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Hugh Z. Reynolds
Hugh Z. Reynolds 99 of Ennis and former Harlowton resident died Wednesday evening, September 4th, 2019 in the Madison Valley Manor in Ennis of natural casues. He was born December 21, 1919 in Blooming Prairie, MN the son of James C. and Antha B. (Frye) Reynolds. He attended school in Judith Gap, Big Timber, Melville and Harlowton areas. He worked on ranches, trapped and logged in the Melville area until entering the U.S. Army on September 16, 1940 in Harlowton. He trained at Fort Lewis until shipping overseas on March 19, 1942, with Company D of the Montana 163rd Division, the first unit sent overseas after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Hugh was the last survivor of the group of 65 men from Harlowton that went to confront the Imperial Japanese Army in the islands of the South Pacific. He fought in the first successful campaign against Japanese ground forces at Sanananda in Papua, New Guinea in January of 1943 and again in northwest Dutch New Guinea in early 1944, making four combat beach landings before being wounded on Biak Island on the northwest tip of New Guinea in June 1944.
After more that five years of service during World War II, he returned to Harlowton to work and helped re-establish the local National Guard unit and served until retiring as a Major with 28 ½ years of service.
ON June 21, 1947 he was united in marriage to June Hereim and to this union three boys were born. He also spent many years in the bar business and metal building business.
He is survived by three sons Gary (Debbie), Darwin (Leslie) and Rick (Trina); five grandchildren and several nieces and nephews.
He was preceded in death by his parents, wife June, three brothers Raymond, Clifford and Dale and two sisters Mildred Ledger and Gertrude Harroun and earlier this year lost his soulmate Lydia Peterson.
A Memorial Military Service for Hugh Z. Reynolds will be Saturday, October 5th, 2019 at 2:00 p.m. in the Perkins Chapel in Harlowton, cremation has taken place.
Friends are asked to make memorials to the Upper Musselshell Veteran’s Memorial or the Upper Musselshell Museum or the charity of their choice and they may be left with the Perkins Funeral Home, PO Box 313 Harlowton, MT 59036. Condolences for the family may be posted on-line at www.perkinsfuneralandcremation.com
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vol. 6, issue 5 - February 2013
Should Age Matter? How 65 Came to Be Old and Old Came to Be Ill
Tamara Mann
In 1942, when this photograph of an elderly Mennonite couple was shot in Pennsylvania, science and medicine were transforming the idea of old age by extending life expectancies and curing chronic disease. Most Americans at this time supported some form of national health insurance, but only particular groups such as the aged would soon receive it. Photo by U.S. government photographer Marjory Collins.
Baby boomers, 78 million strong, are turning 65 at a rate of 4 million per year. The press, the government, and the medical community claim, often and loudly, that these numbers augur a mass dependency crisis. Such spokesmen envision a world of decrepit elders afflicted with chronic disease slurping their way through the country’s resources. This month historian Tamara Mann explores how, in the United States, the so-called “geriatric crisis” is less related to age itself than to the relationship between old age and government funds, particularly Medicare. She explains how 65 became a federal marker of old age and why health insurance came to be offered as the best solution to the problems afflicting America’s elders.
Read more on American social policy: The History of U.S. Health Care Reform; Unemployment; Immigration Policy; Higher Education; and “Class Warfare” in American Politics.
Baby boomers, 78 million strong, are turning 65 at a rate of 4 million per year in the United States.
The press, the government, and the medical community claim, often and loudly, that these numbers augur a mass dependency crisis. Such spokesmen envision a world of decrepit elders afflicted with chronic disease devouring the country’s resources.
Still, amidst the alarmists, a few commentators acknowledge that aging itself has changed. Many boomers are working well into their 70s and 80s, staying in remarkably good health, and reinventing this final stage of life. In short, they are proving that chronological age is not biologically uniform.
In the United States the so-called “geriatric crisis” is less related to age itself than to the relationship between old age and government support—such as the unequal distribution of health care dollars, via Medicare, across the age spectrum.
Such policies assume that people over 65 are by definition in worse health, dependent, and in need of government support. Yet this is not always the case. A financially independent, healthy 70-year-old costs society less than an ill 40-year-old.
Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, Americans argued over the proper relationship between the state and its elderly citizens. They tried to define “old age” and its problems, while questioning the federal government’s obligation to offer a solution.
In different measures, the Social Security Act in 1935 and the passage of Medicare in 1965 offered policy conclusions to these debates. The elderly would be defined as individuals over 65 years of age and the problem of old age would be characterized as illness and its related expenses.
Neither of these conclusions was foregone; both were expedient answers to social and political pressures. Indeed, many analysts over the century did not believe that old age necessarily meant ill health or dependency if approached correctly. They opposed plans and policies to separate the elderly from the rest of the population, and advocated for preventative health spending throughout the lifespan.
This article will return to the middle of the twentieth century to explore how 65 became a federal marker of old age and why health insurance came to be seen, in the years following the first National Conference on Aging (1950), as the best solution to the problems afflicting America’s elders.
The “Problem” of Old Age
On July 30, 1965, Lyndon Johnson, the 57-year-old President of the United States, honored 81-year-old former president Harry Truman by traveling to Independence, Missouri, to sign into law a bill that would give America’s elders federally funded health insurance.
The passage of Medicare—a policy that Truman had reluctantly supported in the early 1950s—became Johnson’s political windfall. Johnson could now claim to have solved the “problem of old age.”
The problem of old age started to attract public and political attention in the 1930s, when industrialization, urbanization, mass unemployment, and the Depression combined to leave many of the aged without jobs or support from their extended families.
As a result, during this decade, the problem of old age was largely characterized as impoverishment due to unemployment.
At the same time, the elderly were a group whose numbers were on the rise. Advances in public health had transformed life expectancy in America: from 1860 to 1930 the percentage of the American population over 65 had more than doubled. In ten years, from 1930 to 1940, there would be an additional 36.5 percent increase in this group, at a time when the entire population increased by only 7.2 percent.
Within the decade, spokesmen across the United States pressed the government to enact more pension programs. By the time Franklin Roosevelt became president, some thirty states delivered pension programs, albeit unevenly; only 3% of those deemed aged were receiving state funds in 1935.
The fight for pensions, or just cash, continued through the thirties in the popular Townsend Old Age Revolving Pension Plan, Upton Sinclair’s End Poverty in California (EPIC) plan, and Robert Noble’s Ham & Eggs movement. All of these groups argued that the government should give a stipend to those deemed too old to work, whether 50, 60, or 65.
At its base, the philosophy of social insurance, or the social welfare tradition, maintained that governments should provide some measure of economic security. First enacted in 1889 by Otto Von Bismarck in Germany, social insurance programs spread quickly across Europe.
American yearnings for such programs emerged with Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 and reached an apex during the Great Depression. In 1927, Abraham Epstein, a weathered state pension advocate, announced: “It’s time for a group that will do nothing but work to create old-age pensions.”
Mindful of the sullied public reputation of the word pension, Epstein titled his organization the American Association for Old Age Security, later to be renamed the American Association for Social Security.
Epstein’s rechristening worked. Quickly backed by such activist luminaries as Jane Addams and Florence Kelley, Epstein and his intellectual mentor, I.M. Rubinow, helped create a federal social security program. Ad campaigns exposing the horrors of the poorhouse bolstered the numbers of Epstein’s supporters and focused further attention on the plight of unemployed elders.
By 1934, Epstein had succeeded in nurturing American empathy for the aged if not for his particular pension plan. In his proposal, the unemployed would receive money from a central pool funded by employee and employer alike. Conservatives skewered him and his supporters for advocating a redistributive scheme that reeked of communism.
In 1934, President Roosevelt issued an executive order to create the Committee on Economic Security with the goal of studying and solving the problem of economic insecurity in America. Epstein along with other social insurance experts advocating redistributive programs were strategically left out of almost every planning meeting.
Still, asserts historian Michael Katz, through Epstein and his cronies, “old-age security broke loose from its earlier association with poor-relief; forged ahead of every other kind of social insurance; and earned its privileged place as the only irreversible and untouchable welfare program in American history.”
On August 14th, 1935, President Roosevelt signed into law the monumental Social Security Act. The Act failed, Epstein protested, to redistribute wealth or actually alleviate economic insecurity for the most needy (since it offered relatively equivalent support to all older Americans). Nonetheless, it fundamentally changed the relationship between the government and its older citizens, setting apart the elderly as a distinct social and political group that the government now took responsibility to assist and protect.
How 65 came to be “Old”
In 1935, the aged—or “oldsters,” as they were often called—were not exclusively defined chronologically. In fact, numerous doctors and scientists working in the 1930s pushed for a biological, rather than chronological definition of old age, claiming that physical markers and not simply the passing of years best defined old age.
They looked at the correlations between poverty, chronic disease, family history, and psychology to determine that the onset of senescence or old age was relative rather than uniform. These early gerontologists believed that employment and usefulness would stave off the markers of old age. Still, they had little control over industry policies that pushed workers out of jobs at the early age of 40. Some factories even retired women at 35.
The Committee on Economic Security understood both the harsh economic reality of forced retirement and the absolute social necessity to keep the young employed. The Committee settled on 65 as the marker of old age for its economic feasibility.
At the time, life expectancy at birth was 58. Taking their cues from existing state pension systems and the recently passed Railroad Retirement System, the committee recognized that 65 was a number that could be sustainably financed through payroll taxation.
As historian Andrew Achenbaum reports, “As a result of the Social Security Act, old age—defined for administrative purposes as the attainment of age sixty-five—for the first time became a criterion for participation in several important programs at the federal level.”
From 1935 on, the U.S. federal government committed itself to the well-being of its senior citizens, who hereby would be defined as individuals over 65 years of age.
Wards of a Biomedical State
By the 1940s, the pension movement of the 1920s and 1930s had largely collapsed. Having achieved the Social Security Act, popular participation in pension-oriented lobbying groups diminished and political organizers focused attention elsewhere. Then, just as the pension movement slowed to a halt, the field of biomedical research exploded.
Science and war proved productive partners. The utilization of penicillin, skin grafts, and blood transfusions, writes historian Victoria Harden, “enhanced public belief that scientific research offered an endless frontier on which a happier, healthier life could be built.”
After the War, Congress went to work, sponsoring a spate of legislation to update American health care. According to Medicare expert Theodore Marmor, federal spending after WWII focused on three areas, “medical research, hospital construction, and federal health insurance programs.”
While scientists and doctors in the 1930s sought to ameliorate the social and physical stigmas of old age by discovering the parameters of what healthy aging could look like, scientists and doctors of the forties and fifties came to believe that chronic diseases could be reversed in laboratories and cured in hospitals. The federal government agreed.
While the federal government got into the bio-medical business, older Americans, reeling from the unintended consequences of the Social Security Act—such as forced retirement whether a person could or wanted to work longer—joined together in community halls and religious institutions to figure out where they stood in the post-war order.
“By setting an arbitrary retirement age,” the co-authors of The Senior Rights Movement argue, “the Social Security Act had inadvertently circumscribed the problems of persons over 65 as a distinct set of social problems. As such it provided a coherent basis for their solidarity and common identity and gave a newfound sense of legitimacy to elderly demands for social justice.”
In 1950, this nascent group of politically conscious elderly collided with an energized bio-medical industry and fair-deal policy wonks at the Federal Security Agency (FSA)’s National Conference on Aging.
Old Age Insurance and the First National Conference on Aging
In 1949 Oscar Ewing had problems. Since taking over the Federal Security Agency (FSA) in 1947 he had become a maligned figure in Washington. Branded by the American Medical Association as “Mr. Socialized Medicine,” Ewing opened his political life with a more modest nickname, Jack.
The straight-laced technocrat started his career in high school as the secretary of the Decatur County, Indiana, Democratic Committee, and pursued his political ambition at Indiana University, becoming first president of his junior and senior classes and then valedictorian. From there, he went to Harvard Law School, edited the Harvard Law Review, and eventually started his own law firm in Indianapolis. After enlisting as a first lieutenant in World War I, Ewing returned as a captain, primed to take on high profile legal cases and enter national politics.
In 1944, he publicly supported Truman’s run for the vice presidency, thereby securing a position as one of Truman’s key political strategists. When Truman became President, he urged Ewing to head the FSA and help him pass national health insurance.
In 1942, Fortune magazine announced the American public’s support for national health insurance as a whopping 74%. It seemed just a matter of time until the United States followed in Europe’s path and offered every citizen the right of health care.
Readers may also be interested in the following Book Review:
Government Fingers in the Health Care Jar?
To discuss and comment on this article, please visit our Facebook page.
Johnson signs Medicare bill
Federal Security Agency
Oscar Ewing
Social Security and poverty among the elderly
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The Secular Roots of a Religious Divide in Contemporary Iraq
School Lunch Politics: The Surprising History of America's Favorite Welfare Program
by Susan Levine
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Transference and Readability of Sex, by Yasmine Grasser
Categories Doors
Lacan, seeking to structure the analytic experience, proposed in Seminar XI to question “the conceptual status” of the four fundamental concepts introduced by Freud: the unconscious, repetition, transference, and the drive. From the beginning, Lacan recalled that he had already situated these terms in his teaching in relation to the “function of the signifier” in order to show their “operative value” in the field of psychoanalysis. His further step was to demonstrate that in the analytic relation, the concept is in operating mode when there returns “in act” [en acte] a real – another reality, a tuché that occurs “as if by chance”.
From the start, Lacan attacked what he called “the rejection of the concept”, a way of bringing together what he challenged among psychoanalysts, namely the plurality of their conceptions concerning the major Freudian concepts.
In an interview given in 2012 to the magazine La Cause du Désir, No. 80, Jacques-Alain Miller considered it necessary to revalue the notion of concept in Lacan. He claimed, “that the concepts that are indicated as such in the text of Lacan act as a quilting point”, and added, “that a concept all alone does not exist.” The expression “quilting point” is familiar to us. Lacan had borrowed it from Saussure during his seminar on psychosis in order to make his students grasp its significance in discourse: “It’s the point of convergence that enables everything that happens in this discourse to be situated retroactively and prospectively” – all that is knotted of “trans-significant connotations”. We must understand that the concept as a quilting point is the tool that Lacan used to structure experience, and to re-define each concept anew in relation to each of the other three. Lacan realised, on the one hand, that their “framework” had responded to Freud’s desire at first, and was thus tied to the function of desire; and, on the other hand, that this desire of Freud’s, constituted as an object by the psychoanalyst, occupied for each one the “structuring place of the lack” which was reflected there. Lacan found the incidence of a lack at the level of each concept: lack of being (unconscious), missed encounter (repetition), lack of knowledge (transference), lack of representation (drive). This lack is in the place where “the enactment of sexual reality” is made present in the analytic experience – where jouissance bursts forth, Lacan will later say.
In the analytic experience, transference does not function as a concept; it is first of all a “phenomenon” which non-symmetrically includes the analysing subject and the psychoanalyst. The analysand, beyond his demand, goes to meet the subject supposed to know his desire – which implies that the analysis will take its departure from the subject supposed to know. The analyst must only know that he is going to meet the subject’s unconscious desire – demonstrating that the analyst’s desire is the essential function which, behind the love of transference, is linked to the patient’s desire
The desire of the analyst is thus the pivot of transference. Transference in the analytic relation “represents a mode of access” to the unconscious and to its subject who seeks his or her certainty; it is “the mode of operation”, which, without being confounded with the efficacy of repetition which is cathartic, is necessary for the “enactment of sexual reality” in experience; it “inscribes” the weight of sexual reality in the subjective constitution, making “readable” how the drive, and what is linked to it, make the meaning of sex arise.
Subsequently, Lacan will use logic to identify new concepts and restructure the experience, but he will always try to grasp how sex emerges in the analytic relationship. In 1964, he had isolated a concept of the One, distinct from unity, starting from “the one of the cleft, the line, the break”. This one had sprung out for him from Freud’s text. According to him, it was “an unknown form of the one”, which he translated as “the concept of the lack”. This concept of lack will lead him, in 1972, to catalogue in Seminar XIX his “stories of Ones”, and to question the function of this “One that arises as the effect of lack” in the set theory. By seeking to make use of it at the level of analytic discourse, Lacan introduced it to speak of the position of the analyst in the experience of transference. The analyst for Lacan was “the One” as soon as the analysand showed that he wanted to be the only one with the analyst – not to make One together, but to make two with the analyst. He wrote: It is not the One, that of unity, that reigns over Eros in the transference, no, “Eros makes the One with both”. He deduced that “the structure of sex (as real) is the dual, the number two”. From this he will draw the axiom, “there is no sexual relation.”
Translated by Janet Haney and John Haney
1 Lacan, Jacques, Seminar III, The Psychoses, Routledge, 1993, p. 268.
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Home / For Kids / Olive Harvest in Palestine: A story of childhood memories
Olive Harvest in Palestine: A story of childhood memories
From the author of Easter in Ramallah, a story about the harvest traditions that have been shared among Palestinian farmers for centuries, portrayed from the eyes of a child.
Category: For Kids
By Wafa Shami, illustrated by Shaima’ Farouki
Olive Harvest in Palestine is a story about the harvest traditions that have been shared among Palestinian farmers for centuries. The story takes the reader’s imagination on a journey, starting from how the olives are picked, through how they are pressed into oil, bottled and finally arrive in the consumer’s hands. Along the way the reader shares in this festive working atmosphere filled with singing, eating, love and laughter portrayed from the eyes of a child.
“…a beautiful orchard story of devotion, labor, and harvesting in which nothing terrible happens. Palestinians deserve more days in which nothing terrible happens. Here is life, shining, ripe and succulent, singing of culture, history, tradition, and the dinner table too.”
A beautiful portrayal of the most important harvest in Palestine. You have skillfully opened the reader’s imagination to exactly what the olive tree means to Palestinians; a connection to the land, food, family, livelihood and most important community.”
–Sam Bahour
Wafa Shami was born and raised in Ramallah, Palestine. She Moved to the U.S. pursuing higher education and graduated with a Master’s degree in International Studies. Since moving to the U.S. Wafa has maintained her engagement in Middle Eastern issues as a volunteer. She was inspired to write children storybooks that are from her own childhood after her son was born. Her first story Easter in Ramallah was published earlier this year. In addition, to being busy raising her son, who is currently 5 years old, Wafa has a passion for cooking and has a food blog, in which she is sharing her family’s recipes. Wafa currently lives in California. Visit her blog at www.palestineinadish.com and follow her on social media @palestineinadish for delicious recipes.
Published January 25th 2019 by R. R. Bowker
Hoodie: Gaza in my Heart (youth and adult)
Sale! $18.00 Select options
P is for Palestine: A Palestine Alphabet Book
Sale! $24.99 – $962.11 Select options
Laith the Lion Goes to Palestine
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Today is Tuesday, Sept. 30, the 274th day of 2008.
There are 92 days left in the year.
On Sept. 30, 1846, Boston dentist William Morton used ether as an anesthetic for the first time as he extracted an ulcerated tooth from merchant Eben Frost.
In 1777, the Continental Congress — forced to flee in the face of advancing British forces — moved to York, Pa.
In 1791, Mozart's opera "The Magic Flute" premiered in Vienna, Austria.
In 1938, after co-signing the Munich Agreement allowing Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain praised the accord on his return home, saying, "I believe it is peace for our time."
In 1949, the Berlin Airlift came to an end.
In 1952, the motion picture "This Is Cinerama," which introduced the triple-camera, triple-projector Cinerama widescreen process, premiered at the Broadway Theatre in New York.
In 1955, actor James Dean, 24, was killed in a two-car collision near Cholame, Calif.
In 1958, the police drama "Naked City" debuted on ABC-TV.
In 1962, black student James Meredith was escorted by federal marshals to the campus of the University of Mississippi, where he enrolled for classes the next day.
In 1988, Mikhail S. Gorbachev retired President Andrei A. Gromyko from the Politburo and fired other old-guard leaders in a Kremlin shake-up.
In 1997, France's Roman Catholic Church apologized for its silence during the systematic persecution and deportation of Jews by the pro-Nazi Vichy regime.
Ten years ago:
The General Accounting Office reported that Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and his predecessor, Robert Fiske, had spent more than $40 million on the investigation of President Clinton's Arkansas land deals that was expanded to include the probe of the Monica Lewinsky affair.
Both President Clinton and Republicans claimed credit for news that the government would run a surplus of about $70 billion in the current fiscal year.
Five years ago:
The FBI began a full-scale criminal investigation into whether White House officials had illegally leaked the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame.
Eighteen accused al-Qaida sympathizers were convicted in Belgium's biggest terrorism trial.
One year ago:
A U.N. envoy failed to meet with Myanmar's top two junta leaders in his effort to persuade them to ease a violent crackdown on anti-government protesters, but was allowed a highly orchestrated session with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan hanged a teenager found to have U.S. money in his pocket as a warning to others not to use dollars.
The United States won the Presidents Cup in Montreal, giving them a victory on foreign soil in cup competition for the first time since 1993.
Germany defeated Brazil 2-0 in the final of the Women's World Cup held in Shanghai, China.
Author Elie Wiesel is 80.
Actress Angie Dickinson is 77.
Singer Cissy Houston is 75.
Singer Johnny Mathis is 73.
Actor Len Cariou is 69.
Rock singer-musician Dewey Martin (Buffalo Springfield) is 66.
Singer Marilyn McCoo is 65.
Pop singer Sylvia Peterson (The Chiffons) is 62.
Actor John Finn (TV: "Cold Case") is 56.
Rock musician John Lombardo is 56.
Singer Deborah Allen is 55.
Actor Calvin Levels is 54.
Actor Barry Williams is 54.
Singer Patrice Rushen is 54.
Actor Vondie Curtis-Hall is 52.
Actress Fran Drescher is 51.
Country singer Marty Stuart is 50.
Actress Debrah Farentino is 49.
Rock musician Bill Rieflin (R.E.M.) is 48.
Actress Crystal Bernard is 47.
Actor Eric Stoltz is 47.
Rapper-producer Marley Marl is 46.
Country singer Eddie Montgomery (Montgomery-Gentry) is 45.
Rock singer Trey Anastasio is 44.
Actress Monica Bellucci is 44.
Rock musician Robby Takac (Goo Goo Dolls) is 44.
Actress Lisa Thornhill is 42.
Actress Andrea Roth ("Rescue Me") is 41.
Actor Tony Hale is 38.
Actress Jenna Elfman is 37.
Actor Ashley Hamilton is 34.
Actress Marion Cotillard is 33.
Actor Mike Damus is 29.
Tennis player Martina Hingis is 28.
Olympic gold medal gymnast Dominique Moceanu is 27.
Actress Lacey Chabert is 26.
Actor Kieran Culkin is 26.
Singer-rapper T-Pain is 24.
"Nothing you can't spell will ever work."
Will Rogers, American humorist (1879-1935).
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Transmission variation using scattering/transparent switching films
: Wilson, H.R.; Eck, W.
DOI: 10.1016/0927-0248(93)90051-4
Solar energy materials and solar cells 31 (1993), S.197-214
Mie scattering; multiple scattering; polymer dispersed liquid crystal; smart window; switching layer; thermotropic; transmission
Due to the fallibility of mechanical shading devices such as shutters or blinds, thin films with variable transmittance, which can be applied directly to a glazing surface, are being investigated for so-called "smart windows" or for applications together with transparent insulating materials. In the films discussed here, the transmittance is changed by varying the scattering properties, which depend on changes in the effective refractive index and/or size of microstructures. This may be achieved by orientation and relaxation of birefringent liquid crystal molecules within polymer-encapsulated droplets by applying an electric field, by reversible separation and mixing of two polymers with temperature variation or by exploiting the Christiansen effect (1). In this paper, the effect of varying experimentally accessible parameters on the transmittance change is first explored theoretically by applying Mie and multiple scattering theories. These results are complemented by measurements of t he spectral dependence of the transmittance and reflectance of the first two types of switching samples, i.e. polymer-dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) films and thermotropic layers of polymer blends. Changes of almost 40 percent in the visual and solar direct-hemispherical transmittance were measured for the PDLC samples and of about 60 percent for the thermotropic layers investigated here.
: http://publica.fraunhofer.de/dokumente/PX-36857.html
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April 29, 2018 Uncategorizedpresidencies
Audio editing by Andrew Pfannkuche
Brady, Patricia. Martha Washington: An American Life. New York: Penguin Books, 2006 [2005].
Chernow, Ron. Washington: A Life. New York: Penguin Press, 2010.
Dunbar, Erica Armstrong. Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017.
Finkelman, Paul. “Fugitive Slaves.” The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. Kermit L Hall, ed. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. p. 319-320.
Historical Currency Converter (test version 1.0). http://www.historicalstatistics.org/Currencyconverter.html. [Last Accessed: 19 Mar 2018)
Mount Vernon Official Guidebook. Mount Vernon, VA: Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union, 2001 [1974].
Washington, George. “To Tobias Lear, 12 April 1791,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified February 1, 2018, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-08-02-0062. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, vol. 8, 22 March 1791 – 22 September 1791, ed. Mark A. Mastromarino. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999, pp. 84–86.] [Last Accessed: 12 Mar 2018]
Washington, George. “To Anthony Whitting, 20 January 1793,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified February 1, 2018, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-12-02-0013. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, vol. 12, 16 January 1793 – 31 May 1793, ed. Christine Sternberg Patrick and John C. Pinheiro. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005, pp. 31–36.] [Last Accessed: 14 Mar 2018]
Washington, George. “To William Pearce, 8 March 1795,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified February 1, 2018, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-17-02-0424. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, vol. 17, 1 October 1794–31 March 1795, ed. David R. Hoth and Carol S. Ebel. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013, pp. 632–634.] [Last Accessed: 18 Mar 2018]
Washington, George. “To Oliver Wolcott, Jr., 1 September 1796,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified February 1, 2018, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/99-01-02-00910. [Last Accessed: 19 Mar 2018]
Whitting, Anthony. “To George Washington, 16 January 1793,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified February 1, 2018, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-12-02-0005. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, vol. 12, 16 January 1793 – 31 May 1793, ed. Christine Sternberg Patrick and John C. Pinheiro. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005, pp. 5–14.] [Last Accessed: 14 Mar 2018]
Wiencek, Henry. An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.
Featured Image: “The Old Plantation” by unknown [c. late 1700s], courtesy of Wikipedia
← 1.31 – Runaway 1.32 – Samsons and Solomons →
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Rage Central
Look, Smithers, Garbo is coming!
Photos of actress Greta Garbo (1905-1990).
Greta Lovisa Gustafsson was born in Stockholm, Sweden on September 18th, 1905. She was 14 when her father died, leaving the family destitute. Greta was forced to leave school and go to work in a department store, where she was used her for her modeling abilities for newspaper ads. She had no film aspirations until she appeared in an advertising short at that same department store while she was still a teenager. This led to another short film when Eric Petscher, a comedy director, saw the film. He gave her a small part in the film, "Peter the Tramp" (1920). Encouraged by her own performance she applied for and won a scholarship in a Swedish drama school and there she appeared in two films, "En Lyckoriddare" in 1921 and "Luffarpetter" the following year. Both were small parts, but it was a start. Finally famed Swedish director, Mauritz Stiller, pulled her from drama school for the leading role in "The Atonenent of Gosta Berling" in 1923.
At 18, Greta was on a roll. Following "Die Freudlose Gasse" (1925) both Greta and Stiller were offered contracts with MGM. Her first US film was "The Torrent" in 1925. It was a silent film - she didn't have to speak a word of English. After a few more films, such as The Temptress" (1926), "Love" (1927), and "A Woman of Affairs" (1928), Greta starred in 1930's "Anna Christie" (her first 'talkie') which not only gave her a powerful screen presence, but also gave her an Academy Award nomination as Best Actress. (Incidently, this was the first annual Academy Awards.) Unfortunately she didn't win. Later that year she filmed "Romance" which was somewhat of a letdown, but bounced back as lead role in "Susan Lenox: Her Rise and Fall" opposite Clark Gable. The film was a hit and led to another exciting title role in "Mata Hari" in 1931. Greta continued to give intensified performances in whatever was handed her. The next year Greta was cast in another hit "Grand Hotel". But it was MGM 1935's "Anna Karenina" where she, perhaps, gave the performance of her life. She was absolutely breathtaking in the title role as a woman torn between two lovers and her son. In 1939, Greta starred in "Ninotchka" which showcased her comedic side. It wasn't until two years later in 1941 she made what was to be her last film that being "Two-Faced Woman", another comedy.
After World War II, Greta, by her own admission, felt that the world had changed perhaps forever and she retired, never again to face the camera. She would work for the rest of her life to perpetuate the 'Garbo mystique'. Her films, she felt, had their proper place in history and would gain in value. She abandoned Hollywood and moved to New York City. She would jet-set with some of the world's best known personalities such as Aristotle Onassis and others. She spent time gardening flowers and vegetables. In 1954, Greta was given a special Oscar for past unforgettable performances. Time went by. She was occasionally seen (and sometimes photographed) around New York City. In 1990, she penned her biography. On April 15th of the same year, Greta died of natural causes in New York and with it the 'Garbo Mystique', at the age of 84. Source: The Internet Movie Database.
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Where I am Coming From...
You may marvel at the ego it takes to try to start a religion; ego, or perhaps self-delusion.
On the contrary; I could not have done this until I was way past being blinded by ego; too far even to try to prove that I am not cripplingly delusional.
It is a central tenet of my belief that we must have ego. It is what keeps us getting out of bed every morning.
And we are all delusional. The question is of degree and how we allow it to affect our lives and the lives of those around us.
My lifelong study of my predecessors in this Prophet-and-Messiah business reveals that they achieved their exalted status in a variety of ways.
Some of them were just off the wall; persons whose peculiarities and insane energy attracted wide attention and whose wisdom happened to touch upon enough verities of the time, or timeless universals, to strike a chord in some critical mass of their time-line cohort. (Charles Manson is still a prophet to a small number of people, not all of whom - unfortunately - are in jail.)
Others were born into positions of economic privilege or political power, and used that vantage by more or less abandoning it. That is, they simply shifted their prominence from the temporal to the spiritual; thereby achieving - calculatedly or not - immortality in the minds of succeeding generations instead of a decaying stone monument in a desert, somewhere.
Some of them were just good people, steadfast and exemplary, intellectual or not, to whom ethics and morality were simple, clear, and to be followed no matter what changed in their social or political environment.
This kind of behavior, consistently applied over a lifetime of more than three or four decades, is sufficiently remarkable to attract attention. If it happens to run counter to some prevailing social or economic wind of the time, it can attract a great deal of attention. And if the purveyor is permitted to live long enough; or is denied life in some dramatic fashion or under noteworthy circumstances, his memory and example may become immortal. (The species needs its heroes, to serve as guideposts for succeeding generations. If they do not volunteer, we will draft them. Or make them up.)
The distinction, by the way, between a hero and a prophet is verbal. If the subject left record of a few utterances which, strung together, made more than pedestrian sense, his followers are sure to try to drag him across the line. (E.g. the Cult of Elvis?? Who for all his mythological stature never said anything particularly profound or original, so is probably doomed to endure as an icon rather than a seer... vs. the devotees of John Lennon, who had a couple of actual Ideas and elucidated them passing well.)
There are equally many points of similarity among successful prophets. For example; they were all larger than life, or larger than the lives of most of those around them. They had charisma, (See "mana" later) which served to bridge the inevitable gaps in their understanding of the universe and their notions about the best way to live in it. (This is the "when in doubt, pontificate" syndrome which plagues nearly all systems of belief.)
Also notable; none of them started from scratch.
New wisdom cannot be wholly new or nobody will recognize it.
The best tactic is to emerge from a matrix of established belief with a plan which corrects some historical, preferably glaring, errors in its doctrine or practice. There are bound to be a number of fellow-believers who have identified the same inconsistencies but feared to question them; and a number more who are simply dissatisfied with what the prevailing tenets are doing for them and are ripe to follow any novel pathway out of the generations of smothering dogma.
And of course, way over 99 percent of these spiritual innovators have been men. Most societies are patriarchal. Women don't count for much. Even when they are conceded to be exceptional, their genius has been to serve; not lead. The exceptions come easily to mind and can be counted on one hand, with digits to spare. (After Elizabeth I and Mary Baker Eddy, where do you go?)
This has nothing to do with intrinsic worth. Intrinsic worth doesn't count for much, either. It's all what the culture accepts and remembers. Once again, remember: We make it all up! As we go along.
The key point at which most religions begin to go awry coincides with the historical moment the prophet dies and can no longer protect himself from reinterpretation.
The rest begin to deteriorate as soon as the Master begins to accept his followers' assessment of him. One can believe in oneself, you see, without having any clear picture of who one is. If someone else gives you a flattering definition while you are still alive, it's hard not to try to conform to it.
Most of these people are innovators, not scholars and collators. They make inspired leaps of intuition, and leave it to others to connect the dots. There is plenty of wisdom lying around in any society to fill the gaps and with judicious selection and tailoring it can be made to fit: often, mirable!, without doing serious damage to the original vision. If the prophet is unfortunate to live so long, he may be presented with a synthesis he can accept as his own.... especially if a lot of people already believe in it and seem to revere him for it.
Actually, prophetic longevity is irrelevant. Even should he die young there will be close friends and adherents who know (or think they know) what he actually said and did.
There may be serious disagreements among them, human memory being as fragile as it is. If there are individual demurrals, they will be suppressed, or they will die out along with the demurrers.
The operative term, here, is "authority" - which is unrelated to "truth." Disciples who actually knew the Master have a certain provenance, which gives them authority, even if their memories are faulty or their understanding imperfect. Anything they don't remember or didn't quite grasp, they can make up. And after they die off, the faith is in the hands of whoever can grab the helm and successfully hang onto it.
Remember that "spin doctor" is a new term; not a new profession.
Most nearly universal of all - to now - is the religious innovator's reliance upon the metaphysical component of belief. Since not even the greatest thinker, or the most zealous pack of disciples and apostles, can claim to have figured out everything, it is essential to have "mysteries" and a supernatural realm to harbor them.
Inspecting any given religion from a distance, of course, reveals this to be the most abject of intellectual short-cuts.
"This is what we know. Everything else is God's." --- or "the gods'."
The comforting implication often is that we aren't supposed to know it. Whether it is forbidden knowledge or simply too abstruse for our finite human minds, we are thankfully recused from worrying about it.
Metaphysics, therefore, fills all blanks. We don't need to believe in anything specific; we only have to believe that it exists. It is a belief in belief itself, and therefore cannot be contradicted.
As in "Cogito, ergo sum."
The thing is its own proof.
Unfortunately, when it becomes codified into dogma, and indoctrinated into the young as catechism, it walls off huge areas of intellectual exploration and creative interpretation.
Note, here! I do not seek to rid the world of metaphysics!
By my own basic principles of human cognition this would be impossible were it even desirable.
For the individual consciousness, which is the only one that counts!, metaphysics is the necessary interface between the central nervous system's wetware and the rest of the Universe.
For each of us it is comprised of our upbringing, education, environmental influences, prejudices, and (probably) a great deal more of our inherited DNA than most people are prepared to admit. It is the net in which we catch all our new experiences and it leaves its considerable impression upon our interpretation of them as we incorporate them into our individual "life stories."
Metaphysics, per se, is not the enemy. Dogmatism is the enemy -- and Conviction. But metaphysics, being unprovable, demands such passionate, unquestioning, defensive adherence from most of us that dogmatism is its inevitable product.
Saint Augustine, being brilliant, was plagued by intractable inconsistencies between his astute observations of the world and his religion. He came up with the most profound bit of elliptical reasoning in the history of thought.
"I believe," he decided, "because it is impossible."
Try to contradict that one.
One could argue, at least in retrospect, that it isn't particularly profound; just the ultimate abdication of intellectual responsibility.
My perfunctory grasp of the history of philosophy tells me that Augustine is regarded as a major player in the field on the strength of his reintroduction of intellectualism into what had become in his time a quite depressingly anti-intellectual Christianity.
Since Christianity is one of the great movers and shapers of human thought, to say nothing of human behavior (not always admirable but undeniably real), this is undoubtedly a valid conclusion, re the study of philosophy as a historical phenomenon.
As a matter of fact, since such a deal of modern Christianity is also abysmally - if not rabidly - against any kind of deep thought or introspection, it would undoubtedly behoove all Christian thinkers to study St. Augustine.
One needn't be afraid of loosening one's faith by the application of logic or rationality. Augustine begins and ends with Christ. He is a believer first, so no matter what sophisticated and tortuous path his cerebrations take, they lead him back to the truth that he is certain of.
For this reason, the Rational Religionist can skip St. Augustine, on the same grounds that the interplanetary navigator can skip Claudius Ptolemy.
Leaping ahead to the 17th Century, the Rational Religionist can skip Bishop Berkeley, too. The justification for this is the ancient chestnut of First Premise. Berkeley himself, in the final paragraphs of his attack on Materialism, bragged that what he had done was to logically rehabilitate god; and not just ANY god, but the specific Anglican/Protestant God, with emphasis upon "the Gospel," by which I assume he meant the King James Version.
He further asserted that, although he consciously (SELFconsciously) employed the techniques of the hated "Enlightenment," it was always his intention to use them to prove the existence of God. He even asserted that if one had listened to his arguments and remained an agnostic, then he had failed in his mission.
Sorry, Bishop! Your arguments may be logically sound but they remain irrational because you start by attempting to defend a metaphysical position rather than by seeking to approach objective reality. We both may be doomed to deal with the Universe metaphysically, but I do so as a last, necessary resort; not as a first premise.
My purpose is not to trash other people's religions; or specific other people's religions. Since I find all orthodox metaphysics irrelevant... at best an intellectual distraction -- at worst a shuck and a delusion; I mention certain established beliefs only as examples. (Please do not take it personally.)
I realize my definitions and assessments of them are simplistic; but only from their point of view; not mine.
No matter how rich, complex and emotionally satisfying their dogmas may be to them, ornamented with great paintings and soaring upon the wings of the world's greatest music, I am not obliged to follow them into the morass of legends, rules, taboos, shibboleths and contradictions with which they confuse and control the minds of the Faithful. In other words, I realize I'm not fairly playing the game.
I don't have to.
I am even free to appreciate their art and glory in their music without feeling any obligation to buy into the metaphysical mindset, which produced -- or at least paid for it. (One wonders how conventionally religious a mind such as Leonardo's could have been. One suspects he must have been at least as agnostic as the average Jesuit.)
Look, I have enough trouble understanding the Universe without compounding my effort with layers of historical misunderstanding whose only recommendation is that somebody thought of it a long time ago when they had less objective fact to work with.
Consider this! Your mind is finite; it has a calculable number of nerve cells and a ridiculously short time to try to organize them. Your only raw material is the best information you can sort from a scant three or four thousand years of human cerebration, imperfectly preserved.
You will never glimpse more than a tiny segment of any truth if you live to be 100 and avoid Alzheimer’s. And this is your only crack at it.
For God's Sake, get with it!
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The real reason I engage in scientific outreach (Charles Gray)
My best friend is a high school teacher and the question he gets asked the most is “What am I ever going to use this for?”
I would wager that the subject that gets this question the most is mathematics.
As a PhD student in mathematical statistics, I know that problems of today and the problems of tomorrow, such as climate change, income inequality, and cancer, cannot be solved without the mathematical sciences. But high school students don’t necessarily know this.
It’s this message that I, as a careers ambassador for the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute’s Choose Maths campaign, have been sharing with high school students around Australia.
In March 2017, we toured the country screening the movie Hidden Figures, a chronicle of three extraordinary female mathematicians who worked in the space program at NASA in the 1960s, to high school girls. At each event, we have women who work in mathematics-related fields speak and share their journey. This role developed from my work as a student affiliate with Women in STEMM Australia, for whom I curated a feature series on women studying STEMM last year, and various similar projects.
Why would I do something like this?
Well, I could say that I feel honour-bound, given my rarified privilege as a research student, to give back to the scientific community - and I do.
I could say that I wholeheartedly believe we need to have greater diversity in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields - and I do.
I could say that participating in projects like this is great for fulfilling that leadership and advocacy requirement for an early career researcher - and it is.
But none of these reasons addresses the primary reason that drives me.
I’m a brown woman in my mid-thirties, and I’m reminded all too frequently in everyday life that I don’t fit with people’s expectations of an (aspiring) academic in mathematics. This comes from comments, but also the people I meet. These stereotypes are self-fulfilling prophecies, and mathematics and computer science subjects are often dominated by young white males.
Through my involvement in outreach, I have not only connected with young people, but I have also connected with so many people in and around my field that remind me I’m not alone.
Just this week, on our way back from the last of these movie events, I ended up having a coffee at Adelaide’s airport with the executive director of the Choose Maths program, Inge Koch. I already knew that we both had similar research interests in statistics, but what I didn’t know was that Inge also went through her doctorate in her mid-thirties.
Now, anyone working on a postgraduate degree can relate to the ever-present imposter syndrome. These fleeting connections, a quick coffee, a throw-away comment - it’s these moments that keep me sane as a research student.
These little moments remind me that it is possible, that I can defy expectations.
Inge also made an observation that I think will always stay with me: mathematics is not about what you’re good at, but what you’re curious about.
Through outreach and advocacy, I get unparalleled opportunities to connect with and learn from role models like Inge. There is also the delight that comes from connecting with young people who aspire to scientific pursuits.
Sharing science with anyone always brings joy! Who doesn’t like talking about what they’re into?
The rewards of being in this role, as hectic as it has been, are tenfold what I've put in.
Charles Gray is a reformed musician, aspiring statistician. She is currently working on a PhD in mathematical statistics.
Charles keeps busy with the Statistical Society of Australia, organising conferences, and advocating for women in science.
Charles has had short stories published and performed professionally in classical, jazz, and Balinese music. Her first thesis contended that the contemporary Disney neo-canon of musical animated feature films are so racist their music is racist. Thesis two was in abstract algebra, and there were more numbers in her page numbers than the thesis.
She wants to be a superhero when she grows up. Meanwhile, she tweets at @cantabile.
Labels: Academic identities, advocacy, building academic profile, careers, communicating research, gender equity, women in science
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Wellington Point Rotary Club
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The Object of Rotary
The Four Way Test
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Welcome to the Wellington Point Rotary Club
Wellington Point Rotarians are community members, business and professional leaders who take an active role in our community while greatly enriching their own personal and professional lives though club fellowship. Our Rotary club contains a diverse group of people from our community and we are proud of this fact.
Rotary. You’ve heard of our organisation and seen us helping out and about in the community, but you probably don't know what we actually do or what we stand for. We were shocked to see through recent research that nearly 60 percent of surveyed individuals didn't realise that a Rotary club exists in their own local community. We are now even more passionate and determined to spread the good news of Rotary to anyone and everyone.
This website will give you some information on the activities of our Rotary club, and links to the world of Rotary International - a world-wide organisation of community volunteers who wish to help others, and it will acquaint you with the organisation and activities, and member responsibilities.
We come from all walks of life and are united under the Rotary motto of "Service Above Self". Just like you, we are passionate about making a practical difference in our local community, throughout Australia and overseas.
Why join the Wellington Point Rotary Club
First, it's fun! If you'd like to meet people and work on community projects to better other peoples lives then this club is for you. You have the opportunity to meet once a week, listen to a good program, or work together on a project with people you can feel at home while you live Rotary.
Rotary offers opportunities that you do not want to miss. Of course it's nice to be a member of the most active and fastest growing service club in our area. You will be proud to tell your family, friends and neighbours you are a Wellington Point Rotarian.
Come to a meeting and talk to us and you will soon want to be part of Wellington Point Rotary Club. We meet in a relaxed atmosphere at the Redlands Sporting Club, Anson Road, Wellington Point each Wednesday night at 6:45pm - 8pm. There are plenty of dining options at the club if you would like a meal beforehand.
In today's busy world, our motto is "Do as much or as little as you can" - in other words, any help you give is appreciated and your ideas are both welcomed and valued in refining our club's direction.
The Rotary Club of Wellington Point is proudly sponsored by Redlands City Council, Pandanus Palms Resort, MN Jewellery, Birkdale Optical.
The Rotary Club of Wellington Point was charted on the 31/07/2010.
Copyright © - Wellington Point Rotary - All Rights Reserved 2020 - Web Design and Maintenance by Onespot Web Integration
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by: Ann Johnson - California State University Long Beach & Esteban del Rio - University of San Diego
Satire and argument are a dangerous mix. What makes satire pleasurable is often how it differs from more rational argument. Satirical texts exaggerate and distort for comic effect resulting in sometimes little more than an ad hominem attack. Satire asks us to laugh first and think second. Further, some critics warn, satire can backfire if presented to audiences who are unable to recognize the author’s “real” message. These concerns about satirical arguments arise, in part, due to the prevalence of satire in U.S. political discourse. Programs such as the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report employ irony, sarcasm, parody, and satire while serving as a major source of information for many people in the U.S (Baym, 2005; Boler, 2006; Hariman, 2007; Reinsheld, 2006). Some programs best categorized as entertainment offer political arguments in the form of satire, such as Comedy Central’s persistently popular and controversial South Park.
These concerns about satire come largely from studies of satirical texts rather than audiences who view satirical texts (Gring-Pemble and Watson, 2003; Kaufer, 1977; Olson and Olson, 2004; Tindale and Gough, 1987; Wilder, 2005; Wright, 2001). Yet we know that the construction of meaning comes not from a text alone, but from an interaction between an audience and a text (Hall 1980, 1993; Jensen, 1990; Lewis, 1991). Our research approaches the matter of satirical arguments by starting with audiences interpretations instead of textual features. We wish to build a model of satirical arguments unrestrained by the vocabulary and focus of textual research. In this essay, we present preliminary findings from a study of audience interpretations of arguments and an example from a recent study (Johnson, del Rio, and Kemmitt 2010) of audience evaluations of arguments. Our findings suggest that 1) audiences can interpret serious arguments as satire if the arguments are bad enough, 2) under certain conditions, satire can be missed by audience members, 3) a failed satire does not necessarily “backfire,” and 4) satirical arguments may be polysemic, but like other polysemic texts, they produce a fixed number of interpretations and evaluations.
1. What is a satirical argument?
The traditional approach defines satire as those texts with multiple, contradictory meanings. This approaches to satire sometimes incorporate the author’s intentions into the definition, but some (particularly in literary studies) consider any example of polysemy as a type of satire. A satirical text be polysemic, resulting in what Ceccarelli (1998) identified as resistive reading, a type of polysemy in which different audiences focus on different aspect of the text, resulting in different, perhaps contradictory interpretations and evaluations. Satire has the potential for this type of polysemy because it offers at least two potential readings (serious and satirical).
Paying attention to author’s intentions is not popular among critics these days, but author’s intentions are still important to audiences. If a speaker or author makes a purposefully bad argument meant to illustrate the folly of someone or something, but that argument is interpreted by audiences in a serious way, then is the argument satirical or serious? What about an argument that just happens to be so bad that audiences believe it must be a joke? To the audience, they are experiencing a satirical text regardless of the author’s intentions. Our approach was to employ a variety of texts that we felt might be taken as satire by audiences. Some of the texts we chose were identified by authors and critics as satire (such as the Half-Hour News Hour on Fox television or the film Starship Troopers), but others were ambiguous (such as the music video Gonzaga Love) or were not intended by the author as satire (such as the religious video “Banana”).
2. Interpretations of satirical arguments
The first study, conducted in 2007, employed 11 videos taken from film, television, and the internet. Each video was less than 2 minutes long and participants viewed the videos with few clues as to its origin. While this may seem an artificial way to encounter a text, it actually replicates aspects of the modern viewing environment characterized by fragmentation and decontextualization. Further, we wanted to explore what types of readings would be produced when audiences missed the satire, so we created conditions to facilitate that. Thus, we make no claims about the likelihood of a particular satirical text being misread. We only note that under the conditions we used, it happened frequently.
We recruited 26 participants from 3 different colleges to view and respond to the videos. We did not want to draw attention to any particular aspect of the text, such as its genre, medium, or message, so we simply asked respondents to “describe what they just saw as though describing it to a friend who hadn’t seen it.” This allowed us to see what the participants considered to be the relevant elements of the texts.
Our analysis of the interviews employed a bottom-up, qualitative method to identify the various interpretations of each individual text. Both authors interpreted the interviews separately, grouping together similar audience interpretations of each text into our basic categories. We then merged our analysis, resolving any discrepancies through discussion and modification of categories.
Participants’ responses did not fit neatly into discrete categories. Some answered by identifying what they considered to be the source of the video (i.e. “it was from YouTube”), some described the action of the video (“it showed people talking”), and others talked about what they felt the producers were trying to convey (“it was selling something”). Some participants gave multiple, sometimes contradictory interpretations of a single text. Thus, our categories of interpretation were not discrete or mutually exclusive.
All of the texts we used resulted in multiple readings that were either shared readings (expressed by at least two people) or idiosyncratic readings (expressed by only one person). Our most “open” text was a video featuring the song “California Love” with different lyrics performed by white college students. This text produced nine shared readings and five idiosyncratic readings. However, most of the texts resulted in three or four shared readings and one or two idiosyncratic readings.
For this essay, we will focus on one example from the study. Participants’ reaction to the video we titled “Banana” illustrates how one argument can produce a range of interpretations, some predictable and some not. The video opens with two men seated on stools in front of a nature backdrop. One of the men holds a banana and, in an Australian accent, states:
Behold the atheist’s nightmare. Now if you study a well made banana, you’ll find on the far side there are three ridges, on the close side, two ridges. If you get your hand ready to grip a banana, you’ll find on the far side there are three grooves, on the close side, two grooves.
The speaker then makes a circle with his thumb and forefinger and inserts the banana into that circle. He continues:
The banana and the hand are perfectly made one for the other. You’ll find the maker of the banana, all mighty God, has made it with a non-slip surface. It has outward indicators of inward contents: green too early, yellow just right, black too late. Now if you go to the top of the banana, you’ll find wrapper, which is biodegradable, has perforations. Notice how gracefully it sits over the human hand. As the soda can makers have placed a tab at the top, so God has placed a tab at the top. When you pull the tab, the contents don’t squirt in your face.
By this time, the speaker has peeled the banana and he holds it up next to his face. The man next to him smiles as the man continues his argument:
Notice it has a point at the top for ease of entry. It’s just the right shape for the human mouth. It’s chewy, easy to digest. And it’s even curved toward the face to make the whole process so much easier. Seriously, Kirk, the whole of creation testifies to the genius of God’s creative beauty.
As he states “ease of entry” and “curved toward the face” he makes a circle with his mouth to show how the banana would fit perfectly inside.
From the 26 participants who viewed this clip, we identified three shared readings, three idiosyncratic readings, and three “non-readings” in which the participant stated they couldn’t understand the text enough to say anything about it.
The first and most common reading was that the video was religious in nature. 15 participants described the video as “a religious video,” “religious program,” or “infomercial promoting the existence of God.” In fact, this is correct. We found the video on YouTube, where it had been excerpted from a DVD series titled The Way of the Master featuring Australian preacher Ray Comfort and 1980s sitcom star and outspoken Christian activist Kirk Cameron.
The second most common reading, appearing four times, was that the video was a “joke” or “parody” from a comedy show, such as Saturday Night Live or MadTV. Here is an example:
Well, the guy next to him was laughing, so it obviously would not be a Christian channel because it was kind of mocking how people believe everything was created by God. I am really not sure. Maybe something like MadTV or some kind of program that likes to make parodies about issues and politics.
These four participants found evidence for this reading in a number of places. One thought it was a joke because no one would seriously speak about a banana in that much detail. The mismatch of topic and tone was evidence to another participant: “It was a satirical clip because the guy had a serious topic then kind of satirizing it and made it laughable with the banana.” Finally, two participants mentioned that the speaker’s accent was evidence of humorous intent, because, as one participant stated, “I think people our age kind of accept the Australian accent as some kind of comedy tone.”
The final shared reading, expressed by three participants, was that the video was a commercial, infomercial, or documentary promoting bananas. This participant found the style of the program matched that of an infomercial:
At first I thought it was pay programming when you watch it and they are trying to sell you something. Well, he is trying to sell us to something and that is just, I guess, bananas are great and you should have them.
None of the participants expressing this interpretation appeared confident in their answer. While the style and tone seemed commercial, the product, a banana, is not typically advertised or promoted in any way. Despite this disconnect, three participants felt this was the most plausible interpretation, with one stating “I don’t think it could be anything else.”
We also found three idiosyncratic readings. One participant interpreted the video as part of a game show where contestants are asked to improvise humorous comments around objects they are given, in this case, the banana. Another participant labeled it “women’s programming.” Finally, one participant thought that it was the first part of a debate and that the second man in the video was about to offer a rebuttal.
Finally, we found some “non-readings” that shed light on the process of argument reception. One participant had limited English language comprehension and couldn’t understand enough of the text to offer a coherent interpretation beyond “it was about a banana.” One participant asked that the clip be stopped midway through, stating that the video was “ridiculous” and that he had nothing else to say about it. But our most intriguing non-reading came from a participant who had the most knowledge about the text. Here is her interpretation:
Participant: A really weird video. I like the guy’s accent, because that’s always pleasant to listen to. But then I believe he started with a banana saying that this is an atheist’s nightmare, he starts to describe a banana. Kirk Cameron was in it, and even though he didn’t say anything, we all know he was a Christian. So, um, it was Kirk Cameron, I don’t know what they were doing because it was this totally sexual thing with the banana and you know, the way your hand gripped it. Were they going for a sex scene? But then Kirk Cameron was in it, and I was like “where did that come from?” I don’t know where they were going with it or what they were talking about. It gripped in your hand perfectly!
Interviewer: So could you take a guess what kind of video or whatever you think that is?
Participant: No.
Interviewer: No guess at all?
Participant: No, because it talks about atheists and Kirk Cameron is a Christian, and talking about a banana and gripping. I don’t know.
This participant recognized Kirk Cameron and knew that he was an outspoken Christian. She also interpreted parts of the video as sexual in nature. Because she recognized Kirk Cameron, and knew that he was a Christian, her interpretation could have been that it was a religious program of some kind. But when she also found sexual content in the text, this contradicted the religious interpretation, resulting in confusion and an inability to speak about the meaning of the text. The contrast between the religious message and humorous/sexual means of conveying the message led four viewers to conclude that it was a joke and not a serious religious argument. But for this participant, the result was confusion.
The “Banana” video produced a high number of readings, but every video argument used in this study produced multiple interpretations. Separating the shared readings from idiosyncratic readings is an important step towards sorting out the mess that polysemy makes of understanding arguments. Idiosyncratic interpretations are evidence that it is often audiences, not arguments or their authors, who control the process of making meaning. But beyond that observation, these readings cannot tell us much. Shared readings point to a more stable and potentially predictable process of meaning making. Researchers should be able to identify, either through audience research or thoughtful textual analysis, the potential interpretations of an argument.
3. Evaluations of satirical arguments
In the first study discussed here, we examined only how audiences interpreted arguments. In a second study (Johnson, del Rio, and Kemmitt, 2010), we examined how audiences evaluated satirical arguments. We located short, satirical arguments from films (Safe, Starship Troopers, and Bob Roberts) and a television program (Fox’s short-lived comedy show Half-Hour News Hour). These arguments were chosen because they were labeled by writers, producers, and reviewers as satirical. Also, we selected examples that we believed conveyed a clear argument that an audience member could potentially take away. Our purpose was to examine the extent to which audiences might interpret the arguments in non-satirical ways. Thus, we removed the arguments from their context and gave the audience few clues for decoding the text. We then were able to examine how audiences evaluated arguments when they took them at face value.
Our method resulted in many instances of missed satire. Some participants saw images from the science fiction film Starship Troopers as real recruitment ads for the U.S. military. Participants saw the fictional debate between Senatorial candidates in Bob Roberts as the words of real politicians. However, just as in the previous study, these texts produced a limited range of readings.
The main finding of this second study is that missing the satire does not necessarily mean missing the message intended by the author. This can be illustrated by audience evaluations of the Half-Hour News Hour. We showed participants a segment of the program designed to resemble a commercial for the American Civil Liberties Union. In the clip, a white man in a suit walks down a sidewalk towards the camera while delivering these lines:
There was a time in America when white supremacists and other hate groups had to operate in the shadows, afraid to walk the streets in the daylight, afraid to show their faces. But in 1977, a group of neo-Nazis sued for their right to march through Skokie, Illinois, a town where thousands of Holocaust survivors lived. People like me helped those neo-Nazis take their case all the way to the United States Supreme court. And guess what? They won. We won. I’m the ACLU.
After viewing the video, each participant answered the same question used in the first study, “Please describe what you just saw as though describing it to a friend who hadn’t seen in.” Participants then answered questions about their evaluation of the message, such as “What do you think the producers were trying to say?” and “What do you think about what the producers were trying to say?”
Of the nine participants who viewed this clip, eight thought it was produced by the ACLU to promote their organization. None of the eight, however, found the argument compelling, as illustrated in these responses:
I think they could have done something better. I didn’t really like it. . . I think they need more evidence to support them.
I think it was largely based on feelings in that video because they were showing pictures of stuff that a lot of people may be offended by or even proud of depending on where you side.
I don’t think it should be allowed because if every person is made equal, I just definitely don’t agree with that the producers are trying to put out there.
I don’t believe in the thing the producers are trying to support.
While these participants may not have recognized the satire, they still engaged critically with the text. They were not impressed by the fact that the ACLU defended neo-Nazis and spoke out against what they perceived to be the author’s message. The producers’ intended message – the ACLU defends extremists – is still conveyed even to audiences who “missed the joke.” In fact, a non-satirical reading includes a second argument that a satirical interpretation would not, that the ACLU is foolish enough to think their defense of neo-Nazis would impress people.
4. Implications for the study of argument
Our work suggests that theories of reception have much to offer the study of argument. Toulmin, Perelman, and others urged scholars of argument to look at real-world, ordinary arguments rather than theorize about the properties of imagined arguments or abstract arguments. Similarly, scholars of argument can learn much from real-world, ordinary interpretations of arguments. Before an audience member can evaluate or accept an argument, he or she must interpret the argument.
We believe that dealing with the implications of polysemic arguments is not a particularly daunting task. While our research, along with the research of many others, demonstrates that texts hold multiple meanings for audiences, this research also suggests that some texts produce only a few, fairly predictable readings. As our understanding of audiences develops, researchers can better predict potential readings from textual features, thus bringing the real and the imagined audiences closer together.
Previous studies of textual openness have identified features that supposedly “open” a text to multiple meanings. Chief among these is satire. The logic is that satire operates by presenting two contradictory meanings at the same time (serious and satirical), thus revealing the possibility of multiple interpretations to audiences and empowering them to create their own interpretations (Fiske, 1986, 1987). Our research, in contrast, suggests that an ironic or parody text may have more than one possible reading, but that shared readings are few and often predictable. This suggests that such texts do not necessarily differ from other polysemic texts where multiple meanings are possible but limited (Ceccarelli, 1998).
In contrast, we found non-ironic texts which produced greater numbers shared and idiosyncratic readings. The “Banana” video, which produced six distinct readings, was not intended by the producers as satire, irony, or parody. Audiences could potentially have a similar reaction to other arguments. When audiences perceive an argument to be ridiculous (by whatever standard they employ), they could potentially classify that argument as part of a satire, parody, or other ironic text. The second study discussed here suggests that when audiences classify an argument as part of a satire, they may then refrain from evaluation of the argument. Participants described what they perceived to be satirical arguments as “just for fun” or “just entertainment” and offered little commentary on the substance of the argument.
When audiences encounter arguments in the real world, the circumstances do not always favor the arguer. The audience can be distracted or bored. The audience may not encounter the arguments as part of a larger case being made, experiencing only fragments as they flip through the channels, view online videos and advertisements, or selectively remember ideas days later. Complex and nuanced arguments fair poorly in such an environment. But despite the distraction and fragmentation, audiences still assemble good reasons for their beliefs and actions and researchers can begin to understand that process.
Anti-Defamation League (2006). Statement on the comedy of Sacha Baron Cohen, aka “Borat.” Retrieved January 1, 2008, from http://www.adl.org/PresRele/Mise_00/4898_00.htm.
Baym, G. (2005). “The Daily Show”: Discursive integration and the reinvention of political journalism. Political Communication, 22 (3), 259-276.
Boler, M. (2006). “The Daily Show,” “Crossfire,” and the will to truth. SCAN: Journal of Media Arts Culture, 3 (1). Retrieved January 22, 2007, from http://scan.net.au/scan/journal/display.php?journal_id=73.
Ceccarelli, L. (1998) “Polysemy: Multiple Meanings in Rhetorical Criticism.” Quarterly Journal of Speech, 84 (4), 395-415.
Fiske, J. (1986). Television: Polysemy and popularity. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 3 (4), 391-408.
Fiske, J. (1987). Television culture. London: Routledge.
Gring-Pemble, L. and Watson, M. S. (2003). The rhetorical limits of satire: An analysis of James Finn Garner’s Politically Correct Bedtime Stories. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 89 (2), 132-153.
Hall, S. (1980). Encoding/decoding. In S. Hall, D. Hobson, A. Lowe, and P. Willis (Eds.), Culture, Media and Language (pp. 128-138). London: Hutchinson.
Hall, S. (1993). Reflections on the encoding/decoding model: An interview with Stuart Hall. In Jon Cruz and Justin Lewis (Eds.), Viewing, reading, listening: Audiences and cultural reception (253-274). Boulder, Colo.: Westview.
Hariman, R. (2007). In defense of Jon Stewart. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 24 (3), 273-277.
Hart, R. P., & Hartelius, E. J. (2007). The Political Sins of Jon Stewart. Critical Studies in Communication, 24 (3), 263-272.
Jensen, K. B. (1990). The politics of polysemy: television news, everyday consciousness and political action. Media, Culture and Society, 12, 57-77.
Johnson, A., del Rio, E., and Kemmitt, A. (2010). Missing the joke: A reception analysis of satirical texts. Communication, Culture, and Critique, 3, 396-415.
Kaufer, D. (1977). Irony and rhetorical strategy. Philosophy & Rhetoric, 10 (2), 90-110.
Lewis, J. (1991). The ideological octopus. London: Routledge.
Olson, K. M., & Olson, C. D. (2004). Beyond strategy: A reader-centered analysis of irony’s dual persuasive uses. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 90 (1), 24-52.
Reincheld, A. (2006). “Saturday Night Live” and Weekend Update. Journalism History, 31 (4), pp. 190-197.
Tindale, C. W., & Gough, J. (1987). The use of irony in argumentation. Philosophy and Rhetoric, 20 (1), 1-17.
Wilder, C. (2005). Separated at birth: Argument by irony in Hearts and Minds and Fahrenheit 9/11. Atlantic Journal of Communication, 13 (2), 57-72.
Wright, E. A. (2001). “Joking Isn’t Safe”: Fanny Fern, Irony and Signifyin(g). Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 31 (2), 91-111.
ISSA Proceedings 2006 – Why Do Journalists Quote Other People, Or On The Functions Of Reported Speech In Argumentative Newspaper Discourse
ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Totalitarian Argumentation: Theory And Practice
ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Arguing For Bakhtin
ISSA Proceedings 2006 – Citizenship Education And The Teaching Of Argumentation In Schools
ISSA Proceedings 2014 ~ Transparency In Legal Argumentation: Adapting To A Composite Audience In Administrative Judicial Decisions
ISSA Proceedings 2002 – On The Pragmatics Of Argumentative Discourse
ISSA Proceedings 2002 – Felicity Conditions For The Circumstantial Ad Hominem: The Case Of Bush v. Gore
ISSA Proceedings 2010 – How Critical Is The Dialectical Tier? Exploring The Critical Dimension In The Dialectical Tier
ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Burden Of Proof: A Negociable Argumentative ‘Chore’
ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Acts Of Argumentation: Beyond Spoken Dialog
ISSA Proceedings 1998 – A General Theory Of Public Argumentation: Death And Rebirth?
ISSA Proceedings 2006 – Visual Schematization: Advertising And Gender In Mexico
ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Visualizing Recognition
ISSA Proceedings 2006 – A Normative Reconstruction Of Arguments From Reasonableness In The Justification Of Judicial Decisions
ISSA Proceedings 2006 – Contradiction In Madhyamaka Buddhist Argumentation
ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Strategic Maneuvering With The Technique Of Dissociation In International Mediation
ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Partial Quotes In Headlines And Subheads In Le Monde. An Exploration In Polyphonic Journalistic Writing And Opinion Forming
ISSA Proceedings 2002 – Persuasive Success And Normatively-Desirable Argumentative Conduct: Is It (Persuasively) Bad To Be (Normatively) Good?
ISSA Proceedings 2010 – “The Truth And Nothing But The Truth?”: The Argumentative Use Of Fictions In Legal Reasoning
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PRF Cycle 17
PRF Cycle 17 applications are now being accepted, with a due date of January 15, 2020. There will be a single application cycle with three application types. The application and review process will remain the same as last year. Please see the PRF site for full details. More
John Tavis Honored at ACS Gala
John Tavis, Ph.D., was honored at the American Cancer Society of St. Louis’ Champions of Hope Gala for his dedication to research and science. More
Salvemini Lab Receives Two NIH Grants
Daniela Salvemini, Ph.D., and her research team received two NIH grants, one to study chemotherapy-induced cognitive impairment and to study the use of opioids for pain management during cancer treatment. More
Hotel Influenza
Daniel Hoft, M.D., Ph.D., announced the opening of a new Extended Stay Research Unit at SLU. The new research unit will allow investigators to take vaccine testing to the next level and will further efforts to develop a universal flu vaccine. More
Missing Protein Leads to Hypoglycemia
Gina Yosten, Ph.D., received a grant from The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust to support her studies on hyopglycemia in Type 1 diabetics. More
Cause of Premature Aging in Children
Susana Gonzalo, Ph.D., and her lab group published a paper in Cell Reports detailing her lab’s studies on Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS), which is caused by a single mutation in the LMNA gene that encodes the lamin A protein. More
Crystal Structure Solved For Key Inflammation Protein
Sergey Korolev, Ph.D., and his lab group published findings in Nature Communications revealing the crystal structure of the calcium-independent form of phospholipase A2β (iPLA2β). The structure sheds new light on the function, cellular localization, and regulation of this enzyme. More
David Ford, Ph.D., and Jane McHowat, Ph.D., published a paper linking sepsis to lung injury and death in patients with elevated levels of chlorinated lipids. Their findings were published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation Insight. More
Gemini Computing Cluster
The Department of Biochemistry maintains a state-of-the-art, high performance computing cluster that can be used for GPU computing, advanced molecular analyses, and rapid macromolecular conformation sampling. More
The RPC is the advisory body to the Dean of the School of Medicine about policies, activities, and long-term objectives pertaining to research in the School of Medicine.
Members are appointed by the Dean to a 3-year term, with the recommendations of the Committee on Faculty Affairs.
Activities of the RPC include:
Review of nominations for awards and fellowships
Reviews of Research Centers and Cores
Review of major equipment requisitions
Administration of Internal Study Section
Administration of Presidential Research Fund
To read the latest news and events at Saint Louis University, please visit the Newslink website.
The School of Medicine Master Calendar contains information on Seminars, Grand Rounds, Journal Clubs, and other presentations in all Medical Center departments.
Funding information, grant preparation sites, and other research resources for investigators at SLU.
RPC Members
Current and Ex Officio members of the Research Planning Committee
President's Research Fund provides support to new or existing high scientific quality research likely to secure extramural funding.
Peer-review for NIH and NIH-type applications prior to submission.
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Avery Island Tabasco Tour
Jude Travel Park, New Orleans, Louisiana
On Thursday we headed about 40 miles to Avery Island to tour the Tabasco factory with our friends Kim and Harland. The tour is free, but there is a $1 per car charge to enter the island.
In 1868 Edmund McIlhenny started producing Tabasco pepper sauce from capsicum peppers he was growing on Avery Island, his families home. Five generations later the same family is still operating the factory using the same recipe. The factory itself has been rebuilt a couple of times. The present factory was completed in 1980.
There are now several varieties of pepper sauce sold in over 165 countries and labeled in 22 languages. The day we visited, they were bottling sauce to be shipped to Germany.
The capsicum peppers are still grown on Avery Island. Those peppers are used for seeds which are shipped to growers in Central and South America to produce enough peppers to produce and bottle all of the sauces.
Once the peppers are processed, they are placed in oak barrels which have a few holes in the cover. Then a layer of salt is placed on top of the barrel. The pepper sauce in these barrels ferments for three years before it is mixed with the remaining ingredients and bottled. I had no idea it took that long.
The salt comes from under Avery Island. The island is on the largest of five salt domes in Louisiana. The salt goes down as far as Mount Everest is high. That’s a lot of salt. The salt mines are leased to the Cargill Salt Company. Annual production tops 2.5 million tons, and the extracted salt is 98.9% pure.
We were each given four small sample bottles of different types of pepper sauces including the original, buffalo, green pepper and chipotle. There was also a free tasting area where you could try all of their sauces, chili with their chili sauce, jalapeno flavored ice cream, pepper flavored soda, and some pepper jellies. I’m not a big fan of spicy hot stuff, but I did like their new sweet and spicy pepper sauce. We bought a bottle of that, a bottle of mild bloody mary mix and a bottle of garlic pepper sauce which Kevin liked and is going to use for marinating. The tour was fun, and we all enjoyed our visit.
On our way back home we saw this camper. They put anything on stilts around here. Interesting!!
On Friday we headed to New Orleans. We are staying at Jude Travel Park. We’re staying for a month and wanted someplace where we could leave the fifth wheel while we were on the cruise. This is a family owned small RV park with a fence and security gate. The owners live on site and will be personally watching our truck and fifth wheel. It’s a no frills place, not in the best part of town and the sites are tight; but it works for our needs this time.
As we were driving to New Orleans, we crossed the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge. It’s 18.2 miles long and crosses over a couple of lakes, rivers and swamps. It seemed like that bridge would never end. It is the second longest in the US and the fourteenth longest in the world. Then as we got close to New Orleans, we crossed another long bridge over Lake Pontchartrain. There sure is a lot of water in Louisiana.
Today we did some grocery shopping. There are definitely some different types of food here than we are used to seeing. As Mardi Gras is just around the corner, the stores are all selling King cakes. It looks like a big cinnamon roll with colored frosting. I would have like to buy a small piece to try, but all of the ones we saw were too big for us.
This bottle of pickled pigs lips definitely caught my attention. Who eats this stuff??? On Monday we’re going on a guided walking tour of the French Quarter. I bought the tour on Groupon a couple of weeks ago. I also bought a swamp tour on Groupon which we will do after the cruise. Our boys arrive on Friday, and on Sunday we start cruising. We’ll have a busy couple of weeks. I sure am looking forward to seeing my kids!!
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Save Kiribati
About Kiribati
Getting Around Kiribati
Getting To Kiribati
Bubuti
We are looking for feedback/ideas for potential projects to assist Kiribati.
Please email us your ideas.
Email : info@savekiribati.com
Kiribati is a beautiful and wondrous place with a unique culture.
However, most of the population are unemployed and do not have safe drinking water, sanitation or electricity. Physical assets are lacking or are in complete disarray.
Kiribati's severe difficulties cannot all be laid at the door of climate change. Overcrowding, unemployment, dwindling fresh water, ramshackle roads, poor quality houses and disease negatively impact Kiribati. The impact of climate change might be the tipping point which in combination with these already severe problems may devastate Kiribati.
This website is to focus on the plight of the people - social, economic and environmental.
By examining the issues I endeavour to create solutions to assist. The more understanding you have of another's plight the easier it is to show kindness and compassion. I feel compelled to help these people and I hope that you do too.
Coconut is the most abundant plant in Kiribati
Most of the working population is involved in subsistence agriculture. Agricultural production is constrained by inherently poor soil conditions, lack of surface water sources, land tenure and the geographical scattered nature of the islands.
Small Stores
Bubuti makes it difficult to begin as small business
Bubuti occurs when an extended family member in need makes a "non-refusable request" to another family member who has to comply. Non-compliant family members would be shamed and ostracised as they were said to lack compassion. Bubuti can act as a tax on working people and reduce their willingness to invest in business and has damaged economic growth.
Church income is utilized to build and maintain elaborate buildings
A cash economy is increasingly replacing the traditional subsistence lifestyle. Education and the church are the two main areas of expenditure.
Newspaper and Radio Station
Kiribati Newstar newspaper and FM89 radio station are located in this building
Kiribati covers a vast distance. The large distances between the islands means that many people have little access to electronic communications. Kiribati does not have access to a submarine fibre optical cable so must rely on satellite for telecommunication and internet. This increases the cost of communication.
Shops are small and often scattered along the roadside
Kiribati is one of the poorest and most remote microstates in the Pacific. Economic activity in Kiribati is constrained by isolation, limited natural resources and a fragile environment. A large proportion of the population are unemployed.
Kiribati relies on imported fuels for electricity generation, transport and cooking. Electricity from the grid serves about half of the households in Kiribati. Solar PV is an important source of energy in outer islands.
Kiribati is a long distance from the rest of the world
Kiribati is significantly disadvantaged by distance from global markets. This is exacerbated by the dispersion of its many islands.
The roads are full of potholes
Overall infrastructure in Kiribati is quite rudimentary. The physical infrastructure necessary for economic development - electricity, transport (roads, ports and airports), water supply and sanitation is weak in Kiribati.
Kiribati is spread over a wide area
Gaining access to land is one of the major constraints for economic development in Kiribati.
Currently, tourism is nearly non-existent in Kiribati. Air transportation presents a major constraint for tourism development as Kiribati is not located on major air routes.
A constant stream of minivans service South Tarawa from Betio to Buota (the end of the road)
Given the geographical dispersion and isolation of Kiribati, transportation is very important for the people and government. However, running and sustaining a transportation system in Kiribati is very expensive.
Climate change is one of Kiribati's most pressing issues. The impacts of climate change to the very sustainability of the atolls of Kiribati is very real. Climate change is a challenge which impacts not only the environment but also affects economic, social and political development.
There appears to be rubbish all over South Tarawa
Poor waste management is one of the major environmental problems in Kiribati. It poses a serious threat to health, erodes the economy, affects future development and is a deterrent to tourism.
The treated tap water is not suitable for drinking and contains particles
Among the Pacific Island nations, Kiribati has the lowest proportion of households with sustainable access to an improved water source such as piped water, protected well and rainwater. Unsafe water is the main cause of water borne diseases in Kiribati.
Kiribati women face a high level of domestic violence. More than 68 per cent of women aged 15 to 49 years who had been in a partnership had experienced physical or sexual violence.
The Kiribati Government acknowledges the importance of providing a relevant and quality education for all children in improving the socio-economic outlook for the country as a whole. A qualified domestic work force is imperative for Kiribati to progress. Currently, Kiribati's economic prospects are hampered by low skill levels.
Health indicators are gradually improving in Kiribati. However, Kiribati has low life expectancy, the highest under five mortality rate in the Pacific and a high incidence of nutrition related diseases. Poverty, overcrowding and the adoption of Western style diets have negative health consequences in Kiribati.
The children are happy and friendly
Population growth remains high at 1.8 per cent a year. High fertility is a key cause of this rapid population growth. Migration to South Tarawa has contributed to poor housing and sanitary conditions. This overcrowding is a major contributor to disease and impacts the water lens.
A large proportion of the Kiribati population live in traditional housing even in urban areas
Poverty in Kiribati does not mean hunger or destitution in the traditional sense but rather that many households are struggling to meet their basic living expenses on a daily or weekly basis. It is estimated that around one-in-five households and almost one-in-four of the population of Kiribati may be living below the basic needs poverty line. Poverty of opportunity is widespread in Kiribati as there is limited economic opportunities for earning an income.
Some wells have pumps to help distribute the water
The majority of the population in rural areas use the beach for defecation. Flush toilets are used mostly in urban areas but a high proportion of the population in urban areas still use the beach and the bush. Defecation at the beach and in the bush increases the spread of water borne diseases especially diarrhoeal diseases.
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Leicester City Council will host the exhibition at its New Walk Museum. Deputy City Mayor Cllr Piara Singh Clair said: “New Walk Museum has a long history of celebrating key moments in local social history, so I’m delighted that our flagship museum will be hosting this fascinating exhibition of 1960s youth sub-culture next spring.”
“The fashion, art and music that were such key elements of Mod life will help bring the exhibition to life, but what makes it particularly interesting is that the content will be inspired by local people’s true stories, with eye-witness accounts provided by Mods from both Nottingham and Leicester.”
Jo Jones, Head of Arts and Museums:
“The exhibition provides a great opportunity for both the local community and visitors from other parts of the UK to learn about and experience social history and heritage that might otherwise not be available or recorded and the link with the 40th year of Quadrophenia could help to generate economic advantages for the city. The project provides an opportunity for existing and new museum volunteers to learn new skills and get training to help visitors to the exhibition to learn about social history from 1960s and work alongside Mods who are contributors to the exhibition and the young people involved with making the creative content for the Soft Touch exhibition.”
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China Completes First Space Manned Docking Mission
Posted Friday, June 29, 2012
China is celebrating the safe return of three astronauts, who successfully completed a mission that included the country's first manual docking in space and the first Chinese woman astronaut. Live television images of the Shenzhou-9 spacecraft's return were broadcast around China Friday.
After re-entering earth's atmosphere, a red and white striped parachute slowed the capsule so that it could safely touch down on its targeted landing site in Inner Mongolia. The vessel flipped over when it hit the ground, but the three astronauts aboard were unhurt. They spent more than half an hour re-adjusting to Earth's gravity before emerging.
Astronaut Liu Wang said it is really good to once again feel the ground beneath his feet. He added that he is also glad to be home safely.
The Shenzhou-9 docked with the Tiangong-1 laboratory spacecraft, which is orbiting more than 300 kilometers above Earth. Liu Yang, China's first woman astronaut in space, said she felt at home on Tiangong-1, where she and the other two astronauts lived and carried out experiments for nearly two weeks. She says she feels very happy, and is very proud of her country.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and other top Chinese leaders watched the landing from the Beijing command center. Afterwards, Wen read out the government's letter of congratulations to the astronauts and to all the people who worked on the mission.
He says the successful manned docking mission of Tiangong-1 and the Shenzhou-9 spacecraft marks a milestone and major breakthrough in China's quest to master space docking technology. He added that it also marks a decisive step forward for China's space strategy and accomplishments on the world stage.
Shenzhou-9 was launched on June 16. The official Xinhua news agency says the successful mission is an important step in China's plans to establish a permanent manned space station around 2020. [VOA]
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Benefits of Youth Sports
Fairfax County Resources
Home Archive by category "Fairfax County Park Authority"
Category Archives: Fairfax County Park Authority
Nats partnership creates Pudge Rodriguez field
Mike Thompson, Jr.Fairfax County Park Authority, Youth Sports
The Washington Nationals are not only a great baseball team, they are also a great community partner. They continue to invest in our community and to try and grow the impact of baseball.
Pudge Rodriguez may have played for a number of baseball teams, but the two years he spent playing for the Washington Nationals are seasons Nats fans won’t forget. Pudge was one of the leagues best catchers and evidence of that is his recent induction into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame.
The Nationals recently showed their continued commitment to our community and their respect for Rodriguez by investing in a baseball field in Annandale and naming it for their Hall of Famer. The Nationals Dream Foundation partnered with the Fairfax County Park Authority and took a rag tag field and turned it into a showcase with new turf, baselines that can accommodate 50/70, a new electronic score board, new fencing, covered dugouts, irrigation system, and upgraded batting cages. It’s a gem that players will enjoy on any afternoon or under the lights at night. Continue reading
Upgraded driving range at Burke Lake
Mike Thompson, Jr.Fairfax County Park Authority
This morning I was honored to MC and speak at the ribbon cutting of the dramatically upgraded driving range at Burke Lake. I was joined by Supervisor Pat Herrity, fellow Park Authority board members Mary Cortina (at-large) and Tim Hackman (Dranesville), Planning Commission Chairman Pete Murphy, and Park Authority Director Kirk Kincannon. Several park staff were there including Andy Miller, Eric Inman, Manager of Golf Enterprises Todd Johnson and former Manager of Golf Enterprises Peter Fury.
The new facility provides year-round opportunities for golfers. Golfers can now enjoy a 64-station lighted driving range with 24 covered and heated stations. The new amenities will accommodate practice and classes year-round at Burke Lake Gold Academy. A rentable area with indoor seating is available for private functions and parties.
The Burke Lake Golf Center was originally opened in 1970. It was a great place. The old driving range was great. It is where I learned to hit a golf ball and took lessons through the Fairfax County Park Authority. But it was showing its age and that was impacting both the community’s enjoyment of the facility and its economic performance.
To address these needs, $6.6 million was allocated as part of the 2008 and 2012 Park Bonds toward the renovation of the driving range and the clubhouse as well as other improvements including the installation of a sewage line. (The clubhouse will re-open this fall.) After years of discussions and planning, a series of public meetings were held to discuss the plans for the Burke Lake Golf Center. At one point, there were some discussions about bringing in a Top Golf like partner to build and run a new facility, it became clear that this was not going to be a viable solution. Continue reading
It’s time to Go Ape!
Mike Thompson, Jr.Cool Stuff, Fairfax County Park Authority
The Fairfax County Park Authority just welcomed one of the coolest new attractions to Fairfax County. Go Ape! is a brand new, and first of its kind in Fairfax County, woodland obstacle, and zip line course. Go Ape! invites you to “Live Life Adventurously” – and they give you the chance to do just that. This is a place where you can challenge yourself to do something new or spend an incredible day with your family, friends, or co-workers.
Several years ago, the possibility of bringing this to Fairfax County came to the Park Authority. While the first thought was to put it in a different park, South Run soon emerged as the best fit. South Run is one of the epicenters of active recreation in the county. The ReCenter has a pool and provides the opportunity for people to work out, take classes or sign up for summer camps. There are also three full size and two small sided rectangular fields and two diamonds. There’s an awesome playground, an indoor turf field, tennis courts, and miles of trails.
And this focus on active recreation makes Go Ape! a natural addition. The new course was carefully integrated into the park’s topography so customers can explore the canopy while enjoying great views. Trails below the course allow people to cheer on their friends in the trees and gives them a chance to see what they are missing. Continue reading
Truly cool turf fields?
I remember coaching a U12 travel soccer team in an August tournament when one of the players started running funny. She took a few strange steps and then ran back and picked something up. Then she came running over to me to show me that the entire cleat portion of her shoe has simply detached itself. The glue had literally melted and the shoe fell apart. That is how hot that turf field got on that sunny August day.
Heat on turf fields is a persistent issue. Professional players, college players, high school players, youth players – all know how tough it can be to spend a hot, sunny June afternoon playing on turf.
But now there may be an affordable solution. Field Turf’s CoolPlay is a new material which is literally put on top of the field’s infill. The material acts as a top dressing and significantly reduces the temperature of the field by up to 35 degrees. and the additional cost is only about $35,000.
And the first of these fields to be built in Fairfax County will be at Great Falls Nike Park. Working in partnership with Great Falls Soccer Club, field 7 will be converted to this new Field Turf Cool Play system. Great Falls will contribute $855.000 of the projects $1,250,000 total cost. The rest of the funds will come from a combination of County and Park Authority sources.
New Facilities at McNaughton Fields Park
On Saturday, April 9, the Fairfax County Park Authority officially opened new diamond fields at McNaughton Park in the Mt. Vernon district. This was the conclusion of a $4.4 million renovation program funded through the 2008 and 2012 Park Bonds.
This was the ribbon cutting on completely renovated fields that have been the home of Woodlawn Little League since the 1960s. The project included the demolition of the four existing fields and the construction of a 90-foot diamond and a 60/70-foot diamond with grass infields along with a 60/70-foot diamond and a 60 foot diamond with skinned infields. Along with the fields, covered dugouts, bullpens, batting cages, bleachers, and fencing were also included. Continue reading
FCPA: National Golf Foundation
In 2011, the Fairfax County Park Authority contracted with National Golf Foundation Consulting to do a report on the FCPA Golf System. It was a financial and operational analysis. The report was presented to the board in January 2012. Since that time, FCPA golf operations has worked to implement the recommendations and made several reports to the board about their progress. However, in an ongoing effort to clean up the FCPA website, the County archived the original report and the supporting material.
To make sure that this material continues to be easily available to those that wish to review it, I am making it all available here.
Washington State Dept of Health: No Cancer Cluster Among Soccer Players
Mike Thompson, Jr.Fairfax County Athletic Council, Fairfax County Park Authority, Youth Sports
On January 19, 2017, the Washington State Department of Health released a study titled Investigation of Reported Cancer among Soccer Players in Washington State. The News Tribune reports, “The study was prompted by an ongoing debate over whether the use of crumb rubber — made from recycled tires — to cushion artificial turf fields could cause cancer in young athletes.”
The report found lower rates of cancer among soccer players than expected. “[T]his finding does not suggest that soccer players, select and premier soccer players, or goalkeepers in Washington are at increased risk of cancer compared to the general populations.”
Fairfax County continues to look at these and other materials as part of the Health Department’s ongoing efforts to ensure the safety of county residents. A memo was sent to the Board of Supervisors on February 2, 2017, by County Executive Ed Long. In the memo, he concludes, “Currently available research on artificial turf has not shown an elevated health risk from playing on fields with crumb rubber. As such, the county will continue its standard practice of using crumb rubber as a synthetic infill until new scientific evidence or guidance about the public health risk of crumb rubber emerges.”
The Washington State Department of Health has an excellent FAQ about the study on their site.
© 2017 ·Sports in FairFax. All rights reserved
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You are here: Home News and Events 20th Sept. 2018
20th Sept. 2018
The Slane History Society are starting off the new season in style with a special night of commemoration to John Boyle O'Reilly.
This year is the 150th anniversary of the sailing of the convict ship' The Hougoumount' which carried O"Reilly and sixty three other Fenians to the penal colony in Freemantle. The well known musician Sean Tyrrell in his show "Message of Peace" will tell O"Reilly's life story through the spoken word, and song.
Sean traces Boyle 'O Reilly's early life in Dowth and Drogheda, set against the backdrop of the Famine , his part in the Fenian uprising in 1867, which led to his being imprisoned for life in Australia and his escape via a whaling ship to America.
A visionary and a poet, O'Reilly has inspired generations of civil rights activists and freedom fighters.
Through a varied tapestry of traditional music, song and poetry, Sean Tyrrell will bring the story to life and I am sure you will enjoy and remember this stunning theatrical presentation.
It will take place in the Lavender Room, Conyngham Arms Hotel , Slane on Thursday 20th September at 8pm.
Tickets (20 euro) available from The Hub, Slane 041 9824000 or at the door
Please come and bring a friend!
I will also be in touch with you soon regarding an event on the 29th September when we will remember Slane man Francis Johnston's death in Priestown, Dunleer, during the civil war in 1922. More details later,
With good wishes to all,
Mary McDonnell.
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the synthesist
david stutz makes stuff up
anathem
AM Turing: Automatic Elegy — installation, performance, and ritual
22 June, 2012, at Chapel Performance Space (installation at 7 PM, concert at 8 PM)
Alan Turing. The father of computer science and artificial intelligence, and a significant contributor to other brainy academic disciplines: mathematics, philosophy, and biology. A shy, but affable, man “of the professor type” who enjoyed science and mathematics, party games and chess, sharing a pint, and who kept fit through competitive long-distance running and biking. A true war hero, who was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1945. A man who also lived conflicting secret lives, openly gay when being gay was illegal, and sworn to secrecy by the British Foreign Office as critical to World War II codebreaking efforts. In the end, he was a tragic figure, paying the ultimate price for his secrets when he seemed to stylishly and deliberately take his own life.
June 2012 is the centenary of Alan Turing’s birth, and many artists are responding to this event by commemorating his life with art. My own contribution to this body of work will consist of a ritualized performance set within a biographically-focused abstract installation, which will be performed in Seattle’s Chapel Performance Space on the eve of his birthday. (7PM on 22 June, 2012)
The installation will consist of artifacts, emotional, physical and intellectual, that are drawn from Turing’s life, interpreted as a series of 41 chalkboards. Some will be physical items, others written or drawn. An ambient soundscape consisting of gentle mechanical sounds and synthesized electronic drones will accompany these chalkboards, along with other, more enigmatic, sounds: mathematical structures, historical conversations, and simple machines. The performance, which will take place within the installation, will include spoken word, music, field recordings, and ritual movement, all based upon mathematical and philosophical structures from Turing’s life work.
The three mathematical and philosophical structures that form the backbone of the piece are the Universal Turing Machine, the Turing test, and Turing patterns. Although the music, visual images, and choreography that occur as part of the ritual can be fully enjoyed without previous knowledge of Turing’s intellectual output, the pieces will directly reflect his work on the Riemann hypothesis, on algorithms, on cryptanalysis, on group theory, on digital computing, on x-ray crystallography, on logic, and on mathematical biology. There are lots of good web resources where you can learn more about these topics; I hope that the entries lower on this page will also help to provide context.
The blog posts below record my ongoing collaborations in preparation for this event. Thanks to everyone who has helped, and especially to Geoff Shilling, Perri Lynch, Beth Glosten, Jim Bennett, Erika Chang, Linda Strandberg, Dean Moore and David Krueger!
am turing: automatic elegy
Our June 22nd performance and installation was a success, and audience reactions were very gratifying. I will edit video excerpts and post at some point, but in the meantime, besides posting a few photos of the event, I want to credit members of the cast and those who provided artistic input. Thank you all. This piece could never have happened without you!
Fiber artist Geoff Shilling, who was weaving the state machine in the room at the event, also wove the large portrait of Turing and built the chalkboards that made up the set. This job was immense, and he did it in less than 3 months, without complaint.
Beth Glosten, who played the bouncer at the door, chalked many of the boards, wrote the 13 scavenger hunt clues, and stage managed the production. (If that weren’t enough, she also provided valuable input and moral support at home as the piece came into focus.)
Perri Lynch, who helped run the house at the event, provided 8 beautiful chalkboards based on details of the zeta calculator blueprint and also gave me valuable basic crash course in chalkboard marking techniques.
David Krueger, Erika Chang, Linda Strandberg, Markdavin Obenza, and Josh Haberman sang beautifully, and Dean Moore contributed percussion that was both sensitive to the context and appropriately unusual. All six of them also performed whatever strange stage actions I requested without complaint. (David Krueger and Erika Chang also helped immensely by contributing muscle to setup and teardown.)
Jim Bennett played the Prof perfectly, gave much input on the piece along the way, and then, to top it off, humped the set in and out of the building along with Geoff, David, and myself.
Finally, thanks to John Forsen for his videography talents, Audrey Guidi for her photographic ones, and to Steve Peters and the Wayward Music Series for providing such a perfect venue for this piece.
The set, when broken down, fits on two shipping pallets. Where should we perform this piece next? Bletchley Park, do you copy?
turing among the machines
One of the defining characteristics of Alan Turing was his pairing of supremely abstract thinking with a very real-world interest in the nuts and bolts of machines. He enjoyed hands-on physics, chemistry, and biology experiments his entire life, and had already begun his life-long adventures with computing machines with analog devices when he recognized and formalized the design advantages of digital technology.
It is entirely natural to think of Turing’s deepest emotional relationship as being the one which he had with The Machine. He formalized what we mean by a “binary computing machine”, as well as the universal nature of such a machine. He knew that machines had the capacity to possess their own intelligence (and their own set of fallibilities) far before that was fashionable, and spoke of them in that light from day one. (He probably went further, thinking of all life as mechanical, but this is only implied in his writings.) He would often solve new problems by sketching or prototyping: his output started with devices such as his childhood Foucault pendulum, continued with advanced devices of his own design including a gear-driven analog calculator, a binary electronic adder, and an electronic voice scrambler, and culminated with the first flush of true general-purpose computers in the 1940s and early 1950s, for which he was a central influence.
In this installation, I have chosen one of the oldest and most universal technologies, the loom, to stand in as the ritual presence of The Machine. When I first encountered the machines described by Turing in On Computable Numbers, my mind immediately went to the motion of a shuttle, whose oscillatory movements resemble the movement of the turing machine head across its tape. The tape itself also seems symbolically linked: the fabric being created from warp and weft seems similar to the output being created from “state” and “mark”. Because of this, I have chosen to weave the sounds and outputs of looms into the performance. They come and go, and are produced by both live weaving in the room, as well as by the triggering of electronic field recordings.
Geoff Shilling has also created a woven portrait of Turing which will sit with us in the room, invoking his presence. If you examine the portrait closely, you will see that it is composed of letters (symbols) from the Fraktur family of fonts, which is the same font that Turing used to represent the workings of his universal machines on paper. It is a beautiful piece, and a beautiful tribute.
introduction to the ACE report
From Turing’s Proposal for Development in the Mathematics Division of an Automatic Computing Engine (ACE):
“Calculating machinery in the past has been designed to carry out accurately and moderately quickly small parts of calculations which frequently recur. The four processes addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, together perhaps with sorting and interpolation, cover all that could be done until quite recently, if we except machines of the nature of the differential analyser and wind tunnels, etc. which operate by measurement rather than by calculation.
It is intended that the electronic calculator now proposed should be different in that it will tackle whole problems. Instead of repeatedly using human labour for taking material out of the machine and putting it back at the a ppropriate moment all this will be looked after by the machine itself. This arrangement has very many advantages.
(1) The speed of the machine is no longer limited by the speed of the human operator.
(2) The human element of fallibility is eliminated, although it may to an extent be replaced by mechanical fallibility.
(3) Very much more complicated processes can be carried out than could easily be dealt with by human labour.
Once the human brake is removed the increase in speed is enormous. For example, it is intended that multiplication of two ten figure numbers shall be carried out in 500 μs. This is probably about 20,000 times faster than the normal speed with calculating machines.”
the weaving commences
While I’ve been slacking off, Geoff Shilling has fortunately remained busy, continuing to fabricate wooden pieces for the installation. He’s now starting on the woven pieces, including a rendering of the famous portrait shown in this post. Look carefully at the characters that he is using for the half-toning; they will be familiar to anyone who has read the original article on computable numbers! Writing custom rendering code is just another in his long list of skills.
I hope that this work is self-explanatory
An obscure paper, but a wonderful view into Turing’s mind and the practical problems associated with cracking the Enigma daily: CRITIQUE OF RUNNING SHORT CRIBS ON THE U. S. NAVY BOMBE. The snarky jabs at builders who don’t really understand the day-to-day operation of the system will be very familiar to anyone who designs a lot of code. (Note that this paper is freely available only for a limited time. The Cryptologia paywall will rise again at the end of the year.) The first paragraph really sets the tone. The gem that provided my title is near the bottom:
“We are reather surprised to hear that you are able to find the keys, given that a message when deciphered says VVVBDUUU. Our experience shows that with a ‘crib’ as short as 8 letters there are always far too many sets of keys consistent with the data, so that whatever method may be used for discovering the dkeys, the time required to test these solutions out further becomes prohibitive. To illustrate this I have enciphered VVVBDUUU with a random chosen key viz wheel order 457, English Ringstellung RWH, pre-start window position SZK and Stecker A/P, B/Y, C/L, E/Q, F/X, K/R, M/W, N/T, O/V, S/Z, giving YFZONMTY. I then imagined that
Y F Z O N M T Y
V V V B D U U U
was a crib that I had to solve, but that I knew the wheel order and Ringstellung: I tried out the hypothesis that the pre-start window position was the right one (SZK) and also the five which follow it (allowing correctly for turnovers) viz TAL, TAM, TBN, TBO, TBP, and found that with pre-start TBP there is a solution with V/J, F/G, Z/H, Y/E, U/X, M/L, T/K, D/P and either B/S and O/W or B/W and O/S. The ‘unsteckered alphabets’ for the relevant positions of the machine are shown in Fig 1, and the working in Fig 2. I hope that this work is self-explanatory. Each column of letters consists of steckers of the letters VFZYUMT which imply one another on account of the crib.”
sonification of Turing’s work
Alan Turing is among the handful of thinkers who formulated the concept of algorithmic computation. Every task that we perform with a computer begins with an algorithm, and yet this concept, which we now take for granted, was not yet formalized in the 1930s. This simple, yet immensely impactful, contribution is why I’ve chosen to create an algorithmic soundscape as the backdrop for our upcoming installation/performance. I like to think of Turing, along with Alonzo Church, as the modern muses who inspire all algorithmic arts and sciences. In honor of the centenary of Turing’s birth, I am creating an elegy for him.
There are several parts to this Turing elegy: a physical installation (which also functions as the setting for performances), a continuous ambient soundscape which surrounds the visitor upon entering the room, and finally, a brief ritualized performance in which Turing-inspired works will be presented using sound, spoken word, and movement. I’ve been working on both the physical set and the sonic ambience lately, and thought that I’d post a little bit about the methods that I’m using to create the soundscape.
There are three basic layers to this soundscape: live sounds produced by human performers, synthesized electronic sounds, and the sounds of machines (both live and via field recordings). All of the sounds relate to Turing’s life and his work, and many of them are based on either pure mathematics or realized Turing machines. All are created and/or performed using algorithms. In order to preserve the freshness of the live experience, I am not going to go into too much blog detail before the actual performance, but I will say that the live sounds will include humans operating simple machines, thinking, engaging in academic dialog, and chanting introspectively. Field recordings include turing machines, looms, and machines of Turing’s own creation.
The electronic portion of the soundscape is composed of algorithmically produced sonifications of Turing’s scientific output. Turing’s work included not only his very significant work on computability, but also forays into disparate subjects including group theory, logic, number theory, and mathematical modeling. I am currently in the process of transforming several specific results — his work on the Riemann hypothesis, his biological model for morphogenesis, and some of the examples from the Entscheidungsproblem paper — into electronic sounds using the Supercollider programming language for digital synthesis.
(Click to read more of the gory details)
fabrication has begun
Long-time collaborator Geoff Shilling and I did an intensive three days in his shop last week, and our installation is definitely starting to take shape. 41 blackboards, complete with road cases, ready for chalking. Geoff, who is a fiber artist, will also be participating in the live portion of this event as well as creating pieces for it!
a taste of programming the Mark I
Besides containing math that helped to advance work on the Riemann Hypothesis, Turing’s paper “Some Calculations of the Riemann Zeta Function” also contains a great snapshot of what it was like to program the first generation of electronic computers. I’ll start with the widely-quoted introduction to the paper, which I’ve annotated a bit:
“In June 1950 the Manchester University Mark I Electronic Computer was used to do some calculations concerned with the distribution of the zeros of the Riemann zeta-function. It was intended in fact to determine whether there are any zeros not on the critical line in certain particular intervals. The calculations had been planned some time in advance, but had in fact had to be carried out in great haste. If it had not been for the fact that the computer remained in serviceable condition for an unusually long period from 3 p.m. one afternoon to 8 a.m. the following morning it is probably that the calculations would never have been done at all. As it was, the interval 2π632 < t < 2π642 was investigated during that period, and very little more was accomplished.
the zeta zero approximator
The Turing Digital Archive contains a single tantalizing blueprint image for an elaborate gear-driven mechanical calculator that Turing proposed to build in 1939, which would have helped to make progress in verifying the Riemann Hypothesis. It was to be a very special-purpose device for adding up sine components in the various ratios needed to perform calculations using the Riemann-Siegel theta function, which was a new development in the 30’s.
The table in the blueprint contains the ratios he would need for mechanical linkage, although as Bill Casselman points out, the table actually contains several calculation errors which would have eventually caused some problems. [My personal favorite is the column for ratios in log base 8.]
From Turing’s application to the Royal Society: “It is proposed to make calculations of the Riemann zeta-function on the critical line for 1,450 < t < 6,000 with a view to discovering whether all the zeros of the function in this range of t lie on the critical line. An investigation for 0 < t < 1,464 has already been made by Titchmarsh. The most laborious part of such calculations consists in the evaluation of certain trigonometrical sums
In the present calculation it is intended to evaluate these sums approximately in most cases by the use of apparatus somewhat similar to what is used for tide prediction. When this method does not give sufficient accuracy it will be necessary to revert to the straightforward calculation of the trigonometric sums, but this should be only rarely necessary. I am hoping that the use of the tide-predicting machine will reduce the amount of such calculation necessary in a ratio of 50:1 or better. It will not be feasible to use already existing tide predictors because the frequencies occurring in the tide problems are entirely different from those occurring in the zeta function problem. I shall be working in collaboration with D. C. MacPhail, a research student who is an engineer. We propose to do most of the machineshop work ourselves, and are therefore applying only for the cost of materials, and some preliminary computation.”
Although this physical machine was never finished, due to the arrival of World War II, Turing continued to putter with the Riemann Hypothesis throughout his career via the zeta function, eventually becoming the first person to use an electronic computer to calculate zeroes, and thereby extending the upper limit for known zeroes to t < 1540. [Minuscule by today’s standards, but not bad for work done with paper tape in raw base 32 on a machine with a little over 25,000 bits of memory!] He also devised what is now called “Turing’s method” for easier computational analysis of the function. These exploits are detailed in his papers “A method for the calculation of the zeta-function” and “Some calculations of the Riemann zeta-function,” which are both widely referenced in contemporary math papers.
obituary quotations
“It was a great loss to natural science as well as to mathematics when, on June 8, at the age of 41, he was found dead in his house at Wilmslow in Chesire.” — Kings Report 1954 [No mention of his wartime achievements, of his sexuality, or of suicide.]
“Turing took a particular delight in problems, large or small, that enabled him to combine mathematical theory with experiments he could carry out, in whole or part, with his own hands. He was ready to tackle anything which combined these two interests. His comical but brilliantly apt analogies with which he explained his ideas made him a delightful companion.” — DR ALAN TURING An Appreciation, Manchester Guardian 11 June 1954
“For those who knew him here [at Sherborne] the memory is of an even-tempered, lovable character with an impish sense of humour and a modesty proof against all achievement. You would not take him for a Wrangler, the youngest Fellow of King’s and the youngest F.R.S. [Fellow of the Royal Society], or as a Marathon runner, or that behind a negligé appearance he was intensely practical. Rather you recollected him as one who buttered his porridge, brewed scientific concoctions in his study, suspended a weighted string from the staircase wall and set it swinging before Chapel to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth by its change of direction by noon, produced proofs of the postulates of Euclid, or brought bottles of imprisoned flies to study their “decadence” by inbreeding. On holidays in Cornwall or Sark he was a lively companion even to the extent of mixed bathing at midnight. During the war he was engaged in breaking down enemy codes, and had under him a regiment of girls, supervised to his amusement by a dragon of a female. His work was hush-hush, not to be divulged even to his mother. For it he was awarded the O.B.E. He also adopted a yound Jewish refugee and saw him through his education. Besides long distance running, his hobbies were gardening and chess; and occasionally realistic water-colour painting.
In all his preoccupation with logic, mathematics, and science he never lost the common touch; in a short life he accomplished much, and to the roll of great names in the history of his particular studies added his own.” — The Sherbornian, Summer Term 1954
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Also Implicated
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byron au yong
cappella romana
choral arts nw
fourstones
garrett fisher
long now
perri lynch
portland baroque
seattle baroque
strange loop
the byrd ensemble
the tudor choir
turing centenary
vashon opera
wayward music series
anathem musical scores
turing elegy scores
thrownforaloop scores
all music posts
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MB CLK GTR for sale.35 made (6 Roadster & 7 Race cars)
1 of 6 Roadster CLK GTR
7 racing variant coupes
GTR CLK 20 road variant coupes
There are only 3 cars existing GTR-CLK-LM-1998-2 racecars & 1 STREETVERSION
The Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR is a sports car and race car that was built by Mercedes-AMG, performance and motorsports arm of Mercedes-Benz. Intended for racing in the new FIA GT Championship series in 1997, the CLK GTR was designed primarily as a race car, with the road cars necessary in order to meet homologation standards being secondary in the car’s design. Thus the limited production road-going cars are considered racing cars for the road.
After competing successfully in 1997, the race car was upgraded in 1998 for the 24 Hours of Le Mans and renamed the CLK LM. Following the construction of the CLK LMs and the CLK GTR road cars, the project would end in 1999 by being replaced by the Mercedes-Benz CLR Le Mans prototype.
CLK GTR
As the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft/International Touring Car Championship had folded in late 1996, with both remaining competitors Opel and Alfa Romeo leaving due to the high costs of their 4WD designs, Mercedes-Benz had no top series to compete in. With the success of the BPR Global GT Series leading to the FIA taking over and turning it into an international series known as the FIA GT Championship, Mercedes-Benz saw an opportunity to go against manufacturers like Porsche and Ferrari.
Following the design that Porsche had laid out with their 911 homologation special, Mercedes-AMG was tasked by Mercedes-Benz with creating an extreme racing car that still maintained some elements of a normal street legal car. AMG’s designers created a car which shared some design elements with the Mercedes-Benz CLK, yet had all the standard features of a racing car underneath. A Mercedes-Benz M120 V12 engine would be at the heart of the car, mounted behind the cockpit. The bodywork would be made entirely of carbon fiber, and would feature many aerodynamic design elements and cooling openings in order to survive on the race track.
To test the CLK GTR before the first chassis were built, Mercedes-AMG actually took an unusual measure. Through secrecy, Mercedes-AMG was able to purchase a disused McLaren F1 GTR, the defending BPR GT series champion, from Larbre Compétition. This purchase first allowed Mercedes-AMG to see the kind of lap times that their competitors could run, to serve as a measurement of the CLK GTRs abilities. However, more importantly, Mercedes-AMG set about modifying this F1 GTR by attaching bodywork that was meant to go on the CLK GTRs. Mercedes-Benz also used their own LS600 6.0 liter engine in place of the BMW V12 unit.This allowed Mercedes-AMG to be able to perfect the aerodynamics of the car before it had even been built.
Upon completion of the first two prototypes a mere 128 days after the initial drawings had been made, the CLK GTRs were entered into the 1997 FIA GT Championship season, debuting at the season-opener at one of Mercedes-Benz’s home tracks, the Hockenheimring. Unfortunately the new cars were not able to shine, as brake problems eliminated one car after five laps, and the other finished over 20 laps behind the winning McLaren. However, by the next round at Silverstone, the CLK GTR began to show its pace, finishing less than a second behind the winning McLaren. By the fourth round, returning to Germany for the Nürburgring, a third CLK GTR was added to the team. In this race, Mercedes-Benz successfully outperformed the fleet of McLarens, taking first and second places. The team would finish out the season with five more wins, at A1-Ring, Suzuka, Donington, Sebring, and Laguna Seca, allowing them to secure the team championship as well as the drivers championship for Bernd Schneider.
Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR at Goodwood Festival of Speed 2014
Mercedes-Benz would use the CLK GTR for the first two rounds of the 1998 season before upgrading to the CLK LM. However privateer team Persson Motorsport would campaign two CLK GTRs throughout the entire season, taking a best finish of second at Oschersleben before finishing the year third in the teams championship.
Initially the CLK-GTR’s V12 engine produced approximately 600 hp (450 kW) before developments during the 1997 season increased this to 630 hp (470 kW). Persson Motorsport’s CLK GTRs remained at this power output as Mercedes-AMG had moved to development of the V8 in the CLK LM.
CLK LM
Mercedes-Benz CLK LM
After conquering the FIA GT Championship, Mercedes-Benz set its sights on competing at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1998, which it had not been at since 1991. However, Le Mans presented a different challenge from that offered in FIA GT, in that the race distances were nearly one tenth the distance covered at Le Mans. Therefore, Mercedes-AMG set about altering the CLK GTR in order to meet the new demands required at Le Mans.
First and foremost, Mercedes-AMG decided that the M120 V12 would not be up to the task of running for 24 hours. It was decided instead that Mercedes would actually return to an engine they had used in Group C in the late 1980s, the M119 V8. Abandoning the turbochargers that the M119 had used in Group C and enlarging the displacement, Mercedes-AMG felt that the M119 would have better reliability at speeds while still performing the same amount of power as the M120 due to air restrictor regulations.
Satisfied with the engine, Mercedes-AMG also set about altering the bodywork to better cope with the high speeds of Le Mans. The nose was lowered, with the large front brake cooling ducts on the sides of the nose being removed and replaced by a single, large opening in the front of the car. The roof of the car was also lowered and a new engine air intake designed. Various other mechanical tweaks were also performed. This new car would become known as CLK LM, standing for Le Mans.
Debuting at Le Mans, the CLK LMs were immediately quick. The two car team took the pole, ahead of custom built open cockpit Le Mans prototypes. However, Mercedes-AMG’s belief that the M119 V8s would be better suited to Le Mans was proven wrong as both cars suffered engine failures within the first few hours of the race, leaving Mercedes-Benz dejected.
Returning to FIA GT, Mercedes-Benz replaced their older CLK GTRs with the new CLK LMs and saw greater success. The two cars easily won every remaining race, including six 1-2 finishes. This handed Mercedes-Benz the teams championship again, while Klaus Ludwig and Ricardo Zonta would share the drivers championship.
For the 1999 season, no competitor attempted to enter the GT1 class in FIA GT except for Mercedes-Benz, forcing the FIA to cancel the class, similar to the DTM/ITC two years earlier. Mercedes-Benz thus turned to constructing an all-new car to overcome their failure at Le Mans. No longer forced to build a racing car that could also be a road car, Mercedes-AMG set about creating the Mercedes-Benz CLR.
The CLK LM’s V8 engine produced approximately 600 hp (450 kW), allowing it to reach speeds up to 330 km/h (205 mph) in testing for the 1998 24 Hours of Le Mans. Mercedes-AMG claimed a virtual top speed of 335 km/h (208 mph). In total, four racing variant CLK-LMs were constructed and one road-going version was built to comply with the 1998 FIA regulations.
Transmission 6-speed sequential manual
Curb weight 1,440 kg (3,175 lb)
Even though the FIA GT1 class was cancelled for 1999, Mercedes was obliged to finally deliver the required 25 road cars they had promised. An initial road car was built in 1997 in order to meet initial FIA requirements, but this car was retained by Mercedes. For the other 25 road cars, each was built by AMG at the Affalterbach factory between winter of 1998 and summer of 1999 and differed only slightly from the race car. All of the 25 CLK GTRs ever built were left hand drive except for one which was specially built for Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei. Driver comfort and refinements were at a minimum in the construction of the road cars as Mercedes-Benz wished to not only offer customers a true race car, but also to attempt to keep the price low. Leather was used in the interior and an air conditioning system was offered. Two small storage lockers were also built underneath each upward swinging door. Traction control was also added for driver safety.
The car retained much of the design of the original CLK GTR instead of the CLK LM, including the V12 and many stylistic elements. One key difference was the rear wing, which used a hoop-style integrated wing in place of the separate racing wing. From the otherwise unrelated standard production Mercedes-Benz CLK, only the instrumentation, front grille and the four headlamps were used.
Ilmor Engineering provided enhancements to the engine, increasing displacement from 6.0L to 6.9L. This increase in displacement coupled with the removal of a racing air restrictor allowed for 612 PS (450 kW; 604 hp) and torque to 775 N·m (572 lb·ft). Mercedes-AMG claimed 0-100 km/h (62 mph) in 3.8 seconds and a top speed of 344 km/h (214 mph).
The Guinness Book of World Records recorded the CLK GTR as the most expensive production car ever built at the time, with a price of $1,547,620(USD).
The third Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR Roadster built, on display.
After the completion of the 20 original CLK GTRs, AMG’s specialist group H.W.A., who had assisted in the construction of the CLK GTRs, began construction of a roadster version of the CLK GTR. Built either by modifying an existing CLK GTR or by building a new car from spare chassis and parts, these cars were modified with the removal of their roofs as well as a reconstruction of their engine covers. Also the rear wing was replaced by a separate black wing, close to the one on the race CLK-GTR. Further the Roadster can be recognized by its different grille, which had a large star in it instead of a small version above it. Two rollbars integrating the cockpit headrests were used not only for structural integrity, but also rollover protection. A total of six CLK GTR Roadsters were built by the company.
H.W.A. also constructed a second variant, known as the CLK GTR Super Sport. These cars were similar to CLK GTRs, yet were powered instead by the newer Mercedes-AMG 7.3L V12 which had been in use in the Pagani Zonda and Mercedes-Benz SL73 AMG. Producing 664 PS (488 kW; 655 hp) and 786 N·m (580 lb·ft). The car also gained an additional front splitter for better stability at high speeds. Only 5 were built with the 7.3L engine: prototype #2, chassis #01, #03, #13, and #17.
In total, 26 CLK-GTR production road versions were constructed. Of these, 20 are coupes and six are roadsters. Two of these were equipped with RHD steering: one coupe (silver exterior/tartan interior) and one roadster (dark silver exterior/magenta interior). These were constructed for Hassanal Bolkiah, the Sultan of Brunei. Both RHD cars were auctioned on 28 October 2009 by RM Auctions in London. The roadster fetched £616,000 ($973,834 USD) and the coupe £522,500 ($824,609 USD).
Serial chassis#’s are as follows:
WA000001-11 = 11 Race cars
Y000012-37 = 26 Road cars
plus the one off CLK-LM Road car WDB2983701Y000002 the CLK-GTR/LM race versions from 1997/98
RHD Roadster from AM Singapore
#01/25 – USA (7,3l engine); WDB2973971Y000012 01 – Owned by Don Wallace, USA. Was offered at the RM Monterey Auction, SOLD since
Prototype No.2 – (7,3l engine); sold at the Bonhams Nuerburgring Auction on August 9th 2003 – WDBA2973971Y000002
#03/25 – Dubai (7,3l engine); [B 21151] Owned by Mohammed bin Sulayem, Dubai. WDB2973971Y000014
#04/25 – USA; [MF0 60R] Owned by Gerd Petrik, USA.WDB2973971Y000015
#05/25 – Germany; (HWA Showroom?), currently for sale – WDB2973971Y000016
#06/25 – Japan; currently for sale – WDB2973971Y000017
#07/25 – Netherlands; even though swiss reistered [SG 110 706]
#08/25 – Japan; [28-01]
#09/25 – Germany; [NF-HE 72]
#10/25 – Sweden; currently for sale in Germany at KS-Autohandel [RRU 493] – WDB2973971Y000021
#11/25 – ???
#12/25 -Was for sale @ Autosalon Singen.Switzerland; bought at the Bonhams Monaco Auction on May 26th 2003 – WDB2973971Y000023
#13/25 – Singapore (7,3l engine, RHD); with Automobil Manufactur
#14/25 – Germany; currently for sale – WDB2973971Y000025
#15/25 – Hong Kong; with SPS-Performance (tuned engine, race livery and was also seen with a race spec. rear wing)
#16/25 – Hong Kong; with SPS-Performance, currently for sale – WDB2973971Y000027
#17/25 – USA (7,3l engine); Silver / Red, the one and only ever converted real/original Supersport!! – WDB2973971Y000028 2000 MERCEDES-BENZ CLK GTR SUPERSPORT 5 CLK GTR Super Sport built. USA street legal, federalizedon a Florida title. Mercedes-Benz-AMG 7.3 liter V12, 720
HP, 0-60 in 3.0 seconds, 0-100 in 5.2 sec Only 1,492 miles.
#18/25 – Silver Bahrain?
#19/25 – Germany; Dark Blue / Black and White [MKK-VC 189]
#20/25 – Germany; Black / Black and Brown, currently for sale [D-NR 20]
#21/25 – Roadster No.1 – 1998 MERCEDES-BENZ CLK GTR ROADSTER Black/Black WDB2973971Y000008
#22/25 – Roadster No.2 – Singapore (RHD); Dark Silver / Magenta, with Automobil Manufactur
#23/25 – Roadster No.3 – Germany; Silver / Black and White, currently for sale
#24/25 – Roadster No.4 – Germany; (HWA Showroom?), Silver / Blue
#25/25 – Roadster No.5 – USA; Silver / Black and White WDB2973971Y000034
#26/25 – Roadster No.6 – ??? (7,2l engine); Silver / Blue – WDB2973971Y000037
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Car Make: Mercedes-Benz
Price (from): €2.000.000
Model: Clk GTR
Year from: 2.002
Horse Power (min): 612
Top Speed (min): 320
0-100 Max sec: 3.80
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Sussex County Croquet Club
CA advertised Tournaments
Enter one-day tournaments
History of the Club by John Eardley-Simpson
John Eardley-Simpson joined the Club in August 1987 and immediately took a passionate interest in the game, improving his skills and reducing his handicap from 18 to ll in a couple of years.
He was an avid student of the game, which he so often referred to as the “Queen of Games”. His wife Phyllis, did not play but became an Associate Member of the Club.
Having been elected to the Committee, he took on the responsibility for the Grounds in 1991 and was instrumental in the appointment of Allan Norman, a groundsman of high calibre. Between them, they undertook a programme of lawn renovation, John persuading the Committee to invest in Autumn remedial work.
He was also a member of the Winter Working Party, concentrating on the replacement and repair of the barrier boards. He always had a twinkle in his eye and a natural wit which is reflected in this history of the Club, which must have cost him many hours studying the Club archives and much painstaking work on the sketches which augment the text so splendidly.
Unfortunately for reasons beyond his control, some of the older documents in the Club records were not available to him, which has given rise to some omissions and errors. These are listed in the Appendix at the end of this booklet.
Sadly, soon after publication he suffered a stroke and lost both speech and mobility. His few visits to the Club subsequently have been sad affairs not only for seeing him in a wheelchair but also because the occasions overcame his emotions.
Better therefore to remember him, his wit and charm through the pages of these “Reflections”
Editor's Note for the 2001 printed edition
When John Eardley Simpson gave the club permission to republish his history, there were only faded copies of the original available. With the help of modern technology we have been able to scan the text and illustrations and reproduce the document as you see it here. Our version follows the original text exactly as we felt that it would be wrong to change John’s inimitable style in any way. Similarly the illustrations which are very indicative of John’s sense of humor have only had minor cleaning for clearer viewing.
Web edition: Minor typographic errors have been corrected and some layout alterations made to suit the changed medium. Unfortunately the only remaining elements of JES' work are a few reprinted copies, and the illustrations reflect this limitation in quality.
I would like to express my thanks to the Committee for their permission to browse through the Club's papers and to all those who contributed to them and who preserved among them mementoes of the past.
I acknowledge various contributors to ‘Croquet’ and its forebears, and also those private photographers whose images have given me inspiration for some of my inadequate illustrations.
If a few names are mentioned in the text this does not reflect in any way upon any which are not, space and narrative being the main consideration. And finally, l thank my wife, Phyllis, for tolerating my neglect of household duties while getting all this sorted out.
Copyright: John Eardley-Simpson Brighton, March 1992
Croquet has been played on this site since 1901. Within a few years the present arrangement of the 11 lawns 1 was laid out, the natural slope of the ground from north to south (where the railway line lies) being levelled into four tiers.
In 1906 2 the freehold of the land was bought, a mortgage being arranged, probably for £2,000. Possibly at the same time a debenture 3 was issued for £500. Throughout the twenties, and again in the forties interest paid against these was shown in the accounts, and a sigh of relief could be heard between the lines of the minutes which recorded the discharge of these two debts in 1956.
It seems that a long term view of a stable world could be taken in those days, but two world wars, 1914-18 and 1939-45, both of which radically changed everyone‘s way of life, intervened before the loan terms were to mature. But do we today see the future with any less confidence?
The game of croquet was constantly subject to change in its formative years in the 19th century. In 1868 a court could be set out with 10 hoops and 2 pegs. Hoops usually had circular tops and their widths varied from 14" (at Worthing in 1868), through 7", 5", 4" until they settled at 3¾" in 1872. Lawn sizes presumably fitted the areas of grass available, being sometimes 40 x 25 yards, sometimes 40 x 30 yards and sometimes 30 x 20 yards.
Perhaps the biggest change to occur here was in 1923 when the accounts recorded 'to sale of ponies -£13'. From then the cost of stabling and fodder was overtaken by expenditure on mowing machines, an element which never seems to change. whether in a stable or unstable world. The Sussex County Croquet Club was founded in 1869 by J H Hale (who standardised the court setting at 6 hoops and l peg 4) and W J Whitmore 5 ( the acknowledged 'father' of tournament croquet) when croquet was played in the grounds of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, continuing there until 1884. Even in the thirties our tournaments were reported as being at Brighton. And as recently as 1979 a topical magazine wrote “ The most venerable clubs are at Cheltenham, Southwick, near Brighton , and Budleigh Salterton“.
The grounds extend to some 4 acres 6, of which 2.3 are taken up by the lawns themselves. Nevertheless there is room enough for the car park, our club buildings, and a machinery shed, as well as for plenty of peripheral amenity grass, shrubberies and wilder wooded areas. The western boundary of the land is protected by a brick and oak-boarded fence, some 6‘ high, which was put up by the county council in 1959 when the footpath was laid down along the road. Though somewhat ravaged over time by the hordes of schoolboys who pass on their way to and from a school up the road (not those who go to the school opposite, we feel) it has stood up well, as has the flint wall bordering the railway embankment along the south side of our boundary.
With the privet hedge flanking one side of the car park, and the rose bed hinting at its limits, the whole site presents the impression of a large well-maintained playing area whose disciplined lines are softened by the cosy view of the pavilion buildings 7, with their double lines of pollarded limes; by the individually-designed shelters serving the lawns; by the unplanned stands of sycamores (whose unplanned shedding of leaves adds spice to the uncertainty of the accuracy of one's croquet intentions); and by the informality of the shrubberies and flower beds created by those Club members who devotedly have tended them as they continue to be tended today.
It is no wonder that one modern visitor remarked ”It is always a pleasure to drive into the car park at Southwick and gaze across the lawns to the Club-house sited among the trees." Nor should we be surprised to find that the club grounds are included in the local council's plan for the Conservation Area which protects Shoreham School across the road, its neighbour the medieval village of Kingston Buci and its parish church of St. Julian, whose foundation goes back over 900 years to Saxon times.
As with so many undying and apparently unchangeable British institutions, pride in the somewhat dishevelled buildings is strong. It is not known exactly when they were built, but sometime in the twenties would be a conservative guess, while the more optimistic (or pessimistic) would date them to before the First World War.
Their facilities have drawn praise from many visitors for their comfort and our hospitality. So much so that one croquet player with a poetical bent wrote:
"Tea and bun at Roehampton you'll get - but it's not too cheap:
For scone and jam at Hurlingham the price is still more steep:
At Budleigh now as I can vow they've - splendid spread to show:
But the teas that are found at the Southwick ground
are the verv best teas that I know.”
Unfortunately. we can't regard this encomium as being objective as the composer was a very important member of the club, as well as of the croquet world, Maurice Reckitt 8, who is more deservedly immortalized by the Bowl which is competed for in our annual Summer Tournament.
The facilities the buildings offer are very suitable for their purpose, and are generous in their proportions - a bridge room, a spacious viewing veranda with picture windows, roomy changing rooms, and a committee room in which, among other things, Tournament Managers can exercise their unquestioned authority; this all in one building while another, the democratically-named ‘canteen’, has seating for 50 at least, a well equipped kitchen and an enthusiastically-stocked bar. With the large area of grass outside, and the shade, if needed, provided by the limes, comfy seating allows the relaxed spectator to have a clear view of play on four lawns, and an impression of the state of the games on most of the rest.
The great advantage to the ordinary member of having so many lawns is that it is quite unnecessary to book one, and very seldom, even on a popular days, is it necessary to double-bank. The disadvantage, of course, is the cost of maintaining lawn quality. Frequent mowing, fertilizing, weed control, top dressing, white lining, brushing, raking, scarifying, aerating, watering, call not only for efficient machines but for skilled and energetic labour. Any one mowing machine will cost £100 a year to service and sharpen, and will have a capital cost of some £2,500 - and we have six machines of various types - while winter treatment of a lawn will entail £300 or so each year. If we can get the services of skilled groundsmen on a part-time basis for less than £300 per lawn we can, consider ourselves either lucky or under-staffed.
A rough calculation puts the cost of maintaining our lawns at some £7,000 a year and this is reflected in our recent club accounts. Of course the argument circulates between labour costs and machinery costs, as the skill and commitment of our ground staff is enhanced by adequate mechanical support. This basic problem of man/machine has cropped up continually over the years in minutes of meetings, and these show that we have been lucky in having conscientious and long-serving, if sometimes tricky – staff.
The longest-serving groundsman who, judging from the few mentions he gets in our records, was very willing, ingenious, hard-working and somewhat of a disbeliever in new-fangled machines and other such-like gadgets, was William Adams. At one time groundsman for both the croquet and the tennis courts, he not only cared for them but also gardened, built some of the shelters we see today, repaired roofs and cleared gutters, and generally merged into the background. He died in 1971, being 75 and still working for us occasionally, having given the club nearly 20 years of his life. He had a brief obituary in the Croquet magazine.
He was succeeded after several months of hard negotiations and discussion, by Gilbert Finch who described himself, without prompting, as a ’bad-tempered beggar’, if we can believe he would use such refined language. He served us until 1978 9 until he died. It was during his reign that the club bought most of the machines which we are still operating today. But, in spite of a proposal in committee in August 1975 that a ‘baby’ tractor should be bought for Finch, as he was getting on a bit, our cartage around the place is still by wheelbarrow.
Fortunate again, two local ‘lads’ in their late sixties kept the place in order until 1990 - David (Dai) Stokes and Doug Carpenter. There must be something about the place that makes long service the rule rather than the exception. But little is known about ‘Mr.’ Trew whose care of the lawns was frequently praised in tournament reports of the later thirties, when it was once reported that “returning to the club at 10 o'clock at night there was Trew still busy attending to the lawns“. They will repay his care. Today there is a fully-qualified Head Groundsman, who joined us 1990, backed by a helper who has been with us for 4 years or so.
But any groundsman’s time will be at a premium by the extent of our grounds and the high quality or lawn maintenance which we expect, so a lot of subsidiary maintenance work to the buildings, shrubberies and so on is done by working parties of members, willing or dragooned during the winter months when croquet withdrawal symptoms are at their most obvious. This voluntary work has been a tradition of the club since the sixties when people began to realise that they could do themselves what so-called skilled labour would not do for them. Many calls for such parties were met then to repair shelters, clear wooded areas, refurbish shrubberies, paint the pavilion and canteen and so on.
Special efforts were made in 1978 and 1979 to do major work to the pavilion building, and special mention was made of two 'newer members', who shored it up with railway sleepers, and re-guttered it. Another concerted effort is now being made to save it, because it is regarded by all as having a high conservation profile.
In the sixties it was suggested that members should help to mow the grass and do the white lining, but this was frowned upon by the committee as much as it was by the groundsman, as it would be today.
But winter work was not the only activity thought of to keep the local members happy. Indoor croquet was kept going for some years, as was table tennis, while bingo was even thought of, but not pursued. Of course bridge has always been one of the regular non-croquet activities, but the bridge room was once derisively called ‘the senior citizens‘ club‘ which gave rise to a certain amount of umbrage. After all, what was the club anyway?
It seems that croquet has usually been seen as a game suitable for the older person, to put it mildly, something tumed to by previously active ball-game players as an interesting but less strenuous challenge. In the thirties the game even drew the sharp and deflating attention of the sports cartoonist, Tom Webster of The Daily Mail, who could equally make a racehorse look an ass as a footballer look a fool. Of a croquet tournament at Roehampton in 1931 one of his comments was
"It is a mistake to suppose that croquet players do not last long. On the contrary some of them last longer than is good for them." (Ouch!)
No longer a valid view, yet only a few years ago concern was expressed that this club had an ageing membership and that it would soon meet its come-uppance through natural wastage. It used to be a feature of annual reports to record the deaths of members, and while nature will always take its toll, and modern technology adds to. as well as protects against, the sudden arrival of the moment of truth, let us hope that an incident reported in the seventies, when a member met his death 'at the hands of natives in Borneo', does not repeat itself too often in this present age of 'creative' travel.
What exactly was done at the other end of the age spectrum to balance the tendency is not all that clear. Before the Second World War, and even for some time after it, the local press, and even the more widely read county newspapers, gave quite a lot of coverage to our tournaments almost as a matter of course.
A view was confidently held that word-of-mouth and personal introduction was the best way to get new members. Until quite recently membership applications to join the club were subject to approval by the committee, and special rules defined the rights of applicants until such approval was given. Such procedures are not followed today, nor does there seem to have been a waiting list, so that Groucho Marx's comment that he wouldn't belong to a club which would have him as a member would have no meaning now.
Anyway, whatever the vicissitudes of life and the changes to social values, since the Second World War the number of croquet players has waivered round the 75 mark, with a peak in 1955 of 90 and a trough in 78 of 62. In the eighties the numbers have hovered around the 90 mark and are going well above 100 at the moment. But whatever the numbers those who wanted to see a future for the club had periodic misgivings about the under-use of the lawns, shortage of funds to keep them up to scratch, decay of the buildings, and all the other major and minor fears of the committed enthusiast.
A lack or vitality was recognised in 1963 when the club Committee, which managed both the tennis and the croquet sections, could see before its eyes the spectre of financial trouble. This applied as much to the tennis as to the croquet, and the imagination is left to ponder upon what was going on between these two activities. Something must have been because since 1961 great thought had been given to separating these into two self-goveming sections 10 because they each had their own technical problems, financial needs and recruiting possibilities.The idea was ‘finally abandoned‘ in 1963, and yet separate accounts were being kept by each section by then, and in 1965 three separate committees were established, for Management, for Croquet and for Tennis, each with their responsibilities defined. At the same time the accounting year was changed to the calendar.
This sort or thing hardly matters to the ordinary member today and by 1970 the Croquet Section was definitely being run by its own committee, and from then on the minutes reveal the sort of problems which will beset us as long as the game, and the club, lasts. How can we get a new groundsman? Who will run the gymkhana? Should we treat the lawns? Irritating vandalism, low membership, difficult mowing machines, stagnant subscription rates, misshapen balls, leaky roofs and what else all gave cause for concern. The Croquet Committee were obviously worried in 1976 because some notes jotted down by the secretary, Howard Austin, wondered whether we were living from day to day - a question which has repeated itself in later years - and was our land of any value other than just as an open space - by no means an unfamiliar question today.
No doubt this questioning was inspired by a report written in 1974 by two club officials about the possibility of selling land, repositioning the pavilion and building squash courts, by no means an outlandish idea as squash was experiencing a boom at that time. Other ideas have been put forward, sometimes tried but often rejected for widening the interest of the club and thereby getting new members. In 1964 it was actually agreed by the Management Committee that lawn 4 should be made into two bowls rinks. Presumably the cost of preparation sank the project. The option of bowls had been considered when the site was first developed, and has cropped up from time to time. Needless to say the CA expressed disquiet at the loss of croquet lawns.
Indoor pursuits of a respectable kind have been mooted and sometimes implemented, fruit machines were actually installed in 1961 during the summer season. There were two at one stage and they made money for the club, but a moral tone was adopted which feared for temptation of the young - a view which would hardly be taken today. However, it wasn't morality that put a stop to them but taxation, which made them less attractive so that they were given up in 1966. Bar billiards, pintables and a ‘lucky’ draw all passed through peoples’ minds.
On the lawns themselves, to stimulate interest, gymkhanas were held including, in 1967, one when four worthies of the club dressed up in Victorian costume and played through curved hoops to celebrate the centenary of the very first croquet tournament held in Evesham in 1867.
Golf croquet keeps cropping up in the summer programmes, but does not seem to have been a major activity. Indeed, in I938 a golf croquet tournament was staged with a view to getting tennis players to try their hand, but it got a poor response.
That there has always been some expertise in this game within the club is indicated by the fact that the CA asked us to help to start up a croquet club on Hove Lawns. In fact the new club was started in April of the same year and nine of our members were involved in getting this project off the ground (or rather on to it).
The view is often expressed that golf croquet steers a club towards obscurity and stagnation rather than vitality, certainly in terms of reputation if not mere existence, as the harder and longer-drawn-out (and some would say less sociable) game is squeezed out. Insofar as this is a problem nowadays it is guarded against by various solutions such as ‘Fun Doubles‘, Short Croquet and coaching sessions.
Considerable effort has always been put into this aspect of introducing new members to the game, and our records hold various notes and papers which members responsible for this proselytising activity have written. Whether their effort produced the standard of play which one would expect to find at the top levels today is very difficult, if not impossible, to judge.
The club has had its successes in the wider world, but any attempt to list them might only cause disappointment, if not offence, and could subject one to accusations of ignorance or lack of judgement. But mention can, perhaps should, be made to Mr and Mrs Willie Longman, both of whom also made a lasting contribution to our affairs. And it would be churlish not to share the pleasures of visitors to our 30th Autumn Tournament in 1935 when it was reported that "a pleasant little interlude in the tournament was the arrival of the heroine of the All-England Handicap, Miss Daldy, fresh from her successes at Roehampton."
Pleasing though it may be for a club to have its success stories and out-standing players, it is the ‘ordinary’ members who are going to keep the place going. The game, as a game, has had its ups and downs in the popularity stakes, and was particularly badly hit by the encroachment of lawn tennis into the realms of social, and sociable, entertainment in the 1890's. Croquet started as a garden pastime and, life being what it is, most of the original lawns were laid out in grander country and suburban houses. Even today many clubs are playing in the grounds of such houses. Sometimes the lawns may be smaller than the modern standard, and even in 1939 a tournament was played here on lawns measuring 30 x 24 yards, which gave rise to considerable speculation about adjustment of handicaps. It is therefore rather strange that our club was set up in a ploughed field, in the country (there were no houses up Kingston Lane, the port as we know it did not exist, and the coast road would not have been developed) with a micro-climate of strong sea winds, often salt-laden, or swirling sea mists. Some shelter might have been hoped for from the railway embankment but the cold which can penetrate to the bone might make us wish that the founding fathers had chosen a more sheltered spot.
Neighbouring clubs. one at Preston Manor and another in Kipling's garden at Rottingdean, have fared well in environment at least, nurturing other attractions of the game, such as the glory of the garden, as well as the subtleties of the play. This latter has changed out of all recognition over the years, especially since the emergence of the teenage champions and athletic stylists often so disapproved of by the old brigade, but the other elements are surely eternal...
Our Leech mezzotint illustrates how, in the early days, the game was seized upon by young men and women as an opportunity to flirt. Hitting your opponent into the shrubbery no doubt meant more than gaining a tactical advantage in the game: having to search for the ball away from the obligatory presence of the chaperoning Aunt Emmas was a tactical move of a different kind. In fact ‘tight' croquet, whereby you put a foot on your ball in a croquet shot, was outlawed with the foundation of the Sussex County Croquet Club in 1869. The next year bisques were introduced. having been derived from Royal Tennis 11, but they only allowed one more stroke and not the complete turn now permitted. The Croquet Association was founded by Walter Peel (he of the peel) and one of the original Committee members was Captain Drummond, one of our founding fathers. He was the moving spirit behind keeping croquet going in Sussex, having a lawn at his house at Petworth, and later at Horsham. It was here that he taught three of our other founders how to play the game. Capt. Drummond had been active at Wimbledon and possibly at Eastbourne, and was very keen on tournaments. It seems surprising that one was held here only a few weeks after the ground was first got hold of. It was, it seems, a stupendous affair, with enormous entries, at least 12 lawns, and prizes presented by the Duke of Cambridge. More followed in the next years and at one so many entries were accepted that a time limit of 1½ hours was put on games, causing someone to remark that he looked forward to 10-minute croquet in the near future.
The earliest record we have of a tournament is one held on September 10th ‘and following days‘, 1906. The programme and entries were printed 12 and apparently up-dated as results for each round were known. There were 6 events, the usual mixtures of handicap singles and doubles. In one singles event there were 88 entries, and in one of the doubles 64 entries took part. Taking another random example, in the Singles Handicap for the Maurice Reckitt Bowl in 1936 there were 96 entries. Today we might get 25 to 30.
The club has always had a wide range of trophies for both public and club tournaments as well as ad hoc prizes for more informal games. These have all been fought for throughout our history, with gaps only for the two world wars. These trophies, a subject in themselves as a credit to those who went in for them as much as to those who won them, deserve more detailed attention than they can be given here. But one trophy, at least, has an interesting story behind it. Originally called the Cashel Cup, because it was an exact copy of an ancient chalice found under the ruins of Cashel Cathedral in Ireland, it was won outright in 1908 by Miss Bryan. She re-presented it as the Bryan Cup and it remained with this name until 1927 when it was again won for keeps by Miss Simeon. But she didn't want to keep it, and yet again it was re-presented as the Simeon Cup. Once more it was won outright, this time in 1978 by W E Moore - and he donated it to the club as a permanent trophy. Known as the Moore Cup it is competed for these days at Advanced Level within the club.
Another well known cup, the Sussex Gold, used to be competed for in public tournaments but is now reserved for members to fight for. It is one of the few trophies which is not named after past, or present, club and croquet eminences.
The biggest tournament in our calendar in terms of prestige if not club-member participation is the Inter-Counties, when some ten or more counties or groups of counties field three doubles teams for a four day shoot-out. About 60 players, playing two games a day and working up a prodigious thirst, either stomp about or affect various relaxed postures, and seem to enjoy themselves enormously.
Most of them being low handicap, players a high standard of play can be seen, enhanced by the presence of quite a few players of national and international repute, who can be a treat to watch. We have been host to these epic set-tos for about twelve years. These are annual events but, less frequently, matches from a wider field have been staged here.
In 1925 a trophy called the MacRobertson Shield was presented for the winner of Test Matches between England and Australia. These are now three-sided contests between Great Britain (which includes Ireland). Australia and New Zealand which are staged every four years (the Second World War period being excluded). There have been 13 contests in the series, and 5 of these have been held in the UK. It is to the credit of our club that Southwick has provided lawns for every one of these UK. events, a unique record even among the more eminent croquet clubs in this country not one of whom has hosted the series more than four times.
The last Test held in the UK was in 1986 when Australia and New Zealand battled it out on our lawns. Other occasions were in 1925 (the inaugural Test), 1937, 1956 and 1974. In addition to these, a Scotland v Wales match was staged here in 1982, and various national Veterans‘ Tournaments have been held here during the eighties and again in 1991. These big-time events have presented Southwick Croquet Club their own problems. Lawn conditions Kingston Lane had to be of a high standard, hoops had to be set to arduous specifications, and good quality balls had to be available.
On this last, for many tournaments the club used to hire the balls from Jaques 13, the best-known makers of croquet paraphernalia for many years.
In 1960 it was regretted at the AGM that there were no competitors to them, when a member said that he had heard that croquet balls could be bought at Fortnum & Masons. Further thought on this was quickly blocked when a remark was made by another member that they might be plum puddings! Little changes when innovation raises its disturbing head. And yet there should be room for frivolity in a game which is taken so seriously. For serious matters have, indeed, faced the club over the years.
Twice within a few weeks horses escaped from a neighbouring paddock and left their very cutting hoofmarks all over the lawns. On one occasion it was fortunate that the committee was in session and those present were able to get out and quickly drive them into the road, to be corralled later by the police. Needless to say, although the owners were known, they proved so elusive that no compensation for damage could be made to stick.
Other weighty matters which keep cropping up have their gravity concealed in the brevity of the minute. The three-day week arrived in 1973. The wheelbarrow needed 'refurbishing' to give it another year's life. Again, the big mower was giving trouble. The groundsman was having problems 'again'. Drought was making the lawns too fast; floods - too slow; worms, too bumpy!
3,000 species of earthworm have been identified in the world. 25 of these are found in this country, but only 3 of these make worm casts. To kill one lot of worms you kill the rest, but all of them do good to the soil, and all of them are there. In the twenties a ‘worm fund‘ was maintained to kill them. Today grass care - spiking, grass collection when mowing, not too much fertilizing, scarifying - is thought to be the best way to regulate them. And as they mainly produce their casts in the wetter months, croquet is not badly affected by them.
Nor is it badly affected by most other forms of wildlife which can live with us. Perhaps one would get excited about moles, but the occasional small hole dug by a grey squirrel can easily be repaired. Leather jackets, the fascinating Daddy-Long-Legs, must be controlled, but won‘ t the birds do that better than chemicals? And more cheaply? We shouldn't curse the birds as their presence means food to them and, we can hope, insect control to us.
Weeds, the scourge of smooth playing turf, are the breeding place of butterflies. Provided they can be kept in their place, weeds can become plants. So too a hedgehog becomes a ruthless killer of slugs, and we owe him or her a desirable residence, which we do under the pavilion building. (If anyone asks us where the flamingoes are we escort them off the premises.) The railway embankment may not seem attractive to the tidy-minded, but it is a paradise for goodness-knows-what living creatures - as well as a dump for metal rubbish, including sometimes our vandalised hoops.
And indeed vandalism, hooliganism and break-ins have always kept the committee on its toes. It would be unfair to say that these intrusions upon our peace of mind are merely a recent phenomenon because records of past years are not very detailed. But at various times, noticeable since the seventies, complaints cropped up about courting couples (what's new?), unauthorised rave-ups and parties being held in the pavilion, with unspeakable things being done to the fire buckets, even soap went missing from the washrooms! And why wasn't barbed wire put along the Kingston Lane fence after the suggestion made at the AGM in 1971?
But perhaps the ultimate vandalism occurred during the Inter-Counties tournament in 1990 when two complete sets of Jaques hoops AND the two winning pegs were ‘lifted’. As each set would cost about £180 that's not a bad way to start a croquet club somewhere! With at least 66 hoops it is impossible to take them up every night, so we rely on trust. But they are not the only things that need nailing down.
Tournament reports over the years reveal our susceptibility to strong winds, but none could have been stronger than the gale on the night of l6 October 1987. A familiar tale of fallen trees. tumbled shelters and debris of all sorts. But our saddest loss was the structure which graced the centre of our grounds. The reporter of our first tournament in 1988 put it sympathetically: “...One of the casualties was the glorious construction (too grand to be a mere hut, too slight to earn the dignity of pavilion)...We have lost with it one of croquet’s unique landmarks." We have lost with it, too, a unique weathervane. The building itself had been put up in 1959, and its weathervane was donated by Miss Daldy and N F Blackwood, Chairman at the time. It was described in a local paper in 1960 as "probably the only one in the county which portrays the game of croquet." Perhaps it should have said 'in the country 14'?
The silhouetted figure is of Maurice Reckitt (he of the Bowl). Such a loss could not be ignored and a new weathervane, designed and made by Frank Beard, was put up on the canteen in 1990. Such a constructive initiative can be viewed as a refusal to let the misfortunes of life get you down. In that same year a reference was made at a Council meeting of the C.A. to the effect that Southwick was a "moribund 12-lawn club." Moribund means in the process or dying. It does not mean dead. And many an unexpected recovery has shaken expectant mourners.
In 1909, 186 competitors entered our 10th “ Autumn Tournament. In 1986, we hosted, for the fifth time, teams in the Test Series. In 1992, we shall continue our long run of staging the Inter-Counties Tournament, probably the largest event in the croquet calendar. We lay claim to having more lawns than any other club in the world. We own the freehold of our grounds. We reckon international champions among our members. Our members generally can enter tournaments and compete against the best with heads and hopes held high. And we are recruiting young people to the game.
It is no longer completely valid, and yet it is encouraging, to say, as one man did to the press recently:
"I like croquet now I've retired... It gives me somewhere to go and something to do when I get there."
As a club we have a lot to offer to all ages. As a reporter of one of our tournaments recently wrote:
"One more thing about Southwick. They always welcome you with a large heart and are just as pleased if a visitor walks away with the silver as one of their own members. ”
Corrections and commentary to the text. Click your Back button to return to the point in the text you left.
1. Twelve or even 13 courts were laid out by September 1901
2. The Freehold was bought in 1908 and not 1906.
3. 10 or so debentures were taken out totalling £525
4. The J H Hale setting had 6 hoops and 2 pegs.
5. It was H Jones and not W J Whitmore who was co-founder.
6. The ground extended to 5.05 acres and not 4.
7. The Pavilion dates back to 1901 (though much altered )and the Canteen to 1922.
8. Maurice Reckitt was created an Honorary member in the 1970’s
9. Gilbert Finch retired in 1977 not 1978. That was the year he died
10. Separate Committees had actually existed since before WW2.
11. Royal Tennis should read “Real Tennis”
12. Tournament records actually exist back to 1900, the reference here is to an original handbill giving interim results of the 1906 tournament.
13. The hire of balls until 1948 was always from JH Ayres and not Jaques.
14. The local paper referring to the weather vane did in fact say country rather than county.
Creation date : 21/11/2016 @ 10:39
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Category : Club Info - History
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The Smiley Smile Message Board | Non Smiley Smile Stuff | General Music Discussion | What Was Motown's Best Period?
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Author Topic: What Was Motown's Best Period? (Read 21113 times)
Smiley Smile Associate
Re: What Was Motown's Best Period?
I think that most of Motown's 15 or so years of existence were pretty much perfect. Personally, I love their "psychedelic soul" period, from roughly 1967 to 1973. Pretty much anything that Norman Whitfield touched turned to gold in that era.
A son of anarchy surrounded by the hierarchy.
hypehat
Quote from: Jay on January 11, 2013, 12:22:40 AM
I think that most of Motown's 15 or so years of existence were pretty much perfect. Personally, I love their "psychedelic soul" period, from roughly 1967 to 1973. Pretty much anything that Norman Whitfield touched turned to gold in that era all the time.
Quote from: ontor pertawst on October 06, 2012, 06:05:25 PM
All roads lead to Kokomo. Exhaustive research in time travel has conclusively proven that there is no alternate universe WITHOUT Kokomo. It would've happened regardless.
Quote from: Andrew G. Doe on May 15, 2012, 12:33:42 PM
What is this "life" thing you speak of ?
Quote from: Al Jardine
Syncopate it? In front of all these people?!
I. Spaceman
Revolution Never Again
Motown existed for far longer than 15 years. I mean, why would someone think that?
Nobody gives a sh*t about the Record Room
Something to do with the move to LA? It's been a while since I watched Standing In The Shadows... but I thought it would have been final by that point.
Plus, everyone here except us seems to hate disco so they might be ignoring it on that basis
Quote from: hypehat on January 11, 2013, 09:17:43 AM
Well, more for us. Me, I'll put Don't Leave Me This Way and Love Hangover up there with anyone's You Can't Hurry Love.
Motown wasn't sold to MCA until 1988, so that takes it to about 30 years. And one could argue that the company's history still continued after that, even though it was not independent any more.
I just simply forgot to put in the word "first", that's all. I meant to say their first 15 years.
Ahh, I see.
Specifically, up until the original office moved. I believe that was around 1973?
1972. But the period after that, all the way up through Rick James' Street Songs, is as underrated as folks here feel the post-hit years Beach Boys are.
My liking of R&B music kind of ends around the mid 1970's, except for The Temptations. As a result I don't know much about Motown and it's artists from about the mid 1970's and onward.
Lonely Summer
Same for me. By the late 70's, everybody known as a soul or r&b artist was expected to do disco - don't get me wrong, some of the early records classified as disco were very good (George McCrae's Rock Your Baby, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes' The Love I Lost), but as time went on, it got very predictable and bland sounding. Although even that stuff sounds better to my ears than most of the stuff that's come out since then called 'dance music'. Somewhere along the way, they stopped using real drummers, bass players, guitars, etc, and did it all with machines. Just no comparison there between the machines playing it and the Funk Brothers, or the Stax band.
Motown's disco records are no more formulaic and factory-generated than the mid-60's stuff. I mean, Holland-Dozier-Holland created a record entitled It's The Same Old Song.
The problem was not in disco, it was in the R&B field, when everything became too smooth and slow. Admittedly, Lionel Richie was a big part of this, when he wrote Three Times A Lady (ironically, to that point, the Commodores were a heavy, sexy funk band, Motown's Ohio Players). But Motown also produced the vital counterbalance to this trend, Rick James, who should get a lot of the credit that Prince receives.
John Stivaktas
I would agree with the view that 1965 up to the time they left Detroit for LA in 1972. Honestly, you can't beat those Funk Brothers numbers can you...especially on Marvin Gaye's What's Going On album.
"It's more blessed to give than receive"
“For me, making music has always been a very spiritual thing, and I think anybody who produces records has to feel that, at least a little bit. Producing a record . . . the idea of taking a song, envisioning the overall sound in my head and then bringing the arrangement to life in the studio . . . well, that gives me satisfaction like nothing else.”
"Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man."
Quote from: EgoHanger1966 on January 07, 2013, 01:09:04 PM
Not a popular opinion, but to me, Motown was never better than its 1961-1963 output. So many fantastic sounds by The Miracles, Mary Wells, Eddie Holland, Marvin Gaye (before he went into heavier R&B, he tried his hand at standards and soul-pop with great results), The Marvelettes, and the early efforts of the "no-hit" Supremes.
Yeah I guess I'd agree with that. Their sound was really good when they were doing the straight forward stuff in the early days. When they first developed that 'groove'.
I always think of Motown at their absolute peak around 1966, but heard an AT0 year end countdown from 1970 recently, and they were still very dominant. I think they had 4 of the top 10 records of the year.
I think from 1960-80 you will find the best stuff. If we are talking singles I would say from 1965-72 is hard to beat.
Yes, I do dig worms.
R&B in general, not just Motown, pretty much started to show its first signs of suckitude during the disco era, and took a nosedive into complete crapdom during the 80s, and left us with awful adult contemporary posing as R&B and shitty R&B-Hip Hop hybrids in the 90s and 00s. Motown moving to LA and changing to following trends instead of setting (with a few notable exceptions) them didn't really help much.
"I thought Brian was a perfect gentleman, apart from buttering his head and trying to put it between two slices of bread" -Tom Petty, after eating with Brian.
I don't think disco should be mentioned as having any negative effect upon R&B. It had a parallel history. Soul acts dipped into it, but so did pop acts.
As hard as it may be to fault the Philly soul movement in any way, the smoothness of that genre is actually a major influence upon R&B/soul going down the route of slow blandness, once it was mixed with an even lighter pop sound. And Motown actually was a major determining force in that move, with Lionel Richie's early Commodores ballads, as opposed to just "following trends", as stated before.
Motown set trends all the way through Boys II Men. But if we are talking about Motown losing its status as the major trendsetter in the R&B field, that happened well before the move to LA. Even Cloud Nine was an attempt to follow the harder soul-rock sound of Sly and the Family Stone.
Quote from: I. Spaceman on February 07, 2013, 06:52:59 PM
Motown set trends all the way through Boys II Men.
Boyz II Men were (talented) bland MOR adult contemporay posing as R&B. Possibly victims of their era. The Funk Brothers or Booker T and the MGs would have improved their songs 100 fold.
Lionel Ritchie should have been banished from the music business when he decided to switch from funk songs to cheesy balladry.
Quote from: Alex on February 07, 2013, 08:38:16 PM
Boyz II Men were (talented) bland MOR adult contemporay posing as R&B.
I agree. They still set a trend, unfortunately, and had many imitators. They are the biggest selling act in Motown history. One thing I will say for them is that they at least had some element of reference to Motown's history, naming their album Cooleyhighharmony and making a hit out of GC Cameron's lost classic It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday (the theme from Cooley High, a great film released by AIP-Motown's association with the film is one of the hippest moments in their history, along with releasing the soundtracks to Foxy Brown, The Mack and Hell Up In Harlem).
They are the biggest selling act in Motown history.
Are they really? I'd have thought Stevie, Smokey, the Temps, Jackson 5, Supremes, Marvin Gaye, or Four Tops would lay claim to that title.
But didn't they technically record for Universal, with Motown simply as the imprint/subsidiary? I wouldn't count anything from after Berry Gordy sold the label.
« Last Edit: February 08, 2013, 07:06:13 PM by Alex » Logged
My Motown tastes are kind of eccentric and my choice of best - or rather, favorite - era varies with the artist.
Marvin Gaye: 1964-66 (apart from the later duets with Tammi and What's Going On)
Supremes: After H-D-H (and even then I like some of the post-Diana sides better than the ones with her)
Stevie Wonder: Music Of My Mind and Talking Book, then Secret Life Of Plants
Four Tops: 1967-68
Smokey & Miracles: mostly 1963-65
No, they were on the Motown label full stop, tho after it was sold to MCA. You can choose to not count them if you wish, but technically, they count.
Quote from: Mike Eder on February 04, 2013, 10:40:52 PM
Yeah, I'm thinking singles; the early Motown albums, like a lot from that era, were usually just a couple of hit singles surrounded by filler. Marvin, of course, changed that with What's Going On? and Stevie with those great 70's albums.
I was about to be like 'you call this filler?!' then checked and they released it as a single anyway. But I'll post it anyway because it is AMAZING.
Baby Don't You Do It, by Marvin Gaye.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Bf3S6VpCZE
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Documents -> Home
UFO books on line:
"The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects", by Edward J. Ruppelt, Capt. Ret., former head of the United States Air Force Project Blue Book."
This is the entire text of the book "The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects" by Edward J. Ruppelt, former head of Project Blue Book, a UFO sighting investigation project by the United States Air Force.
Please refer to my page about USAF's Project Blue Book for context information.
Table of content:
CHAPTER ONE Project Blue Book and the UFO Story, 1
CHAPTER TWO The Era of Confusion Begins, 15
CHAPTER THREE The Classics, 29
CHAPTER FOUR Green Fireballs, Project Twinkle, Little Lights, and Grudge, 47
CHAPTER FIVE The Dark Ages, 59
CHAPTER SIX The Presses Roll-The Air Force Shrugs, 69
CHAPTER SEVEN The Pentagon Rumbles, 82
CHAPTER EIGHT The Lubbock Lights, Unabridged, 96
CHAPTER NINE The New Project Grudge, 111
CHAPTER TEN Project Blue Book and the Big Build-Up, 123
CHAPTER ELEVEN The Big Flap, 139
CHAPTER TWELVE The Washington Merry-Go-Round, 156
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Hoax or Horror?, 173
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Digesting the Data, 186
CHAPTER FIFTEEN The Radiation Story, 199
CHAPTER SIXTEEN The Hierarchy Ponders, 209
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN What Are UFO's?, 226
"Unidentified Flying Objects"- exactly what are they? Are they interplanetary spaceships manned by intelligent beings? Or is the whole UFO business just a mass of hoaxes, hallucinations, and readily explained natural phenomena?
This is the first serious book about UFOs to be written by anyone actively connected with the official investigation of these phenomena. As chief of the Air Force project assigned to the investigation and analysis of UFOs, Mr. Ruppelt and his staff studied over 4,500 reports and discussed them with everyone from out-and-out crackpots to top-level scientists and generals.
All reports received were subjected to military intelligence analysis procedures. Astronomers, physicists, aerodynamic engineers, and psychologists were consulted in the course of the Air Force's exhaustive investigations. The official Air Technical Intelligence Center reports of their findings, many details from which are revealed for the first time in this book, contain some completely baffling detailed accounts of UFO sightings by thoroughly reliable witnesses.
Here are the complete official accounts of the classic cases - the Lubbock Lights, the Utah Movies, the Florida Scoutmaster, the Washington Sightings - as well as a wealth of less-publicized but equally amazing incidents.
While others who have written books and articles on UFOs imply that they were conferring with officials in the inner sanctum, Mr. Ruppelt, as this fascinating book makes clear, was the inner sanctum.
From early 1951 until September 1953, Edward J. Ruppelt was chief of the United States Air Force's Project Blue Book, an operation of the Air Technical Intelligence Center. Since 1953 the author has been in close contact with the present project staff and recently made a trip across the country to check current developments. Mr. Ruppelt is now a research engineer for the Northrop Aircraft Company.
This is a book about unidentified flying objects - UFO's - flying saucers." It is actually more than a book; it is a report because it is the first time that anyone, either military or civilian, has brought together in one document all the facts about this fascinating subject. With the exception of the style, this report is written exactly the way I would have written it had I been officially asked to do so while I was chief of the Air Force's project for investigating UFO reports - Project Blue Book.
In many instances I have left out the names of the people who reported seeing UFO's, or the names of certain people who were associated with the project, just as I would have done in an official report. For the same reason I have changed the locale in which some of the UFO sightings occurred. This is especially true in CHAPTER FIFTEEN, the story of how some of our atomic scientists detected radiation whenever UFO's were reported near their "UFO detection stations." This policy of not identifying the "source," to borrow a term from military intelligence, is insisted on by the Air Force so that the people who have co-operated with them will not get any unwanted publicity. Names are considered to be "classified information."
But the greatest care has been taken to make sure that the omission of names and changes in locale has in no way altered the basic facts because this report is based on the facts - all of the facts - nothing of significance has been left out.
It was only after considerable deliberation that I put this report together, because it had to be told accurately, with no holds barred. I finally decided to do it for two reasons. First, there is world-wide interest in flying saucers; people want to know the facts. But more often than not these facts have been obscured by secrecy and confusion, a situation that has led to wild speculation on one end of the scale and an almost dangerously "blasé" attitude on the other. It is only when all of the facts are laid out that a correct evaluation can be made.
Second, after spending two years investigating and analyzing UFO reports, after talking to the people who have seen UFO's - industrialists, pilots, engineers, generals, and just the plain man-on-the-street, and after discussing the subject with many very capable scientists, I felt that I was in a position to be able to put together the complete account of the Air Force's struggle with the flying saucer.
The report has been difficult to write because it involves something that doesn't officially exist. It is well known that ever since the first flying saucer was reported in June 1947 the Air Force has officially said that there is no proof that such a thing as an interplanetary spaceship exists. But what is not well known is that this conclusion is far from being unanimous among the military and their scientific advisers because of the one word, proof; so the UFO investigations continue.
The hassle over the word "proof" boils down to one question: What constitutes proof? Does a UFO have to land at the River Entrance to the Pentagon, near the Joint Chiefs of Staff offices? Or is it proof when a ground radar station detects a UFO, sends a jet to intercept it, the jet pilot sees it, and locks on with his radar, only to have the UFO streak away at a phenomenal speed? Is it proof when a jet pilot fires at a UFO and sticks to his story even under the threat of court-martial? Does this constitute proof?
The at times hotly debated answer to this question may be the answer to the question, "Do the UFO's really exist?"
I'll give you the facts - all of the facts - you decide.
E. J. RUPPELT
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This page was last updated on June 27, 2007.
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Queensland Government rollout of Triple P launched with free parenting seminars
September 21, 2015 /in Implementation
By Staff Writers
A large media contingent was present for the official launch of the Queensland Government and Triple P International’s Queensland-wide roll-out of the Triple P – Positive Parenting Program at Broncos Leagues Club last Wednesday.
Triple P founder and director of the University of Queensland’s Parenting and Family Support Centre, Professor Matt Sanders, pictured above with Queensland Government Communities Minister, Shannon Fentiman, officially launched the rollout with a seminar on the Power of Positive Parenting at Broncos Leagues Club for more than 100 parents and carers.
Later that night, it was standing room only for around 150 carers at the same venue. These seminars were followed by three more in the Logan district.
“We know parenting is hard work, and we are committed to making sure all Queensland mums, dads, grandparents and caregivers know they are not alone in raising the next generation of Queenslanders,” Ms Fentiman said.
Ms Fentiman said the Government was not in the business of telling Queensland families what to do.
“It’s about letting them know that it’s okay to ask for help,” she said.
Professor Sanders praised the Government for intervening early to help Queensland families before major problems develop down the track.
“Lots of programs focus on the pointy end, the difficult families who have already experiended major, major problems,” Professor Sanders said at the launch. “This is about the prevention of those problems.”
Earlier, in an interview with ABC Radio 612 that morning, Professor Sanders explained how Level 2 Triple P Seminars give parents a taste of other, more intensive forms of help available, should they need it.
“Doing a seminar is a bit of a taster: you come in, you’re given a chance to really pause and reflect on the parenting issues you’re confronting, and how you’re dealing with them, ” Professor Sanders said.
“You decide whether or not what you’re doing is working. If it’s working, keep doing what you’re doing. It’s not about preaching to people that they must do differently.”
Professor Sanders said it was rewarding to see the work of so many researchers and students from the PFSC acknowledged by the Queensland Government’s support of the two-year trial. It was also gratifying to see the Government get behind this Queensland success story and become the first government to offer the full suite of Triple P programs, including Triple P Online, to families of children up to the age of 16.
Channel Seven Brisbane News also featured Professor Sanders in the studio, pictured at right, in its coverage of the event. That coverage is available here.
Minister Fentiman’s press release announcing the launch is available here.
Parents can find out how to participate in a Triple P session here.
Tags: Broncos Leagues club, Queensland Government, seminars, Triple P International, Triple P launch
Sometimes a light touch is all it takes: Triple P Seminars show benefits for Indonesian parents and…
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About Triple P
The Triple P—Positive Parenting Program is one of the world’s most effective parenting interventions and one of the few based on ongoing evidence from scientific research. Developed by Professor Matt Sanders and colleagues at The University of Queensland (Australia), Triple P has been shown to work across hundreds of thousands of families through over 30 years of research.
Support Triple P
Triple P is looking to tackle some of the biggest problems facing the global community such as poverty and violence reduction, improving educational attainment and promoting cleaner environments. Your gift will support the Triple P team in inspiring the next generation of global experts and help change the world for the better.
© Copyright - Parenting and Family Support Centre, The University of Queensland
New direction in Triple P research looks at harnessing the power of the fam... The Grandma Hypothesis: We
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This Might Be A Wiki
The TMBG Knowledge Base
From This Might Be A Wiki
Laura Cantrell from the music video for "The Guitar"
Laura Cantrell was the host of "Radio Thrift Shop" on Jersey City's WFMU from 1993 to 2005. In 1992, she collaborated with They Might Be Giants for "The Guitar (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)" on the album Apollo 18, singing all the lines about the lion. She also appeared in the song's music video.
In 1996, Cantrell released a self-titled EP on the Hello CD Of The Month Club. She thanked Flans and Robin in the liner notes of her 2000 album Not the Tremblin' Kind.
Radio Thrift Shop homepage (defunct - archived)
Retrieved from "http://tmbw.net/wiki/index.php?title=Laura_Cantrell&oldid=292884"
Collaborations With Other Artists
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Dial-A-Song
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Allometric growth in the damselfishes of the genus Dascyllus (Pomacentridae)
Frédérich, B.; Colleye, O.; Vandewalle, P. (2007). Allometric growth in the damselfishes of the genus Dascyllus (Pomacentridae). J. Morphol. (1931) 268(12): 1074
In: Journal of Morphology (1931). The Wistar Institute Press/Wiley: Philadelphia, Pa . ISSN 0362-2525; e-ISSN 1097-4687, meer
Documenttype: Congresbijdrage
Pomacentridae Bonaparte, 1831 [WoRMS]
ontogeny ; geometric morphometrics ; Pomacentridae ; allometry ; skull ; mandible
Frédérich, B., meer
Colleye, O., meer
The Pomacentridae, commonly known as damselfishes, is one of the most specious families of coral reef fishes (>350 species). The genus Dascyllus contains ten species which are fall into three complexes: the aruanus, reticulatus and trimaculatus. The members of the two first complexes are small-bodied with a maximum standard length (SL) of 50-65 mm and the third complex groups large-bodied fishes of 90-110 mm SL. Phylogenetic data place the aruanus complex in a basal position with the two other species groups as derived sister taxa. Herein, we test the hypothesis that evolutionary change throughout the large-bodied species occurs by isometry. Geometric morphometrics is used to examine the ontogeny of size and shape. This method, which allows description and statistical analysis of form, is applied for the neurocranium and mandible in the three species referencing each complex: Dascyllus aruanus, D. reticulatus and D. trimaculatus. Another closely related pomacentrid, Chromis viridis, was used as outgroup for comparing ontogeny. At the larval stage, the structures are rather similar. Multivariate regression of shapes on size reveals that the three Dascyllus species have a common ontogenetic trajectory which clearly differs from that of C. viridis. During growth, allometry concerns each unit (e.g. shortening of the neurocranium and the mandible) and is identical in each Dascyllus species. However, it appears that the largest studied specimens of D. trimaculatus (90 mm SL) have similar shapes and, differ only in size from the largest ones of both other species (50-60 mm SL).
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You are here: Home › Village Life › Samuel Wright
Samuel Wright
Samuel Wright is one of the latest people we are researching. New information has come to hand recently as we have been contacted by Charles Wright a relative of Samuel's and also Father Edward Martin who has Samuel's prayer book in his collection. We have also discovered two large slabs behind the Church which we believe lead to a vault where Samuel is buried.
Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Wright 1754-1839
Samuel Wright was the son of John Wright and Ann Sherbrooke and was born on 18th October 1754.
Most of the road names in the village self-explanatory (Station Road, Chapel Lane, Rectory Drive etc) so where does the Colonels lane come from? It is probably named after Samuel Wright to whom there is a plaque on the south wall of the nave in the village church. He lived at ‘Broughton Cottage’ which is now Sulney Fields and he is described on the plaque as ‘Formerly Captain in the 15th Hussars and Lieut. Colonel Commandant of the Bunny Volunteers’. So presumably the lane leading to the colonel’s house came to be known as Colonels Lane.
No mention is made on the plaque of a wife,.
Prior to moving to Upper Broughton, Samuel lived at Gunthorpe Lodge (a large house at the west end of Gunthorpe, near Lowdham, partly rebuilt in 1815). The house is no longer there, although Lodge Farm is and was situated behind the house itself. The Lodge had a chapel - more of that later......
In 1788 Samuel married Lady Anne Margaret Coventry, the daughter of the 6th Earl of Coventry. This lady had been married to a Mr Edward Foley and their subsequent divorce became a high profile case and was discussed in both houses of parliament. The story being sufficiently scandalous to earn her a chapter in the book ‘Scandalous Women’ by Elizabeth Kerri Mahok.
The parish records of Broughton Sulney (which is one of the original names for Upper Broughton) include the marriage of “Samuel Wright Esq Widower of the Parish of Lowdham & Ann Foulkes Spinster of this Parish by Licence 20th May 1825. Witnesses Thos Smith, John Holmes”. It would appear that Samuel must have relocated to Upper Broughton (as a widower?) and then married for the second time aged 60.
Wright's Bank (above) when it was the headquarters of the family bank. The Wright family had been merchants in Nottingham prior to opening the bank.
Samuel was a military man. He did not follow the family profession which was banking. Samuel’s father John Wright is mentioned on the plaque. He was a senior partner in Wright’s Bank in Nottingham. It was founded in 1761 and later they built these new premises on the right. The building is still there today (see below) and is now called Lloyd’s Bar and forms part of the Weatherspoon’s empire.
The Local Bunny Volunteers of which Samuel was the Lieutenant Colonel was formed in 1798. At the end of the 18th century Britain was at war with France and was also experiencing domestic dissent and rebellion, meaning the Army and Militia were stretched to maximum, so local volunteer forces were organised by the local gentry to defend themselves and their property. On one occasion the Bunny Volunteers marched to Mansfield to police the area and were billeted there for three weeks.
Samuel died without issue in 1839. The plaque says that Samuel was buried in a vault at the east end of the Church, so he was clearly a man of some importance.
His widow Anne remarried in 1846 in Upper Broughton Church. Her second husband was Thomas Brown a grazier from Nether Broughton who was 28. Anne was 41 at the time she married Thomas, but was widowed for a second time when he died in 1857. Anne died in 1866. We have recently discovered two massive stone slabs set into the grass behind the east window. The largest slab has 'SW 1839' in large letters and underneath it 'AB 1866'. The adjacent slab has Thomas's name and date of death. This must be the entrance to the vault that the plaque in church mentions.
Since we first wrote about Samuel Wright, we have been contacted by Father Edward Martin of Grimsby who is a collector of old prayer books. He had acquired a large lectern sized prayer book with Samuel's signature inside. The date of the prayer book is 1727 and has been well used, maybe it came from the chapel in Gunthorpe?
The prayer book also has some maps drawn in the back. They are by Harding and show a farm and its fields in the parish of HIckling. The farm was on the northern side of the junction of the A606 which leads to Nottingham and Folly Hall Lane, it is mentioned in Samuel's will together with the other farms he owned in Hickling:
'I also give devise and bequeath all those my other freehold messuages and tenements with the close and appurtenances thereto belonging situate lying and being in the parish of Hickling in the said County of Nottingham and now in the occupation of Anne Collishaw John Hickling and John Marsh all of which I purchased of John Wild of Over Broughton aforesaid'
Anne inherited the whole of Samuel's estate and continued living in Upper Broughton until she died. She didn't have any children.
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Visit to the William Booth Birthplace Museum Jul 09, 2020 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM
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An American Family: Gay women share lives, raise children
Bellevue Leader (April 14, 2004)
Finding the northwest Bellevue home of Kim and Laurie Loncke isn’t difficult.
“We’re the only house on the block with a white picket fence,” Laurie says.
The white picket fence: a symbol of the American family. A mother, a father, a few children and their pets. Jobs. School. A minivan. Doctor appointments. Cookies. Vacations. Cupcakes. Trips to the grocery store. Weekends at the zoo.
The Loncke home has all these things, except one. In the Loncke home, there’s no father.
In the Loncke home, there are two mothers, a daughter, a son and a second daughter on the way.
In the Loncke home, there’s a family.
Kim Erwin met Laurie Loncke nearly 11 years ago through mutual friends. Kim grew up in north Omaha; Laurie was raised in Bellevue. The women didn’t meet until moving back to Nebraska. Laurie lived in Georgia for eight years, Kim in California for five.
“I just got over a relationship, and I was over it,” says Laurie, her eyes scanning the front yard where her two children play in the late-day sun. “I worked and lived with my dad. That’s what I was going to do. That was my life.”
Within a week of moving home, they met. Kim was in a relationship; Laurie was single. Neither was looking for anything long-term, but fate had other plans.
“We hit it off,” says Kim, also eyeing her two children.
The two started dating exclusively while Kim worked at Norwest Bank and Laurie at Airlite Plastics.
Weeks later, Laurie moved out of her dad’s house and in with Kim in downtown Omaha. Their relationship bloomed. Five years passed.
On July 4, 1998, with friends at their sides, Kim and Laurie were united in a commitment ceremony in Las Vegas.
A month later, Kim and Laurie, wearing matching tuxedos and carrying floral bouquets, celebrated their new lives with 300 family members and friends during a reception at Millard Social Hall.
“It was like a traditional wedding,” Laurie says with a smile. “We sent out invitations.”
Kim and Laurie, both 38, say their families have been supportive of their relationship. It’s been a blessing, the women say, especially when parts of society look down upon gay relationships and the gay community as a whole.
The women’s lives progressed without much fanfare. They purchased a home. Kim went to law school. They spent time together on weekends, going to baseball games and the zoo. Children weren’t even part of the picture.
“We didn’t talk about kids, or any of this,” says Laurie, gesturing to her two children, minivan and white picket fence.
Kim and Laurie’s conversations didn’t focus on children – a family, really – until the death of Laurie’s father, in January 1999.
“I realized that it wasn’t about the things anymore,” Laurie says. “It’s not about what I leave my children. It’s what I give them, whether it be the ABCs, or whatever. I realized that what he had given me wasn’t the stuff.
“It was an awakening.”
Six months later, Kim and Laurie traveled to Kansas City to celebrate the one-year anniversary of their commitment ceremony. Between time at Worlds of Fun and touring the city, the couple decided to start a family. They knew of heterosexual couples who underwent artificial insemination, but same-sex couples? Hardly. So Kim and Laurie called the fertility specialist who worked with a heterosexual couple Laurie knew.
The couple underwent an initial consultation at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. They went through one session of counseling before examining the sperm donor list.
“They wanted to see if we were ready to be parents, if this was a phase,” Laurie says.
Next, the women were given a five-page list of sperm donors. Identified anonymously by ID numbers, the pages revealed each donor’s eye and hair color, ethnicity, occupation, hobbies and education.
The couple decided Laurie would carry the child. When selecting a donor, they sought one with features matching Kim’s: tall, lighter hair.
After the first donor was selected, Laurie, through artificial insemination, got pregnant with twins. Sadly, she miscarried.
Kim and Laurie tried other sperm donors. She got pregnant a second time, again with twins. Again, Laurie miscarried.
Yet another attempt at pregnancy was a success. In early 2001, Laurie got pregnant with a baby girl.
The pregnancy was exciting for the couple. Like many expecting parents, Kim and Laurie went to birthing and breastfeeding classes. They interviewed pediatricians. They joined parenting groups on the Internet. They bought books on parenting.
“We did everything,” says Kim, who legally changed her last name to Erwin-Loncke in 2000.
Then it came time for delivery. Laurie was to be induced Sept. 11, 2001, at Bergan Mercy Medical Center. Too many inducements – not to mention a national tragedy – put the brakes on those plans. Laurie was admitted the next day and delivered MacKenzie Sept. 14.
The first child of Kim and Laurie was born into the world amid a country in chaos. There was joy for Kim, Laurie and their families, but that joy wasn’t free of worry.
“I wondered if we did the right thing, bringing a baby into the world (after 9/11),” Kim says. “All our happy feelings were filled with scary feelings.”
Eventually, the fears subsided. Kim and Laurie brought MacKenzie home. During the first few months of her life, MacKenzie unknowingly was the focus of her mothers’ unconditional gazes.
“We sat up all night and stared at her,” Kim says with a grin.
The joy of raising a child had already begun filling the Loncke home with love. Six months later, Kim and Laurie went through the same process to have a second baby. Using sperm from the same donor as MacKenzie, Laurie got pregnant a second time in the spring of 2002.
Her due date was January 2003, but the baby boy came four months early. Ethan was born Nov. 4, 2002, but not without medical problems. Ethan was breech and delivered via Caesarean section. After birth, Ethan was placed in Bergan Mercy’s neonatal intensive care unit. Laurie and Kim couldn’t go near their new son.
“The doctors didn’t tell us much,” Kim says today, as little Ethan runs across the green grass. “They said that if we believed in baptism, we should have him baptized.”
With heavy hearts and fear for the future, Kim and Laurie baptized their baby boy. Ethan, however, grew strong. Eight weeks later, he was sent home. The family of Kim and Laurie and MacKenzie had a new member.
“We’re lucky,” Kim says. “He’s totally a miracle baby.”
Last October, Laurie got pregnant a third time, again with the same sperm donor as Ethan and MacKenzie. It’s a girl, due, oddly enough, July 4: the six-year anniversary of the couple’s Las Vegas civil ceremony.
“I’ll never make it that far,” Laurie says with a laugh. They’re considering Emma and Ashley as names for their baby girl.
Until she’s born, Kim and Laurie have the busy task of raising their two children. MacKenzie’s 2 ? years old, Ethan is 17 months.
And while their son remains young, MacKenzie is old enough to understand her family: a family with two mothers and no father.
“Who’s your family? Tell us your family,” Laurie asks MacKenzie, a tall, trim 2-year-old who loves anything pink.
“Mommy, Momma, Brother and Sissy! We’re all a family!” MacKenzie yells with a lisp, while her baby brother claps and gurgles.
Laurie and Kim have always been honest with MacKenzie – and plan to be with Ethan and baby No. 3 – about where they came from and their family. They anticipate more questions from MacKenzie, when she starts preschool this fall.
MacKenzie calls Laurie Mommy; Kim, she calls Momma.
“Every once in awhile she comes up with a Kim and a Laurie,” Kim says with a laugh.
Kim works full time at an Omaha insurance company, while Laurie is a full-time, stay-at-home mom. Because of laws in Nebraska, Kim can’t insure Laurie or the children through her work. As such, Laurie is classified as a single parent. She and the two children are on Medicaid. Unless laws change during the next few months, the third child will also be insured through the State of Nebraska.
Kim doesn’t have legal rights to the children, but family contracts have been drawn up and signed should something happen to Laurie.
Since the children became the focus of their lives in 2001, Kim and Laurie say their relationship has grown stronger. They talk more, but are more tired at the end of the day, like any parents of small children.
“They are my priority. They are my life. They come first, no matter what,” Laurie says. “I don’t put politics before them. I don’t put other people before them. I don’t put Kim before them. I really don’t.”
The nature of their family, both women know, isn’t as common as the traditional mother-father example the world has known for years. Kim and Laurie, however, are comfortable in who they are and what role they play in their family’s life.
“I can’t make a daddy appear,” Laurie says. “There’s no possible way.”
The children have male role models, in the form of family members and friends. Kim and Laurie aren’t worried about their children’s development without a father. The way the couple sees it, many children grow up in single-parent households.
“Not every kid has a dad in their life,” Laurie says. “Life trials happen whether you’re gay or you’re straight.”
On a recent job application, Kim was asked to list her greatest accomplishments. She included her law degree, but was stumped on what else to write. It took her a moment, but Kim listed her children.
“Having two, wonderful, beautiful children,” Kim says.
Local media covered Kim and Laurie’s story when they, with their children, flew to San Francisco in March to get a marriage license. (The legality of the license remains in limbo, however, with the California Supreme Court scheduled to rule on same-sex marriage this summer.)
The scene inside the rotunda of San Francisco’s City Hall was chaotic and wonderful, Laurie says.
“There was so much love in that building,” Laurie says. “There was so much laughter. It was awesome. It really was. Everything seemed real.”
Since returning from San Francisco, Kim and Laurie haven’t shied away from telling their story. They’re outspoken about their relationship, their children and their family. They don’t believe staying silent will do any good.
“The reason people are so critical about gay people in the gay community is because they don’t know anybody,” Kim says, Ethan resting on her lap. “We’re just saying that we’re like you. By reading things and seeing pictures, maybe they’ll realize they’re just like us. And that, maybe, will change some minds.”
Adds Laurie: “My mom always says you change people one person at a time. That’s the way we’ve always thought about it.”
Since becoming parents, Kim and Laurie say they’re more aware of their lives as lesbians.
“We’re just so used to being who we are,” Kim says.
That recognition was key to embracing their roles as parents, Laurie says, regardless of the paths their lives take: “When you have children, you have to decide, right then and there, that who you are is who you are.”
Because their lifestyle has yielded such controversy on a local, state and national level, Kim and Laurie anticipate tough days ahead as they raise their children and actively participate in the community as parents.
Any fear or concern, Laurie says, is worth the price of having a family.
“I don’t care if you like or dislike, believe or don’t believe, or any of that about our family,” Laurie says. “I can’t change that. But I will ask you to respect my children and respect Kim and myself. And we’ll hold you to that, just like anybody else.”
Bellevue Leader on the Web: www.bellevueleader.com
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Stars Who Got Their Start In 80’s Films
By Tracy Few / July 11, 2019
The kids and adults of today are more than familiar with the names of many of today’s major celebrities—Tom Cruise, Sean Penn, Drew Barrymore, and Michael Keaton.
However, each one of these now well-known actors or actresses had to begin their careers somewhere, and as such most of them started exercising their acting chops in the 1980s.
Known to many now as Ethan Hunt in the recently rebooted Mission Impossible series of films, Cruise got his first big role, some would even go so far as to say his breakout role, in the 80s movie “Risky Business.” Starring alongside Rebecca DeMorney, Cruise was a teen entrepreneur, who hit upon a money-making scheme after damaging his dad’s expensive car—that of being a pimp.
Although Penn has come a long way in his acting career, he will always be remembered for his role of Jeff Spicoli by his fans. One of several famous stars of the ’80s, who appeared alongside each other in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” Penn will forever be on our hearts as the pothead, surfer dude, whose quotes can still be heard to this day. My favorite—”All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I’m fine.”
Image: Dread Central
Keaton has become the quintessential actor, having played many roles for which he is memorable. Perhaps his best-known characters were that of Batman in the reboot movie of the same name, as well as the mischevious Beetlejuice. However, Keaton was a virtual unknown when he landed his 80’s along the former Fonz, Henry Winkler, in the movie Night Shift. As the scene-stealing business partner of Winkler’s the two ran a brothel out of a morgue.
The current darling of romance movies began her career in the Steven Spielberg iconic film E.T: The Extraterrestrial. Playing the little sister to Henry Thomas, Barrymore stole moviegoers hearts with her sweet smile and sense of wonder. Although she was a mere seven years old when she appeared in E.T., fans knew from the beginning she would be around for a long time.
80's movies Michael Keaton tom cruise
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Acting-Out Politics
Weblog opens discussion about the psychology of Bushmerican style of behavior.
The Magic Helpers – The Idyllic Idols in Whose Shining Light We Feel Safe, Worthy and Cared For
Posted by victor as Discussion and Mind-Probing, Psychology of religious belief, Sociological essays, The Magic Helpers, The Magic Helpers
The Obvious And Not So Obvious Angels, Spirits, Presences and Beings Without Which We cannot live
Mother for baby is such a protective and life-enhancing Presence (the difference between the presence nearby of a regular object and Presence of a super-object is that the latter we feel as presence around us, not just nearby). It is how mother is for the baby. Literal Gods and Angels are the same kind of Essences for believers in gods and angels. Our ideas and Images of “our” Religion, Nation, State, Country, Land/Soil, Political System, Belief System, World View, Authority Figures we admire and in whose protection we believe – all these for our unconscious and/or consciousness are angelic Presences without which it is impossible for us to live with taste for life and desire to live. The difference between people with conservative sensibility and democratic sensibility is exactly the question of fixation on angelic Presences.
It is possible and very important to be able to live without the angelic Presences but there is only one path leading to this, and this path is as boringly difficult as it’s mercilessly long. It is tormenting, traumatizing and humiliating – it is a lifelong humanistic education (studying not only facts but the mechanisms of human feelings and systems of social relationships). Putting aside informational and operational aspects of humanistic education, what is important for being able of getting out of the spell of our idyllic idols is the endless routs of our cognitive working with information – of deploying our passion to the informed thinking. Through humanistic education our existential experience expands and we learn to identify with the dissimilar others.
The necessity to liberate ourselves from our idealized Idols is that their help is not disinterested. Until we are under the benevolent power of these Angelic Helpers we need to defend them from other people who have their own Benevolent Spirits and believe in them as we believe in ours. It is not too difficult to understand that this situation means endless clashes and wars that, indeed, is a permanent feature of human history with all our “spirituality” and all our “idealism” and, in reality, exactly because of it. But why should the Presence of Spiritual Benefactors in our lives inevitably mean fight with other people’s Spiritual Benefactors? Why not to let us continue to use the generous help offered to us while letting others to continue to use their protectors? Isn’t it true that the more Protectors we all have the better off we all can be?
To explain why the very presence of our High Protectors means spiritual rivalry, competition, clash, fight and wars, we have to step into the psychology of idolatry and fetishism. Feeling under a supreme Protection puts us in a mode of being in rapport with the Protector, in communication with it – to effectively signal the danger if and when it occurs. Practically it means that we don’t develop enough our own intelligence that could be focused on prevention of dangers (on understand their nature, dynamism and etiology). We disarm our intellectual and spiritual resources and as a result we are too late to be able to (rationally) prevent conflicts. The habit of relying on Magic Helpers is connected with our proclivity to use armed forces instead of preventively concentrating on future conflicts. It is, as if, we wait until our Spiritual protectors will defend us – when conflict is already a reality and we already are busy mobilizing ourselves for self-defense or for preventive attack. With thousands and thousands of years this postponement to act until the action can be only in a form of war became a typical way to react. Our magic helpers’ protection means protection during conflict, not before when conflict is still in preparation. To be helped by our “angels” means to believe that we’ll be helped when fight will start and that “we will win”. Magic help almost always means for us winning fight, not preventing it.
Relying on superior intelligence we don’t try to develop our own to be able to foresee the violent conflicts and to prevent them. It is, as if, our Magic Helpers wants us to win only through violence – only by high price. The situation is that we invent new weapon systems to help our Helpers to help us. By believing in them we are forever stuck in military paradigm of ‘conflict resolution”. It makes us retarded in our capability to prevent military conflicts with other groups – we can react only through our technical intelligence, not with our human intelligence (reserved for sustaining our attunement to our Magic Helpers). That‘s why the latest/most up to date, most destructive military technology and more absurd economic behavior are the best we can do, instead of becoming more reasonable as human beings. For the mortals to mess with super-human powers is dangerous and impractical. We pay for super-protection with our own underdevelopment and, therefore, with our inability to prevent our destruction as a specie. The more we believe that we are super-protected by Higher powers, the closer we are to total destruction.
Examples of Semantic Richness of Cinematic narrations
Films (and stills from the films) analyzed
Installation art-works analyzed
Paintings, sculptures and drawings analyzed
Photographic art and posters analyzed
Poetry analyzed
Psychology of religious belief
Reviews of Films
Sociological essays
Theatrical productions analyzed
Discussion and Mind-Probing (911)
Examples of Semantic Richness of Cinematic narrations (52)
A Shot about A Suspicious Spot – How Staining Your Identity Can Make You a Hero – From Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Spider’s Stratagem” (1970) (1)
An Odd Ode to The Human Goddess Camille (Who, It Seems, Needs A Camel for A Husband) – From Jean-Luc Godard’s “Contempt/Le mepris” (1964) (1)
Anne Marie Mieville’s “The Book of Mary” – Mary’s Improvised Dance- Pantomime Under the Music of Gustav Mahler (1)
“The Third Generation” By Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1)
“Wise Young Girl” (Julie Delpy) In “Detective” (1985) by Jean-Luc Godard (1)
Being Victimized By Socio-economic Anomie Under The Banner Of Profit-making Energetically Moved By Entrepreneurial Wind – From Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Il Grido/The Cry” (1957) (1)
Blending Of Identities Refreshes A Monotonous Life – From Akira Kurosawa’s “Dodes’kaden” (1970) (1)
Buddha-like Head Of The Family: The Keeper Of The Hearth’s Fire Alive – From Akira Kurosawa’s “Dodeskaden” (1970) (1)
Chantal Akerman’s “Night And Day” (1991) – Immortal Femininity and Mortal Masculinity (1)
Childishness And Cowardice Of A Macho Personality – Macho Sissies In Life, In Politics And In History From Tennessee Williams/Elia Kazan’s “Streetcar Named Desire” (1951) (1)
Democracy’s Conservative and the Conservative Democrat (Natural Rivals and Calculating Collaborators – Profit-makers, From “Pigsty” by Pier Paolo Pasolini (1969) (1)
Duchesse de Guermantes And Charles Swann Feel Themselves Before Death – From Volker Schlondorff’s “Un Amour de Swann/Swann In Love” (1984) (1)
Fabrizio And Agostino – From “Before the Revolution” (1962) By Bernardo Bertolucci (1)
Fascist Pedagogy Of Self-Overcoming: Training Young People To Do Things Which Are Unbearable For Human Beings To Do – From “Salo” (1976) By Pier Paolo Pasolini (1)
For Abel Rosenberg, Hero of Ingmar Bergman’s “Serpent’s Egg” (1977), To Insert A Billion Mark Banknote Into the Mouth of a Barman Is Just a Healthy Joke (1)
Glauce (King Creon’s daughter) Is A Victim Of Medea’s Violent Magic – Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “Medea” (1969) (1)
How A Sublime World of Metaphors And Symbols Crowns And By This Transubstantiates The Earthly Love – Volker Schlondorff’s “Swann in Love” (1984) (1)
Imagination vs. Being (The Spiritually Pauperized Architect And His Doomed Son) – From Akira Kurosawa’s “Dodes’kaden” (1970) (1)
Jason-the Child And the Adult, And Centaurus Chiron – Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “Medea” (1970) (1)
Jean Luc Godard ’s “Every Man For Himself” (1980) – Life Under Digitally Ordered Human Chaos (1)
Jean-Luc Godard and Audrey Klebaner’s Psychological Etude of a Young Woman’s Encounter With Love. – From “In Praise of Love” (2001) (1)
Laius, Jocasta (Silvana Mangano) And Their Son Oedipus – From “Oedipus Rex” (1967) By Pier Paolo Pasolini (1)
Little Johan Meets The Hotel Room Service Attendant (Hakan Jahnberg) – From Ingmar Bergman’s “The Silence” (1963) (1)
Luis Bunuel’s “That Obscure Object of Desire” (1977) – The Eternal Duel-Duo Between Its Majesty-Money and Human Nature (1)
Marcel-the Writer And Marcel-the Boy During WWI – From Raul Ruiz’s “Time Regained” (1999) (1)
Maurice Pialat’s “Van Gogh” (1991) – Vincent and Marguerite’s Brief Eternity (1)
Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Blow Up”, 1966 – Pure Sexual Desire As Infantile Sexuality, While Love Starts as An Existential Drive Towards Another Person (1)
Nana As A Scandalous Human Uniqueness, Damned, Condemned And Doomed – “Vivre Sa Vie”, (1962) By Jean Luc Godard (The 4th Etude About Godard’s Nana) (1)
Petra and Karin – Their Creative Enterprise, their Love And Inequality – From “The Bitter Tears Of Petra Von Kant” (1972) By Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1)
Preparation For War: Vicious (In All Too Human Way) Battle For Domination – From Ronald Neame’s “Tunes of Glory” (1960) (1)
Retarded Boy Rokkuchan As A Demiurge Of Technological Civilization – From “Dodes’Kaden” (1970) by Akira Kurosawa (1)
Right-wingers Today and Judaist Clergy In Christ’s Times On The One Hand, And Liberal Democrats Today And Pontius Pilate In Christ’s Time , “The Messiah”, By Rossellini (1)
Sugar-taste, Sugar-dream, Sugar-dreaming, Sugar-excitement, Sugar-prosperity, Sugar-destructiveness – From Dušan Makavejev’s “Sweet Movie” (1974) (1)
Surrealist Imagery As The Film-director’s Expressive Tool – The Shot Is From “Chinese Roulette” (1976) By Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1)
The Art Of Meaningful Composition Of A Shot – From “Lili Marleen” (1981) By Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1)
The Body Of Truth And The Body Of Glamour – From “Hour of the Wolf” (1968) By Ingmar Bergman (1)
The Film-director Is Challenging the Deceitful Narratives Of Historical Events – From Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Spider’s Stratagem” (1970) (1)
The Internal Power To Resist Abusive Treatment Grows Together With The Very Experience Of Resistance From Ingmar Bergman’s “Fanny and Alexander” (1981) (1)
The Knight Of Love – From Akira Kurosawa’s “Dodeskaden” (1970) – Is Betrayal Of Love A Spiritual Betrayal? (1)
The Role Of “Bizarre” Visual Images As An Intellectual Stimulation Of The Film-viewers – From Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Dreamers” (2003) (1)
The Use Of “Gaze Aside Without Verbalization” In Cinema – Examples From “Medea” (1969) And “Oedipus Rex” (1967) By Pier Paolo Pasolini (1)
The Woman With The Sky In Her Eyes – From Ingmar Bergman “The Passion of Anna” (1969) (1)
Three Phases Of Human Relationship With Death – From “Time Regained” (1999) By Raul Ruiz (Film Based On Marcel Proust’s Novel) (1)
Three Positions Towards Death (Of Those Who Personally Feell Distant From Death’s Touch) – From Maurice Pialat’s “The Mouth Agape/The Slack-Jawed Mug” (1974) (1)
To Become Ontologically Authentic Personality (Complex Of Sublime Selfhood) Or To Share Life With Others – Jean-Luc Godard’s “Vivre sa vie/My Life To Live” (1962) (1)
Trivial Sex As A Gift From Destiny – From Maurice Pialat “The Mouth Agape” (1974) (1)
Visual Poem About Existentially Spiritual Transformation of Human Beings – “Teorema/Theorem” By Pier Paolo Pasolini (1968) (1)
When Intense Idealistic Belief “Massively” Collapses – From “Salome’s Last Dance” (1988) By Ken Russell (1)
When Life Is the Occupation with Technology And Financial Rivalry – From “Sisters, Or The Balance Of Happiness” (1979) By Margarethe Von Trotta (1)
When People On Tops Of Social Hierarchy Stopped To Be Reliable/Respectable – From “The Discreet Charm Of Bourgeoisie” (1972) By Luis Bunuel (1)
When Youthful Intelligent Vitality Becomes Incompatible With the Conditions of Spiritual and Physical Survival – Robert Bresson’s “Devil Probably” (1977) (1)
Young People’s Psychological Condition according To Akira Kurosawa’s “Sanjuro” (1962) (1)
Films (and stills from the films) analyzed (138)
Alexander Kluge (1)
Anne-Marie Mieville (1)
Claude Miller (1)
Claude Sautet (1)
Dušan Makavejev (1)
Gerard Mordillat (1)
Helma Sanders-Brahms (1)
Ingmar Bergman (10)
Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet (2)
Ken Russell (2)
Margarethe von Trotta (2)
Marguerite Duras (3)
Maurice Pialat (3)
Moshe Mizrahi (1)
R.W. Fassbinder's Films With Gunther Kaufmann (2)
Radu Gabrea (1)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder (15)
Raul Ruiz (1)
Rene Clement (1)
Ronald Neame (1)
Strong Males’ Four Basic Tasks (1)
Sydney Lumet (1)
Installation art-works analyzed (11)
Bob Trotman (1)
Chen Shaoxiong (1)
Hemispheric Dome – Architectural Discourses With People (With Existence) And With “Gods” (With Metaphysical Essences) (1)
Judith Peck (1)
Meret Oppenheim (1)
Olafur Eliasson (1)
Robert Rauschenberg (3)
Alice Miller (1)
Audie Murphy – A Bressonian Actor In American Western (!?!) (1)
Bruno Cremer (1)
Bruno S. (1932 – 2010) (1)
Erland Josephson (1)
Günther Kaufmann (1)
Jean Laplanche (1)
Leo Steinberg (1)
Theodore Roszak (1)
Walter Schmidinger (1)
Paintings, sculptures and drawings analyzed (222)
Alberto Giacometti (5)
Amedeo Modigliani (2)
Andre Derain (1)
Arno Braker (1)
Auguste Rodin (1)
Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski de Rola) (2)
Barry X Ball (2)
Chaim Soutine (3)
Constantin Brancusi (3)
Dorothea Tanning (2)
Edouard Manet (5)
Emil Nolde (20)
Ernst Barlach (1)
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (5)
Fernando Botero (1)
Francis Picabia (4)
Francisco Goya (2)
Frantisek Janousek (1)
George Grosz (7)
Giorgio de Chirico (5)
Giovanni Angelo del Maino’s (1470-1536) “Saint John The Evangelist” (1520-30) (1)
Giovanni Battista Moroni (1)
Gustav Courbet (1)
Hans Bellmer (2)
Henri Rousseau (1)
Henry Matisse (5)
Honore Daumier (1)
Jacob Epstein (3)
Jacques Louis David (1)
James Enzor (2)
Jean Dubuffet (1)
Joan Miro (4)
Jules Bastien-Lepage (1)
Karl Hubbuch (1)
Kathe Kollwitz (4)
Leonora Carrington (1)
Lucas Cranach (2)
Marcel Janco (2)
Marino Marini (1)
Mary Cassatt (1)
Max Beckmann (9)
Max Ernst (15)
Milein Cosman (1)
Oscar Dominguez (2)
OsKar Kokoschka (2)
Otto Dix (6)
Pablo Picasso (11)
Paul Cezanne (1)
Paul Delvaux (2)
Pierre-August Renoir (1)
Pieter Breughel (1)
Rembrandt Von Rijns (1)
Rene Magritte (6)
Sofonisba Anguissola (1)
Thomas Hart Benton (3)
Victor Brauner (4)
Vincent Van Gogh (eight self-portraits) (1)
Wifredo Lam (2)
Willem de Kooning (1)
William Aiken Walker (1)
Wolfgang Paalen (2)
Photographic art and posters analyzed (31)
A Call Back to Pre-democratic America: (1)
Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels As One Person (1)
Alfred Eisenstaedt’s Photos of Goebbels (1)
Disappointed in mortals… (1)
Dora Maar (10)
Germany, Pale Mother (1)
Humanity of the Psychological Frankensteins (1)
Photo Of A Group Of Schoolboys With Ludwig Wittgenstein And Adolf Hitler In Their Early Adolescence Amongst Them (1)
Playing Cards With the Young Boys (1)
Propaganda Posters (2)
Italian Fascist Propaganda Poster – Totalitarian Lesson To Democracy And Democratic People (1)
Rag-picker in Paris, 1901 (1)
The Gaze of a Righteous Murder (1)
The Mother Of Child Psychoanalysis And A Prolific Author Melanie Klein As An Exemplary Master Of Empathy (1)
The Psychology of Pet Owning (1)
What Childhood Photos of Churchill and Hitler Can Teach Us? (1)
Why Bishops Attend A Nazi Public Event? (1)
Will Beauty Save the World? (1)
Poetry analyzed (40)
Alfred de Vigny (1)
Federico Garcia Lorca (1898 – 1936) (1)
Harold Pinter’s Poem “American Football” (A Reflection Upon The Gulf War)” (1)
Henri Michaux (1)
Jacques Prevert (1)
Marina Tsvetaeva (17)
Paul Celan (2)
Paul Eluard (1)
Paul Valery (1)
Rene Char (1)
Theodore Roethke (2)
Psychology of religious belief (19)
Allen Ginsberg’s Poem “Everyday” (1)
“The Messiah” (1975) by Roberto Rossellini (review) (1)
“Through Glass Darkly” (1961) By Ingmar Bergman (1)
“Winter Light” (1962) by Ingmar Bergman (1)
“Winter Light” by Ingmar Bergman (1)
Belief – Its Versatile Contents and its Psychological “Form” (1)
Belief in God as a Psychological Defense (1)
Contempt by Jean-Luc Godard (1)
Emil Nolde’s “Resurrection” – Nolde’s Interpretation of Christ’s Resurrection Contradicts The Ideas Of Early Christians (1)
Giovanni Battista Moroni’s (1520–1579 ) “A Gentleman in Adoration Before the Baptism of Christ” (1555–1560) (1)
In Vain, With My Eyes As With Nail (1)
Proud Sinners As Good Christians (1)
The Magic Helpers (1)
The Religious Sin of Pious Complacency (1)
Why Catholic Bishops Attend A Nazi Public Event (1)
Reviews of Films (150)
"Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant” (1972) by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1)
"Einstein" (2008) by Liliana Cavani (1)
"Nazarin" (1959) by Luis Bunuel (1)
"Sanjuro" (1962), by Akira Kurosawa (1)
"Time Regained" (TR) by Raoul Ruiz (1999) (1)
”Il Grido/The Cry” (1957) By Michelangelo Antonioni (1)
“35 Shots of Rum” (2008) By Claire Denis (1)
“A Flame in My Heart” (1987) By Alain Tanner (1)
“A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951) by Elia Kazan/Tennessee Williams (1)
“Ali: Fear Eats the Soul” (1973) by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1)
“Alice in the Cities” (1974) By Wim Wenders (1)
“And the Ship Sails On” (1983) By Federico Fellini (1)
“Au Hazard Balthazar” (1966) And “Devil Probably” (1977) By Robert Bresson (1)
“Autumn Sonata” (1978) By Ingmar Bergman (1)
“Baxter, Vera Baxter” by Marguerite Duras (1977) (1)
“Berlin Affair” (1985) by Liliana Cavani (2)
“Berlin Alexanderplatz” (1980) By Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1)
“Bless the Beast and Children” by Stanley Kramer (1971) (1)
“Burmese Harp” (1957) by Kon Ichikawa (1)
“Casanova” (1976) by Federico Fellini (1)
“Chinese Roulette” (1976) by R.W. Fassbinder (1)
“Clara Schumann” (2008), by Helma Sanders-Brahms (1)
“Confessions of Police Captain to the District Attorney” (1971) by Damiano Damiani (1)
“CONFORMIST” (1971) By Bernardo Bertolucci (1)
“Contempt/Le mepris” (1963) by Jean-Luc Godard (1)
“Cuentame Como Paso” (“Tell Me How it Happened”) by Miguel Angel Bernardeau (1)
“Death in Venice” (1971) by Luchino Visconti (1)
“Dersu Uzala” (1975) by Akira Kurosawa (1)
“Despair/Journey Into Light” (1978) by Rainer-Werner Fassbinder (1)
“Destroy, She Said” (1968) by Marguerite Duras (1)
“Detective” (1985) by Jean-Luc Godard (1)
“Diary of the Country Priest” (1951) By Robert Bresson (1)
“Dodes’kaden” (1970) by Akira Kurosawa (1)
“Elysium” by Neill Blomkamp (2013) (1)
“Faithless” by Liv Ullmann (1)
“Fear of Fear” (1975) by R.W. Fassbinder (2)
“Film Socialisme” (2010) By Jean-Luc Godard (JLG) (1)
“Fire Within” (1963) By Louis Malle (1)
“First Name Carmen/Prenom Carmen” (1983) by Jean-Luc Godard (1)
“Foyle’s War” by Anthony Horowitz (1)
“From The Life Of The Marionettes” By Ingmar Bergman (1980) (1)
“Germany in autumn” By Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1)
“Germany, Pale Mother” (1980) by Helma Sanders-Brahms (1)
“Golden Age/L'Age d'Or ” (1930) By Luis Bunuel (1)
“Goodbye Language/Adieu au langage ” (2014) by Jean-Luc Godard (1)
“Hidden Fortress” (1958) by Akira Kurosawa (1)
“Hiroshima mon amour” (1957) By Alain Resnais (1)
“Hour Of The Wolf” (1968) By Ingmar Bergman (1)
“I Want To Go Home” (1989) by Alain Resnais (1)
“Ich Bin die Andere” (“I am the Other Woman”) by Margarethe von Trotta (2006) (1)
“Ikiru/To Live” by Akira Kurosawa (1952) (1)
“In a Year of 13 Moons” (1978) By R.W. Fassbinder (1)
“In the Electric Mist” (2010) by Bernard Tavernier (1)
“Kind Hearted Woman” by David Sutherland (1)
“La guerre est finie/The War Is Over” (1966) By Alain Resnais (1)
“La Terra Trema/The Earth Is Trembling/The Earth Trembles/Will Tremble” (1948) By Luchino Visconti (1)
“Lacombe Lucien” (1974), By Louis Malle (1)
“Lancelot of the Lake” (1974) By Robert Bresson (1)
“Last Year in Marienbad” (1960) By Alain Resnais (1)
“L’Enfance Nue” (1968) By Maurice Pialat (1)
“Le Petit Soldat/The Little Soldier” (1960–1963) By Jean-Luc Godard (1)
“Letter to America”, (1999) by Kira Muratova (1)
“Life and Nothing But/La vie at rien d’autre” (1989) by Bertrand Tavernier (1)
“Lili Marleen” by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1981) (1)
“Lola” by Jacques Demy (1961) (1)
“Lola” by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1981) (1)
“Long Day’s Journey into the Night” (1962) By Sidney Lumet (1)
“Love Unto Death” (1984) by Alain Resnais (1)
“Madame Rosa” By Moshe Mizrahi (1)
“Made in USA (1966) by Jean-Luc Godard (2)
“Man Like Eva/Ein mann wie Eva” (1983) by Radu Gabrea (1)
“Medea” (1969) by Pier Paolo Pasolini (1)
“Melo” (1986) by Alain Resnais (1)
“Milarepa” by Liliana Cavani (1974) (1)
“Muriel, Or The Time Of Return” By Alain Resnais (1964) (1)
“My life and Times with Antonin Artaud” (1993) by Gerard Mordillat (1)
“Nathalie Granger” (1972) by Marguerite Duras (1)
“Nazarin” (1959) by Luis Bunuel (1)
“Nelly and Mr. Arnaud” (1995) by Claude Sautet (1)
“Night and Day” (1991) by Chantal Akerman (1)
“Oedipus Rex” (1967) By Pier Paolo Pasolini (1)
“Oh, Woe Is Me” by Jean-Luc Godard (1)
“Our Lady of the Assassins” (2000) by Barbet Schroeder (1)
“Our Music” by Jean-Luc Godard (2004) (1)
“Peter Pan” (2003) by P.J. Hogan (1)
“Pickpocket” (1959) by Robert Bresson (1)
“Pigpen/Pigsty/La Porcile” (1969) By Pier Paolo Pasolini (1)
“Salome’s Last Dance” (1988) by Ken Russell (1)
“Sanjuro” (1962), by Akira Kurosawa (1)
“Sansho the Bailiff” (1954) by Kenji Mizoguchi (1)
“Sisters or the Balance of Happiness” (1979) By Margarethe von Trotta (1)
“Socrates” (1971) By Roberto Rossellini (1)
“Spider’s Stratagem” (1970) By Bernardo Bertolucci (1)
“Strongman Ferdinand” (1977) by Alexander Kluge (1)
“Stroszek” (1977) By Werner Herzog (1)
“Swan In Love” (1984) By Volker Schlöndorff' (1)
“Sweet Movie” (1976) By Dusan Makavejev (1)
“The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant” (1972) by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (RWF) (1)
“The Cannibals” by Liliana Cavani (1969) (1)
“The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach” by Jean Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet (1968) (1)
“The Discreet Charm of Bourgeoisie” (1972) by Luis Bunuel (1)
“The Dreamers” (2003) By Bernardo Bertolucci (1)
“The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail” (1945) by Akira Kurosawa (1)
“The Merchant of Four Seasons” (1971) by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1)
“The Messiah” (1975) by Roberto Rossellini (1)
“The Mouth Agape/The Slack-Jawed Mug” (1974) by Maurice Pialat (1)
“The Night of Iguana” (1964) by John Huston – based on Tennessee Williams’ play (1)
“The Rise of Louis XIV” by Roberto Rossellini (1966) (1)
“The Rite” (1969) by Ingmar Bergman (1)
“The Salamander” (1971) by Alain Tanner (1)
“The Serpent’s Egg”1976, by Ingmar Bergman (1)
“The Sheltering Sky” (1990) by Bernardo Bertolucci (1)
“The Shout” (1978) by Jerzy Skolimowski (1)
“The Silence” by Ingmar Bergman (1963) (1)
“The Skin” (“La Pelle” – 1981) by Liliana Cavani (1)
“The Soft Skin” (1964) By Francois Truffaut (1)
“The Testament of Orpheus” by Jean Cocteau (1959) (1)
“The Touch” (1971) by Ingmar Bergman (2)
“The Virgin’s Bed” (“Le lit de la vierge”), 1969, by Philip Garrel (1)
“Theorem” (1968) By Pier Paolo Pasolini (1)
“Tokyo Twilight”, 1957, by Yasujiro Ozu (2)
“Trophy Wife” (“Potiche”), 2010, by Francois Ozon (1)
“Tunes of Glory” by Ronald Neame (1)
“Uranus” by Claude Berri (1)
“Van Gogh” (1991) by Maurice Pialat (1)
“Vivre Sa Vie/My Life to Live” (1962) by Jean-Luc Godard (1)
“What are Clouds?” (1968) by Pier Paolo Pasolini (2)
“Whity” By Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1970) (1)
“Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”(1966) By Mike Nichols (Based on the Play of Edward Albee) (1)
“Yojimbo” (1961) and “Sanjuro” (1963) by Akira Kurosawa (1)
“Yojimbo” (1961) by Akira Kurosawa (1)
“You ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet” by Alain Resnais (1)
“Zabriskie Point”/ZP, (1970) By Michelangelo Antonioni (1)
Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Me and You/Io e Te” (2)
In Praise of Love/Éloge de l'amour (2001) By Jean-Luc Godard (1)
Margarethe Von Trotta's “Hannah Arendt” (1)
Review #2 of “What are Clouds?” (1968) by Pier Paolo Pasolini (1)
The One Who Cried When He Watched James Bond Movie(s) (1)
Sociological essays (158)
21st Century Ideological Mystification – The GOPists And DNCists Instead Of Conservatives And Democrats (1)
A Radical Change in the Nature of Modern Economy (1)
About Gay-labeling and Perception of Personal Life In “Technical Terms” (1)
Adult Victims of (Childish) Toys (1)
American Rich As Personifications of Greatness of Our Nation (1)
Americans Who Are “hypnotized” By Their Semi-prosperity Routine – Jobs, Careers, Hobbies, Holidays, Pills, Etc. And Habitually Don’t Look Outside (Or Look There Through Their Eyelids) (1)
Anti-democratic Psychopathology Of The Need To Be Entertained (1)
Artificially Induced Hunger for Currency (2)
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“Trump’s Anti-science Era Begins” (1)
Barack Obama’s Psychological Complex? (1)
Brief Notes on “Fascist”* Psycho-social Regression in Seemingly Normal People (1)
Brief Notes On Joseph Stalin Complex In Many Americans Today (1)
Camels with Strong Canine Teeth and with Hunches of Wealth (1)
Children of Money (1)
Clinton and Trump: Where Do They Stand On Science? (1)
Complicated Views As A Democratic Value (1)
Conservatives (Who Rely on Beliefs) and Technical Sciences (1)
Creation or Initiation of Wars as a Mental Disorder (1)
Cultural Illiteracy Leads To Psychological Totalitarization (1)
Daimonic As Energy of Cultural Creativity (1)
Democracy And Anti-democracy Inside Democracy (1)
Democracy As A (Democratic) Pluralism Of Mythological Narrations (1)
Destroying the Middle Class and Fabricating Enemies (1)
Destruction of the Humane Concept of Human Happiness (1)
Donald Rumsfeld’s “Imaginary Thinking” (1)
Drum-Trump, Bill-Mills* And Their Passionate and Poor Supporters (1)
Emotional Attractiveness of Totalitarianism (2)
Few Examples of Political Theft Of Utopian Promises (1)
Financial Stalinism (1)
Four Delusions of Grandeur (1)
Fragmentation of Psychological Wholeness (1)
Free Riders and Freaky Haters (1)
From (Democratic) Pluralism to Totalitarian Social Hierarchy (1)
From Fake Prosperity To Fake Reasons For Austerity (1)
From Prestige of Religious/Political Beliefs to Prestige of Social Elites (1)
From Traditional (Existentially Mass-cultural) To High-tech Entertainment (1)
Genocidal Gene In Many Of The Neocons And Neoliberals Today Who Are Afraid That People Will Deprive Them Of Their Power and Wealth (1)
Good News and New Goods For The One Percent Of American Population (1)
Hollywood Stars’ Socio-morphic Acting – When Movie-matic Medium Is Sensitive Only To Social Layer Of The World (1)
How Americans Failed Obama Challenge (1)
How Mass Culture Prepares Population for Austerity Measures (1)
How Money Hired Consumerism and Entertainment (1)
How Stalin Hardliners* Type Of Soviet Communists Have Resurfaced Under A New Ideological Skin Inside The American Democracy (1)
How to Handle the Beast (1)
Human Health And Longevity Are Linked To Socio-economic Status (1)
Human Illness As A Precious Natural Resource for Making Profit (1)
Hypothetical Notes On – Idealistic Bubbles In Political Calculations As Part Of Human Psychological Makeup (1)
Identification As A Psychological Mechanism Creating (Imaginary) Identity Of A People With Miserable Social Status And Those Whose Status Is Respectable (1)
Identification Based On Difference and Margarethe Von Trotta's Search For a Joint-gender Perspective (1)
Identification Of Viewers With Star/Character In Commercial Movies As An Example Of Totalitarian Symbiotic Togetherness (1)
Ideology in SRussia (Soviet Russia) and Bushmerica (1)
Infuriated Philistine’s Happy Hate (1)
It Happens Like This… (1)
Jean-Luc Godard – The Exceptional Film-director (1)
Legacy Of Psychological Retardation – Westerns As Our Tragic Mass-cultural Inheritance (1)
Liberal Psyche and Destiny of Liberalism in U.S. (1)
Logic of Fascization (1)
Luxuriously Euphoric Times (1)
Macho Men and Battered Women (1)
Manipulative Thinking As Rooted In Infantilism And Psychologically Regressive Behavior (1)
Mark Twain as a Cultural Authority (1)
Menacing Lessons of Junta (1)
Militarism’s Totalitarian Flavor (1)
Misinformation On Social Media (1)
Money-archy as a New Monarchy (1)
Moneysturbators – Trouble Tribe of Not Omnivorous And Not Carnivorous, But Moneyvorous Profit-makers (1)
Murderers Inside Us (1)
Nancy Paralyzi as a Licensed Scapegoat (1)
Narcissistic Bubble (1)
Neo-Conservative’s Rhetoric of “Free Market” (1)
Notes on Mass-cultural Americans (The Ones Who Have Mass-cultural Souls) (1)
Notes On The Amazing Post-WW2 Experiment Of Designing Human Behavior (1)
Notes on The Psychological Essence of “Conservative” Socio-political Posture (1)
Notes On The Toughers And The Gentlers – Two Halves Of The Majority of American Population In The 21st Century (1)
Pedagogy of Cultural Illiteracy (1)
People Who Exist Too Heavily … Drowned In Everyday Existence (1)
Perverted Alliance between Truth and Salary (1)
Plutarch’s Nightingale – An Etude Including Exercise In Lyrical Dystopia (1)
Political Hooliganism – A President's Verbally Uncivil And Rude Communications (1)
Politicians and Financial Entrepreneurs with Autistic Features (1)
Poorple and Wealthyple (1)
Populism as a Smiling Mask of Anti-humanism (1)
Post-WWII Radical Divorce Between American Generations (1)
Primal Scenes (Three Demons of Theatricality) (1)
Private Wealth’s Globally Expanded Predatoriness (1)
Prosperity Without Consumerism and Education Without Career Calculation (1)
Prozac Liberalism in U.S. (1)
Psychological Roots of Political and Financial Misbehvior (1)
Psychology of Political, Military and Economic Blunders (1)
Psychopaths Aren’t So Clever After All (1)
Rich Conquerors and Their (Poor) Servants and Bodyguards (1)
Rottweilers of Lord Bankfein (1)
Salivating Lickers of Coins (1)
Scientific Research Becomes Incompatible With The Predatory Mind Of Conservatism And Neo-Conservatism (1)
Setting Discord Between Groups and Populations (1)
Shift from “Communism” to “Democracy” in Russia (1)
Sissy Heroism or the Logic of an Abused Child (1)
Socio-political Dreams In Relation To Socio-political Realities (The Russian Communist Future And Totalitarian Present, German Aryan Superiority and The Third Reich,…) (1)
Socio-Psychological Essence of the Emotion of Hate (1)
Some Psychological Reasons For GOP’s Victory In Midterm Congressional Elections (1)
Stalin’s Political Ordeals (1)
Symbolism Of Torture (1)
The Builders Of American Dystopia – Political Apparatchiks Of Neo-Conservative Cause (1)
The Destiny Of Soul’s Thinking In The 21st Century’ (1)
The Difference Between a Democratic and a Conservative Sensibility (1)
The God’s Humor (1)
The Moment That Could Change the History (1)
The Neck generation of American Leadership (1)
The Planetary Royalty of 21st Century (1)
The Political Dance Of A “One-sided Compromise” With A Despotic Money-power – President Obama Faces Future Of A Possible Impeachment (1)
The Poor People’s Paradise, the Rich’s Hell – Relaxed Existence VS. Over-calculation (1)
The Ultimate Question Is Not Economic Efficiency, Profit-making Strategies (1)
The Various Degrees of Intellectual Qualification and Judicial Objectivity in the Participants in President’s Impeachment Hearing (1)
There are Two Types of People (1)
There is No Place for Wishful Thinking (1)
This Sweet Propaganda (1)
Those Who Sold American Democracy to their Own Pockets (1)
Three Causes Of American Addiction To Weapons (1)
Three Historical Betrayals (1)
To Survive in Order To Live VS. Live Just to Survive (1)
To those Who are Trapped Iin Mass-cultural Satisfactions (1)
Today’s Political Conservatism in U.S. (1)
Two Types Of Human Blunders – One Made By Our Very Humanity And The Other By Our Reliance On Our Instrumental Reasoning (1)
Unconscious Lying (1)
Victor Brauner’s “Symbolic Mutation I” – Socio-psychological Typology of Human Beings (1)
Vitalizing Addiction to Hate and to Fight (1)
Werner Herzog, A German Film Director And Screenwriter*, To America: (1)
What Communist party was for the Soviet (Totalitarian) Government, Corporations are for (Neo-conservative) American Government (1)
What Is the American Equivalent of What Communist Party Was for The Soviet Union? (1)
When Infantilization of Human Psyche… (1)
Why Americans with Conservative Sensibility vote against Their Own Interests and are Addicted to Hate-Talk Shows? (1)
Why Conservative Revolution In US Took Place Right After Soviet “Collapse”? (1)
Why is there no book Burning in U.S.? (1)
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Why Most Heroes of Hollywood Productions And TV Serials Are “Charismatic Everybodies” (1)
Why the Neo-Republicans Are So Passionate And Democrats So “Cowardly” As Political Fighters (1)
Why Uneducated People Love to be Fists, Muscles… (1)
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Young Males on the Bottom of the Social Pyramid (1)
Youth-abuse (1)
The Grand Slope (1)
Theatrical productions analyzed (1)
Victor's Poems (123)
Biography (.doc)
Victor Enyutin (Full)
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Letters to Readers
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2. Emotional Attractiveness of Totalitarianism
3. Artificially Induced Hunger for Currency and Consumption
4. Ideology in SRussia (Soviet Russia) and Bushmerica (America according to Bushmericans)
5. To those Who are Trapped into Mass-cultural Satisfactions and Consolations
6. Liberal Psyche and the Destiny of Liberalism in U.S.
7. The Destruction of the Humane Concept of Human Happiness
8. Psychological Roots of Political and Financial Misbehvior
9. Psychology of Political, Military and Economic Blunders
Emil Nolde’s “Christ and Doctors of the Law”
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom” (1976). Part 3 – The Torture. Introduction to Fascist Apocalypse
Milein Cosman’s Stravinsky, 1959 and Rostropovich, 1960
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “Salo Or the 120 Days of Sodom” (1976) – Part 2 - The Fascist Rituals
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom” (1976). Part 1 – The Fascist Tastes
Fabrizio And Agostino - From “Before the Revolution” (1962) By Bernardo Bertolucci
Anne Marie Mieville’s “The Book of Mary”, 1985 – Mary’s Improvised Dance-Pantomime (Under the Music of Gustav Mahler’s Ninth Symphony) As A Metaphor of Modern Way of Life
Addition to Max Ernst’s Painting “Monument to the Birds” (1927) – Man (Dad), Woman (Mom) and Two Children (Already Deadly Fighting For Existential Advantage)
Rembrandt Von Rijn’s “Judas Returning The Thirty Pieces Of Silver”, 1629
The Various Degrees of Intellectual Qualification and Judicial Objectivity in the Participants in President’s Impeachment Hearing
SHUBHANGI GUPTA 1730355 on Federico Garcia Lorca’s Poem “City That Does Not Sleep” – Impossibility of Truth (When Self-aggrandizement and Fight/ War Is More Important Than Truthfulness)thank you ...it was really helpful ! :)
Anne Sullivan on Max Ernst’s “The Blessed Virgin Chastising the Christ Child Before Three Witnesses: Andre Breton, Paul Eluard and The Painter” (1926) – When God In Christ Developed Human Sensitivity It Became Incompatible With Human BrutalityHello, Joseph Pedulla. The answer to your question "would not the human side find itself, occasionally, in need of chastisement" is no. Physical punishment is...
victor on Coffee mixed with sugar as a mixture of sugar and bloodWe today live in a very difficult times, when many laws are in a process of changing, and sometimes in a very radical way. To...
PoliceEducation on Coffee mixed with sugar as a mixture of sugar and bloodHi there, I read through a few of your articles here. I did have a question though that I hope you could answer. I was wondering, What...
James Watson on Pablo Picasso’s Portrait of Joseph Stalin (1953) – Stalin As An Object of the Artist’s Contemplation – Simpler than Any Painting, Flatter than Any Sculpture, Ruder Than Any Kitsch –Pablo Picasso was a genius besides just an artist in a time when the world was at War, most of his art was based on...
Constantin Brancusi’s Sculptural Series “The Kiss” (1907 – 1925): To Be Stuck in Personal relations to the Neglect of Understanding of the Public Realm (21)
Pablo Picasso’s Portrait of Joseph Stalin (1953) – Stalin As An Object of the Artist’s Contemplation – Simpler than Any Painting, Flatter than Any Sculpture, Ruder Than Any Kitsch – (4)
Mary Cassatt‘s Paintings – Mother and Child: The Mystery of the Disappearance of the Mother’s Face (4)
Marina Tsvetaeva’s “Ophelia – In Defense of the Queen” (1923) – The Value of Existential Paradox: The Logic of Aesthetic Exception (3)
Max Ernst’s ‘The Horde’ (1927) provides us with the metaphoric space for better understanding of The Invasion of the Bushmerican Adolfics (2)
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Difference between revisions of "George Staniforth Coyne"
From Natural Philosophy Wiki
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(→Other Work)
==Other Work==
September 2017 marked the publication date of his 368 page book Notfinity Process: Microcosms-in-Motion, which critiques the Big Bang Theory, quantum mechanics and relativity theory. In the category of new physics systems titles, his book was number one in the United States and Canada from the day it was published on September 21st, and fluctuated in and out of the number one spot for its category for the first two weeks. Over the next four weeks it remained in the top five spots.
Notfinity Process: Microcosms-in-Motion, which critiques the Big Bang Theory, quantum mechanics and relativity theory was published on September 21st, 2017. In the category of new physics systems titles, his book was number one in the United States and Canada from the day it was published on September 21st, and fluctuated in and out of the number one spot for its category for the first two weeks. Over the next four weeks it remained in the top five spots.
On September 22, 2017 Coyne had a lively and fascinating interview about his book on the youtube channel of Florida scientist David de Hilster. In November 2017 Coyne cancelled his agreement with the publisher. The second edition of Notfinity Process will be published by The John Chappell Natural Philosophy Society in April 2019.
George Staniforth Coyne
North Delta, BC, Canada
Cosmology and physics, member of Thescientific worldview.blogspot.ca and head of the Vancouver regional office of The Progressive Science Institute. Editor and writer for sciencewoke.org
George Coyne is a Canadian scientist, philosopher, author and counsellor. While critiquing relatvity theory and popular interpretations of quantum mechanics, he discusses alternatives that do not contain paradoxes or contradictions. He also writes about a new paradigm for consciousness, which does not require anything other than brain functioning. He is a board member of the John Chappell Natural Philosophy Society, a scientific society for the philosophical study of nature and the physical universe. He authored the 2017 book Notfinity Process: Microcosms-in-Motion.
Steven Bryant, computer scientist, theoretical physics theorist and author of Disruptive:Rewriting the Rules of Physics, writes: “On the forefront of the next scientific revolution, George is amongst the first to embrace theories like Modern Mechanics, which outperforms Einstein’s theory of relativity. George moves beyond the question of whether Einstein is right and instead begins answering: Where do we go from here? He challenges the scientific worldview by introducing his own ideas while synthesizing thought, theories and ideas of 21st century physics.”
2 Scientific History
3 Other Work
Coyne’s interest in science began at the age of four when first attempting to conceive of the Earth in the universe. Since his youth he has been exploring the wonders of the ways that we connect to our environment which led to his interests in philosophy, cosmology and theoretical physics. At age 11 he began wondering about what was involved in the concept of “time” and began questioning conventional assumptions about it. By age 15 he no longer accepted that time was a flowing thing. By age 20, he was sure that accepted definitions for time were invalid. He next began seeking definitions for matter, energy, and space, but was unable to find any that made sense. It appeared that scientists had no idea about how these concepts represented any particular thing or occurrence in the universe. To Coyne they appeared to be using their professional power to validate their views on these topics.
Scientific History
In his early 20s, Coyne began studying quantum mechanics and relativity physics. Many of the quantum mechanic books were on the Copenhagen interpretation, which did not seem possible. One of the biggest disagreements with this view concerned the concept that the universe cannot exist unless an observation occurs, or one makes a measurement.
In 1981 Coyne became interested in David Bohm's interpretation of quantum mechanics because it did not contain impossible concepts, contradictions, or paradoxes, such as duality. However, he did not agree with Bohm's contention that one could alternate between holding deterministic and indeterministic worldviews depending on the situation.
On August 1, 2014, Coyne began corresponding with Bohm's friend and associate, the late quantum physicist F. David Peat, the director of The Pari Center for New Learning. Coyne treasured his friendship with Peat, who encouraged him to expand on his writings on consciousness, which first appeared in Dr. Glenn Borchardt’s http://thescientificworldview.blogspot.com. Coyne shares Borchardt’s world view, and considers him to be one of his closest friends. Coyne began writing guest blogs for The Scientific Worldview web site in August 2015 including one co-written with Glenn Borchardt. He also contributes comments frequently to blogs on the website.
Coyne began corresponding with theoretical physicist Dr. Basil Hiley, who co-wrote “The Undivided Universe” with David Bohm and won The Majorana Prize for Best person in physics in 2012. Coyne is grateful for Hiley taking the time to clarify one of his concepts, which appears verbatim with permission in Coyne’s "Notfinity Process". Although Coyne was pleased to speak with Dr Hiley, and listened attentively to his paper at the Emergent Qunatum Mechanics David Bohm Centennial Symposium in London, England on October 27,2017, he did not get an opportunity to discuss physics with him over the three day symposium in a setting with over 1000 of some of the world's leading Bohmmian quantum physicists.
On July 22, 2017 Coyne presented a consciousness paper to scientists for the John Chappell Natural Philosophy Society international conference at the University of British Columbia. As a result of the high quality of the paper, with its unique explanation of consciousness, great interest from the physicists, computer scientists and other scientists in attendance, and from the general public who viewed it an astounding 2700 times on facebook within two months, Coyne was invited to the Board of the Board of Directors of the John Chappell Natural Philosophy Society.Its website provides the following statement: “CNPS provides an open forum for the study, debate, and presentation of serious scientific ideas, theories, philosophies, and experiments that are not commonly accepted in mainstream science. The CNPS uses the term “Natural Philosophy” in its broader sense which includes physics, cosmology, mathematics, and the philosophy of science. Our goal is to return to the basics where things went wrong and start anew.” Coyne also heads the Vancouver chapter of the Progressive Science Institute.
Coyne contends that there are huge invalidating issues with Einstein’s relativity, the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics and the Big Bang theory. Additionally he questions the idea of the psychological self as an entity. He proposes that it is merely a program in the brain. In Coyne’s view when a theory relies on invalid abstractions, he is willing to challenge its proponents regardless of how esteemed and powerful they may appear. If a theory has contradictions, then it cannot be valid. Coyne refuses to become emotionally invested in any theory, including his own. For him the search for truth is all that matters.
Although he has many disagreements with the prevalent interpretations of quantum mechanics, Coyne was pleased to accept an invitation from philosopher of mind Paavo Pylkkänen, the co-host of the emergent Quantum Mechanics David Bohm Centennial Symposium, to attend the October 26th to 28th, 2017 conference in London, England. Presenters included many of the world’s 37 leading physicists and philosophers, including Sir Roger Penrose. Basil Hiley, Max Tegmark, Paavo Pylkkänen, and mathematical physicist Maurice de Gosson. Coyne had an opportunity to confer with these researchers and many of the other speakers, participants and attendees.
On May 1, 2019 Coyne's article titled "Big Problem with the Big Bang Theory is scheduled to appear in the premier issue of Science Woke at www.sciencewoke.org.
Coyne has been asked to design and teach an undergraduate course—where students will learn about the the latest research on mind and consciousness—at the soon to be opened Chappell University, which will be offering online courses for credit. Coyne has not yet committed himself to teaching this.
Coyne resides in North Delta, a suburb of Vancouver, B.C. In his leisure time he enjoys reading and writing on theoretical physics, and discussing his physics cosmology and consciousness theories with others. He enjoys his physics discussions with a close friend whose papers are on the cause of gravity, electricity, magnetism, inertia and the structure of atoms appear in the peer reviewed journal "Physics Essays."
Coyne is a proponent of a whole foods organic vegan diet and is known to encourage others to avoid junk food and to participate in exercises that they enjoy.
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F1 Update: Abu Dhabi 2015
Night was falling as the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg led the assembled field to the grid at Yas Marina. Behind him was world champion Lewis Hamilton, who began complaining about that fact days earlier. Carrying the hopes and dreams of Italy was the third car on the grid, the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen. The oddball of the bunch sat in fourth position, the Force India of Sergio Perez. How would these worthies shake out at the end of the day? There's only one way to find out: THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2015 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi!
*OH JEEZ... REALLY?: When the lights went out, the usual headlong dive for the first turn began. Polesitter Nico Rosberg easily outpaced his rivals while Hamilton's poor start meant that he had to scramble to keep Raikkonen behind him. He accomplished this feat, which gave him a grandstand view of Rosberg galloping away. It wasn't a huge gap, only five seconds by the time first Rosberg, then Hamilton, pitted for new tires on Lap 10 and 11, respectively, but that would prove to be plenty.
*SO MUCH FOR THAT: The one true important contest remaining in the World Driver's Championship was for fourth. Williams' Valterri Bottas led Raikkonen by a single point... whichever man finished ahead of the other would take the position. Bottas and Williams took all the drama out of the duel early. First Bottas peed the start down the leg of his firesuit, dropping to 10th by the end of the first lap. Then during his first pit stop, the team released him just as the McLaren of Jenson Button angled into his pit box. The collision snapped the left side of Bottas's front wing clean off, and for whatever reason the team told him to leave the pits and return instead of stopping and having the mechanics pull him back. In any case, by the time he got his car around and the nose repaired he had dropped to last place and was never seen again.
*OH... HIM?: Due to a massive screwup in Quals by Ferrari, Seb Vettel started the race pretty much at the back of the field. He sure didn't stay there long; by the end of the first lap he was 12th, and then settled into tire conservation mode. While his rivals began pitting on Lap 9, he didn't make his first stop until 14 laps later, at which point he was in fourth place! After the stop, he had fallen to 6th, but by babying his tires he managed to work his way back up to fourth, practically without having to pass anybody on track. Maybe a boring strategy, but an effective one.
*BACK AT THE FRONT: The second stint was much more friendly to Hamilton, allowing him to close the gap to his teammate almost to DRS range. When Rosberg pitted on Lap 31, the entire race was there for Hamilton to take. He had been begging for an alternate tire strategy, any tire strategy, that could allow him to take the fight to the other Mercedes, and now he had the chance. The team left it up to him... and he let the team make the call. Rosberg would go on to win by over eight seconds, and Hamilton would go on to say that he "You have to rely on the engineers to give you the optimum strategy at that point," but that he "didn't understand it."
*IN THE END: The top three places were exactly the way the race began: Rosberg, Hamilton, Raikkonen. If it hadn't've been for Vettel getting in the way, it would have been the top five places, for Sergio Perez and Daniel Ricciardo, 4th and 5th at the start, ended up 5th and 6th. Yeah, it was that sort of "race"... and it was essentially the 2015 season in a nutshell. Only three drivers earned victories this year, Hamilton, Rosberg and Vettel (Hamilton 10, Rosberg 6, Vettel 3). The same three were the only polesitters (Hamilton 11, Rosberg 7, Vettel 1). The German national anthem was heard during every podium ceremony in 2015.
*SO.: And thus does the 2015 F1 season come to an end. We're only 109 days away from the first race of the 2016 season, at Australia... but we'll start seeing the rollouts of the new cars a lot sooner than that. One of them will be the first design for the new official team of F1U!, HaasF1. We all hope that they'll be enough to make next year interesting.
Thanks for reading this year, and we'll see you soon enough!
*ALMOST FORGOT: Noah would be pleased with the final driver's championship standings.
Two by two... two by two.
1 What significant rule changes are coming for 2016?
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at November 29, 2015 08:53 PM (+rSRq)
2 For the most part, nothing. The biggest ones have to do with tires.
There's going to be a new tire compound, "ultrasoft". I can only assume that they'll begin to degrade before they get put on the car and fail after one lap, but provide enough grip to snap the neck of any driver foolish enough to use them.
The other big change is that Pirelli will be bringing three tire compounds to each race instead of two, and allowing the teams to choose which two they want to use during the race.
Posted by: Wonderduck at November 29, 2015 10:04 PM (zAcee)
3 Tire changes. Well, that'll make things interes-- *thud* *snore*
Maybe we'll get lucky and more teams will get powerplant improvements?
Posted by: GreyDuck at November 30, 2015 08:43 AM (rKFiU)
4 Well, the tire thing has the potential to make things a little more interesting... one team may decide to go with ultrasoft and supersoft, for example, while the other goes with soft and supersoft.
The team with the US and SS will be bananas grippy on the track, but will have to be REALLY careful about how fast they chew through their tire allotment. Meanwhile, the team with the SS and S choice will still get a speed boost from the SS of the two, but be able to run a lot faster on the S.
So... um... er... strategery!
5 The only problem is that teams SHOULD have enough data to know what the deltas are for the various tire sets, by the end of P3; there will be an optimum and just about everyone will run that.
My real problem is the tire degradation. I get that they're trying to inject an element of strategy into things, but oy. This season featured damned little actual racing, because the tire degradation ensured that anyone who hung off someone else's bumper for more than a lap or two would ruin their own race as their tires gave up the ghost early. Maybe with the three sets of tires available, that will scratch the strategy itch, and they can afford to make them durable enough that the drivers will dare to close in and stay close.
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at November 30, 2015 06:44 PM (/lg1c)
6 there will be an optimum and just about everyone will run that.
Except not all cars treat their tires the same way, nor every driver. I could see the Red Bulls, who were relatively gentle on their rubber, taking a more aggressive tire selection than, say, the Mercs.
7 And if it's threatening rain on race day, everyone will have to choose mids as one of their tires. And if it turns out to be dry, they're stuck with the other one they chose for the entire race.
8 Not necessarily, Steven. The teams automatically get both Inters and Full Wets, so they could still go with their choice of dry tires and count on the wellingtons to get them through.
Posted by: Wonderduck at December 01, 2015 12:23 AM (zAcee)
While We're Waiting For F1U...
People have asked me, "Wonderduck, why do you like LeMans so much?"
THAT right there. That's why.
That's Audi's entry into the 2016 World Endurance Championship's LMP1 class (or whatever the top prototype class is called these days). My word, that's quite the looker. I mean, I love F1 cars, but c'mon, they haven't looked this good in years. And that livery! That's poster material right there.
I kinda geeked when I first saw the pictures.
1 That is QUITE the looker, isn't it? Wowza.
2 Pretty! Do they plan to pull it off track at random intervals to check for continued rules compliance?
Posted by: David at November 29, 2015 02:46 PM (+TPAa)
3 David, what is it that you think they might find?
4 Steven, he's probably making reference to the recent VW emissions scandal. Audi is part of the VW group.
5 The livery is great, except for Bib on each front fender. It looks like he's running in a desperate attempt to keep from being run over.
Posted by: Mauser at November 29, 2015 05:54 PM (5Ktpu)
F1 Quals: Abu Dhabi 2015
Here's the provisional grid for the 2015 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi. Stop me if you've heard this one before:
1 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:41.111 1:40.979 1:40.237
2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:40.974 1:40.758 1:40.614
3 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:42.500 1:41.612 1:41.051
4 Sergio Perez Force India 1:41.983 1:41.560 1:41.184
5 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing 1:42.275 1:41.830 1:41.444
6 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:42.608 1:41.868 1:41.656
7 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:41.996 1:41.925 1:41.686
8 Felipe Not Nasr Massa Williams 1:42.303 1:42.349 1:41.759
9 Kid Kvyat Red Bull Racing 1:42.540 1:42.328 1:41.933
10 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 1:42.911 1:42.482 1:42.708
11 Embryo Verstappen Toro Rosso 1:42.889 1:42.521
12 Jenson Button McLaren 1:42.570 1:42.668
13 Pastor Maldonado Lotus 1:42.929 1:42.807
14 Felipe Not Massa Nasr Sauber 1:42.896 1:43.614
15 Lettuce Grosjean Lotus 1:42.585 No Time
16 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:42.941
17 Fernando Alonso McLaren 1:43.187
18 Sony Ericsson Sauber 1:43.838
19 Will Stevens Marussia 1:46.297
20 Roberto Merhi Marussia 1:47.434
Yup, it's another Mercedes 1-2, with Rosberg taking his sixth pole in a row. The big news, though, is that Ferrari's Seb Vettel never made it out of Q1. The team told him that he had gone fast enough to make it to Q2, so he backed out of his final flying lap to preserve tires... and then Jenson Button's McLaren bumped him. Oy.
Up at the front, Lewis Hamilton actually was quickest in Q1 and Q2; Rosberg just killed it in Q3, though, and that's the only one that really matters. There's actually a chance that the nearly .40 sec gap will increase, as Hamilton may have his fastest lap thrown out for violating track limits. He'd still be in 2nd, though.
Other than all that, however, it was pretty much bog-standard. Which is what I expect Sunday's race to be as well. But who knows? Maybe it'll rain.
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1 Force India in 4th is a bit of a surprise.
2 How is it Hamilton had a faster time in Q1 and Q2 but is still second? Or is that just because you only use one table for all three rounds?
Posted by: Rick C at November 28, 2015 06:25 PM (FvJAK)
3 Rick, the table's organized by final qualifying positions. Exactly what position you finish in, for Q1 and Q2, is unimportant if you aren't low enough to get knocked out.
Posted by: Avatar at November 28, 2015 06:44 PM (v29Tn)
4 Steven, if Ferrari hadn't peed Vettel's Q1 down the collective legs of their firesuits, Perez would likely be a more palatable fifth. The grunt of the Mercedes engines definitely dominates down those two long straights, and reportedly Force India is running a little bit more wing because of that. It slows them down, but improves handling in the twistybits.
Rick, what Avatar said... the chart shows the final grid positions, but also shows the best time per driver per session. It's a convenient way to do it, instead of having three separate charts.
It wasn't until sometime late last week that I discovered that the office was not going to be open on Black Friday. Four day weekend! Now, to be honest, I wouldn't have minded working today all that much... it's not like I have to deal with retail customers as a medical claims processor... but I'm not going to look a paid day off in the mouth of a horse of a different color.
Things have taken a distinctively positive turn at The Job. I cleared the first major hurdle of averaging 100 claims a day a few months ago. I then set a goal of averaging 20 claims an hour, or 160 claims per normal day. I've sunk that one a few weeks back, and set sail for 200/day. Almost immediately I reached that milestone. Even better, I've now worked at The Job long enough to be paid on merit for each claim. For the past three months I was locked at $.50/claim. Once you hit merit pay, the base amount per claim drops to something like $.34. However, you then get bonuses based on your accuracy levels on three separate categories. If you're not making too many errors, these bonuses add up to truly pleasant levels... like, twice as much as the base amount? Combining my recent speed boost with that means that my per-hour rate is looking truly inspirational.
There is one little problem though... I haven't worked a full eight hours in a day in two, maybe three weeks. There's some long-winded reasons for that that I'm not going to get into, but there's one smaller reason that just makes me facepalm so very hard. See, as you may remember, the medical industry recently switched from the ICD-9 standard of coding to ICD-10. This is actually one of those few changes that makes a lot of sense... ICD-10 allows for much more accurate coding of incidents. Just making up an example, ICD-9 would code for "broken arm, right." ICD-10 codes to "broken arm, right, upper, enclosed fracture, honey mustard sauce." However! The implementation date for the new coding had been pushed back multiple times, and it appears that a lot of medical facilities just assumed that would occur again. This means that it's taking longer for claims to get to us, as doctors' offices and clinics and all those sorts of places try to figure out software and codes they've been neglecting.
Other than that little problem, though? Things are okay. The mp3 player allows me to mostly tune out the world... except for one person. This person, who we'll call Louise because that isn't her name, is a talker. Worse, her voice has a lot of throw weight to it, much the way nuclear weaponry has throw weight. She doesn't ever whisper, so everything she says is quite audible, even when she isn't talking loudly. Remember, this is in a relatively quiet workspace as well. The job is hard enough without hearing her discuss her lunch in detail. Polite requests for her to be quiet had a couple hours' worth of effect. More formal complaints fell on deaf ears or worse, led Louise to complain to the manager of the entire office... "boo hoo, they're picking me." Frustrating. One feature of this job is that long-term people with good speed and accuracy are often allowed to work from home. Combine that with the usual workforce churn and open seats tend to appear. When enough of those occur, a reorganization invariably takes place. Remember, in the Duckford office, we actually work with four different medical insurance firms, and it's always best to get the workers for a firm in one place. New employees, for example, will always get put into The Big Room before they get shuffled to their real room. This reorg occurred on Tuesday... and Louise was moved from her seat in the cube directly in front of me to one literally as far away as possible from me and still be in the same room.
I ain't even sad that she was there first.
That very Tuesday, I cranked out my best claims day ever... I was within spittin' distance of 300 when we ran out of 'em. Coincidence? Nope. I could listen to my music without fear of hearing her "huh?" rip through Athena's Barcarolle from ARIA... I have a four minute long live recording of it on the mp3 player that can manage to bring tears to my eyes. So work is okay. And it's not in a mall. No complaints at the moment. And hey, four days off!
1 Glad to hear things appear to looking up at work. And since you had today off, a test! What is the ICD code for stomach distress brought on by eating too much fried turkey?
Posted by: Siergen at November 27, 2015 04:00 PM (De/yN)
2 R63.2
3 Good to hear that life has taken a positive turn!
It's always nice to have productive days at work. I'm at the office with just about nothin' going on (we OUGHT to close on Black Friday, but we don't, because the company's just that way; whatever, I'm paid by the hour.)
So I'm just running database archives, reading Churchill (into August '44), and messing around on the internet. Got a PS4 earlier today, the Black Friday crowds thinned out by some really miserable weather. Good, I hate standing in line!
Love the Tonari no Seki pics. ;p
4 We knew you could do it, even when you had your doubts at the beginning.
5 Av, Rumi is the goddess of reaction shots. A hell of a great show, too.
6 Unimpeded music enjoyment for the win! I'm glad things are looking brighter, man.
I was at work the full day, but it was for a good cause. I got my ticket count down into merely the mid-20s, from the all-time high of 37 I was looking at earlier this week. And today, we stopped down for a full game of Cities & Knights of Catan. With two newbies, no less. (I still lost. I often lose. The dice HATED me today. You start the game with three points, goal is thirteen, and I ended the game with... five.)
Posted by: GreyDuck at November 27, 2015 11:39 PM (rKFiU)
Visual Novel Review: Go! Go! Nippon!
I'm not what I'd call a "gamer" by any stretch of the imagination. Make no mistake, I do play computer games, sure, but I'm not one of those hardcore creatures who eat and sleep videogames all the time. We have a few of those at work actually, and they're great fun to talk to. They accept me as one of their own, ever since I recognized Vault-Boy on one of their cellphone's lock screen. I haven't been able to talk to them recently though, as the three of them are playing Fallout 4 like they'll die if they don't... and talking about spoilers. As I've managed to avoid all details of the game except those given in the first Official Trailer, their conversations tend to send me screaming from the break room. I have a feeling that I'll get into the game the same way I did Skyrim or Fallout 3 once I obtain a copy, though. But I'm not a heavy-duty gamer. One particular type of game that I've never really gotten into is the Visual Novel, though I've played a few. If you've never played a Visual Novel, understand that it's not a "game" the way, say, Mass Effect or Portal or Pong are games. Most of the time, you're just reading words on the screen much the way you read a book. Upon occasion, you have the ability to influence the course of the story by making a decision ("Go to sleep" or "Go out and party"; "Invade Russia" or "Invade Britain"... that sort of thing). For the most part, VNs are distinctly Japanese, and some very good anime series have been made from them. Kanon, for example, was first a VN... I tried to play it, but I got a nasty virus from the copy I obtained. I did manage to play some of Clannad, but never came close to finishing. On the whole, in fact, the few VNs I've played, I've given up on long before I completed the storyline/s. Ironically, the two that I have finished weren't actually Japanese! Katawa Shoujo was made by a volunteer group from all over, and Sakura Spirit by an American company; both were written in English. Which brings us to the subject of this review.
Go! Go! Nippon! (GGN) was released in 2011 by Overdrive, a Japanese company. Unlike pretty much every VN ever, it was developed exclusively for the overseas audience... English speakers, primarily. Shortly after I was disassociated with my position at the Duck U Bookstore, I stumbled across a promo video for GGN on Steam. Amused, I put it in my Steam Wish List for later perusal... and then it went on sale last Thanksgiving. Five dollars later, it was in my library. I enjoyed it, but it was short... five hours got me through the entire thing. Eh, fair enough. I then put it aside and never touched it again. Until recently, that is. Y'see, about a month ago Overdrive released what they called DLC for the game. In reality, it was an almost complete rework of GGN. As it, too, was only a few bucks, I bought it. So what's it all about?
One of the great things about Kickstarter is how it allows Japanese developers and English language localization groups to determine the market demand for visual novels, especially the big ones - the really, really big ones, since Clannad is probably the largest single game (In terms of script.) ever written. A gamer who wants to play visual novels from Japan no longer has to either learn Japanese or hope that the English language publisher does not go out of business - the latter was what happened to Hirameki International, who released the excellent Ever 17 and was planning on bringing over the rest of the Infinity series before they went under. Hirameki also brought over, using a clunky DVD game interface, Hourglass of Summer, which while falling into dating sim/renai game, is an excellent game in its' own right.
Digital releases has also opened-up a number of visual novels that would have never seen the initial hardcopy release in the US. MangaGamer has been so successful with some of their releases that they later had hardcopy runs for those titles. And we have the JAST group of labels that has partnered with NitroPlus to release some of the best known VNs in the US - as well as some notorious ones from other developers (Cough...School Days...Cough.).
So life is getting to be pretty good for people who want to play in English, any VN that is not made by Type-Moon. I will admit to wishing that Sentimental Graffiti had a translation when it was released on PSN, but we can not always get what we want.
Posted by: cxt217 at November 25, 2015 12:32 AM (f5AGK)
2 Funny you should mention Clannad, since the official English version was just released on 11/23.
Posted by: Wonderduck at November 25, 2015 12:49 AM (zAcee)
3 Good review, though oddly the most useful thing I got out of it was in the above comment, after which I put Clannad on my Steam wishlist. *wry grin*
4 Moreover, Clannad is beating a few surprising things despite its high price ($42). I think it crushed Fallout 4 grossing at Steam last I checked.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at November 25, 2015 02:27 PM (XOPVE)
5 It would a funny thing mentioning Clannad, if I had not be one of the people who backed the Kickstarter campaign. I like the physical, no-DRM copy better.
Posted by: cxt217 at November 25, 2015 04:17 PM (BmTJR)
6 I like the physical, no-DRM copy better.
Meaning your copy will arrive in a few months. If Steam is the DRM you're talking about, I can live with it. Hell, I've been using Steam for six or seven years now. As far as DRM goes, it's the friendliest such thing ever... but we're not having that conversation here.
If immediacy was a concern, that might be a point, but my backlog is truly sizeable right now, so a couple of months is not an issue.
Posted by: cxt217 at November 26, 2015 08:28 AM (3OVVu)
F1 on TV: Abu Dhabi 2015
And so we come, not to the end of the beginning, nor the beginning of the end, but just, simply, the end. The final race of the 2015 Formula 1 season. A season which started eight months ago in Melbourne. Along the way, we've seen one of the less-interesting seasons of racing in recent history. So what does this finishing contest promise? Let's take a look at the track map for the 2015 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi.
We've been here plenty of times before, and pretty much what we've learned is that this is a awful track to race on. Fun to drive, yes, but to contest position? There's one good place to pass, Turn 8/9, with Turns 5-7 being somewhat less swell. Remember, this is the circuit where they thought it would be a good idea to have the pit exit run underneath the track. I suspect it's merely luck that we haven't seen that idea backfire horribly.
So what's the point of this race? Well, Valterri Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen in a fight for fourth place in the driver's championship, one point separating them. Lotus leads Toro Rosso by nine points for sixth in the constructor's championship. And... um... that's about it, really. Most teams will probably be using Abu Dhabi as an extended test session... remember, the 2016 season is only four months away!
The Legendary Announce Team has the coverage, as usual. Here's the schedule:
Practice 2: 7a - 830a live on NBCSN
Quals: 7a - 830a live on CNBC
2015 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi: 6a - 9a live on NBCSN
We'll be along afterwards, of course, with the usual F1Update!. Join us, won't you?
1 I don't even find this track to be very fun to drive. It's my least favorite track in every racing sim that features it.
Posted by: flatdarkmars at November 23, 2015 11:12 PM (LhHjb)
2 Why is it that you think running the pit exit under the track is a potential disaster?
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at November 24, 2015 06:13 AM (+rSRq)
3 Steven, here's a look at the inside of the tunnel. All it'll take is one enthusiastic driver spinning his steed to cause a blockage. Or a broken suspension, or an unfortunately timed engine failure. Or, god help us, a fire.
That it hasn't happened yet just means that it's going to happen eventually.
4 Steven, someone wrecked their GP2 car in the tunnel today. It's just a matter of time...
Moses Supposes?
Erroneously? Magnificently!
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1 Magical!
Any idea what the story is behind the ghost girl? She's totally charming here.
Posted by: Mauser at November 21, 2015 05:16 AM (5Ktpu)
2 I got nuthin', I'm afraid. Except "charming" is a good word for it.
3 So how much global warming fell on you last night?
4 Pond Central had around seven inches of climate change. The Olde Home Pond, about five miles north, wound up with about 12". My doctor's office is in a town about 15 miles north of them... they got 16".
From the stairway to the parking lot, it didn't look like that much. Came as quite the surprise when I went out to clean off the DuckMobile, lemme tell ya!
5 That is so full of the awesome!
Posted by: The Librarian at November 21, 2015 04:40 PM (JQjLr)
6 Now that's a short film to cheer up a winter's morning.
7 They still make 'em like they used to.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at November 22, 2015 09:27 PM (PiXy!)
Stagnant? Moi?
Not intentionally... at least, not since that last post. My internet connection has been completely down since very early Wednesday morning.
This is very very annoying. It's not like I need help in not blogging, after all. The connection has been up for only a short time... my modem fired up as I was looking at it, in fact... but I have no confidence in it staying up, so I thought I'd better get a notification posted. And when I clicked to finalize this post? The internet had gone down again. Guess I was right. Wow, five minutes of internet in over a day. Considering this provider's track record at times, I guess I should count myself lucky.
On the other hand, I managed to watch a few episodes of Sakura Trick, which I was told was really really good. I will never take this person's word for something ever again. However! Attention Steven! The character in the picture above normally wears red quarter-rimmed glasses! Even BETTER than half-rimmed! If you wanna see, check out Ep03 and beyond.
Just... don't pay attention to the show. Or be at risk of diabetes, and by "at risk" I mean "you once ate or drank something that had some sort of sweetener in it." And if you actually have diabetes, avoid Sakura Trick like the plague. Dear god, this series will kill you dead.
1 Is there an ICD code for "poor quality internet connection"?
2 Avoiding like the plague, gotcha.
Man, down internet is terrible. Welcome back. Doesn't look like you missed much...
3 Siergen, Y93.C9.
Avatar, it's like the Production Staff took the worst bits of Girlfriends and decided "that'll make a great 12 episode series if you just turn it up to 11." And then covered it in honey and rolled the whole thing in powdered sugar and donuts. Cream-filled donuts. Where the cream is actually ice cream.
4 I thought it was called "Yuri Trick".
5 Nah. Sakura are ever-present in this show; a translation calling it "Yuri Trick" might be unintentionally hilarious, though.
6 I thought yuri was also ever-present.
In Sakura Trick? Oh yes, that's very much the case. In a cloying, clingy, cringe-worthy sort of way, yes.
Random Anime Picture #105: Such A Day
-Hibike! Euphonium Special, Ep05
Frustration abounds. I can't get a grip on blogging for length right now for whatever reason, despite having two projects I want... need... to finish. Meanwhile, it feels like The Pond is stagnant, like a tiny Minnesota lake filled with muddy water and ice fishing equipment.
I hate this.
F1 Update: Brazil 2015
Here's what sort of race we had today from São Paulo: we spent the entirety looking at the sky, praying the distant clouds would make their way over the circuit and drop just a little bit of rain. Anything. Please. We beg you. THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2015 Grand Prix of Brazil!
We watched the race live. We've read a bunch of post-race reaction. We even went back and watched the 15 or so laps we missed when we dozed off (the F1U! team slept neither long nor well last night; by the time the 10am start came around, we'd already been up for four hours and were running on a similar amount of sleep). We cannot come to any other conclusion but this: the 2015 Grand Prix of Brazil was a dud. The Mercedes of Nico Rosberg led wire to wire except during the pit rotation, and even then he was out of the lead for a total of two laps. Teammate Lewis Hamilton had nothing for the polesitter, unable to mount a substantial challenge at any time. This includes the start, where Rosberg simply got off the line better and faster and held a gap into the first turn... no pushing and shoving beween teammates this time around! The closest we came to a Hamilton challenge to Rosberg's dominance was late in the race. The reigning Champion cut the lead down as close as 1.3 seconds with something like 10 laps to go. It was a false image however, as Hamilton had to light his rear tires on fire to accomplish it. He wound up nearly eight seconds back when the race finished.
Which put paid to the so-called storyline of the race. In the runup to Brazil, the F1 press was full of Hamilton's desire to win at Interlagos, home of his hero Ayrton Senna. He's never won in Brazil, though it's the home of arguably his greatest moment, his first world championship. On and on they went about Hamilton wanting THIS victory. And he didn't get it. And nobody really is surprised by this. Hamilton is a great driver, maybe the best on the grid right now, but he's not so much better that he can will himself to win. When Hamilton is behind Rosberg, he needs his German teammate to make a mistake. Sometimes Lewis can force that mistake, often he can't. This isn't a knock on Hamilton, nor praise for Rosberg. It's just an observation. Today, Rosberg didn't make a mistake that Hamilton could exploit.
Rosberg's victory also locked up second place in the driver's championship for him. Seb Vettel, who finished third in the race, had very little room for error today. He was 21 points behind his countryman, but with only 50 points left available he had to make sure he kept that gap from growing. The Mercs were too good today, however, and he should be commended for only being 14 seconds behind Rosberg at the end. His teammate, Kimi Raikkonen finished in fourth, and how dominant the Mercedes were should be evident by the information that he was the last driver on the lead lap. That's right, the silver cars lapped the field up to Valterri Bottas's Williams in 5th today.
We also saw the Constructor's Championship pretty much finished up to 5th place today as well. Mercedes, Ferrari, Williams, Red Bull and Force India are locked in, and how amazing is it that Williams is in third? Two years ago, they had a grand total of five points, good for 9th place in the constructor's championship. It's great that the second most successful team in F1 history is back... now if only they could challenge for wins.
If it sounds like we're struggling to find things to talk about regarding the 2015 Grand Prix of Brazil, it's because we are. This wasn't just a bad race, it was a boring race. Particularly when compared to the two that came before it, Mexico and the US. Hopefully the finale in Abu Dhabi will be better, but we have our doubts. And then the season will, mercifully, be over.
We'll see you in two weeks!
1 What I think is most astounding is that the two Mercedes cars and the two Ferraris lapped the entire rest of the field.
2 Well, Raikkonen was 47 seconds back, so he probably hadn't gotten up to Bottas et al, but your point is sound. There's two legit teams, then Williams and Red Bull.
Posted by: Wonderduck at November 16, 2015 08:37 AM (a12rG)
F1 Quals: Brazil 2015
Decent weather at Interlagos today, more's the pity, but the track is still naturally slippery. So what's the grid like for Sunday's race? Take a look:
3 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:12.240 1:11.928 1:11.804
10 Embryo Verstappen Toro Rosso 1:12.824 1:12.712 1:12.739
12 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 1:13.267 1:13.045
13 Sergio Perez Force India 1:13.140 1:13.147
14 Sony Ericsson Sauber 1:13.346 1:13.233
15 Lettuce Grosjean Lotus 1:13.056 1:13.913
16 Pastor Maldonado Lotus 1:13.385
17 Jenson Button McLaren 1:13.425
18 American Rossi Marussia 1:16.151
NC Fernando Alonso McLaren No Time
Not much to say about this, really. Rosberg has taken his fifth consecutive pole, Alonso's McLaren died on track with yet another bum engine.
And the president of the FIA, Jean Todt, didn't so much step on a landmine as jump up and down on a landmine when he said to French TV station Canal+ "do you realise that the number of people killed in road accidents is by far bigger than the number of people who died in Paris yesterday?" I understand he took the opportunity to promote the FIA's road safety program, but that was not the time.
Jean Todt is French, by the way, and the FIA's headquarters are in Paris. Just saying.
Race in the morning.
1 Open mouth wide, jump in with both feet, after first cladding those feet with sturdy crampons. Hooboy.
2 Mercedes qualfied 1-2. What a surprise.
3 I know, I was totally shocked.
Please Consider This A Teaser
Uh... huh.
Just a little something I picked up via Steam a few weeks ago... well, actually, it's the new extended version of something I picked up on Steam back when I booted from the bookstore. Since it was selling for less than the cost of a couple of Chicago Style hot dogs (hold the peppers and cucumber slices, please!) and fries, I figured what the hell.
In a lot of ways, that's still my reaction, though it's more like "what the hell?!?" now. We'll see when I'm done and get it written up.
1 Hooboy.
I picked up the first of the Hyperdimension Neptunia revamps in a fit of "what the hell". I... am not sure whether that was a brilliant or an idiotic decision.
Neptunia Rebirth:1 should be a great game on the PC, since it is what the first game might have been if the developer had not run out of budget during development. But it can be an idiotic decision to get it on the PC without getting an USB game controller to play the game, due to the awkward nature of the keyboard controls during fast-reaction/reflex game segments (Which are not the actual battles, strangely enough.).
I like very much that it is available for direct download, via GoG, the same way the first two Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky games are. I despise Steam and the necessity of using it for some games.
Posted by: cxt217 at November 13, 2015 07:02 PM (Xdq+D)
3 I despise Steam...
Posted by: Wonderduck at November 13, 2015 07:09 PM (a12rG)
Because if I want to play a game, I do not care how light on system resources it is, I do not want a client running in the background to allow me to run the game.
I do not want the game publisher to force you to update a game whenever they want, if you just want to play a single-player campaign. It would be different for a multi-player match, but almost all the games I play are not designed that way, and I have do not play them that way either.
I do not want to install a game from physical disc and then sit through having the ENTIRE game install get downloaded from Steam before I can play it. That actually happened with both XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Enemy Within. That makes me feel like I am renting the game at full price.
It may be a mild form of DRM, but I do not want DRM that requires a client.
Lastly, there have been other digital download clients that did not force you to run the client whenever you started the game. There is no physical law of the universe that mandates that Steam has to follow Xbox Live as its' operation model.
5 I don't mind Steam, but if a game is available on GOG I'll certainly go there first. And the first Neptunia game just happens to be on GOG now.
(Also, not all games on Steam need the Steam client to run, but it's not something they exactly advertise...)
F1 on TV: Brazil 2015
The fact of the matter is that I hate Interlagos, the site of the 2015 Grand Prix of Brazil. I always have, and though I know it's an irrational hate, I probably always will. Even though the circuit has been upgraded to fix the ridiculous pit-in that nobody paid attention to and therefore it always looked like they were going to pile into the wall of the pit lane at 200mph, the memories remain. Here's the track map for the place:
Really, I'm just about the only F1 fan out there who doesn't like Interlagos. The drivers adore the place (except for the occasional attempt at armed robbery), the Brazilian fans (that's a lot of fans!) are both well-versed in the sport and insane, and it's uncommon to have a poor race. Even the part that I used to hate the very most, that it was the last race of the season, has changed, with that title now in the oil-stained hands of Abu Dhabi. So why, exactly, do I still hate Interlagos?
Because I'm a stubborn mule of a lifeform that refuses to allow such things as logic to get in the way of my peccadilloes when it comes to F1. Enough of this place, I hope the two manmade lakes that give the place its name overflow their banks and flood the whole kit 'n' kaboodle. Safely, of course.
Despite my loathing of the place, the Legendary Announce Team (which does not, in fact, respond to my every whim, unlikely as that seems) will be doing their usual outstanding job at coverage. Here's the schedule for the broadcast weekend:
Practice 2: 10a - 1130a live on NBCSN
Quals: 10a - 1130a live on CNBC
2015 Grand Prix of Brazil: 930a - 12n on NBCSN
This actually surprises me somewhat; even though they've done four races on NBC already, for whatever reason I thought Brazil would be on the Mother Network. Wow, look at me, I'm wrong, perhaps for the first time this post. Anyway, that's it. I've given enough of my attention to this... place... for one day. Of course, I'll force myself to cover Quals and the race this weekend, so I don't get to escape completely! See ya then!!!
The Four Faces Of Kei 'n' Yuri
In the comments of the last post, friend Ben asks what anime series I'd like to see get remade due to age or quality. While I didn't type my answer immediately, the second I saw the question I knew how I'd be replying: The Dirty Pair. If not the actual first "girls with guns" series, Dirty Pair was certainly the first to be hugely popular. The adventures of Kei and Yuri have been around for nearly 40 years, and I've been a fan since sometime in the '90s. Light novels, one 26 episode TV series, three movies, two completely different OVA series, and even US comic books cover most of the source material of these great characters. Along the way, only two things have stayed more or less constant with the visual designs: Kei has red hair and Yuri dark hair, and the two are female. Obviously one of the most important aspects of a remake of such a legendary franchise would be the updated character design. With any luck, the production company involved would pay attention to what had come before. With that in mind, let's take a look at the evolution of the best known 3WA Trouble Consultants, shall we?
Mughi changed, too!
1 I still have a mess of the Adam Warren comics in boxes in a closet here. If I remember correctly (always a crapshoot...) my first real experience with Dirty Pair was a bootleg VHS unsubtitled copy of "Nolandia Affair."
Yes, I still have it.
I wouldn't say that any incarnation of The Dirty Pair is the best of its kind, but I will always have a warm place in my heart for these two walking disasters...
2 Thanks for posting this. I've been rewatching all the Dirty Pair that Hulu has as a part of my recent subscription there (going ad free and liking it, at least in short bursts. Talked about it a little here. It wasn't my first anime, there's a close tie between Robotech, Sailor Moon and El Hazard. Robotech and Sailor Moon were on early mornings while I was in middle and high school, but I didn't recognize them as anime per se at the time. El Hazard is the first thing I watched on Laserdiscs with a script sheet somewhere the same year I graduated in '95.
Either way, I love the OVA intro and music still.
Posted by: Tom Tjarks at November 09, 2015 10:26 AM (XbFxF)
3 The Smith/Warren collaborations are up there with Project Eden as my favorite incarnations, but Warren's solo efforts don't do it for me; his character designs simply aren't attractive. Actually, in general, his art style has gone in a direction I have no interest in.
IIIRC, Sim Hell, while listed as a Warren solo, still had a lot of story input from Toren, which explains why it was better than what came after.
Posted by: J Greely at November 09, 2015 11:37 AM (ZlYZd)
4 ...his character designs simply aren't attractive.
Ergo, "It's not to everybody's taste." I agree with you, by the way; Toren Smith was almost like control rods in a nuclear plant... remove them, and Warren went crazygonuts with his designs. I think he's an excellent artist, but I have a hard time with what he did to Kei & Yuri in his solo stuff.
5 On his own, Warren seems to draw every woman like an inflatable sex doll, with lips set for Full Suck. Consider this panel from the unpublished Quick & Dirty story he started in 2004. With luck, it will remain unpublished.
Posted by: J Greely at November 09, 2015 09:22 PM (ZlYZd)
6 Over on his deviantart page, there is a sketch labeled "extra pouty".
Which would be his default level of lips a little while later.
7 Some of his work on "Empowered" goes even further, to the point where Emp in profile doesn't look quite human, with a barely visible upturned nose and the lips and jaw thrust so far forward she looks like she's in mid-werewolf transformation.
Yeah, he's been going further and further astray. From obsessively busy backgrounds to this compulsion to hang signs on everything. But on the other hand, I just cant resist stuff that mucks around with the Superhero Genre.
8 ..."Project Eden," that's the VHS I have. Not "Nolandia Affair."
Has anyone seen my marbles?
I didn't get past "Sim Hell" in the Warren comics, and from everything I've heard, that was a wise decision on my part. Those lips shown in the above comments aren't so much "pouty" as "balloon-like." Nooooot appealing, Mister Warren.
9 I love this series. (except for Flash. that was garbage). I own practically everything English done for this series. The dvds/movies, comics, two novels, comics,and even a few figurines. I found years ago Masi Oka was said he might like to do a live action film for this, but it's not gonna happen.
Sadly, there is one huge episode I do not like; episode 10. I felt they left it open-ending. The girls were trapped in jail, the boy prince and this girl ran off and they faded to black. It was dumb.
Other than that, I'd watch the rest of the series.
Posted by: Rokusho at March 29, 2019 12:25 PM (MfGno)
I... Uh... Hm. Well.
Frighteningly accurate representation of Wonderduck blogging these days
Blogging is not happening. I'm trying, but nothing's happening. Sure, I've got things to write about, Gakkou Gurashi Ep06 first and foremost, but everytime I sit and begin to type, it all comes out... boring. Dull. Insipid. Uninteresting. How in the world do you make the zombie apocalypse boring? I dunno, but I'm managing to pull it off! So I'm not going to blog tonight. Do you have anything you'd like to hear me pontificate upon? Or, conversely, not talk about because you don't want it ruined by a boring blogger? Let me know in the comments... or don't, if you think that's a safer option.
Posted by: Wonderduck at 07:44 PM | Comments (21) | Add Comment
1 Anime you wish would get a remake from scratch due to age or quality?
Posted by: Ben at November 06, 2015 08:23 PM (kDUUX)
2 I saw in an offhand comment of yours someplace that aside from your interest in World War II with which we are all happily familiar, you are also fascinated by the Falklands war. I can't recall any posts you've made on that subject...
3 Ship-hunting B-25 bombers in the south Pacific during WW2. What? We all enjoy your WW2 posts.
Posted by: UtahMan at November 06, 2015 11:49 PM (Psydk)
4 @Ben, that one's easy! I want a remake of Dirty Pair. I want the classic characters (i.e., not Dirty Pair Flash, which isn't really Kei and Yuri, no matter how much I enjoyed it) with modern artwork. Special bonus points if they adapt the Dark Horse comic "Biohazards" for the plot... be a nice tribute to Toren Smith, too.
@David, I am fascinated by the Falklands War, for a couple of reasons. To begin with it was my "first war", the one that I lived through occurring. Oh yes, Vietnam ended after I was born, but that doesn't really count as I was either five or seven, depending on which date you use as an ending (US withdrawal or fall of Saigon), and completely uninterested. Even today Vietnam holds no interest for me, oddly enough, other than how it affected the US military later. But the Falklands? I was 14 and a wargamer by then... and it was in the newspapers and on TV news. I couldn't help but be interested. Nowadays, it's the only modern naval war ever, but in many ways it could be confused for a Pacific War campaign too: switch the Argentinians with Japan, and the Brits with 1942-43 US, and suddenly a lot of it becomes comprehensible. But I don't know as much about it as I should.
@UtahMan, did Steven put you up to that? Heh. The Mitchells did great work in the Pacific, and the thought of a B-25J carrying 18 .50cal MGs strafing a freighter or destroyer is enough to make my blood run cold.
5 I really, really enjoyed Max Hasting's history of the Falklands War. Years of massive diplomatic cock-ups, utter failure of US diplomacy caused by a capture of the relevant State Department divisions by their local interests, the UK operating right at the end of their resources, all redeemed in the end by a carefully-preserved military professionalism, a few lucky chances, and a healthy dose of just plain being extremely British under stress.
It's also a cautionary tale, in this day of China claiming twenty things under the sun in the South China Sea.
UtahMan, did Steven put you up to that?
Not guilty. (But interested. B-25 strafers were one of the most successful improvisations of the war. They were so successful that North American sent a group of engineers to Australia (not exactly a safe trip) to observe and investigate. And then North American started building B-25's which were equipped that way.)
One reason the Falklands War is interesting for naval history fans is that it is the only time since the end of WWII that a submarine sank a surface ship in anger.
And as far as I know it's the only time since the end of WWII that anyone other than the Americans has used carrier-based aircraft in combat.
And it featured a surface ship sunk by a torpedo. The only other such case I can think of was when NK torpedoed a SK patrol ship, though that isn't officially acknowledged.
There have been several warships since the end of WWII hit and sunk by missiles, but torpedoes (as good as they are) just haven't been used.
7 And as far as I know it's the only time since the end of WWII that anyone other than the Americans has used carrier-based aircraft in combat.
The French have as well, flying missions off the Charles de Gaulle in Afghanistan. Planes from Australia's HMAS *Sydney* flew missions over Korea.
As it turns out, Argentina has used carrier planes in combat, too... planes off the 25 de Mayo supported the initial landings on the Falkland Islands. She didn't participate in the naval battles afterward, however.
8 > in many ways [the Falklands War] could be confused for a
>Pacific War campaign too
...right down to a WW2 light cruiser being sunk by a salvo of an unguided torpedo of WW2 design.
Rather a sad end for a ship that had fought so hard and well through the entire Pacific War...
(While refreshing my memory on this, I blundered across some more things I hadn't known: that in the 1971 war between India and Pakistan, an Indian frigate was torpedoed and sunk by a Pakistani submarine, and that planes from INS Vikrant, India's only carrier, flew combat sorties, mostly in an anti-shipping role.)
Posted by: Ad absurdum per aspera at November 07, 2015 10:54 PM (470Py)
9 Ah, I forgot about the Vikrant! She was the only Indian carrier at the time, later being joined by the Viraat. The Indians are seriously into carriers, what with the Vikramaditya in service and the new Vikrant scheduled for service in 2018.
Yes, the INS Vikrant proved to be very useful in the anti-shipping role. The Indians always did manage to operate, at least for a little while, the most interesting pieces of equipment - they actually leased a Charlie-I SSGN from the Soviets in the 1980s, though the poor safety factors of Soviet nuclear submarines left a bad impression with the Indian navy.
Non-US carriers have been involved in quite a few combat operations post-WW2. Royal Navy carriers were involved almost from the beginning of UN intervention during Korea. French carriers operated during the Indochina War, along with French F8F Bearcats. Both British and French carriers were involved in combat operations as part of Operation Musketeer, during the Suez Crisis.
In the category of 'not war/not peace,' British and Australian carriers were part of the Commonwealth military deployment for the Confrontation/Konfrontasi with Indonesia - which was the single largest deployment of British and Commonwealth naval forces since WW2. Given the tensions between the two nations (Which almost led to a shooting war at one point.), 25 de Mayo might have been used for the purpose the Argentinians had bought her for - against the Chileans.
And of course, HMAS Melbourne, who never saw action against the enemy yet still managed to sink two destroyers during her career...
the new Vikrant scheduled for service in 2018.
That is the current plan, but Indian military development and procurement projects tend to slip right...A lot. I would not be surprised if the in-service date finally occurred some time after 2020.
12 Tells you what I know...
Another thing that just occurred to me - Operation Musketeer was the last time that a non-US battleship fired in anger, when Jean Bart let loose a few rounds at Egyptian positions.
And of course, for the Falkland War, we have 1) the mysterious one-way flight of the Sea King from HMS Hermes to its' final resting place in Chile, almost certainly for the purpose of delivering some Sports And Social boys along the way; and 2) the reply that Argentinian Army Brigadier General Mario Menendez apparently had when told that he was going to command the defense of the Falklands - along the lines of 'what the hell are you talking about?' to his superior.
Posted by: cxt217 at November 08, 2015 01:13 AM (Xdq+D)
14 Yeah, the Argentine forces had their own problems. Murphy is the enemy of both sides; the British had done (most of) the necessary hard work to fence him off, the Argentinians hadn't. I'd say "well, the Argentine invasion plan was kicked off prematurely" but, y'know, they had a lot more advance warning than the British did!
Posted by: Avatar at November 08, 2015 03:15 AM (v29Tn)
15 I would be most curious regarding the Hermes' Sea King story. Sounds interesting....
Posted by: The Old Man at November 08, 2015 07:29 AM (duGaw)
"well, the Argentine invasion plan was kicked off prematurely"
More like 'let's do this today, otherwise we will be in jail or dead tomorrow.' The decision to invade the Falklands was ultimately based on the need to do something to distract the Argentinian people from their opposition to the Junta more than anything else (Something which Christine Kirchner seems to have fallen for.) before it became strong enough to throw them out of power. The invasion was a surprise to most of the Argentinian forces - hence Menendez' reply.
Of course, I would be remiss to not mention the most famous aircraft from the Falkland War - Bravo November, which is still flying! And unlike the US Navy, who (Usually.) regard an officer who lost his ship as being morally and professionally suspect regardless of the cause, the Royal Navy ultimately promoted Alan West to First Sea Lord, despite losing HMS Ardent.
17 The B-25 is my personal favorite WWII aircraft. Ever since I saw a "Wings" documentary on it on the History Channel. I referred to the model with 8 .50's in the nose as 1940's disintegrator technology.
My understanding was that for strafing, in the field they would mount some guns in the wings, but the engineers didn't think that was a good idea, and added the nacelles. Although they did have to reinforce the skin near the barrels because of the muzzle blast beating it up.
There was a beautiful example at the Reno Air races this year, and I got a fantastic shot of it during a fly-by. B-25 on DeviantArt.
If you can find a copy, look at the book "Fire in the Sky". It has an extensive discussion of what was done to the B-25 in Australia and why. The original hack version did mount the MG's on the main body. I don't think they were ever mounted on the wings.
Also, the original hack was done by maintenance crew in Australia, particularly a guy named Paul Gunn. Engineers only got involved after North Americann sent some to see what was going on.
I won't try to reproduce it here; it's many pages long and it's fascinating.
19 Allow me to second Steven's praise for Fire In The Sky. Eric Bergerud covers the air war in the south Pacific during the years 1941-1943 in his second book of a sadly incomplete "South Pacific Trilogy". It's not a day-by-day account, but instead a look at the battlefield, the crews and, most importantly, the equipment used. Some may not like his writing style, which does tend to jump around some, but it didn't particularly bother me. Oddly enough, I purchased it the last time I was unemployed, which as it turns out was just shortly after it came out in paperback... so my copy is nearly 15 years old now.
The one bad thing about it is that it's a very odd format, larger than your average paperback history book, smaller than hardcover, but maybe three or four inches thick. If they had decreased the size of the print a tad, it probably would have made it less unwieldy.
20 I originally bought it in hardbound, but now I have a copy on my Kindle.
21 While Touched With Fire is an excellent work that I have no trouble recommending, I will probably never read Fire in the Sky again, despite the quality of work and information. For whatever reason, Eric Bergerud decided to use the first person in far too many points in the book, which is both puzzling and often entirely pointless. The frequency got to be so grating that I had to put it down and read something else before I could finish. Never again.
Random Anime Picture #104: A Different Gate
-GATE, Ep03
There's an awful lot to like about last season's GATE... I mean, who doesn't like the idea of fighting dragons with attack helicopters, or taking on an army of orcs with a swath of .50cal machineguns?... but to my mind Rory Mercury, demigod and Oracle of Death, heads the list.
Just don't get on her bad side. Or be nearby when she gets hungry.
I want a crossover with Rio: Rainbow Gate! now... call it Rio: Rainbow GATE. Oh, the joy I would feel seeing Rory Mercury let loose on Casino Island, or the JSDF shooting down Sky Resort with a few F-4 Phantoms. This needs to happen.
1 Rory the flying squirrel! Chuka beach volleyball! Cowgirl Lelei!
2 That would be too awesome for this universe to contain. You'd have to create a parallel universe for the sole purpose of containing the additional awesome.
Also, where. are. my. Rory. figures?
3 Rory the flying squirrel!
Ahem... it was a Sugar Glider costume. We take our RRG! costumes seriously around here.
Rory figma, yes please!
4 I liked GATE.
I loved Rory.
I mean, not her as a "person" but her as a character. Short of Itami himself, she is given the most depth and range. She's far and away the most dangerous creature in the entire show. (Rory and Shino defending the gate in Italica was an amazing sequence; no competition between the badass warrior women, no friction, just immediately each having the other's back.) She (almost) always knows exactly what's going on, and is honest enough with herself to admit that some of her behavior is because she knows that her hourglass is running out of sand.
Yeah. In conclusion: Rory.
F1 Update: Mexico 2015
Here's the thing: we here at F1U! don't particularly want to do our usual update. Instead, what we're going to do is something a little more free-form, step aside from our usual bullet point format with generalized info about the race as a whole. We've realized that unless we're going to write 2500 words, there are plenty of better places to get lap-by-lap coverage. We digress, however... THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2015 Grand Prix of Mexico!
We had another Mercedes 1-2, with Nico Rosberg beating his teammate Lewis Hamilton (who did, of course, win the Driver's Championship at the US Grand Prix) rather handily. Williams' Valterri Bottas took the third step on the podium, followed by the Red Bulls of Kid Kyvat and Daniel Ricciardo. For the first time since 2006 neither Ferrari finished the race, and more about Seb Vettel's day later. However, on the whole the race was something of a disappointment. After Friday and Saturday's sessions, we were expecting to see cars slithering around like "grip" was a four-letter word. Which it is, but not that sort of four-letter word. Tails stepping out, slow speed spins, that sort of thing. Instead, we got very little of that. The reason for that is fairly obvious: the sun was out and the track surface was some 30°F warmer than it had been on Friday and Saturday. Warm pavement equals warm tires which means more grip... apparently just enough to keep cars glued to the surface. As a result, the race ended up much like any other, though the high altitude did limit the usefulness of the DRS. We saw very few DRS-related passes down the 1.2km long front straight... when you're already down 20% on drag due to a lack of air in the air, losing a bit more doesn't make that much of a difference.
One thing that didn't disappoint were the 115000 Mexican fans that showed up. From cheering insanely whenever Sergio Perez did anything (and practically having orgasms when he executed a pass at the above turn!) to chanting "Nico Nico Nico Ole Ole Ole!" just before the podium ceremony, they put on a show that was at least as entertaining as the race itself. It's no stretch to say that, at least for one race, the lunatic fans at Monza were given a run for their money. If they're always going to act this way, we here at F1U! don't care if the race is humdrum... the fans were incredible.
"Incredible" would be a good way to describe Seb Vettel's day. Filled with confidence that his Ferrari would be able to hang with the Mercedes, he had a less-than-stellar getaway from the start, was passed by Kid Kvyat almost instantly, then had a run-in with the other Red Bull that resulted in a punctured rear tire. It took only a short distance for the tire to fail completely, forcing him to finish the rest of the lap at a walking pace. Once the tire was replaced, he set his cap to make up for the delay. For a while, all looked fine. Soon enough it became obvious that the three-time Driver's Champion wasn't so much driving his car as he was over-driving it. An unforced spin that luckily ended without hitting anything brought frustrated radio calls. A pitstop that saw the Ferrari put onto the medium tires instead of soft brought another hail of radioed complaints. Things got so bad that he was lapped by Rosberg and he impeded Hamilton enough for blue flags to be thrown in his direction. The pit wall had to get involved, telling him to let the Mercedes by... to which he replied "I'm faster than him!" While perhaps true, he was still a lap down. His miserable race came to an end some 20 laps early, embedded in the wall on the outside of Turn 7. He escaped injury, but the Ferrari was toast. So, too, are his hopes for second in the driver's championship as it was his chief rival who won the race.
Finally, Lewis Hamilton seemed to be in something of a complaining mood during the race. From disobeying an order to come into the pits for new tires to disagreeing with tire choice, he certainly seemed to be feeling his oats as a new repeat champion. Or perhaps he realized that he wouldn't be able to pass his teammate on track so trying a very long one-stop strategy was his best shot. As it was, the team thought his his tires were being worn to the fabric backing, but that wasn't good enough for Hamilton. "I still think this was the wrong choice," was the call to the pit wall after the tire change in question. Understandably, the pit wall's response was brusque: "We can discuss it later." It's almost like he doesn't trust his team...?
The penultimate race of the season is in two weeks at Brazil. We'll see you then!
1 I liked the stadium. Great design, especially putting the podium there too. Sounds like the fans had a hell of a time.
F1U! Mexico Delayed Because Of Idiot
After the race, I took a nap. The race ended around 3pm, and I went to sleep around 6pm-ish.
It's almost midnight. I only just now woke up. I'm an idiot.
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GreyDuck I certainly can't blame her, no way no how. entry
Mauser This just tops off the loss of Mike Resnick. Wonder who #3 is going to be. entry
GreyDuck I've had an on-again/off-again relationship with the band's work but I could not and will not ever d... entry
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Home › Blogs › Altalex.EU Blog › A brief overview of the legal regulation of mediation in some EU jurisdictions
A brief overview of the legal regulation of mediation in some EU jurisdictions
di Stefano Biondi
Categories: Business Law Consumer Law Contract Law
Typology: Articles
Tags: Business - Consumer - Mediation
The Mediation Directive (2008/52/EC) was enacted in the context of the EU cooperation on civil and judicial matters. Its aim is to set forth a common framework for mediation in cross-border litigation, in order to reduce the costs associated with these often complex controversies and to improve access to justice; the directive also aims at ensuring the enforceability of cross-border mediation agreements, provided that the parties have given their explicit consent (art. 6).
The directive provides a broad definition of mediation, which encompasses both court-annexed and out-of-court mediation. It covers mediation in civil and commercial matters, and does not apply to those controversies arising between citizens and public authorities with regards to acta jure imperii, i.e. acts and omissions related to the exercise of state authority.
Its scope of application is relatively narrow, because it is restricted only to mediation occurring between parties domiciled or habitually resident in different EU member states. The directive has thus no effect on the legal regulation of merely domestic mediation agreements. This notwithstanding, many Member States have taken advantage of the Directive’s implementation to re-consider the regulation of mediation not only for cross-border, intra-EU controversies,
but also for merely domestic ones.
The Directive considers mediation as a voluntary process, which the parties are in charge to organise and terminate. Nevertheless, it does not exclude the possibility for states to mandate the use of mediation in specific types of controversies; moreover, it does not preclude domestic measures to encourage or invite the parties to consider this ADR technique. The Directive also stresses the need for Member States to promote mediation with appropriate means of publicity, and the necessity for lawyers to inform their clients about its advantages. Finally, it provides that Member States should encourage mediators and mediation service providers to adhere to voluntary codes of conduct as well as to engage in continuous professional training.
Mediation in Italian Law
In 2009, the Italian Parliament enacted Law n. 69/2009, which empowered the Executive to implement Directive 2008/52/EC, as well as to regulate mediation in civil and commercial matters according to some general principles (art. 60, Law n. 69/2009). A few months later, the Executive enacted the first comprehensive legislative instrument on mediation, D. Lgs. n. 28/2010.
According to the new rules, parties can freely choose to make recourse to mediation in civil and commercial matters if the controversy has as its object a “disposable right”. In addition, D. Lgs. n. 28/2010 explicitly mentions some categories of disputes in which mediation may not be used. These include, inter alia, those pertaining to payment orders issued following a summary judgment, to the release of rented real property, to possessory rights, to oppositions to enforcement orders, to damage actions filed within criminal proceedings and also those adjudicated by means of special proceedings held without public hearing.
In the act’s original wording, there were some categories of controversy in which civil proceedings could not be commenced without a prior attempt to resolve the matter through mediation -such as, among others, those concerning real estate and hereditary law, condominium law, road traffic accidents, medical negligence, insurance and banking contracts. Recently, the obligation to make recourse to mediation in the types of controversy mentioned above has been found unconstitutional, because D. Lgs. n. 28/2010 had exceeded the limits set forth by Parliament in the parent legislative act (Constitutional Court, decision 6 December 2012, n. 272). Thus, at present, there is no mandatory requirement to attempt mediation (although requirements to attempt conciliation in labour litigation and in consumer contracts for the provision of telecommunication services were and remain in force since before D. Lgs. n. 28/2010).
Mediation can also be “judicial”, in the sense that the parties are invited by the judge to consider it; the judge does not, however, conduct the mediation himself. The invitation can be made until the last hearing.
Voluntary mediation is requested by one party to an accredited organism and should be completed within 4 months. If an agreement is reached, and a court certifies its conformity with ordre public, it can be judicially enforced.
If an agreement is not reached, the mediator should propose the terms for a friendly settlement; the parties’ refusal will be noted on the mediation procedure’s minute and will have adverse consequences on the judicial proceedings costs.
Mediators should belong to a public or private mediation service provider accredited by the Ministry of Justice; they should have a University Degree requiring three years of full time study or have a high school diploma and be a member of a professional organisation (such as that of Accountants, Surveyors or Agronomists); in addition, it is necessary to attend a course of no less of 50 hours to be eligible to become a mediator and also comply with continuing education requirements.
Mediation in English Law
In the Anglo-American world, mediation has long been a widespread ADR technique, especially in commercial litigation.
In England and Wales, however, the decision to make recourse to mediation was, and remains, wholly voluntary. In civil litigation, each party may require the other to consider mediation, and the judge also has a free-standing power to invite, but NOT to compel, parties to consider doing so (“duty to consider mediation”). Failure to give appropriate consideration to the proposal will have adverse consequences on costs.
CPR rules (art. 3.1(2)) state that courts should help “the parties to settle the whole or part of a case” (Sec. 1 (4)(2)(f) ); this includes an invitation to consider ADR (including mediation) in the pre-trial stage. In addition, in order to be eligible for legal aid, parties in disputes before family courts should attempt mediation first.
Enforceability of mediation agreements, which have not been declared enforceable in other EU Member States, can be obtained in England by filing a court application. If the matter is being litigated, the application should be submitted to the court where the relevant judicial proceedings are pending; otherwise, it should be submitted to the High Court or to courts marked as “civil” (for mediation agreements in civil matters) or as “family” (for mediation agreements in family matters).
Recently, a pilot scheme to automatically refer parties of small claims (up to £5,000) to mediation has been introduced (59th Update to the Civil Procedure Rules, in force since 1 October 2012). This applies to parties that have not objected to mediation before the commencement of judicial proceedings.
Although it is not compulsory to have any special qualification to act as a mediator, several private bodies in the UK provide mediation services and establish professional codes of conduct, accreditation and continuing professional training requirements for mediators.
Mediation in Spanish Law
The Decreto-Ley 5-2012 has transposed the Mediation Directive into Spanish Law and has reformed the rules regarding mediation in that jurisdiction. The aim of the legislator was not only that of decreasing court caseloads, but also that of promoting a mediation “culture” in Spain.
Mediation is always voluntary, although mediation agreements must also bear the signature of the mediator (art. 23.2).
Moreover, the enforceability of a mediation agreement requires the authentication of a notary public (art. 25), who will verify that the mediation rules have been respected and will certify that the agreement’s content does not breach the law.
However, mediation for claims up to 600 euros will be conducted by electronic means, unless this is impossible for any of the parties involved (art. 24).
The Decreto-Ley also establishes that mediators should follow a specific training pathway delivered by appropriate accredited institutions.
Mediation in French Law
The Ordonnance n°2011-1540 of 16 November 2011 transposed the Directive into French Law, by amending the civil procedure code and adding a specific heading on amicable dispute resolution. However, several aspects had already been regulated by the Loi of 8th February 1995 and the Décret of 22nd July 1996.
It is possible to agree to voluntary mediation (“Médiation Conventionnelle”, Code of Civil Procedure, Arts. 1532-1535) or to be referred to it by a judge, if the parties accept (”Médiation Judiciaire”, Code of Civil Procedure, art. 131). In this case, the mediation procedure should not last over 3 months, which can be extended by a further three months.
The agreement reached in the context of both types of mediation becomes enforceable upon homologation by a court.
The Ordonnance n°2011-1540 of 16 November 2011 also set forth new requirements for professional mediators. It is sufficient to be mentally competent, to have a clean criminal record, to have an appropriate qualification in light of the controversy’s nature or to have training or experience suitable for the practice of mediation (Civil procedure Code, art. 131-5).
Mediation in German Law
In German Law, several Länder have implemented successful court-annexed mediation plans (i.e. mediation mandated by courts, but without their direct involvement). In addition, German Law also established and promoted an efficient and highly respected form of “judicially performed mediation”, whereby judges themselves act as facilitators (“outside” of their role of judge) while the trial is pending, in order to encourage a friendly settlement of the controversy. This is also consistent with the requirement of §278(1) and 279 of the ZPO, which affirm that judges should help the parties of civil proceedings to settle the matter before taking a decision.
The new German legislation on mediation (Gesetz zur Förderung der Mediation und anderer Verfahren der außergerichtlichen Konfliktbeilegung), enacted in 2011, recognises both models.
Mediation requires the assent of all parties, with the exception of a few categories of controversies, where civil proceedings may be commenced only if an amicable solution has been sought through mediation, conciliation or other ADRs (e.g., § 135I and § 156I of the FamFG, requiring parents seeking a divorce to undergo counselling on mediation and other ADRs, or Arbeitsgesetz, §54, requiring an attempt to conciliate before labour controversies). Moreover, mandatory attempts to mediate exist at Länder level, in matters falling within the jurisdiction of their courts (normally, small claims up to €750 or claims concerning neighbourhood or defamation disputes). Federal incentives are available to the parties that use mediation both in local and in federal courts at reduced costs.
Despite its voluntary nature, the new §253(3) of the ZPO requires the plaintiff to mention if there has been an attempt to pursue mediation or to give reasons as to why this has not been done. Failure to do so may result in the claim being inadmissible.
Enforcement of agreements is regulated by the ZPO, §§ 794-795 and 797. For out of court mediation, lawyers have the authority to draft enforceable agreements (so two parties need two lawyers to draft an enforceable mediation agreement); otherwise, it is necessary to resort to a notary public (who can also act as a facilitator in the dispute) or to an entity providing ADR dispute resolution services.
Mediators need not be accredited, but the new German statute refers to the possibility of becoming “certified mediators” upon completion of a course and by fulfilling a continuing professional training requirement.
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Business to business – Terms and conditions for supply of goods and services
The Buyer’s attention is particularly drawn to Clause 14
means Utility Assist Ltd of Evesham Road, Redditch, B97 5LJ.
the person who buys or agrees to buy the Goods/and or Services from the Seller.
the terms and conditions of sale as set out in this document and any special terms and conditions agreed in writing by the Seller.
the items and or services which the Buyer agrees to buy from the Seller as set out in the Order.
the price for the Goods, excluding VAT and any carriage, packaging and insurance costs.
Force Majeure Event
has the meaning set out in clause 16.
patents, rights to inventions, copyright and related rights, trade marks, business names and domain names, rights in get-up, goodwill and the right to sue for passing off, rights in designs, database rights, rights to use, and protect the confidentiality of, confidential information (including know-how), and all other intellectual property rights, in each case whether registered or unregistered and including all applications and rights to apply for and be granted, renewals or extensions of, and rights to claim priority from, such rights and all similar or equivalent rights or forms of protection which subsist or will subsist now or in the future in any part of the world.
the Buyer's order for the supply of Goods and/or Services, as set out [the Buyer's purchase order form OR overleaf OR the Buyer's written acceptance of the Seller's quotation OR in the Buyer's purchase order form, OR the Buyer's written acceptance of the Seller's quotation, OR overleaf, OR as agreed verbally, as the case may be].
the services supplied by the Seller to the Buyer as set out in the Order.
Seller Materials
has the meaning set out in clause 12.1.6.
2. Conditions
These Conditions shall form the basis of the contract between the Seller and the Buyer in relation to the sale of Goods and/or Services, to the exclusion of all other terms and conditions including the Buyer’s standard conditions of purchase or any other conditions which the Buyer may purport to apply under any purchase order or confirmation of order or any other document.
All orders for Goods and/or Services shall be deemed to be an offer by the Buyer to purchase Goods and/or Services from the Seller pursuant to these Conditions.
Acceptance of delivery of the Goods or commencement of the Services shall be deemed to be conclusive evidence of the Buyer’s acceptance of these Conditions.
These Conditions may not be varied except by the written agreement of [a director of] the Seller.
These Conditions represent the whole of the agreement between the Seller and the Buyer. They supersede any other conditions previously issued.
3. Price The Price shall be the price quoted on the Order or as agreed verbally.
4. Payment and Interest
Payment of the Price and VAT shall be due within 28 days of the date of the Seller’s invoice.
Interest on overdue invoices shall accrue from the date when payment becomes due calculated on a daily basis until the date of payment at the rate of [8%] per annum above the Bank of England base rate from time to time in force. Such interest shall accrue after as well as before any judgment.
The Buyer shall pay all accounts in full and not exercise any rights of set-off or counter-claim against invoices submitted by the Seller.
The Goods are described in the Order.
The Seller reserves the right to amend or change the specification of the Goods if required by any applicable statutory or regulatory requirements.
The Seller warrants that for a period of 6 months commencing on the earlier of either the date of delivery of the Goods, or the commencement of the Services , the Goods and/or Services shall:
conform with their description;
be of satisfactory quality with the meaning of the Sale of Goods Act 1979;
be fit for any purpose held out by the Seller; and
be carried out in accordance with the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982.
Delivery of the Goods shall be made to the Buyer’s address. The Buyer shall make all arrangements necessary to take delivery of the Goods on the day notified by the Seller for delivery.
The Seller undertakes to use its reasonable endeavours to despatch the Goods on an agreed delivery date, but does not guarantee to do so. Time of delivery shall not be of the essence of the contract.
The Seller shall not be liable to the Buyer for any loss or damage whether arising directly or indirectly from the late delivery or short delivery of the Goods. If short delivery does take place, the Buyer may not reject the Goods but shall accept the Goods delivered as part performance of the contract, and a pro-rata adjustment to the Price shall be made.
8. Acceptance of the Goods
The Buyer shall be deemed to have accepted the Goods five working days after delivery to the Buyer.
The Buyer shall carry out a thorough inspection of the Goods within two working days and give notice in writing to the seller after discovering that some or all of the goods do not comply with the Warranty above, the Buyer must return the Goods to the Seller at the Buyer’s cost and the Seller shall, at its option, repair or replace any Goods that are defective, or refund the price of such defective Goods.
Where the Buyer has accepted, or has been deemed to have accepted, the Goods the Buyer shall not be entitled to reject Goods which are not in accordance with the contract. (See Clause 12)
Risk shall pass on delivery of the Goods to the Buyer’s address.
Notwithstanding the earlier passing of risk, title in the Goods shall remain with the Seller and shall not pass to the Buyer until the amount due under the invoice for them (including interest and costs) has been paid in full.
Until title passes the Buyer shall hold the Goods as bailee for the Seller and shall store or mark them so that they can at all times be identified as the property of the Seller.
The Seller may at any time before title passes and without any liability to the Buyer:
repossess and dismantle and use or sell all or any of the Goods and by doing so terminate the Buyer’s right to use, sell or otherwise deal in them; and
for that purpose (or determining what if any Goods are held by the Buyer and inspecting them) enter any premises of or occupied by the Buyer.
The Seller may maintain an action for the price of any Goods notwithstanding that title in them has not passed to the Buyer.
10. Carriage of Goods
Carriage will be chargeable on all sales under £15:00exc VAT.
11. Supply of Services
The Seller shall provide the Services to the Buyer.
The Seller shall use all reasonable endeavours to meet any performance dates for the Services specified in the Order, but any such dates shall be estimates only and time shall not be of the essence for the performance of the Services.
The Seller shall have the right to make any changes to the Services which are necessary to comply with any applicable law or safety requirement, or which do not materially affect the nature or quality of the Services, and the Seller shall notify the Buyer in any such event.
12. Buyer’s obligations
The Buyer shall:
Ensure that the terms of the Order are complete and accurate;
Co-operate with the Seller in all matters relating to the Services;
Provide the Seller, its employees, agents, consultants and subcontractors, with access to the Buyer's premises as reasonably required by the Seller to provide the Services;
Provide the Seller with such information and materials as the Seller may reasonably require to supply the Services, and ensure that such information is accurate in all material respects;
Obtain and maintain all necessary licences, permissions and consents which may be required for the Services before the date on which the Services are to start; and
keep and maintain all materials, equipment, documents and other property of the Seller (Seller Materials) at the Buyer's premises in safe custody at its own risk, maintain the Seller Materials in good condition until returned to the Seller, and not dispose of or use the Seller Materials other than in accordance with the Seller's written instructions or authorisation.
If the Seller's performance of any of its obligations in respect of the Services is prevented or delayed by any act or omission by the Buyer or failure by the Buyer to perform any relevant obligation (Buyer Default):
the Seller shall without limiting its other rights or remedies have the right to suspend performance of the Services until the Buyer remedies the Buyer Default, and to rely on the Buyer Default to relieve it from the performance of any of its obligations to the extent the Buyer Default prevents or delays the Seller's performance of any of its obligations;
the Seller shall not be liable for any costs or losses sustained or incurred by the Buyer arising directly or indirectly from the Seller's failure or delay to perform any of its obligations as set out in this clause 12.2; and
The Buyer shall reimburse the Seller on written demand for any costs or losses sustained or incurred by the Seller arising directly or indirectly from the Buyer Default.
All Intellectual Property Rights in or arising out of or in connection with the Services shall be owned by the Seller.
The Buyer acknowledges that, in respect of any third party Intellectual Property Rights in the Services, the Buyer's use of any such Intellectual Property Rights is conditional on the Seller obtaining a written licence from the relevant licensor on such terms as will entitle the Seller to license such rights to the Buyer.
All Seller Materials are the exclusive property of the Seller.
14. Limitation of Liability: THE BUYER’S ATTENTION IS PARTICULARLY DRAWN TO THIS CLAUSE
Nothing in these Conditions shall limit or exclude the Seller's liability for:
death or personal injury caused by its negligence, or the negligence of its employees, agents or subcontractors;
fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation;
breach of the terms implied by section 2 of the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 (title and quiet possession);
breach of the terms implied by section 12 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 (title and quiet possession); or
defective products under the Consumer Protection Act 1987.
14.2 Subject to clause 14.1:
The Seller shall under no circumstances whatever be liable to the Buyer, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, for any loss of profit, or any indirect or consequential loss arising under or in connection with the Contract; and
the Seller's total liability to the Buyer in respect of all other losses arising under or in connection with the Contract, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, shall in no circumstances exceed the fee or monies paid by the Buyer to the Seller for the said goods or service..
After the Warranty Period, the terms implied by sections 13 to 15 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 and the terms implied by sections 3 to 5 of the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 are, to the fullest extent permitted by law, excluded from the Contract.
This clause 14 shall survive termination of the Contract.
Without limiting its other rights or remedies either party may terminate the Contract by giving the other party not less than one months' written notice.
Without limiting its other rights or remedies, each party may terminate the Contract with immediate effect by giving written notice to the other party if:
The other party commits a material breach of its obligations under this Contract and (if such breach is remediable) fails to remedy that breach within 60 days after receipt of notice in writing to do so;
the other party suspends, or threatens to suspend, payment of its debts or is unable to pay its debts as they fall due or admits inability to pay its debts or [(being a company or limited liability partnership) is deemed unable to pay its debts within the meaning of section 123 of the Insolvency Act 1986 or (being an individual) is deemed either unable to pay its debts or as having no reasonable prospect of so doing, in either case, within the meaning of section 268 of the Insolvency Act 1986 or (being a partnership) has any partner to whom any of the foregoing apply];
the other party commences negotiations with all or any class of its creditors with a view to rescheduling any of its debts, or makes a proposal for or enters into any compromise or arrangement with its creditors [other than (where a company) for the sole purpose of a scheme for a solvent amalgamation of that other party with one or more other companies or the solvent reconstruction of that other party];
a petition is filed, a notice is given, a resolution is passed, or an order is made, for or in connection with the winding up of the other party (being a company) other than for the sole purpose of a scheme for a solvent amalgamation of the other party with one or more other companies or the solvent reconstruction of that other party;
The other party (being an individual) is the subject of a bankruptcy petition or order;
a creditor or encumbrancer of the other party attaches or takes possession of, or a distress, execution, sequestration or other such process is levied or enforced on or sued against, the whole or any part of its assets and such attachment or process is not discharged within [14] days;
An application is made to court, or an order is made, for the appointment of an administrator or if a notice of intention to appoint an administrator is given or if an administrator is appointed over the other party (being a company);
The holder of a qualifying charge over the assets of the other party (being a company) has become entitled to appoint or has appointed an administrative receiver;
A person becomes entitled to appoint a receiver over the assets of the other party or a receiver is appointed over the assets of the other party;
any event occurs, or proceeding is taken, with respect to the other party in any jurisdiction to which it is subject that has an effect equivalent or similar to any of the events mentioned in clause 15.2.2 to clause 15.2.9 (inclusive);
The other party suspends, threatens to suspend, ceases or threatens to cease to carry on, all or substantially the whole of its business;
the other party's financial position deteriorates to such an extent that in the Seller's opinion the Buyer's capability to adequately fulfil its obligations under the Contract has been placed in jeopardy; or
The other party (being an individual) dies or, by reason of illness or incapacity (whether mental or physical), is incapable of managing his own affairs or becomes a patient under any mental health legislation.
Without limiting its other rights or remedies, the Seller may terminate the Contract with immediate effect by giving written notice to the Buyer if the Buyer fails to pay any amount due under this Contract on the due date for payment.
Without limiting its other rights or remedies, the Seller may suspend the supply of Services or all further deliveries of Goods under the Contract or any other contract between the Buyer and the Seller if the Buyer fails to pay any amount due under this Contract on the due date for payment, the Buyer becomes subject to any of the events listed in clause 15.2.2 to clause 15.2.13, or the Seller reasonably believes that the Buyer is about to become subject to any of them.
On termination of the Contract for any reason:
the Buyer shall immediately pay to the Seller all of the Seller's outstanding unpaid invoices and interest and, in respect of Services supplied but for which no invoice has yet been submitted, the Seller shall submit an invoice, which shall be payable by the Buyer immediately on receipt;
The Buyer shall return all of the Seller Materials and any Deliverables which have not been fully paid for. If the Buyer fails to do so, then the Seller may enter the Buyer's premises and take possession of them. Until they have been returned, the Buyer shall be solely responsible for their safe keeping and will not use them for any purpose not connected with this Contract;
the accrued rights and remedies of the parties as at termination shall not be affected, including the right to claim damages in respect of any breach of the Contract which existed at or before the date of termination or expiry; and
Clauses which expressly or by implication have effect after termination shall continue in full force and effect.
For the purposes of this Contract, Force Majeure Event means an event beyond the reasonable control of the Seller including but not limited to strikes, lock-outs or other industrial disputes (whether involving the workforce of the Seller or any other party), failure of a utility service or transport network, act of God, war, terrorism, riot, civil commotion, interference by civil of military authorities, national or international calamity, malicious damage, compliance with any law or governmental order, rule, regulation or direction, accident, breakdown of plant or machinery, fire, flood, storm, earthquake, epidemic or similar events, or default of suppliers or subcontractors.
The Seller shall not be liable to the Buyer as a result of any delay or failure.
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-- Media Information --
Baseball Chapel has functioned for over 47 years as a service to those in professional baseball who desire to deepen their Christian faith, but who are unable to attend church. Our ministry is directed toward players, coaches, managers and their wives, umpires, front office and ballpark staff.
We are an international ministry recognized by Major and Minor League Baseball and take great care in appointing and overseeing team chapel leaders.
Chapel programs are established in every Major League, Minor League and Independent League city, beginning in spring training. Programs also exist throughout professional baseball in Latin America during both summer leagues and winter ball in addition to serving the academies.
Approximately 4,000 players, coaches, managers, trainers, umpires, team staff, stadium personnel and families of the players and coaches participate each week.
DOES BASEBALL CHAPEL PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE MEDIA?
We do not seek publicity for the ministry and strive to protect the privacy of all baseball personnel attending chapel. Therefore, it is the policy of Baseball Chapel not to allow members of the media or any type of recording device, such as cameras and video or audio recorders in any chapel service or bible study.
Requests by members of the media to sit in on chapel for the purpose of doing a news story must be denied since it is imperative we provide a private setting for the team to conduct services without intrusion. Chapel services are not an opportunity for working media under any circumstance. In an effort to protect confidentiality of those attending chapel, the team chapel leaders representing Baseball Chapel are not permitted to grant interviews to members of the media. They may direct you to the player who serves as the team Chapel Rep for you to interview.
We trust that the following background information will be helpful to you.
HOW AND WHEN DID BASEBALL CHAPEL ORIGINATE?
As early as 1956, Clyde King provided chapel services for teams he managed in the minor leagues and then in the major leagues. In the early 1960's, players from the Cubs and Twins initiated chapel services when they were on road trips. In 1973, Watson Spoelstra, a Detroit sportswriter, approached Commissioner Bowie Kuhn with the idea of organizing a chapel program for every major league team. Kuhn granted approval and Baseball Chapel was officially created in 1974.
By the start of 1975 all major league teams had a chapel program. A minor league program was established in 1978 and chapels were first held during winter ball in Latin America. Today, a network of approximately 500 volunteers serve with Baseball Chapel and eight full-time staff members conduct the day-to-day ministry operations.
WHOM DOES BASEBALL CHAPEL SERVE?
Baseball Chapel is a non-denominational Christian ministry committed to the spiritual development of people throughout professional baseball. Although we hold to Christian beliefs, we seek to minister to baseball players regardless of their religious beliefs. Our desire is to encourage baseball people through the message of Jesus Christ, so that they would understand the importance of following Him.
The track record Baseball Chapel has demonstrated over four decades of service shows that the organization has never sought to be divisive, intrusive or to exclude anyone of another faith.
WHAT DOES BASEBALL CHAPEL BELIEVE?
As a Christian ministry we adhere to beliefs that are consistent with Christian doctrine as evidenced in the creeds of the Christian faith. Our statement of faith is intended to accurately reflect the truths of Scripture we believe have been accepted by followers of Jesus Christ from the time He walked the earth. It includes the dogmatic beliefs of the church, specifically centering on the Triune God and salvation through faith in Jesus Christ alone.
We recognize the differences that have developed among believers on secondary issues and intentionally avoid addressing these as part of our "doctrine." Therefore, the statement mirrors our desire for unity that should exist among all who proclaim the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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Is the Common Fighter Really a Pipe Dream?
By Arnold Lewis and Michael Durao
Febuary 28, 2011
In recent years, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) has become one of the most infamous weapons programs in the Department of Defense’s history. The money-guzzling $1 trillion dollar (Associated Press) black hole was designed to be the DoD’s crowning jewel, but now it holds the prestigious title of the department’s largest flop in the minds of many analysts. Its downfall echoes those of previous common fighter programs, ranging from the notorious Tactical Fighter Experimental (TFX) to Congress’s failed attempt to standardize the Lightweight Fighter (LWF). This begs the question of whether or not a common fighter is feasible. The answer is yes, but the TFX and JSF went about doing so backwards. One can understand the fundamental flaws in these programs by examining the differences between the successful and failed programs.
Beginning in the 1960s, newly-appointed Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and his Whiz Kids harbored a deep obsession with the concept of a common fighter. The common fighter would be flown by not only the USAF, but the USN, USMC, and NATO allies as well. Fighter planes being extremely costly R&D investments, development, acquisition, and operation cost of aircraft with cross-service commonality have the potential to plummet as a result of their shared assets (Global Security); such unprecedented efficiency in an aerospace project essentially made a common fighter the DoD’s Holy Grail throughout the Vietnam War era.
The idea was sound, but its execution was fundamentally flawed. Conceptualization of a common fighter resulted in the TFX project that produced the F-111 Aardvark. The resulting F-111A for the Air Force was an exceptional interdiction and strike platform. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the F-111B carrierborne interceptor.
Although earlier studies conducted by the Whiz Kids concluded that common airframes should be developed for the Air Force and then adapted for the Navy (Gunston), this was shown not to be the case by historical precedent. The F-4 Phantom II that had entered service years prior and matured into an outstanding airframe over the course of the Vietnam War began its development exclusively as a Mach 2 interceptor meant to defend USN carriers from Soviet bombers and anti-ship missiles. The craft was also acquired by the USMC and USAF, however, and its widespread use forced it to take on multimission capabilities. Luckily, despite some initial shortcomings such as its lack of an internal cannon, the F-4 underwent revisions for each service and became capable in strike, SEAD, reconnaissance, and air superiority roles.
Another airframe that defied these earlier studies was the A-7 Corsair II, the product of the US Navy’s VAL (Heavier-than-air, Attack, Light) competition. Designed as a subsonic attack aircraft, its design ran counter to the Air Force’s doctrine of supersonic fighter-bombers such as the F-100 Super Sabre and the F-105 Thunderchief. With McNamara’s urging, the Air Force adopted an upgraded version of the attacker, known as the A-7D. The conversion was so successful that the Navy upgraded their A-7s accordingly, creating the A-7E variant The aircraft continued to mature throughout its operational lifetime, being used from Vietnam until Desert Storm as a very successful attack and close support aircraft not only in both services, but in the service of other nations as well.
The F-111, however, was not a similarly versatile airframe, and when the large plane had its structure reinforced for CATOBAR operations it was too heavy and underpowered (Baugher). After being called to testify before the Armed Services Committee, Vice Admiral Tom Connolly said the following to Senator John Stennis: “Mr. Chairman, all the thrust in Christendom couldn’t make a Navy fighter out of that airplane.” Although it ended his career, his profound statement drove the final nail into the coffin of the F-111B (Parsons 10). The demise of the TFX did lead to the development of the F-14, which showed its worth when operating from airbases rather than carriers during the Iran-Iraq War. However, Congress’s dream of a common fighter remained.
In 1965 the Air Force conceived of what would become the Lightweight Fighter (LWF) program. Originally a “low-tier” compliment to their F-15, the design requirements for their Lightweight Fighter were simple: a small, low-drag, low-weight, pure fighter adhering to Energy-Maneuverability theory. After the prototypes were chosen – the YF-16 and the YF-17 – the LWF program was merged with the Navy’s VFAX program. Civilian overseers again wanted a common fighter for both services. After the Air Force opted to acquire F-16s, the Navy found itself unimpressed with the fragile, single-engine craft for carrier operations and instead chose to acquire the F/A-18, a development of the YF-17 that lost the Air Force contract. In the years since the LWF and VFAX programs, despite no interservice commonality (aside from a handful of Navy F-16Ns acquired as dedicated aggressors), both the F-16 and F/A-18 became some of the most successful multirole fighters of the 4th generation.
After the LWF reinforced the unique needs of the Air Force and Navy, DARPA partnered with the British Ministry of Defense in the 1980s to study the feasibility of a supersonic vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. The program was called ASTOVL – Advanced Short Take Off/Vertical Landing – and was initially intended as a replacement for the Harriers in service with the Fleet Air Arm, RAF, and USMC. After discovering that such an aircraft equipped with the then-in-development Pratt & Whitney F119 engine could reach supersonic speeds, DARPA approached Lockheed Martin’s (LM) Skunk Works to design such an aircraft. LM’s work with the concept resulted in the STOVL Strike Fighter (SSF) while DARPA progressed the overall ASTOVL program into phase two. The SSF’s development team, however, recognized that removing their design’s lift fan would allow for the inclusion of an extra fuel tank. With this design revision, LM marketed the CTOL variant to the USN and USAF, and the scope of the ASTOVL program was expanded to include this interservice commonality. It became the Common Affordable Lightweight Fighter program; meanwhile, the Navy’s A-X concept that produced the failed A-12 stealthy carrierborne attacker was transformed into the Joint Affordable Strike Technology program, and subsequently both programs were merged into the now-infamous Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), a politically and economically appealing concept for a 5th generation, low-tier common fighter (Global Security).
The JSF program has become a complete debacle in recent years, coming under fire from a diverse array of critics for a variety of shortcomings and an inefficient acquisition process. Major Richard Koch, an Air Combat Command tactician, publicly stated in 2008, “I wake up in a cold sweat at the thought of the F-35 going in with only two air-dominance weapons,” referencing the aircraft’s small air-to-air weapons load (Sweetman). In recent memory, the F-35B – the STOVL variant of the project for the USMC and most prone to problems and delays – was placed on two-year probation by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates after a long series of delays caused by its shaft-driven lift fan (Department of Defense). The conventional knowledge generated by the consistent failures and mediocrity of the JSF is that the common fighter will remain an unattainable goal.
This raises the question of whether aircraft such as the F-4 Phantom II and A-7 Corsair II were mere flukes, just exceptions to the general rule. Is the common fighter really an unattainable pipe dream for politicians, defense contractors, and military brass alike, or is there more to the problem? One needs to not look further than the origins of the F-4 and the A-7. Both aircraft were originally designed for the Navy and engineered to fit the stringent requirements of CATOBAR operations before being adapted for land-based operations. If one takes a look at the failed common fighter experiments, they shared one of two qualities: either they were developed for the Air Force’s land-based mission before being converted for carrier operations, or they were joint, simultaneous development projects for both departments. As Dr. Richard Hallion states:
“… it is possible to take an aircraft intended for shipboard service and modify it successfully for operation from land. However, it is extremely difficult to take a land-based aircraft and modify it for operation from a ship without undertaking extensive revision and redesign of the airplane.”
The failure of so many defense contractors to heed this basic commandment is the reason why so many common fighter programs have failed time and time again.
Michael Durao is an Beowulf Associate who's analytical expertise is focused on aerospace platforms. His particular concentration lies in the analysis of the capabilities and proliferation of Eastern air defense and air-to-air systems, defense acquisition reform, and the evolving paradigms of 21st Century warfighting.
Arnold Lewis is the Content Editor for ENGAGED Magazine and his interests currently lie with International Politics & Security. Currently, he resides in Boulder, Colorado.
“Advanced-Attack / Advanced/Fighter-Attack (A-X / A/F-X) 1992-1993” Global Security.org. Web.
<http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/a-x.htm>
Baugher, Joe. “General Dynamics/Grumman F-111B.” 7 Nov 2004. Web. 23 Feb 2011.
<http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_fighters/f111_4.html>
“DARPA / Navy Common Affordable Lightweight Fighter (CALF) 1993-1994” Global Security.org. Web.
<http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/calf.htm>
"F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) Commonality."Global Security.org. Web.
<http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-35-commonality.htm>.
“GAO Says F-35 Costs to Hit $1 Trillion.” Associated Press. 12 Mar 2008: n. pag. Web. 23 Feb 2011.
<”http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,163800,00.html”>
Garamone, Jim. "Gates Reveals Budget Efficiencies, Reinvestment Possibilities." American Forces Press Service.
06 Jan 2011: n. pag. Web. 22 Feb 2011. <http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=62351>.
Grumman F-14 Tomcat: Bye-Bye, Baby...!. St. Paul MN, USA: Zenith Press, 2006. 10. Print.
“Advanced Short Take-Off/Vertical Landing (ASTOVL) 1983-1994.” Global Security.org. Web.
<http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/astovl.htm>
Hallion, Richard “A Troubling Past: Air Force Fighter Acquisition since 1945.” Airpower Journal, Winter 1990. n. pag. Web.
23 Feb 2011. <http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj90/win90/1win90.htm>
“Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST).” Global Security.org. Web.
<http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/jast.htm>
Sweetman, Bill. "JSF Leaders Back In The Fight."Ares: A Defense Technology Blog. Aviation Week, 22 Sep 2008.
Web. 22 Feb 2011.
<http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&
plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog:27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-
bd3a-01329aef79a7Post:b1c3536a-8d96-481f-aef5-d6428ec6f9ca>.
The following contains opinions and viewpoints that may not reflect the corporate views or the explicit endorsement of Beowulf Defense and Security.
Every attempt has been made to accurately present factual information, however if you feel something stated in the following articles is in error, do not hesitate to bring it to our attention so that if verifiable, it may be corrected.
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Pope: the true sense of life is being part of God’s love
During the Angelus the Pope speaks of Sacramentum Caritatis underlining the relationship between the Eucharist and god. Earlier this morning Benedict XVI visited the roman minors prison Casal del Marmo where he told the young boys that true joy and a sense of life can be found by “putting God in first place”.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Benedict XVI was met this Sunday with greetings for his Saints say which falls tomorrow, both from the thousands of faithful who filled St Peter’s square for the Angelus prayer and from the young teenage boys of the Casal del Marmo minors prison, where the Pope paid a visit early this morning, on both occasion speaking of the sense of the relationship between man and God. At the Angelus he underlines how in the Eucharist Jesus love for the disciples “is passed on to us all” becoming the foundation of Christian joy, in the minors prison he instead highlighted how by choosing to follow God one finds the true sense of life and thus happiness.
“The Eucharist – he told the crowds of over 30 thousand pilgrims and visitors present in St Peters – feeds the profound joy of every generation of believer, which unites love and peace and finds its origins in God’s communion with his brothers”.
The Pope also spoke of the publication of his first post synodal exhortataion “Sacramentum caritatis”. “It was elaborated – he explained - by gathering the fruits of the XI General Assembly of Bishops, held here at the Vatican in October 2005. I am sure – h e added - that I will return to that important text, but from the very outset I wish to state that it is an expression of the Universal Church’s faith in the Mystery of the Eucharist, and is posed in continuity of the second Vatican Council and the Magisterium of my venerated predecessors, Paul VI and John Paul II.
“In the Eucharist God wanted to donate us His love, which pushed him to offer his life for us on the cross. In the last supper, by washing the feet of his disciples, Jesus left us his commandment of love: ‘As I have loved you, so you also should love one another” (Jn 13,34). But for this to be possible we must remain united in him as branches on a vine (Jn 15,1-8), just as He himself chose to remain with us in the Eucharist so that we con remain in Him. Thus when we eat of His body and drink of His blood in faith, His love passes to us and makes us capable in turn of giving our lives for our brothers. (Jn 3,16). This is where Christian joy, Christian love is born”.
Benedict XVI also spoke of love for live and the sense of life with young detainees at the Casal del Marmo, in his first visit to a prison. The institution which hosts around fifty teenage boys and girls of various nationalities – is the same visited by John Paul II in 1980, on the invitation of the then Cardinal Secretary of State Agostino Casaroli who for over 30 years spent as much time as possible at the prison, as Benedict XVI recalled.
During the mass Benedict XVI spoke openly and without text to the young prisoners, commenting on the evangelical episode of the prodigal son. He noted how behind the figures of the two sons were two “distinct life projects different one from the other”, with the younger son finding the life of a wealthy landowner dissatisfactory. “He wants freedom from discipline, rules and commandments”, “freedom with all its beauty”. For his part the after is “respectful” of the son’s decision to make his own way.
Thus the young man takes what is his. “Now his freedom is to do what he wishes to do, no longer in the prison of his home discipline”. And “in the first movements he feels happy, but slowly a worrying emptiness settles upon him”: the “slavery of a freedom that is consumed by terrestrial pleasures” was not living, “in fact life began to distance itself from him”. So the young man begins to reflect, “To ask himself if it is not better to live ones live for others”. Thus he begins “an interior journey of maturation towards a new life project which also becomes an outward journey”.
The feast prepared for the return of the prodigal son shows that “the work, humility, discipline of every day life creates the feast”; the young man knows that “certainly even in the future his life will not be easy, that temptation will return”, but he will also know that “life without God doesn’t work, it is missing the essential”.
“The Commandments are not obstacles to freedom, rather indicators on the road to life” and “the Gospel helps us to understand who really is God: our most merciful father, merciful beyond measure”.
In the words of Benedict XVI, it is a matter of “what freedom is and what papers to be freedom”; in short “freedom is a launching pad towards the infinity of God’s love or the abyss of sin and evil”. And meeting with the young teenagers after the celebration of mass, who he greeted one by one along with the present authorities, the Pope once again asked the question “how can you be happy if you suffer, when you are deprived of freedom, when you feel abandoned”, true joy and happiness he answered, “is knowing that God loves you”: “You could even be deprived of everything – he concluded – of freedom and of health but yet be peaceful and serene : the secret is putting God in first place”.
Following the Angelus, the Pope finally had a special greeting for members of the Committee of Catholics for a society of love who, on the occasion of the feast day of St Joseph, are re launching the campaign “adopt a Dad” in conjunction with the missionary Instructions to benefit poor families in developing countries. “Thank you – he concluded – for this initiative”.
apostolic
Pope talks about the Middle East, the Holy Land and the food crisis with Bush
Pope's letter following the synod on the Eucharist
The Eucharistic, life for “sterile arbitrator” and disillusioned man
Pope's letter on the Eucharist now in Urdu
Angelus: the Eucharist, driving force behind the mission of Francis Xavier and Therese of Lisieux
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Palestinian Voices
Home/Media/Legacy of Empire: Britain, Zionism and the Creation of “Israel” by: Gardner Thompson
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Legacy of Empire: Britain, Zionism and the Creation of “Israel” by: Gardner Thompson
The recent defeat of the UK’s Labour Party amid a relentless campaign to smear its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, as an anti-Semite makes the appearance of historian Gardner Thompson’s Legacy of Empire: Britain, Zionism and the Creation of Israel especially relevant.
Corbyn likely would have become the first British prime minister to renounce the notorious Balfour Declaration of 1917, which gave Britain’s colonial endorsement to the establishment of a Jewish “national home” in Palestine. The baseless charges of anti-Semitism that dogged Corbyn are wholly hypocritical given the links between Zionism, British colonialism and real anti-Semitism.
Legacy of Empire documents how this strange brew of ideologies and bigotry led to the denial of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination. Thompson covers the period from the birth of Zionism in 1897 to the establishment of Israel in 1948, but the author maintains that “Israel’s origins are properly sought in the period of the First World War” (1914-1918).
Books on Balfour
Is there a need for another book focusing on the Balfour Declaration?
Balfour’s Shadow: A Century of British Support for Zionism and Israel, by The Electronic Intifada editor David Cronin, was published in 2017, the centenary of the declaration. That same year saw the republication of Palestine the Reality: The Inside Story of the Balfour Declaration 1917-1938 by J.M.N. Jeffries, a British journalist who was contemporary with the events.
Prior to that was The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Jonathan Schneer’s 2010 study that shouldn’t be overlooked.
By examining in greater detail the period between 1918 and 1948, with a focus on two central questions, Thompson makes a resounding case for what he calls “a fresh, evidence-based corrective review of what happened when the British were responsible for Palestine.”
Thompson indicates he was motivated to write Legacy of Empire in part by a House of Lords debate on the centenary that was characterized by “a prevailing tone of uncritical pride” in the declaration and the almost complete disregard of Palestinians, save for a few lonely critics.
Named for British foreign minister Lord Arthur James Balfour, who helped craft and implement it, the declaration is a classic example of a European colonial power attempting to set the terms for the future of a non-European land without consulting the indigenous people who represented the overwhelming majority of its population.
Moreover, it did so by endorsing a settler-colony project that at the time was either opposed or ignored by most of the people for whom the Zionist movement claimed to speak.
Anti-Semitism and a version of philo-Semitism, or appreciation for Jewish culture, that essentialized the Jewish people laid the foundation for the Balfour Declaration. As British prime minister, Balfour had presided over the passage of the Aliens Act in 1905, which was intended primarily to prevent Jews fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe from entering Britain.
“The Balfour Declaration,” Thompson writes, “was a landmark expression of nimbyism” – an acronym for not in my backyard – that meant viewing Jewish immigration as a problem that could be solved by creating a “national home” elsewhere.
The anti-Semitic dimensions of the declaration did not go unnoticed at the time, particularly by the only senior minister in the British government who was Jewish, Edwin Montagu. “The policy of His Majesty’s Government is anti-Semitic,” Montagu stated.
Montagu argued vociferously against the Zionist precept that the Jewish people represented a nation. He warned that this notion would lead to pressure to expel Jews from Britain or deny them the rights of citizenship.
Montagu also expressed awareness that Palestine at the time was inhabited mainly by Muslims and Christians, and he recognized that the declaration could lead to their expulsion from Palestine.
Why Palestine?
The narrative of Legacy of Empire revolves around two central questions.
First, why was Palestine relevant to the British Empire in 1917? And second, why did British colonialism remain faithful to Zionism, even in the wake of concerted Arab resistance such as the major revolt of the 1930s?
Thompson answers the first question by writing that the declaration was a “wartime exigency” and “a tale of coincidences and contingency.” Under H. H. Asquith, British prime minister from 1908-1916, Palestine was not “a strategic priority.”
The author questions historical accounts that say Britain collaborated with Zionism under Asquith. What made Palestine relevant, he argues, was the ascension of David Lloyd George to the premiership in December 1916, along with military setbacks that risked Britain losing the world war.
Thompson’s case for contingency and coincidence rests with Lloyd George, a Christian Zionist who was charmed by Chaim Weizmann, one of the leading figures in the Zionist movement.
Weizmann convinced Lloyd George that “the Jews in both Russia and the US were crucial to their respective countries remaining in the war.” The promise of a Jewish homeland would result in Jews pressuring Tsarist Russia to remain in the war and ensure that the US would become fully involved in it.
In short, Weizmann sold Lloyd George on what was essentially an anti-Semitic trope of the power of “international Jewry.”
Thompson posits that British ruling circles were primarily won over to the Zionist position on ideological grounds. They accepted the precepts that Jews represented a nation in exile that suffered persecution in the diaspora and therefore had the need and right to return to Palestine.
But this also fit well into anti-Semitic beliefs that aligning with the Zionist movement gave Britain a strategic advantage in the war due to Jewish power and influence.
Statements made by British leaders from the period, quoted by Thompson, eerily evoke the white nationalism emanating from the Donald Trump administration.
Consider, for example, Balfour’s belief that Jewish immigration to England represented an “invasion” and that Jews would never fit into English society because they were “a people apart.”
Thompson quotes similar views espoused by Winston Churchill in 1920 when he wrote in the Illustrated Sunday Herald that a “world-wide conspiracy” of “international Jews” threatened to destroy European civilization but concluded “with praise for Zionism as ‘a new ideal’ that was simple, true and attainable.”
Britain’s faithfulness to Zionism
Why did Britain remain faithful to the Zionist movement following World War I, and despite Arab resistance? Thompson answers this by recounting the many variations in British policy – from the Peel Commission report that suggested the partition of Palestine to the White Paper of 1939 – that promised an independent state with an Arab majority.
But in the end, none of these policies fully renounced Britain’s colonial role or embraced the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, which Balfour had outright rejected. Nevertheless, Thompson is dismayed that there was never a “pragmatic shift of policy in Palestine” given the resistance Britain encountered from Palestinian revolts.
The British Empire no longer exists, and the sun sets now on the United Kingdom’s own backyard. Following World War II, Great Britain not only had to relinquish its empire but it had to acknowledge – especially after the US rebuked it for its role in the 1956 Suez Crisis – that it was simply a junior partner to the Americans, a role it continues to play dutifully.
The kind of redemption that a Corbyn government would likely have brought has received a setback. But there is still hope that both the US and the UK will one day end their role as unofficial occupiers of Palestine.
Source: The Electronic Intifada.
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Anthropoid, and after
Posted on June 9, 2017 by The Night Writer
by the Night Writer
Anthropoid, adj. – resembling a human being in form.
Anthropoid was the code name for the Allied mission to parachute Czech army-in-exile commandos into Czechoslovakia in World War II to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Nazi security organization, acting Reichsprotektor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and the third-highest ranking Nazi leader behind Hitler and Himmler. He was also one of the main architects of “The Final Solution” to exterminate the Jewish race, and the one with the responsibility (and the passion) to carry this out.
Cold and aristocratic in appearance, Heydrich was the Nazi villain straight out of Central Casting. Czechoslovakia (what was left after the Sudetenland was given away to Hitler by the Munich Agreement) was invaded by and annexed by Germany in 1939, and Heydrich arrived in Prague in 1941 to replace the former Reichsprotektor, Konstantin von Neurath. Neurath was a diplomat by training and favored a more tolerant approach to maintaining order in the dispossessed country. His approach fell out of favor with the Nazi high command due to an active Czech Resistance that organized worker strikes and acts of sabotage to hinder the Czech manufacturing objectives so vital to the German war effort. Upon his arrival, Heydrich quickly earned the nickname “The Butcher of Prague” with his ruthless decimation of the Resistance resulting in thousands of people being executed, arrested or taken hostage as leverage against further acts.
Into this background, a squad of free Czech soldiers were parachuted into the forests near Prague to support the remaining Resistance and be as disruptive as possible. Two soldiers, Jozef Gabcík, (apologies: this blog tool can’t show Czech symbols for proper pronunciation) a Slovakian, and Jan Kubis, a Czech, had the specific assignment to assassinate Heydrich. The plan was almost laughable in its lack of detail: “Ok, lads, drop into occupied territory with minimal equipment and an outdated list of contacts (already dead or arrested) and, you know, use your training to figure something out. Oh, and good luck.”
The details of how they went about this are well, and compellingly, described in the 2016 film, Anthropoid. Ultimately, Gabcík and Kubis were able to find a prime corner in Prague where Heydrich’s Mercedes convertible would have to slow down to turn and on May 27, 1942 they attempted an ambush. Gabcík’s Sten submachine gun jammed, however when he stepped in front of the car to fire at Heydrich. When the offended Heydrich ordered his driver to stop so he could shoot at Gabcík (rather than commanding him to speed away), Kubis tried to lob a modified tank grenade into the open car, but it landed just short, with the explosion nevertheless driving shrapnel and pieces of upholstery into Heydrich’s body. As Gabcík and Kubis fled the scene, Heydrich was taken to a nearby hospital where he died a week later from septic shock caused by toxins in the upholstery of his car in a time before penicillin. Despite an immediate and thorough house-to-house search, Gabcík and Kubis and the other Czech soldiers (with the exception of Karil Curda, who fled prior to the attack to his mother’s home outside Prague) who had parachuted in were successfully hidden in a secret crypt beneath the floor of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Prague. German reprisals were immediate and heavy-handed. Some 13,000 people were arrested and as many as 5,000 are estimated to have been executed in an effort to find the assassins and identify those who had helped. Perhaps motivated by a desire to halt the harsh tactics, or the appeal of the promised cash reward, Curda turned himself in to the Gestapo and identified the safe houses and families involved in the plot. These were raided and the people tortured until the hiding place in the church was revealed.
The wall of Sts. Cyril and Methodius church where the final shoot-out happened. Bullet holes frame the vent in the wall in which the fire department flooded the crypt. The plaque commemorates the battle and sacrifice. Ultimately, the priest, the bishop and the leaders of the church and their families were executed by the Nazis for harboring the Czech paratroopers.
On June 18 the army and SS surrounded the church, resulting in a day-long shoot out with the paratroopers holed up there. The local fire department was pressed into service as well to flood the crypt where the few survivors were holed up. Grenades, tear-gas and bullets were also poured into the crypt, while several German soldiers were killed and wounded in the attempt. Each surviving Czech paratrooper ended up committing suicide by bullet or cyanide. Their bodies were identified by Curda, who was later executed himself.
Busts of Gabcik and Junis inside the crypt where the survivors took shelter.
We arrived the weekend after the 75th anniversary commemoration at the church. In addition to the bronze (and bullet holes) on the outer wall, you can visit a small museum inside that details the events (including the Munich Agreement) that led up to the Heydrich assassination and what followed. You can also enter the crypt where the final moments of the story took place. It is a sobering and thought-provoking visit, and I removed my hat as soon as I was inside and kept it off throughout our tour.
The repercussions of the assassination were not just felt by the people of Prague. Hitler’s immediate desire was that 10,000 Czechs be rounded up at random and executed as punishment. The practical Himmler suggested that would have a negative impact on manufacturing production, and suggested an alternative plan.
The plain that was once the location of the village of Lidice.
On June 2, 2017, I stood in the bright sunlight, gazing at a rolling field of green with several groves of trees and some benches that looked as if it could host a golf course.
75 years prior, on June 2, 1942, a photographer also came here, to what was the village of Lidice (LEE-deet-say) to take photos of the schoolchildren. One week later, on the night of June 9, the German army and Gestapo also came – and surrounded the village.
The village consisted of just under 500 people; a bit larger than the town of Lytton, Iowa where my daughter and her family live. The men, women and children were rousted from their beds, rounded up and separated. Beginning at 7:00 a.m. on June 10, 173 men, age 15 and older, were lined up against the wall of the Horák barn, originally in groups of 5, and shot. Three riflemen were committed to each target and then a Gestapo officer shot each fallen man again in the head. The next group was brought to the wall, stepping over the bodies of those before them. Because it was taking so long, the groups were increased to 10 at a time. Later, another 11 men of Lidice who were not in the village at the time were executed in Prague, along with two teens originally thought to be 14 and spared until school records revealed they had turned 15 weeks before the massacre.
203 women and 105 children were taken away. Four pregnant women were taken to the Prague hospital where Reinhard Heydrich died after the Operation Anthropoid assassination attempt on his life that sparked the Lidice reprisal. The four women underwent forced abortions and were sent to concentration camps. The other Lidice women were sent to Ravensbruck labor camp. Orders were given that the children of Lidice were sent elsewhere with instructions to receive minimal care. Some died quickly. Another 7 were judged to be Aryan enough to be “Germanized” and were distributed to SS families for adoption. On July 2, one month after the photographer visited them, the remaining 82 children were gassed to death at the Chelmo extermination camp.
Lidice itself was wiped from the map. The 96 homes, the church, the city hall, the school: everything was burned, then the ruins exploded, and topsoil brought in to cover it all. The graves in the cemetery were opened and looted, and the remains destroyed. The stream that ran through the village was rerouted, as were the roads leading in and leading out. Nazi propaganda proudly broadcast the news throughout occupied territory and to the West as an example for others. Several towns around the world renamed themselves in a show of support and defiance. Only a handful of Lidice women ever returned.
After the war, sculptor Marie Uchytilová devoted most of her life to creating bronze statues of the murdered children, working from the photographs taken a week before the massacre. The children stand now near the edge of their village, looking toward the mass grave of their fathers and brothers.
The children of Lidice.
My own eyes follow their line of sight, squinting. How can the sun shine so brightly, and the grass be so green, after what has happened here? The sound of a chainsaw rising and falling in a grove below me sounds, at a distance, like the laboring diesel of a tank or bulldozer. And I can’t stop squinting.
Was it worth it? Could the death of Heydrich justify all that was to come? Would even worse things have happened if Heydrich had lived? Is there a point to considering a single atrocity in a war full of atrocities on all sides?
This post is largely about the facts of what happened in Prague and Lidice (and I did not mention that much the same fate was visited upon the village of Lezacky). You are welcome to your own thoughts. In an upcoming post, I will share mine about the “lessons” learned here.
This entry was posted in Night Writer, Nights on the Road, Prague, Uncategorized by The Night Writer. Bookmark the permalink.
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Gaither Vocal Band News
Wow, I did not see this coming. Though I have never been a fan of Guy Penrod's long hair, he is a great vocalist..........
1/13/09 (Alexandria, Indiana) - With mixed emotions and tremendous optimism about the future, Gaither Music Group announces major personnel changes for the Gaither Vocal Band, including the return of some of the group's best-loved alumni
.After more than 14 years as the Gaither Vocal Band's lead singer, Guy Penrod will now begin a new journey. Bill Gaither is delighted to announce today that Guy is pursuing a new direction as a solo artist.
It is a bittersweet transition as Penrod will miss sharing the stage with his comrades and he will be greatly missed.Bill Gaither states, "I am losing a lead singer, but I am not losing a friend. I am extremely grateful for the incredible contribution he has made to the Gaither Vocal Band's legacy." Guy Penrod has said in response, "My years with the Gaither Vocal Band have been among the most glorious of my life. Now, though, with the Band continuing in strength and me tackling the new challenge of a solo career, we can all serve our God even more powerfully in the days to come."
As Gaither has stated at various times of transition, "You never replace a group member... you simply find a fresh, new direction." And with that philosophy at heart, Bill Gaither has gone far beyond simply replacing his long-time lead singer. He has completely recreated the Gaither Vocal Band, now expanding the size of the group from four members to five and bringing back an all-star cast of voices from the Vocal Band's rich legacy of talent.
Effective immediately, the new roster for the five-member Gaither Vocal Band will be: Bill Gaither, David Phelps, Wes Hampton, Michael English and Mark Lowry. Mark Lowry will complete all his previously scheduled solo engagements through April 2009 and will appear with the Gaither Vocal Band at every available opportunity during this transition, beginning with the Gaither Caribbean Cruise on February 22.
Marshall Hall, who has sung with the group since 2004, will no longer serve as the group's baritone and will be missed dearly by his friends both on and off the stage. He is a talented singer and producer, as well as an experienced worship leader, who will undoubtedly enjoy a solid future building on the experience gained during his five remarkable years with the Gaither Vocal Band.
The public's overwhelming early response to the January 20th release of The Gaither Vocal Band Reunion DVD, as well as the group's 2009 Grammy nomination, has already begun what could be the group's most unforgettable season yet.
http://www.gaither.com/news/press.php?uid=1595
Protecting Our Most Precious Possession
A Prayer For Obama, Global Warming, and Stranded C...
Look Out, Ohio
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Should They Be Forced?
God's Will, Our Will, Or Our Cop-Out
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The Dumbing Down of God's Word
Winter Is Not Forever
A Double Standard
Hate Crime or Special Treatment?
Death of A Mother And Children
Sea Kittens
Pepsi Cola Funding
The Perfect Church/Why Do We Go To Church
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Jimmy Carter Cake & Key Lime Pie
We Need Each Other & Blind Loyalty
Is It Ever OK To Lie?
The Opposite of The Apostle Paul
2009 & A Tale of Two Buffets
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19th May 18
OK, the happy couple are TRH, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Earl and Countess of Dumbarton and Baron and Baroness Kilkeel.
Of the honours whilst Sussex has been used before for Prince Augustus Frederick, sixth son and ninth child of King George III, the Earldom of Dumbarton has no connection with the Royal family. The title was created by Charles II in 1675 for George Douglas a royalist solider and prominent Roman Catholic who accompanied James II into exile after the Glorious Revolution. The barony of Kilkeel is a new one and Prince Harry is the first holder of the title. Kilkeel of course is the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Mourne, and lies on the coast of County Down, below the Mourne mountains.
However, your Editor consoles himself in the knowledge that he is not the only ione with egg on his face today! This is because last night, I switched over to BBC to watch Newsnight and caught the last two or three minutes of one of those leftie comedy shows that BBC2 loves to do. It was about the Royal wedding and I won’t repeat what they said about the Duke of Edinburgh. It was obscene. However these undoubted republicans have been made to look like the utter twerps they undoubtedly are by the huge and enthusiastic crowds in Windsor today at the most extraordinary media coverage from around the world.
Do these idiots imagine that the world would show the same interest if we had a boring ceremonial presidency occupied by some former cabinet minister or Commons Speaker?
Republicans love to prattle on about the cost of the monarchy. Well, look at the interest today! The UK gains a lot in terms of what economists call, “invisible exports” – the British Royal family being prominent among these!
Far from costing money, the Royal family bring in money!
Baron, Baroness, Countess, Duchess, Duke, Earl, Kilkeel, Meghan Markle, of Dumbarton, of Sussex, Prince Harry
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Ultrafast broadband reaches more of the UK
The recent update to Ofcom’s Connected Nations report – which provides information on coverage and service availability for both internet and mobile phones – reveals that ultrafast broadband speeds (defined as download speeds over 300Mbit/s) are now available to properties in just over half the country. Superfast speeds of at least 30Mbit/s have reached 95% of UK premises and full-fibre broadband has risen a percentage point to 7% coverage, or 300,000 additions in the four months since the last report.
The full-fibre increase owes itself to commercial roll-out from a range of providers and Ofcom uses the Connected Nations update to reflect on its proposals to support the UK Government’s FTIR ambitions of nationwide coverage by 2033. These actions include removing the current restriction (of networks focusing primarily on the residential market) on Openreach’s ducts and poles access to allow competing companies access to build networks for both residential and business connections. Ofcom further proposes to deregulate in areas where there are competing fibre providers and to increase the length between major reviews of the telecoms from three to five years.
At the same time, those unable to get even 10Mbit/s download speeds has fallen to only 2% of UK properties. These 619,000 currently unserved premises will be covered under the new universal broadband service, with Ofcom expected to announce this summer who will be delivering this scheme.
Mobile coverage has seen similar small rises in premises able to get indoor 4G coverage from all four mobile operators, and 4G coverage from all four networks covers 67% of the UK. Total not spots – where there is no coverage at all now stands at 8%.
Ofcom intends to auction more airwaves next year, partly to prepare for 5G but also to improve rural coverage, and are working to enable more efficient use of spectrum.
The next update will be released late summer, with the Annual Report at the end of the year.
Ofcom’s proposed work plan for 2020-2021
Ofcom has set out its proposed workplan for the next financial year. The consultation closes on 25th February 2020. Strategic... read more
Ofcom: Connected Nations 2019 Report
Ofcom’s 2019 Connected Nations report, released today, sets out this year’s developments in broadband and mobile services, availability and... read more
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USAF Thunderbirds Sixtieth Anniversary
By Eric Hehs Posted 14 November 2013
The 3600th US Air Force Air Demonstration Unit was activated at Luke AFB, Arizona, on 1 June 1953. Seven officers and twenty-two enlisted were selected for the first jet fighter demonstration team of the newest US military service branch. All team members were from Luke, home to the USAF advanced flight training school.
Maj. Dick Catledge, who flew twenty-eight combat missions in the P-38 Lightning during World War II and was the training commander at Luke, was in charge of the original team. He flew the lead position in the four-aircraft demonstration. Four other pilots on the team included Capt. Bill Patillo, who flew right wing; his identical twin, Capt. Buck Patillo, who flew left wing; Capt. Bob Kanaga, who flew slot; and Capt. Bob McCormick, the team’s backup pilot.
The demonstration squadron performed its first aerial display on 16 June 1953 at Williams AFB, in Mesa, Arizona. The team’s first performance at a civilian airshow took place that July at the Cheyenne Frontier Days celebration in Wyoming. Shortly thereafter, the team adopted the name Thunderbirds, influenced in part by the strong Native American culture and folklore from the US Southwest, which considered the thunderbird to be a supernatural bird of exceptional power and strength.
The original demonstration consisted of a series of four-ship formation aerobatics lasting about fifteen minutes. A solo performance was not originally incorporated into the demonstration. However, as the first season progressed, McCormick began flying solo maneuvers with the spare aircraft to warm up the audiences.
The team flew the straight wing F-84G Thunderjet for its first two years and then transitioned to the swept wing F-84F Thunderstreak for a year. The Thunderbirds began flying the F-100C Super Sabre in 1956, the same year they moved to their current home at Nellis AFB, Nevada.
The F-100C served the Thunderbirds team for the next thirteen years. In 1964, the team flew the F-105B Thunderchief for six demonstrations. The F-105 proved unsuitable as a show aircraft, so the team switched back to the F-100, this time to the F-100D. The Thunderbirds flew this version of the Super Sabre through the 1968 season when they switched to the F-4E Phantom II, which was also flown by the US Navy’s Blue Angels demonstration team.
Economic considerations—mainly fuel costs—put the team in the T-38A Talon in 1974, which they flew for seven years. This was the only trainer flown by the Thunderbirds. The team transitioned to the Block 15 F-16A in 1983. The Thunderbirds began flying the Block 32 F-16C in 1992 and transitioned to the Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-229-powered Block 52 F-16C for the 2009 show season.
The team’s original mission was to give confidence to the Air Force pilots of the day, showing that they, too, could handle the speed and power of jet aircraft.
Over the last sixty years, the mission has grown to include recruiting young men and women; retaining quality Airmen serving today; and representing active duty, Guard, and Reserve members serving at home and abroad.
Today’s Thunderbirds reinforce public confidence in the Air Force and demonstrate the professional competence of Air Force members. They strengthen morale and esprit de corps among Air Force members and support Air Force community relations outreach programs. Finally, they present a positive image of the United States and its professional armed forces to foreign nations while projecting international goodwill.
The squadron and its aerial demonstration have evolved as well. The Thunderbirds, today an Air Combat Command squadron under the 57th Fighter Wing at Nellis, consists of six demonstration pilots and two pilots who serve as the maintenance officer and the show narrator plus four support officers, three civilians, and more than 130 enlisted personnel. Officers typically serve two-year assignments with the squadron, while enlisted personnel may serve three to four years. Replacements must be trained for about half of the team each year to assimilate new team members.
The aerial demonstration involves a combination of formation flying with the diamond formation and solo routines, which join the diamond to form the larger delta formation. The pilots perform approximately thirty maneuvers in a demonstration. The entire show, including a pre-show on the ground and in the air, runs just over an hour. The four-ship diamond formation highlights the training and precision of Air Force pilots, while the solo aircraft highlights the high performance of the F-16.
The squadron performs up to eighty-eight air demonstrations each year—without ever having to cancel a demonstration because of maintenance difficulty. More than 280 million people in all fifty states and fifty-seven foreign countries have seen the team’s jets in more than 3,500 aerial demonstrations.
The 2013 show schedule was curtailed in April because of across-the-board federal spending cuts. Pentagon officials announced a plan in October 2013 that will enable the military services to resume conducting community and public outreach activities in 2014, but at a reduced capacity.
Eric Hehs is the editor of Code One.
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The fifth generation of fighters, the F-22 and F-35, fundamentally changes the concept of operations for combat. F-22 First Flight To Final Delivery
The history of the F-22 program is still being written at the operational and training units, in flight testing of new capabilities, at the support centers, and upgrade and modernization programs that will come in future years. Last Raptor Delivered
A dramatic reveal of the last Raptor concluded the event. The immense metal doors of the B-1 building were raised to make public the sleek jet that had rolled off the F-22 assembly line at the opposite end of the building in December 2011. ATF To Raptor 01 First Flight
F-22 chronology covers the program from early studies to the first flight of the first production Raptor in 1997. Keeping The Raptor Fit And Flying
Given the vital role the F-22 performs in projecting air power and considering that the US Air Force will have 187 aircraft by the time production winds down in early 2012, maintaining the fleet and keeping Raptors flying are the new imperatives. Where The Raptor Starts Its Day
"Where America Starts Its Day." This slogan, appearing on T-shirts sold in tourist shops all over Guam, highlights the island’s distinction as the westernmost US territory and, hence, where day first breaks on America. F-22 Heads To Kadena And Red Flag
F-22 Raptors from the 1st Fighter Wing set new firsts in February as pilots and personnel took the US Air Force’s fifth-generation fighter from Langley AFB in Virginia to Kadena AB, Japan, and to Nellis AFB, Nevada.
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Lockheed Martin F-22 Aerial Routine At Farnborough 2008
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News & Commentary >
FACT CHECK: Rep. Hodan Hassan (D-62A) on US incarceration rates
posted May 9, 2019, 7:24 AM by Crime Watch Minneapolis [ updated May 9, 2019, 8:00 AM ]
By Minnesota Crime Watch & Information, April 30, 2019
THE CLAIM
During a legislative session on the Minnesota House floor on Thursday, April 25, 2019, related to the legislature’s omnibus health and human services finance bill, HF 2414, Rep. Hodan Hassan (D-62A, Minneapolis) made an eyepopping claim that “twenty-five percent of the US population are locked up” [in jails or prisons].
Hassan’s claim was made amid debate over an amendment to the omnibus bill, authored by Rep. Nick Zerwas (R-30A, Elk River). Zerwas’ amendment, A99, was aimed at stemming fraud within Minnesota’s child care provider subsidy program by requiring that certain “large scale” childcare centers provide proof of surety bond coverage in the amount of up to $250,000. Requiring the bonds from certain providers would help “recover potential losses” to the state in the event of any future fraud by those specified program participants, a safeguard which does not currently exist within the program.
Rep. Hassan made the “twenty-five percent” incarceration remark as part of an invective opposing the A99 amendment, during which she appeared to denounce comments by the amendment author and other representatives as “fearmongering, racist, Islamaphobic tactics to shame the Somali community” over reported fraud within the childcare provider program. And through her citation of the “twenty-five percent” incarceration statistic, Rep. Hassan insinuated that everybody is “related to somebody” who has “committed a crime.”
(Note: The Pioneer Press in March detailed findings within the Legislative Auditors report which contained the claim that fraud within Minnesota’s child care system is “pervasive” and that investigators are “unable to make a dent in the problem.”)
The United States has a population of roughly 327 million people (Feb. 2018). Twenty-five percent of that number would be nearly 82 million people.
CNN reported just this month that according to a 2018 report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), only 2.2 million adults were held in America's prisons and jails at the end of 2016. That translates to roughly .7 (seven tenths) of one percent of the US population – not twenty-five percent.
Based on the same BJS report, Vox last year reported that the US prison population fell for the third year in a row to 1.6 million in 2016.
Specific to Minnesota, the Star tribune in December reported that Minnesota “has made a deliberate choice to send fewer criminals to prison than most states,” resulting in less time in prison for Minnesota felons whether their crime was robbery, aggravated assault or even rape.
Since making her remarks on Thursday, internet clips of Rep. Hassan’s comments have been widely shared around camps from both sides of the aisle, yet neither Rep. Hassan nor anyone from her party has stepped forward to make a correction to the false claim, nor has any Minnesota media appeared to have called out the flagrant assertion.
Zerwas’ A99 amendment was ultimately rejected by a vote of 55-73 in a floor vote.
The omnibus health and human services finance bill passed in the House with a vote of 74-55 on Thursday (without the A99 amendment). The bill was then passed on to the Minnesota Senate for consideration.
Rep. Hassan’s district spans the area of Minneapolis south of I94 to roughly Lake St, on both sides of the 35W corridor, and from Lyndale Avenue on the west to roughly Hwy. 55 (Hiawatha Ave.) on the east. The district includes the Stevens Square, Ventura Village, Whittier, Phillips and Midtown Phillips neighborhoods.
Full video of Thursday’s House discussion related to the child care assistance program: https://youtu.be/u99O2ugz1IQ
View original article: https://alphanewsmn.com/fact-check-mn-rep-hodan-hassan-d-62a-on-us-incarceration-rates/
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Back in England, younger boys were eager to become Boy Scouts. In 1914, Baden-Powell began implementing a program for younger boys that was based on Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book. The Wolf Cub program began in 1916, and since that time, Wolf Cubbing has spread to other European countries with very little change.
In America, hundreds of Cub Scout-age boys and their families were clamoring for a program of their own. As early as 1920, Scout executives at the first national training conference discussed the needs of younger boys. The BSA, however, felt it wise to postpone any action until there was more objective evidence.
In 1925, Dr. Huber W. Hurt, a research psychologist and veteran Scouter, was authorized to study existing organizations for younger boys, such as Boy Rangers, Boy Pioneers, American Eagles, and Boys' Clubs. He found that only one boy in 50 participated regularly in any type of organized leisure-time program. He also found that younger boys responded better to leadership and program efforts than older boys. He worked closely with Ernest Thompson Seton. Both men recommended that the BSA adopt a program for younger boys, with older Boy Scouts as leaders, to tie into home, church, school, and Boy Scouting.
The National Executive Board authorized the Chief Scout Executive to thoroughly investigate the matter. An advisory committee worked with the BSA to develop a plan and produce the necessary literature. Advice was obtained from leading psychologists, sociologists, teachers, school superintendents, professors of education, college executives, and recreation and welfare directors.
By 1929, the new Cubbing program (it wasn't called "Cub Scouting" until several years later) was taking shape and was introduced as a demonstration project in a limited number of communities. Its structure was similar to today's Cub Scouting, except that dens were led by Boy Scout den chiefs. The plan included a neighborhood mothers' committee to encourage Cubs and den chiefs.
In 1930, Cub Scouting was formally launched, with 5,102 boys registered at the end of that first year. By 1933 the time had come to promote Cub Scouting throughout the country as a part of Scouting. All experimental restrictions were removed, and the first national director of Cub Scouting was appointed.
Den mother registration was optional for the first few years. By June 1938, 1,100 den mothers had registered and soon became an important part of Cub Scouting.
The first dens met weekly at a member's home, where boys played games and enjoyed crafts and ceremonies. The pack met weekly or semimonthly for games, den competitions, awards, stunts, and other activities. Cubs advanced from Bobcat (for all new members) to Wolf (age 9), Bear (age 10), and Lion (age 11) and joined a Boy Scout troop at age 12.
In 1949, the age requirement was lowered to between 8 and 10 for Cub Scouts. In 1982, Tiger Cubs was started based on shared leadership of boy-adult partner teams and the school year calendar. In 1986, Cub Scouts could register as second-grade boys.
Cub Scouting in America is different from the younger-boy programs of other countries because it is centered in the home and neighborhood. With the encouragement of family and leaders, boys enjoy a program that covers a wide variety of interesting things. It suggests activities that boys enjoy doing on their own when adults are not supervising them. These activities are particularly suited to boys of Cub Scout age and are different from those they will encounter in Boy Scouting.
A strong influence from Kipling's Jungle Book remains today. The terms "Law of the Pack," "Akela," "Wolf Cub," "grand howl," "den," and "pack" all come from the Jungle Book. At the same time, the Gold and Silver Arrow Points, Webelos emblem, and Arrow of Light emblem are taken from our American Indian heritage.
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TO CALIFORNIA FOR GOLD IN 1849
The following article, entitled "For California," was published in the 21 April 1849 issue of the Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) Gazette. It provides the names of a number of Pennsylvanians headed for California to make their fortunes in the Gold Fields.
"A letter from Independence, Missouri, of date April 7, has the following account of Pennsylvania companies about to cross the plains.
"Pennsylvania has six companies in the field, equipped and ready to move. The first is styled the 'Iron City Rangers,' and is composed as follows: A. W. Brockaway, A. Rudolph, James B. Mitchell, T. B. Kennedy, S. Grubb, Wm. Laury, H. W. Myers, G. Kinsenbach, F. Rockenbaugh, J. C. Risber, Robert Wightman, Lorain Robbins, A. J. Tingle, S. D. Brown, Jos. C. Kennedy, Thos. S. Hart, R. S. Wingham, J. C. McKibben, W. B. Sharp, Robert R. Mart, and Dr. Allen Clark, of Pittsburgh; D. M. Whitehill of Wooster, Ohio; Walter Taylor, Eli Smith, Joseph Smith, Isaac Brecker and George Miller, of Mansfield, Ohio. They are organized into messes of five, are provided with eight light wagons, to be drawn by mules, and each man, in addition has a mule to ride and a mule to pack with. Their object is to seek for gold. In the company is an experienced chemist, and with their outfit all necessary mining implements. They are provided with everything necessary for expedition and comfort, and carry provisions for nine months. Like all other companies that I have met with, they go loaded down with shooting irons of various kinds."
"The second company is from Centre county, Pa., and composed of John Miller, Samuel Saukey, Geo. M. Wasson, Edward Montilius, Wm. Frederick, G. Miller, Jonathan Moore, Mathias Plaff, and Wm. Bartlett, who go as a joint stock company. They are provided with two wagons, ox teams, one tent, and other necessaries for an outfit, and carry 400 lbs. of provisions for each man."
"The third company is from Pittsburgh, under the name of Diamond K Company, and composed as follows: Crawford Washington, captain, and C. Kincaid, W. G. Johnston, W. O. H. Scully, W. B. McBride, and Joseph L. Moody, privates. The design moving with Lieut. Paul, on Monday next, but as an independent organization. They are provided with two wagons, mule teams, one large tent, other necessary equipments, and carry provisions for two hundred days, allowing three pounds a day for each man."
"The fourth company is from Schuylkill county, Pa., and composed of C. S. Cockill, Thomas Small, Rob't. John, H. L. Bird, and ___ Jenkins. They have one wagon, a mule team carrying four hundred pounds provisions for each man, and go as a joint stock company."
"The fifth company is from Tioga county, Penn., and composed of Norman Andrews, J. B. Hill, J. G. Scuter, N. B. Allworth, Samuel R. Smith, and Philemon Doud. They go as an independent joint stock company, are provided with one wagon and other necessary equipments."
"The sixth company is composed as follows: Rob't. Faulkner and P. H. Moody, of Erie county, Penn., and J. L. Keefer of Stuben county, Ky. They intend traveling as an independent company, and under no contract or stipulations to each other. So they reach the 'gold diggins' they are satisfied. To accomplish which they are provided with a wagon, tent and other necessary equipments.
"These several small companies, although independent of any other, intend traveling with others for their better security."
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Time for the whole of the UK to get enthusiastically on board the Brexit bus.
As she promised on becoming Leader of the Conservative Party, and despite threats of blocking by the courts and Parliament, Theresa May has triggered Article 50 and begun the formal process through which the United Kingdom will leave the European Union, one of the biggest political developments of the last half century.
Unelected and unaccountable leaders of the European Commission and Presidency continue to send mixed messages - a variety of threats of doom ahead for the British economy and taxpayer, mixed with promises of cordial and constructive negotiations. But, already the process is becoming clearer. By April 19th, draft guidelines will have been produced by EU officials to ensure that all the remaining Member States are able to sing from the same hymn sheet in their public statements and in their private discussions with the British Government and its officials.
There will then be a meeting of Government Ministers from around the European Union on 27th April, and a meeting of the Heads of Government two days later, on 29th April, at which those negotiating guidelines will be finalised and endorsed. We will then know precisely how the Union intends to proceed, what its key objectives are, and where it’s “red lines” are to be found. At least, such is the plan.
But, against the backdrop of widespread unease among the people of the other 27 Member States of Europe, it’s hard to see how there can actually be one, single, universlly endorsed negotiating position. The interests, for example, of Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy remain today as different to those of Germany as they have always done: that has been the reason for the tensions within the Union and within the Single Currency over the last ten years, and those tensions aren’t going to vanish in a puff of smoke just because the political elite of Brussels hope that they will.
So, Britain’s decision to leave the European Union has the potential fundamentally to shift the balance of power between the Union’s institutions in ways that are not entirely predictable, but which will, hopefully, restore some sense of political accountability and balance between the remaining Member States, the ineffective European Parliament, and the completely unaccountable European Commission and Presidency.
And for all the tough talk coming from Angela Merkel’s Government in Germany about a refusal to grant a post-Brexit United Kingdom access to the Single European Market, there are equally insistent voices from German industry that are quietly whispering in her ear about the dangers of cutting off Germany’s economic nose to spite its face.
German based businesses include car makers such as Volkswagen, Porsche, Mercedes, BMW, Skoda, Opel and Audi; chemical giants such as BASF and Bayer; household appliance suppliers such as Bosch, Miele, Blaupunkt, Siemens and Grundig; financial Goliaths like Deutsche Bank and Allianz; power companies such as E.ON; telecoms businesses such as T-Mobile; along with other leading brands such as Aldi, Lidl, Hugo Boss, Haribo, Knorr, Oetker, Osram lights, Leica cameras, Puma clothing, Steinway musical instruments, Stihl tools, Wella cosmetics and thousands of others.
The investors who stand behind these businesses are not going to want to lose access to British markets by the EU starting a trade war and erecting punitive tariff barriers lest the United Kingdom retaliate.
Nor are we going to see British nationals expelled from other European countries any more than Theresa May wishes to expel from the United Kingdom those nationals of other EU countries who have come here to live, work and raise their families. In many cases, the skills that are offered through such labour mobility are as vital to European economies as they are to the British economy.
And just imagine the political outrage if the property markets of France, Spain and Portugal, to name but three, were sent into free-fall once again as British ex-pats flooded the market with homes they were vacating. This simply isn’t going to happen, and everybody involved in the forthcoming negotiations knows that full well.
All that is up for debate is how the language is phrased and what leverage can be brought to bear by each side of the negotiations before the inevitable joint communication is published announcing that the position of existing expats will be mutually respected; and that there will be a constructive and flexible agreement in place to allow movement between countries in future, though not perhaps with automatic rights of residence for those who are newly awarded citizenship and residence in other countries as a result of mass migration.
Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary, and Liam Fox as Trade Secretary are already putting in place the bones of free trade agreement with countries around the world. As we move forward, these will be fleshed out rapidly to ensure that Britain gains much more than it loses when it comes to tariff free trade. This is a huge, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, to enable Britain to return to its historic position as one of the World’s greatest trading nations.
Brexit could truly put the “Great” back into Britain in economic terms, and those who try to block this, such as Nicola Sturgeon and her Scottish Nationalist Party, will do themselves no favours with their own electorates if they seek to thwart attempts by the United Kingdom Government to do the best possible deal for all four nations of the Union. Already support for a second referendum in Scotland has fallen, and as Brexit is delivered, support will fall still further.
The SNP’s star is waning, its time has been and gone, just like that of Britain’s membership of the EU itself. The dream of an independent Scotland in the European Union is now dead in the water. It is the Norwegian Blue parrot of political fantasies and the sooner it is abandoned the better it will be for the people of Scotland. Get on board the Brexit bus, enthusiastically, Scotland, you have nothing to lose but your own self-imposed chains of poor public service and wasted political energy.
This article first appeared in The Catholic Universe of 31st March 2017.
Cllr Chris Whitehouse KCSG is Chairman of Westminster’s leading political consultancy, www.whitehouseconsulting.co.uk, Secretary of the Catholic Legislators’ Network, a Trustee of the Right To Life Charitable Trust, and a Member of the Isle of Wight Council (Cons. Newport West).
t: @CllrWhitehouse
The Whitehouse Consultancy
Chris Whitehouse
www.whitehouseconsulting.co.uk
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8° Clear
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How Nationwide Program Supports Early Childhood Education
(StatePoint) Today, there is more awareness that the future of the world is in the hands of young children. It’s understood that between birth and 5 years of age, the brain develops rapidly to build the foundation of cognitive and character skills necessary for success in school, health and life. It is now widely accepted that the same dollar will go much further if invested early than it will later on, and more research is showing that quality early childhood education reduces dropout rates, poverty and crime, while improving the skills of the workforce of tomorrow.
However, inequality in early childhood education produces inequality in ability, achievement, health and adult success.
One example of a program leading the charge to move the needle is PNC Grow Up Great, a bilingual initiative to help children from birth through age 5 prepare for success in school and in life, now celebrating its 15th anniversary. Grow Up Great goes beyond the classroom, supporting learning and social-emotional development at home and across communities, by providing free resources and tools to parents, guardians, teachers and caregivers.
When PNC employees chose this philanthropic focus in 2004, investing in early childhood education generally did not have the widespread support it does today. Fifteen years ago, in its headquarters state of Pennsylvania, the government didn’t have a line item in its budget for early childhood education, and fewer than 2,400 3- and 4-year-olds were enrolled in state-funded preschool programs. In 2017, more than 28,000 3- and 4-year-olds were enrolled in Pennsylvania state-funded preschool programs, according to research done by the National Institute for Early Education Research.
A lot has changed in 15 years, but one thing has remained the same, PNC’s focus on and commitment to improving access to quality early childhood education. To date, more than 5 million children across the country have been supported through PNC’s grants and educational programming. Employees spent more than 100,000 hours volunteering for Grow Up Great in 2018, up 13 percent from 2017.
That trend is significant and powerful. The company has made a difference by leveraging its influence with the business community, policymakers and other key stakeholders to garner support for quality early childhood education. And teaming with partners that share its goals such as Sesame Workshop, Fred Rogers Productions and the National Head Start Association. Working with The Pew Charitable Trusts and Committee for Economic Development, they launched the first-ever summit of the nation’s top economists to explore the economic impact of investment in early education.
“All children deserve to begin their lives on equal footing and receive high-quality early learning experiences that have a lifelong positive impact,” says Sally McCrady, chair and president of the PNC Foundation. “Fortunately, we are making progress and look forward to the day that vision becomes a reality.”
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A Conversation with Misha Burnett
Monday , 27, February 2017 Scott Cole Authors, Book Review, Interview 15 Comments
The Cirsova series of conversations continues with Misha Burnett.
Misha’s story, A Hill of Stars appears in Cirsova #1 and I’m looking forward to the eldritch themed stories from his writing group to be released with the 2017 editions.
I found Misha’s take on New Wave writing interesting, which he describes as focused character psychology with an emphasis of poetic language over scientific accuracy. His Book of Lost Doors series serves as a great introduction and is available for free on Kindle Unlimited. Despite that a lot of what influenced the Lost Doors series isn’t my cup of tea I enjoyed Catskinner’s Book, and I’m well into the next. My only criticism is that one will encounter a small typo here and there. Go here for a great interview and discussion of Catskinner’s Book. Additionally, you can find it featured at the Puppy of the Month Club.
For those that are involved with the Hugo Awards Misha’s A Hill of Stars has been nominated for Best Novelette.
Misha’s web page can be found here.
Scott Cole: Please describe your writing.
Misha Burnett: I’m kind of the red-headed stepchild of the Pulp Revival movement–I write about it, but the fiction that I write isn’t really Pulp Revival. “A Hill Of Stars” was an experiment for me. I wanted to see if I could do a pulp-style adventure story, and I wanted to set in it in a D&D style version of Lovecraft’s prehistory because that struck me as an amusing concept. I did another deliberate pastiche, my story “The First Man In The World” in the All These Shiny Worlds anthology was an attempt to recapture the Campbellian Hard SF of Asimov and Niven.
However, I consider my novels and most of my other short stories New Wave, and on the realistic horror end of the New Wave spectrum. I like playing with ideas and trying out new things. My series, The Book Of Lost Doors, is based on the cosmology of William Burrough’s Cut-Up Trilogy. My main influences are New Wave writers like Philip Dick, Tim Powers, Samuel Delany, George Alec Effinger, Michael Moorcock, and their modern descendants like China Mieville and Clive Barker.
My current project is a novel called Bad Dreams & Broken Hearts, which is a mash-up of Winsor McKay’s Little Nemo In Slumberland comic strip with film noir, and is set in a world taken from 1970’s crime exploitation B-movies. I like putting elements together that don’t ordinarily go together, and seeing if I can get them to work. I dislike the concept of genre on general principles and go out of my way to work against tropes. I don’t tend to have a lot of happy endings in my work. I stole the last line of Gingerbread Wolves (the fourth and final volume in The Book Of Lost Doors) from Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Lament”–what I think is the saddest line in American letters, “Life must go on, I forget just why.”
SC: Please tell me more about Bad Dreams and Broken Hearts. Based on your description I’m thinking an innocent Nemo type character winds up in the wrong part of town and is saved by and has adventures with Priest from Superfly.
MB: No, Samhain Jackknife is more of a Dean Martin character. He’s a playboy and a jazz musician with a taste for absinthe and other men’s wives. However, he is also the son on the Fellmonger of Messidor, one of the nine Lords of Nightmare and he works secretly for the Lord Mayor (who happens to be a dragon.)
SC: The Superfly reference is me taking 70’s exploitation and running with it…..in the wrong direction, however, a Dean Martin type who is the son of a Nightmare lord and agent of a dragon is an eclectic mix..
How do you go about transferring Martin’s attributes to Samhain? Did you conduct bibliographical research on Dean or just flow with your current mental model?
MB: I just sat down and watched some Matt Helm movies. My visual picture is of Matthew Bellamy of the band Muse, but I wanted Martin’s mannerisms, his cheerful amorality and over-the-top seductive line of patter. I have never thought of myself as particularly attractive, so I wanted to try out a character who is a pretty boy and knows it and is comfortable about using his looks for his own ends.
SC: Do you feel comfortable in sharing your worst idea when it came to combining seemingly incongruent elements into a story? Also, what story do you consider your best when it came combining disparate elements?
MB: I don’t know that I could single out one idea as the worst–I have so many bad ideas. That’s a good thing, though. I think that one thing that holds back a lot of creativity is being afraid of bad ideas. I probably start ten projects for every one that survives more than 10,000 words.
To give you one example, I started a project called After Gojira which was to be a romance set in a city which was cleaning up after an attack by a giant monster. My idea was to start where the monster movie ends, with the immense corpse surrounded by miles of shattered cityscape and the brave workers who have to try to get the city workable again. I wanted to use the narrowly averted apocalypse as the backdrop for a regular, “vanilla”-style romance–a man and a woman meeting on the job and falling in love. I couldn’t ever get the mix right, though, between the existence of the fantastic and its effect on the characters and their quotidian day to day life and blossoming feelings for each other. So I moved on to something else.
My personal favorite bad idea made good is the character of Exquisite in The Book Of Lost Doors. I introduce him in the second book, Cannibal Hearts, primarily as comic relief. The idea came from binge-watching Hellraiser movies on Netflix. Clive Barker’s Cenobites are pretty obviously taken from the S&M subculture taken to its final extremes. That’s a subculture I know well, so I thought to myself, “What kind of person would really take BDSM so far as to transcend life and death, if such a thing were possible?”
As it happens, the people that I have known who have gotten seriously into BDSM as a lifestyle have also been really geeky. So I had this mental image of Barker’s Pinhead character in a Star Wars T-shirt saying, “Hey, you guys want to come over and play Risk?”
As the series progressed, however, I found myself taking Exquisite and the other Necroidim more seriously, and growing sympathetic to their devotion to their bizarre lifestyle. Ex turned out to be one of my favorite characters, in fact, and there is a scene in The Worms Of Heaven (that actually begins at a game of Risk) where Ex gives an eulogy for his lover Sublime that is probably the most powerful sequence I’ve ever written.
SC: Other than Exquisite does the S&M subculture influence or appear in other stories? How is it introduced?
MB: Does it influence me? Yes, in two ways that I can think of. First is that I have a lot of atypical relationships in my fiction, homosexual, polyamorous, power exchange. They say “write what you know” and that’s what I know.
I have a viewpoint on alternative relationships that’s less a minority and more of a sliver–basically I don’t know anyone else who looks at them the same way that I do. The capsule version is that human beings are designed to operate a certain way–one man, one woman, for life, to raise children. Every culture that has ever existed has acknowledged that as the way in which humans naturally form family groupings, just like wolves form packs and whales form pods. However, human beings aren’t wolves or whales, and we have the choice to act in ways that are contrary to nature.
The love that two men have for each other in a homosexual relationship is no less strong or important as the love of a married couple, but it is an unnatural love. Writing about such relationships without understanding the stresses that an unnatural love places on people is what robs a lot of modern homosexual fiction of the power that the underground queer fiction of the 1960s and 1970s had. The Well Of Loneliness, for example, has its most poignant moments when the main character ruminates on what she is missing in choosing homosexuality. You don’t find that in modern queer fiction–instead all of the feelings of strangeness are externalized. It’s those blasted homophobes’ fault!
The word “perversion” has fallen out of favor as a serious descriptive term, but it’s simply the honest way to describe when the natural desire to create and nurture a family is made into something else. Writing about perversions requires one to acknowledge that it is perversion, but also to acknowledge that it grew out from a healthy root and isn’t a thing that is entirely wicked, it is a thing that has been stunted and prevented from reaching its proper growth. Modern liberal writers refuse to do the first, and most modern conservative writers don’t understand how to do the second.
Second, I have a firm belief that organizations tend to follow certain patterns regardless of the content of the organization. You’ll find the same cliques and infighting and different types of people in an S&M club, a Hebrew bible study group, a historical reenactment society, an Argentine Tango class. (All groups that I have been part of.) In every group you’ll find purists and populists, those who focus on buying all the stuff, those who focus on pushing one particular subset, folks who are there for the politics and folks who are there for the service work. So I’ve never hesitated to write about organizations that I don’t have any experience with (or that don’t exist in the real world) because people tend to be the same no matter what they set out to do.
SC: I like your categorization of purists and populists. Are there other archetypes of personalities you have identified in organizations? I guess it’s due to my line of work but I’m always more fixated on the Pareto Principle.
MB: Well, I could enumerate different types, but I think that most members of an interest group can be categorized into those who use the interest as an excuse to socialize and those who put up with socializing in order to indulge their interest. In the first group you tend to have your group organizers and workers, but you also tend to have those who are there to have fun and let someone else do the work. The second group tends to be more fragmented, since what exactly it is about the interest that draws a person will vary from person to person.
The first group will argue about who has the responsibility to update the email list for meetings, the second group will have knock-down screaming fights about whether or not an Arrakeen druid could choose sandworm as an animal form and if so, what level it would be.
SC: You mentioned historical reenactment. What period(s) of history influence you most?
MB: My ex-wife was a Buckskinner, and I was the Significant Other Who Doesn’t Care About The Interest But Shows Up Anyway archetype in that group. My interest in history is mostly about the history of technology. I find that fascinating, particularly the odd little byways of technology that seemed like a good idea at the time but are now lost. Like videodisc players–great concept, but they were released before they were mature and lost out to video tape. Now, of course, we’re back to disks.
There is so much that is designed a particular way today because it’s backwards compatible to technology that no longer exists. In ten years people will have no idea why 12 volt charging outlets in cars are so big because they won’t know that cars used to have integral cigarette lighters. I do a fair amount of electrical work on my job, and there is a lot of the National Electrical Code that seems completely arbitrary unless you know the history.
SC: I’ll date myself but was recently car shopping, noticed the 12 volt outlet and asked the salesman where the lighter unit was. The salesman broke the news that the lighter was not available and just served as an outlet for accessories*.
In any of your stories do you explore those odd little byways of technology? I’m a third of the way through Catskinner and future technology (or maybe better to say unknown to most humans technology) is in the plot line but not sure the sub-topic of bypassed tech will play a role.
*For those that are fascinated by auto electrical systems, follow this link which includes links to the technical standards.
MB: I have a background in building maintenance, and I use that extensively in my work. I’ve always been fascinated by abandoned places and how they can co-exist with occupied spaces in an urban environment. People learn to just “un-see” empty storefronts. The idea that anything could be lurking behind the plywood covered windows and sun-faded For Lease signs is something that I have tried to suggest in my work. (Most directly in The Worms Of Heaven, but it’s a theme in the whole series.)
Most people have no idea how extensive the infrastructure is that an industrial civilization depends on, or how fragile. In the United States most of the time the water comes out of the tap and power comes out of the wall, and people take that for granted without understanding the constant work behind the scenes to keep it that way. The majority of the technology that we depend on was laid down in the middle of the last century. In the event of a catastrophic systems failure in a major US city I doubt that this country would have the resources to recreate it–we would probably have to simply abandoned the entire city, or most of it. We’re already seeing some of that in big cities like Chicago and Detroit.
The advances of technology in one relatively minor area–data processing equipment–have blinded us to the overall picture. There is a myth that we are the most technologically savvy generation in history, and that’s simply not true. So much has been lost that we’re not even aware has been lost. I have seen buildings that require extensive remodeling, or have even been condemned and destroyed, because an electrical or plumbing system has failed and there is nobody left alive who knows how to fix it.
SC: Would that be a case of those electrical and plumbing systems using “bypassed technology” and it has been replaced by superior technology (I hope)? Either the examples you just gave are by-passed systems or, more ominously a sign that is similar to the decline of Roman Britain (eventually the aqueducts and drainage systems fell into disrepair as no one knew how to maintain them).
MB: Changes in technology come about when a new way of doing things offers some advantage over the older way of doing things. (No company is going to retool their manufacturing process to make lower quality goods at a higher cost.) So, yes, the new techniques are superior in some ways to the old ones.
However, what is advantageous is determined by more than the mechanical efficiency of the device or process involved. Politics always influences technological innovation. The martial art style of Kung Fu was developed as a means allowing a disarmed population to defend itself by using using the objects they were permitted to own (“Oh, no, Sir, we have no weapons–these are merely harmless farming implements!”).
Since the middle of the last century the parasitic overhead on labor costs has been rising dramatically. Consequently, a technique that can be used by a semi-skilled worker has an economic advantage over one that requires a long apprenticeship to learn. This doesn’t mean that the new way of doing things is objectively better than the old way–just that, given the economic realities of our times, it allows a company to make more money.
Today, in America, there is a need for technology that can be installed, operated, and maintained by workers with minimal training. What’s more, laws that were intended to protect workers have had the unintended consequence of making it difficult and dangerous for companies to reward skilled workers and let go of those who are less skilled. This has given rise to a design philosophy that is focused on making things easier, but not necessarily better. Hanging drywall takes less time to master than plastering–but a plaster & lathe wall will hold up to an impact that will punch a hole through drywall. Replacing breakers in a modern breaker box is very easy–but you have to replace breakers more often. Glueing PVC is a lot faster than sweating copper pipe–but copper pipe lasts longer.
This isn’t to say that all innovation in construction over the past half century has resulted in shoddier structures–I am a huge fan of metal wall studs as opposed to 2x4s, and whoever invented Shark Bite fittings needs to be canonized–but there is a clear economic incentive to develop new techniques that are faster and easier to use.
SC: I’m sure many of the blog readers would be interested in your Book of Lost Doors series. Please give a quick overview of William Burroughs Cut Up Trilogy and how your series relates.
MB: William Burroughs is hard to read, and deliberately so. His most famous quotation is “Language is a virus from outer space” and he saw himself as fighting against a system that enslaved people by controlling their actions through controlling language. Consequently he committed war crimes against language, which he considered the enemy of free thought.
Fortunately for my readers, I’ve made no attempt to mimic his style of including long passages of mechanically created gibberish in his prose. Instead I tried to work from the concept that alien minds have been and are influencing human behavior to their own incomprehensible ends.
In my series there are Outsiders, which we know next to nothing about since they deliberately conceal their nature and lie to those people that they are in mental contact with. They claim to be aliens, demons, angels, ghosts–whatever the human is most inclined to believe in. I don’t ever come out and say unequivocally what the Outsiders are.
The fact that we don’t know is a big part of the stories, in fact. What we do know is that they feed on order and leave chaos in their wake. They are metaphysical parasites, essentially, intelligences that have survived the heat death of their own universes at the price of increasing the entropy on other regions of space.
I take a lot of Burroughs’ exotic imagery as well, the idea that mental contact with the Outsiders leads to physical changes in the humans. I have several types of altered humans, some based on Burroughs but also inspired by other New Wave and horror sources.
SC: It seems Burroughs didn’t want the direction of his thoughts to be constrained by language (or infected by the word virus) but did he agitate for a different means of communication or was he a rebel with no end game in mind? Maybe he thought that only by bursting free of the constraints could the answer be found.
MB: I believe that Burroughs was a primal utopian–a very common viewpoint of the New Wave, and one that I think is a serious intellectual failing. The idea is that humans are ontologically perfect but that we are kept from our perfection by outside influences “society”, “the man”, “the military-industrial complex”, what-have-you. If the pernicious influences are destroyed then our natural perfection will assert itself. It’s the same philosophy that founded and then destroyed the Oneida Community, for example.
SC: You mentioned you don’t inflict Burroughs’ style on your readers but does his cut out techniques influence your prose or do you “follow the channels” as Burroughs said, using different methods?
MB: I tend towards surrealism as my primary epistemological weapon. I feel that the medium has to be prosaic, even pedestrian, in order to deliver a fantastic message. If I describe a man, I can use flowery language and quirky grammar, but if I describe a man with wings I have to use language that is concrete and down to Earth. I take the photorealistic surrealism of Rene Magritte as my guide, as well as William Blake’s observation that a spirit should be portrayed as being more real than solid objects. I want to make people believe in impossible things, so I describe them as if they were not only possible, but ordinary.
SC: I’d like to go back to an earlier answer and your mention of queer fiction. You compared the powerful stories of the 60’s and 70’s versus the modern stories which you find lacking, as they tend to externalize the strong emotions. I’m guessing modern authors are riding the great victimization tsunami that has flooded modern culture. I don’t like it but it’s definitely been politically and financially successful for many.
MB: Less than you might imagine. The thing about virtue signaling fiction is that you don’t have to buy the book to get the benefit from it–it’s enough to just talk about it. Library sales and review copies don’t pay the rent, which is why so many “best-selling” novelists are tenured faculty at a university that pays them to write.
As far as financially successful homosexual fiction, it’s mostly gay male erotica written by and for straight women.
SC: Kind of like how many straight men are fascinated by lesbianism?
MB: Exactly, although I think that it’s at the same time less widely acknowledged and more mainstream, if that makes any sense. There’s more of a fiction that gay male romance is groundbreaking storytelling, or something. But, seriously, does anyone think that women are watching Torchwood or Penny Dreadful for the plots?
SC: Based on your fan’s feedback how would you define your current audience? I would ask if you write for a particular audience but believe you write for yourself and a large fan base and extra sales would be welcome but not necessary?
MB: My audience seems to be people who enjoy fantastic elements in stories but don’t identify as SF/F readers. One of my favorite reviews of Catskinner’s Book says, in part, that it’s not like “ordinary science fiction” because it has interesting characters. Demographically, my biggest fans tend to be middle-aged women, which really surprised me. I’m more likely to pick up thriller or true crime readers as fans than science fiction readers.
SC: Maybe your books can be a gateway for those fans that reflexively recoil from their preconceptions of SF/F.
MB: I think so. There has been a lot of talk in the Puppy circles about the pushback against traditional publishing injecting message fiction into SF, and I think that’s true. I’ve had people complain that my covers don’t look like traditional SF covers, and, honestly, I think that works in my favor. There is large segment of the population that would like SF, but have been turned off by what gets sold as SF today.
SC: How did you come across Cirsova magazine?
MB: From the Cirsova blog on WordPress. I don’t recall how I found it but Alex made a comment on some blog that I was already following and I checked it out and added him to my feed. I’ve been reading his blog for some time and I liked his take on SF and Fantasy, so when he asked for “Sword & Planet” fiction I thought I’d give it a shot. The rest, as they say, is history.
SC: Cirsova is out of Little Rock, Arkansas and in this excellent interview you mention your membership in the Ozark Hellbenders (I’d link to them but the link given in the interview is broken). Is there a writing scene down there that folks should know about?
MB: There is definitely something eldritch about the Ozarks. I think it may be the feeling of great age and wildness of the landscape–what Lovecraft saw in rural New England. Certain skylines seem to be haunted by spirits older than humanity and they lead a man down strange and oft-times dark paths of introspection.
Or maybe it’s just that there’s nothing to do there except watch old horror movies and drink. Tough to say.
SC: How is the Eldritch Earth Geophysical Society coming along? Besides the upcoming Cirsova magazines are you all involved with any other projects?
MB: I don’t think that the Google+ plus group will be doing anything else. It’s my hope that the setting will appeal to other writers and inspire them to build on the ideas. That’s all I wanted to do with it, suggest that there is an alternative to the vaguely medieval Europe setting for heroic fantasy. I would love to see “Eldritch Fantasy” showing up as a sub-genre, but it’s not my world, it’s a mashup of (E R) Burroughs and Lovecraft. Neither of those writers need me to promote them.
SC: Actually, that makes it more interesting, that is, create a group to accomplish a specific goal or project and then move on. The interesting aspect of it is the experience gained by each individual contributor and how they will apply it to future projects.
MB: The other side of not being afraid of bad ideas is knowing when to let go of good ideas. Too many creative projects are doomed from the onset because something that was good is reused over and over until it’s worn out. For example, most of Hollywood’s output for the past decade…
SC: I’m at the point in your Cirsova Issue 1 contribution, A Hill of Stars, where the protagonist learns he’s on a shoggoth’s menu and on the Kickstarter page it seems that the Eldritch Earth Geophysical Society has top billing. Are you able to give us some teasers from the upcoming stories?
MB: I’m very happy with the stories that came out of that group. They are very different. My own contribution, “In The Gloaming O My Darling” is probably the darkest of them–I was trying for an old EC Horror Comic feel, and I think I nailed it. But the others are more straight adventure. People took the setting and made it their own, which is what I was hoping for. Brian Lowe’s “War Of The Ruby” is a kind of supernatural heist story, and I love those. Schuyler Hernstrom’s “The First American” is pure pulp, mixing savagery and high tech in a way that you seldom see from modern SF. Jay Barnson’s “The Queen Of Shadows” uses parts of Lovecraft’s mythos in ways that I never have considered, and has a solid feeling of creepy decadent empire that reminds me of Moorcock’s Melnibone. Louise Sorenson’s “Darla Of Deodanth” has a very fresh feel because she’s new to the mythos and looking at it with a different perspective.
And that’s very exciting. I didn’t want people writing Lovecraft pastiches, and even less people writing Burnett pastiches (perish the thought!) I wanted people to find some neglected real estate and move in.
SC: Do you play wargames or role play such as D&D? If not, any favorite computer / console games?
MB: I used to. I played D&D back when it was three little books in a white box. I was always on the gonzo “Arduin Grimoire” side of gaming. I used Metamorphosis Alpha mutation charts on orcs and played in a Car Wars campaign that was based on The Terminator, with Mad Max style road warriors facing off against sentient tanks. I was big into Champions for a while, too, before it got swallowed up by GURPS.
I have a PS2 and get it out from time to time. I like Gauntlet: Dark Legacy and Ratchet & Clank.
SC: I’m betting that your interest in the Adruin Grimoire supplements and William Burroughs is somehow related to your personality or world view, that is, not being constrained?
MB: There’s a similar feel, yes, a conviction that the best art begins where good taste and decorum end.
SC: The top five books of all time?
MB: Tim Powers, Declare
Robert Heinlein, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress
Samuel Delany, Einstein Intersection
G K Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Philip Dick: A Scanner Darkly
Now, I hate questions like that, so I just sat down and wrote down the first five books that came to mind as being major influences on me. Ask me again in a week and I might come up with five entirely different ones.
SC: Agree, it was a lame question, but still good to see what popped into your head at this time. Via Jeffro ran across Jim Fear’s podcasts and in Episode 21 he had a rant about the Amazon TV adaption of Man in the High Castle. Have you watched it and if so, do you think it doesn’t do justice to Philip Dick’s work?
MB: I saw the first episode, and I liked the pretty costumes and CGI skylines, but it didn’t really grab me. Honestly, MITHC isn’t one of my favorite Dick novels. I felt that he was trying too hard to write a serious science fiction book.
SC: Jim Fear strongly recommends A Scanner Darkly and with your recommendation it’s going on the reading list. What aspects of Philip Dick’s ideas and prose do you particularly enjoy?
MB: A Scanner Darkly is a book that will depress you. It’s very bleak, and it’s painfully honest about the destructive power of drugs and drug culture. Dick has a listing of friends that he had lost to drugs as an afterword, in fact. The film version is very good–I consider it the only film made from a Dick story that does the source material justice.
Philip Dick understood and could write coherently about the subjective experience of mental illness in a way that very few authors have managed. That’s a really hard thing to do, and one that I attempted with the James/Catskinner dynamic in my own fiction. If I had to pick one novel as the definitive Dick work I’d go with VALIS. It captures the terrifying uncertainty of not being able to trust one’s own mental processes.
As an aside, I’d also suggest Samuel Delany’s Dhalgren, Hannah Green’s I Never Promised You A Rose Garden, George Alec Effinger’s The Wolves Of Memory, and Hunter Thompson’s Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas as books that manage that trick.
SC: As I was preparing this post for publication I came across Jeffro’s latest in which he mentions New Wave. Would you like to give us more of your perspective on New Wave in light of Jeffro’s post?
MB: I tend to characterize fiction by its philosophical basis, and so I think of what is usually called “Hard SF” as “Materialistic Fantasy”. That is to say the acceptable tropes in Hard SF–faster than light travel, self-aware machines, handheld laser weapons, human cloning, and so on–are no more plausible or less fantastic than wizards and dragons. It is a fantasy of a particular metaphysic, the clockwork universe of determinists. The Campbellian ideal of Science Fiction had an Atheistic metaphysic–the heavens displayed on the covers of Astounding Science Fiction were devoid of any God and only the cold stars looked down. It had magic aplenty, but its magic had to be of a certain type and clothed in a skin of brushed aluminum and flashing lights.
The New Wave was a reaction against deterministic fantasy. However, not all refutations of Atheism are affirmations of the Judeo-Christian Western ethos that formed the background of the Pulp aesthetic. Philip Dick’s Gnosticism, the Absurdism of Kurt Vonnegut, Michael Moorcock’s Evolutionary Paganism, and Robert Heinlein’s Inner Light Deism were all anti-Atheist, but also anti-Christian.
On the other hand, Tim Powers (and for those not familiar with his work, go read everything he wrote, right now. I’ll wait) is unashamedly Catholic (in fact, the Catholic character of David in Philip Dick’s VALIS is based on Powers) and his faith is an important part of the New Wave elements in his writing. Harlan Ellison, despite his protestations to the contrary, brought to his work a uniquely Jewish sensibility of guilt and redemption as the pillars of the universe. Jo Clayton was, for a time, a nun, and her work is suffused with a deep understanding of moral law.
So I would say that the movement of New Wave away from materialism is only positive when one considers which direction, precisely, one is moving in. To quote C S Lewis in Paralandra, “There’s nothing specially fine about simply being a spirit. The Devil is a spirit.”
SC: Is there a tentative release date for Bad Dreams & Broken Hearts?
MB: Not at the moment. My writing schedule is irregular, both from having a full time day job and from having health problems that sometimes prevent me from writing at all. But if the past is any indication, I’ll probably be wrapping it up in late summer of this year.
SC: Do you have any other ongoing projects you’d like to mention?
MB: Right now I’m caught up in this novel. I am considering putting together a collection of my short fiction–I have enough that I think I can do a whole volume, about half previously published and half unpublished works, which I think is fair. I wouldn’t want to put out a book that was nothing but stories people can get someplace else.
There is also an ongoing project that I feel passionately about and that is encouraging other authors. I try to do it through my blog and through other online communities. It’s something that I take every bit as seriously as my own writing. The world needs new voices.
Art is not something that only some lucky few get to do and everyone else has to stand back and watch. Making art is part of what makes us human. It’s a need as deep as food and water. Living without art won’t physically kill you, but it will kill your soul, make you dried up and waiting to die long before you stop breathing. I speak to people who are drawn to writing fiction because I am a writer of fiction–that’s what I know, that’s where I can help.
But everybody needs something. We need it desperately. Listen to that voice in your heart and do what it says–write, draw, paint, dance, sing, play the kazoo, whatever. Make art, not because anyone else wants it, but because you need to make it, like a blade of grass needs to reach for the sky. It’s what we do. It’s what we are.
Friend, go up higher.
SC: Misha, this has been an enjoyable conversation. I hope we can chat again after Bad Dreams & Broken Hearts is released.
MB: Me, too.
deuce says:
“There is definitely something eldritch about the Ozarks. I think it may be the feeling of great age and wildness of the landscape–what Lovecraft saw in rural New England. Certain skylines seem to be haunted by spirits older than humanity and they lead a man down strange and oft-times dark paths of introspection.”
One of HPL’s revision tales — “Medusa’s Coil” — was set on the edge of the Ozarks. Robert E. Howard’s only trip beyond the Mason-Dixon line was to southwest Missouri. That region looks more like how he described Cimmeria than anywhere in Texas.
I live on the extreme western edge of the Ozarks myself.
It’s not that much of a stretch to think of Manly Wade Wellman’s Silver John happening down around the Ozarks as well.
Like I said, Arkansas (Little Rock, especially) feels like someone’s first fantasy setting. Over that way, there are forests – over there are the mountains – plains over that way – and right over there are the swamps and bogs, to the left of which you’ll find the haunted precursor ruins nestled between oxbow lakes.
My cousin married the daughter of one of the senior partners in the Rose law firm in Little Rock. He practiced law in Jonesboro for awhile.
Scott Cole says:
Wish I asked Misha more about the Ozarks.
Let’s say a SF/F or horror fan or author is driving cross country and will pass nearby. What would be your town or park recommendation to visit for inspiration?
Misha Burnett says:
I grew up in Springfield, MO and two of my three adult children live there. The subdivision where I grew up, Village Green, shows up in Gingerbread Wolves. (It’s not as bad as I portray it in my novel.)
Now, when I was a kid, there was nothing but trees between Springfield and Branson, but that’s all built up now.
I don’t know that I would be able to recommend any particular place–without my childhood memories, there may not be anything spooky or sinistar about the region at all.
Pythian “Castle” is pretty cool:
https://infogalactic.com/info/Pythian_Home_of_Missouri
Eureka Springs is interesting all the way around, IMO:
http://www.hauntedplaces.org/eureka-springs-ar/
All along the MO/AK border you have evocative scenery. Lots of fog-cloaked hollows and valleys at the right time of day and season (which REH would’ve seen in MO; he also had family in Arkansas).
There’s a neat little monadnock just north of West Fork in the Boston Mountains.
https://www.google.com/maps/@35.9438667,-94.1939301,3a,75y,133.45h,75.24t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1svMD8ZWJrtVO7DZInPmVi6A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
Frisky says:
Karl Gallagher says:
The All These Shiny Worlds anthology is currently free on Kindle for anyone who wants to read MB’s story in it.
And even if you don’t want to read my story, there are a bunch of other really good ones in there. I believe we should have a second one coming out this spring.
“I tend to characterize fiction by its philosophical basis, and so I think of what is usually called “Hard SF” as “Materialistic Fantasy”. That is to say the acceptable tropes in Hard SF–faster than light travel, self-aware machines, handheld laser weapons, human cloning, and so on–are no more plausible or less fantastic than wizards and dragons. It is a fantasy of a particular metaphysic, the clockwork universe of determinists. ”
Excellent quote.
the impossible game says:
Thank your site! information your share is useful to me!
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El Nino Ventures Inc.
Management and Directors
Charter of the Audit Committee
Murray Brook Project
Great Northern Peninsula Project
Tel: 1.613.659.2773, 1.604.685.1870 or Toll free 1.800.667.1870
TSXV: ELN OTC Pink: ELNOF FSE: E7QP
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El Niño Ventures Inc. Corporate Update - Democratic Republic of the Congo
ELN News March 5 2010
March 5, 2010 Vancouver, Canada. El Nino Ventures Inc. ("ELN" or the "Company") (TSX.V: ELN; FSE: E7Q) wishes to announce an update on the Company's business affairs in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the "DRC"). Upon review of the Company's exploration portfolio in the DRC, ELN has made a decision to terminate its agreement with Phoenix Mining Corporation SPRL ("PMC") to acquire a 70% interest in a joint venture company into which PMC purportedly could transfer its rights to the DRC research permit designated as PR9316.
As a result of ELN's notice of termination of the agreement with PMC, a claim was initiated by PMC in the DRC against the Company. At the time this claim was filed, George Kavvadias was a principal shareholder of PMC. The lawsuit alleges that ELN is obligated under the terminated agreement to make a first anniversary payment to PMC of $250,000 as well as to pay damages. Management's position is that the DRC is not the forum for disputes under that agreement and that no such payment obligation exists for various reasons including that the termination notice was given in a timely manner prior to the first anniversary of the agreement. The Company has retained legal counsel in the DRC to address PMC's claims, all of which the Company firmly believes are unfounded and without any merit.
The Company was also served at the same time with a claim filed in the DRC by GCP Group Ltd. ("GCP"). George Kavvadias is also the Chief Executive and principal shareholder of GCP. In 2007, Mr. Kavvadias had been retained on a consulting basis as DRC Country Manager for ELN. In connection therewith, he managed Infinity Resources SPRL, a DRC joint venture company owned by ELN (as to 70%) and GCP (as to 30%). GCP is claiming fees and expenses alleged to be owing to it by ELN in connection with the provision of services alleged to have been rendered by GCP to Infinity Resources SPRL. El Nino has retained legal counsel in the DRC to respond to these claims which it firmly believes are unfounded and without any merit.
The Company is also considering initiating counter claims relating to the above-mentioned lawsuits and joint venture agreements.
About El Niño Ventures Inc.
El Niño Ventures is a mineral exploration company, focused on copper/cobalt exploration in the DRC (see releases January 12, 2009 and February 25, 2009). The Company holds a 50% interest in an extensive base metal project located within the Bathurst mining camp in Ontario, Canada. El Niño entered into an option agreement with Votorantim Metals Canada Inc. and Xstrata Zinc Canada whereby Votorantim may earn a 50% interest in El Niño's landholdings by expending $10 million over 5 years and may further increase its interest in El Niño's landholdings to 70% by expending an additional $10 million over a further two years. Please see release dated August 6, 2009.
On Behalf of the Board of Directors
"Harry Barr"
Harry Barr, Chairman and Acting CEO
Contact: Mark Feeney at Telephone: +1.604.786.2387
(Email address obfuscated: enable JavaScript to view)
Fax 604.683.4887, or visit www.elninoventures.com
2303 West 41st Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. Canada V6M 2A3
Note: this release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements may differ materially from actual future events or results and are based on current expectations or beliefs. For this purpose, statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. In addition, forward-looking statements include statements in which the Company uses words such as "continue", "efforts", "expect", "believe", "anticipate", "confident", "intend", "strategy", "plan", "will", "estimate", "project", "goal", "target", "prospects", "optimistic" or similar expressions. These statements by their nature involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially depending on a variety of important factors, including, among others, the Company's ability and continuation of efforts to timely and completely make available adequate current public information, additional or different regulatory and legal requirements and restrictions that may be imposed, and other factors as may be discussed in the documents filed by the Company on SEDAR (www.sedar.com), including the most recent reports that identify important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements. The Company does not undertake any obligation to review or confirm analysts' expectations or estimates or to release publicly any revisions to any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. Investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.
You can view the Next News Releases item: Thu Mar 11, 2010, El Niño Ventures Inc. Reports Soil Geochemistry Sampling Results on the Kasala Copper Project -- DRC
You can view the Previous News Releases item: Mon Feb 22, 2010, El Niño Ventures Inc. Appoints New Director and Chief Financial Officer
You can return to the main News Releases page, or press the Back button on your browser.
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Ruth Mitchell of ICAN
Photo: Takver
The prestigious peace prize is the biggest international media event in Norway and ICAN, a global network organisation, is receiving this year’s prize “for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons,” according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
In July, 122 UN member states adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The Nobel committee, a body independent of the government and appointed by the Norwegian Parliament, hails ICAN as the leading civil society actor in the endeavour to achieve the prohibition of nuclear weapons under international law.
Notwithstanding the broad international support, none of the 29 members of the world’s most powerful military alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Norway included, has signed the agreement. Nor has any of the countries in possession of nuclear weapons.
NORWEGIAN INITIATIVE
The odd truth is that the UN treaty was achieved on the heels of the Norwegian Humanitarian Initiative on Nuclear Weapons, initiated by the former Red-Green government led by Jens Stoltenberg (Labour), who now happens to be Secretary General of NATO.
The Red-Green government poured hundreds of millions of crowns into its nuclear disarmament efforts, drawn from the aid budget. The efforts were solidly anchored at the Prime Minister’s Office and led from the Foreign Ministry.
The Norwegian initiative peaked at the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons Conference, held in Oslo in March 2013, and hosted by Norway’s then Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide.
Henriette Killi Westhrin, Secretary General at Norwegian People’s Aid and a former State Secretary (Socialist Left), tells Development Today that it was here the process toward the UN treaty started.
“It was the first meeting place for this process and then others took over the baton,” she says.
The important factor was that the new initiative focused on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and not security policy concerns, she notes.
During the Stoltenberg government’s two terms in office, Norwegian and international organisations working on the humanitarian track of nuclear disarmament were generously funded.
Among them were ICAN, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), which together received more than NOK 40 million from the Norwegian aid budget in the period 2009-2015.
In addition, the government directed huge amounts to research both at home and internationally about the humanitarian consequences of a nuclear war. In 2013 alone, the budget line in the Norwegian aid budget for development and disarmament amounted to NOK 175 million. Norway was almost alone in funding these kinds of activities.
“Norway was the engine in the environment working on the humanitarian consequences and had a huge impact, much larger than one would expect a small country like Norway could have,” Westhrin says.
In the fall 2013, the Labour-led government lost the election and a minority government consisting of the Conservative Party and the anti-immigration Progress Party took over. At home, funding of the humanitarian initiative continued, but the government did not show much enthusiasm.
Internationally, Mexico followed up on the Oslo conference with a new conference in February 2014. And in December of the same year, Austria hosted a conference in Vienna and pledged to work for a prohibition of nuclear weapons.
By 2015, a large majority in the UN General Assembly had adopted three UN resolutions on nuclear disarmament, none of which Norway supported.
In the meantime, Norway had started to reduce the funding to the NGOs driving the humanitarian nuclear disarmament track. Both ICAN and NPA lost their funding. In 2015, both ICAN and NPA were informed that they would lose their funding the following year.
In 2015, 86 per cent of ICAN's income (CHF 808,895) came from Norway. Although ICAN got several new smaller donors, its overall revenue dropped to almost one-third (CHF 354,000) in 2016.
This October, after the peace prize was announced and a few days before Børge Brende resigned as Foreign Minister, he wrote in an article in the daily Aftenposten defending the decision to terminate funding to ICAN. He argued that ICAN’s applications could not be approved because they did not qualify as Official Development Assistance (ODA) as defined by the OECD. Moreover, their work did not contribute to eradicating poverty, the main goal of Norwegian aid, he wrote.
REPORTING AS AID
Each year Norway reports its ODA to the OECD for approval. The Parliament has decided that all Norwegian aid funds should be eligible for ODA reporting to the OECD. In the field of disarmament, however, this rule has often been disregarded by Norway.
The OECD does not consider disarmament activities of weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear weapons to be ODA. Such efforts are rather seen as being a public good that benefits both rich and poor countries.
Development Today has scrutinised a range of documents about Norway’s reporting of disarmament projects to the OECD since 2009. These documents show that the OECD has, time and again, rejected some of the Norwegian disarmament projects reported as ODA. In spite of these repeated rulings over several years, both the Red-Green and the Blue-Blue governments continued to fund such projects from the aid budget.
Budget propositions to the Parliament show that successive Norwegian administrations have been well aware of the OECD’s misgivings. The Foreign Ministry has repeatedly written that disarmament projects that cannot be reported as ODA will be funded from outside the budget. But this has hardly materialised. Instead, the ministry has continued to take funding from the aid budget to finance such projects in violation of OECD rules.
In the budget for next year, funding in this area has virtually dried up. The government proposes that peace information efforts currently receiving NOK 0.3 million from non-aid funds should be terminated. And the ODA budget line for development and disarmament is reduced to a mere NOK 10 million.
Since ICAN is in practice excluded from applying for aid money, it is hardly possible for the organisation to find Norwegian funding. But in the wake of the Peace Prize announcement, the Parliament has decided that ICAN will receive NOK 2 million in support next year, funded from outside the aid budget.
Westhrin at NPA says that when the funding for the humanitarian disarmament initiative vanished, the organisation decided to use money from its own reserves to finance one position to continue the work. In addition, NPA offered an office for the Norwegian branch of ICAN.
ICAN headquarters in Geneva had to reduce its from seven to two after Norwegian funding dried up. When the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted this July, NPA seconded one of its staff members working on these issues to ICAN in Geneva to help out.
“There was a need for massive follow-up. Due to the lack of funding, the secretariat was so small that it was brought to its knees,” she says.
After the peace prize was announced in October, NPA again drew on its reserves and funded a temporary position to help ICAN organise “a dignified and nice” reception in connection with the prize ceremony.
“We hoped the [difficult] funding situation for working with disarmament was temporary and thought it was important that the efforts did not stop, despite Norwegian authorities no longer being willing to finance it,” Westhrin says.
So far NPA has spent NOK 2.5 million from its reserves to support this work.
The Norwegian government says real disarmament must happen through balanced and verified reductions in nuclear weapons. Moreover, non-proliferation efforts must prevent new states and terror organisations from getting access to nuclear weapons. The Labour Party has also supported this approach.
But on Thursday, three days before the Peace Prize ceremony at Oslo City Hall, disarmament campaigners won a small victory. A majority in the Parliament, including the Labour Party, will ask the government to review what the consequences would be for Norway if it signed the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Author: Bjørn H Amland
ICAN BEATEN BLUE. NORWAYS ODD NOBEL PEACE PRIZE TALE/Frontpage December 08, 2017
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Twenty years after its inauguration, the ESRF, in 2014, welcomed the Russian Federation as a new Member State. It also reached important milestones in the delivery of Phase I of the Upgrade Programme (UP) and has proudly announced the launch of Phase II. In parallel, the excellent operation of the facility throughout the year enabled the ESRF users to carry out their scientific programmes very successfully. Over 2000 proposals were submitted by ESRF users in 2014. This figure is the highest ever reached, and puts the number of proposals at more than two and a half times the available beam time.
The achievements of 2014 are the result of the hard work of thousands of people among the ESRF Users and Staff, and would not have been possible without the support provided by our partner countries. Following on from these achievements, we are now excited about the prospects for 2015, which will see the completion of UP Phase I, the start of UP Phase II construction, and full-scale user operation for the ESRF accelerators and available beamlines.
The ESRF Council endorsed the UP Phase II deliverables, timescale and budget envelope in June 2014 following the science case and construction planning described in the UP Phase II Technical Design Study report, the ‘Orange Book’. At the subsequent Council meeting in December 2014, the first financial contribution to the UP Phase II budget was approved. Over the next eight years (2015-2022), the ESRF plans to bring into operation a new synchrotron X-ray source, housed in the existing buildings and replacing the present machine that has been in operation since 1992, as well as four new beamlines and an ambitious instrumentation programme. The objective is to deliver a fully renewed facility by 2023 for the benefit of scientific users from around the world, and to enable the ESRF to remain a global leader in synchrotron X-ray science for many years to come.
Alongside the preparation work for UP Phase II, in 2014, many developments took place within the context of the implementation of UP Phase I. New instruments were delivered, and in particular, I wish to highlight the restart of user operation at the new beamlines ID01, ID02, ID16A/B, ID22, ID30A and ID32. With respect to the opening of ID30A, part of the MASSIF complex at ID30, the macromolecular crystallography community will benefit from the first public experimental station in the world that is completely automated. In fact, beyond remote access, users can now send in their samples, have them analysed automatically using instructions given in the ISPyB database, and then log on to discover and review their results. This new facility has the potential to save hours, or even days of users’ valuable time. It has been designed particularly for the initial screening of crystals and the collection of data sets from reasonably well-known samples. Since it opened in late October, 500 samples have already been processed. ID30A has three end stations and, with BM29, replaces the highly successful ID14 complex that was closed at the end of 2012.
UP Phase I continues to progress according to schedule, with the goal of its completion by the end of 2015. During 2015, therefore, the few remaining Phase I beamlines will be commissioned, and by early 2016 the topping-up of the storage ring will become part of normal user operation.
The new joint ESRF-ILL Science Building and the new site entrance of the EPN Science Campus, entirely financed by the French State (CPER Programme) to increase the visibility and attractiveness of the campus, was inaugurated in February 2014 by the French Minister for Higher Education and Research, the President of the Rhône-Alpes Region and the local authorities. The Science Building will foster new collaboration and closer working relations between the two facilities, their scientific user communities as well as with industry. ESRF users can now access the Science Building from the ESRF thanks to a covered footbridge. This footbridge provides access to the new library, new chemistry labs and the new facilities of the Partnership for Soft Condensed Matter (PSCM). Thanks to the CPER Programme, the ESRF has also been made more accessible to users coming from and going into town since the completion, in September 2014, of an extension of one of Grenoble’s tram lines.
I wish to thank our colleagues in charge of the operation of the storage ring for the outstanding performance in beam delivery. Indeed, during 2014 they were able to establish a new world record with 99.15% beam availability with enhanced beam properties. The excellent beamline and beam delivery performance have enabled excellent scientific results. A selection of them is presented here in Highlights to record and applaud the wonderful scientific advances of the ESRF Users.
Francesco Sette,
ESRF Director General.
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Welcome to Funky Geko (dot com), where you'll find the best chain emails floating around the net, all gathered into one site, along with any comments regarding them. So have fun browsing! :-)
Tales From The Alaskan Side
Author: Tim Benedict, November 28th, 2017
It’s finally arrived, just in time for Christmas! Tim’s (the funky geko) summary of his years spent up in Alaska both working, exploring, and having fun. It’s thirty one chapters of his experiences up there, surprises, events, campfire stories, and some of his deeper thoughts into what makes the great state of Alaska, Alaska. Stories like “The Plugged Up Bear”, or the story of the rescue of a damsel in distress, these stories will either make you laugh till you cry, or make you cry because it hurts. Why?
These aren’t stories you would hear anyplace else. For example. The “Miracle on the Kuskokwim River” is a hair-raiser that actually happened to Tim while he was driving on an ice road one time. You just won’t find tales quite like this one any place else. They each have their own “moral of the story” included. You’ve never seen Alaska quite like this, in all her shame, her brutality, and her awesome beauty.
If visiting Alaska someday is on your bucket list, you need to read this book first. The included “Tips for Surviving Alaska” might just save your life. Seriously. You’ll know what you are getting into, before hand, and that can make all the difference between an absolute disaster, and a trip that you actually enjoy, that you walk away from with satisfaction in your heart.
So come on over and find your own copy today on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0779VXHD4 in either paperback or kindle! Need some good conversation starters for your next get-together? Great for both the coffee table and porcelain throne room alike, each chapter is easily readable in a single sitting, and will arm you with enough stories that your next shindig will never be forgotten, guaranteed.
Categories: Cool and Amazing, Funny, Inspirational, Musings... Tags: | No comments
*ARLINGTON CEMETERY* Jeopardy Question: On Jeopardy the other night, the final question was “How many steps does the guard take during his walk across the tomb of the Unknowns?” All three contestants missed it! This is really an awesome sight to watch if you’ve never had the chance. Fascinating. Tomb of the Unknown Soldier 1. How many steps does the guard take during his walk across the tomb of the Unknowns and why? 21 steps: It alludes to the twenty-one gun salute which is the highest honor given any military or foreign dignitary. 2. How long does he hesitate after his about face to begin his return walk and why? 21 seconds for the same reason as answer number 1. 3. Why are his gloves wet? His gloves are moistened to prevent his losing his grip on the rifle. 4. Does he carry his rifle on the same shoulder all the time and, if not, why not? He carries the rifle on the shoulder away from the tomb. After his march across the path, he executes an about face and moves the rifle to the outside shoulder. 5. How often are the guards changed? Guards are changed every thirty minutes, twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year. 6. What are the physical traits of the guard limited to? For a person to apply for guard duty at the tomb, he must be between 5′ 10′ and 6′ 2′ tall and his waist size cannot exceed 30. They must commit 2 years of life to guard the tomb, live in a barracks under the tomb, and cannot drink any alcohol on or off duty for the rest of their lives. They cannot swear in public for the rest of their lives and cannot disgrace the uniform or the tomb in any way. After two years, the guard is given a wreath pin that is worn on their lapel signifying they served as guard of the tomb. There are only 400 presently worn. The guard must obey these rules for the rest of their lives or give up the wreath pin. The shoes are specially made with very thick soles to keep the heat and cold from their feet. There are metal heel plates that extend to the top of the shoe in order to make the loud click as they come to a halt. There are no wrinkles, folds or lint on the uniform. Guards dress for duty in front of a full-length mirror. The first six months of duty a guard cannot talk to anyone nor watch TV. All off duty time is spent studying the 175 notable people laid to rest in ArlingtonNationalCemetery.A guard must memorize who they are and where they are interred. Among the notables are: President Taft,Joe Lewis {the boxer}Medal of Honour winner Audie L. Murphy, the most decorated soldier of WWII and of Hollywood fame. Every guard spends five hours a day getting his uniforms ready for guard duty. ETERNAL REST GRANT THEM O LORD AND LET PERPETUAL LIGHT SHINE UPON THEM. In 2003 as Hurricane Isabelle was approaching Washington , DC, our US Senate/House took 2 days off with anticipation of the storm. On the ABC evening news, it was reported that because of the dangers from the hurricane, the military members assigned the duty of guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier were given permission to suspend the assignment. They respectfully declined the offer, “No way, Sir!” Soaked to the skin, marching in the pelting rain of a tropical storm, they said that guarding the Tomb was not just an assignment, it was the highest honor that can be afforded to a service person. The tomb has been patrolled continuously, 24/7, since 1930. God Bless and keep them. I’d be very proud if this email reached as many as possible. We can be very proud of our men and women in the service no matter where they serve.
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[health] Smallpox and Bedbugs
Author: Tim Benedict, November 22nd, 2016
About the time it was learned that mosquitoes were a factor in malaria, it was also learned that bedbugs were a factor in smallpox (with malnutrition and filth also playing roles). It’s been said that two of the greatest factors in getting rid of those bad diseases of yesteryear (that the CDC group says we need to be vaccinated against) were the vacuum cleaner and the automatic washer. (Imagine trying to stay clean without them!) In recent months, I’ve seen billboards advertising pest-control services to get rid of bedbugs. I guess that, for some reason, they’re making a comeback. Here’s an article by Dr. Charles Campbell from a long time ago about this: *Résumé of Experiments on VariolaBy CHARLES A. R. CAMPBELL , M. D.* San Antonio, Texas. [back ] Mr. President and Members of the Bexar County Medical Society: There must be some motive for a member of the same professional household to keep in the background such a work as I am about to present for your consideration this evening. This motive is that I hoped some avenue might present itself permitting me to continue the work to the point of carrying out further experiments to such a degree of scientific certainty as would place it beyond the possibility of contradiction. It was my ambition to go into Mexico, where, with knowledge of the language and customs of the people, I could have obtained the cooperation of the “powers that be,” and of the medical profession, and could there have completed the investigation. There never was a doubt in mind that I could have had this cooperation, as it was freely offered to me from that country, but the lack of finance was the insuperable barrier. As it is now my intention to publish this work, though I do not know when or where, I desire out of respect to my home professional brothers and home society to present it to you first. The work of the Eradication of Malaria by the Cultivation of Bats, The Mosquitoes’ Natural Enemy and Destroyer, on which I have been engaged, as you are all aware, for the past twenty years, is more important and far-reaching in its benefits to mankind than this work, and I purpose for the rest of my days to concentrate all of my energies, spare time, and money on the continued studies of that most benevolent, though misunderstood creature, the common bat. I desire to return thanks before this Society to my good friend, Dr. W. L. Barker, who, appreciating my endeavors, had me placed in charge of the Pest House, where I found opportunities of pursuing this research on smallpox, which I could not have had without his kindly intervention. I also owe my thanks to Mr. Thomas Patino, my head nurse, who is a highly valued employee and most kind and sympathetic to the unfortunates under his care. The papers in the order of their presentation are, “Resume of Experiments on Variola,” “My Observations of Bed Bugs,” and Dr. John Watts’ valuable work and observations on this disease, which he presents under the caption of “Eradication of Smallpox without Vaccination or Disinfection.” The author made Dr. Watts thoroughly acquainted with the result of his smallpox-bedbug investigation, on account of the Doctor’s going to locate in Mexico, where the disease is so common, and requested him to continue the work in that country, on the lines indicated in the above mentioned papers. How well he carried on the investigation his paper will tell. Some years ago, while traveling in Mexico, I learned that the Mexican mothers of the lower classes find a great deal of consolation when their children have had the small pox. They regard it as inevitable; and, in order to get through with this trouble as soon as possible, they place the well children upon the same bed as the one having the smallpox, so that they may become infected with the disease. I was also told by these lowly people that those who sleep on the outside of the houses, upon nothing more, perhaps, than a sheep’s skin or raw hide cot or bed, usually escape the disease — hence the mother places the children who are well upon the same bed with the sick ones. This information was kept in mind by me until I had occasion to see a few cases in the City of San Antonio, Texas. In considering this malady, I quickly became impressed with two distinctive peculiarities of it, viz: Its being a disease of the winter and of the coldest climates, and that, as a rule, it is confined to the lower or filthy classes. Having followed very closely the current literature concerning the brilliant work done by Drs. Reed, Carroll, and Agramonte in yellow fever, the above peculiarities caused me hypothetically to ascribe to the bedbug the quality of being the diffusing agent of variola. (As to the bedbug’s power of resistance to intense cold, water, and starvation, see my “Observation on Bedbugs.”) Assuming that bedbugs are the only diffusing agents of this loathsome disease, then our present knowledge of its being “air-borne,” or of its being transmitted by fomites, must be all wrong, therefore the principal work here mentioned is the demonstration of its non-contagiousness by means of clothing, bedding, hangings –in short, fomites . I then began to experiment with this disease directly by contact and to expose some person to it who had not had it. I selected as this person one whose movements I could at all times control and understand, and, therefore, I chose myself. As even the air itself, without contact, is considered sufficient to convey this disease, and touching the clothes of a smallpox patient considered equivalent to contracting it, I exposed myself with the same impunity as my pest-house keeper, who is immune, having had the smallpox. After numerous exposures, made in the ordinary manner, by going from house to house where the disease was and demanding, under legal authority, the removal of the patients, as well as members of the family, to the pest house, I have never conveyed this disease to my family, or to any of my patients or friends, although I did not disinfect myself or my clothes nor take any precautions whatever, except to be sure that no bedbugs got about my clothing. Another one of my experiments was thoroughly to beat a rug in a room, only eight or ten feet square, from which had just been removed a smallpox patient. This rug had been given to the negro family in question by a white person after his family had utilized it until it was useless for them, and thereafter it had been used for years by the said negro family. I beat this rug in the room until the air was stifling, and remained therein for thirty minutes. This represented the respiratory as well as the digestive systems as accepted avenues of infection. While I was exposing my person to this experiment of inhaling particles of organic, as well as micro-organic, matter, I never lost sight of the fact that I was engaged in trifling with the system of knowledge which had been handed down from generation to generation, each one accepting as true what the preceding one had written. I also remembered that, if such men as composed the scientific expedition to Cuba for the investigation of yellow fever had adhered to the old-time and accepted theories that bedding, carpets, clothing, hangings — in short fomites –were the conveyors of yellow fever, we would not now have the knowledge which these gentlemen so nobly acquired and generously gave to the public in the interest of mankind, consequently I continued my experiments. After inhaling the dust from that rug, I examined my sputum microscopically the following morning and found cotton and woolen fibres, pollen, and comminuted manure, as also bacteria of many kinds. Convinced that I had given my respiratory and digestive systems ample opportunities to afford avenues of infection, from that time on I mingled freely with my family, patients, and friends; but, for the first fourteen days after the experiment of beating the rug and inhaling the dust, I slept in my office for fear of conveying the disease to my family. The next experiment was the exposure of two city carpenters, two laborers, and myself. Three of these men had never been vaccinated, and the fourth only in infancy. This experiment consisted in tearing down an old privy at the detention camp or pest house, which privy had been used four or five years by smallpox patients only. It was constructed of 1 x 12 inch slats and boards. With hatchets and levers the old structure was soon razed; and the foul-smelling lumber was carried by each of us a distance of one hundred yards and neatly re-constructed. As the day was very hot and our water supply some distance from the work, I placed a bucket of water about ten feet from the work and in such a direction with the wind that the dust from the sawing and nailing of the old boards would fall into the water. Of course, the laborers did not observe my object in so doing, and they and myself all drank freely of the water till noon. After dinner all of us worked on that foul-smelling structure and drank of that same water till ‘evening, when the work was completed. None of us ever felt any bad effects from our exposure. I had these men under my observation for fourteen days after this experiment. In five instances where the disease made its appearance in the homes of negro washerwomen, I found two and three weeks’ washing laundered and ready to be delivered to the owners. It is a matter of common knowledge that negro washerwomen, when ironing clothes, place them upon beds to keep them from becoming wrinkled, and these articles of clothing, when discovered in an infected house, are generally burned by the health authorities, the owners being reimbursed from public funds; but in each of the above instances I took the clothes to the pest-house grounds, and, spreading them upon the grass, I carefully searched each piece of clothing for bugs. Not being able to find any bedbugs on any piece, I returned all the clothing to the owners without any disinfection whatever. These clothes did not convey the disease to anyone. Anita H., a Mexican child, four years of age, never vaccinated and who had never had the disease, was taken to the pest house, where she took a baby out of the crib and played with it about four hours, hugging and kissing it and riding it in a perambulator around the grounds; but, although this baby was covered with pustules of smallpox, and although we took no precautions whatever (the girl’s mother having agreed to this experiment), the girl did not acquire the disease. J. C., brought to the pest house in a vesicular stage, made an uneventful recovery after passing through the typical states. In this case I caused the bed clothes of his bed to be undisturbed when he recovered. This same bed, without any change in the bed clothes, was then occupied by L. M. This individual had never been vaccinated nor had smallpox, and understood that he occupied this bed as an experiment. He did not acquire the disease. P. H., a Mexican, vaccinated in infancy, who freely mingled with the smallpox patients in the discharge of his duties as night watchman at the pest house, keeping up the fires and remaining all night, did not contract the disease. A. C., decidedly strumous, never vaccinated nor had the smallpox, freely mingled with smallpox patients in all of the stages, playing cards with them, eating and sleeping in the infected tents, and has continued to do so for more than two years. Mrs. T. P., wife of the Pest-House keeper, aged26, vaccinated in infancy, acts as nurse and cook and freely mingles with the female patients. Master E. P., and sister, aged respectively eleven and nine, the former vaccinated nine years ago, the latter unsuccessfully, play with children in all of the stages of smallpox and play with the toys of the little patients, without the least harm. Personally, I have not only come into direct contact with smallpox patients many times, but have taken off and rubbed my outer clothes on the beds of the patients and then returned to the city and mingled freely with my family, friends, and patients, without disinfecting at all. In one instance, which I believe is worthy of special mention, a man, his wife, and four children were here, and three of these children became infected with the smallpox. I took all of them to the Pest House, and as all of them preferred to stay in one room, I placed them together. The man and his wife had previously had the disease, and only one child escaped it. I kept them at the Pest House until the eighteenth day after the period of desquamation on the part of the case developing last. They were returned home upon a Saturday morning. Observe that this child, although living in the same room with the patients at the Pest House, had not acquired the smallpox, after being exposed to it all of the time for a period of six weeks; yet upon the fifth day after returning home, this child acquired the initial fever. I then examined their house and found it to be literally alive with bedbugs. In addition to these experiments, it should be remembered that I had at the Pest House half a dozen employees, who washed, scrubbed tents, ‘etc., and these persons were employed by me especially because they were non-immune — and yet none of them ever contracted the disease. Among some of the cases coming under my observation and care, which did not originate here, is the following. The patient, a girl of eleven years, had a fairly-developed case, and was at one of our hotels. I took this patient and her father and mother to the Pest House, in the meantime locking the door of the room at the hotel and leaving orders that no one be allowed to enter it until my return. This room had been occupied two days and nights by the patient. Upon my return I carefully inspected the bed and the entire room, particularly the walls and ceiling, and not finding any bedbugs, I told the hotel proprietor that the room was again all right; and it was from that time on occupied. All of the occupants were kept under careful observation, but not a case developed in any of the persons occupying the room. Another case was that of a little girl who was seized by the disease in Mexico about eight hours before reaching San Antonio. This little patient’s family consisted of her father, mother, and little brother, eight years old. I took them all (under protest) to the Pest House. The man I allowed to leave and go to the city and return, as he pleased; and, with my consent, he procured a horse and buggy from a livery stable and took his wife riding every day. At night they went to the theatre, returning to the Pest House to sleep. He also bought a doll for the little girl; and she played with it, being at the time thoroughly covered with smallpox. She made a dress for this doll, slept with it at night, kissed it, and played with it continually, until about the fourth day, when she became displeased with it; and after some consultation, her father returned it to the store where it was purchased, and exchanged it for a larger doll. The clerk from whom the purchase was made was kept under secret observation for a long time, but nothing developed from the exchange. A woman, returning from Mexico, stopped over in Eagle Pass to rest, as the “small of her back was nearly breaking in two;” she placed a plaster on her back to obtain relief, resuming her journey the next day. A day or two after her arrival in San Antonio she developed smallpox and was taken to the Pest House. The day being cold and the Pest House some distance from her room, she sent out and bought a fine blanket to cover herself on the road, using it as a shawl. On arriving at the Pest House, the room being nicely heated, she took the blanket off, placed it on a chair,and got into bed. One of the attendants overheard the keeper’s wife ask her husband to bring her from the city a new blanket for their new baby, three weeks old. When he left the Pest House to get this patient, thinking the new blanket was the one intended for the new baby, he folded it up and brought it to the keeper’s wife, who proceeded to wrap up her baby snugly in it. The mistake was not discovered for one week-yet the baby did not acquire the disease. In the case of the woman, it is curious to note that the area of skin covered by the plaster already referred to, which had been left on the patient’s back, was not attacked by the disease, the underlying skin remaining perfectly normal, although there was not a half inch square on her body that was not marked by the disease. After making a great many of those experiments at the Pest House (it may be well to say that I had previously destroyed all the bedbugs) I procured a large flag-pole, with a large yellow flag, and made the occasion of the planting of the pole and the flag-raising a little feast-afternoon, with a banquet, to which were invited the City Council and the officers of the City Government. Liquid and solid refreshments were served, speech-making was indulged in, laudatory of the experiments, by some of the aldermen and other officials present, who knew well of the work I was doing. Evidently they must have had some faith in it, when they so gladly came to a Pest House (and almost in direct contact with smallpox patients) to attend a banquet and honor me by their presence. Some eighteen or twentyattended and remained two or three hours; one alderman in particular, who had never been vaccinated or had the disease, came in direct contact with a patient whose body was covered with the characteristic eruptions. The most important observation on the medical aspect of this disease is the caehexia with which it is invariably associated and which is actually the soil requisite for its different degrees of virulence. I refer to the scorbutic cachexia. Among the lower -classes of people this particular acquired constitutional perversion of nutrition is most prevalent, primarily on account of their poverty, but also because of the fact that they care little or nothing for fruits or vegetables. That a most intimate connection exists between variola and scorbutus is evidenced by the fact that it is most prevalent among the poor or filthy class of people; that it is more prevalent in winter, when the anti-scorbutics are scarce and high priced; and, finally, that the removal of this perversion of nutrition will so mitigate the virulence of this malady as positively to prevent the pitting or pocking of smallpox. A failure of the fruit crop in any particularly large area is always followed the succeeding winter by the presence of smallpox. My experience is limited to eighty-eight cases of that disease in the Pest-House, and my attention has constantly been directed to the establishing of the fact of the non-contagiousness of fomites and to the prevention of the pitting or pocking by the malady. That the pitting or pocking can be positively prevented I am absolutely certain, for in the above number of cases I had only one patient who became pocked and this was done intentionally. In all of the cases of smallpox that have originated here I have always found bedbugs; and where patients suffering with this disease were brought here and placed in premises free from these vermin, the disease did not spread to persons living with the patient. This has occurred in many cases, and in all stages of the disease.
Unbelievable Sign Near Dearborn, Michigan
Author: Tim Benedict, November 4th, 2016
Unbelievable Sign Near Dearborn, Michigan Are there “no-go” zones in the U.S.? Is this one of them? Dearborn, Michigan is the first city to become almost completely Muslim. Yours may be next because they are here and more come every day. Amazing that any city would allow something like this to be displayed. * * *STILL THINK THEY’RE KIDDING ?* And people are concerned about the Confederate Flag?
Fwd: the Queen Bee
Author: Tim Benedict, October 25th, 2016
*_Copyright Canada Free Press_*__ __ *Total Personal Staff members for US First ladies* Mamie Eisenhower: One – paid for personally, out of President’s salary. *Total number of Personal Staff Members paid by Tax Payers* Jackie Kennedy: One Lady Bird Johnson: One Pat Nixon: One Betty Ford: One Rosaline Carter: One Barbara Bush: One Hilary Clinton: Seven Laura Bush: One Michele Obama: Twenty-two Yep….your eyes don’t deceive you. You want to read WASTE? ….Scroll on down. *Michele Obama’s personal staff: Take a closer look* One.. $192,200 – Sher, Susan (Chief Of Staff) Two.. $160,000 – Frye, Jocelyn C. (Director of Policy And Projects) Three.. $133,000 – Rogers, Desiree G. (White House Social Secretary) Four.. $122,000 – Johnston, Camille Y. (Director of Communications) Five.. $120,000 – Winter, Melissa (Deputy Chief Of Staff) Six.. $110,000 – Medina , David S. (Deputy Chief Of Staff) Seven.. $104,000 – Lilyveld, Catherine M. (Director and Press Secretary) Eight.. $ 95,000 – Starkey, Frances M. (Director of Scheduling and Advance) Nine.. $ 90,000 – Sanders, Trooper (Deputy Director of Policy and Projects) Ten.. $ 85,000 – Burnough, Erinn (Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary) Eleven.. $ 84,000 – Reinstein, Joseph B. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary) Twelve.. $ 82,000 – Goodman, Jennifer R. (Deputy Director of Scheduling and Events Coordinator) Thirteen.. $ 80,000 – Fitz, Alan O. (Deputy Director of Advance and Trip Director) Fourteen.. $ 77,500 – Lewis, Dana M. (Special Assistant and Personal Aide) Fifteen.. $ 72,500 – Mustaphi, Semonti M. (Associate Director and Deputy Press Secretary) Sixteen.. $ 70,000 – Jarvis, Kristen E. (Special Assistant for Scheduling and Traveling Aide) Seventeen.. $ 65,000 – Lechtenberg, Tyler A. (Associate Director of Correspondence) Eighteen.. $ 63,000 – Tubman, Samantha A. (Deputy Associate Director, Social Office) Nineteen.. $ 60,000 – Boswell, Joseph J. (Executive Assistant to the Chief Of Staff) Twenty.. $ 56,000 – Armbruster, Sally M. (Staff Assistant to the Social Secretary) Twenty-One.. $ 55,000 – Bookey, Natalie (Staff Assistant) Twenty-Two.. $ 55,000 – Jackson, Deilia A. (Deputy Associate Director of Correspondence) That’s a Total…$2,075,200 in annual salaries – all for someone we did not vote for and apparently have no control over 5 staff are Muslim and 13 African-American. There has NEVER been anyone in the White House at any time who has created such an army of staffers whose sole duties are the facilitation of the First Lady’s social life. *This does not include:* “Makeup artist” Ingrid Grimes-Miles, 49, “First Hairstylist” Johnny Wright, 31, Both of whom travelled aboard Air Force One on ALL Trips, Europe included. As of 11/15/2015 the Obama Family has spent over $1,300,000,000 (one billion, three hundred million dollars) on personal family trips. They were personal, not political or Government related. How things have changed! If you’re one of the tens of millions of Americans facing certain destitution, earning less than subsistence wages stocking the shelves at WalMart or serving up McDonald cheeseburgers, prepare to scream and then come to realize that the benefit package for these servants of “Ms. Michelle” are the same as members of the national security and defense departments and the bill for these assorted lackeys is paid by YOU. *Copyright Canada Free Press* Yes…… The Canadian Free Press had to publish this, perhaps because America no longer has a free press and the USA media is afraid that they might be considered racist.
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Yes - Union (DVD)
Genre: Prog rock
Release Date: 6th June 2011
Catalogue Number: HST008DVD
CD/DVD Review: Yes - Union Live (From The Bolton News)
By Martin Hutchinson
YES have been at the forefront of Progressive Rock for over 40 years, yet in the eighties, despite their
continued success, there were in effect two versions of the band in existence.
This concert was filmed on August 8th 1991 at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California
and was originally only released in Japan on video and laser disc; making this footage much sought after
amongst Yes aficionados.
Musically and visually, this is a treat (if you can ignore the stage clothes!), all the members of the band(s)
appear to be on top form and enjoying themselves.
There are also some vintage solo spots with the Rick Wakeman solo following Chris White's tour-<le-force
on the bass guitar.
Steve Howe entrances the audience with his guitar pieces Oabelled as Clap / Mood For a Day.
The rest of the set is made up of songs from the classic Yes-years (although there are a couple from the
90125 album also).
Running at almost two hours, this captures the band at the height of the tour, when everybody seemed to
be getting along.
The concert is available as a DVD and a double CD - both equally as good.
Musical history was being made here, and it is about time that it was available.
Yes are quite rightly considered one of the leading lights of the progressive rock scene, a position they have held for more than forty years now. The band is still led by founder member Chris Squire and performed to large audiences in 2008 and 2009 both in America and the UK. Releasing albums such as Close To The Edge, Tales From Topographic Oceans, Relayer, Going For The One, 90125,The Ladder and Magnification to name just a few the band have survived to celebrate their fortieth anniversary and beyond. At one point at the start of the nineties the band managed to gather eight former and then current members together for the album Union and subsequent tour. This tour was captured on film and also recorded at the final leg of the tour before the line up slimmed back down to the Yes line up that recorded both 90125 and Big Generator. The line up may have changed many times over the years but one thing Yes can always be guaranteed to provide and that is hugely memorable and well played music that crosses all barriers of genre and defies categorization. This double CD contains the edited performance captured at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in August 1991 during the hugely successful Union tour of the world. The album is now available as a separate entity from the recent limited edition package that also featured the DVD performance. The DVD includes many Yes classics including Yours Is No Disgrace, Rhythm Of Love and many more.
1. Intro/Firebird Suite
2. Yours Is No Disgrace
3. Rhythm of Love
4. Heart of the Sunrise
5. Clap/Mood For A Day
6. Make It Easy/Owner of a Lonely Heart
7. I've Seen All Good People
8. Solly's Beard
9. Saving My Heart For You
10. Whitefish/Amazing Grace
11. Rick Wakeman Solo
12. Awaken
13. Roundabout
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Home News Iranian National ‘Armed with Knives and an Ax’ Detained on Flagler Memorial Bridge Just a Few Miles Away From Mar-a-Lago: Palm Beach Police
Iranian National ‘Armed with Knives and an Ax’ Detained on Flagler Memorial Bridge Just a Few Miles Away From Mar-a-Lago: Palm Beach Police
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort
An Iranian national was detained on Flagler Memorial Bridge just a few miles away from Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach police said.
The Iranian was in possession of knives, a machete, a pick ax and $22,000 in US currency, the Palm Beach Daily reported.
The Iranian man also had a car parked at Palm Beach International airport where a bomb unit was called in to search for explosives.
Palm Beach Daily reported:
A man arrested by Palm Beach Police this morning had $22,000, a machete and a pick ax, in addition to knives in his possession, according to an officer with the department.
The man, who was identified by his passport as an Iranian national, also had a car parked at Palm Beach International Airport, the officer said.
The department is working with other federal partners in the investigation, the officer said.
The man was arrested just over the Flagler Memorial Bridge at Bradley Park. Initial reports said he had several knives on him. No details are available on what led to the man being brought to officers’ attention.
The law enforcement officer initially told the Daily News that the man appeared to be homeless or without a known address.
A Daily News photographer who arrived on the scene saw the man, who also had camping gear, being arrested by three Palm Beach Police officers and two plainclothes officers, who he was told were from another department.
Last week, a Florida security guard was arrested for threatening to kill President Trump in retaliation for Soleimani while Trump was at Mar-a-Lago.
Iranian National ‘Armed with Knives and an Ax’ Detained on Flagler Memorial Bridge Just a Few Miles Away From Mar-a-Lago: Palm Beach Police Reviewed by Facts on January 11, 2020 Rating: 5
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Hepatitis Information and History
Viral Hepatitis Planning Group
Hepatitis Links
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports
STD & Hepatitis Newsletter
Vaccination-Testing-Program
Home Diseases and Conditions Hepatitis Hepatitis C (HCV)
Hepatitis Section
HSD.Hepatitis@flhealth.gov
4052 Bald Cypress Way, Bin A-19
Hepatitis C is a liver disease caused by the hepatitis C virus (HCV). It is spread through contact with infected blood. Many people with HCV will carry the virus for a lifetime. It can cause cirrhosis (scarring of the liver), liver cancer and death.
For some people, hepatitis C is a short-term illness but for 70%-85% of people who become infected with hepatitis C, it becomes a long-term, chronic infection. The majority of infected persons might not be aware of their infection because they are not physically ill. There is no vaccine for hepatitis C.
Symptoms and Methods of Transmission
What You need to know about the hepatitis c virus
Hepatitis Support Groups
Symptoms may include:
Yellow skin or eyes
How Do You Get HCV?
Sharing injection drug equipment, even once many years ago
Receiving blood transfusion before 1992
Occupational needle-stick
Long term hemodialysis
Infected mother to her infant
Sexual transmission (not common, however, some sexual practices may involve blood)
Who should be tested for HCV?
All Baby Boomers born from 1945-1965
Anyone who had a blood transfusion before 1992
People who inject drugs, even once many years ago
Persons with hepatitis B or HIV/AIDS
Persons who were ever on long-term hemodialysis
If you have hepatitis C:
Avoid sharing needles for injecting drugs, tattooing, piercing or any other reason
Do not share razors, toothbrushes or nail clippers
Get vaccinated for hepatitis A and hepatitis B
Join a support group
Get regular health check-ups
Use a latex condom when having sex
Discuss treatment options with your health care provider
A list of support groups in Florida for persons affected by hepatitis A, B or C
Hepatitis C is a contagious liver disease that ranges in severity from a mild illness lasting a few weeks to a serious, lifelong illness that attacks the liver. It is the most common chronic blood-borne infection in the United States and an estimated 3.9 million Americans have been infected with hepatitis C. Most of those infected with hepatitis C have chronic infections.
What are the symptoms of hepatitis C?
Most people who have hepatitis C do not have any symptoms. However, some people can have mild to severe symptoms anywhere from two weeks to six months after being infected. These symptoms include fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, dark urine, clay-colored bowel movements, joint pain and jaundice.
What is the difference between acute and chronic hepatitis C?
Acute hepatitis C is a short-term illness that occurs within the first six months after someone is exposed to the hepatitis C virus. In most cases, acute hepatitis C leads to chronic hepatitis C. Chronic hepatitis C is a long-term illness that occurs when hepatitis C remains in a person’s body. Chronic hepatitis C can last a lifetime and can lead to serious liver problems, cirrhosis or liver cancer.
How do you get hepatitis C?
Hepatitis C is usually spread when blood from an infected person with the virus enters the body of someone who is not infected. In most instances, hepatitis C infection occurs through sharing needles, syringes or other equipment to inject drugs, needle stick injuries in healthcare settings or being born to a mother who has hepatitis C. Less commonly, a person can get hepatitis C through sharing personal care items that have come in contact with another person’s blood or having sexual contact with a person infected with hepatitis C.
Who should be tested for hepatitis C?
You should be tested for hepatitis C if you were born between 1945 and 1965, had an occupational needle stick, have received a blood transfusion before 1992, have ever injected and/or inhaled drugs (even once, many years ago), had clotting factor concentrates before 1987 or had long-term hemodialysis.
Is there a vaccine for hepatitis C?
There is currently no vaccine for hepatitis C. However, if you test positive for hepatitis C, you should get vaccinated for both hepatitis A and B. According to the CDC, research into the development of a vaccine is under way.
Why get tested for hepatitis C when treatment may not be available?
Even though you may not be able to obtain treatment due to its prohibitive cost or due to ongoing substance abuse, it is important to know your status. Once a person knows their hepatitis C status, they can take concrete steps to protect the health of their liver and ensure that they do not expose others to the virus.
Is data about hepatitis C in Florida available to the public?
Yes. You may access data and additional information about hepatitis C at: www.flahepatitis.org, www.cdc.gov/hepatitis or http://hcvadvocate.org.
Does Florida have elevated levels of hepatitis C? Should I be worried?
Reported chronic hepatitis B and C cases increased slightly in Florida for 2014 across all age groups. However, this increase may be due to improvements and modifications to the department’s notifiable disease reporting requirements. These improvements in surveillance have increased the department’s capacity for identifying, classifying and reporting hepatitis cases in Florida. This does not mean that cases have increased significantly or are “on the rise,” simply that the state has a better system for identifying cases. As long as you take the necessary precautions, there is no need to worry about becoming infected with hepatitis C.
What is the department doing to combat hepatitis C in Florida?
In addition to increased surveillance of all types of hepatitis in Florida, the department attempts to investigate all reported cases of acute hepatitis C. As of January 3, 2014, 99% of acute hepatitis C cases from 2013 had been investigated. The department attempts to link positive diagnoses of hepatitis C to care, encourages healthy lifestyle changes (exercise and nutrition) and provides hepatitis A and B vaccinations to individuals with hepatitis C.
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fmredhawks.com
RedHawks Come Back Twice to Take Double Header
06/15/2012 9:01 PM -
LINCOLN -- The Saltdogs (12-17) squandered two late-inning leads to the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks (11-17) and dropped both games of a double header (4-3 and 8-7) in front of 3,618 fans at Haymarket Park Friday night.
In game one, the 'Dogs led 3-2 going into the top of the seventh (of a seven-inning contest), but the RedHawks scored two off of P.J. Zocchi. Sergio Pedroza drove in the winning run and finished with three RBI for the game.
Zocchi (0-1) allowed two runs in an inning for his first blown save and first loss of the season. Mike Zenko (1-0) worked a perfect sixth inning to earn the win. Tom Boleska struck out two in the seventh to book his sixth save.
In game two, Fargo-Moorhead scored four runs in the sixth - on three hits, four walks and a wild pitch - to take a 7-6 lead and went on to win 8-7.
Tony Butler (1-2) allowed a run in 0+ innings on four walks to take the loss. Tyler Herron (1-2) worked five innings, allowing six runs on seven hits while walking four and fanning three to pick up the win.
John Alonso went 1-for-4 with a three-run homer in game two, his seventh. A.J. Miller also launched his first home run of the season, a two-run shot to extend Lincoln's lead early on in game two. Tommy Collaro dinged the foul pole in left for his second home run of the season in game one.
Aharon Eggleston belted a solo shot, his second, in game two. Nic Jackson went 5-for-7 in the double header.
The 'Dogs had been 8-0 on the campaign when leading with two innings left, but went 0-2 on the day.
The teams meet again for the finale Saturday night at 7:05 p.m. Justin Edwards (2-1, 6.67) will pitch against Alex Caldera (3-1, 3.23).
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Compare Switzerland to other countries
Show the size of Switzerland compared to Falkland Islands Hide the map
If Switzerland were your home instead of Falkland Islands you would...
Switzerland has an unemployment rate of 3.20% while Falkland Islands has 4.10%
consume 69.7% less oil
Falkland Islands consumes 4.4352 gallons of oil per day per capita while Switzerland consumes 1.3440
use 17.59% more electricity
The per capita consumption of electricity in Falkland Islands is 6,221kWh while in Switzerland it is 7,315kWh
The GDP per capita in Switzerland is $54,800 while in Falkland Islands it is $55,400
More Information about Switzerland
With its 8,061,516 people, Switzerland is the 95th largest country in the world by population. It is the 134th largest country in the world by area with 41,277 square kilometers.
The Swiss Confederation was founded in 1291 as a defensive alliance among three cantons. In succeeding years, other localities joined the original three. The Swiss Confederation secured its independence from the Holy Roman Empire in 1499. A constitution of 1848, subsequently modified in 1874, replaced the confederation with a centralized federal government. Switzerland's sovereignty and neutrality have long been honored by the major European powers, and the country was not involved in either of the two world wars. The political and economic integration of Europe over the past half century, as well as Switzerland's role in many UN and international organizations, has strengthened Switzerland's ties with its neighbors. However, the country did not officially become a UN member until 2002. Switzerland remains active in many UN and international organizations but retains a strong commitment to neutrality.
Languages spoken: German (official) 64.9%, French (official) 22.6%, Italian (official) 8.3%, Serbo-Croatian 2.5%, Albanian 2.6%, Portuguese 3.4%, Spanish 2.2%, English 4.6%, Romansch (official) 0.5%, other 5.1%
Reading about Switzerland
Check out the recommended reading list below for great sources of information on Switzerland
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(10 ILCS 5/3-6)
Sec. 3-6. Voting age. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a person who is 17 years old on the date of a caucus, general primary election, or consolidated primary election and who is otherwise qualified to vote is qualified to vote at that caucus, general primary, or consolidated primary, including voting a vote by mail, grace period, or early voting ballot with respect to that general primary or consolidated primary, if that person will be 18 years old on the date of the immediately following general election or consolidated election for which candidates are nominated at that primary.
References in this Code and elsewhere to the requirement that a person must be 18 years old to vote shall be interpreted in accordance with this Section.
For the purposes of this Code, an individual who is 17 years of age and who will be 18 years of age on the date of the general or consolidated election shall be deemed competent to execute and attest to any voter registration forms. An individual who is 17 years of age, will be 18 years of age on the date of the immediately following general or consolidated election, and is otherwise qualified to vote shall be deemed eligible to circulate a nominating petition or a petition proposing a public question.
(Source: P.A. 99-722, eff. 8-5-16; 100-201, eff. 8-18-17.)
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Islamofacism & Terrorism
Truth on Trial
http://www.jewishmediaresources.com/1587/truth-on-trial
A trial of major importance took place last week in Paris, and my guess would be that even among American Jews best informed about matters relating to Israel few are aware of it. I refer to the fourth round in the legal battle between Charles Enderlin and France 2 on one side and media critic Phillipe Karsenty on the other. Ironically both Enderlin and Karsenty are Jewish, and the former is a dual French-Israeli citizen as well.
The subject of this legal battle is the alleged shooting by Israeli soldiers of a Palestinian boy identified as Mohammed al-Dura at the Netzarim junction on Sept. 30 2000. France 2 broadcast 55 seconds of footage, with a voice-over commentary by its chief Israel correspondent Enderlin (who was not at the Netzarim junction when the events in question took place), in which Enderlin solemnly intones that Israeli soldiers shot the boy. Enderlin generously provided the clip free of charge to any other news organization that wished to broadcast it, and the picture of the terrified boy crouching behind his father quickly assumed iconic status.
The picture of the cowering boy fanned Muslim hatred of Israel and Jews, not that much fanning is needed. When Daniel Pearl was beheaded by Islamists in Pakistan, the photo was prominently displayed in the background. The crowd that literally eviscerated two Israeli reservists in Ramallah at the outset of the Al-Aqsa Intifada chanted of their revenge for the blood of Mohammed Al-Dura. And Osama bin Laden made reference to the boy in the tape he released after 9/11. Palestinian TV has made a staple of Mohammed al-Dura beckoning to young children to join him as jihad martyrs in Paradise. And most recently, Mohammed Merah, the cold-blooded murderer of four Jews (three of them children) at point blank range, in a Toulouse Otzar HaTorah school, has proven to be obsessed with al-Dura.
That 55 second clip in fact consisted of six different segments spliced together from a total of 27 minutes of footage filmed by Palestinian cameraman Talul Abu Rahmeh, during what he claimed was 45 minutes of sustained Israeli shooting. Enderlin also spliced in a picture on an Israeli soldier firing a gun to suggest that he was firing at the boy and his father.
The legal battle commenced when Enderlin and France 2 sued Karsenty for defamation, after the latter published a series of pieces in which he charged that the former had perpetrated a fraud on the French public, and that the 55 second clip was staged. Karsenty was able to show that if the boy in the film clip had been shot he could not have been directly targeted by Israeli soldiers, as he was not in the line of fire of the Israeli stockade. At most, he could have been hit by ricocheting bullet. But all the bullet holes in the wall behind where the boy and his father were crouching showed direct shots. In any event, Abu Rahmeh's story that Israeli soldiers had been shooting for 45 minutes at the boy and father was absurd on its face. Hundreds of rioting Palestinians were standing in front of the Israeli stockade. Had Israeli soldiers wanted to shoot Palestinians they had hundreds of much easier targets directly in front of them.
Enderlin and France 2 put on no case whatsoever. They contented themselves with a letter from then President Jacques Chirac attesting to Enderlin's general excellence as a journalist. Amazingly, that proved sufficient for the court to rule against Karsenty.
Karsenty appealed, and the Appeals Court did something that it has apparently never occurred to the plaintiffs that it might do: It ordered France 2 to produce all the footage shot by Abu Rahmeh. That footage established that both Enderlin and Abu Rahmeh are liars. Enderlin claimed that he had not included in the final clip the boy's actual death because his death throes were simply too painful for a TV audience. But in the full footage (or at least the 18 of the original 27 minutes which France 2 provided), there were no such death throes. Worse, the supposedly dead boy lifts his head, looks around, moves his leg, and shields his eyes from the sun. The crowd chants, "The boy is dead, the boy is dead," even though he clearly was not. Enderlin provoked titters in the courtroom when he suggested that the crowd really meant, "The boy is in danger of dying."
Whether Enderlin knew from the start that he had been deceived by his Palestinian cameraman, cannot not be established. But that he is a liar is incontestable. In addition, to the concocted story about non-existent death throes, he provided the foreign press with a blatantly false drawing of the Netzarim Junction showing the boy and his father in the line of Israel fire.
The outtakes provided by France 2 and clips filmed by other film crews at the same time clearly establish that the entire incident was staged. In those outtakes bystanders stroll by casually and kids ride their bicycles in front of the father and boy, apparently oblivious to the fusillade supposedly being aimed at father and son. A slow motion examination of the outtakes, shows the cameraman holding up two fingers to indicate "Take Two." A contemporaneous Reuters clip catches Abu Rahmeh filming another obviously staged scene involving a Molotov cocktail. (That staged event was omitted from Abu Rahmeh's outtakes furnished to the court by France 2.)
Nachum Shalaf, an Israeli civilian physicist, who was placed in charge of the Israeli government investigation, also discovered that a boy named Rami Jamal al-Dura had been declared dead in a Gaza hospital at 1:00 p.m. on the day in question, even though the supposed shooting of a boy initially identified as Mohammed Rami al-Dura, did not take place until 3:00 p.m. The dead boy was also much bigger than the one seen crouching in the film clips.
The father in the France 2 clips later pointed to wounds as corroboration of the claim that he and his son had been under fire. But an Israeli doctor later proved that he had treated the "father" for identical wounds years earlier. The father subsequently sued the doctor in a French court and lost.
Faced with the multitude of evidence, the French Appeals Court reached the only possible conclusion and ruled for Karsenty. At that point, one would have expected Enderlin to retire in disgrace and a government inquiry as to the standards of veracity of the state-owned station. But nothing of the kind took place. Instead of slinking off in disgrace, Enderlin appealed to the French Supreme Court. Even more troubling his journalist colleagues instead of shunning him rallied to his defense. A petition describing Enderlin as the victim of a "seven-year hate-filled smear campaign" appeared at the website of the left-wing Le Nouvel Observateur, and quickly garnered over 300 signatures from some of the leading names in French journalism.
French journalist Anne-Elisabeth Moutet published a 2008 piece in The Weekly Standard called, "L'Affaire Enderlin: Being a French journalist means never having to say you are sorry," based on interviews with many of the leading signatories. None of them argued that Israeli soldiers had, in fact, killed the boy cowering in the TV clip. Rather they expressed sympathy for their colleague, who had, in the words of one, probably made a mistake in haste under a tight deadline, and then doubled down on his lie. Jon Randall, the former Washington Post Paris correspondent, complained about journalists being subjected to the scrutiny of watchdog groups with their own agendas. Others sniffed that Karsenty is not a real journalist because he publishes on the Web.
Perhaps the most amazing "defense" was that of French journalist Claude Weill Reynal, who wrote that Karsenty must be a mad man for spending so much time proving that France 2 had broadcast a staged clip purporting to reflect reality because "[fake images] are used all the time everywhere on television and no TV journalist in the field or film editor would be shocked." Enderlin himself expressed the philosophy behind Reynal's argument: Even if Mohammed al-Dura was not killed by Israeli fire, other Palestinian children have been. Therefore at a deeper level the clip was true.
Meanwhile the rout suffered by Enderlin and France 2 in court and the vindication of Israel received almost no coverage in France, or in the international press.
There was still one more amazing twist to come. The French Supreme Court ruled that it had been a mistake for the Appeals Court to compel France 2 to produce the outtakes from which the clip had been spliced, despite that fact that they constituted by far the best evidence of the journalistic integrity, or lack thereof, of Enderlin, his cameraman Talul Abu Rahmeh, and France 2.
The Supreme Court ordered another trial, at which Karsenty was forced to present his case without benefit of the most probative evidence. In short, he was compelled to show that not only had Enderlin and France 2 perpetrated fraud, but that he had grounds to know that they had done so when he wrote his harsh criticisms. And that was the trial that took place last week.
Richard Landes, a Boston University historian, who has followed the al-Dura case from the beginning, was in the courtroom last week for the fourth round (actually the sixth hearing.) He describes the hearing at his website the Augean Stable devoted to the al-Dura case, in particular, and Palestinian use of faked images (which Landes terms Pallywood), in general. Karsenty presented a detailed forensic case beginning with a mock-up of the Netzarim Junction to show how wildly implausible the whole story was from the start. Then he deftly went about demonstrating the ways in which France 2 consistently used staged footage in its broadcasts. In response, France 2 did nothing more than show four news broadcasts dealing with the al-Dura "killing" – the very clips that Karsenty had just so deftly deconstructed – as if repeating a fraud again would turn it into the truth.
The French Societie des Journalists and SNJ de France Television both called on their members to attend the trial to show their support for Enderlin, who looked quite alone in the dock, with little to say for himself. And the Avocate Generale – an independent figure in the French legal system – reminded the judges that the Truth of what happened at Netzarim Junction was not the issue, only Karsenty's good faith in slamming Enderlin's journalistic integrity.
I was reminded of the French legal system's conclusion that Truth is not relevant by last week's publication of a piece by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic, in which he quoted President Obama as saying that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu does not serve Israel's best interests because he has caused Israel's growing international isolation. Would that it were true, and that the world is an impartial observer ready to give Israel a fair hearing and to decide matters on the merits.
Sadly, however, the manner in which the French elites – media, political, and judicial – have treated a lethal blood libel against Jews and the Jewish state suggests that the world is not concerned with Truth or Justice when it comes to Israel.
Related Topics: Arab-Israeli Conflict, Intellectuals, Islamofacism & Terrorism receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free jewish media resources mailing list
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BASEBALL TRAVELS TO SAINT MARY'S ON TUESDAY FOR FIRST MIDWEEK MEETING
Hornet Baseball Game Notes at Saint Mary's, Mar. 5 - PDF
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Sacramento State (4-6) is back on the road for their first midweek meeting of the season as they travel to Moraga to take on the Saint Mary's Gaels (5-6). The Hornets are coming off an upset victory over the No. 3 UCLA Bruins this past Sunday.
Luis Guisto Field // Moraga, Calif.
Watch: WCCSports.com/Watch
vs. Towson
Friday, March 8 - Sunday, March 10
TOP-RANKED TAKEDOWN Sacramento State defeated No. 3 UCLA this past Sunday, 2-1, on the road in Los Angeles. The win was Sacramento State's third against a top-five ranked program under head coach Reggie Christiansen.
MASTERFUL ON THE MOUND In three games at No. 3 UCLA, Sacramento State pitchers combined for a 1.44 ERA, allowing just four earned runs over 25.0 innings of work. All three Hornets starters allowed just one run while Tanner Dalton threw four shutout innings in relief on Sunday.
LOVING THE LONGBALL Martin Vincelli-Simard hit his second home run of the year to tie the game Friday at No. 3 UCLA while Steven Moretto's first home run proved to be the game-winner on Sunday.
3: Wins against teams ranked among the top-five since 2014, including two on the road.
2.2: Walks allowed per nine by the Hornets staff, the second best mark in the country.
About Last Series
Sacramento State went on the road last weekend to take on the No. 3 UCLA Bruins in a three-game set. After dropping the first two games - both well-pitched and closely contested contests - the Hornets upset the top-ranked Bruins, 2-1, in Sunday's series finale.
Junior Ryan Walstad, who started all three games at first base over the weekend, hit a team-high .300 against the Bruins, while Martin Vincelli-Simard and Steven Moretto each homered in the series.
On the mound, the Hornets' staff was excellent, highlighted by four shutout innings in relief by senior Tanner Dalton. All three starters for the Hornets allowed just one run each as the team pitched to a combined 1.44 ERA against the Bruins.
Top-Ranked Takedown
Sacramento State's win against No. 3 UCLA was its third win against a top-five ranked team since 2014. The Hornets defeated then No. 4 Oregon State, 7-6, at Raley Field in 2014, and No. 5 LSU, 5-4, on the road in 2016.
Including Sunday's win at UCLA, the Hornets have won two games against top-five opponents on the road. Dating back to the 2014 season, Sacramento State is 8-17 against teams ranked among the top 25.
Solid Starters
In three games this weekend, Sacramento State's starters combined to allow just three earned runs in 21.0 innings of work. Parker Brahms was magnificent on Friday, allowing just one run over seven innings while holding the Bruins to a .174 average against.
For the season, Sacramento State's starters have allowed just 12 total runs in 54.0 innings of work, good for a 2.00 ERA.
- For complete notes at Saint Mary's, CLICK HERE. -
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How to program a keyfob on 2000 Nissan Altima ?
Its not very hard, you can yourself do it.--------
Read the procedure couple of times and dont miss any step, if missed then do it from start again.-------
1) Get in the driver seat and close all the doors. Lock all the doors using the driver's side power lock/unlock switch.
See image below for driver side power lock:--
2) Insert the key into the ignition and remove it from ignition six times or more within 10 seconds. Make sure you remove it from the ignition cylinder fully each time. *If you remove it too fast, the system will not enter the programming mode.
HOW WILL I KNOW ,IF THE STEPS ARE FOLLOWS CORRECTLY?
The hazard lamps will begin to flash if you followed the procedure correctly.
3) Once the system enters the programming mode, insert the key into the ignition cylinder once again and turn to the ON position without starting the car.
4) Within 5 seconds, push any button only once on the remote transmitter.
Your hazard lamps should flash.
WHAT HAPPENS ,IF BY-MISTAKE I PUSH BUTTON MORE THEN ONCE?
If you push the button more than once, the procedure will not work.
5) If you are programming more than one remote, including the old ones, unlock then lock all the doors again using the driver's side power lock/unlock switch and within 5 seconds, push any button on the next remote. Hazard lamps will flash.
6) Repeat this step for each remote.
Turn the key to the OFF position and remove the key from the ignition, unlock the doors using the driver's side power lock/unlock and open the driver side door.
DONE.ITS PROGRAMMED.
For more car related problem troubleshooting:---
This are the sections, you can go through and click the link to read its troubleshooting.
The car will not start?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/06/car-will-not-start.html
Car will not crank?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/06/car-will-not-crank.html
Car has no spark?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/06/car-has-no-spark.html
How to troubleshoot car battery?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-troubleshoot-car-battery.html
How to test starter solenoid?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-test-starter-solenoid.html
How to test cars starter?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-test-cars-starter.html
How to replace starter in car?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-replace-starter-in-car.html
car will turn over but will not start?
http://technoanswers.blogspot.com/2011/05/car-will-turn-over-but-will-not-start.html
The Brake Indicator Light Stays On dash of car?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/06/brake-indicator-light-stays-on-dash-of.html
The ABS and Traction Control Lights stays ON dash of car?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/06/abs-and-traction-control-lights-stays.html
Check Engine Light On car?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/06/check-engine-light-on-car.html
How to replace Interior Lights on car?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-replace-interior-lights-on-car.html
Car lights not working, even after replacing the bulb/lamp?
Click this link below:--
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/06/car-lights-not-working-even-after.html
How to replace head lights on car?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-replace-head-lights-on-car.html
How to replace Parking, turn, and Brake Lights on car?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-replace-parking-turn-and-brake.html
How to remove the door panel on car?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-remove-door-panel-on-car.html
How to replace power window motor in car?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-replace-power-window-motor-in.html
How to test relays on car?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-test-relays-on-car.html
How to troubleshoot Engine Misfires?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-troubleshoot-engine-misfires.html
The spark plug firing order for car?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/06/spark-plug-firing-order-for-car.html
Where is the Thermostat located in car?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/06/where-is-thermostat-located-in-car.html
How to recharge AC on Auto/Truck/car?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-recharge-ac-on-autotruckcar.html
How to trouble shoot speedometer?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/06/speedometer-not-working.html
To Order car parts online:--To get heavy discount on car parts .Click this link below:----
http://technoanswers.blogspot.com/2011/05/from-where-to-order-car-parts-online.html
How to Replace Coil Springs?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-coil-springs.html
How to Replace an Oil Pan Gasket?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-oil-pan-gasket.html
How to Replace a Fuel Injector
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-fuel-injector.html
How to Replace a C.O.P. Type Ignition Coil?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-cop-type-ignition-coil.html
How to Replace a Fuel Pressure Regulator?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-fuel-pressure-regulator.html
How to Replace a Fuel Pump?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-fuel-pump.html
How to Replace a Rear Lift Gate Locking Mechanism?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-rear-lift-gate-locking.html
How to Clean a Fuel System
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-clean-fuel-system.html
How to Replace an Ignition Coil
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-ignition-coil.html
How to Replace a Windshield
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-windshield.html
How to Replace a Mass Air Flow Sensor
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-mass-air-flow-sensor.html
How to Replace a Rear Distance Sensor
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-rear-distance-sensor.html
How to Replace a Muffler
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-muffler.html
How to Replace an Engine
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-engine.html
How to Replace an Intake Manifold Gasket
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-intake-manifold-gasket.html
How to Replace an Oil Pump
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-oil-pump.html
How to Lubricate a Brake Pedal Linkage ?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-lubricate-brake-pedal-linkage.html
How to Replace a Windshield Wiper Motor
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-windshield-wiper-motor.html
How to Replace a Distributor Cap
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-distributor-cap.html
How to Replace a Door Weather Stripping
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-door-weather-stripping.html
How to Replace a Freeze Plug
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-freeze-plug.html
How to Replace a Head Gasket
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-head-gasket.html
How to Replace a Heater Core
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-heater-core.html
How to Replace Spark Plugs?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-spark-plugs.html
How to Replace a Rear Axle Bearing?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-rear-axle-bearing.html
How to Replace a Front Bumper Cover
http://technoanswers.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-front-bumper-cover.html
How to Replace a Manual Transmission
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-manual-transmission.html
How to Replace a Headlight Bulb
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-headlight-bulb.html
How to Replace a Headlight Switch
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-headlight-switch.html
How to Replace Windshield Wiper Blades
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-windshield-wiper-blades.html
How to Replace a Cooling Fan
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-cooling-fan.html
How to Replace a Catalytic Converter
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-catalytic-converter.html
How to Replace an Engine Mount
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-engine-mount.html
How to Replace a Fog Light Assembly
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-fog-light-assembly.html
How to Change Engine Oil and Filter
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-change-engine-oil-and-filter.html
How to Replace a Power Seat Switch
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-power-seat-switch.html
How to Replace a Rear Main Seal
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-rear-main-seal.html
How to Repair a Defroster Grid
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-repair-defroster-grid.html
How to Replace an AWD Transfer Case
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-awd-transfer-case.html
How to Replace a Plastic License Plate Bracket?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-plastic-license-plate.html
How to Replace a Power Seat Motor
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-power-seat-motor.html
How to Replace Power Steering Fluid
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-power-steering-fluid.html
How to Replace a Power Window Switch
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-power-window-switch.html
How to Replace a Quarter Glass Panel?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-quarter-glass-panel.html
How to Pressure Test a Radiator and Cap
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-pressure-test-radiator-and-cap.html
How to Replace a Radiator
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-radiator.html
How to Repair a Hood.
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-repair-hood.html
How to Replace an Energy Absorber
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-energy-absorber.html
How to Replace Heater Core Hoses
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-heater-core-hoses.html
How to Replace a Thermostat.
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-thermostat.html
How to Rotate Tires.
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-rotate-tires.html
How to Replace Wheel Lug Nuts
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-wheel-lug-nuts.html
How to Replace a Tire Valve Stem
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-tire-valve-stem.html
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-change-flat-tire.html
How to Replace Leaf Springs
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-leaf-springs.html
How to Replace a Heater Control Valve
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-heater-control-valve.html
How to Replace Transmission Cooler Lines
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-transmission-cooler.html
How to Replace an Ignition Control Unit
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-ignition-control-unit.html
How to Replace a Brake Hose
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-brake-hose.html
How to Replace a Transfer Case Rear Output Seal
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-transfer-case-rear.html
How to Replace a Seat Belt and Seatbelt Retractor
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-seat-belt-and-seatbelt.html
How to Replace a Power Steering Rack
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-power-steering-rack.html
How to Bleed Brakes with a Tool
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-bleed-brakes-with-tool.html
How to Replace a Tail Light Bulb
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-tail-light-bulb.html
How to Check Automatic Transmission Fluid Level
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-check-automatic-transmission.html
How to Change Automatic Transmission Fluid and Filter
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-change-automatic-transmission.html
How to Replace Vacuum Hoses
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-vacuum-hoses.html
How to Replace an Air Intake Boot
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-air-intake-boot.html
How to Replace a Valve Cover Gasket
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-valve-cover-gasket.html
How to Replace a Water Pump
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-water-pump.html
How to Replace a Windshield Wiper Switch
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-windshield-wiper-switch.html
How to Replace Window Run Channel Seals
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-window-run-channel-seals.html
How to Replace a Window Regulator
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-window-regulator.html
How to Balance a Tire and Wheel
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-balance-tire-and-wheel.html
How to Replace a Window Motor
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-window-motor.html
How to Adjust a Hood Release Latch?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-adjust-hood-release-latch.html
How to Replace a Radiator Support
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-radiator-support.html
How to Replace a Rear Pinion Seal.
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-rear-pinion-seal.html
How to Replace Battery Cables
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-battery-cables.html
How to Replace a Proportioning Valve
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-proportioning-valve.html
How to Replace an Upper Radiator Hose
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-upper-radiator-hose.html
How to Replace a Lower Radiator Hose
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-lower-radiator-hose.html
How to Replace a Timing Belt?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-timing-belt.html
How to Check for Loose or Worn Suspension
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-check-for-loose-or-worn.html
How to Check for Loose Steering System
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-check-for-loose-steering-system.html
How to Replace an Oil Pressure Switch (Sensor)
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-oil-pressure-switch.html
How to Replace a Fender Liner or Splash Shield
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-fender-liner-or-splash.html
How to Replace a Hood Insulator
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-hood-insulator.html
How to Replace a Rear Differential.
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-rear-differential.html
How to Repair a Hood Hinge
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-repair-hood-hinge.html
How to Replace a Brake Pedal Return Spring
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-brake-pedal-return.html
How to Replace a Door Shell.
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-door-shell.html
How to Replace a Transfer Case Front Output Seal
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-transfer-case-front.html
How to Replace a Hood Latch/Lock Assembly
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-hood-latchlock-assembly.html
How to Replace a Lift Gate Strut
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-lift-gate-strut.html
How to Replace Mud Flaps (Mud Guards)
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-mud-flaps.html
How to Check Differential Oil Leaks and Replace Oil.
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-check-differential-oil-leaks-and.html
How to Replace a Mirror
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-replace-mirror.html
How to Replace a Transfer Case Shift Linkage
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-transfer-case-shift.html
How to Replace a Transmission Mount
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-transmission-mount.html
How to Replace a U-Joint
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-u-joint.html
How to Replace a Washer Tank
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-washer-tank.html
How to Replace an A/C Line or Hose
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-ac-line-or-hose.html
How to Replace a Heater and A/C Blower Motor
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-heater-and-ac-blower.html
How to Replace an ABS Control Unit
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-abs-control-unit.html
How to Perform a Brake Adjustment
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-perform-brake-adjustment.html
How to Replace an Alternator Belt
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-alternator-belt.html
How to Replace an Emblem
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-emblem.html
How to Replace an Exhaust Manifold Gasket
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-exhaust-manifold-gasket.html
How to Replace a Tail Pipe
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-tail-pipe.html
How to Replace Shock Absorbers
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-shock-absorbers.html
How to Replace a Strut Assembly
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-strut-assembly.html
How to Replace a Driveshaft
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-driveshaft.html
How to Replace a Wheel Cylinder
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-wheel-cylinder.html
How to Replace a Hood
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-hood.html
How to Replace a Brake Disc (Rotor)
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-brake-disc-rotor.html
How to Replace a Metal License Plate Bracket
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-metal-license-plate.html
How to Replace a Power Steering Pump
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-power-steering-pump.html
How to Perform a Basic Engine Tune-Up
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-perform-basic-engine-tune-up.html
How to Perform a Basic Engine Tune Up-Oil Change
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-perform-basic-engine-tune-up-oil.html
How to Perform a Basic Engine Tune Up-Spark Plug and Wire Change
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-perform-basic-engine-tune-up_01.html
How to Replace a Distributor Cap and Rotor ?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-distributor-cap-and.html
How to Repair a Valance
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-repair-valance.html
How to Replace a Turn Signal Switch
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-turn-signal-switch.html
How to Replace a Plastic Bumper Cover
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-plastic-bumper-cover.html
How to Replace a Parking Brake Cable
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-parking-brake-cable.html
How to Replace Windshield Wiper Blade Refills
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-windshield-wiper-blade.html
How to Replace a Corner Light
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-corner-light.html
How to Replace a Bumper Bracket or Side Support
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-bumper-bracket-or-side.html
How to Replace a Washer Pump.
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-washer-pump.html
How to Replace a Grille
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-grille.html
How to Replace a Locking Hub
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-locking-hub.html
How to Replace a Fender
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-fender.html
How to Replace a Power Steering Hose
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-power-steering-hose.html
How to Replace a Tailgate
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-tailgate.html
How to Replace a Soft Top
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-soft-top.html
How to Replace a Carburetor
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-carburetor.html
How to Replace a Bumper Trim
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-bumper-trim.html
How to Replace Trunk Strut
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-trunk-strut.html
How to Replace a Front End Cover
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-front-end-cover.html
How to Replace a Front Pipe
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-front-pipe.html
How to Replace an Antenna Mast
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-antenna-mast.html
How to Replace a Side Marker Light Assembly
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-side-marker-light.html
How to Install a Carpet on car?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-install-carpet-on-car.html
How to Replace a Spoiler
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-spoiler.html
How to Replace a Mirror Glass on car?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-mirror-glass-on-car.html
How to Replace a Step Bumper?
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-step-bumper.html
How to Replace a Door Lock
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-door-lock.html
How to Replace a Throttle Body
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-throttle-body.html
How to Replace a Throttle Position Sensor
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-throttle-position-sensor.html
How to Replace a Grille Insert
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-grille-insert.html
How to Replace a Fan Shroud Assembly
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-fan-shroud-assembly.html
How to Replace an Engine Splash Shield
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-engine-splash-shield.html
How to Replace a Turn Signal Light Assembly
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-turn-signal-light.html
How to Replace a Headlight Assembly
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-headlight-assembly.html
How to Replace a Park Light Assembly
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-park-light-assembly.html
How to Replace an Expansion Tank
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-expansion-tank.html
How to Replace an Exhaust System
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-exhaust-system.html
How to Replace a Fender Trim
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-fender-trim.html
How to Replace a Headlight Door
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-headlight-door.html
How to Replace a Fan Shroud
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-fan-shroud.html
How to Replace a Harmonic Balancer
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-harmonic-balancer.html
How to Replace a Header Panel
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-header-panel.html
How to Replace a Fuel Tank
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-fuel-tank.html
How to Replace a Fuel Tank Cap
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-fuel-tank-cap.html
How to Replace a Distributor
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-distributor.html
How to Replace an EGR Valve
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-egr-valve.html
How to Replace an Oxygen Sensor
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-oxygen-sensor.html
How to Replace an Ignition Wire Set
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-ignition-wire-set.html
How to Replace a Tail Light
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-tail-light.html
How to Replace a Door Handle
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-door-handle_18.html
How to Replace a Hood Strut
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-hood-strut.html
How to Replace Tail Light Assembly
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-tail-light-assembly.html
How to Replace a Front Bumper
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-front-bumper.html
How to Replace a Fuel Pump Assembly
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-fuel-pump-assembly.html
How to Replace an Axle Assembly
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-axle-assembly.html
How to Replace a Tailgate Handle
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-tailgate-handle.html
How to Replace a Wheel Hub Assembly
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-wheel-hub-assembly.html
How to Replace a Control Arm
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-control-arm.html
How to Replace a Window Regulator with Motor
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-window-regulator-with.html
How to Replace a Headlight
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-headlight.html
How to Check the Brake Fluid Level
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-check-brake-fluid-level.html
How to Replace a Parking Brake Switch
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-parking-brake-switch.html
How to Replace a Blower Motor Resistor
http://schematicsdiagram.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-blower-motor-resistor.html
How to replace frost plug on car?
http://howtobyme.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-replace-frost-plug-on-car.html
Horn stopped working?
http://howtobyme.blogspot.com/2011/08/horn-stopped-working.html
How to clean egr valve on Isuzu Amigo?
http://howtobyme.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-clean-egr-valve-on-isuzu-amigo.html
Cruise control stopped working?
http://howtobyme.blogspot.com/2011/08/cruise-control-stopped-working.html
Car is stuck in park and the shift will not move?
http://howtobyme.blogspot.com/2011/08/car-is-stuck-in-park-and-shift-will-not.html
How to change the outer door weather strip?
http://howtobyme.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-change-outer-door-weather-strip.html
Car slows down when it gets hotter?
http://howtobyme.blogspot.com/2011/08/car-slows-down-when-it-gets-hotter.html
Warning lights on and speedometer died?
http://howtobyme.blogspot.com/2011/08/warning-lights-on-and-speedometer-died.html
Car won't rev past 1900 rpms?
http://howtobyme.blogspot.com/2011/08/car-wont-rev-past-1900-rpms.html
Labels: How to program a keyfob on 2000 Nissan Altima, keyfob programming on Nissan Altima, Nissan key fob programming procedure.
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North Korea is Developing a Missile Submarine
kpopluv, Aug. 28, 2014, 7:01 a.m.
A rightwing U.S. webzine on Tuesday claimed North Korea is developing a submarine capable of launching ballistic missiles. "A missile launch tube on a North Korean submarine was observed recently by U.S. intelligence agencies and is raising new concerns about the missile and nuclear threat from the communist regime in Pyongyang," the Washington Free Beacon claimed.
It said the North has secretly bought and modified old Soviet SS-N-6 SLB missiles to render them capable of being launched from submarines. If the alleged plan succeeds, the North could strike Anchorage in Alaska, and U.S. military bases on Okinawa, the Philippines, and Guam from waters near Sakhalin, Russia, the webzine speculated.
It cited speculation that the submarine would be either a modification of the Romeo-class diesel submarine that was made by Russia or China or a copy of the old Soviet Golf-class submarine that the North bought from Russia in the mid-1990s.
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Home » new hires and promotions » ALAN GOLDFARB, P.A. WELCOMES NEW CIVIL LITITGATION ATTORNEY GENEVIEVE MENDES WEAVER
ALAN GOLDFARB, P.A. WELCOMES NEW CIVIL LITITGATION ATTORNEY GENEVIEVE MENDES WEAVER
MIAMI - March 17, 2011 - Alan Goldfarb, P.A. Trial Attorneys, one of Florida's leading civil litigation law firms, has hired Genevieve Mendes Weaver as an associate in the firm's Miami office. Mendes Weaver concentrates her practice on medical malpractice, premises liability, products liability, and other negligence.
Mendes Weaver is currently a member of the Dade County Bar Association, the Miami-Dade Chapter of the Florida Association for Women Lawyers (FAWL), the Young Lawyers Division of The Florida Bar, and the Florida Justice Association.
Mendes Weaver earned a law degree, cum laude, from the University of Miami School of Law. She earned a bachelor of arts degree in Psychology and German, summa cum laude, from Clemson University.
While at the University of Miami, Mendes Weaver was a member of the Mock Trial Team. She participated in several competitions each semester, and was a semi-finalist in the Florida Justice Association's Fall 2008 Competition. Weaver also participated in the highly regarded Litigation Skills program at UM where she was awarded two of the highest honors: The Thomas Ewald Memorial "Top Litigator" Award and The John F. Evans Memorial Scholarship Award.
Based in Miami, Alan Goldfarb Trial Attorneys represents clients in catastrophic injuries, wrongful death, automotive/trucking accidents, premise liability, medical malpractice, maritime law, product liability, defective products, construction/job site accidents, aviation and mass transit accidents, commercial/business litigation, elder abuse, and toxic tort. The firm has received the highest ratings in the industry, including the prestigious Martindale-Hubbell AV rating, and has consistently been selected to the South Florida Legal Guide's List of Top Law Firms and Attorneys. For more information visit: www.goldfarbpa.com.
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The current location of Pittsburgh, in the heart of the Ohio Valley, leads to what was the Illinois Country. In the 17th century it was essentially a hunting ground for Native Americans.
In the middle of the next century the site was the main cause of the Seven Years’ War (from 1756 to 1763), called the War of the Conquest by the French and the French and Indian War by the British. In 1749, Pierre Joseph Céloron de Blainville, born in Montreal, navigated up the Allegheny from the Ohio River to the Miami River further north, placing lead plates at the junctions of the main tributaries to claim the area for France. In defiance of this action, William Trent established a fur trading post at the “Point” of Pittsburgh for the Ohio Company of Virginia. In 1753, the governor of New France sent 2,000 soldiers under the direction of Claude-Pierre Pécaudy de Contrecœur to build Fort Duquesne on the same spot. On two occasions the British tried to dislodge the French position, but without success. On Wednesday July 3, 1754, George Washington surrendered at the Battle of Great Meadows nearby, his only capitulation.
At the Battle of Monongahela, July 9, 1755, Great Britain suffered a most humiliating defeat. General Braddock’s army was almost wiped out, losing nearly 1,000 men with a force of 1,300 soldiers. But on November 26, 1758, in front of the British and American joint armies on the march ten times more numerous, the French abandoned Fort Duquesne under the guise of the night after setting fire to it. The loss of this strategic location (Pittsburgh) was the beginning of the end of New France.
Fort Duquesne and its surrounding structures and buildings in 1754
Father Denis Baron, a Récollet priest, was the chaplain of Fort Duquesne from 1754 to 1756 before returning to Montreal. He was responsible for the register of marriages, baptisms and deaths at the fort during this period. According to the register, Jean-Daniel Norment, born September 18, 1754, was the first white child born in Pittsburgh. A total of 33 people were buried in the fort’s cemetery, including Toussaint Boyer, Thomas Jiroux and Pierre Simard. The site of the burial grounds has yet to be found and can remain hidden for several centuries to come.
The first ecclesiastical building in Pittsburgh was a small log chapel erected within the walls of Fort Duquesne. It was christened “The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Beautiful River”. Today, the catholic church at 45 Sprague Avenue North near downtown Pittsburgh bears the same name to commemorate this rich French heritage of “The City of Bridges”.
Fort Duquesne was named after the seventeenth governor of New France, Ange Duquesne, Marquis de Menneville, born in Toulon, France. He was based in Québec City. François-Marie Marchand de Lignery, a Québec officer in the Marine Troops, was the last commander of Fort Duquesne.
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News > Magnet Foundation Newsletter: Spring 2010 >
Yifan Li: 2010 Intel Finalist
by Xinyi Zhou '10
Just back from six days in Washington, D.C. competing as a finalist in the 2010 Intel Science Talent Search (STS), Yifan Li is initially stumped when asked about the highlight of his week-long experience. His final answer: meeting with "39 of the smartest people I have ever met... everyone had such amazingly dynamic personalities." Li was part of that elite group because of his Senior Research Project, Differentiation of Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells into Retinal Pigment Epithelium Cells in Culture. The 40 Intel STS finalists competed March 11-16 in Washington, DC for for up to $100,000 in award money.
Magnet STS Finalists
There have been 35 Science Talent Search Finalists from Blair Magnet (the Magnet has only existed for 25 years). The Magnet's previous STS Finalists have gone on to be Presidential Scholars, Rhodes Scholars, and MacArthur Genius Fellows. Some are now professors at Berkeley, Harvard, and several other universities across the country.
Li was the only Finalist from Blair this year, but eleven other Magnet Seniors were semifinalists: Michael Cohen, Pin-Jo Ko, Haozhi Lin, Li Ma, Nils Molina, Kamal Ndousse, Rohan Puttagunta, Kristen Rosano, Ben Shaya, Conway Xu, and Xinyi Zhou. The Magnet has traditionally done very well in the Intel STS, but 12 semifinalists is the most since 2005 (when there were 13), and having a finalist is always a special accomplishment. This was the first year for research teacher Elizabeth Duval, and the success of this year's seniors is a credit to her guidance. Asked how she feels about Li's work, she exclaimed enthusiastically, "Of course I'm very proud! He worked hard!"
Ms. Duval advised all the students in the Senior Research Project (SRP) course throughout the first half of the school year to help them write papers, prepare presentations and apply for competitions, and she saw firsthand how much work Li put into his project. While some students were able to finish during the summer, Li was among those who had to work weekends well into the school year to wrap up their projects. Li knew what he was getting into --
his mentor, Dr. Lijin Dong of the National Eye Institute at NIH, told him "it was a high risk project" -- but he still found himself frustrated by "not really knowing what to do" because "scientists don't know early retinal development well." Li also faced difficulties working with stem cells, which are fickle because of their potential to grow, or differentiate, into any type of cell in the body. Li's challenge was to turn them into a specific type of eye cell, retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells. To do this, he cultured stem cells and changed the conditions in which they were over time to nurture them step by step from stem cells to RPE cells. Li explains, "We had to start over several times," and were "really surprised in late October or so, when we looked at the cells and discovered that, yes, these are RPE cells, and that yes, we were successful." These results have broad future applications , such as growing retinal cells to help treat age-related macular degeneration.
But the exciting results were only part of Li's road to becoming an Intel finalist. The Intel STS application consists of a paper, essays and recommendations, among other paperwork. Li thinks it was "about as strenuous as a college application," and just like a college admissions committee, the Intel STS takes a holistic approach to evaluating each contestant. While competing at the finals in Washington, D.C., Li not only had to present his project but also went through nerve-wracking interviews, when he was asked questions ranging from his own field of biology to those in mathematics, ethics and policy. He credits the Magnet Program for helping him strengthen his thinking, saying that Magnet "always valued reasoning over knowledge." Honing his mind also helped him write a coherent paper, and Li advises future students to follow the advice given in the SRP course: "If you can't make it readable, then your paper's useless ... that's something SRP really advances ... otherwise I would have made [my paper] too detailed." He is also eager to point out that "a lot of people have contributed to my overall success." He said: "I'm really grateful to my mentor Dr. Lijin Dong, as well as Dr. Pinghu Liu, for getting me started on the project and guiding me through lab procedures until I was ready to work by myself, to Ms. Ragan and Ms. Duval for helping me through the research process, and just to all my science teachers who have been constantly training and honing my scientific reasoning."
His advice for other Magnet students? There is "seriously no reason not to do Intel" after writing a paper for SRP. Li did not finish in the top ten, but he isn't disappointed. "After I met everyone there, I think that's what should have happened... I'm really happy for the top ten." He describes his experience competing as "awesome ... so awesome." As a finalist, he won $8500 and a laptop, and he met everyone from the Nobel Laureate who discovered green fluorescent protein to Congress members to the person who invented the USB. Good reasons not to miss out on a chance to compete in the Intel Science Talent Search indeed.
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Tag Archive for First Young Adult novel
GUEST BLOGGER: Lewis Buzbee Interviews James Preller About His Upcoming YA Novel, “Before You Go”
March 26, 2012 / jimmy / 3 comments
Greetings, I’m Lewis Buzbee, guest-blogger for the day.
Guest blogger: Lewis Buzbee.
It’s true, I’ve hi-jacked James Preller’s blog to bring you a very cool conversation with Mr. Preller (he makes me call him that) about his newest book, Before You Go (Macmillan, July 2012), which is his first Young Adult novel. I’ve taken control here because Mr. Preller is a very generous writer who frequently trumpets and supports the work of his fellow writers, and I figure it was time to hear from him. James has interviewed me twice, and our conversations have been so enjoyable, so thoughtful, I wanted to turn the tables, see what he had to say.
Before You Go, I must tell you, is a deliciously good book, whether you call it YA or not. It centers on a tough summer in the life of Jude, who has to face all of the toughest questions — what is love, what is death, what comes next? It’s everything a novel should be; it’s funny, moving, troubling, smart, and illuminating. Forget the labels, it’s a beautiful novel, and you should read it.
James, you’ve written picture books, chapter books, and middle grade novels; Before You Go is your first Young Adult novel. Why now?
Before You Go was the most logical step in a haphazard career path. You could argue that writing older and longer has been a gradual process for me, roughly parallel to the growth of my own children (Maggie, 11, Gavin, 12, Nick, 19). But you asked, “Why now?” and frankly I don’t have an easy answer for that. Except: opportunity. I’m lucky to have an editor, Liz Szabla, who doesn’t look to put me in a box or turn me into a brand. She supports my randomness.
How was writing Young Adult different?
I felt that writing for young adults came closest to my natural voice. I loved going back to my 16-year-old self, tapping into that rich and vigorous vein. So many ideas and feelings and memories bubbled forth. First love, big emotions, friendships, wild times, painful times, all of it. Location became central to this story, and I set it in my hometown, including real places I’d been. That trip out to the Amityville Horror House, for example, that’s something many of us Long Island kids did in our boredom, in our driving-around-looking-for-something-to-do lives. I am instantly transported back into that car with my high school friends, Kevin, Eric, Billy, and Jim –- a bunch of guys, a little lost, trying to figure out Saturday night.
Amityville: one exit in our driving-around lives.
Tell us where and/or how this story came to you?
After glancing through the pink-and-fanged world of Young Adult fiction, I felt a desire to write a realistic book, and a love story from a male perspective. There seemed to be many rescue-type love stories that were extremely romantic, but I felt as a guy, “There’s not one freaking thing here that my teenage self would read.” That’s a slight overstatement, but only slight. So that was the impulse, number one, but where was the story? I got the idea for a car accident out of two experiences: teaching my oldest son how to drive; and my recollection of two boys from my high school, Jesse and Mark, who died the first few months after getting their licenses. I remember driving by the tree where it happened, staring at that big oak, seeing where the bark had been chewed up by metal, imagining the horror. I got the idea to start the book with the accident, page one, then rewind six weeks into the past and tell the story from that point. We catch up to the accident about two-thirds of the way through, meet the characters, wonder who will be in the car and who will die, and so the book is divided into two parts, “Before” and “After.” Thus the novel’s opening sentence:
This is the moment between before and after, the pivot point upon which story, like a plate, spins.
I hoped the accident would give my story enough of a hook to keep readers hanging on, as this isn’t a story that offers one big action scene after another. It can’t be described as a typical book that average boys typically like. I don’t feel at all comfortable with these clichéd, empty-headed notion of what boys supposedly like. As a guy, I’d like to proclaim, “We are more than just farts and fire trucks.”
Farts = still comedy gold after all these years.
I feel there’s a certain self-defeating, self-prophecy in a lot of publishing these days, i.e., boys are big galoots, so let’s give them farting fire trucks, or girls are princesses, etc. Funny, that’s not my memory of being a kid — I had all sort of interests.
When you first glance at a list of “books for boys,” well, yes, certainly, there are many appealing books on there. Action, sports, humor (bodily, mostly), and so on. But that kind of list depresses me, because it boils down boys to caricature. Boys only like X and Y and Z.
So while there is always a degree of truth to every stereotype, I know boys who are sensitive and thoughtful, funny and frightened, lonely and confused. Boys who don’t fit the mold. Or I should say, boys who can’t be contained by the mold; they keep surprising us in new ways. Our so-called “books for boys” should not pander to an extremely narrow view of what “boy” is and what “boy” can become. I am saying as a father and an ex-boy: It’s hard not to feel insulted. I don’t intentionally set out to write for “boy readers” or “girl readers.” I write about characters and situations; readers will relate or not. I don’t know which sex will read Before You Go, but I know the story involves boys and girls, so I’m hoping for a variety of readers. Fat ones, skinny ones — come all.
Didn’t anyone tell you that teenagers “just don’t read anymore?”
I can’t listen to that stuff. Statistics, numbers, none of it connects with what I do as a writer, or what any individual does as a reader. The thing for me about this particular “market,” as they say, is that I have no experience with it, and no idea who if anyone is going to read my book. This might sound phony, but I wrote this book for myself –- I wanted it to exist, and I took my time writing it, too. I’ve been involved in children’s publishing since 1985, much of the early years with book clubs, where there’s direct, immediate feedback from the marketplace. I usually have a pretty good idea when a book might sell or when it won’t. But for this novel, I haven’t a clue. But yes, certainly, I would love to get starred reviews and awards and all that stuff –- I’d love that — and I do wish for readers to find and enjoy Before You Go.
This seems a huge oversight, but didn’t your editors point out that there are no vampires in here, no angels, no dystopias? What were you thinking?
I was recently inspired by a blogger who encouraged us to “read out of our comfort zone.” You know, the books you don’t usually pick up. So I grabbed Laini Taylor’s The Daughter of Smoke and Bone –- which has gotten gigantic buzz, sold the movie rights, amazing cover. I was curious about what I might be missing.
It’s a beautifully written story about angels and dystopias and underworlds and bizarre creatures and idealized romantic love, paranormal or otherwise, and on and on. And you know what? I was unmoved. I could admire much of it, particularly the language and the imaginative feat of creating an alternate universe. I respect it, but it’s not where I want to live as a reader. That’s not a criticism of the book, more a reflection of my own interests. Same thing with me as a writer. I am stuck with the person I am. Which does not rule out, by the way, magic realism or other elements of fantasy. See my comment about, re: haphazard career. I like to try new things, so I wouldn’t rule out anything. And to be clear: I’m glad I read Laini Taylor’s book.
Tolstoy said a writer can get lots of things wrong, but not the psychology, meaning, a work, no matter how fantastical, had to ring true to human life. This is what I find so wrong with so much vampire/fantasy/dystopian literature these days. It works on the page, but not in real life.
Realism is the coin of the realm, the heart of all fiction, including the most imaginative fantasy. It has to connect to the human heart, it has to feel true. That is, credible. In a book I’ve been writing for a long time, I began with an impossible idea. Something that couldn’t ever happen. But . . . what if? And the essential thing, I think, is to play that out as credibly as possible, there has to be a cohesive internal logic. It’s been a struggle, frankly, but I view that as a good sign. I believe a writer can accomplish powerful things in any genre, even if it involves, oh, fat vampires on a spa retreat in New Mexico. But sooner or later it’s got to deal with the human heart — or else who really cares beyond the momentary diversion?
You write: “He was in between, a lit fuse, a teenage rocket exploding, and he felt there was nothing for him on this Wrong Island.”
I am a child of suburbia and this book reflects that.
Wrong Island, New York. Levittown, specifically.
Many of my friends and I shared a sense of not belonging, of having inherited a world not of our making. I just wanted to get out, you know, create my own reality –- and I think a lot of teenagers feel the same way. Isolation, alienation, I used to think they were teenage feelings. But now at age 51, it seems like a lifelong perspective. You learn to become okay with not quite fitting neatly into the world’s puzzle.
It seems to me that, no matter outward appearances, this is how all teenagers feel, outside, stuck between childhood and adulthood, “in between.”
Literature is a powerful force –- the written word mightier than the sword, and all of that. Sometimes we forget it, but it’s still true. Ideas do change the world. Atticus Finch and how important it is to walk in someone else’s shoes, for example. To go somewhere else, or to be someone else, if only in your mind. To imagine the possibilities. That’s what’s so exciting about YA, this incredible in-between moment in a life. I was listening to a renowned speaker the other day and it’s clear that right now, today, the universally-accepted answer among educators is that kids need to read in volume. Don’t worry about what they are reading, so much as that they are reading. In other words, it’s about quantity over quality, to the point where quality isn’t even in the equation. And I get that, I really do, the way a young soccer player needs “touches” on the ball, and a musician needs hours with his instrument, but there’s a part of me that thinks, “Yeah, but that doesn’t connect with why I personally love books.” We also need soccer players, and musicians, and readers to love what they do . . . or else they quit.
Told in the third person, the novel stays with Jude’s character most of the time, but there are two places where you dip into his girlfriend Becka’s consciousness, and later we have access to Jude’s mother’s thoughts. Tell me about this choice.
I often begin my books by writing out of sequence and from spontaneous inspiration — building on random scenes and sentences — and as a result my rough drafts tend to lack consistency. But I revise continuously, endlessly, and over time the editor-in-mind cleans up the mess. Conventional thinking would have me “fix” all those lapses. Fortunately, I was able to talk over each scene with Liz, my editor. Sometimes I made those revisions, other times we mutually concluded, “No, this feels right, let’s keep it.” We have the same conversations about split infinitives, by the way. Oh, those are exciting times. Other editors might have told me those point-of-view lapses had to go. But as Thoreau said, “Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.” The guideline I try to follow is, “Does this work?” Another way of saying, I don’t pull every dandelion.
One of Steinbeck’s editors pointed out to him that a character early in a novel had blue eyes, but later brown, and was he going to fix that. I believe he told them to go to hell. All good books have flaws, which I believe adds to the sense of their rightness, oddly.
Right, you want to honor the mistakes. It’s a matter of taste. I compare it to music. Some bands are really polished, everything sounds perfect, slick and smooth, labored over in the studio, whereas other artists prefer to keep the rough spots, the grit –- they resist the surface sheen and focus more on making that direct emotional connection, warts and all. There’s a native distrust of polish and shine and, more significantly, even of that part of the brain, the parent-in-the-mind, where something essential gets lost in the refinement process. Most of the Beat writers felt that way. Perfection has a certain blandness, don’t you think? Don’t get me wrong. I work very hard to make the book the best it can be –- according to my own taste and ability — so I can’t pretend that my failures are intentional.
Much of the first half of the book takes place at Jones Beach, where Jude has his first job in a grease palace by the sea.
That was my summer job, age 16, flipping burgers, hauling garbage out to the Dumpster, sneaking out beer in big, plastic mustard jars. The sun, the heat, the beach, the bikinis, and that first paycheck.
I knew it would make for a vivid setting for a teenage story, that classic dumb summer job we all suffered through and secretly loved. Jude is not me, he’s his own character, but I worked that job, I know that world.
That’s the Field 6 concession stand at Jones Beach.
You’ve spoken previously about that reader who is, how did you put it, able to be bored, that is, able to enjoy being bored and sink deeply into a book, let the hours go by.
A lot of ways to answer this, and I’m afraid I might try them all, so you better grab a chair. More and more, I see writing is an act of faith, a trust. This comes back in some ways to the boy reader, which is a code, by the way, for the impatient reader, the barely-willing-to-put-up-with-it reader. And we’re told that the way to reach this hard-to-reach reader is through short chapters, lots of action, one conflict after another, etc. It rewards a certain kind of typing. But I feel as a writer and as a reader, that I’ve always (also) liked the slow parts. There are forty books in the Jigsaw Jones series, and the mystery is always the engine that drives the action forward. But my favorite parts are often the closely-observed, domestic moments. Three brothers in a room, or the parents painting a bathroom together, or the conversation at the dinner table. I saw one of my writing heroes in New York City back in the late 80’s, the great Roger Angell. During his talk, Angell compared reading to being a baseball fan, which I am.
Baseball fans and avid readers both share a willingness to be bored.
He contended that both occupations are for people who are not afraid of being bored. I’ve never forgotten that observation. I’ll quote Angell here, because I have a recording of that talk and I recently transcribed it: “It really is one of the great pleasures of baseball. If you sit there in the early innings, there’s that wonderful time when you wait and see what kind of game this is going to be. Every game is so different from the other, and you need those early chapters, sometimes very slow moving, in order to lead up to the end of the book, the end of the game.” First off, that’s brilliant. And so true. To me, at any given moment a story moves horizontally (the plot advances) or vertically (characterization deepens). Those directions are not mutually exclusive, the line may be slanted, but that’s basically the two main thrusts. I’ve always been drawn to the slowing down, the sinking into character and setting, more so than the headlong forward rush to the next big climax.
For example, there’s a small moment in Before You Go, a few paragraphs early on, when we see Jude at home for the first time, and we meet his mother. His father has already told Jude that she is in bed with a headache, not to be disturbed. So Jude enters the house after his first day of work, tired and dirty. I love that mother and son are separated by a shut door, the staging tells us all we need to know.
In the hallway, he paused outside the closed door of his parents’ bedroom, tilted an ear, listening for movement.
“Jude?” his mother called.
“Yeah, it’s me, Mom,” he answered. “How you feeling today?”
A long silence. “I’m sorry, I’ve got nothing for you in the kitchen,” she finally said, her voice muffled, as if groaned into a pillow.
“That’s okay, Mom, I’m good,” Jude replied. He considered telling her about work, how some girl saved him from getting pummeled by a trio of behemoths, but it felt awkward trying to talk through a door. He placed his right hand on the door as if to push it open, and he saw his fingers as the legs of a fleshy spider perched there, tingling. Jude rested his head against the jamb, shut his eyes. He waited in the hush for something to happen, some change to occur, but nothing did.
Nothing ever did.
I’m proud of that little encounter. “I’ve got nothing for you,” she says. To like my book, I think you have to enjoy those quiet moments. You must have the patience of a baseball fan. Admire the way a pitcher drops that 0-2 slow change just off the outside corner, low and away, trying to entice the hitter to chase. The art, the craft, the whole of it. In this scene, I’m plunging downward, not across. It’s slow, not fast. And I need a reader who is okay with that. I have faith that that reader exists, just as any reader must have faith in the writer –- that eventually he’ll deliver. But nonetheless, I wrote it anyway. That’s the thing. You just write. Because it’s what you do.
Category: Before You Go, Interviews & Appreciations, the writing process / Tags: 2102 YA debuts, Amityville Horror House, Atticus Finch, Before You Go excerpt, Books for Boys, Consistency is the hobgoblin, farts and firetrucks, First Young Adult novel, Growing up on Long Island, James Preller Interview, Jigsaw Jones series, Jones Beach, Jones Beach in books, Jones Beach summer job, Laini Taylor, Lewis Buzbee, Liz Szabla, Long Island memories, Preller Before You Go, Read out of your comfort zone, reading is like baseball, Review Before You Go, Roger Angell, Steinbeck, Working at Jones Beach, Wrong Island NY
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Home India Tashi Jong: The first “tobacco-free” village of Himachal Pradesh
Tashi Jong: The first “tobacco-free” village of Himachal Pradesh
TASHI JONG PAVES THE WAY
By Aparna Menon
World No Tobacco Day is celebrated every year on the 31st of May. It is fortunate that people everywhere are getting more and more conscious about the ill effects of tobacco and attempts are being made at all levels to rid many parts of our country and the world at large, of one of the biggest killers of human beings – TOBACCO!!
Four years ago, in July 2011, the residents of the Tashi Jong settlement took on a unique initiative, by making the village totally ‘smoke free’. The Tibetan settlement of Tashi Jong is nestled in the foothills of the Dhauladhar range, in the state of Himachal Pradesh. It is here that the 8th Khamtrul Rimpoche, Kalzang Dongyu Nyima, founded the Khampagar Monastery in 1968.
“Tashi Jong is home to 300 monks, who live within the premises of the monastery and 500 lay people who live in the settlement around the monastery. This Tibetan settlement was established for the preservation of the rich Tibetan art and cultural heritage,” says Mr Lekshek Tsering, the General Secretary of the Tibetan Crafts Community.
“In 2011, Mr Harjeet Singh, from Ranchi, Jharkhand came to the village as a consultant for the on- going safe drinking water project. When he was leaving after the completion of the project he pointed out, that the only flaw he noticed in this peace loving community was people smoking any and everywhere; even near the monastery,” says Mr Dhondup Gyaltsen, the Manager of the Tibetan Crafts Community.
This prompted the people of the community to take the ‘huge leap’ of eradicating smoking from their premises. The Tashi Jong Settlement Officers, the Tashi Jong Youth Association and the Khampagar Monastery monks actively lead the campaign and the local shopkeepers volunteered to stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products to the locals as well as to visiting tourists. On a particular day, the villagers burnt cigarettes and tobacco products, worth Rs 60,000/-, purchased from the local shops, at the main square of the village.
This unanimous decision taken by the villagers of Tashi Jong, was meant to help establish a healthier environment in and around their village. News of this act spread and very soon many officials from Shimla visited the village to check on them. When the State Government was convinced that Tashi Jong was totally rid of smoking they awarded the village with a certificate ‘declaring them as the first village in Himachal Pradesh that is Smoke Free’.
On the 12th of June 2014, the Health Minister of Himachal Pradesh, Mr Kaul Singh Thakur, was attending the Global Tobacco Control Leadership Programme in the United States. At one of the sessions he spelt out the various steps that the HP government is taking, to achieve the long term goal of making every village of the state “tobacco free”. He said, “Himachal is not covered under India’s National Tobacco Control Programme and despite that, the State has made tremendous progress in tobacco control.”
Let us hope that with the various schemes devised by the government and with the support of all the people of the State, very soon HP is declared – the First Tobacco Free State of India. Also, let us hope that taking a cue from this village more parts of India are able to achieve success in this field.
Aparna has been a freelance journalist with more than 10 years of experience in writing for various newspapers.
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10th Anniversary Season 2020
Past Season Artists
MOCM Education
Playbill Advertising
William James, percussion
William James is Principal Percussion of the St. Louis Symphony. He won the position at the age of 25 and is still one of the youngest principal percussionists in the country. Prior to moving to St. Louis, he was a member of the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida. He graduated from the New England Conservatory in 2006 with a Masters of Music as a student of Will Hudgins of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He received his Bachelor of Music Degree from Northwestern University in 2004. While attending Northwestern he studied with Michael Burritt, an active soloist and clinician around the country, and James Ross, a member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
James has played with many outstanding ensembles including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Chicago Civic Orchestra, Tanglewood Festival Orchestra, and Chautauqua Festival Orchestra. In addition to his experience as an orchestral player he has performed several solo recitals across the country, as well as soloing with the St. Louis Symphony and New World Symphony. He has also continued a career as a chamber musician in St. Louis. He is a regular artist with the Pulitzer Foundation Chamber Music Series and plays in a percussion and piano duo with Peter Henderson. James is in demand as an educator as well, giving masterclasses across the country at numerous colleges and universities. He is very involved with the Percussive Arts Society, having been published in their magazine, presented at the International Convention in 2010, and currently serving on the Symphonic Committee. In all of these musical endeavors James proudly uses Zildjian Cymbals, Malletech Sticks and Instruments, and Grover Percussion Products. A native of Raleigh, North Carolina, Will James visits the Old North State often where he enjoys the outdoors and still pulls for his favorite sports teams.
Missouri Chamber Music, Inc. / 211 S. Elm Ave / St. Louis, Missouri 63119 / mochambermusic@gmail.com
Tax ID 27-3473749
Photography: Jennifer A. Lin
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Events and Society
«Religion is the opium of the people»
By the Rev. Metropolitan of Nafpaktos and Saint Vlassios, fr. Hierotheos
Source: http://www.parembasis.gr/2007/07_05_01.htm
Published in the Magazine «Daphne»
The expression “Religion is the opium of the people” is one of the best-known sayings of Karl Marx, which also became the ideological slogan against Religion and Christianity in general.
It is on this saying that I would like to express a few of my thoughts.
1. Marx’s theory
To begin with, I should clarify that Karl Marx was a German Jew, born and raised outside Bonne, and, as was to be expected, he lived his childhood years and his teens in the aura of Jewish Rabbis. He had also turned to Greek philosophy at a very early stage, and his diatribe was about Epicurus. In his diatribe, he wrote as a preface: “In brief: I harbor hatred towards all gods”
Parenthetically, I would like to underline that one’s hatred towards God and religion is a religious fact, as odd as this may seem at first glance, because if one does not believe in the existence of God, one does not become enlisted in the battle against this nonexistent (in his opinion) God. Hatred towards God is interpreted from the point of view that it manifests itself in the name of some other faith – some other deity of one’s own choice. Hatred and polemic towards God applies to an existent God, because one never hates or fights against a God which he believes does not exist.
Coming back to the subject, I would like to stress that the philosopher Nicholas Berdiaev, who had commenced his philosophical work by pursuing the Marxist theories, eventually interpreted Marx’s thoughts in a truly remarkable manner. He argued that Marx, on account of his Jewish descent, believed in the Messianic idea – in the coming of “the kingdom of God”, which meant the betrayed people. Given that he ceased to believe in the coming of the Messiah, the way that Jews had, he secularized that Messiah and attributed that role to the proletariat – the class of industrial workers. The new Messiah – according to Marx – is now the proletariat, which is exempt of the cardinal sin and it is to these people that all truths shall be unfolded; it is the proletariat that will uncover all self-delusions and will put an end to the battle of the classes, upon which, it will restore humanity back to unity, and thus the “new kingdom” will prevail on earth.
In interpreting the Jewish substructure of the Marxist theory, Berdiaev wrote: “The proletariat’s triumph will split the world’s History into two parts. It will bring on a new age. The proletariat will be the only form of conscience; the true humanity and its interests will coincide with those of collectivity.”
Thus, we have a new Messianic people (the proletariat), a new Moses (Marx), a new Promised Land (the class-less society), and a new Law (equality and justice).
The fact is that Marx, when stating that “religion is the opium of the people” (the paternity of which is attributed by some to Feuerbach), had in mind only three religious traditions, that is, the Jewish religion with its Messianism; the Christianity of the West, which had linked itself to scholasticism, capitalism, crusades and wars, but also to the Buddhist views of the Far East, according to which, people applied themselves to yoga and to transcendental meditation in order to avoid their return to life, because every life is an affliction and in reality, this allowed the mighty of the earth and every tyrant to exploit the people’s pain. Viewed in this sense, these religious traditions that exploit man and subject him to other, arbitrary powers can indeed function as “the opium of the people”, inasmuch as it either puts their minds to sleep, or it intoxicates them and throws them into warfare, for the destruction of others.
I am inclined to believe that if Marx had acquainted himself with the Orthodox Church – the way that the major Fathers of the Church had expressed it, and the way it is lived in the genuinely Orthodox Monasteries that still preserve the hesychast spirit and the renouncing of possessions – he would probably have had an entirely different point of view on these matters.
2. An interpretation of the Marxist theory
In one of his texts, Michael Raptis (aka Pablo) also makes reference to the Marxist statement of “religion is the opium of the people”.
He writes that this phrase “is derived from two different interpretations”. The one interpretation has to do with the placating of existential questions, which exist inside every person when religion is seen as a certain innate tendency of an evolving being; in other words, religion in this case calms man’s existential anxieties. The other interpretation is that because people are purposely being misled and disoriented by each and every governing authority for the sake of peace in society, it could be that religion is being used by every system, for that precise purpose – in other words, to put man’s social concerns to sleep.
Further along, he analyses that Marx attributed the second significance to his phrase and that he omitted whatever had to do with man’s existential concerns and speculations, to which religion does give a solution. However, he also gives another dimension to the Marxist theory on religion. He writes:
«Marx insists on the view that religion is also a protest against man’s actual social impoverishment, and that Marx subsequently does not condemn religion or the religious person. Religion is the human being’s sigh in a heartless world, but also its healing balm, not only for his social misery and change, but also for his unclarified existential problems».
I cannot know whether this was indeed the actual interpretation that Marx attributed to religion, and how it relates to the phrase “religion is the opium of the people”; it would be a matter for research and analysis. The fact remains, though, that Marx’s thought had a Jewish substratum to it, from which he could not, of course, alienate himself.
3. “Religion” and “Church”
By studying religions and Christian confessions, one can discern that certain ideas are used – at times to disorient their followers, at other times to fanaticize them, and at yet other times to render them ideologists. For example, scholastic theology and the capitalist mentality of Western Christianity (the way Marx knew it), the Jewish mindset and especially the Zionist mentality which is a purely political choice that politically utilizes the religious views of the Old Testament (which can be seen from the differentiation of the Hassidim), oriental meditation and mysticism, but also the sorcery that is observed in oriental religions, all give the same impression; i.e., that religion –in varying degrees- is indeed the opium of the people, from the aspect that it places man at the margins of society, thus creating free space for every tyrant to act and to exploit the people.
However, when I often refer to this quotation by Marx, that religion is the opium of the people, I always insist that it is not referring to the Orthodox Church also, given that the Orthodox Church – the way that the great Fathers had designated it – is NOT a religion, because it is not discerned by the elements that the other religions have; it is a Church. The (Greek) word for Church – ECCLESIA – denotes a calling together of the townspeople to solve various problems. The Church never functioned as a religion (I do not have enough time to analyze this point), only as a Church; a congregating of clergy and laity, together with God, the Holy Mother and the Saints. Anyone who has read the memoirs of General Makryiannis (lived during the time of the Greek Nation’s uprising against the Turkish occupation) will discern that this was the way he too perceived the Church, and that in the name of that Church, he headed the struggle for independence, so that constitutional rights would be given to the people.
This is the reason that makes me believe that the Orthodox Church functions more as a spiritual hospital – a therapeutic society – which takes a person from the state he is in, and frees him of his assorted dependencies; it de-ideologizes him and de-fanaticizes him.
We all know that apart from the opiate essences, there are also psychological and ideological opiates; apart from narcotics, there are also psycho-narcotics. If one desires to truly live within the Orthodox Church, with Her sacramental and ascetic lifestyle, one will be rid of all such dependencies.
In my last book, titled “Religion and Church in Society”, the reader will find many views being analyzed around this topic.
In closing, I would like to point out that unfortunately nowadays, the slogan “religion is the opium of the people” appears to prevail in many religious communities; however, equally prevalent is the following slogan: “opium is the religion of the people”. Narcotics are tormenting young people, the ruling class - as well as a portion of champion athletics -with their capitalist mentality and organization. These assorted psychotropic drugs are the opium of the people. It is not only religion now, but power also, which are the new opiates of the people.
The prophet Isaiah condemned those who “become inebriate without wine”: he was referring to those who exercise various forms of power. Unfortunately, we are rendered witnesses of this fact, every day.
Translation: A. N.
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Rhythm, melody, harmony, timbre, and texture are the essential aspects of a musical performance. They are often called the basic elements of music.
The main purpose of music theory is to describe various pieces of music in terms of their similarities and differences in these elements, and music is usually grouped into genres based on similarities in all or most elements. It's useful, therefore, to be familiar with the terms commonly used to describe each element. Because harmony is the most highly developed aspect of Western music (Section 2.8), music theory tends to focus almost exclusively on melody and harmony. Music does not have to have harmony, however, and some music doesn't even have melody. So perhaps the other three elements can be considered the most basic components of music.
Music cannot happen without time. The placement of the sounds in time is the rhythm of a piece of music. Because music must be heard over a period of time, rhythm is one of the most basic elements of music. In some pieces of music, the rhythm is simply a "placement in time" that cannot be assigned a beat or meter, but most rhythm terms concern more familiar types of music with a steady beat. See Meter for more on how such music is organized, and Duration and Time Signature for more on how to read and write rhythms. See Simple Rhythm Activities for easy ways to encourage children to explore rhythm.
Rhythm Terms
Rhythm - The term "rhythm" has more than one meaning. It can mean the basic, repetitive pulse of the music, or a rhythmic pattern that is repeated throughout the music (as in "feel the rhythm"). It can also refer to the pattern in time of a single small group of notes (as in "play this rhythm for me").
Beat - Beat also has more than one meaning, but always refers to music with a steady pulse. It may refer to the pulse itself (as in "play this note on beat two of the measure"). On the beat or on the downbeat refer to the moment when the pulse is strongest. OFF the beat is in between pulses, and the upbeat is exactly halfway between pulses. Beat may also refer to a specific repetitive rhythmic pattern that maintains the pulse (as in "it has a Latin beat"). Note that once a strong feeling of having a beat is established, it is not necessary for something to happen on every beat; a beat can still be "felt" even if it is not specifically heard.
Measure or bar - Beats are grouped into measures or bars. The first beat is usually the strongest, and in most music, most of the bars have the same number of beats. This sets up an underlying pattern in the pulse of the music: for example, strong-weak-strong-weak-strongweak, or strong-weak-weak-strong-weak-weak. (See Meter.)
Rhythm Section - The rhythm section of a band is the group of instruments that usually provide the background rhythm and chords. The rhythm section almost always includes a percussionist (usually on a drum set) and a bass player (usually playing a plucked string bass of some kind). It may also include a piano and/or other keyboard players, more percussionists, and one or more guitar players or other strummed or plucked strings. Vocalists, wind instruments, and bowed strings are usually not part of the rhythm section.
Syncopation - Syncopation occurs when a strong note happens either on a weak beat or ofithe beat. See Syncopation.
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Controversy over automation’s source code
Last Sunday I wrote in this blog about two important protest cases that were among the first to be filed after the automated elections of May 10, 2010, on allegations that electronic fraud was committed against the losing candidates. One case in filed in Manila by former Mayor Lito Atienza against incumbent Mayor Alfredo Lim, and the other in Pasay City, filed by former Rep. and losing candidate Consuelo Dy against former Vice-Mayor and incumbent Mayor Antonino Calixto.
Atienza seeks a recount in the votes of some 6,653 precincts in Manila on the ground of alleged manipulation of electronically-generated election returns, while Dy alleged that while 183,618 voters actually cast their votes, the sum of all votes for all the mayoralty candidates, including former Mayor Peewee Trinidad who garnered the third place in the recent elections, was only 175,304. Dy alleged that the missing 8,314 votes in the tight Pasay City contest were not counted by the defective and/or pre-programmed CF cards and the PCOS machines. Ballot boxes for 370 clustered precincts will be covered by the protest of Dy, who wants at least eight committees to work on the recount. But her protest won’t come cheap, as she’s being asked to pay P1,500 per protested precinct as well for the various expenses involved in the recount over perhaps weeks and months.
Dy's allegations of fraud and irregularities
What’s significant is that Comelec Commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer has asserted that candidate Dy was able to show in detail alleged electronic frauds and irregularities committed in the voting, counting and canvassing of votes, in addition to the alleged massive vote-buying in that city. But in addition to the two protests filed in Metro Manila, protests from various provinces are also being filed. Last Sunday I mentioned the electoral protest filed by former Rep. Glenn Chong against his opponent in the tiny island of Biliran in Region VIII. Ferrer has also approved the filing of a new protest case against Mayor Christian Tinio in Gapan City, Nueva Ecija, by losing candidate Juanita Natividad, where only a slim 6,300-vote margin for Tinio is under dispute.
The need for a comprehensive review
The increasing electoral protest cases at various levels that are being filed at the Comelec highlight the need for a comprehensive review of our first automated election system (AES). The review of the AES within a reasonable time before the elections has been the position that Filipino IT professionals, led by the UP-based Center for People Empowerment on Governance (Cenpeg), have strongly advocated since June 2009. But in view of so many errors and deficiencies which surfaced in the post-election period, especially in the House hearings of the Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms of the 14th Congress, a review has become even more necessary at this point; but it cannot be intelligently done without the source code for the elections on various levels.
As defined by the Automated Elections Act, RA 9369, the source code contains the “human-readable instructions that define what the computer equipment will do.” In other words, it’s the road map to the path taken by the PCOS machines. During the House hearings chaired by former Rep. TeddyBoy Locsin, IT experts like Bettina Quimson, vice president of a professional group, kept pressing to go back to the source code in order to understand the reported aberrations of these machines, as claimed by losing politicians. But as Cenpeg recently stressed in a paper titled “17 Reasons Why the Comelec must Release Vital Public Documents,” by IT Consultant Angel S. Averia, Jr., the poll body has adamantly refused to release the source code, along with 21 other vital election documents.
Conflicting views of IT professionals and Comelec
What’s difficult to reconcile are the conflicting views of the IT professionals and Comelec on this matter. Cenpeg first began pressing to get the source code in June 2009 and Comelec at first agreed to have them ready by November, 2009. But later it reversed itself and refused to make the source code accessible altogether, saying that it’s being used in processing the list of voters, which is not part of the voting, counting and canvassing systems under RA 9369. In October last year, Cenpeg filed a suit before the Supreme Court to demand the source code’s release to it but before the SC could rule on this issue, the Comelec quite suddenly said in February this year that it had already deposited the disputed document in the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas; I heard poll officials repeat this claim at the House hearings last May---the source code is in the BSP.
Last Sept. 21, 2010, the Supreme Court, after nearly a year, finally ordered the Comelec to release the code to Cenpeg, but the poll body is singing a different tune. Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal, in answer to the SC order, now insists that the Comelec had not been remiss in following RA 9369 to make the code accessible; that in fact it had sat down with certain political parties and civic groups before the elections and gave them “many opportunities” to conduct a review of the code, but that “no one wanted to do one.”
Is the Comelec hesitating?
The way I see it, the Comelec appears to be quibbling here and it might be telling only a half-truth about making the source code truly accessible. I can understand its hesitation to release it to the IT professionals through their political parties, especially since it claims that the code was also used in checking out the voters’ list; perhaps the Comelec did not distrust the IT professionals, but it has little trust in the political parties. After all, the latter have had a record in finagling with the voters’ list in past years (remember the flying voters and the dead who vote repeatedly?).
But safety measures could have been installed to prevent tampering with the voters’ list, just so that a proper review of the source code by the experts could have been undertaken well before the elections---that is, if the poll body did not aim to hide anything.
Part of a grand plot?
I can’t help but think of the thinly-veiled accusations hurled during the House hearings about the possible involvement of some Comelec personnel in electronic fraud manipulations in the last elections. The controversy kicked up by “Koala Boy,” as TeddyBoy Locsin nicknamed the masked man who surfaced for a while to denounce alleged e-frauds in the elections, was too recent to forget. But though Locsin made fun of Koala Boy, he himself gave as much allowance to frauds in his committee report.
The question is: were the attempts to make inaccessible the source code, so vital to the understanding of the AES, part of a grand plot to enable some cheaters in the Comelec to operate in high-tech electoral fraud last May 10 and beyond?
Posted by Veteran Journalist and Relentless Advocate of Truth at 9:30 AM No comments:
Early protests against e-fraud
In the next few weeks two very significant electoral protests are expected to move under the auspices of the Comelec. These are the protests filed by losing Manila mayoralty candidate and former Manila Mayor Lito Atienza vs. incumbent Mayor Alfredo Lim, and by losing Pasay City mayoralty candidate Consuelo Dy against incumbent Mayor Antonino Calixto. These protests, which will be expensive for Atienza and Dy, are significant not only because they put into question the electoral results in the capital and another major city in Metro Manila, the center of this nation’s political power, and under the nose, so to speak, of majority of media outlets in the country. They are significant because they are the first protests to be filed after the first automated national elections last May 10, which have been hailed here and abroad as peaceful, honest and clean. The protestants are out to prove they are victims of high- tech fraud, contrary to the Comelec’s claims that it was insignificant.
Protests outside of Manila
It’s also noteworthy that protests have been filed outside Manila too. Most notable is the protest of former Rep. Glenn Chong against reelectionist Biliran Gov. Espina. Chong testified on his complaint of cheating in Biliran during the hearings conducted in the 14th Congress by the House Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms chaired by former Rep. TeddyBoy Locsin, and his ardent supporters guarded his ballots in the provincial capitol since the elections. Since Chong’s protest was filed, the sealing of ballots has been accomplished in four towns of the tiny island province.
Suffice it so say that the local protests around the country could have significant implications on the recent national elections. If there were frauds in local elections, it is unlikely that there were no significant frauds too in the national polls. One protest that definitely would have a bearing on the national contests was the one filed by losing LP vice-presidential candidate Mar Roxas against Vice-President Jojo Binay, but so far nothing much has been heard about it. Whatever happened to it?
MIGHT e2010
These early protests in Metro Manila and the provinces are being assiduously monitored by various organizations of IT professionals as well as a NGO that was activated in the post-election period precisely to monitor frauds. It’s aptly called the “Movement for Integrity in Governance, Honesty and Truth” in the May 10 Elections” (MIGHTe2010). The lead group among the professionals is the UP-based Center for People Empowerment on Governance (CENPEG), which has sought to involve itself with the Automated Election System (AES) even while the law authorizing it, RA 9369, was still being drafted. In the interest of public welfare and transparency, CENPEG has monitored the various steps taken by the Comelec regarding the May 10 elections---from the planning of the AES to the contracting of the hardware and software, and the integrating and implementing systems of the AES to foreign companies, and in the conduct of the elections and the post-election review.
Dissatisfaction of the CENPG
CENPEG has been far from happy about the way everything went, noting, as IT consultant Angel S. Averia, Jr., put it “Errors and deficiencies in the AES observed or discovered during the elections, on election day itself, during the consolidation and canvassing of election results and the conduct of the Random Manual Audit...” The most serious question this NGO has raised is the persistent refusal of Comelec to release the AES source code to political parties and interested groups for review. Last Oct. 5, 2009, seven months before the May 10 elections, CENPEG filed a petition for mandamus with the Supreme Court, to compel Comelec to release this source code. Last Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2010, nearly a year later, the High Court, in a resolution, granted CENPEG’s petition; but we voters have the right ask, why only now?
Stonewalling by the COMELEC
In addition to its refusal to make available the source code to rightful parties, Comelec has also stonewalled the release of 21 other documents CENPEG considers vital to the AES and the comprehensive review needed to guide future automated elections. Why? The logical question CENPEG now raises, in view of the black-out from the poll body, is: “Did the AES operate properly, securely, and accurately?”
More on Tuesday about the grave points its IT professionals have been raising in various forums and articles. This includes valid points raised by IT expert Gus Lagman in his column in a business daily, titled “To take a stand,” posted Sept. 20, 2010. Lagman questioned from the beginning the award by Comelec of the AES contract to Smartmatic and the poll body’s “distrust of Filipino IT professionals.”
Claims of Lito Atienza
In Manila Lito Atienza is questioning the results of the May 10 elections that showed rival Lim drawing 403, 621 votes against his own 184,415 votes, or a margin in Lim’s favor of 219,206 votes, greater than Atienza’s own total, when, as pundits noted, various surveys indicated a really tight race between them. The losing candidate, however, is not banking on totals, but on the declaration of the Random Manual Audit (RMA) that while voting was “99% accurate nationwide,” there were “large variances” in the Manila mayoralty race that were traceable to “voting-machine error.”
As Manila Standard Today columnist Jojo Robles pointed out recently, the “variances” noted by the RMA in Manila’s 3rd district seemed to have been “caused by a foreign object that got unintentionally lodged in the scanner of the voting machine during the voting and scanning process.” The discrepancies in Manila amounted to double-digit inaccuracy, according to the PPCRV which led the RMA nationwide, and this is doubtless the basis for Atienza’s confidence.
Demands for a manual recount
He’s demanding a manual recount of 6,653 precincts clustered into 1,441 polling places. This will require two months of work by ten Comelec recount committees, for which his P10 million “protest down-payment” would just be the start of expenses (Comelec rules that losing candidates demanding a recount should pay P1,500 per precinct. The steep price is obviously aimed at discouraging protests, as these mean more work for it). At the House committee hearings conducted by Locsin, Atienza also submitted an affidavit from a City Hall employee who attested to having witnessed actual computer-issued electoral returns manipulated in favor of his rival days before the elections. As though to make the Lim-Atienza contest more exciting, ballot boxes containing the votes of two Manila congressional districts, which were under the safekeeping of the City Treasurer in City Hall, “got mysteriously damaged by water” during a typhoon, as Jojo Robles noted. Lim has denied having anything to do with the destruction of vital protest evidence, but as they say, Only in Da Pilipins.
(On Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2010, stay tuned for the Pasay recount.)
Posted by Veteran Journalist and Relentless Advocate of Truth at 9:01 PM No comments:
Weather-weather lang
Like many other media people, I am appalled at the shock-and-awe treatment of former ABS-CBN TV host Willie Revillame by the giant network. I have never been a fan of Revillame as oftentimes in the past, I found his brand of low humor so degrading to women. Then the stampede occurred in Ultra some years ago, I lamented in my column in the Inquirer that he got away with only a slap on the wrist when he deserved to have been sacked for good, along with a couple of high officials of the network. But the ABS-CBN counter-suit against him now cannot be read as anything but harassment and the media collectively ought to denounce it.
Revillame slapped the network with an P11 million lawsuit to protest what he considers its unjust removal of him over a contract. Had the giant network counter-sued with, say, P20 million, it would have been credible and perhaps a fair legal battle. But to slap Revillame with a NEARLY HALF A BILLION peso-countersuit (and without paying the gigantic filing fee) can only mean, as his lawyers stressed in their press statement, that ABS-CBN is not serious about its lawsuit, and is out to just harass him. The network’s message seems to be that it’s God and how dare that little insect fight God. Its incredible arrogance in this unprecedented suit should send a chilling message to the media world that no one, but no one crosses ABS-CBN. But are there media practitioners protesting loudly? Where are the media organizations?
P-Noy government hires a PR firm
A US-based global public relations/communications firm was hired by the administration to handle the image-aspect of President’s seven-day official visit to the US , and the idea has run into controversy in the local media. Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima, who appears to be the brains behind this move to hire the PR firm, has said that it’s a “one-shot deal” and that the cost is not as astronomical as is being portrayed in the media now. Purisima quoted the amount of $15,000 as the price of the PR handling, which, he said, was very reasonable, and denied that it was P45 million as is being bruited about.
Purisima complained loudly that the Aquino government is floating a billion-dollars worth of global peso bonds and is in the process of doing a $3 billion bond exchange, and yet, all the local media could talk about is this $15,000 contract with the US PR firm. He said that the lead agencies in these floats, the Department of Finance and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, need to communicate to their stakeholders who are mostly outside the Philippines. Nakakapikon, said Purisima.
"Weather-weather lang"
I chuckle over the controversy that the hiring of this PR firm has kicked up, for it proves that public controversies are indeed cyclical; to quote former President Estrada, “weather-weather lang.” I distinctly remember how the Arroyo administration was clobbered in the media by the then opposition, led by the Hyatt 10---now the administration in power, ---for the former’ s plan to get into a pricey contract with a PR and planning American outfit called, if my memory serves me right, “Venable.” The anti-GMA media rode on the sudden disclosure of the PR contract, and before it could be consummated it had to be scrapped. Now the shoe is in the other foot and the Aquino administration is defending its own PR contract.
But all administrations have this problem. Recall that during the US elections, candidate Barack Obama was so critical of the “Bush war” and promised to bring home US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. A year and a half later he shipped out 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and there’s no telling whether the surge would stop there.
The lesson for all presidential candidates the world over is, don’t be too quick to moralize on the campaign trail, for the situation inside the corridors of power can be so different from the outside. What you condemn now, you embrace tomorrow.
Philippine government officials in New York
I found too defensive Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras’ posturing about the difficulty of trying to get attention for the Philippines and P-Noy in New York City where the UN anniversary drew the biggest leaders from all around the globe. Almendras was quoted as saying that the people handing P-Noy’s visit to New York and D.C. are “in competition with a lot of people. We’re not the only one coming here.” To be sure, it’s the toughest time of the year to be visiting the US , and Almendras could be worrying that P-Noy’s young fans might have thought that his visit with Henry Kissinger was no big deal (e.g., is he all they could get? A few days later P-Noy was able to meet with current US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but Obama remained an elusive target for him).
To the young people, Dr. K., the brilliant émigré from Germany and a Harvard summa cum laude, is doubtless a relic from the distant Nixon years. They might have learned in school that Nixon, who resigned in 1974 for fear of being impeached over Watergate, had appointed Dr. K. as his Secretary of State in 1973, and the latter was credited with the opening of diplomatic ties between the US and China. But young Pinoys may react to Dr. K. pretty much like many Americans did in the 2008 US presidential elections, when Republican candidate John McCain presented him as the guru of his short list of foreign policy advisers---they were unimpressed, largely because he seemed to be a voice from such a distant era.
Henry Kissinger's PR firm
To the young people the 87-year old Nobel Peace Prize winner (1973) may indeed be a relic of the past, but the New York-based international consulting firm that he founded in 1982 and still chairs, Kissinger and Associates, continues to be influential in world circles. One reason is the prestige of the people who had served in its staff, among them the financial whiz kid Timothy Geithner, Obama’s Secretary of the Treasury, who’s credited with helping ease the US somewhat out of a recent recession which could have been worse. Another reason is the prestige of the firm’s list of top multinational clients, which has leaked out from time to time in US Senate hearings despite the firm’s strict secrecy policy. Many of these clients are in Fortune’s top 100.
But speaking of the PR firm that the P-Noy government had hired for this September official visit to the US , perhaps there was little need for its services to arrange that call on Kissinger. The former Secretary of Foreign Affairs in the Ramos era, Roberto Romulo, might have fixed it for free for P-Noy. Recall that Romulo resigned two years ago as GMA’s adviser on global competitiveness after he accepted an appointment to represent the Philippines in Kissinger and Associates.
Usec Puno should resign irrevocably
It’s only right that Local Governments Undersecretary Rico Puno should tender his resignation. Not just a courtesy resignation, made perhaps in the hope that the President would reject it, but an irrevocable resignation. In just a month Puno has been implicated in two big controversies, the Black Monday botched hostage-taking where he was the highest official in supervision of the police forces; and the other day at the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing, where retired Archbishop Oscar Cruz implicated him and other administrative and police officials in jueteng. Over the early evening news the other evening, a young TV reporter quoted Puno as saying that despite the two episodes quite damaging to him, he still enjoys the confidence and trust of President Noynoy. But this reporter correctly riposted: the question is, does Puno still have the trust of the public?
Question of public trust
On the question of public trust he doesn’t have it, for it’s his word against that of Archbishop Cruz. While this aging prelate has gotten on everyone’s hair at one time or another in the past, he still enjoys tremendous credibility with the public; one reason is that, to borrow a favorite phrase of a major TV-radio network, wala siyang kinikilingan. In fact, it might be rightly asked what the outspoken retired prelate has to gain from getting into this fresh controversy---and at the public hearing of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee at that. Cruz is putting his life in danger in a business where there’s a lot of payola, including for silencing the media and outspoken critics. Let’s pray that he’d be safe from harm.
Grand demolition job?
An internet reader has raised the observation that with Puno’s resignation, it’s “one down. Who’s next?” He opined that the problem is that P-Noy’s appointees are based “on palakasan, (or are) classmates or as bayad-utang na loob, not on character or personality.” In fairness to those being branded as involved in the illegal numbers’ game, we ought to give allowance for the fact the allegations being raised could be part of a grand demolition job against these officials, as Puno has asserted. It could be that Oscar Cruz was taken for a ride, although that possibility is remote, considering that he has been looking at this problem for quite a while.
Obama and P-Noy have a lot in common
The problem of P-Noy is very much like that of US President Barack Obama as they both have very limited administrative experience. Obama was a very junior senator who spent his two years in the US Senate campaigning for other officials, in the hope of sowing collectible favors. But his personal charisma, his over-arching eloquence, and the fact that America was at a cultural crossroad that its media became so infatuated with this first black candidate for president, helped him conquer the White House.
P-Noy fell back on the memory of Ninoy and Cory. Like him Obama began his administration by recruiting people who had helped his political campaign over the years, such as his Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel, and senior adviser David Axelrod, his chief campaign strategist. But Obama had the good sense to ask the Defense Secretary of the Bush administration, Robert Gates, to stay on in the light of the critical Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and his bitter Democratic rival Hillary Clinton to be his Secretary of State. He saw the intrinsic value of experience in certain critical fields.
By the same token, it is natural that P-Noy tends to trust only people he knew from way back, given his limited administrative background (more experienced administrators get to develop this knack for spotting talent). But in the process P-Noy has kept out experienced hands and the neophyte character of his government is taking a heavy toll. Sen. Joker Arroyo put it quite vividly when he queried whether or not a “student government” is in the Palace, which it denied quickly.
Actually, if and when the two Presidents finally meet in the US , they’ll realize they have more in common than just kicking the smoking habit.
Shining star of Aquino administration
Justice Secretary Leila de Lima has emerged as one shining star in the Aquino administration. When I was still in the Inquirer, I endorsed in my column this former election lawyer’s appointment to head the Commission on Human Rights in the GMA administration. One factor that impressed me truly was the fact that her various colleagues in the election lawyering field came as one to endorse her. At first I felt that she was too lime-light seeking, but in the hearings of the “incident-investigative” committee that Aquino constituted to investigate the hostage-taking fiasco, De Lima impressed many as no-nonsense and sensible, out to do a good job. Certainly there was less of the circus attending the Senate in hers, and P-Noy termed the IIRC report, which listed eight major blunders by the authorities and the personalities who ought to be charged administratively and/or criminally, “comprehensive.”
Worrying handling of IIRC Report
But one aspect of the handling of the IIRC report is worrisome. The President, before he left for his one-week official visit to the US the other day, said that the report is “recommendatory in nature” and that he has sent it to his legal team composed of the Executive Secretary and the Chief Legal Counsel, for a thorough review and recommended course of action. He stressed that he had ordered it disseminated to the public in the interest of transparency and that a copy was turned over to Chinese Ambassador. But he also said he would decide on whether to approve the filing of charges against the recommended individuals when he gets back from the US .
The problem is that the report had already been turned over to the Chinese authorities and while they praised the completion of the initial report, the autonomous Hongkong government urged Manila to take action versus the negligent officials, and to continue working “until the call for justice can be answered.” The HK government knows what the IIRC report wants done. Secretary De Lima was quoted as saying she hopes the President does not deviate too far from its recommendations. But what if he does deviate, given the nature of his friendship with some personalities mentioned? Would that worsen the relationship with HK?
Implications for Mayor Lim
One of those who could be adversely affected is Manila Mayor Fred Lim, who was quite instrumental in Noynoy’s victory in the capital (recall how he allowed the Cory/Ninoy yellow banners in the city for many months on end, defying the Comelec’s ban on propaganda material). His startling emotional outburst before nationwide TV last night shows how much he has been affected by all the criticisms that have assailed him and the Manila police he once headed.
Ironically, Fred Lim suffered his worst drubbings in the two Aquino administrations he helped install (his pot-bellied policemen guarded the government TV station during the first coup attempt against the Cory government in August 1987).. The first was the Mendiola Massacre of Jan. 22, 1987, which saw the MPD forces under him mowing down demonstrating farmers at Mendiola in the first major crisis of the Cory administration, a huge blow to her touted comprehensive agrarian reform program. Then came the botched rescue operation of Aug. 23, 2010. A third disaster for Lim could be the historic electoral recount in Manila between him and longtime rival Lito Atienza---the first formal protest filed after the first automated elections in this country. More about this on Friday.
Posted by Veteran Journalist and Relentless Advocate of Truth at 12:36 AM No comments:
P-Noy government could learn from Gillard’s move
For those watching closely the fate of 33 Chilean miners still trapped in the bowels of the earth, the birth of a baby girl to a miner and his wife, aptly named “Esperanza,” seems to have brought even more HOPE to them. A third drill, far bigger and more powerful than the first two drills being used to bore into the earth, has been added to the rescue effort. Because it can pound through 60-90 feet of hard rock a day, experts estimate that it can reach 6,000 feet beneath the surface, much closer to where they are trapped. The new hole being bored into the rocks, through which the men will be pulled up one by one, will be bigger and reinforced with iron tubing to prevent the surroundings’ collapse.
The hopeful news is that the experts now estimate that barring unexpected developments, the miners could be rescued far earlier---the timetable of Oct. 18 is now being cautiously mentioned. Praise God.
The world has keenly followed the miners’ plight since they were found alive two weeks after their tunnel collapsed, and all kinds of support have poured into the tiny Chilean town where they are trapped. Another instance of such stirring concern and support for them is that, as California-based writer Isabel Allende narrated to the miners via video communication late last week, 33 people were scheduled to swim from Alcatraz, the near-impregnable island-prison in San Francisco Bay, to shore, each of them bearing the name of a Chilean miner on his chest. Allende comfortingly assured them: “If those guys can manage to ‘escape’ from Alcatraz , you are also going to get out from where you are.” To date, only one man is on record as having escaped from Alcatraz but no one knows if he ever survived the shark-infested waters surrounding it. In this episode that Allende narrated, the swimmers would be defying the odds, all in the name of oneness with the miners---a toast to the greatness of human nature.
An observer remarked that it has been over 100 days since President Aquino was proclaimed by Congress and yet over 4,000 positions remain unfilled up to now. Could it be, said this observer, that P-Noy’s intellect has been undeveloped for the past 50 years and that “We have a puerile President? It seems like it,” he opined.
In a news item about a month President Aquino himself admitted that he’s having difficulty filling up all those positions, from director level up to the top, especially in the GOCCs and GFIs. One reason, he said, is that he has to have the nominees screened rigorously so that they are really qualified and in conformity with his platform of government announced during the campaign (:kung walang kurakot, walang mahirap”) and “not continue the age-old and wrong platforms.”
During the campaign his handlers and strategists promised an Aquino administration so radically different from the previous GMA regime, especially on the corruption issue. It was also obvious that they picked this line of campaigning to captivate voters’ attention away from his lackluster record in the House and the Senate. And it did work: to millions of voters the contrast he presented to GMA was like night and day. The problem is that now, 100 days after his proclamation, positions must be filled to enable government run properly and efficiently, but they remain unfilled. An end result is that P-Noy is coming across as indecisive and weak.
To me there are a number of reasons for this difficulty in filling up positions. For one thing, Sen. Franklin Drilon’s finance committee went on a rampage against the various GOCCs, portraying officials appointed by GMA as largely thieves and robbers who plundered government coffers; compounding the problem was the fact that sensationalist media fed on Drilon’s distorted facts and figures. Whereas the bigger problem was really the lack of clear-cut, judicious policies to govern the relationship between the GOCCs and their officials, such as the proper and reasonable sharing of benefits from private corporations set down by government. The result was that a number of officials saw their hard-earned lifelong reputations helplessly torn to tatters.
If Drilon were just and responsible, he would have reviewed the records of GOCCs from the Cory regime, of which he was very much a part, and would have put today’s “scandals” in the perspective of earlier controversies that began in post-EDSA and continued in subsequent administrations. In other words, the Senate committee could have opted for institutional approach to reform, instead of going into a hate and shaming campaign against GMA appointees.
For instance, the media were already rife mid-way into the Cory years about the plunder of some government-sequestered corporations (I recall the memorable intonation of the late Louie Beltran, impersonating Cardinal Sin during a National Press Club Gridiron Night, about the PCGG: “Lord, may we have more good government and less commissions.”). Toward the late ‘90s, reports went around about how some government-appointed directors attempted to plunder the UCPB, so much so that it nearly went under. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas had to come to its rescue, lest a bank run ruined it.
What Drilon’s committee achieved mainly in over a month of hearings was to sow fear in the hearts of prospective business leaders who would otherwise be only too happy to lend their expertise and prestige to running the GOCCs in this administration. To be sure, there were corrupt officials in GMA’s time as in other previous regimes, but that is not to say that all her officials were corrupt.
The problem with the Aquino administration is that to look pogi, it has to seek to destroy its predecessor regime totally and entirely. Which is a pity, as this administration could effectively work with some of the former officials, who could lend some badly-needed maturity and experience to the current crop. The Palace officials’ inexperience and immaturity became so obvious in the Black Monday crisis. Instead of helping the President who suffers from a very limited exposure to public administration, his officials became a drag---no help at all amid the chaos and confusion of that terrible event. The current landscape appears quite barren and infertile.
In this regard, we can look at the experience of Australia with envy. Prime Minister Julia Gillard, its first woman leader, called general elections just three weeks after taking power last June 24 in what media termed a “sudden and ruthless coup.” What was interesting was that Gillard had ousted her own party-mate in the left-center Labor Party, PM Kevin Rudd, who had held Australia ’s top post since winning in a landslide victory last November 2007. After a series of policy slip-ups and as he began to skid in poll ratings, Gillard moved in against Rudd after a bitterly fought fight in parliament, and she grabbed power.
In the recent general elections, however, she could only muster a minority government--- Australia ’s first in decades---and moved to consolidate forces. During the campaign she had promised to recruit Kevin Rudd if she won, and one of the first things she did when she came into power again was to appoint the 52-year old Mandarin-speaking former diplomat known for his interest in global affairs, as her foreign minister. There was some criticism from the public when Rudd accepted the post from Gillard after such an acrimonious fight before; but he reasoned that ‘the national interest of this country goes beyond over personal interests.”
Rudd’s appointment as Australia ’s top diplomat was greeted with world-wide favor and that country is the better for it. In our country, the P-Noy administration is so busy trying to look so different from the old regime, so that its officials don’t seem to have time to grow up. In the past 100 days this government seemed to have simply lurched from one crisis to another.
For all those folks around the world who, like me, are keenly following the plight of 32 Chilean miners and one Bolivian trapped 701 meters beneath the earth for a month and a half now, last Tuesday was a red-letter day. For once, what emerged from the deep hole was a message of hope and joy, and not enormous concern and anxiety, demonstrating once again the indomitable human spirit. Elizabeth Segovia, wife of a miner by the name of Ticona, had given birth to a healthy baby girl. Before the mining accident the couple had agreed to name the baby “Carolina,” but after receiving the news of his wife’s delivery, Ticona sent a message to his wife through a video recording, to change the baby’s name to “Esperanza,” the Spanish word for hope--and to give her “a long-distance kiss.” Interviewed by a TV channel for her reaction to the change, Elizabeth said she had exactly the same thought---“Esperanza” it should be. Hope.
Hope only in November
That little episode is so incredible, considering the depth of the miners’ current entombment in the mountains of Copiapo, Chile, and the uncertainty of their extremely dangerous rescue as yet, despite the furious drillings being undertaken by the Chilean government. The various international news networks are avidly covering the rescue efforts, but reports say that the earliest that the last man could be raised up would be early November, or nearly a month and a half from now. The Chileans’ prolonged “captivity”--- the longest recorded in the international mining industry---raises grave concern among the millions of people who are following this continuing saga of endurance---about how much the men’s morale can take by that time. It truly boggles the mind.
And yet, the parents of that new-born baby girl have not lost one bit of hope that they could be reunited one day soon. Indeed, as the saying goes, hope springs eternal in the human breast. For all those who are tight situations that may seem hopeless, it’s good to remember the courage this couple inspires. Viva la Esperanza.
Important days for UK Catholics
These four days from Sept. 16-19 are also red-letter days for Catholics in Great Britain, as Pope Benedict XVI conducts his four-day visit to England and Scotland. His visit is being fully covered by the international press as this is the first time by a Roman Pontiff in 28 years and the first-ever state visit by a Pope to the UK, which is the seat of the Anglican Church, otherwise known as the “Church of England,” the UK’s official religion, with the Queen as its head. Thus, Benedict’s visit augurs well for inter-faith dialogue. It’s also timed for his beatification of John Henry Cardinal Newman, a major Catholic intellectual figure in the 19th century, in his native Birmingham in England this Sunday. Not only did Newman tower in the Christian world because he lived for 89 long years (1801-1890) but also because of his vast contribution in religious writings. In the Catholic faith beatification is a step away from canonization, which is the raising of the blessed to the altar of the saints.
Cardinal Newman’s biographer, John Cornwell, posted in his homepage that that the process of the late prelate’s canonization began some 50 years ago. Pope John Paul II declared him “venerable” and “servant of God;” the present pope, reportedly a keen student of Newman’s works, pushed for his beatification, following the reported miraculous instant recovery of a Boston deacon named Jack Sullivan, who was unable to walk and in great pain after a spine surgery. The “miracle” met with mixed reviews in Britain, despite the attestation by Sullivan’s neurosurgeon, Dr. Robert Banco, that it was indeed an inexplicable and incomparable recovery he hadn’t seen in 15 years’ practice; but the controversy did not deter Benedict from declaring Newman blessed. Sullivan plans to be at Birmingham for the big day.
Popularity of Cardinal Newman
The popularity of Cardinal Newman as a major thinker, as Cornwell points out, is witnessed by the fact that so many colleges and associations have been named after him in the English-speaking world. My husband, for instance, was a member of the “Cardinal Newman Forum” at the US Military Academy at West Point, a study club that interacted with other student forums in the US. Newman is known worldwide for his “Lead Kindly Light,” one of the most popular religious hymns, and the great English composer, Sir Edward Elgar, set his poem, “The Dream of Gerontius,” to music.
But perhaps the most interesting fact about Cardinal Newman is that he began his career as an Anglican churchman and scholar and ended it as a Roman Catholic Cardinal. In his early years, said his biographer, Newman was a major figure in the “Oxford Movement,” a High Church effort to return the Church of England to its Catholic foundations. Eventually, he noted, Newman’s studies in history persuaded him to become a Catholic. At the very least, therefore, his beatification on Sunday by Benedict XVI will not be met with indifference in the UK.
Founder's Day at ERDA
Today the Erda Group, led by Erda Foundation, also celebrates a red-letter day, its Founder’s Day in honor of the French-born, naturalized-Filipino priest Pierre Tritz, who also marks his 96th birthday on Sunday, Sept. 19. The half-day celebration, with its theme of “Becoming the Best of Ourselves in the Service of Children, for the Greater Glory of God", is being held at the Erda Technical-Vocation High School compound in Pandacan. It kicks off with a mass celebrated by the still-ramrod straight Fr. Tritz, who at 96 remains perhaps the oldest working Jesuit anywhere in the world.
Involvement with ERDA
This blogger has been involved with the Erda Group for decades now, since Erda VP Susan Sulit, my fellow Upscan, first invited me to a lugawan fest to raise funds for Erda’s streetchildren. Erda’s cause immediately tugged at my heartstrings. Blessed with a good education by very hard-working parents, I had been convinced long ago by Fr. Tritz’s advocacy: that education and training are the only way to break the cycle of poverty gripping many Filipino families. Erda has proved this philosophy time and again. At Erda Tech, students from the poorest families in Metro Manila are given free five-year high school and training in any of several technical skills, plus on-the-job-training in private companies and precious values education. After graduation they are able to get employment in various firms and some go on to college at night. But most of them become skilled assets to their families. On the other hand, Erda Foundation supports almost 25,000 public school students in the pre-school and elementary level with school materials, transportation and uniforms each year, thus preventing them from joining the big dropout statistics.
Exclusive club of Jesuits
Each year as Erda celebrates its Founder’s birthday, Fr. Tritz and I go through the motions of keeping track of the exclusive club---and getting more exclusive by the year---of Jesuits above the age of 90. Tritz ended up here quite by accident from China, where he was stationed as a young Jesuit until the fall of China to communist hands in 1949. China’s loss was RP’s gain and he never left since. A psychologist by training, he saw early enough the alarming dropout rate in this country and began to investigate why it’s happening. He realized that it’s the lack of material and sociological support in tuition-free public free public schools that causing children to drop out. In 1974 Fr. Tritz set up Erda and God only knows how those tens of thousands of children who managed to stay in school with Erda’s support since 1974 would have fared, had he not gotten to work.
Give your help to Erda as a gift to Fr. Tritz on his 96th birthday. Call him at 732-3198 and 732-4327.
Pyschology 101 the hard way
In the current hearings conducted by the panel headed by Justice Secretary Leila de Lima on the Black Monday crisis, ranking police officers admitted that there was no psychologist trained and experienced in hostage negotiations during the Luneta episode. It has been noted that had there been such an experienced psychologist who had negotiated with hostage-taker Rolando Mendoza, it might have spelled the difference between success or failure in overcoming the crisis, saving many lives as well as our horribly-tarred international image.
Hostage-taking, it has been noted, is an act of desperation and experts point out that “hostage negotiation is all about psychology, and successful crisis negotiators are among the most skilled practical psychologists...” They point to the necessity of marshalling all the tricks in the psychology trade. These include the need to calm down the hostage-taker, to open critical lines of communication with him, to get him distracted and appeased in order to prolong the dialogue and negotiation, enough to enable competent security authorities to execute a successful plan of overcoming the hostage-taker and rescuing his victims.
The Luneta fiasco
But in that Luneta episode there were only bungling police agents and even more bungling politicians and bureaucrats. The redeeming thing is that at least one of them, Undersecretary Rico Puno, was candid and humble enough to admit he did not know anything about hostage crises. His admission has brought to the fore the need for a well-trained psychological team in the security forces of government and what it will take to develop such a team to meet the demands of crisis situations.
It’s true that each crisis varies from one to the other in circumstances and there can never be 100 percent assurance that the response would be adequate from the psychological sense, or the military/police end for that matter. Oftentimes, security forces are forced to become on-the-spot psychologists.
But as in everything in life, spontaneous experience is a good beginning, but training makes all the difference.
Crisis management in households
Any housewife who has ever run a household and managed a domestic staff composed of people from various regions of the country and all kinds of temperaments and backgrounds perhaps understands how much mediation can matter in averting a real crisis in her home. Over the past nearly 45 years of being married and raising a family I have had my own fair share of mediation in our daily life---both physical and psychological---between cook and washwoman about to pull each other’s hair, or between the gardener and the driver about to come to blows, etc. But the biggest lesson in psychology 101 I had to learn the hard---and frightening---way in a small crisis situation that confronted me many years ago, when we were living in Camp Aguinaldo.
Bandolero ready for action
The Honasan coup attempt of 1987 had ended with the young rebel flying out of the camp into hiding; but my husband, then a full colonel commanding the 202nd Brigade of the Second Infantry Division, stationed in Caliraya Laguna, felt that there was still so much tension in the camp that he deemed it wise to leave two soldiers to keep an eye on his family. We had a little bahay kubo outside, on one end of the lawn, and the soldiers slept there and would play cards and tell stories in the daytime.
One day into the first week, however, the two of them quarreled and one ran into the house, quite pale with fright, saying the other guy was out to kill him. He asked me to quickly lock the house. Peering through the curtains from the living room, I could see the angry soldier outside in his fatigue pants and white T-shirt, his chest crisscrossed with two rows of long bullets, called “bandolero” in soldier parlance, carrying his Armalite with his finger on the trigger. He was pacing back and forth across the lawn, cross-eyed with anger as he tried to search for his arch-back enemy. I sent the children, then quite young, to hide in the laundry area in the rear of the house with the other soldier and our two house-helpers, while I pondered what to do.
Calming down an angry soldier
My first instinct was to call the military police, but if I did that, they’d come swooping down on the house in several jeeps and they’d shoot him down. Cornered, he’d probably shoot at them too--- patay kung patay ---and probably shoot his way through our house, hunting down his enemy and everyone else. There would be killings right in my house. It would be all over the papers. I didn’t want that.
I was so nervous I could have suffocated. But after a few minutes of praying for enlightenment, I felt I had no choice but to get out of the house and talk to him. I locked the door behind me and in my gentlest voice, but with my knees shaking terribly, I approached him and invited him to sit down with me on the long antique bench in the driveway. At first he didn’t want to come, but I took his hand and ever so gently led him to the bench, his gun still held akimbo. We talked and slowly he poured out his anger to me --- his companion had cheated him in the card game and he vowed to get even. We Muslims do not cheat, he said. Of course you don’t, I retorted.
Putting down a gun
But first, I said, let’s put down your gun so we can talk better. I was sitting very close to him by that time, virtually embracing him and patting him on the head. Neighbors looking out must have been scandalized and some might have thought: why, that crazy woman was carrying on with the young soldier in broad daylight! Slowly he lay down his Armalite beside him and we continued talking, with me holding his hand and massaging it gently. Then he began to cry like a little boy, and I assured him that I was going to tell Col. Cunanan how bad his fellow soldier was and I guaranteed that his commander was going to punish this rascal. When he calmed down, I asked him about his folks back in Mindanao. He began telling me about his father who was a coconut farmer and about his brothers and sisters whom he was helping to send to school with his soldier’s salary.
A successful ruse
At that point our driver, Sgt. Fred, arrived in our family car and I heaved a sigh of relief. But then the next worry was, he might see the Armalite and try to get it and that might rouse up the young soldier all over again. I tried to signal Fred with one hand that he should not approach and just stay put in the car, but he couldn’t get the message. Finally, I got an idea: why not send the soldier with Fred to Caliraya on some pretext. At that time I had already founded the Alay sa Kawal Foundation for the benefit of war widows and orphans, and we were giving out TV sets to various camps. There was one box left inside the house.
I told the soldier, why don’t you go with Fred and present the TV set to Col. Cunanan yourself, and tell him all about this bad guy who cheated you, so he gets punished right away. Mauna ka nang mag-istorya ki Sir. He lighted up. But first, I told him, let’s put your Armalite inside the car as you’ll need it for security---lots of NPAs in Laguna. I picked up the gun and handed it to Fred and motioned him to lock it up inside the car. Then within earshot of the soldier, I told Fred to run inside to get the TV set for the Caliraya camp.
While the soldier completed his uniform in the bahay kubo, I whispered fast to Fred about the little crisis we had and how he should just keep the soldier in good humor all the way. Buy him something nice to eat, I said. They were off quickly and I phoned my husband about what had happened. In the process I became quite angry that he’d leave a crazed guy like that with us. Then I collapsed on the sofa.
Labels: Camp Aguinaldo, Gregorio Honasan, Hong Kong hostages, Leila de Lima, Luneta
Psychology 101 the hard way
Posted by Veteran Journalist and Relentless Advocate of Truth at 11:02 PM No comments:
A peep into the Muslim world
The Holy Month of Ramadan came to a dramatic close abroad last Sept. 10 with tensions provoked by the insane plan of Pastor Terry Jones of a small church group in Gainesville, Florida, to burn hundreds of copies of the Koran on the 9th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington. Jones planned the burning to protest the plan of an American-Muslim couple promoting interfaith dialogue to construct a Muslim cultural center and mosque, called “Park51,” two blocks away from Ground Zero in New York City. This was the site of the World Trade Center that was bombed and destroyed by Muslim extremists in 9/11.
Jones demanded that the project be moved elsewhere or he would go on with his plan to burn Koran copies.
Protests from around the world
His threat drew howls of protests from around the world for its bigotry and religious intolerance. President Obama appealed to the pastor to abort his plan, as Gen. David Petraeus, top commander of US armed forces in Afghanistan, warned that the Koran-burning could trigger retaliatory attacks on the forces out there. Jones’ move, however, also helped fan demonstrations against the project from those who feared that setting it up right near Ground Zero would offend families of the nearly 3,000 people who were killed there in 9/11. Politicians who had earlier supported the mosque project fell silent after protests against it grew.
Thank God Jones did not push through with his move, but as Ramadan came to a close throughout the Muslim world on the eve of the commemoration of the 9/11 attacks in New York, how Islam is faring vis-à-vis the rest of the world became the subject of introspective commentaries and studies.
Worsening attitude towards Muslims
A Time Magazine issue timed for Ramadan asserted the observation of experts studying the subject that “Attitudes toward Islam have worsened perceptibly in the past two years, perhaps because of a string of terrorism-related incidents involving American Muslims,” such as the would-be Times Square bomber and a military shooter. These recent episodes apparently rekindled fears that were already being assuaged in the years after 9/11. As Time Magazine noted, terrorist episodes in the past decade have led some people to sadly conclude that “Islam must be a violent creed.”
Moreover, publicity about gruesome punishments, such as the stoning of adulterers in Third World countries and the shocking Time cover featuring a young woman whose face was badly mutilated by the Taliban, serve as proof of Muslim savagery and backwardness. While Time noted that religious intolerance is not limited to Islam, as Jews, Mormons and other groups still experience “hate speech,” evidence of inequality of treatment keeps cropping up.
For instance, those protesting the building of new mosques in US communities argue that “Saudi Arabia doesn’t allow churches and synagogues, so why should the U.S. permit the building of Islamic places of worship?” Time points out that ignored is the fact that “the U.S. is not, like Saudi Arabia, a country with a state religion, or that America was founded on ideals of religious freedom and tolerance.”
Difficulties of practicing one's religion
This blogger has heard this complaint from Filipinos working in Saudi, as they relate how rosaries are confiscated in the airport and they have a difficult time trying to even gather for Sunday mass; whereas in the Philippines, they argue, mosques are present in just about every provincial capital and major city. It’s obvious that religious tolerance has to be taught everywhere in the world, but it’s growing. Statistics from Time Magazine noted 1,900 mosques for the U.S. Muslim population of 2.5 million, 2,600 in Germany for its 3.2 to 3.4 million Muslims, 2,100 mosques for the French 5.5 million Muslims and 1,500 mosques for the U.K’s 2.4 million Muslims. In Spain there are only 454 mosques for nearly a million Muslims, for understandable historical reasons: Muslims and Christians bitterly fought for political domination of that country for centuries.
Hoping for less discrimination against Muslims
Last Sunday Cecile Alvarez and I had our own way of observing Eid’l Fitr, the close of Ramadan. We featured two comely young women, in fact near-identical twins, named Nesreen “Nes” Cadar Abdulrauf and Tasneem Cadar Abdulrauf, who recently graduated from the UP Cebu as cum laudes. We joked Nes, who majored in mass communications, and Tasneem, a political science graduate, that not only are they near-identical twins, but also twins in brains, with just points apart in their graduating average.
The young women expressed the wish to see a world with less discrimination against the Muslims and more integration into a society that respects the religious beliefs of every citizen. Nes and Tasneem confessed to feeling some discrimination against them since they were young students. Nes said their headgear makes them stand out from the rest of the campus population, and how they would just look on as they join their friends at lunch in the cafeteria during Ramadan. But they also spoke of the communalities between Christians and Muslims such as a great reverence for the Virgin Mary.
Cecile and I agreed with their observation that much of the discrimination stemmed from a lack of real knowledge about the Muslim world, due in part to the inability of Muslim communities to integrate into society. Most of them continue to live in enclaves. We also agreed that culture and education are perhaps the best way to break down barriers, beginning with the popularization of heroes such as Sultan Kudarat, the Muslim leader who successfully resisted Spanish colonization and after whom the province in ARRM is named. The Abdulrauf sisters pointed out that the prejudice against Muslims is palpable in the media, so that it became a challenge for Nes to explore this subject,; she made her thesis in college the comparative study of the anti-Muslim slant in the three top newspapers in Cebu. I asked for a copy of her thesis and will write about it soon.
Muslims in public service
As we commemorate Eid’l Fitr, which was signed into law by former President Macapagal Arroyo, it’s notable that a number of Muslims have come up in public service. Only recently the Judicial and Bar Council nominated two justices of the Court of Appeals, Jafar Dimaampao and Abdul Wahid, as part of the short list submitted to President Aquino for the vacancy left in the Supreme Court by the appointment of Chief Justice Renato Corona. We also recalled such prominent leaders as former Sen. Santanina Rasul and her daughter, civic leader Amina Rasul Bernardo, and Saeed Daof, chief of the Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development. In past years there were giant politicians Domocao Alonto, Ali Dimaporo, Salipada Pendatun and Mamintal Tamano, father of Adel. But we agreed with young UP cum laudes Nes and Tasneem Abdulrauf that a crying need of the Muslim population is to widen the education base to include more youths, as this is the only way for them to succeed in the world and break the barriers of prejudice and discrimination.
Labels: 9/11, Barack Obama, David Petraeus, Ramadan, Terry Jones
Collateral damage of Drilon committee’s careless f...
Incredible human endurance
Drilon’s shaming campaign
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9 Jan 2020 (Thu)
2020 building demand likely to stay robust after reaching 5-year high last year
Singapore construction demand is expected to remain strong this year after hitting a five-year high in 2019, said the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) on Wednesday. Last year's total construction demand expanded by 9.5 per cent to reach S$33.4 billion - about S$1.4 billion higher than the upper bound of BCA's 2019 forecast of S$27 billion to S$32 billion. The robust showing was mainly due to a stronger…
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/government-economy/2020-building-demand-likely-to-stay-robust-after-reaching-5-year-high-last-year
https://www.straitstimes.com/business/economy/construction-demand-in-singapore-expected-to-stay-strong-this-year-after-rising-95
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/construction-demand-hit-5-year-high-in-2019-to-remain-strong-in-12243254
Construction sector must attract more Singaporeans to build strong local core
The construction industry must do more to attract Singaporeans so that the sector is anchored by a skilled and competent local workforce at the core, said Zaqy Mohamad, Minister of State for National Development and Manpower on Wednesday. He called on the private sector to invest in local graduates in order for business growth to be sustainable for the future.
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/government-economy/construction-sector-must-attract-more-singaporeans-to-build-strong-local-core
https://www.straitstimes.com/business/getting-locals-to-take-on-pmet-jobs-in-construction
The Avenir condo in River Valley to launch this weekendApartments at The Avenir in District 9's River Valley area, jointly developed by Hong Leong Holdings Limited, mainboard-listed GuocoLand and Hong Realty (Private) Limited, will be available for sale to the public on Jan 11. Early-bird prices for the 376-unit freehold condominium start from S$2,930 per square foot (psf) for one- to three-bedroom units, and from S$3,030 psf for four-bedroom units including those with a family room.
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/real-estate/the-avenir-condo-in-river-valley-to-launch-this-weekend
11 retail shops in Sim Lim Square up for sale at S$22m
A portfolio of 11 retail shops in Sim Lim Square is up for sale via expression of interest for S$22 million, sole marketing agent Knight Frank Singapore said on Wednesday. The total strata area of the shops is about 5,000 square feet (sq ft), with unit sizes ranging from 291 sq ft to 506 sq ft. The shops, which can be bought collectively or as individual units, face the central podium on the fifth floor of Sim Lim Square mall.
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/real-estate/11-retail-shops-in-sim-lim-square-up-for-sale-at-s22m
https://www.straitstimes.com/business/sim-lim-square-fails-in-collective-sale-bid-11-shops-on-market
Frasers Property raises stake in co-working startup JustCo for US$12.4m
Frasers Property, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, has bought additional shares in JustCo Holdings for US$12.4 million, the developer said in a filing on Wednesday night. The move raises its stake in the co-working space operator to 22.2 per cent - held through Frasers Property Ventures I and Frasers Property Ventures II (FPL VII). The share acquisition was made by FPL VII, and the resulting 22.2 per cent stake does not take into account the proposed investment by Daito Trust Construction Co announced on Nov 28.
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/companies-markets/frasers-property-raises-stake-in-co-working-startup-justco-for-us124m
JLL hires ex-CBRE veteran as head of valuation and advisory services for S-E Asia
JLL has hired former CBRE executive director James Crawford as head of valuation and advisory services for South-east Asia. He starts work this month, the property consultancy said on Wednesday. Mr Crawford has 20 years of experience in valuation and advisory services, including 13 years in Asia. His work spans all major asset classes and alternative asset classes, with a focus on data centres.
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/real-estate/jll-hires-ex-cbre-veteran-as-head-of-valuation-and-advisory-services-for-s-e-asia-0
Elite Commercial Reit to lodge prospectus next week
Elite Commercial Real Estate Investment Trust (Reit) plans to lodge its listing prospectus next week before the Chinese New Year break. If successful, it will be the first initial public offering (IPO) of 2020, and the first Reit denominated in British pound to be listed in Singapore.
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/companies-markets/elite-commercial-reit-to-lodge-prospectus-next-week
Goat farm Hay Dairies wins tender for Lim Chu Kang land parcel
The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) has awarded the tender for one of three land parcels at Lim Chu Kang to goat farm Hay Dairies for S$500,000. The 10,000-square-metre land parcel is for general agriculture (food) farming, which means it may be used to farm food crops, seafood, quail eggs, cattle or goats for dairy milk, and/or frogs reared for food.
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/real-estate/goat-farm-hay-dairies-wins-tender-for-lim-chu-kang-land-parcel
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/goat-farm-to-multiply-its-herd-at-new-site
Despite flat office rents, Reits set to enjoy positive rental reversions
After an impressive two-and-a-half year run, Singapore CBD Grade A office rentals appear to be taking a breather. JLL's gross average monthly rental value for its CBD Grade A office rental basket stood at S$10.81 per square foot (psf) in the fourth quarter of 2019, unchanged from the preceding quarter.
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/companies-markets/despite-flat-office-rents-reits-set-to-enjoy-positive-rental-reversions
World Bank trims 2020 growth forecast amid slow recovery for trade, investment
https://www.straitstimes.com/business/economy/world-bank-trims-2020-growth-forecast-amid-slow-recovery-for-trade-investment
California drafts law in fresh bid to raise housing density
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/real-estate/california-drafts-law-in-fresh-bid-to-raise-housing-density
China's December PPI falls 0.5% y-o-y, CPI up 4.5% y-o-y
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/government-economy/chinas-december-ppi-falls-05-y-o-y-cpi-up-45-y-o-y
China's super rich make their money from real estate
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/real-estate/chinas-super-rich-make-their-money-from-real-estate
Disney faces pressure to help ease Hong Kong's housing crisis
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/real-estate/disney-faces-pressure-to-help-ease-hong-kongs-housing-crisis
Lennar's 2020 home sales to go above estimates as lower prices boost demand
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/real-estate/lennars-2020-home-sales-to-go-above-estimates-as-lower-prices-boost-demand
The coolest architecture on Earth is in Antarctica
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/real-estate/the-coolest-architecture-on-earth-is-in-antarctica
Real Estate Developers' Association of Singapore does not warrant the accuracy, adequacy or completeness of the information and expressly disclaims liability for errors or omissions therein. The content, accuracy, and opinions expressed are not investigated, verified, monitored, nor endorsed by Real Estate Developers' Association of Singapore. Every effort is taken to ensure that all information extracted is correct at the time of dissemination 09 Jan, 2020.
Daily News – 10 Jan 2020 »
« Daily News – 8 Jan 2020
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Remote Summit Stories
Game Design Notes
Kasaacia
Chapter 35: The Coastal Farms
The hunters and warriors begin to examine the fallout from the battle and the storm.
[[Previous Chaper]] ---- [[Next Chapter]]
[[First Chapter | Series List]]
The other chimeras started to come out of the places they had been hiding in a few minutes after we did. We walked towards the coastal farms, even though we were all exhausted. We didn’t know what else to do… we didn’t know where Sentinel was yet, and we needed to make sure that there were no surprises for us anywhere.
Slowly, more and more chimeras gathered. Everyone greeted each other with nods, and only few words were spoken, with the same theme each time, no matter who was speaking the words.
“Good to see you made it. Is anyone missing?”
“No; my brother was wounded, and so he and his friends are going back to the village for the healer’s help. But the rest of us can keep fighting.”
“If there’s anything left to fight.”
“You’ve seen the carnage, then?”
“Has anyone found where Sentinel is? Or, for the love of the gods, even Snitch?”
“He’ll be closer to the farms. We might have to go there to find him. That’s where we’re all heading, anyway.”
“We’ll come with, then.”
I was walking next to Storm and the elves. Storm, Fayne, and I were walking ahead of the others, while Nayila and Safiena trailed just a little behind. The whole group ended up being around fifty people who kept close and stayed attentive. Every time we came across another clearing, the smell of blood went from a major annoyance that could still be ignored with some effort to an almost overpowering wave that made everyone’s hair and fur stand on end. I looked at the elves. Fayne and Nayila looked like they were about to throw up every time we got within view of another of those clearings, and Safiena was clearly avoiding looking at any of it. Many of the Chimeras weren’t doing much better, though for us, it was less shock and horror and more… a horrible amount of familiarity.
The forest was too silent as we crept forward, along the coast, not even able to count the number of soldier corpses because of how much the storm had torn through them. Around every patch of blood, there were pieces of armor, the seams of which had been torn through and destroyed. Maybe we’d go back to scavenge later.
But somehow I felt that would be a job that nobody would want.
Our group made it to the large clearing where the farms and farmhouses were located. Other chimeras, including Red and Quiver, immediately came towards us.
“Some soldiers survived.” Red’s words immediately sent a shock through my chest, and all of us moved to grab our weapons. “Only a few, though, and they’re… not in a good condition right now.”
“What do you mean, Red?” I snapped.
“A few of the soldiers were locked in a house. One of the leaders had also claimed one of the houses, and when the storm started, he locked it to save himself from the storm at the expense of everyone else. Snitch and Sentinel and a few others broke in and found him throwing up and coughing up blood, though. He hadn’t covered the windows, and had eaten contaminated food. And all of the soldiers who had gotten inside the other houses were too late in locking the doors, so they’re all dying, but not dead yet. Sentinel and Snitch are interrogating their leader for information.”
We nodded. Then, Safiena stepped forward. “Can Nayila, Fayne, and I see him? Not in a way that he can see us, just… we may be able to tell you what rank in Lassania’s army he is. That might give us an idea of how much of a threat Lassania sees in this area.”
Storm, Red, Quiver and I paused. I was the first to speak up: “They have a good point.”
“Okay…” Red narrowed his eyes at the elves, clearly still mistrusting them. I couldn’t say I blamed him. “But in that case I’m coming with and only one of you is going in. We can’t risk anything that might harm Sentinel and Snitch, or let him get away.”
“And how do you still think we’re going to help Lassania?” Fayne asked, narrowing his eyes. But Safiena quickly motioned for him to stop talking, and nodded.
“I understand. I’ll come with, then. Nayila, Fayne, stay with Gray and Storm. And if they tell you to do something, listen.”
“Sounds good,” Nayila said with a nod. “What are the rest of the Chimeras doing?”
“Gathering all the crops to burn them because they’re all contaminated,” Quiver said, watching Safiena and Red as they walked away towards the houses. “Or looking through the supplies of the soldiers to try to find something not contaminated. You can help with that, maybe.”
“How much have they found?”
“Not a lot, but they actually did find a sword that we’re keeping. Some of it was too badly scratched to be used, and still had dust embedded in the metal.”
“The more I hear about the dust, the more afraid I become,” Fayne growled. Quiver gave him a sideways glance.
“That’s for the best.” Storm and I nodded.
“Let’s go help, then,” Storm suggested, starting to walk towards the houses. “Care to come with us, Quiver?”
“I can’t. I’m keeping watch- just in case there are more soldiers that somehow survived.”
“Makes sense,” I said. “Good luck, Quiver.”
“You too, Gray.”
We walked to the houses. Unlike the Village, the houses had no large cover to protect them from the dust; instead, they had no windows and inside, had walls, floors, and ceilings covered with thick cloth. The doors were cut out of the cloth and had extra ties to tie them down during storms. In the small central area between the three houses, there were piles of supplies from the soldiers. Chimeras were taking supplies, looking over them, and throwing them into a larger pile in the middle of the area.
At least… most of them. There were two swords that were mostly clean lying near one of the houses. A scream came out of that house, shortly followed by Safiena, who looked extremely pale, and Red, who looked very scared. Safiena looked at Fayne, and shook her head.
“He’s… he’s a fourth rank commander.”
I looked at Fayne and Nayila and watched their faces drop. “That’s bad, I take it?” I whispered. Fayne nodded slowly.
“It means that there are only a couple of people above him. The first rank commander is the king, and there are only two other people above him. They’re sending some… very high-ranking people here. They definitely view this area as a threat.”
“But that means that we may be able to take them by surprise by announcing that we’ll fight them here,” Nayila said.
“We’ll leave that decision to Valla and Harold,” Fayne said, shaking his head. “But for now, it’s… not looking great.”
All Series 1: Into Dust
Intellectual property of Nicola May, also known as Kerriganne. Plagiarism is prohibited. 2017-2019. Proudly powered by Weebly
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On Swift and Sterne and the rise of modernity
If wealth is a value in heaven it would not be given to bastards on earth.
~ Swift
I take a very simple view of life. It is keep your eyes open and get on with it.
~ Sterne
Biography of Swift
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) was an Anglo-Irish political writer (first for both the liberals and conservatives), poet, essayist, satirist, and cleric who became Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. His most celebrated work of course is Gulliver's Travels, but Swift was a prolific writer of many other notable writings as, A Modest Proposal, Drapier's Letters, A Journal to Stella, An Argument against Abolishing Christianity, The Battle of the Books, and A Tale of a Tub. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica Swift is considered by many literary scholars as the best prose satirist in the English language, and though a fine poet, Swift's poetical works aren't as notable to us in contemporary times because his prose was so outstanding with strong classical structure and a timeless appeal that has endured over the centuries. Swift was an expert of two satire styles: the Juvenalian and Horatian styles and originally used pseudonyms to publish his writings – such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, MB Drapier or Anonymous.
Important writings by Swift
A Tale of a Tub, was Swift's first significant work of prose and establishes many of the themes and literary techniques he would use in his later works. Typical of his style this satire on religion is very spirited and witty while being severely critical of its enemies, penetrating and psychologically profound. In its central themes, the Tale recounts the adventures of three sons, signifying the primary aspects of Christianity, who accepted an inheritance from their father of a coat each, with the further command to not change the garment at all. Nevertheless, to the son's disappointment, their coats are no longer fashionable, and begin to take a liberal interpretation of their father's will that will permit them to make the desired alterations. As each son compromises the original intent of his father's commands, they fight with one another for power and supremacy. Following the tradition of Rabelais, Swift interjects alternating chapters, whereby the narrator includes a sequence of imaginative "digressions" on different topics.
Jonathan Swift's magnum opus is Gulliver's Travels (1726). Originally published under the fictional pseudonym, Lemuel Gulliver, a ship's doctor and later a sea captain. Gulliver's Travels has frequently been incorrectly thought of and circulated in an abridged form as a children's book, however, this opus is a supreme example of masterful satire which in a proto-Freudian manner, plunges the psychological depths of human nature based on Swift's own transformative and epiphany experiences as a child of the Age of Enlightenment.
Gulliver's Travels is a systematic examination of human nature, a mocking mirror where society's psychosis are reflected back in the face of society with astounding clarity, yet frequently criticized for its seeming misanthropy or skepticism of society. It demands of the reader to repudiate its assertions if you can, to prove with logical deductive reasoning where Swift has failed to adequately criticize modern society, human nature and the bottomless psychological abyss of the human condition. Each of the four volumes – recounting four expeditions to fictional, mysterious lands – possess a diverse subject matter, yet all are efforts to expose and deconstruct human pride and hypocrisy. Following the techniques of Cervantes's masterpiece, Don Quixote, historians and literary critics celebrate Swift's Gulliver's Travels as a satiric psychological analysis on the deficiencies of the Age of Enlightenment and its attendant secular and atheistic worldviews.
Other works by Swift include: Drapier's Letters (1724) was a collection of pamphlets critical of the monopoly established by the English government to William Wood to provide the Irish with copper coinage. Swift's economic arguments and logical reasoning regarding economic theory (predating Adam Smith's laissez faire capitalism theories by over 50 years) provoked the government to appoint the great scientist, Sir Isaac Newton to endorse the reliability of Wood's coinage and to oppose Swift's allegations. Five years after England tried to undermine Ireland's monetary system, Swift wrote a satire with a very lengthy titled called, A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland Being a Burden on Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick (1729), where the narrator deliberately uses grotesque reasoning to suggest that Ireland's poor escape their poverty by selling their children as food to the rich as an allegory that every so-called modern society owes a debt of solicitude to its poor and ophrans.
Biography of Sterne
Laurence Sterne (1713–1768) was an Anglo-Irish novelist and an Anglican clergyman. He is most remembered for his novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman and A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy; however Sterne also published many sermons, wrote memoirs, and like Jonathan Swift was active in politics. After years of suffering from tuberculosis, Sterne died in London.
Writings of Sterne
Sterne's early period were essentially his efforts at finding his literary voice – he published a collection of letters, and two rather unremarkable sermons in 1747 and 1750, and experiment with early forms of satirical writing. In 1742, he even tried his hand in and wrote about local politics. 1759 would be Sterne's Year of Destiny: His mature period included the satire A Political Romance (1759), which addressed political and economic conflicts of interest within York Minster. Scholars believe that Sterne's work, A Fragment in the Manner of Rabelais, a posthumously published piece dedicated on the art of preaching seems to have been written in that same year of 1759. Also, Sterne's magnum opus Tristram Shandy, was not started until that pivotal year of 1759 when he was 46 years old. Now that his literary technique and gifts were fully developed, Sterne viewed his place in the literary pantheon as a successor to the great Rabelais, the founding Father of the modern French language, who was Sterne's favorite author. While he scrupulously tried to separate his writing and literary style, especially when it came to satire from that of Jonathan Swift, in a revealing passage from his diary Sterne wrote: "I ... deny I have gone as far as Swift: he keeps a due distance from Rabelais; I keep a due distance from him."
Sterne achieved national and international celebrity for his novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, which was more popular throughout Europe than in England the latter of who consider such writing too vulgar, whereby for example in 1776 Samuel Johnson criticism was that "Nothing odd will do long. Tristram Shandy did not last." In this novel, Sterne brilliantly juxtaposes narrative, time and voice, parodies conventional narrative form, and following the traditions of his literary mentor, Rabelais, includes regular interludes of "bawdy" humor. Europe, particularly in France, loved this novel and applauded Sterne and Tristram Shandy as innovative and path-breaking. Voltaire considered this work "clearly superior to Rabelais," and later Goethe praised Sterne as "the most beautiful spirit that ever lived."
Due to the novel's disjointed, unconventional structure, it is almost impossible to describe in synopsis form. The novel is very long and only concludes after 9 volumes, written over a decade, nevertheless it abruptly ends without a customary conclusion. The story begins with the narration, by Tristram, of his own origins. It sequences in a wild but witty manner using a literary technique Sterne refers to as "progressive digressions." These "digressions" are so frequent that they elongate the story until the third volume before we come to Tristram's birth! Nevertheless, the novel is abundant in character development, humor and the French joie de vivre (joy of life), including the inspirations of Rabelais and Cervantes which are omnipresent throughout this work. And also like Rabelais, Sterne frequently takes a detour from the narrative by inserting sermons, essays and legal documents into the pages of his novel while he travels beyond the parameters of typography and print design by including marbled pages and, most notably, a completely black page within the narrative.
Sterne and the Abolitionists
To demonstrate how one man standing on First Principles and truth can effect positive change on society and history, an serendipitous connection occurred in July 1766, bringing the literary giant, Laurence Sterne into the great debate about slavery when the composer, actor, writer and former slave, Ignatius Sancho (1729-80) wrote to Sterne pleading with him to use his literary skills and reputation to push for the abolition of slavery. "That subject, handled in your striking manner" Sancho wrote, "would ease the yoke (perhaps) of many – but if only one – Gracious God! – what a feast to a benevolent heart!"
Sancho's letter reached Sterne at a very propitious time for he had just completed writing a passage in Tristram Shandy of a dialogue between his fictional characters Corporal Trim and his brother Tom regarding the severe oppression Tom witnessed of a Black slave inside a Lisbon sausage shop that he recently visited. Sterne's extensively publicized rejoinder to Sancho's letter became an essential aspect of abolitionist literature in 18th century America, England and throughout Europe.
Sterne wrote in a July 26, 1766 letter replying to Ignatius Sancho:
There is a strange coincidence, Sancho, in the little events (as well as in the great ones) of this world: for I had been writing a tender tale of the sorrows of a friendless poor negro-girl, and my eyes had scarce done smarting with it, when your letter of recommendation in behalf of so many of her brethren and sisters, came to me – but why her brethren? – or your's, Sancho! any more than mine? It is by the finest tints, and most insensible gradations, that nature descends from the fairest face about St. James's, to the sootiest complexion in Africa: at which tint of these, is it that the ties of blood are to cease? and how many shades must we descend lower still in the scale, 'ere mercy is to vanish with them? – but 'tis no uncommon thing, my good Sancho, for one half of the world to use the other half of it like brutes, & then endeavor to make 'em so.
The eminent historian, musicologist and my history teacher for almost 30 years, Arthur R. Labrew (b. 1930), has written extensively on Ignatius Sancho and many, many other Black classical musicians from before the Christian Era up to the twenty first century. A portion of his prolific and revelatory oeuvre can be found at his new website under the caption, 2013 Kresge Artist Fellow in the Literary Arts.
Swift and Sterne in Modern Times
Both Swift and especially Stern owe their literary and satirical legacy to the Father of the modern French language, Rabelais (1483-1553). This literary humorist traditions of course descends in modern times to the French satirist magazine Charlie Hebdo which suffered a horrific tragedy by the murder of 12 of its writers including Charlie himself killed by Muslim terrorists, Cherif and Said Kouachi.
Several of the advances in writing that Sterne presented, were essentially precursors to the modern genre the novel, were very persuasive to Modernist writers as diverse as Diderot, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Flann O'Brien, Samuel Beckett, Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace. Italo Calvino considered Tristram Shandy as the "undoubted progenitor of all avant-garde novels of our century" and Viktor Shklovsky, the writer of Russian Formalism considered Tristram Shandy as "the most typical novel of world literature, of which all other novels are mere subsets."
One of my favorite quotes by Sterne is he wrote, "Only the brave know how to forgive... a coward never forgives; it is not in his nature." For me this quote is reminiscent of the recent 2014 election where John Boehner (R-OH) was voted into his third term as Speaker of the House, however, rather than being magnanimous in victory, Boehner quickly sought revenge against the 25 Republicans who did not vote for him to be Speaker of the House. Why would John Boehner take such cowardly action against conservatives who merely voted against him on principle? Also, why is virtually every Republican cowering in fear, afraid to fight Obama's socialist agenda against America, border security and constitutional principle? Because the establishment parties considers We the People as their slaves – "...[A]ll government without the consent of the governed" Jonathan Swift wrote, "is the very definition of slavery."
*N.B.: This essay is based in part on ideas from Encyclopedia Britannica Great Books of the Western World, Robert Maynard Hutchins, Editor-in-Chief (University of Chicago, 1952), Vol. 2, Chap. 22 – Emotion; Vol. 3, Chap. 63 – One and Many; Vol. 36 – Swift, Sterne.
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The implementation of international law in Germany and South Africa
Edited by Erika de Wet, Holger Hestermeyer and Rüdiger Wolfrum
South Africa, the power house of the African continent, as well as Germany, Europe’s largest economic power, are faced with an intricate maze of international obligations, whether related to the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the African Union or the European Union (EU), international human rights law, international humanitarian law, or any other sub-regime of international law. The two countries are in a different position when facing the implementation of this maze of obligations. South Africa is a developing economy that faces various capacity challenges which, at times, also impact the manner and extent to which it implements its international treaty obligations. Germany, ont the other hand, benefits from comparatively well-funded institutes of international law and a well-trained academic community, which have contributed to the successful implementation of much of international law. But as the relevant chapters in this volume show, the German case is not without its own complexities.
As a result, an exchange of ideas and experiences pertaining to the implementation of international obligations can prove fruitful for both countries. Moreover, such an exchange could also serve as a useful point of departure for other countries in Southern Africa that face similar challenges in relation to implementation. The current book explores suitable techniques of implementation of international law, by comparing South Africa with Germany. After a general overview of the status of international law within Germany and South Africa respectively, it focuses on the implementation of international instruments pertaining to key sub-areas of international law in the two countries. These include the United Nations Charter (peace and security), the international law of the sea, international economic law, international environmental law, international human rights law, international criminal law, regional integration, and the status of international judicial decisions before domestic courts.
Erika de Wet is Co-Director of the Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa and Professor of International Law in the Faculty of Law of the University of Pretoria.
Holger Hestermeyer is Professor at King’s College London, UK
Rüdiger Wolfrum is professor of international law at the Heidelberg University Faculty of Law and director emeritus of the Heidelberg Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law.
Affiliation of authors
Erika de Wet, Holger Hestermeyer & Rüdiger Wolfrum
A. General overview
1. The reception of international law in the German legal order: An introduction
Rüdiger Wolfrum, Holger Hestermeyer & Silja Vöneky
2. The reception of international law in the South African legal order: An introduction
Erika de Wet
B. The Charter of the United Nations
3. The United Nations Charter and the German legal order
Mehrdad Payandeh
4. The United Nations Charter and the South African legal order
Dire Tladi
C. The International law of the sea
5. The international law of the sea in Germany
Alexander Proelss
6. The international law of the sea in South Africa
Patrick Vrancken
D. International economic law
7. International economic law in Germany
Leonie Hensgen
8. International economic law in South Africa
Engela Schlemmer
E. International environmental law
9. International environmental law in Germany
Wolfgang Durner
10. International environmental law in South Africa
Lisa Chamberlain & Tumai Murombo
F. International human rights law
11. International human rights law in Germany
Nicola Wenzel
12. International human rights law in South Africa
Lilian Chenwi
G. International criminal law
13. International criminal law in Germany
Kirsten Schmalenbach
14. International criminal law in South Africa
Christopher Gevers
H. Regional integration
15. The implementation of European Union law in Germany
Holger Hestermeyer
16. The implementation of African Union law in South Africa
Bonolo Dinokopila
I. International judicial decisions
17. The status and effect of international judicial decisions in the German legal order
Matthias Herdegen
18. The status and effect of international judicial decisions in the South African legal order
German legal order
South African legal order
economic law
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NASCAR Cup News Buescher to Take Wheel of Roush Fenway’s No. 17 in 2020; Team...
Buescher to Take Wheel of Roush Fenway’s No. 17 in 2020; Team to Part Ways with Stenhouse Jr.
By Official Release
CONCORD, N.C. (Sept. 25, 2019) – Roush Fenway Racing has announced that Chris Buescher will make his return to the team, taking the wheel of its No. 17 NASCAR Cup Series Ford in 2020. The team will part ways with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. at the conclusion of the 2019 season.
“We can’t say enough about Ricky and his contributions to Roush Fenway Racing,” said team co-owner and NASCAR Hall of Famer Jack Roush. “We’re proud to have been a part of Ricky’s development from ARCA to Xfinity and ultimately the Cup Series. He has served as a great representative to our partners, while helping to accumulate numerous accolades, wins and multiple championships on the racetrack. We wish him well as he enters the next chapter of his career.”
Buescher, a product of Roush Fenway’s development driver program, returns to the team that he led to a NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS) title in 2015.
“We are certainly excited to have Chris back in the fold at Roush Fenway Racing,” said Roush. “He has a long history with our organization and we’ve always been a big fan of Chris and his racing style. We have watched his progress with great interest over the last couple of seasons and we are looking forward to having him in the No. 17 as we continue to grow our program next season.”
Buescher first joined Roush Fenway as a development driver in 2009, winning the 2012 ARCA Series championship in a partnership with Roulo Brothers Racing, before making his NXS debut for Roush Fenway in relief of Trevor Bayne in 2011. He moved to full time in the NXS in 2014, and in 2015 brought home Jack Roush’s eighth NASCAR Championship; dominating the series while leading the NXS standings for 24 consecutive weeks.
Stenhouse has piloted the No. 17 car for the past seven seasons after taking over for Matt Kenseth in 2013.
Buescher drove the No. 34 Ford during his Cup rookie season in 2016, racing his way into the playoffs via a victory at Pocono. He has served as the driver of the No. 37 Cup entry for the past three seasons and is currently 20th in the NASCAR Cup point standings.
About Roush Fenway Racing
Roush Fenway Racing is one of the most successful teams in NASCAR history. In its 32nd season, Roush Fenway is a leader in driver development, having launched the careers for many of the top drivers in the sport. Off-track, Roush Fenway is a leader in NASCAR marketing solutions, producing multiple award-winning Social Media, digital content and experiential marketing campaigns. Roush Fenway is co-owned by NASCAR Hall of Famer Jack Roush and Fenway Sports Group, parent company of Major League Baseball’s Boston Red Sox and English Premier League’s Liverpool F.C. Visit RoushFenway.com, become a fan on Facebook and Instagram, and follow on Twitter at @roushfenway.
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next minute i'm in the back of an ambulance having a heart attack. i was in shape, fit. i did not see it coming. i take bayer aspirin. [ male announcer ] so be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. see your doctor and get checked out. this sunday, national security versus freedom of the press. the tension and the political fallout as the attorney general appears to backtrack. republicans have their sights set on attorney general eric holder. did he level with congress about whether he sought to criminalize the work of journalists? >> with regard to the potential prosecution of the press for disclosure of material, that is not something that i've ever been involved in or hord of, or would think would be a wise policy. >> holder reportedly regrets the treatment of the press in recent leak investigations and tries to reach out. has it worked?
how should the administration balance the protection of secrets and the free flow of information. we'll ask the chairman of the house intelligence committee, michigan congressman mike rogers, about that. and the expected nomination of former bush administration official jim comey as director of the fbi. also, the president back to business and tries to shake off scandal. will the irs investigations undermine work on job creation and immigration reform? with us democratic senator from new york, chuck schumer. later, our political round table. what michele bachmann's exit means for the tea party. does the president have an economic plan for the second term? and a discussion of the new study this week that shows more and more women are the primary breadwinners in american families. >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, the world's longest running television program, this is "meet the press" with david gregory. good sunday morning. news this weekend foreshadowing another bad week ahead for the irs. as an inspector general report
is expected to reveal lavish and wasteful spending at irs conferences around the country. we want to start with another political distraction for the obama administration. the attorney general eric holder under fire for investigating leaks to the news media. he pledged to reassess some of the justice department guidelines. he has now also become a political target for republicans. joining me now, former senior adviser to the obama re-election campaign, now an nbc news senior analyst, david axelrod. republican congresswoman from tennessee, marshablackburn. also author jonathan alter, republican strategist ana navarro and tom friedman for the "new york times." i want to get everybody's impressions of the attorney general under fire. david axelrod, my question is, is this a holder problem or is it a president obama problem at this juncture? >> well, i think that, you know, look, the sport, the civic sport of washington, d.c. is human
sacrifice. i know whenever there's a controversy like this, und underneath all of this that i think we have to resolve as a country which is there are things that you have to keep secret for the security of the people who are risking their lives out there. and for national security, how do you balance that against the public's right to know, which is a very sacred principle as well. that's a discussion we should be having. >> i think part of the discussion we have to be having is also a question of leadership. if that's what it is. there's obviously going to be a political target for holder, for republicans and the media that are going to target him, but i'm focused, too, on the president. and the idea of making no apologies and then appearing to make apologies about all of this. here was the president middle of last month when he came out -- when the seizure of the a.p. phone records first surfaced. this is what he said. >> leaks related to national security can put people at risk. they can put men and women in uniform that i've sent into the
battlefield at risk. >> yet then within a week he's changing his tune. this is what he said now. >> i'm troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable. journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs. >> tom friedman, was this a president and attorney general, do they think they overreached and alienated people normally that were with them, and that's the news media? >> that's what makes this case interesting. because there was overreach maybe on both sides to some degree. red lines were crossed. clearly red lines were crossed at the department of justice, in effect, krimmelizing reporting. at the same time, you know, you look at that fox report about north korea and other people i respect a lot, walter peyton and jack schafer made this point. you do have to scratch your head about, what was the news in there there justified we had a
source in the korean leadership? to me clearly the doj went too far. you saw the president, i think, reflecting that. i do think, i share david's view, we got to talk about this. not everything that's secret is news. what should be news is malfeasance, misbehavior, lying. not the fact we have a source in the north korean leadership. >> congresswoman, do you think the attorney general needs to resign at this point? >> i think that the attorney general has definitely lost the trust of the american people. when you are out in my district, people feel betrayed by the conduct of this administration and this attorney general. and, you know, it is an issue of leadership. just as david sets the standards and decorum for his department and his classroom, the president sets that for the administration. and people are wanting answers. they don't want excuses. they want accountability. they don't want evasion. they have lost the trust.
i think it'll take a generation to rebuild trust in the federal government at this point. >> let me bring in tom brokaw who's with us from new york. special correspondent for nbc news, of course, and tom, you've talked about this. this week you've covered and lived through a lot of these in washington. you were struck and tom friedman just mentioned it, by something that walter pinkus wrote in the "washington post." i want to put a portion of it up for some context here. he wrote, when will journalists take responsibility for what they do without circling the wagons and shouting that the first amendment is under attack when the first amendment advocates say rosen, meaning james rosen of fox news, was falsely characterized as a co-conspirator? they do not understand the law. when others claim this investigation is intimidating a growing number of government sources, they don't understand history. is this is a leadership issue, tom, for the administration? is this purely a press versus government issue? >> walter pinkus is one of the most serious and senior investigative reporters in
washington, d.c. just that statement touched off a moot court debate on the internet. i think it's a combination of all those things. the problem with how you determine whether something is in the public's right to know when it is classified in some fashion doesn't have the law of physics attached to it. it's very subjective. everyone has a slightly different opinion. but in most cases when a news organization like the associated press or rosen, it begins a dialogue with the government. the burden is on them. obviously the administration is scrambling to clean all this up. but it seems to me that on this sunday morning after last week that eric holder still is in the cross hairs here. what did he know? when did he know it? what did he do about it? and that will play out this week. >> do you think this is a real olive branch to news organizations? an off-the-record meeting to discuss changing the guidelines for how leak investigations are pursued? >> i think the burden is on both the government and the press to
work out a more clear set of guidelines, both for their exchanges with each other and then so that the public can be involved in this as well. as i said earlier, the problem always is that the first amendment, "a," is not unconditional. but at the same time, the burden is on the government. it can be very murky in terms of what the impact is. i talked over the weekend to a very, very senior ex-intelligence official from the united states government. and he laughed. he said, look, this administration and all prior administrations have used classified material when it's been to their political advantage. and he was astonished, by the way, that eric holder, the chief legal officer of the united states, has recused himself in the associated press case. so we still have a way to go here, david. >> do you think -- you've seen these kind of investigations before. meaning the judiciary investigation, committee investigation of the attorney general, this could be elongated? you have this morning on "the
new york times" government officials talking off the record or on background about his effectiveness. does he stay in the job? >> boy, i think it's tough to see how he does at this case. but that's up to the president. what we're seeing "new york times" in the today is that familiar washington two-step. officially getting the endorsement of people like david axelrod and the spokesman for the president, but at the same time, there's another part of that two-step that is going on which people are saying it would be better if he left. it would be better for the president to get this cleaned up. he has become obviously the lightning rod for a lot of the criticism just on this panel. and certainly in republican circles. from a political point of view, one of the ways that you can measure the impact of all of this and the fairness of it, is, think of this, if this had happened in the bush administration with john ashcroft as the attorney general. you know full well the democrats and the left would be going very hard after them with these issues that are in play. >> tom brokaw, thank you very much. we'll see you coming up on thursday nights this summer on the military channel.
your special series of iconic moments in history appropriately called "the brokaw files." thanks very much for spending a couple minutes with us this morning. >> thanks, david. >> david, reaction to that. tom's reaction on holder's future. >> i think those two issues live together. i think you can at once say we have to protect these classified matters as tom said that have grave consequences and cannot be in the public domain. on the other hand, we have to find a set of rules and laws -- >> jonathan alter, can you imagine a republican president doing what this president did? i mean, they came out there and they said, no apologies. these are serious crimes. we're going to investigate them. a few days later they said, you know what? maybe we overreached here. >> i can't imagine mitt romney doing that because he wrote a whole book called "no apologies." have a policy of not apologizing.
people in that party have a policy of not apologizing. what's missing here, david, is a distinction between investigating leaks, finding out who was betraying secrets and prosecuting journalists. these are two different matters. in the past presidents have been very frustrated by leaks. ronald reagan said, i've had it up to my keister with leaks. this debate goes all the way back to the adams administration when they put in the alien and sedition acts. so this is not a new debate. what's new and what's different is this idea of criminalizing the reporting part of it. look, in world war ii before the battle of midway, the "chicago tribune" released the u.s. battle plan. the roosevelt administration decided we're not going to prosecute the tribune for that in the middle of the war. >> who's been prosecuted -- >> i was very uncomfortable and i think it was wrong to use the term co-conspirator. that's a legal term. what journalist was prosecuted? i totally agree with you. you shouldn't criminalize
reporting. but the fact is no journalist was prosecuted. >> no. but if you have the fbi saying that the journalist is a, quote, co-conspirator, using that kind of language, that is starting to move down that road. >> quick comment here and then we'll move on. >> the administration went too far. >> clearly. >> i think that's very clear. i think the president recognized that a week later. but i think it'll be a shame if all this comes down to is just eric holder and we don't use this as a real teaching moment. >> right. >> when somebody goes too far, there also needs to be consequences. you know, what we saw this week was the cyag meeting. cover your ag. at the same time you see there's news media that chooses not to go. i've never been to an off the record meeting that's announced previously. it seems like an oxymoron to go discuss the freedom of the press in a closed door meeting. >> we're going to move on from this. chuck schumer, welcome back. >> nice to be with you. >> let me start on this issue of
the future of the attorney general. we have seen whether it's the huffington post or jonathan turley, law professor, writing in "usa today" that he should resign, senator roberts saying he should resign, tom brokaw saying this morning hard to see how he could hold on to his job with all this pressure. do you think the attorney general should keep his job? look, there have been all kinds of accusations, but i haven't seen anything that would prevent him from continuing to do his job. let's not forget, for about two years many of our hard right colleagues spent a lot of their time on fast and furious and i'm sure there were calls for holder to step down. he continued to do his job well. then the ig exonerated him on fast and furious. so obviously if there's wrong doing, we should find out who did it. but the president has confidence in holder and i believe he's going to stay. >> and you have confidence? >> listen, yes. the -- as i said, i haven't seen a single accusation that prevents him from doing his job.
>> what about whether he committed perjury in front of the house committee when he says he's never been involved in the potential prosecution of a journalist yet his own affidavit names james rosen of fox news as a co-conspirator for getting classified information. >> yeah. i don't think there's perjury. there's been no prosecution or attempted prosecution of any journalist so there can't be perjury. the warrant is a tool to get information. i don't think the two were contradictory. i don't think any good criminal lawyer would say there's a scintilla of evidence of perjury. >> if there is a long investigation by the judiciary committee into the attorney general, is that a good thing for the country? >> look, we should investigate and find out what went wrong. particularly with the irs situation. i think the other two on the media shield, we need some new laws. that's for sure. and we need an independent arbitor as your panel pointed out. it's one big mess. you cannot have the justice
department be both the player and the umpire. so the bill that lindsey graham and i have proposed, where there'd be an independent arbiter, judge, to balance the two very real needs of freedom of the press and preventing leaks is the way to go. in terms of the irs -- sorry. >> this doesn't cover national security issues, does it? >> yes, it does. >> how so? >> obviously it provides more leeway on national security as it should than other kinds of leaks. but in three ways. first, if the administration is saying it's national security, you have an independent arbiter determine if it is. second they can determine the ambut. for instance, in the a.p. the judge could say maybe getting the phone records of four of these a.p. reporters has to do with national security. the other 16 don't. finally and maybe most importantly, it requires there be notice to the news organization. so a.p. or fox news would get notice. and could go to court and try and suppress it. >> let me ask you about the irs.
new information coming out about lavish spends at some of these conferences. eve an new video produced of irs employees getting together preparing line dances for conferences. they're spending a lot of money on producing these kinds of videos. a lot of companies do this. we're talking about government employees. in the context of everything that's happening this has got to be the last thing the irs needs. >> absolutely. and the new director, the acting director of the irs said he would put an end to it. it's outrageous. any kind of wasteful spending like this must be put down, beforely l before -- particularly at these times. >> you talk about the irs investigations and the targeted conservative groups. you lobbied the irs to look into these groups. you didn't specify conservative groups. there are those on the right who say you and others effectively did. you were really targeting conservative groups not to be given that tax exempt status. >> no, that's absolutely not true. first, our letter came a year and a half after they started targeting the tea party. so it couldn't have caused it, that's for sure. second, look what our letter says.
it says form a bright line and determine how much political activity a so-called social welfare organization can do before they lose their tax exempt status. our letter is actually the solution. i would propose that we say -- we pass legislation that more than 10% -- if more than 10% of your activity is political activity, you lose your tax exemption. if you had a bright line it wouldn't be up to some bureaucrat to make their own determination, perhaps wrongly based on political needs. it would be the same standard for all groups, liberal, conservative, democrat, republican. that's what we need. our letter is actually the solution to the problem. >> you're obviously focused on immigration reform. you're part of the gang of eight. this is a question about the president's agenda in light of all of these scandals and controversies that the administration faces. i talked to one of boehner's top guys this week who said, look, if senators say they can get
republican votes in the senate and it's automatically going to transfer to getting votes in the house, they're wrong. it's going to be a long slog in the house as well. >> first, we're going to put information on the floor starting on june 10th. i predict it will pass the senate by july fourth. we're hoping to get 70 votes, up to 70 votes which means a lot of republicans. we're willing to entertain amendments that don't damage the core principles of the bill but improve the bill just as we did in committee. we came out of the committee very strong. our gang of eight stuck together and we picked up orrin hatch's vote as well. but let me say this about, in general. these so-called scandals have not diverted us one iota. you have on the gang of eight three of the people who have been most critical of the president on some of these other issues. but i think the eight of us realize how important this is more important than any of these scandals for the future of america, for job growth, for the middle class, for the straightening out this system. it hasn't interfered one iota. we are moving forward because we believe in a bipartisan way this
is so vital for america. we'll have a good bill. congressman boehner is in a box. there are about 60 or 70 of his people who are against any immigration reform. but at the same time, he knows that the republican party will be consigned to a minority party for a generation if they're anti-immigration. my advice to him, let's see what happens in the senate bill. if we can come out of the senate with close to a majority of the republican senators and almost every democrat, that may change the equation in the house and the thinking in the house among mainstream republicans. and they may want to go for our bill. >> do you have a warning for republicans who want to make the irs and personal issues affecting the president the main theme of 2014? >> my warning to the republicans is look at 1998. all they did is spend their time on the impeachment of bill clinton. and for the first time the incumbent president didn't lose seats in the house. certainly there should be investigations. and of the irs, which i think is the really serious one of these three. the others are serious, but we
haven't seen wrongdoing. the press shield area is a mess. and you need independent legislation, as i mentioned, but if they go too far, they will lose. and the -- looking into these investigations is no substitute to focusing on the economy, jobs for the middle class. republicans are right to want to look into these things, but if they emphasize it too much they're going to pay a price at the polls in 2014. >> senator shoop. thank you very much, as always. >> nice to talk with you. more with our roundtable in a moment. a new study out this week that more and more women are becoming the primary breadwinners in american families. some equal pay issues with that as well. also the impact. first, we're going to talk to the house intelligence chairman mike rogers of michigan. get his reaction to it leak story, plus -- the alarming report this week that chinese hackers gained access to the nation's highly classified defense system. that's coming up after this short break. short break. hey, look! a shooting star! make a wish!
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coming up here, more from
our roundtable. they're still here. we'll get to that in a moment. first, staying on the topic of national security, news this week that the president plans to nominate former bush administration official jim comey as the new director of the fbi. after the break, reaction from a man at one time considered to be a candidate for that job himself, former fbi agent, now chair of the house intelligence committee, mike rogers. coming up right after this. this is kevin. to prove to you that aleve is the better choice for him, he's agreed to give it up. that's today? [ male announcer ] we'll be with him all day as he goes back to taking tylenol. i was okay, but after lunch my knee started to hurt again. and now i've got to take more pills. ♪ yup. another pill stop. can i get my aleve back yet? ♪ for my pain, i want my aleve. ♪ [ male announcer ] look for the easy-open red arthritis cap.
we're back. joining me now republican congressman from michigan, chairman of the intelligence committee, mike rogers. congressman, welcome back. >> thanks for having me, david. >> let me ask you about these intelligence leaks, the news leaks and the investigations. you have been among the most outspoken saying some of the national security leaks have been very damaging to the country. in light of the a.p. story and the seizure of those telephone records. at the time the attorney general defended what he did. this is what he said last month. >> i have to say that this is among if not the most serious, it is within the top two or three most serious leaks that i've ever seen, that put the american people at risk. >> that was his defense for what he was doing. now they're talking about changing the guidelines and trying to offer an olive branch to the press. are you concerned that the attorney general has folded on this? >> well, listen, as a former fbi agent, certainly as the chairman
of the intelligence committee, keeping classified information secret is incredibly important for our national security. however, i think that dragnet that they threw out over those a.p. reporters was more than an overreach. and it really is not very good investigative work. as a matter of fact, you normally want to target -- you narrow that list down. then you might be able to go for someone's phone records or e-mails. but that dragnet approach i argue is a little dangerous when you talk about first amendment protections for a free press. same with the co-conspirator issue. that just defied logic to me. it almost seemed like someone wanted to get around the notion that they had the shield protection law. if you look at the law and you look at what they did, it would have been exempted from that. there's, i think, a lot of questions that need to be answered there. but at the same time, we do need to remember that these leaks are serious and for those folks who are leaking information that may lead to the death of sources or people who are cooperating with the united states or men and women who are serving in combat,
there should be consequences for that. >> do you think that the attorney general leveled with congress, with the judiciary committee, with your colleagues, when he said that he was never involved in the potential prosecution of a journalist given that he named as a co-conspirator a journalist in the affidavit? >> certainly the timing is, i think, problematic for the attorney general. i think that has to be thoroughly investigated. i think you need to lay out exactly what the testimony was, exactly the timeline when he signed and checked off that they should move forward with going after -- naming him as a co-conspirator, then find out what reconciled that with his testimony. i think all of that needs to be tone. but this pattern of deception administration wide is starting to become concerning. when you look at the irs and you look at the benghazi issue and you look at the a.p. issue, i think the trouble here isn't even the individual specific scandals. it's this broader notion that there's a pattern of this activity. i think that's what concerns people.
because what you don't want to have happen is americans lose faith and trust in their institutions. that, i think, is what's at risk here. we better get this back in the box so americans can rest easy at night knowing we're working for them and not against them. >> bottom line, do you think the attorney general should keep his job? should he resign? >> yeah. i think that's going to be up to him. i think how he handles this moving forward is critically important. i've argued from the beginning they just need to lay it out on the table. americans are more forgiving if you tell the truth up front. this notion that you're going to leak some things out, hold some things back, administration wide on these issues, i think has been damaging to them, certainly damaging to the public trust. again, i think it's gogsz ing t up to him. there should be a thorough investigation. those facts should go where they should go. including the fact that it takes it back beyond the attorney general to make that determination. one of the thing we've got to do here is restore that faith and that trust. that only happens when the truth comes out and people who -- who
have gone beyond the pale of the law are held accountable. >> let me ask you more broadly about national security. we're talking about in the context of leaking that kind of information. the president talking recently about the state of the war on terror and how that should be rethought as we move forward both in his administration and for future presidents. he in his speech recently declared an end to the war. susan rice, who appeared on this program in september, said al qaeda was decimated. we know there is a trove of information that was recovered when osama bin laden was killed from that compound. not all that information has been released. you've had a chance to review some of it. do you agree with the assessment that the administration has made about the strength or lack of of al qaeda? >> i think it is -- we are in a wrong direction here if we think we can pull back and let this thing go. you have over 500 schools have been closed in afghanistan. majority of girls schools. last week the taliban poisoned 74 girls trying to go to school.
the boca haram in northern africa area have killed some 3,000 people. these are islamic extremists. that's revamping up. you have the problem in mali. in algiers. in libya. all with al qaeda extremists. in may of this year 1,000 people were killed in extremist violence in iraq. you have 90,000-plus people killed in syria over what is a growing sectarian problem, which is now becoming a regional problem. saying that this thing is over and we can all just rest easy and start to change the policy to try to address this i think is dangerous to our national security. i don't think it fits the facts on the ground. whatever our politics are, republican or democrat, conservative, liberal, doesn't matter when you're talking about national security. >> do you want to the see more of those documents released? >> we're going over the documents. again, i think the week -- first week of june. my committee is going over and having folks up again for a review of the documents. we should take a look at what
can be released and what should be released. i think there is some value in some of that information retaining its classifications for national security reasons. i don't think it's the majority of it. i think we ought to seriously give consideration to allowing more than a 17 documents that were selectively picked by the administration to be made public. i think that doesn't probably tell the whole story. >> a couple of quick ones. jim comey now is going to be announced, former bush administration official, for director of the fbi. you were once up for that job. people pushing for you. what do you think of it? >> listen, i think it was a very safe, logical choice for them. he has a good reputation for prosecutorial work in new york. i think that's good. i was fortunate enough to have the working men and women of the fbi who were advocating for that selection. i'm humbled by that experience. the bureau is going to be a very key player moving forward. what we've already seen, the extremism and violent jihad, has approached the shores of the united states in ways we haven't seen before.
that means that the fbi is front and center of that fight. and we've got some problems to work through. this notion of an intelligence-based investigation versus a criminal-based investigation and what that means in the confines of the law. getting this right will really mean the difference between life and death for americans. that challenge, i think, has to be met here in the months ahead. >> case in point, this florida shooting of the apparent friend of tsarnaev, the boston bomber who was killed by authorities, shot by the fbi. should there be an investigation into the circumstances as it turned out he was unarmed after he was shot and there was talk of a scuffle there? are you concerned about this? >> absolutely. every shooting is investigated and should be investigated. we should get to the bottom of it. you know, i always -- there used to be a saying when i was in the fbi. it's better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6. you ask these individuals to go into these meetings and some of these folks are violent. and it's their job to come home at night as well as to enforce
the law. and if they're going to make an error, i hope they do it for their families. now, that does not give them the excuse to go beyond the bounds of the law. that's what that investigation should determine. we need to make sure that it was all done in accordance to the law. again, monday morning quarterbacking, if someone appears to be violent, knowing that this individual has violent extremist ties, i think that agent has to make a decision in an absolutely fraction of a second. we all should consider that also in the course of that investigation. >> all right. chairman rogers, we're going to leave it there. more to discuss. we're out of time this morning. thank you, as always. >> thanks for having me, david. back to our roundtable. i want to widen some of this out. talk about politics in the president's second term. david axelrod, you wanted to make an additional point about these irs investigations. to what extent they are undermining what the president wants to do. what his big ideas here are for a second term. >> well, first of all, the point i want to make on the irs, you heard senator schumer say these 501-c4s, these are the groups the irs was looking at, should have a
standard that no more than 10% of their activities be involved in politics. but someone has to make that judgment. i think there's something peculiar about all that. the whole concept needs to be looked at. groups applying for axing exemption and to keep their donors secret. that's the benefit they get from that. how do you decide what's political and not political? you're inviting this kind of problem. i think that ought to be looked at. in terms of the issue itself -- >> congresswoman, respond to that point. >> see, the problem with this is, they were going after the conservative groups and not after liberal groups. so there was a targeting mechanism that was built into that. and then individuals, conservative individuals that seem to be going after. it is the irs using their position for political intimidation. david, i can't imagine -- >> congresswoman, i think it was an idiotic thing to do. but i will point you to the inspector general's report that said it wasn't done for a political reason.
they were flooded with applications. >> you know what, david, that's tough to swallow. when you're a republican it's hard to swallow it wasn't done for political reasons when the words chosen were conservative, tea party, when you have a -- a group supporting -- the 2007 group freedom watch we saw yesterday come out where donors were getting audited and targeted as well. not just the groups. this is just -- it's very hard -- >> their work -- >> it's very hard -- it's very easy for your side to say it isn't political. it's very hard for our side to accept it when we're the ones being targeted. >> it was the inspector general -- >> i've said this many times. if there was somebody political involved in this it never would have happened. because it was the stupidest thing you could imagine. i don't think can was necessary or smart. >> chairman camp has worked on this for two years. we've been getting anecdotal evidence for two years. they would say, no, no, no, no. you look at what lois lerner did.
you know there had to be an agenda. 157 visits? by commissioner -- >> let me get in here for a second. >> when bush was president, how many times did he visit them? >> i don't think it was 157 times. >> let me get in here for a second. david, and congresswoman, let me get in here for a second. this is part of a bigger issue that the president faces. which is, where is his agenda left in all this? i want to show something. you wrote about how to get a job this week which got incredible response. here's a poll from quinnipiac. what should be a higher priority? investigating benghazi and a.p. at 22%, people said, relatively low. the economy and unemployment was at 73%. clearly a much higher priority as you look at that poll. the president is coming under fire for losing his scope effectively in a second term to rebuild america. to usher in economic restoration. >> well, that's the tragedy for him. it's a tragedy for all of us. because we are in the middle, i would argue, david, of a huge
inflection where two points i would make about this moment. one is that the -- the thing that sustained the american middle class for 50 years was something called high wage middle skill jobs. there is no such thing anymore as a high wage middle skill job. there's only going to be a high wage high skill job. so every decent middle class job today is actually being pulled in three directions at once. it's being pulled higher. it takes more skill to have. it's being pulled out. more software, robots, automation and people around the world can compete for it. and it's being pulled down. it's being outsourced to history, to the past, being made obsolete faster. up know, i had an experience of this a couple weeks ago. i had to deal with hertz for a pretty complicated change in reservation. for the first time i did the entire transaction with hertz without any human interaction. this was a complicated interaction i had. it really made a point of that. what's been happening to blue collar jobs, that kind of pac-man of automation outsourcing and digitization is now coming after white collar jobs as well.
this requires a huge strategic response for the country. >> jonathan alter, you write about this in "the center holds" in your new book. you write this about the president's economic legacy and how it impacts him politically. it was impossible, you write, to predict how obama's agenda would fair. fights over the debt ceiling and 100 other issues laid down the road. he would almost certainly be judged during and after leaving office on whether the american economy finally shook off and began to thrive again. if the economy revived more quickly democrats would likely do better than expected in the 2014 mid-terms which would allow the president to make more progress on his agenda. if economic growth stalled he would be seen as more of a lame duck. how does he seem now? >> this is how presidents are judged. right now the economy seems to be moving forward. there's been some good economic news. you can imagine that if mitt romney had been elected, and this is one of the reasons the stakes were so big, david, that right now everybody would be saying, well, the economy is doing better again because we slashed taxes on the wealthy and
we slashed regulations, we slashed programs for the poor. so this last election, i argue in the book, was hugely, pivotally important. if romney had won it would have validated the entire conservative argument for what to do about the economy. and it would have discredited things like infrastructure, which is critical for getting these folks that tom was talking about employed. and education. because the ryan plan and other things slashed funding for education, medical and scientific research that creates a lot of jobs. so what the president i think needs to do is to get back on the beam with the big things the big themes that got him re-elected. the first person -- first president re-elected twice with more than 51% of the vote since dwight eisenhower in half a century. so the point is that he has to focus on college completion. because if they don't get a college degree, they are road kill in the global economy.
and he has to focus on rebuilding america and bringing the republican party, the party of lincoln, who is a big infrastructure man, built the railroads, teddy roosevelt, big infrastructure man, bring the republican party back to its roots, come together on a big infrastructure plan. >> ana, looking at the democrats from where you sit, you're seeing democrats who are critical of the president. saying, look, the second term is getting away from you. things you've tried, you've made a big stand on, like guns and such have not panned out. you've got to get back to jobs. >> look, i think absolutely he's got to focus on jobs. and we all have to focus on jobs. the entire government has to. but we've got to walk and chew gum at the same time. we cannot look the other way when you've got things like government overreach. when you've got the criminalization of important government agencies like the irs. you just cannot look the other way. that's what makes our country great and what makes our democracy so strong. that there are checks and balances. and that we do have mechanisms
to be able to detect when there are these abuses of power. if there are abuses of power going on, they need to be addressed. >> david, can the president, will he be seen as somebody who fixed the economy? >> i agree with everything everybody just said. i think tom's right. the challenge of our time, the president would say that if he was sitting here, how do you push back on the forces -- marginized so many people -- >> and government and their jobs. >> -- and so that's why he has a budget, and he's pushing for early childhood education. more college entry. research and development. infrastructure. all of these things are important to do exactly what tom's talking about, and that's what -- i do think that he needs to focus on those things as the fall comes and we have this big budget debate. that is really what's at stake. >> here you have this question with michele bachmann retiring this week, the staying power of the tea party which is going to
argue, that sentiment is that government cannot be the driver of all these things. >> well, and government can't be the driver, but the biggest impediment to jobs growth in this country right now is the implementation of obama care. the 29 1/2 hours, getting under 50 employees, health care becoming too expensive to afford. this program is too expensive to afford. it was to be $800 billion. now it's $2.6 trillion. come on. people are not hiring. when you look at the labor force participation rate, being where it was in jimmy carter's day, and you look at people coming out of college in your 18 to 24-year-old group, where you're at 50% -- i mean, 13% unemployment? you've got problems. >> let me take a break here. i want to come back. i want to check in with tom friedman about what's royaling the middle east now and what the president can do about it. but then i want to widen our discussion, too, to talk about a
new issue that came up this week. more and more women, obviously it's been happening for more than just this week, becoming primary breadwinners in their families. how is that impacting families around the country. the discussion about work/life balance a lot of men are talking about as well. we'll come back with our roundtable right after this. news this sunday morning (announcer) scottrade knows our clients trade and invest their own way. with scottrade's smart text, i can quickly understand my charts, and spend more time trading. their quick trade bar lets my account follow me online so i can react in real-time. plus, my local scottrade office is there to help. because they know i don't trade like everybody.
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news this sunday morning "new york times" in the, the sectarian violence that's spreading from syria throughout the middle east. 1,000 people killed in iraq in may alone. we're back with our roundtable. tom friedman, you've been traveling through the region including turkey. it makes it very difficult to see how the united states can
have a positive impact on this region. >> david, we're seeing the breakdown basically of almost a century old political -- back to world war i when the middle east was divided up into these states. it was done under -- the brishtish, french, somewhat russian -- >> i've got a copy of that. >> you can bring it up. what we're seeing now is the new do it yourself version. this will not be done by imperial powers from the top down. it will be done by the people from the bottom up. i think the issue the president is struggling with and what we're struggling with as a country is what to do about syria. i've just come from syria and yemen and turkey. and i would say, you know, what i seem to see in the debate here is no one saying what is the outcome we want? the rebels are being hurt, you know, and lord knows that resonates with me. but we've got to say what is the outcome we want? do we want a multiethnic unified syria? if that's the case, not only arm the opposition, once they
topple, two more civil wars coming. between sunnis and others and sunnis and sunnis between seculars and islams. so if you want to arm the rebels to topple this regime to produce a unified syria, you're going to have to have international peace keepers on the ground. if your goal is just to bloody iran and syria, our opponents, feed the rebels arms. let them defeat hezbollah, all these bad guys. then the issue is going to have to be you're going to be ready for the breakup of syria. lastly, if you're arming the rebels just in order to create a stalemate so they'll negotiate, ultimately there's no deal assad and the rebels are going to reach that, again, won't require international peace keeping force to somehow maintain. so, please, do not will the end without willing the means. we tried that in iraq. it didn't end well. >> it's daunting. a head snapping segue. i want to segue from that to something that is back home here. a big issue for a lot of families, something that caught our attention this week from the pew research center. look at the percentage of the mothers as the sole or primary
breadwinner in the families. back in 1960 if you look at this chart, 10.8%. and now here we are in 2011. it's at 40.4%. ana, there's a lot of discussion within marriages now that's a bottom line discussion. about who should be working based on who's earning. >> i think that's where the discussion should be. amongst marriages. there has been an evolution in the american family. you know, i think what we have to be as a society is accepting of what couples decide to do for themselves. there are some people who want to lean in. there are some people who want to lean back and be on a rocking chair drinking a mint julep. whatever works for every couple is what we should -- >> enough about your sunday afternoon. >> when i say in my house i want to be a kept woman, the answer i get back is i want to be a kept man. you know, that's not working. it's not working in my house. but i think it's -- what chairman rogers was just saying i think makes a very important point. he talked about what girls go through in so many other parts of the world to be able to go to school.
here we encourage girls and women to reach their potential. when they do, when we do, then we want to do something about it. i think we, women that work, need to be not judgmental of women who don't. i think men who are mister moms need to be accepted by those who are the alpha male breadwinners. i think it's got to be whatever works -- for different folks -- >> marsha, we talked about this before around this table. first of all, what is the impact of this as a data point? that now you have, you know, research backing up what so many of us know. which is, that this is a new reality? >> yeah. it was so interest ing. the day this came out i was doing a roundtable discussion at the middle tennessee girl scout center with 20 affinity group leaders from corporations in tennessee. and one of the things that everybody seemed to agree on was that as we go to an economy where your -- your intellectual
property, your thoughts, all of that is geared -- we're an information economy. women excel in that area. you're going to see more women move forward as breadwinners. but it is up to companies to make certain that there is a level playing field and that women are not shortchanged as they try to get on that ladder to success. >> it's interesting, too -- >> it goes beyond up to companies. i would love to see our party have many or of you. we as republicans have got to do a better job. >> in the political arena, you're exactly right. >> it will make us a much better party. >> i say we need to be the great opportunity party. that's what -- >> how about pay equity loss to ensure that women are treated fairly in the workplace? >> i think that more important than that, it is making certain that women are recognized by those companies. you know, i've always said i wasn't -- i didn't want to be given a job because i was a female. i wanted it because i was the most well qualified person for the job. and making certain that
companies are going to move forward in that vein, that is what women want. >> what about -- >> they don't want the decisions made in washington. they want to be able to have the power and the control and the ability to make those decisions. >> jonathan, isn't it interesting, too, it's also a question of what men want. i was struck, bloomberg business week has this cover story out. working dads want family time, too. talking about lean out. something there, something in there talks about younger men. certainly true in my life, in my generation, who are coming out of college. if they are. or starting on their work life. and understanding that they want things in their careers. they understand that their partner is going to want those things, too. so they look at responsibility at the home including child rearing as a total partnership. >> absolutely. you know, there's a line in that story that i think all of us have reflected on. it's an old line. that nobody -- no man in particular on his deathbed says, i wish i'd spent more time at the office. >> right.
>> people from both sexes want that family time. they should get that family time. marissa mayer, head of yahoo! set off a huge debate recently when she said that there should be less flex time, more people coming into the office. when it turned out she had child care for herself there, you had a huge national debate. but both men and women should get that flex time that technology now allows. but what i'm worried about with men is that they're not graduating from college. women now make up more than 25% of college graduates greater than men. they are women. i'm confusing the statistics there a little bit. >> i worry -- >> women are dominating -- >> you're right. >> men have -- disproportionate with the impact of the changing economy in terms of job opportunities. but as a parent i must say, i
spent an awful lot of time when i was young on my career, traveling. my wife was home. my kids -- i had one sick child. three kids. and the greatest regret of my life is that i didn't apportion more time to my family in those early years. and you can't get that time back. so to the extent people are making those decisions differently now, i think it's a really positive thing. >> got to get a break in here. we'll come back in just a minute. [ male announcer ] running out of steam?
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we're out of time for today. i want to thank all my guests. before you go see this week's press pass with "kite runner" author khaled hosseini. he's out with a new book. "and the mountains echoed." i love this looks. that's at meetthepressnbc.com. also on our website, an excerpt of jonathan alter's new book, "the center holds." jonathan will be sticking around for a take two conversation. that will be up on our website this afternoon. that's all for today. if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."
\ s 3p m \ e and a good sunday afternoon. i'm craig melvin. you're watching msnbc. the place for politics. what's happening -- >> the shelter saved our lives. i wouldn't want to ride a storm out like that above ground. >> very hard to describe. i'm still not processing it very well. >> and fortunate but familiar ritual of late is under way again in the heartland as the death toll climbs. they're sifts three debris and starting to rebuild after this weekend's burst of storms. meanwhile, as we watched that severe weather move east now, a look at how all of this bad weather has now forced drastic changes to mandated job cuts.
also ahead, decision day. the supreme court cot start handing down its major rulings tomorrow. how the justices might be leaning and how those decisions could affect you. >> one of the things we want to find out is whether or not the fbi followed through on all of the information given to them. >> and word from russia. six congressmen went to investigate the boston bombing mayor did did botchan marathon bombings. what they found and why some of them now say the attack could have been stopped. first, though, right now, new and dangerous flooding in the areas devastated by this weekend's storms. meanwhile, we now know three people were killed in missouri in addition to the ten killed in oklahoma. among the dead in oklahoma, three storm chasers. carl young, along with meteorologist paul samaras and tim samaras died chasing tornadoes year el reno. a short time ago we got -- this new video of the massive
sinkhole caused by the heavy rains yesterday. high water and flooding affected about 157 homes nearby. more than two dozen families stayed in local community centers last night, and that weather system that reeked havoc on the area this weekend now moves towards the northeast where it's expected to dump rain and possible hail, but as they pick up in the country's midsection, it's flooding. flooding is still a major concern there. right to the sarah in an area that sustained a lot of damage this weekend. sarah, el reno was also where those three storm chasers died. can you tell us a little more about them? >> reporter: yeah. these were three men who dedicated their lives to learning and studying tornadoes so that people could be better warned, people in their path, like the family here behind me. these three worked together a very long time. tim samaras, his longtime storm chasing partner and best friend
paul young and samaras' son, just 24 years old, paul, a videographer and environmental photographer. say >> sarah, what's the biggest problem folks are dealing with on the ground? >> reporter: i was talking to the homeowner of this house behind me a few minutes ago. she said right now her biggest concern is getting back on her feet, getting a place to live, finding the basic necessities, getting clothes, food and going through all of this rubble to find what is left of her home. she is not in an area being freeded. the concerns for those in the flooded areas are right now are dealing with the water. >> precisely where are the flooding concerns right now where you are? >> reporter: they're all over various parts of oklahoma as well as in arkansas where it was very bad earlier, killing three people there, including a sheriff who was attempting a water rescue when he was swept away. thanks to this warm weather, we're getting today, though,
floodwaters are receding. the rick is lessening a bet but we are expecting more rains on monday and tuesday. and it's going to be very important to keep eyes on the rising rivers as well as the potential for additional flash floods. >> the big story yesterday, one of the big stories, at least, the sheer number of people who were without power in and around oklahoma city. what's the latest with regards to power outages? >> reporter: the latest numbers we've seen are in the metro area about 32,000 people still in the metro area without power. a different company works in the rural areas. we're looking for numbers from them. some power restored and crews out here working to put the poles back up and restore electricity, something these people need. soon as the sun goes down, work has to stop simply because they can't see. >> quickly, before i let you get out of here. where is that storm heading now? where is that storm system moving? >> reporter: yeah. the storm has left us and is headed east, actually, to you guys. it's going to be from about
washington, d.c. up to maine. 40 million people at risk of severe thunderstorms. there's also going to be some risk of tornadoes and large hail there. >> sarah, on the ground for us there in el reno. sarah, thank you. let's get to our headlines now. in the wake of recent tornadoes in missouri and oklahoma, noaa, the national oceanic and atmospheric administration, reportedly cancelled plans to furlough spr 12,000 workers due to s sequestration. a move that latest storms "remind us how important every single employee within noaa is to the health, safety and well-being of this nation." congress heads back to work after a week-long recess. the first item of business, immigration reform. on "meet the press" this morning, senator chuck schumer, a member of the senate so-called gang of eight said they were undeterred from their cause, despite all the controversy surrounding washington right
now. >> these so-called scandals have not diverted us one iota. you have on the gang of eight three of the people who have been most critical of the president on some of these other issue, but i think the eight of us realize how important this is. important parn probably thimpor than any of these scandals for straightening out this system. and who knew what in the irs controversy that rages on on cnn this morning. house oversight commit daryli darrellize darrell ize issa, targeting conservative groups it came from washington, and said something about white house spokesman jay carney. >> the administration is still, they're paid liar, their spokesperson, he's still making up things about what happens in calling this local rogue. there's no indication. the reason that lois learnrner
tried to take the fifth, it's because this was a problem coordinated in all likelihood right out of washington headquarters. with more now, the um nfoldg layers of the controversy. i'm joined by a panel, start with you, jackie. we heard darrell issa go over jay carney calling him a paid liar. how repairable is the lack of trust that republicans have with this white house, and is it catching on across the aisle yet? >> i think it has a potential to catch on quite a bit. there's a report coming out this week having to do with new information on the irs scandal. there seems to be something unfolding every week. the white house has done, wrapping up the scandals, then something out comes out. when you already had some of the is a stisuspicions about holder other issues by republicans,
these scandals are fueling the fire. i don't see any of this abating any time soon. >> and new polling out this week showing that while americans do care about the irs scandal, they care more about the economy, a lot more, in fact. president obama's former senior adviser david plouffe talked about that this morning. >> these are going to be looking through thoroughly, as they should be. the question is, is that all congress is going to do? just obsessed with scandal and trying to score political points or the american people cannot be screaming anymore loudly. worry about us. work on the economy. >> so how do politicians especially republicans right now, how do they reconcile wanting to get to the bottom of these controversies, but also appealing to the american public? >> well, i mean, they want to appeal, obviously, on their oh agenda and programs. that was a real wilderness period after mitt romney won the election. they did not think president obama would be re-elected.
many were very surprised and so they got together. you saw an effort by some, governor bobby jindal, others, er eric cantor, is to be talking about what wee take away from the green eyed budget forecasts and tell the american people what we'll do to make their lives better. you see this in an attempt to pass immigration reforms and these different investigation willing going on and yes, good for the president to say we have new economic news that's good, consumer confidence, best in five years. evidence of new hires. but republican party is going to go into the midterm election saying, this administration didn't know how to run an efficient and effective government, never really got jobs back for us, and now they've run the government into such a conflagration of
disasters, they don't know who's doing what. they're not accountable. and that is going to be a powerful message for americans still suffering from economic anxiety, and worry that nobody is minding the store. >> bill, the justice department itself. also under fire for alleged unethical treatment of journali journalists. david gregory talked about that this morning on "meet the press." >> you have this morning in the "new york times" government officials talking off the record or on background about his effectiveness. does he stay in the job? >> well, i think it's tough to see how he does at this case. >> so, bill, the white house continues to maintain that it adamantly stands behind holder. let me ask you. can he survive these scandals? >> well, it's going to be difficult, and there's some criticism coming anonymously out of the white house. he says he's going to leerave o his own terms. an investigation is going on. held if contempt of congress over the operation "fast &
furious" botched effort to stop gun sales in mexico. to mexico. and now he is being threatened with prosecution for perjury, because he said that he did not sign off on the, on a warrant to prosecute a journalist at fox news. well, the democrats are saying, he wasn't signing off on prosecution. it was an investigation to get information, and it's gotten to be legalistic and technical but he's under an enormous amount of pressure, which is not unusual for an attorney general. the republican bs are determine to go after him and fixated on this. >> you wrote, president obama values loyalty and holder has been nothing if not loyal but it is high time obama accept what he has place add premium on in this presidency hasn't always brought success or results. what kind of message is president obama trying to send by digging in his heels so much and defending holder so vehemently?
>> that's a really interesting question. as we know into five years of president obama, he has the long view, and it's frustrating to many of his greatest supporters because they want him to address controversies and political storms as they come up and he takes to tend the long view down the road, in the big picture, everything is going to work out. he is a good friend of eric holder's, told him not to leave in the past. eric holder has been given permission to stay until he wants. we expect that to be through this year. maybe just one year into the second term. but if you think about it from a practical standpoint, it's difficult for president obama to replace him. it means another firestorm of confirmation hearings, who is that person going to be? can they find someone with a clean enough record? in a way it's probable mutually agreeable for both to stay a little longer. >> jackie, at what point does this situation become a tenable? >> another good question. i mean, if the -- if the president's -- i'm sorry.
the house has already held him in contempt. if they approve, they prove he lied in front of congress, some republicans are asserting now, that's another lay perp lining a jenga game. these things are pulled out, stacked up. we don't know what's going to make it fall, but i think a.b. is right. there's a great article in the "new york times" today about how close holder is, not only with obama but also with michelle obama, and his wife is close with michelle obama. so there is a lot of beyond politics, closeness, between these people. so i think it's going to take something -- it will take a lot. the short answer. >> thanks to all of us. an alleged al qaeda plot on the united states foiled. what officials say they found. plus, survivor, part ii. two of his sons take ton a deserted pacific island. but why? you're watching msnbc. [ female announcer ] introducing new olay fresh effects
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today members of the u.s. congressional delegation to russia are talking about their fact-finding trip. they went to talk about the boston marathon bombing. some saying they believe the bombings could have been prevented in there had been better cooperation between russian and u.s. intelligence officials. a group of six lawmakers spent a week in the russian capital meeting with russian government and intelligence officials. an nbc news terrorist analyst. good to have you, sir. congressman dana warbalker. we we'll talk about it on the other side. >> had better relations and should have had the more expansive interaction between
our intelligence communities on both sides that would have -- that would have prevented it. that would have threatened it -- that would have let us know what the threat was and we would have been able to thwart that attack smplg . >> is that true? would closer cooperation between russian and u.s. intelligence officials have stopped the boston attack? >> maybe. maybe. i mean, this is really -- this is such monday morning quarterbacking. i don't think you can even -- look, the russians provided us with information. that information did not distinguish itself from other information. they talked about a guy interested in going to dagestan to fight there of dagestany back groou background. nothing that suggested he would blow a bomb in boston and that's the problem with all the retrospective thinking. we're looking at this in retrospect. it's a needle in a haystack, a needle in a stack of needles
that these guys would. >> do you think the delegation learned anything important on the trip to moscow? >> maybe one important fact. apparently the russians are interested in tamerlan sarn tsarnaev, because he was interested in palestine to fight against the israelis's we didn't know that before. it's not clear whether or not they told the fbi that before the boston bombings took place, but if that's the case, maybe there is more there. maybe the russians did know something more than just he was sympathetic to the cause of chechen nationals. >> also at that news conference this morning, iowa republican congressman steve king said that russian officials told him that radicals from the chechen region are now more often than not moving to the united states and moving to europe. if that russian information is true, a big "if" i suppose, what's steps should we be taking in this country? what realistically can be take that we aren't already?
>> i don't think this is new information. there have been chechen separatists that moved to the west for years. russians complained bitterly we've allowed them to raise money and engage in support activity, but i really think we have to be really careful about demonizing people because they're chechens or because they're from dagestan, these folks have suffered under, you know, a lot of things by the russian government that are not necessarily pleasant and i don't think necessarily the u.s. government would endorse those or the american people would endorse those accesses. so let's be careful about demonizing people because they're from chechnya or dagestan. the russians have in particular perspective, borne of fact of a long-standing insurgency there but their politics and our politics and approach to these issues are not the same. >> law enforcement and intelligence officials in this country, do they have the resources at their disposal right now that they need to track and i guess in some cases even prevent potential attacks?
>> the answer, no, they don't. the worst part about it, this is all taking place in the midst of the sequestration. we see agencies like the fbi struggling now to make their budget. struggling to keep their personnel on tap and unable to acquire new technologies to potentially stop these people or allow the fbi to find these people because they don't have the cash. that's the saddest problem. congress complaining the fbi isn't doing their job but they're not giving the fbi the money they need to do their job. that's part of the hypocrisy of these trips to russia. the real thing that would have stopped this would have been given the fbi and other government agencies the financial resources to acquire that kind of technology. >> sounds like you think this trip to moscow might have been more of a junket. >> a political venture. great they found out this information, but ultimately it's up to the fbi and justice department to pursue and investigate this case. those are the people i'm most interested in seeing what they come up with. >> always a pleasure. appreciate your insight. thank you.
>> thank you very much. when we come back, we'll go into the political playground. >> you were intending to sacrifice all that vis great about our country and that is why i'm here to thank you. >> sarah palin gave a commencement speech to a class of less than 30 grads witts. what she said about small town america. you're watching msnbc.
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said, "we came back a little thinner, maybe a little wiser. we had an awesome time." and into the political playground we go on a sunday. sarah palin is used to large crowds, so this may have been her smallest audience yet. she accepted an invitation to be the keynote speaker yesterday and palin took surprise gift as well. $1 for each of the 27 graduates at the school along with a message. >> you've got to get off your butt to make a buck! never have found that had they not taken the time to look for it. i want them to take this the wrong way, but i would hope that's the last dollar someone just hands them, just gives to them. >> she accepted the invitation after the students launched an aggressive social media campaign to get her to come. we're told she did not charge
anything for the speech as well. and here in new york city, just a few hours ago, a big parade. tell you about that later. this, though, is angelina jolie. new pictures, her first appearance since the double mastectomy in february posing with her husband brad pitt at the premiere of his new film. may 14th, of course, announced that op-ed in the "new york times" she'd had surgery after being diagnosed with a gene that put her at high risk for breast and ovarian cancer. a few hours ago here in new york city, hundreds of people lined up on fifth avenue to celebrate the annual israel day parade, and marching along with mayor michael bloomberg and governor andrew cuomo. there he is. new york's mayor's candidate, anthony weiner. you might recall, he resigned from congress after sending lewd photos to women on twitter, now in the mix to be the next mayor of new york city. we'll talk about that coming up
in the next hour. ard coulding to a new poll, only about one-third of americans new the chief justices were coming off some of the major decisions from the supreme court that could start coming as soon as tore. we'll break them down. this, a dazzling display in the night sky. see more of the amazing video of the northern lights as well straight ahead. this is msnbc. ♪ [ male announcer ] the distances aren't getting shorter. ♪ the trucks are going farther. the 2013 ram 1500 with best-in-class fuel economy. engineered to move heaven and earth. guts. glory. ram. the new ram 1500. motor trend's 2013 truck of the year. the new ram 1500. ok s o i' motor trend's 2013 truck of the year. 've been havingm 1500. with greek nonfat yogurt, loaded with protein 0% fat
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that huge brush fire in southern california is still burning, and spreading this afternoon. the wildfire is just north of los angeles. it's destroyed at least six homes and burned almost 20,000 acres. so far nearly 1,000 other homes have been evacuated and close to 1,000 firefighters are trying to contain that thing. the fire broke out thursday at a hydroelectric plant knee los angeles. i'm craig melvin. a quick look at other stories making news on a sunday afternoon --
five men arrested in iraq for allegedly planning to carry out chemical weapon attacks on targets here in the united states and europe. an iraqi official says the five men confessed to the plot and admitted they were taking orders from an offchute of al qaeda. federal investigators trying to figure out who sent the ricin laced letters to president obama and new york mayor michael bloomberg. investigators seen searching a house in new boston, texas, earlier this wook and reportedly questioning the man who lived there friday. take a look at this. check this out. this is a spectacular view of the northern lights this weekend from minnesota. we have not altered this video by the way. people all over the northern part of the united states were able to see the beautiful colors fill the sky. solar storm, a solar storm made this possible. the aurora borealis happens when highly charged electrons from
the solar wind interact with the elements of the earth's atmosphere. really cool. all right. there aren't many hints how the supreme court will rule on their docket this week. we won't be waiting much longer. starting tomorrow every monday in june and perhaps some thursdays the supreme court will rule on five key cases. they could make some sweeping changes to same-sex marriage, affirmative action and voting rights. our justice correspondent pete williams now with the breakdown of those and other key cases the court is expected to decide this month. [ chanting ] >> reporter: rulings on the hot button issue of gay rights dominate the list of what's left to decide. two gay couples in california are challenging that state's proposition 8 passed in 2008 banning same-sex marriage there. >> i don't see how our getting married would impact anybody else's marriage negatively in any way. >> reporter: defenders of prop 8 say it protects the traditional
notion of families. >> the institution of marriage and marriage laws are designed to attach mothers and fathers to each other and to the children that they may create and raise in the best environment. >> reporter: the court will also rule on a challenge to the defense of marriage act passed by congress in 1996. it blocks the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages in the states that allow it. in the two months since the court heard the case, legislatures in three more states have agreed to permit gay couples to get married bringing the total to 12 states along with washington, d.c. it's impossible to know whether or how that development will influence the justices. the court will decide the fate of the most important civil rights law ever passed. the voting rights act. it requires states with a history of discrimination to get federal approval before changing how they conduct elections. >> it deters and blocks voting discrimination in places in the country where that discrimination has been the most persistent and adaptive. >> reporter: shelby county,
alabama, south of birmingham, says the law is so outdated it's no longer constitutional. >> the america that elected barack obama is not the america of our parents and our grandparents. >> reporter: another racially charged case challenges affirmative action in school admissions. the university of texas says considering race is one factor gets more diversity on campus overall and within minority groups. the supreme court ruled a decade ago schools can consider a race to get a critical mass of students. overwritten by sandra day o'connor who retired. the court seemed to find than too many vague. >> what is the logical end point? when will i know you've reach add critical m al mass? >> reporter: and whether anyone arrested for a crime can be forced to give dna to check against records of past crimes?
peter williams, nbc news, washington. >> thanks. anyhow, a constitutional expert and an attorney argued several cases before the high court. the husband and wife team are co-founders of scotus blog, which writes about the supreme court. we don't get a lot of husband/wife duos here on the broadcast. good to see pyou. thanks for being with me. california's prop 8, that law approved by voters in 2008 which banned same-sex marriage in california. last year a federal appeals court ruled it was unconstitutional. prop 8 supporters appealed to the supreme court. that's where we are. based on oral arguments, what can we glean, if anything, from how the justices are leaning right now? >> well, it's always dangerous to predict, but i would say that gay right supporters who went for, really, not just a home run but a grand slam, there's a constitutional right to same-sex marriage may be disappointed.
i don't think the supreme court will set back their cause and say, no, we'll never recognize such a right, but it looked like the key center justices in the court were trying to find a way out of the case so they might not have to rule anything about that very basic question. >> amy, do you agree with your husband there? >> i do, as a matter of fact. >> let's talk about prop 8s national implications. let's say that -- say that the justices go the other way. what would be the practical effects? >> well, i think that if the justices were to recognize this right, it would be a really dramatic change in america. maybe one that gay rights supporters would really regard as for the good, but the great majority of states as pete was pointing out don't recognize this right. it's been a really contentious question, but it would bring uniformity throughout the country. that's probably more likely, there's going to be some disformty. maybe ledge slaecher by sledge
laicher that har to make the decision or voter by voter referendums and state by state. >> they'll kick it back down. amy, the other case, the defense of marriage case, doma, preventing the government from recognizing same-sex marriage when it's already league in other states. it seems at times the justice was atad bit annoyed this case was even before them. what are the chances the justices focus on something procedural versus something substantive? >> there was a procedural question when they decided to review the case. the justices asked everyone involved in it to brief the question of whether or not they had even the ability to hear this challenge to doma when the federal government wasn't defending the law anymore. the paul clement and a group of representative house republicans leaders were defending the law. the obama administration had joined the challengers to doma. there were questions about the oral arguments about the court's ability to hear the case, but
this case actually seems like one in which the court is going to go ahead and rule on the merits. again, with the caveat it's dangerous to go on the oral argument, it seemed like there was support from five of the nine justices to go ahead and strike down doma. four of the court's more liberal justices seemed inclined to rule that doma was unconstitutional because it treats opposite sex married couples and same-sex married couples differently, just as antony kennedy, thought as the swing hoet vote or the court and particularly in this case didn't seem to be going along with that point of view. what his point during the oral argument was this was a violation actually of states rights. that marriage is something that states have traditionally regulated, and for -- congress can't go in and make these regulations about marriage. so you could have -- you have five justices joining together to strike down doma, even if they don't agree on why it's unconstitutional. >> and voting rights act now.
the court deciding a key provision of the act, a part of the law requiring states with histories of discrimination in the polls to get permission from the government before making changes about how elections are run. a shelby county, alabama, this is shelby, they say the law is outdated. what's the likely outcome here, tom? >> i think the law's going down. the supreme court sent a shot across congress' bow a couple of years ago in another case saying, look, it's really about time for you to update this list. you came up with this list of jurisdictions that have to ask permission to change voting systems in the 1960s. the country has changed some. civil rights advocates say, look, it's incredibly hard to make new launch changes to the list. this is congress' job. when they reauthorized this law they made a decision that the list should stay the same, but the conservative supreme court seems unlikely to agree. >> i want to make sure we get to the affirmative action case here. the case brought by a white student against the university of texas, fisher v. texas,
saying she was denied admission because of her race. even justice antony "swing vote" kennedy seemed worried about the formula being used during oral arguments. could the roberts court, could it be the court that strikes down affirmative action and admissions as we know? >> justice kennedy, you have to remember, we often think of him as the swing vote, but back in 2 2003, ten years ago, the court heard know case and opinion by justice sandra day o'connor, now retired, the university of michigan could consider race at its law school deciding on applications for law school. he was actually in the dissent. he would have voted the use of race was unconstitutional. we wouldn't necessarily expect him to be the swing vote. it seems like he could be the swing vote here in the sense that we could very well have the four of the conservative justices saying, get rid of
affirmative action altogether and he may be poised to perhaps say that the university of texas use of race is unconstitutional but there still may be some role for the consideration of ration by universities. >> tom, if the high court decides to scrap affirmative action as we know it, or change it in some dramatic way, what would be the practical effect of that? >> well it would have practical effects in a lot of places. first, public universities. a lot harder for them to have affirmative action programs that say we're going to give a bump to minority applicants but then implications for other as i understand of affirmative action. for example, lots of governments have contractor set-asides or bonuses to help minority business, and then probably a spillover even to private universities that aren't technically subject to the requirements of the constitution what this case is about, because they are subject to federal civil rights law. so there would be at least 10 or 20 years of litigation about when it is you can have
affirmative action in america, if the decision goes in the direction it's likely to. >> amy, tom, the husband/wife couple that runs scotus. enjoyed it. thank you for your time. >> thanks for having us. >> thank you. senator john mccain, talking about that separate trip to syria. >> there's no good options here. the options were better a year to two years ago than they are now, and every day it gets worse. >> and now russia is sending new weapons to help the government destroy the rebels there. what it all means for the balance of power in the civil war. also, britain's queen elizabeth ii crowned exactly 60 years ago today. next -- how she's marking the occasion today. have a good night. here you go. you, too.
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more than 3 million people, in fact, all tried to catch a glimpse of the new monarch in her gold-plated coach as she made her way between westminster abbey and buckingham palace. the first coronation broadcast on live television. 27 million people in britain watched the 27-year-old monarch take her oath. the queen will mark this year's anniversary privately at windsor castle, which will stand in stark contrast to last year's diamond jew baly. featured about 1,000 boats. what the queen had to say about rededicating herself to service last year. >> we are reminded here of our pa past, of the con newtie of our national story and the virtues of resilience, ingenuity and tolerance which racreated it.
i have been privileged to witness some of that history and with the support of my family rededicate myself to the service of our great country and its people now and in the years to come. >> and more exciting news to come for the royal family. in case you hadn't heard, kate middleton, duchess of cambridge, is apparently expecting pt. the future king and queen are due next month. can the united states work with russia to solve this crisis? next minute i'm in the back of an ambulance having a heart attack. i was in shape, fit. i did not see it coming. i take bayer aspirin. [ male announcer ] so be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. see your doctor and get checked out.
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what's your policy? there are new concerns in the middle east that syria could soon start receiving new shipments of anti-aircraft missiles the from russia. russia has long been an ally of syrian president bashar al assad. i want to bring in msnbc mideast diplomacy analyst, ambassador dennis ross. he, of course, was a middle east envoy for president bill
clinton. ambassador, always good to have you. >> nice to be with you. >> senator john mccain just returned from syria. while he was there, he met with rebel leaders. he provided a stark assessment this morning of the strategic outlook for the syrian opposition. take a listen. >> we are seeing, unfortunately, a battlefield situation where bashar al assad now has the upper hand and its tragic, while we sit by and watch. >> do you agree with senator mccain there? does he have the upper hand, totally? >> well, he doesn't have the upper hand totally throughout the country. he has it in a slice of the country. he rules over a rump syria. today, syria, as we know it, historically, doesn't exist. he can gain greater control over an important enclave, certainly, the part that stretches syria to the coast and next to lebanon, but his ability to regain control over all of the country i think is quite problematic. >> how would syria having these russian missiles, how is that
going to affect the balance of power? >> well, the problem with the s-300 is, it is a long-range defense air missile that could intercept aircraft that could be operating actually maybe up to 200 miles away, from syria. israeli aircraft operating over their own air space could actually be vulnerable to the s-300. so from an israeli standpoint, it could absolutely affect the options they have available to them, not only vis-a-vis syria, but over lebanon as well, and israel has made it very clear, there's a red line for them, which is no transfer of qualitatively new weapons from syria, from iran, to hezbollah in lebanon. and if the s-300s are going to change that reality, then it seems to me there's a very high probability the israelis could actually act to prevent the s-300s from actually being operational. >> the united states continues to appear to be counting on russian as a partner in creating a new syrian government. secretary of state kerry met in
washington yesterday, with the german foreign minister. this is what the secretary had to say after that meeting. >> we are both committed to working with the russians and with others in order to try to bring the parties together in geneva, to implement geneva one, which is a formula for a transition government, by mutual consent, with full executive authority. >> those talks have been delayed now until july at the earliest. what affect will the russian arm sales have on those meetings, have on the overall peace effort? >> well, they raise a big question about what the russian purposes are. secretary also said yesterday that this becomes a test to the russians. are they really prepared to work on a political process of transition, that inevitably means that bashar al assad will no longer be president of syria. if they are, that's one thing. but the provision of arms that they're sending right now is
clearly affecting bashar assad's calculus. he thinks he's winning. he certainly thinks he can hold on. the more the arms are coming, the more he's likely to think that he can do it. and we're seeing an effort by the russians, by the iranians, and by hezbollah, to change the balance of power on the ground in advance of any such meeting. and in effect, they're trying to negotiate by improving their position on the ground. so it really does, i think, raise basic questions about what the russian purposes are, and as the secretary said yesterday, this will become a real test. are they serious about a political transition? we'll know that pretty soon. >> business and political leaders, meanwhile, met in jordan last week. "the washington post" reports that a group of israeli and palestinian business leaders are pushing for peace now too. the group includes corporate heavyweights from the left and right, religious and secular, who don't agree on the details, except that there should be a state of israel, and a state of palestine, both living peacefully and side-by-side. i want to pivot here. are these the types of private
initiatives that can bring pressure on those governments to act with regards to some sort of settlement in the mideast? >> well, it can change the context. they represent a very unusual constituency. historically, the business community in israel and among the palestinians have not been in the forefront of pushing for peace. what this initiative is doing is, you have people from the private sector, israelis and palestinians alike, who are trying to send a message to the leaders. and they're saying, we're the kind of people who have never been a part of any kind of peace process. and what we're saying to you is, we'll support you. if what you want to know is people who matter and who can help underpin the economy are going to be there with you, you now know for the first time, we will be. so it is an unusual step. you know, i wouldn't say by itself it's going to transform the situation, but it can certainly help. >> ambassador dennis ross, thank you, sir. coming up next, a
heartwarming cereal commercial sparks a heated discussion over modern families. what caused the internet backlash? also, student loan interest rates set to double in less than a month. and the president once again pushing congress to push those rates down. will it work twice? you're watching msnbc. was a record collection. no. there was that fuzzy stuff on the gouda. [ both ] ugh! when it came to our plants... we were so confused. how much is too much water? too little? until we got miracle-gro moisture control. it does what basic soils don't by absorbing more water, so it's there when plants need it. yeah, they're bigger and more beautiful. guaranteed. in pots. in the ground. in a ukulele. are you kidding me? that was my idea. with the right soil... everyone grows with miracle-gro.
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so i'm doing fine... but she's still going to give me a heart attack. we're more than 78,000 people looking out for more than 70 million americans. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. good sunday afternoon. i'm craig melvin. you're watching msnbc, the place for politics. here's what's happening right now. >> too many people knew that this wrongdoing was going on before the election and at least by some sort of convenient benign neglect, allowed it to go on through the election. >> starting tomorrow, the republican-led house puts the focus back on the irs. this as new twists emerge in the targeting of conservative groups. >> what are you going to do now? >> clean it up and try to decide what i'm going to do. because i don't know. >> difficult decisions after tough times in oklahoma, but those tornadoes are only part of the story, as that severe
weather moves east. and the cost of college. student loan interest rates are set to double in just weeks. we'll talk to the nevada congressman, who's forming a student task force to try to put even more pressure on congress. first, though, a look at our political headlines on this sunday. despite the latest set of storms, which killed 13 friday, oklahoma's governor, mary fallin, remains resolute. on cbs this morning, she insisted her state has a lot to offer and will come back strong. >> i just want people in america to know that oklahoma's a great place to live. you know, just like states have wildfires in california or earthquakes or they may have other tornadoes in other areas of the country, you know, this is really a great, great state, our economy's doing beautifully, and the people are wonderful, so i hope they are able to come back and see us when we have one of our up moments and we are very strong and we're going to come back strong. >> the white house is trying to highlight positive economic news today, in saturday's weekly
address, president obama touted 7 million new jobs created over the past 38 months. and also, noted recoveries in the auto and housing industries. but tennessee's marsha blackburn says, not so fast. >> the biggest impediment to jobs growth in this country right now is the implementation of obama care. the 29 1/2 hours, getting under 50 employees, health care becoming too expensive to afford. this program is too expensive to afford. it was to be $800 billion. now it's $2.6 trillion. come on. >> and there's new buzz around congresswoman michele bachmann's announcement that she's not going to run for re-election. on abc this morning, the gop strategist karl rove did not sound like he's going to be at her going-away party. >> actually, it will be an opening for the tea party. michele bachmann was the chairman of the congressional tea party caucus and in that position did nothing. now the position is open, someone next year will accept
the chairmanship of it and they may do something with it. and on friday, a new video was submitted to congress. it shows irs workers making a "star trek" and "gilligan's islands" spoof using taxpayers' money in 2010. this new video comes as lawmakers are still trying to get to the bottom of how and why certain irs workers in ohio targeted certain groups for investigation. nbc's peter alexander is at the white house with more on this. and pete, first of all, has anything new come to light indicating that the white house had any knowledge or involvement in these irs controversies? >> craig, it's a good question. and the white house insists it had no knowledge of any of this before it was made aware of it. and to give you a better understanding of that, right now over the course of this day, we heard from the house oversight committee chair, darryl issa, who said from testimony, from interviews with some of those individuals, those irs
employees, who worked at the irs office in cincinnati, ohio, he has learned what he believes is the fact that they say that there is a connection back to washington. that, in fact, washington was directly doing the ordering. but just within the last hour or so, we got this statement from issa's democratic counterpart on the house oversight committee, and we'll put up on your screen very quickly his response, where he referred to this as the lobbying of unsubstantiated conclusions. cumming said specifically, chairman issa's reckless findings today are inconsistent with the findings of the inspector general, who spent more than a year conduct his investigation. craig? >> peter alexander, thank you so much. do appreciate that. peter from the white house for us on this sunday afternoon. student loan rates, again, are set to double in a month. that's why president obama is urging congress to extend the current rates, but republicans are rejecting the president's approach as needlessly partisan. the president has called on congress to extend the low 3.4%
federally subsidized student loan rates past the end of june. if nothing happens come july 1st, those rates automatically double to 6.8%. joining me live now, congressman steven horseford from nevada. he's been holding roundtables in his district to try to tackle this issue. congressman, thanks for being with me. >> thanks for having me. >> what are you hearing from your constituents about student loans? what's the predominant solution you're hearing from them? >> well, what i'm hearing, i just met with a group of students in my district, formed a task force on this issue, in fact. because student debt in college loans is now over $1.1 trillion. it's actually more than credit card debt in america. and what i'm hearing is the fact that, literally, i have college students who are homeless, who are sleeping under bridges in order to try to afford college. i have a young lady who has a
son who wants to attend college. she, herself, is trying to go back to become a nurse. and she's struggling to pay her mortgage now. and so the republican house plan is not a solution. it actually will increase the cost of college loans and not give any predictability for students who are trying to better themselves by getting a college education. >> this is what president obama said about student loans friday. he was talking about the bill. let's take a listen and talk about it on the other side. >> we've got to make sure that federal student loan rates don't double on july 1st. now, the house of representatives has already passed a student loan bill, and i'm glad that they took action, but, unfortunately, their bill does not meet that test. it fails to lock in low rates for students next year. that's not smart. it eliminates safeguards for lower income families. that's not fair.
>> so, what do you think, congressman, is going to be the future of congress' student loans plan? >> well, the president is exactly right. the house republican plan is not fair, it's not right, and it will not work. it's a variable interest rate. in a state like nevada and a lot of other places, during the housing crisis, it was the adjustable rate mortgage that caused so many people to lose their homes. now the house republicans want that same type of plan for college students. i find this to be hypocritical. when they say they don't want the next generation to go into debt or to have to burden the december of this generation, but, in fact, that's exactly what they're doing with their college savings loan rate increase. >> you were talking about the house and you were talking about house republicans specifically, but there hasn't been any activity in the senate, which is, of course, controlled by democrats. why no activity there? why no action? >> well, it's my understanding
that senate majority leader harry reid is planning a vote in the senate. and i'm hopeful that the plan, like senator elizabeth warren, which will cap the rates at the same interest rates that big banks are getting will be what we extend the college student loans rates, so that college isn't more expensive for the generation that's trying to improve themselves. >> here's the thing. a lot of folks suspect that you guys are do what you typically do, which is solve this thing at the 11th hour down in d.c. but why has there not been as much of a conversation about the true drivers of skyrocketing college costs. why these student loans, why these student loans cost so much in the first place. where's that conversation? >> you're right on point. and that's the larger fundamental comprehensive discussion we need to have on making college more affordable. college loans are one part of it. but it shouldn't just be about
student loans in order to be able to pursue a college education. we need to talk about increased investment in pell grants. we need to be talking about forgiveness of student loans for serving in underserved communities, and giving back -- >> congressman, all those things may be true, but where's the conversation about bringing down the cost? >> well, the cost of college is increasing in large part because of state budgets having to cut back on higher education. and what that has resulted in is increased tuition. and that's the larger debate that we need to be having, is how we can make college more affordable. when the president sets the goal of having more americans graduate by 2020, we need to make sure that they can afford to graduate and not to go into debt to do so. >> congressman steven horseford from nevada, congressman, thank
you. >> thank you for being on your show. let's turn now to the new and dangerous flooding in the area s devastated by this weekend's storm system. we now know those storms left at least 13 dead in oklahoma, three more in missouri. the cover of the oklahoma newspaper says it all, "and, again." the people of oklahoma have to rebuild after this latest storm tore up areas, a lot of those areas near hard-hit moore, oklahoma. that area hit by a monster tornado just 12 days ago. among the dead in oklahoma, three veteran storm chasers. carl young along with meteorologist paul smairs and tim smairs. they died while chasing tornadoes near el reno, oklahoma. the weather system that wreaked havoc on the oklahoma city area this weekend is now moving toward the northeast, where it's expected to bring heavy rain and possible hail as well. right now there are flight delays reported at several major airports throughout the northeast. the weather channel's chris
warren is in albany, new york, right now. >> reporter: craig, this storm system, this overall storm system, craig, what you were talking about, hitting oklahoma on friday, really got going on tuesday, pounding parts of the plains, including oklahoma, had a few days of it. it just turned out that friday ended up being the absolute worst with the tornadoes and then the nonstop rain, which led to the flooding. where i am right now, here in alba albany, new york, we're getting a little bit of a break from the showers, but that same storm system has brought severe weather into parts of eastern new york, now into new england, and that's where the strongest storms are right now. and where they're expected to be through this evening, until 8:00, there's a severe thunderstorm watch in effect. that means conditions are favorable for the development of these strong storms, possibly damaging winds, and there have been reports already of trees down, power lines down, large hail also a threat. there has been reports of that. ping-pong-sized hail has also been reported with some of these
strong storms. of course, as you mentioned, leading to those flight delays. we're still seeing these storms developing. albany, north, there are some dark skies. but we are expecting for now, those storm are to the north of us and moving off to the east. another line is developing. we're watching this threat. really, it's along the east coast, we're seeing those showers and some thunderstorms. but it's new england and eastern new york right now, where we're seeing those strong storms. and again, this whole system came from tuesday, starting off in the plains, pushing through into the midwest. we saw all of that flooding. of course, in oklahoma and then pushing into st. louis and then into kentucky. now we're dealing with the leftover of the flash flooding, which happens immediately. we have the leftover of that, and now we're dealing with a lot of river flooding, including along the mississippi river. so this big system, craig, has been causing some big problems for several days, and finally, it's moving out and it will bring some relief to the heat in the northeast as well. >> chris, i understand that there is perhaps more bad
weather in the forecast for the plains region coming up. what can you tell us about that? >> well, craig, the plains will get a little bit of a break tomorrow, but then by tuesday and wednesday, there's another chance for some storms. it does not look, at this point, like it's going to be one of those major outbreaks we saw this past week, but it definitely means we do have to keep an eye on it, definitely with the saturated ground. there's still going to be a chance for some tornadoes and the strong winds and hail can also cause some problems. a brief break for the plains, and it will be tuesday and wednesday. >> chris warren on the ground in albany, new york, where that severe weather may be headed next. chris, thank you. up next, chemical concerns. after fiery train derailments and a chemical plant explosion, how often, how often does dangerous cargo move through our neighborhoods and cities? it may surprise you. also ahead, the trial of george zimmerman, the case that set off civil rights rallies all over the country heads to court in
just days. the latest fights over what evidence will be allowed and will not be allowed. this is msnbc. i'm in my work van, having lunch, next minute i'm in the back of an ambulance having a heart attack. i was in shape, fit. i did not see it coming. i take bayer aspirin. [ male announcer ] so be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. see your doctor and get checked out.
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something that happened tuesday evening in baltimore, maryland, probably happens a bit more than you realize. a freight train collides with a garbage truck, the train derails, an explosion and fire follow. that fire then rages for ten hours. on board the train, toxic chemicals used in paper production. mike elk is the labor reporter for "in these times" magazine. mike, good to have you back. thanks for being with me. >> great to be on the show again, craig. >> in the baltimore derailment, the driver is the only person
hurt. the fumes were not dangerous, but how common is it for dangerous chemicals to be transported through heavily populated areas? >> it happens every day, and most people don't know about it. the ap this week came out with a big investigation that showed that 600,000 people lived within a quarter mile radius, a blast zone radius of plants that had as much ammonium nitrite on site as the west texas one. many people are living close to these facilities and have no idea. >> 600,000? >> yes. >> and most of these people live in densely populated areas. >> also, a lot of these chemical plants typically are concentrated in low and middle-income communities, particularly communities of color. >> there was a norfolk southern train that derailed back in 2005. it released chlorine gas. nine people were killed there. 5,000 people had to be evacuated from their homes. i actually covered this one when i worked down in south carolina. the railroad pays a $4 million
penalty for that spill. what are regulators doing to force railroads, to force truckers, for that matter, to make sure they transport dangerous cargo safely? >> well, you know, it's actually quite interesting, because while there's so much more dangerous chemicals going through so many neighborhoods, a lot of railroads now are going with single-man crew rail cars, which means that there is only one operator on the entire train. one guy who's running everything on the train, who's looking out, who's monitoring the engine, and a lot of railroad workers complain this is a very unsafe situation. so a lot of railway workers i talk to, particularly railroad workers are very adamantly opposed to single-man trains. >> is that purely for cost saving? >> yeah, to cut out an extra worker on the railroad. >> railways are federally regulated. is there anything that individual states can go to set guidelines to control toxic cargo shipments?
>> well, young, i think what needs to happen, for instance, first off, there's a big issue right now with the right to know laws. since 9/11, a lot of states have now told local communities that they do not have a right to know about the chemicals coming through their neighborhoods, because, you know, it's a potential terrorism threat there. >> did not know that. "mother jones" magazine reports, quote, some companies and municipal water systems have already started phasing out the use of deadly chemicals like chlorine, but it would take a stronger regulatory push to make a larger switch happen. given the political in washington, d.c., how likely is it that any new regulations would be adopted. >> i think it's highly unlike, particularly in the wake of industrial explosions. even if you look at the west texas fertilizer explosion, the chemical safety board is the organization and the u.s. government tasked with investigating accidents at chemical plants. the atf has blocked the chemical safety board from coming in and
investigating the west texas disaster. they're treating it like it's a criminal investigation. so the top agency that m cos up with recommendations on how to fix problems at chemical plants haven't even being allowed into the west texas plant. they're not even being allowed to interview witnesses by the atf. there was a story that came out in the testimony of the head of the chemical safety board, that the atf on may 7th showed up in a parking lot and prevented a plant employee at the west texas plant from talking with the chemical safety board. so there's not even a real big investigation that the workers are able to do right now to even come up with solutions to this problem. >> you mentioned west texas, i know you followed that story closely, while i have you here, let me ask you, any updates on that investigation? >> none so far, the one thing that did come out of the atf's report, which is a big deal, only one fifth of the fertilizer that was on site at that plant exploded. the explosion could have been dramatically worse. a lot of people are lucky it wasn't worse than it was. >> mike elk, labor reporter for
"in these times" magazine, mike, thanks. see you soon. up next, our flashback, 80 years ago today, the white house was transformed with the addition of a swimming pool. but today, the pool is empty. why? answers ahead. you're watching msnbc. i have low testosterone. there, i said it. see, i knew testosterone could affect sex drive, but not energy or even my mood. that's when i talked with my doctor. he gave me some blood tests... showed it was low t. that's it. it was a number.
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the principles that made this nation a great and powerful leader of the world have not lost their meaning. they never will. we know we can bring this country back. i'm mitt romney. i believe in america. and i'm running for president of the united states. >> yeah, you remember that guy! it was this very day in 2011 that mitt romney announced he was running for president, for the second time. let's flash back even further, to this day, 1933.
it was on this day that the white house got its very first swimming pool. the indoor pool was built to give president franklin delano roosevelt some relief from his polio. and do you recognize the room that it was built in? take a close look. you should. because in 1970, president nixon put a floor over the pool and he turned it into the white house press room as a way to accommodate the growing television press corps. today, the white house press secretary stands at a podium located, perhaps, appropriately, over the deep end of the old pool. up next, internet backlash over that cheerios ad. why it sparked a new conversation about biracial couples and their kids. also, a massive wildfire is burning in california right now. firefighters are trying to contain the blaze. it's threatening a thousand homes. we'll take you there. you're watching msnbc. mine was earned in djibouti, africa. 2004. vietnam in 1972.
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i'm craig melvin. good sunday. here's a quick laook at some of the top stories making news right now. an enormous brush fire just south of los angeles is spreading and burning. so far, 20,000 acres, it's destroyed at least six homes, nearly a thousand firefighters are trying to contain that blaze. right now, almost a thousand homes have been evacuated. the fire broke out thursday at a hydroelectric plant near los angeles. a close call for iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad. iran's state media is reporting a helicopter carrying ahmadinejad and other government officials was forced to make an emergency landing early this morning. there was some sort of malfunction aboard the aircraft. no one was hurt. and days before olympic runner oscar pistorius is due back in court, there's been a big leak in that case. friday, a british television station published some pictures of the bloody boyfriend where pistorius' model girlfriend was found. now pistorius' lawyer is
demanding that police explain how those photos got out. pistorius is accused of shooting and killing reeva steenkamp in their south africa home on valentine's day. trayvon martin's father says his family is bracing for a rough road ahead. in just over a week, george zimmerman will go on trial for the shooting death of the 17-year-old. the judge has denied zimmerman's defense team's request for a delay in the start of that trial, set to begin june 10th. zimmerman is charged with second-degree murder. he's pled not guilty. he plays that he shot martin in self-defense. also, the judge ruled that the defense will not be able to mention a number of details about trayvon martin's past in their opening statements. zimmerman's lawyers claim that those details will shed light on martin's character. they include alleged marijuana use, suspension from school, and some text messages as well. lisa green is a legal analyst. before we get started here, i want to go ahead and mention to
our viewers that george zimmerman has sued nbc universal for defamation. the company strongly denies those allegations. lisa, good to have you. this week, of course, the judge ruled that martin's past, ruled that the alleged marijuana use and other details will be left out of opening statements. this is what george zimmerman's attorney, mark o'mara, had to say on al sharpton's "politics nation" about that. have a listen. >> if the state goes into george's past, then i get to go into george's proper and positive past. they say he's aggressive, i say he's peaceful. if they go into trayvon's past, trayvon is peaceful, i might be able to say trayvon is aggressive. i truly hope none of that gets into a courtroom, this was a six-minute event. but as a good criminal defense attorney, you have to be ready. i've got a lot of arrows in my quiver that i really hope they all stay there. >> lisa, what do you make of
that strategy? how can the defense use this information to their benefit during the trial? >> this is all about one word, craig, character. and the judge has to navigate a very delicate balance here. there are certain circumstances, as the lawyer says, where it's admissible for each side to bring in negative character evidence about the other, particularly if the other side goes first, and especially in a self-defense case, which this is. but nothose rules are very carefully cabined, and that's why we saw the judge last week make a lot of sort of, save it for later decisions about information like that. >> this week, the contention will be focused on that 911 call. the state's audio expert sayses the trayvon martin screaming for help in the background. let's take a listen to that tape as well. >> it sounds like a male. >> and you don't know why? >> i don't know why. i think they're yelling "help," but i don't know. just send someone quick, please. >> does he look hurt to you? >> i can't see him. i can't want to go out there, i
don't know what's going on. they're sending them. >> so you think he's yelling "help"? >> yes. >> what is your -- >> there's gunshots. >> what's the dispute here and how damaging could it be for the state if the judge were to dismiss the audio expert's testimony? >> this is all about scientific evidence and then validating experts. it's a very disturbing call to listen to. but the really important question is, whose voices are on the tape saying what, when, and can an expert validly proclaim to a jury, i, in my scientific expert opinion, think it's this person or the other. and the judge wants to hear more evidence about that this week, it's obviously critical to the case. >> why did the judge decide to bar information about trayvon martin's past, only for opening statements, and not for the entire trial? what would be the reasoning behind that? >> the opening statements are an opportunity for each side to present a preview of what evidence they plan to present to the jury. the jung is saying, i'm going to
need more time to decide that delicate issue of character evidence, so let's not get ahead of ourselves in the trial. >> trial starts june 10th. we're expecting some 500 potential jurors to line up for jury selection. what's that process going to be like down in florida? >> well, i mean, obviously, enormous attention focused on that courtroom, the jurors, there was a defense motion to sequester them, that motion was denied. they won't be named publicly, and they'll be subject to a barrage of questions about all sorts of potential prejudices, so each side can decide what their ideal jury panel will look like. >> based on what we've seen and heard so far from the judge, who's presiding in this case, can we glean anything about what we might see going forward in terms of how she's going to be handling the case? >> i think what we see so far is a judge who wants to be extremely careful about what the lawyer alluded to in the tape we heard earlier. anything besides that six to nine-minute window in which this event happened.
obviously, each side may have motives for bringing that extra seven-day in and the judge will have to make careful rulings to stay within the four corners of florida's evidence law and run a fair trial. >> legal analyst lisa green, thank you. let's pivot here. let's move to another racially charged issue. a lot of folks are talking about this this week. and i want to bring in the sunday brain trust, angela rye, bob franken, of course, a syndicated columnist for king features, and peter suderman. hey, you know what, guys, and you probably have already seen this, but for our viewers at home who have not, i want to play a snippet of it before we start talking about it. this is that new cheerios commercial that was recently posted on its youtube page. >> mom? >> yes, honey. >> dad told me that cheerios is good for your heart. is that true?
>> it says here that cheerios has whole grain oats that can help remove some cholesterol and that's heart healthy. >> jan?! >> it's a pretty clever commercial, i think. it's had nearly a million and a half views. cheerios had to pull that thing, they had to pull the comment page, because of a string of racist comments. angela rye, let me start with you. does this reflect on our attitudes towards race or does it reflect son just internet users' attitudes about race? >> well, craig, we know that racism is still alive and well in america. what that commercial demonstrates to me and i think to maybe a lot of americans is
the fact that the american family and the construct of the american family is changing. so the fact that there is a biracial little girl, you know, talking to her mother and then trying to do something, what appears to be nice in keeping her father healthy, is a reality for a lot of us. the unfortunate reality, again, is that racism is still alive and people will, you know, utilize every possible opportunity to demonstrate their racism. >> especially, many of the cowardly nuts who spend a great deal of their time being mean on the internet, i suppose, bob. >> absolutely. >> bob, despite the internet backlash, the "new york daily news" quotes a spokesman for the brand, general mills, "consumers have responded positively to our new cheerios ad. at cheerios, we know there are many kinds of families and we celebrate them all." bob, is this forward thinking by cheerios and its parent, general mills? are they going to benefit from this ad? >> well, paradoxically, they just might. you have to comment that just
when we thought we were beyond something as evil as all of this in the united states, we find that we haven't made as much progress as possible. also paradoxically, i mean, this has caused quite a bit of impact for cheerios, which is one of the things, of course, that any company that advertises wants to do. but if they were really brave, they'll show a gay couple. >> and you know what, bob, i'm sure someone's probably working on that ad right now. >> don't bet on it yet. >> really, you don't think so? >> i don't think we've come as far as we'd like to believe we have when it comes to this issue. >> peter, multi-racial families in this country have become quite commonplace. the census data reports it every ten years. is this a reminder, as angela suggested, of the not-too-distant past, where in some states, inter-racial marriages were against the law, not so long ago. >> i think it's actually a sign of what we can expect in the future. you know, i would really love to see the market research that
provided the backing for whatever ad exec or whatever brand manager made the decision to run this ad. you've got to imagine that what they've decided, what they saw is that there were enough people who are accepting of this, enough people who think it's perfectly normal, not even unusual in any way, that we're going to do better by playing to them and by featuring their faces in our commercial than by, you know, being a -- doing the traditional, the thing that has been done so often, which is, you know, families in commercials that are, you know, just a single race. so i think that's a good thing that we're seeing from cheerios. >> you know, one of the things, guys, that really bothers me, and it's not just about this ad. this really, i think, speaks to a lot of the cowardly bigots, the narrow-mooinded folks who spend a lot of time on the comment sections of a lot of websites and stories, and it really does, it really, it annoys me to no end, angela rye, because the internet, it's free,
it's anonymous, and folks who spend a lot of time on it like we do, you see this sort of thing a lot more often than you'd like to. >> there's no question about it. we call it e-courage. >> i like that. >> more tweets from people who are willing to call me out of my name in ways that would shame my parents behind you know, their heman or skeletor images and it's always like angry conservative christians. those things don't even align to me, so i don't understand how that works. but it's a huge problem and one we definitely need to overcome. >> we've talked about this before, craig. the good thing about the internet, it's available to everybody. the bad thing about the internet, it's available to everybody. and i think that that is the dark side of what you get with the internet. >> let's take a quick break and reset. when we come back, we'll spend some time talking about anthony wiener. in case you haven't heard, he's running for mayor of new york city. the latest polling shows he's
gaining some ground despite that twitter scandal. but what's motivating some of his supporters. we're going to talk about that. you're watching msnbc, the place for politics. there's a reason no one says "easy like monday morning." sundays are the warrior's day to unplug and recharge. what if this feeling could last all week? with centurylink as your trusted partner, it can. our visionary cloud infrastructure and global broadband network free you to focus on what matters. with custom communications solutions and dedicated support, your business can shine all week long. humans. we are beautifully imperfect creatures living in an imperfect world. that's why liberty mutual insurance has your back, offering exclusive products like optional better car replacement, where if your car is totaled, we give you the money to buy one a model year newer.
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[ male announcer ] the citi simplicity card is the only card that never has late fees, a penalty rate, or an annual fee, ever. go to citi.com/simplicity to apply. the brain trust is back. angela rye, bob franken, peter suderman. bob, let me start with you. in case you hadn't heard, anthony weiner is running for mayor of gotham city. there are some who think that the architect of the weiner campaign, his wife, huma abedin, close aide to former secretary of state, hillary clinton, this is what "the new york times" has to say about her role. a surrogate daughter to bill and hillary clinton, who have seen firsthand the cleansing power of campaigns, miss abidibedin has t into her husband's effort, conferring with staff members,
helping to hire staff members from her long history with the clintons. is this a new york mayoral race? >> only in new york would you find this kind of situation so soon after the alleged offenses -- not the alleged offenses, the offenses that anthony weiner conducted. this is a guy who is going to be a unique politician in new york, as long as he stays in politics. for instance, he's been advancing in the polls and some people attribute it to not just being in spite of his prickly personality, but because of it. this guy is never going to be a many congeniality, which is what new yorkers seem to think they want. >> peter, there has been some speculation that some aides may have even joined the weiner campaign to get closer to huma abedin, and by extension, hillary clinton and bill clinton. do politics really work like that at all? >> oh, sure. whether or not it does in this sna instance, unclear, but it does, and people always want to be
close to centers of power and individuals who can hold power and give other people power. and the clintons are certainly a people who can do that. and the clintons will be a big force in democratic politics. i have to say, just on the weiner -- on weiner's candidacy, in particular here, it's going to be really fun to watch. and weiner actually has an advantage, which is that you know what his big secret is. it's not a big secret. this is not somebody who has skeletons in his attic. his skeletons are out on the front lawn. >> and here's the thing, i guess to his credit, pras, or to a certain extent, he's embracing it. it's not like he's running from it, angela rye. this is something i found interesting, maggie haberman was running about the campaign and wrote, it took only a few stops on the trail to make this much clear, the new anthony weiner bears an uncanny resemblance to the pugnacious, hard-charging
anthony weiner of old. is the post-scandal anthony weiner the same anthony weiner as the pre-scandal anthony weiner? >> he's the same, and 53% of new yorkers want to give anthony weiner a second chance. he's gained some in the polls, running a close second to christine quinn. time will only tell, but we know that new yorkers will continue to love their elected officials. we saw eliot spitzer who had a far worse scandal, at least some would argue, ended up with a tv show. >> and we should point out that, christina quinn is not exactly known as miss personality in new york. and let's face it, that would cause a lot of people to conclude something about new yorkers in general. >> what are you about to conclude, bob? >> either of them could probably work for the new york hospitality bureau. >> we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, the brain trust.
bob, you know what i love about you, bob, you do the same thing that president obama does sometimes, when he says something funny, you beat the crowd to the laugh. you deliver the line and get the chuckle. >> i think i better, because maybe nobody else is going to. >> sneak peeks on the other side of this break. this is msnbc, the place for politics.
the brain trust is back. angela rye, bob franken, peter suderman. this could be a very busy week. congress returns, the supreme court could start issuing some long-awaited decisions. so brain trust, what were your headlines for congress and the supreme court laook like this week. peter suderman, we will start with you. >> i think for congress, it will be "immigration reform proceeds as scandals loom." and i think for the supreme court, it's going to be "supreme court rules narrowly on affirmative action and same-sex marriage." >> narrowly in which way, pete? >> i think particularly with
affirmative action, what we're going to see is that the court, the most likely, you know, this is always hard to predict, but the most likely thing here is that the court is going to look for the smallest possible ruling, but it's going to be a conservative majority ruling, saying that this particular instance, this particular type of affirmative action may want be allowable anymore. >> angela rye, let's come to you for your headlines. what are we looking at? >> sure. i think that we're going to see congress continue the gridlock. meanwhile, the supreme court will rule on the liberty injustice remains for some. by that, i just mean that the supreme court will likely find that gay marriage is constitutional. i do not think that it will be very tough for them to uphold the affirmative action policies that so many of us continue to rely upon, particularly because folks continue to look at president obama as the person who has elevated race relations so far. >> we've made it! >> exactly, and everybody else is find, which, of course, we
know is not the case. >> bob, before we get to your headlines, i want to pick up where angela just left off. do we think that the high court is going to effectively end affirmative action as we know it? >> yes, to the point that in many institutions, they're already coming up with a different emphasis, with the emphasis being on economic reformation. >> and what do you think happens with immigration reform this week? the markup starts, we're going to start to see a little bit more, hopefully, some more conversations, specifically about the details in the legislation. >> well, i think what we're going to see is more of a display of the differences that still remain. i mean, people have been back in their districts, particularly the conservatives, and they've gotten an earful. and i think we're going to see that reflected in congress. >> and now to your headlines. >> the house convenes, immediately celebrates the announcement by michele bachmann. and the supreme court ruling,
the same supreme court that ruled that corporations have human rights will rule that gays don't. >> really? you think that the high court manages to sidestep this one? >> that, i think, is exactly the best result, which is that they sidestep it, as opposed to ruling in the negative. >> kick the can down the field. the michele bachmann announcement, we heard from karl rove this morning on abc. it sounds like they've all just kind of, good-bye, good riddance. >> well, there are many people who would like to say the same thing to karl rove, but that's for a different time. >> angela ry, you know, folks have been, for the past few days, there have been a lot of folks who have said that, yeah, we're sad to see michele bachmann go, but for democrats, my michele bachmann was probably their greatest shot at winning that seat. >> craig, you're absolutely right. i think folks are hoping that she would stay in the race, but i think that the writing was on the wall. i know she said it had absolutely nothing to do with the ethics challenges and investigations and it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she just barely
won this seat. but, in fact, it had everything to do with that. and democrats certainly would have preferred her as an opponent. she is the best pinocchio around here, per politifact, and everything else. so i don't know what we're going to do without her being in the race. >> she wasn't -- i'm sorry, she wasn't that popular with her colleagues. i mean, they thought of her as a hot dog. now, remember, when you're talking about politicians thinking one of their own is a hot dog. >> before we get out of here, peter suderman, i always like to speak from the vantage point of a journalist that from time to time we need things to talk about, and for that, she never disappointed. there was always something to talk about it. we always need material. >> now we're going to have anthony weiner and his campaign to keep going for a while. >> you did say that. you noted that earlier. angela rye, impact strategies, syndicated columnist bob franken, "reason" magazine's peter suderman, big thanks to all of you. and a big thanks to you as well.
thanks for spending part of your sunday afternoon with us. i'll be back next saturday, 2:00 p.m. eastern, sunday as well. ed schultz is standing by. i wish i could show you his pre-show routine. we can't show it to you, obviously, but he'll be with you on the other side of this break. hey kevin...still eating chalk for heartburn? yeah... try new alka seltzer fruit chews. they work fast on heartburn and taste awesome. these are good. told ya! i'm feeling better already. [ male announcer ] new alka seltzer fruits chews. enjoy the relief! [ susan ] i hate that the reason we're always stopping is because i have to go to the bathroom. and when we're sitting in traffic, i worry i'll have an accident. be right back. so today, i'm finally going to talk to my doctor about overactive bladder symptoms. [ female announcer ] know that gotta go feeling? ask your doctor about prescription toviaz. one toviaz pill a day significantly reduces sudden urges and accidents for 24 hours. if you have certain stomach problems or glaucoma,
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at massmutual we're owned by our policyowners, and they matter most to us. if you're caring for a child with special needs, our innovative special care program offers strategies that can help. . good evening, americans. and welcome to "the ed show" live from new york. if it's sunday, john mccain is running his mouth about syria. blossom, he's whining about the irs. and marsha blackburn thinks the best way to create jobs is to repeal obama care? we've got a dandy. this is "the ed show." let's get to work. ♪ we're seeing progress. >> the economy is going to go up and down. >> the gears are starting to turn again and we're getting some traction. >> government can't be the driver. i think, absolutely, he's got to focus on jobs. >> the good news is today our
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News/Business. Live news coverage, breaking news and current news events with host Thomas Roberts. New.
Washington 18, Syria 18, New York 16, Oklahoma 15, Fbi 12, Msnbc 12, Anthony Weiner 10, Craig 9, Irs 9, Texas 9, Michele Bachmann 8, Bob 8, Angie 7, Angela Rye 7, Russia 7, Doma 6, Peter Suderman 6, Boston 6, Tom Friedman 5, California 5
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tv [untitled] August 4, 2012 8:00am-8:30am PDT
decisions today and what that means for the future. i think that is a very important step for the city, having a solid footing going forward. i am happy to see where the reserve levels are going to go. always when we have this conversation and we say what you want in the budget, he never asks for a single thing except to increase the general fund reserve. i have to say to supervise ouor elsbernd, it will grow to over 40 million next year. we used a budget only $25 million. on top of that, we have a stabilization reserves. a state reserve, and for the first time, we put in rate stabilization reserve to anticipate your water and sewer rate increases that all of us
will have to face. the city is looking forward at key investment areas, and we are making sure we are being responsible for the future. i want to thank the partners that have been involved. our own staff, the clerk, the budget analyst, k. howard and their amazing staff, had a special shot out to my aid. if you can join me in a round of applause for them. they are truly amazing people and if you don't know them, you want to. how to say thank you, and for the mayor, i know you're going to give hence to us, but we should get to this year for the two-year budget. >> the cost of the second pen is in reserve.
>> ok. >> free and.
>> that's it. what's next?
on may 12, sf posted a benefit for project insight. canadians supported the recreation programs are too sick children. >> learn more
>> good morning. i am darlene bryant, your mc for this morning. the first economic and trade seminar here in our beautiful city. city hall in san francisco. housekeeping items. you'll notice on your chair there is a little box. we're having simultaneous interpreting. you will find these. insert into the box, turn it on, put it on your head and did not to get out of this room.
if you leave, leave it on the chair, we will pick it up afterward. if you have a problem, there is a little room and they can take care of it for you. problems with their headsets, there is a little room, someone will take care of it for you. restrooms to my left. and please, turn your cell phones off. ok? thank you. i want to say this event would not be possible to do without the general sponsorship of the mayor's office. thank you, mayor ed lee. also the ministry of the commerce of china, supported by the governor's office. thank you so much. the lieutenant governor is here of course. i would like to mention that we do have some honorable mentions in here. first of all, my boss, hon. ed lee. mayor of san francisco.
i would like to add our first chinese mayor in san francisco. the vice minister of the ministry of commerce from beijing. [applause] welcome. next to my former boss, the hon. gavin newsom, lieutenant governor of california. the hon. counsel general of the people's republic of china. [applause] the minister of the embassy of the people's republic of china and the united states, based in washington, d.c.. and charlotte schultz, mr. mike rossi, senior adviser on jobs for governor brown. also officials from the
delegation. the director-general of the department of foreign investment and administration. mr. wong shi. and mr. -- the commercial counselor of the department of corporation. and the director-general of the investment promotion agency of the ministry of commerce in china. we have more. the chairman of the tschida chamber of commerce -- china chamber of commerce. and from the china contractors association. and the president of the foreign trade and economic relations commission.
and the deputy director general, department of commerce of the inner mongolia, autonomous region. the director of economic and trade office of [unintelligible] province. i would like to mention that locally, we have a city council member from fremont, ms. sue chan and supervisor malia cohen is in the house. thank you for coming. i remember not long ago when vice-president -- the vice- president visited the united states and i traveled to los angeles with our mayor at the time and what an event. and now a few months later, san francisco is probably hosting the seminar with the ministry of commerce. it shows that our golden mountain continues to attract chinese. has never stopped since the 1800's and because san francisco continues to be the city of innovation and full of peril spirit, we will continue to
seek an inflow of inbound chinese businessmen and investors. may i invite our mayor, edwin lee, to the podium? [applause] >> thank you. good morning. i want to of course repeat our warm welcome, ladies and gentleman, to the vice minister and his delegation here. to the council general and his wonderful work and to our lieutenant governor, gavin newsom is here. our senior adviser, mr. rossi and those of you from fremont and san jose and around the bay area, thank you for being here on this first china-united states state and regional economic and trade discussion. as you know, san francisco has been home to the biggest and the
oldest chinatown in the united states. and so, there could not be a more appreciative place to hold this conference. i will say as i said earlier to the vice minister that it is interesting to note to and i am a student of our chinese history. in the 1800's as darlene has mentioned, many of the ancestors came over from china and whether it was for economic opportunity or search of gold, it is interesting to know that today we're of course seeing our contemporaries coming to invest and look for partnerships opportunities in the united states and in san francisco. it is a very nice twist. i am proud to say that san francisco is the innovation capital of the world. and we have been dubbed the center for clean technology in the united states. our goal of reaching the zero
waste in 20/20 -- 2020 is a real goal. . companies are popping up in our city. we recently signed a memorandum of understanding in beijing with the national energy conservation center where our leader of our economic development represented our city. in agreeing to sustain and share the best practices as it relates to energy efficiency and sustainability and of course, which my good friend and our u.s. ambassador, gary locke, had washed over. not to mention that we're the home to the california institute of regenerative madison -- medicine.
mission bay is a destination for those who want to make history in by a life sciences and biotech discoveries. -- vio lifbio life scientists ad biotech discoveries. u2 -- for making that a cause for future generations and we will discover in that corridor those live science drugs that will help us end these dreadful diseases for generations to come. thank you, lieutenant governor. [applause] i wanted to welcome the delegates who come here under the leadership of the vice minister and of course in his capacity as not only the vice ministry of commerce, but also the china investment and promotion agencies and to the many companies are here in attendance, you represent that
cross-section of companies from diverse backgrounds and discipline throughout the bay area. i want to welcome you here to this great seminar to wish you a great conversation and an intelligent one, and one that hopefully will discuss the many more ways that we can not only do business, but to work together to solve the world's problems. this is what happens here in san francisco. we cannot just talk about the problems. we will try to discover ways to solve them. this is, i think, the essence of why this ministry is here today. i want to also congratulate and thank the state of california for its investment in the bay area and in our city and to know that we want to and we wish to help lead this conversation and these discoveries with our friends in china. thank you and welcome back to
the old gold mountain. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, mr. mayor. i would like to welcome our consul general of the people's republic of china. [applause] good morning, everyone. for the sake of my fellow countrymen from china i will speak in chinese. he will have to -- you will have the translation. [speaking foreign language]
[speaking foreign language]
[applause] >> thank you. i would like to invite our hon. japanese and -- hon. gavin
newsom up to the podium. >> thank you, darlene and vice minister. an honor to see you again. we had the opportunity yesterday in sacramento to visit. thank you for your stewardship and strong support of our efforts here not only in san francisco, but across the state. and to mayor lee, thank you for example, your leadership, your stewardship, and her strong support and wisdom of identifying a great leader of china sf and darlene chu, carrying the torch for the board of directors. there are a number of you assembled here and you have done an extraordinary job to demonstrate our commitment not just rhetorically but substantively in terms of engaging in defiance -- advancing our collective efforts to focus on trade and exports. to the entire team that have been at the helm for decades now, here in san francisco
supporting our efforts to reach out to china on behalf of them, dianne feinstein who established our sister city our protocol chief, i am honored to be here. a 12 take a brief moment to say a few things on behalf of the state of california. like san francisco, california has always been a state of dreamers, and doors, and entrepreneurs. a state head -- that has prided itself of being on the leading and cutting edge of new ideas. we're one of the most diversity's, san francisco is the largest per-capita chinese population of many in the united states in the most diverse state in the world's most averse democracy. the delegation will appreciate this as you walk the streets of san francisco at our best as it is across the state.
people are living and a dancing together across every conceivable and imaginable difference. i have believed the world looks to us to say it is -- if it is possible to live together across every conceivable difference. we're proud of our home and place in history and proud of our example. but we also are humble in the context of the world we're living in. a world that is another connected but hyper-connected with a merger of i.t. and globalization. we recognize our faith -- fate is connected to the fate of others. that is the spirit that binds us together. the spirit that brings us here today. i want to close by reminding you that california is the birthplace as mayor lee was saying of life science, biotech, the home of the california stem cell institute, a state with more engineers, more scientists,
more global -- nobel laureate's than any other state or we still lay claim to five of the top universities based on the shanghai index in the world. caltech, stanford university, and three of our public universities, not least of which the university is a stone's throw away. uc-berkeley campus. we're proud of the state but we also recognize we have challenges and we need to lean into the world we're living in. this today is an example of leading in and i am grateful to all of you for your participation. and vice minister, we are honored to have you out here in our state in this wonderful city and we look forward to many visits over many years. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, lieutenant governor. of course, the best for last. the hon. vice minister of
commerce to the podium, please. [applause] >> lt. governor newsom, mayor lee, counsel general, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. it is a great pleasure for me to be here to attend this seminar, " organized -- let me give a special thanks to the previous speakers who gave very warm and remarkable remarks. i would like to give special thanks to the state government of california and the municipal government of san francisco. i think without your help, this forum for the seminar will not
be realized. i also believe that through the seminar, with both sides, which will enhance our cooperation between our two sides. for many years, national corp. always is a dynamic factor -- cooperation is always a dynamic factor. and the economic and trade relations is also under way because of this dynamic factor. we believe that through all the -- this is becoming more important. china and the chinese government attaches great importance to national corp. and to state corporation and city corp. --
cooperation between the two countries. this time, i am leading a delegation consisting of 100 people. my main purpose or one of my main purposes is to promote the financial, economic and trade relations at the national level. we hope our visit or my visit this time will promote the cooperation between the industry -- ministry of commerce, the state and government of california, and the municipal government of san francisco. this time, the delegation at lead -- i lead, the people are from different places in china. they come from the ministry of commerce, from the local government, from different provinces, they come from the chamber of commerce, and the
different companies in china. we hope that through this visit, we can strengthen our corp., thus facilitating cooperation, the exchanges between the governments and the companies between the two sides. as the largest economy in the u.s., california boasts the resources and a strong advantage in high tech, bio-science, agriculture, fisheries, and the forestry, and even tourism. and in terms of cooperation with china, california enjoys exceptional economic, cultural, and geographical locations and advantages. it is always is the gateway of the united states to china.
as the economic and trade cooperation between china and the united states and california deepens, now we believe that trade and investment keeps growing. china is the third largest export destination for california. many multinationals like hp, intel, cisco, and chevron are doing well in china. they're making money in china. at the same time, as the close relationship is going on, many chinese companies are working in san francisco in california. i would like to name a few. the tsl, ciuts, just to name a few. these are successful chinese
companies working here. as the american companies in china, the chinese companies working in california in san francisco are also making contributions to job creation and the development of the economy in local areas. we're thinking these are very good signs. as the previous speakers mentioned, we paid a visit to the united states last february. governor brown proposed that we set up a working group for the u.s., a state, and china provinces to cooperate. we call this a working group, a joint working group of provinces and the states. at that time, the vire
August 4, 2012 8:00am-8:30am PDT
China 24, California 15, Gavin Newsom 3, National Corp. 2, San Francisco 2, Fremont 2, Beijing 2, Darlene 2, Brown 2, Lee 2, Malia Cohen 1, Ms. Sue Chan 1, Gary Locke 1, Tsl 1, Cisco 1, Edwin Lee 1, Chevron 1, Vio Lifbio 1, Stanford University 1, Caltech 1
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SFGTV2: San Francisco Government Television
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Speech To The National TAFE Directors’ Conference, Hotel Grand Chancellor, Hobart, Friday, 11 September 2015
When I spoke to you last year the theme of your deliberations was “Vision 20-20”. I must say that your theme this year is quite a bit more intimidating: “Inspire”!
I see that your Chair, Stephen, has defined this in the conference invitation as:
“The conference is designed to motivate delegates to be more creative and to stimulate discussion on seeing the world differently with speakers who have been tasked to goad, provoke and energise delegates.”
Ok – no small brief then!
The former TAFE teacher in me did think that, without the “defined range of contexts”, I could pretty well guarantee my ability to “goad, provoke and energise” you. I could not however guarantee the relevance and reliability of such a contribution. So instead I will just aim to provide the knowledge, with I hope some degree of skill and leave the “attitude” completely up to you.
I note that your conference yesterday opened with a conversation between Peter Noonan and Pam Christie on what could be the great leap forward for Australia’s policy on skills and that it was introduced in the program with a quote asking policy makers to “be mindful of the sometimes enervating effect of constant changes and attempts to remake the VET system.”
I wasn’t able to join you yesterday but it sounds like we are discussing a “great leap forward” by “slow and steady increments.” Having been involved in this reform process, in one role or another, since I started TAFE teaching in 1989 I assure you I have great sympathy for this sentiment.
However, the immediate horizon does not appear to offer any short-term relief.
At present the sector has several current reviews underway:
In Victoria through the VET Funding Review led by Bruce Mackenzie
In NSW the Parliament’s Legislative Committee is conducting an inquiry into vocational education and training in NSW
The Senate Education and Employment Committee has a current inquiry into the operation, regulation and funding of private vocational education and training providers
The COAG review of a proposed federal government take-over of the VET sector
I have often complained that the sector is treated like poor cousin in the education sector as it doesn’t often enough receive the focus and attention it deserves as an equal partner in the national education task with schools and universities. It now seems to be showered with attention and analysis and I welcome this and would like to share with you some of my own observations on these developments and explain Labor’s position, recently announced by Bill Shorten on National TAFE Day.
Over the last year the media has been full of stories documenting the serious issues in communities across our country with the closures of TAFEs, reductions in staffing, ever increasing course costs and unscrupulous private providers and brokers preying on vulnerable people – this must not be allowed to continue. TAFE must be backed by governments as it is critical to our future.
On National TAFE Day, Labor Leader Bill Shorten and I announced Labor’s plan to back TAFE into the future by developing a comprehensive National Priority Plan that defines the unique role of TAFE as our public provider and delivers on this by working with the states and territories to provide ongoing guaranteed TAFE funding.
We took this policy step because we are convinced that TAFE must remain an essential part of Australia’s skills and training sector as it plays a vital role in servicing our regions, industries in transition and disadvantaged groups.
As the Australian economy changes, the jobs of the future will change. Our trades will involve more technology-based skills and workers will need training in these skills to be more effective in the workplace and to remain competitive in the employment market. New trades and professions will emerge and require quality training programs and upskilling courses.
It is therefore absolutely critical that we invest in supporting our national asset – our public TAFE sector.
There are challenges in the way the vocational educational sector is funded which has led to the decline of the TAFE sector nationally. Over the last year it has become clear that there has been a failure in the market and we have seen the proliferation of opportunistic and sub-standard training providers costing the taxpayers and students millions of dollars.
Vocational students need to have access to good quality training but we need a better system in place to ensure TAFE’s viability and strength into the future.
Under Labor’s plan for TAFE, a Shorten Labor Government will work with Premiers and Chief Ministers on a comprehensive National Priority Plan that defines the unique role of TAFE and places it squarely as the public provider within the VET sector – as the cornerstone of our economy’s need to train and retrain its workforce and to deliver on improving the participation, productivity, innovation and growth efforts required for the nation.
We will work with the states and territories to rebalance the contestable and non-contestable funding model to ensure it delivers the outcomes that are intended. Labor believes there is a place for contestable funding but we must get the balance right.
The Abbott Government has been silent on TAFE and this gives me great concern in the current discussion about a federal takeover of the sector, even if States remain as the “owner” of the TAFE system.
TAFE is not just another RTO whose owner happens to be the taxpayer through the State and Territory governments.
It is, and must continue to be, part of the social and economic capital of the towns, suburbs, cities and regions it services.
It is our view that TAFE must remain an essential part of Australia’s skills and training sector as it has a broader social responsibility as a public provider to deliver government policies focused on servicing our regions, industries in transition and disadvantaged groups.
The skill needs of our economy will be challenged by digital disruption, the application of new advanced technologies, the emergence of new trades and professions, and the need for ongoing upskilling of the existing workforce. People will move more frequently between the VET and higher education sectors, indeed this relationship is already far more complex and non-linear. Whilst I acknowledge many in the private sector take great pride in doing this type of work too, I don’t believe it is viable to rely on the private sector to carry the costs or change their model to deliver government priorities.
Whilst private and not-for-profit provides will often be responsive it is only TAFE that can be directed by Government and this needs to be part of the available resources to government.
As I indicated, over the last year it has become clear that the market is not best equipped to effectively deliver the outcomes governments, employers and students need.
The fundamentals of an effective market are clearly missing and no amount of regulation, as important as it is, will change this. Labor believes the market must find stability through a predominant public provider, complemented by a quality private sector.
Labor is firmly committed to a strong TAFE sector.
We understand how critically important TAFE is to so many students, communities, industries and businesses. It is a national asset and we must work across all levels of government to ensure its future.
This brings me to the significant debate occurring around the Federation Reform process and the current consideration of a new arrangement of responsibilities. Public comments by the Minister and Assistant Minister seem to indicate a live willingness to consider a federal takeover.
Who pays, how much should they pay, who decides what’s offered and how quality is maintained – who funds, regulates and delivers vocational education and training in Australia are some of the significant and important questions facing us as a nation.
In our federal system of government one of the perennial debates that occur is around service delivery sectors that are required to respond to two government levels of funders, regulators and policy-setters – our vocational education and training system is no stranger to this debate.
The sector is large, diverse and complex, particularly in comparison to its cousins – the school and university sectors. It is often poorly understood and too often neglected because of this complexity. Federal Labor in government renewed the national focus on the sector because we understood its critical role in increasing workforce participation and enhancing national productivity.
The Reform of the Federation White Paper on the Roles and Responsibilities in education was released just before Christmas last year by the Prime Minister’s Department. It raises a concern that most jurisdictions reduced, or at best, maintained their level of VET expenditure in real terms between 2003/4 to 2012/13. However, the Commonwealth had increased its contribution in real terms by an average 1.6% per annum over the same period.
The focus for Labor during this time was two-fold. Firstly to create a national entitlement to a qualification up to a Certificate III level through the national partnerships with States and, secondly, to increase skills development of the existing workforce in partnership with employers through the co-investment programs.
We also understood the importance of using expert research to ensure the best advice was provided on the national skills task and to then provide better information to students and industry. The Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency (AWPA) was formed to bring key players across industry, unions and community together to provide this expert advice on existing skills needs and emerging skills opportunities and challenges. The work required in scanning the needs of individual industry sectors and developing training packages in response was tasked to Industry Skills Councils who formed representative boards of employers and unions from the sector. Even within industries there is significant diversity of views between stakeholders – between small and large employers, between city and rural based companies, between production and service delivery divisions as just a sample. The ISCs worked to ensure, as much as possible, that their responses provided a balanced approach between these various demands. As AWPA has been abolished and the ISCs have been de-funded by the Abbott Government the result is a significant narrowing its sources of advice to government.
The White Paper did outline a series of important questions that deserve well-researched and well-considered responses. I have already argued that we should reject the Commission of Audit’s recommendation that the Commonwealth Government abandon the VET field. The White Paper took a step back from that position. It didn’t make any specific recommendation but it does ask whether the States and Territories could better coordinate for national consistency as required without the Commonwealth’s involvement. This would only deliver a failure to address, not only current skills challenges for the nation, but also to provide effective analysis and response to future and emerging pressures and opportunities.
The White Paper also opens discussions about the funding model and its comparison with the university sector and the issue of student cost burdens. These are important areas for serious consideration. Getting the balance right, however, is not only about the funding mix between different levels of government and between government and students and employers. It must also address the interaction between funding sources and the impact on the quality and relevance of the training provided. This is why Senator Kim Carr and I requested the Auditor-General to investigate the use of VET FEE-HELP to date and we welcome his advice that it will be considered in the work schedule this year. No proposals to extend the program should even be considered before such serious review occurs. There is ample reported evidence of students being enrolled in inappropriate courses and being given misleading information on their debt already available as unscrupulous provides seek to profit from the funding system.
The work of the national regulator, ASQA, has been critically important in exposing many of these practices across the sector and it was a good decision by the previous Minister, Ian Macfarlane , to retain and increase support to the regulator. The current Minister, Simon Birmingham, has worked to see the National Standards strengthened and extended to capture more of the sub-contracted activity. But it would be a serious mistake for the government to ignore the clear need to understand and respond to the link to funding availability. As students in VET shoulder more of the cost for their education and training by utilising VET FEE-HELP it is a serious concern to protect them from shonky and misleading activity.
Many other serious questions are facing us, not all are canvassed in the White Paper: issues regarding quantity as opposed to quality in measuring program success, completion rates and workplace relevance, pathways and lifelong skills development are just some of the more pressing debates occurring in the sector.
The White Paper makes the point that our system, overall, is strong and well-regarded internationally. It should be acknowledged that much of that quality and reputation has flowed from the strength and stability of our public provider – the TAFE system. It provides the benchmark and ballast for the sector but has been under too much attack and we risk the loss of this important public asset if all governments don’t act to stem the decline and to rebuild the public provider.
Our private sector, both for profit and not-for profit, needs to be comprised of providers dedicated to quality delivery, student-focussed and employer relevant training. The shonky providers feed off and diminish all quality providers and exploit the hopes and aspirations of the students. We must not only weed them out, we also need to understand the systemic interaction between policy, funding and regulation and how they can give rise to perverse outcomes that carry a heavy cost for individuals, employers and the nation.
The White Paper poses some of the questions facing the sector but it still doesn’t come to grips with the complexity of the inter-relationships between all these factors.
In July we saw the release of the Mitchell Institute’s paper, “Feasibility and design of a tertiary education entitlement in Australia”, written by Dr Timothy Higgins and Prof Bruce Chapman. It expands on the earlier report, “Financing tertiary education in Australia – the reform imperative and rethinking student entitlements”, by Prof Peter Noonan and Sarah Pilcher. These reports follow up on the issues raised in the Reform of the Federation White Paper and I note the Institute is well represented in your conference program.
The Noonan/Pilcher paper, released in February this year, proposed one foundational aspect of the VET matrix should be “a fairer and simpler financing framework, across the different levels of government and tertiary education, that supports a tertiary education student entitlement for young Australians.” The proposal would see an entitlement for Australians aged between 18-24 and would be composed of a combination of public subsidies (by State/Territory and/or Commonwealth governments) and a student contribution through an income contingent loan.
The report considers three funding models and indicates a preference for the third option which separates responsibility between the levels of government based on the level of qualification, however, it also proposes that the Commonwealth make income contingent loans available for all qualification above (and including) Certificate III level.
Echoing the concerns I have expressed about the White Paper proposals, the Noonan/Pilcher report outlines ten specific factors that would need to be considered in setting public subsidies. These factors are just as relevant to the provision of income contingent loans as a complementary avenue of funding, particularly as many students accessing these loans are increasingly enrolled in training that does not carry a government subsidy.
The Higgins/Chapman report explores the potential cost of the extension of income contingent loans to Certificate III and IV level courses based on the measurement of the subsidy ratios that would be created given the lower graduating incomes (indeed often lifetime earnings of graduates, particularly women).
The report specifically outlines a range of risks in this model which include the “potential for intentional income manipulation in order to avoid repayments, generous loan conditions that might influence student choices and/or course providers charging excessive fees and providing poor education services”.
There can be no doubt that significant public media reporting, findings of the national regulator (ASQA) and the Victorian regulator (VRQA) give enough evidence of significant distortion of training provision as recruiters and providers manipulate student choices based on funding options with little if any regard for student capacity, course appropriateness or job market relevance.
It is this behaviour that has seen so many examples of students with very large VET FEE-HELP debts with poor quality qualifications not well-regarded in the industry sector or, even worse, no qualification at all.
While the two Mitchell Institute reports are valuable and important to the national discussion of the VET sector I do not believe that it is wise to further such considerations without a full and evidence-based understanding of the current state of use of VET FEE-HELP. Given its massive growth over recent years, in particular by the private sector, it should not be extended further without this level of rigour in assessing its growth and impact on outcomes.
Both Mitchell Institute reviews envisage a model where government subsidy comprises part of the funding model and it is true on evidence to date that such an arrangement, with a tie to course cost controls, can act as a break on unsustainable growth in the use of ICLs. However, it appears that a significant number of providers have bypassed this by moving into the full fee paying space where it is clear that course costs have skyrocketed and the evidence would appear to prove that the students in this market are not price sensitive as they are not well-informed on the value of the course, the reality of the debt they are undertaking or the alternatives available from the “competition”.
This is one of the reasons that Labor believes that a strong and dominant public provider is essential in the sector to provide the benchmark for quality and cost. Although there is real concern about the increased cost of TAFE courses in various states, they still provide an important comparison point that would not be available if public provision was not available in particular regions or for particular industry sectors. Many of the submissions to the Senate inquiry have used examples of exorbitant costs being charged in the private sector in comparison to TAFE courses.
It is also most important that a better consideration of the impacts of funding mechanisms on the quality of VET provision occurs before decisions are made on complete restructuring of the arrangements in this sector. Federal government changes over recent months to standards and regulation are welcome but a more sophisticated analysis of the market is necessary and must consider the movement between government and non-government subsidised training that can result from the decision to move more funding responsibility to the student.
Whilst taxpayer funding of subsidies of all types in the sector is critical for ensuring the outcomes of training match both the individual’s aspirations and the national skill needs, I would argue there is an equal responsibility on government to ensure students undertaking full fee-paying options using both upfront payments and income contingent loans are also able to meet their aspirations. This part of the market also has a direct impact on the national skills task.
These two reports from the Mitchell Institute are welcome and important contributions to the debate. They certainly provoke debate but it is my strong view that more evidence-based analysis is critical before we move to any further significant structural change.
For this reason I welcome the fact that the federal government has continued the implementation of the Unique Student Identifier as it will enable a much more indepth and nuanced understanding of the sector.
I thank you for the opportunity to join you again this year and look forward to the outcomes of your deliberations – especially as we are likely to face a federal election before you gather again next year.
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Today, as I embark on an out of town trip, it seemed like a good idea to highlight some of my favorite records to listen to while on the long road, wherever you may be going. This list isn’t as easy to make as you’d think. Some records are excellent, but many don't translate to long listens while cruising. It’s just that simple. These five records aren’t just some of my favorite of all time. They lend themselves perfectly to fun, being free, and sometimes epic car sing-alongs. I hope you enjoy, and hopefully next time you take a long trip you can jam some of these!
Arcade Fire, Suburbs
Maybe it’s the length of the record, or the fact that many songs talk about roads being constructed and torn down, but this album has always struck me as perfect driving music. It has it’s high intensity moments, like the breakneck pace of “Month of May,” but it also has it’s slow and steady moments like “The Suburbs” and the closer “Suburbs II.” The album has everything you could want, and it molds itself to losing yourself on a highway, as you reminisce about being a teenager driving all over the city with your friends, with the road as well as your life right in front of you for the taking.
the Avalanches, Since I Left You
For years I wanted to make a short film set to this record. The basic idea was to involve a grand-prix style race through treacherous mountains and vivid imagery in the background Obviously that never occurred, but I still love this album as a whole. Another one you can lose yourself to, it’s perfect for the highway because it’s varied in style, and the free flow of music and very short breaks into songs make it quick and simple to get into it. An album perfect for driving is one that allows you to forget your problems and also not be concerned about what track number you’re on. “Since I Left You,” the sole album by the Avalanches, is such an album, and perfect for a early afternoon drive through gorgeous scenery.
the Beatles, One
I’m well aware this is a record made up of “Hits,” but it makes the list for one very specific reason. Years ago I hated my job at a car dealership. It was just terrible in every way, but quite often I was allowed to go on errands. Still I was able to bring customers to and from if they needed to get somewhere. Having this record in the car not only helped my sanity and likely kept me from blowing that place up, but every customer I drove around loved hearing this record. That’s when I realized how universal this band actually was, and how much people of all walks of life love this incredibly perfect band.
Queens of the Stone Age, Songs for the Deaf
This list wouldn’t even exist if not for this record. These other four are merely other albums that fit the mold, but I would’ve never gotten the idea if not for this record. “Songs for the Deaf” starts inside of a car, and as we navigate in a perpetual drunken or drug induced haze, we encounter many oddball radio stations in the valley. The album is easily the heaviest on the list, but it’s also one of the best. Songs like the opener “You don’t think I’m worth a dollar but I feel like a Millionaire,” pivel drive like a car with the spirit of Satan, while a track like “the Sky is Falling” is perfect for having the windows down and the cool desert air in your hair and wiping through the car as you dive deeper into the unknown.
Jay Z & Kanye West, Watch the Throne
Every now and down you need some bounce in your car, whether you’re traveling hundreds of miles or just a quick around town. This monster of a rap album, featuring two of the best MC’s of the last 20 years is perfect for throwing down in the car. “Niggas In Paris,” is a classic from the first seconds, while “Otis” blows away and lights up the night sky. “No Church in the Wild,” also serves as a good mid tempo sailing song. The one rap record to make the list has to be a special one, and between Kanye and Jay they managed to make not only an all around great record, but one that so easy to sing and dance to as you pass up every slow car on your way to funtown.
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Publicis GroupePosted 10 months ago under Bias, Fake News
Publicis Groupe is one of the biggest communications groups in the world, coming in third in Europe and fourth in the U.S. In 2017, the group earned more than $10.9 billion from its different subsidiaries, which include Saatchi & Saatchi, Leo Burnett, Digitas, and Performics.
The company began in 1926 when founder Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet decided to set up the fourth advertising agency in France’s history. It was soon regarded as one of the most modern advertising agencies in France, and by the 1980s, Publicis had expanded its operations to an international scale, starting from other European countries to the U.S. and then to Latin America. The company now operates in more than 100 countries and with over 80,000 employees.
To maintain its effective operations, Publicis Groupe divided itself into four major solution hubs: Publicis Communications, Publicis Sapient, Publicis Media, and Publicis Health. Their business model allows their subsidiaries to exist while sharing a common operational backbone that gives them access to all solution hubs so that they can “compete and win in new world markets.”
Publicis Groupe works with top pharmaceutical companies like Eli Lilly, Merck, Pfizer, and Bayer/Monsanto, as well as food corporations like Starbucks, McDonald’s, Kraft Heinz, and Burger King. However, its services aren’t just offered to businesses. They also work with governments, such as those of Australia and Saudi Arabia.
Publicis Groupe’s public relations work for Saudi Arabia
In its many years in business, Publicis Groupe has already been involved in numerous controversies. One of the company’s subsidiaries, Qorvis, received a lot of backlash in 2017 when it was revealed that Saudi Arabia had been paying them to recruit and exploit military veterans to encourage Congress to make amendments to the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) of the U.S The compensation that they received included luxurious all-expense paid trips, including a stay at the Trump International Hotel which costs approximately $500 per night.
According to the veterans who were contacted for this purpose, they were not informed as to who were behind the trip and what they were expected to tell the Congress. Moreover, there is evidence that in order to convince the veterans of participating, they were made to believe that if other countries passed laws similar to the JASTA, individual military service members can be sued in foreign courts.
This was just the latest development in the relationship between Qorvis and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Back in 2002, the company already received more than $14 million from the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia for their public relations work that counters accusations regarding their possible involvement and lack of action against terrorism. This happened right after the September 11 terrorist attacks, which put the Middle East at the center of many U.S. foreign policies. To achieve this, the company practiced some other questionable tactics like running pro-Saudi advertisements, which were supposedly from an activist group called Alliance for Peace and Justice.
In addition, Saudi Arabia also employed the help of Qorvis between 2010 to 2015, to whitewash the kingdom’s image in the U.S. This was a critical move since it was during this time that Saudi launched its devastating war against Yemen, which the United Nations calls as the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis.” A report published on The Intercept, revealed that in order to promote the war, Qorvis created the website OperationRenewalOfHope.com and “researched potential grassroots supporters in select states.”
Publicis Groupe’s relationship with Google
Over the years, Publicis Groupe has forged a solid partnership with tech giant Google, which has become an important player in the digital advertising business. The clients of Publicis can be attributed for a huge portion of the revenue that Google earns purely on display. However, a report published in TechCrunch revealed that the reason why Publicis is constantly pushing millions of advertising dollars through Google is because they have a setup that allows for kickbacks or rebates.
Kurt Unkel, who was at that time the Senior Vice President of Publicis’ digital arm, Vivaki, denied these allegations, claiming that what they have is “a strategic partnership” and that they are not accepting from Google, adding that “that is illegal in the U.S.”
On the other hand, a Google spokesperson admitted that there are incentives, which fall along the lines of investing in the trading platform, co-marketing, and training if the agency hits specific milestones. However, they claim that “there is no commission being paid,” implying that there are payments but they are framed differently. TechCrunch claims that this is because direct rebates can raise “antitrust concerns” regarding Google’s market share in display advertising.
In 2013, Google signed a $100 million deal with DigitasLBi and Razorfish, which are digital agencies under Publicis Groupe, for advertising on Google’s banner and mobile advertising networks. This also extends to sites like Google Plus, Hangouts, and YouTube. Through this deal, Publicis was able to acquire advertising inventory at a discount, which gives them the scale and savings that television ads offer.
La Maison is another display of the strong relationship between Google and Publicis Groupe. This marketing service was established by the two companies along with Conde Nast in 2014 to produce better content for the luxury market. In this project, Publicis will be working hand in hand with Google to collect data on consumer trends while Conde Nast is responsible for providing clients with advice on what type of content the consumers want.
In 2017, many companies started to cut their ties with Google since their advertisements were appearing in YouTube videos with “unsavory” content that they do not want to be associated with. This problem resulted from the inability of Google to check all of its content before ads appear alongside them. Some brands that pulled out their advertisements from Google include HSBC, McDonald’s, L’Oreal, Audi, and the BBC. This issue also caused Publicis Groupe to reconsider its relationship with the company.
A report published in The Guardian revealed that extremists and hate preachers have earned more than $318,000 from these ads. The Egyptian-Qatari Salafi Muslim preacher Wagdi Ghoneim, who is banned from the U.K. due to terrorist concerns, was one of those who benefited from this. He reportedly gained approximately $78,000 from ads in his anti-western propaganda videos. However, Google claimed that the extremists only gained “tens of pounds,” without showing any revenue reports.
Involvement with NewsGuard
In 2018, Steven Brill and Louis Gordon Crovitz founded the news rating agency NewsGuard with the help of their investors. Since then, NewsGuard has acquired more than $6 million from 16 investors, with Publicis Groupe being one of its major contributors, coming in just after its founders. This agency claims to help stop fake news from spreading with the help of journalists who will “operate under a transparent, accountable process” to review 7,500 news and information websites.
Some of NewsGuard’s ratings have already received criticisms due to their obvious bias. For example, the Voice of America, which is funded by the U.S. government, has been given good ratings even if it was reformed to “provide news that supports our [U.S.] national security objectives,” which makes it more like a propaganda device. Meanwhile, RT received a red rating for supposedly raising doubts about the U.S. government and its allies.
This bias could have resulted from the conflict between what the agency claims to do and the interests of the people behind it since NewsGuard appears to have connections with the U.S. government, neoconservatives, and powerful moneyed interests, such as Publicis Groupe and its powerful clients. This could affect how NewsGuard rates websites that are credible but produce bad publicity for such clients.
“Given its political positions and who is funding it, my fear is that NewsGuard will have the effect of discrediting good-quality independent media while bolstering the most powerful corporate outlets,” said Alan MacLeod of the Glasgow University Media Group, who researches and writes on propaganda and fake news.
However, co-founder Brill claims that NewsGuard’s relationship with Publicis and its subsidiaries should not make people worry, claiming that “Publicis has nothing to do with the content or operations of NewsGuard and has a small stake in the company.” Brill also said that he and Crovitz have controlling interest over the company. Unfortunately, this doesn’t make things any better since Crovitz has been associated with neoconservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), which played a pivotal role in the Iraq war. Moreover, Crovitz has been accused – on numerous instances – of presenting false information in his articles during his time as a journalist for the Wall Street Journal.
A quick look at NewsGuard’s advisory board also casts more doubt on the intentions of the company. It includes Tom Ridge, Secretary of Homeland Security during Bush’s administration, Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA) Director Michael Hayden, and PBS Chairman Don Baer. Former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Richard Stengel, a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and self-proclaimed “chief propagandist,” also belongs to NewsGuard’s board of advisers.
ReferenceForBusiness.com
PublicisGroupe.com
MintPressNews.com 1
RT.com
TheIntercept.com
AdWeek.com
BusinessInsider.com
TheDrum.com
Digital22.com
SputnikNews.com
Tags: bias, fake news, Google, information technology, neoconservatives, NewsGuard, propaganda, Publicis Groupe, tech giants, think tanks, TruthWiki
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Conan Doyle, A. (1914) Danger! and Other Stories
Arthur Conan Doyle (1914) Danger! and Other Stories, Strand Magazine July 1914
It is an amazing thing that the English, who have the reputation of being a practical nation, never saw the danger to which they were exposed. For many years they had been spending nearly a hundred millions a year upon their army and their fleet. Squadrons of Dread- noughts costing two millions each had been launched. They had spent enormous sums upon cruisers, and both their torpedo and their sub- marine squadrons were exceptionally strong. They were also by no means weak in their aerial power, especially in the matter of hydroplanes. Besides all this, their army was very efficient, in spite of its limited numbers, and it was the most expensive in Europe. Yet when the day of trial came, all this imposing force was of no use whatever, and might as well have not existed. Their ruin could not have been more complete or more rapid if they had not possessed an ironclad or a regiment. And all this was accomplished by me, Captain John Sirius, belonging to the navy of one of the smallest Powers in Europe, and having under my command a flotilla of eight vessels, the collective cost of which was eighteen hundred thousand pounds. No one has a better right to tell the story than I. [Chapter 1]
BBC News Magazine http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28954510
A century ago Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a short story about the threat of starvation in Britain – caused by enemy submarines – and the need for a Channel Tunnel. Was his bleak vision justified? He’s best remembered for Sherlock Holmes, but 100 years ago Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published a very different kind of story. “Danger! Being the log of Captain John Sirius” appeared in the July 1914 issue of The Strand magazine. It envisaged Britain being starved into submission by eight enemy submarines. The underwater menace came from the fictional country of Norland but was a thinly veiled reference to Germany’s naval power.
Description: (Wikipedia)
Danger! And Other Stories (1918) was a collection of short stories published by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
The collection’s title story, “Danger!”, was written eighteen months before the outbreak of World War I. First published in the Strand Magazine in July 1914,[1] it was based on an imaginary country in Europe fighting – and defeating – Britain and intended to direct public attention to the great danger (submarines) which threatened the country. The story describes how Britain is in need of getting up to date in its naval preparations. A small country in Europe (Norland) has been fighting England, and is now invaded by an English army. However the small country has a naval flotilla of submarines under Captain John Sirius. Sirius uses his submarines to lay a naval blockade around the British Isles, so that no supplies can be landed. The result is that the British start suffering famine. However some of the submarines are sunk. The British are congratulating themselves, when Sirius, waiting outside of Liverpool, purposely torpedoes a large White Star liner. The British end up surrendering.
The story correctly anticipated the U-boat strategy which would be used by Germany in both World Wars – i.e. to target ships bringing the foodstuffs which Britain was not able provide on its own soil. As would be confirmed by the events, the story forecast that for this strategy to be effective, the attackers would need to also target American ships bringing supplies to Britain – even at the price of violating International Law – and that the British would be forced to introduce rationing among their population.[citation needed]
At the time there were plenty of popular writings about England facing Germany in an upcoming war. The best remembered are The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers, and When William Came by “Saki”. Doyle’s story is another example of this genre of invasion literature. Ironically, its conclusion was to mirror the fate of the Cunard liner Lusitania two years later.
Doyle uses a particular stylistic technique to evoke emotion in British readers, making them more receptive to the writer’s warnings: the first person narration by the victorious enemy commander, full of gloating and condensation towards the “stupid” Britons.
Norland is depicted as a North European country, with a shore on the North Sea. It seems to be linguistically Germanic – “Norrland” and “Nordland” are respectively the names of a region in Sweden and a country in Norway, and Norland’s main port is Blankenberg, the name of several actual German cities. It is, however, not Germany, which is mentioned as neutral in the war, though Germans are rather sympathetic to Norland’s cause. Norland has a colonial empire, and a border dispute with a British colony, exacerbated by the death of two missionaries, is the direct cause of the war. Norland is a monarchy where the Monarch seems to retain actual executive power; the crucial policy meeting in which it is resolved to defy a British ultimatum and embark on submarine warfare is attended by the King, the Foreign Secretary, an Admiral and Captain Sirius of the submarines – with a Prime Minister being conspicuously absent.
WHAT NAVAL EXPERTS THINK. (From The Strand Magazine)
Proofs of this striking piece of fiction submitted to a number of naval experts, who were invited to state their view. on the points raised in the story. As a result we are able to give the opinions of several well-known admirals, as well as a number of writers recognised as authorities on naval subjects with notes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
ADMIRAL LORD CHARLES BERESFORD.
We have done something to meet the dangers to our food supplies by arming some of our merchantmen, but we shall never be really secure until we have installed granaries in the country.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s story will bring this important question well to the front.
Mr. FRANK T. BULLEN, the well-known the writer of sea stories.
You ask me if this could come true. I should say certainly yes—not only could it, but it is eminentlv probable.
ADMIRAL SIR ALGERNON DE HORSEY. KC.B.
This story contains a very interesting but, as most would say, fantastic account of an imaginary war which, however improbable the result may appear, is deserving of close examination.
I have never wavered in my opinion that a sufficient land force and provision for maintaining a supply of food in war are absolutely necessary, and that, if these requirements are not provided, our existence as a nation remains at stake. Lord Haldane, when Secretary of State for War, stated that ” All the foreigner had got to do was to cut off our food supply.” Our position was rightly compared, by the late Sir John Colomb in Parliament, to that of ” An unvictualled ocean citadel.”
In writing to the Press have ever claimed the absolute importance of food supply, and I have repeatedly suggested one of the three following courses
(1.) The establishment of granaries to maintain always a three months’ supply of grain.
(2.)The encouragement of farmers always to keep their harvest in rick for one year.
(3.) To induce at least double the present area of wheat cultivation by a tax on foreign supplies.
Failing provision of food for our people, we continue to run a deadly risk of ceasing to exist as an Empire and the loss of all our Colonies.
ADMIRAL SIR COMPTON DOMVILE. KC.B.
Having read with much interest Sir A. Conan Doyle’s story, I am compelled to say that I think it most improbable, and more like one of Jules Verne’s stories than any other author I know—that a submarine could keep the sea alone for that length of time without replenishing the oil fuel and other necessaries which are usually carried in a depot ship, whose presence would make these depredations impossible. Another point is that if we were engaged in a war with one of the Eastern Powers, the Thames would not be used for receiving supplies.
Ships from the west would probably use Milford Haven, a fortified port with narrow entrance, strong tides, and dangerous rocks at the entrance which would make submarine work more difficult ; and ships from the south would probably use Plymouth. As to keeping the railroad open through France and a tunnel. in order to feed the country, this would probably involve France in war. I have no doubt a tunnel could be more easily destroyed than the number of food-ships described in this story.
Submarines have no doubt been much improved in recent years, and their radius of action much greater than formerly, as was proved in the recent manoeuvres, but I am afraid they are not yet capable of the wonderful performances described in this article.*
* [The story deals with the submarine of the immediate future.—A. C. D.]
Wood, W. (1905) Submarined
Jane, F.T. (1895), Blake of the “Rattlesake”
Burton, F. G. (1896), The Naval Engineer And The Command Of The Sea
Eastwick, J. (1895) The New Centurion
Arnold-Forster, H.O. (1888) In a Conning Tower
Posted by: Derek // Conan Doyle, Naval Warfare, Submarine Warfare, Unspecified Enemy // September 30, 2014
← Colomb, Admiral P. H. (1892) The War of 189- Griffith, G. (1894) Olga Romanoff / The Syren of the Skies →
Wood, W. (1905) Submarined Jane, F.T. (1895), Blake of the “Rattlesake” Burton, F. G. (1896), The Naval Engineer And The Command Of The Sea Eastwick, J. (1895) The New Centurion Arnold-Forster, H.O. (1888) In a Conning Tower
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The Commie Revolution Thread
Thread: The Commie Revolution Thread
Slave Region 10
I don't think this is going away; violence is a Commie's best friend:
Marchers Chant 'Kill the Police' During Anti-Trump Protest
By Rick Moran November 13, 2016
chat 41 comments
(AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
Seven people were arrested at a protest march in Indianapolis as demonstrators threw rocks at officers and chanted "Kill the police." The crowd also chanted "Love trumps hate."
Nothing quite says "Love trumps hate" like threatening to kill police, eh?
Three of those arrested were not from Indianapolis, say authorities.
Indianapolis Star:
The protest that started at the Statehouse was mostly peaceful until later in the evening when police used what appeared to be a pepper gun on some protesters walking in the street.After rallying at the Statehouse and walking towards the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, the group splintered in two. On Facebook, the rally was set to end at 8 p.m., but a sizable portion of people continued to march, and police began asking protesters to get on the sidewalks around that time.
One group stopped at the corner of Washington and Illinois streets. The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said at that point, protesters started chanting threats, such as, "Kill the police."
Police decided to arrest two of the instigators. That's when police said some protesters started throwing rocks at officers. IMPD Chief Troy Riggs said they received reports of protesters who had brought backpacks full of rocks. Around that time, police fired their non-lethal weapon.
People responded in anger with chants of, "Black lives matter" and "Hands up, don't shoot." Half an hour later the crowd started to disperse.
Later five more arrests were made. Police also said there was no property damage.
About 500 people initially gathered peacefully at the Statehouse at 5 p.m., alternating between chanting and giving impassioned speeches, in protest of the election of Donald Trump.
After a couple of hours, the protesters marched through Downtown and around the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. Police officers blocked traffic in response throughout the Downtown area.
"We wanted to make sure their first amendment rights were protected, even to the point where we shut down traffic,"Riggs said.
Though the march turned violent temporarily, most of the night was peaceful.
If they arrested three outsiders, you know there had to be more. And I believe that if you look at the protests across the country, you will see a lot of out-of-town protesters.
The question is, are they being sent in to foment violence? I have no doubt the vast majority of protesters are peaceful, if not a little muddle-headed. But a mob can turn violent in a flash if professional agitators move them in that direction.
Any time Black Lives Matter is involved in a protest, that scenario must be considered.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
"You think a wall as solid as the earth separates civilisation from barbarism. I tell you the division is a sheet of glass."
John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir of Enfield (1875-1940): Author and Diplomat
Anti-Trump Protester Holds 'Rape Melania' Sign
By Tyler O'Neil November 13, 2016
Twitter screenshot of Hillary protester holding a "Rape Melania" sign.
While many reports of hate crimes against minorities and immigrants have proven to be hoaxes, one Slovenian immigrant was targeted in an anti-Trump protest in Washington, D.C., Saturday night.
A man protesting the election of President-elect Donald Trump held up a sign saying "Rape Melania," a reference to Trump's wife, a legal immigrant from Slovenia.
The man had gathered with other anti-Trump protesters in front of the new Trump hotel in Washington, D.C., which opened on Pennsylvania Avenue at the site of the Old Post Office building. The protester holding the sign reportedly fled when confronted by the lone Trump supporter in the crowd.
This anonymous protester's response to the election signals a clear contrast with that of the Slovenian prime minister, Dr. Miro Cerar. "Of course I am very happy that Slovenia was part of this election with our Melania Trump becoming the First Lady of the United States," Cerar wrote in a statement Wednesday. "I am sure that the president-elect already knows a lot about Slovenia."
As Riots Continue President Obama Schedules a Press Conference Monday 3:15pm…
Posted on November 13, 2016 by sundance
The riots and protests coordinated by the White House and professional left-wing organizations continue through day #5.
However, despite the MSM trying to attach responsibility to Trump, their intended purpose -to protect the Obama/Clinton legacy- is not yielding the desired results. More and more people are looking toward the White House silence and beginning to understand the manipulative ideological intents of the professional antagonism.
President Obama is about to depart for Europe (Greece) and Peru (APEC summit) on his last foreign travel assignment. Allowing President-Elect Trump to own the domestic media narrative under these circumstances is entirely too politically dangerous:
President-Elect Trump has effectively leveraged silence, and as a consequence forced President Obama to own the riots and protests. Anticipate Obama’s attempt to distance himself from the violence of his own creation tomorrow afternoon.
The Communists Behind the Anti-Trump Protests
The post-election demonstrations against Trump are being orchestrated by socialists and Marxists.
John Perazzo
Ever since Donald Trump's election victory Tuesday night, the media have been abuzz with stories about massive, sometimes violent, anti-Trump protests breaking out in cities all across the country. We've been told that ordinary Americans everywhere are so frightened and angered by the prospect of a Trump presidency—as opposed to a Hillary Clinton presidency—that they're taking to the streets to express their grave concerns for the future of the country.
In Chicago, for instance, thousands of people held an “emergency protest” outside a Trump hotel, chanting: “No Trump, No KKK, No Fascist USA!”
In New York, some 5,000 people (including the political oracle Lady Gaga) demonstrated outside Trump Tower. “Their concerns,” said CNN, “ranged from policies, such as Trump's proposed plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, to the polarizing tenor of his campaign that they say stoked xenophobic fears.”
In Oakland, some of the 7,000+ demonstrators damaged police cars, vandalized businesses, hurled Molotov cocktails and rocks at law-enforcement officers, and started at least 40 separate fires.
And in Los Angeles, more than 1,000 people filled the streets, burned Trump in effigy, and sang John Lennon's Give Peace a Chance. “Several protesters said they feared that family or friends might be deported once Trump takes office,” said CNN.
From reading the various mainstream media accounts of these events, one comes away with the distinct impression that they are grassroots actions that began organically among ordinary, concerned, well-meaning citizens.
But alas, if one were to think that, one would be wrong.
Contrary to media misrepresentations, many of the supposedly spontaneous, organic, anti-Trump protests we have witnessed in cities from coast to coast were in fact carefully planned and orchestrated, in advance, by a pro-Communist organization called the ANSWER Coalition, which draws its name from the acronym for “Act Now to Stop War and End Racism.” ANSWER was established in 2001 by Ramsey Clark’s International Action Center, a group staffed in large part by members of the Marxist-Leninist Workers World Party. In 2002, the libertarian author Stephen Suleyman Schwartz described ANSWER as an “ultra-Stalinist network” whose members served as “active propaganda agents for Serbia, Iraq, and North Korea, as well as Cuba, countries they repeatedly visit and acclaim.”
Since its inception, ANSWER has consistently depicted the United States as a racist, sexist, imperialistic, militaristic nation guilty of unspeakable crimes against humanity—in other words, a wellspring of pure evil. When ANSWER became a leading organizer of the massive post-9/11 demonstrations against the Patriot Act and the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, it formed alliances with other likeminded entities such as Not In Our Name (a project of the Revolutionary Communist Party) and United For Peace and Justice (a pro-Castro group devoted to smearing America as a cesspool of bigotry and oppression).
Another key organizer of the current anti-Trump protests is a group called Socialist Alternative, which describes “the global capitalist system” as “the root cause of … poverty, discrimination, war, and environmental destruction.” Explaining that “the dictatorships that existed in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were [unfortunate] perversions of what socialism is really about,” this organization calls for a happy-faced “democratic socialism where ordinary people will have control over our daily lives.”
And, lo and behold, many components of Socialist Alternative's agenda mesh seamlessly with Hillary Clinton's political priorities. For instance, Socialist Alternative seeks to: (a) “raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, as a step toward a living wage for all”; (b) provide “free [taxpayer-funded] … public education for all from pre-school through college”; (c) create “a publicly funded single-payer [healthcare] system as a step towards fully socialized medicine”; (d) impose absolutely “no budget cuts [on] education and social services”; and (e) legislate “a major increase in taxes on the rich and big business.”
In short, the anti-Trump protests that are currently making headlines are 100% contrived, fake, phony exhibitions of street theater, orchestrated entirely by radicals and revolutionaries whose chief objective is to push America ever farther to the political left. Moreover, they seek to utterly demoralize conservatives into believing that public opposition to their own (conservative) political and social values is growing more powerful, more passionate, and more widespread with each passing day.
The bottom line is this: The leaders and organizers of the anti-Trump protests that are currently making so much noise in cities across America, are faithfully following the blueprint of Hillary Clinton's famous mentor, Saul Alinsky, who urged radical activists to periodically stage loud, defiant, massive protest rallies expressing rage and discontent. Such demonstrations are designed to give onlookers the impression that a mass movement is preparing to shift into high gear, and that its present size is but a fraction of what it eventually will become. A “mass impression,” said Alinsky, can be lasting and intimidating: “Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.... The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
And that is precisely what we are witnessing at the moment.
Opponents to Donald Trump’s presidency are planning large-scale demonstrations in the nation’s capital in January when the Republican president-elect is sworn in on Inauguration Day, with police apparently expecting tens-of-thousands of protesters.
Trump’s surprise win Tuesday over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton has already sparked smaller protests across the county. However, demonstrations being planned for Inauguration Day weekend, which includes the Jan. 20 swearing-in on Capitol Hill, have the potential to be much larger.
The group’s Facebook page announcing its “Protest at the Inauguration: Stand Against Trump, War, Racism and Inequality" event on Saturday showed that nearly 7,000 people have already committed to attending and 24,000 more have expressing interest in the event.
A Metropolitan Police Department officer said Friday that officers have already been briefed about the proposed demonstration and to prepare for at least 30,000 protesters.
An MPD spokesman on Saturday declined to discuss the matter, saying the agency doesn’t talk about “deploying resources.”
Predictions Map
See the Fox News 2016 battleground prediction map and make your own election projections. See Predictions Map →
He also suggested that the event was too far off to provide specifics but added the agency will “plan accordingly.”
And a pro-Clinton group named “RoaRR 4 Hillary” is planning a “Million Women March” on Jan. 21.
ANSWER, started roughly 15 years ago, after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, and has the potential to attract hundreds of thousands of protesters.
In January 2013, the group led an antiwar protest that it says brought 200,000 people to Washington, D.C. And two months later, ANSWER helped organize a similar worldwide event that is considered the biggest anti-war protest in history.
Trump was criticized during his historic outsider campaign for comments about women and illegal Mexican immigrants and for his proposal after recent terror attacks connected to radical Islamists to temporarily ban Muslims trying to enter the United States.
Already this week, a man was shot in Portland, Oregon, when he got into a confrontation with a protester.
Portland police said the person who was shot was taken to a hospital for treatment of injuries that were not life-threatening. Police said they were looking for the shooter, who apparently fled in his vehicle after the attack early Saturday morning.
The shooting followed rowdy Friday night protests, when police used tear gas in response to "burning projectiles" thrown at officers, police said on Twitter. Hundreds of people marched through the city, disrupting traffic and spray-painting graffiti.
Authorities reported instances of vandalism and assault during a rally that organizers had billed as peaceful earlier in the day.
In other parts of the country, spirited demonstrations on college campuses and peaceful marches along downtown streets have taken place since Wednesday. In Washington, protesters burn at least one U.S. flag, which resulted in confrontation with a military veteran.
And people continue to protest at Trump’s new luxury hotel in Washington, Trump International, just blocks from the White House.
A mainly peaceful protest by about 3,000 people ended in Los Angeles early Saturday with about 200 arrests for failure to disperse after police broke up the lingering demonstration.
Hundreds joined a Friday afternoon "love rally" in Washington Square Park in Manhattan.
Evening marches disrupted traffic in Miami and Atlanta.
Trump supporter Nicolas Quirico was traveling from South Beach to Miami. His car was among hundreds stopped when protesters blocked Interstate 395.
"Trump will be our president. There is no way around that, and the sooner people grasp that, the better off we will be," he said. "There is a difference between a peaceful protest and standing in a major highway backing up traffic for 5 miles. This is wrong."
More than a thousand protesters took to the streets across California after night fell including downtown Los Angeles, where over 200 were arrested a night earlier. In Bakersfield, where Trump is far more popular than in most of the state, some held signs reading "Anti-Trump, Pro-USA."
Small protests also were held in Detroit; Minneapolis; Kansas City, Missouri; Olympia, Washington and Iowa City.
More than 200 people, carrying signs gathered on the steps of the Washington state Capitol. The group chanted "not my president" and "no Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA."
In Tennessee, Vanderbilt University students sang civil rights songs and marched through campus across a Nashville street, temporarily blocking traffic. A protest also occurred in Minneapolis.
In Chicago, multiple groups planned protests through Saturday.
Ashley Lynne Nagel, 27, said she joined a Thursday night demonstration in Denver.
"I have a leader I fear for the first time in my life," said Nagel, a Bernie Sanders supporter who voted for Hillary Clinton.
"It's not that we're sore losers," she said. "It's that we are genuinely upset, angry, terrified that a platform based off of racism, xenophobia and homophobia has become so powerful and now has complete control of our representation."
Demonstrations also were planned Saturday in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and other areas.
Previous demonstrations drew thousands of people in New York and other large urban centers. The largely peaceful demonstrations were overshadowed by sporadic episodes of vandalism, violence and street-blocking.
The Associated Press contributed to this
Propaganda: Is white rage here to stay?
http://www.npr.org/2016/11/11/501728...e-here-to-stay
Soros and Other Far Leftists Instigate Revolution Against Trump
Soros believes his vision of an “open society” trumps self-government.
Joseph Klein
166Share to Print
George Soros and other left wing advocates are seeking to foment a “Purple Revolution” against those who dared to reject their preferred presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and vote instead for President-elect Donald Trump. After all, Soros alone is reported to have “committed $25 million dollars to the 2016 campaign of Hillary Clinton,” and refuses to accept that his investment was wasted. What’s a few hundred million more to pay for imposing his preferred result through civil unrest rather than through the ballot box? As Zero Hedge explains, “The Purple Revolution will…seek to make the Trump administration a short one through Soros-style street protests and political disruption.”
Left wing groups, some supported by Soros, are even paying protesters to take part in disruptive demonstrations.
Of course, Soros is doing his best to keep his fingerprints off the protests, as a hedge in the event that violence continues to spread. “George Soros is not funding these (anti Trump) protests,” Soros spokesperson Michael Vachon said in an interview. “This is a fiction promoted by the alt-right.”
The problem for the Soros shadow government network is that it has a long established blueprint abroad for the kind of disruptive organized actions it appears to be supporting in the United States. Soros has plenty of history in disrupting economies (recall Soros’ “break the Bank of England”) and undermining governments in countries whose citizens’ democratically elected choices he opposes (Poland, for example).
Soros has supported mass refugee migration to Europe, which he would like to see occur in the United States as well. As Breitbart reported last November, “A group masquerading as conservative but backed by left-wing foundations including billionaire George Soros’s Foundation to Promote Open Society (FPOS) has launched an online advertising campaign in defense of bringing Syrian refugees to the United States.” This reportedly followed criticism by Donald Trump and others of plans to expand the admission of Syrian refugees into the United States.
Aside from his own Open Society Foundation, Soros has funded numerous left wing organizations in the United States, ranging from Media Matters to Moveon.org. They collaborate with each other and with other left wing groups such as Black Lives Matter. Indeed, Soros donated $100,000 in 2011 to the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, which is run by the co-creator of Black Lives Matter.
Even well before the presidential election, Soros was busy behind the scenes fomenting combustible street protests that burst out of control. For example, the Washington Times has reported that “Mr. Soros gave at least $33 million in one year to support already-established groups that emboldened the grass-roots, on-the-ground activists in Ferguson, according to the most recent tax filings of his nonprofit Open Society Foundations.”
Soros is anti-police. He tweeted a reference to an article published by his Open Society Foundations, entitled “Let’s Reduce, Not Reform, Policing in America.” The author described policing as “the armed enforcement of the interests of the most powerful over those who would challenge that power.” Her proposed solution was not better police training or accountability, but simply to “shrink the size and scope of police forces, reduce the number of gadgets at cops’ disposal, and constrain their ability to ensnare us.” Without adequate police to prevent or constrain riots, protesters will have free rein to intimidate those whom they see as their political enemies.
Thus it is no surprise that disruptions at Trump rallies during the presidential campaign have been attributed at least in part to supporters of Hillary Clinton, “paid for mostly by George Soros and MoveOn.org and pushed by David Brock at Media Matters for America.”
Now that Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States, the “Purple Revolution” is the next step for Soros-funded groups and other far left organizations to pursue.
Soros’s Moveon.org is one of the leading organizers of the anti-Trump protests streaming through cities across the country. “This is a disaster. We fought our hearts out to avert this reality. But now it’s here,” MoveOn.org staff wrote to members the day after the election. Such “a disaster” must be resisted, even before Donald Trump takes office and makes his first presidential decision. In a press release issued shortly after the election, Moveon.org boasted that within two hours of “the call-to-action, MoveOn members had created more than 200 gatherings nationwide.” Buses of protesters arrived in cities such as Austin, Texas, which obviously took significant planning and funding to accomplish.
George Soros does not believe in the democratic process. He believes in imposing his definition of an “open” society, which he sees as ultimately a borderless world run by so-called enlightened progressives. He has contempt for ordinary people engaging in the process of self-government, particularly whenever the result is not to his liking. Four years ago, Soros predicted that riots would break out in the streets. Now that the Left's preferred candidate did not win the 2016 presidential election, Soros and his other left wing allies may be on their way to make his prophecy come true.
Tree of Liberty Benefactor
When those "protests" get to a size of a Trump rally, let me know....
CBS Withholds Trump Anti-Violence Soundbite for Two Days…
During the CBS 60 Minutes interview recorded on Friday afternoon, CBS correspondent Lesly Stahl badgered President-Elect Donald Trump about the false MSM narrative of Trump supporters intimidating people:
Lesley Stahl: Do you want to say anything to those people?
Donald Trump: I would say don’t do it, that’s terrible, ‘cause I’m gonna bring this country together.
Lesley Stahl: They’re harassing Latinos, Muslims–
Donald Trump: I am so saddened to hear that. And I say, “Stop it.” If it– if it helps. I will say this, and I will say right to the cameras: Stop it.
Setting aside the ridiculous line of questioning, the issue surfaced: if the media was so concerned about Trump supporter violence, then why didn’t CBS release this interview segment on Friday evening instead of the ObamaCare segment they released?
Within the answer to that question you find out how the media constructs their manipulative narratives. Continue reading →
CaryC
Don't some of those signs say "Socialist Alternative"?
That means they are socialist's .......right?
Wise Men Still Seek Him
Quick Navigation The Village Square Top
The Doctor's Office
Tree University
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Fraunces Tavern
The Hell's Kitchen Crock Pot
The Flea Market
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Hello Autumn!
This weekend was brilliant, I'm usually spending time with my family on weekends these days.. it's my last year at home, and I want to spend time with my close family and friends more. My Uncle and Aunty are getting married in 2 years, and we travelled to Cavan yesterday to where the venue is going to be.
The venue is Cabra Castle, in Kingscourt. The original Cabra Castle's ruins stand in Dun na Rí Forest Park, still to this day. A stunning new castle was built in 1808 by Colonet Joseph Pratt, it was inherited by family through the years and bought to several owners until it was bought in 1991 and re-opened as a hotel.
Unlike most 'hotel castles' these days, this hotel stuck to it's roots. It's furnishings and decor was all traditional castle-style and it wasn't over-modernised (which I think ruins a ton of castles and the like, in this country). The interior was exquisite and we were brought on a tour of the castle, to get a feel of it for the wedding. Myself, My Aunty, Uncle, my Auntie's Mother and my Nana were there and we were all getting so excited for the big day - even though we have to wait 22 months for it. The rooms are unbelievable, the Wedding Suite was like something out of cribs! A jacuzzi, a tv coming out of the bed, a huge fish tank and gold, antique furniture everywhere. One thing in that room which creeped my Aunty and I, was the cradle. The story behind the 'cradle' is so creepy. My family - and my Auntie's family, strangely enough, are really interested in the supernatural. Since I was young, my Nana has always told me the family ghost stories and so on. I got the story of the hauntings of Cabra Castle printed out and I thought some of you's might be interested...
''In the 1780's, the local people of Dun na Rí witnessed the unfolding of the tragic saga which was to become the legend of the ghost which still haunts Cabra Castle to this present day - dare to walk the corridors of this haunted castle knowing that the footsteps that went before you were that of evil predecessors...
The then owners of the castle had a daughter and two sons, one of whom fell in love with a servant girl called Sarah. In true Romeo & Juliet style, it was a passionate but secret love, which for the sake of property, could only be pledged silently.
The secret was broken when Sarah became pregnant and her lovers family ordered that she was to be killed; legend has it that she was taken from the Servants Quarters of the castle and dragged deep into the forest, where her body was hung over a bridge.
It is said that in the dead of the night, the haunting cries of a baby may still be heard in Cabra Castle. Local people say that the baby is pining for it's mother. There is also a testament by those who have felt a 'presence' in the courtyard rooms - formerly the Servant's Quarters, where it is said that Sarah's lost soul still wanders the Castle in search of her lost love and lost child..
The forest where she alleged met her death, is now open as a park and the bridge which Sarah was hung has been named 'Sarah's bridge'. In honour of the legend and in her memory, there is a room in the Caslte that we have named after her - 'Sarah's Well'.''
I was talking to the guy who was bringing us around about this and he confirms staff have seen her, and he himself has felt a presence in one of the courtyard rooms. A few years ago an American couple emailed the hotel a picture they took of the bar in the Castle, and a ghostly figure is clearly seen in the photograph. I left the guy my email, he said he will email it to me and I will post it on here for you guys!
During the week I also picked up new tights in Penneys, I love them and Disney Princess sellotape - very exciting haha! I took a random photo of the Spire aka. The Waste of Space, and I like how it turned out to be honest! Happy reading and make sure to check out my Youtube Channel, there is 8 videos up already - and a ton more to come! :)
Labels: castle ghost history clothes videos
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Unlike the global challenge that attracted responses from 56 nations, this competition was a collaborative effort between the Two Worlds Foundation and the University of Arizona School of Architecture and its School of Landscape Architecture and Planning. The competition was made part of the University’s curriculum with members of the Foundation making periodic visits to work directly with the staff and students.
The students organized themselves into seven teams each, selecting a specific site in the Tucson area as the basis for their work. Among the competition’s instructions were the following five guidelines.
1. Describe how your proposed land-use relationships will provide for proximity between home and work, education and culture, with a connecting network of open space, all artfully related.
2. Describe any proposals for facilitating individual mobility, including the sharing of vehicles or other innovative transportation systems including devices of your own design.
3. How will what you are proposing make it easier to live a healthy lifestyle, including on-going education as a cultural way of life?. And how have you provided for a variety of housing types, including the possibilities for residents to remain in their neighborhood while moving to varied provisions to suit their changing needs at different stages of life?.
4. The great architect Eero Saarinen said, “When you design anything, always think of it in its next larger context – a chair in a room, a room in a house or building, and all such structures in a community. Frank Lloyd Wright saw architecture as embracing, in one reality, all that we more conventionally divide into the specialties of ecology, urban design, planning, landscape architecture, interior design, streetscapes, signage, sculpture and furnishings. How have you approached the relatedness of these elements?
5. The most-dominant attention given to being smart, green and sustainable is focused on the easy-to-measure performance of structures, systems and materials. A more difficult task, that has no easy metrics, is the urgent need to address the damage resulting from human behavior, including the cost of ignorance, improper diets, our overloaded court system, juvenile delinquency and incarceration... all elements of what some have called our “throw-away society”. Many say “it takes a village to raise a child,” but we’ve yet to know how to design and operate what that village might be. With this background, give a brief summary as to what positive behavioral impacts are expected to be influenced by your proposal.
Summary of Objectives
To envision a future in which the most successful development patterns make it possible to integrate life and work, reduce or eliminate the long commute, conserve and regenerate the use of water and energy.
The competition results were announced at a public reception on Wednesday, May 23, 2012 in the Sundt Galley under the auspices of the University of Arizona College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.
Jan Cervelli, FASLA, FCELA, Dean of the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture and Vern Swaback at the University of Arizona awards presentation.
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Alistair Darling – 2007 Speech to the CBI Annual Conference
Posted On : November 25, 2015 Published By : admin
Below is the text of a speech made by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, to the CBI Annual Conference on the 27th November 2007.
It is a pleasure to address the CBI Conference.
And first of all I would like to acknowledge the advice and support given by Richard Lambert and his colleagues. Both at the DTI and now at the Treasury I have worked closely with the CBI. From the working time directive to reducing burdens on business your views matter. And your staff speak up for your interests. Believe me they don’t pull their punches. They serve you well.
This year’s conference is taking place at a time when the reality of the global economy is clearer than it has ever been.
The problems that started in the American housing market have quickly affected countries across the world. There are reasons to be cautious. We don’t yet know the full effects of this uncertainty.
But there are good reasons too to be optimistic.
This year world growth will again be around five per cent – above its thirty year average for the third year in a row.
Britain has a strong economy.
We have highly successful competitive businesses, many here today. We have seen over ten years of uninterrupted growth.
And as I said in the Pre Budget Report whilst that growth will slow next year, the economy will continue to grow next year and the year after.
It is the Government’s job to work with you as we deal with the present uncertainties. But there are also huge opportunities ahead as many of your members will testify. You are winning orders here and across the world in every sector competing with the best.
Supporting and sustaining businesses remains central to everything we do and I know that we have worked well together over the past decade and we will continue to do so.
Our shared priorities must be
to maintain stability and flexibility in the face of financial uncertainty,
to break down barriers to trade in the face of increasing calls for protectionism,
to respond to the global challenges of competition and climate change.
And that means taking decisions that may be difficult – just as you do every day. And having made those decisions we see them through.
Over the past ten years Britain has been the only major economy to enjoy continuous growth.
Indeed in that time Britain is the only major economy to have grown continuously.
Our determination to take the difficult decisions means that even in today’s uncertain times – with turbulence in international financial markets and record oil prices – we can be confident of the resilience of the UK economy.
Now, economic stability depends on financial stability.
In the financial markets, it is clear that both here and internationally we need to strengthen surveillance and supervision to head off problems before they arise.
We are working with the IMF and the Financial Stability Forum to provide far greater transparency so that institutions understand the risk to which they might be exposed.
And here at home there are lessons to be learned. I have made it clear our response has to be proportionate and appropriate, but that we will strengthen the regulatory system where it is needed.
And let me tackle head on those who now say that we should not have provided financial support for Northern Rock.
This was a bank that depended on being able to raise billions of pounds on the money market. When that was no longer possible, we had a choice.
We could have let it go down. But I believe that the consequences for the banking system, including the likely knock-on consequences for other financial institutions in which confidence would inevitably have been shaken, and for Britain would have been extremely damaging.
That is why I authorised the Bank of England to provide support. At the time that intervention was widely supported, even by some who now imply that it was the wrong thing to do and who are not prepared to accept the consequences of that support.
I believe it was right to intervene; that it was right to put in place guarantees arrangements to savers. And it is right to see it through.
It was never going to be an easy decision. There were always going to be critics when the going got tough.
But that is not the point. Far worse would have been to have done nothing, to have allowed that bank to have gone under. I believe this would have had very serious consequences for the banking system and for the British economy.
On Monday, Northern Rock announced that it had decided to take forward discussions on an accelerated basis with a consortium led by Virgin.
I am very clear that any proposal for the future of Northern Rock must be consistent with the principles I have set out, namely protecting the vital interests of the taxpayer, depositors and wider financial stability.
I welcome Northern Rock’s decision to work with Virgin to turn its proposal into a hard agreement with Northern Rock and the authorities. Discussions are now proceeding urgently.
Governments will never succeed in avoiding the unexpected and the unwelcome and this episode certainly answers to both descriptions.
But Government should also be judged by how it responds to these difficulties when they arise. That response must be open and measured; perhaps not always the stuff of headlines but certainly the best basis of solutions.
Take the loss of the child benefit data. It is a huge problem, but one that has to be dealt with. That is what Government has to do in the face of problems like this. It is difficult but we have to get on with it and sort it out.
But it is also the job of Government to set out its long term vision for the country.
A vision of a strong and successful nation with its businesses competing with the best in a fast changing global economy.
And maintaining Britain’s stability is my priority because it is the precondition for the long term prosperity of this country. And I have set out more details on this today.
So too is the need for Government and business to work together.
It is for business to win orders for goods and services.
But business rightly looks to Government to create the conditions for this success.
If we are to compete we must ensure that Britain remains a good place to business:
flexible enough to adapt to change, with the right tax and regulatory approach,
and able, because of the strength of our economy, to make long term investment from education and skills to science and transport, supporting business at every stage.
And we must also maintain our commitment to free and fair trade, resisting calls for protectionism, wherever they come from.
In each, we need to make the right long term decisions and see them through.
First, maintaining Britain as a good place to do business means ensuring we have a tax regime that is competitive, fair and simple.
That is why in the Budget earlier this year we announced we are cutting the corporation tax main rate to 28p and simplifying the allowances for investment. The basic rate of income tax will be reduced to 20p, helping not just the self-employed but small businesses too.
Simplification of the tax system is important. Because complexity brings increased costs.
I know that my proposals to introduce a single rate of capital gains tax have been controversial. That was inevitable.
We are working with the CBI and other business organisations to listen to what you have to say. I expect to publish final proposals in the next three weeks.
But many have long called for a simplified tax system and have long complained about the complexity of the tax system.
And we have to recognise that one person’s tax exemption is another’s complexity – simplification is not the easy option. But it is the right one wherever it is possible.
Let me say this on the principle: capital gains like any other profits ultimately come from the strength of the economy.
So I believe it is right and fair that they pay their share in tax as a contribution to the economy’s future strength.
But because we want to reward investment, we are right to now tax gains at a lower rate than income – and the new single rate is among the most competitive in the world, is less than half the top rate for income, and is also less than half what it was ten years ago.
It is also right to make the system more straightforward and sustainable, with a tax that is easier comply with.
I am listening to what you say and will report to Parliament very shortly.
Britain has 800,000 more businesses set up in the last ten years and OECD says UK has lowest barriers to entrepreneurship of all its countries.
I am determined to do everything I can to keep it that way and keep Britain as a good place to do business.
So in the run up to the Budget, I want to continue to work with the CBI and other business organisations to ensure that encouraging enterprise remains at the heart of this approach.
That is also why we need to continue to improve the way we regulate so our approach is proportionate, competitive, and principled.
What is needed is genuine cultural change. If you don’t need to regulate, then don’t. And if we do, do what’s necessary – no gold plating.
All of us know that effective regulation can help business.
All of us appreciate that it is right to help new mothers and fathers by giving them some time off at the birth of their children. Many of us would have liked that ourselves.
And proper regulation to protect employees against exploitation from the unscrupulous.
But that regulation has to be proportionate. Take health and safety, we have cut the number of forms by 50 per cent, my colleague John Hutton is reviewing what more we can do for small business, and the Health and Safety Executive is publishing practical suggestions that will reduce the paperwork burden firms face while protecting their staff.
Or take the risks and procedure relating to industrial tribunals, where I set out proposals for reform when I was at the DTI, which have now been agreed and will save businesses over £100 million a year.
Britain is a good place to start up and maintain a business. And creating the right conditions for success depends on sustained investment.
For decades Britain’s problem was because of its inherent weakness it was never able to sustain investment in science or transport. It would start and then stop.
As a result of ten years of sustained growth, of only making promises on tax and spend that were costed and based on what we could afford, we have been able to maintain investment year on year. We will continue to do that.
Investing in skills and making the reforms necessary to raise our educational standards and levels of innovation, as the Prime Minister said yesterday.
Britain is now investing as much in the intangible assets that are essential for our future – in innovation and intellectual property, in software and skills – as we are in more traditional physical assets – and as much as the United States. We will continue to support R and D through tax credits.
And we will continue to match public sector with private sector investment. We will continue to expand the role of the private sector providing a greater diversity of supply, creating new opportunities for committed, innovative business and third sector organisations, as my colleague Peter Hain is announcing today in the jobs market.
In transport, where public and private sectors work together, committing to investment over the long term also plays a critical part.
Which is why in the spending review I extended the long term funding guideline for transport of annual growth of 2¼ per cent above inflation for the next ten years.
Putting right decades of underinvestment, providing the roads and railways we need.
I introduced the Bill to build Crossrail in 2005. I have now approved the financing package – essential for the competitiveness of not just the City of London but for the whole country.
In 2003 I published a White Paper setting out the need for an expansion to our airport capacity.
Last week the Government launched the consultation on the expansion of Heathrow.
Provided the environmental and access conditions can be met, the right thing for the growth of the economy and prosperity of our country is to build a third runway. And proposals for a second runway at Stansted are already underway.
And this is one of the tests that any Government has to meet. Has it the strength of purpose to see through difficult decisions, often ducked in the past, but which are essential for our economic success.
There is a simple choice. Other countries are making plans for the future. So must we.
So too in energy supply. Today’s record oil prices simply underline the challenge we face, but also that in addressing it our economic and environmental objectives are increasing at one.
We need increased stability and security of supply from a greater diversity and cleaner sources of energy.
And as I made clear when I published the Energy White Paper in the summer nuclear power potentially has a role to play in tackling climate change and improving energy security.
So our preliminary view is that, subject to the outcome of our consultation, it should be part of the mix of future energy options. We will announce our final decision early in the New Year.
And if it is to be part of the mix, it can’t be the last resort – if that was to be the case, because of the time it takes to build new power stations, by the time you have decided you need them, it would be too late.
And, as the Prime Minister said last week, there are huge business opportunities in new markets, products and jobs here as well. Sir Nicholas Stern recognised this.
Your report published yesterday and debated this morning did too. The value added of the low carbon energy sector could be as much as $3 trillion worldwide by 2050.
I want to see our British Energy Technology at the cutting edge of environmental innovation and London as the centre of the global carbon market.
There are difficult choices to be made as we seek to secure our prosperity and the environment. But ultimately there cannot be any long term trade off between strong and sustainable growth.
Modernising our infrastructure will require difficult decisions too, as we balance our environmental and economic priorities, and national and local needs.
The Planning Bill before Parliament is a critical part of this.
It is a test for all political parties. Seven years to get planning permission to build terminal 5. Six and a half years for the North Yorkshire power line application. The present system doesn’t work and it needs to be reformed.
Our proposals will mean greater debate on energy or aviation policy, the opportunities for individuals to be heard in a process that isn’t drawn out month after month year after year, and greater certainty in decision making.
The Bill deserves support.
It is by making these decisions we can be confident of our success in a more open global economy. And I am committed to making our economy open to trade and investment. Our future depends on it.
The fact that over the past ten years world trade has grown nearly twice as fast as world growth is a demonstration that that those economies which are open to trade are most likely to succeed.
And the fact that Britain is a world leader in capital markets, already the most open part of the world economy, is a demonstration that Britain is well placed to succeed.
Our financial services trade surplus is the largest in the world, twice that of our nearest rival.
Indeed our openness has defined our history and our past successes.
And I am determined it defines our future and our continued success.
It is essential that Europe too becomes far more competitive. Last week the Commission published proposals for reform of the Single Market, which we called for earlier this year.
We must continue to argue against restrictions and unnecessary regulation which damage our competitiveness and which are holding back growth in the European economy.
Reducing agricultural tariffs, opening up completely the energy and communications and utilities markets, and properly completing the creation of the single market for services.
We will push for closer EU-US trade ties, including in financial markets.
We will do all we can to help secure a global trade deal.
We believe in breaking down trade barriers, securing free and fair trade across the world. We will continue to lead by example. But to secure the full benefits of openness for the global economy, others must follow.
We welcome inward investment. Indeed our country depends on it. Britain wins more inward investment as a share of its economy than any other major country.
But I also believe that all investors not only have to behave commercially but also be seen to behave commercially.
For sovereign wealth funds, I welcome the IMF and OECD proposals to establish the international guidelines including high standards of governance and appropriate transparency.
Just as we welcome investment here, there needs to be a level playing field for investment across the world: it benefits everyone if we all are open.
So when I met the Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes yesterday, I agree that where a Member State fails to open the markets it has agreed to, there must be strong enforcement action by the Commission.
It must be made easier for individual businesses to overcome artificial and illegal barriers are erected that prevent them doing their legitimate business.
When I attend the G7 Finance Ministers meeting in Japan next year, business priorities will be the top of my agenda, I will argue that the G7 can no longer just be open amongst ourselves, but I want the G7 to become an advocate for openness between all countries.
And when I visit China next year, I will invite British business leaders to join me, in promoting greater trade between our two countries, and working with the Chinese Government to encourage more investment, including through tackling infringement and promoting adequate enforcement of intellectual property rights.
I will continue to do everything I can to break down barriers to trade and promote British trade.
There are difficult issues that need to be confronted if we are to maintain our competitiveness and secure our prosperity.
Whether it is maintaining our stability in response to financial uncertainty,
promoting free trade and open markets in response to protectionism,
adapting in response to climate change,
making the difficult choices – planning reform, aviation capacity, energy generation – in response to competitive challenges,
these are issues that have to be tackled. If we are to seize the opportunities available to us in the new global economy
People rightly expect governments to confront these issues and have the commitment and determination to take the right long term decisions.
We will continue to respond and deal with the unexpected and difficult decisions that confront any government from time to time.
We have the strength of purpose to see through the current international uncertainty, backed by one of the strongest economies in the developed world.
And we have a vision of a successful Britain underpinned by successful British businesses competing with the best across the world.
I am determined that we keep it that way.
Posted in: SpeechesTagged : 2007,Alistair Darling,Speeches
Alistair Darling – 2002 Speech on the Railways
Alistair Darling – 2008 Budget
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Fiscal Reponsiblity
Public Lands Management
Logan Responds to Questions from The Park Record
In the Park Record, June 14, 2016
Q: Do you support the state's decision to set aside more than $4.5 million to fund a lawsuit against the federal government over its management of millions of acres of federal land in Utah?
A: I support the effort of the State of Utah to address many of the Federal management issues facing public property. I support transfer of certain public properties within the borders of Utah. I also feel that there are many hurdles to overcome before the State of Utah can successfully manage and operate vast amounts of public land.
I see a time in the near future in which the State of Utah is able to manage the resources and daily operations successfully to protect the public's interest. Before we make the federal government's problems our problems, the state needs to implement tools to make sure our lands are preserved for future generations. This is essential to protect our lands and leave a heritage for our children.
Q: Did the Obama administration overstep its authority when it issued the transgender bathroom directive and do you support the state's decision to join a lawsuit opposing it?
A: Yes, I believe that the Obama administration overstepped its authority when issuing the transgender bathroom directive. Yes, I support the state's decision to join a lawsuit opposing it. I believe that when a state creates a law to govern within its borders, the powers of the courts and Congress are in place to correct the direction of that state, if the law is unconstitutional. The Obama administration circumnavigated that process by passing a non-binding resolution requiring Title IX funding to be removed from states who don't comply.
Q: Should the Legislature repeal Senate Bill 54 in 2017, which allows candidates to seek their party's nomination through the traditional caucus-convention process or by collecting signatures?
A: Yes, the state of Utah should repeal SB 54. I believe SB 54 creates unfair practices for political parties.
Q: How do you differ from your opponent on specific issues?
A: I believe that education needs a secure funding source and not just one time money. One time money is difficult to plan and meet the needs of your students.
I believe that the state of Utah needs to get out of the development and land use issues. When you vote to allow Utah Transit Authority or the state to become developers with tax money, you set up an unfair market place. I would have voted against HB 431 which required transit districts to create development policies that include affordable housing.
I will vote to keep outside government agencies from encroaching on public education. I would have voted against bills SB 67 and SB 101, which create $13 million in funding for agencies outside of public educations to manage programs within public education.
I would have voted differently than my opponent on many other bills such as SB 59, which requires special rooms be established for breastfeeding mothers. This bill would make existing small business come up with space out of thin air. It requires an additional step for local governments to process before we can issue a new business license. If we are to minimize large government we cannot keep creating it.
Logan Wilde
A rancher, family man and Council Chair in Morgan County, I will fight for local control of education, land, and agriculture in the Utah State Legislature
KCPW
Park Record
Contact Logan Wilde
votelogan53@gmail.com
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Subject: Sylvia Jukes Morris, Writer, widow of Edmund Morris (biographer of Teddy Roosevelt, Reagan)
Dead at 84
Date Posted: Friday, January 10, 12:53:25pm
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/sylvia-jukes-morris-biographer-of-edith-roosevelt-and-clare-boothe-luce-dies-at-84/2020/01/09/ade6f61c-32f3-11ea-9313-6cba89b1b9fb_story.html
Sylvia Jukes Morris, biographer of Edith Roosevelt and Clare Boothe Luce, dies at 84
By Harrison Smith
Jan. 9, 2020 at 6:52 p.m. EST
Sylvia Jukes Morris, a British-born biographer of first lady Edith Roosevelt and playwright-diplomat Clare Boothe Luce, whose lives she chronicled in lucid prose and meticulous detail, died Jan. 5 in Bridgnorth, England. She was 84.
The cause was cancer, said her sister and sole immediate survivor, Pauline Pennington. Mrs. Morris died less than eight months after her husband, fellow biographer Edmund Morris, who was 78. A resident of Kent, Conn., she was staying with her sister in Bridgnorth for Christmas.
Mrs. Morris came to biography somewhat late in life, while helping Edmund prepare his first book, �The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt� (1979), which won a Pulitzer and National Book Award. The Morrises had previously collaborated on travel cassettes for Trans World Airlines, researching European history and culture for jet-setting tourists. It was unsatisfying but life-altering work, Mrs. Morris told The Washington Post last year. �We realized that we were biographers at heart.�
Neither had graduated from college, although both had literary temperaments; Edmund said that he fell in love with Mrs. Morris after spotting a worn leatherbound set of Boswell�s �Life of Samuel Johnson� in her apartment. She was the kind of reader who devoured five books a week and could rip through a 500-page volume of Harold Nicolson�s diaries on a 3 � -hour car ride � then recommend a certain passage from memory, her sister said, �on page 37, three-quarters of the way down.�
Mrs. Morris helped research and edit �The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt,� which spurred her interest in the former Edith Kermit Carow, who married Roosevelt in 1886 after the death of his first wife. �There�s not much known about her,� Edmund said, which Mrs. Morris seemed to take as a challenge, poring over the first lady�s letters, diaries and papers to write �Edith Kermit Roosevelt: Portrait of a First Lady� (1980).
�If Theodore Roosevelt�s turbulent life can be described as cyclonic,� she wrote, �his wife was the still center of the storm. Reserved to the point of aloofness, and given to the sternest self-discipline, Edith was a lifelong enigma even to members of her family. Yet no one denied her power and influence. She was �a sort of feminine luminiferous ether, pervading everything and everybody.� �
Mrs. Morris�s subject had died 32 years earlier, but her 600-page biography benefited enormously from interviews, notably with Edith�s 85-year-old son, Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt, who responded to a request for information Mrs. Morris had placed in the New York Times Book Review.
A close relationship Mrs. Morris forged with his son Archie Jr. launched her on a biography of Luce, who rose from a tumultuous childhood in Spanish Harlem to become a Vanity Fair editor, congresswoman, diplomat and playwright, as well as the wife of Time magazine co-founder Henry Luce.
Mrs. Morris met Luce at a Roosevelt family dinner party. �She appeared to pay no attention to me,� Mrs. Morris wrote in a New York Times essay, but the 77-year-old Luce later remarked: �You�re too young and charming to be a writer.� Nonetheless, the two began a courtship through the mail, with Mrs. Morris sending a copy of her last book and writing, �Someone will embark on a major biography, and I should like it to be me.�
The biography ultimately spanned 1,300 pages and two volumes, �Rage for Fame: The Ascent of Clare Boothe Luce� (1997) and �Price of Fame: The Honorable Clare Boothe Luce� (2014). Beginning her research in 1981, Mrs. Morris devoted 33 years to the project, working her way through 246 linear feet and 460,000 items of archival material at the Library of Congress � a collection, she said, that was �bigger than that of most Presidents.�
�Like her husband, she was an indefatigable researcher, and wanted to leave no stone unturned,� said Will Murphy, who edited her second Luce volume for Random House. �Sylvia was trying to absorb into the life of Clare Boothe Luce her times, and the history that unfolded around her and that she helped shape.�
Luce had � at 20 � married a millionaire who was more than twice her age, then divorced him and landed a job at Vanity Fair after simply showing up at the office, sitting down at an empty desk and waiting for assignments. She went on to write the hit 1936 Broadway play �The Women,� which became a popular film, and struck Henry Luce like a bolt of lightning.
According to Mrs. Morris, he left his wife and two sons after seeing Clare for the second time; later, Luce served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and was appointed Eisenhower�s ambassador to Italy and Brazil. �I hope I shall have ambition until the day I die,� she told Mrs. Morris, in one of their many interviews before Luce�s death in 1987.
Both volumes of Mrs. Morris�s biography were met with general acclaim, with Gore Vidal calling �Rage for Fame� � the title came from a quote by English satirist John Wolcot, which Luce used for her eighth-grade yearbook � �a model biography . . . of the sort that only real writers can write.�
The books also angered some reviewers, and friends of Luce�s, who accused Mrs. Morris of being too critical in her examination of a woman described as an inveterate embellisher of stories, and sometimes as an outright liar. (She also had a playful, adventurous side, Mrs. Morris reported, which included scuba diving and LSD use.)
�These characters take over your life, these huge characters,� Mrs. Morris told Newsday in 2001. �I find that you neglect your personal life, your family life.� But it took time, she said, to uncover details such as the color of Edith Roosevelt�s eyes (sapphire blue) or the humorous names Clare Luce gave to her ulcers (Qaddafi and Begin).
�The longer you take,� she added, �the better understanding you have.�
Sylvia Jukes was born in Dudley, a suburb of Birmingham, on May 24, 1935. Her mother was a homemaker, and her father ran a munitions factory. Mrs. Morris �was very misunderstood in the area we were brought up in,� said her sister, Pennington. �She was a very quiet little girl, basically, and I think people found that a little intimidating.�
Mrs. Morris was 9 when her mother died. She won a scholarship to a girl�s high school and drew early praise as a writer for her senior thesis, which was read by historian A.J.P. Taylor, according to Pennington, and traced the 19th-century deaths of local children to issues with the town�s sewage system. She later studied at the University of London but left before receiving a degree, her sister said.
Mrs. Morris was teaching English at a London high school, living at a nearby boardinghouse, when she met Edmund. Raised in South Africa, he was an advertising copywriter and devoted pianist, and developed an informal arrangement with Mrs. Morris�s landlord, performing chores in exchange for practice time on the building�s piano.
They married in 1966, after she spotted him washing the floor, and soon immigrated to the United States. His Roosevelt project grew into a trilogy � almost twice the length of her Luce books � and both worked closely together. She read him each page of her manuscripts, including a passage on Theodore Roosevelt�s death that had moved her to tears and left stains on her handwritten draft.
�They felt things so deeply,� said Marion Elizabeth Rodgers, an H.L. Mencken biographer who worked as a researcher for both Morrises in the late 1980s. �To write these books, it was gut-wrenching. It took a lot out of them, physically and emotionally. . . . Edmund always said you have to be something of a masochist to be a biographer, and I think that�s how she felt, too. But once she started writing, she could get on a tear: She�d begin in the morning, and wouldn�t even get up to have lunch.�
In a C-SPAN interview, Edmund Morris recalled that he was once asked by a Times reporter whether it was easier to write about the living or the dead. �I hadn�t thought of it, and I was struggling to think what to say, when my wife, who was in the next room, shouted out, �Dead is easier.� And of course this journalist used that line to begin his article in the New York Times the following day.�
Mrs. Morris, he added, �got a T-shirt a couple of days later, which has �Dead Is Easier� all over the front and which she wears when she gives lectures.�
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The Gap Band
Magician's Holiday - The Gap Band (1977) - The Gap Band (1979) - II - III - IV - Strike A Groove - V: Jammin' - VI - VII - 8 - Straight From The Heart - Round Trip - You Turn My Life Around - Testimony - Ain't Nothin' But A Party - Gotta Get Up - Y2K: Funkin' Till 2000 Comz - Love At Your Fingatips - Charlie, Last Name Wilson - Uncle Charlie - Love, Charlie
Robert Wilson died on August 16, 2010, from a massive heart attack. He was 53.
Formed in the early 1970s, the Gap Band was a Tulsa, Oklahoma soul/funk outfit fronted by three Wilson brothers: Charles, Ronnie and Robert. When I was a kid, I read that they intended to fill in the "gap" between Sly Stone and P-Funk, but apparently that's a fabrication: they were named for a Tulsa intersection. Anyway, they started out following in Earth, Wind & Fire's footsteps, and later relied heavily on P-Funk gimmicks like non sequitur voiceovers, a fictional radio station that played their music (WGAP instead of WEFUNK) and even borrowed catchphrases ("The bigger the headache, the bigger the pill"). Lead singer Charles had a remarkable ability to imitate other vocalists - George Clinton, Maurice White, Stevie Wonder - and relied on that rather than developing his own style. But the Wilsons weren't just a glorified cover band: they came up with an edgy electrofunk production style and a bunch of powerhouse bass vamps, Charles poured his heart into funky songs of tortured love ("Burn Rubber On Me"), and some of their EWF-like ballads were quite popular. They never had much crossover success, but racked up ten Top Ten hits (four #1's) on the R&B chart. The group was most successful when working with producer Lonnie Simmons, with four consecutive gold records - after he split in the mid-80s, the Gap Band's party train soon slowed to a stop. Like so many funk bands, they reformed in the 90s and occasionally tour or attempt a comeback album.
While I rarely recommend greatest hits compilations, this is one of those bands with some great hit singles and a lot of dull album tracks. Get a greatest hits collection and a "Jam The Motha" 45 and you've got all you need. Unless Mr. Fonkee's fan site returns, the best you'll do is Soul Patrol's Gap Band page. (DBW)
Charlie Wilson, lead vocals, keyboards; Ronnie Wilson, trumpet, keyboards; Robert Wilson, bass, vocals; James Macon, guitar; Richard "Moon" Calhoun, drums; Tommy Lokey and Chris Clayton, horns. Macon, Lokey, Calhoun and Clayton left circa 1977. From 1979 to 1983, studio records featured John Black and Greg Phillinganes, keys; Glenn Nightingale, guitar; Raymond Calhoun, drums; Malvin "Dino" Vice contributed arrangements and occasional trumpet - they were never credited as full band members. Oliver Scott, keyboards, vocals, joined around 1983 - he was never credited as a band member either, but acted like one. By the 1990s, the Gap Band was back to the three Wilson brothers and whatever studio musicians they scraped together. Robert Wilson died, 2010.
Magician's Holiday (1974)
Their small-label debut, produced by Buddy Jones. He goes for a mellow funk recalling Billy Preston's early 70s hits ("Backbone" sounds uncannily like "Nothing From Nothing") crossed with Tower Of Power's brass-fueled soul (thanks to horn players Tommy Lokey and Chris Clayton). "Fontessa Fame," though, is a direct copy of Sly Stone's "The Asphalt Jungle (Africa Talks To You)," right down to the metronomic percussion - maybe all the critics praising the reissue of Shuggie Otis's similarly unimaginative Information Inspiration will someday rediscover this one too. Lokey wrote a couple of tunes ("I-Yike-It"); the rest were co-written by Jones and one Wilson or another. Wayne Perkins plays the continuous loud guitar solo on "Bad Girl." (DBW)
Momma's Boys (1974)
I'm not convinced this really exists - there are online references but I can't find anyone who's actually seen or heard it. Before the next release the band spent some time backing Leon Russell. (DBW)
The Gap Band (1977)
A cross between the loose TOP sound of the debut and the cleaner EWF sound of the following disc. The one great song is the furious funk rocker "Not Guilty"; other tunes include the gospel tribute "God Is Watching You," the cheese-funk "Out Of The Blue (Can You Feel It)" and a cover of Free's "Little Bit Of Love." Weirdest guest is jazz pianist Les McCann on "Thinking Of You," which also features Leon and Mary Russell; Chaka Khan adds inaudible backing vocals on "Hang On (To Yourself)." Produced by John Ryan; the last hurrah for Calhoun - who soon joined Rufus - Lokey, Clayton, and guitarist James Macon. (DBW)
On its Mercury debut, the Gap Band was just another horn-driven soul/funk band listening real hard to Earth Wind & Fire (the single here, "Shake," is a direct ripoff of "Shining Star" - it still went to #4 R&B). They even got EWF cohort Thomas "Tom Tom 84" Washington to arrange most of the horns and strings. But the tunes just aren't as good, with unambitious love song lyrics ("I'm In Love"), forgettable melodies ("I Can Sing") and overlong arrangements ("Open Up Your Mind (Wide)"). All the songs are by one or more of the Wilson brothers, with just a couple of outside cowriters. Produced by Lonnie Simmons, as were all the band's records through 1985, and he also sings lead on "Baby Baba Boogie," a knockoff of Chic's disco "Dance, Dance, Dance." Enjoyable enough ("Messin' With My Mind"), but uninspired - you might want to keep this around just to remind yourself how much better Maurice White & co. were than their contemporaries. (DBW)
II (1979)
The EWF borrowings are staggering - everything from the arpeggiating horns to the falsetto backups to Maurice White-style "ye-aah, ye-aah, ye-aah" to the tunes themselves ("Steppin' (Out)," Top Ten R&B, opens with chords from "Yearnin' Learnin'"). Charles Wilson also finds time for an homage to Stevie Wonder circa 1972, complete with portamento Arp synth lines ("You Are My High"). But the big hit was a P-Funk imitation, "I Don't Believe You Want To Get Up And Dance (Oops)," with endless voiceover catchphrases and a whole musical section lifted from Brides Of Funkenstein's "Disco To Go." It's irresistable anyway, thanks to its "Say oops upside your head" refrain and spare groove, and it went Top Five R&B. A couple more tunes like that and this would be a classic album, but instead it's padded out with Adult Contemporary dreck like "The Boys Are Back In Town" (with Graham Nash-style harmonies - not the Thin Lizzy song) and the tossed-off would-be anthem "Party Lights." The backing band started to stabilize, with John Black and Greg Phillinganes (keys), Glenn Nightingale (guitar), Raymond Calhoun (drums), and Malvin "Dino" Vice arranging horns and strings - this core would remain in place for the next five years or so. Guests include labelmates Yarbrough and Peoples on backing vocals. The band's first gold album; note that this is in fact their fifth LP - the pre-Mercury work isn't reflected in the title numbers. (DBW)
This record signalled a seismic change in the funk landscape: Parliament/Funkadelic, Ohio Players, Rufus and Tower Of Power had split up; War and even Earth, Wind & Fire were losing steam; Kool & The Gang had gone pop; James Brown and Sly Stone were approaching self-parody. Disco, often unduly blamed for the death of funk, was fading away. The Gappers came up with a new electrofunk approach on the single "Burn Rubber On Me (Why You Wanna Treat Me Bad)": crunching Moog bass line, crashing programmed snare, no horns, and a tortured, pleading vocal straight out of Stax - it was their first R&B #1. Together with Dazz Band's similar "Let It Whip" and maybe George Clinton's "Atomic Dog," it's practically a subgenre unto itself - though in fact a bigger influence on Prince's early 80s sound than the more frequently cited Rick James. "Humpin'" and "Gash Gash Gash" (Ronnie on lead vocal) are in a similar vein; the only big departure is "The Way," which I swear sounds like the Doobie Brothers with its mannered falsetto vocal and prominent electric piano. The other Gap staples - EWF hornfests ("Are You Living") and gentle ballads ("Yearning For Your Love," Top Five R&B) - are also better than usual, making this an easy choice. Also in 1980, Charlie and Ronnie guested on Stevie Wonder's "I Ain't Gonna Stand For It." (DBW)
IV (1982)
The band polished its style, and as a result the album is smoother and more professional than III, but not as exciting. The band's two Top Forty singles are here: the electrofunk masterpiece "You Dropped A Bomb On Me" (#2 R&B) and the similar but less inspired "Early In The Morning" (#1 R&B). The midtempo groove "Outstanding" also topped the R&B chart, while "I Can't Get Over You" is the requisite nod to EWF, and "Talkin' Back" is pleasant if predictable dance floor fodder. Rounding things out are a couple of mediocre ballads: "Stay With Me," which sounds like ABBA's "Dancing Queen" performed by mid-80s Chicago, and "Season's No Reason To Change." Still, a good place to start with the band because it's their least derivative effort if not their best. (DBW)
Strike A Groove (1983)
Modernized remixes of pre-Total Experience tracks... three are from the 1977 album, "I Can Sing" is from the Mercury debut, and I don't know the origin of the other four but I'm guessing they were shelved demos ("Merry Go Round"). The remixing is a bit heavy-handed but doesn't totally destroy songs like "Not Guilty" and "Knucklehead Funkin'" - there are too many synth squiggles, but they didn't erase the original bass guitar or horn tracks. The bigger problem is, the material was unremarkable to begin with ("Silly Grin," which reuses the melody of "Everyday People"; "Party Down," borrowing from "You're All I Need To Get By"). I wouldn't recommend buying it but as ripoffs go, it's not the kind that'll have you kicking yourself as soon as you unwrap the cellophane and realize what you got. (DBW)
V: Jammin' (1983)
The band finally settled into its style, with dense arrangements (verging on lush in the slower numbers) mostly built on synth timbres (aided by unofficial fourth member Oliver Scott, who added keyboards and trombone, and wrote the instrumental "Where Are We Going?"). The aural consistency can get oppressive, but at least they avoid the blatant borrowing of past albums. The singles were the interchangable dance anthem "Party Train" and the nifty funk vamp "Jam The Motha'" - unfortunately, the LP contains the verseless "party mix"; the far superior "munchkin mix," with Charles portraying a funk-seeking space alien, was relegated to a non-LP B-side. Again the band's weakness in the melody department makes the slow numbers a chore ("You're My Everything"). Stevie Wonder adds backing vocals and harmonica to the flaccid MLK salute "Someday"; P-Funkers Fred Wesley and Dawn Silva are among the many guests. (DBW)
VI (1984)
Falling into a routine, the single is more uptempo electrofunk (the sly "Beep A Freak," #2 R&B), and most of the rest is flat, synth-funk ("Video Junkie," the Gappers' answer to Buckner & Garcia's novelty hit "Pac-Man Fever") and ballads ("The Sun Don't Shine Everyday"). But "I Believe" is a lovely midtempo anthem with primitive electronic percussion straight out of There's A Riot Goin' On, ending with a blues guitar solo - which supports my theory that any artist, given enough time, will eventually record the blues. And the love song "I Found My Baby" is memorable, with unusually soulful group vocals. No notable guests. Also this year, the group contributed three tunes to A Total Experience Christmas. (DBW)
VII (1985)
Another step down, as the Wilsons didn't do much of the writing while labelmates like Jonah Ellis cooked up imitations of the band's trademark sound ("Desire"; "Ooh What A Feeling"). The synth-funk is stale, just lots of unambitious, underdone chants like "Li'l Red Funkin' Hood" and "Bumpin' Gum People." The ballads are a small step up: The Philly Soul-ish ballad "Going In Circles" hit #2 R&B, and "I Need A Real Love" showcases stirring lead vocals from Charlie. The low points aren't very low, but the high points aren't high either, and who wants consistent sub-mediocrity? If you're not a Gap Band completist (and I don't think anyone is, apart from me), there's no reason to pick this up. (DBW)
Billy And Baby Gap (1985)
This spinoff project features production from Charlie; a curious electro-funk period piece, as it mixes rapping, too-bright DX-7 synth and Linn drums all in the same cauldron. Touring band members Billy Young and Anthony ("Baby Gap") Walker play or program most of the instruments, and Walker sings (Charlie handles the lead on "Just For You"). Unfortunately, the tunes are so unoriginal ("Rock The Nation" and "Cinderella" have especially blatant P-Funk swipes) and the intrusive production is so irritating, the album is essentially the definition of "a crashing bore." I disposed of this LP before the third listen so I can't give it a star rating, but it ain't good. (DBW)
A sudden shift from Roman to Arabic numerals. As with the previous release, the signature funk doesn't really come off: "Big Fun" is a mechanical bore, while "Get Loose, Get Funky" - the only song co-written by a Wilson brother - is serviceable but nothing you haven't heard before. And again, the slow tunes are better: "I'll Always Love You" features a terrific, dramatic vocal from Charlie, "I Owe It To Myself" is nearly as good, and "Bop D Ba B Da Da (How Music Came About)" is a fun bit of pop kitsch. The last Lonnie Simmons production. (DBW)
Straight From The Heart (1988)
Finally, an actual album title! Produced by Ronnie Wilson, with Simmons kicked upstairs to executive producer. It doesn't have much impact on the sound, which ranges from their usual electro-funk ("That's It, I Quit" is a virtual rewrite of "Burn Rubber") to ballads ("I Will Never Leave You"; title track). The Wilsons were more involved in the songwriting this time, but it doesn't make much difference: "Come & Dance" (borrowing a chant from The Time's "Cool") and "Sweeter Than Candy" are the same soft of semi-funky rehashes they'd been putting out for the past few albums. Since there's no key track here, this has less to recommend it than any of the surrounding releases. Also this year, the group recorded the theme to the movie I'm Gonna Git You Sucka!. (DBW)
Round Trip (1990)
A move to Capitol records, and Ronnie and Charlie Wilson split production. The backing band is mostly new, apart from Calhoun: Aldyn St. Jon and Roman Johnson on keyboards, and five guitarists including soloist Gregory Wright. The new crew makes a concerted attempt to keep up with pop trends, using much more artificial-sounding percussion and keyboards. The results are mixed: "All Of My Love" - the band's most recent (not to say last) R&B #1 - is a pretty decent New Jack Swing tune, and the ballad "Wednesday Lover" is a moving hi-tech groove, along the lines of Àngela Winbush's productions for the Isley Brothers. "Addicted To Your Love" is a less successful dancefloor attempt, lifting the bass line intact from Bobby Brown's "My Prerogative;" and some of the slow numbers don't come across ("We Can Make It Alright"). (DBW)
You Turn My Life Around (Charlie Wilson: 1992)
On his solo debut, Wilson gets in more love songs than the band usually indulged in ("Confess Your Love"; title track). Accordingly, his flexible pipes get a lot of exposure... this may be his strongest album as a vocalist. Sylvia Robinson and Ernie Singleton produced, and they do a credible job of mixing classic elements like horns and vocoder ("Charlie's Jam") with more aggressive drum machine and synth tones ("Sprung On Me"). The songwriting, though, is lacking, with too much forgettable R&B formula ("I Found My Baby"; the sing-song "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me"). Remember when there were "CD-only bonus tracks"? There's one here, the gently soulful "Please Believe Me." (DBW)
Testimony (1994)
Produced by Morris Rentie Jr., who also wrote most of the generic synth-soul tunes. Musicians aren't listed, but I'm willing to bet the Wilsons played almost nothing - it's all programmed drums and standard synth settings, with no more than a hint of other instruments. Production this bland can work if your melodies are terrific, but these never rise above the merely hummable ("Outside Lookin In"). So there's not much to focus on but Charlie Wilson's voice, which here doesn't display the force or distinctiveness to hold your interest. The Adult Contemporary monotony is broken up by a couple of rap numbers written by Joey Robinson Jr. and performed by Almighty Gee ("Gap's Jam," "Based on G.A.P.") - they're based on fat synth riffs recalling the band's glory days, but they're endlessly repetitive and none too catchy. The bright spots are the playful, aptly titled "Funky Bass Man," and the title track (written by Rentie and Jeff Lorber), a ballad with intriguing chord changes. (DBW)
Ain't Nothing But A Party (1995)
And not much of one, even. The Gapistas starting raiding their back catalog in earnest here, with a remake of "You Dropped A Bomb On Me," and a thinly-disguised cover of "I Don't Believe You Want To Get Up And Dance (Oops)" renamed "First Lover." As if that's not enough, "Closin' The G.A.P." drops titles from various Gap hits over a generic house beat. George Clinton guests on "Over The Funkin' Hill," which is a remake of his '93 non-hit "Rhythm & Rhyme" with different lyrics. The instrumentation relies almost exclusively on drum loops and minimal synth ("Why You Wanna Funk Around?"). Most of the new material is by Charlie Wilson with co-writes from Amanda Rushing, Paris Turner, D-Low and a few others, but there's not much happening from a melody standpoint ("Love At Your Fingatips" is the best of a weak crop). Overall, this couldn't be less original or rewarding; I don't know who should be more ashamed: them for releasing it, or me for buying it. But I'm leaning toward them. (DBW)
Live & Well (1996)
Gotta Get Up (1997)
Another live disc, mostly made up of big hits ("Oops," "Burn Rubber," etc.) capably and energetically rendered. But like most live albums, the band plays too fast and without much variety: horns and synth textures mostly get lost, and as a result, they completely lose the synth-funk power of "Burn Rubber." There were also some poor editing decisions, with the result that two lesser tunes, "Yearning For Your Love" and "Party Train," run more than seven minutes each, while more exciting songs are trimmed severely: where the original version of "Wide" was too long, the 50-second excerpt here is too short - maybe in another twenty years they'll find the happy medium. The slip-shod packaging (no information on when or where the show took place, or who the musicians were) and bare-bones recording quality make me think this is a "gray market" release, but I don't think EMI/Capitol messes with that stuff. (DBW)
Y2K: Funkin' Till 2000 Comz (1999)
A cloyingly modern set, with annoying raps ("Scandalous") and formulaic slow jams ("Style And Grace"). A younger generation of Wilsons (Brian, Andre and Casey) produced many of the tracks, but the cuts produced by the original Wilson brothers aren't any more imaginative or tuneful ("It Otta Be Like This"). Rapper Snoop Dog adds his customary blunted asides to the guitar-based funk "Funkin Till 2000 Comz." There's a disturbing misogynist trend in the lyrics, from the repeated use of "bitch" in "Scandalous" to the insulting lyrics in the voice box-assisted "Baby I Remember Your Face (But I Can't Remember Your Name)," which features a rap from Kurupt, and "Messin With My Flow," a mediocre dance tune that's the best music you'll find here. There are also two cliché-riddled social conscience numbers, "No Color Lines" and "For The People," co-produced by Blaqthoven. And testing the theory that you can't have too much of a bad thing, there are remixes of the title track and "Good Old Fashion Lovin'." Guests include Ira Gilroy and Roman Johnson (keyboards), Steve Grove (keyboards and sax) and the ageless Paulinho Da Costa. (DBW)
Bridging The Gap (Charlie Wilson: 2000)
Angie Stone wrote and produced "A Wonderful One." (DBW)
Love At Your Fingatips (2001)
I was wrong: there is something less original and rewarding than Ain't Nothin' But A Party: a repackaging of the same album, with five mixes of "You Dropped A Bomb On Me" - all missing the keyboard hook that made it work - and two versions of "First Lover." (DBW)
Charlie, Last Name Wilson (Charlie Wilson: 2005)
R. Kelly's at it again: after cheapening the Isley Brothers' legacy with trite, unmelodic (albeit top-selling) mini-melodramas, he's coming for Charlie Wilson (title track). At least Charlie gets a humbler persona than the "Mr. Biggs" aging pimp Ronald Isley's been playing. And Wilson does redeem Kelly's spare ballad "No Words" with a moving performance that's restrained and emotive by turns. Elsewhere, the disc is balanced between love songs ("Let's Chill") and dance numbers (the Arabesque "So Hot" with Twista), and there are some unexpected elements like the Spanish guitar groove of "You Got Nerve" (produced by T-Pain, with a guest rap from Snoop Dog). For some reason, most of the producers sound like wrestling teams: The Jaw Breakers ("Floatin'" with Will.I.Am and Justin Timberlake), The Platinum Brothers and The Underdogs ("What If I'm The One"). Charlie co-wrote and co-produced one song, and it's a highlight: the stirring gospel "Cry No More." (DBW)
Uncle Charlie (Charlie Wilson: 2009)
Kelly's not around this time, but the rest of the Last Name crowd is, and the production again leans way too hard on current trends ("Back To Love"): among other things, T-Pain's autotuned vocals are really starting to get on my nerves ("Supa Sexxy"). The Underdogs contribute mostly ballads ("Can't Live Without You," with a sinuous melody), though they're also behind the opener "Musta Heard," cleverly built on a "Jungle Boogie" guitar sample. Likewise, Gregg Pagani turns in some dance tracks ("Let It Out," with another Snoop Dogg cameo) and the midtempo grind "Shawty Come Back" (based on Player's "Baby Come Back"), and cooked up "There Goes My Baby" with Babyface. Throughout, the tunes seem designed to squash Wilson's individuality: the heavy synth bass of "Let It Out" is the only clue that the man fronted the Gap Band, and he never really gets to shine on vocals. (DBW)
Just Charlie (Charlie Wilson: 2010)
Not quite: Fantasia duets on a cover of Roger's "I Wanna Be Your Man." But everything else is Wilson solo, co-writing and producing with a small core of confederates including Wirlie "Optimas Pryme" Morris, Greg Pagani, Carl M. Days Jr. and Mahin Wilson (surely a relation). (DBW)
Love, Charlie (Charlie Wilson: 2012)
Nearly every track is co-written and produced by Wilson and Morris, and apart from the aerobicizer "My Baby" they stick to a midtempo smooth soul groove ("I Still Have You," with a sitar sound recalling the Stylistics) that's a good match for Charlie's vocals. At times they overdose on nostalgia (the old-timey, I-vi-IV-V "I Think I'm In Love"), but more often they find real emotion and tunefulness even though thematically they're in very well traveled territory ("Our Anniversary") and the instrumentation seldom strays far from the programmed drums/synth/occasional guitar template ("If I Believe"). (DBW)
My name is David, last name Wilson.
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The Nice/Emerson, Lake & Palmer
The Thoughts Of Emerlist Davjack - Ars Longa Vita Brevis - Nice - Five Bridges - Elegy - America: The BBC Sessions - Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Tarkus - Pictures At An Exhibition - Trilogy - Brain Salad Surgery - Works Volume 1 - Works Volume 2 - In Concert - Love Beach - King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents Greg Lake In Concert - Black Moon
The Nice is one seriously obscure band - in the United States. In Europe, this short-lived late 60s British prog rock ensemble was a definite success, with most of their LP's cracking the Top 10 on the UK charts. Here, they're mostly known because their leader, Keith Emerson, went on to form the hugely commercial 70s British prog rock group Emerson, Lake and Palmer. But the Nice is paid so little attention, in fact, that assorted liner notes on their first three records give no hint that the group released two live albums after their first record company - Immediate, which also handled the Small Faces - went belly-up at the end of 1969 (see below). While I can't admit to being a big ELP fan, the Nice turns out to have been quite entertaining. The main attraction was definitely Emerson, who had far better classical training than any other 60s musician and made damn sure you knew it. It seems that their lack of popularity here had more to do with Immediate's problems then with their own shortcomings; the Small Faces suffered similarly.
Intrigued by Emerson's huge success with the less ground-breaking ELP, I've tracked down and reviewed most of their records (which incidentally can be had for cheap on used CD, thanks to a recent remastering job that encouraged many fans to sell and replace their old copies). ELP was very much just a professionalized version of the late-period Nice, with better bass, drum, and vocal performances, plus all those famous synthesizers - Emerson was among the first to make real use of the new technology (see also Abbey Road). A lot of people find ELP overbearing and the critics can't stand them. There are reasons for this - Emerson came down with a bad case of synthesizer-itis just when the band formed; Lake sang his frequently pretentious lyrics like an overgrown choir boy; and it seemed like Palmer's only goal in life was to prove he could play really really fast without making any mistakes. Despite all this, ELP's quintessentially 70s sound often crystalizes around some good songwriting and fantastic musicianship, which explains their huge fan following. One problem, however, is that their records are relentlessly professional and mostly employ the same themes (some would say gimmicks). That makes it quite hard to rank them, but I've taken a stab at it.
As far as I can tell no one else on the Web has ever heard of the Nice, but there is an extensive ELP site.
I would like to thank Keith Emerson for offering some useful information that I have incorporated onto this page, and for challenging my anti-prog rock assumptions. I have retained some very harsh comments, particularly regarding ELP. All I can say is that you have to take my comments with a grain of salt, remembering that I started out with a bias against the band. Jeff Zahnen and others helped with the discography. (JA)
Lineups:
The Nice: Brian Davison (drums); Keith Emerson (organ, piano); Lee Jackson (bass, vocals); David O'List (guitar). O'List quit during the recording of Ars Longa..., late 1968.
ELP: Keith Emerson (organ, piano, synthesizers); Greg Lake (vocals, bass, guitar); Carl Palmer (drums).
The Thoughts Of Emerlist Davjack (1968)
This is one loud, crazy record. O'List went full-out to imitate Hendrix, but didn't have the chops, of course. It's still interesting to listen to him flail about and abuse his instrument ("Bonnie K"). Emerson was the most technically gifted keyboard player of the 60s, and occasionally he dishes out a warp-speed riff that makes your head spin ("Rondo"). Intent upon out-Peppering and out-Experiencing their competitors, the band comes up with one eerie-to-maniacal, effect-laden three-minute pop song after another ("Flower King Of Flies"; "Tantalising Maggie"; "Cry Of Eugene"). It's too bad their lead vocalist was so technically limited that his best performance is an ominous, over-amplified, whispered rant ("Dawn"). (JA)
Ars Longa Vita Brevis (1968)
Released at the end of 1968, this has become something of a cult classic, and the sort of record that rock historians find captivating. The first side is more of the same flakey, engaging, Hendrix-inspired psychedelic pop that dominates the first record - but this time with even funnier lyrics and crazier musical flourishes (a long, flipped-out cover of "America," with a hysterical S & M sound effect intro; the jazzy "Little Arabella"). The rest is a drawn out, occasionally pompous, occasionally fascinating effort at instrumental rock-jazz-classical fusion, with minimal vocals and a long quotation from Sibelius. This is frequently cited as the first authentic prog rock masterpiece. Although there were earlier, better, and less long-winded like efforts by the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Love, and especially Frank Zappa, it's fair to say that no other 60s rock band tried this hard to sound like it was really an electrified classical orchestra. (JA)
With O'List out of the picture, the Nice focused on Emerson's keyboard wizardry and the long, improvisational jazz-classical influenced song format they had explored on the previous record. This is true even when they're indulging Jackson's interest in Bob Dylan (a live take of "She Belongs To Me"). The effort is entertaining, but doesn't bear up to careful scrutiny. The lyrics are intentional nonsense ("Diary Of An Empty Day"; "For Example"), the rhythm section has little to contribute, and the backing orchestration is mostly superfluous. The only things holding it together are Emerson's sense of theatre and occasional flashes of brilliance. (JA)
Five Bridges (1970)
The title track was recorded live in England with a full orchestra - you've got to grant that nobody else tried to get away with anything like this back then. And you can see why, because the rock rhythm section often has to sit out the bland, Disneyesque classical sections (the horn section does jam with the band in places, something you won't find on other Nice records). In the course of its 18 minutes, "Five Bridges" also features some jazzy jamming a la Nice, and a couple of brief pseudo-pop interludes. It's followed by a live re-recording of an Ars Longa Vita Brevis track (Sibelius' "Karelia Suite," complete with incoherent organ-feedback interlude), plus a new, lengthy studio version of Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique." All of this is harmless but of interest mostly to committed fans; with the band edging ever closer to classical music, the average rock listener will find it hard to digest. This and the following disc have been released together on a single CD under the title Keith Emerson With The Nice. (JA)
Elegy (1970)
No orchestra this time, which makes this merely obscure instead of obscure and bizarre. Two of three tracks are taken from what is implied on the jacket to be the same Fillmore East concert that is featured on Nice, but according to Keith Emerson was actually a later concert at the Fillmore West ("Hang On To A Dream," done better in the studio on Nice; "America," the A-side that leads off Ars Longa). Without a second lead instrument to entertain the audience, the focus is on Emerson's famous feedback-drenched organ-busting antics and endless, jazzy soloing. Again, it's of interest only to fans who want to know what the band sounded like live - pretty much the same way they sounded in the studio, only more long-winded. The rest of the record comprises a long, energetic studio cut of Dylan's "My Back Pages," marred by Jackson's screechy scat singing. (JA)
America: The BBC Sessions (rec. 1967 - 1970, rel. 1996)
This 14-track compilation isn't available in the US, which is a shame. It's a mixed bag, of course, with absolutely abysmal sound quality on several cuts ("America"), shoddy packaging, and several of those noxiously smug and insulting BBC voiceovers that mar similar releases by other 60s British rock bands. On the other hand, there are a half-dozen tunes you won't find anywhere else, several of them quite good ("One Of Those People"; "Better And Better"; the primitive, MG's-like "Sombrero King"). Unlike most bands the Nice dared to defy the BBC by playing long-format pieces. But the BBC versions of "For Example," "Ars Longa Vita Brevis," and three-fifths of the "Five Bridges Suite" all are focused and entertaining, and there are plenty of humorous, crafted pop songs like "Happy Freuds" to balance things out. Apart from 1970s "Five Bridges" and a 1967 instrumental ("Sombrero King") everything here dates from 1968-69; O'List appears only on the early cuts and has little impact. (JA)
Emerson, Lake & Palmer (1971)
ELP got out of the starting gate with a memorable hit: Lake's "Lucky Man," with lots of acoustic guitar, echoey harmonies, and a famous synth solo on the fade. But don't be misled by this into thinking ELP is just another pop record - there aren't enough lyrics here to fill a 45. Instead, most of the running time is devoted to Emerson's soothing, solo jazz-classical piano trip (Lake's multi-part "Take A Pebble," which at first recalls his better King Crimson ballads; the pseudo-classical "Lachesis" piano solo; the 7/4 jazz number "Atropos"). All of this is intelligent and entertaining, and even though it ain't rock 'n' roll, other tracks like the heavy instrumental "The Barbarian" and the creepy, riffy "Knife-Edge" are plenty loud. Inevitably, the sound is closer to the Nice than on the later records - mostly because synthesizers are used lightly. They're replaced with church organ on the doom-laden solo "Clotho," and charmingly tuned to sound like a harpsichord at the beginning of "Tank," which then devolves into a pointless drum solo and a long, grating synth-fest. An uneven and quirky effort, the album still has enough musical integrity to make it one of the group's high points. (JA)
Tarkus (1971)
The band pulls out all of its tricks here, and they end up with a record that's more structured than anything else they did. The tracks never run long enough to lose the listener; there are noticeably more vocal sections than usual; and the instrumental and pop song segments are interspersed, avoiding any of the long-winded jam/solo arrangements that make so many of the other records hard to assimilate. On top of that, the record features plenty of catchy riffs; pretty Emerson piano parts ("Jeremy Bender"); fine Lake guitar solos ("Battlefield"); and interesting gimmicks, including ominous synthesizers, backwards guitars, repeated melodic themes, weird time signatures, and quotes from Bach. It's commercial and crafted right up to the hysterically funny Little Richard parody that ends it ("Are You Ready Eddy?"). The only downer is "The Only Way," with Lake's truly obnoxious lyrics ruining Emerson's clever church organ and piano parts. (JA)
Pictures At An Exhibition (1972)
Technically speaking this is a live record, but the material doesn't appear on the group's other discs, so it's a must for fans (at least). It's largely based on the "title track," a classical piece by Mussorgsky. His "Promenade" theme is catchy, but you've heard the original already and it gets tedious the third time around. Without electric guitar overdubs or multiple Emerson keyboard tracks, the band's sound is thin. But some of this is attention-grabbing anyway - for example, Lake showing off his classical guitar skills on "The Sage." (JA)
Trilogy (1972)
Anyone who likes the band will want to hear this; it's a fine batch of commercial pop songs and prog-rock experiments, with just a little of ELP's characteristic self-indulgence. The high point is "From The Beginning," a nice Lake ballad with a surprisingly prominent acoustic guitar; it ended up being the group's only American Top 40 hit. The bouncy, waltzing title track features some forgettable jamming, but it's completely harmless compared to the other records; and even Aaron Copland's "Hoedown," the obligatory classical quote here, is brief, energetic, and entertaining. The soothing "Abaddon's Bolero" is a bit long at eight minutes, but amusing anyway, and there's plenty of other good stuff like Emerson and Lake's light-hearted and catchy "The Sheriff," with Keith zipping off into warp-speed rag-time mode at the end. (JA)
Brain Salad Surgery (1973)
A big hit like the other records, but it's tedious. A good example is the exhausting, thirteen minute "Karn Evil 9 - 1st Impression" (a.k.a. "See The Show"). Admittedly, it does still get plenty of radio play and is full of virtuoso performances, and the equally successful "Still... You Turn Me On" is charming and mercifully brief. But the other selections are either characteristically pompous ("Jerusalem"); intentionally trite ("Benny the Bouncer," with a fun piano part); or tasteful but endless (jazzy jams like "2nd Impression"). Emerson had found some new customized Moog synth toys to play with, but in his hands the effects just sound cheesy - in utter contrast to his contemporary Stevie Wonder. Interestingly, Pete Sinfield of early King Crimson fame was brought in to handle the lyrics on a few tunes. He continued to work with Lake throughout the 70s. (JA)
Welcome Back, My Friends... (1974)
I'm told this is a 3 LP/2 CD live set drawing heavily on the preceding studio album. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a reasonably priced copy yet. (JA)
Works Volume 1 (1977)
This double LP/CD consists of one side each produced separately by the three members - Lake had usually produced alone before - plus a joint effort on the last side. The result is utter chaos. Emerson weighs in with a full-blown classical piano concerto ("No. 1"), and the band delivers a similar 13-minute piece ("Pirates"); like Five Bridges, it's professional but of no interest to pop music listeners despite Emerson's frenzied rotation of John Williams-like flourishes. Palmer debuts his intriguing Zappa-like experimental big-band formula (a rearranged "Tank"), but his songwriting is uneven: he covers some classical pieces (a dull Prokofieff, a sparkling "tuned percussion" Bach), and when Joe Walsh crops up on "L.A. Nights" it devolves into a good-timey jam. Only Lake attempts to use ELP's standard pop formula, making his side the most listenable but least experimental. His sentimentality has gotten saccharine at this point ("Closer To Believing"), and Sinfield generates some annoyingly trite strings of rhymes. At least some of the tunes are memorable, especially the acoustic ballad "C'Est La Vie." And the group's version of Copland's "Fanfare For The Common Man" is dramatic and tasteful, despite a nine-minute running time. (JA)
This strikes me as a heck of a lot more interesting than some of the earlier LP's, including the last one. Once again each band member produced a separate batch of the songs and brought in orchestral arrangers, horn sections, and sidemen. But the selections are interspersed instead of segregated, and all but one of the dozen tracks finish under four minutes. Plus the musical experiments are even wilder: Emerson's increasingly sophisticated synth parts; his tributes to rag-time on Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" (with the London Philharmonic Orchestra!) and his own "Barrel-House Shakedown," and to the early blues on "Honky Tonk Train Blues"; a prominent flute on Palmer's Zappa-inspired, jazz-fusion "Bullfrog," and Lake's Hendrix imitation on Palmer's equally weird "Close But Not Touching." Lake's "I Believe In Father Christmas" was a hit, albeit in the form of a Greg Lake solo version, and he contributes other solid, acoustic-guitar driven pop songs like "Watching Over You" and the amusing title track of Brain Salad Surgery, which appears here and not on that record. In sum, this is an unpredictable grab-bag that runs in all directions away from the band's signature sound - for better (mostly) or worse. And who can resist a record with a lyric like "She did a thing to my thing/Like it's never been done before" (Lake's "So Far To Fall")? (JA)
In Concert (rec. 1977, rel. 1979)
This album documents a 1977 concert at the Montreal Olympic Stadium. A new version with twice as many tracks was released in 1993 under the title Works Live, but I've got the original, shorter one. The focus here is on selections from first Works album, with a decent take of "C'Est La Vie" being the high point - you won't find any of their earlier big-deal hits, but there is a performance of "Knife Edge," and a 15-minute version of "Pictures At An Exhibition" that fills the second side. Also of note is a brief, crowd-pleasing version of Henry Mancini's 60s garage rocker "Peter Gunn." A full-blown classical orchestra shows up for a six minute excerpt of Emerson's straight-laced "Piano Concerto No. 1" and the super-pompous "Pictures," and although it's interesting to hear the band and orchestra play off each other, the effect is mostly uninspiring. The biggest selling point, then, is the lack of overlap with Welcome Back, My Friends. The new version is almost certainly better, and I'll try to track it down at some point. (JA)
Love Beach (1978)
What an odd title. Their weakest chart-performer, this is a harmless collection of engaging, classically influenced three-minute pop songs that ditches both the pretentious bombast of the early albums, and the bizarre, scatter-shot experimentation of the Works discs. And it seems to be very unpopular with the fans. Maybe their gripe is with Peter Sinfield's lyrics, which are often really lightweight here; he collaborated on almost everything, including Emerson and Lake's laid-back, slightly silly blues number "The Gambler." Mostly Sinfield goes with unremarkable love themes, but at least they're good for a few laughs - especially on the Latin lounge lizard number "For You." The only variety is a classical piece by Rodrigo ("The Canary") and a mellow, frequently very pretty Emerson-Sinfield mini-concept album that fills out the second side, which is certainly one of their most enjoyable long-format pieces ("Memoirs Of An Officer And A Gentleman"). Maybe variety is over-rated; I get more out of this than most of the group's other records, even though it's often derided and frankly just isn't the right place to start with them. (JA)
ELP went on a long break at this point, not fully reuniting until the 90s despite a couple of two-thirds efforts in the 80s. Emerson and Lake each went solo, while Palmer joined Asia. (JA)
Greg Lake (Lake: 1981)
With ELP on the backburner, Lake had formed a guitar-centered band featuring metal phenom Gary Moore. Several band members contributed to the songwriting, and there's also a collaboration with Bob Dylan, of all people ("Love You Too Much"). (JA)
King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents Greg Lake In Concert (rec. 1981, rel. 1995)
King Biscuit is currently flooding the market with live albums drawn from its tape archive, and personally I don't mind. Where else are you going to find an oddity like this one? Unfortunately, Lake's short-lived early 80s backing band is just running through the motions here. Lead guitarist Gary Moore (Thin Lizzy, Bruce/Baker/Moore, etc.) doles out one generic heavy metal riff after another, trying to make up for a lack of artistry with a surfeit of speedy notes. There's barely a nod to ELP ("Fanfare For The Common Man/Karn Evil 9" and a decent but formulaic "Lucky Man"), and the new material from the preceding studio album is almost uniformly weak - even their version of "You Really Got A Hold On Me" is as lifeless as sheet music. Only the note-for-note replications of King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man" and "In The Court Of The Crimson King" really take off; it's impressive to hear anyone play with such precision in a live concert. And although Lake's performance is solid, his voice already had started to deteriorate by this time. Fans looking for a dose of ELP will be severely disappointed by the track selection and minimal keyboards, but Moore groupies might enjoy it. (JA)
Manoeuvres (Lake: 1983)
Same band as on Greg Lake. (JA)
Emerson, Lake & Powell (1986)
Features ex-Jeff Beck Group/Rainbow drummer Cozy Powell sitting in for Palmer - Powell was a powerhouse on everything else I've heard him do, so ELP fans shouldn't be put off by this. Powell never worked with Emerson or Lake again, dying in a car crash in April, 1998. (JA)
To The Power Of 3 (3: 1988)
Yet another ELP permutation, this time with Emerson, Palmer, and Robert Berry filling in for Lake. (JA)
Black Moon (1992)
ELP's first new studio album in well over a decade. It seems like an extraordinarily deliberate attempt to recapture the group's old audience, with plenty of Emerson's unmistakable synth stylings and Lake's high-sounding collage-of-cliches lyrics, and an obligatory classical selection that could hardly be more obvious and heavy-handed (Prokofiev's "Romeo And Juliet"). But there are some major breaks with the past. Most obviously, Palmer goes with an echoey, computerized four-four beat that costs the group most of its usual class in the name of keeping them up to date. And instead of producing themselves as they always did before, they give outsider Mark Mancina the reigns. He's faceless, though, and all he contributes is one pompous Lake-esque pop song ("Burning Bridges") and some "ideas" for trendifying the group's sound. Worse still, Lake's voice has lost most of its smoothness, projection, and upper range. The end result is a record that's consistently grating except when it goes with basics - Emerson's gorgeous classical piano solo "Close To Home," and Lake's gentle, 70s-style acoustic guitar ballad "Footprints In The Snow." (JA)
Live At The Royal Albert Hall (1992)
In The Hot Seat (1994)
Daddy, where did I come from?
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The remaining members of INXS this week released a new 16-track digital-only best-of called Platinum: Greatest Hits that will appeal to diehard fans mostly for the ample bonus that comes with: Seriously Live, a 26-song double live album featuring remastered performances spanning the band’s 30-year career.
The new compilation — not to be confused with INXS’ upcoming collection of re-recorded hits — was released Monday in the band’s native Australia via iTunes and will be available in the U.K. and Europe beginning May 4, according to the band’s website. Neither a U.S. release date for the collection nor a physical CD release have been announced.
Wisely skipping the J.D. Fortune years, the new comp (the band’s fifth or sixth to date) nevertheless is bound to raise questions, as it omits some of the band’s most iconic songs — “Don’t Change” and “Listen Like Thieves,” to name two notable absences — while including other songs (“New Sensation,” “Bitter Tears”) in both studio and live versions.
Still, it’s not the only catalog rehash on the way from INXS: As Rolling Stone reported earlier this year, the band has been re-recording its biggest hits with a cast of all-stars filling in for the late Michael Hutchence (and erstwhile replacement Fortune). Among the tracks in the works: Rob Thomas singing “Original Sin” and “Never Tear Us Apart,” The Killers’ Brandon Flowers doing “Beautiful Girl” and Ben Harper tackling “Devil Inside.”
Drummer Jon Farriss told Rolling Stone: “We wanted to use to some of our existing songs and invite and integrate some well-known singers and very experienced and seasoned singers … and just make it a collaboration of getting INXS to be involved in all sorts of things — and using the original material as the focal point.”
That as-yet-untitled album is due later this year.
See full tracklist for INXS’ ‘Platinum: Greatest Hits’ after the jump…
Tracklist: INXS, Platinum: Greatest Hits + Seriously Live
1. “Suicide Blonde”
2. “Heaven Sent”
3. “By My Side”
4. “Bitter Tears”
5. “Mystify”
6. “Full Moon, Dirty Hearts”
7. “Baby Don’t Cry”
8. “Please (You Got That Need)”
9. “The Loved One”
10. “Beautiful Girl”
11. “Never Tear Us Apart”
12. “Disappear”
13. “Not Enough Time”
14. “Devil Inside”
15. “Need You Tonight”
16. “New Sensation”
17. “Burn for You” (Live)
18. “Faith in Each Other” (Live)
19. “Guns in the Sky” (Live)
20. “Communication” (Live)
21. “Mystify” (Live)
22. “Original Sin” (Live)
23. “One By One” (Live)
24. “Hear that Sound” (Live)
25. “I Send a Message” (Live)
26. “What You Need” (Live)
27. “Wild Life” (Live)
28. “The Stairs” (Live)
29. “This Time” (Live)
30. “I’m Just a Man” (Live)
31. “Searching” (Live)
32. “Bitter Tears” (Live)
33. “To Look at You” (Live)
34. “In Vain” (Live)
35. “Just Keep Walking” (Live)
36. “Spy of Love” (Live)
37. “Black and White” (Live)
38. “Jan’s Song” (Live)
39. “By My Side” (Live)
40. “The Loved One” (Live)
41. “Elegantly Wasted” (Live)
42. “New Sensation” (Live)
Video: Beck’s Record Club, with St. Vincent, covers INXS’ ‘Need You Tonight’
Milestones: Remembering INXS’s Michael Hutchence on his 50th birthday
‘Adventureland’ anchored by pitch-perfect ’80s college-rock soundtrack
Tags: Ben Harper, Brandon Flowers, INXS, iTunes, J.D. Fortune, Jon Farriss, Michael Hutchence, Platinum: Greatest Hits, Rob Thomas, The Killers
That’s righteous. I’m putting an APB out to my Australian buddies as we speak!
Kent Butabi
Is JD no longer with the band? I like him as front-man (sans Michael, of course).
Do INXS own their own masters? This latest repackaging omits their first hit “The One Thing”.
I don’t like jd fortune anymore with the band. I hope they get an established singer who is more mature than him. He doesn’t have to be older but more experienced and more mature. Terrence Trent was magic when he performed with the band with an obvious deep respect for Michael. No more jokes or clowns from tv competition shows with ernomous egos who are in it only for themselves. Inxs have so many contemporaries and peers in the music business who could do justice to the songs on the tour.
Jd’s solo album could do well when it comes out. He must have had good musicians performing on the songs for the album Death of a Motivational Singer.
I am really disappointed in INXS. I have been a fan who has supported the Band since I first heard them in the early 80s. Yes that is right boys -I was one of those people who were contributing to your paycheck through most of your career! I have accomplished a difficult goal and wanted to reward myself with this new Platinum Greatest Hits CD since my albums old. I had a problem ordering the CD and after looking up info I found out the CD has not been released to the US (The States). I am very shocked and disappointed especially since I do not think this CD Set will ever be released to the US! You need to think about your fans… after all you would have never made it without us and I do know the States were an important market for you -how could you leave us out?
Delta-Mode
I love INXS, they are up there with Depeche Mode as one of my all time favourite bands but please guys, RETIRE!!!! How many more god damn greatest hits collections do we need?? None!! As far as i’m concerned, it all came to a screeching halt on November 22nd, 1997.
Roel van Broekhoven
Hello, personally I find ‘The Swing’ period the best period. Period. Great tunes, clever lyrics, after that it went downhill, I think. With a few songs following that were also great like for instance ‘Kiss the dirt’ and ‘New sensations’. Although ‘New sensations’ didn’t sound new to me anymore… There are an awful lot of compilation cd’s nowadays and it can be a real time-consuming task to sort things out but if someone knows if the two live songs ‘Jan’s song’ and ‘To look at you'(=the two b-sides of 7″ Original sin) are on this cd please let me know.
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1860s births •
Gustav Klimt Exposición inmersiva
La tecnología digital al servicio del arte. L'Atelier des Lumières, en Paris, abre sus puertas en abril del 2018, con una exposición inmersiva, de las obras de Gustav Klimt. A través del proceso AMIE...
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This is a video of a salsa performance by Walter Maya and Travis DeTour.
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Mikhail Nesterov
Mikhail Vasilyevich Nesterov (Russian: Михаи́л Васи́льевич Не́стеров) (May 31 [O.S. May 19] 1862, Ufa - October 18, 1942, Moscow) was a leading representativ...
Video of masters work. Music by Isan. Made with TrakAxPC. A free application for mixing music and video.
Russian painter Mikhail Nesterov - YouTube
Dec 21, 2008 ... Mikhail Vasilyevich Nesterov (Russian: ?????´? ????´?????? ??´??????) (May 31 [O.S. May 19] 1862, Ufa - October 18, 1942, Moscow) was a ...
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Bernhard M. Jacobsen
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Tag: onenote
January 17, 2018 Best Of, Tips
Free Microsoft Office with GoDaddy Coupons…And Other Tips.
How to Use Microsoft Office for Free
Microsoft Office is the most popular office suite available. Unfortunately, the full version of Microsoft Office is expensive. However, if you’re willing to sacrifice a few features, then you can use this popular office suite for free.
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Free Microsoft 365 Coupons with GoDaddy:
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« Planetary science review to be released soon
Senators debate RD-180 replacement, EELV competition »
No quick end for 2015 appropriations process
By Jeff Foust on 2014 July 22 at 9:30 am ET
For a time this spring, it appeared that Congress would make quick work of fiscal year 2015 spending bills. The House, for example, passed its version of a Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) appropriations bill, which funds NASA, NOAA, and NSF among other agencies, in late May. Meanwhile, debate on the Senate version of the bill started in mid-June before it got bogged down over other issues. It appeared that Congress might be able to pass the bills before the fiscal year started on October 1. It seemed too good to be true.
Because, as it turns out, it was too good to be true. With signs that the overall appropriations process is stalling, National Journal reports that House Republicans are planning a continuing resolution (CR) that would funding the government through perhaps election day. THe House is considering voting on the CR next week, before the August recess, an unusually early step that signals there’s little hope of getting appropriations bills passed before October 1.
46 comments to No quick end for 2015 appropriations process
Why on Earth is there no provision in the U.S. system that a budget has to be finalized by the time the previous FY is over? Like: if Congress doesn’t have one, all lose their office …
Like removing the CR facility altogether but this means going against political interest and as Donald has state below, why would a politician do that.
Donald F. Robertson
Congress writes the laws. Why would they write that one?
Likewise, the Republican leadership are trying hard to keep their goals quiet and stay under the radar through the next two elections. In the unlikely event they can keep the tea party swept under the rug for that long, why would they do anything to rock the boat?
— Donald
“The Republican leadership are trying hard to keep their goals quiet and stay under the radar through the next two elections.”
Does the GOP have any viable presidential candidate?
Will there be a third party?
If so, what is his/her position on space?
Finally, does it really matter, as his/her course of action is likely to be dictated by factors outside his/her control. (g*d I hate this politically correct usage. Anything else to use besides his/her?)
In formal English, the gender free pronoun is “they,” as in “If so, what is their position on space?”
From the Oxford English Dictionary, generally accepted as the final word on English usage, They
Paul Scutts
Its called using the royal plural.
This is from a Congress filled with businessmen (and women) who swear by the rules of “good business sense”. This is also the Congress many of those here look to be responsible for a federally funded sustainable, rationale- and consensus-driven human spaceflight program. What a joke. Welcome to dysfunctionality land. Who knows. Maybe if we start a new state on the Moon, their government will work better than it does here.
At least they will only have 1/6th the weight to throw around.
Where’s the ‘like’ button?
Dick Eagleson
I think you will find that there are rather few businessmen (or women) in Congress. The vast majority of them, even on the Republican side, are lawyers. This article says 89 of 100 senators are either lawyers or former government officials at some lower level. Only 26 claim any business experience. In the lower house lawyers and businesspeople are roughly equal in number, but both are outnumbered by those who identify as former government officials at some lower level. So at least 2/3 of the House and even more of the Senate seem never to have drawn a significant private sector paycheck. Explains a lot I should say.
Hiram: Who knows. Maybe if we start a new state on the Moon, their government will work better than it does here.
I’m not sure if you meant this seriously, but I do. If our culture, and probably our species, are to survive, this is a must. Again, from an archaeological perspective, no state lasts forever. Historically, democracies or republics tend to last a few hundred years before enough people get rich enough to establish an aristocracy of some sort, then it lasts a similar period as a dictatorship before collapsing through infighting amongst the rich. (Contrary to popular mythology, true popular uprisings of the poor or the middle class that overthrow an aeristocracy are rare; it’s usually the lower tiers of the aeristocracy that pull down the state.) Far be it from me to predict the future, but the United States is not immune from these trends and the forces that drive them. Certainly, there are no shortages of serious threats on our immediate horizon, and if we have lost the ability to act, we’ve also lost the ability to respond to them.
There is essentially no place on Earth a new state could really be established that is not an extension of, or destroyed by, an existing one. New social experiments — like the U.S. Constitutional form of government (though it’s not all that new, of course, having been closely modeled on the Roman Republic) — require space (with a small s). With the possible exceptions of under the oceans and Antarctica, the available space today is in Space.
For me, this is the single most important reason for spaceflight, though not the only one, and why I put such a high emphasis on human spaceflight. In my opinion, any future we have as a culture or species depends on it.
I think I agree that a transplanted nation will not last. They never do. When we form a “state” on the Moon, it won’t be long before they declare their independence. So space settlement and colonization isn’t about nation saving. It may be about species saving, if done right. It may be about culture saving, but I think the precepts of a culture are heavily embedded in the way of life, which would be totally different in space. I think that’s why our Congress is totally uncommittal about space settlement and colonization. Because the historical evidence is that it may not end up extending or saving the nation. Our Congress is charged with preserving the nation. Not creating new ones. Not preserving the species.
Vladislaw
You are discribing the pulibian cycle and the founders of America were aware of this cycle and our republic was set up to try and break that cycle of anarchy > monarchy > aristocracy > democracy > anaracy ….
The house was the democratic branch, the Senate the aristocracy and the president the monarchy.
Funny how it plays out.
Hiram: You are, of course, correct. However, I am focussed on these issues and trying to think up ways around Congress and the four year election cycle. That is why I think the COTS / CCtCap is such an important strategy: I think it has the potential to survive the issues that have killed space strategies (e.g., Constellation) in the past.
but I think the precepts of a culture are heavily embedded in the way of life, which would be totally different in space.
I agree, but that is a strong argument for space exploration. Humanity has generally conducted social experiments, especially successful ones, in the new environment and isolation of a new frontier. Life on Earth’s moon will be very different from anything at home, and that is a good thing because it will drive new ways of living and new arts and help fight cultural and political stagnation; cultural diversity improves our species’ chances of success over the long term and in today’s world, in the absence of a total collapse on Earth, radically new ways of living and culture (in the wide sense) are only possible in inner the Solar System.
In the same way that most European languages are today derived from Latin, and not the languages and cultures Rome’s (Eastern) enemies (of course German and English are both derived from the “barbarian” Celtic languages, but the Celts had much more in common with the Romans than the Eastern empires Rome competed with), I would prefer that future cultures and languages are derived from the West and English, rather than, say, Chinese. But I’ll take what I can get. If China chooses to do it, and we choose not to, there will be little future for English and the West, but humanity will survive to try cultural freedom (i.e., “democracy”) again another day.
Hi Don –
“However, I am focused on these issues and trying to think up ways around Congress and the four year election cycle.”
The impact hazard will be with us until it is dealt with.
My guess right now is that the Hubble images of 73P in 2017 will pretty much change things.
Thus ARM will survive, with changes made to it then.
Hello, E.P. Grondine,
I doubt it. Things will change when a lot of people in a rich nation get killed by an impact. (Note in proof: the closest we’ve come to seriously considering serious action was following the recent Russian impact.)
Meanwhile, I’ve donated as much as I can to the B612 Foundation, and I would encourage others who consider this important to do the same.
“Humanity has generally conducted social experiments, especially successful ones, in the new environment and isolation of a new frontier.”
I think the question is, to the extent that space settlement is rationalized as insurance, what exactly is it we’re trying to preserve by doing it? But that’s exactly right about China. If China ends up leading the way in planetary settlement, we may not preserve English, and western traditions, or even democracy, but we might be preserving the species to some extent. Though perhaps not a racially diverse one.
I think you are exactly right about commercial space. Government will NOT organize space settlement. Just won’t happen. For the reasons I gave above. So if space settlement is important to you, best to look more broadly.
I see a tendency in these comments toward making the same mistake about the Chinese that a previous generation made about the former Soviet Union – that it would be around essentially forever in more or less its then-present form. Almost no one – with the notable exception of Ronald Reagan – thought the Soviet Union would fall right up until it actually did. Even after this, there were some pathetic cases who seemed disinclined to accept the new post-Soviet reality. I remember a then-prominent “Kremlinologist” as they were called back in the day – Prof. Stephen Cohen – appearing on a number of television news and commentary shows in the 1989-92 time frame as the Soviet Union was incrementally coming apart after the fall of the Berlin Wall. He looked more and more glassy-eyed and pathetic as events unfolded and his whole comfortable conventional-wisdom-based left-wing academic worldview fell in around his ears.
Do not be similarly foolish about the Chinese. Traditional Chinese governmental forms are based on a rigid hierarchy and rule by a tiny elite. The current government is nominally Communist, but is actually quite continuous with the previous royalist dynastic norm of Chinese governance.
But the traditional China in which these governmental norms were established was one in which the normative Chinese was an illiterate subsistence agriculturalist. There has never been a rigid authoritarian government that has lasted very long in a developed country where the population is well-educated. Even in countries that started out mostly peasants, like the former Soviet Union, Communist tyranny failed when the country reached a level of development and education well below that of the United States, Western Europe or Japan. The current Putin regime represents a doomed attempt to turn back the clock to Stalinist days, but I do not expect his regime to be either successful or long-lasting. The current Chinese regime is similarly unstable and for the same reasons.
Half tongue-in-cheek, I have, on several occasions, propounded what I call the Eagleson Olympics + 9 Rule of Totalitarian Ruin. Nazi Germany hosted a Summer Olympic Games in its capital, Berlin, in 1936. By 1945, Nazi Germany was finished. The Soviet Union hosted a Summer Olympic Games in its capital, Moscow, in 1980. In 1989 the Berlin wall fell and the Soviet Union unraveled rapidly over the next two years. China hosted a Summer Olympic Games in its capital, Beijing, in 2008. It is now 2014. the current Chinese rulers have three more years to put their affairs in order according to my Rule of Ruin. 2017 may not be literally the year the current Chinese government falls, but it hasn’t got all that long before enough of the Chinese get fed up with the “princelings” now in command and put an end to them.
Shit happens, people. And that isn’t always bad.
Andrew Swallow
China has a few more years to go. It has not run out of money yet. Whilst it still has money from exports the people can be bribed.
Dick Eagleson: I fully agree. The Chinese state has tremendous problems and large numbers of very unhappy people and communities, requiring huge bribes of foreign money to keep them in line. The depopulation of the countryside and the explosion of the cities, alone, are creating vast social tensions. China could explode at any time, though I doubt they’ll go as “quietly” as the Soviet Union did. On the other hand, the Chinese leadership is very aware of these problems and attempting to address them — in sharp contract to our leadership.
The Chinese leadership is certainly aware that their natives are restless. As to attempting to address problems, not so much. All the Chinese leadership can do is play for time with a musical chairs game of favors granted and withdrawn. There is an endpoint to schemes of this type. To actually preserve their power the Chinese leaders need to remain in charge of everything. Their problems, though, mainly derive from being in charge of everything. Quite a few of their most intractable problems, for example, are predictable downstream consequences of the disastrous “one-child policy” enacted decades ago by a previous generation of absolute Chinese rulers who were also – wait for it now – in charge of everything.
Hiram: So if space settlement is important to you, best to look more broadly.
That is exactly what I am trying to do in my various posts here.
You should look at it as why do ALL species explore? Our reasons for going into space will be for the same reasons all species explore.
Vladislaw: I agree, though amongst macroorganisms, humans explore more, and more successfully, than most.
I believe we explore more only because we also have the ability to EXPLOIT more freely than other species.
A codicil might be… species only explore where they have the ability to exploit.
A second codicil might be .. individuals and corporations only explore where the government allows them to exploit in the future…
on a roll here .. LOL
Where does SpaceX fit in? They’re trying to create the tools to go to Mars for essentially ideological reasons. (Gold aside, as I recall, much of the exploration of the New World was done for something called Manifest Destiny and for other religious reasons.)
Monopolies, in general, can only last if they are protected by the government in one way or another.
Capital, automatically flows towards extra normal profits. ULA and the parents were a monopoly along with the NASA monopoly/monopsony. While the government protected those monopolies capital was not flowing in that direction unless it was first bascially guaranteed a small slice of that pie.
That protection was lifted and SpaceX capital automatically flowed towards those extra normal profits. Once all protections are removed, more than likely SpaceX will become pretty close to a monopoly. If they price accordingly more capital will start flowing into the launch business.
SpaceX does appear to be guided by more than a pure profit motive, as they have not went public yet which can put pressure on corporate direction.
Usually a new player that introduces an innovation prices two ways. Just under what the current suppliers charge. Or agressively lower than the competitors.
If you price just under the current suppliers you can defensively match each drop of the current competitors might uses to keep business this maximizes profits in the short run but, as I stated extra normal profits automatically brings in competitive capital.
If you agressively price downward it is usually a defensive move against capital flowing in. The profits are not extra normal but a lot closer to the industry standard. That means the cost of entry has a longer pay back period and is harder to find investment capital.
Don’t discount the importance of ideology in driving exploration and/or settlement of freshly explored territories. Sometimes the ideology involves conquest of new lands for the greater glory of, say, Islam. Sometimes it is reactive, a consequence of being persecuted and driven out of the more settled areas, as with the Mormons starting out in New England and winding up in Utah. Religious motives have probably impelled as much exploration and expedition as any other force except possibly the lure of financial gain.
SpaceX’s Martian Odyssey seems to involve both. There is no question that ideology is the impetus, but Elon expects Mars colonization to be profitable too. He has both a mission and a business plan. As Vladislaw notes, Elon has deliberately chosen to leave quite a bit of money on the table in the near term in order to retain freedom of action for the longer term. Elon plays the long game. I think he’s going to win.
Dick Eagleson: Religious motives have probably impelled as much exploration and expedition as any other force except possibly the lure of financial gain.
I fully agree. Although I consider myself agnostic leaning heavily toward atheism, I also admit that my advocacy for human spaceflight is, at bottom, essentially religious.
I am not the only one honest enough to admit this: I once quoted John Pike as saying, “You have this very small minority of people who have had this personal ‘revelation’ that [human] spaceflight is important and means something. They have to trick the other ninety-five percent of taxpayers into paying for their own private, religious obsession.” Does Pike share this ‘religion’? He laughed, and said, “Yes! My first conscious memory was when I was four years old and went out into the back yard and saw Sputnik-1.”
Elon plays the long game. I think he’s going to win.
I agree with the first phrase, but I doubt the second. In the sense of giving commercial space transportation a good push in the seat of the pants, he has already “won.” But successfully establishing colonies on Mars will be far harder than he thinks — it’s a project for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years — and the first ones are very likely to fail. None of this reflects on Elon’s ambitions, skills, or achievements so far: it is simply a reflection of how hard colonization is, especially of an unremittingly hostile place like Mars, and the difficulty of getting and staying there and successfully living off the land. The colonization of Iceland and Greenland are probably good models. Neither went well, but Iceland was the first post-Roman democracy and, today, remains the longest-surviving one. More relevantly, it now has a large and established population.
With you entirely on the atheism/space colonization as religion thing. I’m two years older than Pike and I remember Sputnik too. Also the Echo satellites a couple years later. Now those puppies really showed up over the ‘ole backyard. Brighter than Jupiter or Mars.
As for Elon winning on Mars, I think he will because he is just audacious enough, but not more than enough. True genius, I think, is often a matter of consistent finesse. Elon seems to have that. There are only a handful of people now on Earth who might get Mars colonization “right.” Elon is definitely one of them and, hey, he’s also the only one who will have the money to do it in a few years.
Fun times ahead, DFR! Fun times ahead!
Donald wrote:
“it’s a project for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years — and the first ones are very likely to fail. None of this reflects on Elon’s ambitions, skills, or achievements so far: it is simply a reflection of how hard colonization is, especially of an unremittingly hostile place like Mars, and the difficulty of getting and staying there and successfully living off the land.”
A couple assumptions are going to make it a whole lot easier than a top down government controled, pork laden settlement attempt and a commercial attempt.
A heavy lift that isn’t designed, developed, tested and built at totally insane prices.
A heavy lift launch vehicle that is reusable.
Speed of commercial firms in pushing technology and innovations in to current production streams.
Think about the Shuttle and ISS that was still using archaic computer processors 10 – 15 years old. Commercial interests would have been shoveling in new tech a lot faster.
Look how many iterations of the Merlin engine we have seen in the last decade ..
If SpaceX can pull off a reusable 200 ton launcher that can drop 150 TONS of cargo on mars multiple times per year. Colonization could happen at whirlwind speed not seen since NASA’s infancy.
Vlad is quite right. Elon will win because he will be looking six or eight moves ahead at all times and never making a move that is not well-considered and well-prepared. He’s going to summit an unknown rock face, but he’s not planning to make the initial ascent freestyle; he’s going to use ropes and lots and lots of pitons. Elon’s signal advantage over governments and bureaucracies who may be inclined, in their stupid and careless ways, to try doing the same is that he has his vision as an ever-present navigational reference, and he is able to be persistent and consistent in pursuit of his goal.
It’s essentially impossible for government, or even corporate, bureaucracies to marshal these necessary qualities over time. The U.S. Apollo program had Von Braun as its visionary-in-chief. The early Soviet program had Korolev. I think a lot of the reason for the Soviet’s ultimate failure to either win the Moon race or even to place a close second was because Korolev died in 1966, whereas Von Braun lasted through to the end and beyond. Interesting to contemplate how things might have gone quite differently had Von Braun expired in 1966 and Korolev lived until 1977. In that case, afficianados of 60’s-era trivia might well be getting the real-life team of Neil and Buzz mixed up with the fictional team of Tod and Buzz and either one could be a $1,000 dollar answer on Jeopardy.
Roger Launius has called out the “three Gs” — gold, glory, and God. That’s one way to look at why species explore.
But don’t be misled. A contemporary joke in historical circles is that humans explore because they are curious. That this is part of our DNA. In fact, they explore because they are threatened or hungry. If a civilization is healthy, happen and well fed, they don’t go to see what’s on the other side of the hill. That’s exactly the reasons that other species explore. When they are threatened or hungry.
He must have mean’t why OUR species explore I do not believe bark bettles explore for God or gold. *unless more new bark is gold to them .. grins)
I agree, about healthy and happy, but only to a point. If product x is keeping you happy but I believe if I “explore” other options to make you happy with a less expensive more abundant product Y then exploring for greed can take place. I believe some other human emotions, besides fear and hunger, can also be a root cause for “exporing”.
“He must have mean’t why OUR species explore”
Quite right. I phrased that wrong.
Making you happy with less expensive more abundant product is indeed about “greed”, which could be considered as making you happier, and is probably the equivalent of gold. There is some glory in that as well.
But the idea that human civilizations reach out and travel to new destinations because their DNA makes them curious really isn’t supported by history.
It would seem it would be more closely related to a fight or flight mechanism versus curiousity as a genetic trait to be inherited?
“… fight or flight mechanism versus curiosity as a genetic trait to be inherited.”
That’s sensible. But HSF folks find it hard to map onto “fight or flight” these days. “Fight” probably pertained well to Apollo, however. I think “glory” always works for HSF, though making large federal investments in “glory” can be considered questionable.
Hiram: Roger Launius has called out the “three Gs”
Roger Launius has a new book on this very subject, reviewed in Frank Morring’s column in the 21 July 2014 AvWeek and called Historical Analogs for Stimulation of Space Commerce. Morring quotes him as writing, “The time has arrived for NASA to shift from building and operating space launch systems to purchasing these services from commercial firms.”
Actually, here’s a link to a printable copy of the entire book, Historical Analogs for Stimulation of Space Commerce.
Reason to explore – food.
Any given bit of land can only produce so much food. Once eaten the creature has to go somewhere else for its next meal. When they grow up the children of the creature will need their own hunting grounds.
Humans like birds need a nesting area to bring up their young. Materials for the nest (house) also need finding.
The food source can be scouted out in advance and its location remembered. One advantage of big brains and maps.
As I said, humans travel to explore because they are threatened or hungry. As a rationale for contemporary human space flight, however, hunger is laughable. At least Apollo did what it did because we were threatened. Food is cheap, and loads of it is sitting on shelves at the grocery store. Housing materials are not hard to find either. If we’re looking for food, the Moon, for example, is a really, really bad place to look.
WW3 may have started. The threats are coming back.
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I am not exactly a morning person
Posted on February 24, 2016 by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
Last night, I set my alarm for 4:15am, and then went back and changed it to 4:30 because the extra 15 minutes gave me a sliver of a will to live, and I thought that rushing a little in the morning would be better. I have no way to explain to you why I did this, because I recognize that I’m not a morning person and while I am capable of rushing in the morning, I’m not really capable of doing it without weeping softly as I do it, and that’s exactly what I did this morning. The car came for me at 5:15, and I was on my way to the airport in the beginnings of a massive storm, peering into the darkness, and wondering how long it would hold off, if my flight would be delayed, if I would meet Clara on time in Denver to join up for the flight to Austin, and if I have any of the right clothes for Austin (I don’t. You can take a gal out of the winter, but you can’t take the winter out of the gal.)
Now I’m at the airport, wondering sort of absently why there are so many people here (storm) drinking (another) cup of coffee, wondering why I keep booking flights that in my soul I feel are a human rights violation, and casting on for a hat. Sam’s lost hers again, and while I feel like there should be consequences for this many lost hats, I don’t feel like those consequences should include frostbite, so… another hat it is. (She’s not getting another Wurm though. Too much knitting for a hat-loser. I suggested she whip out the needles herself if she was getting particular, and all of a sudden she was a paragon of flexibility. She’ll get what I knit, and she’ll like it.)
So I was sitting here, feeling exactly zero positive things – this is how much I am not a morning person, and I was glumly pulling out the hat stuff, and casting on, and then I had to rip it out because apparently I can’t to a lick of math before at least 8am, and this lady walks by, and she says “Are you KNITTING?!” (You could actually hear the interrobang, if you’re wondering.) I look up, sort of prepared to cheerfully make my way through another conversation about the archaic and bizarre nature of my occupation, and how she didn’t think anyone did that anymore, and how she heard knitting was making a comeback, or how I must have a lot of patience, or any of the other stereotypical and untrue stuff that people say to me in airports… and I sigh a little, gird myself and say “Yup.”
This lady’s face lights up like a Christmas tree, and she says “It looks so fun! All I’m going to do on my flight is watch a stupid movie.”
“I’m going to watch a stupid movie and make a hat.” I tell her, suddenly feeling much better. Productive, even. Like my day has a purpose, even though I’m in a stinking airport at dawn.
“Lucky duck” she says, and off she goes.
I bet she’s a morning person. (Thanks, lady.)
125 thoughts on “I am not exactly a morning person”
Tara on February 24, 2016 at 7:33 am said:
Aww 🙂 I hope she picks up needles when she gets where she’s going.
Mary H. on February 24, 2016 at 7:44 am said:
May every stitch in Sam’s hat be a happy thought!
Anne P on February 24, 2016 at 7:45 am said:
Stephanie, I enjoy your writing style so much! I read a lot of blogs where the writers are trying sooo hard to be clever, but seriously, ending a joke with “That is all.” does not make it any wittier. Anyway, you’re hilarious (‘paragon of flexibility’, lol), thanks for the smiles 🙂
Cara on February 24, 2016 at 10:11 am said:
She should write a book or something. 🙂
Trish at Tangled Threads on February 24, 2016 at 11:29 am said:
What a good idea!
askbew on February 24, 2016 at 11:45 am said:
Knitwit on February 24, 2016 at 7:17 pm said:
I thought the same thing….it might even make the NYT bestseller list!
Judith on February 25, 2016 at 7:24 pm said:
And if it did, she could have “NYT Best-Selling Author” on the cover of all her books forevermore!
Barbara on February 24, 2016 at 11:44 pm said:
Nah. Who’d read a book about knitting stuff?
Kim Gilbertson on February 29, 2016 at 5:52 pm said:
Afton on February 24, 2016 at 7:48 am said:
Morning people do have their uses.
Margaret on February 24, 2016 at 7:48 am said:
In an ironic turn of events, your blog is often part of the embarrassingly lengthy waking-up process that is my morning (and probably lots of other people’s, as well) – so next time you’re having a morning like this one, you can think, “I’m going to watch a stupid movie, make a hat, and let my blog improve the grumpy mornings of hundreds of people.” And then you can take a really self-satisfied sip of coffee.
Hope you have a blast in Austin!
Elizabeth on February 24, 2016 at 11:43 am said:
Pat V on February 25, 2016 at 8:05 am said:
Here too, as I lay in my bed laughing. I am also not a morning person. But this helps. Looking forward to seeing you in Kansas City in April!
Jo-Anne on February 24, 2016 at 7:49 am said:
Great story for my morning. Got in early to work, anticipating dreadful drive, but it looks like it’s going to hit about the time I head home. Safe travels. Glad she made you smile.
JL on February 24, 2016 at 7:52 am said:
It was so wonderful to wake up to your blog this morning. I’m leaving on a few 7am flights soon. I ship everything before I go so I have lots of things in my carry on to keep myself occupied while waiting. I love to wait in airports, hospitals, doctors offices….knitting, complicated dot-to-dot book, crossword puzzles, reading book, special snacks…
Have a great flight!
Deb on February 24, 2016 at 8:51 am said:
Your blog is the highlight of my day. Only blog I ever bother to read. Too much knitting to do. Too little time.
Enjoy Austin.
Carolyn on February 24, 2016 at 9:02 am said:
I read your blog and never leave comments, but had to this time. What a delightful way to salvage your morning! I’m so glad that she came by to give you a lift! Happy, safe travels to you…say hi to my husband if you pass him in the airport in Austin..he’ll be there catching a flight this afternoon!
Ellen on February 24, 2016 at 9:05 am said:
Your story takes me back to my own knitting epiphany. I had knitted in previous lives (college, babies) but gave it up during the years of school, sports and music lessons for the children plus my own job. About 15 years ago, I was waiting for a delayed flight in the Tallahassee airport when I saw a woman knitting and I thought, “I wish I was knitting.” When I got to my destination and had a couple of hours between meetings I searched out a local yarn shop. I bought yarn and needles and immediately cast on for a scarf. The rest, you know, is history, as my Ravelry page will attest to.
Lois on February 24, 2016 at 9:15 am said:
Bless those morning angels who can turn your day around!
Safe travels and happy knitting.
Johanne on February 24, 2016 at 9:17 am said:
Now, that’s was I call “pay it forward”… she did it to you, and so you did it to us by sharing your story.
Now, we can all pay it forward to someone else… morning person or not, now that there’s a grin on our face!
christine m. east of Toronto on February 24, 2016 at 9:19 am said:
People can always surprise us! 🙂
I feel your morning pain. My daughters had 5 am swim practices for 4 years. They finally stopped competing and the older one is now a lifeguard. She has two morning shifts that start at – you guessed it – 5 am…..I really can’t wait until she can drive herself!
Happy travelling – I knit in airports and on planes too. There really should be a special section in the plane so that all the knitters can hang out together!
Betsy on February 25, 2016 at 10:46 am said:
Yes! I always knit at airports and in planes, literally all over the world. Many times, we knitters find each other, kind of like homing pigeons. But wouldn’t it be nice if there was a special section that we could all sit together. Knitting group in the air!
Isn’t it great when knitting can make your whole day better? Great story!
Danielle on February 24, 2016 at 9:51 am said:
I would love it if you’d reinstate the “appearances/events” page. The blog sidebar’s been empty for years so all I know about where I might hear you speak or take a class is … uh, the travel blog entries.
mellenknits on February 24, 2016 at 9:52 am said:
The fact that you know what an interrobang is – just one of the reasons I love your blog! (side note – I always thought ‘Interrobang’ would be a great name for a band)
Good luck with the hat knitting. I don’t know what pattern you chose, but I just finished the Antler hat by Tin Can Knits for my husband, and I highly recommend any of their patterns for speedy, yet fetching, headwear.
Kathy P in Pittsburgh on February 28, 2016 at 6:21 pm said:
It is a great name for a band:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utGXII3MZvg
Stardancer on February 24, 2016 at 9:57 am said:
I looked up “interrobang.” I had no idea that !? was a real form of punctuation, let alone its name. My life (or at least my grammar) is a little bit better this morning 🙂
(Also, good luck with the travel. And finding good travel coffee.)
Jen on February 24, 2016 at 10:10 am said:
I once consigned my older son to a year of Walgreens hats as purgatory for losing the hats I made for him. The next year we came up with the solution of making them brightly colored, with his name worked in fair isle, so we could find them in lost and found more easily. There’s still a lot of hat loss in our house, so they totally get basic ones now.
Somebody buy that lady a coffee!
Glenda on February 24, 2016 at 10:16 am said:
I overhead a woman, taking a sock class, say “I wish I could knit on my flight.” DUH! So many still believe their needles won’t be allowed! I’ve had my tweezers taken, (fear of having their eyebrows removed?) but never my knitting!
Nancy on February 24, 2016 at 10:59 pm said:
And I will see you there!
Cookgoalie on February 25, 2016 at 3:16 pm said:
This conversation is like a record going around and around. Someone says you can take your needles. Another reports how the knitting was ripped off the needles. So for some travellers it is not quite as straight forward as all that.
Fortunately, I only have cause to fly Air New Zealand and they have a written policy that knitting needles and crotchet hooks are allowed. I still use caution and carry on only my less expensive ones though, just in case I meet up with someone who is having a bad day at the office.
Anonymous, too on February 24, 2016 at 10:21 am said:
YH, I salute you! To have changed out of your jammies and gone to the airport at such an early hour takes a special kind of fortitude. At that hour, I would have been making Godzilla seem like a wuss! (Early birds are only good for breakfast, IMHO.)
Have a safe trip, and enjoy whatever hijinks you and Clara get into. Keep Austin weird (and knit some moose antlers on Sam’s hat).
Linus on February 24, 2016 at 3:10 pm said:
Did she actually say she had changed out of her jammies…?
sandyharsh on February 24, 2016 at 10:23 am said:
Is what you’ll be doing in Austin an event open to the public by any chance? My daughter is there and would definitely want to attend!
Cal on February 24, 2016 at 11:09 am said:
It’s a retreat weekend, but Hill Country Weavers still have the page up for the Saturday evening Dinner and Yarn Harlot talk that is open to others, so maybe there are places left? Here’s the tiny-ized site:
http://tinyurl.com/jvyje2v
One place left!
Wendy on February 24, 2016 at 10:28 am said:
I’ve had many things taken from me by the tsa. Things I knew if I had thought would not be allowed but having to use them for work on a near daily basis, never thought about removing from my purse. They also found my ring full of store rewards tags when I couldn’t the day before.
I have a feeling all of us knitters have an Achilles heel with yarn. Mine happens to be not being able to keep the numbers of yds per oz separate from the yds per g and not getting enough or getting way too much (but it’s never enough to make anything useful it seems).
Thanks Stephanie for fun. You always brighten my day. And when you don’t have a post, I go back and re-read earlier ones.
Sarah on February 24, 2016 at 10:40 am said:
I love that lady’s comment. Usually when someone asks me if I’m knitting when I’m at an airport or on a plane, it’s usually followed up by some question of how I managed to get past security with my very dangerous merino and sock needles.
K2Katie on March 3, 2016 at 1:54 am said:
I love that “very dangerous” :))
Amberpixie on February 24, 2016 at 10:42 am said:
Well that’s just terribly sweet all around. 🙂
Jean on February 24, 2016 at 10:46 am said:
“all of a sudden she was a paragon of flexibility”
Carlaannie on February 24, 2016 at 10:55 am said:
Your winter attire may not be so far off. We have family in Corpus Cristi and Houston, both of which are only in the low 50’s right now…..Austin is likely to be a bit cool even to the Northerners. Downright frigid if you are a Texan. My sister-in-law and I laugh often about our different concepts of “cold”. Be warm and have a lovely time!
And then in the ‘learn something new everyday’ category there’s “Interrobang” here and “diacritic” at xkcd: http://xkcd.com/1647/ How great is that?
Sandino on February 24, 2016 at 11:20 am said:
Stephanie, just so you know — it is cool in Austin today. (We consider the 40s downright cold, but I know you don’t!) A sweater will feel really good until about 3:00. Enjoy Texas!
I love you. Happy knitting!
Ann (WG) on February 24, 2016 at 11:41 am said:
Lucky Duck indeed! I hope that woman picks up needles and starts knitting herself, because it’s one of the best ways to pass the time on a flight.
Secondly, I’m at work when I read your blog entries, and I can’t knit here (because, sadly, I’m supposed to be working). I will have to live vicariously through you. So knit, and knit happy. And perhaps Sam needs a little leash on this next hat that will connect to mitts or her coat or something so that she does not lose another hat.
Kathleen McQuillan on February 24, 2016 at 11:52 am said:
I’m a fellow NON morning person too. Your mood actually encourages me!!! I hope the rest of your trip is quiet and uneventful and that your mornings are easy. Also, which hat are you making?
Laia on February 24, 2016 at 12:07 pm said:
Considering yesterday’s weather in Austin, you might be more prepared than you think…and then again you might be on your way to a glorious warm spring. February in central Texas, you neve know.
Renee Anne on February 24, 2016 at 12:13 pm said:
::sigh:: And she has no idea who you are. None.
I would have been fangirling a bit (like I did on Sunday when I met Clara Parkes, Sivia Harding, and Jasmin & Gigi of Knitmore Girls all in one fell swoop – seriously, Clara was signing books and the rest of us were in line by each other).
Michelle on February 24, 2016 at 12:25 pm said:
That is *so* awesome!! And thank you, your post has totally given me a much needed boost during a very stressful work day! Safe travels!!
Leslie F on February 24, 2016 at 12:33 pm said:
SIGH! Mornings…I hates ’em. Sunrises should only be seen from the wrong side (i.e., stay up all night!).
Enjoy your good luck, and say “Hullo” to Clara for me!
Linda on February 24, 2016 at 12:41 pm said:
I guess we knitters do think of ourselves as Lucky Ducks.
Sue on February 24, 2016 at 1:03 pm said:
I was hoping this post ended with Steph and the lady discovering they were on the same flight and sitting right next to each other, and that Steph spent the flight teaching the other lady to knit. I suppose it maybe did happen and we just haven’t heard about it yet…
And count me as another who is a word geek and a proofreader to boot and still had never heard of an interrobang, and now love that it exists and that I know about it!
pdxknitterati/michele on February 24, 2016 at 4:23 pm said:
I was about to write this, and you’ve already done it! Count me as another voice on both the knitting lesson and the interrobang.
Steph VW on February 24, 2016 at 1:04 pm said:
This is possibly my favourite post ever! Yes, indeed, we are lucky ducks, us knitters.
Missy on February 24, 2016 at 1:25 pm said:
So, very entertaining story (as usual) and then I got to the last line. That pulled a chuckle out of me! Yes, she must be a morning person! You should probably add to your packing a little bag with cheap (give-a-way) needles and a skein of yarn on your trips. This could be your bag to teach someone in the airport/on the plane. They could merrily go on their way a new knitter. Now that would be fun. I bet she would have loved it!
Kristen on February 24, 2016 at 1:44 pm said:
That lady needs to get together with the subway lady from way back when: “Sh*!t girl, I can do that!.” One of my all time favorite Yarn Harlot stories.
sweetpeajenny on February 25, 2016 at 3:40 pm said:
HAHAHAHAHA! So funny!
Claire C on February 24, 2016 at 1:56 pm said:
Even for a morning person, 4:30 isn’t….that’s still night, IMO, so you can be forgiven for early lost-the-will-to-live-ness.
Knitting on my lunch break at work today, my boss came and spoke to me about work and totally blanked the knitting! must have been an invisible sock!
AlisonH on February 24, 2016 at 2:01 pm said:
Oh how cool. Hugs to that woman, whoever she is, and may she find herself a Knitter with a capital K very very soon. I would run after her with a skein of cashmere if I could in thanks for her making your day so much better. Have a great trip!
Abigail on February 24, 2016 at 2:18 pm said:
Awww, you aren’t twins anymore?
Also I thought of you yesterday. There was a woman knitting on the train ride home and I was trying to see what she was working on and I’m pretty sure it was Noro yarn. But I was very tired and anti-social and just couldn’t bring myself to start a conversation with a stranger, even one who had beautiful wool. So…hopefully she didn’t think I was stalking her.
Ariel on February 24, 2016 at 2:35 pm said:
It’s always great when one person just gets it. Too often I get the same kind of remarks, and I just shake my head. They don’t understand the keen pleasure of string and stick.
Lara on February 24, 2016 at 2:45 pm said:
Are you not a morning person, or are you a No-People-Before-Caffeine type of person? I need at least an hour and a good cuppa before I can people. I can’t imagine waking up, then running out the door and having to make polite noises at the appropriate times before I’ve had a peaceful cup of coffee and some ‘me time’. Especially the TSA. You are a wonder.
Stephanie on February 24, 2016 at 2:49 pm said:
Reread your blog from the start (again) for my January gift to me. The result is that I started a Wurm hat for my girl last week. You’re right. It is a lot of knitting. If she loses it, I’m not knitting another. As a nearly 14 YO and a fledgling knitter, she can make her own next time if she wants another!
Tine on February 24, 2016 at 2:53 pm said:
It’s wonderful how just the right comment can make one’s day. Hope ou have a good trip today.
Melissa (Ajax) on February 24, 2016 at 2:58 pm said:
She’s lucky you didn’t reply, “No. I’m bowling.” Oh well… bless her plucky heart.
But so is Stephanie. If she had replied in that manner she would have missed the jewel.
What a funny gal! This is truly THE best knitting comment ever! Why can’t they all be this cool?
Think of Sam’s lost hats as charity — just think of all the Canadian heads you are keeping warm with Sam’s lost hats!
Monique on February 24, 2016 at 3:34 pm said:
Allison on February 24, 2016 at 4:14 pm said:
So as a fellow non morning person I have booked a flight out of Denver at 7am. The shuttle which I was trying to book said it would pick me up at 4am. For some reason I haven’t been able to get myself to book that yet. Pretty sure that sleeping is a total waste of time that night.
Skye on February 24, 2016 at 4:14 pm said:
5 Awesome Points for the use of the word interrobang.
I’m suspicious of those morning people. It’s just not natural.
Barbara R on February 24, 2016 at 5:16 pm said:
Knit after dinner at a visit with a guest priest. He looked at me while I worked on a sweater and drank wine. I just know what he was saying in his head. “Is she KNITTING?”
Presbytera on February 24, 2016 at 8:05 pm said:
Nah. He was praying you wouldn’t accidentally…dare I say it? … crucify him.
Lisa on February 24, 2016 at 6:01 pm said:
“Lucky duck” made me smile.
Julene Jones on February 24, 2016 at 7:02 pm said:
I’ve always wondered what to say to fellow knitters in this situation: “Those socks look great!” and “I’m a knitter too!” both sound a little more cheesy / chipper than I am. What do you wish people would say to you, or what do you say? Thanks!
mary alyce on February 24, 2016 at 7:29 pm said:
It’s so nice to see another knitter. I’m doing (whatever) and I’m enjoying it. How about you?
Lucky duck indeed! 🙂
I have to say that I started reading your post fearful that you would discover at the airport that your knitting (or some portion thereof) was still in your hotel room. I’m very happy to be wrong!
GeniaKnitz on February 25, 2016 at 12:50 am said:
I have all of your books and 3 of Clara’s.
Distressingly, our 2 local libraries keep asking if I mean Finlandia when I try to reserve Knitlandia.
Maybe I need to buy the book and then donate it to the library, since we’re trying to downsize and aren’t supposed to be accumulating more books. :o(
Ellen in Indy on February 25, 2016 at 8:09 am said:
Sadly, in my city, at least, donating knitting (or other) books to the library means that they go into the fund-raising book sale, not into the collection. So one lucky person gets a bargain, rather than multiple knitters getting to check it out. That gives me a sad.
RobinH on February 26, 2016 at 5:16 pm said:
Have you considered getting it as an e-book? I love real books, but I’m running out of places to put bookshelves, so I’ve started buying more e-books.
GeniaKnitz on February 29, 2016 at 4:14 am said:
Both of our wonderful local libraries have terrific knitting collections; I expect they just don’t have Knitlandia yet. They have saved me a ton of money, and from having yet more paper stacked up on every flat surface.
Patty on February 25, 2016 at 10:37 am said:
You are lucky indeed. Security at the Cozumel airport confiscated my sock needles yesterday so I couldn’t knit all the way home. Oh, and we were delayed 2 hours waiting for the Toronto plane to arrive late due to the same snowstorm. It’s time for some new DPNs after 44 years with my beloved size 12s.
Mya on February 25, 2016 at 12:06 pm said:
Hurray for knitting. And thanks nice lady, that’s how you do it!
Duffy on February 25, 2016 at 1:14 pm said:
Not lucky; prepared. It helps us keep us sane and from poking perky people in the morning with our stiletto Signatures.
Jean on February 25, 2016 at 2:50 pm said:
Interrobang! My editor heart is as happy as my knitter heart after this post. Thanks for the new word!!
danana on February 25, 2016 at 2:54 pm said:
Not only would I have reset my alarm clock to a later time, I would have made liberal use of the snooze button. I just read this to my hubby, who is an annoying morning person of the worst sort, and he got quite a laugh out of it – we can both totally relate! Hope you are having safe travels and enjoying some sunshine somewhere…
Bernice F on February 25, 2016 at 5:39 pm said:
My sons live in Austin. Yep, you can take the Midwestern mom out of Iowa but, you can’t take the Midwestern look off of the mom. I always appear like I’m dressed for 26 degrees and/or that I’ve just crawled out of a groundhog’s hole into the sunlight.
Mimi on February 25, 2016 at 7:33 pm said:
Yep, I have a hat loser. Fortunately, I love to knit hats. Chose a different pattern every time- or at least alter the stitch pattern. It gives ma a chance to try new stitches without too much commitment. Make hats out of “extra” yarn when I can. If I have to buy yarn to make him a hat, though, I try to find the least expensive yarn that is still nice and soft. I love knitting for my son because he always appreciates and WEARS what I make. He just can’t seem to hold onto them…
Hmm. You haven’t seen all his friends wearing your handiwork by any chance?
Mimi on February 27, 2016 at 8:46 am said:
That would be so cool, but, sadly, no.
Danni on February 25, 2016 at 10:12 pm said:
Heh nice.
Also, this sentence:
“I suggested she whip out the needles herself if she was getting particular, and all of a sudden she was a paragon of flexibility.”
Just about to write that! Great minds think alike, I say :))
Tobie on February 25, 2016 at 11:33 pm said:
I just flew from Israel to New York. As I sat at the airport waiting for my midnight flight, some lady said “Do they let you do that on the flight?” You know I hate it when someone says that as people regularly carry things that can be used to hurt someone…like a pen or pencil or even their belt but I would sure like something snappy to say in return. Anyhow, the flight was so crowded that I really only knitted at the airport and tried to doze the 12 hours it took.
Fuego Azul on February 26, 2016 at 1:47 am said:
I feel your pain. I work 13 hours every Sun/Mon between two jobs & walk to work when the moon is still very high in the sky. It should be illegal to wake up before the sun rises, lol. But what a sweet comment! Hopefully she’ll go home & try knitting. I’m sure she’ll kick herself when she finds your picture on the cover of Knitting Rules! 😉
Debbie on February 26, 2016 at 9:30 am said:
At least she didn’t ask if you were crocheting! That conversation could have gone in a totally different direction! LOL!
Jan Smiley on February 26, 2016 at 9:54 am said:
Am I the first to admit that I had to look up the definition of Interrobang? Now I’m saying Thank You for adding to my vocabulary. I’m not a morning person either, but I’m married to one…. works in my favor on the weekends when he likes to cook breakfast.
sweetpeajenny on March 1, 2016 at 12:42 pm said:
Nope! I looked it up too, and I am glad I did! My love for exclamation points just got bigger!
Alyssa G on February 26, 2016 at 12:50 pm said:
I love your description of bracing yourself for a cheery discussion about your archaic and bizarre occupation. Hilarious! 🙂
Janis on February 26, 2016 at 9:32 pm said:
I cast on for a sock once while sitting in the gate waiting for a flight at OMFG in the morning, too. It had two heels in it. I was so sleep-deprived that it almost escaped me before I realized what I had done and frogged it.
NEVER book a flight at buttcrack in the morning. Physics doesn’t work at that hour, and it could fall out of the sky.
Ah man, you made me laugh <3
RisaL on February 27, 2016 at 9:31 am said:
I just finished a Wurm for my husband, and you are so right. That is a lot of knitting. But he’s happy.
Margaret Long/Little Gidding Farm Suris on February 27, 2016 at 6:57 pm said:
I feel your pain! I tried mixing up a batch of dye early in the morning without any coffee…bad idea! However I don’t think I could survive travel without knitting so thank God for that!
TimWarp on February 29, 2016 at 11:20 am said:
The interrobang has been my favorite punctuation since I read about it in “My Weekly Reader” in the 1960’s. Unfortunately, I haven’t used it since the days of typewriters, since computer keyboards don’t let you type a question mark, backspace, and type an exclamation point.
Pearl on March 1, 2016 at 4:19 pm said:
Oooh – I didn’t know it looked different when typed by hand. I’ve learned something new today! Now to find a typewriter or a suitable hack for MS Word…
Dottyw on March 1, 2016 at 6:20 pm said:
Hold down the alt key and type 8253.
KnitFan on March 1, 2016 at 11:12 pm said:
That is awesome!! Thanks for sharing!
Stephanie on March 2, 2016 at 10:52 am said:
Thanks! I’ve been wondering
Pat D on March 2, 2016 at 6:04 pm said:
Actually, I like it better as two separate points. But to each his own!
photo-gallery on March 2, 2016 at 7:37 am said:
ohhh very good thanks
Renee The Sequel on March 2, 2016 at 3:49 pm said:
I expect to see you here (although I don’t visit like I used to or comment anymore (except for this one)), but I didn’t expect to see you unpacking a tiny bag of knitting tools on my Facebook feed a minute ago. It was both surreal and delightful at the same time.
Cynthia on March 3, 2016 at 7:45 am said:
1. the loss of a hat means that someone else now has one. Their head is warm as should be your heart.
2. Daughter will be happy with anything, but why is she not knitting her own when she has the appropriate genes to do it?
3. You are a masochist. I booked an early morning flight once, had to be out of the house by 5:15 (I was the driver) to get to the airport car park in time for a wee early flight. NEVER gonna happen again….
4. Fly out the night before. yes, added expense but then you can … SLEEP IN… cherish that mantra on your next trip…say it over and over…
Sorry I cannot make it to Austin. Let me know when you want to come to Atlanta, and stay for a day or two in the Guest Bedroom….and I’ll give you the key to the stash room….
Cathey on March 3, 2016 at 3:14 pm said:
Stephanie, I’m starting to worry. Where are you?
Jan on March 3, 2016 at 5:09 pm said:
Yeah, I rarely post, but I am worrying, too . . .
Robin on March 4, 2016 at 2:50 pm said:
Did she decide to stay in Texas? The pretty weather can be heady stuff for someone from northern climes…..
Judith on March 4, 2016 at 4:45 pm said:
If you follow her on Instagram you can get hints. For example, she’s posted pix of herself in snow, and Ken had his 50th birthday complete with 50 candles on his cake. Just quick photos with a sentence, but checking there helps relieve the anxiety.
JudyinMT on March 15, 2016 at 11:52 am said:
I love that response!
I just got home from a trip that took 30+ hours in transit EACH WAY. I knitted my way through lots of movies and TV shows (almost caught up on Scandal!). I sort of felt sorry for all the people with no knitting.
عکس برای پروفایل on March 22, 2018 at 7:34 pm said:
big like
عکس های دخترونه on March 22, 2018 at 7:38 pm said:
like It was a good thing
فروشگاه انلاین on March 22, 2018 at 7:40 pm said:
yes very good thing
photo girl on March 22, 2018 at 7:44 pm said:
oh tnq for …
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Turtles Forever is a made-for-tv animated movie. Produced in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise, the movie teams up different incarnations of the titular heroeschiefly the light-hearted, child-friendly characters from the 1987 animated series and the darker cast of the 4Kids' own 2003 animated seriesin an adventure that spans multiple universes.
The Demolisher (2015)
Bruce is a repairman tormented by a crippling sense of responsibility for his disabled wife Samantha, an ex-policewoman. Bruces increasing hypersensitivity to the injustice suffered by his wife steers him down a dark path of vigilantism. His disintegrating mental health, paranoia and overwhelming sense of doom causes Bruce to channel his rage towards a young woman.
Doomsday Prophecy (2011)
Doomsday Prophecy is a 2011 sci-fi disaster television film by Jason Bourque starring Jewel Staite, Alan Dale and A.J. Buckley.
The King of Fighters (2009)
The King of Fighters movie will introduce a new science fiction spin into the setting established in the games universe by following the surviving members of three legendary fighting clans who are continually whisked away to other dimensions by an evil power. As the fighters enter each new world they battle that universes native defenders, while the force that brought them seeks to find a way to invade and infect our world.
Japan Sinks (2006)
Japan sinks! Proving once again that Japan will never cease to find inventive ways to destroy itself on screen, this summer's blockbuster Sinking of Japan brings apocalypse through tectonics. Based on Sakyo Komatsu's best-selling novel, Sinking of Japan was first put on the big screen in Moritani Shiro's 1973 classic. In 2006, director Higuchi Shinji remakes the disaster movie, taking the story to
S.S. Doomtrooper (2006)
A genetically bred Nazi super soldier fights Allied troops.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014)
Katniss Everdeen reluctantly becomes the symbol of a mass rebellion against the autocratic Capitol.
Counter Clockwise (2015)
Counter Clockwise is a sci-fi thriller/dark comedy about a scientist who accidentally invents time travel and is zapped six months into the future. He finds himself in a sinister upside down world where his wife and sister are murdered and he's the main suspect. He's forced to go back in time to uncover the mystery surrounding their deaths.
Project Almanac (2015)
A group of teens discover secret plans of a time machine, and construct one. However, things start to get out of control.
In Hong Kong, the special force of the police known as 2002 is composed of the twenty-two year-old cop Chiu and his ghost partner and they fight against supernatural phenomena under the guidance of the mystic Paper Chan. When his partner reincarnates, the rookie policeman Fung applies for the position; but Paper Chan explains Chiu that the team is to be formed by a man and a spirit, and Chiu has a death star on his hand that dooms his friends to die. Meanwhile, Chiu falls in love for Nurse Danielle, but he avoids her to protect her life against the fate of the death star. When the fiend Water Ghost possesses Fung seeking revenge against Chiu, he has to battle against the evil spirit trying to protect also his friend.
The Carrier (1988)
The main character is stricken with a horrible disease, but it doesn't affect him. It spreads to every inamimate object that he touches, and then if another person touches the object, they are dissolved into it. No one knows that Jake is the carrier except him. This brings about the "red objects" that specify every object that he has touched, as discovered by the community with cats. They use cats to test inanimate objects for the disease. And they cover themselves in garbage bags to protect themselves. Then they discover that Jake is the carrier and they chase him around...
Circle of Eight (2009)
Jessica moves into a loft on the eighth floor of a Los Angeles apartment building called The Dante. The other tenants all seem friendly at first, but when she starts witnessing horrible deaths, she must team up with her neighbor Evan (Doom) to solve the mystery -- and uncover her own connection to the place.
Room 33 (2007)
A group of friends on a road trip seek shelter at a mental institution in the woods, only to discover that the building is the home of a mysterious young girl named Roxy whose unsettling presence serves as a foreshadow of doom. Later, as the group attempt to unravel the mystery of Roxy, who seems to have endured years of abuse, a mysterious killer begins to hunt them from the darkness.
I-Lived (2015)
Josh Fosse is a 20something guy whose life is going nowhere. His girl left, his rent is late, and he lacks a real job. He is trying to make it as an app reviewer online and decides to review a self help app called i-Lived for fun. He's signs on and immediately his life turns around. He meets the girl of his dreams and he gets a job offer he can't refuse. Convinced it's him and not the app, he signs out... and loses everything. He signs on again but this time the terms are different, the app is asking him to do things that are out of his moral comfort zone... but essential to becoming the success the app tells him he can be.
Minutemen (2008)
A comedy/sci-fi/adventure about three high school kids who invent a time machine to spare others just like them from the humiliation they've endured.
Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God (2005)
Due to a curse from his former master Profion, Damodar survived his death by Ridley Freeborn as an undead entity in pursuit of an evil artifact for some hundred years, so that he might be capable of unleashing unstoppable destruction on Izmir and the descendants of those who caused his demise.
Bleach: The DiamondDust Rebellion (2007)
When an artifact known as the "King's Seal" is stolen during transport from Soul Society, Hitsugaya Toushirou is assigned to retrieve it. Toushirou goes missing after a battle with the thieves, leading Seireitei to suspect him of treachery. They order his immediate capture and execution. Unwilling to believe him capable of such a crime, Ichigo, Rangiku, Rukia, and Renji set out to find Toushirou.
Zatôichi and the Doomed Man (1965)
Blind swordsman Zatoichi, jailed briefly, is implored by another prisoner to aid him in proving his innocence of a crime for which he is sentenced to death. Zatoichi is reluctant to get involved, because he knows how often such involvement has led to trouble in the past. But events conspire to thrust him repeatedly into involvement, and gradually he comes to believe in the man's innocence and determines to free him.
Superman/Batman: Apocalypse (2010)
Batman discovers a mysterious teen-aged girl with superhuman powers and a connection to Superman. When the girl comes to the attention of Darkseid, the evil overlord of Apokolips, events take a decidedly dangerous turn.
Where the Buffalo Roam (1980)
Semi-biographical film based on the experiences of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson.
Pokémon: Jirachi Wish Maker (2003)
Ash, Pikachu and friends (minus Misty) were visiting a festival celebrating the appearance of a comet when they stumble upon a mysterious rock-like crystal...
Krull (1983)
A prince and a fellowship of companions set out to rescue his bride from a fortress of alien invaders who have arrived on their home planet.
Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths (2010)
A heroic version of Lex Luthor from an alternate universe appears to recruit the Justice League to help save his Earth from the Crime Syndicate, an evil version of the League. What ensues is the ultimate battle of good versus evil in a war that threatens both planets and, through a devious plan launched by Batman's counterpart Owlman, puts the balance of all existence in peril.
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Italy: The cause against disqualification of women, men and children
December 12, 2018 by Brigitte Marti Leave a Comment
There is a cause that mirrors the cause of political feminism because it confronts the same principle of disqualification. In Italy, the cause of welcoming with dignity and respect “migrants/refugees” is being vilified by the new extreme right Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini who has engaged in a war against the most vulnerable women, men, and children who are looking for safety.
The humanist initiative that has taken place in Riace, a small village of Calabria, under the leadership of its mayor Domenico Lucano, in his third term, has been recognized as a model of integration. For this, Lucano became the perfect target for Matteo Salvini, who first had him arrested and placed under house arrest and then deported him away from his villageusing false pretenses of misusing funds and supporting a “business” of immigration.
When Domenico Lucano became mayor in 2004, Riace was on the decline. He had a vision, he imagined an alliance between the local people and the people in need of a place to live. He had plenty of ideas to initiate a different kind of socio-economy that involved community building beyond the usual norms and appearances. His policies revitalized the villagewith the development of a small craft industry with artisanal shops as well as an efficient co-operative waste sorting unit that has been run with migrants for the past 7 years. That was unbearable for the anti-migrant Italian Minister of the Interior. Domenico Lucano proved that a global villagewas possible. His arrest and deportation are part of the global destruction of a sound system of social politics of integration. The goal is to curtail any sort of solidarity, despite that working in cooperation is always more efficient for a more sustainable society.
Italy has a new policy: close all human size structures and build huge centers in which to park the refugees/migrants. The Italian government wants to reduce the number of refugees admitted under a humanitarian program which reduced the number of refugees by 60 %. Once again, some people coming from the South are not qualified to be alive, and women are the first ones to be isolated and disqualified.
Meanwhile, in the Mediterranean Sea, the Aquarius, the rescue boat from SOS Mediterranéeis now permanently harbored, missing a flag to navigate. Médecins Sans Frontières announced that it stopped its operation with SOS Mediterranée. The Italian government declared a war against the most vulnerable women men children, the refugees trying to escape the hell of Libya, and further ensured that no country would provide them with the all-important flag. Despite petitions and demonstrations, France, Spain and others did not come to the rescue of the rescue ship.
The resultant reality is death in Mediterranean for people who need the most support for having escaped extreme climate conditions, violence, rape, and for having endured slavery-like situations. Not long ago, the infamous international community was shaken by the image of the slave trade in Libya on CNN. Congratulations went to the work of the journalists who uncovered it, expression of moral outrage burst out in all circles. Where did that outrage go? Where is the outcry as Matteo Salvini degrades our fellow human beings using the rhetoric of migration crisis to lie about the reality of the situation. Matteo Salvini knows no limits. Cruelty is now his official policy.
Last week, the NGO Mission Lifeline accusedFrontexand Eunavforof crimes against humanity and called for the International Criminal Court to investigate the case of 25 migrants drifting without water and food on a dinghy for 11 days, 70 km west of Tripoli, Libya. Nobody moved to rescue them, and the Aquarius was no longer available. In this time of climate urgency, crossing borders is becoming an impossible task for the people the most affected by the policies and actions of rich countries. The dehumanizing populist extreme rights developing in our world institutionalize the criminalization of migrants. Migration is presented as a source of crisis, even though only 3% of human beingson earth migrate. Who needs migration crisis? The mayor of Riace and many others have demonstrated that there is another way. Why are their initiatives being hampered?
(Photo Credit: Twitter / SOS Méditerranée France)
Filed Under: General Tagged With: Aquarius, Brigitte Marti, Italy, Mediterranean, Migrants, refugees, women migrants
Keep the civilian rescue ship, the Aquarius, at sea on the Mediterranean Sea!
October 17, 2018 by Brigitte Marti 1 Comment
As authoritarian leadership governs our world, democracies become less and less inclusive. Consider the treatment of people who have to migrate from situations of violence. There are growing reasons to migrate, with climate change and climate change violence affecting the south enormously. Affluent people are not called migrants, but rather expatriates. Since the most affluent are also the most influential, they shape the discourse of crisis prominent in the linked domains of economics and migration. “Crisis” leads the public to believe that no human being is directly concerned. The bodies of color drowning in the Mediterranean Sea are not human, are not people. They are just a crisis!
In Italy, a close election brought to power a coalition of right wing and extreme-right wing leaders described as populist. They used the fear factor associated with “crisis” to eliminate the reality of the political situation in Italy. Italy’s parliamentary regime makes it hard to have a leader when elections are tight. After the so-called populist Giuseppe Conte became the head of the government, he nominated the leader of the extreme right-wing group “the League,” Matteo Salvini as Minister of the Interior. As good populists, they abhor the arrival on the coasts of Italy of what they call the migrants, especially those of color; their campaign was mainly based on fear of foreigners of color. Meanwhile, it is precisely people of color who are roughly exploited in Italian industries that count on these populations without rights to extract heavier profits. When Matteo Salvini stated that Italy will not receive migrants anymore, he used the word “migrants” to signify the Other, a large category of human beings mostly non-Caucasian.
Recently in Europe the odyssey of the only civilian rescue ship of the Mediterranean has epitomized this reality. They would cruise the Libyan waters. The Aquarius is a humanitarian ship chartered by SOS MEDITERRANEEwith the collaboration of Medecins sans Frontieres, Doctors without Borders. The story of this maritime rescue team is emblematic as this ONG was formed after Mare Nostrum was dismantled. The last blow for the Aquarius came from the Italian government, which pressured the Panama Maritime Authority to deflag the Aquarius. Not having a flag makes it impossible to dock although the ship can stay at sea. That occurred while another show of force took place when the Aquarius had another 59 people who had been rescued off the coast of Libya.
One of the sailors on board of the Aquarius spoke with a journalist.
“We are 30 nautical miles away from the Maltese coasts, it has been five days that we have been going in circles in bad weather with sea swells over 5 meters. We have 58 people on board. We have 12 children under the age of ten. It’s very dangerous for them and very difficult to keep an eye on them at all time. The Aquarius is a working boat not a passenger boat. These people share with us exceptional moments of life.”
What are you able to tell them?
“To tell them? They tell us thank you and I ask them to forgive us, I feel ashamed.
When we arrive at a rescue site, there are no numbers, no migrants. We see children in the arms of their parents who are drowning. We see people covered with oil. We hear screams. We see people who have been adrift for days, without food, without toilets, with oil leaking everywhere. We see gazes fixing us. We have outreached hands. We see all that. And then what to tell them? I don’t know. Sorry it’s shameful, it doesn’t reflect our values, this is not what Europe is about, sailors don’t abandon people at sea.
“We can see Malta, and it has been 5 days. Where they come from, they have survived atrocities. They faced inevitable death until our rescue boat arrived. Now we have them on the deck, they are still thankful and trustful. Therefore, sorry, sorry for the people who make decisions, they don’t respect you. They call you migrants, who am I to call you migrants? Here onboard people are simply human beings with names, there are no migrants here. These people, these policy makers, they must come onboard. We will provide them with boots and sailor gear and they will see.
“We have children who are running around on the deck, they are full of life and playful with us. So just our apologies that you are not welcome.
“For political reasons, we cannot cross this imaginary line 12 miles away from Malta, because you are not allowed there, but I, because I am a good French boy, I am allowed there. Apparently, your life doesn’t have the same value than mine.”
The European Union faces its own contradictions. With the rise of the extreme right wing, the Aquarius has become that annoying ship that must remain moored in Marseille. After the end of Mare Nostrum, the goal for some in Europe has been to bring the civilian rescue intervention of SOS Mediterranée to an end. In 2017 the Aquarius rescued 15 078 people from 40 countries, 34% more than in 2016. 14 % of the survivors were women. On October 7th, across Europe, from Berlin to Madrid, thousands of people demonstrated in support of SOS Mediterranée. Petitions are circulating to demand France provide a maritime registration to the Aquarius and to allow the ship to return at sea. Nobody is questioning anymore the Libyan torture camps and yet, if the Aquarius doesn’t return to the area, the Libyan Coast Guard will be left in charge of “rescuing” the people escaping the violent grip of the system of migration. Please consider signing the petition, here.
(Photo Credit: SOSMEDITERRANEE)
Filed Under: General Tagged With: Aquarius, Brigitte Marti, Medecins Sans Frontières, Migrants
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