in which the petition is filed or the motion is made except on order of the court or unless they are attached to a motion, response thereto, or are needed for use in a trial or hearing.
E. COSTS. The attorney taking any deposition under this section shall pay the costs thereof unless otherwise ordered by the court.
F. DEPOSITIONS TAKEN IN OTHER JURISDICTIONS ADMISSIBLE. A deposition taken under procedures of another jurisdiction, which are similar to those in this section, is admissible in this state to the same extent as a deposition taken under this section.
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Evaluating the biopsychosocial milieu of chronic pain
Mary Elizabeth Turner, Marian Fireman
The biopsychosocial model was developed in the 1970s in psychiatry and spread to other fields, gaining special prominence in chronic pain assessments. Currently, most treatment guidelines for chronic pain recommend psychosocial assessments for all patients and multidisciplinary biopsychosocial assessments for patients who fail to respond to routine treatment or patients with complicating psychopathology, including substance usage. There is strong evidence for the association between chronic pain and psychosocial factors and for the efficacy of psychosocial treatments in chronic pain. However, there is limited existing evidence showing the benefits of performing a multidisciplinary biopsychosocial assessment largely due to limited randomized controlled trials. This chapter explores the history of the biopsychosocial model, evidence in support of its usage, and provides tips on performing this assessment. We include a section on special concerns for patients with substance use disorders.
Treating Comorbid Opioid Use Disorder in Chronic Pain
Pain Measurement
Substance usage
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics(all)
Turner, M. E., & Fireman, M. (2016). Evaluating the biopsychosocial milieu of chronic pain. In Treating Comorbid Opioid Use Disorder in Chronic Pain (pp. 35-46). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29863-4_4
Evaluating the biopsychosocial milieu of chronic pain. / Turner, Mary Elizabeth; Fireman, Marian.
Treating Comorbid Opioid Use Disorder in Chronic Pain. Springer International Publishing, 2016. p. 35-46.
Turner, ME & Fireman, M 2016, Evaluating the biopsychosocial milieu of chronic pain. in Treating Comorbid Opioid Use Disorder in Chronic Pain. Springer International Publishing, pp. 35-46. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29863-4_4
Turner ME, Fireman M. Evaluating the biopsychosocial milieu of chronic pain. In Treating Comorbid Opioid Use Disorder in Chronic Pain. Springer International Publishing. 2016. p. 35-46 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29863-4_4
Turner, Mary Elizabeth ; Fireman, Marian. / Evaluating the biopsychosocial milieu of chronic pain. Treating Comorbid Opioid Use Disorder in Chronic Pain. Springer International Publishing, 2016. pp. 35-46
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title = "Evaluating the biopsychosocial milieu of chronic pain",
abstract = "The biopsychosocial model was developed in the 1970s in psychiatry and spread to other fields, gaining special prominence in chronic pain assessments. Currently, most treatment guidelines for chronic pain recommend psychosocial assessments for all patients and multidisciplinary biopsychosocial assessments for patients who fail to respond to routine treatment or patients with complicating psychopathology, including substance usage. There is strong evidence for the association between chronic pain and psychosocial factors and for the efficacy of psychosocial treatments in chronic pain. However, there is limited existing evidence showing the benefits of performing a multidisciplinary biopsychosocial assessment largely due to limited randomized controlled trials. This chapter explores the history of the biopsychosocial model, evidence in support of its usage, and provides tips on performing this assessment. We include a section on special concerns for patients with substance use disorders.",
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AB - The biopsychosocial model was developed in the 1970s in psychiatry and spread to other fields, gaining special prominence in chronic pain assessments. Currently, most treatment guidelines for chronic pain recommend psychosocial assessments for all patients and multidisciplinary biopsychosocial assessments for patients who fail to respond to routine treatment or patients with complicating psychopathology, including substance usage. There is strong evidence for the association between chronic pain and psychosocial factors and for the efficacy of psychosocial treatments in chronic pain. However, there is limited existing evidence showing the benefits of performing a multidisciplinary biopsychosocial assessment largely due to limited randomized controlled trials. This chapter explores the history of the biopsychosocial model, evidence in support of its usage, and provides tips on performing this assessment. We include a section on special concerns for patients with substance use disorders.
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Edwin Alvarez|March 5, 2018
Playstation 4 is the eighth -generation home video game consoles developed by sony.
The PS4 was released November of 2013 and has been big hit in the market since then with brand new versions like the PS4 slim and PS4 Pro. Sony has now sold 70.6 million consoles worldwide. The PS4 average price is at 300 dollars but some of the newest versions are at 400 dollars.
“ The PS4 is Sony’s most attractively designed piece of hardware. It’s a beautiful system, with a sharp, slightly angled profile accented by a light bar that acts as a console status indicator” said Polygon.com
When it comes to play time, your controller is big a part, and with the PS4’s new Dualshock 4 controller, it’s sony’s best.
“ The controller is just a little heavier, just a little bigger. It’s much more comfortable to hold over long periods of time. Making even die-hard DualShock 3 haters on the Polygon staff converts, the DualShock 4 is the most immediately apparent improvement offered by the PS4”, said Polygon.com
It’s the little things that make the best improvements and Sony has done that by improving the consoles online play.
“ The PS4 makes some fundamental improvements to basic network functionality. You can now join friends’ games from your friends list. The PS4 also introduces game-independent party chat for up to eight people, a godsend for multiplayer gamers hoping to avoid toxic public lobby audio”, said Polygon.com
From the PS1 to the PS4 your childhood gaming console of the 21st century continues to make its way back to everyone’s living room. I give it a rating of 5 out of 5.
Far Cry 5 is the fifth installment in the Far Cry series, but just like all the previous games, they do not have a chronological order and are not con...
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Ornithology Exchange
Funding Portal
Grants and Awards Database
Journals Database
List of Journals by Title
List of Journals by Title Abbreviation
Chris Custer
Society Members
2 Has posted some good stuff
VACANCY: EDITOR POSITION FOR WATERBIRDS
Chris Custer posted a topic in Waterbird Society News
Waterbirds, the International Journal of the Waterbird Society, is seeking a new Editor to begin in 2019 when the term of the current Editor has ended. The term of the initial appointment is for 3 years and includes an annual honorarium. The new Editor will be selected at the International Ornithological Congress in August 2018, and will begin receiving manuscripts in October 2018 during a 3-month transition period when both Editors will work together. Funds are available to employ a part-time Editorial Assistant and pay expenses involved with processing papers. Waterbirds publishes four issues per year containing approximately 55 papers from some 115 submissions plus special publications, such as proceedings of symposia. The Editor of Waterbirds is responsible for professional services in editing and publication of the Society’s journal, as well as the special publications in cooperation with guest editors. Duties of the Editor include: Determining the scope and direction of the scientific content of the journal; Overseeing manuscripts from submission through publication; Making final determinations of acceptance or rejection of each manuscript submitted; Selecting of and supervision of an Editorial Assistant; Directing interactions with the publisher (E. O. Painter Printing Company, Inc., Florida, USA); and Continuing to increase the quality and reputation of the journal, as measured by submission numbers, geographic diversity, impact factor, and paper quality. The Editor serves as a member of the Waterbird Society Council and is responsible for presenting annual reports to the Society’s Officers and Council at the Society’s annual meeting. All Associate Editors are appointed by the Editor, who also determines their duties. The successful applicant will be an accomplished professional scientist with not only extensive experience with waterbirds and scientific publication, but also a broad interest and appreciation of biology. Excellent communication skills and a willingness to learn new fields are essential. The new Editor will be selected by an Editorial Search Committee (Brian Palestis, Chair, Jim Fraser, Peter Frederick, Juliet Lamb, Erica Nol, Chris Somers) and approved by the Waterbird Society Council. The Search Committee will accept both direct applications and nominations for the position. Inquiries and formal applications, consisting of a letter of interest, curriculum vitae, and a sample of scientific publications, should be sent (preferably via E-mail) to: Brian Palestis Chair, Waterbirds Editorial Search Committee Wagner College, Department of Biological Sciences 1 Campus Road Staten Island, New York, 10301, USA Phone: 718-390-3237 The closing date for receipt of applications is March 31, 2018. This announcement was originally posted on the Waterbird Society's website. View the full announcement.
Candidate bios
Slate of Candidates for 2017 election to Executive Council President-Elect Dave Moore I’m a Waterbird Biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service. Since graduate work (Ph.D., Simon Fraser University), my research has focused on the behavioral and population ecology of terns, gulls, cormorants, egrets and herons, including: parental care, interspecific interactions, population monitoring, demography, migration patterns and using waterbirds as bio-indicators. For 25 years, I have been engaged in the conservation of waterbirds and their habitats. I became involved in the Waterbird Society as a student, and have been a regular member, attending all annual meetings, since 2009. I’ve served as Councilor (2012-14), as a member of the Grants (2012-; Chair, 2015-), Bylaws (2012-) and Membership (2013-) Committees, and judging student presentations (2012-). I believe that our Society’s greatest contributions are: (i) fostering communications among scientists and supporting research and conservation, internationally, through our journal, annual meetings and awards and (ii) its philosophy of inclusivity and collegiality, that values and supports biologists at all stages of their careers. Developing strategies to attract and retain members, fostering international exchange, maintaining the relevance of our journal and annual meetings, sound financial planning and advocacy for the birds we are passionate about are all priorities, as we meet the challenges of rapidly changing world. Ted Simons Theodore R. Simons is a Professor of Applied Ecology and Forestry and a member of the USGS Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at North Carolina State University. He earned his B.S. at the University of Wisconsin in 1975 and his M.S. (1979) and Ph.D. (1983) at the University of Washington. He worked as a Research Ecologist for the National Park Service for ten years before joining the NCSU Coop Unit in 1993. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles in the ecological literature, received national research and leadership awards from the NPS and USGS, and is a Fellow of the American Ornithologists’ Union. He served as an Associate Editor at Ecological Applications from 2003-2017. Ted has been actively engaged in waterbird conservation throughout his career, studying colonial seabirds in Alaska, endangered Hawaiian and Black-capped Petrels in Hawaii and the Dominican Republic, and American Oystercatchers. He served as a member of the Waterbird Society Executive Council from 2013-2015. He is a founding member of the American Oystercatcher Working Group and has been actively involved in American Oystercatcher research and conservation for the past 20 years. As president-elect of the Waterbird Society Ted will work to broaden collaborations among scientists, managers, and the public, to support our excellent journal, and to increase participation in the Waterbird Society by early career professionals and students. Treasurer Chris Custer Christine Custer is a research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey. She has worked on a variety of colonial waterbirds over the past 40 years, but most recently she has been developing tree swallows, an aquatic passerine, as a model species to study the effects of environmental contaminants under field conditions. She has been Treasurer since 1999, and during her tenure, there has been a steady growth in the Waterbird Society’s budget. Annual revenue now exceeds ~$90,000 and those revenues are expected to continue to grow in the coming years. She converted the Society’s books from a simple excels spreadsheet to Quickbooks, an accounting software package. Complete financial statements and budgets have been prepared annually for Council and are organized and accounted for according to best financial practices. All financial statements since 1999 can be viewed on the Waterbird Society’s web pages, as can most annual reports since the organization’s inception. Write-in Councilor Dan Catlin My name is Daniel Catlin, and I am a Research Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation. In addition, I am a co-leader of the VT Shorebird Program, dedicated to research and conservation of waterbirds. My research focusses on understanding the limiting factors in imperiled populations. I aim to provide managers with information to aid in management and recovery, while answering broader ecological questions. In pursuit of these interests in quantitative conservation, demography, and life history, my students, colleagues, and I have co-authored numerous publications and presentations for national and international conferences, and our work is used to inform various conservation plans and decisions. I have been a member of the Waterbird society, attending meetings and publishing in the journal since 2007. I have always had a special place in my heart for the Waterbird Society and its membership. It is with great excitement that I am running for the Executive Council. I am eager to continue my service to this amazing organization, and I look forward to helping as we move into a new era of the conservation of waterbirds and their habitats in the face of a changing political and environmental climate. Terry Master In my 28th year as a professor at East Stroudsburg University (ESU), I continue teaching courses in ornithology, animal behavior and tropical ecology. A research assignment observing heron/egret foraging behavior at Mrazek Pond in Everglades National Park for an undergraduate field experience focused my ornithological interests on wading birds, ultimately leading to a doctoral dissertation at Lehigh University on the behavior and foraging ecology of Snowy Egrets foraging in mixed-species aggregations at Stone Harbor, NJ. My first experience with the “Colonial Waterbird Society” was in 1986 when I presented some of my thesis results at the 10th annual meeting in Charleston, SC. A series of undergraduate and graduate students continued research on wading birds for a number of years thereafter, resulting in many presentations at 14 annual meetings and four publications in the Society’s journal. In 2000, when also serving as a Councilor, I co-organized the society’s first Riparian Birds Symposium at the meeting in Plymouth, MA. I would like to see the society maintain and enhance its interest in providing opportunities and a welcoming atmosphere for students, international participants and aquatic passerines! Sean Murphy Research Associate, Ecostudies Institute, East Olympia, WA. Ph.D. 2010, City University of New York. Previously, I spent six years working as a Wildlife Biologist for the U.S. Geological Survey-Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center. As a population biologist focused on avian populations interacting with their environment, I have studied waterbirds along the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts and the Interior West. I have been a member of the Waterbird Society since 2007 and have also served as: President of the Ornithological Societies of North America (OSNA) (2015-2017), OSNA Representative for Waterbirds (2014-2017), and Co-organizer of the Willamette Valley Bird Symposium (2014, 2015). The leadership provided by the Executive Council requires individuals that can address important decisions that will shape the future of Waterbirds. I value the Waterbird community for its friendly and professional environment. If elected, I would further the interaction and engagement of members through enhanced networking opportunities between junior and senior scientists and develop training programs to provide learning opportunities and collaborations among members. I would explore the potential for Waterbirds to unite with similar professional organizations in an effort to reduce costs associated with membership management while increasing our exposure to scientists in related specialties. Kate Sheehan Assistant Professor of Biology at Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia, AR (July 2017). Previous positions include postdoctoral appointments in avian parasitology with the University of California Santa Barbara, and University of California San Diego (current). Most recent publications address demographic issues of the accumulation and distribution of parasites in waterbirds and the ecological niche and management implications of Double-crested Cormorants. Other publications evaluate the restoration of coastal habitats that waterbirds rely on, such as oyster reef, upland marsh, and seagrass meadows. Recently funded research focuses on the prevalence of plastic in the gastrointestinal tract of seabirds and shorebirds and the potential interactions of parasites with plastic contaminants. An active member of the WBS Conservation Committee with strong interest in waterbird conservation in coastal and inland habitats within and beyond North America. A proponent of ecological research that supports and promotes the conservation of connected ecosystems, critical habitat, and restored trophic relationships between waterbirds and their food sources. As a non-traditional avian researcher, my vision for the society would be to continue the encouragement of novel applied waterbird research and promote an inclusive atmosphere to increase the ever-growing potential for conservation-oriented collaborations. Student Councilor Maureen Durkin Maureen Durkin is currently a Ph.D. Candidate at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. She also received her M.S. from SUNY-ESF, researching the impacts of anthropogenic disturbance from recreation on the behavior and reproductive success of Snowy Plovers in the Florida Panhandle. After her M.S. work, she decided to undertake a Ph.D. project examining the demographics and factors limiting the Florida Panhandle’s Snowy Plover population, with a specific focus on mortality from vehicle collisions at a National Seashore. Before starting her graduate career, Maureen graduated with a B.A. in Biological Sciences from Connecticut College in 2008. After college, she worked field positions on Sandhill Crane projects in Mississippi and Wisconsin. Maureen started working on the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, when she took a position monitoring Snowy Plovers for a small NGO in Florida, followed by wintering shorebird surveys in South Texas. During her graduate work in Florida, she has had the opportunity to partner with the National Park Service, USFWS, several FL state agencies, Audubon, and American Bird Conservancy. Maureen has been active in the Waterbird Society since 2011, when she presented a poster on her work. Maureen attended and gave oral presentations of her work in Germany in 2013 and Mexico in 2014. As a representative to council, Maureen would focus on increasing student involvement and student activities during meetings. Being a member of the Waterbird society has been an invaluable experience for Maureen as a student, and she looks forward to continued involvement in the society, and the opportunity to help increase student participation and engagement. Caroline Poli I am currently a PhD student in the Interdisciplinary Ecology program at the University of Florida. Prior to that, I earned an MS in Wildlife and Fisheries Biology at Clemson University and worked as a field ecologist for 11 years. I became a member of the Waterbird Society in 2015 and I joined the Conservation Committee in 2017. Much of my work in waterbird science involves understanding movement patterns and habitat use of waterbirds as a baseline for future decision-making. For my doctoral research, I work closely with agencies across south Florida to develop targets for wetland habitat management that will improve survival and dispersal of juvenile Snail Kites, and hopefully lead to population recovery. I am interested in helping to lead the Waterbird Society because I think it is critically important to be part of a diverse community of people who share an interest in science, communication, and conservation, and I plan to work with the members of the society in the future. I am excited that the society has elected to represent students at the council level, and I see this as a major opportunity to contribute to an organization that I relate to, represent other students, and learn to work as part of a government. As Student Councilor, I would work hard to promote and develop funding opportunities for students that wish to attend meetings. Additionally, I would support existing programs (i.e., the student-mentor mixer) and continue to create new opportunities for students to network with researchers and managers within the society. Thank you for considering my candidacy. Kate Shlepr The Waterbird Society is my “home” society, and I am keen to serve on the Council to show thanks and lend support to its mission. I have presented at five annual meetings of the WbS since 2011 when I started studying gulls as an undergraduate in Maine. My post-secondary advisors (John Anderson, Tony Diamond, Dale Gawlik) have all been enthusiastic supporters of the Society and have encouraged me to get involved in various ways. I was second chair to John Anderson on the Local Committee of the Bar Harbor meeting (2015), and helped him organize files (2014) and conduct interviews of WbS founders (2016) as a member of the Archives Committee. I have also collaborated with Stephanie Jones, editor of Waterbirds, as a co-editor on a Special Publication of the journal (2016). I will be starting a PhD on Everglades wading birds with Dale Gawlik in Fall 2017, and hope to build an active role in the WbS into my new position. My goal is to help maintain the high energy and camaraderie I have experienced as a member of the WbS, especially in welcoming students and other new Society members. This announcement was originally posted on the Waterbird Society's website. View the full announcement.
Glossy Ibis Research Network and workshop in November
The Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus) is the only cosmopolitan species of the Threskiornithidae family (ibis and spoonbills) and among the most widely distributed bird species in the world. Nonetheless, no knowledge exists on the intraspecific phylogeny and very little is known about the (meta)populations dynamics. We aim to fill this and other gaps on the species by setting up a research network. In particular, we aim to increase our knowledge of the species and to use the Glossy ibis as a novel model species to investigate ecological responses to abrupt environmental changes. This network will also serve to share information and delineate lines of investigation to increase our knowledge of Glossy Ibis biology and using it as a model species to address ecological and evolutionary questions. A three-day workshop will be held in November 2017 at the Doñana Biological Park (South Spain), a marshland area of great importance for many migratory and sedentary bird species. This initiative is under the auspices of, and in collaboration with the Doñana Biological Station, and the IUCN Stork Ibis and Spoonbill Specialist Group. The aim of the workshop is promoting the creation of a research network on the Glossy ibis, one of the most cosmopolitan but also least studied landbird species in the world. Please see the short document below where the aim of the workshop and network are explained in more detail. This announcement was originally posted on the Waterbird Society's website. View the full announcement.
Scientists Support Marine Protected Areas
We are calling on you to join the Scientists’ Letter to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation urging the United States government to maintain existing marine protections for U.S. waters. The Committee on Commerce will hold a hearing on marine protected areas in the first half of May. We have a brief window of opportunity to generate support for marine protected areas and we need your signature advocating for the utility of strongly protected marine reserves. Please consider adding your name to this letter, https://marine-conservation.org/scientists-mpa-letter-2017/ You may be aware that the Trump Administration issued two executive orders last week to review and recommend changes to recent monuments and sanctuaries. These E.O.s are clearly aimed at opening up previously protected areas to commercial extraction: oil and gas, mining, and/or fishing. Our goal is to reach 1,000 signatures by the end of the first week of May, but we need your help. Please share this letter with your marine your scientists colleagues and ask them to join our call to U.S. decision-makers. DETAILS of the EXECUTIVE ORDERS The first executive order asks the Department of Interior to review all land and marine monuments established since 1996 to make sure they: are the minimum area sufficient to protect the intended resources; have properly balanced multiple uses, including resource extraction; and have very strong public support.The second executive order starts the process of opening up vast areas of the Arctic ocean and Atlantic seaboard that had been placed off limits to offshore drilling by President Obama and orders that any marine sanctuaries created or expanded in the last ten years be reviewed. Text of Letter: Honorable Chairman Dan Sullivan, Honorable Ranking Member Gary Peters, Members of the Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard and all Members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation: Marine life and the essential ecological services that oceans provide are increasingly threatened by a variety of human activities. Marine scientists recognize the important role that strongly-protected marine reserves play in conserving marine life and benefiting fish populations. In 2001, the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis outlined the striking ecological benefits for marine life within and outside of strongly-protected reserves and the effects of ecological networks in its “Scientific Consensus Statement on Marine Reserves and Marine Protected Areas” (Appendix 1). Since then, extensive scientific literature has provided additional compelling evidence that strongly-protected marine reserves are powerful ways of conserving biodiversity. In addition, strongly-protected reserves can create jobs and bring in new economic revenue through ecotourism and enhancement of local fisheries through spillover beyond reserve boundaries. Finally, strongly-protected reserves provide resilience against the impacts of climate change and ocean acidification. Whereas the unprotected ocean is like a debit account where everybody withdraws and nobody deposits, marine reserves are like savings accounts that produce interest we can live off. In light of the growing impacts that humans are having on our marine ecosystems and the fisheries they support, we, the undersigned scientists, call on the United States government to maintain existing ocean protections and to increase protections for diverse habitats across all biogeographic regions of U.S. ocean waters. Strongly-protected reserves will help provide the resilience needed to ensure the continued health and productivity of America’s oceans. Sincerely, Enric Sala, PhD National Geographic Society Sylvia Earle, PhD Mission Blue and National Geographic Society Paul Dayton, PhD University of California San Diego Oran Young, PhD Bren School University of California Santa Barbara Daniel Pauly, PhD University of British Columbia Steve Murray, PhD California State University Fullerton Ellen K. Pikitch, PhD Stony Brook University Callum Roberts, PhD University of York Elliott Norse, PhD Marine Conservation Institute Rashid Sumaila, PhD University of British Columbia Carl Safina, PhD The Safina Center (formerly Blue Ocean Institute) Stuart Pimm, PhD Duke University . . . …and many others! Click here to add your voice to the letter This announcement was originally posted on the Waterbird Society's website. View the full announcement.
The Waterbird Society’s Letter to President Trump
This announcement was originally posted on the Waterbird Society's website. View the full announcement.
In Memoriam : Dr Luc Hoffman, by Jim Kushlan
Chris Custer posted a topic in In Memoriam
There can be little doubt that the most significant awards of Dr. Luc Hoffmann’s long life were not medals and titles, but are to be found in his appreciation of the successes of his conservation engagements on behalf of waterbirds, wetlands, and coastal environments, his support of individual accomplishment, his promulgation of wise use to provide a sustainable future for both man and nature, his creating durable conservation structures, and, especially, his family, who will carry on his work in conservation, business, arts, and culture. And among the many beneficiaries of Luc Hoffmann’s legacy are the world’s waterbirds. Read more here: In Memoriam : Dr Luc Hoffman This announcement was originally posted on the Waterbird Society's website. View the full announcement.
Dr. Luc Hoffmann
The Society remembers Luc Hoffmann as “a visionary and gifted person who built a world class biological station that many biologists benefited from over many years.” Dr. Hoffmann was the 1994 recipient of our Kai-Curry-Lindhal award for lifetime achievement involving waterbirds. Read more here: http://luchoffmanninstitute.org/about/about-dr-luc-hoffmann/ This announcement was originally posted on the Waterbird Society's website. View the full announcement.
Waterbird Society 40th Anniversary Update
The Waterbird Society is a professional community that respects diversity and promotes inclusion. After much deliberation, The Waterbird Society Council has decided to hold our 40th Anniversary Meeting as planned in New Bern, North Carolina. At this late date we cannot practically move our meeting location without a large financial cost to our relatively small society. The Council has endorsed a motion to increase travel funding to our annual meeting to offset losses that may incur as a result of State and City travel bans [https://waterbirds.org/awards/student-travel-awards].We are also exploring other options such as extending early registration and abstract submission deadlines, ride-sharing, and room sharing that may allow participants who do not get funded to travel to attend the meeting. Finally, we hope that the law known as HB2 will face several legal challenges that will be successfully resolved in time for our September meeting. The Waterbird Council has undertaken a number of new actions that will help to reinforce our Society’s culture of inclusion and diversity. First, the Council has endorsed a new Committee on Diversity. [For interest in joining this new Committee, please contact Liz Craig: elizabethccraig@gmail.com]. Second, alongside our scientific program and other waterbird-focused activities, we have also planned an evening panel discussion and reception to encourage meaningful conversation about human diversity and representation within the Waterbird Society. Finally, we have assurances from the city, meeting facilities’ managers and area hospitality partners that all participants in the 2016 Waterbird Society Annual Meeting will be welcomed equally to the City of New Bern. We look forward to having you join us in September for a strong scientific program and these celebrations. This announcement was originally posted on the Waterbird Society's website. View the full announcement.
Waterbird Society: Special Note about our 40th Anniversary Meeting
New legislation recently passed in North Carolina (House Bill 2) has raised some significant concerns about fair and equitable treatment of all people. The Waterbird Society is committed to building a professional community that respects diversity and promotes inclusion. We are currently in a ‘wait and see’ mode for determining how best to respond to this situation. We have not cancelled our annual meeting in New Bern, North Carolina scheduled for 20-23 September. Please check our web site for updates as we obtain more information about the State of North Carolina’s response to House Bill 2, especially its Special Session on April 25th, Monday. This announcement was originally posted on the Waterbird Society's website. View the full announcement.
Waterbird Society (9/20-23) Abstract and Registration is Open!
ANNOUNCEMENT – The 40th Annual Meeting of the Waterbird Society. Call for ABSTRACTS and EARLY REGISTRATION. New Bern, North Carolina, 20-23 September 2016. The Waterbird Society will hold its 40th Annual Conference and General Meeting in New Bern, North Carolina, from 20-23 September 2016. Three full days of scientific sessions, symposia and workshops are planned including symposia on Herons of the World, Black Rails, Black Skimmers, and the Atlantic Marine Bird Conservation Cooperative and workshops on Herons of the World. Submit Abstracts: https://waterbirds.org/annual-meeting/abstract-submission/ Register: https://waterbirds.org/annual-meeting/registration/. Student Travel Awards https://waterbirds.org/awards/student-travel-awards/ Questions? Contact Clay Green (Chair, Scientific Program – claygreen@txstate.edu ) or Sara Schweitzer (Chair, Local Committee – sara.schweitzer@ncwildlife.org ). This announcement was originally posted on the Waterbird Society's website. View the full announcement.
Herons of the World Charity Fundraiser
In 2016, we will hold our 40th annual meeting in North Carolina, and will be hosting the first ever symposium and workshop on the Biology and Conservation of Herons of the World. We would like to bring in a limited number of selected authorities from Africa, Asia, and South America to represent topics and issues that we do not broadly discuss in North America and Europe. Unfortunately, most waterbird researchers in those areas cannot afford to travel to the U.S. without significant financial assistance. As a non-profit organization, we have a tight and limited budget, but we would very much appreciate the opportunity to bring these scientists and managers from other parts of the world to our meeting. We will be thankful for all donations! Note: In the U.S., such donations are tax deductible! For questions or information regarding the symposium, contact Chip Weseloh at Chip.weseloh@ec.gc.ca. GoFundMe campaignIf you wish to donate, please visit the GoFundMe campaign to provide support to this important project. Donate Now! This announcement was originally posted on the Waterbird Society's website. View the full announcement.
40th Annual Meeting
Call for SYMPOSIA, WORKSHOPS, and notice of Meeting. New Bern, North Carolina, 20-23 September 2016. The Waterbird Society will hold its 40th Annual Conference and General Meeting in New Bern, North Carolina, from 20-23 September 2016. This announcement is a call for anyone who would like to propose a Symposium or Workshop for this meeting. If you are interested, please contact Clay Green by 1 February 2016. A symposium may be a full day (~14 presentations) or half day (7 presentations). Likewise, workshops can be a full day, half day, or a couple of hours. At present, we have accepted a proposal for a Symposium and Workshop on the Biology and Conservation of Herons of the World. Because the Waterbird Society is celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2016, we are planning a celebration of the first 40 years of the Society, complete with displays of the Society’s early formative days, so please make plans to join us in New Bern. Meeting information, including details on the New Bern Riverfront Convention Center, field trips, accommodations, and special events will be posted on the Waterbird Society web site (http://www.waterbirds.org/) in November 2015. Daily early morning and evening birding trips will be offered, as well as longer field trips on 24 and 25 September. Historical New Bern, a city of approximately 30,000 people, is located at the confluence of the Trent and Neuse rivers as they flow into the Pamlico Sound, bordered by the Outer Banks chain of barrier islands; it is a water wonderland! We look forward to seeing you in New Bern in 2016. This announcement was originally posted on the Waterbird Society's website. View the full announcement.
Call for Symposia, Workshops and Notice of 2016 Annual Meeting
The Waterbird Society will hold its 40th Annual Conference and General Meeting in New Bern, North Carolina, from 20-23 September 2016. This announcement is a call for anyone who would like to propose a Symposium or Workshop for this meeting. A symposium may be a full day (~14 presentations) or half day (7 presentations). Likewise, workshops can be a full day, half day, or a couple of hours. At present, we have accepted a proposal for a Symposium and Workshop on the Biology and Conservation of Herons of the World. Call for Symposia and WorkshopsContact: Clay Green, Waterbird Society Secretary Email: claygreen@txstate.edu Deadline: 1 February 2016 This announcement was originally posted on the Waterbird Society's website. View the full announcement.
Draft of the Scientific Program Posted
The current version of the Scientific Program for the Bar Harbor meeting can be found here: DraftProgram07122015. Check back as it will be updated. This announcement was originally posted on the Waterbird Society's website. View the full announcement.
MBTA enforcement legislation
Suggested text for people to write to their senators about the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the attempt by the current congress to block its enforcement. Dear Senator: Please vote against the appropriations bill for Commerce Justice and Related Agencies unless the rider that blocks enforcement of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (Amdt 347) is removed from the bill. The MBTA is one of our most important wildlife protection laws and this rider would allow people to kill wild birds without any penalty whatsoever. Our wild bird populations are already under great pressure and many are in severe decline. Please do not block the USFWS from enforcing this important law that protects our wild bird populations. This announcement was originally posted on the Waterbird Society's website. View the full announcement.
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OSPE Member Roy Slack, P.Eng., named new President of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM)
During the Annual General Meeting portion of the CIM 2019 Convention, the CIM welcomed in their new President, Roy Slack, P.Eng. Roy is an OSPE member and a professional engineer with over 35 years of experience in mining and mining related engineering.
The Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum is the leading not-for-profit technical society of professionals in the Canadian minerals, metals, materials and energy industries. The CIM has over 120 years of history and more than 10,000 members nationally and internationally. As a long-time member of the CIM, Roy brings his years of industry experience to the presidency in the hopes of leading the organization into a new era of mining.
“It is an honour to be nominated and appointed to this position and it is a great opportunity to give back to an industry that has been so good to me. The CIM is more relevant than ever at this time where we are seeing technical and financial conditions driving innovation towards a new state of mining,” Roy said, in a statement after being appointed to the role at the CIM.
Roy started his engineering journey at the University of Queens in Kingston, Ontario, where he obtained a degree in mining engineering. From there, he gained valuable experience in the industry through work with BLM Mining Services, J.S. Redpath Ltd., and Mine Project Services – a mining services consultancy firm that Slack, himself, started.
In 1998, Slack helped start Cementation’s operations in North America when he became the President of the organization. OSPE has previously profiled Cementation, which is an underground mine contracting and engineering company with operations in North Bay and Sudbury, that provides mine development and production services for clients around the world. Under Slack’s presidency, Cementation Canada was listed as one of “Canada’s Top 100 Employers” numerous times and was recognized in 2016 as Canada’s Safest Employer in the natural resources sector.
Much like the organizations he’s lead or worked for, Roy has been recognized many times by professional organizations. In 2008, Professional Engineers Ontario awarded him the Engineer’s Medal for Entrepreneurship. The following year he was given the Metal Mining Society Award by the CIM and in 2012, he was named a Paul Harris Fellow by Rotary International. He has also been active in numerous safety initiatives, including CIM’s Safety Council, and in 2013 was appointed to Ontario’s first Prevention Council to advise the government on workplace safety.
Here at OSPE, we’re proud of our members like Roy, who use their engineering knowledge and experience to affect real change in their community and profession. In May 2017, Roy was a keynote speaker at OSPE’s “Spark the Fire” event in North Bay, highlighting the complex issues and engineering required to access mineral deposits in the Ring of Fire. We want to once again congratulate Roy Slack on his new role and wish him all the best as the President of the CIM.
Tags: Member Profile
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Elevating urban infrastructure to new heights?
Milica Radisic, P.Eng., wins 2019 OPEA Engineering Medal for Research & Development
Cristina Amon, P.Eng., wins engineering profession’s top honour in Ontario
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May 1, 2017 – Read original case study
Ostara has successfully developed and commercialized a technology that recovers nutrients from wastewater streams and transforms them into an environmentally safe, continuous-release fertilizer. In addition to sustainably recovering otherwise polluting nutrients, the fertilizer produced from the process releases in response to plant demand, reducing the risk of leaching and runoff, further protecting waterways. Ostara’s nutrient recovery technology is both economically feasible and environmentally sound, providing a win-win solution for wastewater treatment plants.
Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) have long been on the front line of defense against nutrient pollution. As point sources of easily and readily measured nutrient discharge, the opportunity existed to improve plant performance in such a manner as to positively impact the environment. Turning WWTPs into resource recovery centers—where water, energy and nutrients are recovered and recycled—dynamically changes the face of a sector previously seen as one that contributed to the pollution of water, air and land.
Ostara’s nutrient recovery technology seeks to improve the performance and operation of WWTPs. Designed to recover phosphorus—a non-renewable resource needed to feed the planet—the technology solves a significant environmental issue while solving a common nuisance problem (the build-up of struvite in pipes) in municipal WWTPs; traditional methods of removal and dumping of nutrients are costly, and neither elegant nor environmentally sound.
Ostara’s solution, where excess nutrients are not viewed as waste but as a useful byproduct, presented a lucrative business model for the company. Ostara is able to sell both the innovative technology to solve WWTPs’ operational and environmental problems and also benefit from a second revenue stream created through the sale of the process byproduct. Ostara buys back the fertilizer from the WWTPs and sells it through their marketing and distribution network within the agricultural, turf and ornamental industries, providing a share of the revenue to the municipality or WWTP operator.
SDTC provided early support to Ostara, helping the company demonstrate its nutrient recovery technology, previously only seen in pilot form at the Greater Vancouver Regional District’s Lulu Island wastewater treatment plant and at the City of Penticton’s advanced wastewater treatment plant. Scaling up the technology by a factor of 100, in 2007, Ostara launched a demonstration facility at the City of Edmonton’s Gold Bar Wastewater Treatment Facility. The project not only proved the successful scale-up of the company’s nutrient recovery technology to commercial scale but also demonstrated the production of a highly pure byproduct of the process, a Root-Activated™ phosphorus fertilizer.
Ostara’s proprietary technology recovers phosphorus and nitrogen from treated wastewater streams by providing a controlled setting within a fluidized bed reactor in which the nutrients crystalize and grow into highly pure fertilizer granules. Once they reach the desired size, they are harvested, dried, bagged and distributed under the brand name Crystal Green®.
Crystal Green®
Unlike conventional phosphate fertilizers, which release nutrients upon watering or irrigation, Crystal Green is virtually water insoluble and releases phosphorus in response to organic acids produced by growing roots, fertilizing plants on demand. Ostara is now producing Crystal Green, marketing and distributing the fertilizer to large-scale agricultural producers, golf courses and turf/sod producers.
Successful Demonstration leads to Fast Commercialization
Due to the successful demonstration of its nutrient recovery technology in Edmonton in 2007, Ostara was able to attract clients throughout North America and Europe. Within one year of demonstration, Ostara signed its first commercial contract with the City of Tigard, Oregon. The client, Clean Water Services, is one of the most progressive and highly rated utilities in the USA. The forward-thinking facility was an early adopter of the technology and successful operations there led to other opportunities for Ostara. To date, the company has commercially launched seven facilities in North America, one in Europe, and is preparing to bring six more on line in 2016, including the world’s largest nutrient recovery facility in Chicago. Coming full circle, Ostara will also launch a full-scale plant in Edmonton that will be 20 times the size of the original demonstration facility when it opens in Spring 2016.
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Another 470 parking spots available for staff at DND’s Carling HQ
David Pugliese, Ottawa Citizen
DND headquarters at the former Nortel Campus. Tony Caldwell / Postmedia Network
The Department of National Defence has added more parking spaces at an offsite location to deal with the ongoing parking issues at its new headquarters on Carling Avenue.
The new Department of National Defence headquarters campus in the west end of Ottawa only has parking for about half of the proposed 9,300 department employees and Canadian military personnel who will eventually work there. DND officials also acknowledge the site is not well served by existing bus routes and it was once labelled by a top department official as a remote location.
The DND recently announced that as of Oct. 1 it would have 392 parking spaces available. Those are located at 2505 Solandt Road in Kanata.
The DND announced Wednesday that another 470 spaces will be made available at 120 Herzberg Road, also in Kanata. These 470 temporary spaces will be available for a period of 12 months, according to the DND.
Parking fees will be increased from $35 to $84 a month.
A lottery will be held on Sept. 23 for the new spaces.
Employees already on a waiting list do not need to apply as they will be automatically entered into the lottery.
The DND will provide shuttle services from the offsite parking lots, being leased from private organizations, to the Carling Avenue headquarters.
That service will be provided between 0600 and 1800 hrs, Monday to Friday. During the periods of 0600-0930 hrs and 1500-1800 hrs, the service will be running every 20-30 minutes. It will then follow a 45-60 minutes schedule for the remainder of the day, excluding a lunch period for the drivers, according to the DND. During peak times, multiple shuttles will be running to ensure minimum lines and wait times.
More details about the schedule for the shuttles will be released at a later date.
Angry public reactions after Veterans Affairs video mixes up Canadian and... Gen. Vance says he’s ready to keep serving as Chief of...
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How Would Jefferson Define ‘Religious Freedom’?…
01) How Would Jefferson Define ‘Religious Freedom’?
I’ve been mistakenly referring to the “religion restoration” laws/movement, as “defense of religion”…
I think I was mixing “religion restoration” with “defense of marriage”…which is understandable, considering that they both come from the same general demographic and mindset…plus, they are both misnomers…also, the one just seemed to evolve into the other.
Why am I so outraged at this issue?…
…Because…this is an outrageous slap in the face, born out of contempt…the fact that organized religion expects us to believe, that it does not know it’s own power…nor does it realize the place of privilege it has existed in, all through the history of the USA…and that it needs to be defended, from social consequences and adherence to minimal social standards.
…Have these individuals pushing “religion restoration” bills ever, in their entire lives, had a self critical moment of reflection?…Have they ever had the epiphany…that just maybe…all the pushback they have been seeing in recent decades, has been a direct response to their own, obnoxious, anti-social aggression?…That maybe, the root problem has nearly always emanated from their own camp, and their own actions?
Believe me…I understand that there are cases, where people are entirely unreasonable…and they are in your face, with the primary objective of simply causing trouble and never allowing people to be at peace…
…But I have to tell you…A massive amount of the anger, rebuke and pushback aimed at organized religion today, is entirely justified and valid…
…And when people of organized religion receive it, they need to step back and evaluate their own actions…not run to their statesmen, and demand a new law that allows them to continue behaving in a foul manner.
Truth be told…so much of this anger and backlash could subside, if only organized religion would behave in a respectful manner towards the rest of us on this planet.
…Now, there is a real gem of wisdom…but is organized religion willing to humble itself, and follow it?
…Building legal walls to maintain some sort of separatist mindset, does not have me very encouraged about where organized religion is heading.
It’s like…we have this demographic which wants and demands a culture war…and they just wont have any of it, when it comes to the more simple solution of us learning to get along.
Organized religion has to do a ton of changing, in order for this to happen.
…Is it really not worth it?…Is it honestly so below them?
These fights are just so insane and senseless…and they cause so much suffering in this world…which is what drives me so badly up the wall, about all of this…
…You look back at the havoc…and it was all for nothing…bunch of egotistical strong-arming, from people too insecure to allow others to be different from them…
…Those who’ve spent years [decades] of their lives on the receiving end of this bullying, get a much different experience out of this sense of self entitlement, which others have to our personal lives.
…It is a slap in the face, for people to greedily clutch onto this ugliness…instead of throwing it away, like any decent person would do.
This entry was posted in Unassigned, Wordpress Archive on April 28, 2015 by eqfoundation.
Ring of Fire on Free Speech TV – 04/12/2015 (FULL EPISODE)…
01) Ring of Fire on Free Speech TV – 04/12/2015 (FULL EPISODE)
00:57 – “Generic Drugs Just Got More Dangerous.” Howard Nations will tell us why the FDA is dragging its feet on a new rule that would force generic prescription drugs to carry the same warnings as their name brand counterparts – a delay that is costing people their lives. #PoisonPills
13:14 – “Repressive Religious Freedom Bills Bring America Back to 1800’s.” Matt Filipowicz in Boston, host of The Matthew Filipowicz Show, will tell us about the recent “religious liberty” laws that are designed to allow businesses to discriminate based on their religious beliefs. #EqualityForAll”
I don’t know what happened to this episode [a mishap in production?], but it’s less than half an hour long…there is no end segment…and it looks like they clearly meant for the show to continue on…but it does not. Here it is, anyway.
I need to comment about something…and that something, is this “defense of religion” who ha, that’s been slithering it’s way through various state legislatures…
…What is this utter rubbish nonsense, that the juggernaut of organized religion supposedly “needs protection”, so that it can dodge anti-discrimination laws?…
Organized religion gets away with proverbial murder [nay, genocide] in the USA…This country nearly kisses and licks the butt of organized religion, bending over to be shagged by it relentlessly…and dragging all the rest of us with it…
…Organized religion is held at a net standard, of zero social accountability…and it is often praised and rewarded, for behaving in absolutely vulgar malicious ways.
When are we ever going to have a serious discussion about this social travesty, and actually speak honestly about it?
No…we can’t have that…Instead, we get these useless laws shoved down our throats…The lawmakers don’t want to admit what they are really about…nor explain why they are supposedly “needed”…let alone, why there is “an emergency” in “need” of these laws…
…Sure…it is all just “strange coincidence”, that this is all happening parallel with gay marriage and anti-discrimination law becoming legally recognized.
Funny how that works, isn’t it?
Organized religion has a wide spread, deep seeded problem…in that it’s mentality is rooted in separatism…”us versus them”…”if you’re not with us, you are against us”…”we are good, you are evil”…and a sense of self entitlement, to dominate over everyone…forcing as many as possible, to conform to their rule.
We are witnessing this rear it’s ugly head, with these outrageous “defense of religion” laws…laws which are clearly designed to neuter anti-discrimination law…laws which are clearly born out of hostility towards sexual minorities…
…If that is not the cause behind them…then what are they even being written and passed for?
Let’s face it…as things stand, organized religion is never going to face a day of reckoning, accounting for it’s masses of anti-social behavior, and trespass against untold numbers of people…
…Virtually nobody in a place of ability has the balls, let alone the integrity, to force accountability and consequence onto organized religion [or it’s leaders].
We need a far better quality of leadership in the USA…Things need to change, for once in our lifetimes, in a tangible way that actually means something good and progressive.
…Not this same old crap, re-served to us all under a different name and convoluted reasoning.
It is time for secular government institutions to actually be secular…not theocracy behind a mask.
Would You Like to Chat Live with Steve Diamond?…
The instant messenger is down, and it has been for a good while. It’s never up when I am logged online, anyway…and I am tired of this state of things. As such, Chatango is now in the dog house.
We are taking a new direction with live chat, and I have decided to open up a room using tlk.io [https://tlk.io/].
01) tlk.io
This new chat will be called “The Diamond Lounge”, and located here [a page on this blog]:
02) The Diamond Lounge
This is not a private room, and it does not offer private messaging…and it represents an experiment.
For your information…no IP or other identifying information is shared [except maybe your twitter account, if you sign in using twitter].
Unlike the previous instant messengers I’ve used here, this room will allow multiple people to interact with me, all at once…So, in the event you don’t want to enter alone…you can bring a friend in with you.
There are not a lot of features to this service, so I don’t know how well it will serve my purposes…But I will give it a try for now. It can go away later, if I see it becoming a problem.
Give me a while to put together a new chat graphic, and maybe a page of rules, information and guidelines to go with the chat page.
This entry was posted in The Cork Board, Wordpress Archive on April 27, 2015 by eqfoundation.
Lawmakers Threaten To Ban Alcohol If Pot Isn’t Legalized…
01) Lawmakers Threaten To Ban Alcohol If Pot Isn’t Legalized
Marijuana liberation is a cause, who’s time has come. The people behind this prohibition, cannot continue to persecute pot users…That model is destructive, corrupt…and it just does not work, for the honest majority.
Legalize Medical Marijuana
Marijuana Liberation
Mom Life Threatened For Complaining About “Bible Man” In School…
01) Mom Life Threatened For Complaining About “Bible Man” In School
I don’t know how Anna can set there and make the statement, that it’s all okay if you’ve got the money to send your kids to a private, religious school…when she clearly has this problem with religious indoctrination.
As a homosexual who was put through a Baptist school [K-12], graduating from one of them…I am compelled to point out, that a lot of kids are trapped there…that it is incredibly injurious to the psychology and social stability of many of us…and that this is a much deeper issue, than whether or not the parents can afford to pay others to implement the psychological and emotional torture of their children.
…There is also the very real tragedy of social stunting, which these institutions are a very true source of.
I’m sure Anna didn’t really mean anything in her choice of words…but of all that was covered here, and despite that more deserves comment…that is what jumped out at me…But then, it’s a personal issue.
I need to express a thing or two, which is likely to make a few people uncomfortable…
…A lot of people get into this cliché thinking…”You take your children to church and submerge them into a moral environment and lifestyle?…Wonderful!”…without any consideration to the nature and needs of the child…or the possibly disastrous ways in which the, not always good or moral, nature of the church might conflict…even causing this kid to live a life, under constant psychological and emotional assault…They might be singled out an ostracized…But even if they are not, once they have been psychologicaly broken by this and internalize the rejection of themselves…the damage has been done.
You know…if religion were only the cliché “once a week on Sundays, and the rest of the week is yours to live normal and practical”…I might suggest like many, that it is not so corrosive a thing…because there would be a lot more there in one’s life, to offset it…to bring life back into level headed balance…to give you a real world perspective on things, and not allow “what does the Bible say about this” to warp your ability to reason.
Religion has this privileged status in our culture…where it can do some of the most horrible, “soul destroying” things to children [and people of all ages]…and it is applauded for it, as though this were good, moral and right…and I just do not get this anomaly.
…It says to me, that those of us unfortunate enough to find ourselves in these institutions are not considered worth fighting for, or defending, by most people.
…Why is that?…Why does next to nobody have a problem with this style of psychological and emotional abuse?
It’s like the only people who talk about this serious problem, are the one’s who were forced to live through it, themselves…And we are somehow considered extreme and fringe, for even just expressing anything about it.
…It’s as if we were the ones at fault, for having been unlucky enough to be born into this.
Even Lovers Fight For Love…
This entry was posted in Lets Get Real, Wordpress Archive on April 24, 2015 by eqfoundation.
Album: Throwback
Throwback [12:05]
01) Veneration
https://ourlovefrontier.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/01-veneration.mp3
02) Fluorine
https://ourlovefrontier.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/02-fluorine.mp3
03) CultureShock-V1
https://ourlovefrontier.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/03-cultureshockv1.mp3
04) Curio
https://ourlovefrontier.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/04-curio.mp3
05) MA Today
https://ourlovefrontier.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/05-ma_today.mp3
06) Funky1
https://ourlovefrontier.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/06-funky1.mp3
07) Cerebrum
https://ourlovefrontier.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/07-cerebrum.mp3
08) Circumflex
https://ourlovefrontier.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/08-circumflex.mp3
09) Moirai
https://ourlovefrontier.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/09-moirai.mp3
10) Media Whore
https://ourlovefrontier.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/10-media-whore.mp3
Before you dread the question, “Is Stevie scraping the bottom of the barrel?”…Let me assure you, this album is more of a sideline project. You see…I happened across a reservoir of old music I’d put together…some for specific projects…some I just sat on, and never did anything with…One or two of these tracks, conceivably, I may have even made with MAGIX Music Maker 10…which was the first version I ever purchased a copy of. Most of this content, I had no recollection of encoding a WAV or MP3 copy of…Or if I did, I figured I had lost them somewhere along the line. So, I was quite surprised to find these tracks.
I am referring to Throwback as my 8.5th album, because I didn’t intend for it to exist…and it’s a weak collection, over all…I could have appended these to The Black List [my first album, which I also did not originally intend to make]…but there was enough here, to where I thought it was worth the effort to put it out as a tiny album.
At twelve minutes and five seconds, you breeze through this collection pretty fast. What is here, is a look back at things I was putting together and publishing really early on. I probably had about seventeen or eighteen tracks I’d retrieved…but I whittled it down to mostly the best, with a few decent loops thrown in…These tracks are basically just loops, to be honest…And I should stress, this was really early on…I’d not developed all that far at doing this…So, most of this is “Meh!” type stuff…But it’s an okay part of my musical history.
I wanted this album to be longer, but figured it had enough mediocre loops…and I did not want it to “over stay it’s welcome”…So, I opted to drop several tracks, since what made it in really does adequately represent the tracks that didn’t make it in.
There’s not a lot of greatness here…but I did toss in one genuine gem.
I should forewarn…that I had to “patch” several of these together, so that I’d have a version that plays for more than 15 to 30 seconds…On a few of these tracks, though I tried to get it right [it can be hard], there is a noticeable “something” where one part ends and another picks up…It’s part of the headache, of working with solitary WAV and MP3 files that have been made with obsolete music software…and I cant just import the arrangement files they were made with, to recode from the original source…So, there are a few imperfections here.
01) Veneration – Kind of cool…This reminds me of the unlisted track at the end of Def Leppard’s Pyromania. It’s just something I came up with, while goofing around. Not at all a song.
02) Fluorine – I didn’t bother doing anything with this…I just included it here, as it was. I’ve never made anything like this since.
03) CultureShock-V1 – A fact only ever known by me…”CultureShock V4″ is titled such, because there were three versions which preceded it…and the very first attempt, was something totally different from what originally debuted as “The Culture Shock Podcast” theme…This is the original, never before released version.
04) Curio – Bumper music…but really cool bumper music…You cant possibly not like this.
05) MA Today – I had a YouTube series called “MA Today” [Minor Attraction Today]…Pronounced by it’s proper lettering, “em aye today”…Yes, that was creative wasn’t it?…I could not possibly neglect inclusion of this track here…Plus, it’s not bad.
06) Funky1 – A great piece of bumper music.
07) Cerebrum – I was messing around with a synthesizer on this one…Not amazing, but sounds alright…An early example of my attempts at making original music.
08) Circumflex – I remember making this…That particular synthesizer got taken out of the MAGIX Music Maker suite, I think by the fourteenth release…I kind of miss it, to be honest.
09) Moirai – A nice track…if a bit eerie…I put a bit of work into it.
10) Media Whore – I was going to hold this one back for a later album…but, this is an old piece of music I put together…I think it’s the first thing I ever created, that was honestly really good…In fact, this particular track is kind of awesome. It saves this collection from being more less neutered. I was going to put some vocal recordings to this, but never did…I could easily envision this track going well, with a “rampage” style of rapping.
This entry was posted in Music, Poetry, Rhymes and Lyrics of Steve Diamond, The Expressions Forum, Wordpress Archive on April 22, 2015 by eqfoundation.
Comments in return to someone on Twitter, who was making a snap judgment about me…They called me [my behavior] “Dark”.
“Dark”?…I am real. I am honest. I don’t have the luxury, of living in denial like so many do.
In addition, my efforts are based on solving social conflict, not causing problems and pain for others.
My actions and character speak for themselves…People just need to look deeper than a first glance.
Apparently, you’re not accustomed to encountering people who live in the trenches of stigma and ostracism.
In reality…I am very kind and respectful towards people, on Twitter. Even in the face of abuse, I’ve not lost my composure, or slighted anyone.
The big irony here…is that this all took place in response to the Stinson Hunter griefing scandal…and my trying to explain how this shows a poor, parasitic and malicious character on the part of Stinson and his friends.
For this, my own character gets offhandedly questioned, based on a quick scan of my timeline? [and what is so unacceptable about my timeline, anyway…It’s useful, honest and real.]
The person throwing this back in my face, was cheering on Stinson…and does not care about his malicious past, or his bullying of young kids…Hmmmm…
It’s like they have no concept, that you need to be decent to other people, which just bleeds over into exchanges like this one.
I should hope this person never imagines themselves morally superior, to a person like me…Such would be gravely unjustified…
This entry was posted in Dialogues, Wordpress Archive on April 21, 2015 by eqfoundation.
Echo of Extremes…
The Future of Marriage…
01) OnBeing: The Future of Marriage
02) Direct Download Link [MP3]
“What would it take to make our national encounter with gay marriage redemptive rather than divisive? David Blankenhorn and Jonathan Rauch came to the gay marriage debate from very different directions — but with a shared concern about the institution of marriage. Now, they’re pursuing a different way for all of us to grapple with the future of marriage, redefined. They model a fresh way forward as the subject of same-sex marriage is before the Supreme Court.”
You could replace the term “gay marriage” with “pedophile issues” or “intergenerational relationships” at a number of places…
…What strikes me so bluntly whenever I encounter these kinds of discussions…is that the people talking about “gay and lesbian” issues, are also talking exactly about pedosexual’s issues, in almost every way…they just don’t understand it, or refuse to accept the vast common ground…
…It is as if they are a proxy, representing and talking about our issues, as pedosexuals…as Child Lovers…as Teen Lovers…as disenfranchised youth and children…Only, they refuse to acknowledge that we suffer horribly, under these exact same social conflicts and ills…
Worse still…some of them believe we deserve our plight, and that we don’t deserve a voice or humane standing in society…all the while standing there, and arguing passionately on behalf of their own right to a voice and humane social standing.
I offer these kinds of dialogues here, despite this…because I see gems of wisdom in there, even if they are focused very narrowly. All who possess an open mind willing to be taught, can learn from what is here.
…And I think these discussions are a wonderful template, for constructive dialogue which actually brings people closer…
Why don’t we have this sort of thing for all people, including every type of sexually repressed group?…
…If this world were interested in getting to the heart of all social ills…we certainly would have this openness…even for children, youth and pedosexuals.
…And no, I would hope that I don’t have to point out…I am not trying to suggest that pedosexuals and children [youth] want to get married to each other, as a common thing…
I mean the other things which come up…like the effects of being ostracized from the larger population and culture…I mean the need and striving, to find our own way into the world around us…to be a productive, embraced and cherished part of it…to have a meaningful role in it, and it’s direction…to be validated human beings…to even be leaders.
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Bootes Void – The Creepiest Place in the Universe…
01) Bootes Void – The Creepiest Place in the Universe
“Bootes Void- without a doubt the darkest, loneliest and largest place in the universe with the exception, perhaps, of the cold spot. Boötes Void is an enormous expanse of empty space in the middle of the Boötes constellation- extended 330,000,000 light years. But why is it so dark? Where is everything? Why are there trillions of stars unaccounted for? Could it be… aliens? Whatever the answer, that’s what we’re going to be diving into today- so get ready!”
This entry was posted in October, Wordpress Archive on October 5, 2018 by eqfoundation.
Del Harvey: A Name Curiously Absent From #TwitterGate [#opTwitterGate] Complaints…
Del Harvey is head [VP] of Twitter’s Trust and Safety Team
01) Her Twitter Account
02) “Just an Ass-Backward Tech Company”: How Twitter Lost the Internet War
“Del Harvey, Twitter’s resident troll hunter, has a fitting, if unusual, backstory for somebody in charge of policing one of the Internet’s most ungovernable platforms. As a teenager, she spent a summer as a lifeguard at a state mental institution; at 21, she began volunteering for Perverted Justice, a vigilante group that lures pedophiles into online chat rooms and exposes their identities. When the group partnered with NBC in 2004 to launch To Catch a Predator, Harvey posed as a child to help put pedophiles in jail. In 2008, she joined Twitter, then a small status-updating service whose 140-character quirk was based on the amount of alphanumerics that could be contained on a flip-phone screen. She was employee No. 25, and her job was to combat spam accounts.
Harvey’s bildungsroman is legend inside Twitter, where she now serves as vice president of trust and safety, effectively commanding a massive, never-ending war between the company’s censors and a legion of Russian bots, sexual harassers, neo-Nazis, and Turkish hackers who have, at times, seemed to overwhelm the platform. For the past decade, she has been at the forefront of that battle…”
03) Meet Del Harvey, Twitter’s Troll Patrol
“Harvey was the 25th employee at Twitter, where her official title is vice president of trust and safety, but she’s more like Silicon Valley’s chief sanitation officer, dealing with the dirtiest stuff on Twitter: spam, harassment, child exploitation, threats of rape and murder.”
04) How to keep 240 million Twitter users safe: Del Harvey at TED2014
“Del Harvey is watching what you’re doing on Twitter. Head of the Trust and Safety Team at the social network, she develops ways to keep Twitter’s 240 million-plus users safe. With that many people — sending 500 million tweets every day — dangerous things are bound to happen, she says at TED2014.
For Harvey, the day-to-day is hardly boring. “My job is to ensure user trust, protect users’ rights, and keep users safe — both from each other and, at times, from themselves,” she says. “The vast majority of activity on Twitter puts no one in harm’s way; my job is to root out activity that might. [At Twitter], a one-in-a-million chance happens 500 times a day.”
What is #TwitterGate?
The people behind #TwitterGate are attempting to advance the narrative, that Jack Dorsey [president of Twitter] is actively, and intentionally, allowing “child pornography”, “child rape”, “child grooming”, and activities of the like, to run rampant on Twitter…
Their “proof” seemingly can be summed up, with their pointing to legal MAP accounts which openly exist on Twitter, and their baseless, false assertion that “Twitter is allowing the aforementioned activities to exist on it’s platform”…
In Reality:
What is factually happening, is that a bunch of zealots are attempting to spread a false story, stir up wide spread anger, in hopes of pressuring Jack Dorsey into expunging all MAP accounts from Twitter…Because they haven’t been successful with other avenues, in forcing the removal of people who fully comply with Twitters TOS and community standards.
This is a brazen hate campaign.
A Practical Question:
If Jack can bare the brunt of this blame…and all of this hyperbolic assertion can be laid at his feet…
…Then what does this say about the head of Twitters “first line of defense”, Del Harvey?…
…Because…these people are indicting her, by extension…In fact…Del is right down in the trenches…where as Jack, is much more removed…It would seem, Del has a much more immediate hand on these issues.
…Jack can’t “accomplish his [alleged] treachery”, without the acquiescence of Del…
…So…why are these people dragging Jack through the mud…but not Del?
…This makes absolutely no logical sense.
…She is mysteriously missing, in this blame game…despite that some of these bad actors definitely know who she is…They all have a history, together…But it’s very ‘hush, hush’, these days…likely for convenience.
Do You Know Who Del Harvey Is?…Or, What We Are Expected To Believe:
Many may not know this…but I’ve been watching this for well in excess of a decade…and a lot of us MAPs know exactly who Del Harvey is [including by her legal name]…We know her history…what she has associated herself with…and what she has done…
She was not just associated with Perverted Justice [an online hate organization, recognized as a cult and/or dangerous group, which employed terrorism, smearing and blackmail (and possible planting of child porn, to frame it’s victims)]…She was one of the three core members [the only members to attain large personal financial gain from the groups activities], who held legal responsibility [and authority] over “Perverted Justice”.
Despite their claims that “Everybody they targeted was caught in their stings, and hence had broken the law”…Perverted Justice actually targeted, threatened, harassed and terrorized MAPs, who they randomly found online…One of the most notorious examples of this, was their targeting of Free Spirits, BoyChat and it’s individual community members.
This led to a completely illegal and bogus “sex offender register”, entirely fabricated by Perverted Justice…because these petty sociopaths were angry, that they could not get BoyChat [Free Spirits] banned from the internet.
My point being…Del Harvey has a long history, being associated and in charge of criminal fanatic zealots…who were willing to do anything, just to injure a MAP…even if only for the petty thrill of it.
…This says an incredible amount about Del, herself…
…And while she has quietly tried to slink away from her past…and who knows…maybe she has philosophically softened, from the rigid, cruel individual that she was in Perverted Justice…it doesn’t change the fact, that she has been a ravenous enemy of MAPs…
…How is it…that we are expected to believe…that Del Harvey is complacent over “child grooming”, “child porn”, “child rape”, and so on…on the platform she is expected to guide and guard?…
…Again…this makes no logical sense…
…Nothing would lead a thinking, rational mind to the conclusion…that Del would tolerate any such thing…
…So…how is it that #TwitterGate could even be an authentic thing, given everything that we know?
It would demand that Del has done a 180 degree change, on all of her historical stances…and what she has put so much on the line for…
Supremacist zealots don’t change their stripes like that.
I’m Calling Bull Shit On #TwitterGate:
This is so clearly a ploy by bad actors…it is honestly pathetic.
Only people who aren’t aware of the history at play here, would buy into such a brazen lie.
…The bad actors pushing this narrative, are counting on your total ignorance.
This entry was posted in Anonymous Hate Watch: Terrorist Hackers, Wordpress Archive on October 5, 2018 by eqfoundation.
TRIBALISM: Memberships Canceled Over David’s Jimmy Dore Criticism…
01) TRIBALISM: Memberships Canceled Over David’s Jimmy Dore Criticism
“David Pakman has lost subscribers and memberships over his idea that Jimmy Dore is toxic and damaging to progressives.”
To some here, this likely seems like a mundane issue…and I’ve not been heavily on top of all this…I’m tired of in fighting…
…But the opinions expressed in this video sum up my own views, pretty well.
I appreciate both, for different reasons…but, obviously, I don’t agree with either on everything.
I can understand why Jimmy was so irate about this issue…Cortez running on such a blatant progressive platform, just to turn around and voice support for a notorious corporate politician is…
…I mean…there’s a debate going on, whether taking over the democratic party is feasible…and whether it’s preferable to building a new party…
…If Cortez is signaling “a flip” in stance, immediately after staunchly claiming [and getting voted onward based on] a progressive platform…and before she even gets into office…then what is being said here?
…Or does Cortez think she has to play nice with the establishment, because she will be in a minority?
The Tea Party, in my opinion, was ultimately a disaster…They went in for a hostile take over…and they were intending to make a lot of casualties, in their path…They shut down the government…a few times, if memory serves me correct…A lot of people got angry with them…and they’re not what they used to be.
Are progressives playing a longer term strategy?
This entry was posted in Wordpress Archive on October 4, 2018 by eqfoundation.
J.R.R. Tolkien: A Creator of Worlds…
01) J.R.R. Tolkien: A Creator of Worlds
“Known as ‘the father of modern fantasy’ his epic tales of legend and lore have been enjoyed by millions of people all over the world — devoured in popular books and adapted for Hollywood blockbuster films. Unbelievably bright, he was a distinguished university professor, poet, historian, and expert linguist. As a child, he even made up his own languages for pure fun.”
Vendetta: “Pedophilia Happens Nowhere In Nature”…
01) The Tweet
“Anyone want to guess where do we see the acts of “ pedophilia “ in nature? Cmon idiots certainly you know the answer to this question as well as I do. It’s none. No where in nature do we see this “ sociopathic behavior “ of pedophilia. – Vendetta”
…Do you honestly want to make it this easy?…
…Because the most famous example of non-human pedophilia in nature, happens amongst a species very closely related to humans…
…It’s the Bonobo Ape.
…What?…You don’t know how to even just use Google?…
This Is No Secret. It Is Very Well Established.…
…It’s only you sorts who deny science, research and established knowledge, who make these kinds of grossly ignorant claims.
Why don’t you actually pick up a book, magazine, research paper…and expand your knowledge?…
…instead of dancing around on Twitter, endlessly celebrating your inflated egos?
The thing about people like you…is that you imagine you’re a lot more educated, capable and aware, than you ever honestly were…
…My experience with you sorts has shown me…that you are 99% ignorant mouth, and 100% ideological fanatic, lacking most [or all] practical knowledge of the real world.
You are another example of an individual, who should stay silent and listen…
…Learn from those of us, who know far more than you ever have.
Oh…and by the way…
…I’m not going to start listing off all the species of animal, where something that could be interpreted as “pedophilia” has been observed…Though I am aware that it’s been witnessed in a number of different species, I don’t have such a list readily at hand…
…I will deflate your ego one more time, however…
…by informing you that the human species is part of nature, every bit as much as any other species of life…and pedophilia has been recorded in our species, as far back as records go…
…What?…You didn’t know that?!…
So…”Vendetta”…line those dominos up.
In addition…pedophilia is not sociopathic.
Personal Proverb:
Getting cocky over ones ignorance, usually proves to be painful.
Oh…and by the way, “Vendetta”…
…It never ceases to amaze me, just how many of you “anonymous” sorts take the very premise of “V”, along with everything the character stood for…and relentlessly wipe your behinds with it…all the while, feigning adherence…somehow, allegedly “championing” them…
I’ve got news for you…
…Just like Jesus Christ…if V were an actual living person…
…V would be standing with me…not with you.
Sub-Blog Archive | MAP Educational Center
This entry was posted in MAP Educational Center - Room of Instruction on October 4, 2018 by eqfoundation.
The Black Eyed Kids…
01) The Black Eyed Kids
“On this 100th episode of Expanded Perspectives the guys talk about the past 100 episodes and what was some of their favorite moments, topics and guests. The After the break the guys get into everyone’s favorite the Black Eyed Kids. Thank you to everyone who has made the show possible. We look forward to doing several hundred more in the future. If you want more Black Eyed Kid stories don’t forget to sign up to Expanded Perspectives Elite.”
I have probably seven or eight of these “black eyed kids” videos to share…Not sure if this is the “best” one, as it’s been a while since I listened to it…but, I’ll start here…and probably post a few more during the month…save a few for next year…I don’t want to over do it.
The Complete Rise and Fall of Milo Yiannopoulos…
01) The Complete Rise and Fall of Milo Yiannopoulos
“The story of Milo Yiannopoulos is a tragedy. From a criminal father figures to correspondence with active white nationalists to secret billionaires, this tale of rags-to-riches-to-rags has a little bit of everything.”
Change.Org: Légalisation Lolicon…
01) Légalisation Lolicon
“Since August 5, 2013, it is forbidden to draw, share or possess, even in the strictly private context of Lolicon content.
This law of article 227-23 of the penal code repressed only “the fact, with a view to its diffusion, to fix, to record, or to transmit the image, or the representation of a minor when this image, or this representation is pornographic “But now, the law adds that” when the image, or the representation concerns a minor of [under] fifteen years, these facts are punished even if they were not committed in view of the diffusion of this image or representation “.
Out in the anime, manga or fan art, it is already difficult to give an age to the character, unless the author has given it.
This update of the law is an indisputable & irrefutable violation of privacy, this law reminds us of dictatorship, an attack on culture and criticism, because indeed, some works like “Kodomo no jikan” are real criticisms about society and phenomena that people are afraid to address. We simply can not let these people take our most fundamental freedoms.
Do not forget the words of Benjamin Franklin: “A people willing to sacrifice a little freedom for a little security deserves neither, and ends up losing both.”
Moreover, the Lolicon, in the Hentai context is a good thing for the society, in fact starting from the fact that the pedophilia is certainly totally immoral, it does not remain less than a sexual impulse or of love, this which changes is the physiological attraction. Lolicon responds to the need for this satisfaction that we can never really fight with our current laws. It is not by putting a pedophile in prison that it will change, and castrate is to use barbaric methods, countries like Japan are doing very well with Lolicon. Lolicon is virtual and not real, it’s up to you if you prefer it to be our poor children who suffer the torments or imaginary characters. An alternative to sanctions exists, a method of appeasement is at their disposal. The argument “This encourages them to become pedophile” is false, we do not become pedophile, it is as for homosexuality. Let’s fight together to allow Lolicon and protect our children!”
The language is French…so, this probably has to do with France law…possibly Canadian…
Free expression, whether of a discussion or artistic nature, is a human right of the utmost importance…It is not to be tampered with!
This entry was posted in TAP-Net, Wordpress Archive on October 2, 2018 by eqfoundation.
Imminent Xbox One Conan Exiles has to put underpants on in America…
01) Imminent Xbox One Conan Exiles has to put underpants on in America
“Multiplayer barbarian survival game Conan Exiles launches on the Xbox One Game Preview programme this week, on Wednesday 16th August. But because of regional age-rating organisations, the game won’t be quite the same in America as in Europe.
In America, the ESRB has rated Conan Exiles M for Mature; in Europe, PEGI has rated Conan Exiles for ages 18 and over. But in America there will only be partial nudity allowed whereas in Europe there will be the full monty. And in Conan Exiles speak, full monty means willies.
Conan Exiles rose quickly to fame on PC for showing full male nudity in all its jiggling hilarity. The game even has a customisation slider to increase or decrease willy size, resulting in lots of, ahem, very-accurate-to-real-life representations. Conan Exiles also displays a woman’s nether regions but in no real discernible detail.”
The All Mighty Authoritarians have spoken!…
…No Virtual Penises!…No Virtual Vaginas!…
Kneel before their Glorious Supremacy, and Obey!
Europe gets to have the customizable twanger, however…
…This is just pathetic levels of social power exhibition…and social manipulation…
…It’s a penis!, for crying out loud!…
…Where do all these mentally ill clowns come from, who cannot take anyone under a certain age even seeing the virtual representation of a natural body part, which roughly half of them already own…and much of the other half has already seen?!
…And…’Gasp!’…a large many have already interacted with?…
Blood, guts and violence are fine…even bare breasts!…
…It’s the all important twanger, that they have an issue with.
Why…oh, why!…could I not have been born into a world, “ruled” by at least moderately sane people?
You know what I think?…
…I think…these authoritarian clowns know [as we all do]…that some portion of “the underaged” will see that representation of an adult penis…and think to themselves…”That looks so good!…I wanna get freaky with that!”…
…And they just cant stand it…So, they try to stop the exposure…stop the natural enticement.
If you cannot see or speak of the representation…you cannot so easily communicate the desire…Pure Manipulation.
https://ourlovefrontier.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/they_who_know_best_award.mp3
This entry was posted in Club Diamond Arcade, Wordpress Archive on October 2, 2018 by eqfoundation.
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Latin American and Caribbean Literatures (6)
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Anzaldúa, Gloria
Betsy Dahms
North American Literatures, Children’s Literature, Fiction, Latin American and Caribbean Literatures, 20th and 21st Century (1900-present), Literary Theory, Non-Fiction and Life Writing, Poetry
Born in the lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa (1942–2004) was a prolific writer, scholar, and activist. Her corpus of work includes essays, books, edited ... More
Born in the lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa (1942–2004) was a prolific writer, scholar, and activist. Her corpus of work includes essays, books, edited volumes, children’s literature, and fiction/autohistorias. Anzaldúa’s life and writing are at the forefront of critical theory as it interacts with feminism, Latinx literature, spirituality, spiritual activism, queer theory, and expansive ideas of queerness and articulations of alternative, non-Western epistemologies and ontologies. The geographical proximity to the US–Mexican border figures prominently throughout in her work, as does her theorization of metaphorical borderlands and liminal spaces. Her oft-cited text Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza is included in many university courses’ reading lists for its contributions to discourses of hybridity, linguistics, intersectionality, and women of color feminism, among others. Anzaldúa began work on her more well-known theories prior to the publication of Borderlands/La Frontera and continued to develop these theories in her post-Borderlands/La Frontera writing, both published and unpublished. After her sudden death due to complications of diabetes in 2004, Anzaldúa’s literary estate was housed in the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas, Austin in 2005.
Contemporary Latinx Literature in the Midwest
Theresa Delgadillo and Leila Vieira
North American Literatures, Fiction, Latin American and Caribbean Literatures, 20th and 21st Century (1900-present), Non-Fiction and Life Writing, Poetry
Latinx literature in the Midwest encompasses work created by authors from a variety of backgrounds, with authors of Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban descent predominating in literature ... More
Latinx literature in the Midwest encompasses work created by authors from a variety of backgrounds, with authors of Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban descent predominating in literature that takes locations throughout the region as its settings. Although much work focuses on Chicago, the multiple Latinidades of the region appear in fiction and poetry from across the region. Regarding genre, most of this literature falls into the categories of novel, short story, and poetry; however, works such as prose poems, novels in verse, heavily footnoted fiction, or metaliterary texts challenge genre boundaries and reveal Latinx literary innovation. This literature emerges from the history and experience of Latinx migration to the region, which dates back to the beginning of the 20th century, and, not surprisingly, that history often figures in the literature. Spanish-language Latinx literature about the Midwest also exists, and like its English-language counterpart, often addresses transnational experiences. Major publishers have made the work of Latinx authors in the Midwest well-known, yet there are also vibrant cultures of small press, community, and collective publishing, and self-publishing, through which Latinx authors have shared their talents with wider audiences in and beyond the region.
Some of the themes addressed by Latinx literature in the Midwest are migration, with characters coming both from other regions of the United States and directly from Latin America; labor, mostly industrial and agricultural work, but also involving characters in the service sector and professionals; belonging and the question of what and where home is and how to create this space in the Midwest; environment and gentrification; transnationalism, often evoking different ethnic backgrounds from the present; family relationships; gender and sexuality, focusing on what it means to be Latinx and part of the LGBTQ community and situations of discrimination with families and workplaces; race, including Afro-Latinx characters; and religion and spirituality, looking not only to Catholicism, but also to Judaism and African diaspora–inspired systems of Orisha worship.
Cuban American Literatures
Ricardo L. Ortiz
Cuba’s historical relationship with the United States predates both countries’ emergence into full political sovereignty and consists of forms of political, economic, and cultural ... More
Cuba’s historical relationship with the United States predates both countries’ emergence into full political sovereignty and consists of forms of political, economic, and cultural interaction and exchange that have intimately bound the two societies since well before the 19th century. The United States spent the 1800s emerging as an independent nation and increasingly as a regional power in the western hemisphere. Populations from smaller neighboring societies were emerging from colonial rule and often sought protection in the United States from colonial oppression, even as they saw the United States’ own imperial ambitions as a looming threat. Cuban-American literature therefore can trace its roots to a collection of key figures who sought refuge in the United States in the 19th century, but it did not flourish until well into the 20th when geopolitical conditions following World War II and extending into the Cold War era made the United States a natural destination for a significant population of Cubans fleeing Fidel Castro’s Communist Revolution. Most arrived first as refugees, then as exiles, and finally as immigrants settling into homes and making families and lives in their new country. This population has also produced a robust literary culture all its own with deep ties and important contributions to the greater US literary tradition. Cuban-American literary production has proliferated into the 21st century, exploring complex themes beyond national and cultural identity, including gender, sexuality, race, class, and ideology.
The Indigenous Presence and Central American-American Writers in the United States
Arturo Arias
North American Literatures, Fiction, Latin American and Caribbean Literatures, 20th and 21st Century (1900-present), Non-Fiction and Life Writing, Cultural Studies
The study of Native American and Indigenous literatures reveals how native knowledges resisted the Westernizing onslaught implemented forcefully since the beginning of the colonial era by ... More
The study of Native American and Indigenous literatures reveals how native knowledges resisted the Westernizing onslaught implemented forcefully since the beginning of the colonial era by colonial authorities, and after the 19th century by ruling national elites that shared with colonial authorities their belief that local Indigenous cultures needed to be Westernized to be saved. Despite its brutal enforcement, ancestral knowledges managed to resist and survived through the many social crises and transformations that took place from the 16th to the late 20th century. Their lingering effects are visible in this new literary corpus that began to appear in print since the 1960s. In the Latin American case, it is a literary production that is bilingual in nature, as all the authors publish in their own language and in Spanish. The authors in question have rescued their maternal languages in written form and standardized their systems of writing. As Central American-American Indigenous subjects migrate to the United States, they carry with them ancestral knowledges and written literatures as well.
War and Its Impact on Central American-American Literature
Tatiana Argüello
The literature of Central American-Americans is a diverse and emerging corpus of writing that testifies to the different phases and evolutions of warfare, locally and globally. This ... More
The literature of Central American-Americans is a diverse and emerging corpus of writing that testifies to the different phases and evolutions of warfare, locally and globally. This literature includes narratives about exiles and immigrants who left war zones, interdisciplinary poetry against U.S. militarized violence in different geographies, narratives about global wars and their aftermath, detective writings, and soldiers’ memoirs. War and violence have taken new shapes, and the inhumanity of war is expanded beyond the battlefield. A survey of the most representative Central American-American writers depicting these catastrophic events provides insights into the trauma of war individually and collectively and denounces its violence and causes. There are writers that propose a process of healing this history of violence and engagement with new struggles. Some of the authors in this survey make rational arguments, refuting Western-centric perspectives that justify war as a necessary and logical event. Other writers present a strong pacifist agenda as the result of having participated directly in this traumatic experience. Writers often reflect on ameliorative justice and the exile experience. Through history, they change their representation of war in Central America; later authors connect these catastrophes with violence in the United States and elsewhere. War becomes imbricated with gender violence, policing, urban policing, racism, and class discrimination. Immigrants become the main characters in many contemporary writings, and the search for identity, connected with the past of war, is common in the poetic discourse of the younger generation.
Women and Writing in Spanish America from Colonial Times through the 20th Century
Carolina Alzate and Betty Osorio
Fiction, Latin American and Caribbean Literatures, Enlightenment and Early Modern (1600-1800), 19th Century (1800-1900), 20th and 21st Century (1900-present), Non-Fiction and Life Writing
As in the case of other Western literary traditions, women’s relationship to writing in Spanish America has been problematic since early modernity. From colonial times onward, women’s ... More
As in the case of other Western literary traditions, women’s relationship to writing in Spanish America has been problematic since early modernity. From colonial times onward, women’s emergence on the writing scene as authors went hand in hand with a redescription of the feminine that allowed them to become producers of written culture and to find a respectable entry into the public sphere from which they were excluded. Spanish-American feminine tradition from the 16th through the 20th centuries may be read as a gradual, heterogeneous, and difficult but nonetheless sustained and very productive occupation of new ground. Legitimation of their voice passed through the reading of the male tradition, the establishment of a female tradition, and the redescription of a subjectivity that would make it possible for them to take up the pen and eventually to imagine themselves being read by others. Establishing the contents of these women’s libraries, reconstructed through their testimonies of reading both in a colonial society in which illiteracy was very high—especially among women—and in 19th-century society in general, and in which access to the written word remained restricted, are key elements for understanding their writing. Most female authorship during the colonial period took the form of religious writing and was dependent upon the male figure of the confessor, as was the possibility of publishing their life stories and writings. But women authors were not only nuns, and it is also possible to find examples of women who left their mark on writing due to special circumstances (travelers and so-called witches). Male tutelage tended to remain in force throughout the 19th century, and newspapers would provide vitally important new spaces for publication in the young independent republics. Women’s relationship to newspapers, both as readers and authors, was essential to this writing tradition, and it would allow them to build reading and editorial networks—both within the Americas and across the Atlantic, a context that must be understood to properly understand their writing projects. Women writers in the early 20th century would travel, not without difficulty, along the roads paved by the pioneers. The year 1959, a provisional closing date marked by the Cuban Revolution, helps position 20th-century literature as one of the forms of the crisis of modernity: that which reveals and celebrates heterogeneity and could no longer openly continue excluding women from the authorized spaces for the production of meaning.
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Posts Tagged ‘Ojai Center for the Arts’
We are driving out to Ojai today to sign final papers on this house:
I love the huge back yard and the oak trees that dot the property. I also prefer single story homes. We have plans to build an art studio. I will be happy forever.
Never heard of Ojai? It bumps right up against Santa Barbara and its really wonderful, here are some of the reasons why:
Ojai’s charms are many. The community has long been known as a haven for artists, musicians and health enthusiasts. A village â€as we locals call itâ€of about 8,000, Ojai is a vibrant place with so much natural beauty that it gained fame decades ago when the area was photographed to represent Shangri-La in the 1939 movie, The Lost Horizon.
Filled with delightful shops, art galleries and a host of places to retreat from the fast-paced lifestyle that can knot the nerves, Ojai invites you to walk its oak-shaded paths taking some time to drink in the serenity of it all.
The Chumash Indians are the first known residents of Ojai, and it is from their word ‘âhwaiâ’ meaning ‘moon’ that the name Ojai is derived. One of the oldest towns in Ventura County, Ojai was settled in the 1800s and incorporated as a city in 1921. Nestled in the Ojai Valley, the town is surrounded by peaks that give off a glow in the evening light known as the pink moment.
One of the prominent early settlers was Edward D. Libbey, a wealthy glass manufacturer who is responsible for the layout of the town. It was Robert Winfield who built the stately Arcade that today houses shops and eateries, but it was Libbey’s money and his vision that the town have a distinctive center faithful to its Spanish heritage. Thus Libbey teamed with architect Richard Requa from San Diego and together they created what today draws the eye and captures the heart.
In 1917 a fire took much of the town and offered Libbey a clean slate, so to speak. The western-style town was left in ashes; the Spanish Revival architecture that unites the area arose from those ashes to become stately landmarks and historic sites. Libbey constructed a home for himself on Foothill Road as his vision for the town was taking hold. The post office tower and the lovely pergola that covers the sidewalk in front of Libbey Park are fruits from the Libbey-Requa team. They also built the El Roblar Hotel, a building that houses the Oaks Spa today, an architectural gem that was restored to its former glory by the Cluff family with the help of historically minded architect and local citizen, David Bury.
The wonderful climate of the Ojai Valley has drawn many who wish to rejuvenate their health and enjoy the dry air and seemingly never-ending sunshine. Again, early settlers established the reputation of Ojai as a center of physical and mental health. Well known for its new age gurus and the coexistence of protestants, Catholics and yoga practitioners, a rich fabric of spiritualism has evolved with room for all.
In 1889 Sherman Thacher made the trip west in search of farmland. Instead, he started Thacher School, a school very much a part of the community to this day. William Thacher, Sherman’s brother, gathered some area tennis players and began a few minor competitions. From these humble beginnings, sprang The Ojai, the oldest amateur tennis event of its kind in the United States. The Ojai draws up to 30,000 spectators and is so large that it overtakes every public and many private courts in the Ojai Valley and beyond. Famous for its tea tents, the tournament challenges some of the top collegiate players in California and has offered locals and visitors an opportunity to see high caliber players like Billy Jean King, Arthur Ashe, Jimmy Connors, Michael Chang, Pete Sampras, Lindsay Davenport and other names that loom large in tennis.
Traditions are important to the life and lifestyle of Ojaians. When the Thomas Aquinas Church outgrew their quaint chapel on Ojai Avenue, it was purchased, repaired and now houses the Ojai Valley Museum.
With so much scenic beauty and a sense of place, it is little wonder that locals and visitors relish the opportunity to enjoy the great outdoors of the Ojai Valley. The Ojai Valley Trail runs for more than nine miles with a parallel path for horses. If you want to meet half the town, that is a good place to start. Bicyclists, walkers, joggers and those exercising pets from dogs to pigs can be seen on the trail.
Among the outdoor treasures are the many parks that dot the city. In the middle of town is the pride of Ojai: Libbey Park. There mighty oaks give shade to a playground for children, and there are plenty of paths and picnic areas. So loved are the majestic oaks that the public mourns their removal, and despite the fact that a couple were diseased, a local man actually chained himself to one a few years ago to protest its removal. In the end the trees were considered too dangerous and too close to the children’s play area to allow them to stand and they were removed after a public service.
has more than 400 campsites and lots of picnic areas.
Ojai nurtures its art and artists. The Ojai Center for the Arts, Summer Art Stroll, Ojai Studio Artists Tour and Art in the Park offer venues for an abundance of artistic expression. Numerous galleries show the work of local artists and those from afar. A work of art is displayed publicly in the Arcade Plaza, a newly redeveloped area behind the shopping Arcade where a bronze poppy fountain sends water flowing freely over its broad base. Art is even shown in City Hall where the Ojai Arts Commission rotates artwork every few months to feature a different artist.
Ojai’s reputation as a golfing paradise brings many to the city. The Ojai Valley Inn and Spa is listed as one of the top 25 golf resorts in North America. The course is as challenging as it is lovely. The Inn undertook renovations a few years ago to emerge more beautiful than ever including an already famous spa that is available to work out any kinks picked up on the award-winning golf course. Soule Park, a beautiful public course that delivers great value for the money along with spectacular views, is just past downtown on Ojai Avenue.
Tags: Arbolada, artist, california, City Hall, Geography of California, historically minded architect, North America, Ojai, Ojai Arts Commission, Ojai California, Ojai Center for the Arts, Ojai Valley, Ojai Valley Inn, Ojai Valley Museum, Ojai Valley Trail, Santa Barbara, The Lost Horizon, Tour, Ventura County California
Posted in life, random | 1 Comment »
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Home > News > Archives > Archives 2013 > Kénizé Mourad unveils stories of independance in South Asia
Kénizé Mourad unveils stories of independance in South Asia [fr]
After the success of her presentation at the Karachi and Lahore Literature Festival, Kénizé Mourad read from her lastest novel “In the City of Gold and Silver” (translated in English in 2012) at the Alliance Française of Lahore on 26 February 2013. Kenizé Mourad is a former journalist for renowned French dailies and monthlies and is most well-known today for being an author, whose novel “On behalf of the Dead Princess” published in 1987 was translated in 34 languages. In front of representatives from the print and electronic media, she outlined the research which allowed her to write this historical recreation taking place in the village of Lucknow, where his father, an Indian Raja, used to live.
Paying homage to Begum Hazrat Mahal, a Muslim Heroine of mid XIX century, committed to the fight against British presence in the North of the Sub-Continent, the book brings its reader towards a society of tolerance and artistic fostering, shedding light on women leadership and deeply questioning general perceptions on that period and its social context.
The book was hailed by the local and international media, and currently is ranking 4th on the best selling book list of India. It is an essential reading for every student or scholars desirous of knowing more about the history of this city, this woman and her crucial fight.
HEC/French Embassy “Needs based Scholarship programme” 2013
FRANCE AND THE EUROPEAN UNION PROVIDE A 2.5 MILLION EUROS (370 MILLION PKR) GRANT FUNDING FOR THE FIRST PAKISTAN HYDROPOWER TRAINING INSTITUTE: “CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR HYDROPOWER”
France ranks 3rd in the world in terms of energy transition performance
France ranked in the global top-three for innovation
FIAC, the international meeting place for contemporary art
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Home > News > Archives > Archives 2014 > Nobel Prize 2014: Two French awarded
Nobel Prize 2014: Two French awarded
Communiqués by the Presidency of the Republic
Nobel Prize for Literature
Communiqué issued by the Presidency of the Republic
Paris, October 9, 2014
President Hollande extends his warmest congratulations to Patrick Modiano who has just received the Nobel Prize for Literature. This award recognizes a large body of work that explores the subtleties of memory and the complexity of identity.
Since the publication of “La Place de l’Étoile” in 1968, he has won a number of prizes and awards, notably including the Prix Goncourt for his novel “Missing Person” (“Rue des boutiques obscures”) in 1978. He takes his readers right into the traumas of the dark days of the Occupation. And he seeks to understand how the events lead individuals to lose as well as find themselves.
President Hollande pays tribute to his publishing house, Gallimard, which has been working with him since the publication of his first book.
Patrick Modiano has also contributed to several films inspired by his novels, including in particular Louis Malle’s “Lacombe Lucien.”
The Republic is proud that one of our greatest writers has been internationally recognized through this Nobel Prize. Patrick Modiano is the 15th French citizen to win this important award, confirming the major influence exerted by our literature.
Nobel Prize in Economics
The President extends his warmest congratulations to Jean Tirole. He is a source of pride for France.
The Nobel Prize in Economics which has just been awarded to him is in recognition of his internationally celebrated work on the financial crisis and regulation in network industries and the banking system.
Jean Tirole, a member of the Conseil d’analyse économique [Economic Analysis Council], is President of the Toulouse School of Economics, whose influence is borne out by this distinction.
Jean Tirole is the third Frenchman to receive the Nobel Prize in Economics, after Gérard Debreu in 1983 and Maurice Allais in 1988, and it is the second time this year that a Frenchman has received a Nobel prize, with Patrick Modiano being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature last Friday.
This Nobel prize highlights the quality of research in our country.
Attack against Army Public School in Peshawar: Statement by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius
Terrorists attack on Army Public School in Peshawar: Statement by Francois Hollande, President of the French Republic
Afghanistan – Attack against the Institut français in Kabul - Statement by Laurent Fabius
Ambassador’s letters of credence
Fight against climate disruption – 20th Climate Change Conference (Lima, December 1 to 12, 2014)
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Home » Specialty Groups » Fresno
Central California Regional Overview
300 MILES OF OPPORTUNITY…
…in the middle of the world’s 5th largest economy. The eight-county Central California region encompasses 62 cities with 25,000 square miles, and continues to be one of the state’s fastest growing regions.
Fresno County is located in the heart of California's great Central Valley, 160 miles southeast of the San Francisco Bay Area, 100 miles north of Bakersfield, and 215 miles north of Los Angeles. Fresno County is the sixth largest in size with an area of 6,017 square miles and tenth most populous with 930,450 (as of November 2011). Fresno County is the number one agricultural county in the nation. A full third of its area is planted in commercial crops of some kind.
The City of Fresno is the Fresno County Seat. It is the fifth largest city in California (509,039) and 34th largest in the United States. It is a family-friendly city. The California Home Affordability Index ranks Fresno at 70—meaning 70% of its residents earn an income that can support owning the median-priced home (4Q12). For first-time homebuyers, its 82%. Fresno offers an array of amenities:
Access to Recreation: It is within 1-1½ hours of four major national parks, Yosemite, Sequoia, Kings Canyon, and Sierra National Forest. It is within 2½ hours of the Pacific Ocean and California's Central Coast Beaches. Sports enthusiasts will be in heaven. Fresno offers eight private and seven public golf courses. It is close to snow skiing (China Peak) and sailing (Huntington Lake); it offers Division One NCAA sporting events (Cal State University Fresno Bulldogs), Triple A Baseball (Fresno Grizzlies, an affiliate of the World Champion San Francisco Giants), Junior A Tier II Ice Hockey (Fresno Monsters), and USL Premier Development League Soccer (Fresno Fuego). It also offers several youth sports leagues.
Transportation Infrastructure: Fresno offers air travel via an international airport (Fresno Yosemite International Airport—FAT), a general aviation airport (Fresno Chandler Executive Airport—FCH), and a private airport (Sierra Sky Park Airport). It offers rail passenger service via Amtrak and freight service via Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad and Union Pacific Railroad—each of whom operate rail yards here—and San Joaquin Valley Railroad. Fresno will also be home to the first leg of California's High Speed Rail project. For trucking, Fresno is connected north-south via State Highway Routes 99 (California's "main street") and 41 and east-west by State Highway Routes 168 and 180.
Business: Fresno offers a labor shed of 441,000 people; unemployment rate as of 16.0% as of January 2013. Its top employers are its healthcare complex, City/County/State/Federal government, Agriculture production/processing, and warehousing/distribution. Fresno has built an industrial base of 65 million square feet, an office base of 25 million square feet, and a retail base of 20 million square feet. In addition to feeding the world, it can deliver goods to the world. Fresno is within ½ day truck access to the ports of Oakland and Los Angeles. Goods can be delivered from Fresno overnight to all of California and within two days to 90% of the eleven western United States.
Fresno Region
The "Fresno Region" feeds the world. Fresno County itself is the top-producing agricultural county in America. The Fresno Region includes Fresno County, Madera County to its north and Tulare and Kings Counties to its south. This Region is home to some 1.7 million people and is anchored by the Fresno/Clovis metroplex, where nearly one million people live, making it California's fifth largest metro area. This Region is served by 16 institutions of higher education, crowned by California State University Fresno (23,000 enrollment). The U.S Navy operates NAS Lemoore, its newest and largest master jet air station. And the Region is home to the first segments of California's High Speed Rail.
This Region has built an industrial base of 89 million square feet and can not only produce goods but deliver them overnight to all of California's 35 million people and within two days to some 65 million people—90% of the population living in the western continental United States. This Region has also built an office base of 28.5 million square feet and a retail base of 33 million square feet.
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PA Family Institute Hails Passage of Abortion Center Regulations
December 14, 2011 | No comments | Posted in Health, Life | Tags: abortion, Gosnell, regulations
SB 732 Applies commonsense health and safety regulations to an industry used to having its own dangerous way.
Harrisburg, December 14, 2011
Pennsylvania Family Institute today praised the Pennsylvania House and Senate for the overwhelming passage of SB 732, a common-sense bill that would put abortion clinics under the same health and safety guidelines that all other outpatient surgical centers must meet. The bill passed the Senate today 32-18, and by 151-44 margin in the House yesterday.
“We congratulate Rep. Matt Baker and Sen. Bob Mensch for their leadership in bringing this important legislation to final passage” said Michael Geer, President of the Pennsylvania Family Institute, “and we look forward to Gov. Corbett’s promised signature on the bill.”
Pennsylvania suffered a severe black eye when a Philadelphia grand jury released its report on the Women’s Medical Society abortion center in West Philadelphia, detailing accounts of murdered women, gruesome conditions inside, and “countless” babies being delivered alive and then killed, not to mention the many deaths of babies by late-term abortions.
The report, issued nearly 12 months ago, also recounted years of inaction by city and state government officials, who turned a blind eye not only to Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s “House of Horrors,” but also to the abortion industry throughout Pennsylvania. More than 15 years passed without a single inspection of an abortion clinic in Pennsylvania.
“The grand jury report stated that customers of nail salons had more protections under Pennsylvania law than did women at abortion centers. That special protection for the abortion industry was wrong, it led to many deaths, and finally now is being addressed,” added Geer.
The Pennsylvania Family Institute also salutes the courage of Rep. Margo Davidson (D-Delaware County), who after yesterday’s House vote on SB 732, dedicated her “yes” vote on the bill to the memory of her cousin, Semika Shaw, one of Gosnell’s victims. Said Rep. Davidson:
Today I honor her memory by voting yes on this legislation, that seeks to safeguard the health of women, that is long overdue, so that never again will a woman walk into a licensed health care facility in the State of Pennsylvania and be butchered as she was. Today I thank the members of this House that supported this legislation for the safety of women.”
We, too, thank the members of the House and Senate who voted for SB 732, and all of the concerned citizens who raised their voice in support of protecting life.
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In the Limelight: Toulouse-Lautrec Portraits from the Herakleidon Museum
Bruce Museum
Greenwich CT, USA
Beginning September 23, 2017, the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, CT, will present the major exhibition In the Limelight: Toulouse-Lautrec Portraits from the Herakleidon Museum, which showcases the artist’s portraits of the dancers, singers and other performers who became the icons of the Parisian nightlife in the late 19th century. Featuring 100 drawings, prints, and posters (approximately half of the Herakleidon Museum’s extensive collection of Toulouse-Lautrec works on paper), the exhibition explores the relationship between portraiture, caricature, and rise of the cult of celebrity in Belle Époque Paris.
A fascination with the spectacle, nightlife, and the tawdry side of celebrity culture is hardly a recent phenomenon. The artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864 – 1901) is famed for his images, created more than a century ago, of entertainers in the cabarets, dance halls, theaters and brothels of Paris.
The exhibition is organized by the Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut. The works are on loan from the collection of Herakleidon Museum, Athens, Greece. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue, featuring a scholarly essay by the curator Mia Laufer, PhD candidate (Washington University in Saint Louis) and former Zvi Grunberg Resident Fellow at the Bruce Museum (2015-2016), acknowledgments by Peter C. Sutton, The Susan E. Lynch Executive Director of the Bruce Museum, and a foreword by Paul Firos, founder of the Herakleidon Museum.
In the Limelight: Toulouse-Lautrec Portraits from the Herakleidon Museum is sponsored by The Charles M. and Deborah G. Royce Exhibition Fund, the Florence Gould Foundation, a Committee of Honor, and Connecticut Office of the Arts.
September 23, 2017 – January 7, 2018
“Every aspect of working with the PAN ART Team on the Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition from the Herakleidon Museum was a gratifying pleasure. Nicholas Kondoprias was always fully informed, prepared and responsive. He is clearly dedicated to the care and preservation of the collection and enthusiastic about its promotion. The shipping and handling logistics went seamlessly and attest to Nicholas’s concern for the safety and security of the collection. PAN ART TEAM member, Michelle Murdock, ably assisted with the repacking of the exhibition and prepared the outgoing condition reports. Her interest in the welfare of the collection was self-evident and her methods exemplary.
The quality of the Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was celebrated by all of our enthusiastic visitors. We can provide a sampling of press reviews and clippings to document the shows critical success. And the numbers of visitors speak for themselves. Finally, what could be more topical than the artist’s role as a portraitist in the rise of the cult of celebrity that so dominates today’s social scene and media?”
PETER C. SUTTON, SUSAN E. LYNCH, Executive Director & CEOBruce Museum, Greenwich, CT USA
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Brad Littlejohn
Brad Littlejohn (Ph.D, University of Edinburgh, 2013), is the Director of the Davenant Trust, a non-profit dedicated to the renewal of Protestant theology and ethics at the intersection of the church and academy, and an Associate Editor of the journal Political Theology. He has written and published in Reformation studies, historical political theology, and issues in economic ethics, with a particular interest in the thought and legacy of English theologian Richard Hooker.
http://www.swordandploughshare.com
The Political Theology of the Reformation
As fruitful as this occasion can be for increasing broader awareness of the Reformation’s historical importance, such an outpouring of publications aimed at a more popular audience can run the risk of breathing new life into over-simplistic grand narratives.
Around the Network, The Politics of Scripture
Good Friday and the Politics of Denying Christ—John 18:15-27 (Brad Littlejohn)
Jesus knows full well, after all (cf. Jn. 13:36-38) that Peter is denying him. And yet he does not deny Peter. Even while his disciples are scattering and hiding, Jesus confidently declares that they will bear witness to him, as indeed they would after his resurrection.
Political Theology Party at AAR
Announcing Political Theology 16.5
Around the Network, Essays
The Politics of Divine Kingship—Psalm 113:1-9 (Brad Littlejohn)
The biblical images of God as divine king are often handled with embarrassment in a more egalitarian age. However, although it may appear little more than accommodation to ancient despotic assumptions, throughout the Scriptures the kingship of God is presented as a great force for liberation against all human tyrants.
Conference Announcement: Ecumenical Advocacy Days (Apr. 17-20)
Political Theology Party at the AAR
Aquinas and Legal Realism: The Roots of Private Property
Earlier this week, two prominent Catholic political bloggers, Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig and Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (better known as Pegobry, or just PEG), engaged in a short but sharp exchange on the subject of property rights (see here, here, here, and here). There is not space here for a full discussion (see a longer version of this post here if you are interested in more), but I will seek to add some insight from Thomas Aquinas, who has perhaps done more than anyone to inform the Catholic Church’s reflection on these issues.
The Politics of Difference and Unity—Philippians 2:1-13 (Brad Littlejohn)
The stark repetition of the admonition to being of one mind in the first and last phrases is particularly arresting, and particularly challenging for us today. After all, for contemporary liberalism, being of one mind is no virtue, and the same could be said for most contemporary Christians. We no longer think of pluralism as simply a pragmatic political strategy for negotiating irresolvable difference, but as a good in itself. It is difference, we say, that makes us strong, tolerance and indeed embrace of otherness.
Good Friday and the Politics of Discipleship—John 19:31-42 (Brad Littlejohn)
In most reflections about Good Friday and the events surrounding the Passion, the focus is squarely on Jesus, and to be sure, one can hardly deny that this is where it should be. However, it is interesting to note the extent to which the Gospel authors are quite interested in what these events reveal about the disciples that had followed Jesus up to this climactic point in his ministry—not just the Twelve, of course, but all those who had heard his word and believed in him.
The “Ordinance of God” and the Right to Rebel
Romans 13:1-7 has stood as one of the most important texts throughout the history of Christian political thought, but like so many biblical texts, has proven capable of being put to the service of several different—even contradictory—ends. The 16th century in particular stimulated several different readings of the passage, readings which have continued to remain popular down to the present day.
Scientism and the Failure to Prevent Tragedy
. . . In other words, disasters such as Typhoon Haiyan confront us with the sobering reality that the deepest, deadliest and most intransigent problems we face today are social problems, not technical problems. We continue to deceive ourselves with the hope that if we can but increase our knowledge of the world, our technical know-how at problem-solving the riddles that nature poses for us, we can defeat death and disease.
Protestantism, Aristotle, and the Godly Commonwealth
. . . Often much more important than what people argue is how people argue. . . . Many whom we may have hastily taken as kindred spirits, because they happen to have reached some conclusion we moderns take for granted, turn out on closer inspection to have been motivated by wholly different concerns, so that the convergence is largely illusory. Others, however, whom we might be apt to dismiss as barbaric for their unenlightened ideas, turn out to have been strikingly liberal-minded.
Demythologizing Violence: A Rejoinder to Bill Cavanaugh
I am grateful to Bill Cavanaugh for taking the time to respond to my blog post of two weeks ago, “Modernity Criticism and the Question of Violence,” and giving me the opportunity to clarify better the nature of my criticisms. Clearly such clarification is in order, as Cavanaugh’s response seems to have struck off in something of the wrong direction, defending theses that were not really under challenge. If I may adapt the opening from his post, Cavanaugh’s response would raise significant difficulties for the thesis of my critique if (1) the argument of that critique were directed against The Myth of Religious Violence and (2) my purpose was to endorse Steven Pinker’s triumphalist progressivism. The first of these premises is false, and the second is highly questionable.
History, States of Exception
Modernity Criticism and the Question of Violence
Debates over the virtue or vice of modern liberal political arrangements often boil down to narratives about violence, whether we are speaking of violence in its literal sense, or in the more metaphorical use made so fashionable by postmodernism, namely, the attempt to erase or neutralize difference. According to the eulogists of liberalism, it rescued us from the darker ages of religious tyranny, in which zealots of orthodoxy used political power to enforce uniformity, and even to violently persecute dissenters.
Private Property in the Bible
As on so many issues that divide left-wing and right-wing Christians, the Bible seems frustratingly pliable when it comes to the issue of property rights. Conservative Christians like to assert that the Bible takes private property for granted, that the Eighth Commandment demonstrates it to be a “divine institution” or a “sacred right,” and that the many examples of wealthy patriarchs prove not only private property, but large accumulations of it, have divine sanction. Those more inclined toward some kind of Christian socialism like to point out Jesus’s very harsh strictures on the accumulation of wealth and the assertion of private property rights, and the early Jerusalem community’s practice of “having all things in common.” As so often happens, we seem to be faced with something of an Old Testament/New Testament divide, in which the Old Testament bolsters a conservative agenda, and the New Testament a liberal one. Is the Bible thus divided against itself?
Justice, The Politics of Scripture
An Idiot’s Guide to the Late Great Natural Law Debate
With conservative and evangelical ethicists falling dramatically off the anti-gay-marriage bandwagon at a remarkable pace, superstar theologian David Bentley Hart’s essay “Is, Ought, and Nature’s Laws” last month in First Things came like a spark on a dry pile of tinder. Challenging the optimism of many contemporary Catholic thinkers (and recently many evangelical thinkers as well) that natural law arguments can provide a convincing, broadly-appealing basis for opposition to gay marriage legislation, Hart provoked a tide of responses and counter-responses in the blogosphere, which continues even now. For at stake in Hart’s remarks were not merely how conservatives should and shouldn’t engage in gay marriage debates, but the nature of the public square and of natural law itself, the foundation upon which so much Christian political theory has been built over the centuries.
Rather than attempting to weigh in with yet another contribution to the wide-ranging debate, I will merely seek to provide here something of an annotated catalogue of the more significant blasts and counter-blasts
Essays, Justice, States of Exception
Drones, Prudence, and Pre-Emption
…there is another way in which human judgment often aspires to God-likeness: when it seeks to control the future course of events, preventing future evils, rather than merely rectifying existing wrongs.
Of course, there is a plausibility in this aspiration, since prudence is one of the essential political virtues, and prudence is above all concerned with weighing future consequences, with planning and forethought, with mitigating foreseen harms and maximizing prospective benefits. But prudence, in the scheme of cardinal virtues, must remain always the handmaiden of justice.
Essays, States of Exception
Demystifying Eucharistic Politics
. . . The concept undeniably has a certain appeal, and few slogans are better calculated to capture the imaginations of the young and disaffected than “Towards eucharistic anarchism” (Bill Cavanaugh’s phrase in Radical Orthodoxy) and other such brazen assertions of liturgical politics. But in all the talk of eucharistic politics, a surfeit of aesthetic appeal seems to have usually compensated for a shortfall of logical clarity.
The Two Kingdoms: A Guide For the Perplexed—Pt. VI: Why Does it Matter?
We have spent now four posts tracing the historical development of Protestant two-kingdoms theology, and its influence on early modern political thought. This has all been an attempt to vindicate the claim, advanced in the first installment of this series, that the wider world of political theology has good reason to attend to the disputes over this doctrine that have heretofore been the province only of a characteristically combative subgroup of the American Reformed. Has it been vindicated?
The Two Kingdoms: A Guide for the Perplexed—Pt. 5: From Hooker to Locke
In the 17th century, although the evangelical theme of the two kingdoms is everywhere. It is often somewhat hidden, though operant, behind other more forefront matters of contest–self-interest vs sociality as the basis of society, the divine or human grounds of legitimate rule, the relation of the State to nascent civil society, public and private–and sometimes the thing itself goes under aliases. It sometimes plays a greater role in the thought of the doctrinally idiosyncratic, for instance Hobbes, than it does in that of those otherwise more orthodox, such as Richard Baxter. This is a very vast and complicated field. Given that this is to be such a short overview, we will consider here merely one aspect of Lutheran two-kingdoms doctrine, that of the denial of political power to the clergy, and point to a few landmark instances…
The Two Kingdoms: A Guide for the Perplexed—Pt. 4: Richard Hooker
Few figures in the history of theology can boast as contested a legacy as Richard Hooker, the purported forefather of a protean via media that is redefined with dizzying frequency. Until recently, many readings of Hooker suffered from the insularity that characterized much of Anglican historiography, doggedly committed to the assumption that England had its own history, blissfully independent from goings-on on the Continent. So when historian Torrance Kirby suggested that in fact, Richard Hooker should be read as a theologian of the magisterial Reformation, he touched a raw nerve among Hooker scholars, generating a hostile backlash that, after two decades, shows no sign of letting up. Perhaps tellingly, none of the responses to Kirby and his followers has bothered to engage the thesis at the heart of his re-interpretation, that Hooker’s theological response to Puritanism rested throughout on his Protestant—indeed, Lutheran—two-kingdoms doctrine…
The Two Kingdoms: A Guide for the Perplexed—Pt. 3: From Calvin to Hooker
Unlike some other second-generation Reformers, we do not have to read between the lines to find a two-kingdoms doctrine in Calvin. On the contrary, he is far less ambiguous even than Luther in setting it out at the center of his theology, inviting the question of why Calvin studies have until recently largely ignored the theme. The doctrine appears in the all-important chapter III.19 of the Institutes, as Calvin concludes his discussion of justification and prepares to transition to his massive Bk. IV, entitled “The External Means or Aids By Which God Invites Us Into the Society of Christ and Holds Us Therein.” Inasmuch as Calvin scholarship has attended at all to his two-kingdoms idea, it has frequently assumed, as VanDrunen does, that in delineating the “two kingdoms,” Calvin intends to delineate the two distinct institutions within this sphere of external means—church and state. However, from a structural standpoint, it is more compelling to see his distinction of the two in III.19 as a center-post, with the “spiritual government” pointing back to his discussion of the inward reception of the grace of Christ in Book III, and the “temporal government” pointing forward to his discussion of the external means in Bk. IV—on this basis, both the visibly-organized church and the state would constitute external means in the temporal kingdom. Certainly Calvin’s word choice in describing the two seems to bear out such a reading…
Superstorms and the Demise of Prudence
The Two Kingdoms: A Guide for the Perplexed, Pt. 2—From Luther to Calvin
The Two Kingdoms: A Guide for the Perplexed, Pt. 1: Introducing the Antagonists
Locke and Loyalty Today: Review of the "Pretenses of Loyalty," Pt. 4
The crucial thread in Perry’s narrative has been that of the “turn to loyalty”: where Rawlsian liberalism can dismiss the problem of religious loyalty and imagine that religious and political loyalties ought by their very nature never to conflict, Locke recognized clearly that such conflicts do happen, and such loyalties must be carefully attended to if they are to be harmonized. Accordingly, he provides not merely a solution of political theory, but a solution of political theology that attempts to establish, from within Christianity, the proper nature of Christian loyalty. Unfortunately, most interlocutors today simply no longer recognize the tension but persist in a naïve conviction that civil loyalty and religious loyalty ought to pose no threat to one another in modern America…
Locke's Tenuous Harmonization of Loyalties: Review of "The Pretenses of Loyalty," Pt. 3
Chapters 4 and 5 of Pretenses of Loyalty constitute the heart of Perry’s argument, offering as they do an intriguing re-interpretation of Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration and revealing the tensions that will bedevil it in following centuries. Perry’s overall thesis, we will recall, is that modern liberalism suffers from an amnesia, forgetting that there are in fact two prerequisites for a successful policy of religious toleration: harmonization of loyalties and abstract respect. Relying upon the latter alone, modern liberals find themselves flummoxed at the frequency with which border conflicts erupt between religion and politics—having agreed to tolerate all purely religious practices, governments find that many believers insist on expanding the scope of their religion to include civil matters. They ask that believers consent to be led behind a veil of ignorance, willing to treat others and themselves be treated as abstract rights-bearers, but many believers refuse.
The Dark Knight and the Possibility of Political Judgment
Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy is obsessed with the question: what are the conditions of possibility for political judgment? Judgment, as Oliver O’Donovan has written in The Ways of Judgment, “both pronounces retrospectively on, and clears space prospectively for, actions that are performed within a community” and is therefore “subject to criteria of truth, on the one hand, and to criteria of effectiveness on the other” (9). Although judgment must meet both criteria, very often in the world of politics, they appear to be in rivalry. Truth-telling, in a world of fickle voters and predatory media, in a world of terrorists and hidden threats, can seem like a very unwise proposition, a luxury that must be dispensed with if order and justice are to be preserved. This tension haunts Nolan’s trilogy.
Locating the Early Locke: Review of "The Pretenses of Loyalty," Pt. 2
One of the most valuable contributions of Perry’s book is his attempt to illuminate the heretofore rather unexplored territory of Locke’s early work—his 1667 Essay on Toleration and especially his 1660 First Tract on Government. So obsessed are political philosophers and Locke scholars with the magna opera of 1689 that they have tended to pass over these earlier works in silence, but from the standpoint of understanding Locke’s theory of toleration, this is a great mistake, as Perry shows. Why? Well because the early Locke was an opponent of toleration, arguing forcefully against Puritans in the First Tract that the magistrate had the right to impose uniformity in religious practice, and ought to exercise this right. Why the about-face? Only if we take seriously this question, says Perry, will we be able to understand what led him to articulate his full-blown theory of toleration in 1689, and what he sought to accomplish with that theory. Moreover, in so doing, we will find that the argument for toleration is not so much of an about-face from the argument against it as we might have imagined.
Liberal Amnesia: Review of “The Pretenses of Loyalty,” Pt. 1
John Perry’s recent book “The Pretenses of Loyalty” offers a clear, penetrating, and persuasive diagnosis of the predicament of contemporary liberal political theory through consideration not only of its present tensions, but more importantly, of its amnesia regarding its historical foundations. I say clear because Perry’s exposition is tightly focused, lucidly written, and structured so as to ensure ease of understanding. By missing no opportunity to repeat his main thesis and the key issues at stake, he walks a fine line, to be sure, between assisting and insulting his readers, but ultimately avoids the latter in my judgment. The diagnosis is penetrating because it does not rest content with surveying the ongoing contemporary conflicts between politics and religion and the critiques marshaled by communitarian theorists such as Michael Sandel and Stanley Fish—though he does this admirably in the first two chapters—but digs right down to the historical roots of liberal theory, the amnesia of which, he argues, is largely responsible for its present predicament….
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The Television and Twitter Brigade
Eduardo de la Fuente
The great German sociologist Max Weber, in the closing pages of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, expressed the concern that modern culture may very well lead to a situation of “specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart”. He added: “this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of civilisation never before achieved”.
Anyone working in the contemporary university, especially in a humanities or social science department, may be tempted to update Weber’s maxim by suggesting that we live in an intellectual culture of “theorists blissfully ignorant, empiricists focused on triviality”. Along the same lines as the civilisation Weber worried might be emerging, contemporary academics also like to congratulate themselves on how enlightened and progressive they are. They like to think they are more cosmopolitan and savvy than their scholarly predecessors; more adept at sounding critical while securing tenure and landing research grants. Paraphrasing Weber on the “nullity” that imagines itself to be a very advanced “civilisation”, we might say of contemporary academia: “Never before have so many supposedly intelligent people written so much that has added so little to collective wisdom or happiness.”
The obvious question is: Why? Rather than engaging my reader with stories of what passes for knowledge in disciplines such as sociology, cultural and media studies (stories of the “Can you believe that any self-respecting adult devotes their life to studying this sort of nonsense?” variety), let me pose this as an intellectual puzzle. Why is it that in the field of communication studies (my current field of academic employment) the last scholars to say anything profound and enduring were: an economic historian who was raised a strict Evangelical Baptist and who considered studying for the ministry (Harold Innis); a conservative Catholic professor of literature who was heavily influenced by G.K. Chesterton and completed his PhD on the medieval “trivium” (Marshall McLuhan); an autodidact whose intellectual curiosities ranged from architecture to sociology, urban planning to the history of technology but who preferred to eke out a living from writing for art periodicals and literary journals rather than be bound by the strictures of academe (Lewis Mumford); and an Eastern European mythologist who studied comparative religions and the role of symbolism in history, the sacred and the arts (Mircea Eliade)?
I suspect that Weber has his own ready-made answer. As he suggests in his own treatise on academia, “Science as Vocation”, modern culture suffers the fate of “disenchantment”, a loss of meaning stemming from the absence of “religious interpretations of the world” in art, science and public life more generally. To put it succinctly, for Weber, the problem is the secularisation of culture and what this does to the world of ideas. He therefore would not find it surprising that my list of authors who have made significant contributions to communication during the last century includes two figures who had a very personal connection with religion and religious practices (Innis and McLuhan), and a third who was Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Chicago (Eliade).
The only figure in my list that seems not to fit the pattern is Mumford. However, even he entitled one of his books The Myth of the Machine, and when the University of Pennsylvania in 1955 invited this famous urbanologist and historian of technology to teach for a semester, Mumford chose the theme “Religion in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia”. Ever the inquisitive polymath, Mumford used his intellectual excursion into the religious practices of ancient peoples to provide a radically new account of everyday artefacts—such as vases and pots—in early urban civilisation.
Some might retort that I have “gilded the lily” somewhat by listing influential thinkers prior to the advent of more explicitly secular forms of thought, such as Marxism, semiotics, feminism and psychoanalysis. However, even here theological strains of thought are not entirely absent. About the only two cultural theorists from these traditions that I can still bear to read—Walter Benjamin and Umberto Eco—both produced work that is heavily shaped by religious and theological concepts. The latter—like McLuhan—also wrote his doctoral dissertation on medieval aesthetics and set his famous novel, The Name of the Rose, in a fourteenth-century Italian monastery. The hero of the story is a monk-cum-scholar, the Franciscan friar William of Baskerville.
Thus, there is good reason to think that good scholarship on culture and communication has often had a fruitful connection with religious systems or the study of these systems. I would also add to the list the German mid-twentieth-century Catholic theologian Joseph Pieper, whose theory of festivity is much less well known, amongst academics, than the Russian Formalist-cum-Marxist Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of the “carnivalesque”. Pieper’s book In Tune with the World is not much read these days in academe. Partly, this is because it fails to follow in Bakhtin’s footsteps and celebrate riotous or indecorous behaviour for its supposedly “subversive” effects. Yet by not reading Pieper because of misplaced secularism and populism, communication and cultural scholars miss out on a pretty fundamental set of insights into the role culture plays in the human condition. As Pieper puts it in In Tune with the World:
In practising the rites of worship men hope that they will be vouchsafed a share in the superhuman abundance of life. From time immemorial, this very thing has always been considered the true, the immanent fruit of all great festivals.
If only sociologists studying youth culture or raves took such insights seriously. They would be better able to explain both what motivates people to engage in popular festivals, as well as why, when the need to worship or be in touch with the divine is ignored, festivals and rites deform into human activities that are less than enriching. Note the current tendency in most Australian major cities for young people to drink themselves into a stupor on a Friday or Saturday night and then engage in senseless violence. Others seek transcendence through drugs. As David Tacey puts it in relation to Australian culture and its displaced sense of the sacred:
spiritual ecstasy … has been replaced by the spurious, artificial ecstasy that is provided by alcohol and drugs … Instead of controlled rituals of Dionysus, the mythic loosener of rational boundaries, we have the destructive boozing and brawling of Dionysus.
One would think that a concern with anti-social or self-destructive behaviour alone might prompt some academics to dip into the science and hermeneutics of the human soul. Not so with our postmodern super-critical, hyper-reflexive academics populating the arts faculties of contemporary Australian universities. Once again, Weber demonstrated great foresight. In one of his essays on religion he noted: “[The] shift from moral to aesthetic evaluation is a common characteristic of intellectualist epochs; it results … partly from the fear of appearing narrow-minded in a traditionalist or philistine way.” Hence, the hysteria amongst urban knowledge elites in relation to the recent scandal surrounding Bill Henson’s photographs of young children in sexually suggestive poses. How dare anyone question whether the photographs were art or pornography? Who but a philistine would fail to see the difference?
But it isn’t just a profound moral relativism that characterises theology-free departments of humanities and social sciences. I would venture a further hypothesis: namely, that despite all the fashionable talk about “meaning”—for example, semiotics is often defined as the “science of meaning”, the latter understood as “signs”—the last two generations of academics have been less equipped to study meaning than at any other time in history. In addition to being epistemologically and ethically relativist, academics presently engaged in the study of culture and communication tend to employ a flaccid understanding of meaning that fails to account for why human beings attend to certain things and what significance they draw from the things they hold to be special. In short, contemporary reflections into culture simply lack the tools with which to study what art, comic books, conversation, and any other form of communication, do for us and to us.
Daniel Bell, one of the last social scientists to combine great moral insight with perceptive analysis, claimed that the problem with modern culture was not only secularisation—as identified by Weber—but also that the “sacred” was in serious danger of being rendered “profane”. This is because the “sacred” is central to what culture is and what it does. Bell tells us that culture is those “modalities of response by sentient men to the core questions that confront all human groups in the consciousness of existence: how one meets death, the meaning of tragedy, the nature of obligation, the character of love”. The history of culture is therefore the history of the modalities by which “sentient beings”, through “myth, philosophy, symbols, and styles”, respond to these deeply existential questions. Bell suggests that the questions confronted by culture are “universal” and found “in all societies where men become conscious of the finiteness of existence”. The answers may vary; but the impulse to answer them doesn’t.
How then has culture become “profaned”? Bell argues that religion has been one of the central means by which humans have addressed the cultural questions listed above most successfully. For him, religion or the sacred consists of the “celebration of rites which provide an emotional bond for those who participate”. Rites, creeds and answers to the questions of “infinity” and “transcendence”—these are the basics of culture and where culture most clearly resembles the pursuit of the sacred. We could say that art, sport, food and travel are at most cultural when they fulfil the kinds of needs met by the sacred. That is, as with religious rites, cultural forms do their cultural work best when they hold our attention or captivate us in such a way that we feel psychologically or spiritually refreshed once we have engaged in these activities.
Profanisation, according to Bell, occurs when cultural forms become stale, corrupted or debased. As with Tacey’s account of the displaced sacred, Bell argues that modern culture suffers from the tendency to “democratise Dionysus” through the ethos that everyone should “act out one’s impulses”. The “infinite” and the “unattainable” become questions of gratification or what we moderns term “consumption”. Culture becomes reduced to “taste” or the lifestyle choices that people make.
Enter the television and Twitter academic brigade. They take to profane culture as ducks take to water. For them, culture is a lifestyle choice. They are happy to document that people who live in Toorak are more likely to subscribe to the opera and that being university-educated makes you less likely to eat McDonald’s (or at least admit that you eat McDonald’s). They revel in the kind of empirical facts that professionals in marketing and advertising have at their fingertips. Yet our contemporary cultural studies academic would have you believe they need great amounts of taxpayer-funded research money to prove what most people in marketing and advertising already know; obvious facts that they dress up as containing profound hermeneutic, semiotic, discursive, ideological and sociological significance. Thus, in the jargon of contemporary cultural analysis, people who live in Toorak subscribe to the opera as a way of showing off their “economic capital”; while university-educated people eat sushi, samosas or rice paper rolls instead of Big Macs in order to show off their “cultural capital”—that is, to reinforce their self-perception that they are culturally superior to suburbanites and other philistines.
Not only is this a fundamentally negative view of human motivations—we engage in culture merely to show off!—it also has all the limitations of the “profane” understanding of culture. Anything that is difficult, challenging, elite, defunct or passé is held to have no cultural—and thus academic—value. Try telling a media studies scholar that prayer or the Eucharist may yield great insights into the role of communication in human affairs and the response is likely to be: I study television and Twitter because that’s what most people these days are into. If you point out to them that McLuhan’s famous dictum, “The medium is the message”, was derived from his deep historical knowledge of religious communication and the impact of the printing press on how monks communicated with each other and with the laity, you are likely to be met with a blank stare. Equally, mention names like Mircea Eliade or Joseph Campbell, or their insightful studies of mythology and religious symbolism, and you are likely be asked: what did Eliade or Campbell say about the internet?
One of the major problems with academic reflection in the age of profane culture is that it becomes impossible to convince scholars that meaning is not just a semiotic construct and that culture wasn’t invented by postmoderns. We seem to have simultaneously lost our capacity to reflect upon culture as “immanence” and “transcendence”. Put colloquially, academics have lost the capacity to see the forest for the trees let alone know the difference between Fagus silvatica and Betula pendula. Mind you, the latter are exotics anyway and therefore a product of the “imperialist botanical gaze”.
A few scholars (those who have heard of him!) may tell you that their academic vocation is inspired by William Blake’s famous motto: “To see the entire universe in a grain of sand”. But when you are convinced that the universe has nothing to do with God (or should I say ignorant of the fact that human beings have referred to the sky and the infinite space beyond earth as the “heavens” for a reason!) then Blake’s motto becomes untenable to the contemporary academic mind. A more fitting motto would be: “We seek to prove that sand means something different to different groups of beachgoers”. If you think I’m kidding then I refer you to Volume 1 of the Australian Journal of Cultural Studies (1982) which contains the following essay: “Surfalism and Sandiotics: The Beach in Oz Culture”. Unfortunately, things have only deteriorated since “Surfalism and Sandiotics”. I suspect that some media and cultural studies academics have even forgotten that people still go to the beach. Today, the academic paper is more likely to be titled: “Towards a Hyperreal Theory of the Beach: Or Why Real Sand Doesn’t Exist for the Postmodern Beachgoer”.
I’m not entirely sure what serious academics are meant to do. Should we leave media and cultural studies departments and take up refuge in theology schools? We might even entertain fantasies of leaving the university entirely and taking up residence in some remote monastery. The architecture and amenities are surely better at New Norcia than the Menzies Building at Monash University?
Call it vocational responsibility or professional self-delusion but I’m not prepared to leave the academy to the television and Twitter brigade. If they get the entire run of humanities and social science university departments then the only tools for salvation left will be serious books—but the best books could never be a replacement for teachers committed to serious teaching. In any case, in an academic universe where more books are being written then will ever be read, librarians have had to shift many books not currently on prescribed reading lists to off-campus storage depots. Many worthy tomes are simply gathering dust in the bibliographic equivalent of rarely visited sarcophaguses.
Thus, whichever way you look at it, teaching has to remain central to the academic vocation. Indeed, one source of salvation for the academic frustrated with the current state of the academy could well be the innate intellectual curiosities and spiritual hungers of the students who pass through our doors. I would never pretend that every student who sits in one of my classes is there to cultivate their better selves. But I would assert that students are often much less narcissistic and materialistic than their academic teachers presume.
It is for this reason that I have some faith that things will turn around in the university as students themselves start to realise that there is more to life than television and Twitter. Occasionally when lecturing, there is that moment when you see in the faces of your students that they are being taken beyond the confines of their prosaic concerns and routine ways of looking at things—including the bad academic habits they have acquired at secondary school and continued at university.
The kind of experience I’m alluding to usually registers as a glowing face, a smile, or a level of attentiveness that prompts the student to stop taking notes and to really listen. A moment when the student realises that there is more to knowledge acquisition than copying undigested information from PowerPoint slides. At these moments, when connection between teacher and student is achieved, and insight, enjoyment and discovery combine, we might need to turn to theological language to describe what is taking place. The teacher might express it as: “I see God in each of their faces.”
Eduardo de la Fuente teaches in the School of English, Communications and Performance Studies at Monash University. He is the author of Twentieth Century Music and the Question of Modernity (Routledge, 2010). As he hasn’t secured tenure he finds musing upon the current state of the university in published articles strangely satisfying and cathartic.
Birdlore
B.J. Coman
Releasing Captive Minds
The Fate of Progress at a Time of Crisis
Henry Ergas
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Exclusive Excerpt: Shadows & Dreams by Alexis Hall
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Posted 2 months ago by Annie
I’m excited to share an exclusive excerpt of Alexis Hall’s Shadows & Dreams today! This is the newly refreshed second book in the Kate Kane, Paranormal Investigator series!
I like my women like I like my whiskey: liable to kill me.
The two parts of being a paranormal private investigator I could really do without are being forced to eat bananas by an animated statue with a potassium fixation, and being put on trial for murder by a self-appointed council of vampire oligarchs.
To be fair, I did kind of do it (the murder, not the bananas). But I was kind of saving my girlfriend, who is kind of one of them.
On top of this, I’ve also wound up with a primordial queen of the damned trying to strangle me in my dreams. And the conspiracy of undead wizards who tried to sacrifice me fifteen years ago has decided that now is the best possible time to give it another go.
Throw in the woman who left me for a tech start-up, the old girlfriend who I might sort of owe eternal mystical fealty to and a werewolf “it girl” who can’t decide if she wants to eat me in the good way or the bad way, and I’m beginning to think life would be easier if I made better choices. Then again, it’d be a whole lot less fun.
On-Sale Date: December 2, 2019
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Wrapping up the [Fletcher case] left me officially between cases, and frankly, there wasn’t much chance of anything major coming up until after Christmas.
Elise would probably want to use the time productively to get on top of the bookkeeping. But I was looking forward to taking a break, spending some quality time with my vampire girlfriend, and heading back up north to visit the folks. I hadn’t seen much of Julian since I’d rescued her from the King of the Court of Love, because there’d been some major political fallout since I’d taken the Prince of Swords down a sewer, and he hadn’t come out again. The advantage of not seeing someone as much as you’d like is that when you do, the sex is fucking amazing. On the other hand, since Julian is the vampire prince of pleasure that kind of comes as standard. So you’re mostly left with the disadvantage, which is, well, that you don’t see them as much as you’d like.
I’d known what I was getting into from pretty much the moment I walked into her office, and I’m well past my spend-every-moment-together-I-am-nothing-without-you phase, but I don’t like keeping to someone else’s schedule. Maybe I’m messed up, but missing her makes me feel needy, and that makes me feel annoyed, and that makes me drink too much, and that makes Elise sad, and that makes me feel guilty, and that makes me more annoyed.
And then I see Julian and it’s all wonderful.
I stared moodily out of the window and thought about going outside for a fag break. Since Elise started working for me, I’m legally obliged to provide a smoke-free environment so I don’t give her lung cancer, despite the fact that, as far as I know, she doesn’t have lungs.
That was when Tash walked into my office.
I’d pulled her at the Candy Bar about three months ago but entirely failed to follow through. She’d given me her number and I’d given her my card, but I’d never called her and, honestly, never expected to see her again. It was pretty obvious this wasn’t a social visit. She still had that quirky pixie look, but it was like someone had stolen all her magic dust.
“Uh, hi,” she said. “I know this is weird, but I need your help.”
Truth be told, it was a little bit awkward, but my social weirdness threshold has gone way up since my girlfriend tried to murder my ex-girlfriend because her ex-girlfriend tried to murder her.
“Take a seat.” I waved across my desk. “Can I get you anything?”
“Perhaps a cup of tea would be appropriate?” offered Elise.
Tash huddled into a chair. “Yes, thank you.” She had surprisingly good manners for a girl who’d been up for shagging in the doorway of Pizza Express. Elise disappeared into our tiny kitchenette, and Tash seemed to relax a bit.
I shunted my midmorning whiskey behind a stack of old case notes and tried to look professional. “What’s the problem?”
“It’s Hugh.” The words came out in a rush. “My brother, Hugh, he’s disappeared. But he broke his leg. We called the police, and it’s been more than two days, and I’m worried. He isn’t answering his phone, and nobody’s seen him. There’s this leaflet, and it says ninety-nine percent of people come back within forty-eight hours, but it’s been forty-eight hours and he hasn’t come back. And I don’t know what to do.”
I should probably have said something comforting but I couldn’t think of anything. “Who saw him last?”
“I don’t know.” She picked up one of the Kane and Archer pens Elise had recently ordered for publicity which were now scattered all over the office. “Probably somebody at the hospital.”
“The Whittington. He broke his leg changing a lightbulb. Because he was standing on a swivel chair because he’s an idiot.”
“Any history of depression?”
She shook her head.
“Any personal problems?”
“No, he was doing really well. He was doing this MA at Brunel, and he’d just got this major internship or something.”
“If he was at Brunel,” I asked, “why did they take him to the Whittington?”
“He did it at his girlfriend’s house in Highgate. He was only supposed to be in overnight but there were complications.”
“And he had no enemies or anything like that?”
“What? Hugh?”
“You’d be surprised.” I shrugged. “I know he’s your brother, but it would be really helpful if you could find out if he gambled, drank, or took drugs or if he had any debts or dangerous friends.”
She thought about it for a moment. “He played D&D.”
Eve had tried to get me into that. I played a gnome paladin and got killed by a big cube of jelly when I was level 3. After that, I just hung out on the edges of the group and stole their pizza.
At that moment, Elise came in with tea for Tash and a coffee for me. “Would you like me to take notes, Miss Kane?”
“Any objections?”
Tash shook her head.
“Okay. Miss…” I suddenly remembered that Tash’s surname was not the Teetotal Lesbian.
“Shawcross.”
“Okay, Miss Shawcross is looking for her brother, Hugh, who disappeared from the Whittington Hospital in Highgate, between two and three days ago. He was being treated for a broken leg. The police are looking into it, but the family hasn’t heard anything yet. The police will probably see him as low risk given his age and circumstances. He was studying for his master’s at Brunel, and he’d recently started an internship. The accident happened at his girlfriend’s house, which is in Highgate. As far as Miss Shawcross knows, he had no enemies, no mental health issues, and no personal problems.”
“Just the broken leg,” added Tash. “That’s strange isn’t it? Disappearing when you can’t walk?”
It could have meant he’d been abducted, but the police take things like that very seriously. Since he was still floating around the MPB and hadn’t been kicked up to Serious Crimes, it meant it probably wasn’t a kidnapping. Or at least didn’t look like one to the police. So that left either the plot of an episode of Miss Marple, in which a man with a broken leg discharged himself from hospital for no clear reason, or there was something supernatural going on. Right now, the supernatural explanation looked more likely. But, then again, when all you’ve got is an enchanted hammer, every problem starts to look like a possessed nail.
“It’s a little unusual,” I said, impressed with my own tact. “I’ll need his contact information, current address, a photograph, as recent as you can get, digital is fine. I’ll also need details of the internship, his friends, and the name and address of his girlfriend.”
Tash pulled out her phone. “I’ll email you some photos. It’s Kane@kaneandarcher.com, right?”
I nodded. I remember when you had to wander around with a single copy of a crappy Polaroid. It’s way easier now everybody puts a tonne of shit online, but you still have to remember that, whatever people say about our media-obsessed age, people don’t put their whole lives on Facebook—just the bits of their lives they want their friends to know about. It’s not like you ever see so-and-so has updated their status: Borrowed 20 grand from Jimmy “Machete” Carter to fund my secret crack habit.
Tash glanced up again. “Done. I’ve also sent you all his contact details and his girlfriend’s address. Her name’s Sarah. They met at York when he was in his first year. They’ve been going out forever, like three years or something.”
“And the internship?”
“It was with Locke Enterprises. Hugh wouldn’t stop talking about it.”
Well, fuck. I was about to be hired by a woman I’d very nearly slept with to find her missing brother who was working for the woman who’d left me for a tech start-up at the tech start-up she left me for.
AND COMING SOON!
FIRE & WATER by Alexis Hall, the brand-new third novel in the Kate Kane, Paranormal Investigator series, will be available February 24, 2020 from Carina Press! For more information, visit https://www.harlequin.com/shop/books/9781488057014_fire-water.html.
Alexis Hall is a pile of threadbare hats and used teacups given a semblance of life by forbidden sorcery. He sometimes writes books.
Genre: Romance Genre: Urban Fantasy Orientation: Lesbian Pairing: F/F Publisher: Carina Press Tag: Guest Post Tag: Part of a series Alexis Hall Kate Kane Paranormal Investigator series Shadows & Dreams
Annie View All →
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Scientific Name: Torgos tracheliotos
In 2000 Lappet-faced Vultures were listed as Vulnerable in the Red Data Book. In 2015 their status was uplifted to Endangered. The expected population size reduction is estimated to be in the region of 50% in the next 45-50 years. These statistics are staggering considering there is a regional population of about 2 500 mature birds left.
The increasing incidents of large-scale poisoning, most notably motivated by poaching incidents and harvesting for the traditional health industry, have been identified as the biggest threats to this species.
The Lappet-faced Vulture is the largest vulture species occurring in South Africa, and is easily identified by its massive beak and large bare head with pink and blue skin. The prominent skin folds and lappets on the face and neck are where the species gets its name from. Both males and females look alike.
The species inhabits the woodland regions of South Africa, preferring drier areas. Pairs are monogamous and only reach breeding maturing at 6 years old. They build gigantic nests out of sticks, positioned in the crowns of trees, and lined with grass. They will often re-use these nests. Usually, only one egg is laid, and breeding success has been reported to be only 44%.
These birds do not arrive in large numbers at a carcass, like the Gyps species do, and are often found at smaller carcasses, and may in fact, rely on these for a regular food supply as opposed to the larger carcasses that attract the Gyps species. However, they often dominate other vulture species at a carcass, and because of their huge, strong beaks, are better equipped to deal with the tough skin, tendons and ligaments than the other species are.
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Psychology > Social Psychology > Social Psychology Theories > Attachment Theory
Attachment Theory Definition
An attachment refers to the strong emotional bond that exists between an infant and his or her caretaker. The attachment theory is designed to explain the evolution of that bond, its development, and its implications for human experience and relationships across the life course. Although attachment theory has primarily been a theory of child development, since the 1980s, the theory has had a large impact on social psychological theories of close relationships, emotion regulation, and personality.
Attachment Theory History and Background
Attachment theory was originally developed by John Bowlby, a British psychoanalyst who was attempting to understand why infants experience intense distress when separated from their parents. Bowlby noticed that separated infants would go to extraordinary lengths (e.g., crying, clinging, frantically searching) to either prevent separation from their parents or to reestablish contact with a missing parent. At the time, psychoanalytic writers held that these behaviors were expressions of immature defense mechanisms that were operating to repress emotional pain, but Bowlby observed that such expressions may serve an evolutionary function.
Drawing on evolutionary theory, Bowlby postulated that behaviors such as crying and searching were adaptive responses to separation from a primary attachment figure—someone who provides support, protection, and care. Because human infants, like other mammalian infants, cannot feed or protect themselves, they are dependent upon the care and protection of older and stronger adults. Bowlby argued that, over the course of human evolution, infants who were able to maintain proximity to an attachment figure (i.e., by looking cute or by expressing in attachment behaviors) would be more likely to survive to a reproductive age. According to Bowlby, a motivational-control system, what he called the attachment behavioral system, was gradually crafted by natural selection to help the child regulate physical proximity to an attachment figure.
The attachment behavior system is an important concept in attachment theory because it provides the conceptual link between evolutionary models of human development and modern theories on emotion regulation and personality. According to Bowlby, the attachment system essentially “asks” the following question: Is the attachment figure nearby, accessible, and attentive? If the child perceives the answer to this question to be “yes,” he or she feels loved, secure, and confident, and, behaviorally, is likely to explore his or her environment, play with others, and be sociable. If, however, the child perceives the answer to this question to be “no,” the child experiences anxiety and, behaviorally, is likely to exhibit attachment behaviors ranging from a simple visual search for the parent to active following and vocal signaling. These behaviors continue until either the child is able to reestablish a desirable level of physical or psychological proximity to the attachment figure, or until the child “wears down,” as may happen in the context of a prolonged separation or loss. In such cases, Bowlby believed that the child may develop symptoms of depression.
Individual Differences in Infant Attachment Patterns
Although Bowlby believed that his theory captured the way attachment operates in most children, he recognized that there are individual differences. Some children, for example, may be more likely to view their parents as inaccessible or distant, perhaps because their parents have not been consistently available in the past. However, it was not until Bowlby’s colleague, Mary Ainsworth, began to study infant-parent separations that individual differences in attachment were incorporated formally into attachment theory. Ainsworth and her students developed a technique called the “strange situation”—a laboratory paradigm for studying infant-parent attachment. In the strange situation, 12-month-old infants and their parents are brought to the laboratory and are separated from one another and then reunited. In the strange situation, most children (i.e., about 60%) behave in the way implied by Bowlby’s “normative” understanding of attachment. Specifically, they become upset when the parent leaves the room, but when he or she returns, they actively seek the parent and are easily comforted by him or her. Children who exhibit this pattern of behavior are often called “secure.” Other children (about 20% or less) are ill-at-ease initially and, upon separation, become extremely distressed. Importantly, when reunited with their parents, these children have a difficult time being soothed and often exhibit conflicting behaviors that suggest they want to be comforted but that they also want to “punish” the parent for leaving. These children are often called “anxious-resistant.” The third pattern of attachment that Ainsworth and her colleagues documented is called “avoidant.” Avoidant children (about 20%) don’t appear too distressed by the separation and, upon reunion, actively avoid seeking contact with their parent, sometimes turning their attention to play objects on the laboratory floor.
Ainsworth’s work was important for at least three reasons. First, she provided one of the first empirical demonstrations of how attachment behavior is patterned in both safe and frightening contexts. Second, she provided the first empirical taxonomy of individual differences in infant attachment patterns. According to her research, at least three types of children exist: those who are secure in their relationship with their parents, those who are anxious-resistant, and those who are anxious-avoidant. Finally, she demonstrated that these individual differences were correlated with infant-parent interactions in the home during the first year of life. Children who appear secure in the strange situation, for example, tend to have parents who are responsive to their needs. Children who appear insecure in the strange situation (i.e., anxious-resistant or anxious-avoidant) often have parents who are insensitive to their needs, or inconsistent or rejecting in the care they provide.
Attachment in Adult Romantic Relationships
Although Bowlby was primarily focused on understanding the nature of the infant-caregiver relationship, he believed that attachment played a role in human experience across the life course. It was not until the mid-1980s, however, that psychologists began to take seriously the possibility that attachment may play a role in adulthood. Cindy Hazan and Phil Shaver were two of the first researchers to explore Bowlby’s ideas in the context of romantic relationships. According to Hazan and Shaver, the emotional bond that develops between adult romantic partners is partly a function of the same motivational system— the attachment behavioral system—that gives rise to the emotional bond between infants and their care-givers. Hazan and Shaver noted that infants and care-givers and adult romantic partners share the following features:
Both feel safe when the other is nearby and responsive.
Both engage in close, intimate, bodily contact.
Both feel insecure when the other is inaccessible.
Both share discoveries with one another.
Both play with one another’s facial features and exhibit a mutual fascination and preoccupation with one another.
Both engage in “baby talk” or “motherese” (i.e., a high-pitched, idiosyncratic language that involves “made up” words that only the couple understands).
On the basis of these parallels, Hazan and Shaver argued that adult romantic relationships, like infant-caregiver relationships, are attachments, and that romantic love is a property of the attachment behavioral system, as well as the motivational systems that give rise to caregiving and sexuality.
Three Implications of Adult Attachment Theory
The idea that romantic relationships may be attachment relationships has had a profound influence on modern research on close relationships. There are at least three critical implications of this idea. First, if adult romantic relationships are attachment relationships, then we should observe the same kinds of individual differences in adult relationships that Ainsworth observed in infant-caregiver relationships. Second, if adult romantic relationships are attachment relationships, then the way adult relationships “work” should be similar to the way infant-caregiver relationships work. Third, whether an adult is secure or insecure in his or her adult relationships may be a partial reflection of his or her attachment experiences in early childhood.
Do we Observe the Same Kinds of Attachment Patterns Among Adults That We Observe Among Children?
If adult romantic relationships are attachment relationships, then the same kinds of individual differences that Ainsworth observed in infant-caregiver relationships should be observed in adult relationships. Some adults, for example, may be expected to be secure in their close relationships—feeling confident that their partners will be there for them when needed and being open to depending on others and having others depend on them. Other adults, in contrast, will be expected to be insecure in their relationships. For example, some insecure adults may be anxious-resistant: They worry that others may not love them completely, and they may be easily frustrated or angered when their attachment needs go unmet. Others may be avoidant: They may appear not to care too much about close relationships and may prefer not to be too dependent upon other people or to have others be too dependent upon them.
The earliest research on adult attachment involved studying the association between individual differences in adult attachment and the way people think about their relationships and their memories for what their relationships with their parents are like. In 1987, Hazan and Shaver developed a simple questionnaire to measure these individual differences. (These individual differences are often referred to as “attachment styles,” “attachment patterns,” “attachment orientations,” or “differences in the organization of the attachment system.”) In short, Hazan and Shaver asked research subjects to read three paragraphs and indicate which paragraph best characterized the way they think, feel, and behave in close relationships. Paragraph A described discomfort and nervousness in being close to others, as well as difficulty with trust and intimacy; paragraph B depicted relative ease with closeness to and mutual dependence with others; and paragraph C indicated a perception that others are hesitant to get close as desired and that a partner doesn’t love them or likely won’t want to stay with them.
Hazan and Shaver found that the number of people endorsing each of these descriptions was similar to the number of children classified as secure, anxious, or avoidant in infancy. In other words, about 60% of adults classified themselves as secure (paragraph B), about 20% described themselves as avoidant (paragraph A), and about 20% described themselves as anxious-resistant (paragraph C).
Do Adult Romantic Relationships “work” in the Same way That infant-Caregiver Relationships work?
If adult romantic relationships are attachment relationships, then the way adult relationships “work” should be similar to the way infant-caregiver relationships work. For the most part, research suggests that adult romantic relationships function in ways that are similar to infant-caregiver relationships. Naturalistic research on adults separating from their partners at an airport demonstrated that behaviors indicative of attachment, such as crying and clinging, were evident and that the way people expressed those behaviors was related to their attachment style. For example, while separating couples generally showed more attachment behavior than nonseparating couples, people with avoidant attachment styles showed much less attachment behavior.
There is also research that suggests that the same kinds of features that mothers desire in their babies are also desired by adults seeking a romantic partner. Studies conducted in numerous cultures suggest that the secure pattern of attachment in infancy is universally considered the most desirable pattern by mothers. Adults seeking long-term relationships identify responsive caregiving qualities, such as attentiveness, warmth, and sensitivity, as most attractive in potential dating partners. Despite the attractiveness of secure qualities, however, not all adults are paired with secure partners. Some evidence suggests that people end up in relationships with partners who confirm their existing beliefs about attachment relationships, even if those beliefs are negative.
Are Attachment Patterns Stable From infancy to Adulthood?
An important implication of attachment theory is that whether an adult is secure or insecure in his or her adult relationships may be a partial reflection of his or her attachment experiences in early childhood. Bowlby believed that the mental representations or working models (i.e., expectations, beliefs, “rules,” or “scripts” for behaving and thinking) that a child holds regarding relationships are a function of his or her caregiving experiences. For example, a secure child tends to believe that others will be there for him or her because previous experiences have led him or her to this conclusion. Once a child has developed such expectations, he or she will tend to seek out relational experiences that are consistent with those expectations and perceive others in a way that is colored by those beliefs. According to Bowlby, this kind of process should promote continuity in attachment patterns over the life course, although it is possible that a person’s attachment pattern will change if his or her relational experiences are inconsistent with his or her expectations. In short, if we assume that adult relationships are attachment relationships, it is possible that children who are secure as children will grow up to be secure in their romantic relationships.
Research shows that there is a modest degree of overlap between how secure people feel with their mothers, for example, and how secure they feel with their romantic partners. For example, among people who are securely attached to their mothers, over 65% of them are likely to feel secure with their romantic partners too. There is also evidence suggesting that people who are secure as children are more likely to grow up to become secure adults. Of secure adults, approximately 70% of them were classified as secure when they were 12 months of age in the strange situation. Taken together, these data suggest that there is a moderate degree of stability in attachment styles from infancy to adulthood, but that there is also plenty of room for people’s ongoing experiences to shape their security.
Hazan, C., & Shaver, P. R. (1994). Attachment as an organizational framework for research on close relationships. Psychological Inquiry, 5, 1-22.
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Social Psychology Theories
Broaden-and-Build Theory
Dynamic Systems Theory
Narcissistic Reactance Theory
Opponent Process Theory
Role Theory
Stress Appraisal Theory
Threatened Egotism Theory
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3.4 Ab ed through the wheel Colonial period [Part 1] (15:58)
A cosmovisão dos aborígines e a educação
Universidade de Toronto
Intended for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal learners, this course will explore indigenous ways of knowing and how they can benefit all students. Topics include historical, social, and political issues in Aboriginal education; terminology; cultural, spiritual and philosophical themes in Aboriginal worldviews; and how Aboriginal worldviews can inform professional programs and practices, including but not limited to the field of education.
I feel like, I understand my Heritage and myself like never before. This class has been invaluable in learning much what has been lost in my family.
I found this course was very interesting and a great learning tool and I am glad I would recommend this course to people Ni:Awen
A Brief History of Aboriginal Education
The description goes here
3.1 Applying the wheel to aboriginal education (3:34)3:34
3.2 Ab ed through the wheel Pre-contact [Part 1] (13:11)13:11
3.3 Ab ed through the wheel early contact (5:08)5:08
3.4 Ab ed through the wheel Colonial period [Part 1] (15:58)15:58
3.5 Residential schools (0:52)0:52
3.6 Interview with Suzanne Stewart on Intergenerational Trauma [Part 1] (10:38)10:38
3.6 Interview with Suzanne Stewart on Intergenerational Trauma [Part 2] (9:42)9:42
3.7 The Apology and Analysis - Laura McKinley Interview (7:11)7:11
Week 4 Activity: Aboriginal Apology (1:48)1:48
Jean-Paul Restoule
Selecionar um idiomaInglêsJaponêsLituano
>> What, what kind of, where education, really, I think is appropriate to use is in this colonial model. And so, I should perhaps talk about that. With the introduction of schooling, we start to see like Aboriginal education or Indian education, as it would have been called in the, that time becoming like the primary mode of learning for, for the young people. And, and it's really a strategy of assimilation on the part of the state to assimilate indigenous peoples into the British and then Canadian subjectivity. What is the crossing point here? Again, there is no like real, any one real date you can kind of choose. You know, some of the mission schools and boarding schools were, were starting in the 1830s. So, like prior to Canada's confederation certainly you know, what's interesting is that a lot of things that happen in Canada happened in the US first and Canada adopts them. So, boarding schools were one movement on the rise in the US that Canada was certainly looking at. And there were a range of options for ways that the, the education of, of young Indian people could have gone. But they went with the residential school model, and in some of the debates about it in Parliament and elsewhere, you can see that the assimilatory power of removing children from their parents and from communities was a factor in making that decision, because it would assist the assimilation process. So, talking about what is Indian education and I'm using Indian now because that is certainly the term that is, is being used in this era, in 1800s and, and most of the 1900s. And we're, so we're talking about, about people who are recognized by the state as Indian. So, it kind of, along with the Indian Act, so we could maybe put 1876 here, because the Indian Act is like an amalgamation of previous acts that were on the books in upper and lower Canada and it's a way of kind of putting them together into one kind of forceful piece of legislation which could then be applied across the nation. Again, a very national kind of strategy as they moved across the west. It was interesting, it was like entering into treaties with all the, the communities and the, the, all the nations across the plains and the prairies and on one hand, making these great promises and then having this piece of legislation which reduced their responsibility to fulfill all of those promises. So, in a way they, they kind of make a promise, an obligation, one nation to another about the provision of education. And then, they have the Indian Act which restricts who they really see as Indian people that they're responsible for. Not that in the nation-to-nation agreement, there's any sense that you are responsible in this, you know, in this kind of way. But all that aside it's like the act restricts the financial implications of the treaty relationships. It's, it's a way of kind of saying, okay, but only these people are recognized as Indians because the Indian Act defines who is, is recognized as an Indian by the state. And then, it's also saying and we're responsible for providing education, but since we're providing it, we'll choose what it is. So, there's no input on curriculum or hiring or like, who, who is a teacher on the part of indigenous communities? The state kind of has control over all those things. And, and actually, I guess, in the residential school period, the churches. So, Canada is providing the, the funding, which is inadequate and the churches are running the schools. Yes? >> This is kind of a tangent, but, so, when you're talking about rights like the right to, say, education, right, like that, those rights, they don't stem from the Indian Act, then they stem from the treaties. >> In my view, yes. >> Okay. >> Yeah. But the, the Indian act had some, some sections that required Indians to go to residential school or, or gave the Indian agent power to send students and, and take them out of the family and out of the community and send them to a boarding school or residential school. >> Because they didn't modify the meaning of what those rights initially, what the Indian rights initially promised. >> Yeah, I kind of feel like the Indian Act is, it's interesting because the treaties really, the really large treaties start to be negotiated between 1871 and most of the 1870s are the number treaties were negotiated. So, these huge areas were opened up through, through treaty. And in 1876, the Indian Act is passed. It's almost like, okay, we're promising all this, let's now restrict what we're really going to, you know, actually do. Like to me, it seemed like and some people have studied and looked at that period and there was a recession and there was the, the, of course, that Railroad Project happening. And [laugh] so, so, it's kind of like, alright one place we can save money is by defining who an Indian is and just cut that population down to almost half of what we are really responsible for and, you know, and, and all the other things that, that the Indian Act does to kind of control and, and contain indigenous people. Anyway, there's so much more to be said about the Indian Act. The thing I want to focus on is, is how did Indian education develop in this time period and you know, what, what are some of the major differences that happens when you introduce schooling into the way people are learning? First of all, you have you have that separation from family and community. So, people aren't learning from the community, they are learning from teachers, who are not teaching them their cultural knowledge, but teaching them some other knowledge. And so, in a way, it's kind of bringing some of the early contact themes forward but they're not having control over what they're learning, right? This is a very big important thing, is that, indigenous communities did not have control over what was being learned. Remember, the goals of those institutions. So, it was, again, it was assimilation of Indians into the body politic of Canada. And in that, in that respect, it was also talked about over time, I should perhaps save this point, but talked about over time as an inferior education to what people were receiving in, in the provincial schools. So, they, they were basically being educated as an underclass. The women were being pre, prepared for domestic labor and many of the men for kind of farm labor and, and, and so forth. Up to, up to half of the day can be spent doing chores that maintain like the, the schools and the farms near schools, and half of the day being academic, math, and reading, and so forth. The other thing is you are now introducing scheduling, and routines, and that kind of discipline of the clock to those young ones and this is a, this is a really a big change, of course, an adjustment to that way of, of thinking about time and its division into these units, and so forth. Because it's so alien in the beginning there is, there are punishments for deviation from the rules. So, it's very rule-bound, time-bound, and if you're breaking these rules of breaking these kinds of notions of respecting the, the time units which is, you know, completely something that you're not, you not raised with up to the age that you're snatched away. And then, you're dropped in here and then, you deviate from that. Corporal punishment was the norm. So, children were beat if they you know, if they deviated from these rules. Some of these rules included not speaking to your siblings, so you can imagine, you're put in this school and the only people there that you know, maybe might be your brother, or your sister, or your cousin, but if you're speaking to them, you'll get punished. And if you're speaking your language, you're punished. And so, the punishments could vary. But, you know, so, so, some of them were beaten in front of everyone else. Somewhere locked in closets so there is this confinement that was often used and there is some reported cases of people who were speaking their language when they were told not to speak their language, having pins inserted into their tongues, so this is really some brutal abuse yes? >> I just heard from other sources that children were deliberately separated so siblings will be separated and sent to different schools and so I'm just wondering at the school where children are deliberately brought there from families that spoke different languages so they couldn't communicate within, between students themselves there? >> I'm not sure how strategic it would be where, where, students were gathered from. I , I think it was often a choice of convenient, in terms of geography. So, people from this region will be brought here. And not, not necessarily that mixing and taking place to make it harder for them to speak to each other. I think they were relying more on the use of English, and just completely eradicating the use of any indigenous language. So, it's not about making it difficult to speak to each other, but just to making it difficult to speak it at all. And this, this also went with ceremonial practice, too if, you know, if a child was smudging on, on the school grounds or was seen to be carrying anything that can be construed as that kind of you know, non-Christian witchcraft kind of thing. Then, they would be punished for that, too. So, there's, there was a, an attack really on language and culture. And that I think is the main thing that indigenous communities found so offensive about residential schooling, the loss of language and culture. And as much as the abuse thing, is something that we all find quite horrible and reprehensible about the residential school period. When lawyers and the government and, and others kind of focus on experiences of abuse, it tends to kind of move away the focus from the, the loss of language and culture, which was the systemic and driving reason behind the schools in the first place. So, in a way, they kind of say what, what's regrettable and what happened there were these individual acts of abuse. So, they kind of individualize rather than take ownership for, as a system for the, for the schools. The acts of abuse and they can kind of say, well, that person, that person, that person engaged in this and that's terrible and we're sorry that it happened. But, you know, until that systematic loss of language and culture piece was acknowledged for, so for many years, it was, it was, it was about kind of shifting the focus and shifting the blame from governments and churches running these things to eradicate language and culture, which is form of genocide to individual acts of abuse, which, you know, they're also problematic, but it, they can shift the blame of it and shift the focus when they do that. So, for many years that was kind of what was problematic about, about the way that the schools were talked about to. Yes? >> How long were the schools run for? >> The last school closed in 1996 but they were being phased out after the, the 60s and 70s. You started to see more residential schools closing or being turned into other uses. In terms of one the earliest ones were, they, they kind of predate Canada's formation. So, we're talking about several generations who, who went through these schools. And it's a pretty recent thing, so we still see the effects intergenerational trauma the kinds of things that were learned in the school, and I'm talking about like the, the hidden curriculum which, you know, the, the abuse that went on, the physical punishments, the lack of physical contact between like, so what happens is that there, there becomes a hole, a void in child rearing and parenting skills. Because if you're primarily raised in these schools and, and you're not learning how to be loved, or how to be hugged and you, when you raise a child, you don't know how to do those things. And so, it, it leads to this kind of problem in the community, of child rearing that, that resembles the kind of relations between teacher and student in the schools. So, that, that's another legacy that we're still dealing with today because, that, we, you know, it takes, it took that many generations for us to get to where, where we are, it's going to take that many to get it back, right? And, so the loss is, is a huge thing.
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ReelRundown
'Once Upon a Time In Hollywood' Review
Royce Proctor
Once Upon a Time In Hollywood is a 2019 comedy-drama film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Produced by Columbia Pictures, Bona Film Group, Heyday Films, Visiona Romantica and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing, it is an international co-production between the United States and the United Kingdom. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie, alongside Emile Hirsch, Margaret Qualley, Timothy Olyphant, Austin Butler, Dakota Fanning, Bruce Dern, and Al Pacino.
Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time In Hollywood visits 1969 Los Angeles, where everything is changing as TV star Rick Dalton and his longtime stunt double Cliff Booth make their way around an industry they hardly recognize anymore. The ninth film from the writer-director features a large ensemble cast and multiple storylines in a tribute to the final moments of Hollywood’s golden age.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is the 9th film by Quentin Tarantino. I was very excited to watch this film mainly because Tarantino is one of my all time favorite directors. I love this man, and I think he's a genius in modern cinema.
With that being said, Once Upon a Time In Hollywood did not disappoint. It's not perfect and it does have some issues, but overall, I loved it. I wouldn't say this is his best film, but it's far from his worst. In a year that's already had its fair share of remakes, reboots, and unneeded sequels, it was a breath of fresh air to see such a original, imaginative, and creative story come to life.
This was a very Tarantino film. The characters were great and the dialogue was perfectly written. When the violence does happen, it is very violent in a beautiful way. The film is filled with random conversations between characters that were great watch. However, some of Tarantino's pitfalls were also here. This film was over 2 hours and 30 minutes long, and some parts did feel dragged out. These parts were entertaining, but they were a little insignificant.
One of my favorite parts of the film was the characters. Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth were both great, and I loved the development they got. I also loved most of the side characters. There's a little girl that stole my heart. I also loved the exaggerated Hollywood stars they had.
This film is a comedy, and I thought it was genuinely funny. Tarantino dedicated entire scenes to tell one joke. Writing wise, I thought it was great. Brad Pitt's Cliff Booth got a lot of great scenes, and comedy wise, he stole the show for me.
One problem I did have with the film was the fact that there wasn't a clear narrative or direction on where the story was going. The story was running without a finish line. When a film is almost three hours long, it starts to feel a little sluggish when you don't know where it's going, and it seems that it doesn't know either.
The second act dragged a little bit. It was still entertaining, but it didn't push the story forward a lot. It's filled with a lot of conversations, people sitting around, Brad Pitt driving, and very Tarantino stuff.
I really enjoyed the ending. It was funny, chaotic, shot fantastically, and very Tarantino. However, as a whole with the rest of the film, I didn't love it. It felt just a little out of place, and didn't feel necessarily earned. It's hard to explain without spoiling the film, but the film put a huge focus on Rick and his stunt double. Sharon Tate only had a few scenes, and she only seemed to be there for the ending. I thought the film would have been better if they went all in with the Manson family, or didn't have them at all. Instead they went neither way, and I didn't love how it ended up.
Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate didn't get a whole lot to do. She felt unimportant to the story, and really didn't have an impact on anything.
Other than that, I thought it was a great film with an ending I both loved and hated. This was a very Tarantino film in the firm of a very funny comedy. It's a long film as to be expected and it did drag a little bit here and there, but I was not disappointed.
The acting was great. Leonardo DiCaprio was fantastic. I thought he gave an Oscar worthy performance. He was an actor playing an actor, and he didn't miss a beat. He nailed the bar scene. I loved the scenes with him and the little girl played by Julia Butters, who did a great job. She really was a breakout star.
However, Brad Pitt stole the show for me. He was great, and this was one of his best roles in a while. I thought he had great chemistry with Leonardo DiCaprio. That handsome but rugged stuntmen really suited Pitt perfectly. I thought he gave an Oscar caliber performance as well. He was also the funniest part of the film.
Margot Robbie also did a solid job in the few scenes she was in. I really wished she had a lot more to do. Al Pacino, Kurt Russell, the late Luke Perry, Dakota Fanning, and many more in this all-star cast all did great. There was never a sour note when it came to acting. I do wish some of the characters would've been given a little more screen time, but other than that everybody did a great job.
The story and plot were both great, but they did miss a few beats.
I loved the first act. The way the characters were introduced, the way old school Hollywood was presented. It was all great.
The second act was the lowest point in the story for me. They introduced certain things, but didn't fully commit to them. The story kinda felt stuck. Tarantino is one of the few people who can get away with having pretty much pointless scenes in terms of moving the story forward, but the second act had a few too many, especially for a near three-hour film.
The third act was great, but as a whole I didn't love the climax.
The story was great, and it was classic Tarantino. I do think things could've been a little better, but overall it was great.
All in all, I loved this film. It's not something I'll be racing to see again, but it had classic written all over it. This isn't Quentin Tarantino's best film, but it's also far from his worst.
This was a nearly three-hour film that slowed down a lot, there wasn't a clear narrative or direction on where the film was going. There are scenes in there that didn't add a ton to the overall story. However, if you like Tarantino films and you understand what is going to be in the film, I think you will have a good time.
The retro Hollywood nostalgia was great, the score and soundtrack was amazing, the acting was on point, and directing wise, it's exactly what I've come to expect from Tarantino.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was a three-hour comedy wrapped up in a love story to old Hollywood featuring the Manson Family from the mastermind that is Quentin Tarantino.
I loved this film.
4 stars for Once Upon a Time In Hollywood
© 2019 Royce Proctor
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Dean Howard
Quentin Tarantino is my favorite director! I cannot wait to see this film! Good review!
5 months ago from Dallas, Texas
@ Michael Truluck
Fully agree. Thanks for the comment.
Very good movie! I thought the movie could have been cut shorter but I had an overall fun time with this film. Keep up the good work!
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A Brief History of the Right of Publicity
Statutes & Interactive Map
Articles and Other Resources
The leading online Right of Publicity resource.
Amicus brief filed in Lohan Grand Theft Auto V suit and some NY observations
January 25, 2018 No Comments »
An appeal brought by Lindsay Lohan against Take-Two Entertainment and Rockstar Games in relation to the Lacey Jonas character in Grand Theft Auto V has inspired an amicus brief, filed last month, in support of the video game companies. I am not commenting on the merits of Lohan’s claim here. I also am not responding to the brief itself, but am just notating a few observations that relate to the New York discussion overall.
The Lohan case is pending in New York. The amicus brief references New York’s right of privacy statute (New York sections 50 & 51) and indicates that New York’s statute helped the court “dodge a bullet” through its narrow right of privacy provisions.
New York’s legislation, as it shapes New York’s position on the right of publicity and its narrow provisions concerning the right of privacy, is hardly a model for right or privacy or right of publicity legislation (not that anyone has called it a model). New York’s Sections 50 and 51 puts New York at odds with almost every state in the U.S. It allows no room for the critical policy reasons behind right of publicity recognition, as distinct from privacy rights. New York’s right of publicity deficiencies, stemming from the 115 year old legislation (though it has been amended a few times) are, in fact, the source of a lot of problems New York is experiencing.
Addressing New York’s 1903 statute, passed in the aftermath of Roberson v. Rochester Folding Box Co., 171 N.Y. 538 (1902), Professor J. Thomas McCarthy in The Rights of Privacy and Publicity, s.6:74 says:
“New York …is part of a tiny and dwindling minority of courts which still rejects any common law rights of privacy. The court refuses to change its 1902 Roberson decision, viewing the common law as a rigid and fixed institution…When the federal courts in New York invited the New York Court of Appeals to join the national trend and recognize some form of common law privacy rights, the invitation was ignored.”
It was New York that gave life to the common law right of publicity in the 1953 case of Haelan V. Topps, 202 F.2d 866, which in turn led to recognition in other states. McCarthy says “But the right of publicity faced a hostile reception in the state courts in the state of its creation. Honored abroad, it was viewed with suspicion in New York.” Clearly, it still is.
In an eye-brow raising abandonment of decades of precedent, the New York Court of Appeals in 1984 abandoned numerous rulings recognizing a common law right of publicity, holding that there is no common law right of publicity in New York and forcing analysis to pass through a statute that was only 36 months out of the 19th Century. Stephano v. News Group Publications, Inc., 64 N.Y.2d 174 (1984). McCarthy says about Stephano: “Erroneously treating the right of publicity as merely a tag-along form of the right of privacy, the court …rejected without serious discussion the concept of a New York common law right of publicity.” A similar ruling in 1993 deepened New York’s slide into the abyss in Howell v. New York Post Co., Inc., 81 N.Y.2d 1145. McCarthy says of the 1993 ruling: “Thus, the highest New York court has abided by its position that all privacy and publicity rights must fit in the 1903 statute. But this makes for a poor fit. The modern right of publicity simply does not fit comfortably in a century-old statute designed for another time and another kind problem.”
The Lohan amicus brief addresses the transformative use test and the predominant purpose test. In other settings, the criticism of these tests sometimes seems to almost include the tacit suggestion that judges are incapable of using discernment and applying the law to challenging facts. To my ears, that sounds like the essence of their calling. Sure, outlier cases exist, and certain fact patterns will present challenging scenarios in which application of one of these tests may seem a bit forced, but every legal test comes with such dynamics. The transformative use test has proven to be an adaptive, functional analysis tool in most instances.
Another recurring theme as it pertains to video game litigation as well as draft legislation is that the discussion of whether video games should receive some degree of exempted status is being presented as a fait accompli. It is as though the discussion point has morphed into an assumption that video games should be treated as categorically protected. A fair amount has been written on this site about video games and the transformative use test (Discussion Brown Keller EA rulings). In most instances, video games go to extraordinary lengths, using cutting edge technology, to ensure nothing about the personality is transformed. Instead, the objective is to represent that person as thoroughly and realistically as possible. Maybe there are instances in which a video game character should not trigger liability, but to move the entire industry into exempted status is more dangerous and unwarranted than dealing with specific cases as they come up. Perhaps there is a reason some of the litigation against video game companies has been successful in the court system?
New York has tried many times to amend its position on the right of publicity but, to date, nothing has changed. It is worth noting that even if the recent legislation under consideration was enacted, New York’s statute would still be among the weakest right of publicity statute in the country. Why isn’t this seen as a success for the opposition? New York may be the center of the universe in many respects, but it certainly is not when it comes to the right of publicity. And while those opposed to New York’s draft legislation foretell of a tidal wave of litigation and an assault on the First Amendment if passed–basically the first two entries in the anti-right of publicity playbook that has been attempted in every jurisdiction since I’ve been paying attention, though it is effective at scaring legislators–they are ignoring the data from many other jurisdictions that disproves such predictions.
I have no objection to debate, analysis and differences of opinion regarding the right of publicity. If the right of publicity is to grow and evolve, the doctrine will survive scrutiny and benefit from fair-minded, level-headed discussion. That said, a conference I recently attended was marked by positions clearly representing the minority viewpoint being presented as the presumptively correct views, as though it was the majority view and supported by case law, statutory authority and scholarship. Much of the conversation was presented in a manner that what New York was considering is unprecedented and radical, which is simply not true and certainly not fair-minded or level-headed.
I recall an argument from a few years ago in which a lobbying organization on behalf of the First Amendment claimed that if that state passed the proposed legislation, libraries would not be able to post a notice that, for example, J.K. Rowling’s new book would be available on a certain date without facing potential litigation from the author. Give me a break.
I’m not sure where the Lohan claim will end up. She probably isn’t the most sympathetic claimant, and I haven’t analyzed the use of the Lacey Jonas character in the game. If she is unequivocally identifiable from the use, especially if the use in context is clearly based on the game player’s awareness of Lohan, then I’d start the conversation assuming she would have the basis of a claim.
Here is a Lexology link with more details on the Lohan amicus brief: amicus brief Lohan
The Right of Publicity resource
Tags: @FaberLaw, amicus brief, common law, expert witness, federal courts, Grand Theft Auto, GTA, GTAV, Haelan, Howell, Lacey Jonas, Lexology, Lindsay Lohan, lobbying, Luminary Group, New York, New York Court of Appeals, New York legislation, professor, Professor McCarthy, publicity rights, right of privacy, Right of Publicity, right of publicity blog, right of publicity information, right of publicity litigation, right of publicity website, RightofPublicity.com, Roberson, Rochester Folding Box, Rockstar Games, section 50 and 51, Stephano, Take Two Entertainment, Take-Two, The Rights of Privacy and Publicity, Topps, valuation, video game character, video game industry
Jason Mraz lawsuit illustrates important takeaways
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This list comes from the Official World IB website:
16 University Scholarships to Share with IB Students
as of March 25, 2015
Finally finished with those university applications? Check out these 16 scholarship opportunities, from across six different countries, for IB students to see if any of your top choice schools are offerings awards.
Planning ahead for next year? Check back periodically for up to date scholarship listings through the year.
The University of Alberta is awarding scholarships for 50 IB Diploma holders from Alberta, entering school in the autumn of 2015. The University of Alberta does not require a scholarship application to be considered, but students must submit their IB exam scores to the university registrar by 1 August 2015 to be considered.
The Singaporean Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) is awarding scholarships to Singaporean nationals and permanent residents planning to begin an undergraduate education in Economics. Scholarships will be awarded to students seeking their economics degrees from top universities in Singapore, the United Kingdom, or the United States. The Ministry of Trade and Industry deadline for applications for the 2015 round of scholarships is 10 days following the release of “A” Level results in March 2015.
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, considers all Diploma holders and candidates for the University entrance Scholarship. Based on exam scores, the award ranges from around HK $10,000 to HK $40,000 (approximately $1000 USD – $5000 USD). No application is required for consideration.
IE University, in Segovia, Spain is awarding four scholarships to IB diploma holders valued at 75% of the cost of tuition. Three of these scholarships are awarded to applicants based in one of three distinct geographic regions, while the fourth is reserved for a student demonstrating financial need.
City University London is awarding merit-based scholarships to outstanding undergraduate freshmen. The Lord Mayor of London Scholarship for Academic Excellence is an award given to outstanding UK and EU incoming freshmen. The value of the scholarships awarded will be based on academic performance and course of study but are valued between £500-£3,000/year.
The University of Reading, in the United Kingdom is offering tuition scholarships for new international undergraduate students with excellent results in the International Baccalaureate. The scholarships are available to students pursing any subject. To be considered, students must hold an admissions offer at the University of Reading. To apply, send a nomination letter from the school/college (at which you are studying for the International Baccalaureate) to the Student Financial Support office outlining your academic and extra-curricular achievements. Applications should be submitted by 29 May 2015.
University of Kent’s academic excellence scholarship offers IBDP students with a combined score of 35 or higher, eligibility for a scholarships of up to £2,000 per year. UK, EU and international applicants beginning their first year of study at University of Kent’s Canterbury or Medway campus are eligible.
The University of Liverpool is providing international students from non-European Union countries the International Baccalaureate Award. Applicants with IB scores totaling 36 or higher in the full IB Diploma will be considered for the £2,500 award.
University of Essex offers consideration to IB students for the International Baccalaureate Excellence Scholarship and is valued at £2,000 for the first year of study. No additional application is required for consideration.
University of Sheffield is providing IB Diploma holders the International Baccalaureate Merit Undergraduate Scholarship. Applicants must be awarded a place to study before being considered for a scholarship. The scholarship is valued at a 50% fee reduction in the cost of tuition. To be considered for the scholarship, students must submit an application for admission at the University of Sheffield by 17 April 2015.
Missouri State University IB Graduates may be eligible for merit-based financial aid. Students applying for admission by mid-January and receiving their IB Diploma will qualify for the Missouri State University Board of Governors scholarship of $5,000 per year ($20,000 over four years). In addition, Missouri State University awards course credits for the completion of IB courses.
Southern Methodist University IB Graduates may be eligible for merit-based financial aid based on their exam score. Upon receipt of your exam results, Southern Methodist University will award varying amounts of financial assistance. Award Amounts: 30-34 $4,000, 35-39 $8,000, 40 and above $12,000. Awards can be combined with other scholarship and grant aid up to the value of tuition.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute will award select IB graduates with an exam score of 40 or greater a minimum of a $20,000 merit scholarship. No additional application is required for consideration.
Northern Arizona University IB Graduates who achieve a minimum score of 24 may be eligible for a $5,000 renewable scholarship through the President’s IB Scholarship.
University of Nebraska-Lincoln offers out of state IB Diploma recipients an opportunity to receive up to $50,000 in scholarships. In addition, all IB Diploma candidates that submit an Informal Personal Statement are eligible for the $1,000 non-renewable IB Nebraska Legends Scholarship.
Western Oregon University IB Diploma recipients with a score of 30 or higher receive both Guaranteed Admission to WOU and the Provost’s Achievement Scholarship, a renewable four-year award of $2,500 per year. Students are required to submit ACT (including writing) or SAT scores for placement purposes.
The University of Rochester will award select IB Diploma graduates with its International Baccalaureate (IB) Scholarship. A minimum score of 5 on higher level examinations allows students to receive course credit.
Other universities in Florida that offer IB-specific scholarships:
University of Tampa – up to $1000 per year
Florida Atlantic University Honors College – up to $6000 per year
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Short Kut – The Con is On July 13, 2009
Tags: 2009, Abhimaan, Akshaye Khanna, Amrita Rao, Anees Bazmee, Anil Kapoor, Anil Kapoor Film Company, Arshad Warsi, Bollywood, Bowfinger, DVD, Film, film industry, Hindi, Katha, Neeraj Vora, Review, Sanjay Dutt, Shankar Ehsaan Loy, Short Kut, Short Kut - The Con is On, Star, The Con is On, Tikku Talsania, Udayananu Tharam
Lately, Neeraj Vora and Anees Bazmee have been behind some blockbuster not-so-funny comedies but both of them coming together for a film did raise my expectations a little – especially given this was produced by Anil Kapoor. The promos also looked very promising and that’s why I picked this over other recent “blockbusters” like New York and Kambakkht Ishq to watch this week.
Yet again, I seemed to have made a wrong choice. I would atleast have been satisfied if this was in the league of the filmmakers’ previous flicks but that’s expecting too much now. Based on the Malayalam hit Udayananu Tharam, Short Kut has an interesting plot – whose basic core is derived from Sai Paranjpye’s “Katha” with a dose of “Bowfinger” towards the end. Shekhar (Akshaye Khanna) is an assistant director who finally completes his script and aspires to start directing. In comes his long time friend Raju (Arshad Warsi) who by any means wants to become a “star”. Raju believes in shortcuts to achieve anything in life and not surprisingly he ends up stealing Shekhar’s script and is catapulted to success. Shekhar is devastated and begins to lose control over his life but finally he gets a chance to redeem himself by directing a new film. The glitch however is that his film would now have to made with Raju.
Beyond the story, almost everything is Short Kut fails miserably. The most irritating aspect of this movie is the supporting cast; even if the movie were a lot more better it still could not have risen above the din created by those obnoxious characters. Their effect also seemed to have rubbed off on seasoned performers like Akshaye Khanna and Arshad Warsi who look quite tired and have great trouble getting their comic timing in place. Amrita Rao and Chunky Pandey don’t impress much either. In fact, the parts which I found funny in the trailers don’t work at all in the actual film.
Anees Bazmee and Neeraj Vora – who seem to love bombarding the message several times that “Shortcuts do not work” need to do some introspection and figure if they haven’t done the same with their own product. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s score doesn’t have any instant chartbusters but for me that was one of the few things which provided some relief in this dreary experience. In line with the film’s message please do refrain from this “Short Kut”.
Slumdog Millionaire January 23, 2009
Tags: 2008, A R Rahman, Academy Award, Anil Kapoor, award favorite, Danny Boyle, Dev Patel, Dharavi, DVD, English, feel good film, Film, Frieda Pinto, Golden Globe, Hindi, Hollywood, India, Irrfan Khan, Jai Ho, Jamal Malik, Latika, Loveleen Tandan, Mahesh Manjrekar, Movie, Mumbai, Oscar, Q & A, Review, Saurabh Shukla, Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Crorepati, Slumdog Millionaire, slums, underdog tale, Vikas Swarup, Who wants to be a millionaire
Ever wondered what an Indian film made by an international filmmaker would look like? Slumdog Millionaire is a great example of just that. The unlikely story of how an uneducated boy from the slums of Mumbai wins big bucks on a television quiz show has all the elements of a feel good Indian film but is made with more finesse and subtlety and without the duets and manipulation. The rags to riches tale with a happy ending (feels a bit like a sports movie) is primarily a love story. An improbable story where circumstances keep the lovers away till the very end should seem very familiar to Indian audiences.
Like its main protagonist, the film was an underdog too and was almost destined to be a straight-to-DVD release but fate had other plans or as Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Millions) will now say “It is written”.
Adapted from Vikas Swarup’s Q & A, the film has an engrossing screenplay by Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day). But it is director Danny Boyle’s brilliance that really sets this film apart. He makes fantastic use of the film’s setting and that is primarily responsible for elevating this film to another level. The non-linear narrative employed is essential to the impact of the film. Boyle acknowledges casting director Loveleen Tandan’s inputs to the project by giving her a co-director credit and I am guessing she had a great influence in helping him achieve his vision along with cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle and editor Chris Dickens. The film does take cinematic liberties and has its share of contrivances and unbelievable coincidences but it works nonetheless.
As is being portrayed by some, there is nothing for Indians to be particularly proud of or ashamed about due to this film. The setting is real but I don’t see everyone watching this film going “Oh! This is how life in India/Mumbai is”. No, surely we understand that films are works of fiction. And I don’t see a need for us to be ashamed of poverty. This film wasn’t made to glorify or debase India or its culture, so where is the need to look for yourself in there. It is a work of fiction and has to be looked at that way. It was after all based on a book written by an Indian author. And Danny Boyle has many more opportunities to show pain and suffering but he chooses not to.
The cast is uniformly good but forget the newcomers Dev Patel and Frieda Pinto. Forget the popular Indian faces like Anil Kapoor and Irrfan Khan. The most impressive performances come from the kids in this film. Kudos to Boyle and Tandan for extracting the performances they manage to get from these kids. Ayush Khedekar, who plays Jamal at his youngest is brilliant and Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail who plays young Salim is also quite good (and both of them apparently live in the slums of Mumbai). They feature in the most memorable scenes in the film including the Amitabh Bachchan autograph scene and the chase scene at the beginning (the slums are beautifully captured in a chase through the gallis reminiscent of Ram Gopal Varma’s films). In comparison, Dev Patel’s Jamal lacks the energy that the kid displays but then I guess it was by design.
The film has already won big at the Golden Globes and is tipped to be a favorite at the Academy Awards. But personally, among the films I’ve seen from 2008, I prefer Wall-E and The Dark Knight (both of which are unfortunately not in the running for the Best Film at the Oscars) over this one.
A R Rahman’s score is splendid but I am a bit surprised by its popularity at the awards (It already won the Golden Globe and has been nominated for the Oscar) because it is louder than the average Hollywood film score (but is still limited when compared to Indian movies and Rahman notes that he had only 17-18 cues compared to a normal figure of about 150). The score works superbly in the film but Rahman surely has composed much better numbers than the catchy Jai Ho which was nominated for Best Original Song at both the Globes and the Oscars. Nevertheless, it is great the his work is being recognized in the West (3 Oscar nominations and a possible win or two ain’t bad).
A lot has been said and written about this film, so a recommendation is unnecessary but I do have a piece of advice. When you go into a movie theater with bloated expectations about a film, it will, more often than not, fall short. So go in with an open mind, understand that this is fiction and prepare to have a good time.
Yuvvraaj November 25, 2008
Tags: 2008, Anil Kapoor, Anjan Shrivastav, AR Rahman, Aushima Sawhney, Autistic character, Betrayal, Bollywood, Boman Irani, Danny, Deven, Dil Ka Rishta, Dost, DVD, Eros Entertainment, family drama, Film, Greed, Gulzar, Gyanesh, Hindi, Hypocrisy, Independent we live, Inspired from Rainman, Kabir Lal, Katrina Kaif, Let the show begin, Mastam Mastam, melodrama, Mithun Chakraborthy, Movie, Mukta Arts, Music Binds Love, musical, Review, Salman Khan, Subhash Ghai, Tu Muskura, United we stand, Yuvvraaj, Zayed Khan
I wish I could exclaim – Subhash Ghai is back! It was my sincere belief that the showman would finally redeem himself with Yuvvraaj. Looks like redemption is another film away. Yuvvraaj is Ghai’s most disappointing film till date – if not his worst (that honor arguably goes to Kisna). A story about estranged brothers coming together would probably not be touched by any director in this day. But given Ghai’s expertise at handling these kind of themes in the past, I was expecting an old school classic from him and since it was also supposed to be an A.R. Rahman “musical”, my expectations soared.
Assuming that the rest of the film stays the same, it still would have made the cut if the director actually delivered a musical as he promised. The first frame of the film opens with Katrina playing the much publicized cello in a grandiose setting. A few other frames featuring people holding/playing musical instruments plus the usual songs are what constitute the “musical” part of this flick. A film like this filled with campy situations and (even more horrible) dialogue almost completely dispenses off with a background score and uses sombre looking sets (despite being opulent) – which undoubtedly gives the impression that this is supposed to be a film to be taken seriously. And this proves disastrous for it as there is no way any sane viewer could do that.
It is all the more surprising because Ghai is one filmmaker who knows (or rather invented in Hindi Cinema) how to incorporate a score to maximum effect. That skill of his was the primary reason his last success Taal survived. Another memorable disaster in this film is the dialogue. If you had seen the dialogue promos you should definitely have noticed Katrina’s “…..woh sirf ek hardcore anti-family man ho sakta hai”. There are equally bad gems like these (if not equally funny) but the pick of the lot is the scene where Salman gives an explanation for Anil’s altruistic actions to a policeman that it’s because he’s not just any other brother but an “Indian Brother”.
Except for Salman Khan and Anil Kapoor who provide the film’s only redeeming moments everyone else is a letdown – thanks to their lame characterizations. Zayed Khan especially needs an acting class. His character seems to have been written as an afterthought just to make it a 3-brother story. The straight from the eighties villains-vamps could have caused further embarrassment if not for their short insignificant parts. For all the talk about Katrina overshadowing everyone else on the posters, she hardly has anything to do. Many reviews have criticized Salman’s performance but I honestly feel that if it weren’t for the lighthearted feel he brings to the proceedings this film would have been unwatchable. Anil Kapoor should have had a longer part to play because it is only when he and Salman are together that the film stops from sinking further. I don’t know if his take on an autistic person is authentic or not but it is highly consistent and in tune with the plot. Mithun also appears in a brief role.
A.R Rahman would be the person to be disappointed the most out of this venture – it is the second time in a row that Ghai has squandered away his tunes. The very popular “Dost” and “Tu Muskura” absolutely make no impression in the movie. It is actually the less publicized “Mastam Mastam” which is the pick of the lot. For once the vibrant choreography does justice to the song. There’s also a short song called “Zindagi” which I liked very much. The climax song “Dil Ka Rishta” doesn’t create much of an impact but a couple of short pieces used from here in other scenes are really good.
Mithun ends the last scene of the film with the adage “Independent we live but United we stand” following which (to my utmost surprise) there was a standing ovation from the audience!!! whatever they were clapping for! As a last ditch attempt the Farah Khan style end credits are brought in but that can’t make you like what came before it. Yuvvraaj could have been a nice old-fashioned campy musical melodrama but is nowhere close. Watch it only if you are a fan of any of the big names associated with this film because even though it was below average I didn’t find it hard to sit through.
Tashan April 27, 2008
Tags: 2008, Aditya Chopra, Akshay Kumar, Anil Kapoor, Bachchan Pandey, Bhaiyyaji, Bollywood, Chaliya, Dil Haara, DVD, Film, Hindi, Ibrahim Ali Khan, Jimmy Cliff, Kareena in bikini, Kareena Kapoor, Manoj Pahwa, Movie, Peter Hein, Pooja Singh, Ranjit Barot, Review, Saif Ali Khan, Tashan, Tashan Mein, the goodluck, the ishtyle, the pharmoola, Vijay Krishna Acharya, Vishal Shekhar, Yash Raj Films, Yashpal Sharma
One of the most awaited films of this year – Tashan is being thrashed all over the place by most critics and audiences. On the face of it, it is yet another of those “guilty pleasure” flicks like Dhoom 2 or Race but rather than trying to pass off its stupidity as intelligence Tashan revels in its dumbness. That’s what probably put off our “high thinking” critics and audiences. Apart from the forced “coolness” at times, I enjoyed Tashan because it was an honest flick which had its intentions clear and doesn’t deviate too far from them.
Jeetendra aka Jimmy Cliff (Saif Ali Khan) is a call center executive who being taken in by the charms of Pooja (Kareena Kapoor) ends up as an English instructor to her boss Bhaiyyaji (Anil Kapoor). Pooja and Jimmy fall in love and now she wants to get away from Bhaiyyaji; for which these two plan to swindle his money. In comes local goon Bachchan Pandey (Akshay Kumar) hired by Bhaiyyaji to trace his money and wipe off Pooja and Jimmy. A few double crossing interspersed with a couple of filmy flashbacks later everyone’s loyalties fall in place.
Writer-Director Vijay Krishna Acharya (who wrote the Dhoom films before) takes an old fashioned revenge drama, gives it a generous Rodriguez/Tarantino coating and a lot of oomph. The end product is far from the perfect blend but it still works. The locales/set design, the styling of the actors and the music/background score dominate every frame and overshadow everything else. There are 2 major action sequences choreographed by Peter Hein but they fail to impress as he mostly lifts those from some of the more prominent South Indian films he has worked for. Interestingly, in a scene when Akshay sends 15-20 men flying around (Tamil-Telugu movie style) half of the audience started clapping. Special mention for Vishal-Shekhar’s rocking score. The theme song “Tashan Mein” which keeps popping up every now and then especially helps when you tend to get restless during the prolonged second half (trimming it definitely would have helped). Rest of the songs are thumping enough and lavishly picturized. Ranjit Barot is credited for the background score and there is one particular short piece which stays with you for quite a while.
But more than anything else what Tashan relies on are the performances of its lead actors. Akshay Kumar gets the most outspoken and in-your-face role and he does full justice to it. His intro was the best of all his scenes. I would say Kareena is really the surprize package because a role like hers comes with a lot of “irritation quotient” attached and in the past she has played parts where she made even normal characters extremely irritating. Somehow this isn’t the case here and she deserves credit for that (and yes…she does don a bikini too!) We don’t need to talk about Anil Kapoor. He’s mastered these supporting roles so well and and more than his crazy Hinglish it is his awestruck reaction to Saif speaking fluent English that is hilarious. Also, he looks great in the “Lakhan” get-up pulling a rickshaw in a few scenes. However, quite a bit of what he speaks is incomprehensible (should probably have been funny if understood) and I wonder how the filmmakers overlooked this aspect. Despite the pre-release hype of having his role being a secret, Saif is the most subdued of them all but nevertheless makes his presence felt.
For me, Tashan came close to the campy B-movie I was waiting Bollywood to make and it kept me smiling most of the time. Go for it only if you can watch it with this perspective.
Race March 22, 2008
Posted by Sai in Hindi, Movies, Reviews.
Tags: 2008, Abbas-Mustan, Akshaye Khanna, Allan Amin, Anil Kapoor, Atif Aslam, Bipasha Basu, Bollywood, DVD, Film, Hindi, Katrina Kaif, Movie, one-upmanship, Pehli Nazar Mein, Pritam, Race, Review, Saif Khan, Sameera Reddy, Sexy Lady, Shiraz Ahmed, step-brother, surprises, the only thing more deadly than passion is betrayal, thriller, Tips Films, twists, Zara Zara Touch Me
Director duo Abbas-Mustan (Baazigar, Khiladi) are famous for their thrillers. With their latest (and biggest) film, they have created a new genre. And I’d like to call this “twister”. Remember, you read the term here first!
Jokes apart, Abbas-Mustan seem to be intent on delivering a blockbuster after their recent flops. Along with writer Shiraz Ahmed (Aitraaz, Humraaz), they fill this film with everything. Stars, style, action, humor, a bit of raunch, sexy girls gyrating to foot-tapping numbers, and most of all – the largest serving ever of twists, turns, surprises and whatever else you want to call them.
Nothing is what it seems in this film. Actually, if you pay close attention, you might be able to guess most of the twists because the directors try their best not to confuse any section of the audience. But that doesn’t necessarily spoil the fun. Because even as you guess it, the surprise is upon you and its time to figure out the next one.
Now, in case you are still wondering, the story and all its glorious twists are pointless. This isn’t something that would happen anywhere else except an Abbas-Mustan film (or its imitations, depending on the success of this film).
The film has star power to bring the audience to the theatres but the acting isn’t special. Anil Kapoor charms his way through the second half and he makes you laugh. Sameera Reddy doesn’t do a bad job with her comic timing as his dumb assistant. Saif Ali Khan and Akshaye Khanna tread familiar terrain (the latter has been in too many Abbas-Mustan films) and don’t do anything different to stand out in particular. Bipasha Basu and Katrina Kaif are passable. Johnny Lever shows up after a long time in one scene.
The film does start off at a slow pace (editor Hussain Burmawala, the brother of the directors, might have been sleeping while editing the first 20 minutes or so) and just when it begins to seem uninteresting, the first surprise spices up things. The dialogue in the first half of this film isn’t impressive. This half lacks humor but the second half fills that void. Pritam provides some hit dance numbers but the theme piece and the romantic Pehli Nazar Mein stand out (and I quite liked the Mujhpe To Jadoo number which wasn’t used in the film). The song visuals aren’t all that impressive and they seem one-dimensional. Allan Amin’s action sequences are good for the most part but a couple of them do fall short. But the action isn’t the prime focus of this film. Remember, this is no Dhoom 2 and anyone who expects it to be might be disappointed.
After reading all this, anyone should be clear that terms like sense or logic do not go well with the description of this film. Questions like “Why did he do that?” and “What was the necessity for that?” are counterintuitive. The number of surprises may numb your senses and vex you. But it can all be fun if you prepare for it. Films like Dhoom 2 and Om Shanti Om are not enjoyed for their stories or realism or character development and neither is this movie. This is an upmarket Abbas-Mustan thriller that has enough masala to go with its shortcomings and it can be a guilty pleasure.
Welcome January 7, 2008
Tags: 2007, Akshay Kumar, Anees Bazmee, Anil Kapoor, Bollywood, comedy, DVD, Feroz Khan, Feroz Nadiadwala, Film, Hindi, Katrina Kaif, Majnu Bhai, Mallika Sherawat, Movie, Nana Patekar, Paresh Rawal, RDX, Review, Uday Shetty, Welcome
Feroz Nadiadwala probably makes his biggest sacrifice with Welcome….(thankfully) he doesn’t incorporate an action sequence in the desert featuring flying mobikes and hummers; also, there isn’t a song featuring Russian belly dancers (somehow compensated with a closely similar item number). Ok….there are some genuinely hillarious moments but otherwise Welcome joins the list of “blockbuster comedies” like Partner and Heyy Babyy which fail mostly in the laughs department.
The plot is inane enough not to merit description but that’s not my complaint if there were enough laughs packed in. Surprisingly, the guys who can be relied on the most like Akshay Kumar and Paresh Rawal get the lamest parts but unfortunately a longer screen time. The trump cards happen to be Anil Kapoor and Nana Patekar who have the ability to bring cheer to your face even with the dumbest of situations. Nana, who showed his lighter side earlier in Bluffmaster does it again with fruitful results. Some of the best gags in the movie are centered around him – the acting/horse-riding sequence was the best. He should seriously look out for more lighter roles like this. But I loved Anil Kapoor’s performance more. He’s done comedies before I liked him here better than his similar previous outings like No Entry or Biwi No 1. Feroz Khan and Mallika Sherawat have much smaller roles and they are adequate for the part.
I don’t know why they needed three music directors (Sajid-Wajid, Himesh Reshammiya and Anand Raaj Anand) to create such a bland score which seriously hampers the movie a lot. I must say the movie would have been much better without those songs. Anees Bazmee’s previous smash hit No Entry was on the whole a better film (though it was mostly a scene to scene remake of the Telugu/Tamil original) than this one…..however this one’s is definitely worth a watch on DVD where you might want to fast forward to the good parts; otherwise nothing really great to look forward to.
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Judge Richard Augustus Peeples
September 22, 2018 at 9:08 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: 1868 Democratic Convention of the First Congressional District of Georgia, Alapaha GA, Albert Converse, Amy Kirby, Ansel A. Parrish, Augustin H. Hansell, B. F. Breedlove, Baker, Benevolence Baptist Church, Benjamin Jones, Berrien County GA, C.C. Varnedoe, Cabin Creek Church, Camilla Massacre, Carrie Peeples, Cedartown GA, Charles B. Peeples, Charles R. Pendleton, Cincinnatus Peeples, Clyattville GA, Company G, Company G Symon's 1st Georgia Reserves, CSS Alabama, Dr. George Lang, Dr. W. F. Munroe, Duncan Lodge, Duncan O'Quin, Elizabeth Lyle Camp, Etta Lee Peeples, Fannie Peeples, G. G. Hammond, Georgia Masonic Life Insurance Company, H. Thompson Peeples, Hall County GA, Henry Burroughs Holliday, Henry C. Peeples, Henry Peeples, Henry Thompson Peeples, HMS Deerhound, J. E. Williams, James Dasher, James Dent, James M. Clap, James McBride, James Oglethorpe Varnedoe, James Preston Dent, John Pendergrass, John Robert Slater, Lewis Strickland, Lowndes County Courthouse, Lowndes County GA, Lucius F. Zeigler, Mary Emma Peeples, McPherson Academy, Melissa Camp Peeples, Mercer Baptist Association, Napoleon Alexander Bailey, Nashville Baptist Church, Nashville GA, P. C. Pendleton, P. H. Murray, Peeples Building, Peeples' Store, Peter Early Love, Philip C. Pendleton, R.A. Peeples & Sons Insurance, Remer Y. Lane, Remerton Young Lane, Richard Alexander Peeples, Richard Augustus Peeples, S. B. Godwin, Sally Peeples, Sarah Jane Camp, Sarah Virginia Dent, Savannah GA, Statenville GA, Stegall Plantation, Stephen Bowen Godwin, Symon's 1st Georgia Reserves, Thomas Crawford, Thomasville GA, USS Kearsage, Valdosta Baptist Church, Valdosta GA, Valdosta Immigration Society, W. H. Briggs, W. Jasper Peeples, Walter Dent Peeples, William Cincinnatus Peeples, William H. Dasher, William Kirkland DeGraffenreid, Young Men's Democratic Clubs
Richard Augustus Peeples (1829-1891)
continued from Richard Augustus Peeples, Clerk of the Berrien Courts.
Richard Augustus Peeples was the seventh son of Henry Peeples. He was born in Hall county, Georgia, September 24th, 1829. He moved with his father, first to Jackson County then to Lowndes County (now Berrien), GA, settling on Flat Creek about 1847 or ’48. His father established a store, the locality hence taking the name of “Peeple’s Store.” and acquired some 1530 acres of land. Henry Peeples was enumerated as the owner of three slaves in the Census of 1850. In 1850, Richard A. Peeples married Sarah J. K. Camp, born July 30, 1830, the younger sister of his brother’s wife. They were married November 7, 1850 in Jackson County. After marriage Richard A. and Sara Jane Peeples located at Milltown in Berrien County, GA where he was engaged in saw-milling for a time. Upon the organization of Berrien county in 1856 Richard A. Peeples was elected to serve as the first Clerk of the courts and moved his residence to Nashville. He was instrumental in the construction of the first school house and the first Baptist church
While serving as Clerk of the Berrien courts, R. A. Peeples undertook the study of law. In 1860, he moved to the new town of Valdosta, purchasing ten acres of land outside the downtown area from James W. Patterson for $300. The census records of 1860 record that Valdosta had a population of approximately 120 whites and 46 blacks at that time. Richard Peeples was the owner of four slaves. His real estate was valued at $2000.00 and personal estate was worth $5,500.00 On being admitted to the bar, he opened an office as one of the first lawyers resident in Valdosta. His law office, and that of William Dasher, were directly across the street from the Lowndes County courthouse. The early years of Valdosta coincided with the War years and, as most of the men were away in Confederate service, the dozen or so commercial and public buildings which had been constructed by 1863 were of rather unsophisticated wood frame construction. J. T. Shelton described the courthouse as “a rough frame building, with a door leading into the court room and another into the small office of the clerk. The interior of the building had plenty of light from its several windows, but not a single coat of paint.”
The children of Richard A Peeples and Sarah Jane Camp were:
Sally Peeples (1850-1938)
Henry C. Peeples (1852-1905)
Charles B. Peeples (1854-1912)
Mary Emma Peeples (1856-1928)
But Sarah J. K. Camp Peeples would not live to see her children grown. She died at the age of thirty-three on July 3, 1863.
Obituary of Sarah Jane Peeples, from the Milledgeville Southern Recorder, July 21, 1863
Milledgeville Southern Recorder
Departed this life, at Valdosta, Lowndes county, on the 2d inst., after a short but painful attack, of a few days, Mrs. SARAH JANE PEEPLES, wife of Richard A. Peeples, Esq., in the thirty-third year of her age.
Beautiful, calm and trusting, passed the years of her earthly pilgrimage; and as quietly and beautifully has passed away, forever, one of the gentle and loved of the earth.
She embraced religion in her fourteenth year and connected herself with the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which she continued an ardent and devoted member up to the period of her departure from this world of trouble; and her death-bed scene was one of those a——— —-nces of the truth of Christian religion, which blesses the dying and reflects back upon the living the subdued, but steady light, which makes glad the heart of the Christian traveler. Husband, children, friends, servants, all were bid adieu, and forever with hopeful trust, and she quietly fell asleep in her Saviour’s arms and gladly exchanged this body of death for robes of light and immortality.
Farewell kindly gentle, and loving daughter, wife, sister, mother, friend. May the strong light of thy truthful, Christian life and womanly virtues long dwell around the vacant hearts and habitation of mourning husband and weeping children. And may the God of all goodness and grace suit this deep and sad bereavement to the increased religious conviction of the stricken ones left behind.
A BROTHER.
Did Sarah J. Peeples die in childbirth? The obituary makes no mention of a pregnancy. But an inscription on her grave marker indicates that she was buried with “little Carrie” – for whom no date of birth or death is given.
Grave of Sarah Jane Camp Peeples and her daughter Caroline “Carrie” Peeples, Sunset Hill Cemetery, Valdosta, GA. Image source: PhillW
In the fall and winter of 1863, when the Berrien Minute Men were with Confederate forces facing the Union Army’s encroachment in Georgia, Valdosta became one of the refugee towns of the South. “As the Union Army advanced in north Georgia and drove toward Atlanta, residents of those areas left their homes,” J. T. Shelton wrote in Pines and Pioneers,
Refugees clogged the railroads to the southward, for those areas were remote from the fighting. Riding in coaches if they could find seats, loading furniture, provisions and families in freight cars if they were fortunate in securing empties, a wave of new residents came into Lowndes county [via the new Atlantic & Gulf Railroad.]…Acting as a real estate agent, lawyer Richard A. Peeples helped many to locate on newly acquired properties. Some newcomers brought their slaves, and they had to find farms large enough to produce food for their laborers. When rations of corn and peas proved insufficient, the slaves ranged through the woods looking for hogs, cattle, even gophers to supplement their diet. Consequently the local people distrusted the imported black men with the strange “primitive” speech, for the south Georgians were not familiar with the coastal dialect. Ultimately, the rice laborers found no place in Lowndes and drifted back to their former homes.
Among those who “refugeed” to Valdosta was Miss Sarah Virginia Dent, of Savannah, whose deceased father was Captain James Preston Dent, and whose brother was serving in the Confederate States Navy aboard the Confederate raider CSS Alabama.
According to A History of Savannah and South Georgia, “During the war between the states he [Richard A. Peeples] commanded a company of Georgia Reserves, being stationed at Savannah until the capture of that city, and then in Columbia, South Carolina. The Mayor of Savannah surrendered the city to Sherman’s army on December 21, 1864; Columbia, SC surrendered February 17, 1865. After the fall of the latter city Richard Peeples was sent home sick, and was unable to rejoin his command before the close of the war.” However, the 1864 census for the re-organization of the Georgia Militia shows Richard A. Peeples claimed an exemption from military service because he was a county tax collector. He was serving as the Enrolling Officer for the militia company in the 663rd Militia District in Lowndes County, at least as late as June 10, 1864. He supplied his own horse and shotgun.
A letter dated May 20, 1864 addressed to Lieutenant R. A. Peeples indicates he was then serving in the Georgia Militia at Savannah, GA and seeking a commission in the Confederate States Army.
Head Qrs Geo Militia
Atlanta May 20, 1864
Lt R A Peeples
Lieut,
In reply to your favor 21st inst the Maj Gen Comndg instructs me to reply that you are granted leave of absence from these Head Quarters until the point of elligibility is decided, & if against your right to hold a Commission in CSA, you will at once report to these Head Qrs. By order Maj Gen Wayne Commng
W K deGraffenreid A Ag
Richard Augustus Peeples, Civil War Letter
Confederate service records show R. A. Peeples was made Captain, Company G, Symon’s 1st Georgia Reserves. He was with the unit for July and August, 1864, as indicated on Company Muster Rolls , and was elected Captain on July 30, 1864. This unit was surrendered with the 6th Regiment Georgia Reserves and were considered prisoners of war after May 10, 1865. He was paroled at Thomasville, GA on May 18, 1865.
About a year after the death of his first wife he [Richard A. Peeples] married Miss Sarah Virginia Dent, of Savannah, who had refugeed to Valdosta, and whose father [Captain James Preston Dent] was largely interested in the shipping interests of that city.[Her father died of cholera on July 3, 1850.] A brother of hers, Capt. James Dent, was in the Confederate service on board the cruiser “Alabama,” and when she was sunk by the [USS] “Kearsage” he jumped overboard and escaped capture by swimming to the British vessel, “Greyhound.” [Deerhound] He died afterward from the exposure and its results.
By this second marriage there were born to him [Richard A. Peeples] two daughters and three sons, all of whom [lived] in Valdosta. -Memoirs of Georgia
The five children of the second marriage were:
Walter Dent Peeples (1864-1926)
Etta Lee Peeples (1865-1921)
Richard Alexander Peeples (1867-1927)
Fannie Peeples (1870-1938)
William Cincinnatus Peeples (1872-1947)
After the war, Richard Peeples made his life in Valdosta.
[He] followed the profession of law in Valdosta with more than usual success, accumulating sufficient to place his large and growing family in easy circumstances. For twelve years he filled the office of city judge, and was one of the influential Democrats and public-spirited citizens of this part of the state. Besides contributing largely, he canvassed the field and raised $2,500.00 to aid in building for the Baptists of Valdosta a house of worship, which was one of the finest in southern Georgia. [He also acted as agent for the church.] Later, he erected, almost unaided, a very neat church building at Clyattville, in Lowndes county. – History of the Baptist Denomination in Georgia
This church was, “The Benevolence Baptist Church …organized about 1865 or 1866, by Judge Peeples, and the first building was located on the Henry Brown place. The church building was moved in 1884 to land given by Mr. Charlie Arnold, four miles north on the old Valdosta-Clyattville road. There were twelve charter members. The first pastor was Judge R. A. Peeples. Others were: Messrs. Dave Evans, Mart Knight, High, Pitt Head, Henry Bryant, W. J. Ballen, Davis, Thrasher, Gus Sellars, S.S. Mathis, E. L. Todd, Roy Powell, Harvey Wages, A.C. Pyle, W.C. Taylor, W. J. Harrell, and Pulian Mattox. -History of Lowndes County, Georgia
These four buildings [McPherson Academy, Nashville Baptist Church, Valdosta Baptist Church, Benevolence Baptist Church] are monuments of his Christian zeal and philanthropy.
In 1867, R.A. Peeples was among a group of white Lowndes citizens wrestling with the new realities of Emancipation. The slave economy of the South was wrecked. J. T. Shelton in Pines and Pioneers observed “In the unsettled conditions of 1865, 1866, and 1867, a grower found it difficult to make cotton; certainly the workers had a hard time finding enough to eat.” Resisting the conditions imposed upon them by Reconstruction the white planters sought alternatives to employing Freedmen. On September 12, 1867 Peeples along with Col W. H. Manning, Henry Burroughs Holliday, Captain John R. Stapler, William Roberts, John Washington Harrell, A. McLeod, Hugh McCauley Coachman, John Charles Wisenbaker, W. Zeigler, Major Philip C. Pendleton, Col. S. W. Baker, James A. Dasher, Sr., David Peter Gibson, James T. Bevill, D. J. Jones, Archibald Averett, Charles Henry Millhouse Howell, J. H. Tillman convened to form the Valdosta Immigration Society. The purpose of this organization was to procure emigrant labor of “the kind wanted”, by sending an agent direct to Europe to obtain them. It was also the emphatic opinion of the meeting that no planter ought to employ a freedman who has been discharged by his employer for misconduct, but that the freedman should have a recommendation from his former employer. Major Pendleton was selected as the agent to make the trip.
In 1867, R. A. Peeples was elected as a director of the Georgia Masonic Life Insurance company.
He was a member of the Democratic Party of Lowndes County. In March, 1868 he was a vice president of the Democratic Convention of the First Congressional District of Georgia, which convened to elect delegates to the national convention in New York.
Following the bombing of a political rally of Freedmen held by congressional candidate J. W. Clift at the Lowndes County courthouse on the evening of Saturday, April 4, 1868, R.A. Peeples chaired a civic meeting condemning the actions of both the bombers and the candidate. This event followed just four days on the Camilla Massacre, where 12 freedmen were murdered in what is generally regarded as the first strike of the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia.
In July, 1868 Richard A. Peeples was a Lowndes County delegate to the Democratic state convention to nominate party candidates for the President of the United States. In late August, 1868, Peeples, Remerton Y. Lane and Iverson Griffin, one of the men who had been implicated in the Clift Bombing at Valdosta in April, were among the organizers of a political rally at Valdosta to be held August 27. The announcement in the Valdosta South Georgia Times read, “there will be a free barbecue at Valdosta. Speakers from a distance may be expected. Let every man, white and colored, turn out.”
At the Democratic Convention of the First Congressional District, held September 16, 1868 at Blackshear, GA, Richard A. Peeples and P.C. Pendleton were delegates from Lowndes County, along with W.H. Dasher, James Dasher, James M. Clap and G.G. Hammond. Benjamin Jones, J. E. Williams and H. T. Peeples were the delegates from Berrien County. Delegates from Appling, Bryan, Chatham, Camden, Charlton, Clinch, Coffee, Liberty, Montgomery, Pierce, Telfair, Laurens, Ware, Wayne, Brooks, Colquitt, Echols, Thomas, and Screven, as well as “colored delegates appointed by Democratic Clubs” were also seated for the convention [The Young Men’s Democratic Clubs were the public political wing of the KKK]. Richard A. Peeples offer a resolution, unanimously adopted, that the purpose of the convention was the nomination of a candidate for Congress in the election to be held March 4, 1869. On the third ballot the convention nominated Augustin H. Hansell as the candidate. The following day, the state House of Representatives in Georgia passed a bill permitting “none but intelligent persons to sit on juries, and exclud[ing] negroes from the jury box.”
Three or four times he [Richard A. Peeples] was elected alderman of Valdosta, and, once, was elected to the mayoralty. At the organization of the County Court of Lowndes county in 1874, he was appointed Judge, and …held the position ever since, having been reappointed once; and his decisions were seldom reversed by higher courts.
He was ordained in 1876, at Statenville, in Echols county, the presbytery consisting of Elders N. A. Bailey, James McBride, E. B. Carroll and R, W. Phillips. He became pastor of the Statenville church, and, afterwards, of the neighboring churches of Macedonia and Bethlehem. He was for three years Chairman of the Sunday-school Committee of the Mercer Association, and through his instrumentality, mainly, the cause of Sunday-schools was greatly promoted in the eastern part of the Association. Indeed, all his time, which could be spared from his judicial duties, was given to this work, into which he entered most enthusiastically, organizing, by his own efforts, not less than eighteen Sunday-schools. Attended by the earnest-minded partner of his life, he would journey from neighborhood to neighborhood in a Jersey spring-wagon, carrying along an elegant parlor organ, advocating the Sunday-school cause, and furnishing such sweet music and singing such beautiful songs, that all hearts were enchanted. Such zeal and capacity could not but succeed.
Mr. Peeples is a man of liberal views, and … a broad and comprehensive mind. His reasoning powers are of a high order, superinduced by an inquiring disposition, and by a habit of analyzing, in detail, every thought and subject presented to him. The creatures of his own brain, as far as such can be the case considering that men are but divine instruments, his sermons are characterized by clearness and independence of thought, rather than by impassioned eloquence. In religion, as well as in the affairs of the world, he thinks and acts for himself, with comparative indifference to the opinions of others, being guided by his own judgment. In his speech and manner he is frank and candid, while deceit is utterly foreign to his nature. Five feet and nine inches high, and weighing one hundred and ninety-six pounds, he is a man of robust constitution, and bids fair for a much longer life of usefulness. – History of the Baptist Denomination in Georgia
In addition to his legal, civic, and religious work, R. A. Peeples was an accomplished farmer and business man.
Valdosta, December 18.
…Judge R. A. Peeples is one of our largest truck farmers. He is now making quite extensive preparations, and will plant next year 130 acres in melons, 10 acres in cucumbers, and about 12 acres in Irish potatoes, besides two acres in cabbages. The Judge has experience in this industry, and your correspondent will have some interesting facts to submit in a few months in regard to the result of his large operations.
His brother, Henry T. Peeples, farmed in Berrien County, GA where he was the largest producer of rice. His nephew, Henry B. Peeples, was one of the early teachers in Berrien County.
About 1885, Judge R. A. Peeples built a brick commercial building at 200 N. Patterson St. to house R.A. Peeples & Sons, which he had established in 1872 as Valdosta’s first insurance company. Today, The main entrance of the Peeples Building faces Patterson Street , but originally the main entrance was on Central Avenue. This building in the 1890s was the home of Dr. W. F. Munroe’s drug store; He had a popular soda fountain and was the first to serve fruit ices. This building now houses Kings Grill.
Judge Richard A. Peeples died on Sunday, July 19, 1891. The Valdosta Times reported his death.
Judge Peeples Dead. He Passed Suddenly Away On Sunday Morning Last. Brief Sketch Of A Remarkable Career. Judge R.A. Peeples is dead!
He was called away suddenly at two o’clock Sunday morning last. Heart disease seems to have been the cause. On Sunday morning the 11th inst., he was suddenly attacked with a very severe pain in the region of the chest. He suffered intensely, and Dr. Lang was sent for, but before he came the trouble passed off, and the judge was riding about town apparently in usual health a few hours after. On the Thursday following, he had another but lighter attack which soon disappeared. On Saturday, in response to a petition from a colored Baptist Church in the lower part of the county, he got into his buggy and drove down to the Stegall Plantation to settle a disturbance in the Church. Mrs. Peeples was uneasy about him, and after failing to dissuade him from going, sent Jim Johnson, a colored employee, after him in a road cart. The Judge went to the colored Church, but began to feel so badly he was unable to assist the colored people, and started on the return home. He told Jim several times to drive faster, that he was feeling very badly. He got home about dark, and when the anxious wife met him at the gate he said he was quite sick. He refused all importunities to send for the doctor, or some of his grown children living in town, saying that he was not near so sick as he had been. He retired but did not seem to sleep well – his wife keeping a lonely vigil, while their two younger children slept unsuspecting, in other rooms.
About two o’clock Mrs. Peeples noticed that he was breathing badly, and at the same instant, she heard him slap his hands together, probably to attract attention, and when she got to his bedside he was speechless. His son Cincinnatus was immediately dispatched for a doctor, but the Judge breathed his last, without a struggle, before the young man reached the front gate. When he died, no one was in the house but Mrs. Peeples and their daughter, Miss Fannie. Kind neighbors and friends soon gathered in and performed such services as they could for the afflicted family.
During Sunday scores of friends and acquaintances called to see for the last time a face and form which had been a prominent figure in this community for thirty odd years. Among them were a large number of our colored people, with whom he was always popular. The funeral services were conducted at the house at 9 o’clock on Monday morning. Rev. P.H. Murray, the Pastor of the Baptist Church, was absent from the city, and couldn’t be reached by a telegram on Sunday; and the Judge’s warm friend, Rev. B.F. Breedlove, Pastor of the Methodist Church, officiated in his stead, assisted by Rev. Mr. Reaves. The earnest and eloquent words of the preacher were brief but impressive. The house and yard and street in front of the house of mourning were filled with sympathizing friends. The active pall bearers were Messrs. C.C. Varnedoe, S.B. Godwin, L.F. Zeigler, J.R. Slater, A.A. Parrish and CR. Pendleton. The honorary pall bearers, Messrs. R.Y. Lane, W.H. Briggs, A. Converse, Thos. Crawford, J.O. Varnedoe and Louis Strickland. The funeral procession was perhaps the largest that ever moved through our streets to the cemetery. According to his frequently expressed desire his remains were laid away with the simplest ceremony, and without display.
Although some of his nine children lived many miles away all were present when this last service for his mortal remains were performed. Judge Peeples would have been 62 years old on the 14th of next September. He was one of the very first settlers in Valdosta, and has always been intimately associated with the growth and prosperity of the town. Once its Mayor, several times an Alderman, and always a public-spirited, hard working citizen, he has done perhaps more than any one man to make Valdosta the town she is to-day. For sixteen years he was Judge of our County Court, and during that long period he made a model Judge. His decisions were appealed to a higher court but seven times, and he was reversed but three. This record of able and eminent service stands without a parallel, perhaps.
Grave of Richard A Peeples, Sunset Cemetery, Valdosta, GA. Image source: Cat.
elated Posts:
Richard Augustus Peeples, Clerk of the Berrien Courts
Rice Production in Wiregrass Georgia
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Chemtrails: The Consequences of Toxic Metals
New Zealand report reveals Chemtrails Linked To Outbreak Of Illnesses
By DR. ILYA PERLINGIERI | THE REAL AGENDA | DECEMBER 25, 2010
For decades, we have known that heavy metals and chemicals can cause grave physical harm. Going back to Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” we have known and been amply warned of the serious consequences of using or being exposed to these poisons in our daily activities. Thousands of these are well-documented carcinogens.
Building on Carson’s ground-breaking research, we also know that certain kinds of chemicals can and do disrupt human [and other animals’] entire immune system. Going back 30 years, researchers were investigating what became known as endocrine [hormone] disrupting chemicals and how they were affecting frogs [who sometimes had five legs or hermaphroditic characteristics], other aquatic animals, and mammals. These animals were the proverbial canaries in the coal mine. In another pioneering book, “Our Stolen Future,” authors Dr. Theo Colburn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers clearly demonstrate that 1 + 1 hormone-disrupting chemicals did not equal 2. Rather, in a nightmare of mathematical proportions, these poisons acted synergistically; and 1+1 could equal up to 1,600 times the original dose. We are also exposed to more than 100,000 chemicals regularly. Most of them have never been tested for human safety. So, almost nothing has been done to reduce human exposure to a myriad of hazardous chemicals. In fact, over the past decade, the Bush administration dismantled many environmental laws in existence for 30 years, to let corporations off the proverbial hook. [Just look at what’s unfolding in the Gulf with the BP oil spill.]
Although this information, on the dangers of hormone disruption, is now more widely available on Internet sites, it still is not well known by the average person who gets news mostly from mainstream media.(1) Most of these highly toxic chemicals are invisible; and, therefore, are easily off our collective radar. With the high stress level created by the deliberately orchestrated financial crisis –where millions have lost their jobs and homes– a degraded/collapsing environment or serious health problems are not priorities –especially, if very little is reported in mainstream news. This disaster scenario is part of the larger picture of what Naomi Klein writes about in her book “The Shock Doctrine.” We have so many major crises, one after another, that it is hard just to keep up with one’s daily routine –let alone have time to read and consider the toxicological health ramifications of massive amounts of thousands of heavy metals and chemicals that have poisoned our entire food chain and, thus, our own supposed “health.” We are at the very top of this wrecked food chain.
Now, however, there is another far more insidious layer of toxicity that is not being addressed at all in any mainstream, corporate-controlled news, and it is affecting our very survival. It is, however, being addressed more and more by independent researchers who have supporting evidence to back up their Internet reports.
For more than a decade, first the United States and then Canada’s citizens have been subjected to a 24/7/365 day aerosol assault over our heads made of a toxic brew of poisonous heavy metals, chemicals, and other dangerous ingredients. None of this was reported by any mainstream media. The US Department of Defense [DOD] and military have been systematically blanketing all our skies with what are known as Chemtrails (also known as Stratospheric Aerosol Geoengineering).(2) These differ vastly from the usual plane contrails that evaporate rather quickly in the sky. Chemtrails do not dissipate. Rather, planes (fitted with special nozzles) release aerosols “lines” in the sky that do not evaporate. Multiple planes are deployed, flying parallel (or often “checkerboard” patterns) overhead; and soon the sky is blanketed with many grayish-white lines [miles and miles long, although this is changing]. At first, these lines are thin; but soon they expand and, in a short time, merge together. Our once-blue sky has vanished and has been replaced by a grayish-white toxic haze that blots out and greatly diminishes our usual sunshine.
Military and commercial planes are involved in more than 60 secret operations. Last year, when I flew across the country, I saw a United Airlines jet (flying below us at about 37,000 feet) spraying a black aerosol that went for miles and miles across the sky. This clandestine program now includes aerosol-spraying planes in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand [all NATO countries]. Hundreds (if not thousands) of people have called and written their public officials to get answers. Replies from US and Canadian officials are not forthcoming; or, if they do reply, queries are dismissed. This remains an ongoing, deliberate cover-up. No one is held accountable, while we continued to be poisoned daily. This is not the first time, however, that citizens are being used as experimental laboratory test subjects. The US government and its military have a very long and sordid history of using us, without informed consent, in this illegal manner. As Carole Pellatt notes:
The U.S. military has been spraying chemical and biological weapons in open air testing over civilian populations since the 1940’s. They are called “vulnerability tests”. This is not a controversial statement. The military has admitted to this practice on many occasions and there’s plenty of documentation from the government to corroborate it. There is also documentation of intentional, experimental releases of radiation on civilian populations. Unfortunately, this information tends to surface long after it could have saved lives, or eased the suffering of victims.(3)
Over the past decade, independent testing of Chemtrails around the country has shown a dangerous, extremely poisonous brew that includes: barium, nano aluminum-coated fiberglass [known as CHAFF], radioactive thorium, cadmium, chromium, nickel, desiccated blood, mold spores, yellow fungal mycotoxins, ethylene dibromide, and polymer fibers. Barium can be compared to the toxicity of arsenic.(4) Barium is known to adversely affect the heart. Aluminum has a history of damaging brain function. Independent researchers and labs continue to show off-the-scale levels of these poisons. A few “anonymous” officials have acknowledged this on-going aerosol spraying.(5)
Numerous tests have been done to verify that these poisons are off the scale in their toxicity. They are documented in our water, in our soil, and in our air. For more than 10 years, researcher Clifford Carnicom has been valiantly and systematically reporting on the various detrimental aspects of these aerosols –and what they are doing to our entire environment, as well as our blood.(6) Various “sky watch” groups also have been carefully documenting and diligently reporting about these daily assaults.(7)
With all these poisons surrounding our every breath, it is not surprising to see a dramatic increase in illnesses. There are numerous reports of the increase in cardiac deaths and upper respiratory illnesses (asthma, chronic bronchitis, lung cancer, and often multiple chronic illnesses). Chemtrails toxicity has already dramatically affected our deteriorating “collective health.” The significant increase in heart disease and various upper respiratory illnesses has been linked to a vast increase in “particulate matter” in our air. This can be seen by some revealing statistics:
1. Coronary heart disease is now the leading cause of death in the US. According to the CDC, in 2006, 631,636 died of heart disease. This means 1 out of every 5 Americans are affected.(8)
In Canada, every seven minutes someone dies of heart disease.(9)
2. Asthma and upper respiratory illnesses. Between 100-150 million people suffer from asthma worldwide. In the US, 16.4 million adults have asthma and 7 million children have it. Chronic bronchitis and emphysema: 9.8 million Americans were diagnosed with chronic bronchitis this past year; for emphysema the figure is 3.8 million.(10) Total: 37 million Americans afflicted.
In Canada, 2.4 million have been diagnosed with asthma.
3. Particulate matter in air pollution. Particulate matter [PM] consists of tiny particles 10 microns or less. [1 micron is about 1/70 the thickness of a single human hair.] These particles can lodge in the deepest part of your lungs; and over a period of time, they can damage lung function. This kind of pollution, that we breathe daily, can and does cause various upper respiratory illnesses, coronary heart disease, and premature aging and death. Particulate matter can also exacerbate any existing illness.(11) Unanswered questions: Does hazardous particulate matter act in synergistic ways in human bodies (as do endocrine disrupting chemicals)? How does PM affect millions who already have multiple chronic illnesses?
Even with the increases in preventable illnesses, the issue that has not been linked or addressed –with what Clifford Carnicom rightly calls “aerosol crimes”– is the deterioration of cognitive function. Our immune system is already under siege daily; and this has resulted in millions (possibly billions) of people with not just one illness, but often multiple ones. The skin, the largest organ in our body, is a permeable membrane. This means that invisible toxins in our air, including Chemtrails and other highly dangerous chemicals, go right into our skin. Poisoned rainwater (or snow touching our skin) does the same thing. When the air we breathe is filled with a dangerous assortment of toxins, with each breath we take, these poisons assault our entire immune system. These poisons also affect our brain and, thus, our cognitive function.
Aluminum is a major component in these aerosols. Although it is our planet’s most abundant metal, our body has no biological need for it. Pesticide Action Network North America [PANNA] lists it as “toxic to humans, including carcinogenicity, reproductive and developmental toxicity, neurotoxicity, and acute toxicity.”(12) Yet, aluminum is commonly used [this is a very short list] in vaccines, deodorants and anti-perspirants, over-the-counter medications, soft drink and beer cans [aluminum leeches from the cans], baking powder, cake mixes, processed cheeses, and other food products and additives.
Over years, aluminum accumulates in the brain, tissues, and to a lesser amount the bones. It causes brain degeneration, dysfunction and damage –due to the blockage and reduced blood flow and oxygen of brain arteries. The brain shrinks, as brain cells die. This causes dementia. Symptoms include: emotional outbursts, paranoia, forgetfulness and memory loss, speech incoherence, irritability, diminished alertness, changes in personality, and poor/bad judgment. All these are on the rise, as more than 4-million Americans are afflicted. Brain deterioration and dementia take decades to cause serious and visible harm.
Eventually, however, dementia is fatal. “Alzheimer’s” is now being used incorrectly as a catch-all term for all kinds of dementia. Just a few days ago, the front page of the New York Times had a headline: “More with Dementia Wander from Home.”(13) People afflicted with, what the Times terms “Alzheimer’s” were interviewed. One person mentioned he “has a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s.” This is patently wrong. Alzheimer’s dementia can only be accurately diagnosed after death when a post-mortem can be done. However, heavy metals poisoning can be diagnosed through lab testing; but this is rarely done for basic check-ups.
What is not addressed in this increase in dementia is the more than 10 years of breathing Chemtrails with nano aluminum-coated fiberglass. Billions of tons have been sprayed on us.
With all these sources of aluminum added to the air we breathe with each breath, the cumulative toxicity is very high. Even in daily events, it is obvious –to anyone who is paying attention– that many people are behaving oddly. While it may be considered “anecdotal” reporting, there are millions of people whose behavior is strange. There have been numerous times in just the past year when I have asked someone a question and received an answer that is totally unrelated. There have been more and more uncontrolled outbursts in public areas: someone “snaps” for no apparent reason. Violence levels are up. Look at all the shootings on school campuses. There are more unexplained auto accidents that never should have happened. In just one day a few weeks ago, I witnessed three traffic accidents that need not have happened. The news is full of these stories.
Add to this already highly toxic body burden is the US military’s use of aluminum in its aerosols. It is used because of its electrical conductivity, durability, and light weight. The US Air Force reported in 1997 that it released “2 million, 6-7 ounce bundles of CHAFF.” These are laid by military aircraft form 15-50 miles in length.(14) Another unanswered question: Why is the USAF not releasing up-to-date figures?
A 2002 report notes that: “over the last 25 years, the US Navy [has released from planes] several hundred thousand pounds of aluminized chaff during flight operations over a training area on the Chesapeake Bay.”(15) If the Navy used hundreds of thousands of pounds in just this small area of the US, what could be extrapolated for the release of possibly billions of tons of nano aluminum by all the military divisions throughout the US and Canada more recently than 2002? CHAFF is being stored that has lead in it. Has that been released, without our knowledge, and added to these aerosols? What enormous, yet invisible, harm has that created for all of us?
Dr. Hildegarde Staninger reported last year that “exposure to aerial emissions of nano composite materials resulted in cholinesterase inhibition.”(16) The human body has three kinds of cholinesterase: for the brain, for plasma (manufactured by the liver), and red blood cells. Some pesticides and nerve gases (such as VX, an organophosphate) inhibit cholinesterase. The chronic inhibition of this enzyme (that normally circulates in red blood cells), caused by the spraying of these Chemtrails aerosols [for weather modification, but also used for mosquito and other insect eradication], causes chronic poisoning. This exposure causes severe neurological disorders, including paralysis in humans.
In a ground-breaking 2003 online essay, Dr. Kaye Kilburn, asks: “Why is Chemical Brain Injury Ignored?”(17) His article lists 13 concealed factors that affect our willingness to believe that dangerous chemicals do affect the brain. They include: 1. “It’s all in your head” [meaning real symptoms are ignored by allopathic medicine].
2. Resistance to vulnerability [individuals, and society collectively, cannot believe the brain is at risk].
3. The acceptance of mind-altering prescription drugs [such as Paxil] that can and do affect the brain [millions are on anti-depressants –what long-term damage does that also do to cognitive thinking?].
4. Chemical brain injury is considered not to be “an imminent threat.”
5. Competition from other serious threats [causing indifference or denial];
6. Delay in acknowledging health risks.
7. Economic interests [delaying tactics by big corporations are well known –delay continues profits and ignores taking responsibility –We are all expendable for corporate profits].
8. The field of neurology has been slow to consider causes [how many independent researchers are left who do not have any ties to the pharmaceutical/chemical companies?].
In all these valuable reasons for not addressing this human crisis, the one that Dr. Kilburn has not addressed directly is the chronic assault of breathing/absorbing these now billions of tons of hazardous aerosolized chemicals and heavy metals over more than a decade without our informed consent. When one does not look for or address primary causes, then other issues can be blamed. This, on top of a government’s silence or refusal to respond and the corporate media’s complicity, make for an extremely dangerous combination that puts us all at grave and daily risk. As brain function is diminished, and other things are blamed for it, any population is easier “to control.”
Dr. Kiburn’s research clearly shows that chemicals do affect and seriously harm the brain [and, thereby, cognitive function]. Chemicals –especially a daily onslaught of toxic chemicals over many years– can damage our ability to think clearly. Even if we find this hard to believe, the evidence is there. Dr. Kilburn has expanded this essay into the first book to research this: “Chemical Brain Injury” (published in 1998). Dr. Kilburn notes:
The brain’s preservation represents the only possibility of survival for mankind. To find in many parts of the country and in many individual patients that its function is eroded seriously by chemicals, chemicals that have been introduced into the environment basically in the last 50 years, is bad news indeed.(18)
It seems almost unbelievable that millions/billions of people could look up at the sky and not notice the dramatic changes that have occurred from what it was, for instance, in the mid-1990s. Then our sky was a gorgeous, deep blue. Clouds were a beautiful assortment of shapes. The sun was glorious. But people under 30, may not have a real sense of recollection about looking up every day and seeing this panoramic magnificence. Most of them are too busy texting or chatting on their cell phones. There are other issues to consider, as well: People are in their own comfort zones; and denial is a very powerful human emotion. In the hustle and bustle (now quite out of hand, for reflective time), how many people look up at the sky? It also takes huge courage, a very deep, internal willingness to examine politically motivated corporate controlled media spin, and search for the real answers. Humans like their regular routines. To re-examine what we think we know, based on new evidence, takes a willingness to think outside the proverbial box; to want to find out the truth –not the pervasive Orwellian doublespeak that pervades our society. If everything in our daily routine belies what is truly going on, it requires fortitude to explore the unknown –to question the litany.
Another courageous person is Dr. R. Michael Castle who continues to address the Chemtrails toxicity issue. He is a noted polymer chemist who has been interviewed frequently and has written articles about the extreme hazards of Chemtrails. Dr. Castle has also written a ground-breaking document, the Universal Atmospheric Preservation Act [UAPA]. This document has been in Congress since 2008; but is tied up in committee. The only way to have this vital piece of legislation passed is to have real congressional representatives actually representing us (instead of the corporate lobbyists). See: http://castleconcepts.informationsolv.com/the-unified-atmospheric-preservation-act.pdf
Given these issues, since our collapsing society has so many different levels of deceit –the financial debacle, the lies and deceit of government and the Federal Reserve blaming people for the housing/mortgage nightmare, the emerging police state, the disasters that envelope our fragile environment– it becomes increasingly difficult just to maintain a daily routine and survive the economic depression and its daily fallout. Mainstream media does its supporting role and deceives us. Millions, like the proverbial lemmings, hasten to join the group demise. There are countless historical instances of this collective insanity. We Homo sapiens [sic, wise men?] have never learned the lessons of 5,000 years of history. This is because each new generation of corrupt political leaders (often tied historically to previous ones) never has the real interest of their constituents as a basic part of their political practice. Further, there is no Precautionary Principle in place.(19) It’s not the way the political game of deception works. Precaution is not part of an equation that is broken from the beginning. Humans are gullible and want to believe the Orwellian deceptions.
To add to this already heavy burden, to ask uninformed, although supposedly “well educated” [What does that actually mean, given that much of our higher education has omitted much of what Prof. Peter Dale Scott calls “deep political events” that never get into our history books?] people to reconsider what they think they know about what is really going on –this takes enormous internal strength. It requires profound courage. The basis of this “courage” actually means creating new synaptical pathways in the brain. Without them, we feel scared, nervous…because those new synapses have not yet been created. It takes repeated effort, and, thus, an emerging sense of ease, to create these new synapses.
If, however, millions of people are already on prescription pharmaceuticals to “calm them down” [long term, what is this doing to their ability to think clearly?] and, in addition, are breathing poisoned air rife with mind-distorting chemicals, then how clearly (if at all) is anyone able to think? How can anyone feel well and safe, if the very air we breathe is deliberately poisoned and is affecting our ability to think cogently? It is already evident that no one in any official capacity is willing to tell the truth. It is like Diogenes, the ancient Greek, searching for a truthful individual. No one seems to have the desire, or courage, or authority to stop this massive poisoning, because it is the secret plan of the elite insiders to deliberate destroy everything we once knew.
Our BASIC human rights, constitutional and international laws are mere paper. These rights and laws have all been torn asunder by those in charge. It has been done by stealth. We must organize peacefully. PEACEFULLY is the operative word. If these many-pronged aerosol attacks by military and commercial planes can spray these horrific toxins on us, year after year with impunity –against all laws– then it is absolutely imperative that we organize peacefully. As Peter Dale Scott notes in Jason Bermas’ new DVD “Invisible Empire”: we must use the Internet and our peaceful intellectual powers to come together and shut this nightmare down. It is possible to do this.
Dr. Ilya Sandra Perlingieri is author of the highly acclaimed book, “The Uterine Crisis.”
Filed under World Tagged with acute toxicity, aerosol assault, affecting survival, aluminum accumulates in the brain, aluminum damages brain function, and bones, and polymer fibers, and poor/bad judgment, australia, barium affects the heart, brain degeneration, bush dismantled environmental laws, Cadmium, carcinogenicity, CHAFF, changes in personality, chemicals, chemicals in soil, chemtrails, chemtrails in North America, chemtrails since 1940's, cholinesterase, cholinesterase inhibition, chromium, citizens used as experimental subjects, clandestine aerosol program, collective health, desiccated blood, deterioration of cognitive function, diminished alertness, emotional outbursts, endocrine disrupting chemicals, ethylene dibromide, europe, exposed to 100000 chemicals, exposure to hazardous chemicals, forgetfulness and memory loss, heavy metals, hemaphroditic characteristics, hormone disruption, human safety, increase cardiac deaths, increase in asthma, inhibition inhibits cholinesterase, invisible toxic chemicals, irritability, metals destroy human immune system, military and commercial planes operations, mind-altering prescription drugs, mold spores, more cancer, more chronic bronchitis, NATO countries, neurotoxicity, new zealand, Nickel, paranoia, physical harm, poisoned rain water, poisonous heavy metals, poisons in water, poisons that cause cancer, radioactive thorium, reproductive and developmental toxicity, speech incoherence, tissues, toxic heavy metals cause dementia, toxic metals in air, upper respiratory diseases, US department of state blamketing skies, yellow fungal mycotoxins
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Romanian Parliamentary Elections Are Over. What's Next?
2 Dec 2008 • 3 min read
[](https://i0.wp.com/www.secareanu.com/content/images/2008/12/ro-elections-realitatea.jpg)
Political Map of Romanian Parliamentary Elections 2008 (image source: www.realitatea.net)
According to the [Central Electoral Bureau](http://www.becparlamentare2008.ro "Central Electoral Bureau"), the final results of the Romanian Parliamentary Elections that took place on November 30, 2008 are the following:
Democrat-Liberal Party (PDL) – 51 senators
Social-Democrat Party & Conservator Party (PSD+PC) – 49 senators
National Liberal Party (PNL) – 28 senators
Democratic Union of Hungarians from Romania (UDMR) – 9 senators
Democrat-Liberal Party (PDL) – 115 deputies
Social-Democrat Party & Conservator Party (PSD+PC) – 114 deputies
National Liberal Party (PNL) – 65 deputies
Democratic Union of Hungarians from Romania (UDMR) – 22 deputies
For the first time in Romania, after 1990, only four major political parties have managed to score enough votes to surpass the 5% treshold that allows them to enter the Parliament, leaving outside a couple of the other smaller, but traditionally present in the Parliament in the previous years, political parties. For the first time, the Romanian population has consolidated the fragmented political arena into four major political forces that actually matter.
A quick look at the numbers tells us that there is no political party or electoral alliance that won a majority in any of the two chambers of the Romanian Parliament. What this means is that in order to ensure a proper governance, two or more of these parties need to form an alliance. While the orientation of the four parties is quite clear (PSD+PC left orientation; PD-L, PNL right orientation; UDMR populist orientation) and in itself suggests a logical alliance, the game is by far not that simple.
In fact, all parties have initiated negotiations among themselves on different fronts. PSD+PC is already negotiating with both PD-L and PNL. In the same time, PD-L is already negotiating with both PNL and PSD+PC, although they declared that they would prefer the logical right oriented alliance to be formed, also having the historical collaboration from the 2004 elections. Back then, the PD-L & PNL alliance won the elections, but broke up because of leadership conflicts after only a year. Ironically, the legal entity that the alliance was in 2004 is not yet dissolved, so it could be used as a vehicle for governance with a minimal effort.
If a right oriented political alliance is formed, the implications on the Romanian economical and business environment are pretty clear. A more liberal government will most likely push for the economic development of the country and the better liberalization of the business environment, sacrificing somehow the population in the short term, but improving its chances for a higher quality of life in the long term.
If a mixed right and left oriented political alliance is formed, the implications on the Romanian direction of development are unclear, to say the least. The alliance, most probably forced by rather personal or leadership affinities than by country needs, will have conflicting ideologies and governance programs that could result in an unclear development path for Romania, if any at all.
There’s also the option of a minority governance of one of the two parties that won most of the places in the Parliament (PD-L most probably, since it’s supported by the President, who is not a fan of any of the Prime Minister options that the other parties are offering), but this governance would be a weak one. Always at the whim of the opposing parties, who could form an opposition majority, the minority governance would most probably be unable to implement any policy that contradicts in a way or another (ideological or personal) the priorities of the opposing parties.
There’s also the option of a national unity governance, where all parties in the Parliament govern together, negotiating among themselves the key positions in the Parliament (head of Senate and head of Chamber of Deputies) and the Ministries. However, based on the affinity (or rather the lack of it) among the four Parliamentary parties, this option is a rather improbable one.
In the end, whichever the result of negotiations are, the impact on the Romanian economic and business environment will probably be a major one that we should be highly aware of and highly attuned at. Personally, I hope that the right oriented parties will reach an agreement and form a governing alliance, because at the moment it looks to be the most logical and most beneficial for Romania at this moment. However, in order to do this, they will need to be able to hold on to the alliance for the entire four years duration of their mandates and not break up in one or two years as they did previously.
(originally published at: blog.ceubusiness.ro)
Quality or quantity? About viewability of online media campaigns
Quantity or Quality? A rant on the current status of online advertising industry in Romania
Sendy: probably the cheapest self-hosted email marketing solution running through Amazon SES
NetCamp 2008 - Conclusions
[](https://i1.wp.com/www.secareanu.com/content/images/2008/11/netcamp-logo.jpg)NetCamp 2008[NetCamp 2008](http://www.netcamp.ro "NetCamp") took place today
Daniel 4 Dec 2008 • 2 min read
On Elections Day, Romanians Chose Realitatea.NET
Realitatea.NET broke all records on November 30, the Romanian Parliamentary Elections Day, being the most visited news website with more than 1.1 million page views, 147,000 visits and over 87,000 unique visitors (according to SATI). The same day represented the
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The Voice of Marlowe's Tamburlaine in Early Shakespeare
Maurice Charney, Rutgers University
I do not presume to unveil the secret of Marlowe's relation to Shakespeare, but the more I study this question the more complex the relation seems to be. In general, Shakespeare goes out of his way to conceal his indebtedness to Marlowe. Shylock in The Merchant of Venice is very differently conceived from Barabas in The Jew of Malta.1 Barabas even begins the play with heroic, vaunting speeches. Richard II is eloquent and poetic, even to a fault, whereas Edward II is rather plain and blunt and just wants to be left alone to enjoy his sodomitical pleasures. Yet both The Merchant of Venice and Richard II are clearly based on Marlowe. The Jew of Malta and Edward II offer models for Shakespeare's plays,2 and in some important sense Marlowe's plays are embedded in Shakespeare's. One can discover residual traces everywhere. Marlowe is hardly a source for Shakespeare, in the sense that Shakespeare repeats verbally his source material, but rather a model.
Charney, Maurice (1997) "The Voice of Marlowe's Tamburlaine in Early Shakespeare," Comparative Drama: Vol. 31 : Iss. 2 , Article 2.
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Researchers map out ice sheets shrinking during Ice Age
A set of maps created by the University of Sheffield have illustrated, for the first time, how our last British ice sheet shrunk during the Ice Age.
Led by Professor Chris Clark from the University’s Department of Geography, a team of experts developed the maps to understand what effect the current shrinking of ice sheets in parts of the Antarctic and Greenland will have on the speed of sea level rise.
The unique maps record the pattern and speed of shrinkage of the large ice sheet that covered the British Isles during the last Ice Age, approximately 20,000 years ago. The sheet, which subsumed most of Britain, Ireland and the North Sea, had an ice volume sufficient to raise global sea level by around 2.5 metres when it melted.
Using the maps, researchers will be able to understand the mechanisms and rate of change of ice sheet retreat, allowing them to make predictions for our polar regions, whose ice sheets appear to be melting as a result of temperature increases in the air and oceans.
The maps are based on new information on glacial landforms, such as moraines and drumlins, which were discovered using new technology such as remote sensing data that is able to image the land surface and seafloor at unprecedented resolutions. Experts combined this new information with that from fieldwork, some of it dating back to the nineteenth century, to produce the final maps of retreat.
It is also possible to use the maps to reveal exactly when land became exposed from beneath the ice and was available for colonisation and use by plants, animals and humans. This provides the opportunity for viewers to pinpoint when their town/region emerged.
Professor Chris Clark, from the University of Sheffield’s Department of Geography, said: “It took us over 10 years to gather all the information in order to produce these maps, and we are delighted with the results, It is great to be able to visualise the ice sheet and notice that retreat speeds up and slows down, and it is vital of course that we learn exactly why. With such understanding we will be able to better predict ice losses in Greenland and Antarctica.
“In our next phase of work we hope to really tighten up on the timing and rates of retreat in more detail, by dropping tethered corers from a ship to extract seafloor sediments that can be radiocarbon dated.”
To receive the paper, published in Quaternary Science Reviews, please contact Shemina Davis, Media Relations Officer, on 0114 2225339 or email shemina.davis@sheffield.ac.uk
For further information please contact: Shemina Davis, Media Relations Officer, on 0114 2225339 or email shemina.davis@sheffield.ac.uk
To view this news release and images online, visit http://www.shef.ac.uk/mediacentre/2011/1842-ice-sheet-age-melt-maps.html
To read other news releases about the University of Sheffield, visit http://www.shef.ac.uk/mediacentre/
Categories Blog Entry, Earth, Energy & Environment Post navigation
Study finds preterm birth clinic attendence leads to major reduction in infant disability
Offspring of female rats given folic acid supplements develop more breast cancer
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Supply Chain Management Research
Andreas Wieland’s supply chain management blog for academics and managers
Archive | Research RSS for this section
in Practice, Research
Personal Predictions for Supply Chain Management in 2020
When I made my predictions last year, the first one being about new technologies, the second one related to our planetary boundaries, I certainly underestimated the pace of these developments.
The first prediction has now already materialized in many companies across the globe. More and more supply chain managers I have talked to have implemented innovative solutions, such as robotic process automation and process mining. What I can also see are more and more business models that rely on machine learning.
The second prediction came true in an oppressive way: Europe was hit by an unprecedented heat wave, Southern Africa by a terrifying drought. The Amazon – on fire. Siberia – on fire. And now? Australia is on fire; it is estimated that, so far, at least 480,000,000 mammals, birds and reptiles were killed. This is not a Mad Max movie; the world is in climate crisis. Political leadership is lacking from some of those countries with the highest per-capita emissions, including the U.S. and, tragically, Australia. What gives hope is the emergence of a global climate movement.
Instead of just repeating my predictions from last year, I would like to recommend three books related to these topics (see link). Visionary companies and courageous supply chain managers don’t look back, they don’t waste time with 20th-century business models. They look forward and are part of an exciting journey that shapes a digital, post-carbon economy. They will turn challenges into first-mover advantages and create great business opportunities. Isn’t this what SCM is all about?
I wish you a good start into the new year!
in Research
CfP: 15th CSCMP European Research Seminar (ERS) on Logistics and SCM
The theme “Rethinking Supply Chains” is aimed at challenging current practices, thinking patterns, and paradigms in supply chain management by fostering forward-thinking discussions. The European Research Seminar (ERS) on Logistics and SCM is a global conference with a European background. It is an interactive conference, which centers on intensive discussion of top quality research and new developments among all participants. ERS welcomes participants from around the globe with its aim to expose and discuss contemporary issues in logistics and supply chain management. It is a platform for intensive interaction both formally in the sessions and informally outside of them. The 15th European Research Seminar (ERS) will be held in Barcelona, Spain, on June 18+19, 2020. We are looking forward to an exciting conference and meeting many of you in Barcelona!
For helpful guidelines please visit: https://www.ers-conference.org/
Carl Marcus Wallenburg (WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management) & Andreas Wieland (Copenhagen Business School), conference co-chairs
Exciting Times Are Ahead
The whole world can see it clearly. A wind of change is currently blowing through the air and the past eventful weeks have almost turned it into a storm: The IPCC published its Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate; world leaders at the Climate Action Summit in New York demonstrated growing recognition that the pace of climate action must be rapidly accelerated; climate activist Greta Thunberg received the Right Livelihood Award “for inspiring and amplifying political demands for urgent climate action reflecting scientific facts”; several million people across the globe joined the Global Climate Strike; Germany followed other countries by introducing a carbon price; and the European Investment Bank decided to divest from fossil fuel projects. It is becoming increasingly clear that the fossil era, which has long shaped the global power structure, is coming to an end. While late movers are now desperately trying to conserve the obsolete fossil solutions of the 20th century with the help of trade barriers, those states relying on green technologies are gaining significant influence. The task of our discipline is now to adapt our theories, methods and practices to this new reality. Exciting times are ahead!
Mapping the Cobalt Supply Chain
Cobalt has become a key commodity for battery-powered vehicles and other electronic products. The Democratic Republic of Congo is the largest producer of cobalt. The so-called “Copperbelt” in the southeastern part of the country hosts most of the cobalt ore, mainly extracted through large-scale industrial mining but also through artisanal and small-scale mining activities by more than 100,000 miners. The sector faces numerous sustainability challenges within local supply chains, such as child work and other human rights violations. The Federal Institute of Geosciences and Natural Resources from Germany has now published a report, titled Mapping of the Artisanal Copper-Cobalt Mining Sector in the Provinces of Haut-Katanga and Lualaba in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which analyzes the cobalt supply chain in the Congo. The focus of the mapping lay on the beginning of the supply chain, i.e. from the cobalt ore to the first domestic sale of production, which is often overlooked by Western consumers and users.
Supply Chains in the Bronze Age
The European car industry has supply chains that criss-cross the English Channel. Therefore, 23 automotive business associations across Europe have now joined forces to caution against a no-deal Brexit. “The UK’s departure from the EU without a deal would trigger a seismic shift in trading conditions, with billions of euros of tariffs threatening to impact consumer choice and affordability on both sides of the Channel,” their joint statement says. However, pan-European supply chains are not a new idea. A research team has now uncovered the geographic origin of archaeological tin artifacts from the Mediterranean. They could demonstrate that tin from Israel, Turkey and Greece originated from tin deposits in Europe. These findings show that even in the Bronze Age, i.e. around 4000 years ago, far-reaching and complex trade routes must have existed between the Eastern Mediterranean and Europe. It is interesting to observe that millenia-old truths have been forgotten by those promoting a no-deal Brexit these days.
Berger, D. et al. (2015). Isotope Systematics and Chemical Composition of Tin Ingots from Mochlos (Crete) and other Late Bronze Age Sites in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea: An Ultimate Key to Tin Provenance? PLoS ONE 14 (6), e0218326. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0218326
in Research, SCM
Supply-chain Trade
Today, I would like to call attention to a highly-cited article by Baldwin & Lopez-Gonzalez, titled Supply-chain Trade: A Portrait of Global Patterns and Several Testable Hypotheses, which was published in The World Economy in 2015. The journal’s perspective – trade policy and other open economy issues – differs from the supply chain management perspective I normally talk about here, which gives this article an interesting complementary perspective. The authors use the term “supply-chain trade” to characterize “complex cross-border flows of goods, know-how, investment, services and people”. They compare two positions: “According to policymakers [supply-chain trade] is transformative; among economists, however, it is typically viewed as trade in goods that happens to be concentrated in parts and components”. Based on two rich datasets, they argue “that the facts are on the side of the policymakers”, as “[f]lourishing supply-chain trade has revolutionised global economic relations and the revolution is still in full swing”. Definitely a good read!
Baldwin, R. & Lopez-Gonzalez, J. (2015). Supply-chain Trade: A Portrait of Global Patterns and Several Testable Hypotheses. The World Economy, 29 (1), 65-83. https://doi.org/10.1111/twec.12189
in Research, SCM, Theory
Issues in Supply Chain Management
Lambert & Cooper’s (2000) paper Issues in Supply Chain Management has certainly been one of the most influential articles of our discipline. Herein, they presented a framework for SCM as well as questions for how it could be implemented. The framework contained a set of cross-functional, cross-organizational business processes that could be used as a way to manage relationships with customers and suppliers. The article continues to be an important cornerstone in research on the topic of integration. Now, more than fifteen years later, Lambert & Enz (2016) present an updated version, Issues in Supply Chain Management: Progress and Potential. Herein, the authors “review the progress that has been made in the development and implementation of the proposed SCM framework since 2000 and identify opportunities for further research”. Interestingly, they have changed their minds about some statements made in the 2000 article, for example that competition is no longer between companies, but between supply chains, which they now argue is not technically correct. The authors also present a revised version of the framework from 2000.
Lambert, D.M. & Cooper, M.C. (2000). Issues in Supply Chain Management. Industrial Marketing Management, 29 (1), 65-83. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0019-8501(99)00113-3
Lambert, D.M. & Enz, M.G. (2016). Issues in Supply Chain Management: Progress and Potential. Industrial Marketing Management, 62, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2016.12.002
21st Century Procurement Skills (Guest Post by Christoph Flöthmann)
Our guest post today comes from Christoph Flöthmann, an expert in strategic and digital procurement, who has recently co-authored a new report.
Digitalization already has a major impact on procurement, as we write in our new report: 21st Century Procurement Skills. Thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA), process-mining tools can be used to reshape and analyze all kinds of processes. Dashboards, governed by analytics bots, help to detect and prevent maverick buying in real-time without any human input. This is ultimately driving procurement effectiveness, efficiency and compliance. However, the digital transformation can only succeed if procurement has bright talents with the right skills in place who steer AI and manage the remaining high-value-adding tasks: First, digital fluency is a new meta-competency that enables managers to reach their targets by being in command of digital tools. Second, the ability for complex and collaborative problem-solving will be key to master the challenges posed by both digitalization and uncertain markets. Because AI and RPA take over tasks that are rather simple and require a low level of human collaboration, the procurement professionals’ scope is about to shift to highly complex and highly collaborative tasks such as developing and approving category strategies. Finally, procurement needs transformational leaders that are able to empower their teams to strive for developing and applying their new skill sets.
Dr. Christoph Flöthmann is a consultant in Roland Berger’s Operations Competence Center. In 2018, he and his project team were finalists at the World Procurement Awards in London for developing and implementing a digital procurement strategy platform. Before becoming a consultant, he completed his Ph.D. at Copenhagen Business School and Kühne Logistics University, specializing in research on competencies and careers in supply chain management.
2018 Impact Factors of SCM Journals
Claviate Analytics have recently published their newest InCites Journal Citation Reports. It is great to see that the 2018 impact factors of all but one journals related to supply chain management have increased again, which highlights the rapidly growing relevance of our discipline. Two journals have an impact factor larger than 7: Journal of Operations Management (7.776; +2.9) and Journal of Supply Chain Management (7.125; +1.0). With an impact factor larger than 5, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management (5.212; +1.0) has now arrived in the first league of management journals. Other SCM-related journals with high impact factors are: Supply Chain Management: An International Journal (4.296; +0.5), Management Science (4.219; +0.7), International Journal of Operations & Production Management (4.111; +1.2), Journal of Business Logistics (3.171; +0.3) and Journal of Purchasing & Supply Management (3.089; −0.6). But there are even more SCM journals with an impact factor around 2: Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (2.667; +0.9), Operations Research (2.604; +0.3), International Journal of Logistics Management (2.226; +0.5), Production and Operations Management (2.171; +0.4) and Decision Sciences (1.960; +0.3). Although the impact factor is certainly an imperfect proxy of a journal’s quality, I can only hope that rather conservative qualitative rankings, such as the ABS-AJG list, the UT Dallas list or the FT50 list, will finally be adapted to this new reality. This step is urgently needed!
The Digital Supply Chain Transformation
“Accelerating technology and automation are resulting in wholesale transformation of the supply chain profession.” This is the key message of EY’s new report, titled Supply Chain: Skills for the Digital Era. It is not long, but definitely a good read. The report states that “[p]rocesses with repeatable elements such as planning, monitoring and forecasting can all be automated and enhanced by robotics, artificial intelligence and advanced analytics”. The authors observe that this leads to a transformation of supply chain management: “Where performance improvement in the past may have focused on the optimisation of individual operational areas, it now needs to harness a broader view that understands, for example, how supply chain impacts on profitability.” The report ends by identifying four future personas for the supply chain, based on their mindset (data-driven vs. vision-led) and style (investigative vs. collaborative): There are technologists, orchestrators, analysts and innovators. Does our research and teaching cover all of them?
Apics Blog
Better Operations
BVL's SCM Blog
café opt
Cottrill Research
Global Supply Chain Blog
Husdal.com
Inventory & Supply Chain Optimization
Jay, Barry, & Chuck's OM Blog
O.R. by the Beach
Purchasing Insight
SCM-blog.de (de)
Supply Chain @ MIT
Supply Chain and Logistics Blog
Supply Chain Matters
Supply Chain View from the Field
Supply Chains Rock
SupplyChainMusings.com
SupplyChainNetwork.com
SupplyChainOpz
sustainSCM
The Freightos Blog
The Logistics Blog by Alan McKinnon
The Operations Room
WFP Logistics Blog
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Home > My offside trap > What do Swansea and Petrolul Ploiesti have in common? Unfortunately, just an idea…
What do Swansea and Petrolul Ploiesti have in common? Unfortunately, just an idea…
April 11, 2012 Radu Baicu Leave a comment Go to comments
David Conn’s excellent piece from The Guardian on the rise of Swansea is definitely worth a read. You can find it here and I will draw now a parallel. Using less words and a large number of spelling and grammar mistakes, I’d like to offer you the story of Petrolul Ploiesti, one I know in detail, as we’re talking about the club from my home town.
It all started years ago, when Liviu Luca, the leader of one of the biggest unions in Romania, got hold of the club without paying a dime, switching one day from sponsor to owner without anyone opposing what seemed like a natural move at that time. It was a good period for Petrolul, who had just won their last domestic trophy, the Romanian Cup. Years went by and during a season that saw the team finish the first half in second place just to give up the fight in the spring, “offering” points to all those in need, it became clear that sporting success is not among the owners’ priorities.
Luca, just like Ninth Floor did with Swansea, publicly asked for 1 US Dollar to give up the club, at a meeting with the local journalists. The owner of a newspaper, now running for mayor in Ploiesti, Iulian Badescu, wrote a letter of intent that very day and presented an official offer. Of course, Luca (who once asked his players to fix a match, having a gun on the table!) was bluffing and the club remained one of the means to use the union’s money in a way that, in the end, got him in trouble with the law… Bad call for Luca, worse for Petrolul, whose fans had to wait for years to see once again a glimmer of hope when another journalist, Dragos Patraru (my cousin and best friend), initiated a local movement called “Petrolul e al nostru” (Petrolul is ours), hoping to get the club back from the current shareholders and offer it back to the city.
Over 15.000 signatures (in a city with a population below 200.000) were raised with the help of enthusiastic fans who took the streets every day for weeks and the Local Council was forced to discuss the possibility of acquiring back the club. Getting together incredibly rich union leaders with desperate for votes and money politicians wasn’t the best idea though, but everyone, including those who supported the movement with their signatures and efforts, refused the suggestion to start from scratch and build a new, solid structure, taking only the club’s name from the current owners and cutting all the other strings. They wanted first division football, as quickly as possible. So, the two parties shook hands and… became best friends.
Just like Swansea, Petrolul can play on a new, modern stadium, thanks to the Local Council.
Three years after that moment, the shareholders are the same, but the money to run the club come from the Local Council. As if this wasn’t enough, the old stadium was replaced by an attractive new arena and offered for free to a private club, completely supported with public funds. Oh, I forgot, the club is in debt – almost 3 million Euros – and the transfer from the current owners to the Local Council cannot be completed until the debt is cleared. The owners don’t want to do it, while the Local Council cannot do it :). Starting from scratch was the best idea, but, hey, Petrolul’s in the top flight, although not for very long, given the current position in the standings…
The yellow and blue outfit, in the current setup and ownership uncertainty, looks once again doomed. The club might avoid relegation, but unless a radical change takes place and a new, solid foundation is laid, will lose the fight with the mediocrity that comes with sheer amateurism. Too bad for the idea and the fans that were the force able to move things, the pressure firmly applied on the politicians who ran the city and Petrolul’s true engine that helped the three times Romanian champions climb back from the third division to the top flight. The supporters who were promised to have a say have been tricked. Those loyal and influential were offered jobs within the club, giving up the idea of having a representative in the club’s board and act like a supervisor for the masses, ensuring nothing that could affect the club’s present and future stays behind closed doors. But who would want that to happen? Not a politician, nor a union leader who’s in serious trouble with the law or the dubious business man who has been trying to control things from a distance in the past couple of months, for the simple reason that he’s already the owner of another Liga I club.
What makes the difference between Petrolul and Swansea? Simple: the Yellow Wolves are still being used by those who run the club, while the Swans are already used to running the club. Who said football is not about the fans anymore?
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Categories: My offside trap Tags: club ownership, football fans in Romania, Liga I Romania, Petrolul Ploiesti, Romanian football, Swansea City
Sven-Goran Eriksson denies any interest in taking over Petrolul Ploiesti « Scouting Romania
Bonetti starts with a useful defeat: Dinamo’s through to the Romanian Cup final! After league leaders CFR, the second placed team, Dinamo, changes the coach!
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Ralph Nader Talks About Single Payer Health Care & New Book “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us”
On Monday, I traveled out to Pittsburgh from my rented townhouse in Canonsburg, PA to hear my civic hero, Ralph Nader, speak about the movement surrounding Single Payer health care and to tout his new book, Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us. It was the first time I ever saw him in person. Nader was speaking at The Joseph-Beth Bookstore in the South Side of Pittsburgh at 3 PM, and he was scheduled to speak to a larger crowd at Point Park University at 6 that evening.
Upon my arrival at the bookstore, there were less than a dozen people awaiting Nader. I overheard one person say that he was currently upstairs talking to the local news. Then, at just around 10 minutes after 3, Ralph was seen coming down the escalator (Joseph-Beth Bookstore is fairly large). Shortly after being introduced by someone (possibly working with the Nader book tour), the crowd in attendance had reached new heights, somewhere between 40 and 50. Most of the seats were filled and a crowd had even assembled behind the rows of seats, standing at attention as Ralph spoke.
Ralph discussed his new book, calling it a “practical utopia,” a phrase that’s been noted by writers that have either reviewed or merely described the book already in recent publications (I.E. The Nation Magazine), but he went further by saying “if you want to get more esoteric, it’s the art of speculation.” The book, “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us” is not quite a novel, but is said to read like one, telling the story of 17, very real, Super-Rich individuals (Warren Buffett, Ted Turner to name a few) who join forces (financially & politically) to bring about radical change in America. Nader explains that as readers, we need to be excited while reading his new book. He talks of the “emulative factor” in regards to the concept that “money raises money.” To clarify, he cited a story involving Ted Turner that actually occurred over a decade ago when Turner pledged to donate 1 billion dollars to United Nations causes. Nader, who has interacted with Turner since then, asked Mr. Turner an important question: What kind of money was raised as a result of his enormous donation? The answer: over 500 million dollars.
The 17, Super-Rich individuals are not random selections. They are all contributors toward what Nader calls “soft philanthropy.” Each person has donated large amounts of cash to different foundations in the past. Jokingly, he says “none of these people are angels, that’s why they were so successful.” Nader’s book aims to successfully transcend the practice of soft philanthropy into something that radically reforms the process of democratic achievements. He firmly believes that if 10 billionaires put a total of 1 billion dollars on the table, we would have Single Payer health care “pushed through by congress in 18 months.” Furthermore, we would have a president who would “sign the bill,” although he “won’t push for it (Single Payer).”
Ralph Nader emits justice and democracy as much as he emits wisdom and a sense of experience. He’s had first hand experience with the corrupt political system in America. He’s paid the price for standing up for what’s right, taking on the two-party system, battled to get on state ballots against tyrannical state governments run by Democrats, all the while sustaining objectivity as his one and only motive, one described by justice. He regrets the fact that there are 2,000 health care lobbyists blocking strong reform of the industry in Washington, D.C., juxtaposed with the complete absence of any Single Payer health care lobbyist in town. With 70 percent of the American population in favor of Single Payer (yet the system remains “off the table” in our congressional forums), Ralph is right when implying that we need to imagine more in order to change our minds about the potential for real reform and progress in society. Citizen groups with a mere 1 million dollar budget cannot compete with multi-billion dollar industries. Documentation of corporate crime, regardless of whether the crime impacts the environment or drains our 401K’s, doesn’t do the work our imaginations are capable of doing.
It’s time we once again work the imaginations that we gradually left behind to enter the “real world.” We can start by bringing more justice to those that oppress us and repress progress, but coin their blatant actions as “reform.” We can vote outside of a two-party system that refuses us a health care system that works and leaves no one behind. We can punish via voting power all those representatives that insist the war in Afghanistan go on. We can improve this country by answering justice’s beckoning call. Like Ralph so eloquently said in the bookstore on East Carson Street, “A country with more justice needs less charity.”
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Craig Ferguson Talks with Larry King About Letterman, New Book, Kilts
Paul Shaffer Guests, Talks About New Book with David Letterman
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French politician
Michel Rocard (French: [miʃɛl ʁɔkaʁ]; 23 August 1930 – 2 July 2016[1]) was a French politician. He was a member of the Socialist Party (PS). He served as Prime Minister under François Mitterrand from 1988 to 1991.[2]
Rocard in 2012
Prime Minister of France
10 May 1988 – 15 May 1991
Édith Cresson
First Secretary of the Socialist Party
Minister of Agriculture
22 March 1983 – 4 April 1985
Pierre Mauroy
Henri Nallet
Minister of Territorial Development
22 May 1981 – 22 March 1983
Fernand Icart
Gaston Defferre
(1930-08-23)23 August 1930
2 July 2016(2016-07-02) (aged 85)
PS (1974-2016)
Other political
PSU (1967-1974)
SFIO (until 1967)
Sciences Po, ÉNA
↑ "French ex-PM Michel Rocard dies aged 85". BBC News. Retrieved 2 July 2016.
↑ "Ils voulaient un patron, pas une coopérative ouvrière", Le Monde, interview with Rocard, 20 March 2007 (French)
Media related to Michel Rocard at Wikimedia Commons
Speech of Michel Rocard denouncing the methods of some who push for software patents in Europe (in French)
(French) Michel Rocard règle ses comptes avec le socialisme à la française (Le Monde).
Retrieved from "https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Michel_Rocard&oldid=6527357"
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Far Above
Every gift makes a difference.
Now more than ever, we need well-trained social workers and social work researchers. Your gift to the School of Social Welfare with help change social work practice and social policy to support greater dignity, respect and empowerment for the people and communities served by the social work profession.
KU School of Social Welfare Dean Michelle Mohr Carney is traveling the country eager to meet and discuss how the KU School of Social Welfare strives to attain its vision "All individuals, families, & communities utilize their power to achieve justice, equity, & well-being." Through education, scholarship and research, the School believes we can transform lives. We can't do it alone. If you believe in this same mission, join us, and together we can change the world!
You can always make a gift of any size here.
Inaugural 24-hour giving campaign One Day. One KU. raises $1,084,062 for the University and $9,845 for the School of Social Welfare
KU held its first One Day. One KU. on February 20, 2018. The University raised $1,084,062 in a 24-hours.
We identified one priority for this year's One Day. One KU. - to grow its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) funds to support activities that the school has identified as social justice initiatives. The money raised this year through ONE DAY. ONE KU. will help launch the school’s first Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Scholars Program, which will support students who take on the extra responsibility to help the school raise awareness, educate our communities and strive to make positive changes in the areas of diversity, equity and inclusion.
Master’s students who are awarded with a $6,000 DEI Fellowship for the year will coordinate the Social Justice Programs in the school and on campus, guide the social justice scholars and collaborate with the school’s DEI coordinator. Bachelor’s students who are awarded a $1,000 scholarship for the semester will be asked to research and present on important social justice topics to the school, KU and our communities. Together, they will come up with unique ways to discuss hard to talk about topics such as hate speech, sexual assault, sexual identity and immigration. These activities are voluntary and not tied to a classroom experience; therefore, the funds they receive will help offset their income that they might have received from part-time employment.
School of Social Welfare has raised $9845 from 34 gifts!! See more about One Day. One KU. here.
NEW DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR - LAURA MEYER
We are pleased to announce that Laura Meyer has been hired as the Development Director, School of Social Welfare and Libraries. Laura was most recently employed as Director of Development and Outreach with Kansas Advocates for Better Care. Prior to that, she served 11 years as a Development Officer and then Director of Development with Unity World Headquarters at Unity Village, MO. In addition to her work in development and non-profit, her prior experience includes working in international marketing for a global retail company. In her free time, Laura enjoys running, hiking, going to live music, and looking after her 3 senior dogs.
“What I love most about the development profession is the incredible people I get to meet and develop relationships with. As a servant of philanthropy, my goal is to give each person an opportunity to make a difference in a way that is meaningful to them, while also benefiting the School of Social Welfare and its students and faculty. Ultimately, I believe that each of us wants to feel like we’ve made a positive impact on someone’s life, and I look forward to meeting many of you and talking about how we can make that happen.”
Laura began on October 10 and can be reached at lmeyer@kuendowment.org or 785-832-7372.
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Emma Entzminger
Name Emma Entzminger
Hometown Victoria, B.C.
Date of Birth January 11, 1996
Primary Position 3rd Base
Secondary Position Infield
Bats Right
Born and raised in Victoria, B.C., Emma Entzminger is in her sixth year as a member of the national team program and her third as a member of the senior team. She competed as part of the Junior Women’s Team at the 2013 WBSC Junior Women’s Softball World Championship in Brampton, and at the same event in 2015 in Oklahoma City. In 2016 she made the jump to the senior team, and was the youngest member of the squad, and she helped Canada to a Bronze medal finish at the 2018 WBSC World Championships in Chiba, Japan. She was named to the roster for the 2019 Pan Am Games in Lima, Peru where she will help Canada to defend its Gold medal from 2015.
Entzminger graduated from San Jose State University in 2018 with a Bachelor’s of Science in Kinesiology. She played four seasons with the Spartans while studying at SJSU, starting in 191 of her 207 games played over that span. Over her career with the Spartans she had a .287 batting average, .434 OBP, 17 doubles, three triples, four home runs and 70 RBIs. She finished at SJSU ranked third all-time in runs scored (142), fourth in walks (85) and OBP (.434).
What Minor Softball Association you grew up playing in? Victoria Devils Fastpitch
What’s your favourite food? Blueberries
What’s your favourite book? Green Eggs and Ham
What’s the best movie you’ve ever watched? The Sandlot
What’s your pre-game ritual? Playing hacky with the hacky crew
What’s your favourite place that softball has taken you? Japan for the 2018 World Championships.
What are your future aspirations? Get my Master’s in physical therapy or go to the academy to become a police officer.
2018 WBSC World Championship – Bronze
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Harriet Wheeler
Vidcap Gallery
Vidcaps
When I first saw Nikka Costa on the Chris Rock Show in November of 2000, she was a complete unknown to me, even though she has been performing since she was a little kid. With a range that goes from Janis Joplin to Chaka Khan, her fusion of funk, R&B and rock makes Nikka Costa an artist to watch.
Kemp Mill Records / 9:30 Club, Washington, D.C. 12/11/01
Sno-Core Icicle Ball – 9:30 Club, Washington, D.C. 3/23/02
It was double-duty for Nikka as she made an in-store appearance in the afternoon and performed later that night at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC. College students and people on their lunch break packed into Kemp Mill Records for Nikka’s 12:30pm in-store. Bridging the gap between musical genres, her appearance attracted both the local urban station and the local alternative station. The 30 minute set included stripped down versions of “Like A Feather,” “So Have I For You,” and “Everybody Got Their Something.” The 5’2″(?) songstress wanted to get a good look at everyone who came to check her out, so she performed her first song while kneeling on a chair. She didn’t sound uncomfortable during the song, but quickly mentioned afterwards that her knees had never hurt so much. She later eased her pain by using a box to give her some more height. Even though Nikka and the band had to tone things down a bit because of the area they were confined to, they sounded extremely tight…and it was only the beginning of what was to come later that night.
Having performed since she was a little kid, it’s evident Nikka felt right at home on stage at the 9:30 Club. Throughout the entire show Nikka interacted with the crowd as if we were all sitting with her in her living room. It was a give and take relationship in the true meaning of the phrase. From throwing a guitar pick into the crowd to taking a CD of a fan’s band, it was hard to tell where the stage ended and the audience started. The show couldn’t have been more intimate. Everyone showed their love for her and she gave it right back, even if it was tough love at times. If there wasn’t enough audience participation she let us know and if there was too much she let us know. A couple of guys at the front of the stage weren’t clapping and Nikka quickly called them on it. On the flip side, bidding the crowd goodbye Nikka sang a soulful song a capella. The crowd felt her so much that some people started clapping along, but Nikka quickly put an end to that. She admitted that ordinarily she would never ask an audience not to clap, but she needed to be in a zone when singing the song and politely asked us to “shut the f*** up” for a bit, which brought laughter out of everyone. Everyone obliged, giving her the total silence she needed to do her thing.
The artist/audience line was so thin that a body-surfing band member was mistaken for an over zealous fan and almost manhandled by a security guard. Nikka had to make security aware that they were grabbing her bass player from the stage. Being quite the diplomat she understood how something like that could happen and thanked security for the job they were doing.
Not only was the show one of the most intimate I’ve ever seen, it was also one of the most energetic I’ve ever seen. Where she keeps so much energy bottled up is a mystery. Accentuated by her signature low riding jeans, she was dancing, gyrating, shaking, bumping and grinding her heart out the entire show (taking the occasional break to slow things down a bit with “Push And Pull” and “Corners Of Your Mind.”) The energy you see in the “Like A Feather” video is the energy you see on stage, and the amazing voice you hear on the CD is the same voice you hear on stage, making you realize how talented she is. Her stage presence is so great, you can’t help but watch in awe. And even when you were able to take your eyes off of her, the band didn’t allow your eyes to rest either. Watching the sax player is a show all in itself. Reminiscent of James Brown, Nikka “gave the band some,” letting each band member jam solo.
Even though it was my first time seeing Nikka in concert, I can’t help but feel that her shows are like snowflakes…no two are alike. Although the set list may stay the same, each night Nikka steps on stage you’re in for something new. To see photos from her Kemp Mill Records appearance as well as her 3/23/02 show in Washington, D.C. as part of the Sno Core Icicle Ball, visit the Photo Page.
Below are just a few pictures of Nikka Costa from various concerts, videos and TV appearances.
Nikka Costa at Roxy
Nikka Costa – Chris Rock Show
Nikka Costa – Gap Commercial
Nikka Costa – Like A Feather
Nikka Costa – MTV News
Nikka Costa – Radio Music Awards
Nikka Costa – Tonight Show
Albums/Singles
This IS NOT a complete discography. This only represents what I own.
can’tneverdidnothin’ (2005)
Till I Get To You
can’tneverdidnothin’
Fooled Ya Baby
I Gotta Know
Swing It Around
Funkier Than A Mosquita’s Tweeter
Happy In The Morning
Hey Love
Fatherless Child
Everybody Got Their Something (2001)
So Have I For You
Everybody Got Their Something
Nikka What?
Hope It Felt Good
Some Kind of Beautiful
Nikka Who?
Push & Pull (also available on the Blow Soundtrack)
Corners Of My Mind
Hilary Duff – Sparks
Miley Cyrus – BB Talk
The Girls @ Hotel Cafe (12/5/2015)
Ariana Grande – Focus
Wet – Deadwater
JoJo – When Love Hurts
Demi Lovato – Cool for the Summer
Leigh Nash @ Hotel Cafe (10/6/2015)
Bishop – Wild Horses
Rose McGowan – RM486
Archives Select Month March 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 June 2015 May 2015 March 2015 February 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 November 2012 October 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 July 2011 June 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009
Concert Photos (86)
Concert Reviews (22)
Vidcaps (144)
adele alexis krauss alex lilly alison goldfrapp alpine anya marina beyonce carrie underwood christina aguilera die antwoord emiliana torrini florence and the machine" goldfrapp greg kurstin harriet wheeler hotel cafe inara george ingrid michaelson janelle monae jennifer lopez jonatha brooke kate earl katy perry kimbra lady gaga lana del rey metric miley cyrus nikka costa obi best paramore phantogram sarah barthel sarah mclachlan sia sleigh bells sophie barker st. vincent taylor swift the bird and the bee the sundays tina dico yolandi visser yuna zero 7
Copyright © 2020 Sirens of Song - All Rights Reserved
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Andrew H. Briggs
Briggs, A. (2009). Cost-minimization analysis. In M. W. Kattan (Ed.), Encyclopedia of medical decision making (pp. 227-227). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi: 10.4135/9781412971980.n66
Briggs, Andrew H. "Cost-Minimization Analysis." In Encyclopedia of Medical Decision Making, edited by Michael W. Kattan, 227. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2009. doi: 10.4135/9781412971980.n66.
Briggs, A 2009, 'Cost-minimization analysis', in Kattan, MW (ed.), Encyclopedia of medical decision making, SAGE Publications, Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 227, viewed 20 January 2020, doi: 10.4135/9781412971980.n66.
Briggs, Andrew H. "Cost-Minimization Analysis." Encyclopedia of Medical Decision Making. Ed. Michael W. Kattan. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2009. 227. SAGE Knowledge. Web. 20 Jan. 2020, doi: 10.4135/9781412971980.n66.
Cost-minimization analysis is a special form of cost-effectiveness analysis where the health outcomes can be considered to be equivalent between two treatment alternatives and therefore the interest is only on which of the two strategies has the lower cost. Cost-minimization analysis appears to have much to commend it: in particular, it embodies an apparently simplified approach to decision making by looking at only the cost side of the equation. However, there are a number of potential pitfalls that exist in terms of the practical use of cost-minimization analysis.
The first of these represents a problem of definition. Many apparent examples of cost-minimization studies fail to present any justification of the [Page 227]equivalence of health outcomes between two treatments and are therefore more accurately described as cost ...
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The Milwaukee Bucks: The NBA’s Team of the Future
Photo Credit: CBS Sports
The 2016-2017 NBA season is in full swing, and we have created a better understanding of the talent in each team and what is to come in the near future for the NBA. Through this, the sudden contenders and future contenders have began to emerge. While I am a strong believer in long term success and less “reacting” in the moment, I have proof that the Milwaukee Bucks will be the best team in basketball a couple of years from now. Obviously, there is more than a few potential picks, so I am going to go through a couple of teams that have hype around them and show why it will not be them. Then I will explain why Milwaukee will be the best 5-6 years from now.
Let’s start out with the Philadelphia 76ers. This team has been one of the worst teams in NBA history over the past three seasons, but is now hyped up to be one of the best teams in basketball in the future. Nerlens Noel is loaded with potential. Joel Embiid is now getting minutes after a terrible injury, but is slated to be the Rookie of the Year this season. Then, the biggest prize of all is Ben Simmons. Coming out of LSU and growing up in Australia, Simmons has had more media around him in his rookie season then almost anyone else. People are already making bets on him being the next LeBron James. Yes, he is drawing comparisons to one of the best players in NBA history.
This team does have some problems. Jahlil Okafor has had loads of aggression problems off the court. At this point, many are speculating Okafor will eventually be a backup to the twin towers of Noel and Embiid. A player of his talent and aggressive mentality is not going to cope well with that in my opinion. It just doesn’t sound like Jahlil Okafor to settle for a backup role given his personality. He will likely spur up chemistry issues and that could begin a downfall in Philadelphia. This hurts to say next, given anyone who reads my past articles knows I am a die-hard 76ers fan, but I do not have any faith in Ben Simmons. He is very talented, but a LeBron-esque player is a lifetime away. I just don’t think a player like him will ever be that good. I know you cannot put 100% of the blame around him, but LSU could not make march madness last season. It may have been a team effort, but the Wolverines also had a player that was supposed to be a lottery pick in the preseason mock draft, Tim Quarterman. Though he also did not live up to expectations, it makes no sense that a future NBA Legend would ever miss a tournament where 64 teams make it. He couldn’t lead his solid team to a better ranking than teams like Middle Tennessee State or Florida Gulf Coast. Yet, he’s supposed to lead the Sixers deep into the playoffs in a much more competitive league? I don’t think so.
Next, we have the Los Angeles Lakers. They beat the Golden State Warriors earlier this year with their young core, and is now seen as a potential dynasty in the making. I would not disagree. They have my personal favorite active player, D’Angelo Russell, at the point guard position. He has a very bright future with his natural talent, handles and work ethic (and let’s not forget the subtle advantage, swagger). Add that in with who I think is going to be the best player coming out of the 2016 draft, Brandon Ingram. He has been drawing comparisons to 2014 MVP Kevin Durant, and I would say they’re accurate. LA does have hurdles to overcome though. Brandon Ingram needs to become tougher in the post. He has one of the lowest body fat percentages in the NBA, and it shows on the floor. In addition, they have a lot of things to work out as far as sharing the ball. I know it worked out this time, but Nick Young, aka “Swaggy P”, stealing the ball from his own teammate so he can take a less quality shot shows the low team chemistry they have. They have to get a lot more flow in their offense and share the ball much more in order to take steps forward. As much as I love Russell as a player, he is a score first point guard that you cannot rely on to create that flow they need to become more successful.
One of the most highly anticipated teams is the Utah Jazz. Many thought this year, Utah would take a step forward. ESPN had them all the way up to a 3 seed in the West at one point in the offseason. Sports Illustrated planned for them to be a 4 seed. Either way (especially given they play in the west, which is still the most dominant conference), Utah was slated to have home court advantage in the first round and potentially make it relatively deep into the postseason. This young core could easily become one of the NBA’s star lineups. I still would not disagree. They have been fighting through multiple injuries and still grinding out tough victories. Once they get Derrick Favors back, Utah should have the firepower to win around 50 games this year. The problem with the Jazz is simple. They are a superstar away from winning a championship. They have all the pieces, they just need someone to give the ball to with the game on the line. They have no one to take charge and win the game whenever needed. At this point, unless they make a trade for a pick, they are too good to pick early in the draft and select a superstar. They would have to sign someone. Not trying to take anything away from Utah, but there is no way any superstar in today’s league that wants to sign and play in such a small market. I just don’t see that happening, so Utah is out of luck.
Finalizing the contestants, we have the Minnesota Timberwolves. They clearly have a ton of high expectations, given they had the #1 pick for two drafts in a row, and have an overload of other young talent around them to pitch in valuable minutes. It seems there is very few possibilities resulting in the Wolves not heading to greatness. Karl-Anthony Towns is already one of the best centers in basketball, and is still in his early 20’s. However, this team has just one big issue. They cannot close out games to save their life. I get this is a young team, but you have got to be kidding me. It seems every night they have a lead, only to give it up. It doesn’t matter how big the lead is. This is a very frightening problem to have to deal with. Given Wiggins, Towns, and LaVine all are statistically stable, it is safe to say they have the foundation for a contender. But this all depends on what happens in the future as far as getting veteran assets.
And finally, the team I believe is best set for the future: The Milwaukee Bucks. They are not many people’s first choice for future dynasties, however they have that kind of vibe to them. To start off, they were the first team to defeat the Golden State Warriors in the 2015-16 season. This Warriors team was 24-0 at the time. I don’t care what anybody says, Golden State wanted to keep their undefeated streak alive. And still, the young Bucks team did it. They also were competitive in their next meeting. Once again, against a pissed off Warriors team that wanted revenge. This was also at Oracle Arena, one of the hardest places to play. As of right now, the Bucks are 15-15. This is a solid record and will be quickly improving. Giannis Antetokounmpo, nicknamed the “Greek Freak”, is quietly becoming one of the best players in basketball. He leads his team in all 5 of the major categories (points, assists, rebounds, steals, and blocks). Put a solid core around him, and they could be great. And this solid core is ready to take the NBA by storm. For starters, whoever is calling Jabari Parker a draft bust needs to slow down and remember this man is only 21 years old. He may not be playing as well as his draft class rival Andrew Wiggins, but he is still scoring 20.3 points per game. This team is filled with young talent and All-Stars in the making. John Henson isn’t bad, Thon Maker has a great future ahead of him, and Greg Monroe still has a chance to be good. This group, all playing around Antetekounmpo, is set to take the NBA by storm, hence why they are the NBA’s team of the future.
Joseph Jensen December 30, 2016 December 30, 2016 2016, 2017, basketball, milwaukee bucks, NBA, potential
One thought on “The Milwaukee Bucks: The NBA’s Team of the Future”
Ethan Jensen (older brother) says:
I take T-Wolves over the Bucks for the future team. Zach Lavigne, Andrew Wiggins, and Karl Towns each are averaging 21 ppg and are 21 years old as well. Those numbers are undeniable. Although the Greak Freak has the most potential to become the biggest super star in the league.
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Cold flu and sinus
Wearables Can Tell When You’re Getting Sick
They helped one researcher predict his own illness
By Alexandra Sifferlin
This article originally appeared on Time.com.
They’re popular, but wearable devices that track exercise or sleep are not always the most accurate predictors of health. Still, researchers see them as promising tools, and in a new study from Stanford University School of Medicine, they found that wearables can potentially let us know when we’re getting sick.
By equipping 60 people with several activity monitors—most people got a Basis smartwatch—the researchers collected close to 2 billion measurements, including heart rate, sleep, fitness, weight, skin temperature and blood oxygen levels. Using this information, they showed it is possible to identify abnormal changes in a person’s typical vital signs, which could signal a change in their health. The findings were published in the journal PLOS Biology.
Study author Michael Snyder, professor and chair of genetics at Stanford, learned that he was getting sick from the feedback he was getting from his own wearable devices. When he was flying to Norway for vacation, Snyder—who was wearing seven biosensors—noticed abnormal changes in his heart rate and blood oxygen levels. When his levels didn’t return to normal, he thought something might be wrong. He soon came down with a fever and was eventually diagnosed with Lyme disease.
“The doctor I visited in Norway was certainly surprised I was following myself that closely,” says Snyder. “I see a world where everyone is wearing these and your smartphone is like your car dashboard: lights go off when things are not quite right, like elevated heart rate or skin temperature.”
The researchers also found that when people had higher heart rates and skin temperatures, they also tended to have higher levels of C-reactive protein in their blood, a marker for inflammation. This can sometimes indicate the presence of disease. If wearables could determine baseline levels for certain health markers, algorithms could be designed to pick up on changes from that baseline—all information that could help reach a diagnosis, the study suggests.
With a few other measurements, algorithms may also be able to predict whether a person is likely to be insulin resistant, which is a precursor for diabetes, the researchers show.
Wearables don’t alert people to meaningful changes in their health yet, but they may in the future. “I see this information getting relayed straight to your doctor’s office,” says Snyder. “Right now, a physician sees you for 15 minutes and takes these measurements in less than a minute—usually when you are anxious, so they are not very accurate.”
If instead a physician could look at how a person’s stats changed over the past few weeks or months, they may be better able to identify any red flags and provide more tailored care.
This Story Originally Appeared On Time
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Vote for The Encore Prize to Help Kids
The winners will let people 50+ make a difference in the lives of youth
By Richard EisenbergMoney & Work EditorAugust 17, 2017
By Richard Eisenberg
Credit: encore.org
Here’s an easy way to help make a difference in the lives of children who need champions: Vote for your favorites among the 15 semi-finalists for The Encore Prize: Generation to Generation Challenge.
Encore.org, a nonprofit dedicated to building a brighter future for future generations, created The Encore Prize (actually, two prizes of $50,000 apiece). The winners will be organizations or individuals with “innovative solutions that utilized experienced talent to serve youth.” It’s part of Encore’s Generation to Generation five-year campaign mobilizing 1 million adults over 50 to help young people thrive.
“What makes children successful in life are many factors, but the most salient is the engagement of a community of caring adults,” said Claas Ehlers, president of Family Promise, a Summit, N.J.-based nonprofit helping families with kids experiencing homelessness and one of the 15 Encore Prize semi-finalists. In his recent TEDx Talk, “How to Live Forever,” Encore.org CEO and founder Marc Freedman ascribed boomers and Gen X’ers making these connections as “the generativity revolution.”
Voting for The Encore Prize Semi-finalists
You have until Aug. 31 to cast your votes among the 15 big ideas. Encore.org is letting people vote for up to five semi-finalists once a day until the deadline. The finalists will be announced Sept. 12 and the Encore prizes — one chosen by the finalists and one awarded by a panel of judges — will be handed out on Oct. 16 in Boston.
“Our 15 semi-finalists represent the diversity and creativity of the ideas we received — from supporting overwhelmed parents as they care for infants to helping young people get into college and find their footing in the world,” said Janet Oh, director of The Encore Prize. “We applaud the passion for intergenerational relationships so clearly evident in all the ideas and are thrilled to shine a light on these social innovators.”
What the Prize Hopefuls Want to Do
Most of the semi-finalists focus on ways older adults can mentor kids, by helping the youngsters chart their careers, get into college or raise their self-esteem. One of them, Journey to Success/Child & Family Service in Ewa Beach, Hawaii, cleverly says it serves “twinkle to wrinkle.” Other semi-finalists want to unleash multigenerational initiatives by teaching kids sports and games (boxing, basketball and chess), financial literacy and reading.
Many of the ideas come from nonprofits, but one bubbled up from a mayor’s office in San Jose and two from colleges — Iowa State University and LaGuardia Community College in New York City.
“We were astounded at the resonance this idea has for such a wide range of organizations and individuals,” said Jim Emerman, executive vice president of Encore.org. The Encore Prize received 181 submissions.
The Encore Prize is funded by The John Templeton Foundation and the MetLife Foundation and has the support of Aging 2.0, IDEO, the MFA in Social Innovation at the School of Visual Arts, the Milken Center on the Future of Aging, the Stanford Center on Longevity and the Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute.
Teaching Financial Literacy to Homeless Kids
As the editor of Next Avenue’s Money & Security channel, I was especially taken by Family Promise’s Encore Prize entry to develop a financial literacy curriculum for children experiencing homelessness. The goal: training and deploying 10,000 encore-stage adults to serve as financial literacy coaches to 15,000 of these kids through Family Promise’s 207 affiliate locations around the country.
This program would be an outgrowth of the financial literacy instruction Family Promise already offers adults. “It’s been incredibly successful and people have said to me, ‘Gee, it would be great to have something for kids,'” said Ehlers.
The coaches wouldn’t need to be financial professionals, Ehlers told me. In fact, he added, those experts might need special training. “They want to talk about Roth IRAs,” Ehlers joked. Family Promise wants to instead teach essentials such as needs vs. wants and math in the real world. The instruction, Ehlers said, might ultimately “blossom into college-prep and workforce prep and life skills.”
The Leading Vote-getters
At the moment, Family Promise is the top vote-getter among the semi-finalists, with 1,181 votes. (You can read about all 15 semi-finalists at The Encore Prize site.) The four contenders right behind Family Promise:
Hire Autism’s plan to match 500 adults 50+ as job advocates for 2,000 young job seekers with autism
Pushy Moms, from LaGuardia Community College, aiming to replicate its program pairing experienced moms over 50 with low-income, first-generation community college students who want to transfer to four-year schools
One Body Collaboratives, of Rockford, Ill., which wants to connect encore-stage adults with local youth and youth-serving organizations to tutor, mentor and provide professional services and transportation to needy kids, ultimately expanding this to 12 cities and serving 14,400 youth
Neighbor Ed/Goodwill Industries of North Central Wisconsin, looking to partner with Boys & Girls Clubs to create 14 “educating neighborhoods” connecting older “block connectors” and “neighbor-teachers” with middle- and high-school kids in its area
“Obviously, we’d like to win,” said Ehlers. “But if we don’t, I won’t be overly disappointed. Every semi-finalist organization is fantastic and they’ve all come up with game-changing proposals.”
In his TEDx talk, Freedman cited developmental psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner’s spot-on quote: “What every kid needs is at least one adult who is irrationally crazy about him or her.” When you vote for Encore Prize semi-finalists, you’ll help find those adults and give kids what they desperately need.
Richard Eisenberg is the Senior Web Editor of the Money & Security and Work & Purpose channels of Next Avenue and Managing Editor for the site. He is the author of How to Avoid a Mid-Life Financial Crisis and has been a personal finance editor at Money, Yahoo, Good Housekeeping, and CBS MoneyWatch.@richeis315
3 Ways You Can Honor People Making a Difference
Purpose Prize Winners: Over 60, But Far From Over
Words of Wisdom to Anyone Eager to Start an Encore Career
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The $65,000 payment and corrective action plan commitments West Georgia Ambulance, Inc. (“West Georgia”) is making to settle Department of Health & Human Services Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) charges it recurrently violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”) Security Rule sends a warning to all oher HIPAA-covered health care providers, health plans, health care clearighouses and their business associates (“covered entities”)maintain and be prepared to defend their own HIPAA compliance under a Resolution Agreement and Corrective Action Plan (“Resolution Agreement”) OCR announced on December 30, 2019.
The Resolution Agreement resolves charges resulting from an OCR investigation initiated in response to a HIPAA breach report the Georgia based ambulance company filed in 2013 in which the company, which provides emergency and non-emergency ambulance services in Carroll County, Georgia, disclosed the loss of an unencrypted laptop containing the protected health information (PHI) of 500 individuals. The breach occurred when an unencrypted laptop fell off the back bumper of an ambulance. The laptop was not recovered. West Georgia reported that exactly 500 individuals were affected by the breach.
In the course of its investigation of the breach report, OCR’s investigation uncovered long-standing noncompliance with the HIPAA Rules, including failures to conduct a risk analysis, provide a security awareness and training program, and implement HIPAA Security Rule policies and procedures. Specifically, the Resolution Agreement states that West Georgia:
Did not conduct an accurate and thorough risk analysis of the potential risks and vulnerabilities to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of all of its ePHI. See 45 C.F.R. § 164.308(a)(1)(ii)(A);
Failed to have a HIPAA security training program, and failed to provide security training to its employees. See 45 C.F.R. § 164.308(a)(5);
Failed to implement Security Rule policies or procedures. See 45 C.F.R. § 164.316; and
Despite OCR’s investigation and technical assistance, “did not take meaningful steps to address their systemic failures.”
To resolve its exposure to the substantially higher civil monetary penalties that OCR could impose for violations of this nature, West Georgia agreed to pay a $65,000 resolution payment to OCR and implement and comply with a corrective action plan that in addition to requiring West Georgia to correct the compliance deficiencies, also subjects West Georgia to two years of OCR monitoring and oversight.
The Resolution Agreement and corrective action plan carry a number of important messages for other health care providers and other Covered Entities. First, the OCR enforcement action against West Georgia coming at the end of yet another heavy HIPAA enforcement year by OCR reminds Covered Entities that OCR is serious about HIPAA enforcement on the heels of its 2018 HIPAA record setting collection of $28.7 million in civil monetary penalties and resolution payments including the single largest individual HIPAA settlement in history of $16 million with Anthem, Inc. See OCR Concludes 2018 with All-Time Record Year for HIPAA Enforcement. While not topping this record, OCR during 2019 now has collected civil monetary penalties and resolution payments totaling more than $15 million from HIPAA Covered Entities and their business associates including:
A $3 Million Resolution Payment from Cottage Health;
A $3 Million Resolution Payment From A Tennessee Diagnostic Medical Imaging Services Company;
A $100,000 Resolution Payment From An Indiana Medical Records Service Business Associate;
A $85,000 Settlement PaymentFrom Bayfront Health St. Petersburg For Failing To Provide PHI Access;
A $10,000 Settlement Payment From A Dental Practice For Wrongful Social Media Disclosures Of PHI; –
A $2.15 Million Civil Money Penalty From Jackson Health System for Systemic HIPAA Violations
A $3 Million Settlement Payment From University of Rochester Medical Center For Failing To Encrypt Laptops
A $1.6 Million Civil Money Penalty From Texas Health and Human Services Commission For Long-Standing and Wide Reaching HIPAA Noncompliance;
A $2.175 Settlement Payment From Sentara Hospitals For Violating The Breach Notification Rules; and
A $85,000 Settlement Payment From Primary Care Provider Korunda Medical, LLC For Not Providing PHI Access
Second, the Resolution Agreement and various other smaller settlements during the year show HIPAA compliance and enforcement is a concern for smaller provideres and other covered entities, not juswt the huge ones. While the $65,000 settlement payment required by the Resolution Agreement is substantially smaller than the amounts of the civil monetary penalties and many of resolution payments OCR collected in its other 2019 enforcement actions, the West Georgia and other 2019 enforcement actions demonstrate the teeth behind the warning in the OCR Press Release announcing the West Georgia Resolution Agreement from OCR Director Roger Severino that“All providers, large and small, need to take their HIPAA obligations seriously.” With OCR promises to keep up its vigorous investigation and enforcement of the HIPAA requirements, every Covered Entity and business associate should take the necessary steps to verify and maintain their HIPAA compliance and to be prepared to defend their compliance under the Privacy, Security, Breach Notification and HIPAA access and other individual rights mandates of HIPAA.
Third, OCR’s statement in the Resolution Agreement about the failure by West Georgia to meaningfully act to correct compliance deficiencies and cooperate in other corrective action during the period following the breach report highlights the importance for covered entities involved in a breach or other dealings with OCR on a potential compliance concern to behave appropriately to express and exhibit the necessary concern OCR expects regarding the compliance issue to position themselves to request and receive the clemency OCR is empowered under HIPAA to extend when deciding the sanctions for any noncompliance.
Of course meeting the requirements of HIPAA is not the only concern that covered entities should consider as they review and tightened their HIPAA and other privacy and data security procedures. Health care providers and other covered entities also should keep in mind their other obligations to protect patient and other confidential information under other federal laws, the requirements of which also are ever-evolving. For instance, on January 1, 2020 Texas providers like other Texas businesses will become subject to a shortened deadline for providing notice of data breaches under a new law enacted by the Texas Legislature in its last session. Arrangements should be designed to fulfill all of these requirements as well as any ethical or contractual.
Covered entities also should keep in mind that violations of HIPAA can have implications well beyond HIPAA.ramifications beyond HIPAA itself. For instance, heath care providers can face disqualification from federal program participation, licensing and ethics discipline and other professional consequences. Health plans and their fiduciaries also may face Department of Labor and other fiduciary claims, while insurers can face licensing and other regulatory consequences.
We hope this update is helpful. For more information about this or other labor and employment developments, please contact the author Cynthia Marcotte Stamer via e-mail or via telephone at (214) 452 -8297.
Solutions Law Press, Inc. invites you receive future updates by registering on our Solutions Law Press, Inc. Website and participating and contributing to the discussions in our Solutions Law Press, Inc. LinkedIn SLP Health Care Risk Management & Operations Group, HR & Benefits Update Compliance Group, and/or Coalition for Responsible Health Care Policy.
Scribe for the ABA JCEB Annual Agency Meeting with the Department of Health & Human Services Office of Civil Rights, Vice Chair of the ABA International Section Life Sciences Committee, past Chair of the ABA Health Law Section Managed Care & Insurance Interest Group and the ABA RPTE Employee Benefits & Other Compensation Group, Ms. Stamer has extensive legal, operational, and public policy experience advising and representing health care, health care and other entities about HIPAA and other privacy, data security, confidentiality and other matters.
Ms. Stamer’s work throughout her 30 plus year career has focused heavily on working with health care and managed care, health and other employee benefit plan, insurance and financial services, public and private primary, secondary, and other educational institutions, and other public and private organizations and their technology, data, and other service providers and advisors domestically and internationally with legal and operational compliance and risk management, performance and workforce management, regulatory and public policy and other legal and operational concerns. As a part of this work, she has recurrently worked extensively with public school districts and public and private primary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, academic medical, and other educational institutions, insured and self-insured health plans; domestic and international hospitals, health care systems, clinics, skilled nursing, long term care, rehabilitation and other health care providers and facilities; medical staff, accreditation, peer review and quality committees and organizations; billing, utilization management, management services organizations, group purchasing organizations; pharmaceutical, pharmacy, and prescription benefit management and organizations; consultants; investors; EMR, claims, payroll and other technology, billing and reimbursement and other services and product vendors; products and solutions consultants and developers; investors; managed care organizations, employers; and federal and state legislative, regulatory, investigatory and enforcement bodies and agencies on health care, education, and other data privacy, security, use, protection and disclosure; disability and other educational rights; workforce, and a host of other risk management and compliance concerns.
Ms. Stamer is most widely recognized for her decades-long leading edge work, scholarship and thought leadership on health and other privacy and data security and other health industry legal, public policy and operational concerns. This involvement encompasses helping health care systems and organizations, group and individual health care providers, health plans and insurers, health IT, life sciences and other health industry clients prevent, investigate, manage and resolve sexual assault, abuse, harassment and other organizational, provider and employee misconduct and other performance and behavior; manage Section 1557, Civil Rights Act and other discrimination and accommodation, and other regulatory, contractual and other compliance; vendors and suppliers; contracting and other terms of participation, medical billing, reimbursement, claims administration and coordination, Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, Medicare/Medicaid Advantage, ERISA and other payers and other provider-payer relations, contracting, compliance and enforcement; Form 990 and other nonprofit and tax-exemption; fundraising, investors, joint venture, and other business partners; quality and other performance measurement, management, discipline and reporting; physician and other workforce recruiting, performance management, peer review and other investigations and discipline, wage and hour, payroll, gain-sharing and other pay-for performance and other compensation, training, outsourcing and other human resources and workforce matters; board, medical staff and other governance; strategic planning, process and quality improvement; meaningful use, EMR, HIPAA and other technology, data security and breach and other health IT and data; STARK, ant kickback, insurance, and other fraud prevention, investigation, defense and enforcement; audits, investigations, and enforcement actions; trade secrets and other intellectual property; crisis preparedness and response; internal, government and third-party licensure, credentialing, accreditation, HCQIA and other peer review and quality reporting, audits, investigations, enforcement and defense; patient relations and care; internal controls and regulatory compliance; payer-provider, provider-provider, vendor, patient, governmental and community relations; facilities, practice, products and other sales, mergers, acquisitions and other business and commercial transactions; government procurement and contracting; grants; tax-exemption and not-for-profit; privacy and data security; training; risk and change management; regulatory affairs and public policy; process, product and service improvement, development and innovation, and other legal and operational compliance and risk management, government and regulatory affairs and operations concerns. to establish, administer and defend workforce and staffing, quality, and other compliance, risk management and operational practices, policies and actions; comply with requirements; investigate and respond to Board of Medicine, Health, Nursing, Pharmacy, Chiropractic, and other licensing agencies, Department of Aging & Disability, FDA, Drug Enforcement Agency, OCR Privacy and Civil Rights, Department of Labor, IRS, HHS, DOD, FTC, SEC, CDC and other public health, Department of Justice and state attorneys’ general and other federal and state agencies; JCHO and other accreditation and quality organizations; private litigation and other federal and state health care industry actions: regulatory and public policy advocacy; training and discipline; enforcement; and other strategic and operational concerns.
Author of leading works on HIPAA and a multitude of other health care, health plan and other health industry matters, the American Bar Association (ABA) International Section Life Sciences Committee Vice Chair, a Scribe for the ABA Joint Committee on Employee Benefits (JCEB) Annual OCR Agency Meeting and a former Council Representative, Past Chair of the ABA Managed Care & Insurance Interest Group, former Vice President and Executive Director of the North Texas Health Care Compliance Professionals Association, past Board President of Richardson Development Center (now Warren Center) for Children Early Childhood Intervention Agency, past North Texas United Way Long Range Planning Committee Member, and past Board Member and Compliance Chair of the National Kidney Foundation of North Texas, and a Fellow in the American College of Employee Benefit Counsel, the American Bar Foundation and the Texas Bar Foundation, Ms. Stamer also shares her extensive publications and thought leadership as well as leadership involvement in a broad range of other professional and civic organizations. For more information about Ms. Stamer or her health industry and other experience and involvements, see www.cynthiastamer.com or contact Ms. Stamer via telephone at (214) 452-8297 or via e-mail here.
NOTICE: These statements and materials are for general informational and purposes only. They do not establish an attorney-client relationship, are not legal advice or an offer or commitment to provide legal advice, and do not serve as a substitute for legal advice. Readers are urged to engage competent legal counsel for consultation and representation in light of the specific facts and circumstances presented in their unique circumstance at any particular time. No comment or statement in this publication is to be construed as legal advice or an admission. The author reserves the right to qualify or retract any of these statements at any time. Likewise, the content is not tailored to any particular situation and does not necessarily address all relevant issues. Because the law is rapidly evolving and rapidly evolving rules makes it highly likely that subsequent developments could impact the currency and completeness of this discussion. The author and Solutions Law Press, Inc. disclaim, and have no responsibility to provide any update or otherwise notify anyone any such change, limitation, or other condition that might affect the suitability of reliance upon these materials or information otherwise conveyed in connection with this program. Readers may not rely upon, are solely responsible for, and assume the risk and all liabilities resulting from their use of this publication.
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Nonprofit health organizations must develop anti-retaliation policies for doctors and submit biennial reports to the Texas Medical Board in response to a House Bill 1532 mandate that takes effect January 1, 2020.
Passed by the Texas Legislature on September 1, 2019, the Bill also amends the Medical Practice Act to require the Texas Medical Board to accept and process complaints against a certified nonprofit health organization in the same manner it would handle complaints against a health professional.
Scribe for the ABA JCEB Annual Agency Meeting with OCR, Vice Chair of the ABA International Section Life Sciences Committee, past Chair of the ABA Health Law Section Managed Care & Insurance Interest Group and the ABA RPTE Employee Benefits & Other Compensation Group, Ms. Stamer’s work throughout her 30 plus year career has focused heavily on working with health care and managed care, health and other employee benefit plan, insurance and financial services, public and private primary, secondary, and other educational institutions, and other public and private organizations and their technology, data, and other service providers and advisors domestically and internationally with legal and operational compliance and risk management, performance and workforce management, regulatory and public policy and other legal and operational concerns. As a part of this work, she has recurrently worked extensively with public school districts and public and private primary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, academic medical, and other educational institutions, insured and self-insured health plans; domestic and international hospitals, health care systems, clinics, skilled nursing, long term care, rehabilitation and other health care providers and facilities; medical staff, accreditation, peer review and quality committees and organizations; billing, utilization management, management services organizations, group purchasing organizations; pharmaceutical, pharmacy, and prescription benefit management and organizations; consultants; investors; EMR, claims, payroll and other technology, billing and reimbursement and other services and product vendors; products and solutions consultants and developers; investors; managed care organizations, employers; and federal and state legislative, regulatory, investigatory and enforcement bodies and agencies on health care, education, and other data privacy, security, use, protection and disclosure; disability and other educational rights; workforce, and a host of other risk management and compliance concerns.
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The Department of Justice today sued the nation’s largest long term care pharmacy provider, Omnicare, and its parent company, CVS Healthcare Corporation seeking seeks damages and civil penalties under the False Claims Act for fraudulently billing federal healthcare programs for hundreds of thousands of non-controlled prescription drugs DOJ says Omnicare illegally dispensed to elderly and disabled individuals in assisted living facilities, group homes, independent living communities, and other non-skilled residential long-term care facilities (“LTC facilities”).
In the civil health care fraud complaint the DOJ filed a New York Federal District Court, the Omnicare illegally dispensed and billed the federal government and patients for antipsychotics, anticonvulsants, and antidepressants to elderly and disabled residents in LTC facilities without proper prescriptions. DOJ’s lawsuit alleges that instead of obtaining new prescriptions from patients’ doctors after the old ones had expired or run out of refills, Omnicare just assigned a new number to the old prescription and kept on dispensing drugs for months, and sometimes years, after the prescriptions expired. DOJ’s complaint alleges that Omnicare internally referred to these renumbered expired prescriptions as “rollover” prescriptions. The DOJ complaint also charges that Omnicare also submitted, or caused to be submitted false claims for payment for medications dispensed based on invalid prescriptions it internally referred to as “rollover” prescriptions” to Medicare, Medicaid, and TRICARE in violation of the False Claims Act.
Omnicare is the country’s largest provider of pharmacy services to LTC facilities. It currently operates approximately 160 pharmacies in 47 states across the United States, which dispense tens of millions of prescription drugs to LTC facilities that serve elderly and disabled individuals. CVS acquired Omnicare in May 2015, and shortly thereafter assumed an active role in overseeing Omnicare’s operations, including pharmacy dispensing practices and systems.
According to the DOJ complaint failed today, from 2010 until 2018, Omnicare and CVS allowed Omnicare pharmacies to dispense non-controlled prescription drugs to tens of thousands of elderly and disabled individuals living in LTC facilities based on prescriptions that had expired, were out of refills, or were otherwise invalid. Omnicare repeatedly disregarded prescription refill limitations and expiration dates that required doctor visits to reevaluate whether the drug should be renewed. Instead of requesting new prescriptions when old ones expired, Omnicare allowed prescriptions to “roll over.” At Omnicare, “rolling over” a prescription meant that when a prescription expired, Omnicare’s computer systems would assign the old prescription a new number and the pharmacy would continue to dispense the drug indefinitely without the need for a prescription renewal. Depending on the computer system used, Omnicare also sometimes assigned a fake number of authorized refills to a prescription – usually 99 allowable refills for Medicare patients – to allow for continuous refilling. DOJ claims that Omnicare pharmacies “rolled over” prescriptions for elderly and disabled individuals living in more than 3,000 residential long-term care facilities, including assisted living facilities operated by the largest long-term care providers in the country, such as Brookdale Senior Living, Atria Senior Living, Sunrise Senior Living Services, and Five Star Senior Living. DOJ also claims Omnicare managers exerted pressure on overwhelmed pharmacy staff to fill prescriptions quickly so that Omnicare could submit claims and collect payments.
According to the DOJ, Senior management at Omnicare and CVS knew of the practices. The DOJ complaint charges among other things that the Omnicare’s Compliance Department succinctly acknowledged the problem in an internal April 2015 email in which one Regional Compliance Officer stated: “An issue that I am running into more and more in multiple states concerns the ability of our systems to allow prescriptions to continue to roll after a year to a new prescription number without any documentation or pharmacist intervention.” A compliance officer then forwarded the email to the head of Omnicare’s Third Party Audit group, who responded that she had a “potential solution (programmed last year) but no one is rolling it out now.”
DOJ says Omnicare’s practice of illegally dispensing drugs to elderly and disabled individuals living in LTC facilities exposed these vulnerable individuals to a significant risk of harm. In contrast to traditional skilled nursing homes, where residents have access to 24-hour medical care supervised by doctors, assisted living and other non-skilled residential facilities offer more limited medical care, or none at all. In particular, these LTC facilities generally do not have doctors on staff to oversee and monitor residents’ drug therapy.
Many of the prescription drugs dispensed by Omnicare without valid prescriptions treat serious, chronic conditions, such as dementia, depression, and heart disease. They include antipsychotics, anticonvulsants, cardiovascular medications, anti-depressants, and other drugs that can have dangerous side effects and need to be closely monitored by doctors, particularly when taken in combination with other drugs by elderly patients. By repeatedly dispensing potent drugs without current and valid prescriptions, Omnicare jeopardized the health and safety of tens of thousands of individuals who continued to take the same drugs for months, and sometimes years, without consulting their doctors to determine whether the medications were still clinically appropriate.
A large percentage of the long-term care residents served by Omnicare are beneficiaries of federal healthcare programs. By dispensing drugs without valid prescriptions, Omnicare presented, or caused to be presented, hundreds of thousands of false claims to Medicare, Medicaid, and TRICARE. These claims were ineligible for payment. In addition, Omnicare knowingly transmitted false information to these federal healthcare programs that made it appear that drug dispensations were supported by current, valid prescriptions from physicians when in fact they were not.
The DOJ lawsuit resulted from the DOJ’s intervention in whistleblower lawsuits filed by former employees.
In today’s announcement of the lawsuit, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said: “As alleged, Omnicare put at risk the health of tens of thousands of elderly and disabled individuals living in assisted living and other residential long-term care facilities by dispensing drugs for months, and sometimes years, without obtaining current, valid prescriptions from doctors. A pharmacy’s fundamental obligation is to ensure that drugs are dispensed only under the supervision of treating doctors who monitor patients’ drug therapies. Omnicare blatantly ignored this obligation in favor of pushing drugs out the door as quickly as possible to make more money. This Office will continue to hold accountable those who put at risk people’s health and safety just to turn a profit.”
Meanwhile, HHS-OIG Special Agent in Charge Scott J. Lampert said: “Failing to consult doctors as to whether prescriptions should be refilled places patients’ health and medical care at serious risk. These automatic rollover refills could have significant consequences for vulnerable people in long term-care facilities. We will continue working with law enforcement partners to protect people depending on these taxpayer-funded government health programs.”
More information is expected to be forthcoming.
Solutions Law Press, Inc. invites you receive future updates by registering on our Solutions Law Press, Inc. Website and participating and contributing to the discussions in our Solutions Law Press, Inc. LinkedIn SLP Health Care Risk Management & Operations Group, HR & Benefits Update Compliance Group, and/or Coalition for Responsible Health Care Policy About the Author
Scribe for the ABA JCEB Annual Agency Meeting with OCR, Vice Chair of the ABA International Section Life Sciences Committee, past Chair of the ABA Health Law Section Managed Care & Insurance Interest Group and the ABA RPTE Employee Benefits & Other Compensation Group, Ms. Stamer’s work throughout her 30 plus year career has focused heavily on working with health care and managed care, health and other employee benefit plan, insurance and financial services and other public and private organizations and their technology, data, and other service providers and advisors domestically and internationally with legal and operational compliance and risk management, performance and workforce management, regulatory and public policy and other legal and operational concerns. As a part of this work, she has continuously and extensively worked with domestic and international hospitals, health care systems, clinics, skilled nursing, long term care, rehabilitation and other health care providers and facilities; medical staff, accreditation, peer review and quality committees and organizations; billing, utilization management, management services organizations, group purchasing organizations; pharmaceutical, pharmacy, and prescription benefit management and organizations; consultants; investors; EMR, claims, payroll and other technology, billing and reimbursement and other services and product vendors; products and solutions consultants and developers; investors; managed care organizations, self-insured health and other employee benefit plans, their sponsors, fiduciaries, administrators and service providers, insurers and other payers, health industry advocacy and other service providers and groups and other health and managed care industry clients as well as federal and state legislative, regulatory, investigatory and enforcement bodies and agencies.
Ms. Stamer is most widely recognized for her decades-long leading edge work, scholarship and thought leadership on health and other privacy and data security and other health industry legal, public policy and operational concerns. This involvement encompasses helping health care systems and organizations, group and individual health care providers, health plans and insurers, health IT, life sciences and other health industry clients prevent, investigate, manage and resolve fraud, substandard quality, safety, unprofessional conduct, sexual assault, abuse, harassment and other organizational, provider and employee misconduct and other performance and behavior; manage Section 1557, Civil Rights Act and other discrimination and accommodation, and other regulatory, contractual and other compliance; vendors and suppliers; contracting and other terms of participation, medical billing, reimbursement, claims administration and coordination, Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, Medicare/Medicaid Advantage, ERISA and other payers and other provider-payer relations, contracting, compliance and enforcement; Form 990 and other nonprofit and tax-exemption; fundraising, investors, joint venture, and other business partners; quality and other performance measurement, management, discipline and reporting; physician and other workforce recruiting, performance management, peer review and other investigations and discipline, wage and hour, payroll, gain-sharing and other pay-for performance and other compensation, training, outsourcing and other human resources and workforce matters; board, medical staff and other governance; strategic planning, process and quality improvement; meaningful use, EMR, HIPAA and other technology, data security and breach and other health IT and data; STARK, antikickback, insurance, and other fraud prevention, investigation, defense and enforcement; audits, investigations, and enforcement actions; trade secrets and other intellectual property; crisis preparedness and response; internal, government and third-party licensure, credentialing, accreditation, HCQIA and other peer review and quality reporting, audits, investigations, enforcement and defense; patient relations and care; internal controls and regulatory compliance; payer-provider, provider-provider, vendor, patient, governmental and community relations; facilities, practice, products and other sales, mergers, acquisitions and other business and commercial transactions; government procurement and contracting; grants; tax-exemption and not-for-profit; privacy and data security; training; risk and change management; regulatory affairs and public policy; process, product and service improvement, development and innovation, and other legal and operational compliance and risk management, government and regulatory affairs and operations concerns. to establish, administer and defend workforce and staffing, quality, and other compliance, risk management and operational practices, policies and actions; comply with requirements; investigate and respond to Board of Medicine, Health, Nursing, Pharmacy, Chiropractic, and other licensing agencies, Department of Aging & Disability, FDA, Drug Enforcement Agency, OCR Privacy and Civil Rights, Department of Labor, IRS, HHS, DOD, FTC, SEC, CDC and other public health, Department of Justice and state attorneys’ general and other federal and state agencies; JCHO and other accreditation and quality organizations; private litigation and other federal and state health care industry actions: regulatory and public policy advocacy; training and discipline; enforcement; and other strategic and operational concerns.
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The $1.6 million civil monetary penalty (“CMP”) assessed against the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (“TX HHSC”) for violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) Privacy and Security Rules between 2013 and 2017 committed by a predecessor agency, the Department of Aging and Disability Services (“DADS”) illustrates the critical need for all HIPAA covered entities and business associates to confirm the adequacy of their enterprise wide security assessment, oversight, and other HIPAA Privacy and Security compliance and risk management including documentation of the reassessment and updating of these materials and assessments in connection with any update or change in software, systems or other system and security relevant developments.
OCR imposed the CMPs against TX HHSC for violations of HIPAA OCR found DADS committed from 2015 to 2017, before it was reorganized into TX HHSC in September 2017. Like most other large HIPAA CMPs and settlements paid to avoid CMPs, a review of the TX HSSC CMP events makes clear that the large penalty resulted mostly because of inadequate assessment and oversight of security, rather than the actual breach itself that prompted the investigation leading to the CMP assessment.
Before its merger into TX HHSC, DADS was the Texas agency primarily responsible for providing and administering the state’s long-term care services for aging and intellectually and physically disabled people. TX HHSC now administers and provides the services previously provided by DADS as part of its broader operation of state supported living centers; provision of mental health and substance use services; regulation of child care and nursing facilities; and administration of hundreds of other programs for people needing supplemental nutrition benefits, Medicaid and certain other assistance including those previously provided by DADS.
DADS Breaches & Violations
The $1.6 million CMPs assessment against TX HHSC resulted after OCR investigated a 2015 breach report made by DADS. On June 11, 2015, DADS submitted a Breach Notification Report (“Report”) notifying OCR that on April 21, 2015 names, addresses, social security numbers, treatment information and other electronic protected health information (“ePHI”) of 6,617 individuals was viewable over the internet when a software coding flaw allowed prohibited access to ePHI with access credentials when DADS moved an internal application from a private, secure server to a public server. OCR’s investigation determined that, in addition to that impermissible disclosure, DADS violated the HIPAA Security Rule by failing to conduct an enterprise-wide risk analysis and implement access and audit controls on Community Living Assistance and Support Services and Deaf Blind with Multiple Disabilities (“CLASS/DBMD”) program information systems and applications intended to collect and report information about “Utilization Management and Review” activities to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) for the CLASS/DBMD waiver programs.. The CMS waiver programs required DADS to collect and report to CMS applicant and enrollee community and institutional service choice, Level of Care, Plan of Care, waiver provider choice and other waiver program performance data for CLASS and DBMD as part of a required evidentiary report on all §1915(c) waiver programs. The CLASS/DBMD application glitch compromised the ePHI by allowing an undetermined number of unauthorized users to view the ePHI without verifying user credentials. TX HHSC learned of the breach from an unauthorized user who accessed ePHI in the application without being required to input user credentials. Because of inadequate audit controls, DADS was unable to determine how many unauthorized persons accessed individuals’ ePHI.
OCR initiated a compliance review of DADS on June 23, 2015 in response to the breach notification. As HIPAA Security Rule at 45 C.F.R. ·§ 164.312(a)(l) requires a covered entity to implement technical policies and procedures for electronic information systems that maintain ePHI to allow access only to those persons or software programs properly granted access rights under HIPAA Security Rule § 164.308(a)(4), OCR found that by placing the CLASS/DBMD application on their public server without requiring users to provide access credentials, TX HHSC violated HIPAA by failing to implement access controls on all of its systems and applications throughout its enterprise in violation of 45 C.F.R. § 164.312(a)(l).
The HIPAA Security Rule at 45 C.F.R. § 164.312(b) requires a covered entity to implement hardware, software, and/or procedural mechanisms that record and examine activity in information systems that contain or use ePHI. In the course of its investigation, OCR requested in its June 23, 2015 Data Request that DADS provide a copy of its current HIPAA administrative and technical policies and procedures. As DADS provided no evidence that the application was capable of auditing user access after it was moved to the unsecure public server as required by 45 C.F.R. § 164.312(b) with its response, OCR also concluded from its investigation that TX HHSC failed to implement audit controls to all of its systems and applications, like the application involved in the breach, as required by 45 C.F.R. § 164.312(b).
Beyond these violations, OCR also found that DADS also violated the HIPAA Security Rule by failing to conduct the required accurate and thorough enterprise wised risk analysis required by the HIPAA Security Rule. In this respect, the HIPAA Security Rule at 45 C.F.R. § 164.308(a)(1)(ii)(A) requires a covered entity to conduct an accurate and thorough assessment of the potential risks and vulnerabilities to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of ePHI it holds. In its August 31, 2015 response to OCR’s Data Request dated July 23, 2015, DADS acknowledged that, while it had performed ”risk assessment activities” on individual applications and servers, it never performed an “agency-wide” security risk analysis. On July 28, 2017, OCR received the documentation that DADS represented to be the documentation of its risk analysis. After reviewing this evidence, OCR additionally found DADS violated the HIPAA Security Rule by failing to conduct an enterprise-wide risk analysis and implement access and audit controls.
Calculation & Assessment CMPs Totaling $1.6 Million
On May 23, 2018, OCR issued a Letter of Opportunity and informed TX HHSC that OCR’s investigation indicated that TX HHSC failed to comply with the Privacy and Security Rules, which remained unresolved despite OCR’s attempts to do so. The letter stated that pursuant to 45 C.F.R. § 160.312(a)(3), OCR was informing TX HHSC of the preliminary indications of non-compliance and providing TX HHSC with an opportunity to submit written evidence of mitigating factors under 45 C.F.R. § 160.408 or affirmative defenses under 45 C.F.R. § 160.410 for OCR’s consideration in making a CMP determination under 45 C.F.R. § 160.404. The letter identified each area of noncompliance. It also stated that TX HHSC also could submit written evidence to support a waiver of a CMP for the indicated areas of non-compliance.
Although the designated representative for TX HHSC as DADS successor received the Letter of Opportunity on May 24, 2018, . TX HHSC did not provide any written evidence of mitigating factors under 45 C.F.R. § 160.408 or affirmative defenses under 4S C.F.R. § 160.410 for OCR’s consideration in making the CMP determination or submit any written evidence to support a waiver of a CMP for the indicated areas of non-compliance. Accordingly, after securing the requisite approval from the Justice Department, OCR issued a Notice of Proposed Determination of Civil Monetary Penalties (“Proposed CMP”) on July 29, 2019.
As explained by the Proposed CMP, as amended by the HITECH Act, Section 13410, 42 U.S.C. § 1320d-5(a)(3), HIPAA authorizes OCR as the designated representative of the Secretary of HHS to impose CMPs against a covered entity for post-February 18, 2009 HIPAA Privacy or Security Rule violations. These current CMP provisions provide the following rules for the assessment of CMPs for such violations:
A minimum of$100 for each violation where the covered entity or business associate did not know and, by exercising reasonable diligence, would not have known that the covered entity or business associate violated such provision, except that the total amount imposed on the covered entity or business associate for all violations of an identical requirement or prohibition during a calendar year may not exceed $25,000.
A minimum of$1,000 for each violation due to reasonable cause and not to willful neglect, except that the total amount imposed on the covered entity or business associate for all violations of an identical requirement or prohibition during a calendar year may not exceed $100,000. Reasonable cause means an act or omission in which a covered. entity or business associate knew, or by exercising reasonable diligence would have known, that the act or omission violated an administrative simplification provision, but in which the covered entity or business associate did not act with willful neglect.
A minimum of $10,000 for each violation due to willful neglect and corrected within 30 days, except that the total amount imposed on the covered entity or business associate for all violations of an identical requirement or prohibition during a calendar year may not exceed $250,000.
A minimum of$50,000 for each violation due to willful neglect and uncorrected within 30 days, except that the total amount imposed on the covered entity or business associate for all violations of an identical requirement or prohibition during a calendar year may not exceed $1,500,000.
By law, OCR adjusts the CMP ranges and calendar year cap for each penalty tier for inflation. The adjusted amounts are applicable only to CMPs whose violations occurred after November 2, 2015.
The Proposed CMP included notice of the CMPs OCR intended to impose CMPs totaling $1.6 million for the violations. Characterizing each of the violations as due to reasonable cause and not willful neglect, the Proposed CMP Notice made note that OCR was authorized by statute to assess penalties of up to $50,000 per day for each day of the identified violations due for reasonable cause, rather than willful neglect, but authorized OCR to adjust the penalties in light of aggravating and mitigating factors. The Proposed CMP stated that in arriving at the lesser daily penalty amount, OCR considered as mitigating factors that:
The violations did not result in any known physical, financial, or reputational harm to any individuals nor did it hinder any individual’s ability to obtain health care; and
TX HHSC immediately removed the application once it received a report that unauthorized users could access the ePHI of individual beneficiaries.
However, OCR also took note that it viewed DADS failure to act promptly to remediate the breach and to keep a commitment made to OCR in August, 2015 timely to conduct and complete the agency wide risk analysis by August 31, 2016 as an aggravating factor. Considering these factors, the Proposed CMP notified TX HHSC that OCR intended to assess a daily penalty amount of$1,000 per day ($1,141 after November 2, 2015) per violation capped at $100,000 per calendar year per violation. Applying these amounts, the CMP notified TX HHSC that OCR intended to impose CMPs totaling $1.6 million, as follows:
Impermissible disclosures in violation of 45 C.F.R. § 164.502(a), a $100,000 CMP
Inadequate access controls in violation of 45 C.F .R. § 164.312(a)(l), a $500,000 CMP
Inadequate audit controls in violation of 45 C.F.R. § 164.312(b), a $500,000 CMP
Failure to perform required enterprise wide risk analysis in violation of 45 C.F.R. § 164.308(a)(l)(ii)(a), a $500,000.
After TX HHSC , as successor to DADS, did not file a request for hearing before an administrative law judge within the 90 days, OCR imposed the $1.6 million CMP in dated October 25, 2019 made public on November 7, 2019.
Lessons For Other Health Care Providers, Health Plans, Clearinghouses & Business Associates
The latest in a growing series of multimillion dollar CMPs and Resolution Payments assessed and collected by OCR, the TX HHSC CMP illustrates the critical necessity for all covered entities and business both to take appropriate, well-documented action to prevent, timely discover and redress, and report ePHI breaches and otherwise comply with the otherwise applicable requirements of the HIPAA Privacy, Security and Breach Notification Rules including the conduct and continuous maintenance of appropriate enterprise wide security assessments, audits, and oversight. With OCR promising to continue its enforcement, all covered entities and business associates should verify the existence and adequacy of their existing enterprise wide risk assessments and safeguards and procedures for monitoring, investigating potential security risks and other breaches and other HIPAA compliance oversight. Beyond these compliance efforts, the TX HHSC and other CMP actions also drive home the strong advisability for covered entities or business associates that experience a known or potential breach or other violation promptly to investigate and mitigate potential breaches and other violations. As part of these efforts, covered entities and business associates should seek assistance in conducting their assessments as well as responding to any preexisting and emergent breach or other compliance concerns within the scope of attorney-client privilege from qualified legal counsel with the necessary knowledge and experience of HIPAA and other federal and state laws, regulations and administrative and judicial decisions that define and shape their exposure. In the event of a breach or other compliance concern, timely guidance and representation by legal counsel with both experience of these requirements and with dealing with OCR and other agencies may help mitigate exposures by expediting timely and appropriate response.
Scribe for the ABA JCEB Annual Agency Meeting with OCR, Vice Chair of the ABA International Section Life Sciences Committee, past Chair of the ABA Health Law Section Managed Care & Insurance Interest Group and the ABA RPTE Employee Benefits & Other Compensation GroupMs. Stamer’s work throughout her 30 plus year career has focused heavily on working with health care and managed care, health and other employee benefit plan, insurance and financial services and other public and private organizations and their technology, data, and other service providers and advisors domestically and internationally with legal and operational compliance and risk management, performance and workforce management, regulatory and public policy and other legal and operational concerns. As a part of this work, she has continuously and extensively worked with domestic and international hospitals, health care systems, clinics, skilled nursing, long term care, rehabilitation and other health care providers and facilities; medical staff, accreditation, peer review and quality committees and organizations; billing, utilization management, management services organizations, group purchasing organizations; pharmaceutical, pharmacy, and prescription benefit management and organizations; consultants; investors; EMR, claims, payroll and other technology, billing and reimbursement and other services and product vendors; products and solutions consultants and developers; investors; managed care organizations, self-insured health and other employee benefit plans, their sponsors, fiduciaries, administrators and service providers, insurers and other payers, health industry advocacy and other service providers and groups and other health and managed care industry clients as well as federal and state legislative, regulatory, investigatory and enforcement bodies and agencies.
Ms. Stamer is most widely recognized for her decades-long leading edge work, scholarship and thought leadership on health and other privacy and data security and other health industry legal, public policy and operational concerns. This involvement encompasses helping health care systems and organizations, group and individual health care providers, health plans and insurers, health IT, life sciences and other health industry clients prevent, investigate, manage and resolve sexual assault, abuse, harassment and other organizational, provider and employee misconduct and other performance and behavior; manage Section 1557, Civil Rights Act and other discrimination and accommodation, and other regulatory, contractual and other compliance; vendors and suppliers; contracting and other terms of participation, medical billing, reimbursement, claims administration and coordination, Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, Medicare/Medicaid Advantage, ERISA and other payers and other provider-payer relations, contracting, compliance and enforcement; Form 990 and other nonprofit and tax-exemption; fundraising, investors, joint venture, and other business partners; quality and other performance measurement, management, discipline and reporting; physician and other workforce recruiting, performance management, peer review and other investigations and discipline, wage and hour, payroll, gain-sharing and other pay-for performance and other compensation, training, outsourcing and other human resources and workforce matters; board, medical staff and other governance; strategic planning, process and quality improvement; meaningful use, EMR, HIPAA and other technology, data security and breach and other health IT and data; STARK, antikickback, insurance, and other fraud prevention, investigation, defense and enforcement; audits, investigations, and enforcement actions; trade secrets and other intellectual property; crisis preparedness and response; internal, government and third-party licensure, credentialing, accreditation, HCQIA and other peer review and quality reporting, audits, investigations, enforcement and defense; patient relations and care; internal controls and regulatory compliance; payer-provider, provider-provider, vendor, patient, governmental and community relations; facilities, practice, products and other sales, mergers, acquisitions and other business and commercial transactions; government procurement and contracting; grants; tax-exemption and not-for-profit; privacy and data security; training; risk and change management; regulatory affairs and public policy; process, product and service improvement, development and innovation, and other legal and operational compliance and risk management, government and regulatory affairs and operations concerns. to establish, administer and defend workforce and staffing, quality, and other compliance, risk management and operational practices, policies and actions; comply with requirements; investigate and respond to Board of Medicine, Health, Nursing, Pharmacy, Chiropractic, and other licensing agencies, Department of Aging & Disability, FDA, Drug Enforcement Agency, OCR Privacy and Civil Rights, Department of Labor, IRS, HHS, DOD, FTC, SEC, CDC and other public health, Department of Justice and state attorneys’ general and other federal and state agencies; JCHO and other accreditation and quality organizations; private litigation and other federal and state health care industry actions: regulatory and public policy advocacy; training and discipline; enforcement; and other strategic and operational concerns.
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$3 million is the hefty price that the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) has agreed to pay to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to settle potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy and Security Rules arising from the loss of unencrypted laptops and other mobile devices containing protected health information (PHI). Like prior settlements and civil monetary penalties OCR previously assessed against HIPAA-covered entities for using or storing electronic protected health information (ePHI) on unencrypted mobile devices, the $3 million sanction and other requirements imposed in the URMC Resolution Agreement and Corrective Action Plan made public after the close of business on November 5 reaffirm OCR’s readiness to sanction harshly health care providers, health plans, healthcare clearinghouses and businesses associates for the loss or compromise of ePHI due to the covered entity’s failure to appropriately encrypt mobile devices. Any HIPAA covered entity or business associate that has not already done so must act to avoid a similar fate by establishing and enforcing systematic procedures to ensure all mobile devices using, accessing, storing or otherwise dealing with ePHI are properly encrypted at all times.
URMC Breach & Resolution Agreement
The URMC Resolution Agreement resolves potential charges resulting from an OCR investigation commenced in response to breach reports UMRC filed with OCR in 2013 and 2017. The breach reports disclosed UMRC’s discovery of the impermissible disclosure of PHI through the loss of an unencrypted flash drive and theft of an unencrypted laptop, respectively. URMC includes healthcare components such as the School of Medicine and Dentistry and Strong Memorial Hospital. URMC is one of the largest health systems in New York State with over 26,000 employees.
OCR’s investigation revealed that URMC failed to conduct an enterprise-wide risk analysis; implement security measures sufficient to reduce risks and vulnerabilities to a reasonable and appropriate level; utilize device and media controls; and employ a mechanism to encrypt and decrypt electronic protected health information (ePHI) when it was reasonable and appropriate to do so. Of note, in 2010, OCR investigated URMC concerning a similar breach involving a lost unencrypted flash drive and provided technical assistance to URMC. Despite the previous OCR investigation, and URMC’s own identification of a lack of encryption as a high risk to ePHI, URMC permitted the continued use of unencrypted mobile devices.
OCR made a point of reaffirming the requirement to encrypt laptops and other mobile devices containing ePHI when announcing the new Resolution Agreement. “Because theft and loss are constant threats, failing to encrypt mobile devices needlessly puts patient health information at risk,” said Roger Severino, OCR Director. “When covered entities are warned of their deficiencies, but fail to fix the problem, they will be held fully responsible for their neglect.”
As part of its punishment for allowing the ePHI breaches by failing to encrypt mobile devices, URMC must pay a $3 million monetary settlement as well as undertake a corrective action plan that includes two years of monitoring their compliance with the HIPAA Rules.
Mobile Device Encryption Requirement Well-Established
OCR repeatedly through published guidance and reported sanctions repeatedly has warned covered entities and business associates not to permit ePHI to be used, accessed or stored on unencrypted laptops or other mobile devices. In 2017, Children’s Medical Center of Dallas (Children’s) paid a $3,217,000.00 Civil Monetary Penalty (CMP) after OCR issued its January 18, 2017 Final Determination that Children’s for years knowingly violated HIPAA by failing to encrypt or otherwise properly secure ePHI on laptops and other mobile devices and failing to comply with many other HIPAA requirements. See Learn From Children’s New $3.2M+ HIPAA CMP For “Knowing” Violation of HIPAA Security Rules. An OCR Newsletter Article on Guidance on Mobile Devices and Protected Health Information (PHI), for instance, states:
Entities regulated by the HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification Rules (the HIPAA Rules) must be sure to include mobile devices in their enterprise-wide risk analysis and take action(s) to reduce risks identified with the use of mobile devices to a reasonable and appropriate level.
The article also shared insights about some of the steps OCR considers necessary to meet this expectation, as including:
Implement policies for use of mobile devices that are used to handle PHI;
Consider using Mobile Device Management (MDM) software to secure mobile devices;
Install or enable automatic lock/logoff functions;
Require authentication to access devices;
Keep devices’ security features updated;
Procure encryption, anti-virus/anti-malware software, and remote wipe capabilities;
Use a privacy screen to prevent viewing by third-parties;
Assure that Wi-Fi networks used are secure;
Use a secure Virtual Private Network (VPN);
Institute policies regarding downloading third-party apps on devices which access PHI;
Delete all PHI from device before disposing of; and
Provide training on secure use of mobile devices for all employees.
Covered entities and business associates should promptly and continuously act to ensure on a systematic and carefully documented basis that their organization is taking these and and other steps necessary to ensure that all mobile device with ePHI are always appropriately encrypted.
We hope this information was helpful. For more information about HIPAA or other related concerns, please contact the author Cynthia Marcotte Stamer via e-mail or via telephone at (214) 452 -8297.
Solutions Law Press, Inc. invites you receive future updates and join discussions about these and other human resources, health and other employee benefit and patient empowerment concerns by participating and contributing to the discussions in our Solutions Law Press Health Care Risk Management & Operations Group and registering for updates on our Solutions Law Press Website.
As a primary focus of this work, Ms. Stamer has worked extensively with domestic and international hospitals, health care systems, clinics, skilled nursing, long term care, rehabilitation and other health care providers and facilities; medical staff, accreditation, peer review and quality committees and organizations; billing, utilization management, management services organizations, group purchasing organizations; pharmaceutical, pharmacy, and prescription benefit management and organizations; consultants; investors; technology, billing and reimbursement and other services and product vendors; products and solutions consultants and developers; investors; managed care organizations, insurers, self-insured health plans and other payers, health industry advocacy and other service providers and groups and other health industry clients as well as federal and state legislative, regulatory, investigatory and enforcement bodies and agencies.
Scribe for the ABA JCEB Annual Agency Meeting with OCR, Vice Chair of the ABA International Section Life Sciences Committee, past Chair of the ABA Health Law Section Managed Care & Insurance Interest Group, the ABA RPTE Employee Benefits & Other Compensation Group, Ms. Stamer is noted for her decades-long leading edge work, scholarship and thought leadership on health and other privacy and data security and other health industry legal, public policy and operational concerns. This involvement encompasses helping health care systems and organizations, group and individual health care providers, health plans and insurers, health IT, life sciences and other health industry clients prevent, investigate, manage and resolve sexual assault, abuse, harassment and other organizational, provider and employee misconduct and other performance and behavior; manage Section 1557, Civil Rights Act and other discrimination and accommodation, and other regulatory, contractual and other compliance; vendors and suppliers; contracting and other terms of participation, medical billing, reimbursement, claims administration and coordination, Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, Medicare/Medicaid Advantage, ERISA and other payers and other provider-payer relations, contracting, compliance and enforcement; Form 990 and other nonprofit and tax-exemption; fundraising, investors, joint venture, and other business partners; quality and other performance measurement, management, discipline and reporting; physician and other workforce recruiting, performance management, peer review and other investigations and discipline, wage and hour, payroll, gain-sharing and other pay-for performance and other compensation, training, outsourcing and other human resources and workforce matters; board, medical staff and other governance; strategic planning, process and quality improvement; meaningful use, EMR, HIPAA and other technology, data security and breach and other health IT and data; STARK, antikickback, insurance, and other fraud prevention, investigation, defense and enforcement; audits, investigations, and enforcement actions; trade secrets and other intellectual property; crisis preparedness and response; internal, government and third-party licensure, credentialing, accreditation, HCQIA and other peer review and quality reporting, audits, investigations, enforcement and defense; patient relations and care; internal controls and regulatory compliance; payer-provider, provider-provider, vendor, patient, governmental and community relations; facilities, practice, products and other sales, mergers, acquisitions and other business and commercial transactions; government procurement and contracting; grants; tax-exemption and not-for-profit; privacy and data security; training; risk and change management; regulatory affairs and public policy; process, product and service improvement, development and innovation, and other legal and operational compliance and risk management, government and regulatory affairs and operations concerns. to establish, administer and defend workforce and staffing, quality, and other compliance, risk management and operational practices, policies and actions; comply with requirements; investigate and respond to Board of Medicine, Health, Nursing, Pharmacy, Chiropractic, and other licensing agencies, Department of Aging & Disability, FDA, Drug Enforcement Agency, OCR Privacy and Civil Rights, Department of Labor, IRS, HHS, DOD, FTC, SEC, CDC and other public health, Department of Justice and state attorneys’ general and other federal and state agencies; JCHO and other accreditation and quality organizations; private litigation and other federal and state health care industry actions: regulatory and public policy advocacy; training and discipline; enforcement; and other strategic and operational concerns.
Author of leading works on HIPAA and a multitude of other health care, health plan and other health industry matters, the American Bar Association (ABA) International Section Life Sciences Committee Vice Chair, a Scribe for the ABA Joint Committee on Employee Benefits (JCEB) Annual OCR Agency Meeting and a former Council Representative, Past Chair of the ABA Managed Care & Insurance Interest Group, former Vice President and Executive Director of the North Texas Health Care Compliance Professionals Association, past Board President of Richardson Development Center (now Warren Center) for Children Early Childhood Intervention Agency, past North Texas United Way Long Range Planning Committee Member, and past Board Member and Compliance Chair of the National Kidney Foundation of North Texas, and a Fellow in the American College of Employee Benefit Counsel, the American Bar Foundation and the Texas Bar Foundation, Ms. Stamer also shares her extensive publications and thought leadership as well as leadership involvement in a broad range of other professional and civic organizations. For more information about Ms. Stamer or her services, experience and involvements, e-mail Ms. Stamer here or contact Ms. Stamer via telephone at (214) 452-8297 or see here.
Solutions Law Press, Inc.™ provides legal risk management and compliance, business strategy and operations, management, leadership and other publications, coaching, , training and education tools and other resources on leadership, governance, human resources, employee benefits, data security and privacy, insurance, health care and other key compliance, risk management, internal controls and operational concerns. If you find this of interest, we invite you to register to receive other updates and review our other Solutions Law Press, Inc.™ resources available here.
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Jackson Health System (JHS) has paid a heavy price for violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Security and Breach Notification Rules between 2013 and 2016.
The $2,154,000 civil monetary penalty the Miami, Florida-based nonprofit academic medical system paid to the Department of Health & Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to settle OCR charges it violated the HIPAA Security & Breach Notifications= Rules makes clear the urgent need for other health care providers, health plans, healthcare clearinghouses and their business associates to verify the adequacy of their organizations with HIPAA’s privacy, security and breach notification rules currently and on an ongoing basis.
The $2.1 million plus payment was required to satisfy a civil monetary penalty assessment OCR imposed in a Notice of Proposed Determination and Notice of Final Determination made public by OCR on October 23, 2019 in response to findings from a series of investigations of HIPAA breach and compliance concerns raised between 2013 and 2016 raised by various HIPAA-mandated breach reports and media reports that raised concerns about improper access disclosure and use of patient PHI between 2013 and 2016. When JHS did not challenge the findings or determination became final. OCR reports JHS has paid the specified $2.154,000 civil monetary penalties.
JHS HIPAA Violations Found By OCR
JHS operates six major hospitals, a network of urgent care centers, multiple primary care and specialty care centers, long-term care nursing facilities, and corrections health services clinics, provides health services to approximately 650,000 patients annually, and employs about 12,000 individuals. The OCR investigation stemmed from a series of breach and media reports spanning several years and revealed a host of long standing violations of long-standing HIPAA requirements and a failure to accurately disclose or correct those or other violations of a nature that likely continue to exist in many health care systems and other covered entities.
On August 22, 2013, JHS submitted a breach report to OCR stating that its Health Information Management Department lost paper records containing the protected health information (PHI) of 756 patients in January 2013. JHS’s internal investigation determined that an additional three boxes of patient records also were lost in December 2012; however, JHS did not report the additional loss or the increased number of individuals affected to 1,436, until June 7, 2016.
In July 2015, OCR initiated an investigation following a media report that disclosed the PHI of a JHS patient. A reporter had shared a photograph of a JHS operating room screen containing the patient’s medical information on social media. JHS subsequently determined that two employees had accessed this patient’s electronic medical record without a job-related purpose.
On February 19, 2016, JHS submitted a breach report to OCR reporting that an employee had been selling patient PHI. The employee had accessed inappropriately over 24,000 patients’ records since 2011.
According to OCR Director Roger Severino, “OCR’s investigation revealed a HIPAA compliance program that had been in disarray for a number of years. …This hospital system’s compliance program failed to detect and stop an employee who stole and sold thousands of patient records; lost patient files without notifying OCR as required by law; and failed to properly secure PHI that was leaked to the media.”
These and other findings led to the OCR determination in the Notice of Proposed Determination and Notice of Final Determination that JHS failed to provide timely and accurate breach notification to the Secretary of HHS, conduct enterprise-wide risk analyses, manage identified risks to a reasonable and appropriate level, regularly review information system activity records, and restrict authorization of its workforce members’ access to patient ePHI to the minimum necessary to accomplish their job duties. OCR assessed the $2.1 million civil monetary penalty based on these determinations.
Lessons For Other Health Providers & HIPAA Covered Entities Likely Similarly Exposed
The JHS civil monetary penalty is the latest in a growing series of OCR enforcement and regulatory actions that drive home the perils HIPAA-covered health care, health plan, healthcare clearinghouse and business associates risk by failing to responsibly and effectively manage their HIPAA compliance. A review of the available JHS record reveals that like all too many HIPAA-covered entities, JHS never adequately implemented appropriate measures to operationally comply with many of the original HIPAA requirements and perpetuated those deficiencies despite the series of breaches. Sadly, many other health care systems and other HIPAA-covered entities are subject to the same practices. Failing to address these compliance issues makes these non-compliant entities susceptible to the same type of enforcement and other liabilities that JHS now has experienced.
OCR enforcement data documents a steady rise in OCR investigation and enforcement activity. OCR set all-time records for HIPAA Enforcement in 2018. Heavy enforcement activity has continued in 2019. Before its October 23, 2019 announcement of the JHS civil monetary penalties, OCR already had announced:
A $10,000 resolution agreement with a dental practice for improperly disclosing patient PHI on social media at the beginning of October;
Its first HIPAA right of access resolution agreement against a health care provider for violating HIPAA’s right of access rules on September 9, 2019 as part of its recently announced HIPAA access rule enforcement initiative;
A $100,000 resolution payment from an Indiana Medical Records Service resulting from a breach of electronic protected health information at a business associate;
The collection of a $3 million resolution payment collected from a Tennessee diagnostic medical imaging services company to settle HIPAA civil monetary penalty exposures arising from a breach that exposed the protected health information of more than 300,000 patients; and
A multitude of other audits and enforcement activities resolved through corrective action without collection of any resolution payment or civil monetary penalties.
Given these and other previously announced enforcement initiatives and actions, all HIPAA covered entities and their business associates are urged to maintain hyper-vigilance about their own HIPAA compliance with long standing as well as emerging HIPAA requirements taking into account old, recent, and emerging guidance and enforcement activities of OCR. Given the almost certain discovery or discussion of known or uncovered compliance concerns and other sensitive information, covered entities are cautioned that these activities generally should be undertaken under the guidance of an experienced attorney within the scope of attorney client privilege.
Author of leading works on HIPAA and a multitude of other health care, health plan and other health industry matters, the American Bar Association (ABA) International Section Life Sciences Committee Vice Chair, a Scribe for the ABA Joint Committee on Employee Benefits (JCEB) Annual OCR Agency Meeting and a former Council Representative, Past Chair of the ABA Managed Care & Insurance Interest Group, former Vice President and Executive Director of the North Texas Health Care Compliance Professionals Association, past Board President of Richardson Development Center (now Warren Center) for Children Early Childhood Intervention Agency, past North Texas United Way Long Range Planning Committee Member, and past Board Member and Compliance Chair of the National Kidney Foundation of North Texas, and a Fellow in the American College of Employee Benefit Counsel, the American Bar Foundation and the Texas Bar Foundation, Ms. Stamer also shares her extensive publications and thought leadership as well as leadership involvement in a broad range of other professional and civic organizations. For more information about Ms. Stamer or her health industry and other experience and involvements, see here or contact Ms. Stamer via telephone at (214) 452-8297 or via e-mail here.
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Home Resources The Protection Gauntlet: How the U.S. is Blocking Access to Asylum
The Protection Gauntlet: How the U.S. is Blocking Access to Asylum
The Protection Gauntlet:
How the United States is Blocking Access to Asylum Seekers and Endangering the Lives of Children at the U.S. Border
Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) visited the formal and informal refugee camps and shelters in Tijuana, Mexico during the week of December 12, 2018 to look at the conditions that unaccompanied children are facing and their ability to access U.S. protection. We found children living in squalid conditions, in grave danger, fearful, and suffering greatly while waiting to be allowed to present at the port of entry. We learned that unaccompanied children are systematically being prevented from applying for protection in the United States, a significant violation of U.S. and international law.
KIND saw what has now become a classic refugee situation – but lacking significant protections that are a minimum in most refugee camps around the world. Children are languishing in dangerous and unsanitary makeshift camps. There is no running water and in some cases, irregular access to food. We saw children who had become sick from living outside in cold and wet conditions for weeks and needing medical care – including a toddler who suffered a seizure. We saw a child scraping the remains of a can of formula for more, hungry, and crying when her mother said there was no more food.
Beyond the physical conditions, we found that the U.S. government was not allowing the very few unaccompanied children who were able to reach the U.S. border to apply for asylum and turning them back to Mexico, a violation of U.S. and international law. The Mexican government for its part was blocking unaccompanied children from reaching the border, sending the children back to the streets or turning them over to Mexican child welfare officials, who detained them and offered them only two options – apply for asylum in Mexico or be sent back to their home country. Mexican officials were not offering the children their third legal option – seeking U.S. protection, a grave violation of these children’s rights.
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Refrigerant Revolution:
EOS Climate Turning GHGs from Liabilities to Assets
Candice McLeod
Each week leading up to the Sustainable Brands Innovation Open (SBIO) finals on June 5th, where the runner-up will be decided via live online public vote, we will feature articles introducing our semi-finalists. This week, meet EOS Climate.
“Todd, Jeff and I met at Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco and EOS was the result of our thesis there,” says Madden.
At the time, Cohen had been researching the extent to which refrigerants were aggressively contributing to climate change. In fact, Cohen had worked for 10 years at the US EPA’s Office of Atmospheric Programs. He was also a 2008 Nobel Peace Prize honoree for his contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Working Group on Ozone Protection and Greenhouse Gases. Meanwhile, English had a strong background in climate methodologies and program implementation. Madden, on the other hand, had been a pioneer in the North American greenhouse gas markets.
“Jeff had done years of research on how to change the lifecycle of refrigerants while at the EPA and realized that refrigerants and the climate were heading towards a collision,” Madden says.
This collision would not only be the result of the ozone-depleting and global-warming properties of refrigerants, but also the global scale of their use.
Refrigerants are ubiquitous products, used across multiple industrial, commercial and consumer sectors. For example, they are necessary for most modern-day comforts such as air-conditioning systems in buildings and cars, but are also used in systems required to store and produce food. Unfortunately, although refrigerants are undoubtedly useful products, the primary ingredients in most refrigerants are also potent GHGs, such as hydroflourocarbons (HFCs). These potent GHGs are actually also referred to as “super-greenhouse gases” to emphasize their high global warming potential.
Over the past three decades, there has been a constant move forward in the refrigerant industry to phase out the most harmful fluorochemicals, largely due to regulations such as those put forth under the Montreal Protocol. However, many businesses are at different stages of the lifecycle of their refrigerants, which indicates that harmful refrigerants are still in use, continuing to be environmental liabilities.
An additional area of concern is that most regulations manage the production and consumption of refrigerants, but not the accidental emissions of refrigerants over their lifecycle. In fact, the current global refrigerant inventory is over 7 billion mtCO2e, and 99 percent of refrigerants are released to the atmosphere over their lifecycle. Furthermore, refrigerant use is predicted to increase globally 50 percent by 2030.
Given these facts, and their collective expertise in the management of GHGs, Madden, English and Cohen wanted to create a product that allows large refrigerant users to manage the refrigerants within their supply chains. More importantly, they wanted to provide large refrigerant users with an economic incentive to manage these GHGs by transforming refrigerants from "liabilities" into "assets."
“Our philosophy is that if it doesn’t make economic sense, it won’t be adopted to scale, and we are looking to make a global impact,” says co-founder Madden, who is also EOS Climate’s Chief Business Development Officer.
As a result, they created a technology platform called Refrigerant Revolution — an innovative method of tackling climate change by incentivizing the environmentally responsible use of fluorochemical refrigerants throughout their lifecycle.
Madden says, “We realized that refrigerants were being treated as 'consumables' — that is, as a one-time expense — and were not being properly managed beyond purchase.” However, refrigerants do not break down easily, so they can be recycled and reused.
Therefore, Refrigerant Revolution was created to track refrigerants across the existing supply chain. This enables companies to not only derive more value over time from their refrigerants by recycling them, but it allows companies to be able to take refrigerants out of the supply chain to dispose of them in an environmentally safe way. The result is economic and environmental benefits on a global scale.
“Our goal is to help our customer take control in managing their refrigerants. This helps them to be proactive and stay ahead of the regulatory curve,” says Madden. This is particularly important for multinational companies that have to comply with varying federal, state and international regulations.
Therefore, EOS Climate assists companies in developing “beyond compliance” best practices throughout the lifecycle of their refrigerants, particularly for safe disposal. They also assist their clients with the generation and sale of carbon offsets “from verified destruction of phased-out refrigerants at end of life.”
In fact, EOS Climate originated a standardized protocol, adopted by California’s Air Resources Board under the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, also known as AB 32, which enforces the cap-and-trade regulation of GHG emissions. This means that not only does EOS Climate help its clients safely dispose of harmful refrigerants, the company’s expertise in GHG trading allows the company to reward its clients for the safe disposal of these “super-greenhouse gases.”
In order to provide this comprehensive lifecycle management service, EOS Climate has established several key partnerships with organizations from different stages within the value chain, including Carrier, a global manufacturer of heating, air-conditioning, and refrigeration products, Recyclebank, a green rewards program that rewards consumers for environmentally responsible purchases, and the EPA’s Responsible Appliance Disposal (RAD) Program, which is responsible for recovering “ozone-depleting chemicals from old refrigerators, freezers, window air conditioners and dehumidifiers.”
“We aim to link the supply chain together to create a sustainable, economic model. We also identify the leaders in each sector that are driving change and partner with them. Overall, we have spent a lot of time creating an ecosystem of knowledgeable people dedicated to environmental sustainability,” says Madden. “We applied for the Sustainable Brands Innovation Open because Sustainable Brands, to us, is the driver and the platform for progressive business.”
This “ecosystem” has enabled the company to accomplish a lot during its four-year tenure. As of April 2013, EOS Climate has approximately 50 percent market share of California compliance credits, which is equivalent of three million tons of offset production. They have also developed a diverse client base including pharmaceutical manufacturers, mechanical contractors, HVAC and commercial/residential refrigeration equipment manufacturers, supermarkets and universities.
EOS Climate has also been recognized by several prestigious organizations; in addition to being an SBIO semi-finalist for 2013, Environmental Finance and Carbon Finance magazines have awarded the company Best Project Developer — North American Markets. EOS was also named runner-up for Best Offset Originator for California.
“Our overall goal continues to be a global transformation of the refrigerant value chain. A lot of entrepreneurs get caught up in the widget game and focus on incremental improvements on the existing system. However, the technology now exists to deliver massive change on big problems,” says Madden.
The company is already disrupting current practices, and continues to develop strategic partnerships with multinational organizations to further drive its environmental impact.
Published May 14, 2013 7pm EDT / 4pm PDT / 12am BST / 1am CEST
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Uniting to Drive Change: The Cleaning Industry Bands Together for a Sustainable Future
Q&A: Why Sustainability Professionals Need Chemists
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Thomas Cline Ph.D.
Professor, Business Administration
Ph.D., University of Cincinnati
M.B.A., University of Virginia
B.S., University of Virginia
Expertise/Interests
Marketing Psychometrics
About Thomas Cline Ph.D.
Dr. Thomas Cline is professor of business and statistics in the Alex G. McKenna School at Saint Vincent College and consultant for statistical methods at the School of Nursing and Health Sciences and Robert Morris University. Dr. Cline is a recipient of the International Teaching Excellence Award from the Association of College Business Schools and Programs. He earned a Ph.D. at the University of Cincinnati, an MBA from the University of Virginia’s Darden School and a B.S. from UVA.
Dr. Cline is co-author of two text books: Consumer Behavior (2nd Ed., 2015) and Consumer Behavior: Science and Practice. Florence, KY: Cengage Learning (2012), both published by Cengage with Frank R. Kardes and Maria L. Cronley. Dr. Cline has also published numerous articles in academic journals, including the Journal of Advertising, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Economic Psychology, Journal of Marketing Communications, and Psychology & Marketing.
Dr. Cline’s recent research has been published in health care journals, including the Journal for Nurse Practitioners, Urologic Nursing, Archives of Psychiatric Nursing, Clinical Simulation in Nursing, Journal of Nursing Informatics, Anesthesia Journal, Advanced Emergency Nursing Journal, Critical Care Nursing Quarterly, Issues in Mental Health Nursing, Nurse Education in Practice, Quality Management Health Care, Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, and Journal of Women’s Health.
Dr. Cline is widely cited in the popular press, including USA Today, Psychology Today, CBS News, The LA Times, MSNBC, and The Washington Times. He is a frequent contributor to the American Psychological Association, the American Marketing Association, and the Society for Consumer Psychology. Dr. Cline serves as a reviewer for the Journal of Advertising and the American Academy of Advertising.
Dr. Cline won the Pennsylvania State Golf Championship in 1979 and earned a four-year golf scholarship to UVA. He serves as Saint Vincent’s head coach for the men’s and women’s golf teams, hosted at Arnold Palmer’s Latrobe Country Club.
Email thomas.cline@stvincent.edu
Aurelis Hall, Room 219
Statistics I
Statistics II
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bike city historic historic union pacific rail trail state park hup pacific park park city rail ski state trail union ut
3: Rail-Trails
Historic Union Pacific Rail Trail Park City, UT
Photo Credit: Laura Cohen, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy The Historic Union Pacific Rail Trail runs 28 miles from Park City, UT north to the Echo Reservoir through Coalville. The rail trail follows the path of I-80 and is also a state park. The beautiful trail is set amongst the snow-capped backdrop of the Wasatch mountain range. In the summer time the trail is popular with bicyclists and walkers and provides a great starting point for accessing many of the nearby trails. The trail is also open for equestrian use. In the winter time the trail is used mainly by snowshoers and cross-country skiers. The rail trail was funded by six separate TE projects. The projects occurred in 1992, 1994, 2001, 2005, 2008, and 2009 and received a total of $1.13 million in TE funding. Another $502,000 was contributed as the local match. The 30% local match contributed to these projects helped to design, acquire, and pave the trail. The trail is primarily crushed stone but is paved near Park City and Wanship. The rail trail is maintained by the Mountain Trails Foundation The trail will serve as the backbone to the Wasatch Loop Trail. The Wasatch Loop trail will create a loop connecting South Ogden, Park City, Heber, Provo, Salt Lake City, and many of the sounding areas. For more information on the trail contact the Historic Union Pacific Rail Trail State Park at P.O. Box 754, Park City, UT, 84060-0754 or call the park at (435) 649-6839.
CityHistoricHistoric Union Pacific Rail Trail State ParkPacificParkPark CityUTRailStateTrailUnion
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Philippe Coutinho Height, Weight, Age, Wife, Children, Biography, Family, Affairs & More
Bio/Wiki
Full Name Philippe Coutinho Correia
Nickname(s) The Magician, The Kid, Little Magician
Profession Professional Footballer
Body Measurements (approx.) - Chest: 36 inches
- Biceps: 13.5 inches
Debut International- On 7 October 2010 for Brazil against Iran
Club- In 2009 for Vasco da Gama.
Jersey Number #11 (Brazil)
#14 (Barcelona)
Coach/Mentor Tite, Ernesto Valverde
Position Attacking Midfielder/ Winger
Date of Birth June 12, 1992
Birthplace Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Zodiac sign/Sun sign Gemini
Nationality Brazilian
Hometown Rocha, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
College/University Did Not Attend
Educational Qualification Not Known
Ethnicity Brazilian
Hobbies Listening to Music, Playing Video Games
Girls, Affairs & More
Marriage Date December 13, 2012
Wife/Spouse Aine Coutinho
Children Son- Philippe Coutinho Junior
Daughter- Maria Coutinho
Parents Father- Ze Carlos Coutinho (Architect)
Mother- Dona Esmeralda Coutinho
Siblings Brothers- Cristian Coutinho (Lawyer)
Leandro Coutinho (Lawyer)
Sister- None
Favorite Footballer Ronaldinho
Favorite Food Rice and typical Brazilian beans
Favorite Music Brazilian Pagode and Samba, Spanish Reggaetonin
Favorite Animal Dog
Style Quotient
Cars Collection Porsche, Audi Q7, Range Rover
Salary (approx.) $16.5 Million (₹104 Crore)
Net Worth (approx.) $60 Million (₹408 Crore)
Some Lesser Known Facts About Philippe Coutinho
Does Philippe Coutinho smoke?: No
Does Philippe Coutinho drink alcohol?: Yes
He was the third son in the family and grew up with his two elder brothers who were his footballing inspirations growing up.
Philippe grew up in Rocha, Rio de Janerio. His home was minutes away from the iconic “Maracana Stadium.”
In his childhood, he was too shy to join the other children playing football. He used to watch his elder brothers playing football on a concrete pitch near his house.
At the age of six, Philippe started playing football. It was not long when people started noticing his skills and talent. In an interview, he revealed that it was his friend’s grandmother who urged his father to enrol him in the local football academy.
He started taking part in the local tournaments. He then fell in love with Futsal (A variant of a game of football. It is played on small pitches with lesser number of players). This improved his game a lot.
Coutinho’s talent was spotted by the scouts. Vasco da Gama’s coaches approached his father and encouraged him to take Philippe to the club’s trials. When he joined the academy, he was very upset and didn’t want to play. He felt very out of place; as he was too shy to interact with his teammates. After a short while and much motivation, he started to get comfortable and lose his shyness.
At the age of 13, he first thought of pursuing football professionally. He was then included in Brazil’s U-14 squad.
At the age of 16, Italian giants Inter Milan bought Coutinho from Vasco for $7.7 Million. He was loaned to Vasco for two years and was to join Inter Milan when he would turn 18.
On August 27, 2010, Philippe played his first game for Inter Milan. On May 8, 2011, he scored his first goal for the club from a free kick against Fiorentina.
On January 30, 2012, he was loaned to the Spanish Club Espanyol.
In the summer of 2012, he married his longtime girlfriend Aine.
On January 30, 2013, Coutinho joined Liverpool. He made his debut with the club against West Bromwich Albion on February 11, the same year.
He scored his first International goal for Brazil against Mexico on June 7, 2015.
Philippe was voted as the “Man of the Match” for three matches in a row during the 2016–2017 season.
On January 6, 2018, he joined the La Liga club Barcelona. He made his debut for the club on January 25, 2018, against Espanyol in the “Copa del Rey” quarter-finals.
Coutinho was the best man at the wedding of his Brazilian teammate Roberto Firmino.
He was included in Brazil’s squad for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. He also scored the first two goals for the team in the tournament.
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Infowire: Is the military a good choice for kids unsure about college?
By Sarah Alvarez • Apr 28, 2015
This is part of an Infowire series about choices for young people who want to be successful but aren’t seeing that path through college, or in some cases, even traditional high school education.
Battle Creek Fire Captain Michael Fleisher says before signing a military contract, recruits should think hard about the job they want to do in the military and once they get out.
Credit Sarah Alvarez / Michigan Radio
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Higher education increases a young person’s chances of being successful. But college can’t guarantee success, and there will always be young people who would like to make a choice other than higher education.
Eighteen-year-old Adam Theisen is one of them. “School isn’t really my thing,” he says. “A lot of people say 'well, maybe you can just go to community college and get your grades up and go to a university.' I don't want to do that.”
Theisen will graduate from high school in Monroe this spring. In September, he leaves for basic training in South Carolina. Before he enlisted he talked to a lot of people who served or thought about serving. His advice: “Don’t make any assumptions. Talk to a lot of people," he says, "and don’t always trust a recruiter 100%. It’s not like they’re lying to you but they can’t guarantee anything.”
Listen to the radio version of this story to hear directly from some of the folks featured in this article.
Safety is chief among the things a recruiter can’t guarantee, of course. The number of stories about difficulties service members face on active duty, or as veterans once they come home, makes it impossible to ignore the risk. Theisen isn’t choosing the military to be practical. He deeply wants to serve.
Some young people are looking towards the military as an alternative to college, or maybe a pathway toward it. Theisen doesn’t think that’s a good enough reason. “You have to want to do it,” he says. “You can't just want to do it to get college paid for."
Does the military equal job security?
The military does make more economic sense now than it did even a few decades ago. Not because the military has changed much, but because the economy has.
· For students who aren’t doing well in college or don’t go to a highly selective school, the benefits of college just aren’t as great.
· There are close to 1 million young people who have given up looking for work and aren’t in college either.
· Youth unemployment rates have started to drop, but for people under 25 they’re still much higher than they are for older workers. The rate for 17- and 18-year-olds is about 17%.
The military isn’t a cash cow for its recruits. Staff Sargent Jacob Smith is an Army recruiter in Jackson, Michigan. He says the benefits package for recruits to the military is valued at about $18,000, and includes food, housing and medical care. He says a recruit’s annual income should be around $18,000 more.
Barring injury or dismissal, the military can guarantee a job for active duty military. If recruits want to move back into the civilian work force once they leave the armed forces, it helps to pick a career route early.
Choose a career in the military the same way you would choose a university.
Michael Fleisher is a fire captain for the city of Battle Creek. He says he didn’t think much about joining the Air Force before he did it. His family didn’t have money for him to go to college and they pushed him towards the military.
He was very careful about choosing the job (called an MOS) he would do during his service, and he made sure the contract he, and everyone gets when they join up, listed the job he actually wanted. He joined the firefighting service. That’s his biggest piece of advice for new recruits, to be careful choosing an MOS.
If you don’t, he says, “Whatever’s open they’ll just stick you in there. It’s pretty important to get that contract.”
All recruits sign a contract when they enter the military and that contract lists a job. Every branch of the military handles these jobs differently. Reddit is a good place to ask questions and join discussions of these differences, but a word to the wise: Nothing on that site is verified, so always double-check that what you’re reading is true.
Even though Fleisher likes how his life and career turned out, he’s pushing his three kids towards college. “If they do decide to join the military I’ll be with them all the way.”
He’s not talking about moral support. “I would obviously go into the meetings with the recruiter, make sure everything is specific.”
Recruiters also say it’s a good idea to have that kind of support from a parent, a relative, or a mentor; somebody who can ask questions and help make such an important decision. It also helps to have support if you’ve got your heart set on going into the military and you don’t get in, which happens a lot.
If you choose the military, it doesn’t mean you’ll get in.
The military has fewer spots to fill now, and can be picky about who they choose to fill them.
Smith, the Army recruiter, says he really wants to help anybody who wants to join up – that’s his job – but there are some bright lines that will disqualify people.
· There’s always a physical exam, so being out of shape or having a medical problem might disqualify you.
· You have to be a citizen, have a green card, or be a “Dreamer,” meaning that you’re undocumented but were brought to the United States as a child.
· No drugs! The military will work with people who have juvenile records, even some who have criminal records, but Smith says any conviction for drug possession, or even possession of drug paraphernalia is something he and other recruiters can’t work with.
· You don’t have to have graduated from high school to join, you can join with a GED. Smith says there are often fewer spots for hopefuls with GED’s.
· Anybody trying to get into the military has to pass a test to get into the military called the ASVAB. “We turn away an easy five times as many people that don’t pass the test, as the ones that can and get enlisted,” says Smith.
That failure rate might seem surprising, but it does track with Michigan's public school performance. On the state's test, only around 20% of Michigan's high schoolers score proficient in math and science.
The Army has free prep courses to help students prepare for their test, and the Army lets recruits take the test several times. Smith does tutoring for the test, in part because it’s what he likes to do. When he leaves the military, he wants to be a teacher.
Adjusting to the military choice and the lifestyle
Fire Captain Michael Fleisher says he remembers the hardest part of the adjustment to life in the military was not the physical demands or the discipline. For him, it was the realization that the military literally owns its service members. When Fleisher was stationed in Arizona, he remembers some soldiers getting disciplined for “destruction of military property,” because they allowed themselves to get sunburned.
Even Adam Theisen, the hopeful Marine, has some concerns. "I’m concerned about what might happen to me after the military,” he says.
Adam’s mom, Karen Theisen, feels that way too. Her worries take center stage. She is supportive of Adam, but would have liked if he'd chosen college instead of the military.
“My concerns are that Adam will come out of the military not the same person,” she says.
Sargent Smith, the Army recruiter, acknowledges the risk and the adjustment, but he trusts the young people joining up know what they’re doing. “This is a big decision,” he says. “But it’s a decision they are fully capable of making.”
Send story ideas or comments our way at infowire@michiganradio.org
Infowire: Is alternative education a good idea for your kid?
By Sarah Alvarez • Mar 5, 2015
Michelle / flickr
Infowire fills the information gap and meets the news needs of families struggling to make ends meet. Get all Infowire alerts by texting INFOWIRE to 734-954-4539 or email infowire@michiganradio.org
"Everybody who goes to alternative gets the label," says Zachary. "Automatically."
The label, he explains, is that of "the bad kids in town." Zachary is 16 and a student at the alternative high school in Stockbridge. He says everyone in his small town just grows up thinking "alternative kids" are somehow more trouble than their traditional school counterparts.
Infowire: If you're trying to stretch a dollar should you use banks or avoid them?
vaguely artistic / flickr
Banks get a lot of bad press. So do check-cashing outfits. Payday lenders may get the worst press of the three.
All of them are just businesses, trying to figure out how to grow when so many people in the state have less money to throw their way.
If you need reminding, at least one third of Michiganders are low income and working. Another 17% live in poverty.
The benefits of a college degree aren't what they used to be
By Dustin Dwyer • Feb 26, 2015
hmm360/morguefile
If you want to make it in America, the standard advice is, go to college. People who get at least a bachelor's degree are more likely to be employed, they have higher wages on average, and they're more likely to make it out of poverty.
But the benefit of a college degree may be reaching a plateau.
Last week, The Hamilton Project (part of the Brookings Institution) held a conference on the future of work. The conference was meant to be about how technology may change employment opportunities in the years to come. But along the way, education came up again and again.
College might still be "worth it" for most people. That doesn't mean it's a good value.
By Sarah Alvarez • Mar 31, 2015
I have seen more than enough data to convince me that in order to move up the economic ladder, you should go to college.
That doesn't mean I'm completely satisfied by this data. Because I'm not.
Does academic probation keep kids in college or push them out?
By Brittany Bartkowiak • Feb 6, 2015
Taylor College / flickr
Adjusting to college life can be hard for any student, but it is especially tough for those from low-income and first-generation backgrounds. Only 11% of students who fit into both of those categories graduate within 6 years.
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Michigan's students leave college with some of the highest debt levels in the nation
By Dustin Dwyer • Nov 13, 2014
Credit Schlüsselbein2007 / Flickr CC / HTTP://J.MP/1SPGCL0
That is the average amount owed by each student who graduated college in Michigan last year. The number comes from a report released today by the Institute for College Access & Success's Project on Student Debt. The report reveals that 63% of college graduates in Michigan last year had at least some debt when they graduated. Michigan ranked eighth in the nation for the average size of that debt.
And the institutions where students graduated with the highest amount of debt may not be the ones you'd guess.
Two of Michigan's public universities make the report's list of "high debt" institutions. They are Ferris State University and Michigan Technological University. The average debt of Ferris graduates last year was $37,325, according to a breakdown of the report's findings. Average student debt at Michigan Tech was $34,903.
Adrian College makes the report's list for "high debt" private colleges and universities, with an average student debt of $41,763 in the class of 2013.
Both the University of Michigan and Michigan State University reported relatively low-levels of student debt, at least compared to other institutions in Michigan. The public university with the lowest reported level of student debt in Michigan was Wayne State, where the class of 2013 owed an average of $23,136.
In total, 63% of college graduates in Michigan last year left school with some amount of debt.
So why are Michigan's college students graduating with more debt than students in 42 other states? One tempting answer is to say that Michigan's universities charge more. And, in fact, the average tuition at four-year public universities in Michigan is among the highest in the nation, according to a report from the College Board. Here's a chart from that report, where you can see Michigan's ranking sixth from the right:
Credit Source: College Board, Trends in College Pricing 2014 report
But this doesn't tell the whole story of why college debt is so high in Michigan. Michigan has a higher than average tuition rate at its public universities in part because the University of Michigan is so expensive compared to almost any public university in the country. But, as the report from the Project on Student Debt shows, the U of M is not the main contributor to high levels of student debt in this state.
"The NASSGAP report shows that only seven states cut their scholarship funding from the 2002-03 school year to the 2012-13 school year. And, on a percentage basis, Michigan's cut was the largest by far."
There is one other explanation to consider, and it comes from yet another report from yet another organization. The National Association of State Student Aid & Grant Programs has been issuing annual reports on state-level scholarship and loan funding for decades. The latest report, which covers the 2012-13 academic year (and which you can find on this list) shows that Michigan ranks 27th in the nation for the total amount of scholarship money offered to its college students. This is despite the fact that Michigan has a higher student population than many other states.
Michigan's ranking in student scholarship funding has also dropped dramatically over the past decade. The NASSGAP report shows that only seven states decreased scholarship funding from the 2002-03 school year to the 2012-13 school year. And, on a percentage basis, Michigan's decrease in funding was the largest by far. State funding for scholarships in Michigan dropped 57.5% in that 10-year period. Our state went from having the 10th-highest amount of scholarship funding in the country to having the 27th highest.
It's not a secret how that happened. Nearly all of the funding decline came from the elimination of the Michigan Promise scholarship in 2009. Those cuts came at time when Michigan's economy was faltering, and the state budget was a mess.
Michigan's economy is now on the mend, and state revenues are increasing.
Some of the new money coming in is being spent on different priorities. One example is the expanded investments in preschool. If you took away all of the money going toward educating four-year-olds right now in Michigan, you'd have enough to fully restore the cuts made to college scholarship funding. But, as we've reported extensively here on State of Opportunity, the evidence suggests that money is being well-spent on the four-year olds. One of the biggest benefits is that preschool investment will make it more likely that kids will go on to college.
It's just that, in the current setup, kids in Michigan will also be more likely to leave college with a lot of debt.
The case for why education can't solve the problems created by racist policies
By Dustin Dwyer • Jun 2, 2014
This is a follow-up on the conversation about reparations, started by an article by Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic a few weeks back. Many of us see educational opportunity as one of the ways to undo the ongoing economic injustice created by racist policies against African Americans in this country. But in this piece, sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom argues that even a college diploma isn't enough to equal the playing field.
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The Court is in Session
9 months ago Megan Roelfs
Siblings Kinzie, Kaz Comley play together for the first time in high school
Sibling duo, junior Kinzie and freshman Kaz Comley will be hitting the basketball season together for the first time. As both from a young age, have grown up around the sport of basketball, and it has been a part of their lives. For the first time this year, they get the opportunity to play at the same level together.
“I like it because all of the people that are so involved with it, make it fun and enjoyable,” Kinzie said, “Also, I’ve been around basketball since I was young and you just learn to love the sport and all that it teaches you.”
With both of their love for the sport, Kinzie enjoys getting to watch Kaz play in high school.
Kaz has been playing basketball since the first grade, and like Kinzie, he has enjoyed getting to learn the sport.
“I can go to gameday, and watch him also when I’m playing and that’s really nice. When he was in Jr. high, I couldn’t do that because of high school practices for me,” Kinzie said.
“I grew up around basketball because my family members played basketball. My dad was a coach when I was growing up, so I was at a lot of his practices,” Kaz said.
Kaz is a starter this year for the boys. High school basketball different than jr. high, and Kaz really enjoys it. Becase the atmosphere and competition is a lot more different.
Kaz also likes this year, is being able to watch his sister play, and knowing that she will be watching and supporting him, they also support and watch each other along with pushing each other, whether that be on the court or in the gym together practicing.
“It’s really cool, because not many siblings have that opportunity to watch each other and I like getting to watch her,” Kaz said.“Everytime we are in the gym, we make sure that both of us are working hard.”
Previous Making A Racket
Next Student Experiences America
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Staffordshire brewery ups production with £10k small business grant
A Staffordshire brewery has upped its contract bottling production by 25 per cent – thanks to a £10k business grant.
Staffordshire Brewery Limited, based in Cheddleton, applied to the Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire Growth Hub’s Small Business Grant Scheme for help to buy machinery to boost production speed.
The brewery makes and bottles its own beer, as well as providing a bottling service to other breweries across the UK – including Lymestone Brewery in Stone, and Titanic Brewery in Stoke-on-Trent.
Ken Newsome, compliance and projects officer, said: “We bought a new bottling line, faster than the one we had, but we were having to manually put the bottles on and we couldn’t keep up with it! We needed a semi-automatic de-palletiser to allow us to feed empty bottles to the machine at a rate we couldn’t do manually.”
But having just invested in the new bottling line, the brewery needed to secure more funding for the extra piece of equipment.
Ken, 68, from Congleton, added: “I read about the grant scheme in the Growth Hub’s newsletter, having previously been in touch through Staffordshire Chambers of Commerce. I called the free advice line, which signposted me to the Small Business Grant Scheme Manager. After answering a few simple eligibility questions I was sent an application form to complete. We were so pleased to find out we were successful.
“The de-palletiser cost around £40k, including delivery and installation, so the £10k grant gave us that extra bit needed to foot the bill. It’s increased production by at least 25 per cent, reduced production costs, and allowed us to gain more customers, because we can meet the demand.
“The Growth Hub was very helpful in providing funding advice and guiding us through the process. I would strongly recommend other businesses give them a call.”
Julie Evans, Growth Hub Small Business Grants Scheme manager, said: “The Small Business Grant Scheme supports the growth of existing B2B small and medium-sized enterprises in the Stoke-on-Trent & Staffordshire LEP area.
“We are happy to have been able to help Staffordshire Brewery purchase their de-palletiser to enable them to speed up their bottling process, and welcome applications from other SMEs in the area.”
For more information, visit stokestaffsgrowthhub.co.uk to use the free live chat service.
The Growth Hub was established by the Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) to play a major role in the drive for strong, sustainable business growth across the LEP area.
Local Enterprise Partnerships were established by the Government to bring all the stakeholders in local areas – from the private and public sectors – around the table to drive local economic growth. In total there are 38 LEPs across England.
The Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire LEP is chaired by David Frost CBE, former director general of the British Chambers of Commerce and includes senior representatives of local businesses, universities and FE colleges, and local authorities including Staffordshire County Council and Stoke-on-Trent City Council.
The Growth Hub acts as the focal point for businesses that wish to grow, providing co-ordinated and cohesive growth programmes, business networks, growth groups and links to specialist information, advice and services.
The funding for the Growth Hub was secured from the Government’s Regional Growth Fund (RGF) through Lancaster University, who led the creation of 15 new growth hubs across the UK.
As part of the Growth Hub service, officers from the Staffordshire Chambers of Commerce are available to provide face-to-face advice to local businesses and to signpost them to specialised support.
The project (either has received or is receiving up to) £1.6m of funding from the England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. The Department for Communities and Local Government (and in London the intermediate body Greater London Authority) is the Managing Authority for European Regional Development Fund. Established by the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support innovation, businesses, create jobs and local community regenerations. For more information visit https://www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding.
Growth Hub helps landscaping firm Great Grounds expand into Staffordshire
Growth Hub funding helps local events company to shine
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Tennis at Love
Nothing But the Love of Tennis
Category: Grand Slam
Season Update: Serena Out, Tennis at Love Back
October 3, 2015 December 14, 2015 Julian KabatLeave a comment
It has been a while since I have posted to the blog. This blog when it began seemed to lack a direction. The original purpose of setting this blog up was my love of watching tennis. I wanted a place for myself to post my thoughts about what was going on in the tennis world. It then became an exercise of needing to post daily, and just became facts of what happened that day of interest to me. Unfortunately, due to school, work, and other events in life, it became neglected. Fortunately, however, as a part of a course on digital journalism, the blog is revived. The new purpose, to commentate more on the major news and events in the tennis from a personal pursuit of finding out what is happening, and why it is important. Right now it will be more personal, but I hope to reach out to people, and organizations to bring a greater perspective on the world I love.
Since I last left off the Davis Cup final has been set between Belgium and Great Britain. And in Fed Cup, the final will be contested between the Czech Republic and Russia, with Maria Sharapova expected to make a rare appearance in Fed Cup competition. Both of those competitions will take place after the season is over in November. Until then, there are still several weeks to go before the WTA Finals in Singapore, and the ATP World Tour Finals in London.
Also since my last post, Serena Williams did not win the Grand Slam at the U.S. Open this year losing out in the semifinals to Roberta Vinci. All the commentators on TV used the same word to describe what happened: unbelievable. It seemed like a mortal lock at that point in the tournament. On September 30th, her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou told ESPNW she may not play again this season due to her disappointment. The next day she withdraws from both Beijing and Singapore. This leaves only two players qualified so far for the even, which is only three weeks away. Simona Halep and Maria Sharapova might have to wait a couple of weeks before finding out who will join them this year in the top 10.
In the U.S. Open championship matches, Novak Djokovic showed the world why he is number one in the world on the men’s side, with a victory over Roger Federer in the final. On the women’s side, Flavia Pennetta won and announced her retirement, but only after the season is over. With all the points she collected she has a great opportunity to join Halep and Sharapova in the finals.
The men have not had any tournaments since the U.S. Open with big name players due to the Davis Cup, and the women have had Tokyo and Wuhan. Agnieszka Radwanska from Poland won in Tokyo, while Venus Williams, Serena Williams sister, won in Wuhan. This week is the Premier Mandatory tournament for the women in Beijing. Some of the men will join them for the ATP 500 tournament there, while others will play in Tokyo. The season is almost over, but not done yet.
Wimbledon Wrap-Up, Part 3: Gentlemen’s Edition
July 23, 2015 July 23, 2015 Julian KabatLeave a comment
The semifinals featured three of the top four players but the draw did not go exactly to plan. There were several upsets in week one including Rafa Nadal’s loss in the second round. That was not entirely a big upset as he had lost to Dustin Brown before, and grass is his worst surface.
All the top rising stars saw very little success this year at Wimbledon with last years semifinalists Grigor Dimitrov and Milos Raonic going out in the first week as well. Nishikori was forced to pull out due to a calf injury, but it begs the question if he will ever be able to get to the top with all of his injuries. This was not a tournament for the young guns.
This was a tournament for the seasoned veterans with Djokovic, Murray, Federer, and Gasquet making the semifinals. Wawrinka, who won Roland Garros just a few weeks before was downed by Gasquet in five sets in the quarter finals. Overall, the Big Four (plus Wawrinka, minus Nadal) was the story of the Gentlemen’s draw this year at The Championships.
Wimbledon Wrap-Up, Part 2: Ladies Edition
July 15, 2015 Julian KabatLeave a comment
This year’s Wimbledon featured many upsets, especially on the ladies side. Top 10 seeds Simona Halep and Eugenie Bouchard were both knocked out in the first round. It was not as surprising as one might expect for Bouchard. She had come in to Wimbledon with an 8-13 record, including a 1-3 record on grass. I expected her to go out early, and was not surprised that she lost in the first round. Halep was a little different. She has also been known to be struggling in the later part of tournaments but she still is winning matches. It was not so at wimbledon this year.
The defending champion, Petra Kvitova, seemed to be having an easy draw through to the semi-finals where it was projected she would meet Halep. After breezing by the first and second rounds, she was defeated in a 3-set comeback win by Jelena Jankovic. Kvitova seemed to lose control of her shots near the end of that match and it cost her the opportunity to defend her Wimbledon title.
In the same section of the draw as Kvitova, there was the crafty Aga Radwanska, who had been having a less than stellar year with her worst loss coming in the first round of the French Open. Her win-loss record was 15-13 after that defeat. She played two warm-up tournaments, and wimbledon bringing her grass court record to 12-3. Her resurgence on grass put her back in the top 10 after an abysmal clay court season.
The surprise of the Championships was the rise of Garbiñe Mururuza, the 21-year-old Spaniard. She made her first Wimbledon or grass court final, defeating the likes of Kerber, Wozniacki and Radwanska en route. Muguruza previously stated her dislike of grass, but has really come into her own on it.
Other players with success were Victoria Azarenka, making it to the quarter-finals, losing in three sets to Serena. Maria Sharapova also made a semi-final, also losing to Serena. Madison Keys is another rising star who made the quarter finals, losing in a thrilling 3-set match to Radwanska. Overall, the new top 10 has Aga back in it, and Muguruza as a new face. It was a successful Championships.
Wimbledon Wrap-Up, Part 1: Champions Edition
For the first substantive blog post I will give you my take on the events that have occurred the past fortnight at the All-England Club. It was an exciting Championships with many twists and turns.
This big news is the completion of the Serena Slam by Serena Williams. She had to endure several three set matches, but in the end she came through and is on track to win the calendar year Grand Slam. She started slow in the final match but came back to show Muguruza and the world that she is the champion.
After a disappointing end to his Roland Garros campaign, Novak Djokovic came back in style. After a testy fourth round match against Kevin Anderson, where he came back from two sets to love down, he cruised to the finals. The first two sets of the championship match were tight, but Djokovic was able to gain a crucial break in the third set and maintain it to take the set. The fourth and final set was also relatively routine.
In days to come, I will be writing more about the Championships.
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Global economy would save up to $160 trillion by shifting to renewables, electric cars
"Every dollar spent on energy transition would pay off up to seven times."
Joe Romm Apr 11, 2019, 11:24 am
Aerial view of blooming rapeseed flowers next to a photovoltaic power station at Liangyuan Town on March 29, 2019 in Hefei, Anhui Province of China. (Photo by Wang Wen/VCG via Getty Images)
Imagine a world where 85% of all electricity comes from renewable sources, there are over one billion electric vehicles on the road, and we are on track to preserve a livable climate for our children and future generations.
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) reported this week that such a future is not merely possible by 2050, but thanks to plummeting prices in key clean energy technologies, the cost of saving the climate has dropped dramatically.
In fact, according to IRENA’s new report, the most cost-effective strategy to achieve a “climate-safe future” — keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) — is an accelerated energy transition to renewables and energy efficiency coupled with electrification of key sectors like transportation.
This Renewable Energy Roadmap (REmap) scenario “would also save the global economy up to USD 160 trillion cumulatively over the next 30 years in avoided health costs, energy subsidies and climate damages.”
At the same time, IRENA reports, “every dollar spent on energy transition would pay off up to seven times.”
Renewables ‘have won the race’ against coal and are starting to beat natural gas
Meanwhile, the president remains clueless about the clean energy revolution.
IRENA’s reference case scenario, which incorporates current commitments under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, foresees flat energy-related CO2 emissions for the next three decades.
But those emissions must be reduced by 70% to have a good chance of keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius. The REmap scenario achieves more than 90% of the necessary reductions through renewable energy and energy efficiency (see chart).
Renewables and efficiency are the key to saving the climate cost-effectively. CREDIT: IRENA.
The centerpiece of this strategy is taking advantage of the plummeting cost of renewable energy — especially wind and solar power — to transform the electricity sector. As the IRENA report notes, “in the Power sector, solar and wind energy are on the path to dominance.”
And in their REmap case, wind and solar power by themselves account for the majority of electricity produced in 2050 (see chart).
By 2050, solar and wind dominate power generation in the Remap case. CREDIT IRENA.
Another core element of this rapid transition to a low-carbon global economy is to electrify as many of the sectors of the economy as possible — what IRENA calls “Deep Electrification” — to take advantage of the emergence of cheap renewables.
“Electricity would progressively become the central energy carrier,” the report explains, “growing from a 20% share of final consumption to an almost 50% share by 2050.”
One of the most important sectors to electrify in the coming decades is transportation, where improved performance and rapidly dropping prices for batteries have enabled an electric vehicle (EV) revolution in recent years. There are currently some five million EVs on the road today. IRENA projects that in their rapid transition case, which includes investing heavily in EV charging infrastructure, a billion EVs could be on the road in three decades.
Currently, renewables provide about one sixth of the world’s total final energy consumption. But with rapid penetration of both renewables and electrification technologies in key sectors, IRENA projects renewables could provide a remarkable two thirds of all energy consumed around the world.
Thus, another critical sector to decarbonize is heating, much of which is done by natural gas today. That requires a two-pronged strategy: a big push for solar thermal, including solar hot water heaters, and a 16-fold increase in high-efficiency electric heat pumps.
The third key component of the REmap case is a very large investment in energy efficiency in transportation, buildings, and industry. Important measures range from the very simple, such as increased insulation, to the more high tech, such as the use of the latest LED lighting technologies.
Previous research from the International Energy Agency found that the health and productivity benefits from green buildings and high-efficiency industrial processes actually exceeded the energy savings and could increase cumulative economic output through 2035 by $18 trillion.
$18 Trillion Windfall: Health And Productivity Benefits of Efficiency Top Energy Savings
Finally, IRENA examined the tremendous employment benefits that would come from an aggressive transition to a low-carbon economy.
The report finds “new jobs associated with the transition (i.e. renewable generation, energy efficiency and energy flexibility) significantly outweighing the jobs lost in the fossil fuel sector.” Total net new jobs would number 11 million. At the same time, significant resources should be devoted to helping those in sectors losing jobs.
The bottom line is that thanks to the remarkable innovation in key clean energy technologies in recent years, a transition to a low-carbon economy is not only feasible, it would have enormous benefits in improved health, reduced climate impacts, and employment.
#Clean Energy, #Climate, #Renewables
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Through The Fringe
A glance into the world through the fringe.
Tag Archives: Éponine
Les Miserables (2012 Film) Review
Posted on January 20, 2013 by Mathew
Contains Spoilers.
I have to admit it: I’m not a great fan of musicals. The bombastic musical numbers, stereotypical jazz hands and lack of realism usually grate heavily on me. I’ve never seen classics such as Grease or Mamma Mia, and I never plan to, since I have no interest in watching clichés in action. But Les Miserables was always clearly going to be different. I didn’t know much about it, other than being set during revolutionary France – which, honestly, is alone enough to sell a film for me – and that it features much misery. And I’d heard glowing reviews for it. So, I thought I’d go see it; this was not a mistake.
At 157 minutes in length, my intolerance of sitting through whole films was sure to be tested to its limit, much as it was during my viewing of The Hobbit. I had no reason to fear, for the film was a thoroughly engaging experience from beginning to end, and I only looked at my watch four times – low for my standards! This is in part due to the very interesting way in which the film tackles the plot. It’s set primarily across three time periods: 1815, 1823 and 1832. In 1815, Jean Valjean has just been released from servitude for the crime of stealing bread, and the story covers his refusal to report for parole and attempts to escape from capture by the policeman Javert. The events of 1823 include Valjean, now a successful businessman, continuing to avoid Javert; his worker Fantine’s descent into poverty, prostitution and eventually death; and Valjean’s adoption of Fantine’s daughter, Cosette. In 1832 the events of the failed June Rebellion play out and brings together every character. More a tribute to the original Victor Hugo 1862 novel than this adaptation, the plot skillfully develops the characters and themes, perfectly intertwining them together. Not until the final twenty minutes does Les Miserables begin to feel repetitive and dragged out, and even here the film is such an enjoyable watch that I hardly noticed.
The acting is terrific. Hugh Jackman is the undeniable star as Valjean, hardly identifiable as the same actor between 1815 and 1832. I actually was quite confused about who was whom to begin with, partly down to my inability to instantly recognise faces but also due to his incredible acting. Russell Crowe is good as Javert, and I’m just going to admit that I liked his singing, too. This might not mean much coming from someone who enjoys atonal music (I suspect I’m slightly tone deaf) but I don’t understand all the negativity towards his performance. The entire cast seemed so perfect in their roles that unless you’re an experienced music critique (I’m not) then it isn’t worth mentioning everyone individually. The only characters I didn’t enjoy were Thénardier and his wife, played by Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter. This wasn’t down to their acting, I just found their comedy roles grating and went against the tone of the film.
In terms of writing, I was heavily impressed by the development of the characters. To praise him again, Valjean must be one of the most realistic, developed and three-dimensional characters in the history of literature. The fact that this comes across in a musical is truly remarkable. Fantine, Marius and Éponine are, likewise, also developed to an astonishing degree. Less so is Cosette, who while excellently portrayed as a child feels underdeveloped as a teenager. This is largely down to the ‘love at first sight’ method of introducing her romance with Marius, where they look at each other and are suddenly a couple. For such an important feature of the story, there’s not much excuse for this – particularly considering the high standard of everything else.
I’m torn over the film’s depiction of historical events. While someone without a knowledge of French history between 1789 and 1848 will undoubtedly allow most historical references to go over their head, I’m debating whether this is a bad thing. The film is not worse for omitting explanations of who the monarchs were, of leaving no reference to the 1830 revolution only two years previous to the events in 1832, or for lacking much mention of the Napoleonic Wars. I have located one area which could have had a bit more development however. It’s never clear precisely why the students want to get rid of the monarchy; while there are mentions of “King after King” being no better than each other, and the social environment definitely shows how a revolution would be desirable, perhaps another line or two wouldn’t go amiss – it almost seems like a student project for some Practical Politics degree.
Most of my comments may be more suited to a critique of the novel – which I plan to read someday – so I need to mention the music. From the very beginning, it’s apparent that the music is utterly fitting and beautiful. Whether singing in desperation, (such as Fantine’s famous ‘I Dreamed a Dream’), resolve (‘Valjean’s Soliloquy’), love (‘A Heart Full of Love’), sadness (‘Empty Chairs at Empty Tables’) or hope (‘Do You Hear the People Sing?’), each song is a heart-swelling wonder. Even Javert’s ‘Stars’ and ‘Javert’s Suicide’ I enjoyed. The only song which grated was ‘Master of the House’, for the same reason I didn’t like the Thénardiers which I mentioned above. Outwith the context of the film the soundtrack stands up as nothing short of brilliance. Particular standouts are ‘I Dreamed a Dream’, ‘On My Own’, ‘One More Day’ and ‘Do You Hear the People Sing?’.
The direction was also completely captivating. Tom Hooper really brings the historical setting alive with wide, sweeping shots interspersed with close ups which bring the intensity of emotion directly to the viewer. Mark Kermode commented on the wisdom of avoiding medium shots, to truly create an experience which would be impossible to witness in a theatre. The shot which pans down on 1832 Paris, past the elephant, has to be my favourite moment in the film.
Les Miserables is a film which has refused to leave my thoughts since I saw it. I’m possessed by a fervent desire to re-watch it, which is always a good thing. The characters, the music, the setting… Virtually everything is perfect. By far it’s the best film I’ve seen for a while, and I would highly recommend it.
Coming Soon: Les Miserables (musical) review & Les Miserables (novel) review.
Final Rating: 9.5/10
Posted in Films, History, Literature | Tagged Éponine, Cosette, Do You Hear The People Sing?, Fantine, France, French Revolution, Grease, Helena Bonham Carter, Hugh Jackman, I Dreamed a Dream, Javert, Jean Valjean, July 1830 Revolution, June 1832 Rebellion, Les Miserables, Mamma Mia, Marius, Mark Kermode, Napoleonic Wars, One More Day, Russell Crowe, Sacha Baron Cohen, Thénardier, The Hobbit, Tom Hooper, Victor Hugo | 3 Replies
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Engineering Honor Societies
As an engineering student at UT, you have the opportunity to take part in long-established student chapters of engineering honor societies to help prepare you for future careers.
Alpha Nu Sigma - Nuclear Engineering Honor Society
The Alpha Nu Sigma National Honor Society (ANSNHS) was established to recognize high scholarship, integrity, and potential achievement among outstanding degree-seeking nuclear engineering students at institutions of higher learning. Tennessee Alpha has been inducting members since 2011.
Advisor: Martin Grossbeck
» National Website
Chi Epsilon - Civil Engineering Honor Society
Dedicated to the purpose of maintaining and promoting the status of civil engineering as an ideal profession, Chi-Epsilon (XE) was organized to recognize the characteristics of the individual civil engineer deemed to be fundamental to the successful pursuit of an engineering career, and to aid in the development of those characteristics in the civil engineering student.
Advisor: Chris Cox
E-mail: ccox9@utk.edu
Eta Kappa Nu - Electrical Engineering Honor Society
Eta Kappa Nu (HKN) is a unique membership organization dedicated to encouraging and recognizing excellence in the electrical and computer engineering field. Members consist of students, alumni and other professionals who have demonstrated exceptional academic and professional accomplishments.
Advisor: Leon Tolbert
Email: tolbert@utk.edu
Pi Tau Sigma – Mechanical Engineering Honor Society
Pi Tau Sigma is a Mechanical Engineering Honor Society, instituted in order to establish a closer bond of fellowship among its members which will result in mutual benefit to those men and women in the study and in the profession of mechanical engineering.
Advisor: Majid Keyhani
E-mail: keyhani@utk.edu
» Webiste
» International Website
Tau Beta Pi was founded in 1885 to mark in a fitting manner those who have conferred honor upon their alma mater by distinguished scholarship and exemplary character as undergraduates in the field of engineering, or by their attainments as alumni in the field of engineering, and to foster a spirit of liberal culture in the engineering colleges. It is the only engineering honor society representing the entire engineering profession.
Advisor: Chris Pionke
E-mail: cpionke@utk.edu
Engineering Student Groups
The college is fortunate to have many student chapters of professional engineering organizations on campus. Involvement in these groups enhances your educational experience and provides cooperation and fellowship with others who share your interests.
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is the largest professional and technical society, principal voice, and information resource devoted to the progress of engineering and science in aviation and space. Our mission is to advance the arts, sciences, and technology of aeronautics and astronautics, and to promote the professionalism of those engaged in these pursuits. At both the national and state level, AIAA fulfills its commitment to undergraduate students by providing scholarships for exceptional engineering students. The University of Tennessee student chapter of AIAA is actively involved in enriching the undergraduate experience of Aerospace Engineering majors by providing aerospace-related professional, educational, and social events.
Advisor: James Coder
E-mail: jcoder@utk.edu
» Vollink
The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) is the world’s leading organization for chemical engineering professionals, with more than 40,000 members from ninety-three countries. AIChE has a breadth of resources and expertise in core process industries or emerging areas, such as nanobiotechnology. Members can access information on recognized and promising chemical engineering processes and methods from a global network of intelligent, resourceful colleagues. AIChE also provides learning opportunities from recognized authorities to help chemical engineers move forward professionally and enrich the world we live in.
Advisor: Eric Boder
E-mail: boder@utk.edu
The American Nuclear Society (ANS) is a not-for-profit, international, scientific and educational organization established to promote the awareness and understanding of the application of nuclear science and technology. ANS has developed a multifarious membership composed of approximately 10,500 engineers, scientists, administrators, and educators representing 1,600 plus corporations, educational institutions, and government agencies.
Advisor: Steven Skutnik
E-mail: sskutnik@utk.edu
American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers
The American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) is an international educational and scientific organization dedicated to the advancement of engineering applicable to biological, food, and agricultural systems. ASABE serves 1200 preprofessional members in 80 university chapters across the United States and Canada and sponsors several student competitions that attract participants from across the United States, Canada and beyond.
Advisor: William E. Hart
E-mail: whart@utk.edu
Members of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) come from all disciplines of civil engineering, from all types of backgrounds, and from all corners of the world. ASCE pioneers new programs, policies, educational activities, and professional resources to help them successfully compete in their business.
Advisor: Zhongguo (John) Ma
E-mail: zma2@utk.edu
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is a 120,000-member professional organization focused on technical, educational and research issues of the engineering and technology community. ASME’s mission is to promote and enhance the technical competency and professional well-being of its members, and through quality programs and activities in mechanical engineering, better enable its practitioners to contribute to the well-being of humankind.
Advisor: Eric Wade
E-mail: erwade@utk.edu
The Associated General Contractors of America is the leading association for the construction industry. With over 26,000 member firms, AGC provides a full range of services satisfying the needs and concerns of its members, thereby improving the quality of construction and protecting the public interest.
Advisor: Islam El-adaway
E-mail: eladaway@utk.edu
» Natonal Website
Association of Computing Machinery
The student chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery at the University of Tennessee is dedicated to serving its members by providing information about job opportunities, the computer science fields, and a location for our local members to share their knowledge and experience in the world.
The vision of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) is to serve as the world’s leading society of professionals devoted to developing and using engineering and technology to advance human health and well-being. BMES serves as the lead society and professional home for biomedical engineering and bioengineering. Our leadership in accreditation, potential licensure, publications, scientific meetings, global programs, and diversity initiatives, as well as our commitment to ethics, all serve our mission to promote and enhance knowledge and education in biomedical engineering and bioengineering worldwide and its utilization for human health and well-being.
Advisor: Xiaopeng Zhao
Advisor Phone Number: 865-974-7682
Email: bmes@utk.edu
Tickle College of Engineering Ambassadors
The University of Tennessee Tickle College of Engineering Ambassadors program was founded in 2004. The Ambassadors are the undergraduate arm of recruitment for the college. However, the scope of the program has been continuously expanding to meet the college’s needs. The purpose of the Ambassadors is to recruit prospective students to the Tickle College of Engineering, involve the college’s student body in its goals, and stimulate community interest in the field of engineering.
Engineering Mentor Program
Engineering Mentor Program is a channel that will aid beginner engineering students with finding their suited discipline. Upper level students will mentor them in the discipline of their choice. This program targets the uncertainty and broad questions conjured by engineering freshmen. This will allow students to gain a holistic perspective on the engineering curriculum they wish to master.
Advisor: Kevin M. Kit
Email: kkit@utk.edu
FIRST Alumni at UT Knoxville
FIRST Alumni at UT Knoxville’s goal is to connect students who previously participated in FIRST’s robotics-based engineering programs, and help them to create new connections.
Advisor: Rachel McCord
Email: firstalum@utk.edu
Hydrolunteers
Hydrolunteers represents the student chapters of American Water Resources Association (AWRA) and American Water Works Association/Water Environment Association (AWWA/WEA). It is a water and environment focused organization aiming to bring together students with a variety of backgrounds to network and collaborate with one another.
Advisor: Jon Hathaway
E-mail: jhathaw2@utk.edu
» American Water Resources Association
» American Water Works Association
» Water Environment Association
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is a professional society for those involved with engineering electronics. It has monthly publications and a website with a vast resource of information on the profession and technologies.
Advisor: Mongi Abidi
E-mail: abidi@utk.edu
Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers
The Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers @ UT is an organization governed by the students within the Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering. Its main focus is to provide students with outside resources regarding their future professional careers. In addition, it is a way in which industrial engineering students can get to know one another better outside of the classroom. The highlight of the ISE year is the annual regional conference. Historically, participation has been excellent.
Advisor: Mingzhou Jin
E-mail: jin@utk.edu
Institute of Transportation Engineers
The Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), an international individual member educational and scientific association, is one of the largest and fastest-growing multimodal professional transportation organizations in the world. ITE members are traffic engineers, transportation planners and other professionals who are responsible for meeting society’s needs for safe and efficient surface transportation through planning, designing, implementing, operating and maintaining surface transportation systems worldwide.
Advisor: Lee Han
E-mail: lhan@utk.edu
Material Advantage
The Material Advantage Student Program provides access to the materials science and engineering professional’s most preeminent societies:
The American Ceramic Society (ACerS)
Association for Iron & Steel Technology (AIST)
ASM International
The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS)
Advisor: Claudia Rawn
E-mail: crawn@utk.edu
Web Site TBD
With more than 10,000 members, the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) is the largest student-managed organization in the country. NSBE’s mission is to increase the number of culturally responsible Black engineers who excel academically, succeed professionally and positively impact the community.
Advisor: Travis Griffin
E-mail: nsbe@utk.edu
Society of Automotive Engineers
The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) has more than 90,000 members — engineers, business executives, educators, and students from more than 97 countries — who share information and exchange ideas for advancing the engineering of mobility systems. SAE is your one-stop resource for standards development, events, and technical information and expertise used in designing, building, maintaining, and operating self-propelled vehicles for use on land or sea, in air or space.
Advisor: David Irick
E-mail: dki@utk.edu
Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers
The Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) was founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1974 by a group of engineers employed by the city of Los Angeles. Their objective was to form a national organization of professional engineers to serve as role models in the Hispanic community.
The concept of Networking was the key basis for the organization. SHPE quickly established two student chapters to begin the network that would grow to encompass the nation as well as reach countries outside the United States. Today, SHPE enjoys a strong but independent network of professional and student chapters throughout the nation.
Email: shpe@utk.edu
The Society of Women Engineers (SWE), founded in 1950, is a not-for-profit educational and service organization. SWE is the driving force that establishes engineering as a highly desirable career aspiration for women. SWE empowers women to succeed and advance in those aspirations and be recognized for their life-changing contributions and achievements as engineers and leaders.
Read more about the Society of Women Engineers SWEeties Mentorship Program.
Email: swe@utk.edu
Systers: Women in EECS
Systers: Women in EECS @ UT (Systers) is a volunteer student organization whose mission is to recruit, mentor, and retain women in the Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Systers is proud of their accomplishments so far: mentoring young women entering EECS, reaching out to girls in the community to tell them about opportunities in their field, and helping ensure that talented students have access to their department’s resources and their community’s industry opportunities, regardless of gender.
Advisor: James Plank
E-mail: jplank@utk.edu
Theta Tau Professional Engineering Fraternity
Theta Tau is a co-ed, professional engineering fraternity that combines the positive attributes of a conventional fraternity with the unique benefits afforded to those belonging to a co-ed brotherhood of engineers. Including members from all engineering disciplines,Theta Tau seeks to build lifelong friendships and professional contacts between all of its members.
UTK Volunteers Without Borders
The purpose of the UT Volunteers Without Borders at the University of Tennessee is to partner with disadvantaged communities to improve their quality of life through implementation of environmentally, equitable, and economically sustainable engineering projects, while involving and training internationally responsible engineering students and professionals.
Advisor: Judith Mallory
E-mail: jmallory@utk.edu
» Global Initiatives
Women in Industrial and Systems Engineering
Women in Industrial and Systems Engineering’s mission is to empower and equip women with the knowledge and resources to achieve their full potential in the engineering field. There are many opportunities in the program including mentor programs, professional speakers, resume building, networking, leadership opportunities, and social events.
Faculty Advisor: Anahita Khojandi
E-mail: khojandi@utk.edu
» Department website
Women in Nuclear
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Student Chapter of Women in Nuclear is part of an extensive national and global organization that supports nuclear energy and nuclear technology fields promoting an environment in which men and women are able to succeed. This organization allows and encourages networking with women in the fields to further professional development and provide an organized association through which the public is informed about nuclear energy and nuclear technologies.
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Janice Dickinson Slams Kim Kardashian and Kendall Jenner: 'They're Not Models'
Vivien Killilea/Arun Nevader/Victor Boyko—Getty Images
By Brittany Talarico / People
Janice Dickinson is known for her outspoken opinions on the fashion industry, so it was only a matter of time before the self-proclaimed “world’s first supermodel” weighed in on the great supermodel debate of 2016. More specifically, she took on Kendall Jenner along with her sister Kim Kardashian and the rest of the KarJenner squad. And her opinions were particularly unforgiving.
Dickinson joined AfterBuzzTV’s The Tomorrow Show With Keven Undergaro for a very candid interview where she called Kendall a “lovely” person before attacking her career.
“I don’t think she’s a supermodel, I don’t. … Give me a break. You think that’s supermodel? That is not supermodel,” she ranted. “She can’t beat me. She can’t. Apples and oranges.” (Kendall has clapped back at haters and defended her model title.)
Get our Living Newsletter. Sign up to receive the latest career, relationship and wellness advice to enrich your life.
She also revealed that she was shocked and disappointed when Kim and husband Kanye West landed their own Vogue cover in 2014, an opinion which was also shared by other celebrities at the time.
“Kim Kardashian made the cover of Vogue which made me want to vomit. It was crazy,” Dickinson said on the live broadcast “They’re not models! They’re reality TV stars! You know modeling is extremely hard work you have to have perfect proportions. The Kardashians do not have couture proportion.”
And she didn’t stop there. In the clip (above) she even addressed what she calls their “plastic” butts.
This isn’t the first time the Kardashian-Jenner family has been under fire for their role in fashion. Project Runway‘s Tim Gunn has spoken out publicly against Kanye West’s clothing line and the entire family’s style.
“When it comes to fashion I say to people all the time, if you want guidance for your fashion just consider this, if a Kardashian is wearing it — don’t,” the fashion critic told the Huffington Post in 2015. “I think it’s vulgar and I just think given the amount of public exposure that the Kardashians have, to potentially be sending a message to people that ‘you too can dress like this’ — no.”
This article originally appeared on People.com
Motto welcomes outside contributions. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.
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Second incident of anti-Semitic fliers found on campus in less than a year
Rebecca Bihn-Wallace — campus@theaggie.org
Photo Credits: JUSTIN HAN / AGGIE
Chancellor, Jewish fraternity respond to anti-Semitic incident
Anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi fliers were recently found distributed throughout campus, according to a message from UC Davis Chancellor Gary May posted on the university’s website on Sept. 23. This incident comes less than a year after anti-Semitic fliers credited to the neo-Nazi organization The Daily Stormer were found posted throughout campus last October.
“Campus police have been notified and are investigating,” May’s message states, adding his condemnation of the fliers and saying that the university is “sickened that any person or group would invest any time in such cowardly acts of hate and intimidation.”
The fliers were found posted around 4 p.m. in Mrak Hall and the Mathematical Sciences building, campus spokesman Andy Fell told The Sacramento Bee.
Asa Jungreis, the president of the Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi at UC Davis and a third-year community and regional development and sustainable agriculture and food systems double major, responded to the anti-Semitic incident in an email statement sent on behalf of AEPi.
“As members of the Jewish community at UC Davis, we are deeply saddened and angered that neo-Nazi and white supremacy flyers were found on campus on September 23rd,” AEPi’s statement reads. “We fully condemn this cowardly act of hiding hateful rhetoric and intolerance behind anonymous flyers left around campus. No community at our university should have to contend with this form of virulent bigotry, particularly as many Aggies are beginning their college careers this month.”
Last October, fliers posted throughout campus and credited to a local division of the neo-Nazi site The Daily Stormer depicted then recently-confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh surrounded by politicians and individuals — including a likeness of California Senator Dianne Feinstein and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, who are both Jewish — with Stars of David on their foreheads. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her, is depicted with the words “Good Goy” written on her forehead.
“Every time some anti-white, anti-American, anti-freedom event takes place, you look at it, and it’s Jews behind it,” the flier states in large, bold type.
In 2017, a sermon “calling for the annihilation of Jews” was given at the Islamic Center of Davis; in 2016, campus printers received anti-Semitic fliers from The Daily Stormer; also in 2016, UC Davis received a ranking in a list of universities with higher incidents of anti-Semitism and in 2015, swastikas were spray painted on the AEPi house in Davis.
Following the posting of the anti-Semitic fliers last October, a group of Jewish student leaders met with Chancellor May to discuss ways in which the university could proactively address the issue of anti-Semitism on campus. This meeting resulted in an agreement on the university’s part that it would host a town hall allowing students to voice concerns as well as a series of workshops for students and staff led by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Two workshops focused on combating anti-Semitism on campus were held in November and February, but both were expressly unaffiliated with the UC Davis administration.
To date, university officials, including the chancellor, have not hosted a town hall nor any workshops targeting anti-Semitism.
“Acts of vandalism against any ethnic or religious communities on campus have no place at our university,” AEPi’s statement reads. “In the coming year, we hope that student groups across campus will find ways to come together and demonstrate a united front against antisemitism, racism and all forms of hate and bigotry on the UC Davis campus.”
May’s statement listed support services for students and faculty, including Student Health and Counseling Services and the Academic and Staff Assistance Program.
Written by: Rebecca Bihn-Wallace — campus@theaggie.org
Managing editor Hannah Holzer also contributed to this report.
UCPath payroll issues may continue as two more campuses added to system in
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Proposed fee would be $34 per quarter, the first increase to fee since 1979
Blu Buchanan
I’m wondering why, considering that the fliers were from a white nationalist group that didn’t only target Jewish people but non-white people as a whole, other groups are not mentioned here or in the other article written about the fliers. Were other groups contacted? The BSU? The MSA? The LGBTQIA+ Resource Center? Because they have also been actively targeted by this group (who has also been fliering here since before Milo Yiannopoulos was invited to campus in the Winter of 2017).
To be clear, I’m not asking for the silencing of anti-Semitism, I’m asking why these fliers aren’t being talked about as part of a larger white nationalist recruitment and it’s effects on multiply-marginalized people (including, for example, Black Jewish folks).
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SciPo 2019: Plants, Brain and the Imagination - 8th June 2019
Dr Romola Parish
SciPo is now in its fourth year, and continues to offer lively and inspiring debate on the frontier between science and scientists on the one hand and poets and poetry on the other.
The line-up on the 8th June this year comprised Adam Horovitz, Frances Leviston and Michael Symmons Roberts. The plenary session, chaired by Sarah Watkinson, explored the “magic of what’s there” at the interface between scientific method and poetic practice, each drawing on their particular experiences: Adam’s residency with the Pasture-based Livestock Association and his resulting collection The Soil Never Sleeps”; Frances’ commission from the Piezoelectric Transduction Memory, Bio Nano Consulting and Poet in the City collaboration in which she explored poetry as an “electrical material” in a collection of five poems entitled, Emily’s Electrical Absence; and Michael’s engagement with the Mapping of the Human Genome project embodied in his collection Corpus.
Each poet explored the nature of their collaboration and what it means to properly engage with science beyond a superficial exploitation of scientific vocabulary or translation of scientific concepts into a creative medium. One of the areas of overlap prominent in this year’s discussion was the use of metaphor – in science as an almost accidental means to explain new concepts not previously articulated, and in poetry as a means of interrogating and intersecting with scientific logic in order to illuminate a new perspective. Michael’s poem Mapping the Genome uses the idea of driving on a motorway through the landscape created by the metaphor of mapping of the human genome; Frances used the work of Emily Dickinson with its highly condensed yet profound metaphoric conceits as a means to probe the development of new IT processing technologies – the world beyond the silicon chip; Adam’s work emphasised the fundamental importance of practical engagement – being on the farm and taking part in its daily work, learning about the world of soils and pasture and its use and management, in order to be able to write out of the experience on to the page.
The discussion was, as always, wide-ranging and inspirational. The project has evolved from an initially tentative exploration of two separate worlds to have at its heart the wonderful blurry between-ness that evolves out of two disciplines that both stretch language and logic ever further in order to convey the wonderful mystery of scientific and poetic discovery.
The chance to ground the discussion in the work of each of the guest poets, and seeing it taking on new life through the poetry competition winners is always a welcome part of the day.
The SciPo project, founded by Jenny Lewis and Sarah Watkinson, and this year organised by Sarah Watkinson and Elsa Hammond, St Hilda’s Lecturer in Romantics, continues to probe new territory: this year, as a result of extra funding from TORCH (Oxford University’s Research Centre in the Humanities), it has extended into a series of poetry writing workshops in association with research at Wytham Woods (where Sarah is writer in residence this year), The Botanic Gardens and The University’s Natural History Museum, as well as a seminar series organised by Nicola Thomas, Lecturer in German at Queens.
Thanks are due to the able organisational team, the welcoming environment of St Hilda’s, and to Sarah for her excellent chairmanship of the discussion.
Dr Romola Parish was an academic specialising in environmental change. She now practices as a planning lawyer in London. In 2017 she was poet in residence at Oxfordshire County Council’s Historic Landscape Classification Map project, resulting in a collection In Polygonia. She is also an artist and a collection of images of her work and poetry Crying in the Silicon Wilderness accompanies an exhibition of her work. Her poetry has been published in a number of journals, including the Irish Literary Review and the Cardiff Review, and has won, been placed and shortlisted in a number of competitions.
Photo by Lisandro Gallardón
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Tories in Comms
Tag: brexitcentral
September 28, 2019 December 16, 2019 ahoneysettwatts Blogs
Language matters – get Brexit done and dusted
Adam Honeysett-Watts is Director of Conservatives in Communications and works in the financial technology sector.
For some sections of society, politicians and journalists are among the least trusted professions. While my experiences are largely positive, I understand that frustration. I believe that the UK’s decision to leave the EU presents both with the ideal opportunity to repair that trust by delivering and reporting on the popular point of view.
There are exceptions to every rule and US president Donald J. Trump, UK prime minister Boris Johnson and Italian hopeful Matteo Salvini are them. They understand that the populist and what they see as patriotic PoV demands that politicians place stronger emphasis on national security as well as unique culture and identity, including their respective countries’ Christian heritage. By putting America first, returning sovereignty – by delivering on Brexit, and having sought to control immigration from the Mediterranean Sea – Trump, Johnson and Salvini are, and were, seeking to deliver on the ‘will of the people’.
I highlight Salvini here (despite his very recent and perhaps temporary exit from Government) as I learned more about him while touring Tuscany and Umbria earlier this year. Yes, to want to move forward – beyond our relationship with the EU – doesn’t equate to being anti-European. I am in no doubt that Brits will continue to holiday, live and work in Europe long after October 31st.
These politicians are increasingly leveraging rallies, social media and alternative channels to push out messages and communicate with their electorates. They’re not doing this to simply keep-up with the changing times but because people are losing faith in the mainstream media.
There have been several occasions where the accuracy and impartiality of some reporting has been called into question such as the coverage of the recent Tory leadership contest and this week’s debate in the House of Commons chamber. I very much support press freedom but would encourage journalists to be extra prudent. As Alastair Stewart tweeted: ‘It becomes increasingly difficult for the public to get their heads around what is happening in our politics if supposedly independent TV reporters keep giving us their views rather than the facts.’ Andrew Marr responded with: ‘Analysis fine, hard questions essential, but our views? Not wanted on voyage.’ I agree with both. In short, the momentum wasn’t behind Rory Stewart, and the loony left, including Labour’s John McDonnell, have said much worse.
Looking ahead, perhaps a general election will present another opportunity for both journalists and politicians alike to fix this disconnect and yes, move forward. Let’s get Brexit done and dusted – instead of further debate and delay – and take the fight to Jeremy Corbyn and Sadiq Khan.
If you have ideas for the group or would like to get involved please email: info@toriesincomms.org.
This piece was written for Politicalite (September 29, 2019). It was syndicated on BrexitCentral (September 29, 2019).
August 26, 2019 December 16, 2019 ahoneysettwatts Blogs
Different journeys, same end destination
I have written before about my early-life journey from picturesque Beverley – one of the North’s best-kept secrets (and where 59% of voters opted to leave the European Union) – to East Anglia (some 69% voted the same way) where, aged 18 I moved to study politics, including European culture and identity. It is a period of my story which made me develop an understanding for my fellow countrymen’s Euroscepticism.
Yet, sometime during the ensuing decade, I developed a healthy respect for the EU. I attribute this to working in the City and city breaks in European capitals. And so, in 2016, I joined the 79% of South Londoners in Lambeth by voting to remain in the EU. I understand, therefore, why some people, including fellow Tory Reform Group members, questioned my early support and subsequent enthusiasm for Boris Johnson – for he, perhaps more than anyone else involved, advocated for Vote Leave.
Let me set out why I believe our end destination, under Johnson’s leadership, is more important than the journeys we are on – and how I eventually arrived there.
Our relationship with the EU is quite complex. I believed, rightly so, that it is a relationship of such complexity that it cannot be boiled down into one question in a ballot. I also believed – and feared – that a vote on this issue had the potential to split the Conservative Party and the country. Like George Osborne, this was one of those rare occasions when I disagreed with David Cameron because I couldn’t support the call for a referendum on the EU. However, when, in 2015, the Tories unexpectedly achieved a majority, and with no coalition partners to block one, a referendum became inevitable and the campaigns to leave and remain began in earnest.
At that point, I decided to campaign for Conservatives IN. However, the campaign to remain lost and the campaign to leave won. The EU referendum question, while simplistic, was clear. We have since discovered that though leave means quite different things to different people, the decision to leave was made. As such, the discussion moved to how we would build national consensus to deliver on the result of the referendum and help move our country forward.
Except, that didn’t happen. Theresa May made virtually no effort to engage the 48%. This time, as a means of finding consensus, I subscribed to The New European and found myself agreeing with Conservatives for a People’s Vote albeit I prefer the slightly more accurate term ‘confirmatory ballot’. However, Parliament has voted against one and polling indicates that the people do not want one.
One constant throughout these past four years has been the failure of the remain and remoan camp to run an effective operation and win enough support.
There comes a time when we need to accept where we are and recognise the need to move forward and give businesses the certainty they are asking for. Brexit is an important issue, but it should not be an all-consuming and indefinite issue at the expense of other priorities which shape people’s lives. Driven by this pragmatism, it didn’t take much to throw my support behind Johnson – a two-term mayoral winner in Labour London – as the man to take responsibility, own this and make a go of it in the national interest. It is a pragmatism which TRG and other membership organisations should applaud. We need to leverage Johnson’s qualities to win for the nation and shape a better future for all – leavers and remainers alike. After we have reached destination Brexit, we need Johnson’s Conservatives to take on Jeremy Corbyn, Sadiq Khan and the remaining loony left. Our society should be about freedom, individual responsibility and community. It’s time to move on and move forward.
This piece was written for our website and has been republished by ConservativeHome.com (‘I voted Remain and backed a second referendum. But here’s why I now back Johnson’ – September 10, 2019), The Commentator (‘Brexit: Different journeys, same end destination’ – August 27, 2019) and The Yorkshire Post (‘I voted Remain but now back Boris Johnson over Brexit’ – September 16, 2019). It was syndicated on BrexitCentral (September 10, 2019).
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We take pride in being active members in our community.
We always strive to do our best and give back to our community. Below are a few activities we have participated in:
The MetroWest Chamber of Commerce, located in Framingham, Massachusetts is a not-for-profit business networking, advocacy, community and economic development organization. We are committed to the education and support of our members’ growth and success and to the development of a positive economic climate in the MetroWest region and beyond. A five star accredited Chamber, as designated by U. S. Chamber of Commerce, The Chamber includes the communities of Ashland, Framingham, Holliston, Hopkinton, Natick, Sherborn, Southborough, Sudbury, Wayland and Westborough. The Chamber’s membership and services also extend to the communities of Bellingham, Dover, Franklin, Hopedale, Hudson, Marlborough, Medfield, Medway, Millis, Milford, Northborough, Wellesley, Weston and beyond, serving nearly 700 member businesses and representing over 35,000 employees.
Fore more information, click here >
MassBay Community College Foundation Board
The purpose of the MassBay Community College Foundation is to support MassBay Community College and its students. The Foundation accepts gifts of cash, securities, property, and materials on behalf of the College. The Foundation promotes MassBay Community College through the media, publications, and by personal testimony of its members and is building long-range security for the College through its various programs.
For more information, click here >
School to Career Partnership
The Attleboro School to Work Local Partnership was created in 1995 as a result of the National School to Work Opportunities Act. In 2000, the Partnership incorporated to become the Attleboro Area School-To-Career Partnership, Inc.
Currently more than 500 “Employer Partners” have worked with us to provide 1,500 internships and full-time positions. Working together, we have developed tools and training for careers and internships at local companies that help students learn the life skills necessary to be successful in the workplace.
Women's Independent Network
The Women’s Independence Network was established to provide education, support and guidance to women in transition. WIN is comprised of professionals who dedicate their career to assisting women just like you. Our partners include Therapists, Estate Planning Attorneys, Professional Organizers, Life Coaches, School Counselors, Divorce Attorneys, Financial Advisors, and other professionals who provide a solid contribution to helping women navigate this time of transition.
Commission for NE Association of Schools
Founded in 1885, the New England Association of Schools & Colleges, Inc. (NEASC), is the nation’s oldest regional accrediting association whose mission is the establishment and maintenance of high standards for all levels of education, from pre-K to the doctoral level.
Voices Against Violence
Voices’ mission is to end sexual and domestic violence. Voices staff members work to empower victims and survivors to help themselves and their children. Program Advocates work in partnership with individuals and families to ensure their safety, create stable home environments, gain independence, and to develop personal and economic self-sufficiency. Voices is also a social change organization, working toward the elimination of violence on a societal level through community education, primary prevention and increased public awareness and action. Voices also works in close collaboration with public safety and criminal justice professionals throughout the region.
Natick Youth Basketball
Natick Youth Basketball sponsors travel basketball teams for Natick boys and girls in grades 4 through 8. Our “A” and “B” teams participate in the Metrowest league, which consists of suburban towns located to the west and south of Boston.
United Way Women’s Alliance
United Way of Tri-County is an independently-governed 501(c)3 nonprofit organization connected to a network of more than 1,300 local United Ways through United Way Worldwide. We have our own board of directors and focus our work on local solutions for local problems.
United Way of Tri-County’s strategic approach to community problem solving concentrates on collaboration and results. We achieve results through 30-plus direct and supported programs at over 50 partner agencies.
South Middlesex Opportunity Council (SMOC)
The SMOC YARCM Program (Young Adult Residential Case Management) recently celebrated the graduation of two of its residents. Both men, John Abbott and Robert Ryan, have completed the one year program with special distinction and both have remained at the residence to serve as House Managers and mentors to the current YARCM Program participants. Families of both men attended the graduation, as well as the entire YARCM group (pictured here). We are grateful for, and humbled by their accomplishment.
MetroWest Center of Excellence for Women & Minorities in Math, Science & Technology
MetroWest Student Internship Program
MetroWest Momentum
Please contact us if you would like to learn more about these organizations and how we have helped them. Or, if you would like to demonstrate your support to any of these organizations and participate in their growth, please contact us here.
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Trump Reacts to Greta Thunberg Being TIME's 'Person of the Year'
@LeahBarkoukis
Source: AP Photo/Jason DeCrow
President Trump mocked Greta Thunberg after TIME magazine named her their 2019 person of the year.
“So ridiculous,” the president tweeted. "Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!”
The glowing piece announcing the honor praises the teen for skipping school to fearmonger about climate change.
Thunberg began a global movement by skipping school: starting in August 2018, she spent her days camped out in front of the Swedish Parliament, holding a sign painted in black letters on a white background that read Skolstrejk för klimatet: “School Strike for Climate.” In the 16 months since, she has addressed heads of state at the U.N., met with the Pope, sparred with the President of the United States and inspired 4 million people to join the global climate strike on September 20, 2019, in what was the largest climate demonstration in human history. Her image has been celebrated in murals and Halloween costumes, and her name has been attached to everything from bike shares to beetles. Margaret Atwood compared her to Joan of Arc. After noticing a hundredfold increase in its usage, lexicographers at Collins Dictionary named Thunberg’s pioneering idea, climate strike, the word of the year.
The politics of climate action are as entrenched and complex as the phenomenon itself, and Thunberg has no magic solution. But she has succeeded in creating a global attitudinal shift, transforming millions of vague, middle-of-the-night anxieties into a worldwide movement calling for urgent change. She has offered a moral clarion call to those who are willing to act, and hurled shame on those who are not. She has persuaded leaders, from mayors to Presidents, to make commitments where they had previously fumbled: after she spoke to Parliament and demonstrated with the British environmental group Extinction Rebellion, the U.K. passed a law requiring that the country eliminate its carbon footprint. She has focused the world’s attention on environmental injustices that young indigenous activists have been protesting for years. Because of her, hundreds of thousands of teenage “Gretas,” from Lebanon to Liberia, have skipped school to lead their peers in climate strikes around the world. (TIME)
Thunberg has become known for her angry lectures, infamously telling world leaders at the United Nations Climate Summit that they aren't doing enough.
"People are dying and dying ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is the money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth," she said. "How dare you!"
Liberals pounced on Trump for bullying a teenager, especially after his wife rebuked a Stanford professor for mentioning her son's name during an impeachment hearing last week. The obvious difference, however, is that Thunberg has made herself a public figure, propped up by left-wing activists and the mainstream media, while Trump's youngest son has not.
Update: Thunberg responded, changing her Twitter bio to reflect Trump's "advice."
Greta responds. pic.twitter.com/gLehTr01Sg
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) December 12, 2019
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Santo, Sam and Ed’s Sports Fever! 2012
Network Seven Network
Premiered 2012-01-30T12:30:00+01:00
Total Runtime 10 hours, 0 mins (10 episodes)
Genres Comedy
Produced by Working Dog and broadcast live from Channel Seven studios, Santo, Sam & Ed’s Sports Fever! dissects global sports news and events in a hour-long program each week. It consists of well-informed discussion, ill-informed analysis, pre-recorded clips, guest interviews, shonky impersonations, surprise cameos and live sketches. In short, it’s a left-field review of all the weekly sports actions, with a focus on the latest weekend results, hosted by Santo Cilauro, Sam Pang and Ed Kavalee.
Ed Kavalee
If you like Santo, Sam and Ed’s Sports Fever!, check out...
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North Carolina Periodontist
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Dental implants and Periodontics in NC
Michael Stella, DDS, MS
Dr. Michael Stella is a native of Elizabeth City, North Carolina. He graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill with Highest Honors in Biology and went on to attend UNC's School of Dentistry, where he earned his Doctorate in Dental Surgery with Honors. He then elected to pursue his dream of specializing in periodontics, joining the UNC Department of Periodontology and earning a Master's degree in Oral Biology and Certificate of Advanced Study in Periodontics in 2013.
Dr. Stella married his wife Julie in April 2018, and the couple are blessed to be expecting their first child in 2019. In the meantime, Dr. Stella stays in shape through varied workouts, running, and cycling. He and Julie love watching the terrific assortment of college and professional sports in the Triangle, including the Carolina Hurricanes.
In his spare time, Dr. Stella enjoys giving back in dentistry, teaching UNC students and residents as adjunct faculty, as well as volunteering at Wake Smiles Dental Clinic and the UNC Student Health Action Coalition. He has served on the board of the Raleigh-Wake County Dental Society for the last four years and is currently President of the Society, as well as being on several committees at the Dental School. He currently serves as a sedation examiner for North Carolina State Dental Board.
Michael Kretchmer, DDS, MS
Dr. Michael Kretchmer earned his Bachelor’s Degree with Honors in Biology at Binghamton University and his Doctorate in Dental Surgery from the prestigious University at Buffalo School of Dental Medicine. He then completed the specialty program in Periodontics at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, earning a Master's degree in Oral Biology and Certificate of Advanced Study in Periodontics.
Dr. Kretchmer is a proud father of three wonderful children. In his spare time, he can be found cheering on the UNC Tar Heels, Carolina Panthers, and Carolina Hurricanes. He also enjoys CrossFit, cooking, and spending time with his family.
Dr. Kretchmer is currently an adjunct professor in the Department of Periodontology and works closely with the residents in the training program. He enjoys giving back to the dental community through continuing education and guest speaking at dental societies across The Triangle.
Justin Valentine, DDS, MS
Dr. Justin Valentine is a native of Danville, VA. He graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with honors in Clinical Laboratory Sciences and completed his dental training at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
He completed his initial residency in hospital dentistry at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, CT. Next, he practiced general dentistry for two years in Eastern North Carolina. He returned to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to receive advanced training in Periodontology and his Master of Science in Periodontology.
Dr. Valentine enjoys martial arts and is a black belt in Tae-kwon-do. He also enjoys traveling.
Reinaldo Deliz-Guzman, DMD, MS
Dr. Reinaldo Deliz-Guzman is a native of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. He graduated from the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez Campus with a Bachelor’s of Science in Biology and completed his Doctorate in Dental Medicine at the University Of Puerto Rico School Of Dental Medicine at San Juan, PR.
He completed his initial residency in hospital dentistry at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center in Brooklyn NY. Next, he practiced general dentistry for two years in his hometown of Mayaguez, PR. He was then accepted into Saint Louis University to receive advanced training in Periodontology and his Master of Science in Periodontology
Dr. Deliz-Guzman likes to keep in shape by doing CrossFit and mud obstacle course races. In his spare time you can find him either at a theater watching a good movie or at the beach with his dog Loki who he rescued from a shelter in St. Louis. He is also a self-proclaimed foodie.
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Wake Forest Location
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Durham Location
245 E. NC Hwy 54, Suite 203
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Read Our Dental News
North Carolina Dental Implants
Raleigh NC Periodontist | 3 Tips for Healthy Teeth and Gums
Our experienced dental team wants to remind you that no matter how busy life gets, your oral health and wellness are equally as important. With that in mind, here are three easy tips to keep you out of the dentist’s chair and enjoying your life with beautiful teeth and gums. Moderation is Everything The world is full of delicious food...
Raleigh NC Periodontist | Gums: The Foundation for a Healthy Smile
December 23rd 2019
When people think of a healthy smile, they think of perfectly aligned white teeth. Many don’t realize that without healthy gums, your mouth and your body isn't healthy either. Your gum and periodontal health is not something to take lightly, as it is the foundation for a healthy mouth. Gums Hold and Support your Teeth Your gums are what hold...
Raleigh NC Dentist | Providing Relief from Periodontal Disease
Over 45% of U.S. adults have moderate to severe periodontal disease. Periodontal disease ranges from a mild inflammation of the gum tissues to periodontitis, a major oral disease that can result in soft tissue and bone damage and even tooth loss. Our experienced dentist is providing periodontal treatments to both new and existing patients who are suffering from any form...
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Skeptical of Jesus’ Resurrection?
David Farlow
The military of ancient Rome really blew it. When it came to the resurrection of Jesus, the troops who guarded His tomb could have saved us all a lot of time and trouble by just giving up His dead body. One problem: they never did. They didn’t because they couldn’t. And they couldn’t because, despite what you may have read or heard, the resurrection of Jesus was and is a well-attested fact, perhaps the best-attested fact of antiquity.
Neither the Romans nor the Jews of Jesus’ day denied it. In fact, practically nobody denied it for 1,700 years. But now it’s fashionable to deny it or, at least, to cast doubt on it. Why? Has the evidence changed? No, the testimony of history is still the same. As Thomas Arnold, former chair of Modern History at Oxford University, once wrote, “I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which God [has] given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead” (see Sermons on the Christian Life: Its Hopes, Its Fears, and Its Close [6th ed.; London, 1859] 324).
Well, if the historical evidence is so clear, why do certain scholars and laypersons discount Jesus’ resurrection? For some it’s simply that they’re not informed about the facts. For many others, however, it’s because they have a bias against the miraculous. Both of these factors show up in certain media presentations on the resurrection.
Take, for example, the argument that, because there is a gap of 40 years between the first Gospel and the resurrection event itself, we can state nothing historical about Jesus’ resurrection. Is this 40-year gap a problem? No, it isn’t, because the earliest New Testament documents — the Apostle Paul’s letters from the late 40s and early 50s — record that, while Paul was writing those letters, over 500 people who had seen the resurrected Jesus were still alive and talking about it. The point is, Paul’s letters narrow the gap between the Gospel accounts and the resurrection event itself to about 20 years, and his testimony is unquestionably compatible with that of the Gospels. Is it true, then, that the compelling details about Jesus’ resurrection were nowhere to be found before the first Gospel was written? No: those details were publicly available in the spoken witness of the earliest disciples, in the spoken witness of the church, and in the written witness of the apostles’ earliest letters.
What about the claim that the idea of a physical resurrection was historically just one of several ways to give meaning to Jesus’ life and death? Non-miraculous explanations of Jesus’ resurrection only rewrite the evidence to suit themselves. The fact is, only the miraculous explanation makes sense of all the New Testament evidence, the disciples’ transformed lives, and the early church’s phenomenal growth. Someone may say that the miraculous explanation is beyond the ability of the historian to prove. But this is only true if we start with the bias that the miraculous is not part of history. Remember this: the disciples themselves were initially skeptical of Jesus’ resurrection, and they became convinced of it once they saw Him, heard Him, and touched Him.
This is why the Apostle John wrote as he did about the witness of the Apostles to Jesus, including His resurrection:
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life — the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us — that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:1-3, ESV)
What happens when we…
The Cainite Character of…
Choir Practice
Worship Service, 9:30 AM
Coffee Fellowship
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Title 22. FOREIGN RELATIONS AND INTERCOURSE
Chapter 79. Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement
22 U.S.C. § 7210 - Application of the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act
Nothing in the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 [ 22 U.S.C. § 7201 et seq.] shall limit the application or scope of any law establishing criminal or civil penalties, including any Executive order or regulation promulgated pursuant to such laws (or similar or successor laws), for the unlawful export of any agricultural commodity, medicine, or medical device to-
(1) a foreign organization, group, or person designated pursuant to Executive Order No. 12947 of January 23, 1995, as amended;
(2) a Foreign Terrorist Organization pursuant to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ( Public Law 104-132);
(3) a foreign organization, group, or person designated pursuant to Executive Order No. 13224 (September 23, 2001);
(4) any narcotics trafficking entity designated pursuant to Executive Order No. 12978 (October 21, 1995) or the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act ( Public Law 106-120) [ 21 U.S.C. § 1901 et seq.]; or
(5) any foreign organization, group, or persons subject to any restriction for its involvement in weapons of mass destruction or missile proliferation.
Source: Pub. L. 107-56, title II, §221(b), Oct. 26, 2001, 115 Stat. 292.
The Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000, referred to in text, is section 1(a) [title IX] of Pub. L. 106-387, 114 Stat. 1549, 1549A-67, which is classified generally to this chapter. For complete classification of this Act to the Code, see Short Title note set out under section 7201 of this title and Tables.
electoral reform during the progressive era
original writings of the order and sect of the illuminati
sherman anti-trust act and the clayton act have been failures
THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service
economic structure and flow of commercial radio
merits and demerits of computer
merits and demerits of internet
merits and demerits of science
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My Vietnam Experience
Stetson Cavalry Hat
Photo courtesy of retired Air Cav pilot Dan Carbone, who
served in Korea, Germany, Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Website: http://www.cavhooah.com
The tradition of the Cav Hat began in the early days before the Vietnam War. The 11th Air Assault Division cavalry scout pilots were looking to distinguish themselves from other troops when they adopted the Model 1876 campaign hat for wear. They felt a need to return to the traditions of the Cavalry so long forgotten. LTC John B. Stockton, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 17th Cavalry Regiment, is given credit for establishing the tradition of wearing the Cavalry Stetson, much to the chagrin of the Division command group. By the time the 11th Air Assault Division was redesignated the 1st Cavalry Division (Air Mobile) the members of his unit, the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment, were wearing the hat.
1/9th Commanding Officers, 1970
Major Galen Rosher (Charlie Troop CO) front row far right
Nate Shafer, Scouts door gunner 1970 Pete Guthrie, Blues Plt Ldr 1968-69 & Pat Bieneman, Blue India, 1968-69
These men served in Vietnam with Charlie Troop 1/9th, 1st Air Cavalry Division .
The Cav Stetsons came out in full force for the Zit 990 Dedication Ceremony that was held on May 19, 2012 at the Mott’s Military Museum in Groveport, Ohio.
Blues Mini Reunion (September 2011) hosted by Pat Bieneman and his wife Carol (front row holding saber)
Charlie Troop Blues Reunion (October 2013) St George Island, Florida
Robert Duvall from “Apocalypse Now” (1979)
Filed under Vietnam War
Tagged as 1st air cav, Apocalypse Now, c troop 1/9th blues, charlie troop 1/9th, stetson cavalry hat
August 9, 2012 · 10:24 pm
Awards & Decorations of the Vietnam War
Presenting Awards
Awards Ceremony in Phuoc Vinh
Photos courtesy of Jim Delp
The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration awarded by the United States government. It is bestowed by the President in the name of Congress, and is conferred only upon members of the United States Armed Forces who distinguish themselves through “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his or her life above and beyond the call of duty while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States.
Army Distinguished Service Cross medal
The United States Army Distinguished Service Cross Medal is the second highest award for valor. It is awarded to a person who while serving in any capacity with the U.S Army, distinguished himself or herself by extraordinary heroism not justifying the award of a Medal of Honor; while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States.
The Silver Star is the third-highest combat military decoration that can be awarded to a member of any branch of the United States armed forces for valor in the face of the enemy.
Legion of Merit
The Legion of Merit is a military decoration of the United States armed forces that is awarded for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements. The decoration is issued both to United States military personnel and to military and political figures of foreign governments.
The Distinguished Flying Cross is a medal awarded to any officer or enlisted member of the United States armed forces who distinguishes himself or herself in support of operations by “heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight.
The Meritorious Service Medal is a military decoration presented to members of the United States Armed Forces who distinguished themselves by outstanding meritorious achievement or service to the United States subsequent to January 16, 1969. Effective 11 September 2001, this award also may be bestowed for meritorious achievement in a designated combat theatre.
Bronze Star Medal
The Bronze Star Medal (BSM, or BSV with valor device) is a United States Armed Forces individual military decoration that may be awarded for bravery, acts of merit, or meritorious service. As a medal it is awarded for merit, and with the “V” for valor device it is awarded for heroism. It is the fourth-highest combat award of the U.S. Armed Forces and the ninth highest military award (including both combat and non-combat awards) in the order of precedence of U.S. military decorations.
The Purple Heart is a United States military decoration awarded in the name of the President to those who have been wounded or killed while serving on or after April 5, 1917 with the U.S. military. With its forerunner, the Badge of Military Merit, which took the form of a heart made of purple cloth, the Purple Heart is the oldest award that is still given to members of the U.S. military, the only earlier award being the obsolete Fidelity Medallion. The National Purple Heart Hall of Honor is located in New Windsor, New York.
The Air Medal is a military decoration of the United States. The award was created in 1942, and is awarded for meritorious achievement while participating in aerial flight
Vietnam Service Medal
The Vietnam Service Medal is a U.S. Military award which was created in 1965 by order of President Lyndon B. Johnson. The distinctive design was the creation of sculptor Thomas Hudson Jones, a former employee of the Army Institute of Heraldry. The medal is issued to recognize military service during the Vietnam War and is authorized to service members in every branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, provided they meet the qualification criteria in United States Department of Defense regulation DoD 1348.
The Vietnam Service Medal is presented to any service member who served on temporary duty for more than 30 consecutive days, or 60 non-consecutive days, attached to or regularly serving for one, or more, days with an organization participating in or directly supporting ground (military) operations or attached to or regularly serving for one, or more, days aboard a naval vessel directly supporting military operations in the Republic of Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos within the defined combat zone between the dates of 15 November 1961 to 28 March 1973, and from 29 April 1975 to 30 April 1975.
Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal
The Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal is a military award of the United States military, which was first created in 1961 by Executive Order of President John Kennedy. The medal is awarded for participation in “any military campaign of the United States for which no other service medal is authorized.”
National Defense Service Medal
The National Defense Service Medal is a military service medal of the United States military originally commissioned by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Created in 1953, the National Defense Service Medal was intended to be a “blanket campaign medal” awarded to any member of the United States military who served honorably during a designated time period of which a “national emergency” had been declared.
Commendation Medal
The Commendation Medal is a mid-level United States military decoration which is presented for sustained acts of heroism or meritorious service. For valorous actions in direct contact with an enemy force, but of a lesser degree than required for the award of the Bronze Star Medal, the “V” device or Combat “V” may be authorized for wear on the service and suspension ribbon of the medal. Each branch of the United States Armed Forces issues its own version of the Commendation Medal, with a fifth version existing for acts of joint military service performed under the Department of Defense.
Tagged as Air Medal, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, Army Distinguished Service Cross medal, Bronze Star Medal, charlie troop 1/9th, Commendation Medal, Distinguished Flying Cross, Legion of Merit, medal of honor, Meritorious Service Medal, National Defense Service Medal, purple heart, silver star, stolen valor, vietnam medals, Vietnam Service Medal
"The Ghost In The Orange Closet"
1st Cav Photographer 1968-1969
A Soldier Talks
Battle of Ong Thanh
Bullwhip Squadron
Cav History
Charlie Troop 1/9th
Charlie Troop 1/9th Message Board
Charlie Troopers Return To Vietnam
Donut Dollies In Vietnam
Faces of Nam
God's Own Lunatics
howgoesthebattle
Knees in the Breeze
Patrick Bieneman's Blog
Reflections of My Life – Vietnam Vets
Scott Mckenzie – San Francisco (1967)
Sgt Gary Lee McKiddy
Stars and Stripes news special-reports vietnam-at-50
Tet Offensive & Khe Sahn Vietnam War Footage
The Wall Of Broken Dreams
The Way It Really Was
Vietnam War Casualties Listed by Home of Record
Vietnam War Resources
Vietnam: Service, Sacrifice, and Courage
Combat Infantry Badge
Amphetamines In Vietnam War
Dustoff
Vietnam Selective Service Lottery
Helicopters in the Vietnam War
Last Days in Vietnam
Chow Time in Vietnam
1st Air Cavalry in Vietnam
My Vietnam Experience · The Vietnam War, through my eyes.
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