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How to Spy the 9/11 Lie
jkeogh Sun, 10/04/2015 - 2:30pm
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/10/how-to-spy-the-911-lie.html
Posted on October 4, 2015 by Kevin Ryan
A recent book written by veteran CIA officers describes how deception can be identified by simple observational techniques. In Spy the Lie: Former CIA Officers Teach You How to Detect Deception, authors Philip Houston, Michael Floyd, and Susan Carnicero outline a number of verbal and visual behavioral clues that are demonstrated by people who lie in response to questioning. These proven techniques for recognizing deception can be easily applied to see that U.S. leaders have lied repeatedly about the attacks of 9/11.
The authors make clear that there are two important guidelines to employ when analyzing these verbal and visual clues. First, timing is important. Due to the fact that people think ten times faster than they speak, the behaviors are more important when the first one occurs within five seconds of the question. Secondly, when the behavioral clues occur in groups of two or more, called clusters, they are more indicative of deception on the part of the person being questioned. The more clues exhibited, the more clear the deception becomes.
Let’s take a look at some examples.
In a December 15, 2001 press conference, President George W. Bush was asked an unexpected question about 9/11. In a remarkably delayed response, Bush exhibited both a verbal clue for deception, the failure to answer, and a visual clue called an anchor-point movement. The latter is when the anxiety raised by the question causes the person questioned to shift his body to relieve physical instability. As Bush replied, he shook his head, moved his hands, and seemed to be shuffling his feet uncomfortably.
Reporter: Do you agree or disagree with the RNC that [a question of your advanced knowledge of 9/11] borders on political hate speech?
Bush: Uh, yeah, there’s time for politics and, uh, you know… time for politics and, uh… I, uh, it’s an absurd insinuation.”
If the reporter had been a CIA interrogator, like any of the three authors of the book, this response would have raised an immediate red flag that the issue needed further examination.
In April 2004, Bush was asked a question about why he could only meet with the 9/11 Commission if Vice President Cheney was with him. He responded in a stuttering, repetitive fashion that demonstrated the “failure to answer” clue as well as something called non-specific denial, in which the question is refuted with unrelated verbiage. As Bush repeated his diversionary answer, he also smiled—another indication of deception when dealing with any serious subject matter.
Reporter: “Why are you and the vice president insisting on appearing together before the 9/11 Commission?”
Bush: “Because the 9/11 Commission wants to ask us questions. That’s why we’re meeting and I look forward to meeting with them and answering their questions.”
Reporter: “My question was why are you appearing together, rather than separately, which was their request?”
Bush: “Because it’s a good chance for both of us to answer questions, that the 9/11 Commission is, uh, looking forward to asking us, and I’m looking forward to answering them.”
Not long after Bush and Cheney finally agreed to their unrecorded, secretive interview with 9/11 commission members, Bush’s national security advisor Condoleezza Rice gave testimony under oath. In that testimony, she demonstrated at least six of the CIA’s verbal clues to deception including isolated denial, selective memory, an overly specific answer, and a process or procedural response. Rice was also seen going into attack mode, responding to Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste with, “I believe you had access,” and using inconsistent statements. She said that a presidential brief was titled “Bin Laden determined to strike inside U.S.” and yet also that no warnings of strikes inside the U.S. were received.
In addition to these highly deceptive behaviors, Rice gave a huge hint in her testimony that exemplifies something the book calls the “truth in the lie.” When Ben-Veniste asked her about Al Qaeda cells in the United States. She said,
Rice: “I remember very well that the president was aware that there were issues inside the United States. He talked to people about this. But I don’t remember the Al Qaeda cells as being something that we were told we needed to do something about.”
This extended answer suggested that the White House knew about Al Qaeda cells operating in the United States but that Rice and others were expected to do nothing about them. Ben-Veniste did not pursue the question further. This is not surprising given other lines of questioning in which Ben-Veniste engaged. Here’s an example with General Michael Canavan, who was supposed to be the “hijack coordinator” on 9/11—the one person most responsible for preventing, and initially responding to, the hijackings.
Ben-Vensite: What is your understanding of the first time FAA notified NORAD of the fact that this was a possible hijack or that it had deviated from course, or that there was some anomaly about Flight 77 in the context of everything else that was going on that day?
Canavan: Here’s my answer—and it’s not to duck the question. Number one, I was visiting the airport in San Juan that day when this happened. That was a CADEX airport, and I was down there also to remove someone down there that was in a key position. So when 9/11 happened, that’s where I was. I was able to get back to Washington that evening on a special flight from the Army back from San Juan, back to Washington. So everything that transpired that day in terms of times, I have to—and I have no information on that now, because when I got back we weren’t—that wasn’t the issue at the time. We were— when I got back it was, What are we going to do over the next 48 hours to strengthen what just happened?
Although video is not available for Canavan’s testimony, it’s clear that he was using deceptive verbal behaviors. He failed to answer the actual question, he engaged in perception qualifiers and an overly specific response, and he gave non-answer statements. Because Ben-Veniste immediately dropped the question it is unknown, to this day, who was serving in the critical role of hijack coordinator on 9/11.
There are many more examples of deceptive answers from U.S. leaders regarding 9/11. When asked why an outline was created for the 9/11 Commission Report before the investigation began, Chairman Thomas Kean immediately ran away and went into attack mode. When asked about the CIA’s tracking of two of the alleged hijackers, CIA director George Tenet, who was undoubtedly trained in detecting deception, demonstrated many of the CIA’s clues that he was being deceptive.
One more example is instructive. This involves John Gross, who was the author of both the most critical FEMA World Trade Center (WTC) report and the most critical WTC report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. When asked a question during a presentation he was giving, Gross responded with multiple behaviors that the CIA would find deceptive.
Questioner: “I’m curious about the pools of molten steel that were found in the bottom of the towers.”
Gross (Anchor-point movements, non-answer statement, going into attack mode): “I am, I am too…. tell me about it. Have you seen it?
Questioner: “Well, not personally but eyewitnesses there found huge pools of molten steel beneath the towers and, uh, scientists, some scientists, think that the collapse of the buildings could [sic] have melted all that steel. And a physics professor, Steven Jones, found evidence of a thermite residue, which would explain how the buildings collapsed by means of pre-planted explosives. So have you analyzed the steel for any of those residues?
Gross (Reluctance to answer, Anchor-point movements): “First of all, let’s go back to your basic premise that there was, uh, a pool of molten steel. Um, I know of absolutely nobody, no eyewitnesses, who have said so, nobody has produced it. I was on the site, I was on the steelyards, so I can’t, I don’t know that that’s so.”
When further questioned about the collapse of WTC Building 7, Gross made inconsistent statements and engaged in hand-to-face activity, another two of the deceptive behaviors noted by the CIA. This is not surprising to people who have studied events at the WTC, however, because Gross would have needed to be grossly negligent in his observance of evidence to have not known about the molten metal at the WTCsite.
As seen above, the 9/11 Commission hearings and other statements by 9/11 investigation leaders provide a treasure trove of opportunities for people to practice detecting deception. Of course, the 9/11 Commission Report demonstrates many of the same clues for deception that CIA officers would highlight. Its lies of omission are many and its reliance on deceptive language like “we found no evidence” is another clue.
Interestingly, the authors of Spy the Lie introduce their book by recalling the 9/11 attacks in a way that suggests that their deception-identifying skills are needed to avoid such tragedies. Yet these three experts on deception don’t question the official narrative of 9/11 at all and apparently have never seen any evidence for deception in that narrative or its origins. This fact may be the result of extreme bias—with the CIA officers unable to question their own agency. Or maybe it exemplifies a high level of self-deception, perhaps suggesting a sequel to the book.
In any case, the official account of 9/11 continues to provide a most powerful way to see just how much people deceive each other and themselves. When it comes to 9/11, experts on scientific fraud can’t see themost glaring example, journalists can’t see the most obvious examples of negligent reporting, and the CIA’s most skilled detectors of deception can’t see when they are deceived. Since many of us can see these things, we should work harder to reveal the truth because deception is at the root of many of the world’s problems.
Kevin Ryan blogs at Dig Within.
jkeogh's blog
Bad Actors
I hereby nominate John Gross for Best Guilty Demeanor. Another good example is the Q&A session about NIST's report on Building 7, the "Draft for Public Comment" version. I believe it was in response to Steven Jones's question about "constant speed," when Gross falls into absolute babble mode. Even Shyam Sunder, who is generally smoother than Gross, had some difficulties handling David Chandler's question.
Here is a transcription of Sunder with all the hesitations:
“Well...um...the...first of all gravity...um...gravity is the loading function that applies to the structure...um...at...um...applies....to every body...every...uh...on...all bodies on...ah...on...um... this particular...on this planet not just...um...uh...in ground zero...um...the...uh...the analysis shows a difference in time between a free fall time, a free fall time would be an object that has no...uh... structural components below it. And if you look at the analysis of the video it shows that the time it takes for the...17...uh...for the roof line of the video to collapse down the 17 floors that you can actually see in the video below which you can’t see anything in the video is about...uh... 3.9 seconds. What the analysis shows...and...uh...the structural analysis shows, the collapse analysis shows that same time that it took for the structural model to come down from the roof line all the way for those 17 floors to disappear is...um... 5.4 seconds. It’s...uh..., about one point...uh...five seconds or roughly 40% more time for that free fall to happen. And that is not at all unusual because there was structural resistance that was provided in this particular case. And you had...you had a sequence of structural failures that had to take place and everything was not instantaneous.”
See: http://911blogger.com/news/2008-09-11/wtc7-freefall
Kurtis Hagen on Tue, 10/06/2015 - 12:44pm.
Gross asked about molten metal at the WTC site
http://s3.amazonaws.com/nasathermalimages/public/video/Pretext_WTC2_molten_metal.wmv
http://911encyclopedia.com/wiki/index.php/World_Trade_Center_Hot_Spots
jkeogh on Tue, 10/06/2015 - 4:51pm.
I shouldn't laugh
but some things are so bad sometimes, you just have to.
Platos Cave on Sat, 10/10/2015 - 7:11am.
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Government sets up office of GST Commissioner (Investigation) to deal with tax evasion
NEW DELHI- The revenue department has created the office of Commissioner GST(Investigation) to deal exclusively with enforcement issues like search, seizure and arrest, as it looks to crackdown on tax evaders.
Initially, the government was going slow on enforcement action to give time to the industry to adjust to the new tax regime. With most of the loose ends tied up with regard to Goods and Services Tax (GST), the revenue department has now decided to focus on enforcement with a view to shore up revenues by checking tax evasion.
As per the instruction issued by Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), Commissioner GST (Investigation) will deal exclusively with policy issues and legislative matters, concerning enforcement aspect namely, search, seizure, arrest, prosecution and compounding under GST Act, Excise Act and matters relating to Service Tax.
Commissioner (Investigation) will also monitor the work of Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGSTI) and GST field formations in relating to investigation of cases, search and seizure operations on searches, arrests etc.
Neeraj Prasad has been appointed the first Commissioner in the office of GST-Investigation.
The commissioner will also coordinate with DGGSTI and Direcorate General of Analytics and Risk Management (DGARM) in analysing and disseminating intelligence to the field formations.
It will act as a nodal agency for inter-departmental coordination relating to investigation and enforcement agencies and conduct research and studies to monitor and ascertain modus operandi of evasion.
AMRG & Associates Partner Rajat Mohan said: "Creation of new post for Commissioner (GST- Investigation) indicates that government is serious on weeding out tax evaders and with this new creation they are aligning and empowering a single authority for the quick response on matters related to enforcement aspect especially search, seizure, arrest, prosecution and compounding".
Goods and Services Tax (GST), which subsumed over a dozen local taxes, was rolled out on July 1, 2017. The government has set a target to collect Rs 1 lakh crore monthly revenues from GST this fiscal, but the actual mop up has fallen short of the target month after month.
The sole exception was the month of April in which the numbers exceeded Rs 1 lakh crore. The collections stood at Rs 94,016 crore in May, Rs 95,610 crore in June, Rs 96,483 crore in July and Rs 93,960 crore in August.
Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan Partner L Badri Narayanan said there will be a definite push for enforcement and investigation and for capacity building to deal with evasion in trading of goods post imports.
"These are indications that the government is getting ready for enforcement as more than a year has passed since the roll out of the new tax regime," Badri Narayan said.
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Bubba Sparxxx
It seems like Country Rap is starting to take over mainstream. With the recent success of Colt Ford and The Lacs along with current “rap style” hits by country mega stars Jason Aldean (Dirt Road Anthem), Toby Keith (Red Solo Cup) and Tim McGraw (Truck Yeah), one would think that this is a new concept. But if you are a true hip-hop historian you would recall that this movement actual began in 2001 with the release of Bubba Sparxxx’s debut album “Dark Days, Bright Nights”. The
video for the first single “Ugly” featured Bubba and pals in the mud with pigs, on
tractors and performing in front of a house covered with bug lights. If that’s not the epitome of Country, then nothing is.
The platinum certified “Dark Days, Bright Nights” debuted on Interscope Records in October 2001 and was produced by Houchins and superstar producers
Timbaland and Organized Noize. It was follow-up by the critically acclaimed 2003 release “Deliverance”.
180 Talent Group 2017
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First Anniversary of the Hunting Act 2004
“After decades of wrangling, was it really worth it?”
As the 18th November 2005 marks the first anniversary of the Hunting Act being passing into law via the controversial Parliament Act, Parliamentarians have questioned the extraordinary expense and time spent on this issue in the light of every hunt in England and Wales still operating. Concern has also been raised about the Prime Minister�s political legacy.
Lembit �pik MP, co-chair of the Middle Way Group said, �For some time there has been a suggestion that the hunting issue would simply go away once the �ban� became law. In fact, the League Against Cruel Sports is on record as saying that two months after the ban everyone will wonder what all the fuss was about. Well, here we are a year after the so-called ban and very little seems to have changed. After decades of wrangling and not one animal�s life saved, was this really worth it?�
Peter Luff MP, co-chair of the Middle Way Group said, �This ridiculous law will actually cause greater animal suffering because of the other methods used, but the public should be aware of another point - the cost of making the Hunting Act law. The various anti-hunting groups have spent some �30 million pounds of animal welfare money since 1997. In addition, 700 hours of Parliamentary time has been used debating the issue, with that enormous cost coming out of the public purse. The figure for ongoing Police time and legal costs can only be guessed, but it will not be insignificant.�
Baroness Golding, co-chair of the Middle Way Group said, �Thankfully, even those people morally opposed to hunting are now accepting that this is nothing short of an extremely costly farce. I am very sad that Tony Blair�s leadership of the Labour Party will have this sorry episode as part of its legacy, given that he and numerous other members of the Government did not vote for the Hunting Act. It is inevitable that this flawed law can only exist as a temporary measure. It is not a case of if it is changed, but when.�
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To Thee, O Gracious Father
To thee, O gracious Father, we lift our loving hearts;
to us the Bread of Heaven eternal life imparts.
We thank thee for thy favour that marks us as thine own;
Lord, keep us ever faithful, who come before thy throne.
What love thou hast bestowed on us,
a love which makes us free!
It cleanses us from ev'ry sin,
and keeps us close to thee.
To thee, O Christ our Saviour, we come for saving grace;
we see how tender love is, by looking on thy face.
Keep us from all things hurtful by the power of thy Cross;
and help us to remember our gain comes from thy loss.
What heav'nly Food is ours, Lord,
this Food which makes us free!
It fills our hearts and makes us whole,
To thee, O Holy Spirit, we whisper our desire;
our lives are empty vessels: Lord, fill them with thy fire.
Make us thy faithful people who seek to do thy will;
give us thy gifts of power, our empty hearts to fill.
What peace that passes ev'ry thought,
that peace which makes us free!
It banishes each doubt and fear,
From thee, O Triune Godhead, salvation is come down;
Atonement now is given, mankind receives his crown.
In Sacrament tremendous we touch eternity;
we love thee, God our Saviour: thou art our destiny.
O Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
our faith shall never cease!
In thee we have eternal life,
and never-ending peace.
Text: Fr. Christopher G. Phillips, 1990
Music: “Thaxted” by Gustav Holst, 1874-1934
Children of the Atonement
As Passiontide draws near, this is an appropriate time for us to stand even closer to the Blessed Mother. It is her Son’s suffering and death which pierces her Immaculate Heart in a mystical way as she remembers with all of us the great price of our salvation. She consoles us throughout the year, but now especially our devotion should console her, because we are all Children of the Atonement.
Our Lord entrusted us to her at the same time as He spoke to Saint John from the cross, “Behold, thy Mother.” So let us be true sons and daughters. Walk with Mary as she follows her Son’s Via Dolorosa. Stand with her as she keeps her watch at the foot of the cross. Weep with her as she receives Christ's lifeless body into her waiting arms. Comfort her as she endures those three dark days, so that having endured with her, we may rejoice with her in the power and mystery of the Lord's resurrection.
St. Turibius
Together with St. Rose of Lima, St. Turibius is among the first of the known saints of the New World, serving the Lord in Peru, South America, for twenty-six years.
Born in Spain and educated for the law, he became so brilliant a scholar that he was made professor of law at the University of Salamanca and eventually became chief judge at Granada. He was a great success, but he was about to enter upon a surprising sequence of events.
When the archbishopric of Lima in Spain's Peruvian colony became vacant, it was decided that Turibius was the man needed to fill the post. It was generally agreed that he was the one person with the strength of character and holiness of spirit to heal the scandals that had infected that area. Turibius cited all the canons that forbade giving laymen ecclesiastical dignities, but he was overruled. He was ordained priest and bishop and sent to Peru, where he found colonialism at its worst. The Spanish conquerors were guilty of every sort of oppression of the native population. Abuses among the clergy were wide-spread, and he devoted his energies (and his suffering) to this area first.
He began the long and arduous visitation of an immense archdiocese, studying the language, staying two or three days in each place, often with no place to sleep, and little or no food. He made his confession every morning to his chaplain, and he would then celebrate Mass with tremendous devotion. Among those to whom he gave the Sacrament of Confirmation was Saint Rose of Lima, and most likely Saint Martin de Porres. After 1590 he had the help of another great missionary, Saint Francis Solanus.
His people, although they were very poor, also had a sense of personal pride, and they were unwilling to accept public charity from others. Turibius solved the problem by helping them himself, anonymously.
When Turibius undertook the reform of the clergy, along with unjust officials, he encountered tremendous opposition. Some tried to "explain" God's law in such a way as to make it appear that God approved of their accustomed way of life. He answered them in the words of Tertullian, "Christ said, 'I am the truth'; he did not say, 'I am the custom."'
O God, who gavest increase to thy Church through the apostolic labours and zeal for truth of the Bishop Saint Turibius: grant that the people consecrated to thee may always receive new growth in faith and holiness; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
Each Friday afternoon during Lent we walk the Stations of the Cross with the students at 2:15 p.m., and each Friday evening in Lent at 7:00 p.m. we have Stations for the whole parish, in conjunction with Solemn Evensong and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. However, you may make the Stations privately any time, and there is a plenary indulgence attached to this devotion. For you to gain the indulgence, these are the conditions:
EXERCISE OF THE WAY OF THE CROSS
PLENARY INDULGENCE
From The Enchiridion of Indulgences, 1968
A Plenary indulgence is granted to those who piously make the Way of the Cross. The gaining of the indulgence is regulated by the following rules:
A. Must be done before stations of the cross legitimately erected.
B. 14 stations are required. Although it is customary for the icons to represent pictures or images, 14 simple crosses will suffice.
C. The common practice consists of fourteen pious readings to which some vocal prayers are added.. However, nothing more is required than a pious meditation on the Passion and Death of the Lord, which need not be a particular consideration of the individual mysteries of the stations.
D. A movement from one station to the next is required. But if the stations are made publicly and it is not possible for everyone taking part to go from station to station, it suffices if at least the one conducting the exercise goes from station to station, the others remaining in their places.
E. Those who are "impeded" can gain the same indulgence if they spend at least one half and hour in pious reading and meditation on the Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ.
F. For those belonging to the Oriental rites, amongst whom this pious exercise is not practiced, the respective Patriarchs can determine some other pious exercise in memory of the Passion and Death for the gaining of this indulgence.
A plenary indulgence MUST be accompanied by the three prerequisites of a plenary indulgence:
1. Sacramental Confession,
2. Communion, and
3. Prayer for the intentions of the Holy Father, all to be performed within days of each other if not at the same time.
The Faithful have been retracing these steps of our Lord Jesus Christ from the earliest days of the Church. While the number and names of the Stations have varied over the centuries, our present order for them eventually was fixed, and the indulgence was attached to the Stations erected in Churches and Oratories. It was no longer required actually to go to Jerusalem to gain the great blessings which flow from this devotion.
Lenten thoughts...
This time of the year often takes my thoughts back to the Connecticut farm where I grew up, and the Spring causes me to think of the wonderful apple trees which would show their buds, and then burst into flower. I can remember the care my grandfather would lavish on them, pruning them with care. And the resulting fruit was simply grand! Golden Delicious, Macintosh, Golden Pippin...the varieties seemed almost endless.
As my grandfather aged, and as the demands of the farm increased, the pruning was missed one year, and then another. Soon the apples were smaller and fewer. Over the years unintentional neglect took its toll. Today where gorgeous trees once stood yielding bushel upon bushel of apples, now...nothing.
Our Lord Jesus said, "Every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit. A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits."
His point is clear. What is true for trees is true for people. If we take care to prune away the things which keep us from God, and if we are fed with the spiritual food of the sacraments, we will produce the good fruits of the Spirit. But if we neglect the spiritual care which is essential to our health and growth, we will be not much more than a rotting stump producing nothing.
St. John of God was born at the end of the 15th century. He tended to be a very impulsive person, from the time he was a child. When he was prompted to do something, he usually stuck with it, no matter what – which is fine, if the prompting comes from God, but it can make life difficult if it’s something from your own imagination.
When he was only eight years old, John heard a someone talking about all the adventures there were out in the world, and so young John took it into his head to run away to seek his fortune. He never saw his parents again, but instead spent time on the road, begging his way from village to town, until he became very sick. A kind man and his family nursed him back to health, and John stayed with them, working as a shepherd until he was 27 years old. Feeling the urge to travel again, John joined the Spanish army, which was at that time in a war against France. As a soldier, he was hardly a model of holiness, taking part in the gambling, drinking, and the wild life along with his comrades. One day, he was thrown from a stolen horse near French lines. Frightened that he would be captured or killed, he reviewed his life and vowed impulsively to make a change.
He took on all sorts of physically hard work – unloading ship cargoes, building fortifications, anything he could find to earn a living. He would work hard all day, but then in the evening he would visit churches, and spend time reading spiritual books. Reading gave him so much pleasure that he decided that he should share this joy with others. He quit his job and became a book peddler, traveling from town to town selling religious books and holy cards. Finally, when he was 41 years old, he came to Granada where he sold books from a little shop.
After hearing a sermon on repentance, he was so overcome by the thought of his sins that the whole town thought he had gone crazy. After hearing the sermon John rushed back to his shop, tore up any secular books he had, gave away all his religious books and all his money. With his clothes torn and constantly crying, he was the target of insults, jokes, and even stones and mud from the townspeople and their children.
Some friends took him to a hospital for the insane. Eventually, the priest who had preached the sermon that had affected John so much, came to see him, and told him that he had gone on like this enough, so John was moved to a better part of the hospital, and where he was free to move about. Although still a patient, he began to help the other sick people around him. In fact, this experience made him decide to start his own hospital for the poor and those who had no one to care for them. He had no money for a building, so he went to the poor and homeless wherever they were – in abandoned buildings or under bridges – and he called those places his hospital. He continued to beg for money, and eventually found a very poor house which gave him a location where he could bring the sick and nurse them.
One day he heard that the hospital where he had been a patient was on fire. He immediately ran there and found that no one was doing anything. He entered the building and carried out the patients one by one, and then went back in to get as much of the contents as he could. As the fire burned more fiercely, he fell through the weakened timbers, and everyone thought he was dead – but almost miraculously, he walked out of the flames, unhurt.
John was ill himself when he heard that a flood was bringing precious driftwood near the town. He jumped out of bed to gather the wood from the raging river. Then when one of his companions fell into the river, John without thought for his illness or safety jumped in after him. He failed to save the boy and caught pneumonia. He died on March 8, his fifty-fifth birthday, of the same impulsive love that had guided his whole life.
John of God is patron saint of booksellers, printers, heart patients, hospitals, nurses, the sick, and firefighters and is considered the founder of the Brothers Hospitallers.
O God, who didst cause blessed John, by the fire of thy love, to pass unhurt amid the flames, and through him didst enrich thy Church with a new offspring: grant, by the pleading of his merits; that our vices may be healed by the fire of thy charity, and that we may obtain thine eternal healing; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
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Has Chronic Wasting Spread to Humans?
By: roelkers
At least 26 U.S. states,1 three Canadian provinces and countries including South Korea, Finland, Sweden and Norway have been affected by chronic wasting disease (CWD), a contagious neurological disease that affects deer, elk, reindeer and moose.
Experts are racing to understand and contain this deadly condition before it wipes out entire herds or, worse, spreads to humans — a possibility that’s been raised by a number of studies. CWD is part of the transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) disease family — the most notable member of which is bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as mad cow disease, a condition that affects cattle.
A human version of mad cow disease, known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), also exists and made headlines when it was discovered that it can be caused by eating beef contaminated with brain, spinal cord or other central nervous system tissue from infected cattle.2
Given the rising prevalence of CWD, experts are now asking whether the disease poses a risk to humans, especially since it has elements that make it fit for a horror movie. Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm said, speaking to Minnesota lawmakers, “This is kind of a worst-case nightmare … If Stephen King could write an infectious disease novel, he’d write it about prions.”3
What Are Prions, the Cause of CWD?
CWD is thought to be caused by prions, which are quite different from “ordinary” pathogens of the bacterial, viral or fungal nature. Colorado State University’s Prion Research Center calls prions “unprecedented infectious agents,”4 in part because they do not have a nucleic acid genome, such as DNA.
While viruses and bacteria need DNA or RNA to replicate, prions can do so even in its absence. Further, as noted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), “[P]rions exhibit an extraordinary resistance to common treatments used to stop other infectious agents, such as ultraviolet and ionizing radiation, exposure to chemical disinfectants, and heat treatments.”5
Prions can be transferred not only via direct transmission but also indirectly, via exposure to contaminated materials in the environment. The infectious agents in CWD persist in the environment, which is why deer and elk raised in captivity (or concentrated via artificial feeding) have an increased likelihood of transmitting the disease among them.
In fact, even plants may harbor infectious prions, as research shows they can bind to plant roots and leaves. In one study, hamsters were infected by eating prion-contaminated plants, and the infectious prions remained on the plants for several weeks. Plants can also uptake prions from contaminated soil,6 and prions are believed to persist in the environment for decades.
It’s possible then, though not proven, that CWD could even spread via agricultural crops, as wild deer defecate in the fields and the feces contaminate the crops or the infectious proteins are taken up by plants, such as wheat.
Further, it’s common practice for manure from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) to be spread over agricultural land, where it often runs off into waterways. If CWD mutates into a form that can infect cattle, this could have major implications for its spread.
To be clear, not all prions are problematic. We all have these proteins in our bodies. It’s when they become distorted, or misfolded, that they begin to damage brain cells, in a way similar to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.
What Is CWD?
CWD causes progressive, neurological degeneration that leads to physiological and behavioral changes, including increased drinking and urination, weight loss, lowering of the head, listlessness, drooling, stumbling and death. Animals may be infected for a long period and show no symptoms, only to suddenly succumb to the disease.
“Through time [CWD] degrades, essentially, their brain tissue,” ecologist Heather Swanson told High Country News. “That seems to happen pretty rapidly. To our eyes, they look fairly healthy, and within a number of weeks they reach that point — and then they're gone.”7
Research by Swanson and colleagues found that mountain lions preyed on CWD-infected deer nearly four times more than noninfected deer,8 perhaps because they could sense that the deer were unwell — even though they appeared otherwise normal.
Despite the intense predation, “remarkably high infection rates sustained,” with about one-fourth of the deer sampled in the study infected.9 CWD was first identified in 1967 and is on the rise with new and ongoing outbreaks.
In Iowa County, Wisconsin, for instance, the proportion of adult white-tailed deer infected more than doubled over a six-year period, and as of 2016 approximately 40% to 50% of males and 20% to 30% of females were infected.10 Overall, in the U.S., the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated:11
“Nationwide, the overall occurrence of CWD in free-ranging deer and elk is relatively low. However, in several locations where the disease is established, infection rates may exceed 10 percent (1 in 10), and localized infection rates of more than 25 percent (1 in 4) have been reported.
The infection rates among some captive deer can be much higher, with a rate of 79% (nearly 4 in 5) reported from at least one captive herd.”
Subsidizing the Source
CWD was first identified in captive deer in Colorado and wasn’t found in wild deer until 1981.12 The transport of captive deer is thought to have contributed to the spread of CWD throughout the U.S. Today, deer farms persist across the U.S., including in Wisconsin, one of the states hardest hit by CWD.
The state has 380 deer or elk farms, 23 of which have tested positive for CWD. Fourteen of the facilities have been depopulated as a result,13 but some are allowed to stay open, despite the known presence of the disease. What’s more, when a deer farm tests positive for CWD and is depopulated, the business owner receives a subsidy or bailout from the government.
It may seem strange that a business such as a captive deer farm, which promotes the spread of CWD by raising animals in close quarters, would receive government subsidies. It occurs because captive deer are considered livestock and as a result are covered under the Condemnation of Diseased Animals statute, which was enacted in 1977.
In Wisconsin alone, deer farmers have received more than $330,000 in compensation from state and federal officials after their animals were killed over CWD fears.14 The money to bail out the diseased farms comes either from tax revenues paid by Wisconsin residents or, if there’s not enough available, from federal funds also generated by taxpayers.
In May 2018, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker announced new rules for deer farmers operating in counties affected by CWD, effective via an emergency order. Both captive deer breeding and hunting facilities were supposed to be required to install additional barriers around their facilities, while hunters would be required to cut hunted deer into quarters and leave the spinal cord, where the disease may concentrate, behind.15
Deer farmers in the state opposed the new measures, with some saying the requirements would put them out of business. The rule was amended, giving deer farmers a year to comply, but it expired in February 2019 — before it ever took effect.16 Further, in October 2018, lawmakers rejected the emergency rule’s limit on hunters moving deer carcasses from CWD-affected counties.
Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection has allowed some deer farms with CWD-positive animals to continue operating, including Wilderness Game Farm Inc., which has had 84 known CWD cases and still sells hunts that cost up to $9,000.17 As prion disease continue to rise in animals, Alzheimer’s continues to rise in humans — a connection that deserves a much closer look.18
The Alzheimer’s Connection
The Prion Research Center regards other diseases that involve misfolding proteins, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Lou Gehrig's and Huntington’s diseases, as prion diseases, much like CWD.19 And there is reason to believe, according to a review in Medical Hypotheses, that Alzheimer’s may develop similarly to mad cow disease and other spongiform encephalopathies.
“In fact, Creutzfeldt-Jakob and Alzheimer's often coexist and at this point are thought to differ merely by time-dependent physical changes,” the researcher stated. “A recent study links up to 13% of all "Alzheimer's" victims as really having Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease … All of this brings up the unthinkable: that Alzheimer's, Cruetzfeldt-Jackob, and Mad Cow Disease might just be caused by eating the meat or dairy in consumer products or feed.”20
Another concern is antler velvet from elk, which is sometimes taken in supplement form. Prions have been detected in elk antler velvet, which suggests it plays a role in disease transmission among elk and “humans who consume antler velvet as a nutritional supplement are at risk for exposure to prions.”21
There is also growing suspicion that Alzheimer’s may have an infectious component capable of human-to-human transmission. More than 200 people are known to have developed CJD as the result of receiving growth hormone contaminated with prions that came from human cadavers.
When eight of them later were autopsied, four of them had buildups in the brain characteristic of early Alzheimer’s disease, with the researchers suggesting misfolded amyloid beta protein, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s, may be transmittable similar to other prions.22
Further, because prions aren’t killed by ordinary sterilization methods, it’s possible they could be transmitted during common medical procedures, including dental work and colonoscopies. Meanwhile, prions may be spread via contaminated feces, saliva, blood or urine, as well as via contact with contaminated soil, food or water.
Can CWD Be Transmitted to Humans?
The burning question is whether or not CWD can be transmitted to humans, and while hard data aren’t yet available, there are some concerning signs that the answer could be yes. In a study on macaques, monkeys that share genetic similarities with humans, the animals developed CWD after eating CWD-infected meat or brain tissue.23
Some of the meat came from deer that had CWD but showed no symptoms of the disease, yet was still able to spread the infection to monkeys.24 Studies are currently underway to determine if people in contact with CWD-infected animals or meat are at increased risk of prion diseases, but results won’t be available for some time.
The World Health Organization recommends products that could be contaminated with CWD or any related disease should be kept out of the human food chain.25
Some experts, including Osterholm, who serves as director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Prevention, tracked the ability of BSE to be transmitted to humans decades ago, however, and have already sounded the alarm. Many believed that mad cow disease couldn’t infect people — until it did. Osterholm believes the same fate will become of CWD:26
“It is my best professional judgment based on my public health experience and the risk of BSE transmission to humans in the 1980s and 1990s and my extensive review and evaluation of laboratory research studies … that it is probable that human cases of CWD associated with the consumption of contaminated meat will be documented in the years ahead. It is possible that number of human cases will be substantial and will not be isolated events.”
If You Eat Venison, Be Sure It’s Not Infected
If you’re a hunter or consume meat from elk or deer, you should ensure the meat is tested for CWD before it’s consumed. While some states require testing of deer from high-CWD areas, others do not, and some areas offer free testing while in others it must be done at the hunter’s expense.
If you’ve obtained a deer from a captive farm, which isn’t recommended, it’s especially important to have the animal tested, as the farms are high-risk zones for CWD. It’s important to understand that you cannot judge whether an animal has CWD by symptoms alone. It can be years before symptoms develop, and a healthy-looking animal may still be infected and capable of transmitting the disease.
In addition, the CDC recommends hunters use caution when handling a deer in the field, including wearing latex or rubber gloves when handling the meat and minimizing contact with the organs, especially the brain and spinal cord.
If CWD disease has already mutated into a form that could infect humans, symptoms may not be seen for years or decades, and they may appear similar to other prion diseases like vCJD, making the diseases virtually indistinguishable.
Source: mercola rss
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Birmingham Detectives
About Birmingham Detectives. Part of LocalPI.
Business Client Manager
Naomi delivers a reliable, efficient and discreet service, with first class customer care.
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Naomi is our Business Client Manager and coordinates our extensive network of agents in 158 towns and cities across the UK.
She ensures that all of our business investigation services are delivered with first class customer service and that all work carried out on your behalf complies fully with UK law.
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Birmingham Detectives have been operating in Birmingham and the West Midlands for almost 20 years.
Geologically, Birmingham is dominated by the Birmingham Fault which runs diagonally through the city from the Lickey Hills in the south west, passing through Edgbaston, the Bull Ring to Erdington and Sutton Coldfield in the north east.
Birmingham is located in the centre of the West Midlands region of England.
To the south and west of the city lie the Lickey Hills, Clent Hills and Walton Hill, which reach 1,033 feet (315 m) and have extensive views over the city.
The City of Birmingham forms a conurbation with the largely residential borough of Solihull to the south east, and with the city of Wolverhampton and the industrial towns of the Black Country to the north west.
Together these make up the West Midlands Urban Area, which covers 59,972 ha (600 km2; 232 sq mi) and has a population of 2,284,093.
Birmingham's diverse population uses a wide variety of religious buildings in the city.
There are two other cathedrals, St Chad's, seat of the Roman Catholic Province of Birmingham, and the Greek Orthodox Dormition of the Mother of God and St Andrew.
The Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Midlands is also based at Birmingham (with a cathedral under construction).
The original parish church of Birmingham, St Martin in the Bull Ring, is Grade II* listed.
A short distance from Five Ways the beautiful Birmingam Oratory was completed in 1910 on the site of Cardinal Newman's original foundation.
The oldest surviving synagogue in Birmingham is the 1825 Greek Revival Severn Street Synagogue, now a Freemason's Lodge hall.
Although Birmingham grew to prominence as a manufacturing and engineering centre, its economy today is dominated by the service sector, which in 2003 accounted for 78% of the city's economic output and 97% of its economic growth.
Two of Britain's largest banks were founded in Birmingham – Lloyds Bank (now Lloyds Banking Group) in 1765 and the Midland Bank (now HSBC Bank plc) in 1836
In 2009, Cushman & Wakefield stated that Birmingham was the second best place in the United Kingdom to locate a business, and the 14th best in Europe.
Tourism is also an increasingly important part of the local economy.
Birmingham has major facilities such as the International Convention Centre and National Exhibition Centre.
The Birmingham area accounts for 42% of the UK conference and exhibition trade.
Birmingham sporting and cultural venues attract large numbers of visitors.
Birmingham's three Universities, (Aston University, University of Birmingham and Birmingham City University) and two University colleges have over 65,000 students and employ around 15,000 staff.
The City of Bradford is a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, in Northern England.
Birmingham is situated in the foothills of the Pennines, 8.6 miles (13.8 km) west of Leeds, and 16 miles (25.7 km) northwest of Wakefield.
Birmingham became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897.
Following local government reform in 1974, city status was bestowed upon the wider metropolitan borough.
Birmingham has a population of 293,717,making it the thirteenth-most populous city in the UK.
Birmingham forms part of the West Yorkshire Urban Area conurbation which in 2001 had a population of 1.5 million.
Birmingham is part of the Leeds-Bradford Larger Urban Zone (LUZ), the third largest in the UK after London and Manchester.
Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Birmingham rose to prominence during the 19th century as an international centre of textile manufacture, particularly wool.
Birmingham was a boomtown of the Industrial Revolution, and amongst the earliest industrialised settlements, rapidly becoming the 'wool capital of the world'.
Birmingham has fine Victorian architecture including the grand Italianate City Hall.
Birmingham has emerged as a tourist destination with attractions such as the National Media Museum and Cartwright Hall.
Birmingham has faced similar challenges to the rest of the post-industrial area of Northern England, including deindustrialisation, housing problems, social unrest and serious economic deprivation.
Since the 1950s Birmingham has experienced significant levels of immigration, particularly from Kashmir.
Birmingham has the second highest proportion of Muslims in England and Wales outside London.
Birmingham's city centre is the UK's second largest retail centre.
Birmingham has the country's busiest shopping centre, the Bullring
Birmingham has the largest department store outside London, House of Fraser on Corporation Street.
Birmingham also has one of only four Selfridges department stores in the country.
Birmingham has the second largest branch of Debenhams in the country.
In 2004 Birmingham was ranked as the third best place to shop in the United Kingdom.
Birmingham is a major transport hub on the motorway, rail, and canal networks.
Birmingham is served by a number of major motorways and probably the best known motorway junction in the UK, Spaghetti Junction.
The nearest airport is Birmingham International Airport, located in the Borough of Solihull to the east of the city.
As of 2008, Birmingham's airport is the sixth busiest by passenger traffic in the United Kingdom.
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- Why survey?
- Ancient Surveys
- Modern Astro
- 20th Cent. Surveys
- The SDSS
Why do astronomers map the sky? This page gives a brief introduction to their reasons, and outlines the history of astronomical surveys, from ancient times to today. To learn more, visit your local library or browse the many interesting sites on the Internet.
Why Survey The Sky?
For millennia, humans have wondered about the universe outside of our world. The stars and planets, mere points of light in the night sky, have always piqued our curiosity as we have sought to understand our place in the cosmos.
To the ancients, these points of light were often viewed in connection with higher powers beyond their control, such as gods and goddesses. Some civilizations began to realize that certain celestial events repeated at regular intervals. These civilizations used these regular events to mark time, helping with agriculture and religious observances. Later, sky charts, produced with naked-eye observations, became essential tools for navigation and trade. (This important aspect of sky surveys survives today, with examples like the U.S. Naval Observatory.)
Today, we understand that the universe consists not only of stars and planets, but also of galaxies, clusters of galaxies, streams and clumps of gas, and a component of unseen (or dark) matter. To learn more about these objects, we must first know where to find them, how they interact, and how they change over time. Many structures cover large areas of sky; others are so rare that we must look at millions of objects to find just one example. These ideas have guided the many projects in the last century to map the universe, over ever-larger areas, to ever-greater depths, and over an ever-increasing range of wavelengths. Complete, scientific sky surveys are the best technique we have for discovering new objects and interactions of objects. Once we find enough objects, we can study them to derive the basic physical properties of the universe.
This survey, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), was created to study how galaxies cluster on the largest scales. The SDSS will map these clusters in greater detail than any survey so far. If we know how galaxies cluster, we can learn something about how microscopic matter and energy variations evolved from the earliest moments after the big bang, more than 12 billion years ago, into the structures we see today.
Ancient Surveys
An ancient Chinese star chart from ca. 940 A.D.
Copyright c 1997, The British Library Board
British Library, Or.8210/S.3226
Astronomy is the oldest of the physical sciences. It developed in ancient times from curiosity about day and night, the sun, the moon, and the stars. At night, more than 1000 visible stars followed a similar course, appearing to rotate in permanent groups, or constellations, around a fixed point in the sky called the north celestial pole. The earliest sky surveys were records of the positions and motions of stars and planets. People in ancient Egypt, China, Central America, and Mesopotamia conducted these surveys over 5,000 years ago. They recorded their data on stone tablets or temple walls, and sometimes they even built giant structures like Stonehenge that aligned with specific astronomical events. The first known star catalog, containing 800 stars, was created in China in about 350 B.C. by Shih Shen.
Maps of the universe improved dramatically from 600 B.C. to 400 A.D. During this period, Greek philosophers and astronomers began to develop theories of the workings of the cosmos. These theories, based on detailed observations, made predictions for the motions of the Sun, the Moon, and the planets. In the 6th century B.C., the Greeks introduced geometry into astronomy. A hundred years later, the famous mathematician Pythagoras theorized that the planets moved along the surfaces of concentric spheres. In the 4th century B.C., Aristotle summarized Greek astronomical knowledge and Aristarchus calculated the sizes of the Sun and Moon relative to the Earth.
Two hundred years later, Hipparchus developed trigonometry. With trigonometry, he could calculate distances to planets and stars by knowing the angle from which they were viewed on Earth. Hipparchus recognized that astronomy requires accurate and systematic observations extended over centuries, so he used many old observations along with his own. In addition, he intended for many of his observations, especially his observations of the planets, to be used by future astronomers.
Hipparchus's idea of how the planets moved was later refined by Ptolemy, and became what we now call the Ptolemaic system. In the Ptolemaic system, the planets moved in concentric circles around the Earth, while some planets moved in smaller circles called epicycles around their main orbits. The Ptolemaic system predicted the planets' motions with great accuracy. Ptolemy also used trigonometry to accurately measure the distance to the moon. His 13-volume treatise, the Almagest, summarized much of ancient astronomical knowledge. It was translated into many languages, and it became the authority for astronomical questions over the next 1,400 years.
Modern Astronomy is Born
A map of Perseus from the Uranometria, a sky atlas drawn by Johann Bayer in the 1600s using Tycho Brahe's star catalogs.
Astronomy was dormant in Europe for more than 1,000 years. During this time, Islamic and Hindi astronomers made significant progress in understanding the sky. European astronomy began to be revived as the works of the ancient Greeks returned through Arabic translations. The revival was ensured by a Polish priest named Nicholas Copernicus, whose 1543 book De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) proposed that the Earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the Sun, along with all the other planets. During this time, astronomical observatories were established in Europe. One of these observatories, Uraniborg, was located on a Danish island. There, the famous astronomers Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler compiled the most accurate and complete astronomical observations to that time, containing over 700 stars.
At the same time, Galileo Galilei, often called the founder of modern science, pointed a newly-invented telescope at the night sky. The telescope revolutionized astronomy by allowing astronomers to see stars that no one had ever seen before. In the 1600s, Isaac Newton developed the Theory of Universal Gravitation, which said the same force that makes objects fall to earth makes the planets orbit the Sun. By the 1700s, astronomers regularly used Newton's laws to provide a physical basis of what they saw. Kepler's observations and Newton's laws were the basis for astronomy for nearly two hundred years.
20th Century Surveys
In the late 1800s, astronomy was revolutionized again by the invention of the camera and the spectrograph. Photographic films and plates allowed astronomers, for the first time, to create a permanent record of the sky. In addition, photographic plates could be exposed for long periods of time, allowing astronomers to see fainter objects at greater distances. By the 1930's, astronomers knew that many of the faint, fuzzy objects they saw were actually other galaxies that contained trillions of stars. But to study distant galaxies, astronomers first had to find them. To find more faint galaxies, astronomers began taking systematic photographic surveys of the sky.
A map of the whole sky, based on digitized photographic plates from the Palomar and UK 48" Schmidt telescopes (Courtesy USNO).
These systematic sky surveys were made easier by the development of the Schmidt telescope, a new telescope that allowed large areas of the sky to be photographed at once. The first such telescope, with mirrors 18 inches (46 centimeters) across, began operating in 1936 at Palomar Observatory in California, and was used to search for exploding stars called supernovae. This design was so successful that a larger, 48-inch (1.2-meter) version was built, and used to spot objects for the new 200-inch (5-meter) telescope being built at Palomar. Using the 48-inch Schmidt telescope, astronomers began the first modern effort at a complete, unbiased survey in 1949. The National Geographic-Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS-I) collected data in different colors of light over the entire northern sky. Another telescope was built to survey the entire southern sky.
These surveys required decades to complete, but they provided astronomers with data they could use for decades. In the 1980's, as new telescopes were built, astronomers began to need a new survey to find fainter, more distant targets for the largest telescopes. Using the same 48-inch Schmidt telescopes at Mount Palomar, but with improved photographic emulsions, astronomers began the Second Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS-II), a new survey of the entire northern sky.
When computers and digital images were developed, astronomers scanned the plates from the photographic surveys to create digital pictures that anyone could look at over the Internet. Today, anyone can download images from any of these surveys using tools like NASA's SkyView. In addition, with the development of astronomical observatories at other wavelengths (radio:FIRST, X-ray:RASS, infrared:2MASS), surveys of the sky in these new windows were immediately undertaken, revealing amazing views of the sky never before seen.
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey
The SDSS 2.5m telescope
Today, modern electronic detectors (like the CCD chips in digital cameras) provide much greater sensitivity than photographic plates. Fast computers and large data storage systems allow astronomers to take digital pictures of the sky, as well as to process and store the data they collect. These technological advances led to the creation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which has mapped one-quarter of the entire sky in detail, determining the positions and brightnesses of hundreds of millions of celestial objects. It has also measured the distance to a million of the nearest galaxies, giving us a three-dimensional picture of the universe through a volume one hundred times larger than those we have now. The SDSS has recorded the distances to 100,000 quasars, the most distant objects known, giving us an unprecedented view of the distribution of matter to the edge of the visible universe.
The portion of the universe that the survey will observe is represented by our vaguely parachute-shaped logo. We are at the center of the logo, at the vertex of the parachute strings. The elliptical background evokes the shape of a galaxy, the celestial object of greatest interest to the SDSS.
SDSS Filters
Name Color Wavelength
u' Ultraviolet 3540Å
g' Blue/green 4760Å
r' Red 6280Å
i' Infrared 7690Å
z' Infrared 9250Å
The SDSS uses a specially built 2.5-meter (8 feet) telescope at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico. The telescope is fixed to point directly up at the sky. As the Earth rotates, more of the sky becomes visible above the telescope. Over the course of a night, the telescope images a "stripe" of sky. The telescope operates on clear nights, and has imaged stripes over one-quarter of the night sky. The telescope images the sky in five different wavelengths of light simultaneously; the five wavelengths are shown in the table at right.
In addition to imaging the sky, the SDSS collects spectra, which measure how much light an object emits at different electromagnetic wavelengths. The SDSS has measured spectra for around one million galaxies. In the Northern Galactic Cap region, the SDSS has observed about 10,000 square degrees. In the Southern Galactic Cap, the SDSS has imaged the same strips of sky repeatedly, allowing us to see much fainter sources, and to search for variable and transient objects.
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Is Marco Rubio the Great GOP Hope, or Dope?
ADIOS, MARCO?
The Florida senator would be a great general election candidate and president. Or would he, since he’s such a bad primary candidate?
Senior Columnist
Updated Apr. 13, 2017 4:33PM ET / Published Mar. 07, 2016 12:01AM ET
Alvin Baez/Reuters
If the recent “Super Saturday” elections are a sign, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is in deep trouble.
To be sure, a victory in Florida on March 15 would give him momentum, but the Catch-22 is that it’s hard to win Florida without momentum (his Sunday win in Puerto Rico was fine but isn’t exactly a big mo-shifter). And if Rubio loses his home state, which is entirely possible, not only would it spell doom for his presidential chances, it would also serve as a major embarrassment.
Rubio’s chances seem increasingly slim. At best, a Rubio victory in Florida would prevent Donald Trump from garnering the 1,237 delegates needed to become the nominee. This might put Rubio in a position to be a player in a contested convention fight.
It’s kind of amazing we’re in this situation.
I say that because I have long believed that Rubio is a once-in-a-generation political talent who could sell conservative philosophy to 21st-century Americans who don’t know they’re conservative yet. He has all the ingredients that could make him a transformational political leader, in the vein of a Ronald Reagan or a John F. Kennedy. If only he could win the primary.
He hasn’t been in Washington forever (he was elected to the U.S. Senate in just 2010, when he defeated an establishment Republican incumbent), and a close look at his voting record clearly demonstrates that he’s a bona fide conservative. Rubio’s ability to deliver an eloquent speech is unrivaled, and his personal biography as the son of an immigrant is an inspirational testimony about the American Dream.
The problem, it seems, is that almost all of the attributes that might make Rubio a great conservative president don’t really help him win a Republican primary. Part of the reason Rubio could be a great conservative president is that his politics are conservative, but his temperamental “feel” is more moderate. He is optimistic in a party (and during an era) when indignation is more in vogue.
Rubio has the capacity to govern from the right, while presenting it in a manner that would come across as palatable and irenic to Americans who aren’t conservative and don’t vote in Republican primaries. For obvious reasons, this gets you nowhere in a Republican primary.
This raises an interesting question: Is there any correlation between enduring a Republican primary and being able to win a general election? Or could there even be an inverse relationship?
I’m not sure. On one hand, it’s possible that handpicking a candidate is about as effective as naming one’s own successor. It usually doesn’t work. I think Rubio has the potential to defeat Hillary Clinton and to be a very good president, but I could be wrong. At this point, I’m like the mom who wants to set her little girl up with the perfect young man she just met. But such an “arranged” marriage might not work; mom might not really know best. Still, not to sound paternalistic, but it’s hard to sit by and watch people you love make the mistake of their lives by marrying the wrong person. This is especially true when the perfect young gentleman is right under their nose.
Then again, maybe Rubio’s inability to win a GOP primary exposes a fatal flaw. It’s possible that enduring a primary campaign tests someone’s character, toughness, and mettle. Campaigns face scandals and crises and hardships, and the ability to overcome these things does tell us something about you. Maybe the voters know more than I do? Maybe there’s something bad about Rubio that the wisdom of the crowds can sniff out?
This theory argues that, by definition, the best candidate always wins the primary.
This strikes me as dubious. Some of the attributes required for winning a primary seem utterly arbitrary. Let’s suppose you happen to be terrifically popular in Iowa and New Hampshire. You would have a decided advantage, even though this accounts for just a small fraction of the votes that would matter in a general election.
Other important factors may have little or no correlation to actually governing. The ability to organize a caucus, for example, might speak to your ability to win a general election, but does it demonstrate the kind of leadership and strategic thinking and organizational ability that would come in handy in the Situation Room? You’d be hard-pressed to argue that it does.
It may well be that the most talented conservative of a generation can’t win a Republican primary contest. And the interesting thing is that a year from now, he might be out of politics altogether.
Here’s hoping there’s plenty of fish in the sea.
Matt K. Lewis is a Senior Contributor at the Daily Caller and author of the new book “Too Dumb to Fail.”
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Scarborough to McCain: "I'm Sorry"
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough talks to Mark Salter about The Last Best Hope, his timely new book on how to save the conservative movement. In a wide-ranging conversation, the host of Morning Joe offers opinions on gay marriage, the mistakes of the Iraq war, and Barack Obama—and extends an apology to John McCain.
Updated Jul. 14, 2017 1:17PM ET / Published Jun. 09, 2009 2:56AM ET
William B. Plowman / AP Photo
In his new book, The Last Best Hope: Restoring Conservatism and America’s Promise, MSNBC’s sole conservative, morning-show host Joe Scarborough, explains where Republicans went wrong and how they can recover their principles and popularity. We met in New York’s P.J. Clarke’s to discuss the book, the 2008 presidential campaign, and the profile of a successful conservative in the Obama era. Gracious, good humored and garrulous, Scarborough offered opinions on Donald Rumsfeld, gay marriage, the press, John McCain, and whether or not President Obama is really the greatest candidate since Ronald Reagan. Excerpts from our conversation:
Because the conservative movement is at such a low point right now.... Conservatives have moved away from conservatism.... We responded to the radicalism of the 1960s with our own radicalism.... After 9/11, the president had a measured policy, but by 2005 he’s talking about ending tyranny across the globe. And I just sat back and wondered where all the Republicans had gone, who in the 1990s... kept talking about avoiding military adventurism.... I think we need to conserve the taxpayers’ money, conserve our military power and conserve the environment.
“Conservatives have moved away from conservatism,” says Scarborough. “We responded to the radicalism of the 1960s with our own radicalism.”
You argue Obama’s spending will inevitably lead to a new age of conservatism. Republicans have been pretty united in opposing it and trying to rebuild their brand as fiscal conservatives. But our numbers are low and getting lower, and Obama’s remain quite high.
Again, I think most Americans know after eight years Republicans inherited a $155 billion surplus and turned it into a $1 trillion deficit. They doubled the national debt from $5.7 trillion to $11 trillion.... I think that did more to destroy the Republican brand than anything. More than Katrina. More than the war. More than the fact that the president just couldn’t communicate his vision for America.... I think the one thing that unites most Americans with conservatives is restrained spending, smaller government. We make our assumptions based on spending as little of the taxpayers’ dollars as we possibly can. That doesn’t mean you engage in a false economy.... But let’s have a reasoned approach instead of having Barney Frank and Chris Dodd giving money to the banks and then calling the bank CEOs to their committees demanding they give out loans to people who can’t afford to repay the loans and start the same process we started in 1999.
Which was the bigger mistake? Going into Iraq in the first place? Or not sending enough troops?
The biggest mistake was going in there with insufficient force; allowing the looting to take place. Donald Rumsfeld’s light-footprint approach was about as disastrous as any military policy we’ve had.
Do you agree that hanging onto Rumsfeld that long was one of President Bush’s biggest mistakes?
Oh, my God, yes. Senator McCain got that right early on. He got Petraeus right as well.... When I hear conservatives attacking Colin Powell, saying he’s not a true conservative, Powell who... was pleading with the president to send more troops.... I tell you what, if Bush had listened to Colin Powell from the beginning, conservatives who loathe Colin Powell would probably still be in power.
Describe the profile of a successful conservative in the Obama era in substance and style.
Republicans who bring up Reagan always talk about the ideology, but they forget about the temperament.... For the most part, Americans are looking for someone who defines the middle of American political thought. In 2008, [Obama] actually seemed like the safer choice than John McCain because in many cases he sounded more confident in how he’d handle the economy than a guy who had been in Washington a long time, who might be too old for the challenges, who said on the day that Lehman Brothers crashed that the fundamentals of the economy were strong.
President Obama was a very skillful candidate and ran a very disciplined campaign. I think they ran a remarkable campaign, but I still don’t know how good of a candidate Barack Obama is. There was a month and a half, from the Berlin speech forward, when for the first time in his political career he was put back on his heels. And he responded horribly, every day. He stammered, in debates he just sat there.... Get him off the teleprompter and I just don’t know how good a politician he is.
I think that was smart. This was theirs to lose. It was smart to rope-a-dope.
John McCain was burdened with eight years of Republican screwups; a right track number of nine; a Republican president with the lowest approval rating since Jimmy Carter; and an economy in freefall. And yet, despite all of that, I’m still pretty damn sure if Barack Obama hadn’t broken his pledge on public financing, and didn’t spend $639 million, I still don’t think he would have won the campaign.... If Bear Stearns had not collapsed; if Obama wasn’t able to outspend John McCain 4-1 in Virginia, 3-1 in Florida, 3-1 in Ohio, I think he probably would have lost....
[The] press... never wrote one article about the fact that Barack Obama ran the most negative campaign—objectively, if you just look at the commercials—in the history of American politics. And yet he was able to say, “this campaign is going to be different. We’re not going to get down in the mud.”
The commercial that bled McCain the most was the heath-care commercial which was, if not an out and out lie, extraordinarily misleading. And as you know very well, for the first time in a general election campaign, a Democrat was trusted more on taxes than a Republican.... You get away with what you can get away with in those 30-second ads.... But the referee is usually the media. And the media did not step up in any meaningful way.
In your environmental chapter, you start off saying McCain forgot he was an environmentalist. I understand that most of what broke through in his message was that he was for lifting the moratorium on offshore drilling, but he never mentioned lifting it without mentioning this very broad program... with all sorts of investments in green technology, from clean coal to green grids, wind, hybrids, battery-operated cars, cap and trade, nuclear.
But the only thing that broke through was “drill, baby, drill.” At the convention or wherever the cameras went, we never heard about the other things. Maybe that was the media narrowing that message down to “drill, baby, drill.” I think, though, the next candidate that represents the Republican Party is going to have to... stare down those people who think that, if you’re an environmentalist, you’re embracing Al Gore and Greenpeace.
You make the same point as McCain on gay marriage, that it should be left to the states to decide. You also apply that federalist argument to abortion. But that requires knocking down Roe... and isn’t that pro-choice advocates’ most effective attack against pro-lifers, that we want to overturn Roe v. Wade?
Sure. But I would love a Republican presidential candidate to turn to Barack Obama in 2012 and say, “do you really believe the federal government should be involved in a discussion of whether a man is born gay or learns it? If you really believe that the federal government should be involved in OB/GYN issue, then great, stay in the Democratic Party.... Does anyone presume that people in Pensacola, Florida, know what’s best for people in Vermont on these highly personal issues? I’ve got enough problems of my own, and I’ll deal with them with my family and God. I’m not staying up at night worrying about what guys in Montpelier are doing. And I don’t want the federal government worrying about that either.
Near the end of the book you say, we can’t nominate another moderate, we tried that, and McCain didn’t win. But as I read your book, with the notable exception of campaign-finance reform... I was struck by how well McCain seems to fit your idea of what a modern conservative should be. He’s one of the biggest critics of spending excesses by Democrats and Republicans. He went after corruption by Republicans and Democrats... He opposed the prescription-drug benefit. Scourge of earmarks, defender of free markets, free trader.
What can I say, I owe him an apology. Did he vote against the $7 trillion Medicare expansion?
Yes, he did.
I owe him an apology. Senator McCain, I’m sorry.
Pragmatic environmentalist. Opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment on federalist grounds. Earliest advocate for the "surge." Biggest critic of Rumsfeld and the light footprint.
Why is it then, somebody like myself, who’s obviously been the scourge of the hard right, for going after Bush on spending and Iraq... who’s followed politics as closely as I have, considers McCain to be more of a moderate along the lines of Bob Dole?
Good question. He’s a solution-driven guy, a practical guy. He builds coalitions. He’s got no problem meeting [Democrats] somewhere in the middle if they can get something done.
And immigration.
Yeah, immigration hurt him a lot with some of the base. We had a problem with part of the base that really got under way in the Bush era. And then you had the press, who decided not to play referee anymore.... So you had nothing but our campaign stressing these things. We had nobody else, no referee, no echo chamber.
I feel his pain. On the same day that Mark Levin savaged me on the right on his radio show, The New York Times was calling me “the leader of the Republican attack squad.” What do you do? And you’re right, you’re a man without a country.
I do remember back when he was running in 2000, and I know this contradicts everything that I’ve written about in this book, I do remember when he went after Falwell and Robertson, called them agents of intolerance, the whole South Carolina primary. I think at the time I remembered thinking the guy is obviously running as the moderate in 2000. He’s trying to go to the middle to get votes against Bush. He’s trying to play against the natural prejudices that all Republicans have to confront….And it just seemed to me that going after Christian conservatives seemed like a convenient punching bag at that stage of the campaign.
The mistake we made was naming any person by name. But he gave the speech in Virginia Beach, after South Carolina, in front of an audience of Christian conservatives, and the point was to refute the argument that Robertson and Falwell were making, and much more Robertson than Falwell—they went after McCain because of his opposition to soft money.... And they extrapolated from that that McCain was wrong on abortion and other issues. He had a pretty spotless conservative record on life issues.... The whole purpose was to make an argument to Christian conservatives over the heads of ...
And I’m just guessing, but he probably took it very personally that his quarter-century record was being twisted by a couple of these guys.
You know, also, though, he’s an Arizona guy. He’s a sailor, a Navy guy. He had no problem talking about his colorful past. Also, because he was an Arizonan who was more of an independent maverick, it was harder for him to deliver that message than for me to deliver a message, saying I’m with you, 100 percent Right to Life, 100 percent NRA, but we’ve got to... take this out of Washington, D.C. I don’t think the Christian right is going to say, Joe Scarborough is an enemy of the pro-life movement.
Anything surprise you about Obama the president that you didn’t expect from Obama the candidate?
Yeah... I’ve been really, really disappointed on the degree of partisanship. I was one of those Republicans who heard him in Iowa and was inspired... who said wouldn’t it be great if the Democrats started running guys like this, who didn’t see the world through the lens of 1968. And, talk about the alarm bills going off, the morning when I found out he selected Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff, because I knew what that meant. Sure enough, he got elected and they have played hardball and have gone as far left as possible.... Having an outline for a stimulus package that Republicans say they can agree with and then sending Axelrod and Summers up to the Hill, and Democrats saying, “No, no, we’re not going to have a bipartisan bill,” and having the president back down.
He has been every bit as partisan as any president in years. I’m very critical of George W. Bush in so many ways, but [Obama] is much more partisan in his first year than George W. Bush was. I was beating the hell out of Bush in 2001 for teaming up with Ted Kennedy with this horrific education bill. He teamed up with Democrats on Medicare. He spent money and gave Democrats what they wanted for the most part. He was far more bipartisan than Barack Obama.
Let me say, though... as disappointed as I’ve been with him on domestic issues, I’ve been comforted with him keeping on Bob Gates, Petraeus. I don’t want us to stay in Afghanistan for a long time, but he’s being responsible in Afghanistan. He’s being responsible in Iraq. He’s being responsible in deciding not to release the pictures. I think he might be the first foreign-policy realist we’ve had since Bush 41.
Of course, I knock him for making promises he said he wasn’t going to break and then he’s breaking them. But, actually, I respect him for doing it.
Plus: Check out Book Beast, for more news on hot titles and authors and excerpts from the latest books.
Mark Salter is the former chief of staff to Senator John McCain and senior adviser to the McCain for President campaign.
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UMass Lowell student from Revere mourned after Costa Rica crash
How Globe writers voted for the 2020 Baseball Hall of Fame
Movies to stream while you’re stuck inside this winter
Steve Dykes/Getty Images
By M.J. Andersen Globe Correspondent July 18, 2019
Fifty years ago this month, with what looked like an over-starched flag, Americans turned the moon into their own backyard sandlot. Yet back here on Earth, any number of places can rival the moon’s all-in-the-family strangeness – a truth for which writers give unceasing thanks.
Consider Oklahoma City. It may not top most lists of must-see destinations, but Sam Anderson can assure you it is “one of the great weirdo cities of the world.” As “a laboratory for unavoidable American problems,” he proposes, it is also a worthy case study.
A staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, Anderson developed an outsider’s affection for the city when, thanks to considerable maneuvering, it acquired the professional basketball team now known as the Thunder. His “Boomtown – The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, its Chaotic Founding, its Apocalyptic Weather, its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-class Metropolis” attempts to explain everything in its subtitle and then some.
The 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building still unfortunately dominates most people’s conception of Oklahoma City. Anderson argues that the Thunder’s arrival 13 years later, and the team’s unexpected brilliance, have been essential to the community’s healing.
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The city abruptly sprouted with the land run of 1889, an event Anderson recounts in lively detail. (At times he can seem like the desperate-to-amuse guy on the next barstool, but bear with him.) Although the sections on the Thunder may be a little too much inside basketball for some readers, Anderson balances his account with wonderful historical and cultural nuggets (my favorite: the museum devoted to free enterprise). He also delivers a powerful reconstruction of the bombing, as well as an indelible portrait of Gary England, a meteorologist venerated for his life-saving tornado forecasts.
If Oklahoma City almost never came to be, Los Angeles was at least as improbable. Gary Krist’s “The Mirage Factory – Illusion, Imagination and the Invention of Los Angeles” illuminates the city’s rise through three notable figures: William Mulholland, the architect of its water system; D.W. Griffith, the master filmmaker who helped bring a fledgling movie industry west; and the wildly popular evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson.
Krist’s scrupulously researched history shows how three intersecting dreams created the unlikely fact of LA, as well as its illusion-loving soul. (“Whether you like it or not,” Charlie Chaplin once tellingly told McPherson, “you’re an actress.”)
At the turn of the last century, Los Angeles was smaller than Fall River. Mulholland’s scheme to poach water from the north, and the 1913 completion of his aqueduct, proved vital to attracting investment.
Griffith was drawn by the promise of sunny days and virtually year-round shooting. McPherson, she would attest, arrived on instructions from the Lord. At 28, she quit the East Coast and, with her mother and two children, headed to LA, driving most of the way herself. In California, she drew thousands with her upbeat gospel of salvation and, not incidentally, reports of faith healing. Followers soon donated enough to erect a lavish million-dollar temple, with seating for 5,300.
In the years when Los Angeles was coming of age, Pittsburgh had already reached maturity.
The Pennsylvania coal capital is probably best known as the stamping ground of Andrew Carnegie, and other Gilded Age titans. But in “Smoketown – The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance,” Mark Whitaker unearths a second, lesser-known city. Much like Harlem, Pittsburgh was home to a vibrant black community that flourished from the 1920s through the 1950s. Its newspaper, the Pittsburgh Courier, played an outsized role in shaping black opinion across the country.
Like Sam Anderson, the Courier’s editors understood the power of sports to lift the profile of a community. The paper was an early champion of Joe Louis, presenting the Alabama fighter’s rise as a vindication of black flight from the South. Pittsburgh’s integrated school system and rich musical culture helped produce several jazz greats, including Billy Strayhorn, Billy Eckstine and Erroll Garner. The city also molded August Wilson, one of the postwar era’s greatest playwrights.
Family ties encouraged Whitaker to bring this lesser-known history to light. But as Anderson demonstrates, it sometimes takes an outsider to bring a place fully into focus. As a visitor to the deep South, the British travel writer Richard Grant was so entranced that he impulsively purchased a grand plantation house. “Dispatches from Pluto — Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta” is his mind-blown account.
Arriving from New York with his girlfriend, Grant discovers nature in all its summertime fecundity (snakes, clouds of mosquitoes and armadillos that need killing). He quickly takes on his own prejudices, among them a dim view of gun culture and weed killers, and is entertainingly humbled. Questions of race assume an equally humbling complexity. Full of outlandish stories, eccentrics and lessons in neighborliness, Grant’s report from the Mississippi swampland washes down like sweet tea.
M.J. Andersen is an author and journalist who writes frequently on the arts.
Most Popular in artsRight Arrow
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Friday, 12th August 2016
In America free speech is a Constitutional right outlined in the first amendment. And because we hear about it all the time, some Australians feel as though free speech is also a Constitutional right in Australia.
In Australia we don’t actually have very many Constitutional rights. Cheryl Saunders in her paper The Australian Constitution and Our Rights states:
In contrast to the Constitutions of most other Western countries, which list a range of rights and provide legal protection for them, the Australian Constitution includes only a small handful of provisions that deal expressly with rights.
The Constitution gives us some property rights, the right to a trial by jury and some aspects of religious freedom. There are also implied rights which include things such as the implied right to vote and the implied right of political communication. Most of our rights are set out in legislation and common law. Saunders goes on:
Australia relies on institutional mechanisms for rights protection: the Parliaments and governments of both the Commonwealth and the States and independent courts applying common law principles.
And so, most interpretations state that free speech (or perhaps you call it restricted speech) is a legislated right. You’re free to say many things. But the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (RDA) makes it an offense to do an act on the basis of a person’s ‘race, colour or national or ethnic origin’ that ‘is reasonably likely … to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate a person’. So you can’t use racist language to offend or intimidate someone.
There are other parts of free speech in Australia that have been curtailed by legislation recently. However this doesn’t seem to evoke the same response from free speech advocates. One of these pieces of legislation, the Australian Border Force Act, makes it an offence for doctors, teachers or anyone involved in the offshore detention system to publicly speak out or report about the treatment of asylum seekers. This offence is punishable by two years in jail.
Other newish legislation (National Security Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014) means the media are not able to report on bungled ASIO activities (even if they don’t know that it’s spy stuff) without the threat of ten years in jail. So why are we trying to protect the freedom to say racist things but not protect the media and doctors to do their jobs?
Hurtful words
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
Most of us are told this when we are children. Normally by a parent after another child says hurtful things to or about us. But is it true? Or can word actually do us harm?
On ABC’s Insiders last weekend LDP Senator David Leyonhjelm stated:
If you want to take offence, that's your choice. You have the choice of choosing another feeling. Offence is always taken, not given. So if you don't want to be offended, you - it's up to you, don't be offended. That's it. We're not responsible for the feelings of other people. None of us are.
But not everyone is as assertive as David Leyonhjelm. What if you’re told on a continual basis that there is something wrong with you/that you’re bad/etc just because of the colour of your skin. How is that going to affect you in the long term? News out today reports that the suicide rate for young indigenous men in Australia is the highest in the world.
Hate speech can give those on the receiving end a feeling of inferiority. If you are exposed to this feeling your whole life it can affect how you feel about your place in the world. Let’s consider an analogy. Imagine if you told your kid that they are useless their whole life. Are they going to grow up and live their life to its full potential? Some kids might, but others won’t.
And why is it so hard to just have respectful debates about race? Why does anyone need the right to racially abuse someone else?
How did all this start?
The case for changing the RDA was initiated in 2011 when Andrew Bolt was found guilty of breaching it. Mr Bolt had published two articles about light-skinned aborigines. Last year’s winner of CEFA’s Governor-General’s Prize, Marcus Roberts, wrote about this in his essay:
Andrew Bolt, was found to have breached s 18C of the RDA by writing two articles, in the Herald Sun newspaper, suggesting that certain ‘white Aborigines’ were ‘not genuinely aboriginal persons’ but had ‘chosen to falsely identify as aboriginal’ in order to take advantage of ‘career opportunities available to aboriginal people’
The judge in this case stated that Bolts articles “contained errors of fact, distortions of the truth and inflammatory and provocative language”. The Herald Sun, where the articles were published, was forced to issue an apology. Free speech advocates were livid.
Then in March 2014 Attorney-General George Brandis announced the Government’s proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act of 1975. These changes were going to remove Sections 18B, C, D and E of the Act which made it unlawful to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person based on their race. Sections 18 and 19 of the Racial Discrimination Act were introduced by an amendment in 1995 to address community attitudes after the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and a National Inquiry into Racist Violence.
The 2014 Government plan was to replace Sections 18B, C, D and E with a new section that made it unlawful to vilify or intimidate a person based on their race. However, this new section did not apply to words, sounds, images or writing spoken, broadcast, published or otherwise communicated in the course of participating in the public discussion of any political, social, cultural, religious, artistic, academic or scientific matter. Many commentators believed that the proposed exception was so wide it is hard to imagine that the law would prevent any conduct.
This change proposal sparked a great deal of passionate community and media discussion. The main argument for changing the Racial Discrimination Act was to remove censorship of the freedom of speech. The then Human Rights Freedom Commissioner Tim Wilson stated:
Even if such speech is deeply unacceptable, making it unlawful significantly restricts free speech.
He argued that racism needs to be constantly tackled, but that censorship of speech is not the solution as it sends racism into dark corners where it festers and takes on a more ugly and explosive form.
Australian Human Rights Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane argued that law should have a role in combatting racism. The law regulates many aspects of our lives, why should it not protect people from abuse and harassment that violates a person’s dignity and freedom? He stated:
Now is certainly not the time to be elevating a right to bigotry over a right to be free from bigotry's effects.
The high level of the community discussion caused the Abbott Government to call for submissions on their exposure draft to the changes. They received 4100 submissions from various ethnic and religious groups along with groups concerned about free speech. More than 76 per cent of these submissions were opposed to the proposal, 20.5 per cent of submissions were in favour of the changes, and three per cent called for a complete repeal of all racial discrimination protections.
With such community concern the then Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced that the Government was dropping the proposed changes on 5 August 2014. He stated:
I’m a passionate supporter of free speech and if we were starting from scratch with section 18C we wouldn’t have words such as offend and insult in the legislation. But we aren’t starting from scratch. We are dealing with the situation we find ourselves in and I want the communities of the country to be our friend not our critic.
Since the proposed changes were dropped the discussion about repealing Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act has bubbled along. Recently a number of the crossbench Senators have called for this legislation to be altered. They includes the One Nation Senators, David Leyonhjelm (as mentioned above), Bob Day from Family First, Derryn Hinch, plus there are a number of Coalition MPs and Senators in support of change.
This week Senator Nick Xenophon stated that his party would not be supporting changes to the Racial Discrimination Act. Effectively this means that the matter is dead. Labor with 26 in the Senate, the Greens with nine and Xenophon with three makes the total number opposed to the changes 38. And that’s precisely the number of votes needed to block any legislation.
The Attorney-General George Brandis has also stated that the matter was "off the table". So do you think this debate is dead? Or should Australians argue to continue this debate?
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YouTube Wednesday: Kurt Hugo Schneider…the producer/director behind all your favorite YouTube musicians
Home | YouTube Wednesday | YouTube Wednesday: Kurt Hugo Schneider…the producer/director behind all your favorite YouTube musicians
Hello people of the Internet!!! On today’s ‘YouTube Wednesday’, we are going to talk about director/music producer Kurt Hugo Schneider! Kurt is one of the AMAZING YouTube producers that has worked with so many of our fav musicians (both YouTubers and mainstream musicians). I guarantee that you’re VERY familiar with Kurt already, but just in case you’re new to his awesomeness, Ready? Ok let’s go!
Kurt began his online career in 2008, when he and his friend Sam Tsui released a cover of ‘Can I Have This Dance’ from the movie ‘High School Musical 3’ (this is the first video that is on their YouTube channel as of 3/31/2015). In this video, Kurt accompanies Sam on the piano, and also added cool effects on the video that make it look like multiple copies of Sam are singing at the same time. Kurt continued to post videos with Sam, with other people, and also solo, before he posted a cover that would begin to change his channel. On July 24th, 2009 Kurt uploaded a new cover with Sam Tsui, which was an a cappella Michael Jackson Medley, which features Kurt beatboxing (I included the video below so y’all can check it out). This video got a lot of media attention for Kurt & Sam, and is still one of their most popular videos with over 33 million total views. In 2009 & 2010, Kurt’s channel started growing so much that he & Sam were featured on: The Bonnie Hunt Show, Oprah, and The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Since then Kurt’s channel has definitely not slowed down, & he has worked with INCREDIBLE artists such as: Jason Derulo, Victoria Justice, Max Schneider (who we have already talked about, click here to read about him: ‘YouTube Wednesday’: Max Schneider, Hollywood’s longest kept secret | celindareyesblog), Alyson Stoner, Keke Palmer, Hunter Hayes, Jason Mraz, and so many more. Now that we know how Kurt built such an awesome channel, let’s move on to some of the bigger projects he has released.
Now let’s talk about some of the other amazing projects Kurt has been a part of (and remember guys that I’m just giving you a quick little highlight reel because honestly we could be here for days talking about why Kurt is so awesome). Kurt (along with Max Schneider) co-wrote the song ‘Standing In China’, which is on pop singer Cody Simpson’s album ‘Paradise’ (which was released in 2012). Another really awesome collaboration that Kurt did was a ‘Holiday Medley’ with Victoria Justice & Max Schneider which was uploaded on December 14th, 2012. This cool mash-up of popular Christmas songs features multiple videos that were played on multiple Sprint phones, that give the illusion that the vocalists in the videos are jumping from one phone to another phone (sorta hard to explain, but check out the video below to check out the greatness! In 2013, Kurt teamed up with Coca-Cola to create music videos (along with some really talented vocalists) where Kurt covered ‘Feel So Close’ by Calvin Harris & ‘Little Talks’ by Of Monsters and Men (this is the only cover that feature an instrument because the other artist in the video is a cellist) for their ‘The Sounds of AHH’ campaign. In the covers, Kurt is shown making the track playing only Coca-Cola bottles, glasses and cans. Like I said, this is only a small sample of the cool videos you’ll find on Kurt’s channel, so definitely add him to your “must watch” list!
YouTube: KurtHugoSchneider
2nd YouTube Channel: Kurt
Twitter: kurthschneider
Instagram: KurtSchneider
Website: Kurt Hugo Schneider
Facebook: Kurt Schneider | Facebook
All credit goes to Kurt HugoSchneider, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, kurthugoschneider.com, Facebook, High School Musical 3, Sam Tsui, Michael Jackson, The Bonnie Hunt Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Ellen Degeneres Show, Oprah Winfrey, Ellen Degeneres, Bonnie Hunt, all of the writers/producers/and other businesses, companies, mangers, and record labels who were involved with the production of Can I Have this Dance from High School Musical 3, Cody Simpson, Jason Derulo, Victoria Justice, Max Schneider, Alyson Stoner, Keke Palmer, Hunter Hayes, Jason Mraz, Sprint, Coca-Cola, Calvin Harris, Of Monsters and Men, Atlantic Records, DJ Frank E, Adam Messinger, Nasri, Shawn Campbell, Dr. Luke, Supa Dups Alex Dezen, Chris Morris, Drew Pearson, and all companies, individuals, corporations, managers, record labels, writers, producers, and/or businesses that should receive credit for anything mentioned in this blog post and/or are mentioned in any of the videos mentioned in this blog post, and all original owners. I do not own anything in this blog. If any people, corporations, businesses, companies, etc, were not previously given credit for their work, they are given credit now and their previous absence was unintentional. All opinions expressed in this blog are my own. I wrote this blog for entertainment purposes and no copyright infringement is intended.
celindareyesblog April 2, 2015 No Comments on YouTube Wednesday: Kurt Hugo Schneider…the producer/director behind all your favorite YouTube musicians. Category: YouTube Wednesday. Tagged: Adam Messinger, Alyson Stoner, amazing, artist, atlantic records, awesome, band, blog post, Bonnie Hunt, Calvin Harris, Chris Morris, Coca-Cola, cody simpson, collab, collaboration, cover, director, DJ Frank E, Dr. Luke, Drew Pearson, ellen degeneres, facebook, group, High School Musical 3, hunter hayes, instagram, jason derulo, jason mraz, keke palmer, Kurt HugoSchneider, kurthugoschneider.com, mashup, max schneider, medley, Michael jackson, mix, music, Nasri, new, Of Monsters and Men, Oprah Winfrey, original, producer, Sam Tsui, shawn campbell, Sprint, Supa Dups Alex Dezen, The Bonnie Hunt Show, The Ellen Degeneres Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, twitter, victoria justice, video, youtube.
Monday Memos: Hannah Michaels, the new artist that will rule your fall playlists
Home | Monday Memos | Monday Memos: Hannah Michaels, the new artist that will rule your fall playlists
Hello people of the internet!!! On today’s ‘Monday Memos’ we are going to discuss an AMAZING new singer/songwriter that I know y’all will fall in love with. Remember the name Hannah Michaels, because she will soon become your fav new artist. With a very cool old school funk meets soul vibe, Hannah’s music is a breath of fresh air in the modern music scene. If you love artists such as Amy Winehouse and Ingrid Michaelson, then you will become OBSESSED with Hannah. With two well accomplished and prestigious writers behind her first single, this young artist is off to a great start, and I definitely think that her talent and artistry will allow her to become a staple on your radio VERY soon. So let’s jump into discuss Hannah’s debut single I’m Not Runnin (which you can see here I’m Not Runnin).
This single was co-written by Rachael Taylor (formally of the indie pop band ‘He Is We’), and Jay Vice (who co-wrote and produced Victoria Justice’s 2013 single ‘Gold’). Once I heard I’m Not Runnin, I instantly fell in love with it! This song is a really beautiful track about a girl who has always been lonely and “running “ from relationships, but now she is finally in a safe relationship that she doesn’t have to fear. I love that this song has an amazing message, and really catchy lyrics that you will be replaying constantly. Another thing that I love about this song is Hannah’s voice on the track. She has such a uniquely lovely voice that you are instantly intrigued, and can’t help but stay mesmerized from the first note to the last. I love the honesty in Hannah’s voice, which really shows that she is able to connect to what she’s singing, and make us believe it. Now let’s move on to the I’m Not Runnin music video ok? Ok!
I really like this video because it is beautifully shot, and really illustrates the message of the song. The locations ( a field in a forest and pier on a beach), really give the video a vibe of freedom, innocence, happiness and all of the great things that come with being young and in love. Hannah was also able to show through this video, that she is a natural in front of the camera (I mean honestly a lot of artists are awkward or not able to fully commit to the story behind their first music video). Once you start watching the video, Hannah is able to transport you into the story, and you forget that you’re watching a music video. I think that the best thing about the I’m Not Runnin video, is that it leaves you anxiously waiting for the next video and song Hannah will put out (and considering the fact that the video has almost 12,000 views and has only been out for 6 days as of November 14th I’m not the only one who feels this way).
So tell me people of the internet, after hearing I’m Not Runnin, you’re obsessed with Hannah right? I knew you would be! Honestly I am so excited about Hannah’s future in the music industry, because she has everything needed to become a star: talent, a high level of artistry, uniqueness, likability, a distinct tone to her voice that is easily distinguishable, and a killer debut single that instantly forces you to pay attention to her. So if you like staying ahead of music trends, then support Hannah’s music, keep up with her social media accounts, and jump on the bandwagon before she becomes a huge star (because trust me, she will).
Keep up with everything Hannah is doing:
Twitter: hannahmclifford
YouTube: Hannah Michaels
Facebook: OfficialHannahMichaels
Website: Hannah Michaels
Google +: Hannah Michaels – Videos – Google+
All photos and information used in this blog belong to YouTube, Facebook. OfficialHannahMichaels. Google +, Hannah Michaels, Rachael Taylor, Amy Winehouse, Ingrid Michelson, Jay Vice, Victoria Justice, Twitter, and all other original owners. I do not own anything in this blog. If any people, corporations, businesses, companies, etc, were not previously given credit for their work, they are given credit now and their previous absence was unintentional. All opinions expressed in this blog are my own. I wrote this blog for entertainment purposes and no copyright infringement is intended.
celindareyesblog November 17, 2014 No Comments on Monday Memos: Hannah Michaels, the new artist that will rule your fall playlists. Category: Monday Memos. Tagged: Amy Winehouse, Facebook. OfficialHannahMichaels. Google +, Hannah Michaels, Ingrid Michelson, Jay Vice, music, Rachael Taylor, twitter, victoria justice, youtube.
‘YouTube Wednesday’: Max Schneider, Hollywood’s longest kept secret
Home | YouTube Wednesday | ‘YouTube Wednesday’: Max Schneider, Hollywood’s longest kept secret
Hello people of the internet!!! On this ‘YouTube Wednesday’ we are going to talk about an emerging star that is on the brink of being the next big pop super star. This incredibly talented guy is an actor, dancer, model, vocalist, and even plays the guitar, piano, and the ukulele! (I know that last one is so random but completely awesome right?!) Who is this multitalented guy you may ask? It’s Max Schneider!!!! (Cue the applause clap, clap, clap!).
Max was born in June of 1992 in New York, and began performing for family and friends at the age of 3. He began his professional career in the Broadway musical ‘13’, which was written by Broadway veteran Jason Robert Brown, and opened in New York October of 2008. ‘13’was nominated for a Drama Desk Award (which honors Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Off-Off-Broadway productions), and its Broadway run consisted of 105 performances and 22 previews. After ‘13’, Max appeared in numerous hit shows such as ‘Law and Order SVU’ and ‘One Life to Live’. In January of 2010 he was chosen to participate in the YoungArts Program in Miami, FL (which is a program in which “talented young artists in the literary, performing, visual and design arts” take master classes from industry veterans, and make connections to help them receive admission into top colleges/conservatories and in the job market….in other words this is THE program to be a part of if you want a career in the entertainment industry, good job Max!). So after completing this program, Max was featured in the Fall/Winter 2010 ad campaign for fashion super house ‘Dolce & Gabbana’, which also featured MADONNA, (Yup the pop icon, super business women, one of the most powerful people to ever walk the earth Madonna)!The ad was released in August of 2010, and seen all over the world.
After this, Max booked the role of Lance in the film ‘The Last Keepers. In 2011 he filmed the pilot for a Nickelodeon show called ‘How to Rock’, (I loved that show!!!), and the show aired in February of 2012. Later in 2012, Max starred in a Nickelodeon movie musical called ‘Rags’ (which was a Cinderella inspired movie about a guy named Charlie who is an awesome singer and dancer, and he falls for a pop star, who is played by TV and movie veteran Keke Palmer. I won’t tell you what else happens, but it’s a really cool movie with a terrific soundtrack, so check it out!). Even though ‘How to Rock’ was cancelled after 1 season, Max co-wrote a song called ‘Last One Standing’ for the show, he also wrote a song called ‘Show You How To Do’ for the hit Disney show ‘Shake It Up’.
Link to Max and Cymphonique Miller singing ‘Last One Standing (the version that was shown on the show ‘How To Rock’: Cymphonique Miller. ft. Max Schneider Last one standing
Although Max has continued to work as an actor in various films and TV shows, he has also had a successful career as a musician. In October of 2009, Max began to release cover videos of popular songs on YouTube, and in 2010 he released an EP called ‘First Encounters’, on ITunes. In the summer of 2012 Max opened for Victoria Justice on her ‘Making It In America’ tour, and released three cover videos with Victoria on YouTube (the videos were a Bruno Mars Medley, a Maroon 5 Medley, and a Holiday Medley…YouTube super producer Kurt Hugo Schneider also worked on these covers, so you NEED to see them…well finish reading this blog, share it with your friends and then see the video. Ok? Yay!) . (Link to Max and Victoria’s ‘Bruno Mars Cover Medley’: Bruno Mars Medley! – Victoria Justice & Max Schneider.) In May of 2013, Max dropped his latest original single called ‘Nothing Without Love’, and the official music video for the song. (Link to ‘Nothing Without Love’: “Nothing Without Love” – Max Schneider (Official Music Video).) His latest single was well received by his “Schneider Monkeys” (this is what Max calls his fans), and he has continued to release cover videos by himself, as well as collaborating with many well known YouTube stars. Here’s one of my personal favorites, Max and Danny Padilla’s cover of One Republic’s hit ‘Counting Stars’: “Counting Stars”- One Republic (Max Schneider (MAX) & Danny Padilla Cover). Max is definitely a star on the rise, and someone who I believe will have an iron grip on the music and film/TV industry very soon.
Check out Max on his social media sites (and if you want to send him the link to this blog that would be AMAZING too…just sayingJ)
Max’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/Maxgschneider
Max’s Website: http://maxschneider.com/
Max’s IMDB page: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3449343/
Max’s Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/MaxSchneiderOfficial
Max’s ITunes Page: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/max-schneider/id159508491
(Oh and on a side not, most of Max’s covers are available for purchase on ITunes, so I would check them out!)
All photos and information used in this blog belong to Max Schneider, Nickelodeon, Jason Robert Brown, Dolce & Gabbana, Madonna, Victoria Justice, Kurt Hugo Schneider, Danny Padilla, schneidermonkey49, nicktopia.com, and all other original owners. I do not own anything in this blog. All opinions expressed in this blog are my own. I wrote this blog for entertainment purposes and no copyright infringement is intended. Thank You!
celindareyesblog June 22, 2014 No Comments on ‘YouTube Wednesday’: Max Schneider, Hollywood’s longest kept secret. Category: YouTube Wednesday. Tagged: 13, actor, adamlevine, broadway, bruno mars medley, cinderella, counting stars, cover videos, dancer, danny padilla, director, dolce & gabbana, dramma desk award, film, guitar, holiday medley, holiday music, how to rock, itunes, keke palmer, kurt hugo schneider, madonna, making it in america, maroon 5 medley, max schneider, model, multitalented, music, musician, new york, nickelodeon, nothing without love, off-broadway, off-off-broadway, one republic, piano, pop, producer, rags, superstar, the voice, tv, ukulele, victoria justice, vocalist, wednesday, youtube.
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Central European Economic and Social History
Glimpses of Life in Central Europe Past and Present
CENTRAL EUROPE AND THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE: ATTEMPTS AT CREATING A UNIFYING IDENTITY DESPITE RISING NATIONALISM
13/08/2018 Susanne WurmCENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE, THE DANUBE REGION: ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTSBosnia Herzegovina, Budapest, De Gasperi, Debrecen, H.G.Adler, Habsburg Empire, Korosek, Masaryk, multilingualism, nationalism, populism, Prague, Temesvar, Vienna
In the last years researchers of Central and Eastern Europe have revised the widespread assumptions of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that comprised a large part of this area and ended in 1918. They no longer see it as an economically inefficient multi-national anachronism to the late 19th century nation states of Europe. New studies focus on the vibrant political cultures and the interesting attempts at interpreting local and regional phenomena in this multi-ethnic and multi-religious empire. General studies of Europe and modern history tend to treat the region of Central Europe as an exceptional corner of Europe due to the presence of several ethnic and religious groups in its societies, but also because of its economic development, often – unjustly – characterised as “backward”. Historians of self-styled nation states might have to think more creatively about cultural differences that may lurk just below the surface of assertions of national homogeneity. This is especially necessary at the time when the European Union is again facing new outbreaks of nationalism and even regions in the established nation states of Western Europe show serious tendencies of separation, e.g. Catalonia or Scotland.
Even some books written recently on the topic of World War I continued the tradition of portraying the Habsburg Empire as a state on the verge of collapse even before the outbreak of the war due to nationalist conflicts. Since the collapse of the empire narratives of nationhood have dominated its history. This interpretation ignores the fact that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was very similar to the other European states of the time, but at the same time pioneered new ideas of nationhood and new practices of governance thanks to its multi-ethnic population of 50 million. Some of the character, the developments and the enduring legacies of this Habsburg Empire are still visible in Central Europe. Therefore it is essential for once to abandon traditional presumptions about the primacy of nationhood in the region and to focus on the Austro-Hungarian institutions such as schools, the judicial system or the Austrian census that managed practical issues surrounding linguistic and ethnic diversity. This research undermines the notion that the existence of language differences dominated social relationships and institutional developments in Central Europe. On the contrary, imperial institutions and administrative practices helped shape nationalist efforts. Furthermore the surviving presumptions of economic backwardness or unbridgeable difference that allegedly made Central Europe different from the rest of Europe were revised in recent decades and historians have pointed out the remarkable creativity and innovation of the empire’s institutions in tackling diversity. Looking at the last decades of the Habsburg Empire might offer different views at subjects like nationhood, multilingualism and indifference to nationhood, especially at times of crisis of solidarity in the European Union.
In the Austro-Hungarian Empire imperial institutions, administrative practices and cultural programmes helped to shape local society in every region of the empire, from the late 18th century until 1918. These collective elements gave citizens of the Habsburg Empire in every corner of the monarchy experiences that crossed linguistic, confessional and regional divides. The Prague writer H.G.Adler wrote after World War I and after the end of the Habsburg Empire that when he was asked who he was he responded that he was of Jewish nationality with a German mother tongue, was born in Czechoslovakia, felt as a part of Austrian culture, was a German writer, a British citizen, and hopefully in all that also a little bit of a human being. Even after the Habsburg Empire formally ceased to exist in November 1918, common elements of imperial practice continued to shape many people’s expectations in Central Europe, whether they were about welfare benefits, a functioning bureaucracy or the question how political life should function. Important politicians in the successor states such as Masaryk in Czechoslovakia or De Gasperi in Italy or Korosek in Yugoslavia were heavily influenced by their formative experiences in Habsburg politics. They often adopted similar laws and practices for their new states. At the same time, however, they loudly rejected any legacy of the Habsburg Empire as incompatible with democracy and national self-determination.
From 1867 until the fall of the empire activists of all kinds in Austro-Hungarian society increasingly invoked the authority of what they called culture to assert their visions of the structure of the monarchy, to discredit competing visions and form political and social movements. Advocates of all kinds of political positions designed programmes that made sweeping cultural claims about whole populations. The increasing turn by politicians and activists to cultural references, illustrations, terminologies and arguments was clearest in the rise of new forms of political nationalism in the Habsburg Empire. Nationalists based their increasingly populist definitions of nationhood on their interpretation of the obvious facts of different language uses. In reality the citizens of the empire used many languages to communicate among each other and with the state, which of course meant that the Austro-Hungarian society was made up by several defined cultures or nations. Nationalist activists tried to force the state to rectify supposed historic victimisations of one nation by the other. Yet, on the contrary, the Habsburg state and the dynasty legitimated the existence of Austro-Hungary by stressing the beneficial unity it provided to all those allegedly different peoples, cultures or nations over which it ruled. The imperial state by that facilitated the turn towards culture in the political discussion by increasingly justifying its existence in terms of its ability to promote the cultural development of its nations. As a consequence the self-appointed representatives of the different national communities in turn fought to gain a better place for themselves within the framework of the empire in Central Europe.
While nationalist arguments about differences pervaded public institutions and dominated politics by 1900, their influence, nevertheless, remained limited to these special situations. Yet in many other situations that encouraged nationalist identification, this nationalist activity at the same time supported imperial patriotism and Habsburg loyalties. By the beginning of the 20th century ideologies of nationalism and of empire increasingly depended on each other for coherence. They made use of similar language and similar ideas. Propagandists for the Habsburg Empire increasingly used national concepts in their publications and campaigns. The imperial administrators who founded museums of culture and folklore encouraged archaeological and anthropological projects in ways that strongly resembled earlier nationalist protagonists. Their purpose, however, was not to encourage nationalist sectarianism, but to tie local nationalism to imperial loyalties. Consequently, it is difficult to assess whether nationalist political conflict was in fact weakening the structure of the empire or perhaps strengthening it. It was definitely changing the fabric of the Habsburg Empire. By demanding reforms the nationalists forced the state to come to terms with their demands with respect to imperial political structures.
In their everyday lives the Austro-Hungarian citizens engaged more intimately and intensely than ever before with the empire from the 1880s on. Practices ranging from school attendance to voting in local elections to participation in rituals of military conscription and in annual empire-wide celebrations of the ruler’s birthday made Muslim peasants in rural Bosnia, Czech-speaking businessmen in Bohemia and Hungarian intellectuals in Budapest into increasingly engaged citizens of an empire that more than ever met their needs. No longer merely bystanders and onlookers, the Habsburg citizens claimed an explicit stake in their empire. Structurally the last decade before World War I saw the empire emerge from political crises caused by nationalist conflicts in the years around 1900. These crises produced a willingness among some elites to develop more flexible models of power-sharing within the empire. But much of these negotiations looking for a compromise took place behind closed doors, away from public view.
Around 1880 across Europe communication and transport infrastructures started to expand quickly. As a consequence more goods were transported over longer distances, but also people moved far beyond their accustomed horizons, both physically and mentally. As a result, in only twenty years the populations of the big cities of Central Europe, such as Vienna,, Budapest, Prague, Lemberg /Lviv, Czernowitz, Zagreb, Fiume /Rijeka, Pola /Pula and others increased around 60 per cent and cities like Trieste, Debrecen, Temesvar or the industrial regions in Moravia and Silesia grew 50 per cent. By 1900 close to 40 per cent of all Austro-Hungarians had left their original place of birth and migrated to another part of the empire. Rail travel within the empire became a commonplace experience for millions. A dense and efficient railway network covered the whole empire from east to west and from north to south with the architectural jewels of train stations that were splendid landmarks of Central European Habsburgian architecture. They were deliberately built in a distinctive style from one end of the empire to the other as a point of identification with the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Some of them have survived the destructions of the 20th century and are now restored to past glory. They constitute examples of this very special Central European architecture that characterises the region. In Hungary, nationalisation of the rail system significantly lowered passenger prices in 1889 and raised the number of rail travellers to seven million annually in just a few years. Well before 1900 Galicians could travel by train in just fourteen hours from Lemberg / Lviv to Vienna, a trip that takes many more hours today. From 1876 to 1910 nearly four million citizens migrated overseas, mostly to Canada, the United States and Latin America. Hundreds of thousands of them also returned to Austro-Hungary later, sometimes with new capital and new skills.
But the revolutions in transport and communication also affected the lives of those who stayed behind. By 1900 the inhabitants of most smaller towns and even remote villages had access to local and regional newspapers and sometimes to telephone service. Primary school education was expanded. By 1910 there were 22,386 primary schools in the Austrian half and 16,455 in the Hungarian half of the empire. After primary school short preparatory courses offered trainings in basic secretarial skills, for example, so that an increasing number of rural youth gained a degree of social mobility and could take up jobs in a range of new low-level white-collar jobs. After 1900 low literacy rates in the most rural regions of the empire, such as Galicia, Bukovina, Dalmatia, Croatia, Transylvania and Bosnia-Herzegovina began to catch up with the higher rates in the more urbanised Bohemian, Austrian and metropolitan Hungarian lands. In 1910 the average literacy rate in the Austrian half was 83.5 per cent, similar to France with 85 per cent. In the Hungarian half, the literacy rates of Hungarian and German speakers were around 70 per cent, those for Romanian and Ruthene (today’s Ukrainian) speakers were around 30 per cent.
From schooling to military service to welfare benefits and postal services, the responsibilities of the state increased: there was mandatory primary education, obligatory accident insurance (1887), health insurance (1889), workers’ and company organisations in commerce, industry and trade and above all, massive state-funded expansion of the railway, telegraph and postal systems. In this way the Habsburg state became a more immediate and present actor in people’s lives in Central Europe. Expanding infrastructure s and new public tasks forced the governments of Austria and Hungary to employ more civil servants to fulfil the new functions and ensure efficiency. Parliaments, crown land diets and town halls now engaged in archival record-keeping on a scale yet unknown, while at the same time enforcing a maze of legal standards for an array of issues from workplace safety, public health to transportation. An extensive and efficient bureaucracy brought the Habsburg Empire into the everyday lives of its citizens even to very remote places of the empire. Unlike previous periods of major state growth, now the initiatives that drove much of the late 19th century expansion often came from the margins of the empire. Developed by locally elected officials and with consultation of administrative experts communal projects fuelled an expansion of bureaucratic functions in villages, towns and the crown land governments, from public hygiene programmes, the establishment of hospitals to the creation of parks and public swimming pools and theatres. The theatres built during this period in the Habsburg Empire were another architectural landmark of the cities of Habsburgia. Many of them were built by the firm Fellner & Helmer and these Central European architectural highlights can still be admired in places like Temesvar, Karlsbad /Karlovy Vary, Graz, Debrecen or Zagreb and many other cities of Central Europe. They employed men – and later women as well – from increasingly diverse social backgrounds in a range of positions, from telegraph operators to food inspectors to postal workers, school teachers and railway employees. The development of postal savings banks in Austria and Hungary, for example, offered banking services to rural and small town customers of modest income, who would otherwise not have access to them. Postal workers, railway employees and school teachers came to symbolize the empire for the general public, since they represented it in the most common daily life interactions, even in the most out of the way rural settings.
The same forces that galvanised the expansion of the state, such as rising literacy, freer print media, facilitated movement of people and goods, increased popular pressures for a greater democratisation of imperial society. Amid stunning social and technical transformations, faith in the virtues of a common empire, nevertheless, crucially stabilized and coordinated heterogeneous desires, needs and practices of 50 million citizens. Even at the local level, the empire remained the institution on which many activists projected their different visions of the future, especially those who tried to defuse nationalist political conflicts by imagining new ways of efficiently organising this multicultural empire. As ideas, both the empire and the Habsburg dynasty came to symbolize a reassuring constancy in times of unsettling change. Emperor Franz Joseph enjoyed unprecedented popularity. Forgotten was his crushing of the revolutions of 1848 and the following absolutist reign, the postponement of Jewish emancipation, the lost wars and his resistance to reform. Now a benign grandfatherly emperor watched over the progressive transformations of the society, moderating social and national radicalism when necessary. He appeared as a martyr to the many personal tragedies of his long reign, the suicide of his son crown prince Rudolf and the assassination of his wife Sisi. Popular Habsburg loyalty underpinned the idea of the empire and helped to promote identification with the empire. The symbolic language of the monarchy often cloaked new forms of governance and government obligation in reassuringly familiar Habsburg terms.
Increasingly at all corners of the empire municipal governments seemed to agree that their town should be turned into a “modern” city. The placement of a railway link, a train station, a military garrison could make a town’s economic future. Most experienced modernity as of imperial nature. This meant that already in 1891 a small town like Mährisch Schönberg / Sumperk had an early telephone network and Ungarisch Brod / Uhersky Brod had 31 telephone numbers in 1905. There was a dizzying array of imperial projects realised in small and medium-sized towns in the last two decades before World War I – projects ranging from new school buildings and hospitals to libraries and theatres, electrification, public swimming pools, railway stations to tramway systems. As the central and local administrations expanded the number of their competences they also had to increase the size of personnel drastically, which dramatically increased costs. Between 1890 and 1911 the annual cost of the Austrian administration rose from 4 million crowns to 18 million crowns.
In Hungary the government invested enormous sums in the development of the rail infrastructure, swiftly creating a highly centralised national system in which all lines ran to or through Budapest. Budapest itself was designed to attract visitors by presenting itself as an eastern “Paris on the Danube”. Budapest had to market its modernity by simultaneously developing up-to-date forms of spectacle. With projects ranging from a so-called Ice Palace, opened in 1903, where one could enjoy both a hothouse with palm trees and an ice-skating rink to the Danube Festivals with electric city illuminations and fireworks, Budapest tried to make the city itself into a tourist attraction. But also Hungarian political society was not spared the experience of the kind of nationalist and ideological radicalisation that overtook Austrian political life. Around 1900 the attractions of modernity found expression in new initiatives that went beyond infrastructure. Social activists, workers’ organisations, feminist groups, educational reformers, even vegetarianism developed radically new perspectives on modern life. Women’s changing roles in society became a general measure for the society’s openness to progress. In Austria, women’s sections were highly visible in almost all nationalist organisations. Women’s organisations in white-collar professions agitated for specific improvements from pension payments to working conditions. A few major political parties supported female suffrage after 1900, most notably the Austrian, Hungarian and Czech socialists.
Habsburg bureaucrats and party politicians had long demonstrated a flexible creativity in negotiating structural modifications intended to make the empire function more effectively and to offer a greater long-term political stability. In the Austrian half of the Habsburg Empire the architects of the Moravian Compromise in 1905, the Bukovinian Compromise in 1910, the Galician Compromise in 1914 and the Budweis/Budjeovice Compromise in 1914, as well as the authors of the 1907 suffrage reform for all male citizens and the initiators of bureaucratic reform, all developed bold political solutions to defuse conflicts related to political nationalism. Their work was based on situational concerns and clearly not perfect as every model was shaped according to local conditions and not easily applicable to another crown land. Yet in Austria we can see a willingness to negotiate highly distinctive solutions to structural conflicts in the decade before World War I. In comparison to the Hungarian part, the Austrian half of the empire became in some ways far more decentralised or federalised by region in its last decades despite the growth in imperial civil service and the ways in which the highest courts insisted on maintaining common legal and administrative standards in all of the Austrian part of the empire. Even in Bohemia, the crown land where the nationalist conflict appeared to be the most intransigent, informal negotiations to reach a federalist compromise remained on-going.
At the end of the 1870s, thanks to a rebellion in the neighbouring Ottoman Empire, Austro-Hungary became a colonial power by occupying a piece of Ottoman territory. The resulting 30-year occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina provided bureaucrats, ideologists, map makers, technicians of all kinds, teachers and priests an unparalleled opportunity to realize liberal civilizational concepts of the empire on the Balkans. Many people also saw in Bosnia-Herzegovina an opportunity to fulfil either their own ambitions or the ambitions of their respective national movements. In 1878 when Austro-Hungarian forces marched into the neighbouring Ottoman Empire to quell local uprisings in Bosnia and Herzegovina and to forestall a Russian interference, they ended up staying there. The Treaty of Berlin confirmed the empire’s right to occupy the two provinces. The Emperor Franz Joseph promised that all “sons of the land will enjoy equal rights according to the laws”. This colonial project tried to stabilize and to transform the local society by bringing it the benefits of modern innovations while simultaneously strengthening the traditional society enough to keep it stable. From the start the project was supported by liberals, Catholics and Slavic nationalists, all of whom saw the occupation as beneficial to both the region and the empire, but for very different reasons. All the benefits of civilisation, from legal equality to education to technical modernity, would be bestowed on Bosnia-Herzegovina, of course at a sensible pace and moderate costs. At the same time, Austria’s proven ability to treat all linguistic and religious groups even-handedly would demonstrate the superiority of the liberal Habsburg multinational ideal over ethnic nationalism as the best vehicle for progress. The Habsburg idea had traditionally been universal, although aimed mainly at Central Europe. In the 1870s it became an argument for spreading European values to the Balkans.
An army of administrators set about propagating social modernisation and cultural equality to the new subjects. They immediately tried to assess Bosnian society’s needs and devise plans how best to deal with the linguistic and religious diversity they encountered there. In religious terms the population was divided into 40 per cent Orthodox, 35 per cent Muslim and 25 per cent Roman Catholic. In social terms the population was largely agrarian with much of the land in Muslim hands. The Habsburg administrators sought to create a model colony, a showcase of the Habsburg civilising mission. At the same time the administration tried to avoid the dangers of political nationalism that troubled the rest of the Austro-Hungarian society increasingly. The difficulty lay in the spiralling dynamic of “empire” and “nation”. Education produced an increased politicization of particular cultural differences even as it also produced a sense of place within the larger imperial order. The teachers brought into Bosnia were people who could speak the local language, which meant that they were often also Croat or Serb nationalists or they were government bureaucrats who tried to create a non-national Bosnian identification for Bosnian Muslims.
Countless Austrians and Hungarians debated the future directions the empire should take and possible reforms to its structures after 1900. The contemporaries believed that this flourishing multicultural society required new rules, structures and institutions to improve its functioning. Yet the constitutional ability of each part to block reform in the other, the disagreements between Austrian and Hungarian politicians impeded the implementation of ground-breaking reforms. Nevertheless, the excitement and creativity around reform projects demonstrates that Austro-Hungary should not be written off as a doomed anachronism in Europe. Many aspects of its situation ring a bell with current European Union difficulties. The existence of nationalist movements and nationalist conflicts in Austro-Hungarian politics did not weaken the state fatally and they did not cause its downfall in 1918. Just as nationalist and populist politics need not cause the break-up of the European Union now. Schools, military barracks, a free trade zone in the Danube basin, imperial infrastructure, scientific scholarship, cultural institutions and imperial bureaucracy constituted the focus of political activity and created emotional loyalties and identification with the Habsburg Empire. Extensive administrative resources were invested to manage, domesticate and even normalize nationalist politics. The empire’s elites understood very well that the transformation of Austro-Hungarian society from the growth of popular politics to the politicization of the bureaucracy had seriously reduced their power and influence. Many of the elite feared that these transformations also reduced the empire’s power status internationally. This elite mood of existential pessimism in 1914 was one factor that encouraged some members of the General Staff and the Diplomatic Corps to risk taking Austro-Hungary to war because they falsely believed that a war could silence political conflict at home and prevent further damage to the empire’s power status abroad. This misconception, in fact, destroyed the intricate fabric of a multicultural union at the heart of Europe.
Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers, 2012
Pieter M. Judson, The Habsburg Empire. A New History, 2016
Emil Brix & Erhard Busek, Mitteleuropa revisited, 2018
LIVES OF COMMON PEOPLE IN VIENNA FROM THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE TO THE NAZI REGIME AND POST-WAR AUSTRIA (12)
THE DANUBE REGION: ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTS (58)
FINANCE AND ECONOMY IN CEE (23)
MULTI-ETHNICITY AND TRANSNATIONAL PEOPLES IN THE DANUBE BASIN (17)
Anschluß anti-Semitism Austro-Hungarian Empire Balkans Bohemia Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Cisleithania Credit-Anstalt Croatia Czech Czech Republic First World War Galicia Gründerzeit Habsburg Empire Hitler Hungary Iron Curtain Jews Karl Lueger Lemberg/Lvov/Lviv Moravia Muslims nationalism Nazi Osman Empire Ottoman Empire Prague railways Red Vienna Romania Rothschild Russian Empire Serbia Silesia Slovakia Slovenia Social Democrats Third Reich Trieste Turks Vienna World War I World War II
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ABOUT CAF
CAF TIMELINE
CAF MINUTES
Minutes 01
CURATING FEMINISM
Bimblebox: art – science – nature
Curating Feminism MASTERCLASSES
Curating Feminism Keynote Speakers
CARE: transforming values through art, ethics and feminism
FEMINIST EXHIBITIONS IN AUSTRALIA
Archiving Womanifesto: An International Art Exchange, 1990s - Present.
1995 THE NATIONAL WOMEN'S ART EXHIBITION
TRANSGRESSIVE TEACHING
CAF ARCHIVE
CAF FRIENDS
2015 SYMPOSIA
AGNSW
ffA Report
READ AAWVA (AFFIRMATIVE ACTION FOR WOMEN IN THE VISUAL ARTS)
WOMEN'S GAZE AND THE FEMINIST FILM ARCHIVE
DAAO
NATIONAL WOMEN'S ART EXHIBITION
CARE Project
CARE Network
Round Table 1 Melbourne
Round Table 2 Sydney
Round Table 3 Bendigo
Symposium - CARE: transforming values through art, ethics and feminism
Australia - 40th Anniversary Projects
CAF's Friends joined forces around Australia to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of International Women’s Year in 1975. Many groups in the network convened a major Feminist Contemporary Art Event and are essential archives for researchers.
F Generation; feminism, art, progressions
A collaborative project of forum, workshops, exhibition and publication by Caroline Phillips, Veronica Caven Aldous and Juliette Peers, to mark the series of groundbreaking feminist art activities that took place at George Paton Gallery, at the University of Melbourne Student Union, in 1975. These events included a lecture and slide show of US women artists by Lucy Lippard, Australian women artists slide shows, consciousness-raising sessions, and feminist exhibitions. These events led directly to the formation of the Women's Art Register, Women's Art Forum and Lip magazine. Exhibition dates October 7-16, 2015, George Paton Gallery, Melbourne. https://umsu.unimelb.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/10-main-f-generation.pdf
FRAN, Feminist Renewal Art Network, Adelaide
FRAN (The Feminist Renewal Art Network), curated FRANFEST to commemorate 40 years since The Women's Show (Adelaide 1977). FRAN celebrated women's artistic achievements then and now with dynamic exhibitions and a symposium. Forty years ago Adelaide was host to one of the largest Australia-wide exhibitions of women’s art, The Women’s Show of 1977. The Women’s Show exhibited over 400 works, and included the work of established and emerging artists as well as those who had been overlooked, lacking institutional and commercial support.
FRAN FEST was a month long (25 August — 24 September 2017) state-wide open-access festival featuring exhibitions, events and symposia to value and reflect both the history and contemporary practice of Australian feminism and art. FRAN FEST celebrated South Australia’s dynamic relationship between contemporary art and feminism.FRAN FEST highlighted inter-generational and intersectional dialogue, investigated the legacy of second-wave feminist art and explored the nature of contemporary feminist art. http://franfest.com.au/
https://contemporaryartandfeminism.com/caf-friends/18-feminist-renewal-art-network-fran
Parramatta Female Factory Precinct Project, Sydney
A social history and contemporary art project centred on the historic institutions of the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct in Sydney. The aim is to create a vision for the precinct that recognises past wrongs and addresses their contemporary legacies in this historic setting as Australia's first Site of Conscience. Launched in 2013 the PFFP Memory Project exhibits creative works produced in collaborative workshops on site and at other venues. The Female Factory participated in the exhibition Curating Feminism at Sydney College of the Arts. http://www.parragirls.org.au/Memory-Project
https://contemporaryartandfeminism.com/archive/caf-friends/55-parramatta-girls-home-exhibition-and-play-april-28-2014
https://contemporaryartandfeminism.com/caf-friends/61-parramatta-female-factory-precinct-memory-project-november-17-2013
Women’s Art Register, Melbourne
The Women’s Art Register is Australia’s living archive of women’s art practice (non-binary and trans inclusive) and a National, Artist-Run and Not-for-Profit community and resource. Assessed as a ‘Collection of National Significance’ through the Heritage Collections Council in 2009, this unique archive houses the images, catalogues, posters and ephemera of over 5000 Australian and International artists. Since 1975 the Women’s Art Register has provided an inclusive, independent platform for research, education, advocacy and support for its members and the Arts and Education sectors, enhancing the status of women artists and addressing issues of equity, professional practice and cultural heritage. http://www.womensartregister.org/
AS IF: 40 years and beyond – Celebrating the Women’s Art Register, was a mini festival of exhibitions and events celebrating 40 years of the Women's Art Register. The program included art walks, slide shows, discussions and exhibitions at West Space, City Library, Queen Victoria Women's Centre, Union House (University of Melbourne), Mailbox Art Space, State Library of Victoria, Richmond Library and public sites across Melbourne CBD and Docklands. Awarded as Winner, Best Visual Art event, Melbourne Fringe Festival 2015
https://contemporaryartandfeminism.com/caf-friends/21-as-if-40-years-and-beyond-celebrating-the-women-s-art-register-august-18-2015
https://contemporaryartandfeminism.com/caf-friends/34-as-if-when-and-now-women-s-art-register-member-exhibition-march-23-2015
Women’s Gaze: Future Feminist Archive Symposium, Sydney
The Women’s Gaze and the Feminist Film Archive involved discussion between filmmakers Martha Ansara, Margot Nash and Jeni Thornley about ‘some of the ground breaking films they produced in the 70s’. https://contemporaryartandfeminism.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/womens-gaze-film-press-info-doc-logo-version-25-2-15.pdf
The Feminist Film Archive, curated by Loma Bridge and Margot Nash and Jeni Thornley, comprises ground-breaking Australian feminist films to the Future Feminist Archive.
Vimeo link to the Symposium panel Women’s Gaze and the Feminist Film Archive, convened by CAF at Art Gallery of NSW: https://vimeo.com/122498137
https://contemporaryartandfeminism.com/caf-friends/38-women-s-gaze-and-the-feminist-film-archive-march-5-2015
OTHER EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS - Australia and International
Doing Feminism / Sharing the World, Melbourne
A three-month program of artist residencies, performance, seminars and mentorship program with a focus on collaboration, participation and feminist ethics held 2017-2018 in Melbourne. Convened by Ann Marsh. At This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. / https://doingfeminism-sharingtheworld.tumblr.com
https://contemporaryartandfeminism.com/caf-friends/93-doing-feminism-sharing-the-world
Unfinished Business, Melbourne
An exhibition and project Unfinished Business, offered a multi-voiced interpretation of feminism and the visual arts. It presented the formative impact of feminism on contemporary art contemplated the concerns of women since the 1970s. A multi-generational and culturally diverse curatorial team: Paola Balla, Max Delany, Julie Ewington, Annika Kristensen, Vikki McInnes and Elvis Richardson. At ACCA until March 25, 2018. Review: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-09/feminist-art-collection-australian-centre-for-contemporary-art/9306238
ARCHIVES — Feminist, Activist (with Feminist art component)
Archive Futures, Sydney
Archive Futures Research Network an information website and network co-founded and co-convened by Linda Morra and Maryanne Dever: Recipient of the 2014 joint Gender Institute/Humanities Research Centre 2014 ay ANU.
Art + Feminism, Wiki World
Art plus Feminism is a rhizomatic campaign to improve coverage of women and the arts on Wikipedia to encourage female editorship. To get involved, follow the drop down menu and take part in an edit-a-thon. http://www.artandfeminism.org/
Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong
See: a series of public workshops in Hong Kong and Taipei involving artists, filmmakers, curators, architects, and writers engaged in alternative production and dissemination models based on generosity and sharing. http://www.aaa.org.hk/
Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives, Melbourne
The Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives was established in 1978 at the Fourth National Homosexual Conference. The Archives is the only community group in Australia that actively collects and preserves LGBTIQ material from across the country, and makes it readily accessible. The collections include material of national or international scope, but the heart of the Archives’ work is the collection and preservation of the historical life of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities of Australia. https://alga.org.au/about-us
CoUNTess, Australia
Elvis Richardson’s CoUNTesses blog presents data and reviews on gender representation in the Australian Contemporary art-world. http://countesses.blogspot.com.au
Feminist Art Base, New York
The Feminist Art Base is hosted by the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, located at Brooklyn Museum. It is a digital archive dedicated solely to feminist art, offering profiles of some of the most prominent and promising contributors to the field. This digital resource was created in 2007 and was actively expanded through 2014; the database remains available for researchers as an archive of activity by artists from the 1960s to the early 2000s. https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/feminist_art_base/
FemLink-Art
Since 2005, 145 women video-artists from 64 countries work around common topics to create video compositions related to female experience and feminism. http://www.femlink.org
FavourEconomy, Sydney
FavourEconomy is a collection of audio recordings shared by women and non-binary people working in the arts. The project operates as a platform for contributors to share their experience, insights and skills by recording an audio file and sharing it to the archive. The archive comprises of a series of volumes that develop over a one-year period coinciding with the financial year. Volumes 1, 2 and 3 out now via the website. http://www.favoureconomy.com/about/
Green Bans Art Walk, Sydney
Five self-guided art walks in Sydney, derived from the 2011 guided walks, between The Cross Art Projects Gallery and the Firstdraft Depot Project Space. The 2011 walks were led by a rotating group of expert speakers on the art, architecture and planning of the area covered in each walk. http://www.greenbans.net.au/green-bans-art-walk-2011
Indonesian Visual Arts Archive, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
The IVAA collect art archives and facilitates research through both an online archive and a physical space in Yogyakarta. http://ivaa-online.org/
Jessie Street Library Archives, Sydney
The Jessie Street National Women’s Library archives document the lives of Australian women, the papers of women’s organisations, posters and audio recordings. They cover topics from women’s rights, abortion law reform, contraception, rape crisis centres, the fight for equal pay, women in local government, and many more. The Archive includes over 2000 women's movement posters. http://www.nationalwomenslibrary.org/archives/
Lesbian and Gay Archives of New Zealand
The LAGANZ aims to actively collect, preserve and make available for creative use the historical and cultural records of lesbians and gay men. http://laganz.org.nz/index.html
LEVEL, Brisbane
LEVEL was an artist run initiative and feminist collective (2010 – 2018) focused on generating dialogue around gender, feminism and contemporary art through projects in different locations and contexts, manifesting as exhibitions, discussions, workshops and participatory artworks. LEVEL comprised Rachael Haynes, Courtney Coombs, Caitlin Franzmann, Courtney Pedersen, Anita Holtsclaw or Alice Lang. Now online archive at http://levelari.wordpress.com/about/
A social history and contemporary art project centred on the historic institutions of the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct in Sydney; connecting past to present by engaging those who once resided in these institutions to actively participate in how their experiences are remembered, documented, and interpreted. http://www.parragirls.org.au/Memory-Project.php
The Reading Room, Bangkok
A contemporary art archive and library, containing resources on contemporary Thai art and international art reference books, including art history books, monographs, exhibition catalogues, art magazines, and electronic resources. http://readingroombkk.org/
The Women's Art Register, Melbourne
The Women’s Art Register is Australia’s living archive of women’s art practice (non-binary and trans inclusive) and a National, Artist-Run and Not-for-Profit community and resource. Assessed as a ‘Collection of National Significance’ through the Heritage Collections Council in 2009, this unique archive houses the images, catalogues, posters and ephemera of over 5000 Australian and International artists. Since 1975 the Women’s Art Register has provided an inclusive, independent platform for research, education, advocacy and support for its members and the Arts and Education sectors, enhancing the status of women artists and addressing issues of equity, professional practice and cultural heritage.http://www.womensartregister.org/
Womanifesto: Thailand
An international women's art event initiated by a group of Thai female artists in 1995. The present exhibition showcases the artistic endeavours of eighteen femaie artists from Austria, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Pakistan, USA, Singapore and Thailand. The works of these artists reflect their preoccupation with political issues, social conflicts and ecological concerns. In addition, they focus on the changing role and status of women, their struggles and achievements. Artist biographies are provided in the catalogue.
https://aaa.org.hk/en/collection/search/library/womanifesto-an-international-womens-art-exchange-exhibition
See Womanifesto publication (2003): https://aaa.org.hk/en/collection/search/library/womanifesto-2003-procreationpostcreation
Womanifesto: India
A manifesto not an art event!
https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/womanifesto_redirect/
FEMINIST COLLECTIONS, MUSEUMS, GALLERIES & ORGANISATIONS
AWARE, Paris
AWARE are putting women artists of the 20th century back into the history of art, making these forgotten or under recognised artists visible through archival work. http://www.awarewomenartists.com/en/
Barbara Cleveland (Formerly known as Brown Council), Sydney
Barbara Cleveland is an artist led collective directed by Frances Barrett, Kate Blackmore, Kelly Doley and Diana Baker Smith. Working together for ten years under the title of Brown Council, the collective transitioned to Barbara Cleveland in 2016, taking their name from the mythic feminist performance artist (Barbara Cleveland) – who they recovered from the margins of Australian art history – and has been a key feature in their work since 2010. Since 2007, they have collectively made performance and video works that straddle the contexts of gallery and stage, and draw on the historical lineages of both the visual and performing arts. http://www.barbaracleveland.com.au/
Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art, Perth
Located at The University of Western Australia, the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art is Australia’s largest specialist collection of women’s art. http://www.lwgallery.uwa.edu.au/collections/ccwa
Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn
Located within the Brooklyn Museum, the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art is dedicated to feminist art past, present and future. https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa http://www.nationalwomenslibrary.org/archives/
Feminist Art Collective (FAC), Toronto
A feminist art collective that inspires sharing, networking & collaboration through art based programming, including conferences, exhibitions and an annual feminist art residency. https://factoronto.org/
Frontyard, Marrickville, Sydney
Artist co-op that houses the former Australia Council library so includes rare reports from former radical programs Art and Working Life and Community Arts. https://www.frontyardprojects.org/library/
If I can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, Amsterdam
If I Can’t Dance is dedicated to exploring the evolution and typology of performance and performativity in contemporary art. The title commemorates Emma Goldman, renowned feminist and anarchist activist. Follow the drop down links to see their archive. http://www.ificantdance.org/Agenda
Incendium Radical Library, West Footscray, Melbourne
Library and reading group that prioritises materials that center the voices of marginalised communities and individuals. https://incendiumradicallibrary.wordpress.com/
The Feminist Art Project, USA
The Feminist Art Project recognises the aesthetic and intellectual impact of women on the visual arts and culture. http://feministartproject.rutgers.edu/home/
WOMANIFESTO Archive: Art and Social Engagement in Thailand, 1990s-Present
In 1995 a group of six Thai female artists met in Bangkok: Mink Noparat (the catalyst), Jittima Pholsawek (Ukabat group), Phaptawan Suwannakudt (art mural painter), Khaisaeng Phanyawatchira (performance aryist), Charassri Roopkamdee (printmaker), and Nitaya Ueareeworkul (artist). The result of the meeting was a painting, installation, and performance event called Tradisexion, emphasizing traditional conflicts stemming from being a woman. It was held at Concrete House (founded by Chumpoin Apisuk), celebrating World Women's Day (March 8th). The feedback was good, but the event had too small an impact as only artists attended: That was the starting point of the first and second WOMANIFESTO.
Studio Xang has always been the unofficial center for the art net-working and a meeting place for artists in Bangkok. The six artists continued to meet regularly at Studio Xang and eventually realized their plan for Womanifesto I. Baan Chao Phraya (Chaiyong Limtongkul Foundation) and Concrete House offered their premises. Thanks to the kind collaboration of Varsha Nair, and Indian artists residing in Bangkok, and Professor Somporn Rodboon of Silpakorn University, eighteen artists participated: Nine from Thailand and the remainder from Japan, Indonesia, India, Singapore, Pakistan, Austria, Italy, and the USA. Their work comprised all media (painting, ceramics, video art, installation, and performance art). It was highly successful in many ways, particularly in establishing international networking among women artists."
— Excerpt from Womanifesto II: Second International Women's Art Exchange, exh. cat., Bangkok, 1999.
By kind courtesy of Bangkok-based performance artist Varsha Nair, Thai Art Archives is working on the cataloging, studying, digitizing, preserving, and exhibiting of the extant archives of Womanifesto, one of Thailand's most groundbreaking artist collaboratives of the late 1990s to the present. Further announcements will be made in the months to come.
Women’s Gaze and the Feminist Film Archive: Future Feminist Archive, Sydney
Presented by Contemporary Art and Feminism and AGNSW, the Women’s Gaze and the Feminist Film Archive involved discussion between filmmakers Martha Ansara, Margot Nash and Jeni Thornley about ‘some of the ground breaking films they produced in the 70s’. https://contemporaryartandfeminism.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/womens-gaze-film-press-info-doc-logo-version-25-2-15.pdf
The associated exhibition at Sydney College of the Arts, Women’s Gaze and the Feminist Film Archive, curated by Loma Bridge and Margot Nash and Jeni Thornley, contributed ground-breaking Australian feminist films to the Future Feminist Archive.
Vimeo link to the Symposium panel Women’s Gaze and the Feminist Film Archive: https://vimeo.com/122498137
Whitechapel Gallery Archive, London
The Whitechapel Gallery Archive contains early records, director’s papers, exhibition files, photographs, printed and publicity materials, education files, audio-visual material, the gallery managers’ records, the Whitechapel Gallery Society records, and more. http://archive.whitechapelgallery.org/
ZKM, Berlin
ZKM exhibit art and media in thematically structured globally oriented exhibitions. Described as a ‘Mecca of Media Arts’ (Peter Weibel), the ZKM illustrates art’s development in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries through symposia and research activities. http://zkm.de/en, blog: http://blog.zkm.de/
FEMINIST ARTISTS, CURATORS, ART HISTORIANS (Australia)
Alex Martinis Roe current projects focus on feminist genealogies and seek to foster specific and productive relations between different generations, as a way of participating in the construction of feminist histories and futures.
Alison Alder is a visual artist whose work blurs the line between studio, community and social/political art practice.
Paola Balla, co-curator of exhibition and project Unfinished Business (ACCA, Melbourne, 2017-18)
Frances Barrett is a Sydney-based artist whose practice includes both individual and collaborative projects including Brown Council.Frances Barrett is a Sydney-based artist whose practice includes both individual and collaborative projects including Brown Council.
Vanessa Berry Zine maker/superstar
Vivienne Binns started her career with an explosive exhibition in 1967 abounding in male and female sex organs – works such as Phallic Monument and Vag Dens, pushed the limits of acceptability and — Sydney’s male art critics — over the edge. Today, Vag Dens (1966) has pride of place in “Pop to Popism” at the Art Gallery of NSW. She helped found the Women’s Art Movement in Sydney, made vitreous enamel an explosive aesthetic force and later was active with the Artworkers Union campaigning for equal representation. Binns pioneered social and craft history projects, her Mothers’ Memories Others’ Memories (MMOM, 1979-1981) executed with thirty-eight women in Blacktown NSW exhibited in the 1982 Sydney Biennale being the best known. But for the remarkable In Full Flight (1981-82) project Binns worked from a Community Arts Committee caravan collaborating in small towns in Central West NSW. A visitor was art writer Lucy Lippard who stayed in the van at Lake Cargelligo for two days researching Get the Message? A Decade of Social Change. Binns settled in Canberra to teach and her practice focused on studio-based painting. Vivienne Binns – Art and Life, a major survey exhibition of the artist’s 40 year career, was held at Latrobe University Museum of Art in 2012.
Kate Blackmore is a Sydney based artist who works across video, installation and performance. Her practice is centered on collaboration and often explores themes of violence, power and control. Blackmore is also a founding member of Brown Council.
Linda Brescia‘s work investigates the complex experiences of everyday life ranging from banal to extraordinary. Through such experiences, she creates characters that are re-introduced and performed in domestic and social environments.
Mary Callaghan is best known as an Australian film director, responsible for Greetings from Wollongong 1982, the feature Tender Hooks 1989 and her work with Rights of Passage 2013. However she was also a graphic designer and poster artist, working on a number of occasions solo or with her brother Michael Callaghan (1952-2012) and others such as Jan Mackay.
Barbara Cleveland (formerly known as Brown Council) is the collaborative practice of Sydney-based artists Frances Barrett, Kate Blackmore, Kelly Doley and Diana Smith exploring the contexts of gallery and stage in relation to performance drawing on the historical lineage of visual and performing arts.
Bec Dean edited Sexing the Agenda (Artlink, 2013 with Joanna Mendelssohn) and the co-curator of a recent festival investigating Australian culture through the lens of sex and gender – SEXES (2012, Performance Space with Deborah Kelly). Bec Dean is a curator and writer and former Co-Director at Performance Space in Sydney.
Max Delany, co-curator of exhibition and project Unfinished Business (ACCA, Melbourne, 2017-18)
Maryanne Dever: Recipient of the 2014 joint Gender Institute/Humanities Research Centre 2014 ay ANU. She is co-founder and co-convenor (with Linda Morra) of the Archive Futures Research Network
Margaret Dodd, artist and flimmaker whose audacious film and ‘funk ceramic’ series of Holden cars (exhibited at Watters Gallery, 1977) and 1982 film of the same name explored femininity and the maternal; fantasy, humour and the erotic: masculinity, fetishism and violence. Both were shown at The Cross Art Projects (June 2017) in a survey curated by Susan Charlton, along with works from her more recent series, Chosen Vessel and Holden Hypotheses. A catalogue of the works on display, and writing drawn from conversation & correspondence with Margaret Dodd, was launched by Bernice Murphy. This Woman is Not a Car: Margaret Dodd coincides with the cinema screening of the film at Sydney Film Festival, as part of the Feminism & Film program of works from the heady days of the women’s movement in Sydney in the 1970s & 80s.
Julie Ewington, cuator of Australia Women at QAGGOMA in 2015 and patroness of CAF; co-curator of exhibition and project Unfinished Business (ACCA, Melbourne, 2017-18)
Guerrilla Girls Untiring in their efforts to expose sexism, racism and corruption in politics, art, film and pop culture using facts, humour and outrageous visuals
Deborah Kelly is a major Australian Feminist artist who has been selected to exhibit both in the Biennale of Sydney and the Biennale of Singapore. Kelly creates works which explore the human form and feminism to create socially engaging pieces.
Annika Kristensen, co-curator of exhibition and project Unfinished Business (ACCA, Melbourne, 2017-18)
Fiona MacDonald is known for her installations of bodies of work that draw on local cultural traditions, social and natural history. Her work takes the form of ‘conversations’ about undercurrents in social processes of inclusion and exclusion.
Fiona Macdonald is an artist and theorist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her practice embraces a range of mediated processes, installations, and publications, and maintains an allegiance to the possibilities of a critical conceptual practice through collaborative acts of discourse.
Vicki McInnes, co-curator of exhibition and project Unfinished Business (ACCA, Melbourne, 2017-18)
Marie McMahon Artist and designer of the iconic ‘You Are On Aboriginal Land’ poster
Mish Meijers is a Tasmanian-based interdisciplinary artist whose practice experiments in surface tensions: how one material conforms or abrades against the matter of another distorting their worth in relation to popular culture and gender.
Juliette Peers is an art historian whose specialist areas of interest include women’s history, fashion, dolls, women artists and nineteenth century sculpture. Widely published as a classical art historian in Australia, as well as British and North American publications including Pre-Raphaelite Sculpture and the Dictionary of Women Artists, Peers has published many essays relating to contemporary art and feminist studies in Australia.
Caroline Phillips is an Australian visual artist working primarily in Sculpture. Her work critiques contemporary feminist aesthetics through modes of abstraction and material presence. As a freelance curator Phillips has worked on a number of major collaborative, feminist art projects; The ‘f’ Word (2012-2014), Ararat Regional Art Gallery, Ararat and Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale; f generation; feminism, art, progressions (2015), George Paton Gallery, Melbourne; AS IF: Echoes of the Women's Art Register (2015), West Space, Melbourne; Doing Feminism, Sharing the World (2017/18), Norma Redpath House, Melbourne; The Care Project (2018-), VIC/NSW. Phillips is Secretary of the Women's Art Register (2017-).
Perdita Phillips is an Australian artist primarily interested in the environment who often refers to scientific understanding in her work.
Elvis Richardson is co-curator of the exhibition and project Unfinished Business (ACCA, Melbourne, 2017-18) and founder of the CoUNTess blog
SODA_JERK is a 2-person art collective that works with sampled material to construct rogue histories and counter-mythologies. Drawing from archival imagery, Soda_Jerk works at the crossroads of experimental film, documentary and speculative fiction.
Josephine Starrs collaboration with Leon Cmielewski produces media art installations situated at the juncture of cinema, information visualisation and sublime landscape.
Steel City Pictures Film Works by Mary Callaghan
Tricky Walsh is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice is concerned with the integration of mysticism with scientific reasoning
ONLINE PROJECTS / BLOGS
Art Fag City creates and archives critical discourse, and commissions ambitious artist projects. Through a daily mix of blunt criticism, commentary and community-minded journalism, they add an unparalleled dosage of purposeful opinion to the contemporary art community. http://artfcity.com/
Centre Feminist Studies, Goldsmith’s College, University of London
The Centre provides a forum for discussion of equality and diversity issues on campus (in relation to all aspects of the College’s equality policy: race and religion, gender, sexuality, disability and widening participation). It will thus provide an intellectual context for the delivery of Goldsmith’s equality policy. http://www.gold.ac.uk/centre-for-feminist-research/
CoUNTesses
Curating the Contemporary
A meeting point for discussion on contemporary art and culture. https://curatingthecontemporary.wordpress.com/
Interested in pop culture and gaming? Anita Sarkeesian explores the representations of women in pop culture narratives with a particular focus on gaming. http://feministfrequency.com/about/
Hairy For Real
Women proudly growing their hairs to challenge the patriarchal feminine ideal. ‘Body hair on women shouldn’t be a myth. You are here to notice that women with body hair is just totally normal.’ http://hairychallenge.tumblr.com
LabiaLibrary
Women’s Health Victoria’s new website broadening people’s knowledge on the diversity of labia looks. http://www.labialibrary.org.au
The Ladies Network
The Ladies Network is a multi-platform agency that supports and recognises the creative contributions of female creative in the realms of art, music, business and design. http://theladiesnetwork.com.au/about/
The Guerilla Girls Talk the History of Art vs. The History of Power with Stephen Colber
The Guerilla Girls appear on The Late Night Show with Stephen Colbert to discuss all things art, feminism and power. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxBQB2fUl_g
Margaret Mayhew
Read through brainy Australian academic Margaret Mayhew’s writings on art and other stuff. https://margaretmayhew.com/
PUBLICATIONS + PERIODICALS
Illawarra Unity
Published in 2002, this special edition of Unity focuses on the Wollongong Women’s Information Centre and feminism in Wollongong. http://ro.uow.edu.au/unity/vol2/iss5/
Lip: A Feminist Arts Journal
Lip was an Australian interdisciplinary feminist art journal, that existed between 1976 and 1984, self-published by a feminist collective during the Women’s Liberation era. Lip published a very wide range of feminist positions and interdisciplinary art forms, connecting the local scene to a more international network. More Information can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lip_(magazine). A compilation of original articles was republished within The Lip Anthology in 2013: https://www.rmit.edu.au/events/all-events/exhibitions/2013/november/launch-of-the-lip-anthology
Lip Mag
Lip is an independent magazine aims to promote new female artists and musicians, and take a fresh outlook on feminism. ‘You may not find crass sex advice and body-shaming fashion pages here’. http://lipmag.com/about/
n.paradoxa International Feminist Art Journal
Published by KT press, n.paradoxa aims to promote an understanding of women artists and their work. n.paradoxa publishes scholarly academic articles written by female critics, art historians and artists exploring feminist art, theory, criticism and history surround the work of contemporary female artists from 1970 forward. http://www.ktpress.co.uk/
Download the PDF of issue 21, ed. Katy Deepwell, ‘n.paradoxa’s 12 Step Guide to Feminist Art, Art History and Criticism’ here: http://www.ktpress.co.uk/pdf/nparadoxaissue21.pdf
ONCURATING
ONCURATING is an independent international web journal focusing on questions around curatorial practise and theory. http://oncurating-journal.de
The Scholar & Feminist Online
S&F Online is an open access journal of feminist theories and women’s movements, articulating the ‘ever-evolving role of feminism in struggles for social justice.’ http://sfonline.barnard.edu/about/
Women's Art Register Bulletin
An independent bi-annual publication exploring themes, stories, issues and information on historic and contemporary feminist art practice. Celebrating its thirtieth year in 2018, the Women's Art Register Bulletin is available to members and at State, Territory and National Libraries, QAGOMA and with limited access via Trove. Published by the Women's Art Register http://www.womensartregister.org
© Copyright Contemporary Art and Feminism, 2017.
Website by Moon Cube Design
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Architecture and Interpretation
Constantine and Helena: The Roman in English Roman...
Essays for Eric Fernie
Online publication date: April 2013
163 - Constantine and Helena: The Roman in English Romanesque
from Authors and Intentions
By T. A. Heslop, University of East Anglia
Edited by Jill A. Franklin, T. A. Heslop, Christine Stevenson
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
The isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not …
(The Tempest, III.ii.140–41)
IT IS READILY OBSERVED that people take their architecture with them. In the process of colonizing North America, unmistakably northern European styles and techniques of building were transported across the Atlantic. Further south, it was the architectural traditions of the Iberian Peninsula that were exported to Latin America. We can interpret this as a desire on the part of the emigrants involved to make a new home by replicating the essentials of their old one, or (less cosily) to imprint their culture on recently acquired territory. The two motives are clearly not mutually exclusive, and though they do not appear to sit very comfortably together it can be argued that familiarity and control are two sides of one coin. That said, it is rarely the case that the architecture of a colony is exactly like that of the homeland, and one purpose of this essay is to explore why that might be so in the case of two major buildings constructed in England in the aftermath of the Norman invasion of 1066: Colchester Castle and Lincoln Cathedral. Two points will emerge, of which one is the possible impact of ‘deep’ history, particularly the Roman past, on Anglo-Norman architecture. The other is that we may understand more about the motivations of the patrons and designers of these monuments by an oblique approach to their decision-making processes than by any that can be directly documented.
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Music News & Notes
Liam Gallagher Confirms Oasis Split
"Oasis is no longer. I think we all know that."
Back in August, it was reported that Noel Gallagher had quit Oasis, issuing a brief statement that he:
"simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer." In an interview with the London Times (via Billboard), Liam confirmed that Oasis is kaput: "Well, Oasis is no longer. I think we all know that. So that's done."
Given that Noel served as the band's co-frontman and its guiding musical and artistic force, it was tough to picture Oasis soldiering on without him. But up until now, it wasn't exactly clear to anyone if they were a band anymore or not. Well, I guess that this isn't the old 'brothers will be brothers' fued, the group has ended.
Me? I have some mixed emotions, I was not a huge fan, but I never turned off their music when it played on the radio. I once read where they were compared to the Beatles, they certianly got the bickering down to a science like the Fab Four did, but musically, they were not in the same ballpark as the Beatles- not even close. Oasis will go down in rock history as just another band from England, but, unlike the beatles; they will not be remembered forty years from now.
Brian Wilson & Gershwin
Beach Boys mastermind Brian Wilson belongs on any list of the most important musicians of the 20th century as does composer/songwriter George Gershwin. So the news that the two are coming together for a collaboration is taking some by surprise. Although Gershwin died in 1937, he left a legacy that is revered to this day and he is looked up as one of the founding fathers of songwriting. It's hard to compare the two musicians, but they say great minds think alike.
Yesterday the L.A. Times reported that Gershwin's estate had authorized Wilson to complete unfinished songs that Gershwin left behind when he died. According to the Times, Wilson "plans to finish and record at least two such pieces on an album of Gershwin music he hopes to release next year." Wilson told the Times that he's "thrilled to death" at the chance to work on Gershwin's music: "I'm proud to be able to do it. Hopefully I'll be able to do them justice."
Apparently Gershwin left behind "several dozen" fragments in various stages of completion before his death. Wilson isn't quite sure what he'll do with all these pieces: "I can't decipher the verse from the chorus from the bridge, so I'm going to try to insert some new music into them. I might even write some music for an introduction."
Should be an interesting collaboration, stay tuned......
Susan Boyle Debut Album To Be A Covers Album
We first saw Susan Boyle earlier this year rise to fame as runner up on Britain's Got Talent and now she's getting ready to release her debut album next month, which will be an album full of cover songs. She will be covering songs from Madonna ("You'll See") the Rolling Stones ("Wild Horses"), the Monkees ("Daydream Believer"), as well as a song written for her called "Who I Was Born to Be."
"It was my greatest ambition to release an album and I have finally achieved it," she gushed. "This amazing journey has helped me find my own identity and fulfill my wish. There is happiness out there for everyone who dares to dream."
Here's the complete track list for the album, due out Nov. 24:
* "Wild Horses"
* "I Dreamed a Dream"
* "Cry Me a River"
* "How Great Thou Art"
* "You'll See"
* "Daydream Believer"
* "Up to the Mountain"
* "Amazing Grace"
* "Who I Was Born to Be"
* "Proud"
* "The End of the World"
* "Silent Night"
Now, I won't say that I am a big fan of the kind of music she sings, I don't like show tunes or cover songs per se, but I do like her striking voice and her determination and the story of how she developed from some lonely gal minding the house after her Mum died, to becoming an international singing sensation. She sings wiith such conviction and joy and for me, it is a pleasure to hear her angelic voice. I happened to catch her on America's Got Talent (she was a guest star) and when I heard what she would be singing I thought, not THE Rolling Stones song "Wild Horses." However, she pulled it off, with an uncanny ease, I was alone in my living room when I watched it and as she finished, I was clapping for her. Not many singers can do that, here she is singing the Stones' hit. Amazing, simply, amazing:
Preorder her music today, I have already ordered my copy:
Official Cover Art for Britney Spears' 'The Singles Collection'
The artwork which will be featured on the front cover of the standard edition of Britney Spears' forthcoming greatest hits album has been released. It shows artworks of her previous releases, including debut album "...Baby One More Time".
Britney Spears is scheduled to release the compilation album "The Singles Collection" in US market on November 24. It will be in two forms; a standard set and a packaged box set. "The ultimate fan box set version of 'The Singles Collection' will contain all 29 of her singles, including the new song '3'," it was detailed.
"Each disc will be packaged in its own slip sleeve case with original artwork, and will include an additional b-side or a remix of the track," the announcement continued. "The collection will include a DVD featuring all of Britney's videos in chronological order. The ultimate fan box set will also include a special booklet featuring iconic images and fun facts about each track." The first look at the ultimate fan box set has also been unveiled.
Unreleased Michael Jackson Song Coming On Sunday
The unreleased Michael Jackson track "This Is It" will get a worldwide digital release this Sunday night, October 11, at midnight EST. The song also plays during the closing sequence of Sony Pictures' forthcoming movie, Michael Jackson's This Is It, and it will be included on the two-CD set Michael Jackson's This Is It, the companion music to the film. The song features backing vocals by Michael's brothers and the Columbia/Epic Label Group is scheduled to release the two-disc album on October 27, in time to coincide with the worldwide release of the motion picture, which arrives in theaters on October 28 and runs for a limited two-week engagement.
Disc one will feature the original album masters of some of Michael's biggest hits such as "Billie Jean," "Smooth Criminal," "Human Nature" and "Thriller" arranged in the same sequence as they appear in the film. The disc ends with two versions of "This Is It," the original and an orchestral rendition. Disc two offers fans a rare listen to the early demo versions of classics "She's Out Of My Life," "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" and "Beat It." It also features a recently discovered spoken word poem from Michael called "Planet Earth." Michael Jackson's This Is It also includes a 36-page booklet featuring exclusive photos of Michael from his last rehearsal.
The movie will offer fans a behind-the-scenes look at the performer as he developed, created and rehearsed for his run of This Is It concerts that would have taken place at London's O2 Arena. Looks like we will be hearing much more form MJ in the upcoming weeks. I was not a huge fan, but what he did for music cannot be measured in my words. He helped in so many ways, both socially and musically. He was a great talent, one of the best showman I have ever witnessed. RIP Mr. jackson, your music will always be heard......
Phish has announced a series of tour dates for this fall, following the release of their new album Joy. After playing their own Festival 8 in Indio, CA on October 30 and 31 and November 1, the band will primarily play the eastern half of the U.S. Starting in Detroit on November 18, Phish will tour until December 5 in Charlottesville, VA. They will play two-night stands in Cincinnati, Philadelphia and Albany, as well as three nights at Madison Square Garden in NYC. Fans of the band are excited to hear them sing and play again.
SLAYER: Limited-Edition 'Hate Worldwide' Single To Be Released In U.K.
A very limited-edition SLAYER "Hate Worldwide" one-track CD will be released in the UK on October 19 (only 1,000) and will be made available exclusively through independent record shops. For a complete list of stores that will carry the CD, go to this location. slayer
"World Painted Blood" will be released on November 3 via American Recordings. The CD will initially ship with four special collector's edition covers. Each of the four covers will display one-fourth of a provocative continental map illustrated with human skulls and bones; when placed together, the four images form a complete and grisly map of the world.
All four of the initial CD packages will include a special blood-red, see-through top panel with the map displayed beneath it.
The "World Painted Blood Deluxe Edition" will have its own special layout of the map cover art and will be in a double-digipak housed in a blood-red, see-through plastic sleeve. The "Deluxe Edition" will include the "World Painted Blood" CD, the "Playing With Dolls" DVD, a 20-minute animated graphic novel featuring music from the album (including part of a new non-album song), and an expanded booklet.
Slayer fans rejoice!
Freddie Mercury Memorial To Be Unveiled Near His Teenage London Home in West London
A memorial for late Queen legend Freddie Mercury is scheduled to be unveiled in West London next month. The 'Hollywood style' honor will be outside the The Centre library in Feltham, the town where Mercury lived in his teenage years after coming to London from Zanzibar.
Councillor Paul Jabbal was part of the committee that pushed for memorial.
“I am delighted that at last we are honoring Freddie Mercury's memory and his achievements with a permanent memorial. As well as celebrating his life and success, it can serve as a reminder to local people that it doesn't matter where you come from, if you work hard you can succeed in whatever you do."
“I'm looking forward to welcoming his family, friends and some band members to Feltham to show how proud we are to be associated with such a legendary artist.”
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